Serpent & Dove (Serpent & Dove #1) - Shelby Mahurin Page 0,98

when he saw the sweeping expanse of stars before us.

I hugged my knees to my chest and gazed up at them with longing. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Soleil et Lune was the tallest building in Cesarine, and it offered the only unimpeded view of the sky in the entire city. Above the smoke. Above the smell. The whole of the heavens stretched out in one great panorama of obsidian and diamond. Infinite. Eternal.

There was only one other place with a view like this . . . and I would never visit the Chateau again.

“They are,” Reid agreed quietly.

I sighed and held myself tighter against the chill. “I like to think God paints the sky just for me on nights like this.”

He tore his gaze from the stars in disbelief. “You believe in God?”

What a complicated question.

I propped my chin on my knees, still peering upward. “I think so.”

He sat up. “But you rarely attend Mass. You—you celebrate Yule, not No?l.”

I shrugged and picked at a bit of dead leaf in the snow. It crinkled beneath my fingers. “I never said it was your god. Your god hates women. We were an afterthought.”

“That isn’t true.”

I finally turned to face him. “Isn’t it? I read your Bible. As your wife, am I not considered your property? Do you not have the legal right to do whatever you please with me?” I grimaced, the memory of the Archbishop’s words leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. “To lock me in the closet and never think of me again?”

“I’ve never considered you my property.”

“The Archbishop does.”

“The Archbishop is . . . mistaken.”

My brows shot up. “Doth mine ears deceive me, or did you just speak ill of your precious patriarch?”

Reid raked a hand through his coppery hair in frustration. “Just—don’t, Lou. Please. Despite what you think, he’s given me everything. He gave me a life, a purpose.” He hesitated, eyes meeting mine with a sincerity that made my heart stutter. “He gave me you.”

I brushed the broken leaf aside and turned to look at him. To really look at him.

Reid truly believed his purpose was to kill witches. He believed the Archbishop had given him a gift, that the Archbishop was good. I reached for his hand. “The Archbishop didn’t give me to you, Reid.” I looked up to the sky with a small smile. “He did—or she.”

There was a heavy pause as we stared at one another.

“I have a present for you.” He leaned closer, blue eyes boring into my very soul. I held my breath, willing him to close the distance between our lips.

“Another one? But it’s not Yule yet.”

“I know.” He looked down at our hands, sweeping a thumb across my ring finger. “It’s . . . it’s a wedding ring.”

I gasped as he withdrew it from his coat pocket. Thin, beaten gold made up the band, and an oval mother-of-pearl stone sat at the center. It was clearly very old. It was also the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My heart pounded wildly as he held it out to me.

“May I?”

I nodded, and he slid Angelica’s Ring off my finger and slipped his on instead. We both stared at it for a moment. He swallowed hard.

“It was my mother’s . . . or at least, I think it was. It was clenched in my fist when they found me.” He hesitated, eyes meeting mine. “It reminds me of the sea . . . of you. I’ve wanted to give it to you for days now.”

I opened my mouth to say something—to tell him how lovely it was or how honored I’d be to wear something so meaningful, to carry that little piece of him with me always—but the words caught in my throat. He watched me raptly.

“Thank you.” My throat bobbed as an unfamiliar emotion threatened to choke me. “I . . . love it.”

And I did. I did love it.

But not as much as I loved him.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I leaned back into his chest, trembling at the realization.

I loved him.

Shit. I loved him.

My breathing grew more painful the longer I sat there—each breath jarring and stoking all at once. Hyperventilating. That’s what I was doing. I needed to get it together. I needed to collect my thoughts—

Reid gently pulled my hair aside, and the small touch nearly undid me. His lips brushed the curve of my neck. Blood roared in my ears.

“‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you.’” He