by Cole, Tillie
“Noa …” Dinah said, sympathy flooding her tone.
“I’m handling this.”
“I’ll tell Gabriel—”
“No, you won’t,” Noa hissed back, and the monster’s strength built. Noa was defending them. Noa was protecting them. Diel frowned, confused as to why she wouldn’t just kill them, wouldn’t hand him to Gabriel for retribution.
“I won’t fucking stay here if this is the shit they try to pull,” Dinah said.
“You’re going to go back to your room, and I’m going to handle this,” Noa ordered, and Diel felt himself growing hard again, the monster preening at the authority in Noa’s voice. Diel was still as night, recovering, but listening.
Why was she doing this? What did she gain from protecting him?
“I hope you know what you’re doing, sister,” Dinah said. “You’re dancing with the devil and you know it.”
Noa shut the door, sealing Diel, herself and the monster inside. Diel’s head dropped back to the floorboards, cheek to the cold, worn wood. He watched with wide eyes as Noa approached. Her long, toned legs came into view, much to the monster’s delight.
Then she stopped before his exhausted, internally battered body and lowered herself to her ass. She crossed her legs and leaned her arms on her knees, and she looked Diel in the eyes. His lip lifted in a snarl, but the monster quickly smothered Diel’s flicker of power and pushed him back, just like it had done for so many years in Purgatory. But this wasn’t to protect him from pain—this was so the monster could have Noa all to itself. Diel was the enemy to it now, not some evil-minded priest. It wanted to possess her. It wanted to own her. It coveted her more than it had anything before.
Noa reached out her hand. Diel recoiled; the monster smiled. She pushed back his hair that had fallen over his forehead. Shivers raced down his spine, and he held his breath as she ran her finger down his stubbled cheek. The monster closed its eyes, relishing the warmth from the unfamiliar touch.
Affection. Diel knew of the word, the concept, but had never experienced the reality.
For the first time in their lives, Diel felt the monster soften. Diel the man sat back in his body, wrapping his arms around his knees, feeling Noa’s stroke but trying his best to repel it. But he felt it regardless. Despite all his efforts, he felt it.
It was soft … gentle.
“I need to speak to Diel,” Noa said, her voice quiet and tame, and Diel stilled within his protective wall behind his monster. His pulse quickened. What could she ever want with him? He wanted to kill her; he would have succeeded if he hadn’t been beaten by his monster’s demonic strength.
The monster prickled. It didn’t want to release Diel from his place behind the wall inside them. It was exhausted from the battle and didn’t trust the new enemy sharing his skin.
“He won’t hurt me.” Noa smiled at the monster. Diel felt the comfort of that smile fill the monster’s arctic heart, the ice cracking and letting in something that felt like hope. Diel was sitting in the darkness, but he saw a glimpse of light up above as the monster opened the cell door that could release him from his exile. Then the light built and built until it was a flood of blinding yellow, a glittering supernova.
Diel was wrenched forward, hissing at the deep ache in his bones. When he blinked, he was back lying on the wooden floor, but his monster had withdrawn deep inside him, a temporary truce struck between them—time to heal and seek some modicum of peace. But he felt the monster’s darkness looming over him, a beastly specter, ready to intervene if need be. If he even tried to make a move toward Noa in a way that was remotely threatening.
Diel could feel the monster reliving the touch of Noa’s finger on his cheek, the hand raking tenderly through his dark hair. Diel couldn’t escape the monster’s reaction. The warmth rubbed off on Diel too. But he pushed it away. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want the solace of another’s touch. He had his brothers and death, and that was always enough for him.
Diel swallowed. His throat was raw and dry. Noa’s softness for the monster stung, as if her affection had gouged a wound into his skin. He lifted his gaze and met Noa’s waiting brown eyes. Her long pink hair fell to her waist, a shining gemstone curtain. Her lashes were long and black. Her lips were full and red. He had never seen anyone like her. She was tall and toned with milky white skin. Being so exhausted, he finally saw her. No fights. No monster rushing to the surface. Just him, looking at her. A Brethren-branded witch. A survivor of them just like him.
His chest tightened as he studied her. He braced himself, breath held, in case it was the monster rising back to the surface. But the aura of darkness surrounding the monster was dormant, sleeping, and Diel couldn’t understand what the feeling in his chest was if it wasn’t the other part of his soul.
Noa cleared her throat and held her chin high. In that moment, he thought she looked like some kind of mythical warrior. “Tomorrow night,” she said, and Diel frowned, not understanding what she meant. “We’ll meet. And we’ll end this between us.”
Even fatigued, Diel felt the stirring of excitement in his blood. She raised an eyebrow. “You want me dead? Then you won’t come for me like a coward skulking around in the night.” Diel’s lip curled as her accusation hit him like a million shards of glass. He was no fucking coward. Still, Noa was unfazed by his ire. “We’ll face each other as equals, and one of us will come out on top.” Diel felt his monster spring to life and begin to rage. Noa must have seen something in his face, because she said, “This is between Diel and me.” It took him a moment to realize she was talking to the monster. “You won’t get between us. This has to happen.” Diel blinked in shock as the monster stilled then moved back out of reach, unhappy but obeying her command.
“No one will know about it but us.” Noa pushed back her hair, her Brethren brand moving as she did so. “You know these grounds better than I do. You pick somewhere no one will find us, or hear us. But somewhere we can fight.”
Diel’s head raced. He was going to face her in battle. Excitement burst inside him, expelling some of his tiredness. “The folly,” he rasped. There was a folly on the grounds, near the lake. Gabriel had had it fashioned into a training ring. It was secure, perfect for fighting, and far away from anyone in the houses.
Noa nodded. “Midnight. Tomorrow night.” She got to her feet and moved to the ornate closet against the wall. She pulled on a black sweater, leggings and boots. Diel never took his eyes off her as she dressed, feeling a strange stretch in his chest. He felt his monster watching, fascinated by the pink-haired woman who had just thrown down the gauntlet without an ounce of fear in her bones.
She didn’t fear Diel. The monster felt a strange satisfaction at that.
Noa moved back to where he lay. “We’re going to get you up, and we’re taking you back to bed at your own home. No one will know of this.” Before he even had a chance to protest, Noa placed her arms under his and pulled. Diel pushed himself to his feet, the heat from the collar’s strike still burning the skin on his neck. He swayed, depleted, but Noa pressed herself to his front to steady him.
Diel hissed and struck out, wrapping his hand around her throat. Noa’s eyes met his. “Try it,” she taunted. “Try to fucking kill me, and see what happens to you.” Her neck felt slender under his large hand. He could feel the delicate nature of her bones beneath his palms. The skin on her neck was soft and unmarred by scars. And her pulse … it was steady, and so fucking alive.
For a moment he pictured it ceasing under his grip, and an ache formed in his chest. But his attention fell to her lips, chasing away that odd ache. He found himself leaning in; her sweet scent was like the most decadent of desserts, the pull toward her like a swift yank of the chain he’d worn as a child. But then he wrenched himself back. He was breathless and flushed, and he felt a droplet of sweat slip down his spine.
No!
She needed to die.
His monster’s attraction to her was fucking with his head.
Ri
pping his hand back, he saw his red finger marks on her skin. His dick twitched at the sight.
“Let’s go.” Noa led him from the room. As they hit the hallway, Dinah appeared at her door, her livid eyes fixed on Diel. She folded her arms over her chest as Noa passed by her without word.
Noa led him down the stairs. His feet were heavy with each step. She steered him to the tunnel and climbed inside with him. Wordlessly, she led him down the dark, damp hallways until they arrived at the manor house door. His muscles flexed with the need to just end her now, in the quiet secrecy of the tunnel, but something stopped him. Only it wasn’t the monster, who watched him from afar, following Noa’s instructions to leave the matter to her and Diel. It was something inside him. He pictured the folly tomorrow night. Her in her leather versus him. The blood, the pain, the fists and the screams.
He fought back the groan that clawed up his throat.
Unaware of his cock growing hard at those thoughts, Noa opened the door to Eden Manor. “Tomorrow night.” She shoved Diel through the door. Sudden movement from inside the manor caught his attention as he fell against the wall. Sela stood at the top of the stairs, waiting. His dark gaze snapped to Noa. Noa, who was still alive and breathing. Sela’s eyebrows drew down in confusion, then he descended the stairs without a word and pulled Diel into the main house. When Diel looked back, the door to the tunnel was shut and Noa was nowhere to be seen.
“Come on, brother.” Sela helped him to his quarters. He dropped Diel to the bed and moved to the window seat. He turned off the lights, leaving only a single candle to give him light as he picked up his sketchpad and began to draw.
Diel closed his eyes, and all he could see was Noa. All he could feel. As heat spread through his veins, he tensed and tried to push back the monster. But the monster hadn’t moved from its lair. At all. No, that warmth had come from the memory of Noa in Diel’s own, monster-free mind.
His lip curled in disgust. It only made him want to kill her more.
Chapter 10
Noa threw back her head, then clutched the knives in her hands even tighter. Her body was shaking, but not with fear or trepidation. It was shaking with the sudden rush of adrenaline, with the fucking bliss that came with sinking blades into still-beating hearts and staring into shocked eyes as the life drained from their souls.
Noa stared down at the priest beneath her, at the blood dropping from his mouth and his chest slowing as the stab wound took effect. But it wasn’t enough; it was never enough with these men. So Noa twisted the blade, the last of the priest’s fight allowing him to release a final guttering scream.
She closed her eyes and let that sound of agony wash over her, seep into her bones. She felt the darkness within her move and devour the scream, allowing its fear-filled notes to feed its insatiable hunger for death, for revenge …
Noa’s blood sang as the darkness warmed her muscles, as it calmed her more than any drug ever could.
She was the darkness.
The darkness was her …
… and she was never giving it up.
Noa sat upright in bed. Her breathing was labored, and sweat clung to her body like a second layer of skin. Her soaked pink hair was stuck to the back of her neck and cheeks.
The dream … it was the dream. Noa’s blood rushed through her body, as if it was searching for the darkness she had just dreamed about. Like a child awaiting the return of a parent, frantic and excited at the prospect of being united once again after too much time forced apart.
And Noa wanted to submit. She wanted nothing more than to lower the iron gate that kept the two parts of her separated. She wanted to just fucking rest and let the twin parts of her soul re-merge, so she could be at peace. To stop the torture that plagued her daily.
Noa lifted her shaking hand and pushed the sweaty pink strands of hair from her face. She tipped her head back and stared at the white-painted ceiling. Diel. This was due to Diel.
From the minute he had wrapped his hand around her neck in the priest’s home, he had awoken a long-slumbering part of her. He hadn’t just awoken it; his internal monster had roared at the blackened part of her soul to rise and take its place at the forefront of her body once again.
She could feel it now, circling her body, looking for any loose brick in her fortress. Threatening. Stalking. Promising that it would it find its way through soon.
Noa knew she should be fighting it. Pushing it back like she had vowed to do. Noa could lie to everyone else, reassure her sisters, that she was okay, that she was in control.
But she couldn’t lie to herself. And just remembering blue eyes looking over her like they possessed X-ray vision, she knew there was one person who saw through her bullshit too.
Diel. Diel, with his monster who had placed Noa in its sights.
Noa threw back the comforter, stepped into the shower, and turned it to its coldest setting. She ducked under the icy spray and tried to take back hold of her senses. But her darkness was stronger, thrashing at her walls, heavy artillery pounding at her weakening defenses.
So she took herself to the place that always gave her a swift victory. To glazed eyes and a parted mouth. Skin and bones and graying skin.
Noa’s fists clenched on the tiles before her as the water sluiced down her back. Her darkness had caused that tragedy. Her thirst for blood and revenge had caused that irreparable sin that she could never forgive herself for.
Noa held her breath and fought back the threatening force within her, reminding herself over and over again why it had to be this way. It was a minute later when she gasped out a much-needed breath. But just as she let down her guard, a voice inside of her whispered, “He’s just like you.” Noa froze, body still. “You are just like him.”
Noa shook her head, heart pounding. She scrambled for the shower’s controls, turned it off and jumped out, escaping from those words, from that truth.
The alluring temptation of that truth.
She dried herself off and threw on some clothes. She went to make her way out of the door, but she stopped dead on seeing her reflection in the full-length mirror. And Noa just stared. She stared at her long pink hair, her black clothes, and the brown eyes that she rarely recognized these days.
Noa stepped closer, one step, two step, three … She reached out her hand and ran it gently over the glass. She was a mannequin in this skin. The hair, the lack of bitter vibrancy in her gaze were only a mask for what she and her sisters knew resided underneath.
Diel was the first person outside of her coven who had taken one look at Noa and known what lay in her soul. Shivers ran down her spine as she recalled him in the cell, goading her to come closer.
He was a magnet drawing her in. Her stomach turned. She didn’t know how long she could hold herself back from his allure.
The more she stared in the mirror, at the woman she no longer knew, the less she was sure that she wanted to.
The sound of screaming cut through her inner war. Noa rushed to Beth’s bedroom. When she walked through the door, the rest of her sisters were already there. Beth was thrashing around on the mattress, her skin red with exertion and her eyes wide with the fear of the disease she believed constantly poisoned her blood.
Jo pressed a wet cloth to Beth’s forehead. Candace pinned her arms down, and Naomi moved bed-side, her bloodletting kit in her hands. Naomi sat on the edge of the mattress and, as she had done so many times before, placed a tourniquet around Beth’s bicep and cut into the skin. Crimson blood trickled down Beth’s arm. Her body jerked; her eyes were glazed. But as the warm blood flowed from the wound, her breathing turned from choppy and labored to quiet and calm.
Noa reached the foot of the bed and placed a soothing hand on Beth’s ankle. She looked so small on the mattress. Beth had always been a complicated case. She was strong and could fight just as well as the rest of the Coven. But the blood disease she believed she had, that the Brethren had convinced her she was cursed with, was a viper, striking her down with its venom.
For years, whenever the disease had her in its grip, the Brethren Witch Finder twins had pinned her down and placed leeches all along her body. Week after week, she would be tied down, leeches sucking the blood from her body until it was all her life became.
Color blossomed back into Beth’s cheeks, and Naomi collected the “poisoned” blood into sterile bowls to dispose of. Beth’s blood had been sent to every blood specialist in the US for examination. All had given the blood the all clear.
Dinah caught Noa’s eyes over the bed. Her sister was just as pissed at the situation as she was. Not at Beth. Never at Beth. But at the bastards who’d made such a pure soul believe she was riddled with soiled and worthless blood, so much so that Beth was convinced that if it wasn’t let, she would die an agonizing death. After years of trying to heal Beth, Noa was pretty sure that there was no remedy in existence that would ever take the plight from her. No amount of therapy could convince her that she was clean.
Beth’s eyes closed, and her breathing evened out as she felt the poison draining from her body. Dinah sighed. “We agreed to breakfast with the Fallen.” She checked her watch. “We’re already five minutes late.”
“I’ll stay with Beth,” Naomi said, her soft lisp wrapping around her “s” sounds. Dinah moved to Naomi and kissed her on the head. Then she looked at Noa, Jo and Candace.
“Let’s go.”
“Call us if you need us,” Noa said to Naomi as they left the room. Noa was dressed in her staple black leather trousers and a long-sleeved black top. Dinah, Jo and Candace didn’t look much different. After years of hiding and covertly seeking out the Brethren, they had grown accustomed to being battle-ready, whenever, wherever. That had never been more apparent than last night.
As Noa followed Dinah, Jo and Candace into the tunnels that led to the manor, of course she thought of Diel. She had told him the truth. She had known he was coming for her. She’d seen the look in his eyes when the Coven had arrived at Eden Manor. She knew that tormented glint. One that promised death, in all its painful glory. Priscilla, their wayward sister, had worn it often. But Noa had also seen that look several times in her own reflection. Her brown eyes looking back at her, thirst for vengeance dilating the pupil and making the iris clear and bright.