by Cole, Tillie
She ran her hand down his damp cheek. He was so beautiful. “Take me to your room, Diel. We need to shower.” His head tilted to the side and his eyes blinked too fast, tics she guessed he would never shed, conditioned movements from too many years of fighting with the collar.
Diel stayed watching her for a moment, and she prayed that he wouldn’t ask her any more questions. She wasn’t sure if he saw something on her face or if her deflection worked, but he finally pulled out of her, yanking her leathers back up her legs and fastening the button. He tucked himself back into his jeans, then lifted her off the floor.
He kept her in his arms, wrapping her thighs around his waist, breasts to his chest. “I can walk, you know,” she said, yet let herself feel a flicker of warmth at his firm hold.
Diel just held her tighter. Noa rolled her eyes. She wasn’t the type to rely on a man in any way. She wasn’t the romantic kind. But as Diel held her, his arms like iron around her back, she didn’t fight him, nor the strange, indescribable sensation that swept through her very being.
A crack seemed to furrow in her chest, as though his affection and obsession for her were beginning an excavation to see what he could uncover beneath. She swallowed against his searching eyes but held on tighter around his neck.
Diel threw open the door to the manor and carried her to the main staircase. Uriel and Bara were sitting on sofas nearby. “Pink witch,” Bara greeted, green eyes lit with humor, but Diel didn’t stop to acknowledge his brothers; he just held her, climbing higher and higher until they entered a room. No, “room” wasn’t the correct word to use. He lived in a suite, a large apartment.
It was huge.
Noa slid from his body as the door closed. Her eyes widened as she drank in the vastness and opulence of the suite. Diel moved to the wide hearth and lit a fire with the wood piled at the side. The room had a large bed, a walk-in closet, a kitchen area and a bathroom. But what appealed to Noa most was the wide bay window. The Coven had spent years trapped in the Circle, starved of sunlight but for a slither of a window from which they watched the Witch Finders train; her life with the Brethren had been swathed in darkness in more ways than one.
Noa closed her eyes and relished the hint of light that managed to break through her eyelids. She adored the light. Maybe it was because parts of her were darkness incarnate.
She didn’t know. Didn’t dwell on it too much.
Arms slid around her waist from behind. Noa opened her eyes and sighed. This was a new feeling too. One she’d never thought she would experience in a million years. She glanced down to Diel’s entwined hands on her waist. Scarred and callused hands. Killing hands. Murderous hands. Hands just like hers.
“Come on,” Diel said, his voice rough in her ear. With an arm around her shoulders, he led her to the bathroom. To Noa, it seemed almost as big as the entire system of tunnels the Coven had been living in for the past few years.
Diel turned on the shower, then turned back to Noa. There was no hesitation in the way he walked, or the way he took what he wanted. Now the monster and man were spliced, she saw only confidence in him. Together, they knew exactly who they were. What they wanted. When he peeled her clothes from her body, she knew that, in this moment, that was her.
Noa stood naked before him. She pulled the braid from her hair, and the crinkled waves fell to her waist. The sticky air from the hot shower clung to her skin like drizzling rain. Diel dropped his jeans to the floor, the heavy material pooling on the hard tiles at his feet.
Noa didn’t do nervous. But the way he looked at her … a sensation like a million icicles being dragged down her spine built within her under the way his heavy gaze watched her, as if he owned her. She stepped forward, one, two feet, and froze before him. Possessiveness flooded her, sweeping the icicles away. Because something inside of her told her she owned him too.
As if he could read her mind, Diel smirked.
Noa ducked under the hot shower. She tipped her head back, then gasped, bracing her feet on the slick tiles to stop herself falling over, when Diel swiped his tongue along her pussy.
Noa immediately looked down, placing her hand on Diel’s head for balance. He was kneeling before her, lapping at her clit. Noa’s legs felt like they would fail her as they shook from the pleasure he was delivering.
“Diel …” Noa cried out as an orgasm crashed into her, a tidal wave of such ecstasy she wasn’t sure she could withstand it. Her legs became numb, and if it wasn’t for Diel getting to his feet and lifting her against the wall, plunging inside her, she would have collapsed onto the tiles.
She fought for breath, her mind caught in a lazy summer’s haze as Diel plowed into her, his breath a tropical heatwave against her skin. It was blinding brightness; it was being laid out in the meadow under a scorching sun, the scent of flowers perfuming the air. She didn’t scrape at his back, she didn’t claw or rake his skin—she held him close, and he kissed her neck as she let the euphoria lap at her like the sea kissed the shore.
Diel tensed, then exhaled a deep sigh into her neck, his wet, muscled body jerking. The shower sounded like a rainstorm, the steam wrapping around them like a heated blanket.
Diel lifted his head, and the moment was suspended as their gazes clashed. Gone was the furied and unrelenting need to be joined, and in its place was an aura of contentment, comfort. Noa swallowed at the odd feeling. A surge of panic bolted through her. But Diel didn’t seem to see or worry about the panic she knew she must be displaying. Instead, he pressed his mouth to hers, slow and measured. Her body softened against his as he kissed her and kissed her, gently, softly, so, so softly.
Noa closed her eyes to hide the tears that were building, and if a few managed to break free and roll down her cheeks, then the shower disguised them, sweeping them away before he could see her weakness.
Diel broke from her mouth and lowered her feet to the floor in silence. Noa was a statue as he washed her hair and cleansed her body. He turned the shower off and wrapped her in a towel. Noa couldn’t speak; she didn’t know what she would say even if she could. Her heart was a sledgehammer in her chest.
What was happening to her?
Diel led her to the fire, a towel around his waist. He stood behind her and ran his hands over her towel to dry her skin. The fire’s shadows danced on his body and cast a burnt-orange sunset in the pupils of his eyes.
Noa’s body felt weightless as she stared at him. It felt incinerated as he smiled at her and said, “Let me brush your hair.” Words still failed her, but she nodded at the odd request.
Diel disappeared into the bathroom and returned with a brush. He pointed to his bed. Shedding the towel to the floor before the fire, Noa walked naked to the bed. Diel watched her like she was a vision made flesh. As she reached the end of the bed, he dropped the towel around his waist, leaving them both bared to each other’s heated gazes.
Noa crawled onto the bed. The soft sheets were like clouds beneath her. In her chaotic life, she’d rarely slept on a comfortable bed. Certainly not one like this. She stopped in the center of the bed, and Diel took his place behind her. Her breathing was labored as she waited for him to begin.
She didn’t know what was happening. Rough fucking was one thing, the crazed sating of needs. This … The shower. The slow and tender licking of her pussy … She didn’t know how to cope with whatever this was.
The first stroke of the brush through her hair made her freeze. Her lungs turned to iron, and her head pounded. Noa squeezed her eyes shut against the onslaught, but the pounding persisted. With every stroke of Diel’s brush, that pounding opened up a window in her mind. She remembered a small cottage smelling of lavender and patchouli. Incense burning, and a soft voice humming as someone brushed Noa’s hair.
Then a crown of flowers upon her head.
Noa opened her eyes, her held-back breath tumbling out of her mouth. Diel’s brushstrokes faltered for a second at the sound, but then resumed. Noa’s heart was a deep, shamanic drumbeat, a sound she
knew well, a sound that invoked within her a sense of peace … a sense of home. She tried to shut out that familiar hypnotic sound. But something within her refused to let it go, a stubborn part of her that fought for it to remain. So it drummed on. As Diel combed through her long hair, the drum beat on. A calmness replaced her sense of unease, enough that Noa could eventually speak.
“Where …” She cleared her throat. “Where did you learn to do this?”
Diel was silent, and the brush stopped. When she turned to face him, he was frowning, eyes lost to the fire. Confusion flooded his face. Even with the orange glow kissing his cheeks, she saw the color drain from his skin.
“Diel?” She rose to her knees and shifted directly before him. He looked to the brush in his hands as if the dark, barely touched bristles could tell him the answer to that question.
After several heavy seconds, he lifted his head. “I don’t know.” The slight catch in his deep voice made something inside her break. She looked down at his hand holding the brush; it was shaking. Noa couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t stand the lost look in his gaze, or the sight of him frozen on the bed.
She brought her hand to Diel’s and kissed the back of it. “Will you continue?” she asked, trying to bring him out of whatever answerless void he had slipped into.
Diel blinked, grounding himself once more. He jerked his head in agreement, and she turned and flicked her damp hair over her shoulder. It was a few moments before Diel began running the brush through the long strands again. Noa exhaled a breath she didn’t even know she had been holding. She was still as the statue of Mary that the Witch Finders had bowed to each day in the Circle.
She controlled her breathing as Diel worked out the tangles from her pink hair. But all the time her mind reeled. He didn’t remember. Diel didn’t remember anything of his old life; that much was obvious. It was like a blade sliced into her chest. Noa blocked out the memories of her past, the smells, the sounds that took her back to those days, but at least she had them. She knew from where she came; she knew who she had been before the Brethren had torn her happy life apart.
The thought of Diel knowing nothing … it made her feel nauseous, made her feel like she was crawling out of her skin.
Once Noa’s hair was smooth and thoroughly brushed out, Diel dropped the brush and, as though on autopilot, began threading his fingers from root to tip. Then, with obvious practiced ease, he wove her hair into a French braid. When he tied off the end with her hair tie, Noa closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
He had done this for someone. At some point in his life, he had braided someone’s hair. Who that person was to him, Noa had no idea.
Diel’s arm threaded around Noa’s waist, and he gently drew her down to the bed. She sank into the soft mattress, then rolled over until she was facing him. His arm remained around her, keeping her close. She tried to read his face. His eyes were cast over her shoulder, not focused on her. She let him have this moment, let him work through whatever was plaguing his mind.
Noa’s head lay on his bicep, the muscles hard and defined beneath her temple. She splayed her hand over his Fallen brand and felt the upturned cross underneath. She wondered how old he was when he had been taken to Purgatory. How old he was when he had lost his family, or had been taken from wherever they had found him.
Diel’s mind was obviously caught up in a similar thread, as he finally met her eyes and asked, “Why did they name you and your sisters the Coven?”
Noa blinked at the question, memories and feelings stirring in her stomach as though it were a witch’s cauldron.
Her hands tensed, and her nails pressed imprints onto Diel’s bare stomach. She remembered those nails being bloodied, snapping as she tried to fight against them, as she fought to hold on to her family, the women that raised her …
“Heretics,” Noa said, voice hoarse with emotion. “They said we were all heretics.”
Diel placed his hand under her chin and lifted her head until she had no choice but to meet his eyes. “But why witches? Why were you given to the Witch Finder General?” Noa heard the strain in his voice; she could see it in the cords in his neck.
Noa’s heart began to race. It began to thump, to thud, to try and break free from her chest in avoidance of the question. The wind outside whistled as it slammed against the old windowpanes, like it was trying to get inside, like it saw her on the bed and wanted to remind her of who she was, wanted to wrap around her hair and infuse her with the earth’s energy.
“Noa?” Diel pushed. “Why did they call you a witch?”
Noa swallowed the lump in her throat. She straightened her spine and, gaze never wavering, said, “Because I was one.” She choked, her body and maybe something else, some higher invisible force, disliking the past tense of her answer. She let it build her up, then corrected herself. “I am one.”
Diel blinked hard, as if he didn’t know if she was being serious. Noa sighed, then froze when Diel took her hand and entwined her fingers with his. He gave her a small, comforting squeeze, and the impact of it vibrated though her.
“I …” His dark eyebrows pulled into a frown. “I don’t understand. Witches are real? They … exist?”
Noa had blocked out her past. A much-needed wall kept her old life from her present. Because to go there … The darkness in her body was already potent. She feared that if she thought back to her family, to that night, too often, it would consume her completely, snuff all the light from her dirtied soul. Just as it had done Priscilla. What had been done to Priscilla’s family, Priscilla’s home, had smothered her in darkness and the need for revenge until it was all that she became. It governed her every move. Drove her entire reason for being.
But seeing Diel so lost, hairbrush in hand, fingers trembling as his past stayed firmly out of reach, made Noa want to give him something. It made her knock a few bricks of her own wall down and let him see … let him see her.
“I am Wiccan.” Her bones almost rattled with familiarity as she said that word. She hadn’t spoken it for so many years. Why would she, when it was the very reason for her imprisonment, for the torture, for their deaths?
In her family’s coven, she had been too young to truly be one of them, but she had lived that life all the same. She’d known that one day she would join them, chant with them, absorb everything that they held dear.
“I still don’t understand,” Diel whispered, clutching her hand tighter.
Noa huffed a sardonic laugh. “A pagan, a witch, an occultist.” Sharp branches of hate and bitterness wrapped around her, their thorns digging into her flesh. “Satanists, evil devil-worshippers. That’s what you’re thinking, right?” Noa tried to pull back her hand, but Diel kept tight hold, refusing to let her go. A tinge of heat filled his cheeks.
Diel’s jaw clenched. “You don’t know what the fuck I’m thinking.” He wrenched on her arm and dragged Noa onto his chest. Her breasts pushed against his pecs. “Explain,” he said roughly. “Explain it to me.”
Noa searched his face for signs of disapproval or suspicion. But as his blue eyes met hers, there was no censure in their depths, no disgust, just …
Noa swallowed.
Openness. An eagerness to understand.
The vines of thorns that had wrapped around her like a protective shield withdrew, and she tried to center herself. She tried to trust Diel not to judge. Not to ridicule her. Not to write her off as crazy, delusional or a joke.
Noa’s life was no fucking joke.
“Tell me,” Diel said. The fire continued to crackle behind them. And with every hiss and pop, a new memory surged into Noa’s brain. Fire. Fire and water and air and earth and the spirit. The Triple-Headed Goddess, the Horned God. The moon and the sun. The brand on her chest throbbed as though it had been freshly seared onto her skin by Father Auguste.
“Noa.” Diel’s hard voice propelled her back from the spiral she had begun to fall into.
She met his eyes. Stayed grounded. Used them as her anchor. Her he
art raced, but she remained planted to the earth by the intensity in his sapphire gaze.
Noa took a deep inhale. “I was raised by my grandmother.” Even to her own ears her voice was shaky and weak. But this was her family she was talking about. The people who raised her. The light that existed before the dark. The paradise she lived in before the fall.
Diel’s thumb stroked the back of her hand. Noa used the hypnotic motion to keep her heart steady, to keep pushing on. “My grandmother was a Wiccan priestess. She raised me from a baby.”
“Your parents?”
Noa shrugged. “They were too young when they had me, still in high school. My father moved away, never to be heard from again. My mother was a drug addict. She died of an overdose before the age of twenty. But in reality, she’d left me long before that.” Diel remained still as night as he listened. He didn’t seem shocked about her parents. Why would he be? The Brethren didn’t target people from stable and happy households. They targeted the vulnerable, the weak … people no one would notice were missing and would be forgotten once the Brethren had them in their clutches.
“My grandmother was my everything.” Noa recalled her grandma’s long, wild gray hair, the moon and sun tattoos on her arms, and the smell of essential oils that filled up the air whenever she danced by. But the memories quickly became tarnished by the coppery smell of blood, the putrid scent that came with a gruesome death.
A murder.
“People think of Wiccans—witches—as evil, as wrongdoers, people who are intent on hurting others in supernatural ways.” She shook her head. “It couldn’t be further from the truth.” Noa allowed a small smile to grace her lips as she thought of her grandma’s circle, her family coven. “They are kind people. They cherish the earth, they are about people’s happiness and good deeds. But they are different. I’ve come to know—all of my current ‘Coven’ being proof—that coming from a different background can put you in harm’s way. People don’t like the abnormal, those who push back against social norms. They don’t like those who follow their own path.”