by Cole, Tillie
Noa swallowed the lump that rose to her throat. Her sisters looked distraught. Their worry for Noa shone as brightly as the sun on their tired, sunken faces. “How bad?” Noa finally said, aiming for levity with her sisters just as she had done with Diel. She could still feel him lying right behind her, his body heat soothing her as his hand lay protectively on her waist, as if he had to be touching her some way. Grounding him. Anchoring him.
She felt the exact same way.
“One being good or bad?” The gravel in Dinah’s voice told Noa that it had been close. That she almost hadn’t woken up from her injuries.
Noa turned her hand to squeeze Dinah’s fingers. “Good.”
“Then a fucking hundred, girl,” Dinah said, her dull eyes brightening a fraction. “You look like shit. A damn living, breathing pin cushion.”
Despite the fear still lingering in her soul, Noa couldn’t help the burst of laughter that broke from her cracked lips. She winced when a stabbing pain, sharp as a knife, sliced through her stomach. She must have jerked, because suddenly Naomi was beside her, checking her over. Naomi checked her watch against Noa’s pulse, and Noa just stared at her mute sister. Noa’s chest filled with warmth. They were here. She was back with all her sisters. Where she belonged.
Naomi looked to Dinah, and Dinah looked at Diel. “Diel? It’s time for Noa’s pain pills. Will you go and get them, please?”
Noa felt Diel stiffen at the request. She knew he didn’t want to go anywhere. But when Noa turned back to him and gave him a small nod, he took hold of her chin and pressed a soft kiss on her lips before moving from the bed. “I’m not leaving for long.” Noa knew those words were aimed at Dinah, not her.
He left the room, and Noa watched him go. He was only wearing sweats; slashes and knife marks littered his torso from where he had fought the Brethren. When the door shut behind him, Noa looked back to her sisters. To Beth.
“Beth …” Noa whispered. She couldn’t find the right words to express how sorry she was for what had happened.
Beth’s arms were folded over her waist, as if the gesture was all that was keeping her from falling apart. When Beth’s deep chocolate eyes fell on Noa, they were filled with tears. “Don’t do that to me ever again,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Noa felt devastated. She’d let her youngest sister down. “I’m sorry,” she said. The simple words were not enough, but they were all she could find. Noa hissed as she shifted her body, but she held out her hand for Beth. Beth stared at Noa’s hand. For a moment, Noa didn’t think Beth would forgive her. But then Beth stepped forward and clutched Noa’s hand so tightly, Noa wondered if her little sister would ever let go. “I’m sorry,” Noa said again. She thought of Beth’s face as Noa had locked her out of the church.
“I thought …” Beth said, voice weakened and strained with sadness. “I thought we’d lost you to them.”
“You came,” Noa said to Beth, to all her sisters. “You saved me.”
The silence that fell was thick with Noa’s gratitude. Then Dinah said, “He was a wreck.” Noa stopped breathing. Dinah sat on the edge of the bed and pushed Noa’s hair back from her face. “When Beth came back with the ledger but without you, he broke.”
Noa’s heart beat faster, guilt flushing through her veins. Dinah shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. The way he cut the Brethren down in masses to get to you.” Dinah gently squeezed Noa’s fingers. “He loves you. Anyone can see it.”
“I love him too,” Noa said. “More than I ever thought possible.”
“Hence sacrificing yourself to the Witch Finders for the ledger we hope has information about his sister,” Candace said dryly, then smirked at Noa.
“Priscilla?” Jo asked.
Naomi brought a glass of water to Noa’s mouth, placing a straw between her lips. Noa took several swallows, smiling at Naomi in thanks. She faced Jo. “Said she was inside the Brethren.” Noa sighed. “And that we need to take them down from outside, and she’ll bring them down from inside.”
Jo let out a long exhale. “If anyone could infiltrate the Brethren undetected, it’d be Priscilla.”
Sleep threatened to drag Noa back down. Yet she didn’t want to stop looking at her sisters. Dinah squeezed her hand again. “Sleep, girl. You’re home. You’re safe, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Noa exhaled in relief and closed her eyes, no more fear in her heart.
* * *
When Noa next opened her eyes, she couldn’t see her sisters around her. But she found Diel lying back beside her on the bed. Their bed. The sun was rising, basking the bedroom in a soft, golden glow. “Pretty monster,” Noa whispered, and Diel breathed deeply, as if those words were a break of sunlight through whatever winter storm was rolling in his heart.
He shifted closer, gently wrapping an arm around her waist. He put his head on the pillow beside her and placed a soft kiss on her lips. “I think … I think I could kiss you forever.”
Noa’s heart beat so quickly that she thought it might burst from her chest. Even more so when Diel whispered, “You almost died to give me a chance at finding my sister.” Noa tensed, not knowing if Diel was pissed at her or not. His blue eyes were downcast, but when they lifted, Noa could see all the turbulent emotions displayed in their sapphire depths. “You almost died to give me back my sister …” This time the inflection of his voice was different—laced with wonder, with awe … with a deep gratitude that made her stomach flip.
“Diel …” Both sadness and deep, deep love threatened to overwhelm her.
He came even closer, ever careful of her wounds. Diel looked at her the way an artist looked at a masterpiece painting. He threaded his hand into Noa’s hair, cupping the side of her head. He searched her face, then kissed every part of it that was free from lacerations or bruises. “I don’t …” He cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to say thank you.”
Noa almost fell apart, seeing such a formidable man so vulnerable, so very different from the tortured monster he had been when they had met. “You don’t need to,” she said, pressing her forehead to his. She breathed him in, just breathed in his scent, letting it soothe her battered soul. “Have you looked for her name yet?” Noa asked, referring to the ledger.
Diel shook his head. He avoided her gaze, but when he met it again, he confessed in a broken voice, “I’m scared she won’t be in there.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed along each of her fingers. “I’m just … I’m fucking scared she’s gone too.” Noa knew what it cost him to confess that. Diel, the manic spree-killer of the Fallen, half man, half monster, was terrified that his sister was forever lost. That she wasn’t in that ledger.
That she wasn’t on this earth at all.
“You need to look,” Noa said. “You need to know.”
He was silent for so long she didn’t think he’d answer. But then he drew her carefully to his chest with a tenderness that was almost her undoing. “When you’re healed.” He pressed a long kiss on her head. “When you’re healed, we’ll look together.”
Noa’s heart sang a Wiccan chant, a spell of only Diel’s name. Together. From now on, they would live like this together. Be together. Fight anyone in their paths together.
Noa thought back to facing Auguste and the twins, and decided to make a confession of her own. “I cast a spell,” Noa said softly. She felt her spirit rise, her aura of acceptance blaze in multicolored lights around her. “When they were coming for me—Auguste, the twins—I cast a protection spell.”
She waited for Diel’s disapproval, for his censure of her embracing that side of her soul. Her Wiccan blood. Giving in to the urge to call upon the Goddess that seemed so natural to her that, in that moment, it had been as easy as breathing. It had been a forsaken part of who she was for so long that she never thought she would find the path back … but when she had been surrendering her life for that of Diel’s sister, that path became clear, gleaming with light that drew her to its center.
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Drew her back to who she inherently was … a witch.
Noa was a witch. She had always been a witch.
But there was no censure from Diel, no mockery or judgment. He just held her close and said, “Finally.” Even with the burst of happiness in her chest, Noa’s eyes began to close with exhaustion, her body needing time to heal. As she was drifting off, she heard him say, “It’s who you are.” She felt him smile against her head. “My Noa. My witch … My whole fucking world.”
As sleep dragged her down to blissful numbness, Noa smiled too.
Chapter 30
Diel clutched Noa’s hand as they carefully descended the stairs. Nerves threatened to take him down. Diel had felt more in the past few months than he ever had in his life. He still struggled with dealing with emotion. And right then it was the highest fucking emotion—fear mixed with hope and desperation. Noa squeezed his hands like she could sense the battle within him.
It was the first time Noa had been out of the bedroom in a couple of weeks. Diel had never once left her side. Her wounds had mostly healed after days and days of bed rest.
Noa was stiff and still in considerable pain, but nothing like how she had been when he had brought her home. Rage still glistened in his veins when he thought about what she’d looked like when he found her in that fucking iron maiden. Blood coating her skin, bruised and broken, but Noa staying strong to the fucking end.
Hello, pretty monster … Those words had never sounded so fucking sweet.
Now it was Diel’s turn to need her.
They reached the foyer, then walked into the Nave. All Diel’s brothers and the Coven were there. Maria sat beside Gabriel at the head of the table, the ledger open before them.
Diel’s heart beat at a furious speed at just the sight of that ledger open. Then Gabriel looked up at him, and Diel knew instantly by the expression on Gabriel’s face that his sister’s name was in that book. Diel couldn’t move. His feet were soldered to the floor. His breath echoed in his ears, and he felt every part of him fucking shake.
“Diel.” Gabriel got to his feet. But Diel was a fucking statue. He didn’t know if he could look in that ledger. He didn’t know what it meant to have Cara’s name in that fucking book.
What if it told him his sister was dead? He thought of Cara’s small, starved frame as a child, her bright blue eyes and the birthmark that covered half her face. But she was so beautiful. His little sister, who he had adored …
“Baby.”
Diel blinked, trying to bring himself back to the Nave, to his family.
“Baby.”
He followed that voice, the one that was an anchor to his heart, his fucking soul. He looked up, and Noa was before him. His brothers were waiting, as were the Coven.
As one. They were all looking for Cara as one.
Noa took a step forward, guiding him to follow. Diel lifted his feet, feeling as though they had been coated in cement. He made it a few steps toward that ledger at the head of the table. Then Sela stepped out from the line of brothers and put his hand on Diel’s shoulder, an extra support.
Sela and Noa led him to the seat Gabriel had vacated for him. Diel sat down, and, taking a deep breath, he stared down at the page before him. He scanned his frantic gaze over the handwritten names, searching down each column. There were names, then, beside them, some kind of code that Diel couldn’t decipher.
He reached the third column, when he stopped breathing and his eyes stopped searching. Every muscle in his body tensed as he visually traced the letters over and over again.
Cara Nolan … Cara Nolan … Shunned …
Diel closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands. She was alive. His little sister, after all these years … she was alive and out there somewhere.
Diel’s shoulders shook with the relief that overcame him. But also the fucking dread that Cara was under the command of the Brethren. What were they doing to her? Were they torturing her like they had the Fallen and the Coven?
Comforting arms wrapped around him from behind. Noa. She placed her mouth by his ear and whispered, “She’s alive, baby. Your sister is alive.”
Diel kept his head bowed in silent distress for several more seconds, then lifted it, eyes wet and cheeks red. He took a deep breath, then said to Gabriel, “The code beside her name?”
“Some kind of Brethren cipher, we think.” Gabriel looked across the table to Jo and Candace.
Jo lifted her chin. “We can break it,” she said. “I’m sure we can. We’ve already been working on it for you. We’ll break it, in time.” A sprig of hope seemed to plant itself in Diel’s chest, but the fucking worry for his sister was at the forefront.
“Did you hear that, baby?” Noa kissed his cheek. Diel kept hold of her arm around his shoulder. “We’re going to get Cara back to you. Your sister …” Diel couldn’t even imagine that moment. It seemed too impossible. Too out of reach.
But he looked down at the ledger again, and her name was there, written in black ink.
She was alive. That was all that mattered.
His eyes dropped further down the page, and name after name made him slowly begin to seethe. All these women, most probably taken as young girls like Cara. What had they done to deserve the Brethren’s judgment? Have an imperfection? Or was it something else?
Diel read the names, all deemed “Shunned” … Simone, Aoife, Donna, Destiny—
Diel froze. Cold infused his body as he read that last name over and over again. He finally ripped his eyes from the ledger and looked up at the man beside him, his fucking best friend and brother.
Sela frowned. “What?” he asked, pushing his long hair back from his face. “What is it, D?”
Diel tried to open his mouth, but he couldn’t fucking speak. He stood and pointed at the name that had rendered him speechless.
Still frowning in confusion, Sela followed Diel’s finger and scanned the name. The name “Destiny,” which shared the exact same cipher as was by Cara’s name.
Diel watched Sela turn to stone in front of him. He could feel the confusion radiating off the rest of his brothers, but Diel stayed by Sela just like Sela had stayed beside him. He stayed right by him as a harshly panted “No!” slipped from Sela’s lips. Sela backed away from the table, face ashen as if he had just seen a ghost.
Diel knew that Sela just had.
“Sela …” Diel said. Sela’s back hit the wall behind him with a thud.
“She’s alive,” Sela said in disbelief.
Gabriel moved toward him. “Sela, what—?”
“Destiny. My Destiny,” Sela blurted. “I thought she was dead. I thought Auguste had killed her.” His brown eyes were wide, shining with shock.
“She?” Bara questioned.
“My one,” Sela said, no more explanation to it. “My only one.” Diel thought of Sela’s paintings and sculptures, showing the same girl in each one.
Gabriel must have connected those things with the name in the ledger, as he let out a shocked breath. “The one you recreate? Destiny. She’s real?”
“Yes,” Sela whispered. Then the shock seemed to give way to a flood of violence that shook his taut body. The emotion was stripped away from Sela’s face, only for rage to contort it into something sinister. The killer rose to the surface, soul black as night and as evil as the devil himself.
“Auguste,” Sela spat, pushing himself off the wall. He was a volcano about to erupt.
Diel moved to his best friend and took hold of his head. “Look at me,” Diel demanded, sharing in Sela’s rage. “Look at me, brother.” Sela met his eyes. “We’ll get them back,” Diel said, feeling the truth of those words. “We’ll get them both back, Destiny and Cara.” And he felt the determination build inside him.
The rest of their brothers gathered around them, a fraternal shield. “More Brethren deaths?” Bara raised his eyebrows. “Oh, if we must.”
The Fallen nodded in agreement. Then Noa was beside Diel. “Need some help with that?”
she said, smirking as she always did. Diel released Sela’s face. His friend was burning with fury. And Diel knew it was for only one person.
His brother.
Father Auguste. Witch Finder General and a man with a red target mark over his fucking dead heart.
The cunt got away … but he wouldn’t stay free for long.
“We’ll go back to our study and try to break this code,” Jo said urgently, taking Candace’s hand and disappearing down the tunnel that led to the housekeeper’s home.
“We train even harder,” Dinah said. Noa threaded her hands into Diel’s, making a revenge pact. He could just see it now. Noa would heal entirely. The Coven and the Fallen would train until they were impossible to break. The code would be cracked. They would hunt Auguste down like a fucking dog, and let Sela kill his brother in cold blood.
Then they would get back Cara.
They would get back Destiny.
And they would bring them both home for good.
Noa leaned into Diel’s side and whispered, “I like how you think, monster.” His thoughts must have been written on his face. She smiled at him, and he knew she would be right by his side, killing and destroying the fucking Brethren too. And deep inside, he felt his monster settle, content to have their woman healing and whole …
And speaking such poetic words of sweet, sweet death.
She had always been their perfect fucking match.
Chapter 31
Gabriel watched as the children walked through the doors of the new home he had renovated for them on the manor’s grounds. His heart broke into a million pieces as he took in the vacant looks in their wide eyes. The many years of abuse and torture at the hands of the Brethren had stolen their childhood innocence from them, something Gabriel could never give them back.
The staff he had hired using his grandfather’s contacts ushered the children to their rooms. Just as he had done with the Fallen, Gabriel had designed rules for the orphans to follow, their own set of commandments. They needed structure and calm.