Chapter 15

Chapter 15

They were dripping with sweat,hands on hips and heads bent to their knees as they fought for breath. Every single part of Noa ached, but she lived for this feeling—the pain, the dull throbbing of her exhausted muscles, the heat of her blood rushing through her body, trying to repair every fiber that had been torn.

“Same time tomorrow,” Dinah said, and the Fallen began to leave the gym. Noa glanced at her sisters. They were standing together in a loose circle, waiting for her. She had to speak to them. She had to explain what the hell was happening with Diel, with her.

A pair of boots stopped before her. She lifted her head; her gaze tracked over muscular thighs, a tight torso and chest filled with a scattered painting of scars and tattoos and sweat—sheer fucked-up perfection.

Diel’s eyes were wild, his body hyped from the exercise, from the fight, from the way Dinah had taught them—drills, formations. The Fallen had slotted in among their ranks like they had always been there, a phalanx of witches and Fallen angels sharing one solitary goal—the complete destruction of the Brethren.

Diel’s hair was mussed, his cheeks flushed. He looked as though they’d just fucked. From the flare of his eyes and the parting of his lips as he regarded her, Noa imagined she looked the same.

Dinah cleared her throat. Noa rolled her eyes at her sister’s not so subtle attention grab. “I need to speak to my sisters,” she said to Diel.

Diel’s nostrils flared, and Noa caught the flash of his monster’s fiery spirit as the words left her lips. How pissed that had made him. He stepped closer, and her thighs squeezed together at the addictive scent of him. A drop of sweat rolled down his pecs and tumbled over the Fallen brand that had been seared into his skin.

“No. You’re coming with me,” he rasped, his voice brooking no argument.

Noa stepped closer to him, so close that her breasts pressed against his solid abdominals. Diel’s chest rose and fell in rapid motions. Noa bent her head and licked the falling drop of sweat, then moved her hand to his crotch, tightening her grip over his hardening cock. Diel grunted, fire exploding in his pupils, but he didn’t back away. His teeth gritted together as he subtly pushed against her hand.

Noa tamped down the heat that built in her body, the need that almost made her abandon her sisters and let Diel fuck her against the wall of the gym. She bit his chest. He hissed, but she could see his love for that sting of pain in the way his body jerked, the way his cock swelled further in her hand. “I’ll come to you when I’m finished,” she said. With a final squeeze of his dick, she let him go, pushing him back with a smirk on her face.

Diel was like a bull, primed and ready to charge as she backed away, and she the red cloth that taunted him, daring him to come and destroy her. Her veins buzzed as she read the promise on his face. That she would pay for not doing what he wanted. Noa’s lip hooked up in dark amusement. Diel would learn very quickly that no one told Noa what to do. No one controlled her, wouldever control her again.

“Soon, pretty monster,” she said, a saccharine-sweet tone in her voice as she threw him a small wave like she was the fucking Queen of England.

Diel’s muscles twitched, and a cold smile pulled on his lips. But then Sela was beside him, his long hair sticky with sweat. “Come on, brother.”

Diel’s eyes narrowed on Noa, then, as he backed away, he pointed at her, a wordless promise that when they met later, she would pay for not going with him.

It only made her smile.

As Diel left the gym, Noa turned to her sisters. Naomi and Beth were watching her with wide eyes. Jo and Candace looked amused, but Dinah … Dinah was studying her. She was dissectingher.

Candace was the first to move, heading out of the gym with Jo’s hand in hers. “Let’s get back to the house before the lectures start, okay?”

Noa huffed a laugh and followed her sisters to the tunnel that connected the manor to the housekeeper’s home. They walked through the underground passage in silence, then gathered around the table in the kitchen of their new home.

Candace and Jo sat up on the countertops. Naomi and Beth pulled out the chairs around the table. Noa sat opposite them, and Dinah stood near the sink. Dinah sighed. “What happened?”

Noa raised an eyebrow at the vague question. She traced her finger over the tabletop. “I fucked him. Many times.”

The silence beat like a heart in the kitchen. Dinah crossed the room to place her palms on the tabletop. “Oh, we gathered that, Noa,” she said, a tint of humor coloring her voice. “But I’m not talking about the fucking. I’m talking about stealing from Gabriel. The secret plan to meet Diel, and the fact that you released him from the collar without anyone there for protection. And you didn’t even tell us about your plans. You put yourself in danger.”

“I knew he wouldn’t hurt me,” Noa said, voice bored.

“How?” Jo shook her head. “I love you, Noa. We all do. But despite how well you can fight, Diel’s height and build alone could have taken you down. If he’d wanted to, he could have killed you.”

“He wouldn’t have hurt me,” Noa said again, knowing in her cold heart that it was true.

“But how did you know?” Beth asked, all big brown eyes, soft pretty features and pink cheeks.

Noa reached for the fruit bowl in the center of the table and took out a red apple. She bit a chunk from it, letting the sweet juice trickle down her throat.

Dinah lifted her hands from the table, eyes still fixed on Noa. She closed her eyes, sighed, then opened them again. “It’s back, isn’t it?”

Noa just chewed on her apple, slowly, measuredly. She swallowed the chunk that was in her mouth then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “It never went away.” Noa placed her half-eaten piece of fruit on the table. She smirked as she thought of the Garden of Eden. The Fall. The introduction of sin to the world. Eve, the so-called temptress who brought paradise to its knees.

“What didn’t?” Naomi asked, her soft lisp sounding like a whisper.

But Noa’s attention was still fixed on Dinah. “It lives in them all too,” she said, knowing Dinah understood exactly what she was saying. Noa leaned back in her chair. “I buried it. Pushed it down deep, you know I did. But it still lived. It was still there.” Noa tapped her ear. “I could still hear its heartbeat.” She tapped her chest. “Could still feel it breathing down deep.” She looked at the apple again, her head tipped to the side. “Like a coiled snake, waiting … just … waiting …”

“What the hell are we talking about?” Candace asked, her focus snapping back and forth between Noa and Dinah in confusion. Their other sisters were no different.

“You can fight it.” Sympathy shone in Dinah’s dark eyes. Noa huffed a humorless laugh. Dinah ignored it. “You can fight it. You have done before.”

“I’m tired.” Noa lowered her eyes, her voice breaking as she let a sliver of vulnerability burst through. She was safe with her sisters.

It was safe.

She heard Dinah’s quick inhale. Tears filled Noa’s eyes, and she looked up to see that Dinah’s were shining too. “They embrace it,” Noa said, talking about the Fallen. “They don’t shy from who they are.” A lump gathered in her throat. She tried to swallow, but it hurt. Noa felt the ice around her heart thaw; she felt it crack. “Is it so bad?” Her voice was now a whisper. “Who I really am? I would never hurt any of you.” She blinked fast, just to clear her vision.

Dinah shook her head as she brushed wayward tears from her cheeks. “No,” she rasped. “Of course not.”

“It’s been eating me alive,” Noa said, referring to the darkness that lay within her. “Like a wound that wouldn’t heal.” She rubbed at her throat. “Like a scream that couldn’t escape, couldn’t be heard.”

Dinah’s eyes squeezed shut. “Noa—”

Noa cut her off. “He understands.”

She thought back to the folly. The fight. The clashing of wills. Her inner darkness melding itself to his.

Noa met Dinah’s stare. “He’s like me.” Noa’s neck felt heavy as she imagined being under the metal collar that had controlled Diel for so long. “He’s exactly like me. I may have only just met him, but when someone gets you, truly gets you, recognizes the fucked-up thing inside you and shares it too, you may as well have known them a lifetime.” Noa blinked, grounding herself back in the here and now, in the kitchen with all her sisters watching her. She sat up straight.

“Things are changing.” Noa glanced out of the window. The sun was bursting through heavy gray clouds, illuminating the grounds in a dusky yellow glow. The mass of tall trees swayed in the wind, and she could almost feel its coldness against her face, feel the elements swirling around her, infusing her with energy—air, water, fire, wind and the aether.

Her hand moved to her chest, to the pentagram that had been burned onto her skin by the Witch Finders. Her fingers traveled along each point. The brand seemed to heat beneath them as she let an echo of her past into her heart.

The Lady will guide you, she heard a voice whisper into her ear. The familiar female voice brought comfort. Her tone settled any frayed nerves in Noa’s body. Follow your senses …

Noa had been pulled to Diel. Something had instantly steered her toward him.

The boy … the collar …

Had it been a guide? Had it been part of a grander plan that was yet unclear?

“I should never have pushed it down inside me.” Noa met her sisters’ gazes. “Priscilla warned me not to. She told me not to shun who I was, that it would be as corrosive as acid poured straight onto the flesh of my heart. That it would hurt more than any pain I’d ever felt, to suppress myself. She told me to embrace all parts of me. No matter how fucked up they were. She told me to be completely myself … especially after years of being punished for who we were, how we were raised, our families.” Noa’s voice shook as she said that, but she cleared her throat and finished, “Pris told me to be Noa, and nobody else.”

“And who are you?” Beth asked gently.

“Both good and bad,” Noa said. Just speaking those words aloud freed something caged inside her. “Both darkness and light.” Like Diel. Just like Diel. Diel had worn a physical collar to curb who he truly was. Noa had worn one too—hers had simply been internal and invisible.

Dinah rounded the table and crouched down beside Noa. She searched Noa’s face—for what, Noa didn’t know. Dinah took hold of Noa’s hand. “You think because you have darkness within you, we would love you any less?”

Noa scanned Dinah’s beautiful face, her dark skin and deep brown eyes. “You helped me drown it. Suppress it.”

Dinah shook her head. “No.” Her voice was steel, the grip on Noa’s hand growing tighter. “You were falling apart. You were letting the guilt consume you. You shunned that part of yourself to protect your heart from shattering. We only wanted to support you. Help you in whatever way we could.”

Noa refused to let her mind wander back to that day. To the way she had crumbled, to the self-hatred that had made her break apart. She had sliced herself in two, and the only way to carry on had been to bury the violent side of her deep down. Because that anger, that pure rage that she had channeled into destroying the Brethren, had only helped take an innocent life. A young life she was meant to save. One just like her … like Diel …

“I can’t drown it anymore,” Noa confessed. Her sisters gathered around her.

Dinah lifted her chin. “We love Priscilla. Not despite of her darkness, but becausethat’s who she is. The darker side to her soul doesn’t make us love her any less than we do each other.” Dinah looked at each member of the Coven. “What we went through, what those men did to us … There’s no judgment for who we are, how we turned out. They condemned us. They punished us for who we are. We, this so-called Coven, will never judge anyone. That’s not who we are as people.”

Noa’s taut body began to relax as she drank in Dinah’s words. She thought of Priscilla and wondered what she was doing right now. How many Brethren had she had taken out on her own? Priscilla had always believed her path was one to be walked alone. Noa had known otherwise. Priscilla had seen herself as too different from the rest of the Coven to stay. But she had been loved by them all, unconditionally. Priscilla thought she could never be among them and truly be herself. But from the second Noa had seen Gabriel with the Fallen, seen the love and understanding that existed among them, she had known it was possible.

Priscilla belonged with them. They all shared the same goal. They had all experienced the same fucked-up childhoods.

She was their sister. It was time she came home.

Noa wanted Priscilla back. Especially now she knew she would never hide the darker side of herself ever again. Especially now that the Coven had found the Fallen—men just as ruthless and fucked up as Noa and Priscilla were.

“We love you,” Dinah said at last, and Noa smirked at her sister, and some of the frayed fibers of her soul seemed to seal themselves.

“And I love you witches too,” Noa said, humor in her voice, and her sisters, one by one, kissed her head. “Okay, that’s enough.” She shooed them away. Her sisters stepped back, laughing.

Candace waggled her eyebrows. “What’s wrong? Now you have Diel, do our kisses no longer measure up?”

Noa got to her feet. “Speaking of …” She headed for the kitchen door, then looked back. “I’m going to find him. Don’t wait up.” Noa had barely made it into the hallway when she heard footsteps behind her. When she turned, Beth was there, face pale and her teeth worrying her bottom lip.

Beth had always been the one Noa had wanted to protect most of all, the one who felt most like a little sister to her. The seizures and severe panic attacks she endured, the timidness that plagued her, only disappearing when it was time to rescue the children from the Brethren.

“You feeling okay?” Noa stepped closer to Beth and searched her face. Beth’s eyes were huge like a doe’s, dark pools shimmering with worry and fear. She was reserved and meek, as if her spirit was displaced, lost, searching for a way out of this underground world they had been thrust—unwillingly—into. Beth ran her hand over her slender neck.

Noa’s eyes narrowed. “Do you feel sick? Feel another episode coming on?” Beth ducked her gaze and shook her head. Noa stepped close again, putting her hand on Beth’s arm. “Beth, talk to—”

“What did feel like?” Beth asked quietly. Her cheeks blazed. Noa frowned, not understanding the question. Beth’s eyes flicked up, trying to look at anything but Noa.

“Beth?”

“Being with Diel …”

It took Noa a few seconds to realize Beth was asking about sex. Noa’s heart fell and she was immediately filled with sorrow. Beth feared romantic intimacy.

Beth took a deep breath. “Did … did it hurt? Like the times they took us in the Circle?”

The sorrow Noa had been feeling soured, then heated into molten fury. This is what the Brethren had done to her sister. All her sisters had been affected somehow. Every time they had been taken against their will, every time they had been hurt—mentally, physically, emotionally—it had stolen something from them. Something that they would never get back.

Noa steadied her breathing, keeping calm. Beth was waiting for Noa to speak. Slipping her hand into Beth’s, Noa said, “It was good.” Noa smiled. “No pain. No force.” She lowered her forehead to Beth’s, and Beth relaxed at the contact. “It was by choice, and that …” Noa trailed off as she realized the truth of her own words. Her heart started beating too fast, her pulse drumming a new kind of rhythm. She thought of Diel—she hadn’t felt any fear being with him, no trepidation. She hadn’t felt in danger. She hadn’t felt any kind of hesitation …

“That what?” Beth whispered, pulling Noa from her thoughts.

Noa took a deep breath. She’d needed Diel. And she hadn’t fought that want. She hadn’t run from whatever unseen force was drawing them together.

Listen to your senses …Noa heard that distant voice again, and she let it seep into her soul. She let her heart trust what had been taken from her, the precious voice that had been silenced when Noa was still a child.

“Choice.” A lump built in Noa’s throat. But she didn’t chase it. She let it sit there, let it carry the emotions she had held back as they built within her, to be explored, not pushed away.

Never to be pushed away again.

Noa cupped Beth’s soft cheek and met her eyes. “It’s choice, Bethy. You get to choose to be with someone. Choose how to do it. Choose to stop if you want to.” She inhaled, letting the cool air quell her anger. “It’s choice. It’s always been about choice. And, last night, I chose him. He chose me.” Noa ran her finger down Beth’s cheek. “One day, if you ever find someone you like, you will have that choice too. The Witch Finders can never take that from us again.”

Beth smiled, and it just about broke Noa’s heart to see it. It didn’t happen often. Despite the darkness that existed in her, Noa loved her sisters. She adored them completely and would protect them with everything she was.

“You were always the bravest one among us,” Beth said.

Noa shook her head. “That’s far from the truth.” She kissed Beth’s head, then stepped back, moving closer to the tunnel to the manor.

As Noa reached the door, Beth asked, “Do you trust them? The Fallen?” Concern shone on her pretty face.

“Do you trust me?” Noa asked, knowing Beth would understand the unspoken additional question—even with darkness in my veins?

Beth’s face softened. “Of course. Priscilla too. You’re my sisters. My family. I never cared that you both were different in that way.” She shrugged. “We all have demons, things that haunt us. Not a single one of us is ‘normal’ after what we’ve been through. Look at me.” Beth stared down at the blue veins on her wrist, ghosting over them with her fingertips. “We’re all plagued with something …” She shook her head, pulling herself from whatever poison she felt swelling the cages of her veins. “Are … are they simply that way too? The Fallen? Plagued in their own individual ways?”

A weight in Noa’s chest lifted as she listened to Beth’s unique way of explaining the fucked-up ways their personal traumas had manifested in each of them.

“You can trust them.” Noa turned, and she heard Beth walking away back into the kitchen. Noa opened the door and sealed herself inside the tunnel. She had only taken four steps around the first corner when she saw movement ahead, someone rushing toward her.

Her body stilled, instinctively bracing to fight, but as she observed the shadowy figure darting toward her, she recognized the broad shoulders, the tall frame and the messy hair.

Her body relaxed, and suddenly Diel was in front of her, eyes wild in the low light. He pressed her up against the wall, and she allowed it.

She welcomed it.

Diel’s body crushed against her. Just as it had been in the folly last night, she was smothered by him, completely consumed. He still wore no shirt, still wore the same jeans as last night and this morning. It was clear that he hadn’t showered yet after the gym, after their joining. He had been waiting for her to return. That thought made electricity sizzle in her chest.

Diel pressed his nose into her neck, then he moved his head until his face hovered before hers. “You were taking too fucking long.”

Noa smiled and dragged her hands through his hair, her nails scraping along his scalp. He growled. “Poor pretty monster,” she mocked. But she kept a smile on her face.

Diel’s eyes twitched, then on a long groan, he crushed his lips against hers. His tongue plunged into her mouth, and Noa became lost to his taste, to the control he exerted. Her back scraped against the wall and she yanked on his hair.

His hands dropped to her ass. He squeezed, and she felt his hard cock pressing between her legs. She moaned into his mouth as his hand lowered from her ass cheek to her thigh. Gripping the back of her leg, he hoisted it up around his hip. She couldn’t take any more. The heat between them was rising to scalding temperatures.

Ripping her mouth from his, Noa grabbed his cheeks to stop him from taking her lips again. Diel’s pupils were blown, his skin flushed and damp. “Take me to your bed,” Noa said. Diel didn’t even pause, not a single second of deliberation as he scooped her other leg around his hips and headed toward the manor as if Noa was as light as air.

Noa slid her arms around his ruined neck and laid kiss after kiss along his scarred skin. She could feel his hardness against her pussy. She ground her hips against him, and pins and needles spread over her skin, lighting her up like a torch. Diel groaned, a snarling, savage sound. She ground harder against him. She glanced behind her and saw the door to the manor just in reach.

But they never made it that far.

As Noa pushed against Diel’s cock, he turned and lowered her to the ground, ripping the leathers off her legs. Noa yanked open the fly of his jeans. There was no waiting, no foreplay, no sucking or licking; Diel lined himself up at her entrance and slammed inside her.

Noa’s nails sliced at his back, making him bleed. But she knew Diel lived for it. His inner monster would be yearning for more, for the heady mixture of pleasure and pain.

She could feel him everywhere. It was as if he wasn’t just a body. As if it was not only his cock that was inside her, thrusting and fucking and blowing her previously guarded world apart. In that moment, Diel became the sixth element to Noa. His energy was more than air, fire, earth, water and the spirit. He was the very center of the pentagram; he was its throbbing heart.

Diel crashed his lips to Noa’s, and she savored his tongue against hers, the feel of his stubble against her cheeks. They were a cocktail of grunts and groans and slapping flesh. Warmth wrapped around her as her orgasm began to build. Diel pulled back and looked directly into her eyes. She was trapped in his gaze—he was all she could see.

“Noa,” Diel whispered as his jaw slackened and his eyes lost focus. Noa’s skin burned, then as she broke apart, he spilled inside her, and she felt complete. Her tensed body relaxed, and she fought for breath as she lay on the cold stone floor.

She closed her eyes, and all she saw was a full moon in her mind’s eye. She could smell incense; she could see flowing gowns of white. She heard the crackling of a roaring fire, gentle feminine chanting and laughter, and feet padding on soft grass.

Then there was red. There were screams, fear and desperation.

Blood … so much blood …

Noa snapped open her eyes. Diel was watching her with furrowed brows. “Where did you just go?” he asked.

Noa’s heart thudded in warning, and she cleared her head as she had been so accustomed to doing throughout her life.

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 heart 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.”

Noa felt the air heat between them. She didn’t know if it was from the fire casting its warmth around the room, or the story she was telling. “History has bastardized the true nature of pagans, Wiccans, people who worship the earth rather than one God found in an old book. Witches were made to be the villains in fairytales—the crones, the hags, the monsters that would come for children if they misbehaved.” Her body tensed. “We all know who is responsible for that narrative. The Brethren has been around for centuries, Catholic priests by day, their true evil secret sect revealed by night. They sullied the view of pagans. They were instrumental in the witch trials, in the ruined reputation of anyone who worshipped the earth and the elements.”

Noa blinked fast as the pictures built in her brain. Her family’s circle; the dense, secluded forest; the lit fire; the songs; the drums; the white robes; the flowers; the wine; the candles …

“It was a small coven, mostly made up of vagabonds, people with no real prior home, poor people who made a family for themselves away from the ones they were born into.” Tears built in her eyes. “They raised me. And I loved each and every one of them as my own. They were harmless. They were good people. They cared for me, for each other. It was … it was a beautiful way of living …”

“But?” Diel asked, as if hearing her unspoken words hovering between them.

The vine of thorns returned, slicing into Noa’s flesh, flooding her with their poison. Its slithering length tightened around her neck. “But the Brethren had turned their evil fucking eyes on them. They’d heard of the small coven of misfits, worshipping the Triple-Headed Goddess and the Horned God, holding so-called ‘satanic’ rituals in a secluded forest not too far from one of their headquarters.”

Diel breathed faster, his chest rising and falling too quickly, and his fingers tightened around hers. Noa practically vibrated with the anger, the scalding wrath her memories invoked in her soul. Her eyes lost focus as she said, “And on Samhain, one of the biggest and most treasured celebrations of our calendar, they came for us … they came for them.”

“And did what?” Diel’s gruff voice pulled Noa’s attention. When she met his eyes, she saw they were simmering with fury.

His rage on her behalf filled her with enough strength to finish a story she had rarely told, rarely reflected on for fear it would tear her apart, ruin the person she had fought for so many years to become.

“They attacked,” Noa said, teeth clenched and skin burning as though she were standing in that fire that her family had circled around, paying tribute to deceased ancestors and welcoming in the winter season.

“That was the first time I ever met Father Auguste. Father Auguste and the twin priests that one day I will kill with my bare hands.” She closed her eyes, and she was back in the forest. The scent of pine swirled around her, a fragrant, earthy perfume. The wet mud on the ground was soft and sludgy beneath her feet from where it had rained the night before.

And after years of blocking that night from her mind, she was back there, twelve years old, and her world about to splinter apart forever …