Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Diel clutchedNoa’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.