Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

Fear of her. Not of what she might do to hurt him, but of what she might do to soothe him. For someone who had been so cruelly and wickedly treated for too many years to count, the act of kindness and the simplicity of an embrace could be as destructive as a sword plunged directly into the heart.

And Noa knew its root cause was the collar.

She remembered the collar’s dagger-like electricity striking him down, wrecking his body as if he deserved it. She remembered the tight jaw, the taut muscles and the tormented roar as the volts burned his every cell from the inside out.

With the force of a migraine attack, Noa remembered the face of the boy from a few years ago. He had been tied up in a metal collar and chains, rabid and feral like a junkyard dog, hanging on for dear life, but fighting so hard to be freed that he’d used the last of his depleted energy to snarl and try to attack her even as she arrived to set him free. Even after being locked up like an animal and abused to within an inch of his life—skin and bone, and gray in pallor—he still fought. Because he had a monster inside him too. A beast, Noa knew, who protected him from feeling the harm that was inflicted upon him daily. His feral nature wasn’t immoral or evil—it was his salvation, the only way his mind knew to protect the purity in his spirit from being crushed.

Just like Diel. As if the past and present were colliding, Noa saw the boy and Diel mold into one damaged soul as clearly as she saw the stars in the sky each night. And as she’d stroked her finger down Diel’s monster’s cheeks and ran her hand through his hair last night, Noa had seen a glimpse of a young boy in Diel’s deathly frightened stare too. Frightened of any kind of non-threatening touch.

To kill was his protection. To seek revenge was the only way he could get out of bed each morning and live something that resembled a life.

And Noa knew this, because that used to be her life too.

She remembered the burning, molten anger taking hold and controlling her. She surrendered herself to it freely. Like it was a soft cloud catching her in freefall. Like it was her trusted sword against an invading enemy army, boldly slashing them down in cold blood so she could never be hurt again.

“Noa?”

Noa shook her head and blinked in the tunnel’s semi-darkness.

Dinah was facing her, eyebrows furrowed. “You okay?”

Noa nodded, but the echoing chills of her thoughts remained. “Yes.”

Dinah stepped even closer. “Is it him? Are you worried about seeing him this morning after last night?”

Noa smiled. “No. Not at all.” It was the truth. If anything, Noa was desperate to lay eyes on Diel again. He had become like a dream she couldn’t shake; her gut told her to seek him out, to be near him, to guide him. It had been that way from her first sight of him in the priest’s home, feeling his strong hand wrap around her throat as he slammed her against the wall, then watching him savagely destroy the priest on the bed. Blood and death didn’t faze her. When you were raised in the dark, pitch-blackness felt as comforting as a soft, warm blanket. That included the demons that lurked within it.

The minute she had looked into his eyes, and seen that collar around his neck, something flared inside her. A magnet, pulling her to the tall and imposing black-haired man with the oceanic eyes—like called to like.

Noa could still feel the phantom sensation of her on top of him last night, him hard beneath her. His body broad and muscled, and his cock so solid between her legs. The monster craved her; the man fought it. Diel refused to yield and instead wanted her dead.

So, she’d offered him tonight.

In the folly he expected a fight. And a fight he would get. No, not a fight, an apocalyptic war. Just not the kind that he anticipated. Her heart skipped a beat. Her plan had to work. She would make sure it worked. Because she understood the beast inside him better than he could ever know. She understood why it existed. What Diel wasn’t aware of was that the monster wasn’t a separate part of him, some evil entity that had come to possess him.

The monster was Diel and Diel was the monster. They were one, and that fucking collar was keeping them apart. He needed to face his inner demon. He needed to embrace its darkness into his hidden light.

“What happened last night?” Candace asked, confusion written on her face.

“Nothing,” Noa said, still glaring at Dinah to make sure she didn’t speak of it.