Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

The sisters were young, starved and frail, but the thought of freedom gave them ungodly strength; the need to taste fresh air and gain liberation made them an unstoppable force.

And so they fought. Priscilla and Noa killed. It was the first time Noa had ever taken a life, and Noa remembered the first spatter of blood that had kissed her cheek. It was warm and wet and smelled of rich copper.

It felt like sweet revenge.

In that moment, Noa felt something inside of her awaken, a monster stirring from a century-long sleep. She and Priscilla didn’t stop until every Witch Finder was dead. Their sisters fought too, fists and kicks, but their eyes were wide as Noa and Priscilla basked in the Brethren deaths, as they felt the blood on their skin, as luxurious as lying on a silken sheet.

“And then we fled,” Dinah said. Noa sank back into the present. But the buzz of those kills still stirred within her. She felt someone watching her. When she sought out who, she found Diel with a knowing smile on his face—he was just as bloodthirsty as her.

Her pretty, pretty monster.

“We ran,” Jo said. “We ran for weeks, stealing food and sleeping rough. Never stopping in case they found us and dragged us back.” She shook her head. “We didn’t know the outside world. We didn’t know Boston. We were too young when we were taken to remember any of it.”

Dinah pressed into Noa’s side. “But Noa remembered a place that we could lay low. And when we eventually found it, there we stayed until we discovered the War of Independence tunnels.”

“Then our real mission began,” Noa said, making sure the Fallen were listening. “We started taking them down. One by fucking one. We learned how to hack, be stealthy, how to survive alone and never need any outside help. We disappeared. Then we stole from them, from anyone who aligned themselves with the Brethren for protection—big businessmen aiding the priests and their fucked-up beliefs.” Noa’s lip curled in disgust. “We drained their bank accounts. Exposed them to the authorities. And the priests … we took their so-called ‘sinful charges’ from them. All anonymously. Right from under their noses. Then—” A pain as heavy as a fist plowed into Noa’s stomach. The boy’s face came to her mind. It was always the boy’s face …

“Now we’re here,” Beth said, placing a calming hand discreetly on Noa’s shoulder in silent support.

Dinah stepped forward to face the brothers. “You’re skilled fighters. And you have no remorse about killing. You are savage and brutal. But we need to train.” Dinah pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the Coven. “We need you to fight alongside us as seamlessly as we do ourselves.” Dinah swallowed hard, allowing a sliver of vulnerability, of desperation, to sneak through her heavily guarded façade.

As Noa half listened to her sister, the pain in her stomach remained. The guilt, the shame of that night. The night everything changed for her. The night that caused Priscilla to leave and Noa to curb part of who she was.

She knew Diel was watching her again; she could feel his heavy blue stare on her like a spotlight. When she looked up, his eyebrows were drawn down, and real worry for her was etched on his handsome face. But her eyes fell to the scar around his neck. And she felt a lump form in her throat.

Diel broke away from his brothers, his action plunging the room into silence. He ignored it, focus myopic as he stepped forward until he was right in front of Noa. He searched her face, then put his callused hands on her cheeks, a question in his expression—what’s wrong?

Noa closed her eyes. The impact of this affection, this foreign feeling of warmth that Diel inspired in her, was all-consuming. She lifted her hands and placed them around his wrists. As he met his eyes, she whispered, “You all need to train with us. We need to take the Brethren down together. Drop the egos. That will never defeat them.”

Diel lowered his forehead to hers. His silence screamed at her that he knew there was something else going on inside her brain. Something else that haunted her. Something else that had changed her irreparably.

The Coven’s soul-gutting confession hung in the air, then …

“Over to you, head witch.”

Noa turned her head in shock, as Bara, the most disagreeable, most disturbed, and most devil-tainted member of the Fallen, offered Dinah his support. He spread his arms. “Make us unstoppable so we can get to one of those Brethren meetings and kill those cunts with our bare fucking hands.” His eyebrows danced. “They fucked with the wrong motherfuckers.”

Bara’s wide smile was cold and vicious, and Noa decided, after believing the redheaded brother was a total prick, that maybe, just maybe, he might grow on her after all.