Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

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.