Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

But terror sailed through her body as her grandma stirred. Her grandma slowly rolled open her eyes. And it only took her a second to feel the fire licking at her skin. It only took her a second more to start screaming in agony and fear. Noa felt her face drain of all color as her grandma tried to fight the rope that bound her to the stake. But she couldn’t get away. There was no way out.

Noa could smell burning flesh. Tears fell from her face and splattered onto the cold ground. She couldn’t take it. She simply couldn’t take it. Noa pushed back from the priest and tried to run for her grandma, but the priest’s hold was too much. Yet Noa fought. Her ruined fingernails scratched and clawed at the priest, but they only broke further, blood seeping from their beds as her skin was shredded to ribbons.

“Grandma!” Noa screamed, and even in the agony of being burned alive, her grandma heard her voice. Her pained eyes turned to Noa, and she tried to speak, tried to get to her granddaughter, but she was trapped. Dark smoke crawled high in thick clouds, but Noa kept her gaze locked on her grandma even as the flames grew higher. And her grandma kept her in her stare too, one final comforting cradle from the woman who raised her, doted on her, showed her what unconditional love truly was.

Noa’s chest was flayed and raw as the flames grew so high that all she could see was a cacophony of angry oranges and reds. The priests who had been around the stake walked toward her. No, not toward her—toward the man who held her.

She didn’t hear what he said. She could only see the fire now dying down, sated after its consumption of her grandma.

“And that one?” one of the twins asked, his voice catching Noa’s attention. They had held her grandma. They had plunged a knife into her chest then burned her on a stake.

An anger, a fury that Noa had never experienced before, suffused her veins as powerfully as the flames had her grandma. Noa wanted to hurt these men. She felt something shift inside her, a shadow stepping around a light, an eclipse over her once beating heart.

Noa wanted to kill them.

“This one comes with us,” the head priest said from behind her. He turned her into his arms. She was shaking from rage, trembling from sorrow, from shock and whatever else had just happened. “She’s young enough that we can exorcise the sin from her witch’s heart,” he hissed, lip curling with distaste. “A heathen, a heretic just like that sinner we just sent to hell.”

Noa’s hands were tied, so she spat in his face. The priest stilled, then pushed her back into the chest of one of the twins and wiped the spittle from his face. He shook his hand, walked toward her, and sliced the back of his hand across her face. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, witch.”

Noa barely remembered the journey, too consumed with the horrors replaying in her mind. They had killed them. They had killed her family for being Wiccan. She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Her family were good people. They were kind and compassionate people.

They weren’t heretics. They weren’t evil witches. Satan-worshippers.

As if in a dream—a nightmare—Noa was taken from a van and into an old building. She was led down to a basement of sorts and flung inside. As Noa lay on the stone floor, panting and disorientated with shock and grief, a hand hovered before her face. She glanced up and saw two girls in front of her. One was a beautiful Black girl with deep skin and a kind smile. The girl holding out her hand had tanned skin and jet-black eyes that looked like eclipsed moons. Her hair was jet black too and fell to the middle of her back in loose waves.

“Take it,” the girl with the hypnotic dark eyes said. Noa did as she said and was hauled to her feet. She felt cold. So bone-shakingly cold. Confusion lay thick in her in mind like molasses.

Noa scanned her surroundings. There were several narrow, uncomfortable-looking beds, stone walls boxing in the room, and one tiny barred window that allowed virtually no light in.

Noa still reeked of smoke … smoke that had killed her grandma.

“No tears,” the dark-eyed girl said sternly. Noa snapped her head up as though the girl had slapped her. Noa must have shown her immediate fury in her face, as the girl smirked, showing off her breathtaking beauty. “Good. Feed that darkness. Own it.” She walked to one of the beds and slumped down to the mattress. “In this place? You’re going to need it.”

* * *

“That was how I met Priscilla,” Noa said. “Dinah was there too.” Noa’s skin had broken out into a cold sweat just recalling that night in so much depth, the haunting visions still crystal clear in her mind. “Jo, Candace, Naomi and Beth came later.” Her teeth gritted together. “They named us the Coven because of the backgrounds we came from. They were mocking us. Taunting us for not being like them, for being from differing faiths and cultures.”