Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

Diel pulled his hands from Noa’s hold, but he made no move to get up. He just gripped his head again as his temples throbbed, as his throat grew dry and nausea curdled in his stomach.

“I’m fucked in the head.” Diel’s face screwed up in pain and frustration. It was like being back on the rack, like he was back in Purgatory and the priests were tearing his body apart with their medieval apparatus. He couldn’t defeat the pain, couldn’t calm the racing of his heart, couldn’t stop the throbbing in his temples, the pressure behind his eyes.

He was losing. Whatever this battle was, he was losing it badly.

Diel lowered his hands. His arms felt like ten-ton weights as they landed on the wooden floor. All strength fled from his body. But then he looked up into Noa’s brown eyes. Simply by looking at her face, he could breathe. As he stared at her beautiful face, he felt the some of the pain fade … barely any, but enough to breathe.

The world was foreign to him; madness swarmed his black soul. But she was the calm, the eye to his fucked-up storm.

Over the past eight weeks, Noa had become Diel’s entire life. His air, his water, his fucking everything. But he was falling apart, fragments of his very being breaking off one by one, leaving him open and exposed to the insanity that was waiting to possess him. It came for him in his dreams.

And he was getting too exhausted to defend himself against it.

Diel stayed fixed on Noa’s eyes, trying to keep grounded enough to whisper, “What’s happening to me?” His voice sounded like broken glass, betraying the shattered emotions within.

“Diel …” Noa whispered back, sounding just as fractured as him. She lowered her body to lie above him, running her fingers down his face. He silently pleaded with her for help as he tried to absorb her warmth.

“What’s … what’s wrong with me?” Diel moved his hands to the scar that years of wearing the collar had left on his neck, more a deep red trench than a raised white mark. It was thick and rough and permanently engraved into his flesh.

He thought back to the perpetual inner crusade he had fought against the monster while wearing that collar. It had been torture; it had incapacitated him. But he knew that life, knew how to navigate its choppy waters. He knew how to cope with that kind of pain, that lack of control.

This … ? The nightmares, the gaps in his memory, the feeling that he was going slowly insane … he didn’t know how to deal with any of it. He didn’t know how to live like this. He was the opposite of paralyzed. He was feeling too much, all at once, and the attack was greater than that of any weapon he’d ever encountered.

“Listen to me,” Noa said, and Diel did as she asked. In all of this shitshow, Noa was his constant. Between her and his brothers, the training, and the meetings where they collectively planned the upcoming Brethren attack, Diel had kept it together.

But he was about to fucking snap.

The motherfucking nightmares were going to destroy everything he had been given. They were going to take him from his Noa. She was the best thing in his life. And he was going to lose her.

He was going to lose himself.

“Look at me,” Noa said when Diel’s focus drifted to the flames in the hearth, lured by the pull of their fiery depths. “Diel … look at me.” Her hand on his cheek guided his attention back to her. Diel was weak. He was too far gone.

Noa swallowed, then leaned down and kissed him. Her lips were like a defibrillator to his body, shocking his still heart back to life. If only for a moment. As she pulled back, she searched his face and said, “I’m going to take you to Naomi.” Diel frowned in confusion, wondering why she wanted him to see his sister. “Do you trust me?” she said, and Diel didn’t question her. He just nodded his head, knowing with complete certainty that he did.

Something breathtaking broke out on Noa’s beautiful face—a sunrise. A fucking beautiful sunrise. She kissed him again and got to her feet. She held out her hand. Diel mustered whatever strength remained and pressed his palm against her palm, letting her help him to his feet. She didn’t let go of him as she said, “Train first. Then—” She sighed. “Then my sister can help.”

Noa helped him dress for training, her hands and lips kissing every inch of his skin as she did. She put on her usual leathers, and Diel watched, savoring the shape of her body, her curves, her skin, the softness and shine of her long hair, the constant light blazing in her brown eyes … just in case. Just in case he became unable to see them anymore.