Noa released Diel’s hand. Bara smirked. “Blood and torture? My idea of a romantic date,” he said. Diel saw that his redheaded brother had laid out knives, iron pokers, blades and scalpels on a metal tray, ready to make the fucker in the chair spill Brethren secrets.
Sela nodded at Diel, eyes narrowed as he stared the priest down. Diel was pretty sure he was imagining that it was his brother, Auguste, in that chair. Raphael moved to the captive and checked the ropes around his wrists. Then he stood and made a noose from another line of rope, hanging it from the metal loop fixed in the ceiling. Raphael’s golden eyes shone with mirth. “This is fun. We should do it more often. Family bonding.”
Michael stayed in the corner, staring at a vial of blood, turning it over and over, inspecting every crimson drop inside its glass shell. Diel knew it was the blood he had taken from Beth last night. Diel’s head throbbed. So much had happened in such a small amount of time that his head was spinning.
When Diel looked at the priest again, he felt bumps of hatred spreading all over his skin. His blood began to boil, and then the priest opened his eyes, and his gaze fell upon the men and Noa in front of him. His eyes widened, and he thrashed on the chair, trying to fight against his restraints. But Raphael was a master at ropes; the priest would be going nowhere.
The priest’s head whipped around the room. Then his eyes rested on Noa. The priest’s lip curled in disgust as his gaze raked over her body.
Diel’s blood went from zero to one hundred degrees. How dare the priest fucking disrespect Noa so blatantly? Diel was across the room before anyone could speak, throwing an iron fist across the priest’s face. The priest’s head snapped to the side. Diel took hold of the priest’s hair and yanked his head back so quickly he was sure the move would have given the Brethren fucker whiplash.
“You look at her like that one more time and I’ll fucking gouge out your eyes with my blunt nails,” Diel snarled, pulling so hard on the priest’s hair that a clump was ripped out of his scalp.
The priest screamed. Diel tossed the greasy clump of hair to the ground. He paced in front of the priest, trying to remember that they needed him alive, to get answers from him. Diel couldn’t just kill him like he wanted. He had to keep him alive, he—
Diel felt a soothing hand on his arm, and he breathed in deeply when he saw that it was Noa. She nodded at him, silently communicating with him to relax, to rein in his rage. She passed by him and took a scalpel from the tray Bara had laid out for them.
Diel stood in front of the priest, eyes fixed on his and arms crossed over his broad chest. He wanted to be in this fucker’s line of sight. Noa stepped in front of him. Crouching down, she placed the scalpel at his hairline. “We have some questions for you.”
The priest smiled just as coldly as Noa had spoken. “I’ll give you nothing, witch.”
“Oh, goody,” Noa said sarcastically, and pushed the scalpel into his skin. Blood bubbled from the small cut. Michael shifted excitedly in the corner at the arrival of blood. “You know me.”
The priest hissed as Noa dragged the scalpel down the left side of his face half an inch. “I know of you, heathen. I know your family worshipped the devil, that you were created from the spawn of Satan himself, and my brothers slayed them, ridding the world of their evil.”
“You’re the spawn of Satan?” Uriel said to Noa. The tall blond shrugged, his tattoos dancing on his arms as he did so. “I knew I liked you.”
The priest hissed again as Noa moved the scalpel down to his cheek. His skin split, but his eyes were on Uriel. The look he gave Diel’s heavily pierced brother was filled with pure hatred.
“So, here’s what’s going to happen,” Noa said, bringing the priest’s attention back to her. “You’re going to tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to let my man here, and each of my brothers, hurt you. One by one, in whatever way they want.” The priest’s face paled, but he pressed his lips together firmly, symbolically sealing them shut.
Noa nodded. “We’re looking for someone. A young woman, early twenties. She has a birthmark covering half of her face and is blind in one eye. Black hair, and eyes the color of his,” she said, pointing at Diel, who was still behind Noa, a bloodhound at her back.
The priest’s body didn’t move, but there was a twitch in his cheek and a glimmer of something in his eye at Noa’s question. Hope burst in Diel’s chest. Noa tilted her head to the side. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you? Or you know of her?” she pushed. But the priest turned his head away and didn’t answer.