Jegudiel (Deadly Virtues 2)

Then he would release their mutual wrath on anyone who stood between them and their woman.

He opened his eyes when he heard someone move. Gabriel had taken a step forward. Diel’s angelic brother stared at him and said with utter conviction, “We’re going to get her back.” Gabriel never lied. He had never let Diel down.

Diel nodded once, and Sela slowly released his arms from around Diel’s chest. But Diel couldn’t stand still. He rocked from side to side, unable to stop the constant twitching of his head and blinking of his eyes. But he listened as Gabriel opened his mouth. Hung off his every fucking word.

“We’ll go in and get Noa. That is not up for debate,” Gabriel said firmly. He looked at Beth. Diel followed his line of sight. Beth was pale, eyes wide, lips shaking. And she was listlessly rubbing at her neck.

Diel heard a low, almost silent growl from nearby. Michael was also staring at Beth. His always pale cheeks were red; one of the sharp metal claws on his fingertips pierced his own lip, then he rubbed his blood around his mouth and licked.

“We’ll go to the church Beth told us Noa was being held in. Hopefully they are still there. I’ll send people there now to make sure,” Gabriel continued. Diel could hear his own breathing in his ears like a train surging by at full speed. He needed to kill. He needed blood coating his hands.

He needed Noa back in his arms.

“But we also need to learn from last time, at the meeting. Auguste caught us unprepared. We can’t be in that situation again,” Gabriel said. “Beth has also informed us that more men were arriving—Auguste’s Witch Finder army—as she left.” Gabriel cast a glance at the picture of his grandfather that hung nearby. Then he turned back to his brothers and the Coven. “We are not enough,” Gabriel said. The fire in Diel’s soul reignited. Diel didn’t care if they weren’t enough. He was going to get Noa, and if he died setting her free, he didn’t fucking care.

“So we will use the Shadows,” Gabriel said, and Diel stilled. Gabriel met his eyes. “They can hold the perimeter, allowing us to get inside and retrieve Noa.”

Shadows … Diel remembered the Shadows. The men that came for him and his brothers and bust them out of Purgatory, bringing them to this manor, and to Gabriel, who had organized setting them free.

“Shadows?” Dinah asked. Diel stared at Noa’s sister. He had never seen her look this way. So broken, so unsure.

“Mercenaries,” Gabriel said. “Paid men for hire.” Gabriel reached into his pocket for the small black book that his grandfather had left him. A book full of contacts that no normal person would ever need.

But the Fallen were far from normal.

“You have access to mercenaries?” Jo asked. “Why not use them more, with the Brethren?”

“Because this is our fight,” Bara said. “This revenge is ours. Not theirs.” He ran his hand through his long red hair. “Brethren blood will be spilled by our hands. Not by men who don’t know what it was like to be fucked and tortured by them.” Bara’s words hovered in the air, bringing a deathly silence. Jo nodded in understanding.

The Brethren would be destroyed by those they’d tried to “save.”

“I try to keep outside help to a minimum,” Gabriel said. “That part of the underworld is not a place I want to be in too long. But …” He exhaled deeply. “When it’s a necessity, I know they can be trusted and our secrets will not be shared.” He shrugged. “We, the Fallen, live by a code. My contacts do too.”

“What he means is we pay them a shit-ton of money to do the job we require, and to keep their mouths shut afterward,” Uriel said.

Gabriel came to stand in front of Diel. Diel’s body shook with the need to just fucking go already. “I will call the Shadows in immediately.” Gabriel looked at everyone standing in a loose circle around him. “Get ready to go. This time we take more weapons. We must be ready for whatever the Witch Finder army throws at us. Is that all okay with you, Dinah?”

Dinah had been staring at the ground, lost to her despair. She lifted her head, nodded, then turned to her sisters. “We fight to kill this time,” she said, and one by one—Candace, Jo, Naomi, then Beth—they lifted their chins in silent agreement. “And we bring our sister back home.” Dinah turned back to Gabriel. “How long will all the organizing take?”

“A couple of hours at most,” Gabriel said. “The Shadows are paid to be on standby by more than just us.”

Dinah headed toward the tunnel to their home. “We’ll be back in twenty minutes.” She looked at Diel and kept her focus on him. “And we’ll be ready to go too.”