anymore; it was nothing but numbed, unsalvable flesh. He closed his eyes as the blood pooled around the drain. And he thought of brown eyes and a long braid of cotton candy–pink hair.
Noa.
He mentally traced the pentagram on her chest, and the upturned cross in the center. Then he thought of her breasts, of her opening her shirt to show him the brand—no bra, completely exposed to his eyes. His monster awoke inside him at the memory and began to prowl. Diel had never given a fuck about how a woman looked before. He killed them, killed anyone that he could. Gender didn’t matter. But Noa … she was everywhere inside him.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face, he saw her perfect nose and her full lips, saw her long lashes and her body in all that tight black leather. Diel’s hands flattened on the tile before him, then curled into fists. He gritted his teeth and looked down. His cock was hard. He tried to control his breathing, taking deep, calming inhales and exhales. But all he could see in his mind’s eye was Noa. Fucking Noa and her eyes and tits and the way she looked at him and showed no fear at all, her lip hooked up in a taunt.
Everyone feared him. His victims’ fear was his lifeblood, the fuel to his very existence.
But she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t fucking scared of him one little bit.
Diel snarled as his monster thought of her too. It wanted Diel to go find her, seek her out. Diel’s forehead fell against the tiles, and he made sure his feet remained planted to the floor. He wouldn’t go, even though she was close. So fucking close. Gabriel had put her and her sisters in the housekeeper’s home on the manor’s property—Fallen property.
Gabe had fucked up. He should never have put Noa that close. Diel wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation of having her so easily within reach.
Diel’s breathing became choppy as his cock began to pulse. A fantasy was building—he pictured Noa on his bed, wearing no clothes and with her legs spread in invitation. With a guttural, confused roar, Diel wrapped his hand around his cock and squeezed the rock-hard flesh. His jaw clenched at the pain—not pleasure; he wanted to fucking bruise himself. But his monster fought against the self-assault. The monster wanted Noa. Diel slackened his grip on his dick, instead stroking along its length as the monster took control.
Neither Diel nor his monster did lovers. They played no part in their life.
They had never fucked anyone, never even kissed a person. They didn’t get hard for either men or women. They only got hard for kills and blood and the heady feeling that came with stabbing someone through their heart and watching their eyes widen and their lungs fight to breathe. The only time Diel came was when the hot spray of blood would spatter across his face, or when he was looking down at a face that was unrecognizable as the person they’d once been.
But Noa … fucking Noa! She was all up in his head, in his chest and pictured clearly in the monster’s mind. He could feel the shift in him, his constant rage lighting with a different kind of flame.
Diel’s monster worked his hand faster and faster as he pictured her on the bed, completely naked and massaging her tits, hips rolling in pleasure. He could almost feel her skin under his hands, riddled with scars and burns, but feeling like velvet and satin to his rough touch. He could feel the Coven’s brand under his palms, marring her smooth skin.
Wrecked, just like him.
He groaned, his hips punching forward as his cock ran through his tight fist. Was this what it would be like to fuck her? What would she taste like if he licked her skin … if he licked her pussy … ?
Sweat clashed with the shower water as the monster drove his thrusts harder and harder. It envisioned sinking into Noa, her brown eyes latched on Diel’s and her nails slicing into the skin of his back. He’d lick along her scars, the burns and the brand, until he sank inside her and took her. Until she screamed underneath him and he came inside her, marking her as his.
Diel closed his eyes tightly. Light burst behind his eyelids as he came, a tense snarl echoing off the bathroom walls, Noa’s name ripping from his lips.
As his