tried to focus on what Dinah was saying. His eyes narrowed on Jo when he saw her check her cell, then frown when whatever she was looking for was clearly not there.
Noa. Was she waiting for communication from Noa and Beth?
“D?” Sela said from beside him. But Diel was still watching Jo, watching as she leaned in and whispered something to Candace. He listened closer.
“They’re not answering. Either of them. I’m worried.”
Noa. She should have been back by now.
“We try our next locations,” Dinah said. Diel focused back on Dinah and Gabriel’s conversation, trying to stop his fucking head from spinning. The shadow of his monster starting to slash its tail inside him. Dinah sighed. “Some are pretty fucking dangerous. I’ve been praying that the ledgers aren’t in those places.” Then Dinah lifted her head and checked the clock too, eyebrows pulled down in concern, and Diel’s blood began to cool.
Diel threw back his chair, about to lose his fucking mind. Then the door to the Nave crashed open. Diel braced himself for an attack, and his brothers jumped to their feet. But then Beth came barreling through, sweat dripping down her face, her eyes rimmed with red.
Beth’s body sagged and she almost wept with relief when she laid eyes on her sisters. Dinah was on her feet in seconds. “Beth?” Dinah raced toward her. Diel was a fucking statue, waiting for her to speak. Beth pushed a ledger into Dinah’s chest. “Beth, what—”
“She lied,” Beth pushed out. Diel turned to ice at those words. “Noa …” Beth choked on her words. The minute Noa’s name fell from her lips, Diel found himself racing across the room. It was as though he wasn’t in control of his body again.
“Where is she?” Diel growled, feeling the stirring of darkness in his heart, his fucking soul.
Beth’s eyes were huge as she looked up at him. “They have her,” Beth whispered, legs buckling. Dinah held her up before she collapsed. Diel’s brothers came to his side, as did the rest of the Coven. Diel glared at Beth as she tried to fucking speak, mouth opening and closing like she was struggling to find the words.
“Noa found the ledger. Then Auguste came.” Beth met Diel’s gaze, but the mention of Auguste in the same sentence as Noa had already started a chain reaction in Diel, a fucking dousing in the inky blackness of evil, of rage. “She got me out, then shut herself in with Auguste and the twins. She faced them alone so I could get away.”
Diel started to shake. His entire body vibrated with rage, such white-hot rage that every muscle tensed, and he let out a deafening bellow, veins cording in his neck.
Then just as Diel thought it couldn’t get worse, Beth said, “And more came … vans and vans. An entire army.” She shook her head. “Auguste must have called for reinforcements. They are guarding her. They …” Beth’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh my God, Dinah. What will they do to her?”
But Diel knew. They would kill her. After all these years the Coven had spent on the run from the Brethren, they would finally kill Noa. But not before they tortured her. Not before that cunt would make her pay.
Dinah was fucking frozen, not speaking. “Dinah?” Beth whispered.
Dinah’s crushed gaze met Beth’s. Her mouth opened, but no words came out. Movement played in the corner of Diel’s eye. Gabriel came to stand beside Dinah.
“We go and get her,” Gabriel said, his voice steady and filled with conviction. “We go and get our sister back.”
But Diel had blacked out. He had plunged into that darkness that was closing in on his soul, and he fucking succumbed to it freely.
Diel could hear Gabriel speaking. He could feel Sela shifting beside him. But he wasn’t listening to a word anyone said. He was a fucking inferno. A cluster of cinders about to collide, melting into a tar-filled river of destruction.
After weeks and weeks of keeping calm, of feeling whole, of his monster melding with the man, Diel felt the knowing flickers of red-hot rage that the monster had once brought. Something sinister was unraveling in his stomach, shaken wide fucking awake by the thought of Noa being back in Auguste’s arms. His muscles tensed; his teeth gritted together—
A hand was placed on his arm, and Diel turned, grabbing whoever it was by the throat. He needed to get to Noa. He needed to get his fucking woman back, and no fucker