to find Noa and bring her back to Diel. To her sisters.
Bara, with an excited smirk on his face. “I should thank Noa really. Because of this, we now get to kill more of the Brethren cunts.” Then Uriel. “I’ll rearrange their faces with my knives in honor of your sister, who one day we will recover too.” Michael silently cut his palm, gave Diel a tight nod, then clasped hands with him, slowly licking along the bloody wound after the oath was made. All his brothers pledged their oath to Noa, and to protect the members of the new fucked-up family the Fallen and Coven had become.
Finally, Gabriel held his hand up and sliced his palm. He held Diel’s gaze as he said, “I pledge to you, Diel, that I will help you save Noa.” Gabriel looked at his brothers. “I would lay down my life for any of you. That extends to whoever you fall in love with.” Diel’s heart switched from an out-of-rhythm beat into a steady hum, his blood cooling to normal temperatures and his muscles twitching with the life that swelled in their frayed fibers.
“Now,” Gabriel said to Diel. “The van is prepared. The Shadows are en route to the church.” He placed his hand on Diel’s cheek. “Let’s get Noa back and bring her home.”
Home. The manor, with Diel and his brothers, the Coven, was Noa’s home.
Adrenaline, so potent he felt like he was high, flooded Diel’s body, and he lurched to his feet. The tears on his cheeks dried to salt, and as he walked to the van, flanked by his brothers, he let death sink into his very being.
Tonight, the Coven and Fallen wouldn’t fail.
Chapter 27
The four walls of the van felt like a fucking cage as they all waited for the signal from the Shadows to attack. On the way to the church, the Shadows had told them that the army was patrolling the small derelict church as if they were waiting for an ambush.
Auguste knew they were coming. And his actions showed that he wanted a fight. So, a fucking fight they would get. Diel felt his monster whip its tail. No, not a fight … a fucking massacre.
Gabriel clutched the burner phone in his hand. A grainy image lit up the screen. It was the Shadows moving in on the Witch Finder army, silently, stealthily, as their name suggested. Diel’s eyes were focused on the small screen, the green and black images like a fucking technicolor movie to his gaze. Then Diel heard it. He heard the cacophony of bullets pouring from the Shadows’ guns.
Gabriel took a deep breath. “Stay close like we have trained.” A beeping sound blared from the phone, and Diel’s body sprang into action. Looking Gabriel dead in the eyes, Diel smiled coldly, then his older brother said, “Now.”
The van doors burst open and Diel jumped out. His brothers and the Coven surrounded him, weapons ready, and they fled from the copse of trees that Beth had guided them to.
As an impenetrable unit, the brothers and sisters ran toward the church, the sound of bullets slicing through Brethren flesh a fucking symphony to Diel’s ears.
Diel’s eyes were focused entirely on the paint-chipped white church, but his rage was focused on the fuckers that guarded the entryway to the torture chamber that lay underneath. With every step he felt more of his unease slip away, and in its place was rage unleashed, fury unbridled … evil incarnate.
And as he found himself watching the Shadows fighting the Brethren army, the men who guarded Auguste and his twin dogs who were “exorcising” Noa, he called upon his monster, on the entity he had relied on for so long. He called on its strength, on its ruthlessness and on its sadism.
Legs pumping, long knives in hand, he gave himself over to the frenzy of the killing spree that was about to occur. Diel’s skin was too thick to release the pounding boiled blood slamming against its walls. Boiled blood turned to poisoned vapor. Black tendrils broke from his flesh like an obsidian tapestry, forming claws and fangs and death, engulfing him in an armor of rage.
And then they were there. Dinah broke through the Witch Finder army first, her sisters following behind. Their hooded heads and covered faces melded into the veil of night. But this time the Coven had brought knives. They sliced them into Brethren flesh and tossed the priests over their shoulders for Diel and his