“Noa,” Diel whispered as his jaw slackened and his eyes lost focus. Noa’s skin burned, then as she broke apart, he spilled inside her, and she felt complete. Her tensed body relaxed, and she fought for breath as she lay on the cold stone floor.
She closed her eyes, and all she saw was a full moon in her mind’s eye. She could smell incense; she could see flowing gowns of white. She heard the crackling of a roaring fire, gentle feminine chanting and laughter, and feet padding on soft grass.
Then there was red. There were screams, fear and desperation.
Blood … so much blood …
Noa snapped open her eyes. Diel was watching her with furrowed brows. “Where did you just go?” he asked.
Noa’s heart thudded in warning, and she cleared her head as she had been so accustomed to doing throughout her life.
She ran her hand down his damp cheek. He was so beautiful. “Take me to your room, Diel. We need to shower.” His head tilted to the side and his eyes blinked too fast, tics she guessed he would never shed, conditioned movements from too many years of fighting with the collar.
Diel stayed watching her for a moment, and she prayed that he wouldn’t ask her any more questions. She wasn’t sure if he saw something on her face or if her deflection worked, but he finally pulled out of her, yanking her leathers back up her legs and fastening the button. He tucked himself back into his jeans, then lifted her off the floor.
He kept her in his arms, wrapping her thighs around his waist, breasts to his chest. “I can walk, you know,” she said, yet let herself feel a flicker of warmth at his firm hold.
Diel just held her tighter. Noa rolled her eyes. She wasn’t the type to rely on a man in any way. She wasn’t the romantic kind. But as Diel held her, his arms like iron around her back, she didn’t fight him, nor the strange, indescribable sensation that swept through her very being.
A crack seemed to furrow in her chest, as though his affection and obsession for her were beginning an excavation to see what he could uncover beneath. She swallowed against his searching eyes but held on tighter around his neck.
Diel threw open the door to the manor and carried her to the main staircase. Uriel and Bara were sitting on sofas nearby. “Pink witch,” Bara greeted, green eyes lit with humor, but Diel didn’t stop to acknowledge his brothers; he just held her, climbing higher and higher until they entered a room. No, “room” wasn’t the correct word to use. He lived in a suite, a large apartment.
It was huge.
Noa slid from his body as the door closed. Her eyes widened as she drank in the vastness and opulence of the suite. Diel moved to the wide hearth and lit a fire with the wood piled at the side. The room had a large bed, a walk-in closet, a kitchen area and a bathroom. But what appealed to Noa most was the wide bay window. The Coven had spent years trapped in the Circle, starved of sunlight but for a slither of a window from which they watched the Witch Finders train; her life with the Brethren had been swathed in darkness in more ways than one.
Noa closed her eyes and relished the hint of light that managed to break through her eyelids. She adored the light. Maybe it was because parts of her were darkness incarnate.
She didn’t know. Didn’t dwell on it too much.
Arms slid around her waist from behind. Noa opened her eyes and sighed. This was a new feeling too. One she’d never thought she would experience in a million years. She glanced down to Diel’s entwined hands on her waist. Scarred and callused hands. Killing hands. Murderous hands. Hands just like hers.
“Come on,” Diel said, his voice rough in her ear. With an arm around her shoulders, he led her to the bathroom. To Noa, it seemed almost as big as the entire system of tunnels the Coven had been living in for the past few years.
Diel turned on the shower, then turned back to Noa. There was no hesitation in the way he walked, or the way he took what he wanted. Now the monster and man were spliced, she saw only confidence in him. Together, they knew exactly who they were. What they wanted. When he peeled her clothes from