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A throat cleared, but Diel’s and Noa’s gazes were locked, glued together in a fucked-up trance. “I’ve read the ledger,” Gabriel said, addressing the table. The muscles in Noa’s thighs tensed when she looked at the mass of scars on Diel’s neck, and she squeezed them together for some kind of reprieve.
Diel’s collar began to crackle and his face grew redder, his teeth scraping across his plump bottom lip, bringing the blood to the surface. “We’d love your input on where you think we should start …” Gabriel’s voice faded to a hum of static-laden white noise. Time passed at an ungodly speed as Noa’s eyes stayed locked with Diel’s, tension pulsing like a deep-sea sonar between them.
The rest of the table simply didn’t exist.
Diel’s head began to twitch, and Noa snarled in anger at seeing him so imprisoned by that bastard ring of metal. At seeing his treasured monster so caged when it deserved to be running wild and free, leaving Brethren destruction in its wake. Noa almost groaned just picturing the beautiful scene: spilled Brethren blood drenching Diel’s skin, and their evil souls hanging like capes around his neck.
The sound of chairs scraping backward pulled Noa from their mutual reverie. “Noa, we’re done,” Jo said, penetrating the protective wall Noa had built around herself and Diel. Noa took a deep breath, then broke her gaze from Diel and focused on her sisters. Once again, she quelled the darkness in her veins and adopted the “good” side of her she’d exclusively embraced for the past couple of years.
Dinah caught her eyes as she headed toward Gabriel’s office with him and Maria. “You coming, Noa?” Noa nodded, then turned to Diel, promising him with a single look that she would see him that night in the folly.
Diel’s nostrils flared, the only signal he gave that he had understood, before he turned and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. Jo and Candace were heading back toward the tunnel to their house. Noa tracked Gabriel, but she was only interested in the item he held in his pocket. A silver keyring that boasted an intricate-looking hairpin key and a small black remote.
Noa smiled, eyes on the prize, then followed Dinah into Gabriel’s office, closing the door behind her. As she approached Gabriel’s ornate wooden desk, she felt the Fallen’s leader watching her closely. Gabriel was perceptive, Noa would give him that. His obvious instinct to be wary of her was more than warranted.
Ignoring his scrutiny, Noa pulled out the chair beside Dinah and took her place as the unofficial Coven second beside her. She crossed her arms and waited for the meeting to begin.
Gabriel had the ledger Dinah had loaned him open on his desk. His suspicious eyes fell from Noa and focused on the book. Maria sat quietly beside him, waiting patiently like the good little nun she had been trained to be. “These names …” Gabriel took in a calming inhale.
“Are just the lowest-level Brethren clergymen with children in their homes in this area,” Dinah said. Her hands were clenched on the arms of her chair. Nothing pissed off Noa’s sister more than kids being used as fucktoys for the delusional men in red dog collars.
“It’s their initiation of sorts, to the next level of the organization. To see if they can break a true, devil-born sinner. To see if they are worthy of being part of the elite God squad that is the Brethren,” Dinah added. Noa’s lips curled in repulsion. “There’s more out there. So there has to be some other official record that has more information than this ledger. Factions, sub-departments, the compete hierarchy of the Brethren, from the top of the pyramid to the bottom. There have to be scriptures, gospels and fuck knows what else that they live by. We have no idea where any of that would be, of course. But we believe it’s out there. These fuckers are meticulous in their records, just as the Spanish Inquisition of old were with theirs.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed; a second later, his lips parted around a quick exhale. “You’re thinking of setting a trap.”
Dinah cocked her head. “If you’ve read the ledger, you’ve seen that they hold a meeting once a month. To welcome new chosen members and host a ritual.” Dinah shrugged. “I thought paying a visit to such a … gathering might be on the cards.”
Gabriel’s face lost some color. “You plan to kill them.”
Dinah steepled her hands on the table. “I plan to rescue the kids that they put on display.” The air grew frigid around her. “The kids that they bring to this fucked-up communion to lash and exorcise and sacrifice if their ‘God’ so wishes it.” She painted a smile on her face. “Now, what your men deem to be suitable punishment is entirely up to them.”
