Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146722 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 734(@200wpm)___ 587(@250wpm)___ 489(@300wpm)
But she had been wrong.
As her body hummed with the specters, the spirits of all the burned and drowned and hanged witches before her, Noa knew that no matter what he did, this time, she would never forget who she was.
“Tie her to the stake,” Auguste said, undoing the cuffs of his long sleeves and rolling them up to his elbows. He tied back his hair, looking like Sela’s doppelganger. The twins tied Noa to the stake that stood next to the stream that ran below the church.
Noa closed her eyes and thought of Diel. She focused on his face. On those of her grandmother, her sisters. And she was calm. She had tasted love and had given love. In the end, that was enough.
“Lower her down,” Father Auguste commanded. In seconds, Noa was lurching forward toward the rushing water, hands tied behind her back. Fear tried to push through as the water came closer, but Noa kept it at bay. Instead, she focused inward. She withdrew into herself. And even as her face met the surface of the stream, as Auguste commanded his men to dunk her further, Noa didn’t thrash. She didn’t fight. She simply surrendered herself to her end, to water, one of the elements she trusted with her whole heart.
As the cold water enveloped her head, a sense of relief rushed through her, as fast as the current rolling past her face. Beth would have gotten away by now, unseen by Brethren eyes. And soon, Diel would have his sister back. Noa’s lungs began to burn with the absence of air, every part of her body now submerged in the water. And as she felt herself begin to slip into the next phase of existence—sweet, numb death—she knew that, in the end, this was the best way to go …
For love.
Chapter 26
Diel checked the clock again. Noa was late. She was really fucking late, and he wanted her back.
“So what’s next?” Gabriel asked Dinah. The Fallen and the Coven, bar Noa and Beth, were gathered in the Nave. Diel’s head ticked, over and over again, as he 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.