And Diel couldn’t fucking bear it.
When Diel opened his eyes, he had backed away from the armory. He was breathless and panting, losing his grip on reality, on his wafer-thin self-control, as he raced out of the manor and burst into the gym. He started running. He ran and he ran around the perimeter of the large space, trying to temporarily sate his need to go, to run, and to kill.
He felt his adrenaline building, but with every step, Diel pictured Noa tied down. The images were hammer blows to his head. He pictured blood spouting from her body, Auguste and his fucked-up men wrapping a noose around her neck and pulling it tightly, screaming “Heretic!” and “Witch!” at her beautiful face.
Diel’s skin bumped and his muscles twitched. His blood was lava in his veins, scalding him from the inside out. He pushed himself harder, faster around the gym. His breathing echoed in his ears as he drove his legs to their breaking point. But the more he ran, the more fucked-up images he saw in his mind. Noa burning on a stake; her hanging off a plinth, choking, legs thrashing; her fucking drowning as the Brethren smiled in victory at killing a witch.
“No,” Diel snarled, his monster’s deep voice replacing his own, savage and untamed. “No!” he hissed as he thought of her skin paling in pain, of her strapped down and calling out for him to help.
Then Diel pictured her screaming in agony, unable to take any more … and he fucking broke.
“NO!” Diel bellowed into the high ceiling of the gym. His legs gave out and he dropped to the floor. His kneecaps and palms slapped to the ground, and his eyes filled with tears. The salty drops were boiling water, singeing his eyes, but not the torturous sights that remained in his mind. “Noa … my Noa …”
Diel heard the sound of rushing feet on the gym floor, but he didn’t move, couldn’t. He was paralyzed by those fucked-up images that were now cycling around his head like a whirlwind, one after the other, each more fucked up than the one before. Noa and blood and ripped flesh and worse …
“Brother.” Someone dropped to his knees beside him, planting a hand on Diel’s back. But Diel still couldn’t move.
He couldn’t fucking move!
More footsteps came. More hands on his back, on his arms. Diel was freezing cold, but where the hands were, flickers of heat tried to break through. He heard his breathing, labored and strained. Then he felt a hand on the back of his head and knew instinctively that it was Gabriel.
Slowly, and with more strength than he’d thought he had left, Diel lifted his head, and his gaze crashed with Gabriel’s. “We’ll get her back,” Gabriel said, and the firm tone cooled some of the heat in Diel’s blood. But Gabriel’s face quickly blurred. Diel rocked his numb body backward and sat back on his heels. He cast his tear-filled eyes around him. All of his brothers were there. Every single one of them, their hands on his arms and back in support.
And as the tears spilled over Diel’s cheeks, all strength drained from him, and he whispered, “I can’t lose her.” His head dropped in defeat. Every part of him felt too heavy to hold up, too heavy to even function.
“Brother.” Sela put his hand under Diel’s chin and lifted his head for him. Sela was dressed for battle—all black, armed with weapons, and his dark hair half tied back. “You won’t lose her.” Sela placed his free hand over his heart, a pledge. “I swear it.” He pulled a knife from his weapons belt.
Lifting his hand, Sela sliced the blade down his palm. Blood trickled from the wound. He took Diel’s hand and cut his palm too. Diel didn’t even feel the cut, too numb to any pain but the one biting into his heart. Sela clasped their hands together and gave Diel a firm nod.
A sacred blood oath.
Diel swallowed, his heart lobbing back into some semblance of a life-giving beat. Raphael came forward, taking Sela’s place. “I know what it is to fear the worst for the woman you love.”
Diel stared into Raphael’s golden eyes. Raphael did understand. Maria had been in the clutches of the Brethren after she and Raphael had fallen in love. And Raphael had lost his fucking mind when she was gone. “You all stood by me when they had Maria. We got her back, my fucking heart.” Raphael cut his palm with his knife as he spoke, then clasped Diel’s hand tightly. “Nothing will stop us from getting your Noa back to you.” Diel nodded, a morsel of strength returning to his hollow bones.
Then, one by one, each of his brothers took a knee before him and cut their hands, pledging to find Noa and bring her back to Diel. To her sisters.