Diel turned his head and laid soft kisses on Noa’s cheeks. Her legs almost buckled from the sweet, affectionate touch. She’d thought he would be angry with her. She’d thought he might push her away for letting an innocent die.
She placed her hand on his cheek and guided his eyes up to meet hers. The need for further confession burned in her soul. “I had to free you from that collar,” she said, quietly, but full of truth. “You were formidable. You were strong, tough, and a killer in the very best of ways.” Noa dropped to her knees, meeting him face to face. “But you were trapped by the collar. Plagued by a symbol of what they had done to you. The chains they had imprisoned you with. You were denying who you truly were, and I couldn’t bear to see it.” She shook her head. “I was selfish. That wasn’t my decision to make. But—”
“You saved me,” Diel said softly. Noa choked on a silent sob. Her heart began to beat harder, faster … but contentedly. “You saved me, Noa.” He kissed her cheeks, then laid a soft kiss to her lips. They were trembling. She was emotionally exposed and vulnerable. But Diel wouldn’t hurt her. He cherished her, cared for her.
He loved her.
“That boy tonight, when I saw him struggle on the plinth, when I saw him fall …”
“You were back there,” Diel said. Noa nodded. He kissed her again, then said against her lips, “I was back there too. Back in that shack with my neglectful mother and her drunk boyfriend. I was weak and too young to save Cara or myself from the Brethren who preyed on us.” Noa blinked away her tears. But they fell harder when Diel whispered brokenly, “Why do they do this to us?” His face was devastated. It screamed hopelessness. “Why do they hurt us, people like us?”
“Because despite what their fucked-up little sect teaches them, they’re not the good guys,” Noa said, her voice gaining strength. She would be Diel’s fiercest protector when he was weakened. And she knew he would be hers.
Noa stared into his bright blue eyes. They were filled with sadness. “You followed me,” she said, running her hands over his stubble. “You broke from your brothers, my sisters, and you followed me to the boy. You helped me save him.”
Diel inched closer, brow pressed to her brow, slightly shaking hands on her jaw. “I would follow you anywhere,” he rasped. “To hell.”
Noa shattered apart. She felt Diel’s unshakable devotion, his love, wrap around her, cocooning her in a light she had only known as a child, as a Wiccan … as the witch she was destined to be.
Noa tucked her head into the crook of Diel’s shoulder and neck, and she cried. She cried and she cried, and she exorcised all the guilt she still retained over the boy who had died in that attic. She cried for her grandma and her family that she had so tragically lost. And she cried for Diel. She cried for little Finn Nolan. She cried for the monster that he’d had to conjure from his own soul to protect himself, to bear the brunt of the pain inflicted on him by evil men.
And she cried for Diel now, Jegudiel, the Fallen’s death-greedy monster. She cried for the grown man who had only just remembered he had a sister. A sister they had no location for.
Noa loved him. She loved him with every cell in her body. She knew the elements, how each one added to the great mystery of life. Diel was her sixth element. She needed him just as much as she needed the rest, arguably more.
Diel lifted Noa to the bed. There was not a single sound but their deep breaths as Diel carefully, and so beautifully, shed their clothes. He moved above her and sank inside her, filling her inch by inch, parted lips, shuttered eyes and roaming hands. And as he brought Noa the highest pleasure, following her over that heartbreaking precipice seconds later, Diel kissed her lips.
He kissed her tenderly and gently, then reared back his head to look her straight in the eyes. “You are charity.” Noa’s lungs stopped working. “You give and give just to save the ones you love.” His eyes shone with emotion. “And those you don’t even know.” The boys. He meant the boy in the attic and the one from the Brethren meeting tonight.
Diel entwined his fingers with hers, bringing their joined hands to lie over her chest. “You saved me. You didn’t know me either. You knew I could hurt you. Could maybe even kill you. Yet you still saved me from that collar. You freed the monster inside me.” His breathing hitched. “You freed the little boy inside me.”