“The …” The priest tried to swallow through the noose around his neck. “She’s a … Sh-shunned,” he stuttered, his voice barely audible, ruined by pain and the rope. But Diel heard it. Noa whipped her head to Diel, eyes wide.
Diel shot forward, crouching down beside Noa. “Shunned? What are the fucking Shunned?” When the priest’s eyes rolled again, Diel grabbed him by the shoulders and wrenched him and his chair off the floor until his eyes met Diel’s. “What are the fucking Shunned?”
The priest tried to focus on Diel. Then he smiled, igniting hellfire in Diel’s veins. “Pun …ish … Punished,” he said, fucking pride in his tone.
Punished, punished, punished … Diel ran the word over in his head. The Shunned. The punished. What did that mean? What did that fucking mean?!
Diel dropped the priest, sending the wood crashing to the floor. The chair fell back, and the noose pulled tight against the priest’s neck. Noa quickly righted the chair, then came after Diel. “Diel.” She forced him to turn and face her. “We’ll get more from him.”
Noa looked at Michael and nodded. Michael moved from the far wall and slowly approached the priest. He licked his fangs, and Diel felt as though his blood was scalding him from the inside. He needed more from the priest. He needed to know what and who the fuck the Shunned were. Why Cara was one of them and where the fuck she was.
The priest’s scream was deafening as Michael ripped his head to the side and sank his teeth into his flesh. But Michael didn’t drink from him. He recoiled, releasing the priest’s neck, and spat the blood onto the floor. Diel blinked, momentary shock rendering him motionless.
Michael always drank. He never wasted blood.
Diel glanced at Raphael, Michael’s closest friend. Raphael was frowning, shock in his expression too. The priest looked at Michael as if he were the anti-Christ. He screamed, trying to edge away from Diel’s blood-loving brother. But Michael sank his fangs into the other side of the priest’s neck. Seconds later, he wrenched his head back and spat the blood onto the floor once again. Michael’s facial expression didn’t change, it never did, but his body shook, Diel guessed with rage.
A low snarl sounded in Michael’s mouth as he wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, smearing red across his cheek.
“Please …” the priest said, showing the first signs of surrender as he glared at Michael with wide, fearful eyes. But at the sound of his plea, Michael curled his long metal-clawed fingers and slashed them across the priest’s face. He did it again and again, until the priest was screaming so loud it rang in Diel’s ears.
“Stop! STOP! I’ll tell you anything!” the priest shouted, but Michael didn’t halt, as if he couldn’t hear the priest’s begging, or he didn’t want to. Diel went to rip him away from the priest, but Raphael was across the room before he could, wrapping his arms around Michael and wrenching him away.
Michael’s ice-blue eyes were wide as Raphael pushed him against the wall to calm down, keeping him from charging back to the priest. Michael lapped at his fangs, but as if the blood was repugnant and sour, he spat it onto the ground. It took minutes for Michael to calm enough for Raphael to move away. The moment he was freed, Michael dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out the vial he had been studying when Diel and Noa entered the room. He stared at it again as though it was the motherfucking Holy Grail, his pale skin paling even further.
“Tell us everything,” Noa said from behind Diel, and he realized she had gone back to the priest. He was dying. Slowly. “Shunned …” the priest wheezed. He was fighting for consciousness, fighting to stay alive—a vain hope.
“What about them?” Noa asked. Diel kept his eyes focused on the priest.
“Tainted by the devil … veiled … women,” he slurred.
Veiled. Tainted by the devil. Diel couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t fucking breathe.
“What do the Brethren do with them? The Shunned? The veiled women?” Noa asked.
The priest, even with his face and body mangled, fucking smiled. “They serve,” he said, coughing up blood. It poured down his chin and chest. “Slaves … paying their … repentance,” he said. Diel closed his eyes and imagined his sister, his younger sister, at the hands of the Brethren. And what the fuck did he mean by slaves? What were they fucking doing to her?
“Where are the Shunned?” Noa said.
The priest’s smile widened. “Don’t … know.”
“Wrong answer.” Noa went to signal Bara over to him again, ready for round two.
“Wait!” the priest said as Bara pushed off the wall. “I … really don’t.” The priest tried to swallow. “I’ve only seen them once … At a gathering …” He wheezed again, louder this time, his lungs quickly filling with fluid. They didn’t have much time. They needed answers from him.