Filthy

by Katherine Rhodes

  “What’s that?” I looked up at him.

  “You, naked on that bed.”

  He caught my mouth and kissed me thoroughly. I melted into him, and I could taste Lincoln on him. Knowing that they had been kissing did funny things to me, and I leaned into him.

  “Naked, huh?” I asked, barely getting the question out between his kisses.

  “Very naked.” He nodded.

  “You first, Doctor.” I found the buttons on his shirt and slipped them out of the holes as fast as I could. I’d seen him naked before, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to see him again.

  He grabbed my hands just as I finished unbuttoning him, and moved them above my head. He held me there, and kissed me again. “On the bed, Wren.”

  “Naked.”

  “Yes.”

  “Strip, or you’re not allowed with me.” I turned and headed for the bed, dropping my pants off my waist and stepping out of them.

  I pulled my blouse off over my head, plucking only the sleeves and first button open. When I reached the bed, I turned and sat, crossing my legs.

  “Well, Doctor?” I asked. “Going to join me?”

  He’d gotten his shirt off and was working on his pants, but froze when he saw me there.

  It wasn’t a good freeze. I loosened up immediately, stood and grabbed his shirt from the floor where he’d dropped it. Wrapping it around me, I stepped into him and grabbed his arms. “Bastian?”

  He pulled the shirt open, and looked down at my bra. Raising a single finger, he traced it along the lace of the strap. His path continued down the cup to just over my heart.

  “Victoria…had this set…”

  Oh, shit. I pulled the shirt closed over myself. “I’ll…get rid of this. Let me go change—”

  “No,” he whispered. “You look so sexy in it. It would be wrong to ask you to get rid of it. I just didn’t expect to see it on another woman.” His finger hooked on the edge of his shirt and pulled it apart. “Another woman that I’m in love with…”

  “Bastian…” What the hell did I say to him? Everything about us was weird, out of the norm, and had certainly never been covered in my therapy classes.

  A big, fat tear rolled down his cheek. I reached up and wiped it off. Another followed, and I did the same. “Let’s not force this, Bas. Let’s take some time, and talk. You’re still raw.”

  He shook his head. “Stay with me. Please. Let me hold you for a little while. It might not hurt as much if you’re there.”

  Without a word, he walked me back to the bed and had me sit. I scooted back and waited for him. Just a moment behind me, he climbed on and settled into the pillows there. Pulling me down to his chest and holding me there, his foot kicked up the spare blanket and he drew it over us.

  The air between us had changed fast—he was not being sexy or lustful anymore. He was somber and sullen, and I just let him hold me.

  It was quiet in the house, and there was only the sound of passing cars outside, very occasionally. The more distant sound of the Schuykill filled in the white noise.

  “I loved her so much,” he whispered. “The kids were everything to me. It’s hard to accept that she’s gone and I’m alone.”

  “But you’re not alone, Bastian.”

  He tightened his grip on me just a little. “It’s going to take me a long time to get used to that. You’re not her—I don’t want you to be. Vicky and I shared our lives in a very different way than I think we will. There’s just no way to explain how much this hurts while explaining that I’m in love with you.”

  I turned a bit in his arms and peered up to his eyes. “We do not recover from grief, Bas. We carry it forward and it becomes something else, it makes us something else. I would never ask you to choose me over her.

  “She was then. We are now. There is a terrible divide between the two, one you have crossed, but are only just climbing to safety from. No matter how far forward we walk, you will always see that chasm, and you will always remember that you weathered it for her, and to a great degree, with her.”

  “I miss our children,” he said. “I miss the laughter in the morning, even the whining at night.”

  “I can’t heal that,” I whispered. “No one can.”

  “I don’t want anyone to,” he answered. “That’s the grief I want to carry. Those lives, those little hearts and souls. I want to carry them and let them shape me.”

  “Let’s get their pictures and hang them in the house,” I offered. “We can put them with the pictures of Ellie and the twins and I’m sure the ones of Ben we’ll have. Let’s make them a part of our family.”

  He nodded slowly and let a smile drift on to his lips. “I would like that.”

  “Then we’ll do it,” I said. “And I’ll get rid of these stupid panties and bra.”

  “No,” he said. “Keep them. They’ll remind me that while they are the same, the two of you are very, very different. Not one of you better than the other.” He ran his hand over the cup of the bra again. “Is it okay if we don’t…”

  “No one is going to make you do anything,” I said.

  He wiped another tear off his face. “I want to make love to you, Wren. Not mad fucking, but slow, sweet, careful love.”

  I moved up on his body, slipping the shirt off. “Whatever you need, Bas. Whatever you need.”

  It was nearly six hours later when Fischer and Lincoln found us, curled around each other, naked, finally sated. Without a word, they stripped and climbed in, and wrapped themselves around us, as well.

  We slept better than we had in months.

  Lily

  The thunder crashed a moment after the lightning flashed and I had grabbed the knob. The door only opened with that combination. Even if I was the one who had to make the lightning and thunder.

  We stepped into the room, and I pulled the door shut. Over to the curtain, I pulled it back and motioned Wren forward. Once the curtain was back in place, I pushed a hand through the illusion of the wall.

  She gasped lightly, then smiled.

  This was beyond strange to me. I had my sister-in-law, one of my very best friends back, but I didn’t. She didn’t remember any of this.

  I needed to know what was going on. I needed to talk to Luce and get all the information on what we were dealing with.

  Passing through the illusion, I felt the warmth of home on my skin. I hated staying away from him, from home, for the sake of this disaster—but both of us knew this was the way it would end faster.

  I didn’t mind being a police detective either, really. It was fun to bring people like the Pipeline owners down.

  “Lily,” Wren said. “What happened after we tore out of the building?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “I feel like I need to,” she answered.

  I held out my hand. “I’ll show you.”

  Her palm hovered over mine a moment, hesitant, and then touched the skin to hers.

  …The cages behind Fisher were smashed backward and shoved against the wall. I saw him yell at the kids to hang on, and drop the gas pedal. It took another moment for him to drop it into drive and smash the van through the large, fiery beams now blocking the door.

  I took a deep breath as I watched him skid into the corner and pick up speed away from the fire.

  He, and the kids and Ben, were out.

  Turning slowly, I looked at the two people sitting there: Cora and Gutierrez.

  I knelt down and looked Pablo Gutierrez right in the eyes. “I never would have guess, you shitbag. Never would have guessed. Do you enjoy fucking all the little children on your ward, too?”

  He screwed up his lip and said nothing.

  “Let us out,” Cora said. “Let us out and we’ll make sure that you want for nothing ever.”

  “Oh, sweetie.” I laughed. “I have the riches of Hell at my fingertips, I don’t need your filthy lucre. I really don’t. There’s nothing you can offer me to make me release you.”

  “House
s, clothes, power, money like you’ve never seen.”

  “Go ahead and try,” I said. “I love when the evil ones really think they can win me over.” Flicking my hand, I summoned two gold Roman coins from my treasury in the palace. “Do you know what these are?”

  “Gold,” Gutierrez said. “Where did you—”

  “They’re not just gold, Pablo. Not just simple coins. They’re not even from this millennium, or even the last. These are gold coins pressed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome.”

  “There were no kings—” Cora started.

  “There were, shut up and let me finish.” I held one in my hand and flipped the other between my fingers. “Tarquin was the last of the Etruscan kings of Rome. It was pressed in 528 BCE. Before Christ. And do you know why I have this?”

  “Because it’s probably worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Cora stated.

  “You see things as commodity, only the price of them. I should have brought Lincoln here. What fun my sister-in-law’s Greedy sin would have with you.” I turned the coin in my fingers again. “He would have asked me if I knew it’s value. He would have questioned the wisdom of having something so valuable on me, and why wasn’t something like this in a museum.” I stopped flipping it and pinched it between my fingers. “And do you know what the answer is?”

  Gutierrez sneered. “Because they’re worth a lot, and you like to keep them near,”

  “You’re only half wrong. They’re worth a lot. To me. No one else knows that these were the first two coins I made in the forum at Thracia, selling my potions. No one else knows that I spent twenty years in Thracia selling those. Saving the lives of women and children. No one knows I was castigated for helping a Jew. No one knows I was cast out for touching the wife of the priest. No one knows they tried to take my hands for that—and no one knows I took her soul for her own safety because her husband beat her and raped her and lent her out as a favor to those he owed.”

  I grabbed Gutierrez’s jaw and pried his mouth open. “Just like you.” I shoved the coin against the back of his throat and snapped his jaw shut. “Swallow it, you piece of shit. You can pay the price Chiron demands to ferry your ass to the Pits with my gold, because I’m only too happy to see you go.”

  He swallowed when I held his nose and he tried to catch his breath. The scream from the pain of swallowing a solid gold coin didn’t give me any satisfaction—the knowledge that Chiron was going to pull it back out would.

  He’d also give it back to me for the usual exchange of a bottle of Booker’s bourbon and some nice bleu cheese.

  Cora was staring at me, terrified. “Please, please don’t…”

  I leaned into her ear. “Ironic, don’t you think?”

  She trembled and shook her head.

  “All those children you’ve stolen, abused, assaulted, raped…all of them screaming that same phrase, please don’t…and you think that I’m going to listen to you.” I squeezed her jaw and shoved the coin all the way in. “Swallow, bitch.”

  She choked, and a second later vomited, and started crying.

  I called up the hellfire, and let it dance on my hand. This wasn’t the soft, sweet healing fire I had shown Wren. This was the hot, terrifying, destructive flame that would consume everything in its path.

  “You had your fool Barry start the fire upstairs,” I said, standing straight and backing up. “All he did was start what I am going to finish. Hellfire has no mercy. Hellfire will burn steel to carbon.” I made it dance on my fingers. “Can you imagine what it will do to human flesh and bone?”

  “You’re not going to kill us.” Gutierrez coughed the words. “You’re an officer of the law.”

  “Sometimes.” I tipped my head. “And sometimes I sit in judgment in Hades with my husband and choose those worthy of Elysium, of Valhalla. I can tell you right now, my judgment is for neither. Pay Chiron when you reach the Lethe. He’ll make sure you remember, and you go where you belong.”

  I touched the metal cage behind me, and the hellfire leapt up, taking root, consuming and destroying.

  “Convenient that Barry started this…now they’ll have conjecture enough to assume you were consumed by your own monumental greed. And I will do nothing to dissuade them.”

  I stood and watched the fire as it grew, and consumed, and grew and consumed. The room was hot, smoky, and starting to lose its structural integrity. I summoned more of the hellfire to encase me, and walked straight out the garage door—leaving Cora and Pablo to die…

  Wren let out a sharp breath and pulled her hand away. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “They had to die…”

  “No, no,” Wren said. “I understand. It’s just…a lot to try and get my brain to accept that what you did wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t exactly right, but it wasn’t really wrong. The eye for an eye thing that everyone misinterprets.”

  I smiled and nodded. “I didn’t relish leaving them, but it was necessary.” Jerking my head to the stairs, I motioned to her. “Let’s get going. Let’s see if a moment in Hades restores what you’ve forgotten.”

  She grabbed my hand back. “Lily. No matter whether I remember anything or not, please know that you are, truly, one of my best friends.”

  My heart did a little dance, and I smiled. Nodding at the stairs, we both started to descend.

  The warmth felt so good, again. Even standing in a burning building I didn’t feel the same warmth. It felt like home, like perfection. Like my husband.

  Turning the knob of the door and pushing it open, we stepped into the wide terrace that overlooked everything.

  “Hades,” she whispered.

  “Straight ahead, and down one flight, is the entrance to Elysium. The Greeks had the best word for it, so we’ve stuck with it. Hell and Tartarus, which holds the Pit, are down beyond the palace.”

  “Palace…” Wren breathed and turned to look.

  Her face lit up in awe and I saw the palace Lucifer had built us so many millennia ago with renewed eyes.

  Looking like something out of the Akkadian empire, it was made of sandstone colored bricks, and rose as a mighty, imposing wall. There were three gates on the front, two smaller ones on either side, and one great gate in the center, with the image of a three headed hellhound—that had never existed. Someone had once seen it there and spread the threat of it, naming it Cerberus, which eventually lead the occupants to call it the Cerberus Gate. The doors were carved of an extinct tree from the Cretaceous era, using a single tree. The inlays were nonsensical and whimsical—it was all carved before the advent of humanity.

  Beyond the wall rose the main living area, five stories of sandstone and open windows that looked out into the expanse of Elysium. Staggered and tiered, it was an imposing edifice, but in some way still welcoming.

  At least, to me.

  Wren looked at me. “You live here?”

  “You did too,” I whispered. “You, the Sins, several dozen versilange, some family, some Elysium demons… It was never empty. Not like it is now.”

  “What happened?”

  I sighed, and we walked toward the massive Cerberus Gate. “We don’t know. We woke one day, and the entire palace was empty. Not just of people, but of things. Furniture. Paintings. Food. Weapons. We mourned for a while and then knew we had to find out what happened.”

  I stopped and looked up at the doors. “Our positions, the titles of the Sins, aren’t just ceremonial, Wren. They’re real. Lucifer and I have done what we could to keep the balance, to make sure souls were placed, to keep things safe and secure. But the titles aren’t ceremony. They’re real. Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Sloth, Pride, Lust, Envy. They need to work together with you to keep things steady for the humans.

  “We need you back. And neither of us know how to do that. Which is exactly why you don’t remember any of this. Why none of you do.” I glanced at her. “They took your memories when they stole you away that night.”

  “Temperance,” she whispered. “My name is my
purpose.”

  Nodding once, I turned to the doors and pushed them open. They swung into the inner courtyard and Wren followed me, I gave them a magical push to close them.

  Leading her across the magnificent mosaic tite work that covered the courtyard, I headed for the entrance that would take me to the private kitchen, where my husband always liked to sit and think.

  “I’ll show you the whole palace another time, Wren,” I said.

  She nodded, silent.

  We stepped into the half modern, half ancient kitchen. The hearth fire was burning, and it felt amazing on my skin.

  “Lucifer?” I called.

  “Here, wife,” he answered.

  A moment later, the massive person that was Lucifer walked into the room. Ruddy skin, black hair, black pants, white shirt, reading glasses, and a book in his hand.

  “The devil wear’s reading glasses?” Wren whispered.

  Lucifer’s head snapped up, and he gasped, dropping the book. “Temperance.” He snapped his eyes to mine. “You brought her?”

  “She asked,” I answered. “She knows…”

  He walked forward, slowly, and held out his hand after ripping his glasses off. Wren was studying him, hard, and I could see the beginnings of recognition flicker across her face.

  “My sweet little sister,” he breathed, waiting with his hand stretched out, waiting for her hand.

  Wren lifted hers and after a moment, dropped her tiny hand into his massive one.

  Her face burst into a grin that would have eclipsed the sun. “Brother.”

  …Lust has found his Temperance…

  The Sins are gathering.

  FALL

  Saints and Sinners 4

  Available for Preorder on Amazon

  Afterword

  Hey, Readers!

  My plan was to release all of Saints and Sinner about 5 weeks apart, so you could read along, and not get exceedingly frustrated with me.

  Well, best laid plans and all that.