Skeleton King (The Dirty Heroes Collection Book 9)

by Charity B.

  “I love you so fucking much,” I moan through the pleasure. And it’s true. She’s the only one for me, and I’ll die happy if it stays that way.

  She sits up on her knees, cupping my cheek as she whispers, “I love you too,” between kisses.

  Lying back on the couch, I point to her dress. “Take that off and get over here.”

  What she’s wearing now is a new one that she’s sewn herself, red and green for today’s occasion. She pulls it over her head without hesitation, revealing her nude form in front of me. The sight of her pussy makes my heart bang around in my chest which only increases when she hovers over my mouth and begs for my tongue. I lap at her clit, loving the way she rocks against my mouth.

  Her movements are doing most of the work, so my fingers find her hole to bring her closer. “I’ve touched myself every night thinking of this.”

  Her confession has me sucking her hard, little nub into my mouth. Knowing that I was in her thoughts so frequently heats up my flesh as I lap and lick like I’ll never taste her again.

  When she finds her release, she gives me what I’ve been craving, leaving both me and the couch drenched in her fluids.

  Once her breathing calms some, she looks down at me, running her fingers through my hair. “I was so scared.”

  It kills me for her to be anything besides happy. “I’m fine, Sarah. I just got you, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Shifting her body down, careful to not put any weight on my wound, she lies next to me, snickering. “You’re soaking wet.”

  I laugh at the mild embarrassment she still experiences. She knows I love it, though. “Let’s go take a shower. I need to get ready for the council meeting tonight.”

  She leans up on her shoulder with furrowed brows. “Tonight? But it’s Christmas!”

  “You know we’re the only ones that care about that. At least the Mayor promised it won’t last long.”

  Her eyes squint playfully as she gets off the couch. “Ugh. Fine. You owe me one.”

  She heads down the hall to the bathroom, not waiting for me to follow. “I think I can handle that.” I laugh, rushing as quickly as I’m able to meet up with her.

  After we’re clean, she leaves me to get ready. It’s been so long since I’ve worn my skull paint. I decide to put it on for comfort’s sake. It isn’t long before Nothing takes his place on the rug, watching me. The best part, though, is that Sarah’s right behind him, leaning against the door frame watching too

  “I’m so glad you’re finally back. I just hate that you have to leave again.” I look in the mirror to see the reflection of her pouty face.

  “You can come if you want, but I can’t promise it won’t be boring.”

  The glow that brightens her face shines with her grin. “It won’t be boring if I’m with you.”

  December 25th ~ Evening

  The meeting goes fairly smooth aside from a few mild disagreements, and by the end, it’s unanimous that no Mundaner under the age of seventeen is to be allowed entrance into Hallows Grove under any circumstances.

  Sarah holds my hand the entire time, jumping up the moment all documents have been signed, excited to finish our evening.

  As we step outside, she zips up her coat before throwing her hands up and giggling at the snow falling in the moonlight. Nothing snaps at a few snowflakes before taking off toward the cemetery. She laces our fingers together, resting her head on my shoulder. “Can we take a walk through the cemetery? I want to give Esty her Christmas present.”

  I press my lips to the top of her head. “I’d like that.”

  Esty’s plot sits on the tallest hill, giving us a beautiful view of the rest of the graveyard. Sarah pulls a small box out of her pocket, telling the headstone, “Merry Christmas, Esty. I got you something.” Unwrapping it, she lays a snowflake necklace across the granite. “I hope you like it.”

  My heart’s booming in my chest, yet somehow, I keep my voice even. “Thank you.” The fear of her turning me away has mostly dissolved. I trust her completely. That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel like I’m going to throw up from frazzled nerves.

  Her head tilts with her quizzical expression as she faces me. “For what?”

  I shrug and laugh because the words sound so much less profound than they are. “For loving me.”

  Softening her voice, she smiles. “John…”

  Taking her hand, I bring her fingers to my lips. “You’ve become my dearest friend, but you’re more than that…” I reach into my pocket, pulling out the ring I had the Mayor get for me and slide it onto her ring finger. “You’re it for me. I truly believe that. You and I were meant to be.” She gasps as her tattered breath expels little white clouds from her lips. “Will you marry me, Sarah?”

  Her eyes widen, showing them shiny with tears as she hugs my neck so hard, I hiss in pain. “Oh, sorry, I—I, yes! Of course,” she laughs, “Absolutely yes!”

  There’s never been a single moment I’ve ever experienced that’s made me feel this…drunk on bliss. We smile against each other’s lips at the promise we just made to each other.

  It’s me and her. John and Sarah. Forever.

  Epilogue

  John Skelver

  3 Months Later

  April 3rd, 1994 ~ Afternoon

  “Stop it.” Sarah scolds the Sanity Eaters. “I have to hide the eggs before you can eat the candy.” She grabs the bag of plastic eggs off the picnic table to hold them behind her back.

  Bolt wrinkles his nose. “Well.”

  Crossing his arms, Cask scoffs. “That’s.”

  “Stupid.” Jolt finishes with a roll of her eyes.

  “Maybe, but it’s my Easter party, and I want to do an egg hunt, so you’ll just have to be patient,” Sarah says in a sing-song voice.

  My yard is full of people and covered in pastel decorations. I can’t believe I let her talk me into this, and even more so, I’m shocked at how many people accepted her invitation. This town’s never been much for ‘get togethers’ outside of the Halloween Games.

  Nothing seems to be having a blast, playing fetch with a few of the kids waiting for the Easter egg hunt to start. Hot dogs and burgers are cooking on the grills that Kline and Mammoth insisted on bringing.

  The Sanity Eaters run away from Sarah to sit with the Zeldamine sisters who are constantly coddling them. Since Ogier was the Zeldamine sister’s brother-in-law, they got custody of the kids when Ogier died. I don’t know if the sisters ever told them that I was the one responsible for shooting their father. If they did, the triplets have given me no indication that they’re angry at me for it.

  Sarah passes me to go to the refreshment table, grinning as I reach out to pull her against me, pressing my lips to hers. “Your party turned out great.” She blushes, giggling when I smack her ass.

  “Hello there!” Madame Emerald’s voice carries across my yard, and we turn to see her waving at us with the arm that isn’t looped around Fink’s.

  Holding up a hand in greeting, I ask Sarah through a forced smile. “You invited them?”

  “I invited everyone,” she whispers. “I couldn’t leave them out.”

  As they get closer, Madam Emerald places a hand on her stomach before saying, “This looks absolutely lovely, darling! And what a perfect day for it too!” She isn’t wrong about that. The sun shines bright in the blue sky as a gentle breeze blows across the newly blooming flowers. “I’m sorry Ingvar couldn’t be here. He’s feeling a little under the weather today.”

  “Thank you. And I hope Ingvar gets better soon.” Sarah beams before her eyebrows narrow at Madame Emerald’s hand still on her stomach. “Are you feeling all right?”

  Madame Emerald giggles, and even Fink has to fight a grin. “Well…we haven’t actually told anyone yet, but…we’re pregnant!” she squeals.

  Sarah’s face completely falls as her eyes cut to Fink’s. “A baby?” Her voice is barely above a whisper. Forcing her expression into a fake smile, she’s able to muster up som
e enthusiasm. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations…to you both.” Looking toward the Sanity Eaters ravishing the sweets table, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m sorry, will you excuse me?”

  She doesn’t wait for a response as she storms past the triplets to go inside. I follow behind her to find her fists balled up as she paces in the kitchen.

  “Are you okay?”

  Finally, she stops, looking up at me with wet eyelashes. “It’s not fair! He—” She throws her hand toward the yard. “He stole any chance of us ever having kids of our own, yet he gets to have a baby?!”

  She’s been hinting about how much this bothers her more and more the past few weeks. She watches baby commercials with this defeated expression, and no matter what I say seems to make her feel better.

  Her body shudders as I wrap my arms around her. “I hate him for it too, Sarah,” I murmur against her temple.

  “Doesn’t it bother you that you’ll never get to be a dad?” she sobs against my chest.

  Holding her chin to lift her sorrowful gaze to mine, I shake my head. “Not as long as you’re my wife.” A small smile breaks through, and I capitalize on it. “Don’t let that asshole ruin your Easter. Just ignore him and Madame Emerald and have fun at your party.”

  She sighs, hugging me again as she rests her head on my chest. “Okay. You’re right.”

  “Besides, I think the Sanity Eaters are going to destroy our yard if you don’t hide those eggs soon.”

  That gets me another small smile. Wiping her tears, she stands up straight, brushes off her dress, and walks back outside. I light up a joint, just about to follow her, when the phone rings behind me. Picking up the receiver, I take a drag.

  “Hello?” I cough out.

  “Hey, Skeleton King, this is Harley. Sorry to bother you, but Mayor Greer wants you at the south gates immediately.”

  I roll my eyes and groan. “May I ask why?” Greer knew we had this party today. Everyone did.

  “There’s uh, a Mundane man and a little kid asking for you.” The gatekeeper’s voice sounds as though he’s not sure he should be telling me this.

  My stomach threatens to eject the six deviled eggs I had earlier. This must have something to do with a body I’ve taken. I’ve been so careful, though. Every body I’ve taken in the past five months didn’t have any known relatives. “Did they say what they want?”

  “No, but please hurry.”

  My palms are so sweaty, I nearly drop the phone when I hang it up. Surely if this has anything to do with my graverobbing then the Mundane police would be here too? I can’t think of what else it could be about. My address isn’t connected to my taxidermy business, so anyone wanting to hire me would do so by calling.

  I don’t want to worry Sarah until I know what this is about, so I sneak out the front door, praying she doesn’t hear the car starting. Hopefully I can make it back before she even notices I left. My fingers tap the steering wheel as my organs tangle in my gut. I have a weird feeling about this.

  When I reach the gates, I can see a man with a little girl, but from this distance, they don’t look at all familiar. Mayor Greer and Harley step out of the gate technician building to greet me as I shut my car door.

  “You want to tell me why you have Mundane visitors, John?” Mayor Greer growls under his breath.

  I swallow, shaking my head. “I have no idea who they are.”

  “That’s funny,” Greer snaps, “considering the man claims to have the same last name as you.”

  My head jerks toward the gate, sure I just misheard him. “What?” I try to make out their faces when his next words melt my shoes to the concrete.

  “He says his name is Gerald Skelver.”

  The only parts of my body currently working are my eyes as they ping pong back and forth between the Mayor and Harley.

  “No.” I shake my head back and forth because there’s no way that could really be my father standing just a few feet away from me.

  “Either you can deal with this or I can.” Mayor Greer’s patience seems to be wearing thin.

  “Open the gates, I’ll go talk to them.”

  Harley nods and Mayor Greer follows him as I get back into my car. The gates open and as soon as my Buick is all the way through, they close behind me. I stare straight ahead, refusing to look at the man and child before I have to. Once I’m a few yards past the gate, I let the car idle a couple moments before turning it off. With a deep breath and a prayer that this isn’t the man who abandoned me over twenty years ago, I get out of the car. This has to be some sort of mix-up.

  I don’t even get my car door closed when the man says, “Oh my God, Johnathan…is that really you?”

  I force myself to lift my head, and I come face to face with the man who left me alone to suffer with the only broken parent I had left.

  “What do you want?”

  My voice comes out harsher and colder than I prefer, but he disregards it. “There’s a café I saw a few miles from here. My treat if you’d like to join us”

  “And why the fuck would I want to do that?”

  The man who is undoubtedly my father rubs the back of his neck. “Because I need your help.”

  I scoff, flabbergasted by his audacity. “That’s rich.”

  “Please, just hear me out. If you still want nothing to do with either of us afterward, we’ll both understand.”

  The little girl holding his hand, flutters her eyes up to me. There’s something in them that makes it impossible for me to walk away. “Fine. I’ll give you thirty minutes. After that, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Thirty minutes is all I need,” the man who I used to call ‘Dad’ says.

  He gives me the address for the café, and I get in my car to follow him in his truck the three miles to our destination. My thoughts twist around themselves. Why is he here? Who is the little girl? How did he find me?

  The small but clean café is one I’ve never visited before. I step over to the table they’ve chosen and take my seat, wishing the waitress would come take our order to dampen the awkward tension.

  “How’ve you been?” he asks.

  Crossing my arms, I lean back in the booth. “If you were concerned about my well-being, I think you would have shown up at some point in the past twenty years. At least when Mom died.”

  He wipes his hand across his mouth, looking into the empty space above my head. “You have every right to hate me.”

  “No shit,” I deadpan. “How did you even find me?”

  “You’re in the phonebook.” He shrugs and looks up to the young blonde woman in a blue uniform who’s arrived to take our order. Once she walks away, he continues, “I’m not making excuses for what I did to you and your mother. I’m a recovering alcoholic, and I regret many of the things I did during my years of addiction.”

  I glance at my watch, avoiding the little girl’s stare burning into my skull. “You might want to get to the fucking point.”

  With a heavy sigh, he looks down to the child. “I’m dying. My liver’s shutting down, and I don’t know how much time I have left.” The straining of my insides at his words doesn’t make sense. He’s barely been in my life at all, and the small part he was involved in, he just made worse. So why is this making my heart beat in panic? His arm wraps around the dark-haired girl before he meets my eyes. “This is your little sister, Christy.”

  It’s as if a steel ball crashes into my ribcage. This is a lot to process, and I feel like I’m about to overload. A sister? The fact that he went on to have another child bothers me more than it should. She doesn’t even look like me. She’s pale like my father, and her eyes are the same green as his. Her long eyelashes flutter as she blinks at me, making me sigh. Regardless of the grudges I hold against my father, it’s not this kid’s fault. Lifting my hand in a wave, I smile at her.

  “Hi, Christy. I’m John.”

  “Are you going to adopt me?” she squeaks.

  My eyeballs pull agai
nst their sockets as I gape at my father who rubs his forehead with an irritated chuckle. “I was getting to that.”

  I can’t do more than scoff as my esophagus swells in my throat. This has to be a joke. Like an episode of Candid Camera. “You can’t be fucking serious. Where’s her mom?” Christy’s lip quivers, making me feel like shit for my reaction.

  My dad, Gerald, rests his forearms on the table, giving me a flashback of my mother yelling at him for doing that. “She was…sick. She…”

  “Threw herself off a bridge,” Christy finishes bluntly.

  Now I really feel like a prick.

  Our waitress drops off our drinks, and I guzzle half my coffee, wishing it was something much stronger. “I’m going to be honest with you, son.” My skin prickles in gooseflesh at hearing him call me that again. “You seem like you’re doing well. You have your taxidermy business, you live in that fancy gated community.” I nearly choke on my drink. Hallows Grove is hardly fancy, but sure, I’ll let him think that. He gestures to my ring finger. “And it looks like you have a little wife too.”

  Just the mention of Sarah makes me smile. I look down at the solid black, onyx band she picked out at the jewelry shop. “Her name is Sarah,” I say, though, not necessarily to him.

  “I don’t have any other living relatives, and there’s nobody in Christy’s mother’s family that’s a viable option.”

  “None of them wanted me,” Christy says matter-of-factly before she sucks on the straw in her milkshake.

  Gerald releases an embarrassed chuckle. “She’s a very honest child.” The ice in his soda clinks against his glass as he takes a drink. “It’s getting to the point where it’s difficult to take care of myself much less her, and I’d prefer that she stays out of the foster system.”

  I rub the back of my neck because I have no idea how to respond. What kind of soulless jerk could say no to this? On the other hand, it’s not just me or the child this decision would be affecting.