I had no idea what we were.
Slumping on the steps, I was completely overwhelmed. Ben, the other kids, the three men suddenly sharing my bed, the fact that the actual fucking devil was my twin brother. Breaking up a massive, massive sex trafficking ring, destroying people, rescuing people.
I wanted a vacation. I ran my hands down my face. A second later I felt the flicker of the power that Hades held, and looked up.
Lily stood there in workout clothes, holding her own sword with red flames flickering on the blade.
“Care to spar?”
I stood. “How did you fucking know?”
She walked with me to the room, and pulled the door open for me. “I have been your best friend for millennia, Temperance. I know you.”
Closing the door softly, I sighed. “I wish I could remember. I’d like to have something like that.”
Lily grinned. “You will. I’m sure you will. Miriam’s remembered.”
“What.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t even raise my voice.
“She remembered,” Lily said. “Everything. Yesterday. Laxmi said she spent the whole day just walking through the house screaming and yelling. She didn’t know what to do or who to call, so she called me. I popped over—”
“Literally?”
“Why not? You all know. So, I popped over and helped her figure out what was going on. Miriam looked straight at me and repeated an inside joke that the three of us had and only she would know if she remembered.”
I shook my head. Lily was ecstatic, and I couldn’t blame her. From what we understood, the whole lot of us—exactly how many neither she nor Lucifer would say—had been missing for centuries.
Centuries.
I didn’t need this on top of dealing with Ben and the pedophiles.
“Maybe I shouldn’t spar today…”
“No,” Lily said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m just excited. Nothing has been the same since…”
“Lily, I’m trying to deal with one life at a time here. Believe me, I want to remember. But this…all of this has been batshit insane and I’m trained to deal with batshit insanity.”
She nodded. “Let’s spar. We both need it.”
After I took a deep breath, I nodded. “Yes. I need something physical to concentrate on.”
“You have three guys,” she teased me.
“That’s an entirely different kind of sword play.” I smirked at her.
I pulled the sword out of the nowhere it resided when I didn’t need it. I still wasn’t sure how that worked, but it did.
The concentration it took for me to spar was what I needed. Lily might have millennia behind her, but I didn’t. Not that I remembered anyway. So, the dance we did around each other was one that took my mind off all the crap I had to put up with so far.
It took my mind off the fourth time I’d okayed the tranquilizer for Ben. It took my mind off all the kids I’d been helping to process out of the Pipeline. It took my mind off the fact that while we had shut it down, there would be another one soon enough. It steered me away from the news that everyone who had been caught in relation to the Pipeline was singing about someone who was now completely in charge named Mister Penn.
Lily must have seen me flagging for all the thoughts and pressed in on me. I was barely able to counter and not get hit.
“So, all three at once?” she asked.
“What?”
“All three men at once?”
A chuckle escaped me. “Wouldn’t you already know that, since you’ve known me for millennia?”
“Nope,” she said, dancing out of the way of my parry. “I never asked. You were…ethereal before. Now you’re worldly and I like it.”
“Also known as, I’m a filthy whore now and I was an angel before.”
“I wouldn’t call you a filthy whore,” Lily said. “But a filthy angel, maybe. Sex as bad is a human assessment. But you came off just a little too holy before when we all knew you were shagging…them.”
“I wouldn’t tell you anything?”
“It was private,” she said. “Which was ridiculous when Luce and I made no move to keep quiet.”
I stopped and stared at her. “I don’t know what to think about that. You’re sleeping with the devil on one level and sleeping with my brother on the other.” I made a gagging noise.
Lily laughed and launched a new assault on me. “So? All three at once?”
I knocked her parry away. “Or two, or one, or spectator sport.”
“Wait. What?”
She parried again and I easily counter parried. “Whatever. Spectator sport.”
She stopped and the sword hovered at her side. “You…watch? Who?”
“Linc and Bas. They’re quite fond of each other,” I said, and threw a parry at her.
“Lincoln is—”
“Bi. Sebastian is pan. I’m a very happy girl when they share.” I was getting worked up just thinking about that.
“And Fischer?”
“He shares, and watches but he doesn’t partake.”
She stopped and stared at me. “Wren. The absolutely delightfully filthy images that are filling my head are throwing me completely off my game here.” She rubbed her eyes. “No jealousy?”
“Fischer has a voyeur streak a mile long. He loves watching,” I answered. “And I don’t mind watching either.”
“There’s really no jealousy?”
I shook my head. “Not at all.”
She fanned herself. “Thank God Luce is enough for me, but damn woman. That’s…impressive.”
Holding up my sword again. “Spar, Lily. Stop thinking about my bedroom habits.”
Smirking, our blades clashed again.
It was kind of fun. Much like going to the range with my guns to keep up my skills on those, the more you practiced, the better you got. I always had a gun on me when I was called out or in. I had to. There were parts of the city just too dangerous for a woman who had a visible disability to walk in, even if it was my right and duty to be there.
Well. Used to have a visible disability.
The day I picked up this sword, it healed the crippled hand I’d lived with since I was sixteen.
It was still strange to be able to use it.
After nearly half an hour, and both of us soaked in sweat, Lily called time and we just stood there panting. She finally smirked.
“Considering you kept up with me, I’m going to guess you needed that as much as I did.”
“God, yes,” I gasped. “Can I swear like that? Is that legal? I mean…”
She started laughing. “Yes, it’s fine. He doesn’t really care about that. It’s just words.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to head in for a few hours for paperwork tonight and I need a shower. Ellie will be home soon?”
“She’s at Emma’s tonight,” I said. “Tabi and Tim will be home late. They’re both at robotics until six.”
“So, you can take a nice long hot shower.”
“Yes,” I said. “I really need it now, but it’s going to feel good.”
She walked to me and wrapped an arm around me. “This will all work out, Wren. I believe that. For all the years I was looking for you, I never found you until now. So have some faith.”