Fall Read online

  Contents

  Fall

  Foreword

  Preface

  1. Paige

  2. Wren

  3. Fischer

  4. Wren

  5. Paige

  6. Fischer

  7. Paige

  8. Bastian

  9. Wren

  10. Lincoln

  11. Wren

  12. Paige

  13. Fischer

  14. Paige

  15. Wren

  16. Paige

  17. Bastian

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Also by Katherine Rhodes

  More From

  Also By

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Fall: Saints and Sinners 4

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright 2020 © Katherine Rhodes

  Cover: JRA Stevens for Down Write Nuts

  Formatting: Down Write Nuts

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.

  The author acknowledges the following brands, companies, organizations, and copyrights: Sharpie, Star Wars, Pat’s, Gino’s, Shank’s, John’s Roast Pork, UPenn, Penn Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital, Audi, Toyota, Hanna Barbera’s Scooby Doo.

  Created with Vellum

  Some demons don't bother to wear a disguise.

  The Pipeline has finally been disbanded and Benjamin is back with his sister.

  But not everything is rosy. Not by a long shot.

  There is only paperwork left between the kids and their adoptions, but Paige hasn’t been herself. Wren and her men know that's not like her. Paige is proud of her track record as a child advocate, and for things to be going this wrong, something is up. Wren is horrified when she finds out what it is, and isn't sure how to help.

  Fischer, Lincoln, and Bastian have begun to realize: there’s a reason they are bonded to Wren, and the three of them hatch a hare-brained scheme to use their Hades-bound powers to bring temperance and justice to the sinners who are out of control.

  The demons that have started to come through the cracks in the After are becoming more than Miriam and Laxmi can handle. More than once they have had to ask for Ellie's help, but a direct attack on them changes the course they think they are on…

  ... and adds another to the harem.

  Dear readers

  This is a warning

  There are dark themes in this book. In any story that deals with sex trafficking, the trafficking of children, sex workers, and domestic violence, there are bound to be scenes that are uncomfortable to read.

  And, there are some uncomfortable scenes in this book. They were torturous to write; I did my best to keep them tame while conveying the horrors of the reality of sex trafficking and work. As with it was with Lincoln, in order for Paige to come to life, we have to see what she’s gone through. What she sees is only a slice of the hell that some domestic violence victims live in.

  If you have trouble reading these scenes, I do apologize.

  If you are moved by them and want to help stop modern human slavery, please visit www.state.gov/15-ways-you-can-help-fight-human-trafficking/, and if you suspect someone may be in the midst of being stolen for trafficking, please call 888-373-7888 in the US or your local emergency services (911 in the US, 999 in the UK and Canada and 000 in Australia).

  If you or someone you know is victim of domestic violence, get to a safe place and please contact https://www.thehotline.org/, 1-800-799-7233, https://www.rainn.org/ or your local women’s shelter.

  You are worth it.

  Katherine Rhodes

  Pride goeth before destruction,

  and an haughty spirit

  before a fall.

  -Proverbs 16:18

  Paige

  Alain was asleep.

  His car was in the driveway, but the porch light was off, which meant he was out for the night.

  I flicked on the flashlight on my phone and it let me walk up the dark stairs safely. The last time I had painted them, I’d mixed reflective paint in and the light from the phone bounced off it, making the stairs very visible in the dim light.

  I’d sprained my ankle once there and I didn’t want that again.

  As quietly as I could, I turned the key in the lock and popped the door open. I jumped for the alarm keypad and slammed the numbers in to make sure the alarm didn’t go off.

  Closing the door, I could hear Alain snoring, which meant no shower for me. I sighed. I could really have used one, but so be it.

  I headed for the bed after putting my briefcase and jacket away. It had been a hell of a day and I was ready for some real sleep.

  Quickly, in the low light of the hall nightlight, I changed out of my office clothes and into my nightshirt. Being careful not to wake or move Alain in anyway, I climbed under the covers and settled into the bed.

  It had been an insanely long day, and I felt guilty that we missed Ben Sheehan again. Again. The Danvers were both dead now, and…

  I was confused. Something had happened with Lily Haden. I was sure the shotgun blast had killed her when the door blew apart, but instead she was just…standing there.

  And then…there was whatever she had done in the house. I knew Danvers was dead. I had always been able to feel when someone was gone, and he was.

  She pulled him back. I didn’t know how she did it, but she yanked him back, probably from Hell. Lily got as much information as she could out of him before even she couldn’t hold on anymore.

  I needed a vacation. I really did. It was all getting to be a bit overwhelming. My agency was my baby. I was proud of it and it was an amazing accomplishment. I knew the details of all of my charges, and I made sure they were cared for. After being dumped in the system myself, I swore that no one would ever be tossed around and left to fend for themselves like I was.

  Pretty soon, we’d be the biggest private foster-adopt in the city, and I could make sure more kids were safe and loved.

  I could feel myself drifting off. I was pleased with everything I had done that day, despite losing track of Ben again.

  Letting out a slow breath, I sank into the bed and welcomed that spot between awake and asleep.

  The world jerked around me, and a sharp pain slammed into my head. I was suddenly staring under the bed and had something wet in my hair.

  I was on the floor.

  What the hell was I doing on the floor?

  I touched a hand to my head and pulled it away. It was dark and sticky in the bare light of the room.

  Blood?

  Everything hurt. I pulled myself to my feet, wondering what the hell had happened. I grabbed the nightstand, hoisting myself off the floor.

  Holding a hand to my bleeding head, I realized I must have nailed it on the corner of the nightstand as I fell. What had happened though? I was nearly asleep.

  I looked at the corner of the furniture, accusingly.

  “What did I tell you, Paige?”

  My eyes snapped to my husband fully awake in the bed. He was staring at me from his pillow.

  “I…” Stuttering, I felt dizzy.

  “I told you, don’t come in the room if I’m
asleep.”

  I dropped my eyes. “You said don’t turn on the lights…”

  “You sassing me? You think I don’t know what I said?” His words were sharp.

  “Alain, I…”

  “If I’m asleep and the lights are out, you go sleep in the second bedroom. That’s what I told you to do. I don’t know why you can’t fucking follow simple directions.”

  Pulling my hand off the cut, I glanced at the blood. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “Where the fuck you been anyway?”

  “I had a lot of work at the agency,” I answered. “I wanted to finish all the paperwork so we could go to the movies tomorrow.”

  “We’re not going,” he said, and rolled away from me.

  “But I—”

  He jerked up and glowered at me. “We’re. Not. Going. I’m going with Jeff and Tanner. You can stay here. You need to make sure that this house is clean since you couldn’t bother to come home on time.”

  I blinked. I had been looking forward to a movie and dinner with him, but… Maybe I should have just come home and done the paperwork another day. “I’m sorry.”

  “Go clean your mess up and go sleep in the other room. I don’t want your ass in here while I try to get some decent sleep.”

  “All right,” I said, and grabbed the cell phone, heading to the bathroom.

  “And if you need stitches, don’t make any noise when you leave and come back,” he snapped.

  I pulled the door closed and wondered if maybe I was spending too much time with the agency stuff.

  Wren

  I tossed the mail down on the counter and let out a breath, then ran a hand down my face.

  Ben Sheehan was a mess.

  Since the beginning, I had been working with the hardest cases from the Pipeline. Some of the kids had been in there for years, and they were going to need years and years of therapy. They couldn’t hear certain sounds without reacting to them instinctively.

  Those habits were hard to break because until now, they had kept them safe and alive.

  But Ben Sheehan was…different.

  He was willful, disrespectful, defiant. He refused all kinds of therapies, he wouldn’t talk to nurses or social workers. The doctors were all at a loss and I couldn’t even consider bringing him home until we had a breakthrough.

  The one and only time I had brought Timothy and Tabitha to meet him had ended in them running out of the room. Ben tried to follow and spit on them, and he spit out a line of curses that no eight year old should have known.

  Hell, I wasn’t even sure I should have known them.

  Slowly but surely we had his room stripped down at the hospital to only things that were bolted down: the bed, the dresser. The curtains had even been taken down and replaced with a cling film on the outside. He’d tried to make a rope out of the curtains and choke one of the orderlies.

  The orderly had been a massive human, so there was no damage done, but…he’d still tried.

  We’d tranquilized him more than once. Just to give everyone a break—including him. I felt guilty as hell, but the director and I had talked it out at length, and brought Fischer in to consult on the effects on his mind.

  The rest it afforded far outweighed the small risks.

  Ellie was the only one who could get him to listen, but it wasn’t her job to raise her brother, no matter how much she thought it was.

  Still, there were a few times I’d brought her over to see if she could calm him down or get him to listen. It would work, for about a day. And then he would wind up all over again.

  I needed to do some serious research on other cases like his.

  I didn’t want to refer to the child we were planning on adopting as a case. I wanted to get through to him, to give him back what he lost in that house.

  As much as I could.

  “Forms,” I grumbled to no one.

  I walked down the stairs to the basement. We’d set up a practice room for everyone when it became apparent that we were all going to be using swords in our secondary roles as…

  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 assess
ment. 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?”