Coyotes howled in the desert. Bolder now, they approached the sanctified walls of the Order of the Blessed Virgin without fear. Sister D had not moved for hours, her hands pressed together in prayer so tightly that the bones in the heels of her hands grated together in protest. Perhaps the creatures thought her easy prey. Perhaps she deserved that fate. To be told that her work was now for naught, that everything that had made her famous and influential was abomination of the worst sort, had broken her, and she could only seek solace from God.

She raised her bowed head and looked out over the barren landscape. Dusk was only beginning to shade the sky into brilliant oranges and reds that would fade into night's navy blue, speckled with white, the color scheme that always satisfied her heart. She had come out here before dawn, seeking clarity. She was barely cognizant of the sweat that pooled on her forehead and soaked the band of her wimple, for she was dry inside, dry as the rocks of her garden, dry as the sand beneath her feet; she was her own desert, and everyone knew that there was no water in the desert, no oasis for lonely wanderers to quench their thirst. She belonged to no one; no one could touch her.

The howling came to her ears again, but there was nothing out there but the whistling wind and the endless sand, arid and chill all at the same time. Though she had heard the cries at night, she had only once seen the coyotes circling the wall with hunger in their beady eyes, and she had watched from her rock garden for a week, praying for her soul and the souls of the girls she had given over her life to protecting. They had abandoned her one by one, either taken off to be killed or educated elsewhere; no one believed that she could have saved them in her secluded sanctuary, no one thought complete chastity was enough anymore. She did not weep for them, though, as she might have once upon a time. Her eyes remained as dry as the rest of her, and whatever weakness she felt was hidden behind her veil and under her armor. Emotions were too dangerous. Emotions had almost destroyed her once, almost doomed her to hell for her sins. She could not allow herself to risk that again.

As she stared out onto the unchanging horizon, she saw a silhouette that was neither distant mountain nor wild coyote. It looked almost human, although it was too small a dot for her to be certain. It was coming closer, though, and for a moment she entertained the fantasy that God or one of His messengers had come for her to prove her piety. But there were no wings on the figure that flickered as if heat waves were playing over it.

"Chiara…"

She had not heard her Christian name in years, not since she had taken the veil. It was one of the earthly luxuries she had given up in penance for the sins of the flesh. She was Sister D to everyone else, so she became Sister D to herself. She had almost forgotten that she had ever been Chiara, but the sound of the name brought back memories of her name shrieked over public address systems, and the sinful pride she had taken in such fame. There had been a time when she had only played the game for what it could do for her, selfishly treating it as her playground instead of a place where she could make a difference in the world and bring people to God.

"Chiara…"

The sound was closer now, the voice a strange combination of dulcet lilt, smoky rasp, and uncanny familiarity. The figure was closer, too; she could begin to recognize long golden hair glinting in what was left of the sun, which meant that she had to be dealing with a woman. Perhaps someone had come to her to be saved. Some still came, not having heard that she had been forced to shut her doors to the young women who needed her guidance. A sudden spike of anger surprised her; hadn't she moved past emotions, hadn't she learned to live within her reason and the Word of God?

"Chiara!"

She could see the woman now, or at least she thought she could. One moment the figure was lithe and slender, the next grossly overweight. That had to have been the source of the shimmering she saw. There was no rational explanation for this, Sister D decided. She was going mad, no way around it. As if in tune with her musings, the coyotes that weren't there started howling again, a painful, lonely sound that thrust her soul into despair. She could not move, could not think, could barely even murmur the prayer that she was no longer sure would protect her.

"Have you forsaken me, Chiara, Chiya mia?" The voice was closer now, and Sister D heard it distorted, as if through two sets of speakers. There was nothing sensual about the grating rasp that hinted at years of vocal abuse with cigarettes, but Sister D also heard an echo of some residual sweetness that struck a chord within her, as if hearkening back to the past she had tried so hard to atone for. "Have the eight years since we last… played together been such a long time that you've forgotten who I am?"

Sister D's only answer was to rest her head on her clasped hands and pray all the harder, because this could not be who she thought it was, this could not be the only temptation to follow her through the years, not when she had prayed so long and so hard for salvation and protection from the evil and madness that had spread around her. She bit her lip at the all-too-visceral memory of the searing heat of a slim, firm body against her own, pushing in desperate need for dominance.

"Don't touch me," she hissed through clenched teeth. Her breath came faster, in short pants between the words, and she cursed herself for betraying this weakness.

"I remember when you used to beg me the other way, and I ignored you, because I was stupid and in denial. I know better now, and I've come for you. Sorry I'm late. It's been so long I forgot how to find you." The other woman took another step closer, and she was close enough now that Sister D could see the brown roots of her golden hair, the black circles around her eyes that marred her fair skin, darkness overtaking light.

"Stay away from me, painted Jezebel! You have no right to be here!"

And the woman guffawed at Sister D's statement. "You do me wrong by calling me a Jezebel. I was there long before that proud queen fell. I was there before stupid, submissive Eve had the brilliant fucking idea to listen to a snake. I was the one who would not obey. The one who would not be broken. The one who has always… always been here." She smiled, and the expression was sharp and cruel, a plastic smile given to thousands of cameras over the years, and Sister D knew now what she faced.

"Lilith."

"Lily to my friends. Pure and white. The chosen one. Wasn't I always the golden girl? Well, at least until you came along. Don't you remember, Chiara? I was their dream, but you, you were their goddess. You performed miracles for them, and they loved you for it. They believed in you like they believed in God on Sunday, and you delivered so much more than he ever did."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Sister D screamed, pulling the wimple more tightly over her ears so as to block out the blasphemy that came in such honeyed tones, appealing to her pride, invoking the cockiness that had once been her hallmark before she had found humility in giving her life to God.

"I am the truth, the light, and the way… except I'm not the light, am I?"

"Something we can both agree on."

Lilith's smile had not wavered, but somehow it seemed to have become even crueler and colder. "Chiara Lucia D'Alessandro," she purred, and somehow she knew the proper intonation, the accent, the rolled r's and elongated vowels… no, there was no somehow about it, Sister D remembered now: a dorm room that wouldn't get warm enough no matter how high she cranked the heater, curling herself up in bed under too-thin blankets against Lily's deceptively strong frame, too curious to pull away but too scared to touch, and she had whispered her name in Lily's ear just so she would know that someone else on the team would say it properly instead of butchering it the way everyone did, hoping praying wishing that the next time she heard it from Lily's lips it would be screamed or moaned or a whispered plea. "Any way you slice it, it means light," and Lilith was speaking again, and Sister D had to concentrate hard on her folded hands, hold tight to the image of the cross in her mind to banish the sense memory of Lily's breath against her skin.

Lilith took another step closer, and her pure white blouse fell to the ground with a hiss of silk, a sound like a demon's voice. "You are my truth, my light, and my way, Chiara. I was lost, but I found you. I was blind, but now I see you. Come with me, please come with me."

Sister D tried to move away, to put space between herself and this surely hell-sent fiend, but her legs would not obey her frantic mental commands. She remained rooted to the spot, still on her knees, and she was no longer sure to whom she was a supplicant, the God she had served so faithfully without reward, or the succubus before her.

Lilith took off her skirt and let it pool around her ankles before stepping daintily out of it, and Sister D could not take her eyes from the sight, both from disgust and fascination. Lilith wore lacy pink high-cut panties and a matching bra, and as she flickered in Sister D's vision, the sight went from breathtakingly beautiful to sickeningly unattractive. "Do you want more, Chiya? There's always more for you."

"Stay back!" Sister D snapped, reaching into her voluminous habit and pulling out a large cross. She hadn't thought she would need it, but it seemed like she had no other choice but to brandish the symbol of her faith. She was tempted, so tempted, to give in and let go of what had sustained her for so long; the heat throbbing between her legs and coiled in her stomach begged for release, but she could not let it out, would not surrender her hard-won control. It didn't matter that her instincts were insisting that she could not resist her old teammate (and a deeper part, a quieter voice, whispered packmate barely at the edge of her mental hearing). It didn't matter that she wanted Lilith more than she had ever wanted anything in her life. "You won't have me!"

Lilith sashayed closer, thick hips swinging, and plucked the cross from Sister D's suddenly limp hands. "Ooooh, you remembered that I like to play with toys! How sweet of you!" She slowly, surely, pulled down her panties, and when they fell to the sand and rocks below, she picked them up and draped them over Sister D's folded hands. "Oh, this is nice! This is really nice. You must have had something like this in mind when you got it." Sister D was paralyzed with shock and lust as Lilith's paradoxically slender hand disappeared between her legs, along with the giant cross, and only the shaking of her thighs gave any indication of what was going on in that secret, forbidden, dirty, place that Sister D had the sudden urge to discover for herself.

No, it would be rediscovery, although it had been a long time since she had shared anything with Lily, years since they'd even been on the same court, let alone in the same bed, and they hadn't even gone all the way when they had been together. It had been enough to have Lily against her in complete repose, wrapped up in her arms, breathing into her neck all the dirty things they would do once they got out of that homophobic, podunk town, once the Angeleno and the New Yorker were in a place that better suited their views, and all those dreams and fantasies had driven her half to madness until she had silenced Lily with fierce kisses and clamped her strong legs around Lily's slender body to hold her closer.

"Ohhhh, yes, this is good," Lilith said, panting as her hand moved faster. "Could be a little thicker, maybe a little longer, but isn't that always the problem? Men just aren't good enough for women like us."

She was slick and wet, the bleach dripping from her hair, leaving it in chestnut curls plastered to her forehead, cheekbones, neck. Sweat poured from her, and from more than just the heat of the Arizona desert. The sand stuck to her damp, bare feet (and how had her feet become bare, Sister D wondered, when had her stockings and high heels disappeared?) as she rocked back and forth. Her lips were parted and her tongue licked out between them, tempting Sister D to rise and kiss her, if only she had the courage.

"¡Ayyyyy, Dios mío!" Sister D exclaimed, making the sign of the cross, first sketching it in the air, then touching her hand to her forehead and shoulders in turn. "En el nombre del Padre, el Hijo, y el Espirítu Santo…"

Lilith stopped her up and down motion for a while and looked at Sister D, her head tilted to the side and a smile playing over her lips. "What heathen tongue is that you're speaking?" she asked innocently, and Sister D wasn't sure if the question was honest or not, because she realized in one sinking, horrified moment that the words she had spoken were not in English, but in another language, one she had known all her life but had chosen to ignore when she took the habit. How could she have ever been the shining example she tried to be for her postulants if her first tongue wasn't even theirs? She began to shake, and the sobs that followed were almost exactly in time with Lilith's hand on the cross.

A droplet from between Lilith's legs struck the barren ground with a sound that resounded in Sister D's mind like a celestial thunderclap. It sank slowly into the sand, cloudy and viscous and laden with mystery. Sister D had known these things once upon a time, back when she was just Chiara, and she knew that she could know them again, and it would be all right because this was Lilith, this was Lily, this was her friend, almost-lover, teammate, packmate, Husky, family, part of herself that she had almost been stupid enough to lose. It was a thing she had buried like a bone in the backyard, and now it was time to find the hole she had made in her mind all those years ago and recover her buried treasure.

"Gimme back my cross," she said. Lilith pouted, but she parted her legs and removed the cross. Sister D rose, shedding her wimple as she did, took the cross from Lilith's hands, and slowly licked it clean. "Now, I could use a little help getting out of this goddamn tent I'm wearing." She stuck her arms out and let the sleeves of the habit hang down. Lilith giggled and was quick to help.

"You look much better now," Lilith said, eyeing Chiara's nude form. "Much more like I remember you. Especially these," and she put her hands on Chiara's full breasts, tracing circles with her perfectly manicured thumbnails.

"I always try to please the crowd." Chiara spread her arms. "Come on. We've got how much lost time to make up for? Take me. Or, if ya want, I'll take you."

"Hell no."

"You get off on a cross in front of me and now you tell me no? Were you this much of a cocktease to your husband?"

"Fuck you."

"I'm *trying*, but you won't let me."

Lilith shook her head. "Two reasons. One, not only is it getting cold out here, I don't want sand or rocks up my ass, or up anything else."

"So we'll go inside. I got a nice quilt on the altar."

"Two, I think we're late for a team meeting, and you know Coach, no matter how much he loves you like a daughter, he'll jump our shit if we're late because we were fucking around."

Chiara blinked, but then she heard the call. "You heard it too, huh?" she asked over the familiar howling; she understood now that it had never stopped, just occasionally been drowned out.

"How do you think I found you?" Lilith replied, pulling Chiara to her for a kiss. "I heard your need calling out to me, and I came to you because you needed me and I needed you."

The wolves- wolves, not coyotes, and Chiara laughed inside at how Sister D had deluded herself into ignoring the call in her blood- howled full-throated at the red-tinted moon as Lilith and Chiara came together.

"Let's go," Lilith said. "I have a car out thataway." She gestured towards the open desert.

"Clothes."

"Car."

"Clothes for me."

"Car. I came prepared."

"But-"

"Car."

"Waaaaaaaaarmth," Chiara whined, clinging to Lilith as she started shivering under the dark blue sky.

"Caaaaaaaaar," Lilith replied, nailing Chiara's tone perfectly.

"Revenge?"

"I think we have time for that."

"Sex?"

"Later."

"Promise?"

"Yes." Lilith slid her hand between Chiara's legs to seal the promise, and Chiara's moan in response let her know that, finally, after all these years, it was accepted. Lilith leaned in close and whispered, "I am your alpha and your omega, your first and your last, as I've always been."