~~Day 31~~

~~Mia~~

Dead, for a month. In Hell for just over two weeks. The amount of things that’d happened to her in that time was insane.

And yet here she was, bored out of her fucking skull. Days! They’d been stuck in the tunnel for days! Multiple! She groaned and dragged her feet, and dodged the billionth bit of bloodgrip vine barely lit by amber veins on the cave walls.

“I’m tired,” she said.

Vinicius said nothing.

“My feet hurt.”

Vinicius said nothing.

“I’m going out of my god damn mind, Vinicius! How much longer is this damn tunnel?”

The giant monster groaned and sighed, both quiet sounds that his enormous body made loud, regardless. He stopped and set a hand against the wall. No denying it. He was tired, too. Tired, and hungry, exhausted and worn and practically drooling.

“I don’t know. They change with the centuries.”

“You could just say you don’t remember, you know. You were locked up for a couple hundred years. Not like I expect you to actually remember these tunnels.”

“Then why ask?”

“Because we’ve been down here for… what, four, five days? I like to talk to myself, but you’re here, so you have to listen to me talk to myself.”

He grumbled, and said nothing.

“What, you didn’t talk to yourself when you were alone in Zel’s dungeon?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He turned his head enough to aim one dragon eye at her. Angry, annoyed, or intrigued? It was hard to tell with him. Not Kas hard, but hard.

“Why would I?”

“Because…” Because why? Why did humans talk to themselves? It wasn’t like all humans did, but she certainly did, and she knew her brother did. It was important for organizing her thoughts, and for helping her not go insane. “Never mind. Demons aren’t humans.”

He snorted and resumed the walk. But a minute later came to a stop and held out one of his four hands. No need for Mia to question him. They’d been traveling together for so long she recognized his motions. There was noise up ahead she couldn’t hear yet.

It didn’t take long before she heard it, and recognized it. Remnants. Not a lot of them, maybe a dozen spread out around a wider section of tunnel. The poor souls were wrapped in bloodgrip, most half growing out of the stone, some with only their arms and heads free, and one with only their head free of the rock. All of them bled horribly, screaming and crying, twisting and making the vines rip their skin open, as if doing everything they could to make their pain worse.

“Poor souls,” Mia said. “I… I really wish we could—”

Vinicius reached down, and with three of his hands, scooped up three remnants, and ripped them from the stones.

“Vinicius!”

The demon rumbled in his chest, an annoyed and tired sound, and he swallowed down the flesh of the remnants. No effort made to get only the heart, he opened them up and either dumped their organs into his mouth, or bit into them and swallowed half their torsos in a single bite.

Mia covered her mouth and looked away. No good, she had to cover her ears after, and clenched her eyes tight as the screams of remnants filled the background. It didn’t matter how hard she pressed on her ears, she couldn’t completely block out the sound of breaking bone and gnashing teeth.

At least the monster worked fast. He finished the twelve remnants in thirty seconds.

Mia lowered her hands, gulped down the non-existent food her body wanted to vomit, and forced herself to turn around. Her imagination didn’t lie. Limbs, guts, bones peeled of soft remnant flesh, blood, it was everywhere, especially on Vinicius. His dark red skin was now drenched in crimson, and it borderline flowed down his neck as he chewed.

“I… I thought remnants didn’t have any resonance or essence to eat?”

“Only traces,” he said. He did not bother wiping his mouth.

“I know imps and grems eat remnants, scavenging and stuff. But Adron said even they don’t get much sustenance from them, and they’re tiny.”

Vinicius nodded and began the trek forward again. No need to say it, she could see it in every lumbering step, and the way his grumbles and growls came more and more frequently. He was starving.

“How long… How long?”

“I don’t—”

“I meant about you. How long until you… I don’t know, can’t move?” She would not say ‘starve to death’. There were enough bad omens and bad luck coming her way, no need to tempt fate for more.

That got another grumble out of him, but nothing else. He marched forward, tail almost brushing the ground as he walked, like it was too heavy for him to keep up. He made no effort to avoid stepping on the soft bodies of the dead remnants either, and Mia again had to look away to keep from seeing them get crushed.

In a matter of hours, the blood would all be gone, absorbed by Hell herself. In a day, all the gore. And remnant bones were soft, too, so they’d only last a few more days, maybe less, before the tunnel would be clean again. Demons, and souls who hadn’t died in Hell yet, their flesh and blood didn’t last any longer when they died, absorbed into Hell. But their bones lasted. You knew you were heading into dangerous territory when you found old bones.

They found old bones.

The tunnel opened into a cavern, big enough the amber veins didn’t light up the ceiling very well. What amber veins she could see up there were half blocked off by massive stalactites. No stalagmites on the ground, though, as if someone had removed them. A smooth cave floor?

There were giant statues around, made of the dark metal so much stuff in Hell was made of. No, not giant statues, just of giant demons. Tetrad demons. Some sat, some stood, all of them waited near the wall of the giant cave, some on thrones of rock, some in epic poses with sword in hand, and some in sexual positions. Tetrad demons may have seemed small compared to Vinicius, but they were still huge, ten-foot-tall creatures that made other demons look tame.

Korgejins like Gorlus and Saldavin, with hooves and giant wings. Gorujins, they had wings too, but raptorial feet instead, and a tail. And for the ladies, bolstaras like Zel, with hooves and four arms. Fujaras too, also with four arms, but with raptorial feet and a tail.

Every ‘jin’ demon, the male demons, had penises. That was unusual. A glance at Vin proved that the male demons didn’t go walking around with their dicks out. They had them stored inside their body. Testicles, too. Not the statues. All the male statues looked ready to fight and fuck, or just fuck, and more than a few of them were sitting in very ‘hop on my dick’ positions.

Some of the lady statues had dicks, too. That was unusual.

Much as tetrad demons were all unusually hot, in that big scary monster kinda way, the giant cavern killed any sexiness. There were bones everywhere, human bones, demon bones, all shapes and sizes, and they were scattered. Thousands of skeletons, maybe more, the remains of their bodies piled into mounds, or left to collect dust — no dust in Hell — by the torture machines.

Torture machines? She gulped and came closer. Yeap, those were torture machines. Platforms made of black metal, tables and chairs and stuff, many covered in the sort of chains Vinicius had once been bound in. Some of them had holes, and judging from the metal sticks with sharp edges lying nearby, the holes provided easy stabbing of sensitive places. Some machines had corner hooks for holding limbs, and chains meant for pulling on them. Draw and quarter. A lot of the tables and chairs still had skeletons on or in them, and their bones carried hundreds of scars.

“The fuck is this place?”

“One of Valzanal’s torture rooms.” Vinicius shrugged and marched through the giant cavern toward the tunnel on the other side. He didn’t give a shit about the room. Bones crunched and snapped under his talons, and the sound echoed in the giant cave.

Vinicius stopped, looked to one of the tetrad statues, a fujara, and marched over to her. Valzanal, no doubt. A deep rumble vibrated through his chest, and he gestured up at the symbols written over the statue’s head. Not the ancient language, just the usual language Mia’s brain read as English, despite how it obviously wasn’t.

‘Valzanal. Let Suffering and Pain Become You.’ It could have been ‘thee’ instead of ‘you’, but either way, the text wasn’t talking about Valzanal, but about what she’d do to you.

Vinicius did not like that. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe, nothing. Everything shut off and went quiet.

“She really pissed you off?”

“She did.” His voice was an earthquake in his throat.

“Her and Zel? Because they ruled Death’s Grip? Because—”

Vinicius’s whole body flexed. Slowly, he aimed his gaze toward her, and Mia froze.

Oh shit.

Would the leash work? Would it work? Oh god, she prayed it’d work if she needed to use it. But the look Vinicius gave her put a doubt in her mind, a big one. Angry. He was angry. Not angry at her, just angry, and it poured out of him even without using a sin aura. He tightened the muscles in his hands without making fists; probably so he didn’t puncture his palms. But that didn’t stop him from digging his talons into the ground, and with how heavy he was, they cut through the rock.

The dozens of huge black spikes coming out of his back, his head, and his elbows and knees, glowed.

“It was mine,” he said, and he aimed his mouth at the statue. “It was mine.”

She opened her mouth, and closed it.

“It… was… mine,” he said again. No temper tantrum. No screaming or yelling. Children threw temper tantrums and screamed and yelled. This was something else. Something deeper. Something worse.

She’d read about this in her psych books, the sort of people who didn’t just get angry and throw things, or hit things, or hit people, but absorbed and embodied their hate and rage until it multiplied inside them. Their brains grabbed onto negative thoughts and spiraled them down, and down, and down, until they went fission bomb, a chain reaction that destroyed anything and everything nearby. For humans, that often meant grabbing a gun and killing a lot of people.

For a demon as strong as Vinicius, someone who probably enjoyed violence and carnage for its own sake, it meant something entirely different.

She took a step back, and another, and another. Slowly, she slipped her fingers around the necklace, and squeezed it until her fingers shook. She didn’t activate it. She didn’t know if it’d work. It’d hurt him, but right now, she didn’t know if that’d be enough to stop him.

His spikes grew brighter. He rumbled in his chest again, and this time, the walls shook.

“It should be mine. It should have been mine.”

He held out his four arms, looked down at his claws, and leaned forward, just like he’d done that time he’d incinerated the entire dungeon in the spire. The amber glow on his spikes pulsed, and a subtle humming sound filled the air. His fingers flexed tighter, and he glared at them as fire leaked out from between his crocodile teeth.

He was going to explode, and she was in the blast radius.

“She’s dead!” someone yelled. They sounded an awful lot like Mia. “She’s dead, and Zel’s dead! I killed her! You helped me kill her!”

His growling, deep enough she felt it more than heard it, continued on, but at least it didn’t get any louder.

“Val and Zel are both dead, and you can come rule Death’s Grip or whatever when I’m done saving the world. You heard her, that woman in the aera armor, and you believed her. And we’ve been stuck together for a bit now. Do you think I’d lie?” She could lie better than her brother, but a virgin nun could lie circles around him. Mia wasn’t much better.

After a couple painful minutes of watching the titan quietly wrestle with his rage, like watching a ticking time bomb about to go any minute, Vinicius rumbled softly and nodded. His flexing muscles eased, and the glowing amber of his spikes died down until it was gone. His talons released the rock beneath him, his four arms fell at his sides, and his tail rested on the ground as he stood more upright.

“Let’s go,” he said, and walked ahead.

She forced herself to match pace, but stayed behind him, a few feet between her and his giant tail swaying with his steps a foot off the ground. Staring down at it, she let it distract her from the trembling in her limbs. Vinicius hadn’t bothered with a sin aura. If he had, it’d have made her angry and violent, too. No, he’d just stood there and boiled in his rage, and her fingers had gone numb.

“You’re scary,” she said.

He looked over his shoulder, past the huge spike there, and rumbled some more. Of course, he wouldn’t say anything.

“You—”

“I am a child of Belial.” Oh, he was going to say something. “The tetrad demons are scary. Angels are scary. I am more.” And it was to boast, of course. But, watching his giant, wide back as he continued on, Mia couldn’t help but absorb his words. It didn’t sound like boasting. It sounded like someone stating an essential fact to spare her the embarrassment of making a horrible mistake.

“Angels are scary?” Summoning a little courage, she jogged up and walked beside him. Well, half beside, half behind him. She still wanted him in front in case another wurm or something attacked.

“The mikalim and rapholem can be. The gabriem are pests.”

Mikalim, rapholem, and gabriem. Those sounded familiar.

“Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel?”

He grunted and nodded.

“These angels, they’re… kinds of angels? Like demon types?”

Another nod.

“Did the archangels exist, too?”

“They did.”

“Oh, wow. Did you ever meet them?”

“Only their corpses.”

“Their… corpses…” She gulped and shivered. Okay, that was probably one of the most depressing things she’d ever heard. “The angels are dead?”

“The archangels. I don’t know about Lucifer. And the council of angels remain.”

“Council of angels?”

“Larger than other angels. Much more deadly.”

She’d seen one of those angels, at the gate of Heaven. They’d been pretty horrifying, yeah.

“Have you… ever killed an angel?”

“Yes.”

More shivers danced up her spine.

“Ever… eaten one?”

“No. Angels are rarely alone, and they do not leave their dead behind.”

How patriotic. But at least Vin was talking now. Maybe letting out a bit of rage was all he needed? Maybe—

Shifting rocks in the darkness snapped her around. To the left, in the dark of the giant cavern and its literal piles of bones, something moved. A lot of things moved, and they came straight at Mia and Vinicius.

A brute, a couple vratorins, and a couple gargoyles leapt from the shadow, straight at the two of them. Their feet kicked up the skeletons that littered the floor, and the once silent cave filled with the noise of rattling bones and roaring demons. One of the vrats came for Mia, but the other four demons went for Vinicius. And the vrat coming at Mia, very much not Adron, swung a giant sword straight down at her.

Vinicius blocked it. The giant charged through the chaos, taking claws along his sides and legs, and blocked the vrat’s sword with the spikes along the back of his forearm. The spikes didn’t stop the sword from sliding down the black surface into the giant’s skin and muscle, though, and a splatter of red hit Mia in the face. Vin’s blood.

She stood there. Didn’t move, didn’t scream, didn’t do anything. She just stood there and watched as Vinicius twisted the arm, grabbed the vrat by the throat and face, and crushed it into mulch. The sound of breaking bone, and the expulsion of blood and gore from the vrat’s face and its new holes shattered Mia’s petrification.

She dove for cover, literally into the bones that covered the ground. Not exactly protection, and not deep enough for her to hide under, but enough that the gargoyle that ran around Vinicius and came for Mia didn’t cut her open when she swiped at her. Bones went flying as the gargoyle slashed and slashed, and Mia kept backing up into more bones.

Symbols flashed through her eyes, and again one specific rune blazed in her thoughts until it almost blinded her. Batlam. Sword. Shield. Spear. Bow. Battle. Fight. Defend.

Her hand wrapped something. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of the things on the list in her head, but it was better than nothing. A big demon bone, maybe a femur. Whatever kind of bone it was, it was shaped like a club, and Mia swung it at the gargoyle woman. Clunk. She hit the demon lady on the top of the head, right between the horns. It was enough to stun the gargoyle for a whole second.

Long enough for Vinicius to grab the gargoyle with his two lower hands, and yank her back hard enough she flew, spun around, and crashed into a distant pile of bones. Vinicius didn’t have time to kill her, not with the other vrat in a free hand, the brute in the other, and the remaining gargoyle on his right shoulder and tearing into him.

The demons fighting him didn’t care, and didn’t stop. As blood flowed down Vinicius’s neck, chest, and down his legs as the gargoyle on his shoulder ripped open his trapezoid, sin auras flowed over the area. Heat, the bad kind, the sort that made your insides hurt and boil, spiked adrenaline until your limbs shook, and blinded you to anything other than breaking whatever was in front of you. It poured out of Vinicius, and it poured out of every demon.

None of them cared if they lived or died anymore. Even as Vinicius killed them, they didn’t stop.

The brute escaped, freed by the gargoyle ripping into Vin’s arm that held him. Vinicius spun. His tail hit the brute hard. The huge demon, almost nine feet tall, was just a child compared to Vinicius, and while he didn’t go flying, he fell and rolled into the bones. That gave Vinicius enough time to get more hands onto the remaining vratorin, and rip him into several pieces. The gargoyle clawing his shoulder open came next, Vinicius grabbing them with his only free hand. Her chest imploded in his palm, like he’d squeezed a raw egg.

A disgusting mix of blood and other things squirted out between his fingers as he squeezed the demon woman. Some of it hit Mia’s chest. It was warm.

“Vin! Behind—”

Vinicius snapped his glare to Mia, and she froze. But, even as he glared at her with rage and murder in his eyes, he spun, and caught the remaining gargoyle that leapt for his back. She died in pieces, and Vinicius roared.

And laughed. He roared and laughed with the joy of someone brimming with satisfaction and pride.

Vinicius turned and faced the brute, the only remaining demon. It got up from the sea of bones and launched itself at Vinicius, a full on leap. Big as Vinicius was, he was horribly injured, and couldn’t bring his hands up in time. The brute’s colossal weight smashed into his upper half, and Vinicius fell onto his back with a booming thud. Bones shattered and flowed outward almost like a ripple in water.

The brute mounted Vinicius’s face and tore into the giant monster’s throat with his claws.

“Vinicius!” Oh god. Oh shit oh god. Vinicius wasn’t stopping him. The giant monster half roared half growled, but it was an exhausted mess, and full of gargling blood. The brute was going for the weak spot, his throat, and tearing at him with mindless ferocity, until Vin’s blood soaked the brute’s face and chest.

Even as the sin auras demanded she stop thinking and simply pounce and give into her rage and bloodlust, she didn’t. She would not let the aura consume her, she couldn’t. Being stupid and mindlessly violent wouldn’t save her bodyguard.

Mia looked around, grabbed one of the shattered bones with a sharp tip, and ran around. The brute didn’t look her way, wholly absorbed in his bloodlust and need to kill the much bigger demon. She had to do something, or she was next.

She had to do something, because seeing the four-armed demon gargle on his own blood was killing her, too.

She jumped up onto the brute’s back. No point in trying to stab him there. Like Diogo, brutes had very thick skin, almost pure black, but they had soft spots where everyone had them.

The brute didn’t respond. She climbed onto his giant back, and like she was driving a sword into a stone, she used both hands and slammed the sharp bone sideways into the side of the demon’s neck, forward enough it got the soft stuff. That got a response.

The brute stood up, roared and gargled on his own blood, too, and spun around. Mia wasn’t there anymore. Brutes had no spikes to climb, and using both hands to stab him meant she fell back onto Vin’s legs and tail. Everything turned to chaos as she got up and tried to run away, but Vin’s tree-trunk legs and tail bigger than her entire body were kicking and swinging, and she bounced off.

Bones caught her, hundreds of them, the most uncomfortable surface she could have possibly landed on. Some broke under her, some didn’t, and she yelped as more than a few of them tore her skin. She scampered to her feet the moment her ass hit the ground, though, grabbed another big bone, and prepared to defend herself against a nearly nine-foot-tall juggernaut.

But the juggernaut, facing her and glaring at her with murder in his eyes as he marched toward her, fell forward. Vinicius had grabbed one of his legs. The creature landed on the ground a foot in front of Mia, a giant bone sticking out of his neck, and blood flowing out of his mouth and skull-ish flat nose.

The brute tried to get up, and planted his palms against the ground. Screaming, Mia swung her new bone into the side of the bone sticking out of the brute’s throat. The bone in her hand shattered, but the bone in the brute’s neck did not. It sank deeper, and the gargling demon collapsed as a new flood of blood poured from his mouth, and his new hole.

He stopped moving.

“That’s… two…,” she said, panting. “I bet David doesn’t have that many.” Easier to make a joke about her demon kill count, than think about what’d she just done. “Vinicius, are you… Oh fuck.”

Vinicius held his torn throat with one hand, his torn trapezoid with another, and used the other two to push himself up to sitting. He failed, and his back hit the rock and bed of bones again, back spikes grinding against the stone.

“Vinicius!” She ran up to the side of his head. “Fucking… fuck! Are you gonna be okay?”

He tried to sit up again, and failed again. Blood seeped out from between his fingers, not nearly as much as the brute had, but far more than was safe. She’d seen him bleed buckets and live, but this was worse.

He tried to sit up again.

“Stop! Stop moving, god damn it. Just, just hold still. I’ll…” She looked around at the bodies. Two dead vrats, two dead gargoyles, and a dead brute. The fight had lasted a whole sixty seconds, less even, and blood was everywhere. More than a bit of it dripped from Mia’s hands, and her feet were coated in it. She refused to look at the weird, not-quite-red-kinda-pink stuff that’d landed on her chest earlier when Vin had crushed the vrat’s skull.

Vinicius needed to eat, and he needed to now. Not remnants, but real food. Human hearts, or demon hearts.

Mia dashed around the monster and looked at the bodies.

The gargoyle, the one he’d grabbed off his shoulder, he’d grabbed her by the chest and had squeezed her hard enough she’d crunched. Lot of broken bones. Lot of ripped and torn flesh.

The bones around Mia’s feet, were any of them sharp? Were—oh thank god, the vratorin that’d had a sword, the sword was nearby. She grabbed the hilt.

“Fuck!” That, was a heavy sword. That was a very heavy sword. Mia was fit and strong for her size, but she was just a tiny girl. The sword probably weighed as much as she did.

She dragged it toward the gargoyle. This was taking too long. If more demons showed up, suicidal or hungry ones like the five before, Vinicius couldn’t defend her. And he had defended her, genuinely defended her.

He didn’t have to do that. He could have let her die, and then killed the demons. No more leash to worry about. Why? Why did he do that? He was a fucking asshole who only cared about carnage, destruction, and taking back Death’s Grip. Nearly a week ago, he’d tried to hurt Mia, and the leash had stopped him. That meant his intent had been real, and he was genuinely going to hurt her, probably kill her.

Just now, he’d saved her life, twice. Why?

With a deep breath, Mia got the sword behind her, its tip on the ground and her hands on the hilt, and she bent forward and swung it over her shoulder like she was flipping a person over her in self defense class. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut her back or shoulder, but sharp enough it split the gargoyle’s already ruined, shattered chest in half. Almost in half. The sword stopped before getting through the gargoyle’s back. A gory mess, blood splattering everywhere as the weight of the sword did most of the work.

Over two weeks in Hell and the sight of a ribcage breaking apart, and guts spilling out, was quickly becoming manageable. It didn’t make her want to vomit. Still nauseous, but at least she could stay standing and keep working.

She got on her knees, reached down, and got her hands on the gargoyle’s heart. Okay, now she wanted to vomit.

She tried to rip it free, but that was easier said than done. Maybe she could look for a sharp bone, something light she could wield? No, no time. She planted her feet hard, and yanked harder. Just doing a deadlift, just a deadlift, not ripping a heart free of binding veins and arteries, nope nope nope. Flesh tore, and the heart came free, much of the gargoyle’s inner flesh already half ripped by the sword, or by Vinicius’s death squeeze. And, of course, she fell on her ass.

Groaning and cursing under her breath, she got up, ignored the gore, the warm blood dripping between her fingers, the bones hitting against her shins as she waded through the mess of white, and stopped beside Vinicius’s giant head.

“Open up.”

Vinicius turned his head enough to look up at her, and growl. Even that sounded gargled. Blood was getting into his stomach or lungs or both. Hell might not have cared about biology like that, about the specifics and stuff, but it certainly gave a shit about injuries and dying from them.

Vinicius did not open up. Instead, he tried to sit up using his two free hands, the other two still covering his throat and shoulder wounds. He got a whole three inches off the ground before collapsing.

“What’re you doing? I have a demon heart! Open your mouth!”

He glared at her, rumbled in his throat, and tried again. And failed again.

“Fucking christ, Vin! Is this some macho thing? Can’t eat if someone else is feeding you?” And before she knew what she was doing, she punched him, right in the cheek, above his big crocodile teeth and under his dragon eye. “You’re dying! Eat!”

All that got her was a glare. But a following coughing fit that had the dragon monster puking up blood onto his giant throat was enough to convince him. He opened his mouth.

She put the hunk of meat between his huge teeth. His dragon snout had giant sharp teeth like Kas’s, like a crocodile, sticking out past his lips. Good reason to yank her hand back so he didn’t snap down on that by accident; she doubted the leash would protect her from accidental biting.

Vin didn’t chew. The heart was small enough he swallowed it down, just like a crocodile would. Hopefully, he wouldn’t choke. Much as Mia wanted to watch and make sure he didn’t, it wasn’t like she could give him the Heimlich, and the way his huge neck flexed and bled as he swallowed forced her to look away. Seeing a corpse bleed was one thing. Seeing a living creature bleed as it… he, tried to force down food, was another thing entirely.

Less than a month ago, watching an autopsy had her reeling, and she’d already become a ghost by then. Say one thing for Hell, it definitely desensitized you quick.

Once Vinicius stopped making a half swallowing, half choking sound, she checked on him again.

“Okay, still breathing. That’s good. Just focus on breathing and healing.”

He focused his eyes on her, a strange intensity that looked animalistic, like a wounded, starving creature. But there was something else there, too. He was aware, awake, and thinking. Which just made everything more horrible as he choked on his own blood.

She got back to work. If Zel’s heart had barely been enough to stave off the giant monster’s hunger, one gargoyle’s heart wasn’t going to do much. She got her hands around the giant black sword’s grip, and dragged it over to the other gargoyle. This one had been ripped to pieces, but her chest was in good condition.

Mia took some deep breaths, did her best to ignore the smell of blood saturating the air, the feel of her sweat and blood dripping down her quickly exhausting body, and again swung the sword over her shoulder like she was flipping someone. It crashed into the gargoyle’s bare chest, right between the breasts, and broke bones but didn’t get through. She had to swing it twice. Thrice.

“I was just… a normal girl, you know?” she said, panting as she worked. Talking was good. Talking helped keep her mind off what she was doing. “I mean, yeah, sure, unusually high sex drive, but I just figured that was normal… for… gingers!” She yanked the heart free deadlift style, but this time kept from ass-planting on the ground. “Then I go to Hell and suddenly I’m broadcasting a weird aura that gets all demons nearby me randy as fuck. Okay, strange, right?” She wiped her forehead of sweat, almost screamed with frustration as she only realized she’d just wiped a bunch of blood across her forehead, and marched back over to Vinicius. “For a bit there, I thought maybe I was some sort of succubus reborn, when I learned about all this sin talk. But that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?” She held the heart over Vin’s mouth and held his strange gaze.

He opened his mouth. She smiled and dropped the heart in.

“At least I’m not broadcasting that aura anymore… as much.” She wasn’t entirely sure if that was because she was mastering it, or because she was just perpetually sad in a way she hadn’t been before. Coming to Hell, losing her brother, and getting captured had definitely been sad, but not deep down in her soul sad; no matter how much she’d told herself he might be, she hadn’t been able to believe David might actually be dead, so that explained that. But now, after what happened to Hannah, things were different. She felt different.

“And look at me now. This isn’t sexy. This sucks! I’m cutting open corpses to feed my unwilling bodyguard so he doesn’t die from a fucking ambush. And—fucking christ this thing is heavy!” With a little rage to fuel it, she swung the sword again, this time down at the vrat Vin had ripped into pieces. She ignored how much he looked like Adron.

“Honestly,” she said, glaring down at the shallow wound she’d made, “I kinda wanna go back to how things were. Back in Zel’s tower, being protected by a sexy demon, and having sex with him and another sexy demon and his girlfriend… his betrayer, frequently. That was a good afterlife, right? I even lost my virginity to demons, you know.” She swung again. Blood splattered and hit her chest and arms. She ignored it. “Pretty fucked up, right? Tiny girl like me, sent to Hell when I shouldn’t have been, only to find she’s got weird powers, and to test them, Zel had her two sexy demons fuck me into a fucking coma?” She hadn’t forgotten about the moral issue with being forced into that, either! “And it was good. It was really good. Of all the ways my stay in Hell could have gone, getting doubly penetrated by a couple giant, sexy demons, while Hannah played with my body? That was a great life! Or second life, or after-after life or whatever.

“But nooooo. Everything had to get ruined. Now here I am, cutting open corpses with a sword I can… barely… lift!” Another swing, this time breaking the ribs and getting into the vrat’s chest cavity. Like chopping wood. “Opening corpses so I can feed a demon who hates me, while we trek across Hell on some ridiculous mission straight out of Young Adult fiction!” Yet another reason she wanted to puke. “I know, I know, Zel would have turned on me, eventually. But, just… god, I kinda miss it. I kinda miss when my biggest concern was getting ravaged by Kas or Adron, not demons ambushing me from the shadows and trying to kill me!” Again, she swung the sword, and screamed as she did.

It went through the vrat’s chest. Finally. Mia dropped the sword and screamed again as she used a hand and foot to pry some pieces of his ribs out of the way. This sucked. This sucked this sucked this sucked.

Getting a vrat’s heart was no easy feat. By the time she butchered her way through his chest and ripped the heart free, she was beyond exhausted. Gasping, soaked in blood — some of it her own — and sweat, she joined Vinicius’s side again, and presented the much bigger heart.

He rumbled with less gargles this time, and opened his mouth. Finally, progress, less crazy animal hunger in his eyes.

“You…” He swallowed down the heart, and probably some of his own blood. “You talk too much.”

“I know! I don’t normally, but I do when I’m panicking.” She looked back at the sword, and then around Vin’s body to the other dead vrat and the dead brute. The vrat, she might be able to cut and break open. The brute, though, not a chance. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’ll… live.” He managed a nod, but regretted it, groaning and hissing as he tightened his grip on his neck and shoulder.

“Don’t go anywhere. Just, lie there and wait until you heal enough to move. You need more food?”

“Not yet.”

“Good.” She got out of the mess of bones everywhere, and back onto the rocky path between them to the tunnel exit. She took a peek. “I don’t see anyone.” Of course, if anyone had been nearby, they’d have attacked already. “Is it safe to assume any demons we run into are automatically going to try to kill us every time?”

“No. Only sometimes.”

“Well, I guess that’s better than all the time. Is it because they saw you were injured and hungry?”

“Yes.”

Sighing, she nodded as she came back and sat down beside his head.

“I guess that makes sense. Lots of animals get aggressive when they see wounded prey. Humans, too.”

“Talk too much. No noise.”

“Right, right. Fine.” With a quiet humph, she hugged her knees to her chest, and watched the giant beside her heal. It wouldn’t be quick. Hours, probably, before he could so much as lift himself up off the ground enough to find somewhere better to sit. Days, before he was well enough for them to get on the journey again.

She peeked down at him and the two giant hands he held to his neck and shoulder. Those demons had done a number on him. He’d managed to save her life, twice in a single fight, and kill five demons, all while being half starved.

He’d saved her life.

Groaning — quietly — she got up and slipped off her silk wrap. It’d been white, once. With the amount of times it’d gotten soaked in red, it was pretty much permanently pink, or freshly crimson when it got a new coat of paint like right now. But infections and stuff weren’t a thing in Hell. No need to wash the silk.

“What’re you doing?” Vin asked.

Naked, she squirmed a bit as she got on her knees beside the giant’s head, only inches from him.

“I’m going to wrap your neck up.”

“I’m f—”

“So help me god, if you say ‘I’m fine’ I’m going to grab that sword and stab you.” She swatted the hand he held to his neck. Each of his fingers were almost as thick as her wrist, and they were all drenched in red. “Move.”

He rumbled and glared at her, some anger coming to the surface.

She returned the glare. “Don’t make me use the leash.”

Somehow, for some weird, probably twisted reason, that made him laugh. Which was a bad thing, because he groaned and growled in pain immediately after.

“It’d kill me,” he said.

“Well then, you really are in a shitty situation. So let me help!”

Some more glares. She stood her ground and literally got up so she could glare at him from on high. Being naked again was annoying, but it wasn’t like the silk wrap was going to last much longer on a trip across Hell.

There were other reasons to stay clothed around Vinicius, though.

The colossus relented, rumbling his chest as he let go of his neck. The arm collapsed onto the ground beside the other, sending some nearby bones away with the impact. He was drained and exhausted.

“Holy shit, they got you deep.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

“No doubt.” No reason to poke his ego right now. And right now, she didn’t even want to.

She reached around him, slid the silk over the front of the neck, and under it, too. Considering his neck was wider than her shoulder width, it wasn’t easy, but the silk wrap was very long, long enough she could get it under his upper armpit opposite the wound. She had to get up and walk around him to do it, dodging and stepping over his horns, but she managed to tie the wrap around the neck and armpit enough so it covered the wound.

“Put pressure on it,” she said.

Vinicius rumbled, but listened, and put his hand back where it was.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t really get the softer stuff in the middle,” she said, standing beside his head and gesturing down at his throat. “A wrap around the wound might just choke you.”

“I would heal.”

“Uh huh.” Sighing, she put her hands on her hips as she looked him up and down. His giant chest rose and fell with each deep breath, and no more blood came gargling out of Vin’s short dragon snout. He was right. He would live. But at least with a bandage against the wound he’d bleed less, especially when he eventually got moving. And she needed him and moving asap.

And she didn’t like watching him bleed.

“Comfortable?” she asked as she squatted down beside him. Squat quickly turned into sit when she remembered she was naked.

He managed a cluck of the back of his tongue in his throat. All demon clucks and clicks sounded like nothing more than bird talk to her, or dolphin, albeit much deeper, especially when coming from someone like Vinicius. Maybe she’d learn how to speak Hellian some day? Or maybe you needed demon ears or a demon brain to understand it.

Ask him why he saved her? She wanted to ask him. Maybe he’d tell her. It could have been simple as thinking he had a better chance of survival with her around, or maybe the leash had some rule she didn’t know about that he did, like if she died, he died.

Or maybe he actually just wanted to save her life? No, it couldn’t have been that. He’d made it pretty damn clear he was a fucking asshole, only interested in all the nasty demon stuff that Kas hated about demons.

Strange that the big, quiet demon in front of her who just wanted to be left to his own devices acted so much like Kas, until the blood came out. Scary. It made her miss Kas, and Adron.

“Vinicius,” she whispered, “you… you could have let me die, you know.” God fucking damn it, Mia.

Vinicius turned his head a sliver to look at her with both eyes. His love for violence wasn’t the only difference between him and Kas. The eyes. Vinicius had intense dragon eyes, red like other demons, with black pupils, red irises, and black sclera. Even when he was just being quiet and doing his usual, silent, stoic crap, his eyes sent tingles down her spine, the good and bad kind.

During the battle, they’d opened wide, and something different had come out. Something that’d absolutely loved what’d been happening.

She looked away. “Well?”

After a quiet, slow rumble, Vinicius looked back straight up, and rested his head and horns on the rocks again. He opened his mouth, ready to say something. But of course, he didn’t. He closed his mouth and eventually closed his eyes.

Dead? She looked at his giant chest. Still moving, still breathing.

He needed to heal a little before he could move. If he could get up tomorrow, before the demon bodies and their flesh melted away, he could get the two remaining hearts. In the meantime, if more demons came, the two of them were absolutely fucked.

God, she hoped David was having a better time than her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~Day 32~~

~~David~~

Caera purred. David laughed and rubbed her belly some more, digging his nails into her skin. Naturally, she bat at his hands with her claws while simultaneously bending down so she could playfully bite at his fingers. Huge, muscular, and sexy curvy, Caera’s slightly cat-ish body shape matched her reaction to scratches surprisingly well. Cat-ish dinosaur-ish, if you looked at the tail and spikes and stuff. Regardless, scratching her belly got him some cat-like reactions, and scratching her back between her spikes got him some dog-like reactions, too.

She was naked, and lying on her side while he was on his knees behind her. The scratching and massaging had started with her back, and had slowly drifted more toward her front as time had gone on. Whether it was because of his persistent aura, or his expert massaging and scratching skills, Caera’s skin grew redder and softer by the minute.

But they would not have sex. Nope nope. Dao had told him — Jes translated — he was free to have sex with Caera if Dao wasn’t there; he was her pet, not her lover like Jes was. To Dao, David was a cherished, weird human-not-human pet to keep satisfied. And he had to admit, he kinda liked that. She’d also suggested he was free to have sex with Acelina, but it didn’t seem like there was any chance of that happening, given the woman’s attitude.

Even with permission to have sex with Caera, they weren’t going to, because the cave they were hiding in was a new area. Not safe to get super distracted while Jes, Dao, and Acelina were out hunting.

But, god, her breasts were so big and beautiful, and her stomach was so flat and firm and perfect.

“I hope Acelina doesn’t kill them,” she said.

“I hope Jes doesn’t kill her. She really could be useful.”

Something about the way her breasts softened, too, and flattened against her chest with gravity, was so hypnotizing, he couldn’t help but dial up the aura a bit as he failed to bite down a groan. Caera laughed and rolled onto her back. Her spikes bent enough for the position, and she licked her slightly protruding snout as she up grinned at him.

An eight-foot-tall giant of a woman with a slim, muscular, hourglass figure with huge breasts was grinning up at him, fully expecting, hoping, he’d do something sexual to her. Yeap, Hell might have been an absolutely horrible place, but for some damn reason, it was treating him pretty well, relatively speaking.

He hoped Mia was having as good a time as he was.

His hand drifted up Caera’s hard, flat stomach, up onto one of her breasts, and he shivered as he gently squeezed the huge mound so it filled his palm and conformed to his fingers.

“You think… Jes will kill Acelina?” he asked. Squeeze. Squeeze.

Caera smiled, showed off some of her very big fangs, and continued rolling over until she faced him. One breast squashed his hand against the other, loosely trapping it between them, and he again groaned.

“She might. They haven’t stopped arguing for a moment.”

“I was hoping that was, maybe, I dunno, just them being attracted to each other?” He tilted his head to the side, and slid his fingers around and around her breasts, particularly taking time to let the lower one rest its weight on his palm. So heavy, and perfect and amazing and getting softer by the moment.

He wasn’t naked. His skirt was on, and probably the only reason he wasn’t already erect. Being naked put his sex drive on a hair trigger, apparently.

“Hey, don’t get any ideas,” she said, slipped her giant tail over her leg, and poked him with it. “No sex. We’re defenseless.”

“Right. No sex.”

She nodded, but her smile was relentless.

“And yes, Acelina and Jes are attracted to each other. Demons are attracted to demons, and angels.” She shrugged. “Not as much as to humans, though.”

“Not as much? Uh, no humans walking around as tall as you, with a stomach like this”—he pressed his free hand against her hard, flat, naked stomach and its subtle abs—“and… breasts, like these.” He gently bounced the higher of the now very soft, heavy pillows in his palm.

“Not every human guy wants to fuck an eight-foot-tall tregeera, David.”

“Um, yes they do.”

She laughed. “And yes, demons — and angels, probably — always want to fuck humans the most.”

“But why? We’re all kinda just… boring?”

“To you, maybe. To us, it’s different.” She shrugged, and with her tail still hooking over her hip, she brushed his leg with its back spikes. “Maybe it’s because of resonance. I don’t know.”

“Being sexually attracted to your meals is a very weird, kinda twisted quirk.”

“It is. Hell is a weird, twisted place.” Nodding, she reached out and ran a claw down his chest. “Better get that aura under control.”

“You’re not helping.”

“I’m innocent. I just wanted some scratches and massages.”

He squirmed under her claw as she gently poked his sternum.

“Jeskura and Acelina, you think they might actually kill each other?”

“It’s possible.”

That’d really suck. His relationship with Jes had grown quite a bit since they’d been stuck in the tunnel for a day. They even kinda got along now. Sorta. No such luck with Acelina, though.

“I hope they don’t.”

“Why? You care about Acelina that much? She’s a giant asshole, David.”

“I know, and I get that. I just… I dunno. So many people down here, in Hell I mean, are so ready to just kill each other on sight. I like the fact she talks.”

Chuckling again with that quiet, ‘I know something you don’t’ sorta sound, Caera reached out, and gently pushed him onto his back. She rolled toward him again, and pressed her breasts down against his chest, burying him in her much, much bigger weight as she kissed him.

“You sure it’s not just her tits?” she asked.

“Mmmb?” No good, couldn’t say a thing with her lips on his.

“Don’t give me that. Every time you look at her, I can tell you want nothing more than to feel those things around that big dick, soaking you with milk while you drench her in cum. That aura doesn’t lie.”

Okay, yeap, that was very true.

“I admit, I was pretty damn surprised by the whole lactation thing.”

“And turned on by it.”

“I… was.”

She grinned some more, and instead of kissing him, rested on him. Literally. She let her head rest in the nook of his shoulder and neck, and didn’t move, content to make him work hard for every breath, considering how much she weighed.

“Spire mothers let the best hatchlings who survive the pits and become adults taste of them. It’s pretty delicious.”

He raised an eyebrow. There were a million oddities with how Hell did the whole food chain thing, but this didn’t fit.

“Any, uh, other demons do strange things like that?”

“Not lactate, no.”

“And… uh… do you get any sustenance from the milk?”

She lifted her head enough to grin down at him again.

“Yes. Spire mothers are unique like that.”

“A lot?”

“No, just a little bit of resonance.” She leaned in again and licked his neck, long and slow, like a grooming cat. “And no, you can’t get resonance from a demon’s cum. Or your cum.”

He laughed. Damn.

“They seem pretty unique, then,” he said.

“I found some records suggesting maybe spire mothers and children of the spires like Vinicius were supposed to rule spires together. Or maybe, it’s just some shitty reflection of the surface.”

“A reflection… You really think some pieces of Hell are just reflections of the surface?”

“The records I found hinted at it. Some think the volarin and volaras”—incubi and succubi—“started being born in the spires only when humans started the whole civilization thing.”

“Oh. You think the spires adapt based on what’s happening on the surface?”

“I do.”

Interesting hypothesis. Supposedly, Heaven and Hell had been around for a very long time, and if they evolved as reflections of the surface, that fit better with the whole scientific theory of evolution. Kinda. Assuming time passed the same in Hell as it did on the surface.

No wonder Caera was so into uncovering Hell’s secrets. Shit was confusing, and everything he learned just made him want to learn more, an itch in his brain he couldn’t scratch.

“So Acelina is super valuable,” he said. “Not for the milk, I mean, but because of how important they are to spires.”

“Yes.”

“You think if we drop her off at the Grave Valley spire, Azailia will help us on our… quest?” He almost choked on the word.

“Maybe, but probably not.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s a demon. She’s going to see you, an unmarked, and immediately think of ways she can use you to her benefit. She might try to take over Death’s Grip, now that Zel’s dead, and she might think you can help with that. Or she might just eat you, thinking it’ll give her your powers.”

He groaned and knocked his head back against the ground a couple times. There was always that possibility. Any time a demon saw David, there was a good chance they might try and eat him, and that chance only increased when they realized he could craft auras that couldn’t be resisted. Reading the ancient language was just the cherry on top for a power-hungry demon.

Of course, eating him might give them nothing, just a meal, or worse. Maybe he was poisonous? That’d be kinda cool.

“Admit it,” Caera said, and she pressed her chest down on his harder, enough to half knock the wind out of him.

“Admit w-what?”

“That you want to fuck Acelina’s tits.” She pressed down harder, earning some gargled choking sounds from him.

“I admit! I admit!”

Laughing, she relented and pushed herself up onto her hands, both on either side of his shoulders, so she could grin down at him.

“You break easily.”

“I am a weak little man who needs protecting.”

The sound of her laughter filled him with a warmth he wasn’t used to. Making his sister laugh was one thing. Making a woman laugh, one he’d had sex with? There was something pleasing about that he couldn’t put his finger on. But he liked it, a lot. He wanted to do that more.

“You’re not weak, after what you did for your sister.”

“Thanks.”

“And you agreed to help me. Definitely not weak.”

He shrugged. “I could still crack? Dressing up as a Cainite and just walking into their lair? Yeap, that could easily prove too much, I crack, and run away screaming and crying.”

More chuckles. “Somehow, I don’t think you’ll do that.” She lowered herself back down, but more into his side, and squished her huge breasts into him as she snuggled between his arm and chest, and slipped her claws under his skirt.

“Uh…”

“Your aura is driving me insane. Gonna rub one out for you and calm you down. I’ll keep my eyes open.” She nodded toward the cave exit in the distance she faced. He hadn’t even noticed she’d lay specifically in an orientation so she could easily watch it.

“You’re the one that keeps talking about giant tits.”

She leaned up and in enough to kiss his jaw, and brought her lips to his ear.

“I bet I could convince Acelina to let you fuck them.”

He shivered as her long fingers wrapped around his increasingly hard length.

“Yeah?”

“Not like you’d need me to, though, with that aura of yours.”

“I’d… prefer to not use my aura like that.”

She leaned in over him and kissed him again.

“I get that, but with a bitch like Acelina, you’d be doing her a favor. She wants to fuck you. She’s just too proud to admit it. Use the aura and give her an excuse.”

“That sounds pretty twisted, Jes.”

Caera lifted her head up enough to not-so-gently headbutt him in the forehead. Ow.

“The fuck did you just call me?”

“Uh, I mean, that does kinda sound like something Jes would do, you know? Just, bully her way to what she wants. She—” He sucked in a breath as Caera squeezed his cock, hard. She lifted it, set it along his abs, and nudged her side against it as she stroked its base with a softer grip, thank god.

“I get that you’re a nice guy, David. Dao loves it. Jes loves it. I love it. It’s not something we ever see except in scrying pools. But…” She stroked him faster, and kissed his neck again as she made sure to rub the head of his cock against her breasts where they squashed against his chest. “Demons respond well to being bullied. Really well.”

If that was true, why was she bullying him? She definitely seemed to enjoy doing that. And for some reason, he seemed to enjoy receiving it.

“Mia says that about surface girls, too.” And, apparently, some guys.

“Mia’s right.” She gave his cock another hard squeeze, enough to make him wince for a moment, before she opened her mouth wide and encased the entirety of his throat between her teeth. But she didn’t bite down. She gave him a lick, a chuckle, and snuggled back into his side again as she stroked his length. And with her planting her breasts into his side, one of her breasts rested on his sternum, and with how long his cock was, she had no trouble keeping his glans buried underneath its heavy softness.

He melted into the heat of her body, and let the fingers inside his chest pluck the strings. Silent sound, still vibration, something flowed out of him into the world around him, and painted the world in the unheard music. Sexual comfort. Cuddling. Cozy, safe, relaxed. The image of a woman, someone he cared for, snuggled into his side as she happily relaxed him with a slow handjob.

Intimate.

The I word. It stuck out like a blazing star in his mind. Intimacy. The only person he’d ever been intimate with in his life, ever, was his sister, and there wasn’t anything sexual there. But for some reason, here in Hell, he was getting a lot of intimacy in a way he could never have predicted.

He liked in. Something inside him, something he’d long put away in a box, liked it.

Caera leaned back over him, and kissed him, as cum flowed up his length. It poured out of him, and with her breast sitting on and squashing his cock’s tip, the thick white fluid soaked his chest, his abs, and Caera’s as well.

She smiled down at him, nudged her forehead into his, snuggled back into the groove of his chest and shoulder, and helped him cum again. And again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Uh, what the fuck?” Jes said, standing at the entrance of the cave and gesturing to David and Caera. Dao and Acelina stood beside her, and Dao had a big, happy, warm smile on her face.

“I was keeping guard the whole time,” Caera said, nodding as she slowly stood up. His cock slid free of her insides, sending tingling sparks down its length, and the huge woman let out an almost animal groan as a flood of white poured out of her and landed on his pelvis.

Dao clicked and chirped a few times, giggling.

“I tried!” Caera said. “The boy just… keeps cumming.”

“We know that already,” Jes said, rolling her eyes as she hooked her wings around her shoulders. “Come on, admit it. You just wanted to fuck him while the rest of us were gone.”

“That wasn’t—”

“Yeah, sure. How many times did he cum?”

David raised a finger. “Um, did—”

Jes shot him a glare. Not a super angry glare, but a ‘shut up’ glare, nonetheless.

Caera casually lowered herself down to all fours. Whether that was because she just preferred walking that way, or because her legs were still quivering, she’d never say.

“A few.”

“A few dozen, more like.” Jes gestured around at the mess. “Bet you came a lot, too.”

Caera sat cat-like, upright, with her arms straight down in front of her, and grinned.

“More than that night he spent all that time focusing on you.”

“That was a reward for risking my neck!” Jes said. Before Caera could throw some words at her again, Jes gestured to Acelina. “If I’d known Acelina here would just fuck up the hunt, I would have stuck around for some fucking too, you know.”

“No luck?” Caera asked.

Dao clicked once, leaned down and gave David a kiss, walked to the entrance of the cave, and took a squatting, resting position. Guard duty. She and Jes still had their armor on. Acelina had no armor, but she had left her necklaces and belly chains and bracelets and ankle chains and other loose chain piercings behind.

“Quiet, riiva,” Acelina said, hissing. “I have to learn in days what you creatures spent months learning in the hatching pits, and years out in the mountains.”

“Hey you shut up,” Jes said. “Dao’s right. You can’t clip clop everywhere like a stupid surface bitch in high heels. Dao’s got hooves and you don’t hear her.”

“I weigh thrice what she weighs.”

“Don’t care. You need to learn to sneak.”

Acelina flared her wings. Much as her wings were thin and spindly, they were still massive. And much as Acelina didn’t have the muscle tone of Caera, she was still a foot taller than her, nine feet tall and scary as fuck. She marched forward and glared down at Jes with her eyeless, featureless face, her bared, white, sharp teeth in her wide, scary mouth the only thing visible against her entirely black face. Even her four giant horns gave her a queenly, intimidating look.

And of course Jeskura the gargoyle didn’t give a shit about any of that. She flared her wings, too, and her long tail snapped behind her as she ground her talons against the stone and glared up at the much, much bigger demon.

“I see no need for these hunts,” Acelina said, claws at her sides.

“Oh do explain, bitch.”

“You, your wanted riiva lover, and Caera, can hunt.” Well, at least Acelina seemed to respect Caera. Jes and Dao, not so much.

“And what, leave you here with David? You’d—”

“I would what? Eat him, only for you to return and see what I did? Or perhaps I eat him and flee, and find myself in yet a worse situation, likely to be exploited, or eaten.” She put her hands on her wide hips. “Say what you will of me, Jeskura. I am no fool.”

“No fool? What happens if we get split up? What happens if some Cainites jump us, and the only person who isn’t injured is you, and you have to get us food?”

Both ladies turned, looked at Caera, and waited.

Caera sighed, prowled over to David, and lay beside him.

“Acelina, just try, okay? It’s unlikely we’ll ever really need you to hunt, but shit happens.”

Acelina growled, but folded her wings over her shoulders like a cloak, and sat against the cave wall opposite of everyone. It was a small cave, so it didn’t put much space between them. Even the way she sat was queenly and feminine, both legs to the same side underneath her, and her half leaning toward one hip.

Jes rolled her eyes and marched over to David and Caera.

“Dao gives you permission to fuck Caera when we’re not around and you take one whole day to use it?”

“I uh… um…”

Daoka, still squatting by the cave entrance, chuckled with some chirps and tossed a pebble Jes’s way. The gargoyle knocked it aside with a wing, but groaned, sighed, and sat down beside David on his other side.

“My fault,” Caera said. “Had to scratch the itch.”

“Then it’s David’s fault ‘cause that itch is caused by his aura!”

“Not just his aura,” Caera said, licking her fangs as she smiled down at David. “He’s very cute.”

He gulped. “I’m getting better at controlling it. It’s just…” Tell them? He hadn’t told them yet, about the weird symbols running through his mind, for no other reason than he couldn’t make sense of them. But the longer he stared at them, the more they came into focus.

“Yes?” Caera asked.

“I’ve been distracted. Half the time, I’m trying to figure out how to work the aura. Best I can figure is it’s like playing an instrument, right? An instrument I can’t stop playing, like it’s a hurdy-gurdy someone else is cranking. All I can do is press keys.”

All four ladies looked between each other, and the two with eyebrows raised them quizzically.

“It’s an instrument,” he said. “Never mind.”

The gargoyle poked him with her closer wing’s thumb claw.

“That why you’ve been staring off into space so much?”

“No… No, it hasn’t been.”

“It’s not?”

“There’s… something else.”

“Something else?” Jes asked.

“Yeah. It… It started when I touched Mia.”

“Touched her?”

“During the rescue, we hugged, before we fell out of the spire. And… something went through us. Or more like, from her, into me? Like electricity, I guess.” They may not have known a hurdy-gurdy, but they knew electricity. Thank god for scrying pools. “And I’ve been seeing symbols and runes ever since, in my head.”

“Symbols?” Caera said. “Runes? Like the ancient language?”

“No. Something new, and weird, and… and I can’t understand them.”

“And you waited until now to tell us?”

“Sorry. I wanted to wait until I had some clue what was happening, and that I wasn’t just going crazy.”

“Okay,” Jes said, “the crazy argument makes sense, I guess. But still, fucking tell us when shit happens, you dumbass. I want to get clear if you go nuclear.”

The satyr clicked a few harsh sounds, earning a wince from her gargoyle lover.

“I will,” David said. “I mean, I could have waited weeks, right? Just needed a few days to make sure it was happening and I wasn’t just seeing things.” He held up a hand in front of him, and slowly squeezed and released a fist. “She touched me, and put these symbols in my head.”

Caera sat up. “Can you draw them?”

“Nope. I’d only draw what I’m seeing, and there’s more to these runes than the visual part. That’s why I’m so damned stumped. It’d be like trying to draw a tesseract on a flat surface.” The ladies all looked at each other again, and David laughed. “I mean, there’s something to these runes, something I can’t wrap my head around. But, they’re real. I know that because… because after I had that dream, or vision or whatever, where that girl died, the runes got brighter. Brighter, and a bit more defined.”

“Defined?” Acelina asked.

Everyone looked the huge demon’s way. It was the first time she’d shown any interest in the weird things happening to David.

“Y-Yeah,” David said, eyes on the spire mother. “Like, I can kinda see them better now? Kinda wrap my mind around them a bit more?” He shrugged. “No idea what that means, yet.”

“This gonna be a problem?” Caera asked. “I mean, with visiting the Cainites.”

“I don’t think so? It’s just a puzzle that keeps popping up in my head.” Whether he wanted it to or not. “I’ll ignore them until I know if there’s something I can do about them. Or with them.” He squeezed his hand in front of him again. “A few, I know the names for. Batlam, potram, and royam. But that’s all so far.”

Acelina ruffled her wings slightly, earning some glances from the rest of them, but she said nothing.

“Old stories I’ve found talk about runes,” Caera said. “Powerful things. Angels use them, supposedly, but there’s no details about them anywhere.”

“Then I guess I got a few things to figure out while we’re on the way to the Forgotten Place. On the way to…” He squinted down at the ground, and tapped his temple. “The… Frozen Heart.”

“Frozen Heart?” Jes asked.

“The… real name for the Forgotten Place, according to the runes in my head.” This one he could draw, and he scratched it into the ground with a stone.

Jes threw up a hand. “The real name? What the fuck? That—you know what? It can wait. We didn’t find anything on our hunting trip, so we should get going. Better hunting grounds out there than here.” Once she was up, the gargoyle stretched out her wings, and Dao hopped over, clicking and chirping. “Yeah, good idea. We should get higher and get some eyes on what’s going on below.”

David got back to his feet, put his clothes back on, and ignored all the wetness still coating him. It’d be gone in a few hours, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t annoying in the meantime. Hell needed paper towels.

“Is it safe to go higher?” he asked. “I thought we were hiding.”

Caera got up on her hind legs and got to work putting on her own armor.

“Death’s Grip is a mess right now. I’m not sure it’s any worse out there where demons can see us or not. Besides, not every demon is going to want to fight. Some will respect Zel’s dueling law. Most might even think twice about considering us an easy meal.”

Acelina chuckled as she scooped up her myriad of chains and slipped them back on, including a few around the waist, ankles, wrists, and even a few, short, dangling chains on from wing fingers. Thankfully, they didn’t jingle as she moved. Much.

“Not that that would stop a demon,” Jes said.

“It’ll stop some,” Caera said. “I’m more worried about hellbeasts. Better we get up high before we stumble onto a pack of goorts and get trampled to death.”

Dao clicked some more as she came up behind David and hugged him. Only to squeak when Jes whipped her ass with her tail.

“No time.”

Sighing, Dao gave David a quick kiss on the cheek, and followed Caera as the tiger took the lead. On all fours, her huge spiky tail swayed side to side, and David and Acelina fell behind it while Dao and Jes walked on her left and right.

Walking beside Acelina was problematic. She wasn’t aroused or anything, her skin dark red, nearly black in some places, so her breasts and ass weren’t exactly jiggling and rippling. Except, they were, particularly her breasts. They were simply too large for her firm skin to hold snug.

“David!” Jes yelled. “I can feel that aura. Fucking christ, god damn pile of bones. Didn’t Caera just fuck you?”

“Sorry, sorry.” He looked down.

Acelina chuckled. Better than the harsh growl she would have given him a few days ago.

Daoka clicked a few times and gestured back at him, eyeless gaze pointed over Caera and at Jes. Sighing, the gargoyle nodded and turned around.

“Alright, fine. Let’s get this over with.”

Before he could say anything, they pounced him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They went through the same thing as last time, mostly. Daoka took center stage and fucked him, Jes and Caera had fun with her while she did, and Acelina grumbled and groaned and masturbated, but refused to take part. At least she didn’t get angry. If anything, she seemed relieved. Probably because it meant David’s aura would finally calm down.

And it would, for a while. But just the knowledge that his body didn’t seem interested in a refractory period, or had any sort of limit on its sexual stamina or desire, was a kernel of knowledge in his mind that didn’t go away. It was like kindling, a giant pile of dry paper kindling, and each time he looked the girls’ way and noticed their bodies, his brain shot off sparks right on top of it.

Getting back topside, out of a ravine, and back up to where they could look out over Hell, put a stop to that quick.

“The fuck is that?” David asked, and he pointed back toward the spire. It was a tiny sliver in the distance now, but the glowing amber beam coming out of it shooting into the fire sky was not.

The group of them found some enormous boulders to stand between, and all of them stared at the giant beam. It almost looked like a SciFi scene, a pulsing laser punching a hole through the sky.

Caera, Dao, and Jes stood there, silent.

“A demon is undergoing the trial to become the new spire ruler,” Acelina said. “If Saldavin yet lives, I imagine it is he.” Sighing, she shook her head. “Curse the rider.”

David did his best to not flinch. He succeeded. Barely.

“Wait, you’ve seen this before?” Jes asked. “Fuck, you saw Zel being chosen? How old are you, Acelina?”

“Old.” In Hell, getting old was good, something to show off.

“How’s it work?” David asked.

“A demon must enter the depths of the spire, to the deepest bowels where Lucifer has left their temple. If the spire has no ruler at the time, something will be there, and the demon will be tested.” Before they could ask, she shrugged. “I did not witness the ritual itself, only the result, and Zelandariel did not share with me the details. But I do know the ritual is life threatening and difficult.”

“So only a powerful demon can do it?” Caera asked. “I guess that’s why the spire rulers are all tetrads.”

“Indeed.” With a small flourish of her tail, Acelina turned and gestured clockwise around Hell. “This way, then?”

“In a minute,” Jes said.

“I do not wish to see the spire any longer.”

“I do.”

Acelina spun around and flared her wings.

“Must you make every moment of this struggle difficult for me?”

Grinning up at her, Jes hooked her wings snug around her shoulders, and walked past her.

“Yeah. I must. Bitch.”

Caera looked David’s way, rolled her eyes, and prowled ahead of the group. They followed.

“It’ll be nearly two weeks before we reach the mountain where I found that tunnel,” Caera said. “Another few weeks at least to reach the Grave Valley spire. We really should try to get along, Jes.”

“I agreed to take her along. I didn’t agree to play nice. The fuck is this, some HR meeting?” The scrying pool references were unending, and David laughed. Which, of course, earned a grin from Jes, and a scowl from Acelina.

“Uh, maybe a different topic?” David asked. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Crazy,” Jes said.

He frowned at her, but despite his efforts, it turned into a smile as Jes grinned at him some more.

“The stranger who told us we need to get to the Forgotten Place, she refused to elaborate on anything. The angels we ran into before, they—”

“You met angels?” Acelina asked.

“Yes,” Caera said. “Lot of power in a small package. They kicked our asses, just two of them. It wasn’t even a fight.”

The woman angel had been Dao’s size, and the man had been around seven feet tall. They were, by human standards, big. Small wasn’t exactly a fair description.

“We just telling Acelina everything now?” Jes asked.

Sighing, Caera gestured around at the mountains ahead of them, and the winding, horrible paths they’d have to weave and navigate to get up to higher vantage points. A lot of mountains. Death’s Grip was nothing but harsh mountains, burning bushes, amber veins, the occasional stream of lava, bloodgrip vines, and tunnels. Every step was dangerous, with a thousand places someone could ambush them from, or they could trip and break every bone in their body as they fell and rolled a kilometer down a jagged hillside.

It wouldn’t get any better in the Grave Valley, probably.

“On this journey, if we’re taking her,” Caera said, “we have to trust her at least a little.”

“Why?” Jes asked. “I vote we tell her to hang back while we talk about important stuff.”

Dao clicked a few times and gestured back at Acelina and David.

Jes shook her head. “She’s a stumbling bimbo idiot. I doubt she could eavesdrop without us knowing.”

Even Caera knew that wasn’t true, and she shook her head, too.

“What I’m saying is, if we’re convinced we should take her with us, we need to trust her. You haven’t done one of these journeys before, I have. Same reason we’re teaching… trying to teach her to hunt, right?”

“It isn’t the same.”

“It is.” Caera patted the ground with her tail. “Shit is going to happen, and we’re going to need to talk about it. I will not spend the next five weeks worried about every word I say, Jes.”

David gulped. Either Jes really, really didn’t trust Acelina, or she was worried about the secret Acelina didn’t know. The rider didn’t kill Zel, Mia did. If Acelina found out about that, it could be trouble. Had Jes even told Dao or Caera?

“It’s just five weeks,” Jes said. “Not like we’re taking her with us to the Forgotten Place.”

Daoka clicked some and gestured out ahead of them.

“It’s…” Sighing, Jes looked back at Acelina, and her shoulders slumped as she marched forward. “Fine.”

Uh oh, the F word. David slowed down a little until he was in the back of the group, Acelina between him and the volatile gargoyle.

“I… I was wondering,” he said. “The angels didn’t want to tell us what was going on. The woman in aera armor didn’t want to tell us, either. The rider wouldn’t talk to me at all, and just came at me. It’s weird, you know? No one’s talking.”

“You expect people to share their secrets?” Aceline asked.

“I mean, if they want me to actually do what they ask? Yeah? Pretty big ask to send me around, what, two-thirds of Hell to reach this place, for some mysterious thing I don’t understand? Its… almost like they don’t want me to know.”

The girls looked between each other, heads tilting slightly. Not being told stuff was par for the course, for them, because most demons just didn’t care to inform each other about anything. Actively not being told something because someone wanted to manipulate them apparently hadn’t crossed their minds.

Caera stopped, and the group followed suit.

“You think… we shouldn’t go?” she asked.

“I mean, until we find something to tell us otherwise, we probably should go? That woman did save me, after all. So I guess I owe her. And if she isn’t lying, it’d be a real shame if we didn’t go, and all died for it.”

Groaning, Jes hopped up onto a rock, and perched as she scanned the path ahead.

“Yeah. Saved my ass too, I guess.”

“Then we go,” Caera said. “Maybe we’ll find out more along the way.”

Along the way, across the Grave Valley, the Scar, the Red Pits, and the Navameere Fields, all to reach False Gate. Real name: Unholy Lands. Delightful.

“You think you are being manipulated?” Acelina asked him. And without missing a beat, she gestured for him to come walk beside her again, in the same way a master would demand their servant catch up.

The other girls didn’t notice, and honestly, David didn’t mind. Whatever social tactics would work to endear him to Acelina, he didn’t know, and Mia wasn’t around to ask. Playing nice seemed like a safe bet, though Caera had suggested bullying might work, too. But, alas, not like he could bully a demon nearly twice his height.

“I don’t know,” he said, stepping up beside her again. “But the stranger said if I run into any other unmarked, I need to avoid them or kill them. Something’s going on, and that lady in the armor specifically said she wouldn’t answer my questions.”

“Zelandariel was correct, as she usually was,” Acelina said, sighing as she shook her head. Even with her wings hooked on her shoulders so she wore them like a cloak, they still drooped. “Something is amiss. The angels dot the skies, and the imps and grems share strange talk. My love knew that with the appearance of your sister, pieces on the board would begin to move, and it was in our interest that she solve the mystery as soon as possible.”

That was a surprising amount of information from Acelina. She didn’t like talking about Zel, every word tinted with moroseness, but she’d just given them an olive branch, anyway. Even Jes looked back, one eyebrow raised, and David smiled and nodded to her. Look, see? She’s useful.

“The angels made it clear,” Caera said, “that we should avoid other angels, too.”

“Did they now?” Acelina said, aiming her eyeless gaze upward as they walked. “Interesting. Perhaps not all is well in Heaven? Perhaps there is… dissension?”

Jes laughed. “If we get lucky, maybe they’ll break out in a civil war? Let them have a taste of what every day down here is like.”

A civil war in Heaven? Was that even possible? Even after running into those two angels, David had still been running under the assumption Heaven was an orderly, perfect place. Then again, he’d kinda figured Hell would be like that too, before coming. Organized, orderly, and obtuse, unknowable, and biblically eldritch. None of that was true. Yet.

If Heaven was susceptible to things like dissension among its ranks…

He rubbed his arms and followed the girls across the mountains of Hell. Next stop, the temple where a Cainite ambush had killed Caera’s friends. After that, the Grave Valley province and its spire. After that, across several provinces to reach False Gate, or rather, the Unholy Lands. From there, hopefully they’d find a way to get to the Forgotten Place. The Frozen Heart, in the dead center of Hell.

An epic adventure, and one he very much did not want to do. He wanted to help Caera, but after that, he wanted to go back to what he was doing just an hour ago. Having ridiculous, amazing, life-changing sex with three absolutely amazing women. A lot of it. So much of it, his brain was still trying to process the insanity of it all and his new, amazing body.

Okay, yeah, sure, the body was completely perfect. In his wildest dreams, he wasn’t still less than five and a half feet tall, but all the other stuff? Yeah, the rest was pretty amazing. More than enough sexual stamina for three women? Fucking awesome. An aura that, with a little effort, could make every nearby woman weak in the knees? Yeap, if he was still alive and had this body, he’d have been corrupted instantly. He’d have built himself a harem of dozens of women in a matter of days, and have spent his life doing nothing but fucking and playing video games. Even his usually obsessive need to figure things out, solve the riddle, uncover the mystery, all of that would have fallen to the wayside so he could have simply indulged in his vices if he had this body.

Hero of the story? Definitely not.

But down here, he had a mission. Save the world. And just because he was no hero didn’t mean he was going to sit on his ass and let the world burn.

He set his eyes on Daoka, and watched her as she hopped ahead, leapt onto a boulder with her satyr legs, and looked ahead with her eyeless gaze. No way he’d let anything happen to her. No way.

As they got higher, David walked closer to Dao, and once she was close enough, he stepped in beside her until she noticed him. He didn’t have to say a word. She slowed down a bit until they walked side by side, and she chirped down at him before leaning in and planting a kiss on his cheek. A few more chirps followed, and she gestured back to Acelina.

“She wants to know,” Caera said, ahead of them a little ways, “why you aren’t looking at her the way you look at Acelina.”

Uh oh.

“W-What? I… I uh… um…”

Daoka chirped and giggled, shook her head, and again gestured back at Acelina.

“She’s just playing,” Caera said. “Acelina might be a bitch, but it’s hard to deny a zotiva’s body is quite something.”

“As is our hearing,” Acelina said with a snarl. “And I would never let any of you touch me.”

Daoka giggled some more, slipped an arm around David’s shoulders, and half hugged him as they walked. The only reason he wasn’t staring at the satyr’s huge breasts was the armor that covered them. Nodding and smiling, she clicked a few times, turned his head to look up at her, and kissed him. Not a long, deep, passionate kiss. She saved those for Jes. But there was no denying the strange way she doted on him.

Jes glided down from a boulder and fell in beside them on his other side. She leaned in too, and whispered in his ear, super quiet.

“Don’t let that tall bitch fool you. Demons want to fuck humans. It’s in our fucking… DNA, I dunno.”

“You don’t have DNA.” Probably true.

“You know what I mean. I, for one, want to see that pompous princess get pinned down and stuffed full of cock. Maybe jam that dick of yours right down her throat.”

David gulped, and looked back over his shoulder at the tall woman. With her lips closed, Acelina’s face was a purely black canvas, a flat surface of onyx that showed no features of any kind, save for the big black horns coming off the top of her head. When she bothered to open her mouth, it was straight-up scary how wide it was, and how full of shark teeth it was.

“I uh… I think she’d… you know… bite.” He shivered from head to toe, and not the good kind.

Jes laughed again, shrugging. Daoka chirped in his ear, as if he could understand, and she tapped a couple of her claws against his jugular as she softly rubbed a lip against his earlobe. No translation needed. She liked Jes’s idea.

Jes’s idea was going to get his dick bitten off.