They didn’t have any leather blankets with them. Sleeping on Caera’s had been uncomfortable, but thankfully that first night in Hell hadn’t been too bad. No trouble sleeping. She expected tonight to go the same. Maybe it had something to do with her afterlife body, as if it just knew to fall asleep at night if she closed her eyes and let it. The strangest possible blessing. Maybe tonight would go as well?
She lay on the rock ground, stared up at the dimming sky of fire, and closed her eyes. But before sleep could take her, stirring sounds drew her attention, and not subtle either. No one jumped up to fight off the sound though, so whatever it was, it wasn’t a threat.
But she looked anyway. She shouldn’t have.
Loria the gargoyle, on her hands and knees, wings snug to her back, lifted her tail, while the incubus came up behind her. They were maybe twenty feet away, Mia looking at their profile. Loria had a leather skirt thing on, with skulls and metal chains dangling from it, and the incubus moved it aside casually. Of course, the ridiculously handsome man wore a playful, charismatic, I-know-you-want-to-fuck-me grin, as he slipped a hand between the gargoyle’s thighs.
With a contented sigh, Loria lowered her chest down, got onto her elbows, and relaxed, ass up in the air while the incubus did things to her. Mia couldn’t see from where she was, but judging from his wrists and forearms, the man was caressing and teasing.
And the fact they were surrounded by demons, all lying down and closing their eyes to sleep, didn’t matter to them in the slightest.
“You’re supposed to be keeping watch,” the incubus said, and he nodded toward Adron. The vrat stood nearby, looking out over the cliff edge to the ravines and paths below. But he did glance back long enough to smile and shrug at the incubus, before going back to his duty.
“Adron’s got it,” Loria said. “Just get me off a couple times. There’s something… tingling, in the air. Fucking driving me nuts. I need some relief.”
The incubus chuckled. Damn he sounded good, every word, every noise, almost a song. He continued to tease and caress, one hand sliding up and down, the other working a specific spot in a circle. He was caressing her lips, while his other hand traced gentle lines around her clitoris, like Mia had done to herself a thousand times before. And a thousand times, she’d envisioned something like that incubus, or maybe Adron, or… other things, doing that to her.
She forced down a groan before, somehow, finding the will to close her eyes. If she watched that any longer, she’d wind up with her fingers between her legs, and who knew how that’d go with giant beasts like vrats and brutes around. They might notice. They might do things to her. And that’d be a horrible thing, if Adron or maybe Diogo and his brutes came over, held her down, and forced their huge lengths into her squirming, boiling, wet little body. Absolutely horrible.
Another moan slipped out of the gargoyle, a hungry one, and Mia covered her ears with her hands. What the fuck was this place doing to her?
She ignored the tingling, vibrating sensation inside her, something that flowed into her fingers and toes, and unless she was going insane, it… flowed past them, out of her, and out into the hard stones and warm air. Something she couldn’t see, only feel.
It was just her being horny. It had to be. Out of her mind horny.
So much for sleep coming easy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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~~David~~
The trip back was easier, now that he knew the path. Knew-ish. It was like when you come out of a restaurant bathroom and you’re trying to find your seat, but the restaurant looks different when you walk through it from a weird path. Same thing. He was thankful Jes and Dao led the way again, especially now that it was getting darker.
“Can we trust her?” he asked.
“Caera’s one of the oldest tregeera around,” Jes said with a shrug. “She used to spend a lot of her time digging up old ruins and shit. She used to be fun, too.”
“Yeah, but, can we trust her?”
“She’s working with Diogo only because it’s how she’ll get revenge. She’ll happily kill him if she sees a different way to get it. Which is Dao and me, if we kill Diogo. Not the first time we’ve talked about that, but–”
“I know, but, can we trust her?”
Jes sighed, flared her wings in a dramatic shrug, and flicked him with her tail without even bothering to look back at him.
“Probably, yeah. And don’t interrupt me, fresh meat.” She chuckled as she made sure to whip him with her tail yet a second, painful time. Her version of playing and teasing, evidently. “I do think there’s more to it, though. Caera’s been working on revenge for almost as long as I’ve been trying to kill Diogo, and Diogo can help her do that better than we can. I think this is about Mia.”
“Mia?”
“Maybe she likes Mia.”
“She said she protected her for one night…”
“Long enough for Dao to start thinking of you like a pet.”
Dao looked back at him, and clicked a few times, smiling.
“I… guess that’s true.” He squirmed a bit, but managed to keep his eyes on Dao. That was an evil little grin she wore.
“And maybe Caera thinks the unmarked are important? She said the girl felt weird, and that you do, too. There’s definitely something in the air.”
“But, if she does think that, does that really matter? Unless she thinks she can use me or Mia, like Diogo thinks Zel might use Mia…”
Jes groaned, shaking her head.
“You worry too much, fresh meat. Today’s today. Tonight’s tonight. Tomorrow’s tomorrow. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”
He opened his mouth, stopped himself, and sighed. Arguing with someone like Jeskura was pointless. He’d worked — been forced to work — with plenty of people like her in his life, group projects and whatnot, the sort of people who just refused to plan ahead, and were utterly convinced they could handle things on the fly. Might as well have been dragging her claws on a chalkboard in his brain.
Better to just do what she said. She was the reason he was alive, no reason to rock that boat.
“Sorry.”
“And you say sorry way too much.”
He laughed, quietly but he did.
“I guess.”
“We’ll meet up with Caera tomorrow, and chase after Diogo. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find a way to kill him before he gets to Zel. And if not, we can figure out what to do then.”
Nails. Chalkboard.