~~David~~
“I wish I got stronger when I ate a demon heart,” he said, tossing his breastplate aside. Clunk. “The Cainites do. Greg and me, not so much. They make me feel good, great even, but superhuman strength? Nope.” Grunting, he sat against the alcove wall, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “You girls make me look like a wimp.”
The Las giggled, grabbed his armor, took his knife — he’d found a new one — and set them aside.
“You’re as strong as most humans in Hell,” Caera said. “Special powers notwithstanding.” With a similar grunt, she lowered her chest to the ground, and Jes and Acelina helped Dao off the tiger’s back. Dao insisted on walking, but at least she accepted help, and her lover guided her to the wall directly opposite David.
Acelina sat on the opposite side of the alcove too, of course, Daoka beside her, but like a lot of the alcoves they found, they were just small chambers at the end of dead-end tunnels. Some were big, most were not, and this one was maybe twelve feet wide past the tunnel curve that led outside. David could have reached forward and touched Acelina’s hoof; probably get kicked for it, too.
Caera panted as she took off her pieces of armor. She wore a lot more than he did. A chunk for her stomach, another for her chest and large breasts, another for her thighs, and a few smaller pieces here and there. Again, the Las took them and put them in a pile, giggling the whole time. Apparently, they’d made a game of collecting people’s pieces of gear.
She lay beside him near the wall, breathing deep, and set her huge head on his lap as she put her back to the wall. Like a big cat or dog, she got cozy beside him, cheek on his thigh, and he smiled down at her as he slid his fingers into her hair.
“Doing okay, Dao?” David asked.
Dao chirped a couple times, smiling at him.
“She’s recovering well,” Jes said, helping her lover take off her armor. She sat with Dao on her left, Dao between the gargoyle and the spire mother. The soft creamy center between two hard cookies. Somehow, David found the wisdom to not say that metaphor out loud.
“Caera’s estimates are probably accurate,” Acelina said. “She knows battle well.”
Sighing, Caera’s big tail went still, and she closed her eye as she nuzzled her cheek on David’s leg. He braced for some words about how her battle knowledge wasn’t good enough to protect Dao, or to keep her eye, but she said nothing. No doubt she was thinking about it, though, and David combed her hair in response. She let out a long, gentle, rumbling purr, and closed her eye.
The demons were all tired. They’d been walking all day, and while that’d been a pain on David’s body, it was hell on theirs. All of them were breathing deep, Las included. Once they’d finished collecting everyone’s armor, set them into piles, and created piles with their own armor, they collapsed into the center of the alcove between everyone’s feet, exhausted. A dog pile, something they enjoyed doing frequently.
Twilight had only just begun, which meant they had fourteen hours until twilight ended, night began, and then morning twilight ended. It wasn’t safe to travel during twilight, even with a group, not while Dao was injured. On top of that, the demons needed the break.
Problem: the demons were still going stir crazy, despite a day of traveling. They’d met no one, no hellbeast, no other demons, no humans, not a soul. Awesome for David, but a life without hunting or sex was a poor life for a demon.
“Las,” David said. All four girls instantly perked up and got on their knees in front of him and Caera. He held up his hands in surrender. “I just wanted to know what you normally do when you’re not hunting.”
“When not hunting?” Lasca tugged on her horn, eyes down, thinking. “Um….”
“Scavenging?” Laara said. “Heard it called that. Scavenge. Eat remnants.”
“Not tasty,” Laria said.
“Or filling,” Latia said.
David laughed. “And when you’re not eating or doing something to get food?”
All four ladies shrugged as they looked at each other and then around.
“Fuck!”
“Sex!”
“Fucking and sexing.”
“But…” Lasca spun around slowly, looking at all the other demons before ending on David. “No impins or gremlins here. Not enough cocks for everyone.”
Jes laughed. “And when you’re not fucking impins and gremlins?”
“Sometimes fuck borjins.”
Laria sighed. “But Cainites killed borjins.”
All four little ladies whined and collapsed on each other — literally — into a big pile again.
Borjins, called minotaurs by the humans, were big lumbering demons as big as brutes, but slow, mentally and physically, and not all that good at fighting. Very good at lifting and moving heavy things, though.
“You fucked minotaurs?” David asked.
“It is a known arrangement,” Acelina said, and she gestured out to the little ladies in front of her with a sweep of her healed wing. “Borjins can do little to fend off pestering imps and grems, but sometimes they work together. Borjins will build them nests, and the pests will fetch them food.”
“And huge cock!” Latia said, and she jumped up to her hooves. “David’s is bigger. But, still, huge!”
They giggled and swarmed him again. Caera fought them off with mild swipes of her arms, but they dodged easily, and more giggles erupted as they threw themselves at the giant tiger, too. Lasca got between David’s legs, hugged him, and buried her face against his chest, while the other three fought to get under and around Caera’s limbs. She was a much bigger target, and it wasn’t long before the tiger lost the battle; not that she tried to resist them very hard.
Daoka giggled, hissed with pain, but smiled once the pain was gone, and gestured to the Las as she clicked.
“No,” Jes said. “You’re still hurt.”
Daoka groaned, and launched a quick barrage of clicks at Jes, dolphin style. But Jes shook her head, impervious to the satyr’s increasingly annoyed clicks.
“What’s going on?” David asked.