The embers died down, and so did the blue lights, announcing twilight. The group spent an hour looking for an alcove they could sleep in, found none, and settled on the worst option imaginable: the center, on a big, flat dry spot where the black blood didn’t drip on them.
“At least it doesn’t last forever,” Mia said, gesturing at the black muck still on their skin. It was evaporating.
“All this time in Hell,” Julisa said, rolling her eyes as she sat on a boulder, “and you still worry over blood on your skin?”
“It’s black blood!”
“Irrelevant.” And like she’d just won an argument, she waved Mia off with two of her hands.
What a bitch. Mia flipped her off, but the demoness just looked at her, eyebrow raised. No point in arguing with her, so Mia went to Vinicius instead, stood by his feet and tapped his knee. He’d sat down, and she nudged the tip of his knee spike with a fingertip.
“How’s the hunger?”
Rumbling, Vinicius looked back at the four incubi sitting together. Mia knew that look. That was his hunger look. She punched his knee, but all that got from him was a small, rumbling chuckle. Considering his attitude lately, a condescending chuckle was a win.
“We’ll find something,” she said. “If there are caverns below the Black Valley, I’m sure some demons or souls have fallen down here in other places, too.”
Much as the big asshole tried to put on a stoic, impenetrable face, the four-armed dragon nodded, and he looked past Mia to the path they’d walk tomorrow. He was starving.
It hurt, seeing her bodyguard in pain when there was nothing she could do about it. But there was no point in sharing that empathy with him, explaining it, when all that would do was piss him off. But quiet acceptance from her that his pain was real, and they all recognized he was tough enough to bear it? Yeah, that’d feed into his ego, so she patted his knee, gave him a stern nod, and sat with the others a few feet away.
“I never thought I’d end up in this situation,” Adron said. He sat with the four incubi, Kas behind him and already taking first watch. “And I never realized you worked with the Damall, Faust.”
“What volarin isn’t good at keeping secrets?” Faust grinned at the larger demon and gestured to Mia. “I didn’t realize you were really working for Zel. Really, really working for her. I figured you were just one of Diogo’s.”
“Took a few years to convince Diogo to trust me.”
“You’re smart for a vratorin.”
Adron laughed and rubbed at the burn scars on the side of his face and shoulder.
“I suppose that’s a nice compliment to get from an incubus.” Adron leaned over a leg and eyed Faust. “No one trusts an incubus.”
“Not true. Mia trusts us.”
“Mia,” he said, gesturing to her with his tail, eyes still on Faust, “is a young woman from the surface. And unlike every other young woman from the surface to come to Hell, she’s way too nice, and naive.”
“Hey!” Mia backhanded the big demon across the shoulder. “That’s only partially true. And I never said I trusted any of you.” A finger jab at the four incubi was warranted, and she aimed it like a weapon. “You were spying on us!”
“We had to,” they said, in tandem. Quite the choir.
“Well, you’re all a bunch of sneaky boys, Adron included. Kas though”–she got up, stepped around Adron, and sat beside Kas–“is an honest man.”
Kas looked down at her, and she reached up and touched one of his forward-pointing horns. Of course, he didn’t know how to react to that, Mia being all nice and whatnot, but that was expected. Kas was just one of those stoic, grumpy, ‘doesn’t understand nice people’ sorta guys, and if he’d had a beard and tattoos to go with his scar and attitude, he would have fit into a romance story about a hardened warrior perfectly.
“I’ll give you that,” Adron said, rolled his eyes, and got to work checking his sword for damage.
“Go to sleep,” Kas said down at her. “I’ll take first watch.”
Mia nodded, patted her egg, and patted Kas’s arm, too. It was important he understand she was more than just happy he showed up and saved her life. She wanted him around. He wasn’t like other demons.
The thought almost made her laugh. Yeah, he wasn’t like other demons, but just like Vin, he was still a violent and deadly creature. The fact he’d showed up at the last second and saved her life from that angel was clearly making her feel butterflies in her chest, and she’d read enough psychology books — and shitty romance stories — to know those feelings were just from the situation. Him, and Adron, too.
Adron. She turned, sat against Kas’s arm, and watched the four incubi and vratorin work, the group of them checking their armor and weapons for issues. Burn marks covered half of Adron’s body, and while they’d healed in an almost pleasing way, kinda like flowing waves on the skin, they were still burn scars. A permanent reminder of that day, and all the things he’d lost. No longer Zel’s favorite vrat. Hannah dead. And now the new ruler of Death’s Grip would happily kill him if he found the opportunity.
But he smiled, kept all that shit underneath a layer of casual nonchalance, and looked Mia’s way. They looked at each other, and Mia felt her expression soften as she gazed into his single eye. His other eye refused to open. Would it even work if it could?
Adron was smart. After looking at each other for a while, he lowered his eye, and his smile faded. He knew what she was thinking. Poor Hannah. Poor Adron.
If it weren’t for everyone else around, she’d have gone to him and comforted him. Would he have even liked that? Vin would have hated it, but Adron wasn’t like that. Maybe she’d try later. She missed the old Adron, the guy who’d come up to her and flirt with her, toy with her, tease her, and she missed the blonde girl who’d join him.
Fuck. Thinking too much. That was David’s problem, and it was quickly becoming her problem. Groaning, she ran a hand down her face, wiped away her sadness as best she could, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~Day 53~~
She woke up. That was nice. She’d half expected to not, considering the circumstances, but wake she did, to the sound of strange growls. Her mental Hell clock, combined with the brightening flames, told her it was morning twilight, and that’d she’d managed a good eight hours of sleep. What a fortunate coincidence that whoever was attacking them had waited until then.
She jumped to her feet and spun around, eyes latching onto shadows skittering on the walls. There were shadows on the walls!
Momentary blue flames lit up the shadows, exposing the creatures and their lizard bodies. They scurried, claws gripping the wet stone, and came down the walls toward the group. They had flat-ish shapes, bellies touching the walls, and their long tails whipped left and right with their almost frantic steps.