Dao chirped some more, her lips nudging against his skin.
Laoko raised a brow and looked Caera’s way. Caera smiled, clicked a couple times with her throat, and looked out between the tombstones again. Whatever she said, it earned some chuckles from Jes and Dao, and the two ladies half hugged him as they got comfortable. He sensed girl talk. Potentially deadly girl talk. So he lifted his head, eyed Caera, but she said nothing, and waved her tail at him. The fact he’d just been kissing Dao didn’t bother her. The fact Dao had just been kissing him didn’t bother Jeskura.
Demons were strange. They valued relationships, definitely, and he had a sneaking suspicion Laoko lost some tonight. But the physical part of relationships didn’t seem to matter as much. Or maybe it was just because he wasn’t a demon, and more of a pet?
Whatever the reason, the feel of their skin on his kept his mind from going back to that moment, with the rock in his hand, the murder weapon.
~~Mia~~
“You know,” Mia said, patting Kas’s back. “I’m starting to think who or whatever pulled us down here and trapped us didn’t have their plan ready. Where’s the ambush? Where’s the swarm of hellbeasts who’re gonna eat us?” She gestured behind them. “I mean, other than that one pack that wanted nothing to do with us.”
The incubi shrugged. Adron shrugged. Kas and Vin grunted. Julisa scoffed.
“You’re sure someone did it on purpose?” Locutus asked. “I get that it was probably someone doing the string thing you talked about, but that doesn’t mean it was on purpose.”
Adron shook his head. “It happened right underneath us. It’s hard to think it’s anything but someone trapping us.”
“Maybe. Maybe they sensed the unmarked and…” The incubus shrugged. “I’m just looking for an explanation.”
“Don’t,” Vin said. “Be silent and walk.”
The incubi cast some annoyed glares at the big guy, but his bad attitude got a chuckle from Julisa.
The chuckling stopped when Vin scooped up a remnant from the ground. The damned soul was half emerged, and pulling him out of the stone tore him in half. His guts spilled out, but Vin scarfed them down in a bloody mess of innards tumbling over his teeth and chest. That was, at best, a shred of resonance, and he’d have to eat a hundred just to put a dent in his hunger.
It wasn’t the first time Vin had eaten remnants. He’d been starving then, too, but the others hadn’t seen it, and for a proud boy like Vin, that was a problem.
“How the mighty have fallen,” Julisa said, grinning.
Uh oh. Poking the bear. Mia squeezed Kas’s back spikes a little harder.
Vin reached for her, and the tetrad didn’t dodge. If anything, she leaned into Vin’s grab, and smiled up at him as Vin drew her in close enough he got all four hands on her shoulders and sides.
Julisa’s grin remained. “Breathing that much Hellfire drained you, child of Belial.”
“Don’t be a bitch,” Mia said. “Vin saved our asses.”
“I remember a Vinicius that rampaged across entire provinces, slaughtering waves of demons and feasting without discrimination. This Vinicius is–”
Vin yanked her closer, leaned down, and set the tip of his short dragon snout against her nose.
“I should eat you to regain my strength.”
“You could. But you won’t.” She licked her lips, pressed her body into his, and kissed him.
And then she snuck a glance Mia’s way. What a bitch.
“Vin was locked up for at least a century,” Mia said. “Maybe two. Hundreds of years! He just needs to recover.” She regretted the words the moment she said them.
Vin let go of Julisa, glared at Mia with one eye, and marched ahead. The silent treatment.
Adron came up beside Kas, looked at Mia with a raised brow, and she shrugged back down at him. Whatever Vin wanted to do, Vin did, and trying to navigate his idiosyncrasies was only getting more difficult since Kas and Adron showed up. He was prickly, and Julisa knew it.
Then why the fuck was she poking him?
Because Vinicius didn’t want Mia’s sympathy, and he probably found Julisa’s brazen bullshit appealing, even if it did piss him off. No doubt the damn woman was fishing for some angry sex. But if they didn’t find something to eat, there wouldn’t be any of that, not from Vin, at least.
Worse, if they didn’t find something to eat, the guy might die. Christ, she hadn’t even thought of that. In Death’s Grip, Vin had been confident they’d find a way topside; it was just a thing in Death’s Grip, to explore tunnels and find one of thousands of holes that reached the surface. But they weren’t in Death’s Grip, and who the fuck knew where this tunnel would take them?
But there were hellbeasts down here. They had to be eating something.
There weren’t any forks. Death’s Grip tunnels were complex, full of alcoves and winding, forking paths, with bloodgrip vines and hiding souls around random corners. Down here in this weird cavern, it was just the one path. The roof was so damn high, and…
“Uh, what’s that?” She pointed up.
Everyone stopped, looked up, and tilted their heads. Something hung from the cavern ceiling, black, tall, and spiky. The black ooze of the swamp dripped down through cracks in the rock, falling around the group like light rain, and it hadn’t stopped since they’d gotten pulled under yesterday. But so far, the only things actually hanging from the ceiling they’d seen had just been stalactites, each drenched black and dripping wet. This looked more like a tree.
It was a tree, a dead one without leaves. And it had spherical objects hanging from its sharp branches.
“That,” Adron said, gesturing up, “is a forbidden tree. With forbidden fruit.”