~~Unknown~~

A girl. Running. Black swamps. Piles of maggots. The fire sky burned a dark color, or was that the air in the swamp, twisting the color? Blood everywhere, turned black in the gross mud. Guts, intestines, organs around her feet. Trenches, filled with bones and flesh.

Whoever this girl was, she was running. But running wasn’t good enough. She fell, and turned onto her back.

Someone with enormous white wings, and a blade so perfectly smooth it had a mirror sheen, stabbed her in the heart.

She died.

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

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

~~Day 26~~

~~Mia~~

Mia sat up. The switch in her head flipped back to on, and a glance at the amber veins told her it wasn’t quite the morning twilight hours yet. She’d spent a few hours of the night doing guard duty, ready to wake Vinicius if something attacked, then he’d spent a few hours doing the same. Back and forth twice meant she got enough sleep to function at least. And yeah, sitting around for a few hours while Vinicius slept was boring as fuck, but it gave her time to think about stuff and hopefully get over said stuff.

But the third time she woke up, ready to start a brand new day of fresh Hell, she clutched her heart where the angel in the dream had stabbed her.

No, not her. The angel had stabbed someone else. Mia had felt her die. A quick death, almost painless. Almost.

“Vinicius,” she said.

Vinicius opened his eyes, head still pointed at the alcove, but his one visible eye pointed directly at her. Eep. Just a little too similar to that scene in The Land Before Time where Cera ran into the unconscious Sharptooth.

Her guardian, at that point in her life, had insisted the old kid’s movie would be a good watch. Mia had been five, and still had the mental scars.

“We’re alive,” she said. “Nothing ate us. No Cainites found us.”

Vinicius nodded.

“And, um… I…” She hugged her knees to her chest and put her forehead on her arms. “I had a dream.”

Silence, for a few seconds. But when she lifted her head, Vinicius’s one visible eye remained pointed at her, and he clicked in his throat once.

“It was a dream. I had a dream. I think? I, or some girl that I was riding, like you kinda sometimes do in dreams, was running away from… from an angel. There was a black swamp, giant piles of maggots, and the air made everything look weird and dark.”

“The Black Valley.”

“That was the Black Valley?”

He nodded.

“Um, but I’ve never seen the Black Valley. I don’t even really know what it looks like.”

“Describe more.”

“More.” More, and something specific. “I saw… trenches. The girl ran on swampland, stumbling in this shallow dark water, but she also stumbled into trenches. And there were… guts… in the trenches. Guts, bones, everything.”

“The Black Valley.” Vinicius nodded and slowly brought his colossal body to its feet. The hole in his gut was healed over, but the skin looked red and soft. Hopefully, as long as no one stabbed him there, it’d darken as it healed.

Much as she was still mad at him, she needed him.

“I don’t understand. I had a dream? About a place I’ve never seen?”

“Doubtful.”

“Doubtful? What does that mean? That—oh. It wasn’t a dream.” She got up, adjusted her silk, took a deep breath, covered her faces with her hands, and panicked. “I’m having visions. Oh god I’m having visions! I am literally running out of fingers counting the strange things about me, Vinicius!”

Vinicius rumbled, said nothing, and began their trek once again.

“Asshole.”

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

She gave up on asking Vinicius about anything. He refused to talk about himself, his past, how he knew the rider or the other armored person, or what his life was like when he was young. She was half convinced he just didn’t remember, or cared about those details in the first place. At one point he’d even stopped rumbling or nodding or shaking his head, and straight up ignored her.

The temptation to use the leash on him grew every hour. She’d felt so bad about having him on a leash before, and forcing him to help her. Then he’d tried to hurt her, and a lot of that guilt vanished. Now, she was growing more and more tempted to hurt him just because he was a genuine asshole, on top of being a ruthless murderer and bloodthirsty killer.

But it only took another hour before she was happy to have him around.

Vinicius held up a hand. She froze, stopped breathing, and stared past his arm into the dark tunnel ahead. Winding tunnels were all they’d found, and sometimes there weren’t enough amber veins to light the path. On more than a few occasions, she’d had to feel her way around the rocks and stones, which slowed progress to a crawl. Bloodgrip vines were deadly if you didn’t give them the respect they deserved, and the threat of them forced her to tiptoe carefully through dark curves.

Apparently, some other people thought the dark tunnels were good hunting. The quiet grinding of talons announced their approach, and Mia took a step back. Shifting skin, claws on rock, breathing, sounds in the dead quiet as Vinicius held his breath. They, or it, were coming.

Something ahead moved in the darkness, and it came closer. Its body filled the passage. It was… fat. Very fat. But without light, she couldn’t see any details.

Vinicius didn’t care, and he didn’t wait. He roared as he jumped the creature, with zero regard for his wounds or for not making noise. Not a silent takedown, but a display of sheer aggression and anger.

Whatever the thing in the tunnel was, it came forward toward them, and Mia squeaked as she jumped back. It wasn’t just fat, it was long. Very, very long, and it had a face like an alligator as big as Vinicius’s. It clicked in its long throat a few times, heavy clucks that sounded more like war drums, before it roared and shrieked.

It charged forward, body twisting and turning and filling the entire width of the tunnel. It crashed against Vinicius, and her bodyguard reared back as his weight proved miniscule compared to the size of the thing. But with time, the creature came to a stop, and Vinicius’s body, pushed back and into the light, left a trail of deep gashes in the stone from his talons.

Two of Vinicius’s arms held the titanic creature by the snout, and two pressed against its thick body and neck. It twisted, tried to bite him, but it had no arms to grab him. It was a graboid! From Tremors! Another old movie her previous guardian had insisted a five-year-old girl watch.

Vinicius got two hands between its jaws, fingers between its teeth, and pulled. His muscles flexed, blood trickled down his limbs, and his roar filled the tunnel as he pulled his two hands apart.

The creature managed another shriek before it twisted into a hiss of pain, and then a bloodcurdling scream of agony as something cracked, and the lower jaw broke away from the upper.

“Oh god!” Mia covered her ears and looked away. The sound died a second later, and she forced herself to look back at the chaos.

Vinicius stood there, panting, bleeding, in front of the corpse of a colossal monster. The child of Belial was a monster, too, but this was a genuine, bona fide horror monster, something that slithered through tunnels and was so thick it filled them.

“What… is that?” She did her best to not look at the creature’s face, and how Vinicius had done more than crack open its jaw. Blood poured from its shredded mouth and neck, and soaked the thirsty stones.

“A wurm,” he said.

“A hellbeast?”

“Yes.”

“But, it’s not twilight anymore. It’s day!”

“The quakes and damage likely stirred it to action.”

She threw up her hands. “So we have to worry about giant things like this!?”

Sighing, Vinicius pushed against the thick side of the creature. Fat and massive as the snake-like thing was, Vinicius half slid it, half rolled it across the stones enough to create room alongside its body.

“Can you—no, you can’t,” she said. “It doesn’t have any resonance to eat, does it?”

“No. It has some essence.”

“I’m not hungry.” Gulping, she followed Vinicius and looked away from the horrible mess he’d made of the giant monster’s face. He used his hands to keep its fat body from squishing him, and Mia occasionally had to do the same. It was warm, its dark skin leathery and thick, and a glance down showed it actually had feet, or at least talons, that stuck out from the sides of its belly. The only way it could get over bloodgrip and not rip its stomach open, probably.

“You should eat,” Vinicius said.

“Why do you care?”

He glanced over his shoulder with a snarl.

“You’re a liability if drained.”

“I ate a few days ago, and I haven’t been injured. Good enough for a human for months, right?”

“You’re not human.”

“Hey…” Fuck, it pissed her off hearing him say that. Pissed her off more, because he was probably right.

“And you use that aura frequently.”

“It…” It might have been draining her ‘reserves’ to use her aura. If that was true, she probably should eat.

She did not want to eat the heart of a giant hellbeast. If eating a demon heart hit her with their memories, the fuck sort of things would she see if she ate the heart of a hellbeast? Maybe nothing, since they didn’t store resonance, and maybe it was the resonance giving her the memories? Ugh, where was David to figure this stuff out for her.

On the other side of a canyon a couple kilometers wide and as long as Canada. Ugh.

“If that dream,” she said between grunts as she pushed against the beast’s body, “is actually a vision, then… is that something that’s going to happen?”

He snorted. “No one can see the future.”

“Really? I figured with all the craziness of the afterlife, which is all really magical in a sick, twisted sorta way, seeing the future would be possible.”

“No one can see the future. No one can change the past. No one.”

“No one can? That… makes sense.” She’d heard David go on this rant before. Violating the ‘chain of causality’ was a gimmick used by poor writers, according to him. She never really minded it when stories did dumb stuff like that, but it sent poor David right up the wall, almost as much as multiverse stuff did. And alternate universe stuff. And… a lot of stuff.

“No one.”

“You sound pretty sure.”

He snorted again, slipped past the tail end of the giant beast, kept walking, and said nothing. He was the opposite of Zel. Never wanted to talk, explain himself, listen to himself talk, anything. It’d been a great way for Mia to learn about Hell, Zel’s constant boasting and whatnot, but Vinicius didn’t give her an inch.

“Think my brother got the vision, too?”

He clucked once as he snorted.

“The woman wasn’t me,” she said, “and the angel that killed her, a man, they… they were ruthless.”

“Angels are ruthless.”

Finally, some information.

“You’ve met angels before?”

Another snort. So much for that.

Sighing, she slipped out from around the big fat tail of the wurm, and looked ahead. More tunnel. Ugh.

Vinicius did not want to talk. Much as she didn’t want to talk to him, she did want to talk about all the things that’d happened to her. Not Hannah or Adron or Kas. They’d had that conversation, and Vinicius was a cold, heartless asshole about it. But other things, like the vision, or her strange abilities, or Hell in general, she wanted to talk about those things.

But her traveling partner wasn’t interested in that, either. Far as he was concerned, she could be the literal key to saving the universe from who knew what, and all he wanted to do was get her to release him so he could go back to being a murdering, raping psychopath!

She wanted to talk about the electric jolt the vision had sent through her, the same jolt she’d felt when she’d touched David. And she couldn’t. Fuck.

She hoped David was having a better time than her.

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

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

~~David~~

He sat up, clutching his chest. Eyes wide, he looked around. Not a swamp. No bog of black water, trenches filled with bones and gore, or thick fog that warped the color of the fire sky. No giant mounds of maggots. No angel, stabbing him through the heart.

It hadn’t been him. It’d been someone else, a girl, and not Mia, either. No freckles on the arms.

“David? What’s wrong?” Jes asked. She squatted nearby, half facing the exit to their small alcove, half facing Acelina, who sat across from David. The taller demon sat up slowly, coming to wake with the ending of night.

“I… I… had a dream.”

Jes tilted her head to the side, stared at him for a few seconds, and came closer.

“You what?”

“I… had a dream. I was… a girl.”

“Uh, what? Mia?”

“No, someone else. I was running through a black swamp. There were maggots everywhere, the air was dark, trenches lined the ground like veins and were filled with intestines.”

“The Black Valley,” Acelina said, stretching her wings. “You dreamt of the Black Valley?”

“Did I? I don’t know. I thought people didn’t dream in the afterlife?”

“They don’t,” Jes said. “What else?”

“I was running, or the girl in the dream was. She fell, and… an angel stabbed her, straight through the heart.”

“Jesus christ,” Jes said, and she sat down next to him. “That’s fucked up. First and only dream in Hell and it’s a death omen?”

“I don’t know if it was a death omen or whatever. It was… random. I have no connection to this girl, and—”

“See her reflection anywhere?” Jes asked.

“No. I don’t know what she completely looks… looked like, but—oooh, you think she was an unmarked?”

“After what we learned, I have to guess yeah, sounds like she probably was.”

He sat back and covered his face with his hands.

“I felt her die. I felt…” He shivered and rubbed his arms. “Fucking god, that was messed up.”

“Sounds like you’re connected to the other unmarked. Sounds like… Sounds like something to talk to Caera about, when this bitch isn’t around.” She gestured to Acelina with a wing.

“Please,” Acelina said with a snooty laugh. “You have told me much, whether you meant to or not.”

“Yeap, we have. I should probably kill you so you don’t tell anyone.”

With a heavy scoff, Acelina got to her hooves.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I am trapped by circumstance. Who could I talk to?”

“Oh I dunno, Domicela?”

Acelina folded her arms under her breasts, and her wings over her shoulders, cape style.

“Perhaps, but Domicela is separated from the Death’s Grip spire, regardless. She has little means to take advantage of the situation, if she would even want to. And, I will owe you for helping me. Do you trust me so little?”

“Yes, I trust you so little.”

Acelina grinned. “Prudent.”

“Ugh, shut up.” Jes got up and helped David do the same. “No one dreams in Hell. If you saw something while you were sleeping, something that specific, yeah, I can only guess it was another unmarked.”

He hadn’t told Jes about the symbols in his head since touching Mia, or the way it’d felt electrically charged. It was just a mess in his mind that didn’t make sense yet. Soon, he’d say something, probably when talking with Caera, but for the moment he just wanted to think about shit.

He held out a hand in front of him and gently squeezed the air. He felt… different. Dying in that dream had been horrific, but it’d come with a jolt, too, like someone had shocked his spine. It felt all too similar to the sensation he’d first felt when touching Mia.

Something had changed.

Something inside him wanted to… pluck strings.

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

“Holy shit,” he whispered.

“Holy shit,” Jes whispered.

Acelina clicked once.

The valley was a mess of bodies. More demons had come since David had run through the battle, many in black armor, many naked, not a one in gold. Probably stripped and taken to the leaning spire. Imps and grems swarmed over the valley by the thousands, ripping and tearing at the corpses, along with larger demons looking for easy meals. Not even twenty-four hours later and the hundreds of dead looked thoroughly picked clean, rib cages ripped open.

No sign of the giant lizard hellbeast. Did it fall into the canyon? Not likely. He’d have noticed a Godzilla creature falling into the ravine, probably accompanied by a deafening roar, even with the rider trying to kill him. It must have escaped. Not that it would have been of much value to demons dead, considering hellbeasts didn’t store any resonance in their bodies. No point in eating them.

So many demons. Thousands. They flowed in and out of the spire, jumped and glided from its balconies, but none attempted to fly across the ravine. It had to be a mile wide, maybe more, and nothing heavier than an imp or grem was gliding across it. And that was just width. The length of the canyon, now that he was above it, was just as absurd. It didn’t stop. It just went on, and on, and on, until it blurred into the distance with the reds and blacks.

A crack. It was like Hell was a piece of glass, and someone had cracked it, creating a huge, thin vein that ran its length.

The spire was doing a little better, not tilting or leaning as much. It was healing. The base half was already regrowing its flesh walls, bones and muscle reforming along the black metal skeleton. At this rate, it’d probably take a month for the spire to fully heal, but that didn’t change that its base was still half exposed, the other half holding onto the cliff face of the ravine.

“I didn’t realize there were so many demons nearby,” he said, gesturing to the thousands of demons big and small that filled the valley. Many stood by the ravine on the spire’s side, looking down into the pit. Not as many stood on his side of the canyon, but the hundreds that did looked just as confused. Thankfully, they were all too distracted by their hunt for food, armor, weapons, and the confusion of the void below, to bother looking toward the mountains where David and the two ladies journeyed.

“The attack was swift,” Acelina said, and she crouched over the edge of the canyon where it split and weaved between the base of their mountain and other mountains. “If Zelandariel had had time, she could have perhaps summoned the horde. Thousands, tens of thousands of demons would have arrived within hours.”

“Exaggerating a bit, there,” Jes said, shrugging.

Snarling, Acelina shook her head and looked down over the edge of the canyon.

“Last Zelandariel told me, she believed Death’s Grip had at least a hundred thousand demons, not including the imps and grems. Her dueling rule worked well.”

Jes whistled. “Okay, yeah, that’s more than I figured.”

“I believe it,” David said, gesturing out to the demons down in the valley. “What happened to the demons in aera armor?”

“They got butchered,” Jes said. “Eventually, anyway. They took down a few hundred demons before they went down.”

“The rider sacrificed them?” David asked. “That’s… cruel.”

Acelina aimed her eyeless gaze David’s way, paused, said nothing, and looked back down into the emptiness below. The void remained, stirring and shifting, motionless and eternal. And just like last time, cold chills ran through David’s limbs. He couldn’t look at it too long.

“I suppose you have no clue what that is,” Acelina said.

Jes and David shook their heads. Much as David had shared some secrets with Acelina, telling her about the invisible thing that’d tried to kill him a week ago was a bit too far. Let Caera make that call.

“Of course not.” With a growl, Acelina flared her wings as she squatted down at the canyon edge. “Whatever it is, whatever has happened, I can only guess at the ramifications.” She rolled a rock into the canyon. By the time it reached the bottom, just a speck in the distance, it broke apart before reaching the void. Broke, and vanished. “What… is that?”

Jes and David shrugged, and got moving. They followed the path around the mountain, away from the canyon, and toward their little hideout.

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

Jes took a few sniffs, a few more, and motioned for David and Acelina to follow.

“Yo, girls!” she yelled, and stepped into the opening of the cave the four of them had been hiding in before. “Girls, I can smell you. You here?”

A few clicks echoed in the silence. Then some clops. Four black horns, two of them curling back like big ram horns, stepped around the deep inner curve of the tunnel and into view.

Daoka unleashed a flurry of high-pitched clicks as she bound forward, hopping all too much like a deer as she closed the distance. She leapt at Jeskura, and Jeskura caught her, a full hug straight on, followed by a spin, and some more hugging. And kissing.

Chuckling, Caera stepped around the tunnel curve into view, and prowled up to them on all-fours. But before she could say anything, Dao clicked, chirped, and jumped at David.

“Dao, don’t!” Jes said.

Too late. Dao crashed into David. David went down, and yelled. Almost screamed, but some dumb part of his brain insisted he yell instead. Screaming wasn’t manly, and with four women around, it was important he sound manly. Man brain was dumb brain.

Dao got back up, covered her cheeks with her hands, and clicked rapid fire as she looked him up and down, panicking.

“Broken ribs. Broken everything,” he said, and he forced himself up to sitting. Dao helped him back to his feet and rubbed her horns against his head and shaggy red hair as she gently pat his chest. “I’m okay, I’m okay. Healing.”

“You’re alive,” Caera said, walking past Dao and Jes and up to David. “We saw you—” With a hiss, she jumped around him, and put herself between them and the newcomer. “Acelina? The fuck are you doing here?”

“She fell out of the spire when it tilted over,” Jes said.

“We saw,” Caera said. “Didn’t realize it was Acelina.” And from the snarling and growling, Caera wasn’t happy it was her. “That doesn’t explain why she’s here with you two.”

Jes laughed. “David wanted me to spare her.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s David. He saw a demon willing to talk, who just happened to have tits bigger than her head, horns included, so of course he thought we should spare her.”

Acelina mirrored Caera’s growls as she folded her arms across her stomach. She couldn’t exactly fold them across her chest, due to the aforementioned boobs.

Dao clicked some more as she guided David to the back of their cave. With gentleness Acelina clearly hadn’t ever seen a demon use, judging from her royal scoff, Dao set David down, back to the wall, and she sat beside him and nuzzled into him. She threw some glances at Acelina, aiming her eyeless gaze at the fellow eyeless demon, but with Caera playing guard dog, Dao relaxed, clicked softly, and rubbed her horn and cheek on David’s head some more.

“I’m okay, really,” he said. “How much did you guys see of the battle?”

“Quite a bit,” Caera said, walking backward into the cave, body still aimed at Acelina. “We were trying to get closer to the spire while staying out of the battle, unlike you, fucking moron.”

“Sorry.”

The tiger laughed. “We went left. When the canyon ripped open and the spire got stuck on the right side, the three of us were pretty sad. Thought we’d never see you again.”

“Oh… then I’m… very sorry.”

“Yeah, well, the battle pretty much stopped. The giant hellbeast ran off, and the demons in aera armor all died. Everyone stopped and watched the canyon rip open; bunch of demons fell in, too. So we approached and watched. We saw you and Mia about to fall, and Dao begged Jes to do something.”

“She did,” Jes said, groaning and rubbing one of her shoulders as she sat down beside David on his other side.

Acelina grumbled and clicked once.

“What?” Jes said with a snap. “We told you that’s what happened.”

“I didn’t believe this one stupid boy could earn such devotion from three demons so quickly.”

Daoka clicked a few times, harsh sounds aimed at Acelina, before she leaned back into David and put a kiss on his cheek. And a hug, a gentler one.

“Dao loves her pet,” Jes said with a shrug.

“You don’t dive into a canyon over a void of… of something, risking death and perhaps worse, for a pet,” Acelina said.

“Humans do,” David said. “Sometimes.” Not that he enjoyed being compared to a pet, but, maybe he did? A little part of him maybe did, at least. It was nice, knowing he had people who’d put themselves in harm’s way to save him because they thought of him like that, and wanted to take care of him. And fuck him. That was pretty awesome, too.

“Whatever,” Jes said. “What’d you guys see after I jumped in?”

Caera sat down between David and Acelina, half facing him, half facing her. Protective mode.

“We saw you catch Mia and David. We saw the rider fall in, grow a pair of wings of fire, and catch the canyon wall on our side. Then this other person who looked just like the rider jumped into the ravine after you, and did the same thing. We saw whoever that new person was save you guys from going down, and then we had to get out of there. Other demons were crowding around and recognizing Daoka.” Caera looked around. “That reminds me. Where is your sister?”

“The woman who saved us took her across the canyon,” David said. “She yanked Mia practically out of my arms and landed in a tunnel on the other side. Apparently Zel had a leash on Vinicius, now Mia has it, and she’s going to have him as a guard dog.”

Dao and Caera looked to each other before Dao let out a few weak chirps, and settled her chin on his shoulder.

“So all that work, for nothing?” Caera said. “Your sister’s gone?”

“Other side of the canyon,” Jes said. “Not gone. And she’s got a fucking child of Belial on a leash. And…” She gestured to David.

After a deep breath, he swallowed down his nervousness, and spoke.

“My sister and I need to get to the Forgotten Place, or, uh, according to the stranger who saved us… we’re all doomed.”

Silence fell on them. Caera stared at him, eyes wide, and Dao’s mouth fell open. Acelina took a step closer and frowned just enough for a sliver of one of her fangs to appear.

“You’re… serious?” Caera asked.

“I am,” he said.

“All doomed?”

“Yeap.”

“Like, just the four of us or—”

“Everyone. Far as I could tell, she meant all of Hell, and maybe more.”

“Fuck…” Caera looked down, eyes wide.

“And the stranger, she sounded like she knew what she was doing. She took Mia away, and when she did, the quakes stopped, and the canyon stopped growing.”

“Stopped growing?”

“Stopped growing,” he said. “Within seconds of her taking Mia, the quakes stopped, and that void thing stopped trying to… do whatever it was trying to do. No idea why. It was almost like… it couldn’t see me anymore. Couldn’t see us anymore.”

Caera shivered. “It did do a lot of damage.”

“I’m just happy other demons can tell there’s an ‘it’ down there. I thought maybe people would think I was nuts. It looks like, just, blackness, right?”

All the ladies nodded.

“There is something down there,” Acelina said. She pulled one of her big wings around in front of her, and idly ran her claws along its inner edges between the bat fingers, cleaning it. “To think something that colossal and… unusual, is after the unmarked? Zel was right to assume Mia would be a useful tool.”

“Hey,” Jes said. “We’re planning here. Shut up.”

Acelina eyelessly eye rolled — she was good at that — as she softly paced, still cleaning her wings.

“There’s more,” David said. “I—should I say? With Acelina here.”

“She already knows about the dream,” Jes said. “What else is there?”

The crazy weird symbols flowing through his mind, for one. The electric shock he’d felt when he’d first touched Mia, and how he’d felt the same from that dream, for another. The strings he felt around him, for a third. They’d always been there, but now his brain, or maybe his soul, couldn’t help but notice and feel them, and be aware he could pluck them. And aware that he was plucking them right now, all the time, even when he didn’t want to. Tiny vibrations making sound he couldn’t hear, but feel.

“True,” he said. “I guess she knows we’ll be heading, or at least, I’d like to head to the Forgotten Place. But about Caera’s… you know, her thing. We can do that on the way, right?”

Caera stared at him, stared a little longer, and laughed. She prowled over to him on all-fours, leaned in, and kissed him, one hand pressed to his chest for support.

“Ow! Oh fuck.” He clutched his chest, and Caera jumped back.

“You’re really fucked up. Tell me about this dream thing later. You need to eat.”

“Fuck me yeah I do.” He tilted over, intent on collapsing into a ball on his knees and forehead, but Dao grabbed his arm and helped him back up.

“We’d have hunted some food for you and held onto it, but flesh doesn’t last, and we didn’t know…”

Dao clicked deep in her throat, deeper than usual, and rubbed her closest horn against him as she reached across him. Jes took Dao’s hand and squeezed it.

Acelina groaned.

“We’ll go hunting later,” Caera said. “The canyon really stirred the nest. Demons are out in droves, trying to figure out what’s going on. I’ve seen souls running around in shadows, and souls are usually pretty good at hiding. Should be easy to get us some food.”

David gestured to Acelina. “And… what do we do with her? Especially now that she knows so much.”

“Sure you don’t want to just kill her?” Caera asked.

Jes nodded. “I vote killing.”

Acelina snapped around, spread her wings, and bared her teeth as she held her hands at her sides, claws out. Despite her supposed lack of combat ability, she looked more than ready to go down fighting.

“Whoa whoa,” he said. “Kill her? We have to?”

Daoka chirped a few times, gesturing to Acelina.

“Don’t side with David,” Jes said. “Acelina is a horrible, evil—”

“Hardly,” Acelina said.

Caera put up a hand as she sat down in front of David, cat style.

“We’re playing babysitter to her?”

“Apparently,” Jes said, “if David doesn’t want to kill her, and Dao wants to do whatever David wants to do. Slut.”

Dao chirped and smiled.

The tiger shook her head. “Doesn’t mean we need to keep her around. Let her go off on her own.”

“She’ll probably die if she does that, right?” David said. “But she might have some use to us. She might be able to settle any issues if run into Domicela. Plus, she wants to get to the Grave Valley spire. If we go that way, she can get Azailia on our good side, right? Maybe?” He almost shrugged, but stopped himself before the pain kicked in.

Dao sighed, but clicked a few times as she nodded. She leaned in, kissed his cheek, and gestured to Acelina again as she clicked.

“She might die, might,” Caera said. “But… fine, you make a good point. Zotivas are extremely rare, and no one’s ever seen one out of a spire. As long as she keeps her head down, she might be useful.”

“Of course I am useful,” Acelina said, draping her wings across her shoulders again. “Domicela will listen to me, and Azailia and Zelandariel were close friends. Lovers, once upon a time. We are… friends, of a sort. If you are captured or some such, she will listen to me and allow the four of you to continue on your ridiculous journey.”

“Ridiculous?” David asked. “I’m kinda hoping demons who learn about what’s happening will… help? You know, help me maybe save the world?”

All four girls laughed. Damn it.

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

~~Day 30~~

They fed him a demon’s heart, this time. He didn’t ask about the demon. He didn’t want to know.

He expected memories, and sure enough, he got them, nasty memories of some really violent shit. The fact they came with the glorious taste and the almost overpowering, enthralling sensation of life filling his stomach straight out into his veins, made it a very mixed bag. But the sensation of wounds healing was euphoric, and he melted into the joy of simply not being in pain.

Four days of lying around doing absolutely nothing was kind of boring, but spending it feeling the pain melt away was bliss. Dao and Jes stayed with him the whole time, Acelina too, and they often got into arguments. For some reason, he enjoyed listening to them. He didn’t talk or interrupt, just let them argue. Sometimes Caera came back from hunting or scouting to yell at them, but mostly the four days were spent listening to Jes and Acelina get into fights, with Dao clicking and trying to play peacekeeper.

Maybe this was what it was like, having a family? He had his sister, and thank god she was still alive, but the family dynamic was never really a thing. Brother and sister, but no one else. Mia and David had just never connected with their foster parents, the multiple ones they’d had. Always distant, never argued, and always got sent on when the parents realized what was happening.

Now that he had three, kinda four ladies all in close proximity all the time, arguing with each other, something in his mind calmed that usually never did. His nerves, maybe. Whatever it was, it felt natural to be around a small group of people and listen to them, the noises they made, the chatting and arguing, even just their breathing. The fact he was having sex with three of them was a weird twist his brain didn’t quite know how to process, but it liked that, too.

After a few days and nights to digest, heal, and think about things, it was time to tell the girls he was ready to begin the adventure.

Or, at least, that was the plan, but before he could open his mouth, Dao sat beside him in their little cave, gestured out at Acelina, and clicked in his ear a few times.

Acelina scoffed. “Do not be ridiculous. None of you are worthy of touching me.”

Chirping and giggling, Daoka shook her head before leaning into David’s side and stroking his chest with her claws. He only wore his leather skirt, and her sharp claws sent tingles through his body.

“Dao, you horny slut,” Jes said. “Not even sure he’s healed.” She sat nearby and clawed at some grooves in her armor that sat in a pile on the ground.

Caera sat closer to the entrance as usual, almost like a guard dog. None of the girls wore armor, but since none of them were aroused, their skin was dark red and firm. His brain had gotten better at thinking of ‘dark red’ as ‘clothes’, and only soft red as skin. But, if he was guessing Dao’s clicks right, both he and Dao were equally distracted by the spire mother sitting on the other side of the cave, dark red skin or not.

Dao giggled, chirped a few more times, and gestured to Acelina again. Yeap.

“I have no intention of touching him,” Acelina said, snarling and hooking her arms under her breasts across her stomach. She sat up straight with her legs out in front of her, crossed at the knee and thigh, as if she could will a throne into existence with her posture and anger combined.

“I think I’m healed,” he said, and poked himself in the ribs. “No pain.”

“Really?” Caera asked, prowling closer to him. “That’s pretty fast for a soul.”

“Not like he’s normal,” Jes said. She joined Caera and sat down beside him, opposite of Dao. “So we’re heading out soon, then? Not like we have any reason to stick around.”

“To help Caera first,” he said. “Maybe we can circle all the way around and deal with Diogo, too?”

Jes laughed, shaking her head. “It takes a month of hard busting ass and hauling tail to cross just one province, David. We’d be lucky to make that trip in a year, and it’d take a miracle to survive it. How about we worry about Diogo later?”

He sighed. “Fine.”

“The fuck you sighing for? Diogo’s my problem, not yours.”

“Just… it bothers me, you know? I told you I’d help if you helped me. You helped me and now I can’t help you.”

Jes stared at him for a few moments before a smile grew. Not a playful one, or a big one that usually preceded big laughs. A subtle one, mixed with intrigued eyes.

“I bet Acelina thinks you’re full of shit, lying and whatnot,” she said. David looked across the small cave to Acelina, who shrugged and scowled. “Buuut the girls and I know by now you’re just that stupid and nice, aren’t you?”

“Hey, I didn’t think it was stu—”

Jes sat on his lap, reached down, and tossed his skirt aside. He blinked up at her, and she grinned down at him as she got comfortable on his naked legs, her tail swaying over his crossed ankles.

“Ya know, much as it really pissed me off that you ran off on us and almost got killed. Much as it made me want to tear your heart out that you threw yourself into chaos like that, I gotta admit, seeing you get all reckless like that was awesome.”

Dao clicked a few times, nodding, and snuggled into his side.

“I think,” Caera said, “Jes’s last words before she jumped off the cliff to save you were ‘I’m gonna fuck him or kill him’. Something like that.”

Jes rolled her eyes, leaned in close, and put a kiss on David’s lips. Dao did the same, leaning in until her horns fought for room against Jes’s, and the two ladies grinned as they took turns putting kisses on him.

“I deserve a reward for that shit,” Jes said. “So, now that you’re healed, you’re gonna fuck me, okay? And I don’t mean any of this sissy shit Dao loves so much. First, you’re gonna lick me and finger me, and I expect good things from those fingers ‘cause demons can’t use em.”

He gulped. “Can’t?”

She sat back and held up her hands in front of him. “Claws. We always use tongues on each other, sometimes tails, but humans can do some cool things with their fingers.” After a playful wink, she took one of his hands, set one of his fingers into her mouth, and slowly dragged her lips back and forth along it, from tip to knuckle. “Been a while since I’ve had that.”

Heat shot up through his body like gasoline on a brushfire.

“O-Okay.”

“And then you’re gonna fuck me. Hard as you can. Got it?”

“Uh…”

Laughing all the more, Jes slid back off his lap, and lay out on her back on the floor. Legs pointed at David, she spread them wide, and her slit’s lips softened and opened before his eyes. Every part of her grew redder, and her large breasts squashed beautifully against her chest as gravity got to have a say. She ran her claws down her naked body, down to her thighs, and spread her legs wider as she arched her back, and pushed out her chest and flat, firm stomach.

She had the body of a thin athlete, and bending like that showed off how slim and tight her waist was, her subtle abs, and some shape-accentuating flexibility.

He gulped and nodded toward Acelina, who sat a literal fifteen feet away. Her big hooves almost touched Jes’s horns.

“She’s… right there.”

“So?” Shrugging, Jes sat up, looked over her shoulder at the much taller demon, and grinned at David. “You fucking shy?”

“No… but—”

Clicking away, Dao crawled out into the center of the cave beside Jes, made sure to aim her ass at David as she did, and sat beside her lover. After a few happy chirps, she leaned in and kissed Jes, and Jes was all too eager to return the favor.

David gulped, doing his best to keep his arousal from bubbling up. Acelina stared at the three of them, just enough of her teeth showing to reveal her small scowl. This wasn’t just Jes being in a horny mood, but wanting to show off in front of Acelina. Show off, or her tempt her? Or, just rub it in Acelina’s face that she was having good sex.

Good sex. A tingle of pride coursed through David’s body, and more heat came with it.

Caera chuckled as well and joined the two ladies. An absolutely massive, eight-foot tall, muscular busty demon woman of feline and feminine curves, she sat down catlike, facing Acelina, and her huge tail swayed on the ground behind her.

“I think she’ll change her mind,” Caera said.

Acelina refolded her legs and laughed, haughty queen style.

“You are delusional. I would… never…” Acelina, head aimed straight at David, grew quiet, and her mouth parted just slightly, as she watched him and his growing length.

And, for some reason, being watched like that made his body light up like a Christmas tree.

~~♥♥♥~~

David gulped and moved his eyes away from the spire mother to the gargoyle and satyr. The way Jes showed off her slim, fit physique, and the way her large breasts flowed against her chest as she arched her body, sent tingling heat through his own. His cock was in his hand and he didn’t remember grabbing it, but there it was. And no matter how much he told himself to slow down, his hand squeezed the increasing girth, and he stroked it as Jes showed off.

His cock grew longer, and longer, and longer.

Much as David wanted to consider Acelina’s comfort, because she hadn’t caused any trouble in the few days they’d had her, his eyes fell back to Jes and Daoka, and were lost. Dao gently pushed the gargoyle onto her back and pressed her chest straight down onto her as she kissed her. Complete boob squish. One of her hands slid down Jes’s naked stomach, between her legs, set fingertips on the girl’s small pussy lips, and softly stroked their lengths. Not her clitoris, not yet. She wanted to warm Jes up first.

“I don’t think Jes likes you much,” Caera said, still looking at Acelina.

“Obviously,” Acelina said, half snarling, head still aimed at David.

“But Daoka isn’t like that. I bet she’d love to see her pet fuck you.”

“I am a zotiva. I am… I…” She gestured David’s way. “What in the after-after is going on with the boy?”

Daoka giggled and clicked a few times. Whatever she said, it earned another scoff of disbelief from Acelina, but the spire mother’s scoff faded as Dao sat up beside David, and slid a hand underneath his length. She lifted it straight up and clicked Acelina’s way a few times. Showing him off? With a few more high-pitched chirps, she leaned in toward him, kissed his neck, and instant tingles along his skin sent another pulse of heat into his cock. She nudged him forward, too, until he knelt between Jeskura’s legs.

“No idea,” Jes said to Dao, “but—” She shivered, reached down, and casually caressed her swelling clitoris as she relaxed on the ground and set her gaze on David. “That aura of yours is… really… kicking in. Acelina watching you turning you on?”

“I… um…” He gulped. Maybe that was it, that Acelina had set her masked gaze toward him, and she didn’t seem able to look away. Maybe she just didn’t care to, as if staring at him meant nothing. Either way, something about the ridiculously tall, busty, dangerous, and frankly kinda mean demon watching him as he got comfortable between Jeskura’s legs, his giant cock still in Dao’s palm, did seem to tickle him in a way he hadn’t expected.

Daoka chirped in his ear, nodded toward Acelina again, and continued gently stroking the underside of his length. Slowly, her hand eased down the base of him until her finger nudged to his testicles, before she clicked happily and again slid her fingers back up along his girth until it reached the swollen, sensitive glans.

“I think it is Acelina,” Caera said, and she grinned at David as she turned and faced the gargoyle at her four feet. “You really need a fourth woman, David?”

“W-What? No! No… Just… Jes was looking at her just as much as me, and Dao, and you!” He pointed an accusing finger at Caera. “You’ve been looking at her too! And—”

Jes reached up, grabbed his hand, and guided it down to her slit. With her wings spread out wide over the floor, thighs apart and knees up, she looked like a meal waiting to be devoured. And warm. She was so warm. She guided his fingers down between her folds, lower along her flesh, and soon bits of wetness coated his fingertips.

“We’ve been waiting for you to heal,” Jes said. “Been… really… wanting…” She slipped her claws around his wrist, and pulled his hand forward. His middle finger pushed into her, and David shivered as her wet, tight muscles gripped and squeezed, coating the digit in her warmth. How the hell did he ever fit his cock into this thing?

Daoka snuggled up beside Jes again and kissed her lover’s neck as she clicked a few times.

“Makes sense,” Caera said, and she leaned into David’s other side. “We’ve been doing all the work. Time for you to earn your keep.”

“I… um…” It was true. He’d barely done a thing, the times he’d had sex with the ladies. They’d done everything, from foreplay to thrusting. “I mean, I’ve read lots of articles and stuff, and…”

Caera reached out and used two fingers to spread Jes’s pussy lips wide.

“Two fingers. Push in a few inches, and push up.”

He gulped and met Jes’s eyes. She was grinning at him, in a very ‘do this right or I’ll hurt you’ sort of way.

He pushed in a second finger, and with middle and ring finger inside her, he pushed them up toward her g-spot, palm up. Jes responded instantly. Soft flesh and hard muscle clenches trapped his fingers, and the gargoyle groaned as she arched her body again.

Dao, still at Jes’s side, reached up, slipped her fingers into his hair, and pushed down on his head. Down and down, until he had to get onto his elbows. Down further, until his mouth was inches from Jes’s slit, and her swollen clit.

“Bury it with your tongue,” Caera said. “Normally you’d want to start slow and gentle, but Jes is just a surface cat in heat.”

“Hey fuck you, I—” Jes sucked in a breath, and again her insides clenched like a vise as David set his lips around the top half of her slit, and pressed his tongue against her clit. The tiny nub moved under his tongue, soft flesh that gave way to his muscle, and he lifted his head a few times to make sure he was actually putting his tongue on the right spot. The crest of her beautiful slit’s lips.

He opened his mouth a bit wider, and buried it like Caera said. Each stroke of his tongue earned a different reaction from Jes, tiny grunts and groans, little micro flexes of her muscles. And when he pressed the underside of his fingertips up against her g-spot, she squeezed harder. Her claws slipped into his hair and combed through it, half pinning him to her along with Dao’s claws.

Jes pushed her weight up on one elbow and smiled down at him.

“Harder.”

He pushed harder, and faster. He swirled his tongue around and around, and after experimenting a little, found up and down let him lick faster. It took some leaning, but he got his weight off his arm, and he drove his arm and hand up against her insides faster. Faster, and more, until he was practically drilling his arm and hand up and down like a mini jackhammer.

Jes melted back, let go of his head, and spread out on the ground, arms and legs and wings all splayed outward. Clicking and chirping, Daoka let go of his head and instead resumed kissing Jes. Kisses for her lips, for her neck, and for her breasts. The satyr wrapped her lips around one of the gargoyle’s swollen nipples, and sucked on it hard enough to pull it up a few inches before letting it go so. It rippled as it flattened against her chest again, only to jiggle with each impact of David’s fingers.

Caera licked her big fangs, prowled over to Jes, and lay beside her opposite of Dao. She snuggled into the gargoyle’s side, squashing one of her wings, and she pressed her naked, red, and softened body into Jes. So big and strong, Caera had to be gentle, but she set her kisses on Jes’s neck just as perfectly as Dao did. She’d gotten a lot closer to those two over the past week, much closer.

And apparently, they were happy to let David continue without guidance. He continued, licking faster and harder, but with his jaw in the way, he couldn’t finger her super hard like she wanted. Like he wanted.

He sat up and pressed down on Jes’s pelvis with his free hand, just above her pubic bone. It squashed her inner flesh straight down onto his other fingers, and he pushed his fingers back up against the dripping wet muscles inside. Push became slap as he moved his arm and hand up and down faster and faster, and slapped his fingers up against her g-spot hard, rapid fire. Not a mini jackhammer anymore, just a full-on jackhammer, complete with a lot of noise.

“Fu-u-u-u-ck!” Jes’s body shook with the motion, her curvy thighs of slender muscle rippled, and her breasts jiggled all the more against her chest and Dao’s lips.

David lifted his eyes from her slender, perfect body, up to Acelina. The spire mother stared back at him, mouth still partly slighted, and unless his eyes were lying to him, she was breathing heavy. While her head still looked completely black, the rest of her body had grown much redder, and her legs squirmed and rubbed her thighs together. Was she looking at him, or Jes?

Jes’s whimpers pulled his eyes back down. Dao cut them off with a kiss, and Caera half pinned the gargoyle’s chest to the ground with her own as she snuggled in and kissed her neck. Pinned, Jes could do nothing but lay there and wriggle as David fingered her, and from the way she was wriggling and clenching on his fingers, she was cumming. More juices coated his fingers, hotter than a human’s, and more followed, a tingling heat that dripped from his knuckles.

He stopped, panting. Daoka sat up, smiled down at her also panting lover, and looked to David.

“Fuck, gimme a sec,” Jes said between exhausted groans, half sitting up. “Holy… fuck… Need to breathe.”

Daoka shook her head, and gestured at David with the biggest, most evil grin he’d ever seen. No translation needed.

He resumed fingering the gargoyle, hard, hard as he could. Instant squelching noises brought his eyes down, and he grinned too as the gargoyle’s juices soaked his palm.

“I said gimme a sec! Fu—”

Caera pulled the gargoyle back down, mirrored Dao’s grin, and squashed her breasts into Jes’s closest breast as she pinned her. Jes opened her mouth, ready to fight back, but Dao joined Caera, squashed her breasts down against Jes’s, and locked lips again with the trembling gargoyle. There was no one to stop David from fingering Jes as long and as hard as he wanted.

Her hot juices soaked his fingers, and some of it squirted out, tiny splashes that reached his palm. Thicker juices clung between his fingers, and thinner ones drenched his hand, demanding he keep going. He did, pausing only long enough to let the burn leave his arm, combined with his deep breaths. Once his arm felt good, he resumed, and pumped Jes’s pussy hard enough her jiggling thighs pushed her ass up off the ground, like she was trying to lesson the impact of his fingers. He pushed her back down, pressed his palm down hard against her pelvis, pinned her butt to the ground, and again squashed her g-spot to his fingers as they slapped up against her insides.

The only thing that kept Jes from wriggling away as she drenched him again and again, was the much bigger and stronger tiger woman pinning her down. The wet spot underneath her ass grew larger and larger, and Jes’s tail reached out and wrapped around David’s wrist as he pumped her. Only when her tail went limp did he ease up.

Panting, a bead of sweat on his forehead, he set both his hands on Jes’s thighs, and smiled down at the way her body quivered and empty pussy clenched in spurts. Caera gave her a little room, Dao too, and they both grinned evilly at the way her muscles trembled.

“Fucking… christ,” Jes said. More exhausted than him, she barely managed to push herself up on her elbows, trembling like a leaf. “God… fucking… fuck.”

David forced down some needed breaths and shook out his tired arm. Before he could say anything, his eyes slid up to Acelina.

The tall demon stared at him. No doubt about it, her eyeless gaze was set directly on him. Her hands covered her nipples, thighs pressed together, and much as she was trying to not move, her hands did, softly massaging her nipples under her palms.

“Okay,” Jes said. “Hey, come here.”

“Wha—”

Jes reached down past his hands, grabbed his cock, and set its tip on her pelvis. The huge thing had enough weight and malleability it could bend slightly, and it conformed to the dip in her stomach as she arched her back again while simultaneously pulling him closer. She didn’t stop until his testicles, also grown to demon size, rested against her smooth pussy’s dripping lips.

Dao chirped a few times as she teased the blunt side of a claw along his length, right up to the tip where it rested between the bottom half of Jes’s breasts.

“What in Hell,” Acelina said. “That’s… Saldavin and Gorlus are only so endowed. You aren’t human.”

“He isn’t,” Caera said.

“Hey!”

The tiger laughed as she leaned down over Jes’s stomach and set a warm kiss on his swollen glans. Instant sparks of pleasure shot down his length, and a flex of his inner muscles earned a drop of precum that fell onto Jes’s sternum. How he’d fit this thick, long, inhuman thing into the lithe, lean woman’s body on several occasions, he had no idea.

Acelina licked her lips. Only David noticed.

“Okay,” Jes said, “fuck me.”

Dao nodded, clicking happily as she made room for Jes. Caera did the same, but instead of waiting for Jen to turn herself over, she picked the gargoyle up like she weighed nothing and did it for her. So damn strong, and huge. She licked her chops as she smiled at David and put Jes on her knees in front of him.

Dao grabbed his cock and set it along the crack of Jes’s ass. Its weight forced it to mold to the shape of her perfect, firm butt, and it got pushed aside by her tail’s thick base where it connected to her spine, and fell off the side of her tiny waist. God, it looked amazing. It felt amazing.

He pulled his hips back. Dao took his cock again, and set its ripe tip against Jes’s tiny slit. Her almost boiling insides hit the sensitive skin with a pulse of tingling bliss, and he quivered. He waited for a second for someone to push him in, or push Jes into him, or for Jes to push herself into him, but nope, they wanted him to do the heavy lifting this time. With a gulp, he set his hands on Jes’s hips, felt her tight, firm butt with his thumbs, and pulled her toward him as he pushed his hips forward.

Her hot, taut lips spread around the tip of his girth, wider and wider, and he had to push and pull hard to fight through the way her tight muscles clenched. She was still shivering. A few grunts escaped him as he pulled, and Jes, front weight on her elbows, looked over her shoulder to him. Her mouth was parted, and her eyes half rolled up as she relaxed her muscles enough for him to finally push his glans into her sizzling depths. So hot, it felt like taking a shower with the heat cranked up to near stinging, just at the precipice where it felt so damn good.

Caera, Dao, and Jes all made tiny groans as his glans pushed into the gargoyle, and her muscles gripped tight around the base edge of the bulbous tip of his length. They groaned, and Acelina did, too.

Was it the aura that had Acelina watching him, and trying to hide that she was touching herself? It poured out of him, his inner fingers plucking at the strings of… something, deep inside him, and he couldn’t stop them even if he wanted to. They wanted to play the strings as much as a human wanted to breathe, and each string plucked sent vibrations out into his environment that all said one thing: sex. No, more than that. The vibration held an image, an idea, a sensation, or a feeling more specific than that.

Enjoy sex. He wanted the girls to enjoy. He wanted them to touch Jes. He wanted them to touch themselves. He wanted them all to cum, and cum, and cum. And, of course, a greedy little part of his mind wanted him to be at the center of it all, and his aura carried that desire with it.

Jes, still on her hands and knees, reached up, grabbed Dao, and pulled her down. Squeaking and clicking with joy, Dao got on her back sideways underneath Jes, and the two women locked lips as they hugged each other, breasts squishing between each other’s. The satyr reached down between her legs and casually masturbated, stroking her clitoris with practiced familiarity.

Caera, on the other side, sat beside David and Jes, and grinned at him as she reached underneath the gargoyle. One of her fingers grazed David’s cock where it entered Jes, and he peeked down around Jes’s butt to see the tiger gently caressing Jes’s clitoris.

“That aura and dick of yours are cheating,” Caera said. “We really should be teaching you how to actually fuck.”

He forced himself to stop staring at Jes’s thin, writhing body, and how her ass shifted left and right as he pushed another inch of his thick cock into her.

“I… I know things.”

The tiger lady grinned at him. “You can’t learn everything from books. Most ladies don’t like having their clit touched right after cumming, but Jes enjoys it. As long as you’re gentle.” Licking her big fangs some more, Caera leaned in close to him, and kissed him. “And,” she whispered, “much as she likes rough sex, I know she likes the gentle stuff even more.”

“She—” He sucked in a quick breath as the head of his cock pressed against Jes’s depths. Mid kiss with Dao, Jes pushed her ass toward him, and wiggled it back and forth. She wanted deeper. He pushed back, stretched her deepest place inward, and the gargoyle trembled. “She… says she doesn’t,” he whispered back.

“She’s lying. She wants rough, but she loves gentle. So, after fucking her hard, fuck her soft. Cuddle with her, fuck her softly, and she’ll melt.” In complete contrast, Caera smacked Jes’s ass, earning a groan from the gargoyle and a hypnotizing ripple from her firm butt cheek. The tiger’s other hand, still underneath and between Jes’s thighs, continued to caress the girl’s clitoris, making Jes squirm and clench. The way her muscles clenched and milked on him as they drenched him with near boiling juices had him panting again, for different reasons than before.

Hard, then soft. Okay, he could do that. Cuddling Jes was a little dangerous, since she might stab him for daring to be that familiar with her. But he did want to. And with the aura, he could cheat. For now, though, hard.

His whole body shivered as Jes’s muscles squeezed. He tightened his grip on her hips and pulled harder, and Jes pushed her ass toward him with the same enthusiasm, determined to take every inch, even as he stretched her deep and wide. He pulled out a few inches and watched with hypnotized eyes as a sliver of her insides came out with her, pink flesh that showed how she soaked and squeezed on him. A growl announced Jes looking back over her shoulder at him, not happy, but he pushed back in quickly, and forced his length deeper, earning some shivers and groans from her.

Her ass molded to his pelvis. His testicles pressed against the crest of her lips, and Caera’s caressing fingers. The tiger didn’t stop. Slowly, with an almost loving touch, she massaged Jes’s poor clit relentlessly, soft and constant, and her fingers teased along David’s testicles, earning a gentle tickling sensation that made him shiver, too.

“Gonna… fucking… burst,” the gargoyle said between exhausted kisses with Dao.

He stayed there, balls deep inside the gargoyle, and enjoyed the way she clenched on his girth, wriggled on Caera’s fingers, and slowly drenched his testicles. All the while, Caera stayed with him, smiled into his lips, and kissed him some more. Satisfied, she gave Jes’s ass a much harder slap — oh god the clench — and nodded. “Okay. Fuck her. Put those muscles to work.”

He frowned at her. She was huge compared to him, and sure he had some muscle for a small guy, but Caera was a fit, gorgeous, muscular but feminine beast, and much, much stronger than him. That was a challenge.

He pulled his hips back, pulled Jes away from him, and with how long his cock was, he had plenty of room to pull out as long as he wanted. With over half of his length out of her, he slammed his hips forward and yanked Jes back toward him. Her muscles clenched like a vise as she stretched inward, coating his length in her juices. And she gasped. If it weren’t for Daoka still underneath her and perpendicular to her, half holding her up, she would have collapsed on the ground.

This really was cheating. It shouldn’t have been this easy.

He held her there again, balls deep, and groaned as her trembling muscles and wriggling body milked on his length. Caera was relentless, refusing to give Jes’s clit a break, and from the way Jes tried to pull away from Dao a few times, only to have Dao hug her and block her off with kisses, Jes wanted to say something. Probably ‘give my sore clit a break you bitch’. Dao didn’t let her. And David couldn’t help but grind into her body, melt into the way her firm butt molded to his pelvis, shiver as Caera’s fingers nudged against his now dripping testicles while she caressed Jes, and flex his inner muscles as a sudden flood of tingling warmth shot up his length.

“Already?” Caera asked. “You just got started.”

“Sorry I—” He sucked in a breath hard, and stared down at the squirming gargoyle as her clenching insides milked the first gush of his cum. It overflowed instantly. Her stretched insides squeezed until it almost hurt, and a flood of warmth splashed against his testicles, and his pelvis. Hypnotized by her ass, he gulped at the sight of his cum gushing out of where her spread taut lips squeezed his girth. Only the first couple squirts earned a splash, hitting his lower abs and coating them in white, and the following waves leaked out of her in thick, heavy globs that poured off his testicles and down the gargoyle’s thighs.

Her insides shivered from the tip of his tingling cock to the base, squeezed harder, and the gargoyle moaned into Dao’s kiss as she writhed. Caera made Jes cum. She tried to move away, but David held on and kept the gargoyle pinned on every inch of him as her inner muscle spasms drained him dry. The sparks of pleasure that flowed down his length into his thighs soon had him lightheaded.

With a playful chuckle, Caera removed her hand from Jes’s clit, and set the cum-soaked hand on Jes’s ass.

“He is but a human man,” Acelina said. “Did you expect him to last?”

Oh right, Acelina was watching. He could barely tear his eyes away from Jes’s trembling ass to look at the giant demon. Her hands still covered her nipples. Wait, were her fingers wet?

Caera shook her head, opened her mouth, but thought better of it. Instead, she leaned toward David, and kissed him again.

“Try again. Hard as you can.” With that, Caera lay on her side beside Jes, and slipped herself underneath the gargoyle completely. Dao moved aside, chirping excitedly, and gestured for David to watch; as if he wasn’t already hypnotized. The huge tiger lady got underneath the exhausted gargoyle, face to face, breasts to breasts, with her legs spread out around David's knees and her giant tail between them.

Dao didn’t have a jealous bone in her body. She lay on her side beside them and nuzzled into Caera’s arm so Caera had to lift it and let the satyr get into the groove of her shoulder. With more happy clicks, going full dolphin mode, Daoka pressed her giant breasts into theirs, and the three met lips.

For a moment, David forgot what he was supposed to be doing. He leaned to the side and watched the three ladies make out. That, was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, especially how it was obvious Jes wanted to say something, but was too exhausted to pull her head away from their relentless kissing. Plus, Caera used her bigger size to easily keep the gargoyle’s chest and head pinned to hers.

David lifted his eyes back to Acelina. Her head was tilted to the side, waiting. She expected him to be done after one orgasm.

He pulled back slowly, watched the mess of Jes’s juices and his own cum coat his cock, kept pulling back until only the tip of the massive length remained inside, and slammed forward.

Jes squeaked into Caera’s kiss. That was a girly sound she did not often make, and it lit a fire inside David that made his veins burn.

He tightened his grip on her hips, and fucked her hard, hard as he could manage, each thrust causing the gargoyle’s perfect ass to ripple with impact, and for his huge testicles to slap the crest of her pussy and mons. A wet mess that coated her thighs and his in both their juices. He thrust harder, and faster, got a rhythm and found the best way to engage muscles to pump as strong as he could.

Jeskura’s wings raised, spread out, and went limp like blankets, one of them half burying Dao and earning some giggles from her lover. Her tail slipped around his wrist again, coiled around it, but had little strength to it. Her arms gave out, and her upper body went limp against Caera and Dao. The tiger hugged her with her one free arm, the other held out around Dao, and Dao hugged her with the other as she snuggled into their sides.

She came. Ass up in the air, unable to collapse with him holding her hips, the limp and exhausted gargoyle clenched on his cock and drenched it in a new layer of juices. He didn’t stop. He slammed forward through her orgasm, and forced her quivering, taut insides to stretch deep, regardless. Every thrust was like hitting the repeat button on seeing her lithe and skinny body tremble from head to tail, and on seeing her perfect ass jiggle. He couldn’t stop, and he fucked her through her orgasm and her vise grip until drops of sweat eased down his chest.

He came again. The first squirt filled her instantly again, and again squirted out of her tight grip around his girth hard enough some of it splashed against his lower abs and onto her ass. He managed a few more thrusts as the pleasure tremors hit him, pulling out much slower and longer to let her milk him, only to slam forward. Each slam again earned a splash as he filled her cum-filled pussy with his cock, and the thick white fluid coated her ass as much as their thighs. Again, and again, until some splashed up along her ass crack, along her spine, and down its downward dip. Ten times more flowed underneath her, down her stomach and thighs, where he couldn’t see.

A small, deep, but feminine groan drew his eyes. For a second, he thought maybe Caera had made it; it matched her sounds. But it happened again, and he set his eyes on Acelina.

One of the giant demon’s hands had lowered from her enormous breasts, and wriggled between her thick thighs. She was masturbating, and while she kept her legs together and angled slightly to hide it, she failed more and more every moment. Her other hand no longer covered her nipple, but milked it, big hand of claws cupping the underside of her breast, but the breast was much too large for even her large palm and long fingers to manage. Her huge nipple poked out between the base of her index finger and thumb, and she milked it with a massaging grip.

White fluid, thin and flowing, trickled down both her breasts, and some outright squirted from the nipple she squeezed.

David froze, and stared. Balls deep inside the gargoyle, her pussy spasms milking him of his second orgasm, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the spire mother and how she masturbated. The way one hand wriggled between her thighs was beautiful, but the way she gently squeezed and milked — literally — one of her breasts was utterly mesmerizing. Each squeeze earned a tiny squirt of her milk, enough that it splashed on her legs before trickling down over her fingers. Even the other breast, no longer being touched, continued to leak milk from her swollen nipple, until it dripped from the breast’s underside.

Daoka pulled her head away from the kissing below him, tilted her head enough she probably looked at Acelina, and giggled. She aimed her eyeless gaze at David, licked her lips, and leaned back in to resume locking lips with her exhausted lover. Had she known this would happen?

David didn’t know where to look. Three women making out underneath him, squishing their huge breasts together while one of them quivered on his cock, was amazing. A super tall demon woman masturbating while staring at him, and literally milking her gigantic breasts, was also amazing. He’d had no idea. Spire mothers lactate? How did that work? Jes had said the spire mothers give demons who survive the hatching pits a reward. Is that what she meant?

“Continue, fool,” Acelina said, voice caught between a queenly order, and a wavering, weak gasp.

David continued. He thrust into Jes hard, and ignored the burning in his arms and legs. Keep fucking. Keep watching. He poured the thoughts, feelings, and desires into his aura, and it poured out into the cave.

Enjoy yourselves. Show me enjoying yourselves. Cum for me.

Acelina slowly raised one of her legs to the side, bending it at the knee so she showed off how long it was, how curvy her thigh was, how much it contrasted to her tiny waist, and how perfect her pussy looked with her fingertips caressing it. She was soaked, and a growing wet spot soaked the stones under her.

Her tail snuck around under one of her thighs. She took it, and guided it to her pussy. As thick as David’s wrist, and smooth like Jes’s tail, Acelina pressed its pointed tip against her soaked pussy, and sank half a dozen inches of it into her.

But then she pulled it out, and lowered it. David almost outright groaned as Acelina angled her pelvis forward so she could sit more comfortably on her butt, pressed the pointed tip against her asshole, and pushed past it. The queenly demon shivered, but didn’t look away as she continued to milk one breast with one hand, and sank more and more of her tail into her ass with the other. Holy fucking god.

A small gasp escaped her, and after sinking maybe seven or eight inches of her tail into her ass, she let it go, and let the limb squirm and wriggle inside her under its own power. As she milked her breast and soaked its underside in new layers of milk, she stroked her clit with her fingertips with the other hand, careful of her claws, all while her tail moved around inside her. And now, instead of trying to hide what she was doing, she made sure he could see every detail.

He watched the zotiva masturbate, and fucked Jes as hard as he could. Acelina watched him, eyeless gaze pointed directly at him, and masturbated faster. She reached down and pushed more of her tail into her ass until she’d easily sunk over a foot of it into her depths and past her drenched sphincter. She pushed in more, and more, until finally she was satisfied, and again caressed her clitoris. A fresh coating of juices leaked from her clenching, empty slit, and flowed onto her tail. Her massaging hand squeezed her breast harder, hard enough a squirt of milk splashed over the stones as much as her one leg still sticking out in front of her.

There was a slight bump along her tiny waist and flat belly, showing how the tail curved slightly as it wriggled inside her guts.

She came, and squeezed harder. Her body shivered, her hand on her clit ceased, and her massaging hand on her breast forced a harder squirt of milk to splash over her leg and the stones. Her mouth opened, a scary wide mouth full of teeth, and it hung that way as she panted and did her best to keep her moans quiet. She failed, and Daoka giggled as she looked her way again.

To witness a sight like that, David couldn’t help but cum again. He pumped Jeskura full of white for the third time, groaned as tingling sparks flowed from his length down into his thighs, and thrust again. Slowly pull out, then slam in hard, seemed to earn the most pleasure from his orgasm, and he repeated it, each thrust making a mess of cum that squirted out of Jes’s slit. He didn’t see. He couldn’t tear his eyes from Acelina as her tail continued to squirm inside her.

As she came down from her orgasm high, Acelina’s hand that once squeezed her breast reached down, and instead gently pinched her tail between her thumb and a few fingers. Her other hand reached up to her other, untouched breast, and massaged it like her other hand had done before. All the while, she worked her tail in and out of her ass a few inches, and getting faster. And sometimes pushed deeper, and kept it there, increasing the size of the bulge on her stomach.

Caera reached around Jes, and slapped her ass. Really, really hard. Every inch of her insides clamped down, and yanked David’s eyes back to her butt.

“Hey!” Jes snapped her head up, but Dao giggled and pulled her back down, and motioned for David to continue.

He did, and again slammed his cock hard and deep into Jes’s stretched insides. What energy Jes had rediscovered vanished immediately, and she collapsed onto Caera’s chest. Again, the only thing keeping her ass up in the air was David. He held her hips tight and pounded her. This had quickly gone from sex to one of the most intense workouts he’d ever had. And most pleasurable. It didn’t matter he was panting and sweating. He did not stop.

His eyes drifted down to Dao. She’d tilted her head up and aimed her eyeless gaze toward Acelina. Well, if she was going to stare, David was going to, too. His eyes drifted up from Jes’s perfect ass to Acelina, and at this point, the spire mother was outright showing off. She sat up, faced them, spread her legs with knees up, leaned back against the cave wall, pelvis tilted so her ass and pussy aimed directly at them, and she resumed masturbating. With a practiced grip, she worked what must have been nearly two feet of tail back and forth in her asshole a few inches, and her empty pussy dripped with juices.

And, as much as he really, really wanted to watch her masturbate with her ass, because holy fuck the fact she went there was making him delirious with need, he also couldn’t help but watch the way her giant breast spilled over her hand. Her swollen nipples trickled with juices, and the nipple she massaged squirted with them as she squeezed it harder.

Acelina moaned. All three girls stopped what they were doing and looked up across the room to the spire mother. So of course David took the opportunity to thrust as hard as he could, and earn another surprised, feminine squeak from Jes.

“David you fucking—”

Caera pulled Jes’s head back to hers, and all three ladies again buried each other’s lips in kisses. Both tiger and satyr gestured for David to continue. And all three tilted their heads and necks enough to keep Acelina in view.

He got back to work. Each thrust made a wet slapping sound as his testicles smacked her underside, and Jes wriggled and squirmed for a whole thirty seconds before she went limp. Her insides clamped hard, random spasms clenched on his cock, and again more heat soaked him until it dripped down his thighs.

Much as he wanted to watch Jes cum on him, the fact they were all watching Acelina — Jes was trying too, at least — kept drawing his eyes back to the spire mother. The tallest demon’s mouth hung open, and a sliver of her sharp demon tongue dangled free as she worked her tail in and out of her ass using her fingers, just like a woman using a dildo. Her hand and wrist were tilted to the side just enough David could most of her pussy, and the wetness that dripped from it.

She came again. She pushed her tail in deep, and clutched her breast hard so her nipple pushed out between two of her fingers. Milk splashed over her leg on the same side and trickled down her arm and from her elbow. She didn’t care. She quivered from horn to hoof and only looked down at herself for a moment before looking back at the four of them. And after a few panting breaths, she switched hands again, wrapped her areola with her other hand, and set her other fingers on her tail. With her eyeless face pointed straight at David, she pushed in a few more inches of her tail into her ass, a few more, and a few more, increasing the winding bulge on her belly before resuming pulling it in and out of her a few inches with a fast, practiced rhythm.

David thrust into Jes the whole time, and watched Acelina as he panted, with heart pounding against his chest. Was she using her sin aura? Why would she? He didn’t feel any auras hitting him. Just his, pouring out of him, drowning him and the area in need and desire.

He was tired, exhausted even, sweat dripping down his body, but he couldn’t stop. He yanked Jes against him hard enough he felt her firm ass ripple, but his eyes were locked on Acelina. Jes came again, drenched him again, but even she was sneaking glances up at Acelina mid orgasm. And as another hot surge of cum poured up his length and overflowed Jes’s stretched insides, all four of them watched Acelina masturbate.

“You could join us,” Caera said. Still on her back, she had to tilt her head back and to the side so her horns didn’t stop her from looking.

“I will do no such thing!” Acelina yelled, hissing down at the tiger’s head near her hooves. “None of you are worthy of touching me.”

Laughing softly, Caera lifted one of her giant legs, got her talons on David’s stomach, and gently pushed him back. Once his cum-soaked cock slipped free of Jes, and after a wave of the white fluid poured out of her, Caera turned Jeskura over, and lay her on her back on Caera’s stomach, head between the tiger’s huge breasts.

Jes was exhausted, too. Her eyes were half closed, breasts rising and falling with her panting, and her legs spread apart as they went limp. Her tail had long let go of David’s wrist, completely drained too, and her wings flared out limp over Daoka beside her. The satyr had to lift the wing up and over her head so she could snuggle into Jes’s side, and immediately set her lips to one of the gargoyle’s breasts.

Jes’s tiny slit, quivering, forced out more drops of his cum down her ass and limp tail. Her head tilted to the side, and half rested against Caera’s breast as she struggled to get her eyes open. The tiger still had one arm locked out of the way by Dao, but her other reached around, and motioned for David to come to her, before it grabbed Jes’s other breast, and massaged it all too similarly to how Acelina was massaging her own breast.

Oh, Caera wanted him to do the gentle thing now. He could do that. He wanted to do that.

He grabbed his long cock, pressed its swollen tip against Jes’s pussy, and gently pushed it past her trembling lips. Very gently. Jes moaned weakly, and turned her head enough to look at him with tired, dreamy eyes, as David nuzzled forward. The bulge on her tiny, slender stomach pushed higher and higher, sliding past her navel as her insides stretched again, and higher still as he came closer. It only stopped once the bulbous head of his cock distended her flesh up to just under her sternum. So deep. So fucking hot.

He gulped, reached out, and ran a finger down the bulge from between Jes’s breasts, all the way down her abs and to her mons. He felt it, too. Demons loved it ridiculously deep, and the sight of her long, slender stomach showing how much he’d stretched her tiny pussy to fit him sent new heat through his limbs.

He leaned forward, set his stomach on hers, and leaned in toward Daoka. She turned her head enough to kiss him, and she slipped an arm behind him. With a few encouraging clicks, she guided his head down onto Jes’s nipple, and the two of them covered the gargoyle’s large breast in tender suckling kisses. He ground his hips forward into her, and Jes outright mewled, a very un-Jes-like sound, before her shaky hands slipped around him. She hugged him.

Another set of claws slipped into his shaggy hair. Caera’s. She guided him to Jes’s other breast, and he pressed his face into the large pillow of softness, all the while gently shifting and grinding his pelvis forward. Basking in the tightness of her insides, the boiling heat of them, and the muscle spasms that milked on his increasingly sensitive cock, he melted into the softness of Jes’s breast, and tilted his head enough to watch Dao doing the same to her other breast as she masturbated.

He hugged Caera and Jes with his left arm, and Jes and Dao with his right. Where one body ended and another began, he couldn’t tell. He closed his eyes and melted into the sea of hot, soft flesh. Someone’s claws found his ass and helped push him into the gargoyle as he continued to grind on her and slowly work up to another orgasm. Maybe Jes’s claws, maybe Caera or Dao’s.

It took a while to cum again. Caera was right. Jes apparently needed to be thoroughly exhausted and drained to let out her cuddly side, and she did, hands roaming David’s back and hugging him tight to her. Sometimes she even pressed on the back of his head and buried his face into her breast, and she moaned and sighed as she did. She held him snug until he filled her with his cum, and stayed balls deep inside her as it flowed out of her and drenched his balls and thighs again.

Through it all, they could all hear the spire mother doing her best to suppress her moans as she came again, too.

~~♥♥♥~~

Exhausted, sweating and panting, he collapsed on Jes entirely. No more grinding or thrusting, just the delicious sensation of her boiling hot insides milking the final spurts of his cum as he lay on her. Holy crap he was drained. His muscles kinda hurt, and burned. But burying his face in Jes’s soft boob and sucking on her nipple didn’t require much energy, so he stayed there, and he sighed happily into the softness.

Caera slipped her claws into his hair again, over top Jes’s and Dao’s, and lifted his head up from Jes’s breast. Of course he didn’t stop sucking, and the gargoyle’s large breast lifted with him.

“My turn,” the tiger said. “Fuck me.”

He released the nipple. “Wait, what?”