The Pleasures of Hell
Copyright© 2023 by Novus Animus
Chapter 80
Fantasy Sex Story: Chapter 80 - An epic fantasy adventure through Hell, with demons and angels, and a couple humans with targets painted on their back. David and Mia didn’t want to be a part of this, but their unexpected first deaths land them in the middle of events grand and beyond knowing. Why are they in Hell in the first place? Why don’t they have the mark of the Beast, like other souls do? And why does everyone either want them, or want them dead?
Caution: This Fantasy Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Mult Consensual Reluctant Heterosexual Fiction High Fantasy Paranormal Demons MaleDom FemaleDom Spanking Gang Bang Group Sex Harem Orgy Anal Sex Double Penetration First Lactation Oral Sex Tit-Fucking Big Breasts Size
~~Day 130~~
~~David~~
So far, so good. Khazeer hadn’t betrayed them, but it’d only been a day. No angels showed up. No aliens attacked. The demons gave him his space, with Sazillia showing up every so often to make sure no one had stepped out of line.
The Red Pits was a dangerous province, but the demons seemed to obey their ruler. Which only made the province more dangerous.
“Here?” David asked. He stood in Khazeer’s throne room, on one of the bone chairs. Literally. It was the only way he could look down at the map on the big bone table.
Map was a strong word—really just a piece of leather with some scratch marks showing the various landmarks in the Red Pits and Navameere Fields. It was enough. Khazeer took a small rock and moved it toward the scratch mark that ran down the center. The border.
“On the right flank marches the enemy Tafalius, in the Thorned Ravine. On the left flank, Losiria, who’s pushed into my Red Shores. She and her forces have literally swum through flesh and blood to reach me. We will push through the middle, between them. A surprise assault.”
By ‘flank’, Khazeer meant stretches of land a hundred kilometers wide. Battles in Hell, true province-to-province, were not skirmishes poking at small spots, with guerrilla tactics or attempts to cut off supply lines. No drone strikes or missile attacks. If what Khazeer was showing him was right, with twenty rocks facing off against twenty other rocks on the map, demons slammed into each other and fought it out in a big-ass line.
What use were tactics? There were no supply lines to cut off. No tools for traps. All demons slept at the same time, so night tactics were out. They didn’t even have bows and arrows for ranged combat, let alone guns. The best they could do was try to out-position each other with the terrain and start a meat-grinder battle on their terms.
“Is there really no way to make bows and arrows?” David asked.
Khazeer shrugged. “You are welcome to find wood that will bend the way you want, and string that will survive the tension. You are welcome to craft arrows for us. You are welcome to teach demons how to aim and fire.”
Damn it, he hadn’t even thought of that. Logistics of creating bows and arrows aside, could demons even use them? Did their claws allow it? Did their brains even understand the concept of aiming, were even capable of it? Human tactics weren’t going to work here.
“Could you at least learn to use shields and spears!?” David yelled, slamming his hands on the table.
Khazeer snorted and flared his wings, glaring down at David; even with David standing on the chair, the tetrad spire ruler was still taller than him.
“Demons are not made of soft flesh, boy. We are made of powerful, dense muscle, and skin thick and strong. A spear wouldn’t—”
“You can’t swing a spear around like a sword. You have to hold formation behind shields and poke with it! Yes, you’re right. In a straight-up fight where people are throwing themselves at each other, once you get in close, the spear isn’t as useful. But the idea is to prevent that from happening in the first place!” David pulled on his shaggy hair. He’d be bald by now if this wasn’t the afterlife. “You wear armor. Why not shields?”
“A demon would not know how to use a shield,” Khazeer said. “Nor would I. You could show it to me, explain it, give it to me and walk me through how to use it, but to instill the reflex? We are demons, boy. Not humans.” Snarling, the huge demon flared his wings again, making the skulls dangling from its fingers rattle. “Ask an angel! They are as bound to their way of thinking as we are.”
Moriah and Tsila, literally hovering over the table with flapping wings, both nodded.
“The demon has a point,” Moriah said. “We have said it before. You cannot instill a new instinct, a new way of acting, into angels, or demons. I cannot learn to aim as the gabriem can. Or at least, it would not be feasible to learn. Maybe with thousands of years of effort? But most angels are happy to commit to what they are born knowing.”
Khazeer nodded. “As are demons.”
Daoka stepped up, but stopped herself from chirping whatever it was she wanted to chirp. Sighing, she stepped away, eyeless gaze aimed down. Weird.
“Okay,” David said. “I guess we’re stuck with limitations. It’s not like I can just pass around AK-47s and start a civil war, anyway. So demons are just going to slash and cut, and there’s nothing I can do to change that?”
“Create spears at the forge,” Khazeer said with some bite in his voice, “and perhaps we could learn to use them in a way that feels true. But a shield? Never.”
“Forge?”
“Yes. Forge. Only the great forge can create aera armaments, but the forge here in the Red Pits, and the one in the Navameere Fields, can create meera.”
David stared at the man and looked back at the rest of his crew. Only Laoko didn’t look surprised.
“Show me.”
The forge wasn’t in the spire. Back outside, David winced at the distant field of remnant faces and fingers, and followed Khazeer toward a large, black mound of rock a ten-minute walk away. Innocent enough at a distance, but the closer they grew, the more it looked unique. A large rock. A giant rock. A boulder the size of a house, with at least a thousand black skulls embossed on the surface, mouths open. Somehow, even without skin or muscle, the skulls looked as if they were screaming.
An archway lay within, tall enough for even a tetrad to walk in without issue, and skull-shaped braziers lined a hallway of blackstone. A stairway awaited them, winding down into the ground.
“Uh, we’re going underground?” David asked.
Khazeer paused in the archway. “The forge is underground. Is that a problem?”
“No. Just ... wondering why there’s a forge underground.”
Caera stepped up to the archway and peeked down the winding tunnel. “I wonder if the Old Ones made them?” Almost bouncing, the tiger waved her thick, giant tail, and tapped her two hands on the ground. From calm and collected one minute, to excited the next.
If the forge was anything like the one he’d already seen, there’d also be a temple, some place where a large demon could preach from behind a pulpit. And a book that would have runes from the ancient language written inside it. There’d be hallways and rooms inside the temple, probably meant to house other demons, as if someone was gearing their own little army.
He was right.
Down and down they went, Khazeer with Sazillia and a few of his elite guard, while David and his girls followed. Beautiful, smooth hallways covered in more skull braziers and carved stairs that looked like real stairs, instead of just worn stone steps. Down and down and into a giant cave with amber veins glowing along the walls, and a colossal wall of carved rock. The front wall of a temple, carved into the cave.
“You’ve seen this before?” Khazeer asked.
“There’s a temple like this hidden inside Death’s Grip,” David said. “Wouldn’t surprise me if there’s one in every province. Maybe more. Just, not next to the spire like this.”
Say one thing for Khazeer, he seemed perfectly happy to show David what he wanted to see. Maybe happy wasn’t the right word, just direct. David loved direct. The spire ruler stepped through the enormous, open doorway of the stone wall into the open nave of what was essentially an underground church. As if fantasy dwarves had carved a church for themselves, complete with a balcony that circled the nave from above.
In the back center awaited a pulpit, and below it, an anvil, with an amber vein cutting along the floor into the anvil’s core.
“No one has used the forge since the Spires War,” Khazeer said. “Damavior, a child of the Old Ones, ruled this province then, but died in a battle with the rider. Her appetite for power got the best of her, and she lost her life. And she took her secrets to the grave.”
A child of the Old Ones dying to the rider? And probably not just her, but whatever demons she’d taken with her to fight him. Not unexpected, not anymore.
“Where’d you get all your gear then?” David asked, gesturing to the tetrad.
“The gear was here, in the Red Pits. We scavenge it from the dead, and much of our battle with Navameere revolves around taking armor and weapons from each other’s dead. Aera metal came from False Gate, drifting here over many thousands of years.” The huge tetrad thudded his red, bronze, and gold breastplate, and stomped a hoof on the stone. “Aera metal is power.”
“Yes,” Moriah said, sneering. “It is.”
Argument inbound, David interrupted and gestured to the pulpit. “There’s a book up there, right?”
Khazeer snorted, nodding and fetching the book for him. Like the others, it was large, meant for much bigger hands, all leather with an embossed black skull on the cover. Damn heavy too, with thick, firm paper—where the fuck did they get paper? And when he perused, he found the same runes he had found in the other.
Except for one difference.
“Apollyon,” David said.
Khazeer shuffled his wings. “What?”
David pointed at a run on the first page. “Apollyon. It’s signed. I don’t know how an Old One signed a book, considering how fucking big they are, but this is Apollyon’s book. Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he, she, it, whatever, wrote it.”
Dead silence. Revealing he could read the ancient language was a risk, but Khazeer had been straight with him so far, and if Sazillia was anything to go by, he was a frank, honest man.
“You can read the old language?” Khazeer asked.
“I can.”
“What else can you do, unmarked?”
David shook his head. “Not what you’re thinking. I’ve never used a forge. Don’t know if I can. And staying here to play blacksmith for you so you can win your war against your neighbor, while the universe is about to die, is not an option.”
Snarling again, Khazeer took the book from his hands and set it back on the huge pulpit.
“I understand,” the demon said, glaring. “But that does not mean I cannot ask for your help if it will not affect your mission.”
“Agreed. And if I see some way I can help out more than I am, I will.”
David gestured to the amber runes written into the wall above the pulpit. No demon could make these. Only Hell, or maybe the Old Ones themselves, could manipulate the lava of Hell through veins of clear, glass-like material, to create amber veins, and amber runes.
“That,” David said, “reads: By Apollyon’s power, this war will be won.” Because, of course, this was all Apollyon’s doing. And by war, it probably meant the war with Abaddon in Navameere Fields. If it was about the First War, the battle against Heaven, it’d probably have been written by Lucifer, but this didn’t read like their work. Satan’s handwriting was firmly burned into David’s memory, and this wasn’t it.
And like he owned the place, David walked around, exploring the hallways of the old temple. Khazeer stayed in the nave with his guard, grumbling, but David’s girls followed. It quickly turned into them following Caera though, as she ducked in and out of huge alcoves, single eye wide as she scanned the old walls.
“What’s this say?” she asked, gesturing to old scratch marks. “Old language just carved into a wall? Had to be a child of the Old Ones from the early years.”
“‘I, Nalliazara, have claimed my first kill.’” David winced. “I’m guessing a child who killed another child, based on those statues we keep finding.” He half expected to stumble onto more giant statues of the utterly massive demons, slaughtering each other.
Another set of scratch marks in the same room, and Caera stood up and patted them, as if she could pluck them from the wall for him to read.
“‘I, Nalliazara, have tasted the power of an imbued weapon. Apollyon’s will be praised.’” More scratch marks. “‘I, Nalliazara, have cut down Nariah, and Ozillius. Their hearts tasted strong, stronger than any soul’s.’”
Caera nodded. “Must be a child who was trying to help Apollyon? Maybe the children of the Old Ones had an idea how to free their predecessors from ... whatever it is that binds them? And she said souls? I guess even way back then, souls were being sent to Hell. I wonder what they were like back then? We know Hell changes form to reflect the surface world, right? I bet back then, Hell and the demons didn’t look anything like they do now.” She gestured at the wall again. “And all of this warped and changed to fit the new form of Hell over millions of years. Maybe?”
David laughed. Caera tilted her head, squinting her eye at him, but he waved his hands. She was oblivious to how much she changed when history grabbed her attention.
“You’re probably right,” he said.
They moved on. Of course, all the rooms were empty, just giant alcoves carved into square rooms. But most of them had scratch marks telling tales of children of the Old Ones killing each other, eating each other, and making names for themselves, wielding imbued weapons.
“They were obsessed with killing each other,” Caera said.
“Looks like.” They stopped in front of another set of scratch marks. “‘The spire will be mine,’” it said. No better reason to kill your fellow demons than a chance to be their ruler, he supposed. “I’m guessing these children were ... literal children? Or, you know, young demons? Feels weird to write random shit on the walls. Unless you’re a kid. Then it’s more normal.” He shuddered, but that was how demons did things. Except, that was contained to the hatching pit. This was different. Did they even have hatching pits back then? Spire mothers?
A paragraph stopped him, and he stared at the runes. “‘The urge consumes me, and Apollyon has nothing to tell us. We kill, and we kill, and we kill. I killed my friends. I killed my lovers. I killed everyone around me, and now I am alone. The mightiest shall rule. That was Lucifer’s message to us. That is Apollyon’s message to us. We, the first children of the spire, will inherit Hell. It will be ours. It will be mine. But ... I will be alone.’”
Convenient for ancient demons to write these pointless messages into the walls. Maybe they wanted to voice their own thoughts. Maybe it was the only way for them to understand themselves?
“The children of the Old Ones,” Caera said, standing up and leaning on the wall again, “were ... unstable?”
“Unstable is a word for it,” David said, sliding a finger along the runes. “Sounds like they were consumed with an ‘urge’, to the point they killed everyone they knew.”
“And they wrote about it?”
He shrugged. “I mean, if I were young and half insane, I’d write about it, too.”
A sharp snap announced Caera’s tail hitting him in the ass, and she chuckled.
“If you were young? You’re a baby.”
“I am an old man! The fact this body is only nineteen years old is just bad luck. I was born eighty.”
From chuckle to laugh, Caera leaned over him, kissed him, licked his forehead, and the two of them headed back out to join Khazeer.
“Discover anything useful?” the spire ruler asked, glaring, but that seemed normal for him.
“Not really,” David said. “Just a bunch of old messages left by the first children of the Old Ones. They tore each other apart, fighting over the spires.”
Khazeer tilted his head. For a second, David thought he might ask for more, but the tetrad grumbled, turned, and walked out of the temple, gesturing for David to join him. Like most demons, Khazeer didn’t care about ancient history. A shame.
Pegasus clopped around their spire room, bored, flapping his wings as if he might someday fly. No luck so far.
“But Vinicius might be with Mia,” Jeskura said. The gargoyle perched on the table in the raised section of the room.
David walked up and joined her. “Yeah, I know.” He pulled himself up onto the bone table with her and let his legs droop, elbows to his knees and chin in his palms. After the woman-in-armor had kidnapped Mia — and saved Death’s Grip from the growing canyon by doing so — she’d left Mia with Vinicius, the child of the Old Ones that’d apparently been trapped in the dungeons of the spire for who knew how long. “Mia’s not dead yet, though, and it’s been months. Either Vinicius is dead, or not with her anymore, or they’re working together.”
Jes shuddered. “Hopefully not that last one. I mean, even I know how mindlessly violent children of the Old Ones were. Remember those statues? I vote we avoid any children if we find them.”
“Are any left alive?” Caera asked from the lower, larger floor of the room, sitting on the leather blankets. “Far as I know, people call Vinicius the last of the children of the Old Ones for a reason.” Lasca was pinned under her tail, while Laria and Latia each wrestled with the tiger’s giant hands. Unfortunately for them, Caera easily pinned both red goblins by their breastplates, no matter how hard they squirmed.
“We ran into Old Ones,” Jes said, “and they were supposed to be dead, right? And it’s not like we know much about this corner of Hell. Even Laoko’s in the dark about the Navameere Fields.”
Laoko nodded, sitting beside Caera and idly caressing Laara’s wings. “We entered unknown territory. Morgana keeps to herself in Navameere, and no one knows how she keeps peace with the volatile False Gate. We must be prepared for anything.”
“Angels?” David asked.
Moriah and Tsila both hovered in the room, each flap of the wings sending a gentle breeze around, but that wasn’t the reason. They were just aching to use their wings after having them wrapped up for so long.
“There is little to tell of the Navameere Fields,” Moriah said. “We angels remain ignorant to the nuances of each province, but we have heard nothing of any child of the Old Ones, save for Vinicius.”
“Then again,” Tsila said, “we didn’t know about the Old Ones being alive, either.”
Sighing, David scooped up his dice from the table and rolled them. Two and a four. No omens there.
He looked around at the group. Jes, Caera, Daoka. The Las. Moriah and Tsila. Laoko.
“Where’s Acelina?” he asked.
“Visiting her fellow zotivas,” Laoko said. She grinned up at David and licked her lips in a very, purposefully seductive manner. “Did you want to visit them, too?”
David shivered. Last time he’d visited spire mothers, Acelina and her ‘sisters’ had all gathered around to give him the best fellatio of his life, deepthroating included.
“I mean ... a quick visit wouldn’t hurt. Just a visit!”
Caera rolled her eye.
Before visiting the spire mothers, it was probably a good idea to confirm with Khazeer. Spire mothers were precious, the only demon breed that had an innate understanding of what eggs bore what demons, and which eggs were in healthy condition. A random visit might not be looked upon well.
David poked his head through the colossal, open, black skull that was the throne room door. He probably shouldn’t have.
~~♥♥♥~~
Tatiana sat on Khazeer’s lap, naked as before, the spire ruler sitting on his throne. The succubus faced away from the man, and every inch of her was covered in cum. White oozed out of her empty slit, but her belly bulged; Khazeer was in her ass. The tetrad didn’t move, content to simply sit there, hands on the arms of his throne, and let the succubus dance on him, twisting, wriggling, and writhing hypnotically.
Twelve brutes, naked, surrounded the throne, and one stepped in and squatted in front of Tatiana and over Khazeer’s legs. David couldn’t see anymore, the brute blocking vision, but a gush of white poured out onto the floor between his legs as the brute thrust his hips forward. Tatiana had been pumped full of cum and was getting another dose. And through the cracks between their bodies, David spotted the succubus still dancing, still swaying her hips, with two cocks inside her.
She was earning her keep.
~~♥♥♥~~
David decided it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, and went looking for Acelina.
Spires weren’t just black, spiky towers sticking up — and down — in Hell. Beneath the surface of the province, things got fleshier in the tower, with more white bone and red, bleeding muscle mass that grew along the metal walls, and inside the rock tunnels. Halfway down beneath the crust of Hell, one tunnel of metal looked like the belly of a snake. First, metal walls with rib-like curvatures, then literal white bone ribs jutting from a spinal cord from above. And the deeper the tunnel went, the more fleshy things got, until every step was on spongy meat.
The first massive room was like the last spire mothers’ room he’d seen, a large place with two tunnels along the sides leading further in. The main room had no amber runes, or eggs, and instead had tables and chairs, and black metal shelves covered in fancy chained jewelry. Flesh walls, flesh ceilings, flesh floor, with bony protrusions and furniture that almost looked elegant.
Acelina stood with three other spire mothers. If every spire only had three, zotivas had to be the rarest breed of demon, next to other children of the Old Ones.
“This is the unmarked boy?” one lady asked.
Acelina chuckled and gestured to him. “Yes.”
The three ladies approached, hips swaying with each step, the motion emphasized by their hooves—basically high heels, anatomically speaking. Apparently all spire mothers were absurdly busty ladies, with narrow waists that almost looked too tiny over wide hips. They even wore red silks, likely bartered from the Scar or brought to them as gifts. According to Acelina, anyone who got on the good side of a spire mother likely got to stay in the spire instead of living out in the dangerous world, so the spire mothers were treated like royalty.
They were the princesses of the spire, older, mature princesses, and with the way their horns sort of curled back and around, they looked like they wore crowns.
They strutted up to David, various necklaces jingling, nipple chains connecting nipple to nipple, piercings hidden under the flimsy silk breast curtains. Acelina had gotten used to wearing her chains in tighter shapes around her torso so they didn’t make noise when she walked, and didn’t bother with nipple chains much; a solid yank on that would make for a nasty wound. But the three other ladies wore their necklaces loose, as if to emphasize just how absurdly deep the valleys between their breasts were.
“This is David,” Acelina said, standing beside him. She still wore her breastplate. Not comfortable with the other spire mothers yet, maybe?
“You are right, Acelina,” a spire mother said, and she squatted in front of him. “Most souls worthy of notice are not ... small, thin boys.”
“Thin?” He looked himself up and down. He was in great shape! Muscular, even! Yes, he was small, and lean, but damn it. Heat pulsed in his cheeks, and he folded his arms across his chest.
The three strangers chuckled, reached out, and ran claws down his red, revealing toga. They tugged at the tiny black necklace the potram rune gave him, and his rings and bracelet.
“But he is worthy of notice,” another said. She licked her shark teeth as she let out her wide, massive, monster smile, before hiding it again in the black, featureless canvas of a spire mother’s face. “Are you here to save us from the other unmarked on the warpath, little boy? We would reward you handsomely, if you dedicated yourself to the Red Pits spire.”
“Most handsomely,” the third spire mother said. “You would be protected by us. Every night, you would spend with us. Acelina says you can grow your cock long, and numerous? I would very much like to experience that.”
“Yes,” the first one said. “Every night, you would spend with us, sheathed in our bodies, your lips on our breasts, drinking of us. Would that please you? You could be our ... what is the word? Knight.”
Good fucking god. David clamped down on his aura with the jaws of life, and gently pushed their hands off his body.
“Sorry, ladies,” he said. “My services are not for sale. And besides, I like my crew more than I like you.”
The spire mothers sighed, but chuckled, disappointed, but entertained. They stood back up, making sure to let their barely covered breasts dangle and sway slightly as they did. Even unaroused, with skin a firm dark red, their tits were big enough to jiggle.
“That,” the second spire mother said, “Acelina also told us. You are quite the slut for a human, sleeping with demons and angels.” She gestured to the crew. “Even imps and grems!” She scowled down at the Las, and the Las ducked behind Laoko’s giant legs along with Pegasus. “Vermin.”
David glared. “They’re not vermin.”
“They feed on remnants.”
“So? Someone has to. And besides, you won’t let them feed on souls.”
The third spire mother growled. “They are stupid.”
“And yet my four little ladies have fought in a war and defeated smarter demons in battle. They’ve organized armies in days, and swarmed an entire spire.” He maintained his glare, even as the three zotivas traded eyeless groans of disapproval.
Okay, he was embellishing a bit. Imps and grems were dumb; there was no getting around it. But they weren’t dumb dumb, either.
“The boy speaks truth,” Acelina said. “You would do well to consider his words.”
David stared up at Acelina, as did the other spire mothers. Whatever they thought of David or the Las, they apparently thought highly of Acelina, sighing, nodding, and taking small steps back.
“Very well,” the third spire mother said. “Did you come to see our hatching pit, unmarked?”
“No. I just wanted to see how Acelina was doing.”
The second spire mother tilted her head. “Why?”
“Why? Because she’s a member of my crew, and I like her?”
The spire mothers traded glances again before looking at Acelina. It was hard to say, with spire mothers having no facial features at all, but Acelina looked a bit surprised, tail raising and flowing a little differently than it had before.
“David,” Tsila said, beaming a beautiful smile as she stepped up to his side, “is a soul worthy of Heaven, zotivas. You will find he is empathetic and kind.”
“Empathetic and kind?” The third mother said. “Like in the scrying pools.”
Tsila nodded. “Exactly.”
“That ... is strange,” the first mother said. “So you actually care about those in your crew? You cherish and protect them? Like some ... knight from one of those stories from the surface? Fairytales?”
David blushed more, especially when Caera brushed up against his hip.
“I do,” he said. “I mean, I try, anyway.”
The spire mothers looked down at Caera, and Caera stood up on her hind legs and folded her arms across her breastplate, challenging them. She wasn’t quite as tall as the spire mothers, but she had more muscle, and she thudded her giant tail on the ground. Pegasus jumped back like a startled cat.
“He does,” she said. The tiger leaned down over his shoulder, gave his cheek a lick, and smiled at the mothers. “Can I see the hatching pit? I just like to explore and see other places. In trade, you can play with David.”
Oh shit. Caera gave him a gentle shove, and he stumbled forward, straight into the awaiting hands of the three spire mothers.
“Uh, Caera?” He gulped and stared up at the three ladies. From this close, their busts hung directly over his head, hiding their featureless faces from him. All he could see were giant boobs.
Caera laughed. “Come on.” Back on all fours, she gestured for the spire mothers to follow. They laughed, and did, pushing David along like he was their brand new toy.
At least until Acelina reached out and plucked him out from under their claws. He looked up at her, blinking. Her claws spoke for her, a gentle grip that kept him where he was, securely in front of her as they walked after the other spire mothers into the other rooms and toward the hatching pit Caera wanted to see.
David smiled.
Something warm and wet woke him up. Tongue? Tongue.
Back in their room, David lay on his back in his red toga, but the girls still had their armor on; they didn’t trust Khazeer yet. But Khazeer had given David a small amber necklace he could use to close the room door of teeth at will, so at least they had a door between them and the rest of the spire.
Caera lay on her side beside him, facing him, the two of them near a room wall. Jes and Daoka, on watch duty, were off to the side, quietly chatting and chirping about something. Caera was supposed to be sleeping. So was he.
She leaned into him and licked his neck, letting out a long, quiet, deep rumble. If tigers could purr.
“Caera?” he asked.
“I just wanted to snuggle.”
“You sure? I thought you wanted to throw me to the sharks.”
She blinked. “What? Oh, the zotivas.” Not dissuaded, she snuggled into his side and licked his cheek. “I just like to watch you squirm. I wouldn’t let them do anything to you.”
He squinted at her, unconvinced, and earned another chuckle from her.
“I guess,” he said, “everyone’s feeling a little more ... relaxed, since arriving.”