The Pleasures of Hell
Copyright© 2023 by Novus Animus
Chapter 92
Fantasy Sex Story: Chapter 92 - 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 152~~
~~Mia~~
She got on Cerberus’s back, wincing as she found some grooves between his spine spikes, and smiled at James.
“See? I can ride him now! But without a saddle, he’s gonna rub my legs raw.”
All three heads looked back at her, tilting. Riding the big dog was pretty much impossible beyond a walk, but a walk was all they needed for the boring, boring, zoring-doring-moring-boring walk through the bridge tunnel. And without a pesky set of testicles to get in her way, she was free to shift about and get as comfortable as she could.
James nodded, awe twinkling in his eyes. “Think we can make a saddle? Maybe we’ll run into hellbeasts again.”
Mia whined. “I don’t wanna kill hellbeasts just to make a saddle out of ‘em.”
Julisa snorted from the front of the group and snapped her tail. “Mia! You are riding a three-headed cannam larger than any other cannam. And it is very young, likely to only grow larger. You need a saddle. And besides, hellbeasts are mindless spawn of Hell. Kill them at your leisure.”
“Cerb is not mindless!” She patted her dog on his three heads. Boss-head harrumphed. Serious-head looked back at the path. Dopey-head leaned into the pats, looking for more. “Hellbeasts can even talk, Julisa. They do that clicky Hellian language stuff.”
The incubus Locutus tapped his chin, walking beside her. “So can surface animals, can’t they? To some degree? Are they not mindless?”
“They’re not mindless either!” Fingers to her face, she dragged them down her cheeks until she probably looked like her face was melting off. “We shouldn’t just kill animals because we need their skin. That’s fucked up. For food, sure, but that’s different. And we can’t even eat hellbeast hearts anyway!”
The four incubi surrounded her and traded glances, unconvinced. At least James understood, nodding, but smiling too. Another person who wouldn’t take her outbursts seriously. It was university all over again.
“Hellbeasts,” Romakus said, Yosepha at his side, “attack us without care for self-preservation, Mia. Varmints. They make demons look timid. Let’s not worry too much about them, kill any who attack us, and see if we can make you some riding gear, ya?”
She groaned. “Fine.”
She spent some time working with Cerberus, teaching him to speed up or slow down based on gentle kicks with her heels. Slow learning. If not for Kas and Adron, and occasionally Noah, clicking at him in Hellian, they’d have made zero progress.
And, despite him looking much older, Cerb was still a puppy. Kinda. Did hellbeasts even go through a juvenile phase? He’d been ready to hunt and kill pretty much from day one, but there’d still been an edge of playfulness to him. It was still there, and with Mia on his back, Cerb drifted to the sides of the tunnel, clawed at the black rib sometimes, or reached between them and pawed at the wall of water, like a curious puppy.
Things lurked in that water.
“Careful,” Noah said, and he clicked his tongue once.
Cerb grumbled and swiped at the water harder, sending red water splashing.
Mia gave his back spikes a tug. “Now, now, Cerberus. Noah’s right. This isn’t Earth, with whales and dolphins and stuff. There are no fun creatures in that water. Only hungry hellbeasts like you.”
After a few more grumbles, Cerb relented and walked the sandy path again, following directly behind Kas. He was almost as big as Kas already. Not even three months old, and big enough to wrestle big demons.
Kas looked back, clicked once, and walked along. Her big shark-dinosaur demon bodyguard, short back legs making it so that despite being bipedal like all demons, he easily walked on all fours, almost like a gorilla. With a giant dragon tail. And a flat shark head that was all black, had no eyes, and two forward-jutting horns. Maybe he could wrestle Cerb when Cerb was bigger?
“Hellbeasts,” Mia said, gesturing to the parted sea beside her. “They hunt and kill humans and demons for our resonance, right? And we don’t eat them, because they don’t store it?”
“Yes,” Adron said. “Far as we know, hellbeasts eat resonance, and convert it into essence immediately. Demons eat it and hold on to it, turning it into essence to keep us alive, keep us strong, and let us do things like use auras, or breathe hellfire, I guess.”
Her vrat friend walked beside Kas, a classic demon. Eight feet tall, demony legs, long tail, a couple large black horns, and long flowing black tendril hair. A giant man, but tiny compared to his friend, or to the devorjin brute walking ahead, or the three tetrads. Or even the tiger lady Silvina, who was only a little smaller than Kas. The only demons in the group not towering over him were the four incubi, and sweet bat lady Yulia.
And the angels, of course. Azreal and Noah drifted back until they walked directly behind Mia, not wearing their armor, and both looked to the walls of water as much as behind them, scanning for attackers. Smooth sailing so far, beyond the occasional, failed angel bombardment.
“I guess,” Mia said, “hellbeasts wouldn’t kill each other very often, if there’s no reason to eat each other.”
Kas nodded. “Correct.”
“But it makes me wonder. Humans have resonance but can’t use it. They have to survive off what little essence they have, or eat demons or hellbeasts ... or other people, to get more. But that energy chain doesn’t work for them, no resonance-to-essence conversion.” She laughed. Science! “How often do hellbeasts eat compared to demons?”
Adron shrugged. “About the same, I guess?”
“Well, then there’s some weirdness there. It’s almost like when a hellbeast eats someone, they get more fuel than they need? They aren’t going around using auras or breathing hellfire.”
“Most demons can’t,” he said.
“Still. It’s almost like hellbeasts eat resonance, and maybe only use a little bit of it for essence. Almost like, they’re gobbling up coal to fuel their fire, but then they just ... dump the rest of the coal?” She tilted her head. “Do hellbeasts poop? No, of course they don’t. Cerb’s never pooped. No one poops in the afterlife.”
Someone laughed. Mia blinked, slowly turned her head, and stared at Noah. Mister Intensity was laughing. Even Azreal had a smile.
She beamed. Don’t ruin it.
“What I mean is,” she continued, “it seems like hellbeasts have a very specific purpose. They collect resonance and quickly burn through it. We know—or think we know—Hell is trying to cleanse souls of bad resonance before they can join the Great Tower for rebirth. That’s what Raphael showed me, I guess. Hellbeasts seem to be step one in this ecosystem.”
“And demons?” Adron asked.
“Demons weren’t here at the start, right? Lucifer created them.” Hand up, she counted off on her fingers. “He, it, they, created the nine spires, kinda like the nine heavenly islands. He created the Old Ones, who are attached to their spires in some way; similar to the council angels, maybe? He created demons, starting with the Children of the Old Ones, the first demons born from the spires. Sorta like his own version of angels, I guess. But if we take away Lucifer’s additions, what do we have? Heaven, the nine islands, the council of angels, and the four archangels, watching outside the universe, probably to defend it against things like aliens. We have angels, helping souls move on, and guarding them from future threats; more aliens, I’m guessing.
“Then we have the surface world, where resonance is created. The origin of ... of ... existence? Maybe? I don’t know. I don’t want to make the surface world sound like it’s all that matters, and—”
“It is,” Noah said, a hint of his smile still there as he nodded. “It is.”
Mia sighed. Because, of course, the man would frame it like his own life didn’t matter.
“And then we have Hell,” she said, “where tainted souls go to get cleaned up. Some die to the terrain, or each other, but I bet if demons had never been created, hellbeasts would be absolutely everywhere, eating humans and scavenging remnants. But demons and hellbeasts have been fighting each other for the same food source since humans started coming to the afterlife. So nothing’s turned out the way it was supposed to.”
“What are you getting at?” Adron asked.
“I’m saying, Hell was supposed to be very different. Even maybe a bit—a bit!—less cruel, in the original version, before Lucifer screwed everything up. I bet hellbeasts would churn through souls and remnants far more quickly than they do now.” Put like that, the ecosystem didn’t sound so bad. Or, as bad.
“Why does it matter?” Azreal asked. To his credit, his voice was completely serious, with no hint of cynicism.
“I need to understand the system if I’m going to fix it.”
So much for the light mood. Azreal’s face settled into a frown, but at least he kept his doubtlessly critical, mean opinion of her plan to himself.
“I’m an angel?” Adron asked.
She blinked. “What?”
“You said demons are Lucifer’s angels.”
“I meant equivalent, kinda? It’s almost like Lucifer tried to recreate what God did.” She looked back at her two angel bodyguards. “You said the old books are forbidden? That they can’t be read, because the council doesn’t want another civil war, another Lucifer situation?”
Noah nodded. “We angels understand that we are not impervious to temptation, even if that temptation is deadly. Forever we are on guard against it.”
Azreal mirrored the nod. “Worshipping an angel is ... a powerful seduction. Angels must resist. Other temptations exist, temptations that must exist in the old tomes.”
How easy it was for a dedicated populace to put blind faith in their superiors. There had to be some social commentary in there somewhere.
“I’m just wondering,” Mia said. “We don’t know anything about Lucifer’s fall, right? What happened back then? Did Lucifer try something God didn’t like? And you two”—she gestured to the mikalim and rapholem—”are angels based on Michael and Raphael, right? Did they create you?”
“No,” Noah said. “God created us to resemble them, after a fashion. Or so we have been told.”
Mia nodded. “Yeah, I believe it. But then ... where are the lucifarem? ... lucifera? Lucifra? Lucarem? Lu—”
“There have never been such angels,” Noah said. “The rapholem are the shields of Heaven. We mikalim, her sword. And the gabriem are her healing waters. What role would such angels fill?”
“No idea.” Eyebrows furrowed, she rubbed Cerberus’s necks where they joined as her mind wandered. Where was David when she needed him? Thinking like this was his job. “Lucifer was cast down from Heaven, stripped of his ability to fly—whatever that means to an archangel—and retaliated by creating a whole bunch of stuff in Hell. Or...”
“Or?” Adron asked.
“Or maybe, Lucifer was trying to be like Dad?”
They all raised eyebrows, waiting.
She continued. “There’s a lot of versions of Lucifer on the surface world, but they all talk about how the archangel was cast down, usually for varying reasons: pride, refusal to serve humankind, things like that. I wonder what was going on, way back then, that God decided not to create angels based on Lucifer? What sort of falling-out did they have that would have led to that decision? Only for Lucifer to do something on an even bigger scale in Hell? Almost like he was retaliating, or trying to one-up his old man.” The angels blinked. “What I’m saying is, Lucifer didn’t create the spires and demons just to wage war. Maybe he was trying to be like his father, or better.”
“And you too,” Azreal said, “wish to be like God.”
She stared at him, opened her mouth, and shut it. That was a good point.
“I’ll be careful,” she said.
Azreal matched his partner’s stare. “Good intentions, Mia.” He didn’t finish the expression.
She pondered for a while, chin in hand. Cerb was nice enough to keep a steady pace and follow the group, which her naked thighs appreciated. It felt great not having to walk. Sucked for the rest of the crew, though. Demons hated long distances, so they took frequent breaks.
A few minutes into a pause, Adron leaned over her and knocked her head with a horn.
“Ow! Hey, what?” She jabbed his chin. “What gives?”
“How you holding up?” He smiled at her and winked. Or blinked. Half of his face and body were burned, and would never truly heal, but at least the burn marks had healed in a way that looked kinda badass. A quirk of being a demon, maybe?
“Me? I’m fine. You?”
“Oh, just peachy.”
She frowned at him. “Come on, out with it.”
“Nothing to oust.”
Oust? How the fuck did the Estian language translate that?
“Uh huh, sure. Why you asking?”
She and Cerberus were at the tunnel wall again, the best doggo in the world swiping at the water occasionally. Everyone else was sitting in a big circle around a burning bush James had summoned; apparently, he was good at that. Azreal and Noah sat with the group too, surprisingly, and listened to James weave a tale about a girl he knew back on the surface.
The angels listened to his every word, eyes fixed on the young man. Talk of battle, slaying demons and angels, learning to weave firestorms into upside-down ocean waves, and all that kinda stuff? Boring. Losing his virginity to a shy girl he’d bonded with, working some crap retail job? The angels absorbed the story, gazes locked on his, drinking it in.
Mia’s eyes lingered on Azreal and Noah, and she smiled.
“That’s why,” Adron whispered.
She blushed and shoved the man. Which Cerb took as an invitation to war and growled at him, and Mia quickly played referee and soothed her puppers. Snorting, Cerberus went back to swiping the water wall, and Adron chuckled as he leaned over her again, a mischievous grin on full display as he waited for her answer.
She was tempted not to say a thing and leave him hanging. Alas, she wanted to talk. God, she wanted to talk about this.
“I like Noah and Azreal,” she whispered, quiet as a falling feather.
“Me too,” Adron whispered back. “But not in the way you do, I bet.”
“And...”
“And, what?” he asked. “What’s the problem? Think they’ll care you’re a slut and have been fucking demons?”
She blushed again and buried her face in her palms. “It’s not that. I ... don’t think. Do you think they’d care?” God, she had been quite the slut on this journey. Not lately, but just a few months ago, she’d been banging Adron, Kas, Julisa, Vin, and the four incubi. At the same time! Literally, in one case. Just a big ol’ dick receptacle.
“You heard the angels, Yosepha included,” he said. “Heaven is a non-stop orgy. Don’t worry about it.”
That was true. She peeked through her fingers at Yosepha, sitting on Romakus’s lap. As usual, Romakus couldn’t keep his hands off her, but unlike usual, Yosepha wasn’t doing much to stop him. The demon half-hugged, half-groped her, and she just leaned back against his chest and let him.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “I just ... I don’t know.” Sighing, she looked to Kas, the big guy sitting almost like a dog as he listened to James. And she looked back up at Adron, lowering her hands as she pouted at him. “And I like you too.”
Adron’s grin went nowhere. “But I don’t ... what’s the expression? Put butterflies in your stomach?”
From pouting to frowning in seconds, she almost shoved him again.
“Don’t say it like that.”
But Adron just shrugged and nudged her again, this time with his tail.
“You’ll always be a sweet little piece of ass, and Kas and I would be happy to fuck any time you want,” he said. “But we can tell, even Kas, that you’ve got a type.”
“And what type is that?”
“Hopelessly self-destructive, doomed men.”
Damn. Hearing it put so ... succinctly, made her squirm.
Adron gestured at himself. “I am a beacon of positivity, so I don’t fit the mold. And ... yes, losing Hannah hurt. But I’ll survive. And hey, maybe your plan will work, and you’ll rework Hell and help remnants pass on faster.” His next nudge included a little kiss, right on the top of her head. “I hope you do, for Hannah.”
She sucked in a slow breath. Just hearing the woman’s name was sobering.
“And Kas?” she asked.
“Kas is grumpy, sure, but he’s not out to get himself killed. He’s on board with you changing things, and will happily help.”
That was true. For all Kas’s rough history and current hatred of demonkind, the man wasn’t a problematic wreck.
“Now Vinicius,” Adron said, his head up against hers, cheek to cheek, both of them looking out at the rest of the group. “Vin was an interesting project. That man is a bundle of destruction in all directions, in and out. Unfortunately, the destruction-out part was too big a problem. We all saw it with Belor. You made the right call, leaving him behind.”
Her next sigh might as well have breathed cold mist. “Aren’t you smart?”
He chuckled. “I’m just repeating the things you’ve said, Mia. Worded a little differently, but still.”
She rolled her eyes. It never felt good to hear something you’d said thrown back at you.
“The two angels,” he continued. “They’re different. They’re suffering. They’re using demons hearts to resist the dread. And all they want to do is spend their last moments making the afterlife a better place. Even makes me want to bone them.”
Damn it, she laughed. “Yeah. They fit the tall, dark, brooding stereotype pretty well. Without Vin’s volatility...” And just like that, her smile ran away. “I’m sad.”
“Sad?” he asked.
“About Vin. I ... I keep thinking about it. Maybe I could have done something? I thought he was getting nicer, you know? But then Belor showed up, and—”
Adron nudged her head with a horn. “Maybe you’ll see him again. Maybe things will be different.”
“You think he’s still alive?”
“Definitely. He’s probably the oldest Child of the Old Ones around, older than Belor, older than any others that might still be out there. He roamed Hell with the father of murder and fought entire armies. If there’s any demon out there that can survive angels and aliens, it’s him.”
She nodded. Good. Much as she was angry at Vin, she didn’t want him to die. Yes, he’d tried to kill her at the end, but that was her fault because—
That was exactly the sort of shit an abused wife said. You made the right call, Mia.
~~Unknown~~
A man ran for his life, as fast as he could. Sweat poured down his naked skin. His bare feet slapped the shoreline of False Gate. To his right, the Red Sea. To his left, the ruined wasteland of broken buildings and shattered land. Ahead, the Red Sea rose, a giant wave that reached high into the sky and refused to fall. And the closer he got, the more obvious what the giant wave was.
A split. Someone had split the Red Sea, and the two colossal walls of water towered over the trench with a might unknowable. He could hear the song. Three songs, playing at the same time. He didn’t know the runes, hadn’t absorbed them or activated them, but he recognized them. He just had to get there, get to the split and the tunnel awaiting him. He’d be safe in there. The lady in armor had told him! Get to False Gate, and then to the Forgotten Place. If he could do that, he’d be safe, safe from the rider, safe from the aliens, safe from everyone. Just go!
But it didn’t matter. White dots filled the burning sky. A thousand golden arrows fell upon him, and he tore apart.
~~Day 153~~
~~Mia~~
Everyone was together, almost a dogpile, tails and wings spread about, and Cerberus lay beside Mia, a big couch for her to lean against and fall asleep on. And when Mia snapped up like someone had shocked her, Cerberus jumped to his paws and roared as he spun around.
“Shit!” James yelled, jumping up too and spinning around. “That was ... Mia? Was that—”
“No,” she said. Groaning, she got to her feet on shaky legs and patted Cerberus on his heads. “It’s okay, Cerb, it’s okay. Just a bad dream.”
Everyone was up in moments, some scrabbling for their weapons in the wet sand.
James waved his hands. “Guys, calm down. No one’s attacking. Just ... Just another unmarked killed.”
“Not David,” Mia said. “A man, running on a beach. He ... He saw...” She gestured to the giant black ribs and red water wall beyond. “He was trying to make it here. Angels shot him.”
Yosepha groaned. “My kind have become murderers, slaughtering all that breathe and move.”
“What about Keziah?” Romakus asked. “She helped us. She—”
Mia shook her head. “Whatever she accomplished, it was short-lived, I guess.” Weight dragged her down, and she fell on her ass in the sand again. Cerb was behind her in a second, becoming her couch once more. “God, he was so desperate. He thought maybe, just maybe ... Fuck me, I could hear his thoughts, just a little. He thought—” Eyes closed, she let her head hang and let the misery pulse through her until it faded. It took far too long.
Noah and Azreal joined her, Noah kneeling and waiting until she looked up at him. He was looking at her, silver eyes searching through hers.
“Are you alright?” he asked, voice steady.
She sniffed. “Yeah. I uh ... His death was really loud, in the music, I guess. The vision was strong.” The mikalim squinted slightly as he looked at her. Still searching for something. She patted his cheek. “I’m fine, really.”
He nodded at last. “Six unmarked are dead. Three survive.”
“Yeah. James, my brother, and me.”
James joined them. “You’re sure it was only the nine?”
“Far as we know,” she said. “Far as Raphael’s suggestion told me. Every unmarked went to Heaven’s gate, and then promptly got booted to Hell.”
“Hard to believe,” Julisa said, towering over them. “Nine souls, and all got to visit Heaven?”
“People aren’t that bad,” Mia said. “It’s...”
A hundred arguments about how most people were good people, shot in the foot by the look James gave her. Part of her wanted to ask, to learn about what sort of things he’d experienced in life. But the longer he looked at her, the more she thought better of it.
She sighed. “Okay, assuming not every unmarked who got sent to Heaven deserved it, then ... what? Why did we all go to Heaven first? And then ... promptly get sent to Hell?”
“No idea,” James said. “I mean, what do we know? What Raphael showed you, about that angel Ramiel dropping off an egg in some random guy. You said she killed herself, and then gave a part of herself to that man?” He gestured to the three angels. “If the afterlife is an ecosystem with rules, and we unmarked are completely new, then maybe we got sent to Heaven first because of whatever Ramiel did? The system rules just defaulted to something it recognized?”
“Yea, maybe. Yeah...” She got up and grabbed James’s hand. “Yeah! We’ve been assuming that whatever Ramiel did was about us becoming unmarked and going to Hell. Maybe whatever she did tried to get us to Heaven first? We can use angel runes. Maybe the Great Tower thought we were angels and tried to send us back to Heaven, because ... we’re part of Ramiel? Maybe that’s why she killed herself. To help us?”
But Azreal shook his head. “Death was her only future, for such a violation. No angel may visit the surface in such a manner. Her suicide—”
“You didn’t see it, Azreal.” She marched up to the angel and took his hand, too. “I saw the look in her eyes. There was something going on in there, something special. She really believed in what she was doing. I wonder...”
Yosepha smiled and patted her back with a wing. “Then, this journey may yet be for the good of all, if you speak true of Ramiel.”
Livian, Julisa’s tetrad counterpart, snorted and swiped a hoof through the sand. “You assume the angel had good intentions automatically?”
Yosepha faced her. “I do. Even the angels trying to kill the unmarked are doing so because they believe it will help the Great Tower.” Hand around the pouch on her neck, she gave it a little tug, and the coins rattled. “I do.”
Another angel bombardment, bigger this time. Thousands of explosions, sweeping over the snake tunnel, and Mia and James built the group caves to get under. Not to escape danger; the tunnel seemed damn impervious. But the sound was overwhelming, thunder in her ears until her brain rattled in her skull.
It past. They opened their makeshift caves, and the journey continued. Then another bombardment. And again.
Giant pain in the ass.
With James’s help, it was easier to make a big cave straight down into the ground, nice and wide so everyone had room. She sat in the back corner this time, Azreal and Noah beside her, Cerberus behind her. She hadn’t asked them to sit with her. They just had.
Adron peeked back over his shoulder at her, and winked. That sneaky fucker.
The rest of the huge group chatted away on the other side of the cave, talking about sex, and battles, and sex, and what was happening on the surface, and more sex. Interestingly, James was happy to talk about sex, too, and more so when bat lady Yulia climbed onto his lap like she belonged there. James was smiling. It looked good on him, like he needed it.
“Well, we’re stuck down here until the bombardment stops,” Mia said. At least she didn’t have to yell anymore to speak over the roar of gold explosions.
“Thirty minutes,” Azreal said. “Then we go.”
She whined, but nodded. They couldn’t stop for long, but it was good for her ears, and for the demons and their shit-ass cardio.
“Noah,” she said. “Tell me a story.”
“A story?”
“Yeah. Tell me stuff.”
“I am no gabriem.”
She rolled her eyes and gestured to his partner. “Azreal told me about Odette, and that was a perfectly good story! Tell me about you.”
“A story about me?”
She nodded, beaming.
Noah sat back against the cave wall, one knee up with an arm draped across it. If there’d been a sky to look at, he’d have been gazing up at the stars, digging through memories while his long, dirty blond hair cascaded over his shoulders.
“Angels spend our days guarding Heaven. Mikalim roam the skies while rapholem stand upon its walls. It is the gabriem who have stories to share. They are the ones who interact—”
“Hogwash.”
He blinked. “Hog ... wash?”
“Hogwash! You’re thousands of years old, Noah.” Finger out like a dagger, she jabbed him in the thigh. “You’re telling me all those years, you did literally nothing but fly around Heaven, guarding it against a non-existent threat? Come on. I know every other angel has spent time with the souls. You’d die of boredom otherwise.”
He shook his head. “Angels—and demons—are timeless, Mia.”
Not true. The dread existed, though that was a thousand times worse than boredom. Still, if she got the man talking, she could learn more, and maybe figure something out. About the dread. About him.
And he had a lovely voice.
“If Azreal found time to bond with Odette,” she said, “then I’m sure you’ve bonded with a soul once or twice, too.”
Noah sighed, but nodded, defeated. Plus one for her.
“I knew a woman once,” he said. “A soul. She was the most quiet thing you could imagine.”
“Tiny?” Mia asked.
“No. The body Heaven gave her was tall and voluptuous, and not dissimilar to her original body.”
“Oh.” Tall, voluptuous women weren’t exactly known for being quiet. Another note for Mia’s psych book, that she didn’t have. “Where was she from?”
“Africa.”
“Ooh! Did she look kinda like Keziah then?” What little Mia had seen of that woman had been a bit of a shocker. She’d been tall and voluptuous too, with dark skin, but with blue eyes and white hair. Very modern.
“A little, I suppose. Far less muscle. She lived in a tribe and spent her living days fishing. Many men vied for her attention, but they did not interest her. So, she fished. More men tried to woo her, but she did not return their advances. Some women, too, but they met the same fate. Tesfara was her name, and she did not care for talking. Her face was soft, but her eyes were forever serious. Deep bronze eyes that cut through you. She wore her hair in long, tightly wound braids, practically forced on her by mothers, aunts, and cousins. She wore vibrant red toga-like garments.”
Mia blinked and looked down at herself. “Like—”
“Not like you. Tesfara covered herself. She was no Jezebel.”
From blink to double-take, Mia stared up at the angel. “Jezebel? I—” Noah grinned at her. “A joke? A biblical joke? You can’t joke! You don’t have a funny bone.”
But Noah’s smile remained, slight but persistent, and he looked up as he dug through his old memories.
“I met her one day, on the beaches of Ravid. Miles and miles of silver and gold sand, twinkling beneath the painted sky. She held a spear in hand, the water up to her waist, and waited as steady as a stone. I flew above and looked for what gabriem tended her, but none did. Curious, I flew down and asked her what she was doing. And all she said was: ‘Fishing.’”