Karen watched as Logan checked the straps and buckles hugging Beauty's generous curves one last time. Newly acquired leather armor and twin knives looted from Seralla would keep their demon safe. Heavy pouches of coin were snug and secure for the long journey. The shopping list had been discussed and agreed on.
He nodded and stepped back with a sigh. "You're all set and good to go."
"Again?" the demon asked with a hint of a smile.
He chuckled, then nodded. "Yes, again. I just…" Logan made a vague gesture. "Just be safe out there, yeah?"
Beauty stepped into his arms and into a long, lingering kiss. "I stay safe," she promised. "Back soon."
Karen watched them in silence as a storm of nameless emotions ran hot and cold in her chest. She too was worried about Beauty's safety. No one knew the dangers of being alone out there better than she did. That she could be worried about a demon at all was, in itself, difficult to process.
She watched them kiss with such singular passion that it stole her breath away just to witness it. That two beings could find such intense delight in one another, in a place as awful as Hell, was a kind of miracle.
As the two figures reluctantly parted, Karen could see the internal struggle on his face. Logan's desire to just call the whole thing off and stop Beauty from leaving was at war with knowing how much they needed the supplies that she would bring back.
They all now knew that Gomorrah was a city run by demons for demons. Humans were slaves and servants, branded on the face to show who owned them. Logan, all hard muscle and fierce human determination, would draw too much attention. Beauty could get in, buy what was needed, and get out without raising alarms or suspicion.
Assuming, of course, that nothing went wrong, and there were so many ways this could go wrong.
The same armor and weapons that would protect her also marked her as a target for looters. One glance from the wrong person at the heavy coin purse she carried could bring disaster. Karen thought Beauty could hold her own against anyone, but what if there were three, or ten coming after her?
It was a bitter pill to swallow. Beauty would be entirely on her own for many days, traveling on foot across a vast distance of hostile territory. Anything could happen. The thought of her out there, wounded and alone, was almost more than Karen could bear. She knew it must be worse for Logan.
They escorted Beauty to the cavern entrance. Karen slowed and fell back to give the two of them a final moment together. Beauty smiled up at Logan and then glanced at Karen where she stood somewhat off to one side. The Succubus reached out to her.
That one, simple gesture warmed Karen to her core in a way she would have thought impossible only two days ago. She eagerly stepped up. Beauty snaked a hand around her neck and pulled the woman in for a steamy, french kiss that lit up Karen's libido in a rush of desire. Then the Succubus did the same to Logan. Finally, Beauty laid Karen's hand on his.
"Gone many days. Beauty happy that Logan will not be alone. Back soon."
Logan reached out with his other hand to the demon. Karen did the same, completing the circle. He looked into Beauty's golden eyes. "Just come back to me safe and sound. Back to us. That's the most important thing, ok?"
Despite the joy she felt to be included, it felt like a hand squeezing Karen's heart. "Come back to us" had not been his first thought. It had been "come back to me."
What Logan and Beauty had together was older and stronger. Karen resolved in that moment to earn her place in his life and to be worthy of that level of devotion. Whatever Logan wanted of her, she would gladly give.
Beauty nodded and let them go. There was nothing more to be said. No last-minute delays left to use. Karen dared to hold his hand and stood at his side as their demon companion walked off toward the horizon carrying with her any hope of a life beyond bare survival.
*****
The cavern felt empty and cold without Beauty's presence. Her absence hung in the air, unseen but inescapable. Anywhere Karen looked was a reminder.
She will return. The thought was cold comfort at best.
That first day, a few attempts at idle conversation with Logan died a quick, merciful death. She could sense his mood and wisely chose to give him space and solitude, or at least as much as close quarters would allow. The only saving grace, such as it was, could be found in the endless, labor-intensive tasks that were forever needing to be done.
Bristle pig needed to be butchered for meat and fur. Bones had to be splintered for the rich marrow inside to make broth and then shaped and sanded against stone to craft bone needles. Lengths of tendons had to be pounded with a rock, pulled apart into strips, and rewoven into cord for sewing. Fur had to be cut and stitched together with cord to finish the fur blanket and start on grass filled pillows.
It was difficult, frustrating work based entirely on trial and error. Many mistakes were made and progress was glacially slow. Still, it kept them both busy and distracted. They fumbled, grumbled, and cursed the hours away in a sour sort of companionship based on shared frustration and unspoken worry for their absent friend and lover.
Karen did her best to learn and contribute. Logan's ability to craft something from virtually nothing was fascinating to watch. She thought of all of the poor souls out there, naked and helpless as she had been, and what they could accomplish with these same skills.
"Where did you learn to do all of this?" she asked as they worked.
"My grandfather was full Apache. When I was a boy I got into some trouble. Almost ended up in jail. My parents sent me to stay with him on the reservation every summer after that until I was old enough to sign up for the army." Logan chuckled and shook his head at the memory. "He worked so hard to teach me the old ways of our tribe. I'm afraid I wasn't a very good student, but he tried."
"I would disagree." Karen held up the braid of tendon she was working on. "All of this is possible only because you know what to do. I was just thinking how valuable these skills would be to other damned souls wandering Hell."
When he did not respond, she looked up at him. The bone fragment lay forgotten in his loose grip. His eyes stared at the cavern wall but his attention was somewhere else, somewhere inside. Hints of amusement and wonder flickered across his handsome features.
"Logan? Are you ok?"
A slow, beautiful smile spread across his lips and all the way up to reflect in his dark, green eyes. "I just remembered that! Not just fragments but the entire memory! I can see my grandfather's face, the house he lived in, and the wooded hills around the Fort Apache reservation in Arizona."
He blinked and looked at her. "That's where I was when all of this began! I was visiting the reservation because…" A look of consternation crossed his face and Logan sighed. "Yeah, I got nothing… yet. But I will. Slowly but surely I do believe that I am getting my memory back."
She smiled, happy to see him happy. "That's wonderful!"
He reached over to squeeze her hand before returning to his work on the bone needle. She could still feel the weight and warmth of his hand on hers. Little things like that, just a simple gesture of genuine affection, made her heart sing. That she finally has somewhere to belong, and people to belong with, took her breath away.
"Thank you, Logan."
"You are most welcome," he replied in a distracted voice. Focused as he was on his needle project, Logan did not look up. If he had, he might have seen on her face the emotions Karen was feeling and realized how much she had meant every word.
Logan had, quite literally, swept her up and out of the endless nightmare that had been her entire existence ever since her death in the real world. Where there had only been pain, now there was pleasure. Loneliness and fear had been replaced with companionship and hope. It meant everything to her. He and Beauty meant everything to her. If only she could, by word or deed, find some way to make him understand just how very grateful she was!
An idea came to mind. Setting the half-finished braid down, Karen moved over behind Logan and placed her hands on his shoulders. He looked back at her with a questioning expression.
"Let me help," she smiled. "I'm better at massages than I am at crafting."
Her hands began to work their magic before he could protest. The only sound he made was a happy groan as her fingers worked into the tension knotted beneath his smooth skin and thick, sexy muscles. She worked across his shoulders and biceps, around his neck, and down his back until her fingers ached. Karen didn't mind the discomfort. It was worth it to hear his growls and grunts of pleasure and for the excuse to explore every inch of his flesh.
"That feels… amazing," he sighed.
She leaned in to reply, "accidentally" brushing her breasts against his back. "I'm glad. You have done so much for me and ask for so little. It's the least I can do."
A comfortable silence settled between them as she worked. Logan had stopped working on the bone needle to enjoy her efforts.
"I have missed this," she said.
He chuckled. "What "this" are you referring to?"
"A sense of belonging and purpose," she replied as her fingers worked into the thick muscles of his shoulders and arms. "Someone to be a comfort to or be comforted by." Karen reached around his waist in a hug and laid her cheek against the warm skin of his shoulder with a deep sigh of contentment. "Just to be close to another person… especially, someone I care very much about."
Logan set the bone fragment down and reached up to stroke her forearm. "You're one of us now, Karen. Part of our strange, little family."
She nodded against his shoulder and blinked back against the sting of tears. "Family…"
He felt the splash of a tear on his neck, half-turned toward her, and held his arms out. "Come here, you."
Karen crawled around to slide an arm around his shoulders and sit across his lap. She felt his strong arms slide around her in a sweet, protective hug. So many sensations tumbled through her mind, all at once. Shame that he saw her tears. The warm comfort of his embrace. The scent of his hair. Hard muscle and soft skin beneath her touch, and something else hard under her bottom.
Karen could feel his semi-erection beneath her slight weight in his lap. She wiggled her bottom and felt it begin to grow. Dark eyes looked up at him in amazed delight.
"How wonderful! How do you manage to do this without Beauty?" she asked.
Logan wore an almost comical look of bafflement. "Well Karen, when a man finds a woman sexually attractive, the part of his anatomy typically referred to as his penis tends to react by-"
She rolled her eyes and playfully punched him in his bicep. "You're laughing at me but I'm serious."
He looked at her and shrugged. "What am I missing here, sweetie? Beauty is very attractive but so are you, and it's not like I have any choice about it. My dick has pretty much had a mind of its own since I hit puberty. There's no magic trick to an erection. It's just a natural reaction."
"Natural reaction?" she asked. "You don't need the presence of a demon to get hard?" It was difficult to believe what she was hearing. It was not, in her experience, even possible.
Logan frowned in thought. "Wait. Are you saying human males in Hell cannot get a stiffy except in the presence of a demon?"
"Yes, of course," she nodded. "Everyone knows that. It is part of the nature of our damnation. Eternal lust with no relief, except what they allow us. Women cannot get wet and men cannot get hard unless a demon is involved."
"Demon venom is not only an aphrodisiac but also the infernal equivalent of Viagra," he muttered. "That… is really messed up."
Karen heard but she wasn't really paying attention, not to his words at any rate. She could not stop rubbing her bottom against the growing bulge in his jeans and thinking about the possibilities, both wondrous and terrible. The thought of having him inside her again, blasting away that terrible hunger coiling in her belly with waves of raw pleasure, was enough to make her sex clench in anticipation.
After what felt like an eternity of suffering at the greedy hands of lusty demons interested only in using her for their own satisfaction, to experience something so joyous and wondrous as she had with Logan and Beauty just last night was, even now, difficult to accept as reality. But it had been real. She could still see, and hear, and feel, and taste every single moment of that incredible encounter.
And she longed, with every fiber of her being, to experience it again. Like a starving woman presented with an endless banquet, one taste was not anywhere near enough. She craved it with every breath she took.
"Karen?"
Yet that one and only time had been with Beauty. Without a demonic presence, sex with other humans, male or female, always ended in failure and frustration. Every time. If she and Logan tried, and neither could reach orgasm, would that be better or worse? The last thing she wanted was to tempt him into something that ended poorly. What would he think of her then? Karen stifled a moan and tried to ignore the damp heat growing between her legs.
"Karen. Are you alright?"
She looked up at him. "Yes," she lied. "I'm fine."
"Ok." Logan cleared his throat. "In that case, I uh… I better get back to work. That bone fragment will not shave itself into a needle."
"Of course." She scooted off his lap and reached for the unfinished braid with trembling fingers. "No problem."
Karen did her best to assist but it was nearly hopeless. The tremor in her hands and the racing of her pulse made every task, however mundane, a challenge.
As the time to sleep approached and the day's work was finished, Logan and Karen sat around their tiny fire, weary from the day's labors, and stared silently at the dancing flames. He sat on one side, on the rock he had dragged over for a chair, and she sat on the other side, wrapped up in the nearly finished blanket of furs.
Despite aching from the day's labors, her body was tight as a bowstring. The exhaustion of manual labor had done nothing to quench the fire in her belly. No matter how she tried to focus her attention on something, anything else, her thoughts always drifted back to last night and the unbelievable sensations of consensual sex and the sweet release of climax without any pain or dire consequences. Just the purity of pleasure for pleasure's sake. Giving it and receiving it in an endless loop of love and caring.
A shiver rolled through her body at the memory.
Logan looked up, drawn out of his own thoughts. "You look chilled. Why don't you come sit over here? I'm not a demon but I have enough body heat to share."
Karen nodded, unable to express what she was feeling in words. Unwilling to admit to the storm of need and uncertainty running hot and cold through her body. She was relieved, delighted, and mildly terrified when Logan invited her over to sit on the far more comfortable pad of moss beside him.
In Beauty's accustomed place, she thought with a small shiver.
Yet, he had offered and Beauty had given her approval of Karen before leaving. Did that make it permissible? Beauty was nothing like any demon she had ever encountered. That made the beautiful Succubus a mystery and impossible to anticipate.
Eager and uncertain, she moved over to curl up on the soft bed of moss, beside where Logan sat on his rock. She tucked the crudely stitched furs around her shoulders and lay her head against his leg to feel his warmth on her cheek and breathe in his scent.
"What made you want to join the military?" she asked, desperate for any distraction from the heat coiled in her belly.
Logan shrugged. "I don't remember a specific reason. Anger, I suppose."
"You were so young. Who were you angry at?"
He chuckled and stared into the fire. "I don't exactly remember, but I can make an educated guess. The better question would be "who wasn't I angry at? My parents for spawning a half breed child. The American government for centuries of discrimination against my ancestors. Every loud-mouthed, privileged asshole in high school…"
Logan frowned. "There were plenty of reasons to be an angry, young, Native American man," he replied. "Too many. I just needed an outlet and the available choices were the military or prison."
Karen laid a comforting hand on his knee. "I'm sorry."
Logan shook off the dark mood settling on him like a cloud and smiled down at her. "Don't be." He patted her hand. ���The army broke the boy and remade me into the man I am today. Qualifying for Special Forces was the greatest accomplishment of my…"
He blinked and began to laugh. "I'm a Green Beret, 10th Special Forces group, assigned to active duty in Afghanistan! That was my job!"
He grinned at her. "Either this is getting easier or you are my lucky charm."
Karen smiled. The idea of being his lucky charm was a lovely thought. "I'm happy for you either way."
Logan tried not to yawn and failed miserably. That made her laugh. "Perhaps tomorrow you can explain to me what being a Green Beret actually means."
"Yeah." Logan yawned again. "Tomorrow sounds good. I'm exhausted!"
Sleep, that implied laying down on the moss she was currently sitting on. A long moment of silence passed between them. Karen wasn't sure what to do. Stay or go? Lay down on the moss or get up and move back to the other side of the fire?
"Let's get some rest." He suggested. "We can share the furs for warmth."
Logan stripped out of his boots but kept his pants on. He lay down, then held the partial blanket open in invitation. Karen crawled in beside him without uttering a word. Her heart hammered in her chest at the idea of having Logan curled up behind her. How long had it been since she had felt the simple joy of sleeping in a lover's arms?
Yet, it was not to be. She felt him roll the opposite way. They lay back-to-back. Emotions and sensations, fears and fantasies, lashed at her mind. Sleep was a long time coming.