Dan's Inferno, Book IV: Vengeance

by Jan Stryvant

  "And Wrath needs to fly," he nodded. "What do you need?"

  Lofn blushed. "You've already been giving me what I need, Daniel my love. Now," she said as they stopped at a door, "let me get my things and we'll be on our way."

  Bovera

  The miles passed as Olivia jogged across the open fields. Bovera didn't have the kind of magic or technology that allowed for fast transport to a specific place—unlike, say, Earth. And she didn't have wings like Wrath or Lofn.

  So she was reduced to running. She could have gotten one of the many beasts of burden to pull a cart for her. Her people, as the rulers of Bovera, and all the species here did employ—or perhaps enslave might be a better word for it—many of the native species of demons that lived here to work for them.

  But no one could outrun a cerberus. Oh, they could run faster—for a little while. But a cerberus could run all day long at that steady, ground-eating pace and drop every other species of bovera to the ground from exhaustion.

  She gave a moment's thought then to all the many races of bovera that existed. Honestly, the place tended to look like 'Zeus gone wild'. Folks used to tell stories about how that idiot demon would screw damn near anything, and she wouldn't be surprised to find out that more than half of the species of demon here on Bovera had their roots in that demon's very loins.

  To be honest, though, she was enjoying herself; she hadn't had the time or space to run like this in more years than she could remember. Her father had sent several of his pack members to run with her, because when you dealt with one cerberus, you dealt with all cerberus, and sometimes that point needed to be made to some of the bovera, lest they do something stupid.

  She was thankful for the support. While she didn't doubt her abilities to kick Fawn's father's balls up around his chin if push came to shove, if she had to kill any of them, it would stir up the flocks and annoy the hell out of the local pack that managed that area.

  She also wanted to deal with the entire Fawn situation before Dan showed up. Having dealt with Fawn's father in the past, she had no doubt about the trouble he might get into, and Dan would most likely go all sobek on that ram's ass, and that would definitely stir up the flocks when they heard there was a sobek running around eating bovera.

  She was just happy to know he was okay. When she'd felt his touch on her magic, the joy at knowing he was alive had been one of the most rewarding feelings she'd had in a long time.

  Knowing he would soon be coming to find her had also been a deep and very satisfying feeling. Both of her parents had been quite impressed that their daughter had managed to snag a sobek. They were high on the food chain, and definitely strong alphas in the opinion of any cerberus. Neither of them had ever minded her relationship with Fawn—she was dominant, after all—and that was what mattered most.

  "How much farther until we get there, Sirus?" one of the others, Geani, asked the scout her father had tasked to go with her.

  "Not much, a few miles and we'll be in Jonas's valley. His town isn't far along after that."

  "Think we'll beat your mate there?" Geani asked Olivia next.

  She shook her head. "I don't know. It depends on who he decides to go to first. He knows how to get to Varmal, where Wrath lives. So he might go there first. He's never been here, so I'm not sure he'd find it without someone to guide him."

  "I think Geani just wants to see him eat somebody," Sirus said with a snort.

  Olivia looked at Geani, who nodded and laughed as she trotted along to her left.

  "I get so tired of their attitude all the time, especially some of those rams. So it's always good fun when you see one of 'em get what's coming to them!"

  "Just try not to cheer if he does eat somebody," Sirus said nonchalantly, "we wouldn't want them to think we're enjoying it too much."

  "Have you seen him do it?" Geani asked her.

  Olivia nodded. "Yup, sure have." She paused a moment and then grinned. "It was hot! I think we kept him up all night after that one."

  Sirus sighed and shook his head. "Stop giving her ideas, Olivia."

  Olivia laughed as Geani shrugged. The other two in the small group, Koen and Wilk, also shook their heads as they ran on. It really wasn't much longer before they entered the valley and started down into it, but even from up here, Olivia could see there were a lot more sheep-folk around than was normal for the town.

  "Trouble?" she asked.

  "Isn't there always?" Sirus grumbled. "I swear, if they didn't have us around to settle their fights, they would have exterminated each another by now."

  They picked up speed then, and Olivia hoped whatever it was, they got there before anything bad happened to Fawn. Because if it did, Dan wouldn't be the only one laying waste to the place.

  "Shift back to your human form; I think I should be able to carry you," Lofn said as they stepped out of the gateway portal.

  Nodding, Dan dropped his sobek aspect and became the human he'd been born once more. He was finding the more time he spent in his aspect, the more comfortable he was becoming with it. He was also learning things about it as well. One of which was that he definitely was heavier in his aspect. How much he didn't know; he'd have to weigh himself when they all got back home.

  Lofn came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him, then spread her wings and took off. She wasn't as strong as Wrath was, and her wings were a little smaller.

  "Would this be easier if I turned around and wrapped my arms around you?" he asked as she slowly gained altitude.

  "Yes," she said between breaths, so he shifted in her arms and wrapped his arms around her as well as his legs, being carefully not to press too hard against her heaving chest, as much as he might enjoy that feeling.

  "Better," Lofn panted again.

  Dan nodded but didn't say anything. It was almost a day's walk to get where they needed to go; apparently Lofn had been here once a long time ago. Flying, however, made it a much shorter journey. Lofn had figured it would take about an hour, and she was trying to gain as much altitude as she could, as there were a fair number of hills and valleys they needed to cross along the way.

  Turning his head, he watched as the ground passed below them. It was mostly rolling plains, though there were a fair number of small woods scattered about. The most obvious part of it was how green it was. The larger valleys had small towns in them, while almost all of the smaller valleys were devoid of anything in the way of buildings.

  It looked very pastoral, but from what he'd heard about the species that had evolved and existed here, he'd expected as much. Of all the demons he'd seen so far, the ones from Bovera were probably the least menacing. Which made the stories of their constant attacks on—and out and out slaughters of—each other seem all the more bizarre.

  For all that they might look like many of Earth's herbivores, apparently many of them had a taste for meat and were more than happy to kill neighboring tribes—or he guessed 'flocks'—to get it.

  "I'm going to land on the edge of town to give myself some time to recover," Lofn said after they'd been flying for quite a while. He'd noticed that she'd simply been gliding for several minutes now.

  Dan nodded and got ready to let go. When she pulled up and dropped down to her feet, he let go and stumbled a moment before he got his balance. Lofn, he could see, was just standing there, panting, her wings still out but drooping.

  "You okay?"

  "Just tired. And sore," she grumbled. "I haven't flown like that in an awfully long time. You're not exactly light, Daniel."

  "Here, let me help," he said, walking over to her and laying a nice long kiss on her. He could feel that slight electric sensation as she drained him a little. Shrugging out of his duster, he unbuttoned the blouse she was wearing.

  "Umm, Daniel, what are you doing?"

  "Taking care of my girl, that's what I'm doing," he said as he slowly kissed his way down her body. They'd given her back her dragon skin armor, but she hadn't put it back on yet, as they'd been in a rush to leave. Drop
ping down to his knees, he unfastened the pants she was wearing.

  "Daniel, we're in the middle of a field. In broad daylight," she complained, but he noticed her fingers twined in his hair.

  "You can be on top!" He snickered, pulling her pants down, then grabbed her ass and pulled her forward until he could bury his lips and his tongue in her sex. From the moans she made and the death grip her hands now had on his head, he didn't expect to hear any more complaints.

  He teased her until she came on his tongue, then pulled her down on top of him as he laid back on the ground. Her fingers made quick work of unbuckling his belt and pulling his pants down enough for her to slide back and capture his erection with her sex. Giving a groan of his own as her tight heat surrounded him, he grabbed her hips, moving his own in time to her motions as she moved up and down on him, riding him like a horse at a canter.

  When she leaned forward over him, he raised his head up enough to nip and nibble at her nipples with his teeth, as her full, lush breasts jiggled and bounced above his head. With the way her vaginal muscles were grabbing and squeezing him, he didn't think she was going to last much longer, and the familiar tingle deep down in his balls made it clear he was almost there, as well.

  When she arched her back and moaned loudly, coating his shaft with her fluids, the electric tickle that surrounded his shaft as she drew more energy out of him and fed drove him over the edge with her. Sinking his fingers into her hips, he pulled her down hard and lost himself in the moment.

  "You're mine," he whispered as he ground up into her.

  "I know," she moaned softly as she collapsed on top of him. "And I'll never be anyone else's."

  Dan held her close and enjoyed the moment as she snuggled into him.

  "The old me would have wanted to kill you for making me love you," she sighed after a while.

  "Sounds like the old you wasn't very smart," Dan observed with a kiss placed on the side of her head.

  "No. I was stupid, and I was vain."

  "What caused you to change?"

  "A woman came to me one day and asked me to kill her husband. She said she would reward me with everything she had if I would only screw him to death in bed."

  "And what, you didn't do it?"

  Lofn snorted. "Oh no, I did it. She was a well-dressed and obviously wealthy young woman. It turned out her husband, an older man than her, was dying of a nasty and painful disease. Cancer. She loved him more than I'd ever seen anyone love another. So much so that after I'd fucked her husband to death before her and left him with a smile on his face, dead in their bed, she offered her own life to me as well, then and there."

  "What did you do?"

  "Oh, I took it of course. I did to her what I'd done to him, and where he'd been ill and dying, she was so full of life and power that it was one of the better meals I'd ever had back then. Her last words were thanking me for not only easing him out of this life, but sending her off to join him."

  Lofn sighed and shook her head. "I didn't understand. I didn't understand at all what she'd done or why she'd done it. Not at first.

  "She had been true to her word of course, and I inherited all they had owned. Their house—mansion, actually—was so much nicer than my own that I moved in immediately and lived there for years.

  "But every night when I laid down to sleep in the very bed I'd killed them both in, I thought about those words. I'd learned their marriage had been an arranged one, and he was a good twenty years her senior. But they'd been happy, and they'd doted on each other. They'd actually loved one another, and over time became inseparable.

  "The idea that two people could be so devoted to each other, that they could feel so strongly about someone other than themselves?" Lofn snorted again. "It was insidious. I couldn't get the idea out of my head. I started to wonder what it would be like to find someone, that special someone.

  "After a couple of years, what I was doing, how I was living, seemed pointless, empty, vapid. I wasn't evil, I was just a spoiled child, and nothing I did would ever bring me happiness, could ever bring me the fulfillment that young lady had so obviously had. Oh, I got so angry at that! I felt cheated! Robbed!"

  "So you left?"

  "After burning the place to the ground and destroying everything in it." Lofn looked at him with a sad smile. "Seems I had one last childish snit left in me. But after that? I left and just traveled. Changed my name, changed my ways, and decided it was time to grow up and not be a self-centered child."

  "Well, I'm glad you did," Dan said and kissed her again, this time on the lips.

  "So am I," Lofn said with a happy sigh. "Because I met you. I thought I had it good when I met the others, but you, Daniel, you're everything a succubus could want."

  "Oh? And what does a succubus want?"

  "Unconditional love."

  "That's it?"

  "Weeeellll, the ability to make me heel when I need to be reined in helps a little as well," Lofn admitted with a blush.

  "I love you, Lofn. You're a unique jewel, and regardless of your past, who you are now is an amazing person, and we're going to spend the rest of our lives together."

  Lofn sighed happily and hugged him again.

  "Now as much as I'd like to enjoy this moment for a few more hours, I think we need to collect Fawn," Dan said and gave her another hug.

  "Yes, I believe we do," Lofn agreed and carefully got up off of him, folding her wings in the process. "There's a clear stream not far from here; let's clean up a little first."

  Dan laughed. "Yes, lets."

  The town was less than half a mile from where they'd landed, so the walk in wasn't a long one, but as they drew closer, Dan could hear the sounds of some sort of conflict, and getting worried, he grabbed his mace and picked up the pace.

  It wasn't hard to find the center of the small town; he just had to follow the noise. The biggest problem was pushing people—sheep people, he noticed—out of the way as he got closer, as everyone was apparently trying to push their way into the town center as well. But unlike them, he had a mace and wasn't afraid to use it.

  When he finally got close enough to see what was going on, what he saw made him angry. There was a male, he guessed he'd be called a 'ram', who was manhandling a pissed off Fawn. Several cerberus, one of whom he noticed was Olivia, were trying to push their way through a group of younger rams who were blocking them. Nobody had drawn a weapon yet, but he could see the wolves had hands on the pommels of the swords they were wearing.

  They were, however, heavily outnumbered.

  Looking back at Fawn, he saw another much older ram, with a woman who looked very much like Fawn, who was arguing with the ram who had a hold of Fawn. He was, however, being held back by a number of rams, who Dan had the distinct impression were trying to stop things from getting worse than they already were.

  "This doesn't look good," Lofn said from behind him.

  "Well, it's about to get a whole lot worse," Dan growled ,and then cast a simple spell to amplify his voice for a moment and shouted out, "JUST WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" as he used his mace to clear a path towards Fawn, not really caring anymore whose heads got bashed. At least he hadn't released the blades yet.

  Everyone turned and looked at him, and the mixed crowd of ewes and rams quickly got out of his way.

  "Who in the name of the Glade God are you?" the one manhandling Fawn yelled back.

  "I'm Daniel Sobek, and that is my wife you've got your hands on there. If you let her go now, I promise to only break two of your limbs!" he snarled back, continuing to stride closer as he held up his mace.

  "Your wife! Bah! Our people don't marry humans!"

  "You're as stupid as you are ugly, aren't you?" Dan growled as he drew near, twisting the base of his mace to reveal the blades.

  "I warned you, Bulbul," Fawn yelled, kicking him in the shin as she tried to pull away from him.

  "You're not getting away that easy, my little dancing ewe!" Bulbul snarled and yanked Fawn back as he dodged Da
n's first blow. But when Dan skipped forward and thrust hard with the mace, following up the first swing, he caught Bulbul in the side, opening up five stab wounds from the tips of the blades.

  "You will die!" Bulbul said, releasing Fawn. He turned and took a wild swing at Dan, missing him, but he immediately came back with a second one and started to wildly pummel at Dan with his fists.

  Dan slowly backpeddled. Bulbul wasn't as tall as he was, but he was built like a fireplug and must have something on the ball if he had this many followers. The wool on his arms and legs was more of a gray color than white or a black, which Dan now noticed matched that of several of the rams blocking Olivia's party. The horns on his head were different as well; they were curled around into a circle on either side of his head, more for butting, Dan guessed.

  Fawn, now free, dashed back to where her mother was, and the ram he guessed was her father moved to stand in front of her. The rams who were blocking Olivia and the others weren't paying as much attention to them now, their eyes on their leader.

  Dan realized no matter what he did, he was going to get hit. The guy was a berserker, and Dan wasn't as experienced as he'd like to be. Shifting to assume his aspect, he waded in and smashed at Bulbul as hard as he could with his mace, mostly hitting him in the arms as the ram blocked.

  Meanwhile he was getting hit—mostly in the shoulders and the arms—Bulbul apparently wasn't all that much better than Dan was. Then again, back when Dan had been merely human, any one of those hits would probably have knocked him down, if not broken a bone. Now it simply hurt, but not enough to make him stop what he was doing.

  They slugged it out for another minute until Dan saw his opening and kicked Bulbul in the balls, causing the other to gasp and drop his guard for a moment as his eyes went wide. Dan took advantage of the lapse to smash Bulbul in the side of the head, rocking his head to the side, but the horn on that side stopped him from taking any real damage. Dan hit him again a second time, stunning him momentarily.

  "Aw, fuck it!" Dan growled, dropping the mace. He jumped forward, seized Bulbul by the shoulders, opened his mouth wide, and crammed Bulbul's head past his crocodile jaws and down his throat.