Jeffrey Thomas, Voices from Hades by Jeffrey Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

an animal growl rumble in his guts, fought to keep it contained. Breaking free of their embrace, Colombo groaned, "I’m beat…maybe after supper."
    "How was your horrible little fox hunt?"
    "I got one kid. The other got away. But the one I hit, I got with a clean shot right through the eye." He jutted a finger toward his own eye, and sniggered.
    "I suppose I didn’t really want the particulars," Teresa said, turning and walking back toward the row of cubbyholes. But, she was moving toward the one directly to the left of the one Xaphan was hiding in.
    "They don’t die, you know!" Colombo reminded her. "They regenerate…"
    "Whatever. I’ll join you for dinner. I still want to have my dip."
    "You should," Colombo teased, turning away, "you smell sweaty."
    "Thanks, James. Ever the romantic."
    "Hey, you love me for my honesty," called his diminishing voice.
    "Do I?" she called back. "And do you love me for my  honesty?"
    "That and your tasty ass," his voice echoed.
    A moment later, Teresa ducked back into the closet with Xaphan. She curled her fingers into his nipple rings, drew him into her arms. "Mm," she moaned, as her husband had done while embracing her, running her hands around his shoulders and across the sleek feathers of his folded wings. "Thank God he’s gone. I don’t know why I married him, X, I really don’t understand it…"
    Xaphan was not moved by her statement, whether it was an honest sentiment or meant only to reassure him. He said nothing, looked over the top of her head at the dark red curtain. Its featureless smoothness soothed him a little, as her skin had done a minute or so earlier. Now that skin, bending with oppressive pleasure against his own, only confused him. What a curse, the skin. There was no escaping it, even in Hell.

    ««—»»

    As had been the case over the past several days, Vjeshitza was one of the Demons who accompanied the visiting Angels on their hunt. Because of this, Xaphan relented when Teresa insisted he take her to his own tiny room, with its red tapestry bearing the symbol for Castle Urian and the matching red sheets on its narrow bed.
    Teresa sat astride him, his hands gripping her breasts, claws extended just far enough to indent their soft flesh. Rolling her ample hips in a slow, circular rhythm, Teresa husked, "I think we’re leaving tomorrow." She said it without lead-in, without segue. Its unexpectedness shocked Xaphan, although the information itself should not have shocked him.
    "Your husband bores so soon?"
    "I suppose so."
    "And you?"
    "Me? I’m not bored, X. But what am I to do?"
    "What are you to do? " Xaphan repeated hotly. He calmed his tone, but stammered with a raw discomfort that made him bitter, "Will you return, then? Or am I never to see you again?"
    "Ohh…darling," Teresa purred, cupping the side of his face. "I will come back to see you again, I promise. We’re both immortal, aren’t we? We have all of eternity to see each other again…"
    "You’re immortal. I’m not."
    "You won’t age. And you won’t die, unless you’re killed. So don’t get killed, all right?" She smiled down at him. "What is it with me? I’ve always been drawn to either bullies or brooders."
    She slid off him, left his cock suspended naked and vulnerable in the air. She rolled onto her belly and raised her rump a bit. "Here," she whispered. He got up over her, lay atop her, began to ease into her again. But she took his shaft in hand, and nuzzled its tip a little higher up. "No—here."
    Lubricated with her juices and with the inner mucus of this orifice, he pressed gradually inside her. She winced, gripped the sheet in her fists, tensed up hard beneath him. A little alarmed, Xaphan said, "Do you want me to stop?"
    "No," she breathed. "All the way."
    "It’s hurting you."
    "I’m immortal, aren’t I? And since when is a Demon afraid of hurting someone?"
    He did as she asked, until he was in her to his hilt and rocking forward and back atop her. Teresa’s eyes were