~~Author's Note~~
Welcome. "A Taste of Hell" is a mini series of small novelettes, each told from a unique point of view of side characters in my upcoming main series "The Pleasures of Hell", a fantasy adventure set in Hell. While the main series will have two PoVs, both human (brother and sister) and not featured in this series, these prologue/bonus chapters will give curious readers a taste of this setting from the view of the various angels and demons that populate it, and a taste of the erotic elements.
These chapters are entirely optional. No need to read them if you'd prefer to go into the main series blind.
Erotically, "A Taste of Hell", and "The Pleasures of Hell", will focus largely on monster girls and monster boys, usually paired with someone not monster-y. Expect lots of kinks to be explored, with exaggerated proportions, size difference, deep/large penetration, harems and/or reverse harems, and plenty of others. There'll be fantasies for dominant and submissive readers alike. Erotic scenes that are particularly long and descriptive will be bracketed with ♥♥♥ /♥♥♥. If you're not looking for a juicy scene, skim the dialog in these sections so you don't miss anything important.
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This chapter is heavy on setting exploration, with various 'slice of life' moments, and an easy carefree read. If you'd prefer to not get spoiled about setting details, no need to read, or read this after having read a decent chunk of the main series. I'll avoid spoiling anything major in these novelettes, but I know some readers prefer going into a series as a blank slate.
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~~Three years before the Arrival~~
~~Caera~~
Another angel in the sky.
Caera snarled as she ducked low, and crept along the jagged rocks and stones of the Gorzen Mountains. She was high up, very high, and every step was a dangerous one. Not because of the height; she wasn't on a ledge or anything. It was the bloodgrip. Every step meant a vine of the stupid stuff could catch her, puncture her skin, and turn the trip back down the mountain into a giant pain in her ass.
Sometimes she wished she was a riiva, and not only went around on two feet, but had hooves instead of feet. There was a reason riiva loved the Death's Grip corner of Hell. It made her envious, very envious.
Riiva were satyrs, according to the humans. While she and other tregeera were tigers. She didn't look like a tiger. A couple times, she'd checked out what a tiger actually looked like in a scrying pool, and she'd been surprised when she found a large surface cat. They both walked on all fours, and had tails, but treegera often walked on two feet and stood eight feet tall. Caera was no exception. Her tail was thicker, and covered in spikes, particularly along its top and up her spine. Her skin was like most demons, black and red, where the softer bits grew redder.
But she didn't have a snout. Or if she did, it didn't stick out very far. A wide mouth filled with big sharp teeth, wider than most demons, but whatever. She had a couple of big black horns, too, sharp ones that stuck out backward from the top of her head between her dark tendrils.
And of course the only reason she gave a shit about any of this was because Leos pointed it out to her. Asshole incubus had her feeling self conscious. Not everyone was as lucky as an incubus or succubus. Then again, if she'd been as weak as an incubus or succubus, she'd probably have thrown herself of a cliff.
But even a tregeera knew better than to mess with an angel. She'd never fought one, and she was hoping to keep it that way. There was nothing stopping that angel from coming down onto Caera's head and cutting her to bits, just because they felt like it. Well fuck that, Caera stayed low and in the shadows of the giant boulders, the fires of the sky hitting the mountain with enough lighting that she had no choice but to use the rocks for cover. After what happened last month, she had every intention of staying out of sight of an angel.
She crept along, going on all fours and working her way back down the mountain. She'd gone hunting, but she hadn't exactly been hungry, and risking her neck for a snack was a stupid idea. Her kin often died for lesser reasons. So down she went, staying low, sneaking between the rocks in much the same way she'd seen the tigers do in the scrying pool. She didn't have paws, though. She had hands with sharp black claws, and her feet were raptorial, with giant black talons. They made being silent a little hard, but the angel was really high up. No chance of being heard, especially not against the occasional crack thunder.
Go to the Death's Grip spire? Maybe tell Zel what she saw? Nah. It'd take weeks, and Zelandariel probably had scouts who spotted the angel, maybe some imps or grems if she'd been lucky enough to round up a few of the assholes. She probably had. That was Zel for you. Whatever. Caera kept low and moved down and down, slowly, avoiding bloodgrip vines that came out of the stone like stubborn roots. The lower she got, the more problematic it became, and the thorny vines and sharp stone dragged along her breastplate of warped, dark metal. More than a few of the vine spikes caught along the goort leather of her waist wrap, a few of the chains, and on the skulls she had attached to her as trophies. The big devorjin skull on her shoulder got more than a few scars from the damn climb, low as she was, doing everything she could to avoid getting spotted.
But eventually the angel was gone, and Caera was safe in the shadow of Thorn Mountain. Bleeding from a bunch of small cuts, but still alive. Any hunting trip she could crawl away from, she supposed.
A hard crunch of weight on stone brought her to a standstill. Another sent her down to the rocks again, on all fours and almost on her belly, hiding in a small ravine of jagged rocks in the side of the mountain. More bloodgrip poked into her, but she ignored the pain, even as the stupid thorns fought against the darker, thicker parts of her skin until they tried to cut her, failed, and sawed through parts of her instead. Tiny drops of her blood dripped into the ravine, but the sound was nothing against the eternal hum of the winds and burning sky of Hell.
By Lucifer, oh fucking shit. An enormous set of black wings slowly emerged below her, maybe fifty feet off. Thorn Mountain had lots of hidden alcoves, crags, ravines, and even some caves and tunnels from Valzanal's time. And enormous as the mountain was, and hard to explore, it wasn't like Caera had a good mental map of where everything was. Hell, she knew fuck all about Thorn Mountain. So fuck her, she froze solid when something came out of a hole up ahead.
The black wings turned, showing their softer red sides, as the bearer faced in her direction. She didn't move a muscle, only a bit of the top of her head and her backward curling horns visible over the edge of the small ravine she hid in. It was dark on this side of the mountain, and especially dark where she was, with a huge chunk of rock hanging overhead. With a bit of luck, it wouldn't suddenly collapse and squash her into paste.
More of the creature came out. Horns, four of them. A demon's face. A shoulder pad made of metal, and another made of a huge skull. More, a breastplate similar to hers, metal bashed into a shape for a chest, then stuck on with a bunch of leather straps. Whoever this fucker was, he was big, and he stood on raptorial feet like hers as his giant tail slithered behind him. An enormous sword was strapped to his back between his swings, a slab of metal that looked like someone had bashed together a bunch of smaller blades, and fused on a big handle on the end of it.
A fucking gorujin demon. One of the terrible four.
The titan looked up at the sky, then down toward Gorzen Eye mountain in the distance, where Diogo's home lay within. He snarled and slammed his tail against the stones as he stood to his full height; a couple feet taller than Caera, and a couple feet made for a huge fucking difference. He was huge. Sexy as fuck, with a hard jaw and harder eyes, but she wasn't stupid enough to stick her nose out for a chance to bang a tetrad demon.
Sealing that idea was the tregeera head in his hand. His whole body was covered in blood, staining the bone parts of his armor, and dripping down over the plates of metal that covered parts of his legs and arms. It was probably the dead tregeera's, whoever she'd been.
Far as Caera knew, no tetrad demons served Zel. Far as Caera knew, no tetrad demons served anyone anymore, not since Belor, but it wasn't like she was willing to cross Hell to confirm. Better to sit and watch, and see what the fuck this gorujin was doing with a tregeera head.
Sure enough, he ripped the dangling tendrils out of the demon's scalp. Ripping out so many wasn't easy, and the titan had to engage his muscles. It would have been kind of sexy, if he hadn't been scalping a tregeera like Caera with each tug. Plucking one tendril would have torn it off; they were soft, long, and thin. Plucking half of them at the same time took the scalp off.
She frowned, but suppressed the urge to snarl as the beast shook the skin free of the skull, and continued shaking, hard, until more of the flesh bits inside came out in a splatter. Chuckling in a deep, almost mischievous voice, the titan took one of the dangling metal chains from his belt, and pushed the hook tip through the top of the skull. A decoration. A trophy.
Slowly, the titan turned more, and looked in Caera's direction. She didn't move a muscle, not even to duck and hide. Only the tip of her head was visible, and in the shadow of the rocks around her, the darkness of her skin and low horns would blend in. And movement would have only grabbed the huge demon's attention.
He took a step toward her. She didn't move. He took another step toward her. Still she didn't move. Her heart rate soared until she felt it pounding under her breasts, and she tightened her leg muscles and tail as she prepared to bolt. She was fast if she had to be, and she knew she could sprint through these hills and down into its ravines and tunnels faster than this fucker could run. But she was liable to split her guts open on a sharp rock or bush of bloodgrip. And the gorujin could glide after her, if he found something to climb and jump off. Plenty of giant-ass rocks for that.
She had no choice but to hold still.
Sure enough, the titan stopped, and looked back down the mountain toward the bailiff's home. Ok, phew, he'd been trying to spook out any possible spies. The gorujin instead climbed up a giant boulder, and used it to glide to the next boulder, and the next, as he headed toward the top of the mountain. Caera did the same as she had with the angel, staying low, and for the moment, staying still, until the tetrad demon was far away enough he couldn't catch her even if he spotted her.
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"You'll never guess what I say today," she said as she climbed into the cave, through the dangling chains decorated with a couple hundred skulls. They jangled and clanged loudly, letting anyone inside know that someone was approaching.
A lot of demons in the Gorzen Mountains lived in the Gorzen Eye Mountain, where that asshole Diogo lived. But plenty chose other places to nest, like Adam's Back, where she lived now. A mountain like all the others in Death's Grip, stones and stones and more stones, but little bloodgrip thank God. The rocks were less sharp, and there weren't nearly as many remnants. A good place to find a hard-to-reach alcove, turn it into a nest, and rest where you were less likely to get killed in your sleep.
"What'd you find?" Kia asked. The gorgala sat perched on a big stone in the large cave, wings snug to her back with thumb claws hooked around her neck, her tail curled around and in front of her so she could pick at it with her claws. She wore nothing for clothes except a couple strips of dark leather that hugged her breasts and sex.
