Being on the road is still a little worrying, but the job is going to be worth it. Temple scribes get to write out books, fancy ones. She'd go a lot farther than Holycrest for that.

And Holycrest is a popular destination; a lot of people like being in reach of so many gods.

It would take a hell of a lot of demons to take this caravan.

Oh, wait, what's that on the horizon?

Great.

She is going to be of no use fighting off demons; she opens the crawlspace hidden in the wall of the wagon, wriggles inside, and pulls the panel shut after her.

There are sounds of fighting. There are sounds of screaming, in fear and pain and rage, in human voices and inhuman.

It isn't obvious which side won, when the noises die down, until a demonic arm rips through the side of the wagon, and incidentally a chunk of her leg.

- fuck.

She freezes, trying to think of something she can do. There isn't anything. She is not going to win a fight with one demon, let alone enough of them to capture the whole caravan.

The demon notices the blood on its hand when it withdraws it. He pries the wood off Nerine's hiding place and looks at her.

He is tall, close to seven feet, and fangy, with blue-grey pebbled skin and blue-green hair. Black horns jut from the back of his head at odd angles, and his wings blot out a great deal of sunlight. Nonetheless, he has no trouble spotting her. Despite the oddness of his dental arrangement, he can still produce a recognizable leer.

- fuck.

The leer at least seems to imply she's going to be raped as opposed to eaten. Logically speaking that's a better deal, because as long as she's alive there's still a chance she could be rescued.

He grabs her by the injured leg and slings her over his shoulder.

It hurts. She squirms anyway, testing the strength of his grip. It's not like she loses anything if she tries to run and fails.

His grip tightens, but nothing else happens.

She can see other demons, albeit upside-down from her point of view. Some of them have other living women as captives. One of them is holding a large burlap sack and shoving corpses into it.

Are there just no demons who want to rape boys?

Probably not the important thing here.

Well, there aren't any demons currently murdering boys, so maybe it's just that all the men fought. Or maybe all the demons here happen to be straight, it's not like these are all the demons ever.

They take off, great wings snapping wide and catching air from a standing start.

Some of the other women scream.

Nerine holds onto her demon in case he drops her. And looks out for any bodies of water she could try to get him to drop her into.

No such bodies of water materialize.

It is a long flight before they reach the portal. It is a portal, obviously magic in the way its surface ripples, and not just a doorway.

Well. Fuck.

The demons make their way down a dark stone passage, to a better-lit round room with a bunch of doors. The hallway continues, opposite. The few demons with corpse-bags go down that hallway. Those with live captives open the doors and enter the rooms, including the one holding Nerine.

The room is bare, with only a stone slab in the center. The demon slings her onto it and leers again.

She lands badly; for a moment all she can think about is the pain flaring in her injured leg.

The demon laughs and takes off his pants. His cock is already half-hard, and gets the rest of the way up quickly. It is...kind of alarmingly large.

Okay, she's scared.

...okay, she's not just scared.

The demon grabs her legs, drags her so her hips are even with the edge of the table, and thrusts all the way in in one smooth, violent stroke.

It hurts. It hurts kind of a lot. She can not only feel but hear herself tearing open around him -

- and she likes it, which, she supposes, is better than not liking it, under the circumstances -

The demon pays no mind to her pain or pleasure, thrusting into her in fast, vicious strokes.

The door opens again, and a few more demons enter. One of them says something jeering in the guttural demon tongue.

Are there not enough captives to go around or what? She would really rather this be a one-on-one thing, not that that is by any means her biggest problem here.

The other demons don't do anything--yet.

The one fucking her continues. His hand slips on her leg, closing over the wound and squeezing.

She shudders. It would not be at all difficult to mistake it for pain. Pain is definitely a contributing element, at least.