Everything was hot in Hell. The air, the water, the bubbly springs. The igneous rock that encased us down here. I found myself craving the cool of the sky water that fell up in the Human Realm. Or just anything that might take the edge off this clammy, uncomfortable feeling that clung to my skin.

I sucked in a sudden breath and choked on the steamy water. Spluttering, I backed away from the spout.

‘Win the battle for her soul … and lose something precious’. The words from my bizarre dream came back to me with clarity. The parting words of the nipple-mouthed spicy girls.

I shook water droplets from my hair with a snarl. What a stupid dream. I had nothing precious worth losing. Why was I even giving two thoughts to the musings of my subconscious mind? My confused, randy, guilt-riddled mind. A mind that could conjure up women with nipples for mouths.

I wondered if the nipples looked anything like Jemma Bliss’s.

That was the problem, right there. Inconvenient erections and inconvenient guilt. They likely went hand in hand. I needed to stop fantasising about Jemma Bliss because my lustful musings about her were likely the cause of these … guilty pangs … and that ridiculous dream.

I dried off brusquely and dressed in fresh trews, tying them up around The Inconvenient Erection, which refused to subside. I was not going to give in to it. No more thinking about the little mousey human with the strawberry hair. Except in the sense of how to torment her while plotting to possess her.

Her soul! Possess her soul. No other part of her.

Certainly not those pink nipples … or that smart little mouth of hers that taunted me … and then kissed me with more passion than I’d ever⁠—

A tremor shook the rock beneath my feet. That meant the Pit Demons were beginning their day.

Which meant it was past breakfast time. And that meant …

“Do you ever wake at a reasonable hour?” Hellen demanded from the doorway, shouting over the rumble of the entry boulder. An infuriated screech followed. I fumbled with the knot on my laces, quickly scooping up Jemma Bliss’s Soul Token and pocketing it before I stormed out of my sleeping chamber.

Hellen stood frozen just inside the doorway, her face a mask of disgust. Her feet firmly in the centre of my sticky puddle of spend from the night before.

I wished I could laugh, but I wasn’t prepared to exacerbate her razor-thin temper. At least one good thing came from being accosted by Hellen: The Inconvenient Erection abated immediately.

“What is wrong with you?” she screeched, pointing viciously at the floor. “I sent you a perfectly good concubine yesterday, and you banished her, and then … this?”

I narrowed my eyes and swept past her. “It is not up to you to decide when I should be engaging in … carnal activities. Nor with whom I should be engaging in them.”