Page 43 of Hell-Bound

Jester poofed out again, transporting himself to another tree further ahead.

Ren clenched her jaw, stomping towards him. “I don’t know! Things! Like—things that women do alone!”

Jester hung upside down from a branch.

“Thiiiings. Ren. You can’t fool me. We both know you’ve never even been kissed!”

Gaping at him, she halted.

“W–Ihavebeen kissed! I… had a boyfriend! His name was Nephele, and he was very nice!”

“Ohhh, liar! Azur told me that you lost all your memories. That when you woke up, you couldn’t rememberanything.”

Ren finally reached the tree where Jester was slowly swinging back and forth.

“Icanremember things…just…not everything.”

“So you remember your first kiss? You remember Nepheeeele. Tell me, did he like it rough? Or was he the boring, gentle type?

Ren blushed deeply. “I’m not talking to you about this.”

She huffed, stomping forward.

Jester jumped down beside her.

“See? We all have things we don’t talk about. Ready to go? I can portal us closer to the Dementiz.”

She squinted at the Devil. “Don’t try anything tricky!”

He gasped and put a hand on his chest.

“Why, Ren! I aminsultedthat you’d even suggest such a thing.”

She moaned and grabbed onto his expectant palm, and they zipped through space before skidding to a halt among dark, barren trees. Ren had to blink several times for her brain to process the sudden change.

Ren finally became oriented, Jester was several feet away, having already started marching ahead. He was walking leisurely, occasionally kicking up ash playfully.

They walked in silence for a while, but Jester’s words spun round and round in her head. He was right. Ren had no experience with intimacy save for the other night. She thought of the violinist, Xarek. How much desire she had felt. Surely, it had been some type of devilish cunning.

And then Azur—his red eyes, piercing and hot, looking at her as his hips moved. That image was branded into her mind. Thinking of his moans made her whole body shiver. But she couldn’t picture herself in that scene—uninhibited like his partner had been, throwing her head back in pure ecstasy.

She wished she could purge the whole experience. It was better to just stay focused. Maybe Renata was like that. Maybe Renata had known love. And maybe Nephele had been the oneto show it to her—but not Ren. She flushed at the thought.

She tried to distract herself by looking at the trees. The deeper they went into the forest, the larger the trees became, but there was still no greenery to be found. At first, Ren assumed it had been a fire that had devastated this area, but now she was starting to wonder if they just grew that way.

“It’s time to stop for the day,” Jester said, breaking the tense silence.

“Really? It doesn’t feel like we’ve walked that long.”

Truthfully, Ren hadn’t been paying attention, and the unfamiliar streaking in the sky gave no indication of what time it was.

“Better to stop now, build a camp while it’s light than to wait. This isn’t a particularly safe place.”

“Don’t people walk through here? To get to Dementiz?”

Jester shook his head, stopping.

“No, Devils mostly portal.Wejust can’t because the portals are watched. No one who wants to live travels these roads.”