Logan and Beauty sat cross-legged around the fire, sharing the meat of the animal she had caught and presented to him. It was, in his humble opinion, a great improvement from rat meat. He took a sip of flat, bitter-tasting, beer, and offered the water skin to his new companion. Watching her throat work as she drank brought back memories of their morning together. That thought started to get him hard again.

Beauty noticed. She quirked an eyebrow at him and pointed at her open mouth.

“Absolutely.” He grinned. “But not right now. There are matters I want to talk to you about first.” Her expression of profound disappointment made him chuckle. “Don’t be like that. I promise to make it up to you later.”

She tilted her head as she looked at him. After a moment, Beauty shrugged and went back to nibbling at the meat. Logan noticed that she ate very little. By contrast, her hunger for his own brand of protein shake seemed insatiable.

Not that he was complaining, but that seemed a curious thing. There was no doubt Beauty was some variety of demon. Lavender skin covered in delicate purple swirls, clawed hands and feet (when she chose to have them out), glowing yellow cat eyes, a pair of tiny black horns on her forehead, plump black lips, and a wild lion’s mane of snow-white hair, made for a compelling argument about her demonic nature.

Succubus. The word popped into Logan’s mind. Another fragment of his broken memory re-surfacing. A female demon that supposedly fed off the sexual energy of her victims. Male version, Incubus.

Well, he didn’t feel like a victim, but the rest made sense. That would explain her obsession with consuming his sexual fluids. Was that what drove her to find him again after their first encounter? If so, why him? If this truly was hell, then there should be no shortage of damned souls wandering about to feed on.

Logan filed that one away for later. One more unanswered mystery to figure out.

The demon girl noticed him watching her and smiled.

He blinked in surprise. That was also going to take some getting used to. But then again, all of this was new. He and Beauty, as he had named her, were in uncharted territory. Only a week ago, she had tried to kill him. Now they were…

Logan didn’t know what they were. Allies? Friends with benefits? Something more?

“Beauty.” He held up the water skin. “Can you show me where you got this?”

She frowned, then nodded.

“Good. Thank you.” Logan sighed and looked around the small alcove he had claimed for shelter almost a week ago. “Shelter” was a generous description. It was a deep cut into a cliff that provided a break from the dust and wind, room enough for a small fire, and sleeping space for one. Two people was one too many. No matter how they positioned themselves, he and Beauty were always touching in the tight space around them. Logan didn’t mind that part so much.

Further crowding them was Logan’s equipment if you could call it that. He had a stone knife he had chipped down to a ragged, serrated edge, a long stick with a sharpened, fire-hardened tip that could almost be called a spear, and a small pile of poorly cured rat furs. All of that had taken most of a week to gather. Your average caveman would be better armed than he was, but considering the Faerie Queen Maeve had dumped him, quite suddenly, into this hell with only the clothes on his back, it could have been worse.

Still, it could damn sure be better. Logan examined the water skin Beauty had given him. It represented so much more than just leather and a source of hydration. Someone had crafted it from cured hides and woven thread. Someone had brewed the beer inside the skin. Crafting meant skills and trade, and that required some degree of civilization. It would seem that even in Hell, the wheels of commerce still turned.

Logan desperately wanted some of that. A real bed and real food would be a dream come true. And a bath. He thought. Dear God, I would kill for a hot shower.

Ironically, he didn’t have to suffer any of this caveman shit. The option was always there. All he had to do was call the name of Queen Maeve, and she supposedly would yank him right out of hell, just like she had put him here. Of course, there was still the matter of the debt she owed to him. She didn’t like that. Neither did Logan, but that obligation was the only thing keeping her from enslaving him as her boy toy. Unfortunately, it was also the reason he was here. “Motivation” she had called it, the bitch.

He scratched at his week-old beard. Being half Irish and half Apache, he knew it must be a sad, scraggly looking thing, but there was no help for it. His “knife” could barely cut meat. A razor was an unimaginable luxury. Might as well wish for a laser gun or the fountain of youth.

Logan finished eating and smiled at the succubus. “That was the finest meal I have had since arriving more than a week ago. Thanks, Beauty. You are amazing.” He leaned over to take her hand in his. Beauty blinked, looked down at their joined hands and tilted her head at him.

“Now then.” Logan squeezed her hand, then let go and stood. “Time to get to work.” He picked up his spear and slung the water skin over one shoulder. “Let’s go take a tour of hell.”

*****

Logan decided the terrain in hell was the evil twin of Badlands National Park in South Dakota. Jagged mountains of naked, rust-colored stone ripped the landscape into a patchwork of sheer cliffs and winding valleys. Vegetation was sparse and sickly looking. Twisted, black trees grew in solitude, roots coiling and twisting into the dry earth. Hot, sandpaper winds crawled through the valleys, one moment a scratching whisper against exposed skin, and the next moment howling and tearing at his flesh like a wild beast. Above it all, boiling clouds of black and scarlet hid the sky and painted everything in shadow. It was, in other words, a miserable place to travel.

The only positive aspect of the journey was his guide. Beauty moved with a quiet confidence that was both reassuring and distracting. The claws on her hands and feet, powered by a lithe body of coiled muscle, made climbing jagged rock look easy. Logan struggled to keep pace. He also struggled not to stare at her perfect, and very naked, ass constantly swaying in front of his eyes. Every time she bent forward to climb, the smooth contours of her sex seemed to wink at him.

Focus idiot. He reminded himself yet again. Not paying attention could get them both killed. More than once, they had jumped behind cover when a winged demon had flown overhead. Danger was never very far away in the place.

Her hand against his chest stopped Logan in his tracks. She pointed at the ground, at a blood-colored scorpion-like creature crawling over rock and dirt. Tentacles writhed around its mouth, each tipped with a sharp spur of bone. Beauty made a gesture, as if being bitten, then something coursing up her arm and onward to her heart.

Poison. Logan translated and took a wary step away from the creature.

Beauty gently slapped his arm to get his attention again. She wore a faint frown of annoyance. Pay attention. It seemed to say.

Again, she made the gesture up her arm, to her heart… and downward to gently touch her pussy. Logan watched, suddenly dry-mouthed, as she dipped a finger between her legs and held it up to show the moisture up to the first knuckle. She then pointed at the bug again.

Was she trying to convey its venom was an aphrodisiac? Maybe. He could only guess. It was difficult to understand her meaning. Especially distracted as he was by the scent of her arousal on the air.

Focus! He scolded himself, angry at his continual distraction. Beauty’s impressive curves notwithstanding, this behavior of his was getting ridiculous. A grown man, especially a seasoned soldier, did not behave this way in hostile territory. You are not a damned teenager with out of control hormones. Stop acting like one!

Somewhere nearby, pebbles clattered and rolled as something moved. They both moved to crouch behind cover and waited. A moment later, a human male stumbled into view.

He looked to be a white male around fifty years old, naked, and in poor health. The shape of his bones could be seen moving beneath nearly colorless skin. Even his brown hair looked washed out and gray. The man’s expression could only be described as haunted. Lines of exhaustion and grief were carved onto his face. Worst of all were his eyes! Wide and wild, and barely human, they were the eyes of someone who existed without hope, for whom joy was not even a distant memory.

Logan remembered that look, and for once, wished he could forget again. He has seen it on the faces of helpless civilians whose lives had been crushed into dust and blood by the nightmare of war. Nightmares that Logan stilled carried in his soul.

He rose from hiding, driven by a need to do something for the poor bastard. He held his hands up in a gesture of peace. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

The man’s eyes bugged out with terror. He fell hard, then scrambled to his feet and ran as if every demon in hell was howling at his heels. Logan just watched him flee in panic, knowing there was nothing he could do or say that would matter. This reaction was also familiar to him, and it weighed on his heart like a stone. Hope was a fragile thing, and some things, once broken, could not be made whole again.

Logan lowered himself to sit on the rocks and just breath. What he had just seen was human suffering in its purest form. The real hell was in that man’s eyes.

Beauty knelt beside and touched him on the shoulder. He looked up at her, at the expression of confusion on her lovely face. Logan shook his head. She doesn’t understand. How could she? She is a demon. This is hell, and that man was a soul damned to eternal punishment. To her, this is all normal.

But was that true, he wondered? Being a demon should mean that Beauty was the very definition of evil. Yet, nothing about her behavior suggested anything like that, including their first encounter. A tiger will attack to feed; that didn’t make it evil.

There was much Logan needed to learn about his new companion, and this nightmare world. Ignorance could only get him killed. So many questions remained unanswered.

On an impulse, he leaned in toward the kneeling demon and gave her a quick kiss on the lips. He chuckled as she pulled back, even more confused, and touched her lips. Logan stood, brushed himself off, and tapped the water skin. “Come on then, gorgeous. Let’s get back to it.”

At first, it seemed she did not understand. Beauty just looked at him, tilting her head in that way she did. After a moment, she stood and started walking. Logan followed. Once, when he appeared to be looking away, Logan saw her watching him with a thoughtful expression, brushing a finger against her lips.

Onward they traveled. Logan had assumed she was leading him to a place such as a village or market, but that did not appear to be so. More than once, Beauty changed direction. She would often stop and listen or sniff at the air. After watching her do this a few times, he realized it was not somewhere, but something she was searching for.

That something soon proved to be someone. Beauty stopped and held a hand up. Logan heard it too. The sound of voices, male and female, and sounds of pleasure.

They climbed a small ridge, dropping onto their bellies to crawl up to the edge. The other side was a low drop to a narrow valley. A hot spring hissed and steamed nearby.

Two males stood on opposite ends of a waist-high boulder. Laying on her back between them was a skinny, dark-skinned woman. All three were engaged in the act of unbridled lust. One had the woman’s legs held wide in his hands, plunging a thick shaft into her. The other was driving into her mouth as he leaned forward, mauling her breasts and twisting her nipples.

Even from a distance, Logan could see her mouth stretched around the shaft driving relentlessly into her throat. Her hands held him at the waist, frantically pulling him forward to brush her lips against his pubes. Mist from the geyser settled across their writhing bodies in shining droplets of moisture.

It would have been quite the erotic show if not for the fact that the two males were demons. The one between her legs was bigger, with a burgundy skin coloration and short, shaggy auburn hair. Black ram’s horns grew from his forehead and twisted around his ears in tight curls. Enormous, bat-like wings sprouted from his shoulders, half spread and slowly fanning the hot, humid air in his gleeful lust.

The Incubus at her mouth was an ash-gray color. His horns were more akin to the deer antlers of a young buck, about six inches long and sharply pointed where they protruded out of long, black hair hanging down past broad shoulders. He had no wings. A long, serpentine tail lashed around goat-like lower legs. Both had athletic physiques and might be considered quite handsome, if not for all the demonic special effects.

The gray demon seemed very aware of the other one, sneaking glances at him as he took his pleasure from the opposite end. The winged beast, by contrast, did not even acknowledge the smaller, gray demon. An image sprang to Logan’s mind of a wolf pack feeding on a kill, and the older wolves taking the juiciest bites of meat for themselves, snapping at the younger pack members as they prowled cautiously around the edge, looking to feed.

Logan could only stare at the raw, animal, sexuality on display. A nearby, soft noise caught his attention. Beauty lay beside him, touching herself and breathing heavy as she watched the three of them furiously fucking.

He blinked at her in mute astonishment. Is everything in this dimension obsessed with sex? He wondered. First, it was the faerie queen, and now all this. Thank God the giant bear didn’t try to fuck me!

The threesome was nearing its inevitable conclusion. Logan could see it in their increasingly frantic movements, hear it in the rising pitch of their guttural moans and growls of pleasure. He watched the two demons work in unison, spit roasting the woman from both ends, pulling back, then spearing into her together. The woman rolled her hips and moaned around the heavy balls slapping against her lips.

One, then the other demon, started cumming, howling like animals, as they hammered the poor woman from either end. She writhed and twisted between them, caught in the surging wake of her own quaking orgasm.

Ok. Logan admitted silently to himself. That is kind of hot.

Something about the woman seemed to change as ripples of sexual release rolled through her flesh. The color of her skin became more vibrant, from a dull brown to a rich, milk chocolate. Healthy weight appeared out of nowhere to round her hips and breasts and soften the harsh outline of her ribs. She cried out, a long wail of joy… and of terror.

A moment later, Logan understood why.

Satisfied and spent, the demons pulled their wet pricks out, laughing at her feeble cries. Then, almost as one, the two demons drew their lips back to reveal sharp fangs and pounced. Logan heard her scream. All he could see was her feet kicking and her hands flailing beneath their combined weight. Within moments, she stopped struggling. Then she stopped moving at all.

She knew it was going to happen. Horror washed through Logan like ice water, followed almost immediately by a searing rage. She knew from the beginning. You bastards. You fucking, demonic cowards.

Something tugged at his arm. Beauty trying to hold him back, but that wasn’t important now. He had already leaped up and over the top of the ridge. Momentum and rage sent him hurtling down the slope.

In a secret, dark corner of his soul was a savage beast that Logan had kept locked away his entire adult life. It was a terrifying creature, born of prejudice, random cruelty, and a lifetime of injustice. It was a thing that answered to names like “half-breed” and “Injun Joe” and longed to respond with an Old Testament level of retribution, with fire and salt and blood.

Logan would not allow it. He was his father’s son. He was a soldier, an Apache, and a good person. The man was stronger, and the beast stayed chained.

Until now.

In that moment, the pain of a young man caught between two worlds, the narcissistic desires of Queen Maeve treating him like a toy, being dropped into this nightmare for the crime of kindness, and the victimizing of a helpless woman in front of his eyes, all converged into a perfect storm of frustration and outrage.

This was hell. Mercy had no place here.

Logan let the beast off its chain.

His approach was not quiet. The winged demon turned away from their feast to look. Nearly a foot of fire-hardened spear tip stabbed through the soft meat under its jaw hard enough for the tip to break against the inside of the demon’s skull. Dark, greasy smoke boiled out of the wound and its open mouth. A kick to the chest sent it tumbling to the dirt, ripping the spear from Logan’s hands in the process.

The second demon jumped back, snarling. Despite black claws and sharp teeth, the expression on the creature’s face was one of shock and confusion. Logan pulled the sharpened rock from his belt and squared off with it. “That’s right, shit bag.” He bared his teeth in a shark’s grin. “Dessert is on the menu. Come feed on me.”

The demon was quick, but it had neither skill nor training. Logan had both and a burning desire to put them to violent use. He waited for the creature to charge, to commit to a desperate and clumsy attack. Logan ducked under a wild swing and stabbed the rock knife into his opponent’s bicep. The demon howled in pain and swiped at empty air with its one, good hand. Logan side-stepped, latched onto the outstretched arm, and broke it at the elbow.

“Foreplay is over, you fuck.”

Logan launched into his foe, a whirlwind of precise, savage intent. He stabbed until the rock knife broke and crumbled in his grip. Fists and feet hammered into the demon. Bone snapped. Black smoke seeped out of torn flesh.

The fight was over in moments. The demon fell to the ground and tried to crawl away. Helpless and hopeless, there was no fight left in it.

Logan didn’t care.

There was no mercy in him for what these two had done. That kind of cruelty could not go unanswered. These monsters had attacked a helpless woman.

The woman. A part of Logan wondered if she was still alive. It was a distant thought, almost lost beneath the thunder of his beating heart and the beast in him wanting only to inflict retribution and brutal justice.

Logan swallowed against the desire to beat the demon into a bloody paste. Concern for the woman’s well-being was stronger. Logan chose mercy for the weak over retribution for the guilty.

He turned away to check on the woman. One look stopped him cold.

What remained was more ghost than a person. The mocha color of her skin had drained away. The black of her hair had faded to a misty gray. Her eyes stared out, wide-eyed at nothing. Logan could see right through her, to the rock on which she still lay!

He watched what remained of her try to stagger to her feet. The woman’s face was blank. There was no identify, no sense of self in her eyes. All that remained was a ragged, empty husk of what had once been a person, whole and true — a faint echo of a soul condemned to eternal suffering.

The wind surged. As if she weighed no more than a feather, the woman was plucked from the ground and sent tumbling. Logan watched, horrified and helpless, as she was torn away and hurled to an unknown fate.

The rage surged in him again. But when he turned back, the demon lay motionless. Most of his throat was missing. Beauty stood over the corpse, shaking shreds of flesh off of her claws.

“Thanks.”

Logan said it with complete sincerity. Beauty had given the demon a clean death, which was perhaps for the best. Logan suspected the Beast in him would not have been so considerate. This way was better.

Yet once released, it became apparent that the Beast was reluctant to be chained again. A lifetime of anger and persecution gave it strength. Only the iron will of a good man had held it at bay. I am Logan Proud Bear. He breathed in deeply. Son of John Proud Bear and Grace O’Malley. Logan exhaled all the rage still burning and churning in his gut. I am an Apache warrior. I am not… a beast.

*****

He did not remember the walk back to their crude little sanctuary, except in bits and pieces. Too much had happened too soon. The faces of the wandering man and the lost woman lingered in his mind, ghosts in his memory as well as in truth. Knowing he could not help them was a weight he had to carry. Yet neither of those was the true burden he carried back with him.

Even in war, Logan had never looked into the face of his darkness. Now he knew the brutality he was capable of, and it frightened him.

He also now knew what a thrill it was to let the beast out, the savage joy of no control and no restraint. It felt good, and the implications of that were terrifying.

He looked up to see Beauty watching him with her unreadable, golden cat eyes. Logan saw no judgment there, no second-guessing, and for that, he was both grateful and envious.

Logan decided at that moment that he had never seen anything as pure of purpose as her. Intelligence without the baggage of doubt, sexual with no concept of guilt, strong and beautiful without shame. Beauty was all of these things.

“You are amazing,” he said. “Did you know that?”

She tilted her head, then pointed at his crotch and her open mouth.

He offered a rueful smile. “Yes, if that’s what you need,” Logan shook his head. “But it’s not what I want.”

Beauty closed her mouth and tilted her head the other way. Logan could see in her eyes that she was trying to process his meaning. He moved closer and gently took her hand. She looked down but did not try to pull away.

Logan looked into her eyes. “I don’t want just to be pleasured by you, and I don’t want just to be something you feed off of,” he said. “We can do better than that. You and I, we can be more. I have to believe that Beauty. Even in this horrible place, there has to be something more. Something… beautiful.”

Slowly, he leaned in close, closer. Logan kissed her, no more than a feather-soft brush of lips. A gentle exploration and invitation. He pulled back and looked into her eyes.

“That’s called a kiss.” He smiled and squeezed her hand. “What do ya think?”

After a moment, Beauty leaned in and kissed him back. Her lips were soft, warm, and curious. Gently, they explored this new sensation. Logan cupped her face in his hands, stroking his thumbs down her cheeks, tracing the line of her jaw. Beauty’s hands rose to caress his arms and shoulders.

His tongue entered her mouth. Beauty paused, as if processing this new sensation, then responded with enthusiasm. Their tongues danced together.

Logan leaned his weight into her. Ever so gently, he laid her back on the ground. His weight pressed down on her. Beauty’s breasts were soft pillows between them, except for the hard tips of her nipples. Hands roamed across soft flesh and hard muscle. Logan lay between her legs, feeling the warmth of her core against the stiff bulge in his pants. He moved, rubbing against her. Beauty groaned and rubbed back.

Logan broke away from her lips. “I’m going to make you feel good this time.” He smiled.

He began kissing his way down her body. At the junction of her neck and shoulder. Across her collar bone. Over the top of her breasts. Down her ribs. And then back up to lick and kiss at the tender skin beneath those soft globes. His hands trailed over her slim belly, tapered waist, and the soft swell of her hips.

Her nipples, so pert and such a beautiful shade of purple, begged for attention. Logan was happy to oblige, taking one, then the other between his lips, tracing his tongue over the pebbled surface of her aureoles, alternating between the soft pressure of his lips and the gentle nip of teeth.

Logan’s lips and tongue moved across the fullness of her tits. Beauty squirmed beneath him, breathing heavily. His hand drifted downward, over her belly, down between her legs. Fingers brushed against intense, silken heat, hotter than any human woman Logan had ever known. Beauty gasped and arched against his touch. He stroked, parting her lower lips. Gently onward. Moisture on his fingertips. Reaching higher with a gentle stroke. The nub of her clitoris. A soft tickle. She moaned and began to squirm.

Logan gently explored the wonders of her body, guided by the sounds and movement of her rising pleasure. Lips roamed as he stroked her pussy harder, then softer, then harder still, searching for her greatest bliss, building a slow fire in her belly to match the wet heat beneath his touch. His lips closed on a nipple. Teeth gently nipped at her hard, sensitive nubs. His thumb brushed against her clit.

Beauty gave a soft cry as her body tensed, then shuddered as an orgasm rippled through her. Logan gave her a few moments to catch her breath and then started sliding even further down, tasting her skin as he went. The musk of her sex was intoxicating. The taste of her, even more so as his tongue parted her folds.

She writhed and twisted at his expert touch. Logan watched her as he worked, admiring the movement of sleek, belly muscles and firm breasts in the dancing firelight. The sound of her voice rising was music to his ears as he took her higher and higher until…

A soft scream burst from her lips. Beauty curled her fingers into his hair, as he had done to her just that morning, and ground her pussy onto his face. Her juices splashed over his tongue. Spasms rolled over her body. When they began to pass, Logan gently eased her back down with a trail of soft kisses up her belly, over her breasts, and against the sensitive hollow of her neck.

Beauty opened her thighs to him. The head of his cock came to rest between the wet, swollen folds of her labia. Heat seeped into the mushroom head rubbing against her sweet entrance, and, for a moment, he wondered if demon pussy could burn. There was only one way to know. Logan embraced Beauty, nuzzled at her ear, and penetrated her body.

“Gah!”

He couldn’t tell where his voice started, and hers ended as they both cried out their pleasure. Beauty’s wet, searing depths resisted every inch of his girth in the most pleasant way possible, slowly surrendering as he drove deeper. Her legs rose to wrap around behind his knees in silent encouragement.

Balls deep, he paused, shuddering at the intense sensations rolling through his flesh and vibrating across his every nerve. Beauty’s body temperature did not scorch his dick but not for lack of trying. The wet heat of her sex was like a sauna. Almost painful at first touch, then immediately soothing and blissful.

“Bloody hell.” Logan groaned and lifted himself on his arms to gaze down into her eyes. “That feels… amazing!”

Beauty smiled, then reached down to slide her hands under her knees. She pulled back, lifting and spreading her thighs, giving him complete access to her pussy. Logan gasped as her muscles squeezed and kneaded at his shaft, still buried inside.

He grinned. No spoken language could have conveyed her meaning any more crystal clear than that. Fuck me. Beauty said with every inch of her delicious body.

Logan had every intention to take it slow and let the anticipation build. There was no hurry. Forever in her gorgeous body would not be long enough. He sat back on his legs to admire the view of his shaft spreading her soft, purple labia. Logan stroked into her deeply but gentle and steady. His hands reached up to grasp her ankles and hold them high and wide.

Beauty had other ideas. She soon began to thrash and claw at the ground with every thrust. Little gasps and growls began to slip out of her plump lips. Her pussy squeezed, reluctant to let him go each time Logan pulled back. She pushed back against him with a growing hunger, giving as good as she got.

Quite suddenly, the world flipped and Logan was on his back with Beauty above him, legs spread wide to either side of his waist. The muscles in her shapely legs stood out as she held her weight up in a powerful squat that only an athlete could manage. It also put her pussy on full display right at eye level. Logan’s mouth went dry at the unobstructed view of her hand reaching down and aligning his rigid shaft between her legs.

Beauty settled over his cock and slowly began to sink onto his length. The demon’s firm ass settled onto his hips as she claimed the last inch of him and settled to her knees on either side of his waist. Her hips began to roll in lazy, sensuous circles that left no doubt that the demon girl knew precisely what she was doing.

The sensation of being sheathed in her and the incredible heat of her body wiped everything from his mind except the erotic perfection that was Beauty. She rode his cock like a dancer, effortlessly graceful in her every move. The warm, wet, softness of her pussy gripped his length and stroked him with every motion of her body. Pure lust glowed golden in her cat-like eyes.

Logan’s hands felt empty. He filled them with firm breasts. Pert nipples rolled between his fingers. He pinched, and the demon growled her pleasure and encouragement.

The slap of bodies and the animal sounds of passion bounced off the walls of the little alcove. Beauty rode him to a wailing climax, clamping down on him as her pussy clenched in spasmodic waves of release. Her pleasure triggered Logan’s own. His balls twitched. Logan’s breath caught in his throat.

Quite suddenly, he felt the cool air on his now unoccupied, glistening wet shaft, but only for a moment. Before he knew what was happening, Beauty was between his legs, stuffing his cock down her gullet, wordlessly demanding his cum in her belly. Logan gladly complied, lifting his ass off of the ground and thrusting into her mouth as sperm exploded out of him and into her rapidly swallowing throat.

He fell back, exhausted and completely spent, but feeling much, much better. Logan reached down to pull her up and lie beside him. Beauty’s body molded perfectly to his side and shoulder. Logan breathed in her scent. He basked in the sound of her post-orgasmic groans and the electric touch of her naked body against his. The sensation of her fingers, idly playing with his hair, was a comfort as her breathing began to settle down.

He needed this. The physical release of sex was not enough. After the terrible events of the day, after seeing the savage violence he was capable of, Logan wanted, more than anything else, to feel the sweet union of two bodies moving together as one and to feel the soft comfort of a lover’s embrace.

“Thank you, Beauty. That was amazing.”

“Yes,” she replied.

Logan abruptly sat up. He looked at her wide-eyed. “Did you… did you just talk?”

“Yes,” Beauty said again and smiled.