Chapter 20 – Ithuriel
The Malebolge: The Trench of Sowers of Discord
I ’m being haunted. Images of Sariel’s suffering after his fall are ripping my insides open. The sounds of Jessica’s pleasure echo in my ears, louder than any sinner’s lament. The dual assault is a punishment worse than any the demons who manifested these trenches could conjure up.
I’m possessed by a creature who longs to feel the soft skin of a Nephilim’s throat under their fingers, a creature who dares to close the Fallen’s mouth with their own.
I do not rest, I do not eat, I speak less with every passing day. I’ve been away from Heaven’s light too long, besieged by these temptations.
Father, I tried so hard not to look, not to hear, not to want. Not to feel.
“Itha?” A gentle whisper makes my heart grow wings and take flight. “I asked if you know where we are.”
Jessica plucks the crumbs of hard cheese from her lap and plops them into her mouth; we’re days without fresh food, and every morsel matters to her mortal body. I watch the way her reddish-blonde hair sways, free from her usual tight ponytail for the night. When she leans forward, the shirt she’s wearing, the one that prevents her armor from chaffing as we move around Hell, stretches over her high, round breasts. There’s a crumb stuck in the linen material there too.
“Ithuriel?” she calls my name again. I want to tell her not to bother whispering. Sariel is not truly sleeping, merely in a meditative, restorative state. Even our Celestial bodies are depleted after the trek in the steaming trench of earlier.
“Yes.” I clear my throat of its hoarseness. “I know where we are.” I tug the collar of my own shirt away from my sweaty neck. We’re not far away from the flames yet. Or I’m not far away enough from my personal flames. The latter seems more likely with each passing day. Hope is leaving me and I can’t help but dwell on the words of the future teller. Is my fall inevitable? “We’re in the ninth and penultimate trench. The sinners here are being punished for causing strife and division. In death, they are being torn apart as they delighted in tearing apart lives when alive.”
The sweet-faced girl presses a hand against the chest which my eyes stray to far too often. “You mean… body parts torn off?” She swallows and cringes, likely imagining the carnage ahead.
I nod, distracted by the deterioration of my thoughts. “The path through the trench will likely be littered with remains.”
“But if they get quartered, how is the punishment eternal?”
Sariel speaks up from where he lies on his back, arms supporting his sinfully handsome head. A head I had never qualified as such while we still lived together in Heaven. “They grow back, of course,” he drawls, drawing Jessica’s gaze. His damp chest glistens in the orange haze of the sky and the Nephilim swallows, her eyes locked on it and glassy. “We wouldn’t want the fun to be over too soon, would we?” he continues, seemingly oblivious to both of our stares.
“You consider watching torture day after day to be fun then?” I ask, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.
Sariel opens an eye and smirks. “Your high horse is about to throw you off, Ithuriel.”
“I have no idea what you’re on about,” I mutter and pull my sword into my lap to begin cleaning it.
“I’m sure,” he murmurs, then groans as he stretches and flips over onto his hands and knees. “Jessica,” he breathes. “You look like you’re wearing too much. And I’m bored.”
“Oh?” she gasps with a shaky voice.
“Oh,” Sariel confirms as he starts slinking toward her.
I slam my sword down between them.
“It seems you two are rested enough to continue.”
Jessica blushes as Sariel growls. “I’m getting real tired of your cockblocking, Captain Downy Fuzz.”
“Not as tired as I am of your preposterous behavior. If you had stayed put in your Father’s castle and engaged in your debauchery there, Jessica and I would have surely closed the rift by now and stopped the rest of the human culprits responsible for Armaros’ death.”
Jessica gasps at my words. “You don’t mean that, Itha!”
Sariel throws his head back and laughs, no joy in the sound, only the hollow ringing of a death knell. “Look at you.” He shakes his head. “Redirecting your feelings of guilt and lashing out is something human children grow out of in their first decades.”
I feel heat spreading from my chest and up my neck. My teeth clench along with my fists and my grip on the sword turns shaky.
“Oh, do you want to hit me, angel?” the Fallen taunts. He brings his head close to mine. “Do you want to take out all those nasty feelings inside you, take it out on me?”
Jessica’s hand grips his shoulder. “Boys, it’s this damned trench influencing you, don’t fight again.”
“That’s a cop-out, poppet. He wants to hit me. It’s either that or… do other things to me.” Sariel grins, showing his even white teeth.
A growl rumbles up from my chest. “Hell has made you delusional.”
The rascal clicks his tongue. “I see the way you look at me. At us.”
Shame churns in my stomach and I drop my sword in favor of gripping my tormentor’s neck. Jessica gasps my name, but I ignore her.
I pull him even closer and whisper: “Shut your lying mouth.”
He blinks innocently, his lips twisted into a smug smile. “Why don’t you shut it for me?” he breathes.
I pull back to rush forward and slam my… lips against his.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but Sariel’s soft mouth opens up to me on a groan and his tongue spears into my mouth to twine with mine. Damp, soft, and lightly textured, it rubs over the tip of mine, mating with it. My hands move into his hair, tugging on it rhythmically, my pelvis tilting up to the same beat. This isn’t right.
As my grip on the Fallen’s hair eases, he pulls back. Before I can devote a second of thought to what I had just done, he pulls Jessica closer and shoves her into my arms, her mouth landing on top of mine. With a soft moan, she begins licking the traces of Sariel’s wetness off my lips and chin.
My head spins as her nimble fingers travel under my shirt and up the planes of my stomach and chest, caressing every inch of my skin she can reach as fast as she can, like she fears it will be the only chance she gets to do so. And it should have been. I should push her away. Instead, I grab her hips and pull her into my lap, our pelvises flush against each other.
“That’s it,” Sariel whispers, and I open an eye to see him rubbing a soothing hand down the girl’s back. I lose what’s left of my sanity as Jessica starts grinding against me, Sariel’s hands now on her hips to spur her along, biting his lip as he watches our pleasure.
With a wisp of black smoke, our clothes lie to the side, and Jessica’s naked, wet sex presses against mine, hard and throbbing. A keening sound leaves my throat at the first sensation of flesh against flesh, at the forbidden touch of her petal-soft folds over the swollen head of my member.
“I should not,” I groan, my hands sliding down to her waist, stopping where they encounter the fallen angel’s grip on her sides.
“Please, Itha,” Jess cries, making my heart crack open. “Please, I want you so much.”
With those words, I damn my principles. I tip my head back and squeeze my eyes shut.
“Lift,” I hear Sariel’s murmur a second before I feel his firm, callused grip on my manhood. With a groan, he gives me two long, blood-heating pumps, as if he can’t help himself from partaking, then he holds me at an angle until I feel Jessica’s heat kiss my cockhead.
Though I do not have a soul, I can only describe what I feel as one leaving my body. Jessica’s womanhood opens to take me inside, its silken grip encompassing increasing amounts of my needy flesh. My head spins as she sobs, and I bottom out, her hot breaths caressing my chest where she rests.
“Good, that’s good,” Sariel breathes. “You’re inside her, Itha.” His words make my penis pulse inside the Nephilim and she lets out a sound close to a purr. His lustful chuckle inflames me to a fever pitch. With a rustle of skin against skin, he embraces Jessica from behind, angling her atop me.
“She’s gonna move now,” he whispers before gently biting down on her neck. The girl arches up and my length leaves her with the movement, then she slides back down, gripping me inside her again. It feels like… Heaven.
“Rub your little clitty against him, love,” he commands her, gripping her naked breasts with his tanned hands.
Helpless sounds leave my throat as the Nephilim begins the mating dance, lifting and then lowering herself over me repeatedly with the Fallen’s assistance and praise.
“Itha,” he calls for me. My eyes meet his, the black holes sucking what’s left of me in. “Tilt your pelvis up.”
I blink in my confusion.
“Trust me.”
Trust him? He’s the one orchestrating my downfall! But as Jessica’s sheath clenches around me, I do as he commands, adjusting our angle, immediately rewarded by a new hitch in her breath.
“Mmm, yeah,” he praises, his breaths staccato. I can see his right arm pumping behind Jessica’s shoulders, his mouth open to accommodate his greater need for air. He is… pleasuring himself?
“I–I’m close,” Jessica says with awe in her voice.
“Fuck, yeah, you are,” Sariel growls, his arm moving faster, his breathing picking up speed. “You’re gonna come and he’s gonna flood you. Aren’t you, Starlight? You’re gonna flood our girl with your cum? Fill her up to the brim until it drips down her legs?”
My head is shaking in negation as he speaks, but my limbs start to tremble too, pulses of electricity traveling down my spine and between my legs.
“No, no, no,” I chant, my hands clenching reflexively on Jessica’s slim waistline, stopping her movements.
“Oh, Itha, you feel so good,” Jessica moans, wrapping her arms around my neck and bringing her forehead to mine. “I wanted this for weeks, more and more every day. You’re so handsome, and kind, and smart, and brave. I… I love you,” she whispers against my lips.
Tears glide down my cheeks and Jessica kisses them away one by one. Behind her, Sariel is frozen still, his mouth open at Jessica’s declaration. My hands open and close as I feel the last of my reluctance leave me in a painful schism, before I firmly grab her ass and jerk her against me, tipping my hips up at the same time, seating myself inside her to the hilt.
“Take your pleasure, sweetheart,” I whisper to her. “I want to make you feel good.”
She peppers my face with kisses, murmuring her thanks against my skin and we burst into motion again, Jessica frantically seeking her climax, Sariel’s arm pumping himself behind her as the other massages her swinging breasts, and me bucking my hips up to hit deep inside her.
The girl repeats the shortened version of my name like a prayer as her eyes roll back and her mouth drops open. Her head leans back against Sariel’s shoulder as she lets out a guttural shriek, her flesh squeezing and releasing mine rhythmically with her orgasm.
“Fuck, that’s hot,” Sariel gasps, leaning in so Jessica splays over my chest, his face inches from mine. “Don’t stop fucking her.”
I frown at his crude words but my hips obey, still pressing my engorged member into the trembling mortal. Sariel’s free arm grabs the back of my head. “Come with me,” he snarls. I shake my head. “Yes, Itha, come with me,” he repeats. “Please, I’ve been dreaming about this for fifteen hundred years. Dreaming of making you feel good like this.”
My mouth falls open as my breath catches in my throat. I feel every inch of my body tingle with heat.
“Ah!” I shout, just as my manhood explodes with pleasure, every muscle in my body freezing. The exhausted girl between us moans weakly as she feels my spend hitting her sensitive channel, and Sariel roars at the skies, the tendons on his neck bulging as something wet and warm splashes on my legs. It’s his seed, marking Jessica’s flesh, marking mine, marking us as his. His to debauch, his to corrupt.
His to own.