The Murder Stroke (Purgatory Wars Book 1) Page 4

  Turning to look at the winged woman showed that she had taken a hold of her kilt and tugged it casually off. The curve of her thighs lead his eyes straight to her sex – it was utterly hairless, but that didn't mean she was shaved. No. Instead of pubic hair, she had a small tuft of feathers, right above the cleft of her sex. She tugged her breastband off, and her tits didn't even sag. The sheer impossibility of her beauty made Liam feel entirely lightheaded.

  She smiled at him, then said a word.

  Liam blinked at her.

  The winged woman rolled her eyes, then said something very long and complex.

  Liam blinked at her again, unable to look away from those blue-blue eyes.

  The winged woman grabbed Liam's wrist, then dragged it to her breast. His fingers involuntarily squeezed, sinking in just slightly against her skin. He felt her nipple – a hard pebble against his palm. Liam's heart raced and he blinked at her, trying to find something to say. Then the winged woman stepped forward and grabbed his back with her free hand. Her wings closed around them, creating a cocoon of warmth and she kissed him. Her tongue slid into his mouth and Liam felt energy surge through his body.

  He needed her.

  He needed to be balls deep in her feathered pussy. His hands grabbed her ass and he kissed her back, panting as he broke the kiss a moment later to growl. “Fuck,” he said. She murmured something that sounded very similar and for a moment, Liam was worried. Was this a reward? Or something she felt she owed him? But then she grabbed his wrists and forced his hands into the places she wanted – one hand on her breast, the other between her thighs. He felt her smoldering hot cunt and rubbed against her clit with his thumb and she cooed and nodded.

  Yes, good. I will keep you, she seemed to be saying.

  Liam stopped worrying about the why and started worrying about the how. As in how to fuck this woman properly. He kissed her neck, then kissed her breasts. He sucked on one nipple, then the other, teasing her with his teeth. He found that he could use quite a bit of pressure before she hissed – and even when he looked up at her worried, she nodded down at him.

  Yes, I won't break. I am tough, can't you tell?

  He kissed her belly, and then she was sitting down. Her rump settled on the rock that made the edge of the pool and she spread her thighs. Her fingers caressed the back of Liam's head – he felt one tease and tug on his hair and he grinned as he kissed first one thigh, then the other. He teased her, licking and nuzzling at her belly, not quite touching her pussy. He caught one of her pussy feathers in between his lips and was tugging it gently when it seemed that her patience for teasing had come to an end. Her fingers stroked through his hair and she shoved him forward.

  Liam was glad to oblige. His tongue delved into her sex as his fingers caressed the undersides of her breasts. He was noticing something now – she was short. He could easily grope her tits while eating her out – he didn't even need to stretch. She had been looking up at him the whole time; it was just her presence that had made him feel as if she was on the same height as him. It was heady and strange to think.

  Then she moaned and came and gush of juices filled his mouth. That was shocking enough for someone who had never eaten someone out who squirted before, but what was far more shocking was her taste. Maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised that she should taste like some kind of sugary candy. She was a winged angel with glowing blue eyes. He should have just been happy she didn't ejaculate hydraulic acid.

  But it was still enough to cause him to jerk back, spluttering and wheezing.

  The angel laughed, throwing her head back. She had a beautiful laugh – and when she gently bumped his nose with her big toe, Liam saw that she wasn't just flexible. She was incredibly flexible. Her feet moved as adroitly as her hands, though they weren't quite the right shape. He blushed and murmured, “Man, I feel like Quentin Tarantino.”

  “I do not know what race a Tarantino is,” the woman said, her voice turning English into the most beautiful poetry that Liam had ever heard, “But if they eat girls out like you, then I must acquaint myself with them.”

  “You can speak English!?” Liam jerked his head back.

  The angel chortled. “No, you can speak Latin,” she said, grinning as she sat up.

  “Latin?” Liam spluttered. “I've heard Latin, and that's not Latin.”

  The woman shrugged. “I can assure you this is Latin. I speak fluent Latin, Coptic and Greek. I'd be barely worth my name if I couldn't. I also do a passable job in asking for directions to the whorehouse in Elvish.”

  Liam tried to parse all of that. “Wait, how do-” He blinked. “Okay, firstly, there's a word for whore in Elvish?”

  “Yeah, I know, right?” The woman snorted. “They seem so much better than that, but they're just as ready to buy love when they need too.” She made a remarkably familiar 'jerking off' gesture while rolling her eyes.

  Liam blinked. “Well, uh, my name is Liam Vanderbilt.”

  “Megaera the Messenger,” the angel said, bowing her head.

  “That is by far the most logical name I could have hoped for,” Liam said, rubbing his face.

  “So,” Megaera – though Liam immediately started thinking of her as Meg – spread her thighs and arched her back. “Going to finish what you started, conquering hero?”

  She spoke the words with just enough sardonic amusement that Liam had to grin, even as he unbuttoned his jeans. He felt a surge of passion that made what happened in the hotel room feel like a candle compared to a nuclear bomb. Turned out almost dying was a great aphrodisiac? Another great aphrodisiac? The woman you were about to fuck being this stupidly beautiful. His hands grabbed his shirt and he tugged it up and over his shoulders, tossing it aside. His crucifix caught the light and shone – and Meg's eyes widened.

  “What the fuck?” she hissed, shoving herself back.

  “What?” Liam blinked, looking down at his naked body – his hard abs and his hard cock. Then he saw where Meg's eyes were pointed. She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes.

  “Why are you wearing a godsdamned crucifix on your neck?” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you some kind of executioner? Is that why your God gave you a magic blade?” Her finger caressed the necklace.

  “What?” Liam asked, feeling like he was a good two or three steps behind the times. “I, no. No, this is...” He shook his head. “It's an icon of my God.” He paused. “You're not an angel are you?”

  Meg cocked her head. “I'm a Valkyrie.”

  She said it like she expected Liam to start drooling and eating his own boogers.

  “I think that we should really go over some basic cultural knowledge,” Liam said, nodding.

  “...after you fuck me?”

  “After. Definitely after.” Liam grabbed her ankles, tugging her off the rock and onto the soft grass. Meg writhed delightfully under him as he found that she was athletic enough and flexible enough to be easily spread wide. Her ankles almost hooked behind her neck as she cooed quietly, and Liam found his cock pressing to her sex. He ground against her, teasing her sex slowly as he whispered. “Want this bad, huh?”

  “So bad,” she purred.

  “Want to say please?”

  “Oh just fuck me, Liam.” She closed her eyes and rolled her head back, her whole body quivering.

  Liam plunged into her. He grunted, low and deep in his throat, as her sex clenched his shaft. His balls slapped her ass and her hands grabbed his shoulders. She squeezed him firmly as she moaned – her voice pure and beautiful. Liam ducked his head forward and started to thrust into her faster and faster. She was smaller than him – it made it easy for him to find the right position, to put his hands on her shoulders and just focus on pounding her. She was tough enough too – she growled and grunted as her wings pressed to the ground underneath her back.

  “Ah fuck,” she gasped. “Ah fuck fuck fu-huk.”

  That last word was delivered the same time her sex clenched around his cock. Her juices burst against his hips and he
felt her wetness frothing along his belly as her hands squeezed him. Liam didn't wait – didn't even pause - he plunged deep into her and let himself go. At another time, in another world, he might have worried about STIs or unwanted pregnancies. But then again, maybe not.

  For now, underneath an alien sun, beside a magical pool, he focused purely on the hot lust that blazed through his every pore and emptied himself deep inside of Meg's pussy. He swore he could feel her womb sloshing with his cum as he remained hilted inside of her. The two of them trembled – and then Meg relaxed onto the ground with a sigh. Her legs uncrossed from behind her neck and she wrapped those wonderfully nimble limbs around his back, drawing him into an embrace.

  They kissed, softly, and Liam lay there, breathing slowly and steadily.

  “Where are we?” he whispered.

  “Mmm.” Meg's fingers teased his hair. “The Farstone Jungle, the lands between New Athens and Faiyum Falls. The underbelly.” She paused. “Or, if you wanted somewhere more general: Purgatory.”

  Three

  Cleaning up the battlefield took less time than Liam had expected. Meg had simply knelt down and placed her palm on the back of each corpse. They had then glowed a pale blue, sunk into the ground and dissolved away, leaving nothing but their armor and their weapons. Meg disdained to pick any up but Liam did grab one of the swords to cast an eye over it.

  “This is shitty bronze,” he said, frowning. His Dad had worked with bronze from time to time and this was definitely shitty bronze. Something in the mixture wasn't quite right – it seemed to hold an edge, but it looked as if it would bent or break after a short time. That explained why each soldier had carried three weapons – their primary, a backup primary, and each had some kind of stone club or cudgel on their person.

  “It's the finest in Purgatory,” Meg said, stepping over and snatching the sword from his hand. “You won't get better without magic.” She shrugged and then snapped the blade in half with her hands. She dropped the two halves and grinned at him. “Fortunately, I am magic.”

  “So, why did you need my help?” Liam asked, trying to not show just how unnerved he was. The girl who had been clawing at his back as he filled her sex with blast after blast of cum could snap metal with her bare hands. He was trying, very hard, to not think of all the crass jokes about why Lois Lane would never get to bang Superman.

  “The nulldart,” she said, shrugging. “Aries men have them to take me down.” She frowned and looked at the sky. “I judge flying to be a very poor idea right about now. If they have dartcasters—” she shook her head. “The air is the worst place to have your strength drained from you.”

  “I can imagine,” Liam said. “So, why is the God of War trying to kill you?” He grinned. “Are you more of a Kratos fan?”

  Meg looked at him quizzically.

  “I am going to have to get used to that expression,” Liam said, picking some grit from his eye.

  Meg shook her head. “The message is why.” She reached into her belt pouch and pulled free a small crystal the size of Liam's thumb. She wiggled it. “This is a sworn oath of peace between Apollo – my patron – and Sobek.”

  “Sobek?” Liam asked.

  “The Crocodile God,” Meg said, then frowned. “So, I don't mean to be rude, but are you sure you didn't hit your head? I mean, usually, when people say they are going to fuck someone's brains out, they are referring to the fuckee not the fucker.”

  Liam snorted. “I am new to Purgatory. Uh, basically, I was on Earth and I found this box and—”

  Meg's eyes widened and she stepped forward, growling. Her hand grabbed Liam's throat and she picked him up one handed. Picking someone else up one handed was a trick used by TV shows and movies to make someone seem very scary but Liam knew for a fact that in real life, no one was that strong. Except she can snap metal with her bare hands, you idiot!

  “Christian,” she snarled.

  “Urk!” Liam clutched at her wrist. He tried to speak – usually, in movies, people could get a single word out. Like, say, gurgling something about how you had no idea where the Death Star plans where. Turns out, when someone with the strength of a superhero was strangling you, you couldn't say anything. Because you couldn't breathe.

  At...least...trip...education...al… Liam thought, his vision going dark.

  Then, suddenly, breath returned. His knees hit the ground and Meg drew her hand back, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “I won't kill you in cold blood. That's for the tribunals to decide. Sobek, or Apollo, or someone else.” She shook her head, her voice bitter. “I can't believe I had sex with you.”

  Liam coughed. “S-Sorry but I have no idea what the fuck is going on!” He looked up at her. “On my world, on Earth, those gods don't exist.”

  “Of course they don't!” Meg snarled down at him, her eyes flashing. “They were banished here. To Purgatory! By your Christian cult and their Slave God. They cast the gods and their followers here and started the Wars of the Caretakers. Uncounted numbers of humans, elves, goblins, saurians, all of them died. Gods died.” Her hands clenched and she glared down at him. “The only good thing to come of the whole affair is the valkyrie but we all share in the Father's promise: any Christian we find, we shall teach the meaning of regret.”

  Liam rubbed his throat. “I'm not the same breed,” he said, voice raspy.

  Meg's brow furrowed. “What?”

  “It's been, uh, I don't know?” Liam coughed again. “Seventeen centuries. The Christian sect that banished you here-” The Manichean Solution, the name of the box makes sense now! “-we abolished over a millennium ago. Hell, the Church that spawned them fragmented. Then fragmented again.” He laughed, softly. “I'm the follower of an offshoot of a fragment of the heterodoxy variant of the heretical cabal that banished you here.”

  Meg blinked. “Oh.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said.

  “I shouldn't have just strangled you then,” she said, sounding somewhat uncertain – the kind of voice that Liam would have used if he had gone off at a friend for a misunderstanding. “Uh, sorry?”

  Liam closed his eyes.

  What would Jesus do?

  “Apology accepted,” he said and stood. “Now, why don't you start from the top?”

  ***

  The jungles of Purgatory got surprisingly cool once one got below the secondary canopy and started to walk among the strangely jagged landscape that dwelt beneath the darkness of the trees. The breeze, though, was gone – leaving Liam feeling the same kind of 'cloth against the face' suffocation that he remembered from the classrooms that his school had placed (for some unfathomable reason) underground. And yet, as if the jungle was caught in a no-holds-barred poker championship with him, it upped the ante with every discomfort removed.

  Make things a bit more cool?

  Okay. I'll add insects.

  The insects were mostly bio-luminescent and Liam mistakenly thought that that would make them easier to swat before they bit him. Instead, they merely ended up drawing streaks of light through the air after his hand crashed down against his skin – exclamation points that all said: Hah! Next time try aiming, fucker.

  “So, the top,” Meg said, her wings ruffling slightly as she pushed aside a branch and ducking beneath it. Her hand slapped out, cracking against her bared shoulder with a sound more similar to a whip breaking the land speed record than a human hand hitting human flesh. Once again, Liam was forcibly reminded of her immense strength. He mentally added it to the immense list of questions that he was keeping.

  “Purgatory was settled when your ancestors banished the true gods and their followers here,” she said, turning back to look at him as she held aside some vines. “Be careful, these are toxic for non-valks.”

  “Appreciated,” Liam said, quietly.

  Meg smiled at him, then let the vines drop down, walking behind him. “But Purgatory had races that lived here for years uncounted before humanity and their gods arrived. The elves, the goblins, the lizardfolk...”
she shrugged. “Others.”

  “How many?” Liam asked.

  “Their numbers were beyond counting. The numbers that died in the War of the Caretakers were also beyond counting. Those that followed the Caretaker – the winged God of Purgatory, who was the only God – tried to keep the invaders back. But they died. They died from plagues and from the magics of the Dodekatheon, the Pesdjeti, the Aesir. But there were losses from the invaders. Zeus, Odin, Ra. All dead.”

  “How does a god die?” Liam boggled. The very idea just felt wrong.

  “The legends vary,” Meg said, chuckling. “Now, the gods are no longer aligned in their old pantheons. Instead, they each control a series of city states, like the Hellenic League of Earth.”

  “Ah, yes, the Hellenic League. A stable and entirely orderly way to organize a civilization,” Liam said, his voice as dry as the jungle was wet.

  Meg glared at him, her wings ruffling. “Hey,” she said. “We didn't go to your planet and look around at your weird Christian pain-cult and start bitching about your cannibalism.”

  Liam opened his mouth to respond. But, looking past the misinformation and the stereotypes, she had a point. He nodded and spread his hands in a placating gesture.

  “Point taken.”

  Meg frowned down at him. “You are an extremely odd man.” She cocked her head. “I think I like it. Though, if you hadn't been balls deep in me just a few hours ago, I'd be wondering if you're a eunuch.”

  Liam frowned at her, his arms crossed over his chest. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Among the Apollites – the children of-”

  “Apollo worshipers, I got that much.” Liam waved his hand to try and get one of the bugs away from his face. His precious, unbitten face.

  Meg snorted. “Fair enough. They tend to be a bit unwilling to listen to a woman's perspective. If the woman's not a valk, of course.”