The Blood Groove (Purgatory Wars Book 4) Page 9

“You bastard,” she growled.

  “I know,” he said.

  “You fucking bastard.” Liv trembled. She wanted to hit him again and again and again. She was so fucking furious she couldn’t see straight. Her hands clenched on the floor under the tent. Right now, she could barely breathe. She ducked her head forward. Her fingernails bit into the wood.

  “I know,” he said again.

  “Why?” she hissed.

  “Sysminor,” Brax said. “He said we needed to keep the advantage. Imagine if Liam had her and Babylon. He could build a dozen godkillers and drop them in our camp. Like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  “He wouldn’t,” Liv snarled. Her fingernails ached. The wood creaked.

  “Sysminor has spoken to me at length about the world Liam came from. He said that his observations...” He spoke the word with some sarcasm. Liv’s hammering heart caught. She slid her hands along the deck, flexing her fingers out. Her knuckles ached from the pressure she had put on them. Brax continued. “Their people drop bombs the size of houses on each other. They slaughter entire cities and burn armies from the inside out with noxious fumes. Liam would in an instant. He would. And so...” He shuddered. “Tethis had to die.”

  Liv grabbed his head again, jerking it up as she scrambled over him. Her knees pressed against the ground to either side of him as she loomed overhead. She had been in hundreds – thousands – of fights. A lot ended on the ground. A few started there. Being on the ground and the smaller opponent meant controlling the position and leveraging your weight. But being a demigod had advantages too.

  Brax didn’t fight back as she lifted his head, ready to smash it down. His eyes and hers met in the dimness of the tent. The rocking of the boat bumped him against her. She felt his smooth belly, lined with muscle, resting against her sex, separated only by her loincloth.

  Liv’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “I never even told her I liked her,” Liv hissed. “You know that? Friends for a year and I never even said that.”

  Brax’s hands went to her wrists. Holding her. Gently.

  Liv didn’t want gentle. She wanted a world where good people didn’t have to do wicked things. She wanted to feel alive. She wanted to forget that people could die at any moment, that they were all a single mistake away from being whisked beyond. And more than anything else, she wanted Brax. She knew it was wrong. She knew she should hate him - but looking down at him, she couldn’t feel it. Instead, what she felt was a burning need. It was a feeling as sudden and intense as a hurricane, rushing through her. Filling her with a wild warmth, buzzing and burning. Fire. She leaned forward and her mouth locked against his muzzle. His tongue didn’t respond to her as she slipped her tongue into his mouth. Brax’s hands slid from her wrists.

  He didn’t fight her.

  He didn’t kiss back.

  Liv drew her mouth back, panting.

  Brax opened his mouth to speak. Liv plunged in again. This time, it wasn’t quite a kiss. Her teeth bumped against his lower muzzle. Her hands grabbed his wrists and forced his arms to her back. Her fingernails worked between scales, pinching and squeezing. Brax growled with pain. Frustration. Lust. His fingers squeezed back. Gently, at first. Then harder. His tongue tentatively touched hers.

  Liv drew her mouth back again. Panted harder.

  “Brax,” she whispered.

  “We shouldn’t,” he said.

  “Shut the fuck up,” she growled. “You do bad things for good reasons. Now do something fucking bad for a fucking good reason already.” Her hands grabbed her breast band. She didn’t bother tugging it off. It was just cloth. The tatters fell around her as Brax’s hands slipped along her hips, her belly, cupping her breasts. He was strong and rough – and yet, uncertainty kept his touch gentle.

  Liv didn’t want gentle.

  She pushed herself forward and bit down on his neck. Her teeth went hard, tasting gold and sweat and maleness. His musk filled her nose as she ground against him. The hurricane roaring inside of her – the hurricane born from death, the intense need for new life – made the unwashed scent of a man several weeks into campaign into something as sweet as ambrosia. She grabbed at his hips, jerking and tugging at the ties of his loincloth. She barely needed, his eagerness was starting to tent and push his loincloth aside.

  Brax’s hands remained unsure. They slipped along her back, reaching tentatively down to her ass. They caressed her through her loincloth.

  Liv snarled. “Are you a man, Brax, or are you just going to fucking lay there?”

  Something kindled in those eyes.

  “Do you treat all your lovers like this?” he asked, anger rising under his throat.

  “I’m not a princess, General,” Liv hissed.

  Brax sat up. His hands grabbed her hips, holding her to him as his loincloth-covered cock slipped against her sex. His size made her head spin. She preferred balls. Loved balls, really. But the look in his eyes made her feel just a bit intimidated. The word ‘princess’ had woken something deep and dark. Something that had been chained down and controlled for some time.

  Liv had never been wetter in her life.

  Those claws scraped at her skin. If she hadn’t been blessed by her father, blood would have gleamed on her skin. As it was, her loincloth fell to the ground and stuck to her flesh in equal measures, sweat keeping the thin fabric glued to her. Her hairless, elven sex was then filled. Not by a cock – two fingers plunged into her, then crooked. She felt his calloused fingertips find her center of pleasure with ease and she bit down on his shoulder to not fill the tent – and the deck of the ship – with her scream of pleasure.

  “Insolent slave,” Brax growled.

  She gasped and released his shoulder. Her voice was ragged. “Murderer.”

  “Bitch.” He bit down on her neck, pushing her backwards. Liv spread her thighs. She needed this so badly she felt like she was about to melt. Her thighs spread wider still and she got her ankles behind her neck.

  Those fingers inside of her drew out. Gold glittered under her juices as Brax looked down at her.

  “You want a real man’s cock then?” Brax asked, his hand going to his loincloth. His golden member was as exotic as she remembered – ridged and coming to a triangular tip - but it had never quite looked so large as it did now. Liv panted, her body as open and eager as she had ever been. She arched her spine, bringing some attention to her perky breasts.

  “I haven’t had a real man’s cock since I fucked Liam,” she hissed.

  Brax snorted. “A human?” He asked, his voice filling with disdain and heat. Lust dripped from his words, and it set off a fire between Liv’s legs, intense enough to melt bronze. As if to accentuate his size and his length, Brax slid his palm under his dick and then let it slap down on her belly, the base teasing her clit, the tip dangerously close to her belly button.

  Liv shivered, then whispered. “About the same size, General.”

  Brax blinked. “Really?”

  Liv nodded.

  Brax smirked again - regaining his commanding attitude with a single statement. “I’m better.”

  She snorted.

  She put as much derision and disdain into that one snort as she could.

  Better? that snort said.

  Prove it.

  Brax put his hands on her hips, then slipped them up to her shoulders. He poised himself over her, his tail lashing from side to side as he locked his eyes on hers. Liv trembled.

  There were pleasures in moments like this.

  She didn’t think of the war.

  She didn’t think of dead friends.

  She didn’t think of her future.

  She just thought of hard muscle and sleek scales.

  And the eager need burning between her thighs. The steady drip, drip, drip of her sex, slicking her thighs, puddling and soaking into the planks under her. Then even those thoughts were gone. She had thought the lust roaring through her had been a hurricane. It had nothing on the delight of finally having Bra
x inside her. She hadn’t quite realized just how deeply she had wanted this moment to come until it was finally here, until she felt his balls resting on her pert ass. Her hands caressed his back as she shuddered under him.

  “Don’t stop,” she whispered.

  Brax started to work his hips, moving his entire body, sawing his cock backwards and forward. The tip bumped against a deep part of her that set off tiny white flashes inside of Liv. But the ridges were what really made her lose all control. Her back arched as her sex clenched on his shaft like a velvet glove, her fingernails digging between scales as she screamed her pleasure.

  Caring about stealth had gone.

  “Oh fuck. Oh fuck me, Brax! Fuck me with that fucking lance, oh Gods!”

  She trembled as Brax growled, “Keep it down, elf!”

  “Fuck you!” Liv gasped.

  And laughed.

  Part of her writhed. How could she laugh, now? But laugh she did – at the tone of aggrieved dignity in Brax’s voice as he tried to keep propriety while fucking her as hard as he possibly could in the middle of a tent city spreading across the deck of a ship.

  Brax laughed as well. He kissed her neck, his hands sliding into the small of her back as he sat back on his haunches. His hips continued to work as he bucked her on his lap. She rose and fell with the motion of the ocean, her fingers aching with the pressure of having to hold him so hard. She couldn’t loosen her grip. She couldn’t even imagined doing it.

  She looked into his eyes.

  He looked into hers.

  Then, shuddering, he ducked his head forward. His cock thrust up into her, his balls slapping against her ass, as firm as a palm striking her. Liv’s breath caught and she felt those balls twitch against her. The rush of hot, thick spunk that filled her a moment later simply set another, deeper fire inside of her as she shuddered, then crooned, throwing her head back and filling the tent with her pleasure. She kept rising and falling for a few moments, her belly crunching as she tried to wring every bit of pleasure as she could.

  “Fuck,” she hissed.

  “Liv,” Brax whispered.

  “General,” Liv whispered back. Kissing his forehead. Nuzzling him. Kissing him again, this time on the mouth. This time, there was no hesitation, no delay. His long, flexible tongue plunged into her throat and she sucked on him gently, trembling against him as he felt his cum filling her womb.

  Then, slowly he softened. He laid back, his legs stretching out once more. His cock slipped from her sex and Liv laid her head down on his shoulder, her whole body as wrung out as a wet towel.

  They lay in silence.

  “I’m sorry,” Brax said.

  “Shut up, Brax,” Liv whispered.

  Then, quieter still.

  “I know.”

  ***

  “And that’s the third barrel of water we’ve used this voyage,” Thu said, his quill scritching softly as he scribbled on a piece of paper. He looked up at Vulkis. “Having this many crew on board eats through the supplies like I’ve never seen. Do you think we’ll be ready once we find the enemy?”

  Vulkis shook his head. He let, for just a moment, his nerves show. To a wall. The wall saw the uncertainty, the fear. Then, smiling, he turned to his friend and crew-mate.

  “We were born ready, Thu,” he said, then started to the stairs leading to the deck of the ironically named Holkos. The ship was Hellenic to the core and had been built around the ram. Hellenes could board like the best Aesir, but their primacy in sea battles, especially on Purgatory, had always been their rams. Vast, bronze-coated, and backed up by teams of experienced rowers and slaves, their ships had eschewed letting marines and valor end the engagement.

  Rather, they simply cut enemy ships in half.

  Vulkis looked at the crew. The free Aesir that had come to New Athens and Faiyum Falls and other cities that had received the messages – borne at the speed of valks and fast sailing ships – didn’t even try and disguise themselves. They looked like huscrals and Aesir sailors. But behind the shielded walls of the Holkos and on the decks of the four other ships that Athena had managed to part with, they looked like they belonged.

  Somewhat.

  Vulkis looked out at the curve of the world, then upwards.

  “Enemy!” he shouted, pointing outwards. There was a point in the distance where the curvature of Purgatory brought enemies into view. Before that point, they could be hidden by waves or depressions or hills. It was what made naval battles such a nerve wracking affair, from time to time. You couldn’t run and you couldn’t be sure when you’d meet.

  Vulkis could see the distant wakes of five ships sailing between Wotan and Heilemsprigga – their flags were visible as splotches of color. Sysminor’s symbol was brutal and simple and to the point: a blue field with a sky blue edge and a single black circle in the center. Vulkis shook his head.

  “We’ll catch them up before the sun winks out,” his helms-woman – the girl from the bar, Eerika – said. She had a wicked grin on her face.

  Vulkis nodded, then called out to the crew. “Ready watch! We don’t want to get counter-jumped!”

  The crew rushed to their positions. They might have been merchants and civilian sailors. But the memory of serving in the Aesir navy was close enough to the surface for most of them. They might have been slower in some cases, and less spry, but they readied to repel boarders, and set extra men to the oars.

  The five ships – the Hykos, Argos, Ladon and the Centaur – plunged into the chop. Their prows broke through the waves. Vulkis had to admit, they punched through waves easier than a longship might. But there was the occasional yelp and shout of curses as oars slipped from unsure grips and smashed about.

  The waves parted.

  There were the enemy ships, trying to break and scatter.

  Humans and elves and goblins glared back at humans and elves and goblins.

  “Now! Now! Ram! Ram!” Vulkis bellowed.

  The crew at the oars worked desperately.

  Eerika yanked at the rudder.

  The Hykos moved forward.

  The Ladon slipped left as one bank of their oars failed to quite catch the waves. The two ships nearly collided, then both struck one of the enemy merchant ships in the front. The two rams smashed and scraped against one another with an almighty screech and splinters exploded through the air. Vulkis felt as if someone had punched him in the chest, hard enough to send him sprawling. He blinked and saw a chunk of oar was resting on his lap.

  Then they were shifting apart. The captain of the Ladon bellowed insults at Vulkis. Eerika screeched insults right back.

  The merchant vessel sank, its hold filled with the supplies needed by Brax and his crystalline master.

  Vulkis shook himself and started to stand.

  “Ware!”

  The cry came from the starboard of the Hykos. Looking, Vulkis saw that one of the merchant ships that had broken away from the pack had come around. The deck had half a dozen sailors knocking and readying arrows. They loosed, and the arrows plunged into the water and deck and rattled off shields. Vulkis pointed at them.

  “Bring us at them, Eerika!”

  He looked back and saw the Aesir woman clutching to the rudder, her feet braced, her back pressed against wood, an arrow sprouting from her shoulder. Her face was white with pain, but she grinned at him as she shoved with all her might. The Hykos turned and the oars bit into water. The crew seemed to have a better handle on it now. They rowed forward.

  The merchant ship started rowing as well. They managed to stumble partially out of the way.

  The ram and side of the Hykos scraped against the merchant ship. Oars splintered and shattered. The Hykos’ oars snapped as well – but only some. More than a few had been yanked up and out of the way. The enemy ship started to drift away, but at close range, their archers were essentially shooting at free targets. Vulkis threw himself flat and dragged Eerika away from her oar. An arrow thudded into the deck right before his nose.

  Now
, though, the huscrals had a target they had waited for.

  Throwing weapons were a large part of Aesir warfare. Vulkis didn’t know if that was how his ancestors on Earth had fought – but he knew on Purgatory, with nulldarts and throwing spears, the huscral had always relied in part on his throwing arm.

  Vulkis was sure that Babylon was a city that made gunpowder by the barrel but Faiyum Falls and that goblin artificer that Sobek kept around had their own uses.

  Flasks of gunpowder landed on the side of the merchant ship. Thin wood splintered and men and women alike were sent flying. Pieces, too. Fires spread along the ship and the huscrals sent up a vicious cheer.

  The other merchant ships were either burning or sinking.

  Not a single Hellenic ship was more than damaged.

  “I suppose those thrice damned Hellenes can build ships,” Vulkis said, walking over to Eerika, taking the rudder from her hand. She looked pale as a sheet, but remained standing.

  “If we sail them,” she said, her teeth clenched.

  Vulkis grinned at her.

  The sun winked out.

  “Let's head back to Olimurias.”

  Eerika, now that the night had fallen and prevented anyone from seeing her feel pain, hissed. “Can you please cut this fucking arrow out of me?”

  Five

  “Pre-sent arms!”

  The hundred men and women wearing the red cross tunics of the Cross Guard lifted their muskets. It was a ragged motion – but they were faster, smoother, more unified than they had been in quite some time.

  “Fire!”

  The sudden crackling roar of musketry was music to Liam’s ears.

  The muskets weren’t loaded with shot. But when they were loaded, they would be filled with lead. Liam had been worried that making bullets would be a problem, but while Purgatory lacked heavy metals, it had one thing that Earth lacked. Alchemists. Like on Earth, alchemists were interested in converting one metal into another. On Purgatory, that research had mostly been focused on creating iron.

  Without iron, even the Aesir had been forced to adopt bronze weapons. Bronze was far more expensive and difficult to make than iron. Without iron, they had never found steel.