Full Moon Strays Ch. 07

But what was really surreal was the mineshaft. It had gotten darker when he crossed over. It was so black that he wondered if light had EVER existed there. And it seemed to be pulling at him, coaxing him towards the entrance with black velvet tendrils and whispered promises. He stepped forward. It was the daftest thing he had ever done in his life and he knew it. But for a second, his feet did not belong to him. Then, another second and another step.

Croc was sweating, he was sure of that. An overwhelming curiosity was overtaking him. 'What's down there?' he thought. 'It couldn't possibly be that . . .'

Out in the real world, Anya and Johan were sitting on a boulder when a hand shot through a dimensional ripple and starting waving maniacally. It looked like Croc was trying to come through but something was pulling him back.

Johan lunged forward and grabbed Croc's hand and wrist, digging his heels into the dirt and pulling for all he was worth. Anya ran up and tried to help, though physical strength wasn't something she had an overabundance of. Slowly, a second hand punctured the membrane, so Anya grabbed that one instead. With a lurch, Croc came tumbling through, back into the "real" world.

Anya almost didn't recognize the assassin. His face was as white as a sheet, and his face was contorted with terror. While on all fours, he started to vomit, gripping the earth so tightly that his fingers began to bleed under the nails.

"What happened?!" Anya screamed, looking around for any sign that they weren't alone. The air around them was dead still.

Croc continued to vomit until there was nothing left. Then he collapsed onto his side.

That was when Anya noticed that his right eye had turned red. They needed to get him to the hospital. His eye was filled with blood.

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A few hours later . . .

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Tarloh, Talia, Shield and Nathaniel all arrived at the hospital within minutes of each other. They had been enjoyed a brief meal when they got a frantic phone call from Anya. Something had happened to Croc.

"What happened?" Tarloh said when Anya and Johan met them in the lobby.

"He . . . huh . . . he went through and then his hand came out and he was panicking and we helped pull him through but he got real sick and was throwing up . . ."

Talia wrapped her arms around Anya's shaking shoulders. The girl was spooked. "Is he . . ."

"He's alive," Johan said, a little more collected than his female counterpart. "The doctor's said he's lost the use of one eye, but no one has any idea what could have caused it. Needless to say, I think Croc found something bad. Maybe what we were looking for."

A doctor came over and informed them that their friend was stable but asleep, and it might be best if they got a snack or some coffee. The doctor wasn't sure if he'd wake up by the end of visiting hours.

The Strays gathered around a table in the cafeteria, drinking the strongest coffee the kitchen was able to muster. Johan and a slightly calmed Anya recounted the events of the day. They all felt relieved that Croc was going to be relatively okay.

"We need Nat and the gang back with that jewel," Talia was saying. "If this is what we think it is and it was able to get to Croc . . ." She just let the statement trail off.

"Yeah," Tarloh said. "Weren't we supposed to get a break? Red and Jane killed the Shoggoth. Doesn't that at least warrant a breather?"

Johan took a sip. "Keep in mind, we may still have time. This thing is a God, so no wonder it was able to affect Croc. But if it could actually do anything but exert influence in the void, we never would have gotten him back. He did something at the wrong spot at the wrong time. Let's not go panicking yet."

Nathaniel felt unease. The Strays would never succeed if they started doubting themselves now. "Johan's right. Let's play this one by ear. If the gang gets that jewel in time, we can nip this thing in the bud. Hell, no one would have given us a shot against the Shoggoth a month ago, but it's gone." He noticed the group had perked up a bit. The handsome young man continued. "Let's get some other affairs in order while we've got the time."

Tarloh nodded his head in agreement. "Okay. Red and Jane called. They'll be back tomorrow night. Wanted to know where to meet us. Figured we'll stay at the Den for a bit longer."

Talia took the hand of her leader, friend and lover. "I talked with the owner of the property. She seemed like a great lady. Not at all like other land owners. She'd be happy to sell at a great price, but that price is still high. I can't blame her. It's a lot of land. We don't have that kind of money, so we need to start looking somewhere else."

"How much?" Anya asked quietly.

Talia quirked her head. "If we treated it like a wildlife preserve and kept it up, it'd still be a half million."

Anya raised her head. "I can get four-hundred thousand," she said softly. "It'll take a few days, but . . ."

"What?!" was the collective response. "How could you . . ."

"I have money left over. I've checked a couple of times to make sure I was never declared officially dead, so . . ."

"But . . . how?"

"I used to be a pretty high-priced model. The cocaine and heroine usually came free at the types of parties I went to. When I ran . . . I still had a pretty good stash of cash. One smart thing I did was I handled my own money. Mostly it was because I'd gotten so paranoid that I transferred it into a new account without telling my managers. Hell, I could probably take a few more jobs . . . the novelty of it will probably get the price high enough to cover the rest of the bill."

"We can't ask you to . . . you have four-hundred thousand dollars?" Nathaniel repeated.

"Yeah. I think I've got some stuff in storage at . . . wait, I own a house!" Anya scrunched up her forehead, deep in thought. Then she noticed everyone was staring at her. "I should have told you. I know how much the Strays could have used the money but . . . I didn't like who I had been back then. I didn't want to remember the person who had bought all those things, because I would have had to remember how I bought them."

Tarloh grabbed her hand gently. "When you join the Strays, you bring only what you can carry. If you didn't want to haul that baggage around, you didn't have to. I hate to ask you to go back, but . . ."

"I'll do it," Anya said, more easily than she had suspected possible. "I feel kinda dumb about it. I mean, Jane had the guts to go home and try to face the guy that raped her. How can I not be able to face a couple of agents and managers? They're only human. Barely human, maybe, but human nonetheless."

Inside, her friends felt a flicker of hope. It seemed that they might have caught another break.

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In Mexico . . .

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Robbie was druuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunk. He hadn't been drunk in a long time, and he couldn't remember being that drunk ever. The Raptors had been surprisingly enthusiastic about helping, particularly when they heard there might be a fight involved. Robbie then remembered that, according Michael, war was the primary form of population control for harpies. They were a medieval race on a violent world, and fighting wasn't second nature to them. He'd heard a joke that the only thing a harpy liked more than a good fight is a good fuck and that is was sometimes difficult to tell the two of them apart. And this combative nature had worn off on their counterparts. The Raptor's had agreed to help, and the party had begun. Harpies liked to celebrate.

He started to sit down on a log away from the main encampment, trying to clear his head. Then he checked to see if the log was actually a giant snake. Then he decided he didn't care. The cool air was doing him some good. He stopped and looked up at the stars.

"How long has it been since I've stared up at them?" he pondered. "Been living underground too long," he added. Even though he had acted as Red's voice in the meeting, he actually was looking forward to moving. He was a wild animal, and he needed a wild space.

"No one should live anywhere but under the sky," came a smooth and slightly slurred voice. Besla had glided ever so silently up and landed with barely a noise. No wonder the harpies were such efficient predators. And Besla was carrying a bottle of tequila in her hand. "I never understood how the Strays could live in a hole. No offense."

"It was home," Robbie replied, trying to straighten up. "It was comfortable and . . . well, we thought it was safe."

Besla offered him the bottle, which he respectfully declined. "I am sorry for your troubles and your losses," she said. She respected what the Strays were and what they stood for. "We would have joined you in battle had you but asked."

"We . . . didn't know," he said, almost falling off the log. "Not until it was too late. How bad it was going to be, I mean. We went from fighting just plain old ordinary Hellspawn to fighting the servant of an Elder God. Now, we may have to fight an Elder God, and . . . well, there IS no fighting one of those."

"That is what makes this quest so important," she started, getting excited. "The weight of the world . .. no, the universe . . . no, our entire reality . . . it all hangs in the balance! This is the opportunity that my people wait their entire lives waiting for!"

Robbie grinned. "Sure. All we have to do is find this jewel, defeat a powerful shaman and whatever magics and underlings he may have, then get this jewel back to California to try and stave off the end of existence as we now it."

"Yes! Is it not exciting?"

"Yeah," Robbie said, his blood beginning to pump faster. "Actually, it is!"

"That is the spirit," Besla said. Then, her face took on a new demeanor. "You know, my people have a saying. If you might die tomorrow," she started, swinging her legs over and straddling his lap, "then live tonight." Her small but firm breasts were heaving under her leather vest, and her denim clad crotch was pressing against his hardening member. Even alcohol wasn't going to keep his soldier from saluting.

"Uhm, what are you . . ."

"It is our custom to enjoy the flesh before we battle," she whispered huskily, dragging her long tongue up the side of his face and then sucking on his ear. "You would not refuse me this simple request?" she added, reaching between his thighs and grabbing his cock through his pants.

Refusing her anything was rapidly becoming a non-issue. Robbie had thought the girls of the Strays (particularly Anya) were a little forward. Besla had decided that she wanted to fuck him and she had started without him. Robbie was going to have to play catch up.

He reached around and slid his hand up the back of her leg until it encountered the firm buttock underneath her leather shorts and beneath that tentacled tail. He squeezed gently. 'God, that's tight,' he thought.

Besla was in no mood for "taking it easy." She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulled him to her and stuck her tongue almost literally down his throat. Harpies, like other winged humanoids, had long tongues. She felt his grip on her ass tighten considerably. 'Much better,' she thought.

Robbie was still on the defensive, and wasn't sure what to do about it. Besla was madly fumbling with his trousers, trying to get to the hidden surprise like an angry child trying to find the prize at the bottom of a box of cereal. He also remembered that she had some pretty sharp claws, and wasn't looking forward to those overly anxious hands nicking something important. He hurriedly undid his own pants.

"This what you were looking for?" he said, his sizable rod waving in the cool desert air.

"Perfect," she replied, following it with her eyes like a cobra staring at a snake-charmer's flute. She shoved Robbie backwards onto the ground, his cock still waving. She removed her own clothes faster than Robbie could blink, then pounced on him. She spun around until her very human-looking pussy was over his face, smooth and moist.

Robbie knew what he was supposed to do. Oral sex was nothing new to him . . . or so he thought. Besla took his cock into her mouth, and he was treated to something beyond his wildest fantasies.

For one thing, harpies could open their mouths fairly wide, so taking his entire cock down her throat was no problem. Also, Besla had learned a thing or two about the delights of oral sex, and was quite addicted to it. And she could do something that no human female could. With Robbie's dick completely immersed in her mouth, she wrapped her nimble tongue around his shaft and started to stroke it.

Robbie's brain was ringing like a winning pinball game. She was basically giving him a tug-job AND a blowjob at the same time! It was the most incredible thing he had ever experienced. Her strong slimy tongue was easily as talented as any hand, and her mouth was so warm and so inviting. He didn't know what he would be able to do to match that. So he just started licking her pussy with as much speed and ferocity as he could muster.

Besla was pleased. Normally those she mated with blew their loads before thinking of providing her pleasure. This lycanthrope's oral attentions were quite vigorous and pleasing. Then, she felt his tongue tease her rectum, and her eyes shot open. So many earth men were somewhat squeamish about performing such an action, but she had an affinity for it. Of course, she had been informed that she was a bit overly amorous or, in human terms, a total horn-dog. But Robbie seemed to have to qualms about teasing both her opening with his slick tongue. She had chosen her lover well this time. She clawed the ground on either side of his hips as her mouth and tongue continued their work.

Robbie was trying hard to keep up. He sometimes had to push Besla's tail tentacles out of the way so he could stimulate her asshole, then decided to concentrate on her vaginal opening. So he thrust two fingers into her ass, noticing the pleasurable moan it caused, then started licking her slot. Harpies had very tight outer labia, but their inner labia were almost non-existent. Their clits were hidden a little deeper than he was used to, but he managed to find it and attacked it directly.

But try as he might, he couldn't hold out against her attack. Her tongue was stroking his meat in her mouth, and he erupted with little warning. But she took it in stride, swallowing pulse after pulse of jizz at it flowed into her mouth. She drained him dry, at least for the moment.

"Most satisfactory," she mumbled, letting his softening member fall to his belly.

Robbie kept going, licking, poking and ravishing anything he could find that brought Besla pleasure. She pushed back against his face, driving his tongue deeper into her willing sex while he shoved his fingers deeper into her asshole.

He learned something that night. When a harpy female is about to reach orgasm, her tail entraps her partner by coiling around him (or her) and keeping them in place until their moment of rapture passes. So Besla's tail tentacles wrapped around his head and wrist, securing them where they were and ensuring her release.

Robbie was feeling a little claustrophobic, but stopping never crossed his mind. When she came, her tentacles constricted and he was afraid he might drown. Luckily, harpies didn't have overly liquid orgasms, and mostly he just got an up-close-and-personal look of her powerful pussy contracted and quivering.

"You are . . . most talented," Besla purred, licking his cock. She wanted it hard again. She wanted more. "You are not done, are you?" she asked. "Are you capable of more, or do you need a nap first?"

While she hadn't meant it to, Besla's comment had tweaked Robbie. His manhood had been challenged, and he had to rise to the occasion. So to speak. He pushed her off of him and got on top of her, kissing her deeply. Unfortunately, he didn't know that Besla HATED being on bottom, so she rolled the pairing over, but kept the kissing.

One of Robbie's hands found his lover's breasts, while the air was latched onto her ass. He continued the roll until he was on top again. He didn't know what game she was playing, but he was determined to win this time. Then he felt her rolling and found himself on bottom again. But his time, it was only briefly, as the two lovers-turned-sparring-partners had encountered a small problem. It was called the edge of the hill.

The two managed to hold onto each other as they tumbled about twenty feet over rocks and small bushes until crashing into a boulder. Luckily, both of them were basically unharmed, barring a number of scratches and bruises.

Besla had become incredibly aroused. Her hormonal levels were at an all time high, as both her sexual and combat-related systems were in full swing now. She stood up, pulling him with her and shoved Robbie against the boulder, kissing him more as she ground her body against his.

Robbie was hard as the rock he was getting shoved against. This harpy was a total freak! He grabbed her by the hips, lifted her up and shoved her down on his rigid cock. He took a step forward and allowed her legs to wrap around him. He was roughly groping her ass as he started to pound her. He even started to tap into his animal side. He felt his hair grow a little coarser and his muscles swell with adrenalin. He wasn't going turn into his wolf form. He just wanted to fuck Besla like an animal.

Besla heard her mate growl and noticed with some glee his now inhuman tempo and power. She smelled both the human and the animal in him, and found the scent intoxicating. "Harder!" she cried.

Robbie obeyed, but only because he was headed that direction anyway. In the background, a coyote howled as if in appreciating for the fact that his lupine brother was representing in a big way. The slapping of skin seemed to carry out across the desert.

This time, it was Besla who first succumbed to her body's demands. Her pussy clenched and trapped Robbie's member, and her tentacles assisted her legs in ensnaring his waist as she climaxed. She was gripping his shoulders, trying (mostly successfully) not to dig her claws in, but did leave a few tiny punctures as she relished her bliss.

She pushed him away, happy to see that his eyes were still hungry and his cock was still hard. She spun around, spread her legs, wings and tail and offered him a view of her tight little ass. She quickly felt his hands on her hips and the head of his dick at her anal opening.

"What are you waiting for?" she asked impatiently. Her anal ring spread as his member entered her, and she left gash marks in the boulder as she forced her body to acclimate. Inch by inch slid into her backdoor like a snake finding a burrow. One of his arms slunk around and he thrust his fingers into her well-treated pussy, pumping them as he pumped her ass. 'What a magnificent lover!' she thought happily. His other hand found her small breast, and then he was off, fucking, fingering and pinching Besla to within an inch of her sanity. Her sphincter welcomed him, her pussy desired him and her breasts needed him. She turned her neck and met his fierce gaze, and the two kissed as their forceful coupling continued.

Her tail had parted for him, and now wrapped its many tendrils around him, helping him drill her like there was no tomorrow. She felt another orgasm coming on, but was determined to take him with her this time. As her back arched, she clamped down with her powerful anal ring. She began to climax, and felt his rod trying to expand within her.

Robbie's fingers were able to free themselves, but his dick was temporarily lost to him. Besla wanted it and the stuff it contained. He pressed his back against her, noticing almost off handedly the texture of her wings as he came in her ass.