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Chapter 23: Sarah
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2021-06-11 05:51:54I drop into the Al Cappuccino coffee shop on a whim, before rehearsal the day after the polo match. Holly was asking me about a third date as we were travelling back in the coach, and I need to get my head on straight before I see him again. I’ve promised myself to give him a proper chance over three dates. That means not starting the third date already convinced that I need to tell him it’s not working.
The coffee shop is crowded, almost every table full. It’s comforting, in its own way. I am alone in the crowd, cushioned by the mass of humanity. I manage to grab a free spot by slotting myself in just as a couple are leaving. It’s a small, square table attached to the wall with barely enough room for two chairs.
I’ve just got settled with my long black- no syrups or milk, just plain caffeinated goodness- when I spot another patron searching the tables. My eye is drawn to him instantly, although I couldn’t tell you exactly why, other than the way he looks out of plac
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Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 24: Aiden
I gulp down the muggy, traffic fume laiden air of the street and fight for control. Frost’s distraught howling in my head is drowning out the rumble of car engines and the wail of bus brakes. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m not even looking. I’ve got to get away before my savage and bloogthirsty werewolf instincts cause an incident that would hit every news feed around the world and plaster the knowledge of werewolf existence across every television and computer screen.I finally regain enough self control to pay attention to what’s around me. I’m still on the same street, I think. Several blocks down, maybe a mile, which isn’t as far as I thought I’d gone. Maybe I wasn't almost out of my mind for as long as it seemed at the time. They're all big public buildings here, museums and libraries and stuff like that. It's all grey stone, fancy pillars, spiky black metal fences and and trees growing out of metal doors in the si
Last Updated : 2021-06-12Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 25: Sarah
I wish I could hole myself up in my apartment, spending all day wearing pyjamas with my hair in a mess, eating ice cream out of the carton with Netflix providing a distraction from thinking. I wish I could turn the clock back and go change my mind the first time Holly asked me out, so I never got his hopes up only to go stomping all over them. I wish Holly wasn’t so d*** nice, so I could blame him instead of drowning myself in this ocean of guilt. If I wanted to lie to myself I could blame the stranger in the wine bar. I felt more then, caught between him and Holly, than I have at any time before. It’s the only time Holly has ever had my belly tingling and my panties growing wet. I didn’t need a creepy weirdo to remind me of what I could feel for the right partner, though. If I could blame anyone it would be the art student from the cafe, who was a million worlds away from Holly, all rough edges, surprise and disjointed conversation but who piqued my curiosity in just one ch
Last Updated : 2021-06-12Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 26: Aiden
The concert hall is a modern building that looks a bit like a bunch of glass huge glass blocks stacked up by a toddler. It’s on a street corner with roads on two sides and older grey stone buildings shoved up against it on the other two. The front of it has a row of glass doors beneath illuminated letters that spell out its name. Display cases beside the doors have glossy photos of the stars that have featured in previous performances. Here are doormen. I doubt I’ll have any luck trying to find Sarah through that entrance.The side around the corner is more industrial, with rambling pipes, steaming vents and two fire escapes. There’s a couple of black dumpsters against the wall. There’s a doorman here too, next to a door labelled ‘stage exit’, only this guy looks more like a bouncer. He gives me a suspicious look as as I approach. I keep walking.Once I’m past him I cross the street. The other side is mostly more of the same, but there
Last Updated : 2021-06-12Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 27: Sarah
Werewolf. That’s what they had to be. Part man, part wolf, shape shifter. Monster, in so many stories, but I’ve learned something about monsters in my lifetime and I know that they come in as many shades as humans. Some of them are human. My pulse is still racing, my fingers trembling from the remembered terror of that looming figure closing on me, but I know the danger to me is over even while another figure bearing claws, and fangs, and fur is hovering right by my side. I can sense the danger in every last hair and tooth and talon of him, but none of it will harm me, and my voice is calm when I thank him. I should be running screaming, my rational human side tells me. Instead, his presence soothes me. He looks hesitant, this monstrous werewolf beast, when I turn to him. What would such a killing machine to be so hesitant around me? Bellmouth may be something to do with it. I try to reassure him, laughing at myself for it but then pausing to wonder.
Last Updated : 2021-06-13Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 28: Aiden
When I was younger, Caleb dared me to jump off a cliff into the river. I was fourteen, he was eight. We were both trying to catch the attention of a girl, although I had a lot more of an idea about what I might get up to with her if I succeeded. Caleb was always the risk-taker, the type to lead from in front, to leap first and look afterwards. I was the one who wouldn’t do anything without thinking it through first, without having a plan. Spontaneity was dangerous. Thoughtless impulse got you killed.I remember what it felt like as I was standing on the cliff edge, my stomach in my throat, my mouth dry, my knees shaking. Caleb’s argument had seemed persuasive to fourteen-year-old me. I’d seen the older teens jumping before. It was an unofficial rite of passage for the Pack, for those who had turned eighteen over the winter to leap into the spring meltwater and bathe before the dancing and partying of the May Day celebrations.I hadn’t had the cour
Last Updated : 2021-06-14Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 29: Sarah
I wasn’t drunk last night. My head is perfectly clear.Having been drunk would be the rational explanation. As I wasn’t drunk, the only explanations left are those that I cannot tell most people, including my mundane human friends. They either make me look insane, or grossly insensitive, or a slut, or totally lacking in any good decision making skills. Or all of them.Sleep continues to fade, making me aware that I’m lying on my bed. I’m aching pleasantly in all the right places and not so pleasantly in an area near the side of my neck, and I am rather unpleasantly sticky between my legs. There’s a solid shape beside me, not quote snoring. His breath puffs against my shoulder, and his arm is looped across my waist. I am aware of his contentment just as surely as I am aware of my own.It was his dream that woke me and not mine. Two wolves running through a forest, the dream view seen through the eyes of one of them. His feel
Last Updated : 2021-06-14Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 30: Aiden
The sleepy bliss I feel on waking up next to my Mate lasts until we make it to the breakfast table. I’m determined to enjoy the sensation for as long as I can. Life is complicated. Simple pleasures don’t come along that often. Bliss is rare. Sarah starts asking me about people she met, and it’s obvious they’re not just humans, and the problems of the real world are back. So is Frost. I’d have thought he’d have been right there with me last night, but it turns out human sex doesn’t interest him even when it’s our Mate. He’d just curled up and gone to sleep, or the equivalent anyway. Possible danger to her, that gets his attention. Sarah mentions Cavendish and frost nearly takes over, wanting to charge right over to the club and tear him to pieces. For once have the winning card, and I can’t help laughing. Whatever Cavendish wants with Sarah, he’s not going to get it now, because of his own decisions and pure chance. Sarah fills me in on what she knows of Caven
Last Updated : 2021-06-15Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 31: Sarah
I don’t know where the pep talk came from which I gave to Aiden, but I needed it as much as he did, I think. I have a way forward. I’ve agreed to give this thing between us a chance, and I owe it to both of us to put everything I can into it.My track record is not good, I have to admit to myself. I certainly didn’t put as much effort in with Brian as I could have done, although I very much doubt things would have gone any better if I had. Did I fail the same way with Holly? Perhaps not. I hope I gave it a fair shot. If Aiden really is right, everything else was doomed anyway. There’s a part of me that is now clinging to that possibility, because it eases the guilt I still feel from the trail of broken romances that I have left in my wake.I don’t have any more time to myself to contemplate the way my world has fundamentally changed in the last twelve hours. My phone rings, and it’s my contact at MI5. My first thought is that it woul
Last Updated : 2021-06-16
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Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 140: Epilogue
*** Some Time Later...*** “/Aiden? Can you hear me? Aiden? Please?/” “/Huh? Who? Imogen? That you?/” I really wasn't expecting to hear from my sister. Not this way. A text, sure. I’ve been bad at texting her, despite my promises. A message from her complaining about it wouldn’t surprise me. “/Aiden, thank the Goddess!/” Is she crying? My little sister? “/Imogen, what’s wrong
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 139: Aiden
Everything is downhill now. Goldhawk’s mission is over pretty much as soon as they arrive. Everything else for them is just meeting people, and that doesn’t need much organisation. It’ll happen, with Badger’s Den giving them somewhere to stay for the night. The two new Mates are going to want the visit to go on longer, but Mark will need to get back. Either Paul will stay behind, or Caroline will visit London, probably. I hope it forces Ian into doing something. Join, Challenge, I don’t care as long as it becomes his job to keep the kids out of trouble until they’re a couple of years older. I finally get a bit of time without someone wanting me to do something,or decide something, or explain something. I prop myself against the wall of the building, and stuff my hands in my pockets. There’s a papery crinkle. I pull out the folded sheet, and remember why I put
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 138: Sarah
“Never rains but pours,” I sigh, linking my arm through Aiden and kissing his cheek with sympathy. “Or is it no rest for the wicked? My poor sweet Mate, pour yourself onto the quadbike, Reese can drive you to meet them, and I’ll come on one of the horses. Timothy’s perfectly capable of seeing our unwanted guests off, we can leave Shelley, Mary and Tom with him. Baxter too, unless he’s already seen more of Black than he wants to.”Aiden leans into me. I can fee him collecting himself before he speaks. “Goldhawk are here to talk to Badger’s Den anyway. I’ll talk to Caroline, or that other one, the one they had as spokesman. Let them know to expect guests and see if they can put the visitors up somewhere.”I elect myself to update Timothy and put him in charge of things in the village, and to give T
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 137: Aiden
“Fly?” I swap a puzzled look with Sarah. “That’s not one I know about. Command any werewolf, speak to any werewolf like a Pack link. And immunity to silver. Sort of. Still hurts like a… still hurts, but it’ll heal up as fast as any other wound, won’t knock me out. Been like that since forever.”Ian harrumphs. First time I’ve heard someone actually do that. “How long is forever?”“Few thousand years at least. Far back as I can remember any lives. Not that I’ve remembered all of them, there's way too many.”“That’s not a problem most werewolves have,” Ian says quietly, frowning. “What’s your… plan? Your intentions. Your Majesty.”I can feel my sho
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 136: Sarah
The earth is cool under my butocks and Aiden is a furnace above me. I’m pinned on the ground with my jeans around my ankles and I can’t quite remember how I got there. Rough bark tugs at my hair and prints itself into the back of my wrists. Urgent, demanding hands ruck my shirt and bra up and free my breasts.“Please. I need you.” Aiden’s voice is soft and pleading. His hands, his body, they are anything but. They don’t plead. They demand, they take. One hand tangles with my hair and wrists, yanking stray hairs, splitting fragments of bark from the tree bole beneath and behind us. The tang of sap fights against the musk of sweat and desire. Aiden’s hips thrust between my legs and my back scrapes against the dirt and leaves and brown pine needles beneath us.He’s inside me already, driving hard and fast. His sweat
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 135: Aiden
An angry opponent makes mistakes.That’s what my father and Caleb never understood. Anger is a weapon to their thinking, not a liability. Black is cast from the same mould. I’ve wound him up by staying calm, by being polite, and most of all by humiliating him, and he can’t see clearly through the red mist of fury. He’s three hundred pounds of muscle and rage, as unstoppable, dangerous and terrifying as a runaway locomotive, charging down on me. His free hand is out with claws ready, blocking any escape. Blinding sunlight flashes from the silver of his blade as it sweeps down.Now, Frost whispers, lending me his speed. I slip beneath Black’s raised elbow, drawing a line of fire across his exposed stomach with my sword. I spin and dance backwards as Black skids and stumbles before he crosses the outside edge of the duelling square. &
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 134: Sarah
Black’s arrogance wins out over any caution he might have. He signals to one of the werewolves with him, announcing his Second.“What’s he playing at?” Baxter mutters when he realises that Aiden isn’t just buying time with Black’s Challenge, but is actively looking to fight that way.Baxter isn’t Pack, not yet, not officially. I doubt I can speak to him with the Pack link. It’s Aiden himself who can do that. I don’t even want to risk whispering. Werewolves have good hearing. I nudge his arm, to get his attention, and take my phone out.Aiden is considering Baxter as a Packmate. Blackmarsh trusts him. I don’t think Aiden will mind. “immune 2 silver” I type. “knows sword”. I turn the screen so Baxter can see it but, hopefully, nobody e
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 133: Aiden
Nothing’s ever simple. Now I’ve got Caroline to look after. It’s irresponsible to bring her along, but it’d be worse telling her to stay out of it and expecting her to obey. There’s Alphas that nobody would dare disobey. My father, for example. I’m not him. “/Am I a bad Alpha?/” I make sure it’s just my Pack hearing that. The Peace Seekers. They’re not the right people to ask though. None of them are werewolves. “/You think we’d let you stick around if you were, boss?/” Sarah reaches over to give my hand a squeeze. “/If this is about Caroline, you said it yourself, if you tried sending her away
Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 132: Sarah
I’ve never really watched war films. I’ve never really been that interested. It feels as if I’m in one now, although I have no idea how accurate that thought is. We’ve crossed the nature reserve as if it’s enemy territory, constantly on the alert even though we’re keeping to the public paths, so we’re not, technically, on Badger’s Den territory. “If we’re talking technicalities, that would be Aiden’s territory anyway,” Reese points out when I mention it. We see neither hide nor hair of the Pack that claims the surrounding land, and veer out of the reserve into farmland where we are coming up on the small coastal village where Baxter says he’s being held. It looks like one of those lost-in-time places where cosy TV murders are set, except half the houses are holiday cottages now and empty for most of the year. It’s ever so slightly spooky, riding past bl
