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Chapter 50: Aiden
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2021-06-27 05:42:43I was half expecting to be woken by Timothy at some point during the night. I wasn’t expecting him to come tapping on my bedroom door. I roll out of the bed and into my jeans, pulling on my sweater as I head to the door. “’sup?” I say, trailing off in a yawn. “Problem?”
He stands in the hallway outside, eyeing me with disfavour, arms folded. “Planning on going somewhere?” he comments in a whisper as he looks me up and down.
I catch another yawn. “Figured if anything happened in the night, I’d be wanted.”
I see his eyes flick over my shoulder towards the open window. “Uh-huh. Come with me.” His voice stays quiet enough not to wake the others.
Being prepared to stop Timothy from heading off on a one-man mission of vengeance is one thing. Being led away by him to places unknown, in the middle of the night, without anyone else being aware of it, is another matter. I feel for Sarah&r
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I can’t think of anyone it could be with Aiden except Tim. I feel a rush of anger at his presumption. He’s stolen my role. It is my place to lead my Mate there. Did he think that I wouldn’t? That’s Tim, though. No patience, unless it’s for horses.I can’t just go back to my bed, not now. I find my slippers and a dressing-gown, and tiptoe down to the kitchen. There is a piece of paper with my name on it, lying on the kitchen table. I’m sure of what it will say before I even unfold it, but the last two words catch my breath. I don’t think either of us have said those words aloud yet, not to each other.I sink into a chair, the paper in my hands. My mind is no longer in the room. It is out at the valley where the other half of my whole is facing his future.It was dawn, the second time I stood in the mouth of the valley. I was clutching Toby’s hand, trying to lend him courage. We hadn’t t
Last Updated : 2021-06-27Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 53
“Aiden!” Sarah’s scream knifes through the air, the caves throwing the sound back in a chorus of loss. “Aiden!” “Sarah, you can’t go in there. You mustn’t!” “Let go of me.” There’s the smack of flesh on flesh. “Let me go. Aiden!” “Sarah, stop!” “Aiden!” The lamps are dark and cold, but she throws herself blindly into the cave mouth, eyes too blinded with tears to see even as the flames flicker to life. Her scream is no word at all now, just a wail as she runs. I catch her. “It’s okay. It’s alright. I’m here.” The sense of her fills me, overwhelming grief abruptly replaced by an equally vast tide of relief and joy. “Aiden,” she says again, her hands seeking me out in the darkness. “I couldn’t feel you any more. You weren’t there. You’d gone. Oh, God, I’m a mess. I’m so glad you’re safe. Are you okay? Are you… you don’t feel hurt. What are you wearing?” “I’m not hurt. Come on. Let’s get back to where there’s more light. Y
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I allow myself to be ever so slightly smug about it when Tony also gives Tim a reaming over having taken Aiden off to the valley. Most of the attention is on Aiden, though, and he is embarrassed and a little shy about that. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of who should or should not have done what, the outcome of Aiden’s success is that nobody doubts him any more. He is enfolded into the family, and any further questions are for understanding, not for proof of his intentions. The kids don’t have nearly long enough with their new brother to satisfy them before they are packed off to school, from their point of view. From the adult’s side of things, it is plenty long enough to be watching the twins with hawk-like eyes, to be sure neither of them try to use Aiden’s new tokens. He asks, rather hesitantly, if he might leave his sword and shield here at Blackmarsh, because he doesn’t think the security at his apartment is good enough. The rest of us all look at each other, and
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The Laws and traditions have guided werewolves for hundreds of years. Anyone raised with them has generations of experience to help them make decisions, if things aren’t easy or obvious. If I were a proper werewolf, my father would say, then I’d already be calling myself Alpha of Blackmarsh, and I’d be meeting the visitors as ruler on my own Territory. My Luna would be by my side, lending her feminine touch to negotiations. “The Alpha guides minds and the Luna guides hearts,” my mother always said. With the constant wars, it was more like the Alpha being an iron fist and the Luna being a velvet glove to make it less painful to obey. If I was a proper werewolf I wouldn’t have a human Mate, who hasn’t a clue about werewolf traditions but has very firm views about the position of females in society. I have a short walk to try and persuade her to take the role I think will work best here. “They’re werewolves, they’ll have expectations about our roles,” I tell her, trying
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“Um… we thought… you could be our Alpha?” I know right away that Zac’s question is not one Aiden wants to hear, and so I speak up. “I’m sorry, I know this is a difficult situation for you, but we both of us have responsibilities in London at the moment.” Being the sympathetic one is not something that comes easily to me, although the wash of gratitude and pride I can feel from Aiden makes me feel twenty feet tall. Next time, if there is a next time, he can be the good cop. “The vampire problem is more than just Walther Sutcliffe,” Aiden adds. “I need to be hunting more than one of them down, not spending all my time here. Don’t worry, I’m not the best fighter Blackmarsh has. There won’t be any shortage of protection.” “Can’t we just tell people Aiden’s our Alpha, to stop Robert and the others coming back, ‘til we can find someone strong enough?” pipes up the talkative teenager, and the pleased reaction I’ve been sensing from Aiden a
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I should feel happy that things at Blackmarsh have been sorted out with Badger’s Den. I should at least feel relieved. I should feel proud that I’ve proved myself to Sarah’s family. Family present and past. Instead I feed numb. Numb, and tired. Blackmarsh has reminded me that I can never go home. Because they believe I’m dead, I’m cut off from Shining Water, an Exile even though I wasn’t made one in the usual way. It has to be that way, or someone would realise that I’m still alive. It hurts that I can’t even feel the loss of the mental connection, because it’s one I never had. I can punish others by taking away from them something that I never had. They asked me to be Alpha. They. Asked me. To be their Alpha. I almost laughed in their faces. I almost cried. I can never be Alpha, not a proper one. How could I? I had to keep my feelings buried, and come up with an excuse that wasn’t ‘hey, guys, thanks, but actually I’m a freak and not a proper werewolf at all
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Waking up with my head on Aiden’s shoulder is not quite enough to compensate for the back-ache and cricked neck I have as a result of sleeping so long in the car. The journey has taken far longer than it should have done, because of motorway closures following an accident. It leaves us no time now to talk. Maybe our kiss would have become something more, but Aiden will be late for class. I make him promise to sleep at his place tonight, so he gets some proper rest.Hughes drives me on home after dropping Aiden off. I’m not sleepy any more, and the rumbling of the car is the sort of white noise that’s good for thinking. I feel as if I have had no time to draw breath since before the polo match, and I know, at some point, that I will have to have a good talking-to with myself.I have always been one to think before acting. Instincts are primitive things, not well suited to the complexities of modern human life. We are predisposed to believe things that
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The room beyond the door’s pretty much the same as everywhere else I’ve seen in the building, except, right away, I notice that there’s no windows. The only way out is the door I came in by. Mr Tail-coat Guy’s probably waiting right outside it. There’s a fireplace laid for a fire, but this one is not lit, and in front of it two men are standing. I look more closely, and change that to two male vampires. One of them is blonde, a sportswear model type. The other is naturally darker skinned, because I don’t think vampires get sun-tans, and looks like a boxer. Neither of them can be Cavendish, unless he’s bleached his hair since Sarah met him. Both are in bland suits. Probably bodyguards. There’s a few chairs around the room, more well-stuffed, spindly-legged armchairs that look shabby and expensive at the same time. The rug in front of the floor is… I sniff… yes, the rug is an actual tiger skin. The heads of a dozen stags stare down accusingly at me from the walls. Ther
Last Updated : 2021-07-02
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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
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“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
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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
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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
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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
