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Chapter 73: Aiden
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2021-07-16 19:14:42“After the attack. Shelley. Did you, or any of the others, call the police?”
Shelley nods, but holds up a finger to stop me from jumping back in with any comment about it. “We had to. You two were missing. Someone was going to ask questions eventually. The longer we left it, the more suspicious we’d look. Don’t worry, we lied. We said we thought it was a gang of some sort, probably all on drugs. They tried to mug us, then started fighting amongst themselves so some of us managed to run off, but we didn’t see what happened to you.” She shrugs. “We thought if they found any vampire bodies, they’d think it was them who killed each other. I don’t think they did though, or they’d have been back asking questions. They haven’t given a call back or anything. We didn’t file a missing persons report. I don’t think anyone else has either?”
“Maybe Mr Patel would, but…” Sarah didn’t. Sarah just came to get me. Look where that got her. I shake my head.
“Nobody wou
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Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 74: Sarah
There is a figure sitting on the front steps, huddled and dark beneath the neon spotlight of the street lighting. His feet are tucked in, his arms wrapped around his shins and his chin resting on his knees. I don’t need to be close enough to see his face to know who it is.I stop when there are still a couple of steps between us. If I get too close, I don’t know what I will do. Hit him, kick him, fall into him and howl. There is an invisible line between us. If I cross it, I will overload and break. There are too many words tumbling around my head, wanting to be poured out of me, needing to be set free. I snatch at my thoughts, scrabbling to find just one and voice it. I sound small. Lost. “You left me there.”The figure on the steps shakes his head. “You didn’t need me. You never have.” He sounds just as small. How dare he? How dare he pretend he’s the powerless one here?“I needed you to support me!”
Last Updated : 2021-07-17Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 75: Aiden
I’m expecting the slap. I’m sure I’ve earned it, from Sarah’s point of view, although I don’t know what else I could have done. I’m not expecting the kiss. My scalp stings with the clutch of her fingers. I stumble back a little, and she pushes into me. My legs catch against the couch. As I overbalance she pulls her head away but follows me down. I thud into the couch back and she wrenches me sideways so I slither down the cushions onto my back. She’s on top of me, her mouth back on mine, biting into my lower lip.I think I make a sound of protest, my hands fumbling to find her shoulders and lift her away from me. She snatches her hands back from my head, dragging hairs out as she does so. She bats at my hands, grabbing my wrists and shoving my hands up above my head, against the couch arm. Her kiss is like a punch in the mouth, wild and angry.My legs are twisted to one side. Sarah straddles my stomach, knees bracketing my ribs
Last Updated : 2021-07-19Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 76: Sarah
I’m an idiot... Aiden’s an idiot... I’m walking myself right back into this impossible idea of destined soulmates… my God I’m a bad romance trope… he didn’t trust me… I didn’t trust him… he thought I was leaving him… I was leaving him, because he didn’t trust me… but he was right not to trust me… I brought the ghosts… I killed all of them… the ghosts followed my orders… They’re not people, they’re monsters… Aiden thinks he’s a monster… He’s not the monster…I’m the monster.I called the ghosts. I commanded them. Everything they did, they did because I willed it. There were dozens of vampires-things-maybe people in that building. Maybe even hundreds. Now it’s empty.The power at my command is terrifying.I haven’t cried like that since I as a child.
Last Updated : 2021-07-20Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 77: Frost
I am in my Mate’s den. Everything smells of her. That’s good. That means we’re safe. She’s found water that’s good to drink, and she’s found human stuff that has made my wound heal faster. She’s a good Mate, even though she has no wolf. I’m glad she’s not angry with us any more. Aiden thought she was going to Reject us because she was so angry. That’s a thought so bad I can hardly think about it. Aiden made her angry because he didn’t kill all the vampires. Why didn’t he kill all the vampires? Vampires smell of dust and death, and I don’t like them. I suppose we don’t have to kill them if they’re not hunting us, even though they’re dangerous. Like mountain lions, or grizzly bears. We kill them if they threaten us or our pups. We keep them away from our dens. If one starts killing too many of the human’s animals it can make the humans chase them into our territory with guns, so we hunt them too. Vampires are like mountain lions and grizzly bears. They’re all dangerous
Last Updated : 2021-07-21Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 78: Sarah
I sleep well. My furry wolven teddy-bear seems to have been just the thing to quiet my chaotic thoughts. I wake well rested but with a sense of dread. I have to face the orchestra again today. I’m sure everything will die down eventually, but right now I feel as if I am waiting to have salt thrown into fresh wounds. I have less figurative wounds to worry about. I extract myself from the duvet and the wolf- and there is something I could never have imagined happening not much more than a week ago- and peer at Frost’s belly. The scabs look old, and are starting to peel. They probably itch, but he’s not scratching at them, just peering at me sleepily and thumping his tail on the sofa when I run my hands through his fur. Frost is a bit of an attention-junkie, I think as I remember my younger brothers and sisters clustered around him. “Breakfast on four legs or two?” I ask him, the end of my question almost lost in the huge yawn that cracks my jaw. “I can find yo
Last Updated : 2021-07-22Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 79: Aiden
I’m guessing my face is bright red. It feels hot enough to cook an egg on it. It’s not often I feel like disowning my own wolf, but Frost seems to be aiming to get me there. I have to speak, all the same. I think part of the reason Sarah was so angry with me was that we haven’t talked enough about things to understand each other properly. It’s hard, it’s really, really hard, but I’m doing my best to talk now. I could curl up into a ball and die of embarrassment, but I’m doing my best. She’s gone sort of distant, but not in a bad way. Her feelings are kind of fuzzy, out of focus. Distracted. It’s probably because of what I just told her, not about her orchestra. That was a different sort of distraction. Worried, guilty and angry. We should hunt them all down and make them pay, Frost tells me. Then she wouldn’t have an orchestra to play with, I point out to him. I think she likes making music. She just doesn’t like how they’re treating her
Last Updated : 2021-07-25Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 80: Sarah
The flat seems empty with Aiden gone, yet twelve hours ago I was not at all sure that I ever wanted to see him again. Twenty-four hours ago, I was terrified for his life. I’m self-aware enough to know that my feelings about him, and my reactions to him, have swung alarmingly from one extreme to the other and back within only a handful of time. It seems we have had no time to just exist around each other. No time to do all the mundane and everyday things that allow two people to learn about each other. Every time we stop to draw breath, some other calamity befalls one of us.I do not have time to slow down even now. I start up my laptop to confirm my recollections of the names Aiden mentioned, and to find out how many of yesterday’s adventures have made it into news and social media. The names in my spreadsheet match my memory. It makes sense, I suppose, that vampires are as diverse as the humans they prey on, and that they have their own rivalries among themselves
Last Updated : 2021-07-25Rhapsody for a Wolf Chapter 81: Aiden
I haven’t thought this through properly. I’ve been thinking like a werewolf, not like a human. I shouldn’t even be here. I should be at the college office, letting them know I’m safe and I’m back. I don’t know how much Reese knows or guesses. The only person from college who knows I’m a werewolf, that I’m sure of, is Shelley. Jade too, if she manages to find a way to come back. I should have checked with Shelley to find out if she’s told Reese anything.“Did you know that werewolves run a degree or two hotter than humans?” Reese asks. They’re trying to sound casual, but I can pick up the tension in them. They’ve got something tucked in their hand and sleeve. There’s silver on them, somewhere. I can sense it, all werewolves can, but I haven’t been paying attention since I got to London. So many people wear silver jewellery that the sense would be bugging me the whole time if I didn’
Last Updated : 2021-07-26
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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
