Havermouth, Present Time** Trigger Warning – this chapter contains violence and the loss of a much-loved character **As fragments of wood and glass exploded towards them, Samuel reacted on instinct and shoved Ember down and under him. She cried out sharply in pain but he could not ask if she was injured as on the heels of the explosion, he could hear the rapid footfalls of boots, and distinctly sharp military exchanges as the room filled with soldiers. He stayed still, watching the drip of spilled whiskey over the edge of the bench and hoping it did not give them away as the house echoed with the sounds of invasion.Above, there was gunfire. Jules Edison and the vampire Harry would be up the stairs, Samuel reasoned. Harry would be capable of defending his mate, but he was concerned about the human girl, and the merman as glass shattered to the rear of the house.There was more gunshot from above, and someone yelled: “Shoot for his head!”Shit, Samuel grimaced. Vampires could survive
Havermouth, Present Time“Here,” Lyric stalled Niarthen when he went to get in between the sheets. “Your hair is drenched, and the bed will get soaked. Let me dry it off for you. Don’t mermaids have beds?” She stepped up onto the bed with the towel in her hands and he turned so that his calves were against the mattress, presenting his back and the long, wet skeins of his hair to her.“We have beds,” he said as she began to dry his hair. “But not like these. Our beds use living weed and moss to cushion us, and the water that runs from us to them nurtures them. It is a symbiotic relationship. They provide us with comfort and warmth, and we provide them with water and food.”“Food,” she repeated. “That sounds… ominous.”“We shed hair, skin cells, scale, sweat and seed… What we shed as a matter of course, feeds that upon which we lie.”“That is a little… icky,” she told him pulling a face. “Like your beds are eating you whilst you sleep.”He laughed. “Whilst I appreciate the comfort of yo
Rideten, Present TimeIn Stella’s kitchen, someone was cooking something that had filled the room with steam so that Aislen’s eyes stung, and her hair stuck to her face with damp. She could feel it turn to frizz and cursed the witches silently for turning it into a bad hair day.She could hear male voices from within the steam. Not her men, but other men, and whilst there were warlocks in the coven, those sheltering in Stella’s house were dominantly female, and therefore the number of male voices was unusual.She worked her way through the steam towards the table and stilled when she saw that the gathering was all dressed in black hooded robes, and pressed thick, shoulder to shoulder, so that she could not see the table for their masculinity.“It will be Rhett’s,” Phillip Salem spoke and Aislen made him out from amongst the hooded figures, his face just showing, the angle and the dark fabric mimicking hair making him look so much like Rhett that she was uneasy. “I need it to be Rhett’
Rideten, Present TimeRhett woke as Cameron slid a cup of tea and biscuits onto the bedside nearest where Aislen lay. The bed was otherwise empty. Talen, Heath and Cameron must have snuck out whilst he and Aislen slept, he realised.“Where’s mine?” He asked as Cameron started to withdraw.“Shh,” Cameron whispered. “She needs her sleep. Stella says it’s common to need more sleep during pregnancy, like the body’s storing it up for sleepless nights when the baby is born.”“I miss coffee,” Rhett forced himself to slide out of the bed. His clothes were on the other side of the bed, and he patted Cameron’s denim clad arse as he padded by. “No morning sex?”“I could do morning sex,” Cameron’s face lit up. “But we can’t in here,” his expression fell again. “Or we’ll wake her.”“I could gag you with my cock?” Rhett gripped himself.“Shh,” Cameron put his finger to his lips.“Fuck,” Rhett resigned himself to no morning sex and began to get dressed, watching as Cameron fussed with the teacup, tu
Rideten, Present TimeTalen was uneasy. He could not precisely pinpoint the source of his unease, and yet it persisted.It could be a culmination of things, he decided. The trauma all his mates and himself had experienced over the Van Helsing occupation of Havermouth during which he had almost lost each and every one of them, or it could be his concerns over the next stage of the battle for a future of equality with humans.It could also be his worries about Morgana. She was yet to embrace her pregnancy, in fact refused to refer to it as much as the morning sickness allowed her to avoid doing so. There was no excitement, no anticipation, no talk of names, gender, or the future. He could understand that the pregnancy was unexpected, and that there was some resentment due to Stella’s interference with her birth control, and yet she appeared to have forgiven Stella for her transgression, without accepting the baby that she carried.He was far from pleased about Stella’s interference. Whi
Havermouth, Present TimeThe mattresses did not want to stay together and kept trying to swallow them as Connery braced on his elbows over her thrusted, sending them both into peels of laughter.“Argh,” he wrapped himself around her and rolled so that suddenly she was above him and he lay with his back fully on the single mattress. “A man cannot work under these conditions,” he told her.“A woman can,” she pushed herself up to straddle him.“Now that is a sight to behold,” he said with approval as she rose up and lowered down. “A divine fertility goddess having her wanton way with me.”She laughed and felt her cheeks heat, leaning forward so that her hair fell over her shoulder, and kissed him. He gripped her hips, taking over the motion of the thrust as he prolonged the kiss, chasing her tongue with his own.“Mmm,” she leaned into the kiss as she ground down into him and slid her hand down between their bodies to tease her clit.He broke the kiss and rolled again, twisting them on th
Havermouth, Present Time The sun had risen by the time they had brought Harry and Jules’ body back to Tony’s house. Whilst Samuel held Jules’ broken body in his arms, Tony carried Harry. Tony’s mate, Fatima, greeted them at the door, and ushered Samuel to the entrance to the secret underground cells with directions to take Jules to the end of the corridor before hurrying up the stairs to donate her blood to Harry. The entrance to the staircase was craftily hidden in the wall, undetectable unless a person knew the secret unlocking mechanism. Below was dimly lit, but Samuel’s vampire sight had enabled him to navigate the stairs without a problem. The light below came from a very narrow strip high in the roofline. A window to the outside world that was no wider than a finger. The cells lined that side of the wall. Each door had a window giving a fascinating view inside. The little rooms were not for prisoners, but rather to keep the vampires safe from themselves as senility took hold,
Havermouth, Present Time The river was noticeably lower than when she had seen it last, Meguitte noted numbly to herself as Tony took them along a parallel road. Where the water had receded there was a crust of rubbish and debris left behind, amongst which she picked out the carcasses of sheep, wildlife and probably domesticated pets, their species unable to be identified in a quick glance from a car window, just the impression of soggy fur. “Are you looking like I am, making sure that the dead creatures are actually dead?” Connery asked her quietly as she leaned over him in order to look out of the window. “Can you imagine being overrun by small, sharply teethed zombie rodents?” She shuddered. “Let’s not even imagine it,” she told him. He took her hand and held it between his on his lap. “How are you doing, Meguitte?” “I think I’m in shock,” she slid back into the seat and leaned against him. He released her hand in order to put his arm around her shoulder, drawing her towards hi