Lyric turned on the headlights as the sun slipped below the horizon. She had to decide whether to drive through the night or to find somewhere to stop and try to get some sleep. She had a swag in the back. It would be a tight fit with Niarthen, but they would be able to get some sleep.She did not feel entirely comfortable with the idea of sleeping within a crowded canvas structure with things like the person they had run over roaming the highway. Were there more out there? What was he anyway? Niarthen had spoken about him as a creature and as a type of weapon.What was going on? She wondered. How was the Order of Nexsis involved? The situation was far beyond what Arthur had ever speculated might happen. At no time had he spoken of mermaids, werewolves, and vampires… Or people who should have been dead and yet didn’t fucking die.This was far beyond anything she had been prepared for.“My mother died when I was young and I was raised by Arthur,” she said slowly, picking up on a conver
Havermouth, A few days after the stormThey slept well into the morning on their haybale bed that shouldn’t have been so comfortable, naked, and wrapped in each other. Lyric argued ferociously with her bladder when it woke her. She was warm, sleepy, and wrapped in her beautiful merman, and although she knew that they should have been on the road, and the longer they lingered the more chance there was of trouble, she did not want to move.Her bladder won and she slithered out from under Niarthen in order to put on her clothes before opening the shed door and rounding its side to squat and pee in private. It was a mild morning, and birds called cheerfully to each other, whilst the insects in the grass chirped about their business. Somewhere, out of sight, a herd of sheep commented on the weather.“It is a good morning,” Niarthen commented as he followed and peed into a patch of weeds.“We have to discuss the concept of privacy sometime,” she grumbled finishing her business before pullin
Havermouth, A few days after the stormThe dam was both more and less dramatic than Lyric had anticipated. She had followed the signs along increasingly weaving roads framed by the tall, dark plantation trees that Zeus Forestry both planted and cut down in a perpetual cycle, until they drove along a narrow two-laned road pinned between an excavated rock face and a gorge.Ahead, the road narrowed even more where a curved wall spanned the gorge, connecting one side of the road to the other.Or it had done.A section had crumbled away under the pressure of the water held back by it, spilling the flood into the gorge, and from there into the river. At some point, the water had equalized behind what remained of the wall, only a drizzle slowly seeping down to the draining waters below.Perched just below the road, on the side of the gorge, was a building – a monitoring station. A black 4WD was parked in the narrow driveway down to it. Lyric put the Ute into reverse, backing up slowly until
Havermouth, A few days after the stormLyric did not fight against the soldier’s grip, her eyes on Niarthen. The soldiers had put a slim metal band around one of his wrists, and she wasn’t sure what it did, but she knew that it had been placed for a reason, and that frightened her. They had bound his hands behind his back and thrown him into the rear of the second 4WD, before shoving her into the rear seat. A metal cage separated the sections.“Wrists,” the soldier stood in the open door holding a thick zip-tie.“I want to be in the back with him,” she told him. “He needs medical care.”“Nice try. Wrists,” he gestured impatiently.She put out her wrists docilely and let him tie them together. He pulled it tight enough that her wrists were held firmly but checked to make sure that it was not too tight.“Look,” he said under his breath. “You’re in trouble. Big trouble. But if you play it right, you’ll be okay. Just tell them that the big Merman abducted you and that you didn’t understan
Havermouth, A few days after the stormThey pulled off the main roads, and wove into the back tracks, far beyond the region that Lyric was familiar with before pulling into a farm. A graveled car park was filled with black vehicles and the light that spilled out of the windows of a farmhouse cottage cast moving shadows in the tinted windows that gave them the impression of being occupied.On the porch swung a sign “Haven Farm”. It was not a place that Lyric would consider a haven.As the soldiers dragged her and Niarthen from the 4WD, she could see tidy rows of vegetable gardens, but the vegetables appeared to be rotting unharvested. A travesty, she thought as they were hustled up the narrow pathways between them. Beyond the gardens, she could see some smaller cottages, and a campsite of little tents, as well as several makeshift gun-towers, in which she could see soldiers tracking their movements.Floodlights lit the area in glaring, unforgiving white light.Beyond that area, they we
Havermouth, A few days after the storm“I’ll take her,” the man washing the dishes volunteered, turning with his hands still covered in soap suds. “I need to go to Compound B anyway. Feeding time.”“Thank you, Toby,” Father Isaiah nodded. “Fortuitous timing.”Toby dried his hands off on a tea towel and crossed to take Lyric by the elbow.“Be careful with her,” the passenger said to him. “She’s feisty.”“She’ll behave,” Toby said firmly. “Come on, Susan.”He encouraged her out of the cottage and across the vegetable garden. “You are lucky,” he said under his breath. “I thought for a moment that he was going to have Sparrow interrogate you, from the way he was talking.”“I doubt that I would have enjoyed that,” she replied. They approached yet another black 4WD. “You guys sure went with variety, didn’t you?” She commented sarcastically. He opened the front passenger door and lifted her in before rounding the car to the driver’s side. “How do you know which car is yours when they all loo
Havermouth, A few days after the stormToby knocked on the door of Compound A and blew out a breath when there wasn’t a response. “Fucking arseholes,” he muttered before pounding harder with the ham of his hand.An intercom near the door scratched into life. A scream echoed through the speaker standing the hair on Lyric’s arms on end. “What?” A man asked, his voice distorted by his proximity to the microphone in an effort to be heard over the screaming.“What the fuck…? Ergh,” Toby huffed out irritably. “Father Isaiah wants the girl secured here until he’s finished his phone call.”“We’re busy.”“Father Isaiah,” Toby repeated with emphasis. “He’s at Compound B. If you want me to take her back there, you can deal with the fallout.” There was a click and Toby nodded. “Smart move.” He waited until the speaker went silent, his hand on the door handle. “Just keep to yourself,” he recommended to her. “Don’t do anything stupid.”“Sure,” she replied wondering what precisely they were about to
Havermouth, A few days after the stormCap on or cap off? Lyric wondered as she gripped the ball-point pen in her fist. She stood on the other side of the plastic strips, tracking the movements of the man mopping the floors, waiting for her moment. Cap on she decided.She took a deep breath. She had killed Chris and Lee, she told herself sternly. She could do this. The man on the other side of the plastic strips was not a good man. He had participated in the torture of the red-haired woman, and probably others before her and then gone on to whistle merrily as he cleaned up her blood. He deserved to die.When his back was to the plastic strips, she leaped through them, wrapping her legs around his waist, and arm around his shoulders, and stabbed the pen, pointed lid first, into his neck. She hit his jawbone, and he screamed. The mop struck the ground, released from his hands as he raised them, clawing at her in an effort to defend himself. She tried again, and this time the pen sank in
Rideten, Present Time Aislen was jolted awake when Talen shot out of the bed to the door. She was nicely nuzzled into Heath and Talen had been a warm spot against her back, his sudden moving causing a draught that was quickly filled when Cameron rolled over and snuggled up. She could hear Talen’s voice through the open door, and the reply of other voices on the other side. Cameron’s hand cupped her breast and his cock nudged against her arse. He rocked his hips suggestively, still mostly asleep. Heath tensed. “Fuck.” “- leave in fifteen,” a woman spoke crisply and in a tone that said there would be no compromise. “Victor’s orders.” “No,” Aislen pressed her face into Heath’s ribs. “Nonononono.” “It’s retaliation,” he decided. “For last night.” “It’s mean,” she grumbled. “Cruel.” “No sex?” Cameron sat up. “That’s not fair.” “You had sex last night. Good sex too, from the holes you left in the covers,” Heath pointed out. “It was good sex,” Cameron was smug. He nudged Rhett. “Hey
Havermouth, Present Time Embroidering living human flesh was somewhat harder than Meguitte had anticipated, but the challenge was very absorbing. Midway through the first flower, she realized that she wanted the knots required every stitch to cluster at the center, so she snipped and undid what she had started, much to Bianca’s distress. Meguitte was tempted to stem the witch’s complaints by explaining that it was becoming obvious that the stitches were not causing enough pain to override the wards, and her choices had become doing greater, potentially maiming, harm, or being patient and hoping that a lot of small agony would eventually become enough. The second attempt turned out better, and by the time she had completed the third flower and created a stem to connect the three, she was quite proud of her efforts. The blood kept getting in the way of her design, however, and she paused a moment to suck her fingertips. “I do believe I understand Mercy’s aversion to magical blood,” s
Rideten, Present Time The water was all but cold, but Talen had bathed in worse – recently, in fact, during the troubles in Havermouth. He scrubbed himself with a washcloth, rubbing away the sticky blood. A rhythmic thudding started against the wall behind him, causing him to pause and grin. It sounded like Cameron was putting some force into it, he thought amused and absently reached down to cup his cock, already hard at the thought. He turned off the water, deciding to join them. As he briskly dried himself, his phone began to ring from where he had set it on the vanity. Fatima’s number flashed onto the screen. He raised his eyebrows and answered it. “Fatima.” “Talen,” she was breathless and her voice tense. “They did it. They actually did it. Jules is alive.” Talen almost dropped the phone in surprise. “He is?” “Yes. He’s not quite… He’s very disorientated, but Harry’s looking after him. But he’s alive.” Talen braced his palm against the cold stone of the vanity, relief floodi
Rideten, Present Time Aislen grinned. “Is that right, Mr Wolf?” She purred stalking him over to the bed. “If I get it, I get to do whatever I like with it?” Cameron’s lips curled in a smirk. “No. But I will do something you like with it.” “Promises, promises,” she lunged for him, and he sidestepped so that she landed face-down on the mattress, before pinning her there with his body, his hands slowly drawing her hands up and holding them down to either side of her head whilst he nuzzled under the tangled sprawl of her wet curls to nibble along her shoulder and neck as her giggles gave way to soft moans as she closed her eyes and surrendered to his seduction. He nudged her legs apart and her knees onto the edge of the mattress, lifting her hips from the mattress so that he could rub his cock against her cunt in a slow, hot tease whilst his teeth pricked little bloodspots along her neck, his tongue soothing away the little sting each time as it captured the droplets. She could feel t
Havermouth, Present Time Tears streamed down Harry‘s face as they rose to their feet. They ran their hands over the lush hide of the weredragon. It was precisely the colour of Jules’ hair. Harry draped their body over the dragon’s chest, pressing their ear to the hide, celebrating the steady beat and rise and fall of the ribs. Alive. Gloriously alive. And they could feel the tie of their mate bond twining them together. With their eyes closed, Jules was a glow within the darkness. “Oh Jules, Jules, Jules…” They wept the words, stroking and luxuriating in the living creature that surrounded them with its bulk. It did not matter in the slightest that this Jules was not as Jules had been before… Harry’s most fervent wish had been granted and they had their mate back. “I knew it,” they whispered pressing kisses into the fur as they moved along the length of the dragon towards its head. “I knew that you were not gone.” They stroked over the dragon’s snout and pressed a kiss between his n
Havermouth, Present TimeHarry did not know how long they had been tending to Jules in the small cold room. Time had lost any meaning as the room had no natural light. They fed when Fatima brought them blood, or one of the ancients descended the stairs in order to donate. And then they would patiently drip blood into Jules’ slack mouth, watching for a sign that he had swallowed, before unbandaging the ruin of Jules’ hand, examining the wound for signs of healing before coating it again with blood and carefully, tenderly re-wrapping it.Jules was not dead. They were certain of it. Although he did not breathe, did not swallow, and his heart did not beat, Harry was certain that they sensed a spark of life within him, that they would know if the body that they held was nothing but flesh.They had, after all, handled many dead bodies in their long, long life.And the hand wound... It looked better. They could not precisely say how it was so - it was still a mess of bone and meat, and the b
Rideten, Present Time“Oh gawd, so good,” Aislen moaned as she squeezed in between Rhett and Cameron. “I so need to get this blood off my skin. It’s beginning to itch. Tsk, look at you two,” she added taking the washcloth from Rhett’s hand and tugging him down so that she could scrub the blood from his face. “You even have some in your ears. How do you get blood in your ears?”“Beats me,” Rhett’s hands gripped her hips, and his thumbs stroked her skin suggestively. “I have some blood lower down,” he smoldered. “Cameron was just offering to lick it off for me when you came in and gave us a better idea.”“Oh?” Aislen knew precisely what they had in their dirty, dirty minds - basically the same plan with slight variations between the two men. But she wasn’t going to make it easy on them. “Come here,” she scrubbed at Cameron’s face with the cloth. “Good enough,” she decided and handed it to him. “Do me whilst I rinse my hair out.”“Do you, or do you?” Cameron teased as he and Rhett shifte
Rideten, Present TimeSamuel’s wing sails caught the air with a whoomp. The guard heard it, looking up in astonishment a moment before Samuel seized him. In the old days, Samuel thought ruefully as he carried the struggling man up into the air again, he would have just let the man go and let gravity take care of the rest. However stealth was required in the current situation and now that he had the man, he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with him, other than sate his thirst.It had to be something that wouldn’t be noticed immediately, Samuel concluded as he sank his teeth into the struggling guard’s neck. Whatever he did with him needed to have a visual impact, as the Emissary had been clear that part of the reason for the attack was psychological - to show the enemy that they weren’t even safe in their own headquarters.He saw a flash from the corner of his eye as Ember spread her wings, slowing her descent as she targeted another guard - but only slowing enough to prevent her from i
Rideten, Present Time“And here I thought you’d achieved the most outrageously jaw-dropping appearance the last time you walked into my bunker Mr Gale,” Victor observed dryly as he closed the meeting room door behind them. “Look at you,” he added gesturing at the three of them.Heath slid a look at each of his mates. Talen raised his eyebrows. Of them all, their vampire hybrid mate had escaped the massacre with only a few blood splatters in his beard. Seeing Heath’s look, he raised his hands to show that they were as bloody as Heath’s own, which made Heath feel better. He scratched at his jaw feeling blood flake away under his nail.“This is what war looks like,” Aislen replied snidely. “Something you might find unfamiliar from a bunker, Victor, but true nonetheless.”Victor shook his head as he crossed to a cupboard and pulled out a decanter. “Whiskey?” He offered them.“I will,” Talen said.“Not us,” Heath declined regretfully. Whiskey would have gone down well after the night in th