Havermouth, Present TimeThe Sirens’ song held Sigrid frozen in fascination as they focused their power on Leighton. She had not realized just how beautiful a sound could be. It seemed to reach into her very soul, to every fiber of her being. She could almost see the sound, the sparkle of sun on pure azure water, the dart of silver-scaled fish through the darkness, the blossoming of vividly bright ocean flowers.Tears gathered in her eyes, and she reached out gripping on to Greg and Dan’s forearms, wanting to share the elation of the experience with them.“What is this? What are you…?” Leighton’s cry drew her gaze from the Sirens to where Verina had collapsed onto her knees and Leighton cradled her in his arms. “Verina!” Was a shriek of alarm and despair.“This isn’t what we agreed to!” Aislen’s plea was directed at Niarthen and was sharp with fear.The Mer man’s expression was one of concern and confusion. It was not what he had expected either, Sigrid realized, her eyes returning to
Havermouth, Present TimeSamuel circled high in the sky watching below as the Mer approached the bridge. So far, there was nothing about the Mer approach to be alarmed about. It seemed as if the Mer were doing precisely what they had discussed with the Emissary.A glint in the distance however caught his eye. For a moment he debated staying and watching the meeting or investigating. He decided to investigate. His heart began to race when he saw that the Mer had infiltrated the streets of the town. They had encountered the first roadblock and had divided up to investigate alternative routes so that the little side streets and alleys glittered with Mer in armour. Further into the town, he caught a shift of light – something moving that was reflecting the scenery around it. Camouflage.They were headed towards where the streets were busy with pedestrian traffic. That in itself was unusual for Havermouth. The civilians had been told to keep movement to the minimal, to seek shelter, and st
Havermouth, Present TimeRhett decided very quickly that whilst he didn’t like flying, he liked landing even less. The explosion sent him and Cameron flying along the main road. At the same time, it flipped one of the abandoned cars onto its side and when they landed, slammed up against the concrete base of a lingerie shop, the car followed behind them. For a moment, he thought they were going to pan-caked between the car and the wall, but the car hooked on a lamppost, and instead of killing them, it saved their lives as a moment later, a ball of fire sizzled up against it.The shop window behind them warped and shattered with the heat, and the lingerie on the mannequins smouldered into flame. Rhett grabbed Cameron and dragged him away as the burning shreds of fabric rained down.In his head he heard Aislen call his name, and he looked up, trying to see her. They hadn’t been standing far from each other. But the smoke was fucking thick and rank around him. His lungs stung to breath th
Havermouth, Present TimeTalen was on fire. He had been thrown by the explosion through the window of a shop, and the fireball that had followed had torn the wood and metal of the structure down over him, along with shelving and stock. His head had struck the concrete flooring hard enough that he had blacked-out, and it wasn’t until the pain of his beard catching alight registered that he was shocked back into alertness. He fought his way free of the burning debris and slapped out the fire that scorched hair and flesh, his hand coming away with black char and wet skin. How long had he lay slowly burning?(Talen! Are you okay?) Morgana cried out in his mind.(A little singed around the edges) he lied. He was far from okay. His hands and chest shrieked in pain, and he could feel that the fabric knit stuck to the burnt skin below its charred surface, but his neck and cheek no longer hurt. The area felt stiff, fragile, and foreign - as if it did not quite belong to him. He knew that to be
Havermouth, Present TimeNiarthen had been betrayed was the first thought Lyric had as she’d surfaced in the river after the explosion. The second was that she hoped the vampire blood-cure was still effective even after so long. She swam to the bank at Niarthen’s side and fought their way through the weeds up onto the land, and then out of the undergrowth onto the main street, where she stopped to gape at the destruction.The buildings to either side were burning and collapsing inwards, and smoke pouring thickly onto the street, seeming drawn there, its swirls pushing up against an invisible barrier.“Are you injured?” The vampiress Sigrid appeared abruptly on the road by them and Lyric jumped, her hand going to the weapon on her hip. The woman was filthy, covered in soot so that it appeared as if she wore a mash, her eyes and teeth bright in contrast.Niarthen seemed less surprised by her arrival. “Nothing serious.”“You are injured,” Lyric removed her helmet as she saw that the vamp
Havermouth, Present TimeThe town had erupted into chaos underneath him as Samuel navigated his way back to the witch’s house where he had left Ember. The zombies moved with purpose, seemingly drawn towards the center of the town, and the Mer soldiers followed in their wake. The Mer, however, after the explosion in the town, seemed to have decided that the zombies were no longer their only targets, and they had begun dragging people from their homes, leaving behind a trail of dead bodies and crumpled buildings.In addition, behind the zombies were the humans of the Van Helsing army, and as they encountered the Mer in the streets they began to deploy larger, more destructive weapons, hand grenades, and infantry support weapons.Flying this low was becoming hazardous, he was within the sites of the small tanks and machine guns. Plus, either the Mer or the Van Helsings were destroying buildings, so every now and again, a blast from below would batter his flight path, before shooting up a
Havermouth, Present TimeThe smoke was so thick that Rhett’s eyes wept constantly as he scanned the shifting shadows that it created, hoping to find Aislen. Heath gripped onto the waistband of Rhett’s jeans so that they weren’t separated by the smoke and the drag against Rhett’s hips was both reassuring and annoying. Neither of them called out for Aislen. They had quickly agreed that walking through the smoke calling out her name would just bring danger to them all, and so, instead, Heath focused on calling out mentally whilst Rhett searched visibly.Searching visibly was less about finding Aislen than about making sure they didn’t accidentally walk into the waiting arms of a zombie, fall over a corpse, or receive the pointy end of a Mer weapon. Rhett was losing count of his narrow misses.Heath was starting to cough. He was trying to smother it, seeking not to draw attention to them, but it was persistent. Rhett had to admit that his own lungs were protesting, and he hadn’t reached fo
Havermouth, Present TimeAislen smiled as she finally managed to lay Gera down in the cot and took a moment to admire the chub of her sleeping daughter’s cheek and the soft blonde hair that Heath had styled into pigtails that morning. In her sleep, Gera’s mouth worked, sucking on an imaginary breast although she was long weaned and onto blood, as if the memory of nursing lingered in her dreams.Aislen crept across the room, avoiding the floorboards that squeaked but left the door open behind her as was their habit so as to hear when Gera woke no matter where in the house they were. With four parents with hybrid keen hearing, there had never been a need for a baby monitor in order to hear when Gera woke from a nap.For a moment, Aislen contemplated returning to the art studio upstairs that she had appropriated from Rhett, though she let him use it if he asked nicely on his knees between her thighs. She paused with her hand on the newel post and one foot on the stairs, and then heard a
“Mine,” Rhett caught Aislen by the shoulders and turned her, pulling her body flush with his so that he could seal his mouth over hers and steal away Heath’s cum from her tongue. “Hmm,” he said as he eased back and used the tip of his little finger to wipe the corner of her mouth. “Delicious.”“This is going to take some finessing,” Talen said as Rhett stepped away so that Talen could take his place. The big, blonde man very gently stroked Aislen’s hair back out of her face before his hand strayed to the Concordian collar around her neck. He straightened it. “It has been a while since we have done this.”“Done what, Daddy?” She asked him and then gasped as Rhett picked her up and deposited her on the bed, straddling Heath’s hips and facing him. Suddenly the way that he was tied made a lot of sense, the space between his legs made room for someone to kneel between them, and the sex pillow beneath his hips would position Aislen at the right height for a man behind and one in front. “Oh
Aislen’s eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the Playroom with supernatural quickness and she smothered her laughter as she saw what Talen had been up to. The bed had been looped with Christmas fairy lights, tinsel, and red bows that held candy canes in place. As they neared, Talen activated the fairly lights so that the room, and its many sordid toys, flashed and flickered in shades of red and green - as did the two men already on the bed.Cameron wore a body harness similar to her own. It was on full display as he knelt on the end of the bed, his arms tied to the bedframe above his head, and a candy cane tied with ribbon as a gag. Talen, as a nod to the season, had used a red ribbon to tie a bow around Cameron’s cock. Tinsel had been draped around his neck like a feather boa.Heath was stretched out on the bed behind him, his arms spread and bound to the headboard, and his knees bent, heels to arse, and restrained there with ribbon that circled his ankles and looped around his wais
As Heath steered the car back out of Havermouth, Aislen watched the town pass by her window. It was both familiar and foreign, with the influence of the Mer seen in the repairs to the old buildings and the ever-increasing amount of greenery spilling over the walls from roof-top gardens.The way people dressed and interacted on the streets had changed too, with more and more people adopting the toga-like styles of the Mer clothing. Aislen caught a glimpse of Anne Mason talking with a group of tall intrigued looking Mers, and she wore multiple strings of the Mer’s bead and shell necklaces and bracelets as she smiled and gestured animatedly at the street around them.“I wonder what Anne is up to,” she remarked to Heath. “She looks like she’s leading a tour of the town. That’s probably what it is,” she answered herself. “She’d be good at that role.”“Do you miss it?” Heath asked her.“The telepathy?” She knew what he meant. “Yes and no. This is sort of cool,” she used her telekinesis to l
Cameron had baby-napped Gera for a day on the farm with her grandparents Harry and Jules, and so Heath and Aislen were travelling light to Havermouth.“Feels weird,” Heath said what Aislen was thinking. “Not hearing her in the back seat, and not having to lug around the baby bag in case she poops or pukes. I think we should have another.”“What?” Aislen’s jaw dropped. That last comment had come out of nowhere.“Another baby,” he smirked enjoying her reaction. “Gera’s six months old now, and I think we’re ready to add to our family.”“I’m not precisely preventing it,” she pointed out. “I’m not on any contraception, and I’m constantly leaking enough second-hand cum that I could probably repopulate the entire planet with a turkey baster.”“I know,” his smirk became a grin. “I’m just saying, if you were pregnant, it would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”“Hang on now,” she narrowed her eyes at him. There was something to his teasing. “What are you getting at precisely?”“I’m just saying, yo
Aislen woke to Gera crying. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dark within Cameron’s room. It was night, but she couldn’t tell how far into it from the moonlight that drifted in through the part in Cameron’s curtains. Cameron was well out, snoring into the pillow, and she eased out from under his arm carefully so as not to wake him.Cameron had been working crazy hours, pretty much seven days a week, since the war trying to bring the two farms back to where they were before the storm, and to incorporate all the changes required for farming to be done by Mer environmental standards, which dictated everything from the way the sheep and cattle were treated for parasites through to run off from fields into the river.She stole the robe that hung of the back of his door as she tiptoed out of the room, easing the door closed behind her. Gera’s outrage had softened to gentle complaint which she traced to the kitchen. Heath, in a pair of striped PJ pants, was heating a bottle of blood, w
Rhett and Gera had attracted a horde of admirers in Rhett’s tattoo parlor and Aislen and Heath stood on the sidewalk watching him show off their daughter to his customers through the window, until someone pointed them out to them, and Rhett looked up, still grinning, his eyes bright with joy, and his cheeks heated as he realized he’d been busted.“Just look at him,” Heath scoffed his tone warm with amusement. “Bet he’s lying about doing the night duty all by himself again.”“He does get up a fair bit,” Aislen smiled up at him.“Yeah, but he complains about it like it’s the end of the world, and he doesn’t tell them that,” Heath nodded with his head towards the group saying goodbye to the baby. “I do most of the nights.”“And Cameron the early mornings,” Aislen reminded him.“He’s usually getting up then anyway,” Heath pointed out. “He’s half-rooster, up at dawn to wake us all up.”Aislen smothered her giggles.“What are you laughing at?” Rhett asked as he joined them. “Good timing, by
It was a very unusual Christmas Tree, but that was hardly surprising as it was a very different Havermouth. The new Havermouth Council was made up equally of all members of the community, and the tree represented the unification of these communities. Therefore, the tree had been carefully transplanted into the park, and was draped with bioluminescent strings of seaweed, crowned with a full moon, and hung with antique hand-carved toys and delicate ornaments made of gold and silver wire and what Aislen believed to be real gems, donated from the safes and other treasure vaults of the several hundred vampires that now called Havermouth home.In the old Havermouth, these gem-crusted ornaments would have disappeared within a day, however in the new Havermouth theft was not a problem. The police force included vampires and werewolves, and it had only taken a couple of demonstrations of their tracking abilities for thieves to learn to mend their ways.Aislen clapped along with the crowd as Ty
Havermouth, Present TimeThe journey to the river house was slow. Thanks to Sigrid’s roadblocks and the damage from the Mer. They also encountered many groups of people just standing on the road, talking in confusion. No one could quite understand what had happened, and no one was entirely confident that it was the end.Gera, true to form, had woken wanting to be fed, and so Aislen held the baby in her arms and watched out through the windows as they passed along the river road towards the bridge. “We’re a long way from done,” she said softly.“Yes,” Talen agreed. “But still, I feel as if we are far closer to peace, and I find myself optimistic and excited about the future before us.”“Me too,” Cameron agreed. “But that’s also how it feels when Aislen does her thing in your brain, so it could be that too.”“We haven’t really talked about that,” Heath added. “About what happened, Aislen?”“It’s hard to explain,” she said looking down at Gera and tracing the curve of the baby’s cheek wit
Havermouth, Present TimeDown the hallway enough for the stink of the torture room and the crunch and slurp of Mercy’s meal to be less nauseating, they formed a huddle, with Sigrid, Greg, Niarthen and Lyric in the centre, discussing what they had seen, and what the Mer would do next.Aislen leaned her cheek against Heath’s shoulder, exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to shower for a really long time, put on something that wasn’t coarse and itchy, and sleep. Heath put his arm around her absently, his attention on the discussion. She wanted to tell him that the world needed to take care of itself for a while, she had done her best for it, and it was time for her to sleep.“I can’t believe that she ate him,” Dan was seriously grossed out, Aislen could tell, although he kept his voice to a whisper.“I know,” Tom replied from the corner of his mouth, his eyes on Sigrid and Greg as they spoke with Niarthen. “Did you see the look on his face? He was just as surprised as we were.”“Will