Trayrock, Present TimeTalen watched as the reporter spoke with the woman in the bed. The conversation was paced by the beeping of the machines – a drip of antibiotics or pain relief. He thought the former rather than the latter, as he doubted that the Van Helsings cared whether their test subjects were in pain.The covers hid the fact that this woman was missing both legs.“It’s an experiment,” the woman said, her face contorted around the constant flow of tears. “They are working on transplanting limbs. They say there is too little donation of organs and body parts, and many soldiers that need them. It’s only fair that we give to those in service. They took my legs,” she sobbed the words. “They took my legs.”“I’m so sorry,” Jacinta was weeping. “I am so very sorry.”The Medical Director made adjustments to the equipment. “You’ll be more comfortable now,” he told the woman.“Please don’t leave me here,” the woman pleaded. “My legs are just the start. They’re coming back for my arms,
Trayrock, Present TimeIt was bad. Cameron could tell from the looks on everyone’s faces. Whatever Rhett and Talen had seen on the level below had shaken Rhett up a lot, and whatever was in the rooms here, had Heath’s face blanched of color, and had the reporters green at the gills.“Fill me in,” Phillip Salem ordered curtly as the reporters disappeared into the third room.“Torture,” Aislen summarized. “In the name of medical science. The first two rooms have victims, the third… well, no one’s sure what to call them. Van Helsing soldiers who were the recipients of medical treatment at the cost of the victims. Don’t ask,” she added when Phillip’s mouth opened. “I’m not getting into it. It’s bad enough being in Heath and Talen’s heads and experiencing it secondhand. They’re coming back. You and the two local werewolves are to stay on this floor.”“No,” Phillip shook his head. “I’m not staying here.”Aislen searched his face for a long moment and then sighed heavily. Her eyes lost focus
Trayrock, Present TimeNiarthen was deep in another conference call with the Mer hierarchy and Seyvil. Tying up loose ends before leaving for Havermouth, Lyric thought as she watched Father Isaiah and the Mer woman, Sapphire, were brought up the stairs to the meeting inside.Lyric sat on the balcony seats and sucked down two of the Mer sweet water orbs, her eyes on the cages below. She still felt thirsty. Her skin felt dried out and itchy, and her hair like straw. She wanted to find a shower and soak herself from head to toe.She heard a yell below and leaned over the balustrade to look. Someone had turned on the sports field’s sprinkler system, dousing all the cages and causing the occupants to cry out in protest. The Mer soldiers not on active duty all stood helmetless under the falling water with expressions of relief.They were all suffering from dehydration, Lyric realized. But she stood up, holding onto the handrail. Was the sprinkler system fed from the river? She wondered. Wer
Trayrock, Present Time“Let’s have a look,” Cameron crouched next to Toby. The man was fucked up. “Blood?” Cameron looked up at Aislen who leaned over, one hand braced against the wall, unable to bend around the obstacle of her stomach.Talen and Heath were examining the barricade at the door and speaking with the patients who had created it. The humans who had attacked the hospital with them were searching room by room, removing patients to the stairs frantically.“What the fuck happened to you?” Toby rasped taking in Aislen’s very obvious pregnancy.“Ate something bad,” Aislen replied flippantly. “Hybrid pregnancy comes with supernatural superspeed babies apparently. Let’s hope the delivery is swift and painless. I doubt it though. I expect my cunt will split in two squeezing this thing out, and I fully expect to be screaming abuse at the men who put it in there all the while. They’re going to be making this up to me for, like forever. But enough about me, what is going on here? Wha
Havermouth, Present TimeMeguitte was unable to concentrate. The image of Bianca’s corpse back in the torture chair haunted her. She had been responsible for many, many deaths, from her escape with Thaelen from Beaupraxia’s cells to the flaming sparrow attack on the Concordian strongholds, through to those she had been forced to kill through the years in self-defence because some men would inevitably try to take that which should only ever be given. In the battle for Havermouth, she had killed again, using magical means, and in her recent investigations, she had again used magic to kill the werewolves involved.She was no stranger to killing. She had never been bothered like this before. This death was different.Bianca had turned against them, she told herself. Bianca had led the coup that had injured Harry and had all but killed Jules. Bianca had been the enemy. She had also been an ally and Aislen’s friend.She’d had no choice, she told herself. As Bianca had healed, she had recove
Trayrock, Present timeCameron met Rhett at the bottom of the staircase and handed him the man that he carried. “My dad is here,” he told his mate in stunned surprise.“Yeah,” Rhett’s expression was strained, his eyes wild and his hair in disarray. “I saw Harry.” He turned and bolted down the hallway with his burden, just as Harry blurred back into sight on a return trip, tossing back their long blond hair.“Cameron,” Harry put their hand on his shoulder. “It is good to see you.” They continued up the stairs, intercepting Jules on the way down and taking his burden from him before racing past Cameron again.“Cam,” Jules called down the staircase. “Quick now, let’s get these people out of here.”“Yeah,” Cameron pulled himself together and started to turn, when a noise down the hallway caught his attention. “Fuck,” he met Jules’ eyes. “They’re coming in through the main doors. You keep evacuating them this way, I’ll take care of them.”“You can’t do it alone,” Jules protested and ran do
Havermouth, Present Time“Shit,” Dan tugged Sigrid back behind him as a glass bottle was hurled out of Leighton’s torture chamber accompanied by a scream of outrage. The bottle smashed against the wall, and a thick black liquid slid down to bubble ominously in a puddle on the floor.“You were going to LOCK ME UP AGAIN!”It was Mercy screaming, Sigrid realized. “It’s alright,” she told her mates who had taken up a defensive stance around her. “I think Mercy just discovered Leighton’s plans for her if he’d followed through on following Jules Edison to Trayrock.”“This is precisely why, Mercy,” Leighton’s voice was patiently patronizing. “You are behaving entirely irrationally. This was a practical solution to an urgently required absence. You would have been perfectly safe and had a food supply sufficient for the duration of your mother and my absence.”Sigrid gestured for silence when Dan moved slightly, wanting to finish the errand now that the danger was passed, however, she wanted t
Trayrock, Present Time“Fuck,” Heath said immediately upon closing the door.“Should we be abandoning those patients?” Aislen was distracted by the drama unfolding in the car park as people’s attention moved from the collapsing building to the injured patients. “I feel like we should be helping those people.”“I think we are best to leave those people to be cared for by the medical staff,” Talen said grimly as he reversed the car out of the car park and made his way toward the main road. “It is too risky for us to stay here, Morgana. And Heath is right, we have other problems at the moment.”“We do?” Aislen leaned forward between the two chairs, bracing her elbows on the back. “Like what?”“Jules Edison and Harry are here,” Talen said quietly. “And Cameron just got into the car with them.”“Oh,” Aislen hesitated, and watching her face in the rearview Heath saw the moment it registered. “Oh. Oh shit.”“It is my fault,” Talen was grim. “Sigrid told me that they were on their way to Tray
“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