Havermouth, Present TimeIt was a good question and one that Aislen did not know the answer to. Even if the people in the room and on the video conference all agreed, they would have to persuade the wider country, and possibly the entire world. It was hard enough to keep one town and one werewolf pack working together, let alone something on this scale.“It isn’t,” Aislen told him, and saw heads around the table whip her way as protests started to form on lips and an onslaught of shocked minds screamed at her to shut up! They didn’t really mean to scream it at her – as Heath was continuously reminding her, they weren’t responsible for errant thoughts and reactions. But for a moment she winced under the mental noise. She put her finger to her ear as if to block a sound as she tried to focus on Niarthen.“We don’t have the power to make this change, but the Mer do,” she explained. “No,” she shook her head at the TV screen as several of the alphas began speaking at once. “Noooo,” she rep
Havermouth, Present TimeShe knew. Aislen could see Leighton in Abigail’s mind, and that the she-wolf had already reached a decision, as had Sigrid and her mates. Aislen’s mates were more divided. Talen wondered about the implications for Meguitte in surrendering Leighton. Heath believed that it was a sacrifice worth making but was concerned with the logistics of how. Rhett just wanted the war to end, and life to return to normal and Cameron was concerned ethically about the betrayal of someone who was a kind of friend.“I am told,” Niarthen looked at Aislen. “That the pollution of the water is not an act of war against the Mer,” he believed that Aislen believed it, but had not entirely discounted it as a possibility himself. “But rather the outcome of a magical mistake?”“That is what we understand,” Abigail said. There was a reaction from the alphas on screen as they had not known of the origins of the water sickness and Abigail let them rage for a moment before holding up her hand.
Havermouth, Present TimeMeguitte did not have to dig far into the kitchen cupboards to find what she needed. “This is… quite the most organized kitchen I have ever been in,” she remarked in surprise. “Everything on the shelves is lined up, handles turned the same way, cutlery nestled into each other… Do people actually live like this?”“Heath does,” Jules replied with a twist of amusement. He stood with the landline phone receiver pinched between chin and shoulder, holding a very grubby child’s t-shirt in his hands. From where she was, Meguitte could hear the AI voice inform him politely that the person that he called was not available and to please leave a message.Jules cleared his throat, awkwardly. “Um, hi…” He started. “You don’t know me. I don’t know you. And I’m hoping you’re okay. We were in Trayrock when the Mer invaded… you might not know they’re the Mer,” he corrected himself. “The army that blew the place apart invaded. Anyway. Somehow in all the chaos, the group that I w
Havermouth, Present Time"Whilst we're all here," Father Isaiah spoke up as the Mer stepped out of the shop. "And before these gentlemen disconnect," he nodded to the screen. "I have a proposition from The Order of the Phoenix that I would like to discuss with you all.""Someone has forgotten that they are a prisoner it seems," Aislen commented. There was something... Different about the man, she noticed and frowned as she studied him closer. He had come in bruised and bloody, with broken fingers and a swollen lip."Am I a prisoner though?" Father Isaiah arched an eyebrow. "Or an ally? You heard that Merman. Even if you give him what he wants he won't promise peace. He only promises to talk to those above him. They'll probably just wait until you hand your friend over and then attack. On the other hand, we can unify our efforts against them. The Order of Nexsis has the armies of the world at our beck and call as well as our own. You have your people, and your supernatural abilities. U
Havermouth, Present Time“We can’t forget that somewhere the Van Helsings have a fucking army of zombies,” Aislen said as they walked through the pretty streets of Havermouth toward the Salem home.There were scars left behind on the street by previous battles, and every here and there was evidence of Sigrid’s efforts to predict the path of the Mer army – a barricade repurposed from the Van Helsing occupation, a car or truck parked at an angle, blocking off the road. The further from the center of the town, however, the less evidence remained before – until they neared the high school. The burnt-out and upturned ruins of cars remained, and there was a grubbiness to the rooves and houses that had been left by the ash of the explosion and would take several seasons of rain or a good scrub to wash away.They passed down her street, and although it took them a little off route, walked down to the house.As they drew near, Cameron clapped his hands together. “There it is!” He said trotting
Havermouth, Present Time“Well?” Phillip asked half an hour and three destroyed apples later as he showed them to the door again, leaving Toby with Lauren, Anne, and a delighted Jessica, picking mashed apple up from around the room. “He’s something supernatural. No human is that strong.”“No,” Talen agreed. “But there’s no blood lust, and so far, no shifting, correct?”“I guess we’ll have to wait for the full moon to see if he has to shift,” Phillip agreed.“There is another possibility,” Aislen said slowly. It was obvious that the blood given to Toby had done something, but she didn’t think that he was vampire, werewolf, or hybrid, which really only left one other option considering the blood that he’d been given. “I asked Samuel to give Toby his blood.”“There goes the décor if he shifts,” Rhett joked.“Where is Samuel?” Phillip wondered looking up automatically. “Perhaps he could tell?”“He’ll be somewhere up there,” Aislen stepped through the calf-length grass until she was in a c
Havermouth, Present Time“Sigrid, understandably perhaps considering everything that has been going on, appears to have forgotten her promise to supply me with Jules’ blood,” Leighton replied easily as he wrote on the label of a jar already filled with the red liquid. “And Jules was in Havermouth so fleetingly that I did not have a chance to get my equipment together for the collection before he’d vanished again. I drove out this morning in case I managed to track him down, and I did,” he smiled pleasantly at Jules.“I think that’s enough blood,” Harry said from the couch. “You will leave my beloved dehydrated and weak.”“I should have enough with this second jar,” Leighton assured them. “I have been greedy,” he admitted. “And taken more than I normally would, but in the circumstances, I’m sure you can understand why,” he said to Jules directly.“In case I get killed?” Jules arched an eyebrow. “I don’t intend on dying.”“Good,” Leighton eased the needle from Jules’ arm and pressed a s
Havermouth, Present Time“Why in all that’s hellish?” Rhett complained into his pillow when Cameron crawled over him, seeking freedom from the bed.“Shhh,” Cameron whispered. “I’m just going to get some work done.”“Just go,” Rhett’s mutters were slurred as he slipped back into slumber.Aislen was warmly tucked into Talen’s chest and felt as if she registered the exchange from a deep, soft cocoon of sleep that was not yet ready to release her. She drifted off into dream. In it she watched from one side of the river as a young woman began to undress. The dream was so vivid that she could feel the bark of the tree that she leaned against under her palm, she could smell the leaves crushed beneath her boots and feel the wet heat of the afternoon on her skin.The woman removed the cap that covered her hair, and then unwound the coronet of braids, weaving her fingers through the strands until she was cloaked in gold. As she waded into the water, her hair spreading over the surface and the
“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