Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThe humans did not wake as Thaelen bathed and dressed, pausing to admire his new piercings with an arch of an eyebrow. The things that he did in seeking enlightenment, he thought with amusement. There were aches and raw spots that twinged and complained as he had bathed, and he did not think that he would come for a week within wincing in as much pain as pleasure, but there were quite a few new skills that he had learnt and the new pleasured pain experience was intriguing.He wondered if Gera would enjoy being the recipient of such attention but dismissed the idea. No, not Gera. He would find an acolyte who enjoyed such things to practise on and with.He made his way through the temple, taking the secret passages to the private section of the temple used by acolytes, priests and priestesses and their families. He smiled as he pressed himself against the cold stone wall to allow a swarm of laughing children to run by in a game of chase, be
The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThey came upon the first village at midday, surprising the fishermen in their long, shallow boats who stood up and shaded their eyes with their hands, talking excitedly to each other before beginning to row for shore. The water was a pure, clear azure, and the fish swimming in its waves seemed to leap into the fisher’s nets as they pulled them in.On the edge of sand and forest, their houses were round in shape, the walls formed by logs planted like trees into the earth, and the rooves constructed of overlapping wooden tile. Around the village, the people working, weaving, preparing food, tending to their young stopped to look and marvel.The alarm was slow to spread as Thaelen’s soldiers moved in, their initial response being curious startlement, but the fight was ferocious once they realized they were being attacked. It was over within minutes, most of the villagers subdued and chained, and the sand bright with the blood of tho
The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThe new slaves improved, and they resumed with their raids, taking ten more small coastal villages and towns until their ships rode low in the water, the cargo holds overflowing with new treasures and slaves.Gera had selected two young women from the holds to serve as Thaelen’s blood slaves, and Thaelen was amused, as Gera’s selection betrayed his jealous ownership of his vampire as clearly as if he had branded it on the women. Whilst both women were beautiful, they were both very much not of Thaelen’s preference, being long limbed, and lean - lacking the lush curves of the goddess.It was difficult to communicate to the terrified women that his drinking from them would not hurt them, and they trembled and begged and shied away from him each time they were brought to him, but they seemed to trust Gera, and gradually, with begrudging dignity, would hold out their wrist to Thaelen, whilst looking away, unwilling to meet his eyes.
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeGera coughed and sweated his way through the night despite Thaelen giving him blood and using a wet cloth to try to cool him. In the morning, Gera’s eyes were shadowed and sunken, and his breathing whistled in his chest.“Rest,” Thaelen stroked the sweat soaked hair back from Gera’s face.“Thirsty,” Gera croaked, and Thaelen retrieved water from a jug on the table. Gera’s hands shook as he sat up to drink, and Thaelen slid an arm behind him to support him. Coughing again, Gera sloshed water, and Thaelen had to steady his hands.“Drink some more,” Thaelen encouraged, and managed to get most of the cup into his human before easing Gera back down onto the pillows. “How do you feel?” He asked.“I have not felt this unwell since the day we met in Beupraxia’s cells,” Gera sighed.“I remember,” Thaelen wet the cloth and washed Gera’s face.“Half starved and dying,” Gera smiled, his eyes closed. “And then a golden-haired vampire kissed me better
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThe plague spread with frightening speed amongst any human that had any contact with the new slaves. Meguitte tried desperately to contain it to the harbour and the stronghold, but it leaked out into the city, seeping through the streets and to neighboring strongholds. They did not understand how it did so, how it passed so efficiently between person and person.At some stage, the new slaves also sickened.“I have seen this spoken of before in my mother’s grimoire,” Meguitte said grimly. “I wish that I had it still, but it was long ago burnt. In my mother’s village, there was an illness, a pox. Every year, with the change of season it would return and kill almost everyone who sickened with it, but it grew weaker or the survivors stronger, and soon it was no longer something to be feared, but just a minor inconvenience.“It would have been the same for these new people, Thaelen,” she continued. “Whatever wakes these illnesses would occur,
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Fifty Years BeforeThere was a reason that the vampires raided at certain times of the year. The stretch of ocean between Concordia and the neighbouring continent became treacherous in the wrong seasons. The passage across to the other continent was miserable as a result, spent cramped below deck, or saturated on the slippery deck aiding with adjusting the sails and riggings.They travelled without blood slaves and reached the other shores starved and feral, attacking the villages with a savagery unusual to them. They sated their hunger brutally, reduced to beasts by their thirst, and wasted no time celebrating their conquest or taking valuables from the village. They loaded what food and water they could onto the ship, along with every human, male, female, child, leaving only the sick and elderly behind, before moving on. They took three villages, much closer together than they liked, and turned sail back to Concordia.The slave pens below deck were overcr
The Coast of Alden, Nine Hundred and Forty Five Years Before An army approached the village, but not the army that Thaelen sought. This one came from inland, not from the sea. He watched from the shelter of the trees, squatting in the tangled roots, using his flint-knife to skin the rabbit that had been his breakfast. He had been intending to take the brace of rabbits that he had caught that morning to the little fishing village where he was currently staying. The rabbit’s meat had no value to him. It’s guts and skin, however, were another matter. He would stretch the guts into string and use it to sew the hides into clothing and boots, such as he wore. A brace of rabbits could be traded for many things of value in the village – from clothing made from cloth woven by the village women, blades made of metal, or even coins which, eventually, might buy him a night in a tavern, a glass of wine, a warm bath, and a bed. The arrival of an army from inland disrupted his plans, and he watche
Concordia, Nine Hundred and Forty Five Years Before Thaelen fixed a smile on his face as he walked towards the soldiers. They were laughing and muttering amongst themselves, their attention on the house where the young woman’s screams had changed tone, losing the sharpness, becoming resigned to her fate. I’m sorry, Thaelen thought to her. He had made a callous choice to use her to buy the time to tend the child and old woman. It had been a dispassionate, cruelly efficient prioritization. The guard before him met his eyes, his expression becoming alarmed as he recognized the death in Thaelen’s expression. He began to draw his sword, but Thaelen reached him first, snapping his neck and throwing him into the others, so that they fell under the weight. He caught the arm of a soldier who escaped the burden of the body, preventing his sword from striking, and pulled the arm from the socket, tearing the sword from the hand as the soldier screamed, whilst catching the soldier against him, hi
Havermouth, Present Time Heath woke into darkness. His werewolf sight could not even determine a pinprick of light. The darkness was heavy, smothering. “Talen?” He asked. His voice sounded muted, as if he were in a closed, tight space. He reached out and felt nothing however… And that was terrifying. There was no floor, no walls. He did not understand how it was that he was not falling… or perhaps he was. His breathing was rasped through lungs constricted by panic. “Shh,” a woman murmured. “Hush now, do not fear. Nothing will harm you here. Indeed,” there was amusement to her voice. “There is nothing here to harm you.” “Who are you?” He demanded, fear turning into anger. “Some Van Helsing trick?” “Hmhmhm,” she chuckled softly. “No, white wolf.” “Where is Talen?” He sat up slowly, relying on his stomach muscles as there wasn’t a floor to brace his hands against. “Where are we? Why… isn’t there a floor?” “So many questions. We are in the beginning, the aether, the place where we
Havermouth, Present TimeCameron and Rhett stood by the front window of Mr Claymont’s house with the lace curtains pushed back, looking out at the street as the crowd began to clear. A riot had broken out in response to the explosion of the school and had blocked the Van Helsings’ efforts to reach their destroyed base. The Havermouth rioters had destroyed several of the Van Helsings’ vehicles until guns had been drawn and bullets had been fired.Just as things had been on the verge of turning into a massacre, the fire had begun to spread out from the school, and Havermouth’s residents had rushed to help the homeowners save their property whilst others had dragged those injured by the Van Helsings retaliation into nearby houses.Into the chaos and mania of it all, the fleeing werewolves had just been another strangeness of the day, with people shrieking and screaming as their fur brushed against them, but otherwise taking no action against them, too occupied with the fire and gunmen, a
Havermouth, Present TimeThe f-ker!Aislen woke angry and sore. Her whole body ached, but her head and throat most of all. She was f-king going to kill that arsehole of a torturer, she thought.She was lying on her back on a bed, but not somewhere private. Around her she could hear the murmur of voices, groans and moans, the rattle of metal against metal, and crying. It stank. Layers of sweat, urine, faeces and… rotten meat.She opened her eyes and looked through a mesh of metal bars at the pressed tin tile design within the coffered ceiling high above her and the elaborate chandelier that dangled from it. Not what she’d expected having smelled the room, she thought, sitting up.It was a large long room, with a heavy velvet curtained stage set on one end and a wall of double doors at the other. In between the two ends, rows of cages had been set, each one only long enough to fit a trundle bed and twice as wide. Many of the cages were empty, like the one directly next to Aislen’s bed,
Havermouth, One Week BeforeTony had the police officer tied by his wrists and dangling over an open oubliette in the barn when Talen arrived, and looked up from a toolbox which was set on the pushed back stone lid. “Alex, this is Talen. Talen, meet Alexander Grennith.”“F-k you,” the werewolf was in the policeman’s eyes, but with his weight on his shoulders, and his wrists tied, he could not shift without risking tearing his arms from the joint, an injury that would be both intensely painful and potentially life-alteringly disabling.“No thank you,” Talen replied as he rolled up his sleeves. “Did you have any trouble?” He asked Tony.“No,” Tony was amused. “I took Sigrid with me, and she distracted him at the front door whilst I took him from behind. He did not know what happened. We bundled him into his own car, and I wore his jacket and hat. Anyone who saw me would have thought he was going on a date. I dropped Sigrid at the Ute and she drove it home for me.”“I didn’t know that Si
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeCameron creeping out of the bed and around the room getting dressed woke Heath. He was pressed tightly to Talen’s back, half drowning in the vampire’s blonde hair, with his arm over Talen’s waist and he was disinclined to move from the position. Used to Cameron’s early mornings, once he’d registered what the movement was about, he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep only for Aislen to mutter a complaint as Rhett wriggled out from under her.“I have a client coming at nine,” Rhett explained his movement. “I have to go set up.”“Too early,” Aislen grumbled.“I know, but they work afternoons, and it will take a good three hours,” Rhett yawned widely as he slid out of the bed.Talen shifted in order to pull Aislen back against him, snuggling her into the spoon of his body. “Sleep some more, Morgana,” he murmured. “You need to rest in order to heal.”Rhett cursed as he stumbled and Cameron smothered his laughter. “Careful. F-k man, you’re not a good m
Havermouth, Two Weeks Before“I could do with a cigarette too,” Aislen announced. “And a glass of wine.”“It’s not even midday,” Heath protested immediately.Aislen’s eyeroll said it all. “I wasn’t asking for permission. I’ve had a pretty shitty couple of days, and I want to f-king have a cigarette and a glass of wine on the porch of my house and so that’s precisely what I am going to do,” she began to get dressed. “If you’re all going to be bitches you can leave.”Heath spotted her underwear tangled at the foot of the bed and retrieved them, untangling them as he handed them to her. “I’ll go open a bottle.” He stepped out into the hallway and closed the door before leaning against the wall and heaving out a sigh.Rhett and Cameron now knew about the miscarriage, but he felt as if the Triquetra had narrowly avoided disaster with the discussion that had followed, and the adrenaline spike had left him shaky with his heart racing against his ribs. The conversation had also shaken free a
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeRhett laughed. F-k this was going to be fun, he thought lifting up onto his elbows in order to improve his view.“Oh.” Aislen had realized that the double-sided dildo was for her.Talen’s shoulder shook with his silent laughter as he helped her into the harness and eased her end of the dildo into her.“F-k that’s hot,” Rhett groaned as Talen tightened the harness around her waist. There was something so naughty about Aislen with a c-k, and the leather straps compressing her soft skin, the contrast of white to black and soft to hard… “F-k,” he groaned, and Heath compliantly gripped his c-ck, stroking from base to tip so that he sighed out his pleasure.“Very nice,” Talen approved leaning back to inspect his workmanship. “Who would you like to f-k, little demon?”“Choices, choices,” Aislen’s response was pure devilry.“Me,” Rhett gasped out rolling up to sitting. “I want to try that.”“Why not?” Aislen was amused by his eagerness and by her new accessory, re
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeRhett used the trolley to herd Tabitha and her cameraman away from Cameron and Aislen so that they could make their escape, his vindicative ramming of the reporter’s heels fuelled by the nasty volley of questions she had just thrown at Aislen.“This is assault, Rhett Salem!” Tabitha snarled at him.“Oh, f-k off Tabitha,” he replied. “For a f-king desperate ambulance chasing vulture you are pretty righteous. F-king chasing down a woman who was just shot, and shouting out her personal business… You are slime. The worst type of slime. Just own it and shut the f-k up.”He abandoned the trolley inside the doors of the hospital and trotted across the carpark to where Heath was picking up shards of broken vase and ignoring Tabitha’s attempts to engage him into an interview. Heath surprised Tabitha by passing her the broken pieces. “Throw these away for me, please, like a good girl,” he told her.“Ah, shit, Heath, don’t call her a good girl,” Rhett laughed as he h
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeCameron almost stopped dead. From the corner of his eye, he saw Rhett fumble a vase of flowers that he was loading into his car, the vase shattering with a loud crash as it hit the ground and distracting the reporter and her cameraman.Miscarriage? What miscarriage? And… if Aislen couldn’t have a child… what did that mean for their Triquetra?“I don’t hit women,” Heath growled down at Tabitha. “But you are testing my resolve. Get the f-k away from us, and stay away.”Cameron pulled himself together and crossed the last distance to the Ute, easing Aislen into the passenger seat, and closing the door before turning back to help his Triquetra drive off the reporter and her cameraman. Rhett drove the now empty trolley directly at Tabitha and the cameraman, forcing them backwards, and used it to herd them towards the hospital and away from the Ute.“What the f-k?” Cameron asked Heath in shock. “What the f-k was that?”“Take her to her house, Cam, I’ll meet you