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Before the Game
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
The Pack's Triquetra Aislen's Disappearing Act
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeThroughout the match, whenever there was a brief moment in which he could take his eyes from the game, Cameron scanned the sidelines, hoping to see Rhett and Aislen waving at him. He looked at the Ute several times and could not see anyone standing on the tray and watching.He tried to ignore the niggling feeling of unease between his ribs.In their usual spot, he saw his mum and dad, and grinned at them as if nothing was amiss, because he told himself, there was nothing amiss. Maybe every time he looked for them, Rhett and Aislen had gone for food or coffee, or the toilets. Maybe they were sitting with others of the pack, and he couldn’t pick them out from amongst the others in the group. Maybe they’d moved to somewhere with more shade…At three quarters as he grabbed a drink alongside of Heath, he looked again. “I can’t see Rhett or Aislen anywhere,” he said, hoping that Heath would point them out and settle that worry. Even if Heath had grumbled about
The Pack's Triquetra The Decoy
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeThe Triquetra met at the lockers before the first bell. Heath reached out and fixed Cameron’s collar and tie. “You have first class with her, right?” He murmured.“Yep,” Cameron wiped his palms on his trousers. “You have second?”“Mhm,” Heath nodded, his eyes going to Aislen’s locker.“What if Aislen doesn’t come to school?” Rhett wondered, leaning against the locker, and dragging at his lip piercing with his teeth. “We’ll be stuck with the decoy human bitch for no reason.”“She’ll come,” Heath replied confidently. “Yesterday was just Aislen being defiant. She’ll come, see us with Charlotte, and she’ll beg us to forgive her, which we will, of course, do on the condition that she stop f-king around with us and follow our rules.”“There’s the target, let’s get ourselves a decoy,” Cameron grinned and ran his hands through his hair, before grabbing his bag from the locker. “I’ll see you at recess.”Heath and Rhett watched him swagger over to a group of girls,
The Pack's Triquetra Talen being Talen
Havermouth, Present Time Talen crouched before the fireplace placing kindling on the glowing embers whilst Aislen and Lauren sat on the couch beneath throw rugs. Aislen managed to ease her hands out from Lauren’s tight grasp. “I’m sorry,” she apologized knowing that Lauren only sought comfort, the other woman’s mind on her missing daughter and the many dangers she may face. “Your thoughts are too loud in my head when we touch.” “I’ve heard of people who can do that,” Lauren said softly. “Empaths and telepaths. They often become witches.” “I’m a terrible witch,” Aislen replied watching as the fire took, and admiring the way it shimmered through the gold of Talen’s hair. “Did all the study, but only a few spells ever worked for me so I couldn’t progress from the most basic level.” “A witch’s magic is studied and controlled,” Talen commented. “It is focused through arcane objects, requiring tools and components. Your gifts, Morgana, are more instinctual, natural to you, organic. I wou
The Pack's Triquetra Victims of Monsters
Havermouth, Present TimeThere was a knock on the door, a heavy confident thud that repeated three times and then waited, expectantly.Aislen grabbed hold of Talen’s hand. “Don’t answer it daddy,” she whispered. “Let’s pretend we’re not home.” The night was crawling with face-eating monsters, heavy with cold rain, and bodies that came and went. With a sudden, gut-wrenching intensity, she wanted her werewolf mates to return, and all five of them to be back to the river house.“Please, don’t answer the door,” she repeated.The knock came again.Talen looked down at her, and then at the door. “Who is there?” He called out. A compromise, she thought, between her sudden dread and the demand of whoever stood behind the door. What did she expect? She didn’t know. If the other person was frightening enough that she had to worry about her vampire, than a thin wooden door wouldn’t prevent their entry, she admitted to herself.It was like in a horror movie, however, she thought, and if you answe
The Pack's Triquetra Keeping Up Appearances
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeCameron drove past Aislen’s house on his way to school, hoping to encounter her walking her way there. If he saw her, he would just pull over and offer her a lift, he decided. He’d do it very casually and just see what she did.She wasn’t along the route to school and wasn’t at the lockers when he went there. He looked up from his books as Heath approached with a tray carrying three take-away coffees from Boyston’s shop. His blond mate handed him one. “Here, thought you could use it,” Heath said quietly. “You didn’t sleep well last night.”“No,” Cameron sighed heavily. Cameron had been awake, restless, the little kid’s body haunting the darkness, and the problems with Aislen preoccupying his thoughts when Heath had crawled into his bed not long after midnight. “Bad dreams.”“Maybe you should… talk to someone, Cam?” Heath suggested.“I’m talking to you,” Cameron replied.“Someone who knows about this sort of thing,” Heath replied. “Like the school counsell
The Pack's Triquetra No Pizza
Havermouth, Five Years Before“If people see that we’re trying to get Aislen back,” Heath explained under his breath as they met up at the car park at the end of the school day. “Then Charlie and the council will say that we don’t have her under control. We need to make her come back to us, not the other way around.”“And Charlotte’s going to do what?” Rhett was not happy, his face twisted in a frown as he cupped his cigarette to light it. The car park around them was emptying as the students fled the school gleefully, music pounding out of windows and horns honking.“If we’re seen with Charlotte, it will look like we’ve just lost interest in Aislen, rather than that we’re not in control of her,” Heath explained patiently, speaking up as the crowd thinned and there was no one around them, giving them privacy. “Then when we’ve got Aislen back, well, she begged us to take her back, didn’t she?”“F-k man,” Cameron admired his scheming. “You have a f-ked up brain, you know that don’t you?
The Pack's Triquetra Using Charlotte
Havermouth, Five Years Before“There she is,” Cameron said it suddenly gripping the seats and leaning forward as Heath navigated the turn off into the school car park. “There she is, and f-k she looks good,” his voice was hoarse. “F-king hell, I am one jerk off coming in my pants.”“She’s gone to some effort,” Heath agreed. Aislen had gone heavy on the eye-makeup, and left her hair loose, just the way she knew that he liked it, and she was dressed the way he liked her to be, he thought, the way he’d told her to dress. “It’s a good sign,” he decided. “She is over her sulk. We’ll let her apologize and stay for recess to make sure that she’s seen behaving, and then ditch and go f-k ourselves stupid.”“Sounds like a plan,” Rhett grinned taking a cigarette out.“Don’t smoke that in my car,” Heath said immediately.“Duh,” Rhett rolled his eyes. “I know your rules, princess.”Heath parked just down from where Aislen stood, watching them as they got out the car. “Don’t be too eager,” he told
The Pack's Triquetra Beyond Help
Havermouth, Present TimeCameron was exhausted and his water-logged wolf body was beginning to feel the cold as a painful bone-ache that he knew wasn’t good. He wasn’t surprised when Rhett led the way back towards Lauren’s house. Please, he thought, let them stumble on the little girl on their way back. He hoped that Rhett’s pessimism would be proven wrong, that Jessica was somewhere safe and warm, perhaps even back in her mother’s arms.They had covered every street around Lauren’s house, within a distance that they felt a little girl on foot could travel in the weather, sniffing at every door in search of a lingering trace of scent, but the rain washed almost everything away.Most of the houses were lit only by candlelight, and every home with a fireplace had it burning both to combat the dark and the cold left by the loss of electricity. They encountered no cars on the road – something that didn’t surprise him because the roads ran with water, the wind was vicious, and the cold was
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The Pack's Triquetra Epidemic
Havermouth, Present Time Talen and Aislen were quickly called to a stop as they approached the busy area directly in front of the town hall. The police and the firies were packing up, she noticed, frowning, and none of them looked happy about it. “We are encouraging civilians to stay in their residences and off the streets,” a stern voiced soldier told Aislen and Talen disapprovingly. “There are many hazards left after the storm, and our men need free access to clear the roads of debris and make repairs.” Aislen swallowed back the words that she wanted to say, and instead smiled sweetly. “We’re from Boyston’s coffee shop,” she lied showing him the box that she held. “Making a delivery. Cakes and slices that are going stale, to help fuel the forces here. They’re free,” she added with a bright smile. “See, that’s our coffee van, over there,” she nodded with her chin. “Oh,” he was non-plussed, looking over his shoulder at the van, and then back at the box that she held. “Let me look,”
The Pack's Triquetra Betrayal
Havermouth, Two Years Before“Aislen Carter graduated from Rideten School of Art with honors on the eleventh of the month, and vacated her school accommodation four days later,” the PI’s report stated blandly the words that sent icy shards of fear and horror through Heath’s soul.“Her vehicle was placed for sale at North Rideten Car Sales one week prior and sold on the fifteenth with deposits made into bank accounts that were, in turn, closed on the twentieth. We have seen this sort of behavior before, in victims of domestic violence, where the subject is escaping an abusive spouse through the help of an organization. It is our companies ethical position not to pursue such cases further.”“Sure,” Heath snarled at the email. “But you f-king charged me the full price.”He was tempted to throw the laptop against the wall in his frustration, but he gripped the table edge instead and blew out his breath, controlling the anger, turning the heat to ice, and focusing on the house around him t
The Pack's Triquetra Atrophy
Havermouth, Two Years Before The Rideten night club was overflowing with patrons, and Heath had to fight for the standing table where he could look out across the dance floor and keep an eye on Rhett, who was having a fantastic time with his co-workers celebrating the end of his apprenticeship and the purchase of his own shop in Havermouth. It was the happiest that Heath had seen him in a long time, and that thought pained him, but did not surprise him. The Triquetra pretended well, most of the time, however the waiting was slowly tearing them apart. They were spending less time together at the river house, and it often felt more like they were house mates than mates, as they rarely even shared a meal let alone a bed. Cameron was spending more and more time on the land now that he had graduated university, Rhett had thrown himself into getting as much experience as he could before starting his own shop, and Heath was working part time at the law firm he had purchased in Havermouth i
The Pack's Triquetra Charlotte's Pregnant
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeThe little Redbank tattoo parlour that had agreed to take him as an apprentice had many things that Rhett liked, and many that he didn’t. The shop was tiny, with a staircase to the second level which was so steep that it kicked in Rhett’s phobia about heights, and, whilst the workstations were brightly lit for the purpose of the artists, everywhere else was shadowy and pokey. The little kitchen could only fit one person at a time, and the toilet was so narrow that cleaning it (which was one of Rhett’s duties as an apprentice) was a bit like performing yoga in a box.Mostly he divided his time between manning the reception desk, doing clean-up of the workstations, and making drinks for the artists and customers, but on the slow days, the artists would take turns working with his sketches, and he would sit with his pants around his ankles on one of the chairs and practise on himself, upside down.If he produced a decent piece, one of the other artists, Matt
The Pack's Triquetra The Phone Call
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeHeath left the final class of the year feeling as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Just the exams left to do, and high school would be a thing of the past. He paused for a moment, his eyes adjusting from the artificial light of the classroom and his body to movement after two intense hours of mental activity as the teacher had taken the opportunity to run them through a practice exam.Cameron’s bright hair caught the sunlight over the heads of other students moving out into freedom. “Hey!” Cameron grinned as he headed over. “It’s done! We are free!”“Until exams,” Heath corrected. “And, then the pre-reading for university.”“Ugh,” Cameron’s groan of disgust was throaty. “Let me have at least today to enjoy the end of classes without filling my head up with more useless knowledge.”Heath slung his arm around Cameron’s shoulders. “Will you miss school?”“Nope,” Cameron leaned into Heath. “You?”“Nope,” Heath agreed. He gave Cameron’s shoulders
The Pack's Triquetra She Will Come Back
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeCameron’s dreams were filled with chasing Aislen through the fields. He could see her just ahead of him, her dark hair bouncing with the motion of her run, the weeds catching on the skirt of her dress and dragging long scratches along her legs that she didn’t seem to notice. “Aislen!” He cried out. “Slow down!”He woke with a start to the echoes of his own voice. It wasn’t yet midnight and he was alone in bed. He pressed his face into the pillows, breathing in, seeking the scent of Rhett and Heath from the fabric, but it had been too long since they’d slept there, and the scent had faded beneath his own.He couldn’t remember ever having fought with either of them. It left him feeling off-balance, and unwell. He’d thrown himself into working the farm with his dad, trying to distract himself from the anguish of it. Jules hadn’t questioned why Cameron wasn’t going to school, studying, or spending time with the other two members of the Triquetra, although Cam
The Pack's Triquetra Falling Apart
Havermouth, Five Years Prior“I can’t go home - things are too bad with dad and he seems to be hanging around more than ever, and things are f-ked up with Aislen at home too, so I was thinking that Aislen and I could stay at the river house for a few days until we all find somewhere to rent in Havermouth. If we all go in to Aislen’s we can get her packed and out of there before her parents can do anything about it, right?” Rhett suggested, twisting in his seat to look from Heath to Cameron.“Sure,” Cameron leaned forward and gripped the front seats. “We can all stay at the river house. It will be fun.”“Exams next week,” Heath said softly, his heart sinking. “We should study more. But, sure, a few days at the river house won’t hurt. We can study during the daytime whilst there’s light.” What day would they take Aislen away, he wondered. Did she know that she was going to Rideten? Had that been why her suitcases had been under the bed?“Speak for yourself,” Rhett snorted. “I’m not f-ki
The Pack's Triquetra Losing Aislen
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeAs dawn pinked the sky, Cameron scuffed the toe of his shoe through the dust that was all that remained of the grass where cows had been killed. Now that he knew what caused these patches, whenever he was by the river, his eyes were peeled for them, and he was surprised by how many there were – patches where nothing seemed to grow, which he’d always accepted as just being randomly barren spots because he’d grown up with their occurrence.“Don’t play in the dust,” Jules reprimanded as he returned to the Ute.“Why?” Cameron wondered. “It’s just dirt, dad.”“It’s still dead. I don’t trust it until it grows green again.”It made sense that Jules would think that way, Cameron thought stepping away from the patch. Jules' relationship to the land was other level, as Jules’ father and grandfather had been before him. Cameron loved the farm. He loved and respected the land, the river house, and the work. He couldn’t imagine doing anything else with his life, but h
The Pack's Triquetra Dr James' Surprise
Havermouth, Five Years BeforeHeath fed some twigs into the ashes of the firepit knowing that below the layer of ash, there was enough heat to get the fire going again. They’d be grateful in the morning when they went to make coffee and breakfast if there were still hot coals, so he’d get the fire going again whilst Rhett got his drunk on, and then the three of them would go to bed, f-k it out, and get some sleep, he decided.Rhett winced his way through a swig of whiskey, drinking to the side of his mouth away from the piercing and then deliberately swishing the whiskey over the wound, using it as a disinfectant, the action betraying how much it was paining him and his concern over the damage. He met Heath’s eye and gave a little rueful shrug – there wasn’t much that he could do other than hope that it healed alright.Heath took the whiskey bottle from him and took a swig before returning it and leaning over to throw some logs onto the firepit as the kindling leapt into flame. “I got
