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Duty and Obligation
Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56
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The Pack's Vampire Punishing Beupraxia
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThaelen woke with Gera pressed tight to his chest. The human had massaged and fed Thaelen, and then slept contentedly at his side. Thaelen had fed heavily from Gera in the hopes that between the blood loss and lack of privacy, the human would not find the lack of sex remarkable and Gera did not stir as Thaelen eased himself free of his embrace and tiptoed out of the tent.He was not surprised to find Egren feeding on a blood slave outside and nodded his greeting to her. “Do not interrupt your meal,” he told her. “I will go to the beach to bathe and return anon.”His path through the stronghold was heralded by greetings and offers of company however he declined them, needing to spend some time alone with his thoughts and his grief. The sand was spotted with camp sites, smouldering fires ringed by sleeping vampires and blood slaves, and the debris of their belongings.He stripped to his skin, leaving his clothes in the sand, and plunged into the wa
The Pack's Vampire War Plans
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeAs Beupraxia was returned to the cage, sobbing and clutching her face, Thaelen was not surprised to see that Lord Hod watched with narrowed assessing eyes. He turned back to Beupraxia. “Look at me,” he said leaning against the bars. “Look at me,” he repeated when she refused. “You know I expect obedience,” he warned her.She lifted her tear-stained face. He had healed the brands on her cheeks himself, so he knew that she was not in pain. “This,” he gestured to his face. “This does not matter if what is in here,” he touched his chest. “Is hideous. And this,” he gestured to his face again. “Does not matter, if what is here, is beautiful. We are more than our faces, our bodies, and what people think is beautiful to see. You can view this as an ending or an opportunity. Is it not too late to reform what is in the inside.”He held her eyes for a moment before straightening. “I will be back with Gera tonight,” he told her. “You have today to consider h
The Pack's Vampire Conversation With Gera
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThaelen burst into the tent to find Isolte supporting Meguitte’s head whilst Caerin soaked cloth in a bowl.Sigrid licked a wound on her wrist closed, turning to face him. “It is not good,” she told him grimly. “I gave her blood not knowing how long it would take Gera to find you, but my blood does not have your potency.”“What is wrong?” Thaelen took Isolte’s place and accepted the athame that Gera brought him, slicing over his wrist and placing it at the witch’s mouth. She was unconscious, and he could feel the heat of her fever, smell the sharp stench of illness on her sweat.“I do not know,” Sigrid told him, shaking her head.“I think I do,” Isolte offered hesitantly. “I have seen mothers take suddenly like this, without warning, after hard births. The midwives say that it is an infection inside that spreads so quickly.” She shook her head to indicate that such cases were lost.“No,” Thaelen shook his head in disagreement. “I refuse to let it
The Pack's Vampire The Price of Blood
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeGera continued to hover until Sigrid returned with Egren. After a time the healer, Caerin and Isolte entered, the tent becoming very crowded around the hearth, and Thaelen felt the sweat running down his ribs. Sigrid took Caerin and Gera out with her, leaving Isolte to assist the healer with his broth, and Egren guarding Thaelen.Ayren left the tent flap open, letting in a breeze that pulled the stuffiness out of the canvas.As his stomach distended with blood and his head lightened from blood loss, Thaelen napped at Meguitte’s side, ignoring the healer and Isolte as they tended to her, feeding her the broth and changing the rags and her clothing when she soiled herself, bathing her to cool her as her fever spiked.He woke to Gera washing his face and hands, the human blushing as Thaelen looked at him in confusion. “I did not mean to wake you, Thaelen. You are just… covered in blood.”“Thank you,” Thaelen felt ill. For the first time in his life,
The Pack's Vampire Searching for Aislen
Havermouth, Three Weeks BeforeHeath and Cameron were gone for a very long time. Long enough that Rhett had time to cry his self-pity out and pull himself together to face his mates when they returned. He washed his face in the sink and packed away all signs of Aislen’s imprisonment from his bedroom, before brushing his hair back into a pony-tail and inspecting himself in the mirror. It was ridiculous, he thought, to dress up to fight with his mates, but after he’d changed his top and added some jewellery and a leather jacket, he felt better equipped to defy Heath.In the spirit of defiance, he poured himself a glass of wine and took it and a smoke out onto the balcony, leaning against the handrail and looking over the river, listening for wolf howls. He was three quarters of a bottle down by the time that he saw his mates in wolf-form streak through the grasses on the other side of the river and plunge into the water. They shifted as they reached the bank, with Heath leading, and wal
The Pack's Vampire The Meeting With Abigail
Havermouth, Three Weeks agoThe car ride was silent, which was not helped by Rhett turning off the stereo. Cameron sat in the middle back seat looking between his two mates, trying to decide how bad things were. Bad, he sighed and leaned back in the seat, his chin to his chest. Things were f-ked as f-ked could get, with Heath’s attention focused inwards no doubt turning lawyer-y things over in his head and mentally preparing to fight, whilst a storm cloud of depression had settled over Rhett as he prepared to lose.“When we get there,” Heath said eventually. “I will do the talking.”Rhett blew out his breath. “What’s new?”“We wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t let her go,” Heath growled.“Whose idea was it to abduct, hold her prisoner and tattoo her?” Rhett’s voice was dark and the look that he slid to Heath accusatory.“You agreed to it,” Heath’s lip curled, and his eyes were dangerous.“I was f-king desperate, and you took…” Rhett trailed off shaking his head.“I what?” He
The Pack's Vampire Saying Goodbye
Havermouth, Three Weeks Before“She doesn’t want you.” Abigail’s words sat heavily on the air.Cameron couldn’t resist flicking his eyes to Rhett. Aislen didn’t want Heath and Cameron, but she wanted Rhett. She couldn’t have him though, not whilst he was part of the Triquetra. For the first time, Cameron felt fear grip his heart icily. What if Rhett chose Aislen? Would he reject the Triquetra, would he reject Cameron and Heath, in order to have her?Would Cameron if he were Rhett? He wondered. The thought had never crossed his mind before, but once it was there, it lodged deep. He pictured walking around Havermouth hand in hand with Aislen as they had done years before, just like everyone else, just a boy and a girl in love… He had never been able to walk around Havermouth like that with Rhett or Heath, and probably never would, he thought sadly.He looked at Heath and Rhett next to him. Heath had been part of Cameron’s life since childhood and Rhett… Rhett was Rhett. He remembered ho
The Pack's Vampire Tarot, Tea and Talen
Rideten, Three Weeks BeforeTalen shook his head ruefully as he strolled across the road to the witch’s house.Searching Kabramatta had been unsuccessful, and even stalking Morgana’s yoga teaching witch around the town for half Sunday had done nothing but cause him to marvel at the amount of self-grooming the woman did. Tony’s contacts in and around Havermouth had been unsuccessful, and Sigrid had advised him that her call to Abigail on Sunday morning had been met with assurances that they knew nothing of a Morgana Ivy.He had left Kabramatta for Rideten arriving late Sunday night, intending to see August, only to find that he was not there, and the man who had answered the phone had refused to say anything further.Exhausted, Talen had hired a room for the night and actually slept peacefully for the first time since Morgana had gone missing. The panic that had been a nagging backdrop to his thoughts inexplicably eased by the morning, and he felt clear headed when he woke.He hired a
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The Pack's Vampire To be Continued...
Havermouth, Present Time Aislen hit her head hard on the floorboards and lay for a moment with white noise ringing in her ears, staring sightlessly up at the beams of the roof. Her entire body ached. She could feel the sharp sting of the cuts across her torso and the wetness of her blood, and she knew that she was dying. She groaned and put her hand to her chest, surprised to encounter cloth and not skin, and lifted her hand, wondering at how it was not covered in blood and what the black chalkiness was that stained her skin. She slowly lowered her chin to her chest. There were no wounds. Oh, yeah, she wasn’t the one bleeding... The thoughts rolled through her mind in slow motion, as if she was thinking through treacle. “Shit,” she groaned. “Heath!” Where were her mates? “Cameron, and Talen,” she whispered, closing her eyes and then opening them again, her vision focusing, the beams coming into focus. She was on the floor of Leighton’s workspace, she realized, and recalled the salt
The Pack's Vampire Desperate Acts
Havermouth, Present TimeCameron cried out and threw his arms around Rhett, gripping him tightly before catching his face between his hand and kissing him with a thoroughness that left Rhett breathless until the bathroom door suddenly opened, and he released him out of habit, both men breathing heavily as they stared at the startled intruder.“Ah, sorry,” Will Peters was wide eyed. “I can wait…” He backed out letting the door swing shut behind him.“Shit. Oh well, I’m not hiding anymore,” Cameron shrugged, turning back to Rhett, and pulling him back into his arms. “I’m so happy to see you. And you’re looking so much better. Skinny. But better.”“Wow, Cam,” Rhett laughed. “I should come to the rescue more often. Hey there’s power on here!” He added squinting up at the neon lights. “Who would have thought I’d be happy to see the flicker of neon again.”“Did Aislen send you?” Cameron asked, leaning back in order to look at him. “Did she do one of those portal thingies? Where’s Heath? And
The Pack's Vampire Werewolf Lovers
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeHeath Gale and Rhett Salem, Talen turned the names over in his mind as he reviewed the details that Tony had sent through to him on his laptop. In one of those twists of little towns, Heath Gale owned the firm that handled some of Zeus’ legal work. A lawyer.Well, that explained the expensive suits and impeccable grooming.Young, he observed, lifting his eyebrows as he saw the date of birth. Young and rich. The rich wasn’t a surprise, most of the werewolf families did well by themselves, but this young man did better than most. Lived just outside of Havermouth, in a heritage home owned by another pack family, the Edison’s.Rhett Salem, the sexy tattoo artist, owned the tattoo parlor in town and made more than a decent living from the business, though the bulk of his wealth had been inherited.“Hmm,” Talen tilted his head and flicked back to Heath’s file.They lived at the same address. Interesting. But not necessarily remarkable, he decided. Young men ofte
The Pack's Vampire The Discussion Part Three
Havermouth, Two Weeks Before “I already knew what you all were, and I didn’t tell anyone.” Aislen finished her glass and held it out for Heath to refill.“Yeah, Rhett said that.” Cameron looked at Rhett.“If the pack knew that, though,” Rhett explained. “They would decide that you were too great a risk and kill you anyway, so we couldn’t let them know about that…”“And we couldn’t talk about it with you without breaking werewolf law,” Heath told Aislen. “Until you were officially ours, officially recognized as part of the pack, we could not openly talk about ourselves to you, or show you…”“I’m not part of the pack, or yours now,” she pointed out.“No, but things have changed,” Rhett let his hair fall over his face, avoiding looking at Heath. “You are in danger.”“You were an idiot,” Heath sighed out his frustration. “Arrogant and prideful as always and decided to show off what you knew with that f-king Secret Keeper poem.”“When you came back to Havermouth, we had another chance, be
The Pack's Vampire The Discussion Part Two
Havermouth, Two Weeks Before The necklace around her neck was held together by a padlock. Heath hadn’t noticed it at Rhett’s tattoo parlor – things had happened so quickly, and he had been so angry, it was no wonder that the details of her outfit had skipped his notice. But he had seen it the moment they’d entered the kitchen, noting the workmanship of it and the glitter of diamonds.A love token from the vampire, he had decided straight away. It wasn’t until they were sitting across the table from each other and the infinity knot had slipped to the side, that he’d seen the padlock holding it closed at the rear. A tiny padlock, but a significant one. The necklace wasn’t a lover’s token but rather a declaration of ownership.Considering how the vampire had defended her against Heath the evening before, he wasn’t surprised that he had made sure to mark Aislen as his. A warning to Heath to back off, and a notice that the vampire intended to continue his pursuit of Aislen.Heath wasn’t s
The Pack's Vampire The Discussion Part One
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeJules leaned against the fence and wiped his brow on the back of his sleeve. “That’s done then,” he decided his eyes on the indignant wet sheep in the holding pen. They’d spent the day putting this part of the herd through the dip – a process that Rhett always found comical when he was drafted in to help, enjoying the complaints of the sheep as they treaded dosed water before being drained and released into the pen.Cameron had left him in bed that morning, however, as Rhett wasn’t himself. The sex the night before had been… strange. It had held shadows of the early part of the last five years, when sex between the Triquetra had been about hurting each other as much as getting off. Rhett hadn’t hurt Cameron precisely, but Cameron had known that the sex hadn’t been about him, although he was the recipient, but about Aislen.“Yeah,” Cameron agreed. “I’ll grab a shower, change and head home.” He headed towards the house.Jules checked the gate before followin
The Pack's Vampire Rhett's Attempt
Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeRhett couldn’t concentrate, so it was lucky that he didn’t have any clients booked – he had cleared his schedule anticipating that they would still be at the river house with Aislen. He pottered aimlessly in his office as a result, shuffling paperwork that he didn’t have the focus to read, and collecting up the empty coffee cups that clustered on every surface, pulling his face at those which had a skin of green over them.Coffee was a good idea, he decided, and the walk to Boyston’s and back would clear his mind, even if the trip risked him bumping into Heath. His blond mate had returned from work the night before in a foul mood having broken his own rules and gone to see Aislen, only to find the vampire already there.Rhett was the only one who hadn’t broken the rules so far, as Cameron had come knocking on his door the previous afternoon, still sweating from his run and reeking of sex with Aislen. Rhett had been trying to do something constructive with
The Pack's Vampire King Thaelen
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years Before Thorarin looked out from the top of the sand dune. “A kings worth is measured not by his success on the battlefield during times of war, but in his daily judgements. It is too easy, my son, for a man to overlook the day-to-day in seeking glory, but the true glory of a ruler lies not in the battles won, but in the actions that he takes during peace time.” “Father,” Thaelen’s voice caught in his throat as he watched the wind string out Thorarin’s hair, the colored beads arranged in a pattern that only Abara had ever mastered and had taken to the grave with her. “How did you die? I must… I need to know. Were you…” He closed his eyes on the tears that burnt there, but they escaped anyway, sliding down his cheeks and into his beard. “Was it peaceful?” “Is death ever peaceful, Thaelen?” Thorarin replied without looking at him. “Especially for immortals such as we are? But, yes, perhaps. I recall little of it. We drank… and slept, and there was no mor
The Pack's Vampire The Wisdom of Mercy
Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThaelen was pleased to see Gyrd and his son leave through the stronghold gate as Thaelen led his army within the range of the archers on the walls of Gyrd’s stronghold – a move that required confidence that Gyrd would not turn traitor and shoot them from behind. The Lord’s presence was reassurance that treachery was not planned although the archers remained at alert, the top of the wall bristling with their strung bows.“My king,” Gyrd bowed. “You are a welcome sight to behold in the Gulgane armor.”“Gyrd,” Thaelen reached out to clasp the Lord’s arm. “And Timal,” he greeted Gyrd’s son and heir. “I thank you for your loyalty to the Gulgane family, and for holding this stronghold against the invading humans.”They turned to regard the campsite. The distance made the details difficult to make out, however there was no gathering of men, no readying of the siege machines that they had been constructing, and minimal activity. Thaelen narrowed his eyes
