Havermouth, Present TimeCameron carried Aislen through the reception area where Heath was smoothly talking his way through her discharge.Rhett paused to charm his way into a trolley. "I'll load up with Aislen's things, and meet you at the cars," he said to Cameron as he wheeled it back into the room.“Oh, I’ll get a wheelchair!” A nurse protested seeing Cameron with Aislen in his arms.“It’s fine,” Cameron told her with a shrug. “Aislen’s not heavy.”“Are you leaving?” A woman stepped out of a room. Her clothing was rumpled, her eyes tired, and she clutched an empty coffee cup in one hand. “That is wonderful news. I’m Margaret,” she said to Aislen with a wide smile, her eyes filling with tears. “You must be Aislen Carter. You saved my son, Stephan’s life. My husband and I… We are just so grateful.”“Oh,” Aislen flushed, embarrassed by the teary gratitude. “It was nothing, really. He was saving himself, and the gunman had moved on to the library, so it wasn’t like… I’m told he’s doin
Havermouth, Present TimeCameron groaned and pressed his hips into hers, letting her feel that he was hard. He leaned over until his breath brushed over her lips, his eyes on hers so that she could see every fleck within the bright blue. She reached up and threaded her fingers into his hair feeling the heavy thickness of the curls wrap around her fingers.His eyes closed as he inhaled and moaned on the exhale. “Your scent…” He said as he opened his eyes, meeting hers. His smile was bone melting. “When you are turned on, your scent is a sin. I remember in school, whenever you walked by us, I’d just about come in my pants breathing it in.”“Make me come, instead,” she invited.“Yeah,” he laughed under his breath. “I can do that.” He lifted her up and carried her to the porch.“Hey,” Tyler said as he opened the door. “Morgana, hey hero! Talen wasn’t sure when you’d be back. He’ll be happy to know you’re back home again. I was just about to head out to grab some take away. Do you want me
Havermouth, Present Time“Not now, Rhett,” Heath sighed.“You knew!” Rhett rounded on him in shock. “You knew that he intended to turn her!”“We can’t,” Heath rose to his feet and located his jeans. “We can’t turn her werewolf, Rhett. The failure rate is too high. She has three werewolves and a vampire as her mates. If we can’t turn her, it is only logical that he will.”“And then what!” Rhett’s fury was such that the words were all but yelled. “We grow old, whilst she stays eternally young?”“Would you rather her grow old and die, when she has the option to be young and live forever?” Heath demanded. “We cannot give her that, but he can!”“What about kids?” Cameron asked. “If he turns her into a vampire, can she still have kids?”They fell into silence, their eyes flicking to Aislen and then away.“I can have kids,” she answered their unspoken question. “Bitch-faced Tabby Cat was speaking shit. I had a miscarriage, that is all. My doctor never said that I wouldn’t be able to have kid
Havermouth, Present TimeAislen woke when Rhett eased out from under her. She had been lying half over him, her leg thrown over his body and her hand on his chest and muttered her complaint as his movement unbalanced her and let the cooler air touch her skin. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “I have a client coming at nine,” he whispered. “I have to go set up.”“Too early.”“I know, but they work afternoons, and it will take a good three hours.”Talen wrapped an arm around her and drew her into the cup of his body. “Sleep some more, Morgana,” he murmured. “You need to rest in order to heal.”“Careful,” Cameron snickered suddenly and Aislen opened her eyes to see that Cameron had saved Rhett from falling over as he put on his jeans. “F-k man, you’re not a good morning person. One leg in each leg hole, right?” Cameron was already almost fully dressed, his shirt hanging open but his jeans and shoes on.“Need coffee before my brain will wake up fully,” Rhett replied.“For f-ksake,” He
Havermouth, Present Time “We should talk about the river house,” Heath said as they dried off after the shower. She ignored him and concentrated on drying her hair. She didn’t want to talk about it. She had said all that she wanted to say on the topic, and if she said any more, she knew that it would just start another argument. “Aislen,” he sat on the bed in order to put on his shoes. “I know that…” “Heath,” she flicked her hair back. “Don’t. Just don’t. Rhett had a go at me yesterday about accepting that Havermouth is my home and that I’m not going back to Kabramatta, and you guys have raised several times going to stay at the river house. You can’t bully me into it, and you need to stop trying to do so.” His grey eyes met hers and she held them stubbornly refusing to back down. He nodded slowly. “We are your mates,” he said softly. She inhaled and released it slowly. “I love you,” she told him. “I love the three of you. I want to try to make something of this relationship. I a
**Trigger warnings for this book: this is a dark romance werewolf story containing gaslighting, dub-con, assault, rape, violence, bondage, in a Reverse Harem scenario, involving bxg and bxb group sex scenes. There is a chapter separately marked with a trigger warning that features a pregnancy loss.** The River House, The Day After the Funeral A frog creaked it’s call from somewhere nearby, joining in the chorus of crickets that buzzed into the night. Aislen could hear the whispered rush of the river, smell the wet earth of its banks. Her head ached and her mouth was parched, the sound of the water tormenting her. Not at her father’s house, she thought groggily. The river was too far from there to be heard like this. She had a bad feeling that she knew precisely where she was. She pried her eyes open, wincing at the glare of the red-toned bedside lights. Her hands were handcuffed together, and the cuffs threaded through the bars of the bedhead. She was in the river house, but not as
Havermouth High School, Five Years Before The rain had washed the pavement clean, picking out the tiny granules of quartz mixed into the tarmac. The sun was warm through the grey cloud cover, and the pavement steamed, releasing a strong scent of wet stone. A bicyclist rode through a puddle, it’s spray wetting Aislen’s shoes. She glared after the careless rider in irritation. As she crossed the school yard, the number of students increased, pressing in around her, and she thought that her telepathy made it feel like walking through a sink of soap suds, each soapy bubble with its deceptively pretty rainbow of colour stretching over the fragile surface enclosing a student within it, each dome pressing against each other, until the tension built to the inevitable PoP! A gift, her grandmother had called it. The family gift, as old as history, dating back to the oracles that once had been worshipped in temples. Aislen did not agree. Her ability, she called it to herself. Something confus
Havermouth, Present Time The town was untouched by time as if it had just been yesterday, and not five years before when she had left it, a broken, fragile eighteen year convinced that she was in love. Officially she had won a scholarship into an exclusive art school, jointly paid for by a donation from Zeus Forest Works and the founding families of Havermouth. Unofficially, the Havermouth werewolf pack had sent her away. It had taken hundreds of therapy hours to realize that what she had thought was love was the result of the skilled and prolonged application of gaslighting. Once she had begun to learn just what that was, she had recognized the behavioural patterns. Once she had finished her three years of art school, with help of friends from the therapy group she had changed her name and gotten a job on the other side of the country. She had not visited her parents in Havermouth. She had not left on the best of terms with either parent, but most particularly her father. She not