Havermouth, Present TimeIn the darkness, pain blossomed red as blood spearing in through Harry’s eye and drilling into their brain, a burning pain that grew in sharpness until they surfaced screaming from the dark into an unfamiliar room clutching at their head. The smell of blood was sharp, and their face was wet with it. They sobbed as they stared at their fingertips, piecing together the black liquid on their skin with the scent of blood.“What has happened?”“Harry…” A woman stood in the doorway, a vampire. It took Harry a moment to recognize her. One of Talen’s underlings.“Talen?” They asked. They couldn’t see from their right eye. Why could they not see? Where was the blood coming from? What had happened? What were they doing in the unfamiliar room, with one of Talen’s underlings, naked and bleeding?“He’s in Rideten. Shh,” she held her hands out to stall them when Harry began to sit up. “Slowly, Harry. You almost died.”Harry’s screaming head swum from the motion, and they sa
Havermouth, Present Time A knock at the door woke Sigrid from a deep sleep and she immediately reached out to check on Tom despite her sense of her mates informing her that all three were fine, if somewhat sore and exhausted from exchanging bite marks. Tom did not stir under her inspection, exhausted from blood loss. Greg was a blur as he went to the door, pressing his back against the wall as he slid a look outside through the window. “It’s a vampire,” he said. “Woman. Carrying an eskie.” “Fatima,” Sigrid realized and rose, drawing on her robe as she crossed to the door. She was too exhausted from turning Greg, and now Tom, to move so swiftly, but Greg was full of new-vampire excitement about his new abilities, and well fed having helped her to drain Tom. “Bringing supplies.” “Don’t need this, then,” Dan slid his gun back onto the table. He was gorgeously disheveled, naked, and smeared with blood and cum. Greg opened the door, unbothered by his nakedness. Fatima’s eyes went stra
Havermouth, Present TimeTyler exchanged a look with his mate before crossing to intercept Meguitte and Connery as they approached the closed doors to the hallway. "So. We think that there's been... a containment breach.""A containment breach?" Meguitte repeated, puzzled. Had the zombies she’d been experimenting on escaped their secluded ward? Then her voice sharpened. "What type of containment breach?" She had left a powerful spell unattended – something she would not normally do. But she had been hungry and tired after it’s casting, and had let Connery persuade her to eat, have sex, and then get some sleep. And then, when they had woken, she had lingered in the shower with him, the two of them fucking in the spray, with Connery’s lips stained with her blood and hers stained with his…"See for yourself," Tyler gestured down the hallway and his mate grandly swept open a door.Neither vampire fell in behind them as Meguitte and Connery crossed the threshold, remaining in the open door
Havermouth, Present TimeMeguitte followed the human woman to the glass fronted office, where another woman, wide eyed, held out a phone handset.“Thank you,” Meguitte took it and then waited. The two women stared at her blankly. They knew her by reputation, and were awed and intimidated in her presence, freezing under her gaze like deer in headlights. “Excuse me,” she prompted them gently.“Oh,” the first woman pulled herself together and took her friend by the elbow, drawing her back out of the office, the door closing behind them.The glass before Meguitte was perforated, so that the office workings within could communicate with the patient without, and Meguitte turned a little away to stop her voice from carrying. “Sigrid?”“Meguitte,” Sigrid’s reply was immediate. “Harry is awake.”Meguitte’s inhalation caught on a sob, and she pressed her fingertips to her lips to contain it, fighting back tears. She nodded, and then remembered that Sigrid could not see her. “How are they?”Ther
Havermouth, Present TimeThe scent of incense layered over that of the richness of the flowers that hung in rope between the buildings and laid upon the stone, creating a flower-lined and petal scattered pathway to the temple.The goddess had passed that way already and the crowds were thinning around Samuel, humans returning to their daily tasks now that the excitement had ended, and Samuel walked in the footsteps of the procession unhindered, the sun glinting down through the thick flower garlands, and with the incense smoke drifting back towards him drawing him onward.Humans glanced his way frequently, young women giggling behind their hands and veils and young men running their eyes over him, evaluating his origins and intentions. He was taller than most humans, and many hours in flight had carved his man-form so that the width of his shoulders was emphasized by the narrowness of his waist, and his clothing was far simpler than theirs, although the fabric was of good quality.Ahe
Havermouth, Present TimeThe jungle glowed with magic. Amongst the green of the foliage and the blossoms and bark were sparks of green, gold, blue, and red that glimmered like lanterns strung between the branches. Nearer it was evident that the red glowed like coals, shifting sparks and patches of darkness, where a heat spell had been applied, and blue glimmered as icicles where a cold spell had been applied. Green oozed like toxic waste from a nausea spell.A handful of gold threads were those whom the magic had identified as direct targets. Meguitte hoped that rather than having to use those threads for revenge, those targets would hand themselves over – but she knew that hope was rather optimistic.In stark contrast, in the room next to the laboratory, Verina and Mercy tended to a nursery of seedlings as dotingly as mothers, watering and replanting them into pots, whilst whispering to them messages to haunt their elder’s ears.The werewolves involved in the attack on the Edison far
Havermouth, Present TimeAlong one wall of Connery’s torture dungeon, he had fitted chains to the wall. The other held three cages. They put the oldest she-wolves in the cages where they could sit, and secured the younger ones to the other wall. All the she-wolves were weeping, their eyes red and cheeks flushed and raw from being rubbed. In the cages, they huddled and comforted each other, their sobs wrenching at Meguitte’s heart.It was not what she had expected, she admitted to herself. She had anticipated angry, defiant alpha male werewolves, and instead had received a dozen women.“I knew it,” one of them wailed. “I knew something terrible had happened when Andy didn’t come home.”“Where are your menfolk?” Meguitte demanded of them.“Dead, apparently,” the shewolf who had spoken in the car park did so again, her tone resigned. She was among the ones chained to the wall and watched Meguitte and Connery with weary eyes.“Not all of them,” Meguitte pointed out. She knew it from the j
Havermouth, Present TimeSamuel woke from his dream of the goddess and lay staring at the ceiling of their dark little room, turning over the dream in his mind. Since returning with Meguitte and Connery to the hospital in Havermouth, he and Ember had mostly slept and he had ensured that she ate. She needed to rest and renew to regain her strength, and he had devoted himself to seeing that she did so.He should have stayed with her after the loss of their child, he admitted to himself. His mind and heart had been so full of rage and grief that he had sought to assuage it with violence, rather than with caring for his mate. It had been a selfish action to take and one that had forced Ember into battle before she was healed.If he could go back, he would have stayed with Ember in their home, mourned the loss of their loved ones and child, and have tended to her as she healed as a mate should do – as he was doing now.He buried his face into her hair and breathed in her scent.“I can hear