Rideten, Six Months BeforeHeath was trying, Rhett thought as they strolled across the VIP red carpet and accepted their glass of champagne at the entrance. Every month, his blond mate would pick a night and take either Cameron or Rhett out on a one-on-one date night of some type. Usually, it involved an intimate dinner somewhere private and away from Havermouth, and they would talk about work, or the house, world events, and the people of their town in Heath’s effort to combat the seemingly ever-present slide into disconnecting with each other.Sometimes it worked. The conversation would begin to flow easily between them, they’d share some laughs, and Rhett would find his heart glowing with affection for his mate. Those nights, they’d pull off somewhere on the way home and f-k, quick and dirty, in the car, before going home to tease Cameron into joining them in the playroom for a photo shoot and some naughty play.Sometimes, however, it felt stiff, forced, and fake. They’d struggle t
Havermouth, Four Weeks BeforeHeath returned from a late lunch meeting with his PR team, giving final approval to the posters and adverts that they were about to begin to run in lead up to the coming mayoral election. He glanced at his watch as he opened his laptop onto his desk. He’d make a coffee, and then sit down and spend an hour or two answering emails, before heading home, he decided.“Heath,” Lillian said standing on the threshold to his office.“Hmm?” He flicked a look over his shoulder. As always when at work, Lillian was the perfect picture of a paralegal, her blonde hair slicked back into a sophisticated chignon, her pale blue pant suit elegant, understated femininity, and her make-up tasteful and simple. She was a poster child for vanilla sex.“How can I help you, Lilli?” He straightened and turned to face her.“I don’t know if you heard, there was a death at Zeus two days ago.”“Yes,” he rested his hip against his desk. “Tragic. Were they a client of ours?”“Yes, but Hea
Havermouth, Present TimeHeath let himself into the house as Talen and Aislen finished their shower.“Perfect timing,” Aislen wrapped her arms around him, relieved to have him back. He held her close and buried his face into her neck, kissing the skin as he inhaled her scent. His thoughts were a chaos of worry with sharper edges of fear threaded through. It was such a tangle that she could make no sense of it, other than that he had been unsuccessful at getting to Haven Farm.“No success in leaving Havermouth?” Talen asked, unsurprised.Heath shook his head in answer. “No, and the Van Helsings, or NES, or whatever they are, aren’t happy with me. They threatened to arrest me if I didn’t go home and stay home.”“Oh, god,” Aislen pulled back. “Heath, we think that they can tell somehow, and they’re marking werewolf houses. If they find out that you’re a werewolf…”“It is best if they do not find out,” Talen finished grimly. “I have lived through several of the Van Helsings’ efforts to er
Havermouth, Present TimeWhilst Heath, Cameron and Talen unloaded the Ute into the warehouse, Aislen and Leighton strolled the tarmac around the warehouse. The wind picked up Leighton’s hair, blowing it over his astonishingly handsome face as he wrapped his fingers into the diamond links of the fence.“We are not immortal, I am sure that doesn’t come as a surprise to you,” he said.“I…” She shrugged. “I thought maybe you were, but that it had gotten watered out of me by the human.”“No, none of us are immortal, no matter how close to the original parent that we are. I suspect that even the original parents were not immortal. Perhaps that is why they are no longer here amongst us, they have all died, but then… there are times when we pray and our prayers are answered, so maybe they remain, but in a life far different to our own?” He shrugged his unknowing.“It is… almost cruel,” he continued wrinkling his nose in disapproval. “That we possess what we do, and not immortality to accompan
The Concordia, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThe road was scarred with the annual pilgrimage fires, the trees and stones marked with the carvings left by those who travelled that way, recording their transit for those who would follow. Thaelen’s mark was amongst them. He had walked this path every year since Thorarin had decided that Thaelyn was approaching adulthood and old enough to perform the full sacrifice, and he had spent time in each fortress, growing to know the occupants, the lords and ladies, their children, their people, and their blood slaves.It hadn’t been a surprise to arrive again to a fortress burnt to a cinder, the dead left lying for the crows and carrion birds to feast upon, but the harsh call of the birds echoed the cries of his heart: How? How? How? He had to know, he thought. He had to know how this had come to be, how a force large enough had made it through the pass, how they had attacked with enough speed and force to overcome the vampires.His grief was raw a
The Human Enemy’s Land, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThaelen sifted into consciousness off and on, hearing voices, the groans of wooden wheels over rough terrain, the creak and scrape of armour, and the huff of horses. It was his hunger that woke him, the gnawing thirst scraping its fingernails along his tongue and throat, squeezing his stomach, beading his skin with sweat. A journey of many days, for the hunger to grow to such an extent. How long did it take for a vampire to starve to death? He did not know, but he knew that the suffering was intense.He was in a wooden box, wrists and ankles chained - the mark of the One God engraved in the cuffs. His body ached in a way that he had never before experienced, the effort of raising his shaking hands to press against the lid of the box in which he lay almost too great to manage, his bones aching, his lungs heavy.A spell, Inora had said. What manner of spell could render a vampire so weak? What sort of witch would create such a thing kn
The Human Enemy’s Land, Eleven Hundred Years BeforeThe human man remained in the farthest corner of the cell away from Thaelen, huddled in on himself, his skin growing paler and his shaking worse as the night progressed towards the morning. Thaelen sat, his elbows on his knees and his head resting against the wall, watching him through narrowed eyes and wondering at which point his hunger would drive him mad.“Do you have a name?” Thaelen’s voice was a hoarse whisper, his mouth and throat so desiccated that speaking was painful. His breath steamed on the bitterly cold air.“Not that it matters… Gera,” the human was shaking so hard he stuttered his words.“Gera, you are dying,” Thaelen told him. “You know this, do you not?”Gera’s moan was wretched.“I need for you to live,” Thaelen said through his teeth. His clothing was starting to dry, but he was bitterly cold. The cold would not kill him, he knew, but it was very painful to endure. “If you die, I die also. You need me to live, as
Havermouth, Three Weeks BeforeThe days between passed the same way. Heath would wake alone in his bed and lay staring at the ceiling, telling himself that it was going to be the day. He would get up, dress in his gym clothes, take his suit in its drycleaning bag to the car with him and drive to the only gym in Havermouth and the same one that he’d been a member of since he’d been old enough to lift weights, and work out for an hour, before showering, shaving and dressing in the change rooms.He'd stop by the Boyston’s coffee shop for a protein shake and a coffee on his way to the office and make inane conversation with Diana whilst he waited for her to fill his order. He’d take his coffee and his shake to his office and open his laptop, reviewing the calendar for the day, before, unable to resist temptation any longer, he’d open the office emails and search from something from Aislen Carter or Morgana Ivy.The envelope of paperwork and Patrick Carter’s personal effects sat in his tra