Havermouth, Five Years BeforeIt was a showroom, not a home, Heath thought as he waited for the kettle to boil, his eyes travelling the kitchen and living room. Not a thing out of place, everything picture-perfect, the couch cushions fluffed, the surfaces bare and wiped clean, the framed family photos hiding the truth behind bright, fake smiles.If Charlie woke to less than perfection, Amanda would suffer for it, so whenever Heath was up before his parents, he spent a few minutes doing what he could to save his mother from his father’s temper.There were stargazer lilies in a vase on the table, the blooms perfectly open. As he watched, the orange dust from a stamen drifted down to the table. “F-k,” he hissed out his breath in annoyance as he took a cloth over. He trimmed the stamens from the blooms with his fingernail, wiping the table clear before taking the debris and putting it into the bin and washing the stain from his skin.Satisfied with the room, he sliced a banana and added a

Havermouth, Present TimeThe bridge they’d entered on was underwater. Their police escort scooted his bike back to the window. “In the Ute,” he said leaning in the window. “It’s possibly doable, but I wouldn’t want to try it, myself, and the old train bridge is still open on this side, well above water. It’s like they say, they don’t make them like they used to.”“Very true,” Talen agreed with a vampire’s appreciation for the past.“You’ll have to straddle the train lines, but that track hasn’t been active in twenty years. It’s sort of a secret, though,” he added. “We don’t want the public to use it.”“Understood,” Heath nodded. “We’ll head that way. I’ll be staying on the other side from now on.”“Okay. Good luck to you, Mr Gale.”The path to the train crossing took them through the main street of the town. It was eery, Aislen thought, how empty it was, and just how much water gathered on the road, the drains well and truly swamped by water.Lights attracted her attention in the othe

Havermouth, Present Time“Safe words?” Talen asked running the whip across the palm of his hand with a hiss of leather.“We don’t use them,” Cameron shook his head. Talen had chained him naked to the cross in a leisurely process that had left Cameron sporting an erection that seemed to be pleading for the vampire’s attention, Aislen thought with a smug smile, thoroughly enjoying the view. “We don’t say no to each other, and we trust each other not to hurt us more than, you know,” his smile was filthy. “Then we enjoy.”“Hmm,” Talen’s disapproving grimace was subtle, but Aislen saw it pass over his face.“Daddy don’t like,” she purred, running her hands over the arm of her chair.“No, daddy does not like,” Talen agreed. “We now have safe words. Raudr to stop, and gulr to slow down. Repeat it, slave.”“Raudr, and gulr,” Cameron squirmed, the chains rattling against the wood. “F-k,” was a sobbed groan of need that struck Aislen deep in the pit of her stomach.She was sweating she was so a

Havermouth, Five Years BeforeAislen had been crying when he’d dropped her off, and after seeing her to her door, Cameron had to pull off down the road to sit, gripping the steering wheel, white knuckled, a raw, ugly gnawing pain in his chest. She hadn’t fought, he told himself. Even the first time that he’d taken her, and she had fought, she had wanted him, so it had been a token effort, like many of the girls, saving face, rather than because they didn’t want to f-k.That meant that she wasn’t really objecting, didn’t it? He told himself. That, secretly, she’d liked it. She’d come, over and over, after all, so a big part of her had loved every second of it. Human girls were just different. They liked to pretend that they didn’t want it when they did. They liked to tease and flaunt themselves, to make a guy think all was good, and then to claim that they hadn’t wanted it after it was done. Human girls wanted the decision taken out of their hands so that they could play victim after t

Havermouth, Five Years BeforeAmanda did not come out of the bedroom for her lemon tea. Heath stood in the kitchen drinking his smoothy, his eyes on the steaming cup and his stomach churning with rage. He finished his breakfast, rinsing and stacking the cup into the dishwasher, before pouring the tea down the sink and adding the cup.He took out his phone and messaged Rhett to pick him up for school.Charlie came out of the bedroom, straightening his tie, closing the door behind him, as Heath passed through the hallway and father and son’s gazes met, the glare of their wolves rising liquid oil in their eyes.“Does it make you feel big?” Heath hissed at his father. “Does it make you feel powerful to beat mum, to treat her like shit? How can you do that to your mate?”“You’re just a pup still,” Charlie sneered back. “When you are a man with a mate of your own, you will understand that women need to be kept in their place, taught to be obedient, to be controlled.”“I’ll never raise my ha