Rideten, Present TimeThe werewolf soldiers divided their ranks, many following Talen, and the others organizing the werewolf refugees. As he stepped out the door, Aislen saw Rhett cast a final look over his shoulder at the chaos inside, their eyes meeting. Rhett was pissed. Aislen couldn't blame him. It had been tough on him and Cameron to slaughter their way through the Van Helsings and here she was bestowing mercy on these three for no other reason than that it felt right to do.Aislen waited until Talen and Rhett had stepped out into the hallway. “Keys?”"Here," Cameron handed her the keys, but his eyes were on the door and his mind was on Rhett, and how pissed their mate seemed about her inexplicable act of mercy. "I hope you know what you're doing. I am going after Talen and Rhett." Before she could respond, he weaved his way through the refugees and disappeared out the door."Shit," she said under her breath. Cameron hadn’t reacted with irritable anger like Rhett had, but rathe

Rideten, Present TimeThe three brothers left immediately after Aislen declared Noah healed. Only Devon paused in the doorway, looking back at the now quiet room of empty cages. “Thank you,” he said to her and left before she could frame a response.“Cameron killed a teenage girl who was watching cat videos, and accidentally tore the jaw off another guy,” Aislen turned to Heath. “And chucked his guts up. That’s why Rhett is mad. Before you ask. That’s what the attitude was about. He felt it was unfair to give the brothers mercy.”“He wasn’t wrong,” Heath replied. “But he might be happier to know you set them up as spies. They will go back; you know that don’t you? They’re going to walk out of here, find the nearest group of Van Helsings, maybe another place they’re staying, and bring them back here to kill us.”“Maybe,” Aislen replied. “Maybe not. I’m hopeful not.”“If you believed that, you wouldn’t have fucked with their brains like that,” he pointed out striding to the door and pee

Rideten, Present Time“And here I thought you’d achieved the most outrageously jaw-dropping appearance the last time you walked into my bunker Mr Gale,” Victor observed dryly as he closed the meeting room door behind them. “Look at you,” he added gesturing at the three of them.Heath slid a look at each of his mates. Talen raised his eyebrows. Of them all, their vampire hybrid mate had escaped the massacre with only a few blood splatters in his beard. Seeing Heath’s look, he raised his hands to show that they were as bloody as Heath’s own, which made Heath feel better. He scratched at his jaw feeling blood flake away under his nail.“This is what war looks like,” Aislen replied snidely. “Something you might find unfamiliar from a bunker, Victor, but true nonetheless.”Victor shook his head as he crossed to a cupboard and pulled out a decanter. “Whiskey?” He offered them.“I will,” Talen said.“Not us,” Heath declined regretfully. Whiskey would have gone down well after the night in th

Rideten, Present Time“Oh gawd, so good,” Aislen moaned as she squeezed in between Rhett and Cameron. “I so need to get this blood off my skin. It’s beginning to itch. Tsk, look at you two,” she added taking the washcloth from Rhett’s hand and tugging him down so that she could scrub the blood from his face. “You even have some in your ears. How do you get blood in your ears?”“Beats me,” Rhett’s hands gripped her hips, and his thumbs stroked her skin suggestively. “I have some blood lower down,” he smoldered. “Cameron was just offering to lick it off for me when you came in and gave us a better idea.”“Oh?” Aislen knew precisely what they had in their dirty, dirty minds - basically the same plan with slight variations between the two men. But she wasn’t going to make it easy on them. “Come here,” she scrubbed at Cameron’s face with the cloth. “Good enough,” she decided and handed it to him. “Do me whilst I rinse my hair out.”“Do you, or do you?” Cameron teased as he and Rhett shifte

Havermouth, Present Time Tears streamed down Harry‘s face as they rose to their feet. They ran their hands over the lush hide of the weredragon. It was precisely the colour of Jules’ hair. Harry draped their body over the dragon’s chest, pressing their ear to the hide, celebrating the steady beat and rise and fall of the ribs. Alive. Gloriously alive. And they could feel the tie of their mate bond twining them together. With their eyes closed, Jules was a glow within the darkness. “Oh Jules, Jules, Jules…” They wept the words, stroking and luxuriating in the living creature that surrounded them with its bulk. It did not matter in the slightest that this Jules was not as Jules had been before… Harry’s most fervent wish had been granted and they had their mate back. “I knew it,” they whispered pressing kisses into the fur as they moved along the length of the dragon towards its head. “I knew that you were not gone.” They stroked over the dragon’s snout and pressed a kiss between his n