The Pack's Secret Keeper

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 High School, Five Years BeforeReaching the transportable at the very rear of the school grounds was like obtaining sanctuary in a war field. After a day of dodging random touches, fighting her way through classes when her concentration broke and she could not hear the teacher for the thoughts of the thirty students sharing the room with her, and feeling the whiplash of disdain from the werewolf students whenever Heath or Cameron shared her class as they seemed to live for no other purpose than to make her miserable with humiliation, she leaned back against the wall to the side of the art class entrance.The art teacher, Mr Graynor, liked to sneak down the little creek that ran through the back of the oval and have a joint before his afternoon classes, so he was always red eyed and mellow, with no interest in giving his students a hard time. Often, after delivering the content of the class, he would encourage them to take their work outside, so that he could sit in the litt

Havermouth High School, Five Years Before Cameron and Heath circled like the wolves that they were as Rhett and Aislen joined them at the table in the shelter of a large tree. Aislen could see some of the celtic knotted triangle designs that decorated Rhett’s knuckles had been scratched into the wood of the picnic table. Other than the four of them, the park was empty. “My, my,” Cameron purred, sliding his hand over Aislen’s shoulder to her arm and sending flashes of her shirt buttons popping as he tore the shirt open in order to expose her breasts through Aislen’s mind. “Just look at what was hiding under that f-king ugly jumper, Heath.” He stole Aislen’s cigarette, which had gone out, relighting it and holding it between his teeth as he leered down at her. “We have to work,” Rhett stubbed out his cigarette onto the ground. “This piece we’re working on is worth thirty percent of our grade this term, and we’ve only got four weeks to get it done in, so if you’re going to distract us

Havermouth High School, Five Years BeforeAislen felt something small and hard strike the back of her head. She looked up from her sketch pad and felt in her hair, locating a small nut from one of the nearby trees lodged in the curls. She pulled it out thinking it had fallen from a tree or had been dropped by a bird flying overhead, and resumed drawing, only for another to hit her.Laughter stiffened her back. She knew those voices and did not need to turn to look. The table where she was seated was set near a grassy slope where the cheerleaders and jocks liked to spend their lunch time.She had seen the Triquetra there, as she had sat to lunch, but they hadn’t noticed her – or so she had thought – as Heath and Cameron had Lillian between them and were occupied with making out with her and Rhett had been lying on his back just a little way from them, his forearm draped over his eyes.Had she been braver and had she forgiven him for doing nothing when Heath had assaulted her at the par

Havermouth High School, Five Years BeforeAislen wasn’t surprised when Rhett stepped out from the alley between the classrooms as she reached the art room, his eyes to the ground and his hands in his pockets – but his casual demeanour did not fool her for a moment. She hesitated, and he lifted his eyes, meeting hers, and the expression in them caused her breath to catch and her clit to throb.She felt like Eve, she thought, irresistibly drawn to the apple.She crossed to him, and he caught her by the elbows, pulling her flush to him, his body lean and hard against hers, stepping back into the privacy of the alley way, pushing her up against the wall. He lifted her bag off her shoulder, lowered it to the ground without breaking their gazes.His eyes were intense and the almost oily iridescent sheen that she had come to recognize as a sign of werewolfism reflected off their darkness. He buried his fingers into her curls with a sigh as he did so, before leaning forward, the heat of his l