Havermouth, Two Weeks Before Rhett felt his cheeks heat, and he slid Talen a look from the corner of his eye. The vampire wasn’t wrong, Rhett was only just holding himself together, he acknowledged to himself, but he’d hoped that he was less transparent about it than Talen’s manoeuvring implied. The minimal sleep of the night was not combatted by the coffee he’d consumed that morning, and the combination had left him jittery and wound tight. He wanted to pick Aislen up, take her home to his bed, and just hold her in the safety of his space for a week or more. He knew it was werewolf instinct to take his wounded mate to the den and keep her safe whilst she healed but knowing that didn’t help him control it. Cameron stepped into the space left by Heath and pressed his face into Aislen’s hair, filling his lungs with her scent, his hand closing on her shoulder. “I probably stink,” Aislen was embarrassed. “You smell like antiseptic and sickness, but under it you smell like ours,” Camer

Havermouth, Two Weeks Before At the hospital, Cameron peeked into the tray of his Ute. The bedding was in disorder, but no one was in it. The morning dew dampness on the fabric had been dried off by the sun. He tidied it up in case they needed to spend another night at the hospital. “No Talen,” Cameron told Heath as he leaned back. “Though maybe he was here for a bit?” “I wonder where he is,” Heath began to cross towards the hospital causing Cameron to pick up pace and trot after him. As they approached the ward, there was a scuffle ahead and they saw several nurses and a security guard arguing with Tabitha Marie and her camera man. “Does she f-king live here or something?” Cameron wondered. “She’s fighting for news,” Heath replied under his breath. “Like a f-king ambulance chaser, she hangs around the hospital looking for drama, and at the moment, she’s getting plenty of it.” “Heath! Heath Gale!” Tabitha Marie called out, spotting him over the security guards and nurses who w

Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeTalen left Rhett watching Morgana and headed to Cameron’s Ute. The blankets were damp with dew and held the scent of his werewolf mates, with faint undertones of semen that made him chuckle. F-king horny werewolves, he thought to himself. Even sleeping in a hospital carpark didn’t keep them from f-king.As he made himself comfortable, planning to sleep until Heath and Cameron returned, his phone vibrated in his pocket.“Tony?”“I have the police officer’s identity. How would you like me to proceed?”“Where are you now?” Talen sat up, pushing back the blankets.“Headed there to collect him.”“I’m at the hospital. Pick me up.”He moved to stand near to the road, and watched with mild amusement as the annoying news reporter began her daily attack on the hospital security guards. Things were just beginning to heat up as Tony arrived and Talen hopped into the passenger seat.“How is your mate, Talen?” Tony asked.“Awake off and on,” Talen smiled. “Much improved

Havermouth, Two Weeks Before“Avoid what?” Aislen emerged from her top her hair crazed by static and sticking to Cameron’s hands as he tried to smooth it down before giving it up as a fruitless effort. She looked amazing in the cloud of curls anyway, he thought, and it was sort of right that her hair was as untameable as she was.Heath shook his head avoiding answering, which was wise, Cameron approved as he knelt to put on Aislen’s shoes. There was no point to upsetting Aislen. Cameron hadn’t known that parley had a price, or what it was, and he wondered just what it meant that the price would be one of them for the duration of the parley. How could the price be a person?“Could it be your dad?” Aislen asked. “The person who ordered the assassination?”“Unlikely,” Heath dismissed it, grimacing at the thought of Charlie. “Why order it done by someone else, just to turn up yourself? I think, rather, that he would have threatened you and tried to persuade you to leave town.”“Could he h

Havermouth, Two Weeks BeforeRhett used the trolley to herd Tabitha and her cameraman away from Cameron and Aislen so that they could make their escape, his vindicative ramming of the reporter’s heels fuelled by the nasty volley of questions she had just thrown at Aislen.“This is assault, Rhett Salem!” Tabitha snarled at him.“Oh, f-k off Tabitha,” he replied. “For a f-king desperate ambulance chasing vulture you are pretty righteous. F-king chasing down a woman who was just shot, and shouting out her personal business… You are slime. The worst type of slime. Just own it and shut the f-k up.”He abandoned the trolley inside the doors of the hospital and trotted across the carpark to where Heath was picking up shards of broken vase and ignoring Tabitha’s attempts to engage him into an interview. Heath surprised Tabitha by passing her the broken pieces. “Throw these away for me, please, like a good girl,” he told her.“Ah, shit, Heath, don’t call her a good girl,” Rhett laughed as he h