Havermouth, Present timeThe man had been wearing a cuff.Meguitte sat staring at the notepad on her lap without seeing the list of spell components that she had been compiling. Think, Meguitte, she told herself firmly. Think about this carefully. Could it have been the second cuff? She closed her eyes. She would be lying to herself if she believed that, she admitted.She understood, now, why Logan had insisted on a second cuff for a sister who had died long before they had met. He had kept one cuff for himself, to control the lycan within him, and had given Lark, Dove, and Robin the other cuff, along with the footage from the camera button which Lark had told her Logan had been wearing, and Logan’s trio of witches had managed to reproduce Meguitte’s spell.He had watched Meguitte cast it, and like a fool she had even glibly listed the ingredients for him as she had done it.Her heart ached at the betrayal so much that the pain eclipsed the important fact of why. Why had Logan done th

Havermouth, Present timeThe reception only just held them all, and the circle was a little malformed as a result of the shape of the room, everyone a little closer together than they were entirely comfortable with, considering a good number of them chose to go sky clad again. Sigrid and the mysterious vampire, Samuel, joined the circle, as did Leighton and his family, with Aislen and Bianca in the centre, sitting cross legged and knee to knee.“I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you kept your underwear on,” Aislen smirked. She was also grateful for Bianca’s wards, as otherwise she would not be able to concentrate. Bianca snickered. “For a bitch f-king four men, you’re so prudish.”“I truly, truly am,” Aislen agreed wholeheartedly. “In some circumstances. Like I fully believe that you should not know if your best friend has freckles on her labia from personal experience. That’s taking the best friend thing a little beyond comfortable for me."“Are we?” Bianca asked quietly, her

Etrait, Nine Hundred and Forty Years Before The beach showed little sign of the tragedy that had played out on its sand the day before, the tide having stolen away almost every stain of blood, the fine sand sticking to the surface of the rest. Seagulls and other predatory sea birds fluttered over the darker patches, attracted to the insects that buzzed, searching for the meat that accompanied the blood. Thaelen crossed the sand to the water gripping the little cloth bag containing herbs, oatmeal, and the crushed leaves of a local plant known as washweed that one of the village women had made for him. He stripped to his skin before wading out into the gentle waves, submerging before rising, water running down his chest from the end of his beard. He was beginning to look overgrown again, he thought ruefully as he used the bag to scrub over his skin and through his hair and beard, washing away the sweat and dirt from training. His eyes rested on the shadows of the mountain range, where

Etrait, Nine Hundred and Forty Years BeforeThe tunnels widened into an intersection. For a moment, Thaelen stood looking around him. He couldn’t have hoped for more or less, he admitted to himself. On one hand, there was a stack of barrels to one side that he was confident held the black powder, and the meeting point of tunnels was the perfect opportunity to detonate the explosives with the aim of collapsing the tunnels behind them.On the other hand, there were three tunnels before them, and he did not know which one to take. He could not afford to explode and collapse the meeting point of the tunnels without knowing that they’d taken the right one to safety, and if they chose the wrong tunnel without collapsing the way behind them, they might lose their head-start.It was possible that the human army would realize that someone had deliberately started the fires and the explosion, and followed them into the tunnels.He breathed in, trying to discern which tunnel smelled of fresh air

Concordia, Nine Hundred and Forty Years BeforeSigrid and Meguitte were in the entry hall of the stronghold, removing their cloaks and handing them to the attendants there, and turned as he descended the stairs. Meguitte’s face immediately crumpled and she ran to throw her hands around him, weeping hysterically against his chest. He embraced her tightly, touched by her distress.Perhaps due to the fact that she had been a woman grown, or because of her reservation with men in general, since he had turned her, Meguitte had spent much of her time deep within the forest, coming to the city and his stronghold only rarely. Sigrid had visited her frequently, and so Thaelen, busy with ruling, organizing raids, and distracted by Gera, had been content to leave the two women to their own devices.Thaelen had not thought that there was any sentiment beyond her gratitude to him for saving her life and a general friendship between them, and her emotional display moved him.“It is alright, Meguitt