Chapter One Hundred and One

Havermouth, Five Years Before

After breakfast, the Triquetra ripped up the floorboards in one of the rear bedrooms and inspected the stumps that held the house aloft. Cameron’s eyes lit as his feet scuffed over something that was not dirt, his footsteps sounding hollow. “Told you.” He said to Rhett, triumphantly. “I told you there was an old cellar.”

“Yeah, but whether it’s knee deep in river water…” Rhett was dubious.

“The French drain around the house says otherwise,” Cameron replied. “There’s only one way to find out. Let’s lift the lid…”

“If zombies crawl out, I’m throwing you to them and running,” Rhett replied.

“There’s no such thing as zombies,” Cameron laughed, as he and Heath used their shovels to dig around the wooden barrier. “Right?” He looked at Heath when they had cleared the edges and as much rubble off the surface as they could.

“Let’s see,” Heath grinned back, and they dug the tips of their shovels under the edge, prying it up. The wood cracked and creaked, before shattering, pieces falling below. “You were standing on that,” Heath reminded Cameron, as all four of them peered down into the darkness. “You’re lucky you didn’t fall through.”

“Can you see anything?” Aislen couldn’t beyond about a meter from the opening. She could see two stone walls that had been painted white.

“Limestone paint,” Cameron said with approval. “And stone rubble walls. Should be waterproof.”

“Ladder?” Rhett asked them.

“Yeah.”

“Turn this room into a storeroom, then,” Heath said, looking around the room. “With a secret entrance to the cellar?”

“See how big it is, and what else is above, maybe,” Cameron replied. “There might be another entry point. This is an extension on the original house, so this would have been outside originally. There would have to be an internal entry somewhere. This house is full of secret doors.”

Rhett returned with a ladder and torches, and Cameron and Heath went down. “It’s funny,” Rhett stayed away from the opening, pressed against the wall. “Technically, it’s not a height, because I’m standing on the ground, but because there’s a drop and a ladder involved, I can’t go near it.”

“Stairs you can handle, right?” Aislen looked at him with interest.

“Yeah, they’re more solid and you’re not looking down through where you’re putting your feet.” A phone began to ring in another room, and he went down the hallway. She heard his voice rise and fall in conversation as he took the phone from the bedroom and through to the balcony.

“Rhett!” Cameron called up the stairs.

“He’s on the phone,” she told him.

“Shit. Aislen, can you make your way towards the back balcony, and let me know where you hear us tapping from below? We've found stairs but have no idea where they open into and whether the way is blocked.”

“Sure,” she started down the hallway. The house was a maze of rooms, with each generation of the Edisons adding extensions to the original, much simpler, building. The rooms therefore were each a time capsule of the time of their renovation, from the 1800's pressed tin tile ceilings in the main hallway, to the 80's avocado green and pink of the second bathroom.

Following the knocks, Aislen found herself going into a small office with original, once beautiful bookshelves, through an internal door, and into an internal staircase. She tapped back. “Here!” She yelled back to them.

“Where?” Heath’s voice was muffled.

“A staircase off an office? There’s an upstairs?” She had seen the windows built into the roof line but had thought them decorative. Vaguely, she remembered Cameron talking about renovating the attic.

“Cameron’s coming!”

Aislen investigated the staircase whilst she waited. Its base was enclosed by wood panelling, and its balustrade was beautifully and ornamentally tooled. The handrail was polished smooth by the passage of hands, the dark stain worn away in places to reveal the lighter wood below.

She poked her fingers into the eyes of the wolf’s head that adorned the newel post.

“Poor wolf,” Cameron laughed as he entered.

“Sorry,” she snatched her hand back.

“It’s okay, I used to do that as a kid all the time. It’s just the right size for little fingers. Mine don’t fit anymore,” he demonstrated.

“Did you live here as a kid?” She was intrigued.

“Nah, this place was abandoned by my grandfather. Too much upkeep. Edison money comes and goes, and my grandfather was in an ‘it goes’ time.” He began feeling around the wood panelling. “If my dad hadn’t married my mum, we would have lost the land and house, as well. Mum’s money meant that my dad could hold onto the Edison land, which he passed to me when I turned eighteen. Aha,” he exclaimed. There was a click, but nothing happened.

“Fuck it. Can you give it a push from inside Heath?” He called out.

“Yep,” Heath replied from the other side of the paneling, and a section wobbled and then swung open. “The mechanism jammed,” Heath appeared, covered in dust and cobwebs, standing in the entry to a staircase leading down. Aislen shuddered, although the webs were old and uninhabited.

Heath and Cameron examined the door mechanism frowning. “Where’s Rhett?” Heath wondered. “He’s good at this sort of thing.”

“On the phone,” she said.

“Ah,” Heath and Cameron exchanged a wary look.

“What?” She wondered.

Cameron shrugged. “Rhett’s dad is in town again. He’s not due for another week or so, well…” He shrugged. “Rhett’s in trouble.”

Rhett’s dad only came to Havermouth around the full moon, was what he meant, Aislen translated to herself. He was down because of the party, and because of Aislen.

“Bad trouble?” She asked hesitantly.

“Bad enough,” Heath said under his breath. “That’s why it’s important to behave Aislen. Havermouth is a small town. People talk, and parents get involved.”

“I know,” she pointed out, defensively.

He looked up from the door mechanism.

Cameron looked between them and raised his eyebrows. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Aislen was disgruntled that despite everything, Heath still would not acknowledge that the Triquetra had caused her trouble at home. Just once, she thought to herself, just one time, she wanted them to admit that she was justified in her complaints about their behaviour. “I’ll go see if he’s finished on the phone.”

She heard Cameron and Heath mutter behind her as she left and set her shoulders, imagining that they were complaining about her to each other. In the hallway, she passed Rhett on his way in. “Oh, Rhett,” she said. He looked strained, his features pinched in a frown, and his hair worried into standing out around his face. “Heath and Cameron were looking for you in the staircase…”

“The staircase?” He was distracted from his worries.

“Yeah, apparently the staircase goes up and down.”

“Ah, cool,” his expression cleared. “Very cool. Are you coming?” He asked, when she didn’t follow him into the room.

“Too many spiderwebs for me,” she told him, trying to smile.

His eyes narrowed, seeing straight through her lie, but Heath stepped into the room attracting his attention. “You were looking for me?” Rhett asked.

“Yeah, there’s a secret door that’s jamming.”

“A secret door?” Rhett’s eyes lit. “Cool.”

Aislen continued down the hall, and out onto the balcony, feeling as if the air within the house had grown stale and could not satisfy the need of her lungs. She braced her hands on the balcony handrail and fought for breath.

She started when Heath touched her back, jerking away in instinctive response.

“Aislen,” he wrapped his arms around her and rested his cheek against the top of her head. They stood, looking out over the river, and his thoughts seeped through the touch in fragments, pieces that she did not entirely understand, but through them all was threaded a single fear – that he would lose Rhett and Cameron.

“You love them very much,” she whispered.

“Yes,” he sighed the word, simply. “I love them.”

She nodded and swallowed hard against the painful craving that writhed within her. She wanted to be loved like that. She wanted to matter to someone like that. She wanted to belong as they belonged to each other. “It must be nice,” she said softly. “To love and be loved like that.”

“Aislen…” He stepped back as he spoke her name, and she turned, her back against the railing, her eyes meeting his.

A yell from inside was followed by laughing chaos as Rhett was pursued from the house by Cameron. Rhett vaulted the balcony effortlessly, landing and sliding down the bank, where he stripped out of his clothing, throwing it hap-hazardously over his shoulder before splashing into the water.

Cameron, deprived of his original prey, seized Aislen instead, throwing her, shrieking in surprise, over his shoulder and smacking her behind. “Mine now,” he told Heath. “You want her, you come and get her.” He took off at speed and Aislen laughed hysterically, half in fright, and half in startled delight at the sudden play.

Cameron pulled her shoes off as he headed towards the water.

“Oh, no,” she cried out in protest, realizing his intention as he paused only to heel off his shoes before plunging into the shallows. “No! NO!” She screamed in laughter, clinging to him as he threw them fully dressed into the water.

They submerged before surfacing, spitting water, half-drowned, because neither had stopped laughing as they’d gone under.

She saw the moment his focus shifted, from play to sex, and he caught her face between his hands, bringing her to him so that he could kiss her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and slid her fingers through his hair, combing it back.

“Aislen,” he had beads of water in his eyelashes, and she reached out, running her thumb nail gently over them to send the beads running down his cheeks. He closed his eyes in reflex, but otherwise made no attempt to prevent her, opening again as she cupped his cheek with the palm of her hand, feeling the skin cooled by the water.

She reached between them and undid his jeans, freeing his cock and finding it already hard. “Why was Rhett running from you?” She teased. She had a suspicion from how hard he was.

“I tried to persuade him down the stairs so that he could kneel on them whilst we fucked,” Cameron was unrepentant. “He’s such a prissy bitch sometimes. Said the dust would mark his jeans. I told him to take them off then, or I’d take them off for him, and he bolted.”

“Who the fuck wants to kneel on filthy stairs that no one has used for a century, just so that a horny farmer can fuck them?” Rhett laughed, paddling closer, but keeping at a safe distance. “But I’ll fuck him whilst he fucks you.”

Cameron’s cock twitched within her grip and his pupils dilated. “Yeah, okay, I’m open to compromise.”

“You are always such a slut,” Aislen giggled, as she leaned forward to lick the river water off his neck.

“You and me both,” he replied, leaning his head to the side to expose his throat to her sucking kisses as he waded towards the shallower water where Heath waited. “And our luscious leader brought down the lube,” he grinned. “For you and me both.”

“Oh, god,” Aislen nibbled on his skin, feeling the rasp of stubble against her tongue. She sighed out against his chin as he reached the shore. “You three are bad, bad for me,” she surrendered herself into Heath’s embrace as Cameron laid her over the blonde werewolf. She saw Rhett following behind Cameron, the water running from his body as he thrashed through the shallows.

Heath’s hands stroked over her skin lifting the sodden cloth of her t-shirt, up and over them both, as Cameron pulled her skirt and underwear down. She hadn’t put a bra on that morning, and between them, they stripped her naked in short order, the slap of the discarded clothing striking the bank loud and succulent.

“Arse or cunt?” Cameron poured lube into his palm and reached between Aislen’s thighs to grip Heath’s cock and stroke it over him.

“Arse,” Heath decided.

“I get to cream her cunt alone,” Cameron crowed.

“That’s so crude,” Aislen protested breathlessly, as Heath palmed her breasts. Cameron adjusted Heath’s cock, guiding the other man into Aislen with voyeuristic enjoyment of the process. Aislen groaned out her sigh, her arse over-full of Heath and her cunt throbbing in its emptiness. The water caressed her feet, and Heath, the only dry one of the four of them, was fever-warm against her back. There was a stark contrast between his skin and Cameron’s as Cameron positioned his cock and filled her, lowering his t-shirt sodden chest to hers, causing her to complain.

“Fuck,” Heath protested, as water ran over Aislen and onto him. “You could have undressed, Cam.”

“Slipped my mind, as my mind was on my cock,” Cameron laughed and then giggled like a schoolgirl, twitching against Aislen as Rhett tugged his sodden jeans down. “Careful, Rhett! I’m ticklish… Oh,” he sighed it out as Rhett took over control of the lube and eased into him. “Okay, then, I forgive you.”

Rhett’s expression was intensely pained, his eyelashes fluttering as he sank into Cameron. Aislen watched, fascinated, over Cameron’s shoulder, as the transition played over both Rhett’s and Cameron’s faces, Cameron’s experience of the penetration was displayed in vivid detail in her mind, causing her cunt to clench around his cock in reaction. Cameron’s breath sighed out over her cheek as Rhett’s hips met his arse.

“Fuck,” Cameron ground out, his eyes meeting Aislen’s. “I don’t know what it’s like for you, but for a guy…”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “It’s not quite the same… But both can be intense. It really, mainly, depends on how you feel about the person on the other side. Or… sides,” she added, because Heath was buried within her arse as Cameron was in her cunt. “It’s also different to have more than one other person inside of you…”

“Fuck,” Cameron was aroused by the idea. “I guess it’s like fucking someone whilst you’re being fucked.”

“A bit,” she agreed. “But, I guess…” She trailed off, but all three were waiting expectantly, Heath’s and Cameron’s intent focus on her words evident through the contact of them to her body. “I guess for a girl, there’s the risk of pregnancy, which heightens things…”

(Fuck) Heath thought from beneath her and his hips moved in an instinctual thrust that had both Aislen and Cameron groaning. He followed the motion, beginning a slow, sensuous roll of his hips as his hands held Aislen’s breasts, his fingers twisting her nipples. (There is something erotic about the idea of my seed taking hold in her, in Aislen’s stomach, swelling with my baby…)

Aislen’s heart stuttered, Heath’s idle, stray thought surprising her both it its sexual context and the focus of it. It was something that Cameron also shared, his thoughts overlapping Heath’s, but Cameron’s imagination pictured it with clarity: little kids in the garden with his reddish hair and her blue eyes, so dark as to almost be purple…

Her eyes met Rhett’s over Cameron’s shoulder as he arched into a thrust, his eyelids heavy and his gaze sensual in his pleasure. In her mind, the children had dark hair, like both Rhett and her, and that slow, wicked smile…

She gripped Cameron’s hips as she came, and felt both Cameron’s and Heath’s groans vibrate through her as they followed, Cameron’s particularly pained, and the jettison more intense because of Rhett’s cock against his prostate.

“Ah, fuck,” Cameron sagged in boneless repletion onto her, and Heath grunted at the extra weight, but did not fight it. “We should quit school and life in general, and all just lie around the house and fuck, mindlessly.”

Heath laughed. “We’d starve to death.”

“But, what a way to die,” Rhett’s grin was lazy. “A better way to die than most people live.”