Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen
Havermouth, Present Time
“This is…” Heath turned the page and looked at the image of Charlotte. “Vaguely disturbing on several levels.”
“Yeah, I don’t think the girls involved volunteered this information, or at least, not all of them did,” Aislen agreed, leaning against Talen as she sipped her wine. Talen’s palm on her stomach, and the steady rise and fall as he breathed against her back, was comforting.
In the hallway, Rhett cursed, as Cameron, rolling white paint on the ceiling, sprayed it over him.
“What’s wrong, princess?” Cameron teased. “More paint in your hair?”
“Just because some of us don’t like to look like we’ve been shat on by a passing bird,” Rhett grumbled.
“With the amount of ink under your skin, you’d think you’d be less prissy about your hair.”
“White shows up on black,” Rhett retorted.
“And it doesn’t in red?” Cameron pointed out.
“Yeah, but you spend your days knee deep in animal shit, paint’s an upgrade for you.”
“The pack would be interested in this,” Heath murmured. “If they’re organizing to this extent… It could mean a lot of trouble.”
“Or the pack could stop encouraging your young men to be rapists,” Aislen suggested sweetly.
His eyes jerked up and met hers. “We have already established that we have different definitions of that term,” he replied though his teeth. “Human females don’t listen to their own bodies…”
“How many werewolf females have you fucked?” She demanded.
He grimaced. “That is different. Culturally, our females value waiting for penetrative sex until they meet their mate…”
“Until a person is willing to open their minds beyond the rhetoric they are taught from young, they will not be prepared to absorb the truth of other opinions,” Talen said quietly. “The blonde one’s mind is firmly closed.”
Heath stared at him with his jaw unhinged.
“You can go ahead and apply the werewolf interpretation of consent all you’d like when you fuck a werewolf woman, but if you’re fucking a non-werewolf, you respect that person’s definition of what is consent, and what is not.” Aislen told him. “And, no, I’m not letting you hand this list of people to the pack. You know what they will do to those families, to those girls. Even if the girls themselves aren’t involved in this, the pack will see them as threats, and there is only one way the supernatural world deals with threats, isn’t there?”
Heath looked down at the picture of Charlotte in his hands. “Fuck,” he growled out. “What then?” He put the paperwork together with brusque movements, before slapping it into the middle of the table.
“I, personally, like the idea of starting a fire with it,” Aislen told him honestly.
“Is it possible that the pack already knows about this?” Talen asked him.
“No,” Heath shook his head with certainty. “It would have come up in the pack gatherings, there would have been discussions and…” He shrugged. “We would have known about it.”
“The pack did not kill Patrick Carter?” Talen asked him.
Aislen felt a twinge around her heart at the question. She had, she thought, brutally been pushing aside her feelings about her father and his manner of death.
Heath’s eyebrows raised. “Patrick Carter was killed in a tragic work accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Talen told him. “It was murder.”
“Because of this?” Heath looked at the papers frowning. “I will ask August and Abigail to make sure that the pack wasn’t involved, but… I’m sure we would have heard. They would have warned the young werewolves to be more careful with their…” He trailed off, sliding a look at Aislen.
“Rape?” She suggested helpfully.
He rolled his eyes. “Something would have been said,” he continued. “And we would have heard of it.”
“It wasn’t the vampires,” Aislen looked up at Talen, although she knew the answer. He shook his head. “Was it the criminal organization illegally logging and using Zeus as a cover?” She asked him.
“What?” Heath’s eyes widened. “What was that?”
“It wasn’t a vampire sanctioned killing,” Talen replied. “As to whether the criminal organization was responsible… I am still working on that. Patrick Carter,” he said to Heath. “Discovered that there was illegal logging taking place under the cover of Zeus Forest Works and unsanctioned by the nest. I have left the organization intact at this time in an attempt to trace it back to its source.”
“I’d say that would answer who killed Patrick Carter,” Heath replied. “Your family, Aislen,” he added ruefully. “And your insistence of poking your nose into other's business. You should learn from what happened to your father and exercise more caution in your own life. Stop this Secret Keeper nonsense.”
“Nope,” Aislen grinned around her wine glass. “Not going to happen, Heath. This town is rotting in its own secrets and double standards. I’m not going to stand by and let them continue with their nasty, mean-spirited gossip anymore, I’m going to drag out all the secrets that they want to keep hidden.”
“You are going to get yourself killed,” Heath replied angrily. “Your father got himself killed doing the exact same thing that you’re doing – exposing things that people in this town work very hard to keep hidden.”
“Why Heath?” She demanded, setting the wine down on the table. “Why do they think they have the right to behave in a way that these secrets should be kept? Your pack thinks they are above humans. More than humans. You’re happy to live amongst us, to use us to disguise your supernatural natures, you fuck us, sit next to us in school and in church, let us repair your cars, serve your food… But underneath your pretty smiles and friendly ways, you think you’re more than us, better than us.
“Well, that’s not going to fly anymore,” she leaned across the table towards him angrily. “The cracks are there and it’s bigger than me and my father. These girls’ parents,” she jabbed her finger at the pile of paper, “they know that something is going on. They might not know that the local werewolf pack has given their young boys free rein on their daughters, to the point of medical professionals breaching confidentiality just to produce lists of which girls are on contraceptives. They might not know that, but they know that what is happening to these girls is wrong.”
“By your standards,” he enunciated each word.
“By these girls standards,” she replied. “It takes two to tango, and one half of that pair is walking away from the sex feeling raped, Heath. That matters. That counts. That is important.”
“You cannot change generations of pack mode of conduct, culture, and behaviour with smart-arsed little poems,” he snarled at her. “All you’ll achieve is getting yourself killed.”
“This will not stop,” she told him. “It is these girls’ parents now, but this isn’t the only issue Havermouth, and the surrounding towns, have with the pack. You can drive these families out of town, kill them, whatever. But every day, your werewolves are out there, fucking more human girls and creating new victims. It’s just a matter of time until they combine forces again. Times are changing Heath. The pack can't continue to perpetuate this predatory behaviour and expect to get away with it. Something needs to change.”
“You don’t need to be the one to change it!” He cried out. “It doesn’t have to be you.” He drew in a deep breath and pushed up from his seat, walking around the table and cupping her face in his hands. “It doesn’t have to be you,” he repeated, and leaned his forehead forward to rest against hers. (Please… Don’t put yourself in danger.)
She swallowed and slid her hands up his chest and around his neck. He pressed his lips to her forehead and then drew her against him in an embrace, threading his fingers into her hair as he held her tightly to him. “I think,” she said softly, “that it does. It’s weird, but it feels right. I’ve always had this inconvenient ability, which seemed to have no other purpose than to make my life more hellish than it needed to be, but… since I’ve come back to Havermouth, it suddenly has a purpose. I have a purpose. Maybe that is why I have it? Maybe I’m meant to do this. Maybe I’m meant to make things better for the people in this shit hole of a town.”
“Fuck,” Heath sighed, and lowered his face into her hair, breathing in her scent. “They say Triquetras form when there are times of peril, and more than one alpha might be needed to protect the female and young. Maybe that’s why we are together. Why Talen is also your mate. You are the fucking peril. If you continue to do this, you’re going to need every single one of us to keep you alive.”
“Well, that’s a positive thought,” she replied tartly. “As usual, you say the nicest things to me, Heath.”
“I love you,” he barely breathed the words, and she felt the earth move under the staggering admission. If he had not been holding her so tightly to him, she thought, her knees would have given way. “I love you. I don’t want to lose you.”