Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Two
Havermouth, Present Time
It was rather fun to shop with Heath. He had a particular and uncompromising vision as to what he liked and what he didn’t, and he wasn’t afraid to offer his opinion. That he looked gorgeous sitting in the guest chair in the change rooms, and that the shop assistant and other customers melted over his clean cut and polished good looks, wasn’t bad for her ego either, she acknowledged to herself.
Aislen enjoyed posing in the various outfits that she had selected and watching the shift of his expression from blatant desire to a sneer of disdain. She bought far more than she had intended, she admitted. She waited at the register, blocked from the display by Heath’s back and shoulders as he insisted on scanning his card and keeping her ignorant on the details of the transaction.
As they loaded the car with bags, she tried to reason with him. “Not to be ungrateful, but I do have my own money,” she told him.
“Sure,” he drawled. “And who did you buy the sheer-panelled corset with garter belt and lace-edged thigh high stockings for?”
She looked away. Fuck it, she thought to herself, he had her pegged there. She had been thinking of the expression that had come over Cameron’s face when she stripped to adjust her garters and stockings, and Rhett’s penchant for them.
“Yeah,” Heath’s eyes smouldered as they met hers. “You don’t have to say it, Aislen. I know who you had in mind when you made those purchases. Even if I wasn’t sure of who you were thinking when you made those decisions, even if you’re reluctant to admit who you bought those things for… I would still insist on buying your clothes. You are our mate.”
Aislen was distracted from replying, her eyes falling on the shop window across from them. “Dr. James,” she said softly.
Heath followed her gaze. “Yes, Dr. James has a clinic in Redbank, as well as in Havermouth.”
“She has a clinic in Havermouth still?” Aislen looked at him.
“You don’t need to worry about her, Aislen,” he said gently. “That was… A one-time reaction of a mother under extreme grief.”
“She killed her child,” Aislen told him. “And I told her that I knew.”
His jaw dropped. “She did what?”
“Her babysitter cancelled on date night. Dr. James slipped Penny a sedative so that she’d sleep and not interrupt her parents. Something went wrong, and when they checked on her in the morning, she was dead. They were the ones who put Penny’s body on Taylor’s Road. They disposed of their own daughter like she was roadkill,” she was disgusted even five years later. “I told Dr. James that I knew, and that is why she had me sectioned that night. So that if I told anyone else, they’d think I was mentally disturbed, and so that she could threaten me with worse if I didn’t stay silent.”
“Fuck,” he murmured, giving her a look.
“Oh, don’t start,” she told him. “Don’t start with that again.”
“Well,” he replied. “I don’t have to, do I?”
Aislen’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the doctor’s surgery. “I wonder…” She murmured, putting the thought aside for the time being. In the car, Heath met her eyes, and then looked away. She didn’t have to touch him to know what he was thinking as he put the car into reverse and pulled out into traffic. “I’m not scared of the doctor,” she told him.
“You have a remarkable number of enemies for someone who has only been in town for a couple of weeks,” he pointed out. “And making more every day, Aislen. You are my mate, our mate, and we can’t protect you if you won’t listen to us. What you are doing is dangerous. We have to live the rest of our lives in Havermouth. Sometimes, it’s just better to not make waves.”
“Heath,” she ventured cautiously. “I’m not sure where this is leading. I’m not making promises that this will lead anywhere. I don’t know if I can spend the rest of my life in Havermouth. I hate this town…”
“Havermouth is our home…”
“Your home, Heath, not mine.”
“You are ours, Aislen,” he said softly.
“Yeah, you made that blatantly clear when you tattooed your name all over me,” she replied. “But you’re wrong. I am mine. I am still angry at you three for everything that you have done to me. You set out to break me, Heath. Who does that to someone? Let alone someone that you profess to love?”
“A desperate person, Aislen,” he told her. “Someone trying to hold onto something that is as intangible as water.”
“It was an awful thing to do. An awful, awful thing to set out to do to someone.”
He was silent, his eyes on the road that stretched out before them. She sighed and turned to look out the window.
“I’m sorry,” he said so quietly that she thought she had misheard. She looked over at him and he reached over the center console to take her hand. “I am sorry,” he repeated. “I seem to make the wrong choices when it comes to you, Aislen. I always have. I don’t understand you at all, your reactions are always different to what I expect. I… I can’t even say that I never mean to hurt you, because sometimes, I honestly absolutely do. You frustrate me into striking out against you.”
He meant what he said, his hold on her hand confirmed it, but it wasn’t reassuring. “I don’t know how we can make anything of this, Heath,” she told him honestly. “We are toxic, you, me, Rhett, and Cameron. We always have been.”
He released her hand and indicated, pulling off the expressway, and driving down a dirt road where it opened up into a look-out point. He parked the car and turned to look at her. “I think,” he was thoughtful as he spoke, “that you will find we’re not as toxic as you think we are now that we can speak honestly about what we are, and what pressures we are facing from the pack.”
“Well, that would certainly be a nice change,” she said ruefully. “So, start talking.”
“I am trying to think of where to begin,” he admitted. “There is so much that you just don’t understand about us, about werewolves, about Rhett, Cameron, and I, and our pack. I guess…” He grimaced. “Because of our destination and because it is a frequent topic of argument between us…” He sighed wearily.
“Whilst werewolves are compatible and look much the same as humans, we are not the same, in the same way that Neanderthal man and Homosapiens were relatives, but not the same species. Werewolves are not human,” saying the words with emphasis. “We live amongst them, in packs, within human communities, and as a result, we abide by human law - but only where it does not conflict with our own. It is just impractical to apply all human laws to us. I have tried to tell you this before…”
“There’s human law, and there’s just decent behaviour,” she pointed out.
“That’s where your lack of understanding is a problem, Aislen. It’s not that simple,” he said with a flare of irritation. He took a deep breath, visibly controlling his temper. “Our sex drive ramps up in the lead up to turning eighteen. The pursuit of sex becomes obsessive and takes priority over almost anything else. This response is strongest in alphas and betas amongst the pack – and they are primarily male,” he said. “Do I need to explain alphas and betas to you, Aislen?”
“No,” she tried to keep the bite out of her tone, not wanting to be the one to escalate the conversation, but already she could tell that he was working his way towards justifying the way werewolves treated human girls. “I understand that werewolves have a ranking system, and a method of identifying dominance within themselves. You, Rhett, and Cameron are all alphas, but they recognize you as the dominant alpha.”
“That is correct,” he nodded. “Not all werewolves rank, and within the ranks there are those who are more dominant, like myself, and less, like Cameron. We have an instinctual understanding, both of our own position within the pack by rank and by dominance within the rank. Alphas and betas are usually male, and they tend to be stronger, faster, and more aggressive in their behaviours – all attributes that exist to enable us to procreate successfully.
“Where the biological imperative to breed is denied, we become especially aggressive,” he explained. “Instinct tells us that if we are not fucking, it must be due to a shortage of females, in which case, other males, other alphas and betas, become competition for the available females. We fight each other, brutally, ruthlessly, and destructively.
“Instinct and biology mean that female werewolves are selective as to whom they fuck, and combined with certain cultural expectations, they do not have penetrative sex until they find their mates, as a result. This combination, at the origin of our species, meant that the best genetics were passed on, and that the pack population was managed so resources did not threaten our survival,” he looked out the windscreen without seeing the view, framing his next sentence in his mind. “Obviously, times have changed, and having our alphas and betas fighting amongst themselves is not ideal, and we live amongst a resource that alleviates that instinct, whilst not forcing our females to go against theirs,” he met her eyes.
“So, rather than rape your own females, you rape humans,” she shook her head in disgust.
“It is not rape,” he said, his eyes narrowing and his expression tightening. “As I said, and have said before, our instincts are heightened. We recognize signals in human females that are so subtle that they’re unaware that they’re giving them. Scent, breathing changes, pupil dilation, heart rate amongst other things. The girls we fuck want to be fucked, or her body does at least. But they don’t always listen to their bodies, and social indoctrination kicks in--”
“So, your answer is – she might be saying no, but her body is saying yes and that means it’s okay?” Aislen rolled her eyes. “Rape, Heath. R. A. P. E. Rape.”
“No,” he snapped back irritably. “It is not. Sex is natural, the body, the mind, needs it. We are designed to have it. But humans put these rules in place as to how and when it should happen that run in direct conflict with the needs of a body. Humans are hurting themselves with their stupid rules and, as with all human law, werewolves only follow what doesn’t conflict with our own.”
“You have the same rules, Heath! The same set of rules as humans – men can fuck as they please, but women are expected to be virgins until they marry. You’ll honour that amongst werewolves, but when it’s a human girl – she’s not listening to her body? Are you listening to yourself?” She demanded. “Werewolves’ social issues and lack of control does not give them the right to abuse humans. Werewolves should be teaching their young men respect and control over themselves, rather than giving them free rein to abuse humans.”
“It cannot be controlled,” he growled, his wolf lighting his eyes.
“Masturbation,” she replied. “Or fucking each other, would be better options.”
“The pack is not…” He shook his head. “Homosexuality, bisexuality, is not seen as being natural by the pack.”
“That’s…” She rolled her eyes and sighed out a breath trying to keep her temper. “Same-sex attraction or bisexuality exists amongst animals and even insects. It is the very definition of natural. You cannot sit here, Heath, and tell me that your biological needs are justification for overriding human’s beliefs, but the pack’s beliefs are justification for ignoring a very practical solution to that self-same problem.”
“It is not--”
“Ugh,” she made a sound of disgust in the back of her throat. “Talen was right. Your mind is absolutely closed tight, so tight that you can’t see your own hypocrisy. Start the car, you intolerable arsehole. Let’s go see if your fucked up social issues are responsible for my house being under attack.”