Chapter One Hundred and Forty-Four

Havermouth, Present Time

“Keep an eye on the door,” Heath said to Cameron as Talen reached into his pocket and took out a pocketknife, flicking open the blade. Cameron stepped over to the doorway, his gaze switching between the little window and Talen, his fascination evident on his face.

“That’s a little generic and probably not too sanitary,” Rhett commented on the pocketknife.

“What did you expect?” Heath snorted. “One of those fancy pointed rings that your employees like to play with?”

“Well, yeah, actually,” Rhett retorted. “I sort of thought that was the origin of the design, or that maybe he’d use his teeth, not a pocketknife which he could have used for god knows what before.”

Talen flicked him an amused glance. “Like werewolves, vampires are pretty resilient to germs,” he replied. “And I only wear one piece of jewellery,” he gestured to his neck where the key to Aislen’s collar hung on the chain.

She automatically reached for her neck, with a panicked thought that the nurses may have removed it, but the collar was still in place. Talen saw the gesture and smiled fondly, reaching out to touch her cheek. “It is still in place,” he assured her.

“Good, I was frightened for a moment,” she smiled back. “I would miss it, were it to be lost.”

“I would replace it,” he assured her and pressed the blade of his knife to the vein in his wrist.

Aislen watched as he used his thumb to stem the bleeding. “Theory and real life aren’t matching up,” she admitted to him as he offered his wrist to her.

He smiled. “You will find imagination makes it far worse than the reality,” he told her.

“This is not your first time doing this,” she realized.

“I have healed humans this way before. Your unknown supernatural nature is what makes this more unusual. Vampires have performed this service to our human allies for thousands of years. It is our repayment for the blood they give to sustain our lives,” he replied.

“Alright,” she reached out and brought his wrist to her mouth. He removed his thumb from the vein and the blood touched her tongue. For a moment, she fought the instinct to spit it out, and instead forced herself to swallow. It was not bad, she decided as it pooled on her tongue again. The sensation and flavour were different to her imagination, which had pictured swallowing metallic-tasting tomato soup.

After the third mouthful, Talen pulled back and lifted his wrist to his own mouth, licking over the wound to seal it.

“What was it like?” Rhett was entranced.

“Not as salty as I thought,” Aislen said, struggling to find an appropriate description. “And not as thick.”

“Hmm,” Talen stroked his hand over her hair. “Every person is a unique dining experience to a vampire,” he commented. “No two people taste precisely the same, and frequently the same person can change over time due to the influence of health and diet.”

“Tyler must taste good, for you seem to prefer him,” Aislen observed.

“I prefer Tyler’s company, and not so much his penchant for beer and pizza,” Talen chuckled. “But this is his equivalent of a working holiday, so I am allowing him some lenience with his contract, which normally has certain diet and exercise requirements.”

“He said you fill his fridge with green stuff, too,” she remembered. “Vampire caring.”

“It is. But what is good for you is also good for me,” he leaned over and kissed her forehead. “We will leave you to rest. The dark one will stay to watch you.”

Heath narrowed his eyes at Talen, and then slid a look at Rhett. “Very well,” he agreed. “Cam and I could do with some food and a shower. We’ll come back this evening and one of us will stay with you overnight.”

“I will stay tonight,” Talen corrected him. “Night is my preference.”

Heath paused, considering arguing and then nodded slightly. “Fair enough.” He walked around the bed and leaned over to kiss Aislen’s cheek. “Sleep. Hopefully, Talen’s blood will start to work, and tomorrow we will be able to take you home.”

He meant the river house, but she was too weary to argue it with him, and just nodded and lifted her cheek for Cameron when he came to the bed. He pressed his face into her hair instead and breathed in deeply.

“I probably stink,” she protested weakly.

“You smell like antiseptic and sickness, but under it you smell like ours,” Cameron replied, his voice thick and his face hidden in her hair. “Fuck, Aislen… I don’t want to go. I don’t want to let you out of my sight. Every instinct I have tells me not to.”

“None of us do,” Heath put his hand on Cameron’s shoulder. “But Talen is right. We’ve been here since Aislen was brought in. We could use some sleep, and a shower, something more to eat than what’s in the vending machines.”

Cameron sighed and straightened. His eyes were reddened, but he smiled at Aislen with a slight depreciating shrug. “Sometimes instincts suck. But we’ll be back soon, okay?”

“Okay. Go have a sleep and a shower, Cam. I’m not going anywhere,” she gestured at the bed.

Rhett followed them to the door and the Triquetra held an intense murmured conversation, casting glances over their shoulders at her. Talen leaned over until his cheek was against hers, and breathed in. “You do smell like antiseptic and sickness, and ours,” he purred into her ear. “I love you. Try to rest. And…” he sighed slightly. “Talk to the dark one.”

He leaned back, meeting her eyes, and nodded slightly before straightening fully and walking to the door, collecting Heath and Cameron on his way by placing his hand on either werewolf’s back. The door closed behind them, and Rhett stood, his chin to his chest, lost in thought, before sighing heavily and walking over to where a recliner armchair was near the window. He perched on the edge of the seat, his elbows on his knees and his hands held loosely between them, staring at the floor intently.

Aislen was exhausted, fighting back the pull of sleep, but she had not missed the undercurrent of the Triquetra’s conversation, nor that Talen had very deliberately left Rhett behind to talk with her, as well as guard her.

“Rhett,” she whispered, reaching out a hand, careful of the j-line and tubing that ran from it. She remembered staring at his portrait at the school and ruminating on the distance that Rhett had been placing between them.

Rhett rose to his feet and collected the small guest chair that was pushed against the wall, dragging it over to her bedside. He sat on it and took her hand between his and kissed the knuckles of her fingers. “Sleep Aislen. You need to rest.”

“Something is wrong,” she started.

He looked alarmed. “Are you in pain? The vampire’s blood? I’ll get the nurse…”

“No, no, not that,” she hurried to assure him, gripping his hand with hers to stop him from rising. “No, I’m fine. A bit tired, and hungry, but… Rhett. Something is wrong between you and me. You’re not… I don’t know exactly. You’re just not as… involved in things as the others.”

His eyes dropped to their joined hands, and he grimaced slightly, a pained expression, rather than an irritated one. “I don’t know how to be,” he said, almost under his breath. “This has been so fucked up from start to finish. I seem to have spent more of our relationship trying not to be too close to you to try to get some balance between the Triquetra, and now I’ve gone too far in the extreme. And you…” He trailed off.

“Me?” She prompted.

He shrugged and swallowed hard. “You haven’t forgiven me for the tattoos and piercings,” he said, barely breathing the words. “Although I think you have forgiven Heath and Cameron. I think I… I think I ruined how you felt about me. I think I damaged our bond. The bond between mates. And that terrifies me because I don’t know how to fix it… And then,” the words rushed out of him, flooded from him, as if he had been holding them back. “And then you got shot, and…”

He shook his head, the sudden outpouring of words ending, and he lowered his forehead onto her thigh.

“Oh, Rhett,” she whispered, and put her hand on his head.

“And I thought that I had missed my chance,” he said into the blankets. “That I had wasted every moment that I’ve had with you, trying to change you, rather than just enjoying being with you. I meant well. I did mean well. I love Heath and Cameron. I love them so much, and it was always about us, until you came along… And I didn’t stop thinking about it as us and you. I didn’t think of it as you being a part of us.”

She sighed and closed her eyes, exhaustion winning. “I fucked things up for you, Rhett,” she said softly. “You were happy before I came along - you, Heath, and Cameron. And then, I fucked things up, and because of me, you had Heath and Cameron resenting you, and you wouldn’t let me close because you didn’t want to make their resentment greater. Were you able to be happy again after I left?”

“God, no,” he shook his head without lifting it from her thigh. “I dreamed of you constantly and then I’d wake, and it was physically painful to realize that it had just been a dream. I couldn’t talk to Heath or Cameron about it because I didn’t want to stir things up again, and I felt like I was constantly carrying around the guilt of being the reason that we couldn’t keep you. When Heath said you were coming back…” He released his breath. “It was such a relief. A second chance. I was ready to agree to almost anything that Heath came up with if it meant not waking from another of those dreams.”

Aislen stroked her fingers through the silk of his hair, feeling the warmth of the strands closest to his scalp. “I love you, Rhett,” she murmured, on the edge of sleep. “I have always loved you. I forgive you. I do.”

As she slipped into sleep, she heard his breath indrawn on a sob.