Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Three

Havermouth, Present Time

“Not now, Rhett,” Heath sighed.

“You knew!” Rhett rounded on him in shock. “You knew that he intended to turn her!”

“We can’t,” Heath rose to his feet and located his jeans. “We can’t turn her werewolf, Rhett. The failure rate is too high. She has three werewolves and a vampire as her mates. If we can’t turn her, it is only logical that he will.”

“And then what!” Rhett’s fury was such that the words were all but yelled. “We grow old, whilst she stays eternally young?”

“Would you rather her grow old and die, when she has the option to be young and live forever?” Heath demanded. “We cannot give her that, but he can!”

“What about kids?” Cameron asked. “If he turns her into a vampire, can she still have kids?”

They fell into silence, their eyes flicking to Aislen and then away.

“I can have kids,” she answered their unspoken question. “Bitch-faced Tabby Cat was speaking shit. I had a miscarriage, that is all. My doctor never said that I wouldn’t be able to have kids afterwards. I have no idea where she came up with that… She’s obviously been doing some digging into me, but that part is just wrong.”

“I think I have missed something,” Talen rumbled. “Who is Bitch-face Tabby Cat?”

“A long story,” Aislen sighed.

“We have time right now,” Rhett pointed out stubbornly. “Whose baby was it?”

“We agreed on the way over here,” Heath muttered under his breath. “Not to raise it with her for a few days.”

“It’s been raised,” Rhett snapped.

“She doesn’t know,” Cameron told him. “Us, or some other guy.”

“What other guy?” Heath and Rhett both demanded in unison.

“Guy Barnham?” Rhett scowled in distaste.

“Fuck, no, not Guy,” Aislen groaned. “Fine. Let’s just get this out into the open, why not! When you three were being jerk-offs and using Charlotte to make me jealous, I met up with one of those Gamma Rho Xi’s. He was… well, he was depressed over the drownings the night before, and I was depressed over you three fucking around, and we went to a crummy motel, got fucked up and had sex. It was horrible, and I did my very best to pretend it never happened, but then, I found out I was pregnant.”

“Fuck,” Rhett’s mouth hung open. “I need a cigarette.” He glanced at Heath and frowned, his eyes searching Heath’s face. “You fucking knew,” he accused.

“I knew about the miscarriage,” Heath replied. “Not about the other guy.”

“You three fucked Charlotte,” she reminded them. “You can’t be all high and mighty because I did the same thing.”

“I would like to turn Aislen,” Talen spoke as Rhett’s mouth dropped open, preventing another argument by diverting his attention. “You are correct. That has always been my intention. However,” he said firmly as Rhett started to protest. “However, there is no hurry to do so, and I would not do so without her consent. The process is far more involved than three small drinks of vampire blood spaced over twelve hours apart.”

“We don’t know what she is or what effect that will have,” Rhett was not placated.

“Agreed,” Talen replied calmly. “Which is why this was the last dose. Werewolves,” he sighed out with a chuckle. “Always so quick to anger. I am confident that this is safe, however, as the blood that she has consumed is being used by her body to repair damage, there will be insufficient left to begin to alter her on the cellular level required to create a vampire.

“I am not hiding things from you, dark one,” he told Rhett. “I am merely allowing this relationship to develop on its own time frame. What we have here, with Aislen, is unusual and complicated. Three species, four males and one female. It is not something to hurry and there are other concerns that take precedence currently, such as Aislen’s apparently plentiful enemies.”

Rhett closed his mouth and a muscle worked in the corner of his jaw as he chewed on his thoughts. He finally gave a slight shrug. “Alright, point taken.”

“Thank you.”

“I could do with a cigarette too,” Aislen decided. “And a glass of wine.”

“It’s not even midday,” Heath protested.

She raised her eyebrows. “I wasn’t asking for permission. I’ve had a pretty shitty couple of days, and I want to fucking have a cigarette and a glass of wine on the porch of my house and so that’s precisely what I am going to do,” she slid off Talen’s lap and reached for her clothes. “If you’re all going to be bitches you can leave.”

Heath stooped and picked up her panties passing them to her. “I’ll go open a bottle.”

“So…” Rhett began to dress. “Was the baby…?”

“I don’t know whose it was, Rhett,” she sighed as she pulled on her top. “I didn’t do a DNA test, I had enough on my plate, trying to keep up with my scholarship, recover from a miscarriage, and arrange a fucking funeral.”

He wrapped his arms around her when she stood, stroking his fingers through her hair, and resting his cheek on the top of her head. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. She sagged into the embrace, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m an arsehole, you’re right,” he pressed his lips to the crown of her head. “Let’s have that wine and cigarette. Carefully now,” he kept his hand under her elbow, concerned that she might fall.

“I’m fine, full of vampire blood, remember?” She assured him. “It’s funny, I ran into one of the other Gamma Rho Xi pledges the other day,” she said as they walked barefoot out onto the porch. He sat on the rocking chair and patted his knee. She slid onto his lap. He put two cigarettes into his mouth and lit them before passing her one.

She drew in the smoke and released it slowly as he began to rock on the chair idly. “Liam his name was. That night at the drive-in movies, I told him not to jump into the river because I saw that he would die. He’s a primary school teacher now.”

“Cameron said…” He blew out smoke. His mind was filled with the image of cuddling up to Cameron in his green-toned bedroom and Cameron murmuring about Aislen’s visions and how that had led to her running towards a shooter instead of away… “You see things, like his mother, and the…” He trailed off.

“The gunman,” she finished for him. “Yeah. And…” She hesitated, worrying her lip with her teeth.

“And?” He prompted.

She sighed and shrugged. “It might be nothing, but… I’ve had similar dreams a few times. Water flooding Havermouth, and…”

Talen stepped out with three wine glasses and an open bottle of wine. “I am interrupting,” he said as he balanced the glasses on the handrail of the porch. “I apologize.”

“It’s fine, daddy,” she assured him with a smile, accepting the wine that he handed her. She took a sip. “We were just talking about dreams.”

“Did you dream about the shooter?” Rhett asked her.

“No,” she shook her head. “Not about Cameron’s mother either.”

“What are you dreaming about?” Talen leaned his hips against the railing.

“Havermouth flooding,” Rhett told him.

“Sounds like Aislen,” Cameron snickered as he stepped out onto the porch. “Planning to drown the town, now?”

“I’m a hero, remember,” she pulled a face at him. “Havermouth’s hero, and co-mayor.”

Rhett snorted. “The Secret Keeper is co-mayor, not Aislen Carter.”

That comment stung a little, she admitted to herself, because it left no doubt that Rhett did not think that Aislen Carter had any chance of getting the town’s approval and support to be mayor. “I wouldn’t want to be mayor, anyway,” Aislen flicked her cigarette butt out onto the gravel. “I’m not even eligible to be one. I don’t live here. I live in Kabramatta.”

“You live here,” Rhett flicked his butt out after hers. “This is your home, Aislen. You’re not going back to Kabramatta. You belong here with us.”

“Food,” Heath called from inside, cutting off any further argument. “Come and get it before it gets cold.”

“Saved by lunch,” Rhett acknowledged as they stood. “But Aislen, you’re going to have to get your head around the fact that you belong with us, and we belong here. Havermouth is your home, and we are your mates.”

“A discussion for another time, dark one,” Talen’s voice carried warning. “Give it time. If you try to force this, you will do more harm than good.”

Rhett sighed heavily but let the conversation drop.