I could feel a tension rising in the group, not so much with the witches but with the vampires and the now advancing werewolves. There were quite a few of them, seven by my count. There were three women and four men of different ages. The youngest few of the group looked to be somewhere around my age I guessed. I watched as the were pack mingled with the warlock coven a little bit before they eventually made their way over to us. The head of the warlocks right now was Adrian seeing as Martin wasn’t present. He made his way over to where my Aunt and Arne were stood, Arne looked slightly on edge as they approached but my Aunt looked fine.

‘Morrigan, it’s a pleasure to see you again.’ Adrian said to my Aunt with his hand outstretched. She shook it graciously.

‘You too Adrian. Marcus, it’s been a while.’ She nodded to the other guy Adrian was with. I assume he was the leader of the weres.

‘Good to see you again Morrigan, just wish it was under better circumstances.’ Marcus replied. He had a gruff voice which to be honest, sort of matched his appearance. He was a big looking bloke, just about as tall as Arne, dark haired and bearded and a bit bulkier, but I couldn’t tell properly under the amount of layers he had on.

In fact, all of his group were decked out in proper outdoor weather clothing. I guess werewolves were the camping, hiking, outdoorsy type. We were all introduced to each other; the wolves were their leader Marcus who I estimated was in his early forties, then there was his almost comically tiny wife Janine, who was maybe the same age as my Aunt, there were also a brother and sister around their mid-twenties named Scott and Chloe, another guy who was maybe a bit older; fifties give or take. He was called Neil and had a very strong Geordie accent. The final two were a boy of around nineteen or so called Charlie and then, standing beside Liam was a particularly gorgeous looking brunette girl with a huge smile and flushed cheeks. I found out her name was Eden and she was in the same year as us at school, except she went to state school in town. She was… stunning. And seemed genuinely nice too.

‘Hi! My name’s Eden, it’s nice to finally meet you! Liam’s told me all about you!’ She beamed at me and thrust her hand out. I was taken aback by her forwardness and friendliness, pausing before I realised I was to shake her hand. Duncan must have noticed I was in a bit of a dither, as he casually slid his way over to me and put an arm around my shoulder. I did notice that Liam’s eye twitched when Duncan did that.

‘Eden, this is Madelyn. We’re in some of the same classes at school.’ Liam said, never talking his eyes off me. Shit what was his problem?

‘Maddie, please. I’m sorry but Liam never mentioned you before.’ I said as I broke eye contact with Liam and looked at Eden who was still smiling away. ‘And this is Duncan.’ I introduced the vampire who was draping himself over me. He held his hand out to Eden who shook it enthusiastically along with “Hi, hiya, hi’s” then on to Liam who said nothing, but just shook Duncan’s hand, firmly. Now I was picking up on the atmosphere, but I’m not entirely sure that Eden was. Then I remembered my witchy manners.

‘Who’d like a cup of tea and a biscuit?’ I offered, breaking a bit of the tension I could feel. Eden’s eye lit up.

‘Aw a hot drink sounds nice right about now. Sure!’

She grabbed my arm and walked with me over to the table where we had our usual supplies set up. I noticed a few of the older members of each faction were a little hesitant of each other, but the younger ones weren’t really all that bothered, with barely any animosity. I suppose old habit die hard, especially knowing a little about historical events between each group. Vampires and werewolves never really got on to begin with and of course, there was the rivalry between witches and warlocks. But I could see something forming between Duncan and Liam and I really wasn’t so keen on that.