by H. T. Night
Chapter 18
The last time I had a dream like this, I awoke in a panic, grasping desperately at my throat to make sure it was still intact. Not this time. Instead, I slumbered in apparent uneventful peace, although scientists insist we dream all night long. I just couldn’t recall anything other than my horrific second conversation with Ralu.
I awoke just before 11:00 a.m., which gave me an hour to prepare for my noon rendezvous with Racco. Even though I bathed the night before, I decided to linger in the shower, letting the soft jets and waterfalls pour over me. I guess I hoped to wash away the memory of my most recent nightmare while trying to savor the dream image of Racco’s bare muscular chest. I wondered if it was an accurate representation, and whether or not in a few hours I would find myself in a warm embrace, stroking the soft dark hair so openly displayed.
After dressing in the outfit left for me the night before, I headed downstairs to the foyer. Unlike last night, when I saw vampires frolicking throughout the castle during my tour, and human servants hustling about to meet the seemingly endless demands for one item or another, the place was deserted. Or, at least it seemed so. Only the echo from a door closing somewhere behind me along the grand corridor interrupted the stillness surrounding me.
No sign of Racco. But with a few minutes to spare, I didn’t worry about whether he stood me up or not. But I started to consider that notion seriously once a large grandfather clock chimed twelve o’clock had arrived.
Fortunately, the clock’s gothic chimes drew my attention to its glass case. Another envelope peered out through the door of the pendulum case. Smaller than the one left for me the previous night, it bore my name in script cursive, and unlike last night’s invitation this one bore a red wax seal with a lion’s head pressed into it.
Of course I opened it without delay. Racco’s favored cologne drifted toward me from the note.
“My dearest Txema…. If you are ready for a delightful afternoon, step outside and allow Mercel to lead you to your seat next to mine. Racco.”
Intrigued where this latest invitation would lead, I immediately headed for the castle’s main entrance, slightly surprised when the heavy medieval door opened easily, perhaps enabled by an electronic sensor I noticed on the wall to my right near the doorway.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Ybarra! Right this way, please!”
Despite the temperature in the mid-fifties from what I could tell—or about thirteen degrees Celsius—he was dressed similar to me, wearing a full snowsuit. So, great, we could both sweat like pigs. I decided it would really piss me off if Racco was dressed in something more comfortable.
Mercel lead me past a pair of Jaguars parked in the circular drive in front of the castle, and at first I couldn’t believe I didn’t notice the large black helicopter idling nearby. The engine quietly purred, and the blades slowly turned. From inside, Racco motioned for us to hurry and climb aboard. Immediately the blades sped up, sending strong gusts toward me and Mercel.
“I am greatly pleased you decided to join me!” beamed Racco, speaking above the din. He helped me up into the spacious cabin behind the cockpit, where several leather chairs and a round cherry table were attached to the floor. Two servants stood by him—one carrying a chilled bottle of champagne while the other held three glasses. They, like Mercel, were also wearing snowsuits, although the tops were pulled down and tied at the waist.
Another servant, whom I hadn’t noticed, closed the sliding door behind us. An assault rifle was strapped to his side, and he nodded politely to me when we exchanged wary glances. Along with a touch screen computer and a large plasma TV upon one of the walls, the cabin looked like it belonged in some espionage flick.
How James Bond of you, Racco dear.
“Come sit with me,” he said, motioning for me to sit in the chair next to him. For a moment I thought he wasn’t wearing a snowsuit, and was simply clad in a white Body Armor bodysuit. But then I noticed he too had his snowsuit tied around his waist like most of his attendants. “I am sure you are hungry. But if you can hold off on breakfast, I will treat you to a magnificent brunch instead.”
I was starving. I didn’t think I could hold off eating, and would’ve foregone what was left of my cultured manners if something delectable had been placed before me. Suddenly, the helicopter rose into the air, distracting me for the moment from my raging hunger. When it cleared the castle walls it sharply veered toward the east.
“I have something to make you forget about food,” said Racco, chuckling at my white-knuckled grip on my chair’s arms as the helicopter sped toward the Pyrenees’ deeper remote wilderness. When the butterflies in my already unsettled stomach subsided, he held out a fisted hand, motioning for me to place my hand under his. He then dropped a pill into my palm. “This will take care of your hunger and anxiety, Txema.”
“What’s this?” I asked, wondering if the reddish oblong tablet was some exotic form of Ecstasy.
“It is a small dose of a powerful elixir that provides nourishment and energy like nothing you’ve ever experienced,” he advised.
So it was some kind of drug after all…. Perhaps a performance enhancer with an amphetamine edge? No way in hell would I subject my body to that kind of shit! He must’ve seen something in my reaction to uncover my unspoken worry, as he chuckled again, this time shaking his head.
“No, it is not a narcotic, or some other dangerous drug,” he assured me. “Here, I have one too. I will be the Guinea pig!”
He pulled out another tablet similar in shape and color to the one he gave me. Smiling confidently, he swallowed the pill and chased it with a drink of champagne.
“While we are not close enough companions yet for me to reveal the exact recipe inside the pill, I want you to know that it holds key ingredients that are part of what has kept me in vibrant health for many centuries,” he advised, before motioning for me to join him by ingesting my serving.
Sex sells. At least it did right then. If it had been Elmer Fudd sitting across from me instead of this incredibly sexy hunk of a man—immortal or not—I could’ve easily dismissed the offer and not given it another thought.
I swallowed the pill before the rational side of my brain could try and talk me out of it again. Even before the champagne chasing it reached my throat, a strange sensation began to flow through my entire being. A combination of surging energy and an incredible sense of wellness overwhelmed my body. Even weirder was the sense of ‘oneness’ with everything around me that followed.
“You like?”
“Yeah…yes, I do!” I enthused, as the effect continued to flow through me, soon reaching the very ends of my toes and fingers. Even the nerve endings upon my scalp tingled.
“Believe it or not, I have not shared this with many people down through the years,” he said, glancing out the window nearest to him. We still ascended steadily, and the last vestige of green foliage below gave way to an immense blanket of snow that seemed to stretch for many miles. “You feel alive—really alive for the first time in your life? At least that is what it feels like to me. It gets me through the lonely times and is the only experience the vampires and I share that is truly similar. What you feel right now, is nearly the same thing they feel when they feed on fresh blood…fresh human blood, that is.”
He was right. I had never experienced anything like this—and it would’ve remained the most unique event in my brief nineteen years on earth, if not for another amazing experience that we will eventually get to, dear reader. But in the meantime, I basked in the glow of the amazing feeling that washed over me in waves.
Was it better than sex, you might ask? Maybe in some cases…it depends on the partner and depth of connection. Compared to sex with most men, probably this was a better deal. But I could only imagine what this feeling would blossom into when held tightly by a man like the one eyeing me intently right then.
“That’s a tall mountain,” I said, turning my gaze toward the giant peak we were heading toward. “I take it we’re hea
ding someplace near it?”
“To the very top,” he advised, excitement dancing in his eyes that seemed a few shades lighter, as blue as the clear November sky above us. “It is not the tallest peak in the Pyrenees, like Pico del Aneto. But the skiing is better here, especially since it is in the very heart of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”
“Ah, so we’re really going to hit the slopes, huh?”
“Absolutely! You should be ready to show me your Alpine champion moves, now that Chanson has taken care of your ankle…right?”
I smiled shyly, surprised and a little embarrassed that he knew this about me. Growing up with a father whose passion for skiing didn’t take to my brothers, I had no choice but to come along when he ventured to upstate New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont several times each winter. My incentive was to spend time with him, which wasn’t always easy to do, since Papa often traveled on business trips up and down the east coast. Over the years we grew close, and I happened to develop a knack for slalom racing—good enough to receive an offer to join the University of Colorado ski team. If not for UT’s closer location to Richmond, and Pat Summit’s tenacious recruiting skills, I might’ve chosen CU instead.
For a moment I wondered how this crazy adventure might’ve turned out had that been my collegiate choice.
“We will be arriving at our afternoon destination in less than ten minutes from now,” Racco advised, snapping me out of my daydream. “How are you feeling?”
By then, the powerful euphoria from the pill had reached every cell, muscle, and capillary in my entire body. The hunger had disappeared and I felt enough energy to envision several trips down the mountain—if that was how our skiing experience would unfold. I also felt invincible—like nothing could hurt me in any way. It made me broach another subject I’d been thinking about for the past few minutes.
“What makes it possible for someone to live in a youthful human body for so many centuries, as you’ve done?”
I hoped he was flattered by the youthful remark, yet he seemed unaffected by it as his expression grew serious.
“Luck is part of it,” he said. “Luck and a body that continually stays young. By that, I mean to say that my cells are always reproducing themselves in perfect replication. There is no aging, and healing—even for severe injuries—happens quickly. For me to die, the injury would have to be so quick and severe in order to supersede my body’s effort to protect and recreate the original tissues….I can tell by the look on your face that this will take time to understand. Yes?”
I nodded in response, although the image he sought to convey remained cloudy in my mind. I could barely conceive how this was true, but over the past week anything seemed possible.
“Simone just told me we will be landing in a moment,” Mercel advised, smiling nervously while he pulled up his snowsuit over his arms and shoulders and zipped it up. The other servants did the same.
“Is the equipment ready for us?” asked Racco, rising from the table and pulling his snow suit over his powerful arms and shoulders.
His suit was darker than all the others, a blue shade that was almost black. Mine and the others’ suits were purple with gold stripes—similar in some ways to tapestries I’d seen hanging along the castle’s corridor.
“Yes,” said Mercel, motioning to an area beyond my line of sight, near the cockpit. “We will drop you off at the top, in the area you prefer, my Lord. Simone has already verified with Louis that the snow is stable enough for us to land the helicopter.”
“Very good!” Racco enthused, and then he turned to me. “The initial grade should be easy enough for you to keep pace with me. But once we reach the first of the steep slopes, you will want to follow my lead, so you do not inadvertently fall into the chasms along the way.”
I felt a twinge of panic despite my euphoric state. The chasms sounded dangerous, but the excitement dancing in his eyes made me reluctant to voice any concerns about safety. Am I an expert skier? Yes. But isn’t it a bad idea to ignore perilous obstacles when racing down the side of a steep mountain I had never visited before?
Although I said nothing, I’m sure my facial expression revealed my fears. His latest playful smile faded a little, and he started to say something else. The Helicopter’s sudden descent onto the mountain top distracted us both….at least until we landed.
“How far down the mountainside will we be traveling?” I asked, once the sliding door opened and Mercel and another of Racco’s servants stepped down onto the snow. Our boots, poles, and skis had already been laid out, and the waxed tips glistened in the early afternoon sunlight pouring in through the cockpit.
“Perhaps you wonder if we will be taking more than one trip down the mountainside?” he asked, chuckling as he handed my goggles to me. “Do you see a lift anywhere around us?”
No. Not a good sign at all. And as I stepped out onto the powder that came up to my shins, I didn’t see any prior trails around us. Despite the fantasy, no one skis down an unknown perilous slope through virgin snow. At least no one who doesn’t have a death wish.
“That is why we will only go down once!”
He laughed heartily. Meanwhile, Mercel and Raul, the other servant, checked one last time to ensure our boots were firmly attached to our skis—despite the fact I’d already made sure of that once I fully realized what the hell I was getting myself into.
“I take it everyone else will meet us at the bottom?”
My heart began to pound furiously in my chest. No way was I backing out at this point, but I really wanted some idea where this excursion would end up.
“A nice cozy chalet awaits us at the foot of this mountain,” he advised, his voice lower, and his accent sultry. “Picture brunch on a veranda overlooking a part of the Sierras that very few have ever seen…And a warm fire is already burning inside the chalet, where you will have your choice of hot cocoa or more chilled champagne, Txema. Of course there is so much more than just that…”
Jesus. If not for the other four people either surrounding us or inside the helicopter, I might’ve been sorely tempted to jump him right then. The idea of heated sexual contact mixed with the brisk temperature we presently found ourselves in only made my horniness worse. It mattered not that our chilled breaths served as a reminder that frostbite could result from having my ass planted into the snow.
“So, are you ready, Txema?”
“Yes…yes, I am,” I told him, trying to concentrate on the task at hand.
One last smile and a wave to the others, and then we moved through the snow to the mountain’s edge. Looking down it was a long, long way to the bottom…it might’ve been a good idea to find out how far. But before I could voice my concern, our descent began in earnest and we sped toward the bottom.
Chapter 19
The thrill of racing down a mountain with only one other soul around is an experience I’ll never forget. An incredible rush that would be hard to be topped…unless it’s sex with an immortal. Had that idea become an obsession? Let’s just say I had never considered myself to be anything of a slut, and yet here I was…unable to focus on anything other than being joined flesh to flesh with this wonderful man. Yes, that meant ignoring the fact he was only two thousand years older than me, and surely there was nothing new he would experience with me that he hadn’t enjoyed many times over down through the millennia.
Looking back on this event—and keep in mind it was just yesterday afternoon—I wish now that I had at least taken more time to enjoy the pristine beauty of the snow-covered wilderness surrounding us. I ignored much of it in my haste to keep up with Racco, whose expertise on the slopes greatly surpassed my own. Obviously, he has been doing this sort of thing since the first slats of wood took the Gauls or Vikings down Europe’s famed snow paths.
The deep chasms Racco had advised to watch for along the four-mile winding run to the peak’s base turned out to be a hell of a lot more frightening than I anticipated. One of my skis briefly lost connection with anything but empty a
ir, and I nearly tumbled to what I believe would’ve been certain death. At least he waited for me to catch up when it happened, smiling devilishly, as if my survival had been some sort of passage rite that needed to happen.
I could’ve strangled him right then.
Thankfully, the chalet was everything he said it would be. Otherwise I might’ve chewed his ass out and left, willing to take my chances in finding my way back to the castle. Opulent and rustic, and nearly buried in snowdrifts, he told me the chalet was constructed from the very pines that crowded the property back in the mid-eighteenth century, and the place had undergone frequent updates since then.
After removing my snowsuit in the foyer, I found Racco waiting for me near the stairs to the master suite on the second floor. Clad in only his Body Armor, the contours of his well-toned muscles were clearly revealed. I know…a nice body is not the key to a woman’s heart, and seeing men in what amounts to glorified leotards does little for most of us…unless that body belongs to a Greek god. Add in a gorgeous smile, intense blue eyes, and the powerful charisma exuding from Racco, and I was completely overmatched. A schoolgirl with an insane crush on this master of life—this perfect man.
“Follow me, Txema…another fire burns upstairs,” he said, noting my momentary fascination with the roaring blaze inside a tall fireplace in the main living area. “My personal chef has prepared a little feast on the veranda.”
He waited for me to give him my hand, which I worried might be clammy from my nervousness. But he seemed to not notice, offering a seductive wink as he led me up the stairs. The bed looked inviting, with the covers pulled down slightly, and he was right about the fire burning in another large fireplace across from the bed. Heavy oak furniture in a Black Forrest motif brought a strong masculine feel to the room.
