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ChapterOne
If she weren’t already dead, she’d be a little more worried about her fingers turning blue. Or that she couldn’t feel anything from her knees down, and her face was so cold, it felt frozen in place. And since when did snow fall at such an alarming rate in autumn?
What a preposterous question, Adeline. You know the weather always acts differently here.
She shook the snow from her shoulders and tucked her hands under her arms. The snow swirled in front of her. Cursing, she looked down. The tracks she had been following were long gone. Mud and several inches of snow swallowed up the prints and led into the white abyss swirling around her. Icy flakes clung to her lashes and made her vision blur. The earth tilted precipitously on its axis, and she stumbled several times, landing on her knees in several feet of snow. Nothing made Adeline feel sick anymore, but this was almost too much. The wind blew around her viciously, and if she hadn’t covered her face from the nose down mere minutes ago, she would probably have felt like she was suffocating from icy fingers clawing down her throat.
Her hope faltered - was she walking downhill or up? East or West? Either way, her skin tingled. And not from the cold, either. The sun was rising; if she didn’t find somewhere to rest during the day, it wouldn’t matter where she traveled because she’d turn to dust.
Her steps faltered, and she slowed her movements to a crawl, almost resigned to meet her fate come sunup.
But then there was a brief, ever-so-brief break in the storm, and before her, she saw the faintest yellow glimmer of a lantern in a window. Her heart soared as the white flakes picked back up. She locked her eyes on the orange light ahead, determined to meet her fate there instead of out in the wilds.
What she would give for a long pull from some unsuspecting person’s neck. To feel the tang of their blood filling her mouth, coating her throat, warming her unfeeling limbs.
Though her boots were soaked, her pants coated with a sheet of ice, and her woolen cloak practically useless, Adeline trudged forward. Just the thought of someone inside that tiny little cabin kept her moving. Perhaps whoever was there would provide her with willing sustenance.
* * *
Rolf grunted and hunched further down into his thick wool overcoat. He knew better than to move during a whiteout in these mountains. The ground could shift so quickly that he’d be taken downhill within moments, another victim of an avalanche. From the rock outcropping, he watched as a tiny black speck moved slowly toward his cabin, stumbling and falling, but they made their way ever closer to his home.
Luckily, he thought, he built his cabin in a valley nestled among large conifers in the ancient evergreen forest, well out of the path of an avalanche. He built it there specifically for that reason - too many friends had passed in these mountains for him to be so careless. Their bodies turned up once the snow melted - almost perfectly preserved, their faces locked in a perpetual scream of terror as the white waves swallowed them whole and stole their last breaths.
Shivering, he pulled his arms closer to his body and lifted his nose to the sky. Yes, he could smell the precipitation riding on the next wave of the storm. Once there was a break, he’d have to move quickly, make it down the mountainside, and back to the cabin before it picked back up again.
The snow slowed briefly at the same time the wind did, and he launched forward. With his axe held tightly in one hand, he bolted downhill as fast as possible.
* * *
Adeline took a few tentative steps up the porch; the wind whipped her cloak around her legs and snagged on a beam. She tugged at it, tearing a hole in the material as she made her way to the front door. She raised her fist and knocked weakly at first and then somehow summoned the strength to knock louder.
Perhaps no one was home? But then why would they leave a lantern in the window? She would never understand these mountain folk. They all seemed so backward to her, living in some of the harshest environments to do what, trap helpless creatures and skin them for money? Cut down trees that are centuries old?
She rolled her eyes and then tried the handle. It wasn’t locked, but the door did feel a little stuck. Leaning her shoulder against the wood, she shoved - hard. The door swung open, cold air at her back, propelling her forward into the tiny log cabin. Adeline spun around and pressed her body weight against the back of the door, and tiny though she may be, she was one of the strongest vampires in her coven. Finally, with a groan and a creak, the door shut, leaving her standing inside the quiet, empty cabin.
ChapterTwo
Rolf crept up to the porch as quietly as he could. Frozen, muddy footprints led up to his door, and the scent of a woman was almost entirely lost in the wind but not quite. The skin on the back of his neck pebbled with warning as his eyes dashed around the small deck. Some of her clothing snagged on a splinter of a post, leaving behind a few tendrils of cloth. He noted that the supports needed to be sanded down and stained again before winter hit.
Proper winter, he thought,and not this early-season snow.
Carefully, he plucked the threads from the splintered wood and held them up to his nose. He inhaled, and images flashed before his eyes - summer by the Seine, wildflowers in bloom, rain pattering on smooth cobblestone roads. Rolf closed his eyes and inhaled once more. This time, he picked up hints of something else, but it was too faint for his nose to tell what it was. Within moments, the images were gone, but the rest of his skin pebbled with gooseflesh, and a sinking feeling settled in his stomach.
He tightened his grip on his axe and reached toward the door handle with his other.
Snowflakes swirled at his back, and the door flew open, smacking into the wall with a bang. Ushered in by the gusts of cold air, Rolf steeled himself to meet the stranger in his dwelling when his breath caught in his lungs.
Silhouetted in the warm glow of the dying embers, a gorgeous woman stood in the center of his cabin.
“Good evening,” he shouted over the roar of the wind. He grappled for the handle and slammed the door closed. Rolf dropped the axe down by his feet, and he tried his hardest to come across as unassuming by leaning against the wood.
Water and mud pooled around her feet, and the leather boots, once a light brown, were stained almost black from trudging through the wet, heavy snow. She wore a riding habit with trousers - certainly out of place for the women who lived in the larger cities to wear. However, he wasn’t shocked to see a gentlelady wearing such attire here in the mountains. The cut and quality of the fabric indicated she came from nobility. The wet fabric clung to the curves of her legs, clinging in places that showed off her curves. Her woolen cloak hung off her shoulders, and thawing ice dripped into the puddles on his wood floor.
“To whom do I have the pleasure of hosting?”
* * *
Adeline tensed. The faint traces of an accent lingered on his last word. It wasn’t quite French, and it wasn’t entirely Swiss, either. It was ambiguous enough that it wouldn’t raise suspicion, but to a trained ear, it grated on her nerves.
