"There is no challenge to it." he said simply. "I know before I even start that I can learn one of those instruments," he gestured at the wall, "and learn it to perfection in weeks, maybe hours, or even minutes. Then what do I strive for? I can still enjoy the music, but the creative fire is gone. I'm not even sure that writing the lyrics, or singing them, will have any allure for me."
"Surely you're being a bit melodramatic," she frowned. "I assure you I can play all of these instruments, and more, and that what I can do with them would amaze a worldly musician. I can also improve. The challenge is not gone, Klaus, it has expanded. It is one thing to play what has been done before again, or even to improve upon it. It is a greater challenge to go beyond. Don't you remember the guitar chords I taught you just the other night? Do you suppose they just happened?
"I have not felt this fire you mention for centuries, yet I believe you can return it to me. You need to release the hold of the mundane limits your earthly mind has imposed."
He couldn't tell if she were leading him on, trying to give him false hope, or if she were being truthful, or even if she just didn't understand what he was trying to say. So much to think about. Everything had changed, and he was beginning to see that the drawbacks might easily balance or cancel out the benefits. The moment was swept away from him, though, and he didn't get the opportunity to dwell on it.
"You are so impatient," she said. "I wonder if you really understand the concept of eternity as we face it? Do you comprehend the absence of the limits of time? There is no existence without a goal. You would be forced to end such an existence, or go mad. You will find new goals, new diversions.
"You may even find that the things you once strived for are no longer the most important. It is not an end, this new existence of yours. It is a beginning. Our new beginning."
She didn't allow him the chance to answer. She covered his mouth with her own once more and slid down to embrace him, wiping thought cleanly from his mind. Lifting her head for just a moment, and searching his eyes, as though testing the depth of control she'd reached, she added, "tonight I will show you something. I will bring you closer to the answers you have chased across all these years. Tonight your new life will truly begin, and you will begin to understand."
He didn't even try to figure out what she was talking about. It was growing clearer that any answers he might find he'd either have to come up with on his own or wait for her to offer. He let himself be swept away again, concentrated on the sensations and focused on, if not controlling the need, at least controlling the methods of satiating it. One thing was certain; he did have a lot to learn, and she was the only one he had to teach him.
~*~
The night came swiftly. Daytime was a languorous, surreal panorama of vision, sensation, and exploration. He knew they would have to go out soon, because the hunger was starting to grow in him, and he would have to feed. That was the one lesson that had been ingrained deeply.
"We'll need to find you a human donor soon," she told him as the weight of daylight slowly seeped away. "You can't go on feeding from rabbits for too long."
"Why not?" he asked her. The idea of killing, or even injuring, an innocent man or woman to feed his own needs seemed somehow unclean. "The rabbit blood seemed to work fine…"
"And it would remain so," she assured him, "for a time. Sooner or later, though, you would begin to take on wilder and wilder tendencies. Your mind would begin to slip toward that of the beasts that fed you. It is not the same. Their blood can sustain you, but you cannot live from it. You must feed from your own kind, or what was once your own kind."
He nodded slightly to show that the point was taken, but his expression was slightly dubious. On the surface her words made sense, and he had no experience to back any doubt he might feel, but it gnawed at him. It seemed as though she were pushing him toward the type of victim she herself preferred. Maybe rabbits were no challenge for her any more, or maybe the blood of humans was just sweeter. He knew that the blood he'd shared with her had been much better than the animals.
Not better tasting, exactly. Taste didn't seem quite the right word for it any longer. It was like the climax of their love-making, similar to the sensations he'd felt when truly alive, but different in some subtle way. The intensity of the pleasure was the difference. It was as though the life in a man was more vital – more breathtaking in its strength and beauty. It was better, but was it really necessary?
"We aren't going all the way to the village, are we?" he asked. "It took most of the night to get here the first time, how could we get there and back?"
"No," she agreed. "Not tonight. Tonight we will hunt together as we have already done, for there are more important things to consider. Soon, though. We will not be staying up here forever, pleasant as it is. There is a great, magical world out there to experience. The mountain will always be here."
He wasn't so certain that he was ready to go out and explore any world but this one. There were so many questions he still wanted to find the answers for. She seemed to take for granted that when she was ready to leave, they would just go. He didn't know if this were just arrogance on her part, or if she could manipulate him so easily that the thought of resistance didn't even figure into her thinking. The time might come soon to test that.
"The sun is dead for this day," she said finally, massaging his shoulders and pressing against him from behind. The thrill of her touch and the hunger that had begun to gnaw away at his insides were fighting neck and neck for his concentration. "It is time for us to hunt."
She led him toward the front of the castle. There were stones fixed in place to block all of the main entrances, and the only windows were well above the height of a man, but she didn't hesitate. Shifting to her wolf form in a single fluid motion, she bunched the powerful muscles in her hind legs and leaped, clearing the ledge of one of the windows easily and shooting out into the night beyond. Klaus followed, amazed once again at the ease with which his body now accepted such a challenge.
They disappeared swiftly into the shadows, side by side and bounding along at a rapid pace. Klaus felt the exhilaration of the speed, of the rhythmic pounding of his feet on the stony ground, but it was tinged with the pain of growing hunger. He kept his nose close to the ground, searching the strange array of scents that bombarded him. There were animal scents, old scents; there was the scent of urine and of feces, and underlying it all, the faint odor of blood. He moved whichever way the scent led him, shifting his course instinctively to bring him closer and closer to release.
Rosa ran at his side, letting him take the lead. Her pace was easy and practiced, less frantic than his, but not slower. She let him get the feel of the hunt, the knack of tracing the scents and weeding out the unimportant ones to lock onto the warmth of the blood that he sought.
Suddenly the blood-scent assaulted him, almost sending him reeling, and he spun to his left. Behind him, Rosa had halted, ignoring his frantic race off into the brush. Her own senses were questing down the mountain, toward the old village below. There was someone there, someone human. After so many years her senses were attuned to their aroma, even over vast distances.
She hesitated. Her hunger was not great, and she'd be able to share Klaus' kill soon enough, but she knew those below represented more than a release from hunger; they were a threat.
It had to be his friends. None in the village had possessed the courage to follow them. Even the hunters would not be coming to the mountain for some time, at least not until the terror of her most recent visit was eradicated.
I wonder, she mused, turning to bound off after Klaus' retreating form, if I made an error in leaving little Alex behind by himself. Could he have done something stupid enough to rouse the village in such a short time? She knew the answer to that only too well.
Klaus hadn't noticed when she left his side. His mind was focused on the prey he sensed ahead, and he moved at the very limits of speed his lupine form possessed. He didn't know what it was that h
e pursued, but he heard it crashing through the brush up ahead of him. He did know that it was not a rabbit. It was much too large.
Rosa was catching up rapidly, and an odd little twist of her muzzle that might have passed as a smile rode her features. She had caught the scent of Klaus' prey as well, and she knew that scent well. He was in for yet another lesson, another thrill. It was not going to be quite as easy as killing a rabbit this time.
The brush parted suddenly, and Klaus leaped into the small clearing beyond, eyes scanning the ground eagerly. He saw nothing, and he poised himself, readying for a leap to the stone ledge above him. Only his quickened reflexes and heightened sense of hearing saved him from being completely disemboweled.
There was a roaring scream from above, and he rolled to the side, back to his feet and spun. The mountain lion cleared him by a fraction of an inch. Its claws raked furrows in the skin of his back as it passed over his head.
There was no time for thought. The cat was back on the attack the second its paws touched ground, and Klaus leaped for its throat with a snarl, ducking under the swiping paw and narrowly avoiding the snapping of its jaws. It spun away, leaving him with the frustrating scent of blood so close to his teeth that it nearly drove him mad and sparking anger like he'd never experienced.
He leapt to the side as the big cat lunged again, and this time he latched onto the back of its neck as it passed, pressing down on its body with the weight of his own and using himself as an anchor. The animal, now terrified, was incredibly strong. It spun, even as he held its neck in an iron grip, ripping through flesh and veins and spilling the blood. He felt its claws reach for him, snag his skin and pull.
He held on tenaciously, ignored the raking claws and the high, keening cry as the mountain lion screamed to the night sky. The blood drained into him and strengthened him. His eyes glazed over with a red film that robbed him of his sight and his reason simultaneously. All that existed was the throat in his jaws, the rich, flowing blood, and the ecstasy it pulsed through his veins. He didn't even notice when the animal's body went limp, or when it fell from his jaws in a lifeless heap.
When his senses finally cleared, he gazed about the clearing in wonder. "What the hell happened?" he asked, seeing that Rosa stood over him, looking down at him and smiling widely. He noticed with a start that they had both shifted from wolf form. He tried to rise, and was surprised to find that his left arm would not cooperate.
Looking down, he saw that it dangled limply from his shoulder. There was a large tear in his skin, slowly oozing blood. It didn't spurt out, but it was escaping all the same.
"What happened to me?" he asked again, letting himself slump back to the ground. "My arm…what have I done?"
"Another learning experience, I'd say," Rosa answered finally. "I warned you about the blood of wild things. You got lost in your wolf form and bit off a bit more than you were ready to chew. It was quite a sight, a seventy pound wolf attacking a full-grown mountain lion. You fought well."
"But," he said, some memory of the preceding chase returning to him, "what about my arm?"
"See for yourself," she said, gesturing down at the useless limb.
When he looked down again, all he could do was stare. Where there had been a long, gaping wound, the skin was closing in on itself. He sensed the tendons and muscles knitting themselves within his arm. As he watched, he found that he was able to lift it again, and less than a full minute later, it was healed as though there had never been a wound at all.
He looked up at Rosa in wonder. "So that's why you didn't help."
Rosa laughed and threw herself down beside him. She moved up against him and spoke into his ear, tantalizing his now rejuvenated body with her presence.
"Now you must share," she said, licking hungrily at his throat. "We have much to do this night, and there is no time for another hunt."
Without further ceremony, or waiting for an answer, she pierced his skin with her fangs, drew him close and pressed against him as the warm blood flowed between them. It was somewhat more intense than it had been in the castle, more overpowering, and he wondered if it was the type of blood. If the jump from a rabbit to a mountain lion could affect him so strongly that he passed out from the sensation of feeding, and that their sharing could rob him of any ability to consider resistance so quickly and so easily, what would a man's blood do?
She did not remain at his throat long. He reached for her, wanting to taste the difference himself, to feel how much more satisfying it might prove, but she pulled away reluctantly.
"Not now," she said softly. "There are things I want to do, things you need to see, before the dawn comes. We will have the day to ourselves, but this night belongs to history.
"I have waited a long time to share this with you," she added, rising to her feet and pulling him up. He noticed only after she had done so that she'd pulled him up by his previously injured arm, there hadn't been the slightest twinge of weakness.
"What is so urgent?" he asked, following her as she led the way back down the mountain toward the castle and its surrounding walls. She didn't return to wolf form, and he was somehow relieved. The memory of his mad dash up the hillside was still vague and hard to sort out. He didn't like the idea that his mind might end up subjugated to that of an animal, even for such a short amount of time.
He was reluctantly beginning to realize that he might end up feeling as she did, eventually. The pressure of his need, for the moment, had abated, but he would have to feed again. An animal might soon be out of the question, and that left him with only one choice, a choice he still found revolting and unacceptable. He wondered if it would be his resolve, or his hunger that would win out in the end.
She hadn't answered his question, and he hurried his steps to match her pace, trying once again. "Are you going to continue to play with me, then?" he asked. "I'd think that by now I'd deserve better than your silence."
She didn't stop walking, but she began to speak. "I am one who sees the patterns in things," she began. "There is a pattern to a life, even to one such as my own, and these patterns can be manipulated.
"I have worked long and hard to have what I want. There are few things left in the world that I find amusing enough to work at, this is the one, the most crucial of desires in my own pattern. It's this night, you, all of it.
"I loved your father, Klaus. He looked so much like you when he was your age that the two of you could be twins. I knew a hundred men on this mountain, perhaps a thousand. They were nothing, no more to me than a steak would be to one of the villagers below. That was before your father."
They had reached the outskirts of the old village, moving quickly and silently, the only sound the low tones of her voice as she told him her tale.
"He came upon me one summer night by the wall of the castle. He was hunting, searching out food for you and your mother. I had watched him hunt before, admired the cut of his chest and the sinewy strength of his legs. He used to sing softly as he ran through the trees, and I glided along to listen, never letting him see me, only watching in silence.
"The day we finally met I was sitting on the stone steps of the shrine below, playing my lute. It was late to be out, but he was often fonder of the mountain by night than by day, as you might remember yourself. He was a strikingly handsome man, and I could see from the instant light in his eyes that my charms had not failed me. Or so I thought.
"We talked for quite some time that night, but he would not approach me too closely. I offered him the seat at my side, but he refused, answering each of my questions with one of his own. It was infuriating, and when I saw that he would leave without coming near me, I acted.
"He was, of course, no match for me in speed or strength. I held him easily and drained a part of his blood, not enough to kill him, only enough to gain control. He returned to me often after that, but still he fought.
"I tried everything short of killing him and making him my slave, but he would not leave his home. He would not join me on
the mountain, always finding the strength to leave me and to return to his wife, to your mother. She thought him a weak man, I'm sure, because no matter how many times he was able to leave me, he always returned. He was the only man ever to resist me for so long."
"What did you do to him?" Klaus asked numbly, realizing that the knowledge that she had been responsible for his father's disappearance had been with him for some time, but that he'd been denying it, fooling himself. She was so compelling, so damned attractive, that he'd let his desire for her, which she'd fed like a flame until it grew to a burning need, cloud his reason. "What did you do to my mother?"
She didn't turn to face him, nor did she slow her steps. Her voice grew silent, and his anger began to grow. Reaching out, he caught her by one slender shoulder, spun her around until their eyes locked, and cried out. "What did you do to them? Why have you brought me here? Damn you, answer me!"
She glanced back at him. Her eyes glittered dangerously, and it was obvious that she was holding her own emotions in check, though only by force of will.
"You will not get away with an outburst like that twice," she hissed. "You will follow me, and you will be silent. I have waited too many boring, empty years, for this moment, and you will not rob me of its pleasure. Do not forget what I am, who I am. I could crush you like a bug, lover, a very insignificant bug."
He was not yet used to trusting the acuteness of his new senses, but he was nearly certain he'd detected something in her expression, a slight hesitation, that lent strength to his resistance.
"If you kill me, then you've wasted it all, though, haven't you?" he spat at her, stopping in his tracks with his arms crossed, glaring. "You've waited all this time to have me, and killing me would end that rather quickly. I have no son for you to chase about the world, waiting for him to grow up and become your new lover. I am the last of my line for you to enslave; isn't that it?"
She was on him in a second. The back of her hand slammed into his mouth, knocking him a full three feet through the air to land on his back. Her snarl was that of an enraged animal, and Klaus feared for a moment that she would lose her control completely.
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