Just being that close to France was enough to keep most witches out of the mountains, but it was the people who inhabited the mountains that really scared them away. Feral vampires, bloodthirsty and often starving, lived in the caves carved eons ago by their stronger ancestors.
They were already halfway up the mountain, and fatigue was setting in for both of them. Chewing on rabbit jerky, Lance turned to Terra. “I think we should rest,” he said.
She looked around. There were no caves visible, though the feral vampires were more than capable of hiding themselves when they wanted to. “Okay, but only for a little while. I want to get about a mile higher before we settle in for the night.”
There was a crunch behind her, feet in the snow. Terra turned, looking for where it came from, but there was nothing there. Lance's eyes questioned her, but she just waved him off. They looked for a patch of dirt that wasn't covered in snow and set down their backpacks when she heard the crunch again.
“Did you hear that?” She asked, crouching low and looking around. She breathed a spell to improve her vision, but still saw nothing.
“No,” he said, but then cried out. Something had grabbed him. Terra sprung forward and then finally saw their attacker- a small vampire, a girl, who looked like she had been turned at thirteen. Her eyes were yellow and hungry, hungrier than even the homeless of Mindren ever looked.
Her mouth opened and she hissed, baring her teeth too near Lance's throat.
“Get away from him,” Terra commanded, her voice crackling with energy while she gathered energy to blast the girl away. She couldn't kill the vampire, but she could fight her. “Borte!” With her yell, the energy gathered into a ball and hit both Lance and the feral vampire, sending them sprawling. They didn't break apart, the vampire held him on the ground as she screamed and struggled.
Lance moved suddenly, and then the vampires screams turned to whimpers, and then silence as she turned to ash. Terra looked on, unsure of what happened. The feral vampire was just… gone. Disappeared. Dust in the wind.
She sat in the snow and stared.
“Are you okay?” Lance asked, wiping a knife pulled from his boot with his shirt.
“She never touched me. Are you okay? How did you do that?”
He showed her the knife, crooked but sharp and shining in the sun. There were runes etched into it, runes that were so old even she couldn't recognize them. They seemed to originate from before the Futhark runes. She wasn't sure how she knew that. She just did.
“That knife can kill vampires?”
Lance nodded, grinning. “My dad gave it to me, before he died. I was young, but my mom let me keep it. I didn't know what it did until a vampire tried to abduct me in high school.”
“My gods,” she whispered, stepping closer, touching the dull side of the blade and feeling magic pulsing from it. “Lance, I am begging you, let me study this knife. When this is all over, whether we find my mother or not. Just this contribution could be enough to clear your name.”
“Sure, as long as you don't destroy it. It's all I have left of my dad.” He stuck the knife back in his left boot, patting it to make sure it was secure. “Now, come sit with me, and hold my hand.”
A mile higher up the mountain, the two were nearly ready to collapse from how tired they were. Neither needed to confirm with the other when they stopped. It happened naturally, when they found a small wooded area.
“Can you do a spell to see if we're safe here?” Lance asked, grabbing branches and placing them in a pile on a small patch of ground without snow.
“Yeah, and I'll set up a protective sphere, too. It should last long enough for us both to sleep, and cancel out the smoke of the fire at the same time.”
Lance nodded, flicking his fingers to start the fire. Terra closed her eyes, sitting on the freezing ground, her butt going numb. She focused on the world around her, listening for any life. A bluejay. A rabbit, and then many rabbits. Nothing larger. Nothing sapient.
Satisfied with the surroundings and the safety the trees provided, she then set up a bubble around them that would make them impossible to notice. Feral vampires had more magic at their disposal than most modern vampires, but they couldn't break her protection spells, especially not once they burned a branch with protective runes in the fire Lance had started.
“What do you think we'll find when we get up there?” He asked. Terra shrugged, looking up through the branches of the fir trees at the sky. A few stars twinkled down on them.
“An old man, mostly. Hopefully one with answers.”
Lance thought about that, then sighed. “I hear The Great Sage is crazy, though. Will we even be able to understand what he tells us?”
“Probably not, not easily. We'll have to meditate on it, and he might make us drink awful tasting potions so we can see as he sees. The man who adopted my sister and I went to see him once, to see what he should do with us. I guess we were unruly when we were toddlers.”
Lance chuckled. “Everyone is unruly when they're toddlers. I used to babysit my cousins. They were terrors!”
“Really? Well, he told us we were little monsters, and that The Great Sage did nothing but give him the foulest tasting drink he had ever had. He didn't even have visions after drinking it. He just puked for days.”
They both laughed at that, relaxing into the safety of their bubble under the stars. Lance shuffled closer to Terra, his hand brushing against hers. It hesitated, and then held her fingers, warming them both.
“Lance,” Terra started, unsure of what she wanted to say. She just wanted to understand. She wanted to understand what he was feeling, so that she could understand what she was feeling. Her chest ached.
“Do you ever wonder about your fate?” He asked her. His eyes seemed to be searching for something in the sky, until they turned to look into hers. Then he was searching for something within her. Something she wasn't sure she had.
Terra pulled her hand away, wrapping her arms around her legs and shivering. “I don't know. I know about The Fates. I know what they expect. But I don't know what the world expects, what people want of me. I don't know what I want of me. Everything is too confusing to see the future, where I'm headed. Maybe I'll wear a crown. Maybe I'll die in a ditch.”
Unsatisfied, Lance placed his chin in his hand, hunching over. “You are very strange, Terra Neithercutt. Do you want to wear the crown one day?”
“No,” she said, needing not even one second to answer.
“No? Really? Isn't it your destiny?”
She shook her head. “It's my sister's destiny. Even if I were the oldest, I left. I avoided marriages for power. I want nothing to do with it. I want control over my life, the kind of control that I would never have in a throne.”
“You want freedom.”
“Yes. Freedom to be me. To run away if I need to. To never lie about my feelings to avoid war. To find my mother, even while my country refuses to do so.”
“The pursuit of freedom can be its own kind of leash.” Lance laid back on the ground, his arms out wide.
Terra ached to be in those arms, and so she laid on his chest, listening to the thumping in his chest. “I just want to choose for myself.”
Lance pressed his fingers against her chin, tipping her head up. He looked deep into her eyes. Neither of them understood each other, but they both desired that freedom.
His lips touched hers, and suddenly her freezing body was on fire. They kissed like that, their fingers running through each other's hair, for a long time. They tore off pieces of clothing with their lips still pressed together. They explored body parts, running their fingers over soft skin.
Terra rubbed her fingers along Lance's neck. He shivered, then bit her bottom lip. The way his lips felt against hers, the passion between them, made Terra fully aware of her feelings for him. Though they only barely knew each other, she burned for him, and she knew that whatever they might share, it was their destiny.
She felt overwhelmed by anxiety. Her arms pulled him closer to her, clinging to him as she panted for him. “I don't want to let go of you.”
“You don't have to.”
“I'm scared I might,” she said, pressing her face into his neck. “I'm scared of what we'll find at the top.”
Lance kissed her neck, then her cheek, then her nose. “We'll figure it out. Be strong.”
With their little section of the mountain growing warmer with their fire and their bodies generating heat as well, they pressed their naked bodies together, and Lance entered her. He was so hard, and she was so wet.
Her anxiety faded as he started to pump in and out of her. Her mind could only focus on the heat that he made her feel. The sensation of his lips on her skin. How hard his cock was.
He tongued her nipple as she wrapped her legs around his torso. He drilled into her, and with each movement she begged for more. Her lips were parted, her breathing fast. Terra's nails dug into Lance's back, leaving bright red marks in his flesh.
“You feel so good,” he groaned with his mouth around her nipple. She moaned in reply, until finally he came inside of her. He continued to pump within her until she orgasmed, as well, and then they stayed on the ground, their legs and arms wrapped around one another.
They made love multiple times that night, sometimes with naps in between orgasms. They kissed, and spoke to each other of secret desires. Lance revealed that he liked to be rough, which pleased sexually submissive Terra to no end. At one point, he wrapped his hands around her neck as they fucked, which gave her the most explosive orgasm she had ever had.