"Quickly! My husband's on his way I just know it!" Lady Marchalt whispered harshly to the figure struggling to put on up his trousers. The room was stark in shadow and to light a lamp was to put the lady under suspicion. Everyone who knew her knew she didn't have a lamp on after ten o'clock. "Hurry! I think I can hear his carriage out on the street. Here's your shirt." She tossed a white silken shirt to her male company. She watched him stuff his feet into his boots and toss the shirt over his shoulders. As his shadowy silhouette made for the window, she called out, "Thank you for your company. We'll see each other again, I'm sure."
The shadow stopped as he acknowledged her words before shuffling out the two story window, closing it on his way out, and down the carved granite balcony. With a sigh, Lady Marchalt slumped down on the bed, exhausted, "What a man..." She then drifted off into the cool waters of dreams.
~
Ralen Lycurgus dashed across the moist, dew covered lawn undetected by the keen senses of the guard dogs and their handlers. As silent as the night, his sleek body made it to the back gate and traversed their cold, iron barbed tips in a swift leap. Taking the front gate was too risky and if the lady was right, that her husband had just returned from his journey, Ralen would find himself in a very uncomfortable situation. All he wanted to do was get home without finding his neck in a harness.
Time slowed for the youth that spent the time with the wife of a very important man. Each feature placed on his smooth skin with intricate precision, his two hazel-green eyes a perfect distance from each other with an unbroken straight nose aligning the perfect proportions of his lips and high cheekbones. His white-blond hair was a little windblown from his mad dash across the lawn and away from the Marchalt estate, but was coiffed back into place when he stopped in an empty alley way to button up his shirt and tuck the ends away in his pants. From his look and body structure, one could hardly guess he was two hundred and twenty-three years of age and still going. They would be too enthralled with his beauty to guess his age.
Despite his successful endeavor, Ralen was not satisfied with himself. Sure, Lady Marchalt was a remarkable woman, beautiful and vivacious, traits he appreciated in a woman. It had only been a been three years since his ability to see color was beginning to fade and his once poet's heart starting to turn to stone. Frankly, when these things started happening to him, he was scared out of his wits and consulted anyone who would help him, regardless of their stature. Luckily a close friend of his knew the answer and told him of his need for a lifemate. In a sense, Ralen had been relieved to find that he wasn't indeed losing his mind like his poor mother had, but dismayed to discover he would lose his most valued gifts unless he found the one he was destined for.
He had set off that day and began his search, pinning and burning in his sleep and in his heart for that faceless lady he saw in his dreams but virtually incorporeal. But his expedition proved fruitless countless times, sinking his hopes further and further into the pits of despair. Ralen was uncertain how he had managed to charm the wits off a woman wherein they invited him into their beds. But his desire was too much for him to contain and maybe, just maybe, there was a fragment of hope to be found in these ladies for he did not know their origins nor their blood. Perhaps, one of them would happen to be a Carpathian.
Neat and trimmed, Ralen stood underneath the kindling street lamp, grinning at this time to test. Of course it took a decade for the effects of the fading to decay completely, but the symptoms alarmed him desperately for he knew he was still young and naive. He held onto the solid pole like a newly made blind man, holding his eyes tightly shut. Under the illusion of affection, he figured that maybe his sight would retain their color. This time, this time, his mind chanted in chorus, It just has to work this time.
Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked at the dirty brown ground. Color! A grin spread to his lips like lightning. Suddenly though, the brown was fading into black and blue that streaked the star-studded sky faded too. His smile faded. Marchalt was not a Carpathian, this test confirmed it, and therefore was not his lifemate. His mind tried to force its way to the bright side, but was stopped by the vines of despair that bounded his spirit. Disappointed, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his breeches that clung to his legs like a second skin. He needed a drink tonight and a good kill. Perhaps he could drown out his sorrows.
His mind pounded with that infernal question that repeated itself incessantly for three years straight: Would he ever find his lifemate?
