“Because we fear a zombie apocalypse? And we hope they’re color-blind?”
“Because we need the four-wheel drive. We won’t be sticking to paved roads on this trip.”
I had mixed emotions about roaming through the woods of Colorado. Not because I was afraid of the forest; I was a predator, after all. Even if the view was limited, darkness was familiar to me, and forests home to any number of things I could best if the need arose. Night was our territory.
But because to get there, I’d have to ride in the Orangesplosion.
“I’m calling it the Orangesplosion,” I announced to Ethan.
“Do what you must do,” he said, assisting the steward in loading our bags, then opening the passenger door for me. “And as your Master, I’ll do as I will.”
That came as a shock to precisely no one.
***
The sun might have been down, but the moon was high, a gleaming disk of white that blazed above us. We drove through narrow valleys surrounded by tree-covered slopes, then moved into the mountains, tracing curved roads that rose gently upward. Ethan had lowered the windows, and the trickling of a stream to our right became the music of our journey. I glanced up at the tree-dotted hills, remembered a family trip to Aspen when we were younger. My brother, Robert, my sister, Charlotte, and I had skied with abandon down hills I should have been too young to attempt, but I’d been too enamored of the speed to decline. I’d gotten a broken arm for my trouble.
But the skiing wasn’t the point . . . The trees were.
“Those are aspens, right?” Aspen stakes were the only kind that could kill vampires.
“They are,” Ethan said, both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, as he maneuvered the vehicle around bends he probably could have handled better in his own sleek Ferrari. But the Orangesplosion had been his choice.
“Is it ironic that you chose for our vacation a place full of tools for vampire hunting?” And the type of tool, I thought, that had once brought him down and turned him to ash.
“It is,” he agreed. “But that’s Colorado, or this particular part anyway. And I’ve no intention of being staked now or later.”
I didn’t doubt he was earnest, but I still knocked on the dashboard to ward off bad juju. I’d seen too many things in my year as a vampire to doubt the danger to him—especially considering his new position—or the efficacy of precautions, even superstitious ones.
Ethan turned onto a side road, asphalt becoming bumpy gravel and hairpin turns. The sound of the creek grew louder, joined now by the tumble of rocks beneath the car. We snuck by a sheer granite wall that was so close to the road I could have reached out and touched rock or the water that trickled down it.
One more curve, and the road opened suddenly into a wide valley between aspen-covered hills. In the middle of the meadow stood an enormous log and stone building, precisely the type I’d expected to see in the wilds of Colorado. Huge beams, giant boulders, and a roof made of red metal sheets folded together at the seams like architectural origami. The steep roof pitched at angles here and there, and the entire house glowed golden as if every room was filled with candles.
A porch extended across the entire front of the house, its railing made of wide hewn logs. A stone patio sat to the house’s right, scattered with heavy wood furniture and adorned with a stone-surrounded hot tub that steamed in the chilly spring air.
“And here we are,” Ethan said, pulling the car to a stop in the wide, curved drive. “Welcome to Ravenswood.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said, opening the door and hopping out onto ground still soft from recently melted snow. I crossed the patterned stone walkway to the porch.
The word “Ravenswood” was burned into the wood of a thick sign that hung from two hooks above the door. The silhouette of a raven, just as dark, perched above the second “o.” I wrapped fingers around one of the beams that supported the porch’s wide roof, the wood cool and slick as plastic. Adirondack chairs were situated here and there, and a swing of the same hewn logs hung from the far end. I imagined passing a night rocking in the swing, book in hand, Ethan at my side.
Still. While the style of the house wasn’t surprising, the size was. I glanced back at Ethan. “I thought we were staying at a guesthouse.”
He grinned. “This is the guesthouse.”
“Damn,” I said. “How big is the main building?”
“Large,” he said, gesturing to a path that led downhill and into the woods. “The house is through the woods, should you need to goggle,” he added with a grin, then pulled the bags and our scabbarded katanas from the back of the vehicle before closing the hatch again. He handed the katanas to me, then pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the heavy wooden door.
“Welcome to your vacation, Sentinel.”
The house’s décor echoed the exterior. Wood floors, log walls that gleamed like honey, and at the end of the long front room, an enormous fireplace that rose two stories to the vaulted ceiling. The furniture was leather and oversized, arranged to face a wall of windows that opened to the valley beyond.
A glass door led to a wooden deck that flanked the window wall and mirrored the one on the front of the house. I opened it, walked outside, gasped at the view. The valley spread before us like a gift, mountains rising high on either side, a small river moving sinuously through the middle until it disappeared into the distance. Green had begun to sprout through ground spotted with snow, and the entire scene was illuminated by a moon that hung heavy in the sky.