One hundred years later:
“Not bad,” Rory said,
tracing circles on Trent’s
chest. “We’ve done better, but all things considered, not too bad.”
Trent laughed, rolling out of reach. “That tickles and you
know it. And I think we did just fine, considering you’re stressed about our
plans.”
“It’s not the plans, it’s
where we’re going.” Rory pounced, landing on Trent, resting his elbows on either side of
his head as he gazed down at him. “It’s been a long time since we’ve been
there. Almost a hundred years. Things will have changed.”
“True, but for the better
according to Phillip and Sienna. The city has finally revived and gone back to
its former glory, now that they’ve figured out how to keep hurricanes from
causing the sort of damage Katrina and a couple of the later ones did.”
“We’ll see,” Rory said, not
sounding all that certain Trent
was right. Still, he had agreed to the visit, albeit reluctantly, so he wasn’t
going to back down now. Not when Trent
wanted it so badly. “I guess we should get moving then. I still haven’t
finished packing.”
Trent chuckled, kissing his nose. “I guess we should. How
it can take anyone so long to decide what to take…”
“So I’m fussy. Sue me. I
need to let them see we haven’t fallen into decadent decay since we moved
here.”
“I doubt that’s possible in
two short years.”
Rory sat up, looking around
the huge bedroom of their—well castle as far as he was concerned even though
Trent insisted it was just a huge manor house built to look like one.
Trent had found out about it from a man he had been
working with at a hotel in upstate New
York about ten years ago.
Like Emily’s chateau, it was
tucked away in the mountains, although in this case said mountains surrounded Blue Cascade
Lake, only a hundred miles or so from
the hotel where Trent
had been working. It had belonged to a very reclusive millionaire who had
willed to his son when he died. The son, being much less of a loner,
immediately put it on the market where it had stayed until Trent and Rory, after
much discussion, and several nocturnal trips to visit it, had decided it would
be the perfect place for them to settle down. They bought it, then with the
help and guidance of one of Phillip’s compatriots in the area they did what
work was required to make it ‘vampire-friendly’ as Rory put it.
They now used it as their
home whenever they needed respite from the world of humans.
“It is possible,” Rory
replied in response to Trent’s
comment as he got out of bed. “I feel decadent when I’m here.”
Trent smiled lovingly at his slightly younger partner.
Although, given how long they had been together, five years was hardly a blip
on the radar now. “You definitely look decadent with your hair that long.”
Rory grinned. “Well you did
tell me to leave it this way after we got done with the Ren Faire circuit.”
“Something I for one never
want to go through again. Despite what you said, doing that is nothing like
leading the ‘Ghost and Vampire’ tours. Not even one bit. The fools that would come by after dark were just looking
to, well make fools of themselves, getting drunk on fake mead and trying to put
the make on the pretty women, or handsome men, who had the same objective in
mind.”
Trent shuddered dramatically and Rory chuckled as he started
to get dressed, saying as he did, “Maybe we should consider doing the tours
again. Phillip says the ones now running in New Orleans, how did he put it, ‘suck big
time’?”
Laughing, Trent went to the closet to find something to
wear. “He was a bit crasser than that, but yeah.” He paused, looking at Rory.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To get back into it?”
Rory nodded. “I was good at
it and it is something we can do after dark. I mean if you…”
“I think it could be fun to try
it again. We’ll talk about it more when we get down there.”
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