Almost Lovers (10 page)

The Master placed a hand on my arm and
looked into my eyes. I could see her conviction, feel it tingle on
my skin. We were going to succeed. The Master would make sure it
happened.

"Then you need to take situations like this
human and use it to discredit the Queen," she said to me, "You are
a masterful twister of truths and weaver of lies. Blur the lines.
That will be crucial in our cause and richly rewarded when the
court is ....restructured,"

I knelt before the Master in the cold.

"Long live the Master, fall must the Queen,"
I said.

The Master began walking toward her parked
car but stopped and turned back to me, still knelt but watching
after her.

"Lydia," she called, "A thought occurred to
me. Maybe Sebastian would be a suitable prize when everything is
all said and done? Every Princess needs a handsome guard to watch
over her..."

I thought a moment, the grass damp and
soaking through my pant leg at the knee. I had known Sebastian for
a long time. And as long as I had known Sebastian he had always
been 'the Prince' to me, the means to an end which was a place in
the Royal Family.

"I'm not sure I would want him," I called
back to her, “If I already have a title, he's pretty but
useless,"

I could hear the distant laughter of the
Master as she left. She knew that even if I wanted him, Royal
family members are always killed off immediately. There can't be a
return to the throne if the entire family is dead.

Now I had to figure out how to use Prussia
against Victoria to draw her out in the court. My first order of
business would be establishing my connections in the court again.
My confirmation back into the Royal Court couldn't come soon
enough. I had a great deal of work to do. And before the Queen died
the eternal death she would know it had been me. And she had been
her own undoing. The Queen must fall.

Light threatened to peak over the horizon
with barely any warning signs. Early morning, the only time
Sebastian had for me – for us. We had over hunted our favorite park
and had moved into the suburbs. It wasn’t bad. No one asks
questions in the suburbs. And everyone had a wonderfully false
sense of security. This would be the perfect time to lull Sebastian
into that same sense of security.

"What's with the human," I asked, "I thought
the Queen had just used her to bait us,"

"Some of us took it," said Sebastian.

He glared at me then. I needed to warm him
up to me - maybe it was the chilly air. He could be a grumpy
morning hunter. I ignored his little jab and waved a hand at
him.

"It's all a game with her," I said, "It
always is. She's losing her damn mind anyway. Who gives a human
around the clock surveillance, anyway?"

I tried to keep my eyes on the prize while
we chatted; we had been following a couple for about ten minutes on
their little jog through suburbia hell. I got to wear my favorite
kind of uniform for a hunt so it wasn’t all bad. I loved the way my
ass looked in spandex jogging pants and it was the perfect
opportunity to give Sebastian the all-around view as well.

"If you're fishing for a way to get close to
Prussia I'm going to give you another jolt on your head for being
stupid," said Sebastian.

"Touchy, touchy," I teased. I stuck my
tongue out at him and rolled my eyes, "It's a human. I don't see
what all the fuss is about,"

"I don't either, to be honest," said
Sebastian.

He gave me a straight forward look. He was
as easy to read as a comic strip. He didn't have a clue. Not at
all.

"What do you think, then?" I asked "Best
guess,"

"I think if we keep talking about this we're
both going to end up on the wrong end of a sharp wooden object,"
said Sebastian.

My breathing hadn't picked up at all. Being
banished had been made me a proficient hunter and that constant
practice gave me an advantage - considering there was no free lunch
for those out of favor with the Queen. I had had no choice but to
hunt and it had kept me in shape.

But I could hear Sebastian’s breathing
taxing him. He hadn't suffered through banishment with me. He just
visited. Being royalty had perks. Never thought sleeping with the
Prince, heir to the throne, would land me banished from the Royal
Court instead of taking a leaping step up in the ranks. Royal
society could be such a bitch. Who would have thought?

"She can't read minds, Sebastian," I said,
kidding him.

He gave me a serious look.

"Can she?" I felt a rock in my stomach.

If she could read minds I would be dead
already. Not just from the insults I regularly rattled off in my
head but all the ways I had planned and attempted to kill her, at
least three times in the last 100 years.

His kidding grin finally broke across his
face and I breathed out in relief, not realizing I had been holding
my breath.

"That's so messed up," I said, giving his
arm a light slap.

"They're on to us," said Sebastian, letting
his pace slow.

We were rounding yet another corner in the
labyrinth of cookie-cutter homes and neat lawns. The first ribbons
of light streaked over the horizon.

"Why are you slowing down?" I asked, seeing
that the couple had looked back several times now and were running
faster, "Let's chow down,"

I picked up the pace and began sprinting
toward the couple. We had an unspoken agreement, Sebastian and I.
He took the men and I took the women whenever we were doing a kill
together the women were always prone to be runners - my favorite
kind of food, fast food.

By the time I reached the woman only a few
seconds had passed. Being a vampire meant certain advantages.
Heightened senses meant we could run faster and it wasn't fair so
we always gave them a head start...well, almost always.

She stood in a fighting stance but her face
was all terror.

"Stay back!" she yelled at me.

Her skin glistened and I could smell the
adrenaline coming out of her pores. It was thick enough that I
could taste it in the air. I licked my lips to savor the flavor.
Sebastian never savored his hunt.

He was a greedy feeder but didn't like the
raunchy smell of fear that rolled off of them. He'd sooner kill
them than put up with the antics if he was in a foul mood, like
today.

"Now what?" I asked the terrified woman.

She hadn't expected a question but least of
all she hadn’t expected to see fangs. She took a step back followed
by another. The man next to her brought his fist up into the air in
a threatening manner.

"You have enough to worry about," said
Sebastian, jogging up and stopping next to me.

The man looked concerned, as he should.

"We don't want any trouble," said the man,
his voice was not at all confident.

I never saw that look in willing feedings.
The most exhilarating part was watching each new realization pass
over my food's face before I ate it. My food was terrified of me
and I was drunk on that knowledge.

"I want some trouble," I said, "I mean, I’m
dressed for a jog and here we are. We're all ready to go and now
you just need…a nudge…of motivation to get this party started!"

I took an exaggerated step toward the woman
and laughed as with each step she copied me, only backwards. The
woman looked around her. There wasn't a soul in sight.

"No one is coming to save you..." I
whispered, "You're going to have to run for it."

I smiled at her. The points of my fangs
dripping with hunger and the desire to sink into her. I laughed
when she took a step and backed right into the street lamp. She
moved oblivious to anything and everything around her, simply
reacting.

It was a dance of the ages - the hunt, the
primal roles of hunter and prey. The street lamp light clicked off,
an automatic feature of the polished suburb with the manicured
lawns and identical trimmed trees. If the sprinklers had gone off
at that moment it would have been picturesque.

"You're...you're vampires," she said.

She looked at her hands, shaking. Her
adrenaline had put her in fight or flight mode and she hadn't fled.
But her adrenaline wasn't letting her body follow directions
either. She had tremors running through every limb. Like a shaking
baby without laughs or cries.

"I'm glad you got her," said Sebastian,
taking equal steps toward his breakfast, "She's probably got an
awful spray tan after-taste,"

"I don't mind it," I said, shrugging.

I lied, of course. Spray tans tasted
horrible. It tasted as if I had woken up with a furry tongue and
bad breath. You just couldn't get it off and it was gross. I tried
looking for a spot to indicate maybe she wore a swimsuit when she
tanned.

"You leave us alone," the girl yelled at me,
"Right now! Or you're going to be toast in a few seconds! Now, just
run along and we won't ever tell anyone about this..." her voice
shaking.

“You sounded confident up until the end,"
said Sebastian, "The end part kind of gave you away,"

Sebastian made a grab for his meal and his
breakfast leapt backwards with a bound. His meal was a lot livelier
than mine. Maybe I had short changed myself on breakfast.

"You're going to be sorry," said the woman,
"The sun will be up any second and you're going to be dust,"

This time she managed to sound angry, with
just a dash of confidence. Good. I wanted her heart to be beating
as fast as it could. I wanted her to be the most terrified she had
ever been in her entire short life.

"We're not going to burst into flames," I
said as I took calm steps toward her, "Movies lie...we're just like
you. Only ...better,"

Tears started to stream down her cheeks. The
realization that she was going to die, that’s what I wanted to
see.

"But you're," she was whimpering, "You're
vampires," her words barely a whisper.

"Like she said," said Sebastian, "We're just
like you,"

And Sebastian latched onto his breakfast and
took him to the ground in a matter of seconds. Blood spurted
towards the woman and streaked her hair, droplets splattered across
her face. She shrieked in horror. She shifted her focus from
Sebastian’s bent form over the man he drank to watching me,
watching her, waiting.

"Someone save us!" she used the whole of her
body to scream as she knelt down to the ground, despair in her
voice.

Disappointed, I grabbed her by the hair and
twisted her head to one side. She had blood already all over her
but that wasn't what disappointed me. It disappointed me that she
didn't run. She sat down and waited to die. She didn't even try to
save her own life. And that was what separated the weak species
from the strong species. We could have walked up, dropped our fangs
and just drank without a struggle from these two. At least
Sebastian's breakfast flailed. Mine barely whimpered.

When we had finished draining them Sebastian
helped me pose the bodies as if they were jogging. Like a cherry on
a cake, Sebastian produced one of Victoria’s bloodroses and tossed
it next to the woman. Of course, we had to pose them lying down and
hope our artistic intentions were understood. I snapped a picture
and pushed it to Twitter using her phone and tagged it #shared
along with #bloodrose and #breakfast. When I looked over at
Sebastian I found him watching me, just watching.

"I don't know how much longer I can do
this," he said.

I had known Sebastian a long time. He had
been an easy mark, screaming for someone to break rules with, to
defy the Queen and live in danger and adventure. In all that time I
had never seen him look at me the way looked at that precise
moment.

"You love this game," I said, ignoring the
explosion of retweets and comments on the post.

"I'm not talking about the game," he said,
"I'm talking about us,"

I dropped the phone next to the girl and
stepped around the pool of blood slowly spreading across the
pristine sidewalk. I reached my arms out to him, to hold him, and
he stepped away.

"You're just upset," I said, "The Queen put
us in a situation we are not used to and we never talked
about-"

"What we planned to do if she wanted us to
kill each other?" he asked, "Funny how that topic never came up. I
didn't think we would need to discuss it. I thought we were on the
same page,"

"I know you're upset but I don't think this
is the time or the place," I said.

I looked around at the houses with their
shades still drawn and sprinklers poised to automate yet another
aspect of their perfect lives. People wouldn't approach us,
standing next to bleeding bodies in the middle of this little
neighborhood, but photos could be taken and calls could be made.
And the authorities would be on their way soon.

"You were going to kill me," said
Sebastian.