Almost Lovers

by Cassidy Raindance

  He looked sad and hurt and…something else.

  "This is goodbye," he said.

  "No, no, no," I said, "This can't be goodbye. We've been together for years. We're soul mates. We're meant to be together. Us against the world, remember?"

  He had finally given in to saying goodbye. I had never seen that look before on his face because I had kept him tightly wrapped around my finger since the day we had first met. Now when I needed his connection the most, now that I'm being accepted back into the Royal Court, into High Society, he had decided he didn’t need me anymore.

  And what the hell for, what could possibly be a better alternative than me? I wasn't a Princess but I was better than most that the court had to offer. I was sexier than all of the other options, no doubt about that. There wasn't a more desired woman in that entire group of stuffy aristocrats.

  "It didn't look like us against the world when you were preparing to claw your way through me to get to Prussia," he said, "One way or another, through me or by killing Prussia - you were prepared to end me, and us,"

  And like that he turned and began walking away. I could see him press one last button on his breakfast's phone before he chucked it behind him. It shattered all over the concrete. I stood looking at all the pieces and then scrambled to pick up the girl's phone. I checked the post he made and it had the picture but only one word, a single tag, #overit.

  I dropped the phone and looked up at the sky, the light cascading into different shades of blue and highlighting the fluffy white clouds hanging overhead. I had to get him back. I needed to get him back. My plan working hinged on him at least playing his part. I needed him not in the way that a woman needed a man but in the way that an assassin needed her patsy, her dumb-love struck-patsy with the cute backside and amazing build.

  I pulled out my own phone and tried to text him. I walked toward where we had parked and he wasn't anywhere to be found. After fifteen unresponsive text messages I decided I should give him some space for a few hours. I needed to figure out how to get him back around my finger, wrapped tighter than a spring and ready to help me take down the Queen - whether he realized it or not.

  CHAPTER TWELVE - Sebastian

  Between Lydia sending me a flurry of texts after our hunt this morning and my ignoring them all I nearly missed the Queen's message that she wanted to see me. I wasn't exactly thrilled. I hadn't been babysitting the human as close as she would have liked though I left a guard there when I ran errands or found something better to do...which I always managed to do.

  It's not a noble responsibility to baby-sit a human pet, which is what I had summarized she was. Wasn't she? I couldn’t come up with a better explanation besides the Queen simply being crazy, as the court regularly murmured.

  When I made it to the house it hummed with activity, getting ready for the weekly family dinner. It had been a tradition of ours for hundreds of years, longer than I could remember. It looked like more preparation than usual this time too. I sneaked through the kitchen and took a look at what we were having.

  I was surprised to find human food. There was also your predictable custodial worker, health care professional, dentist, but overall the menu lacked variety. That was the difference between a court that pushed volunteers over slavery anymore. It wasn't popular because it made things harder than they needed to be. I half expected the Queen to ask me to read stories next and entertain them while they waited for us to drink them.

  Not a single one looked appealing. I didn't bother tasting any of them. My breakfast had been much better and he had been selected at complete random. What did it say about us that we couldn’t do better on one of our more respectable nights of the evening? At this point, the roasted duck and wiggly red cranberry stuff looked more appetizing and that was saying a lot.

  I made my way to the Queen's chambers and was surprised to find she wasn't there. I wandered down the hall in search for the Queen and found a guard that pointed me to the Chancellor’s old office. The Chancellor had died the eternal death, much to the pleasure and despair of Lydia at the time, his wife. It wasn't completely her fault but it didn't stop the sentencing. Death, the final verdict straight from the Queen.

  Now, years later, she would be added back to the Royal Court. I smacked my hand on my face as I reached the Chancellor’s old office where I found the Queen’s guard posted. I was such a schmuck. No wonder Lydia had been all wound up and the castle so busy – today Lydia would be confirmed back into the Royal Court. It wouldn't be a huge ceremony judging by what would be offered as refreshments but a step up from banishment, for certain.

  I knocked at the door of the dead Chancellor's office.

  "Come in," I heard through the door.

  "You said you wanted to speak to me," I said, opening the door with my eyes toward the floor.

  "Yes, come in," said the Queen, distracted as she looked over old records with her reading glasses sliding partially down the bridge of her nose.

  "Still no new Chancellor?" I asked.

  She looked up at me as if I shouldn't have bothered asking. The Chancellor had been the judge and jury of our Royal Court. When laws were broken the Chancellor had to interpret the law without wavering, even if it displeased the Queen in some cases. The Chancellor had assumed the role for so long that his name was hardly used; it was simply the Chancellor.

  "There hasn't been a candidate worthy of the position. But I have someone in mind," she went back to her papers, murmuring to herself and waving me towards a seat on the other side of the desk.

  I sat down and dust plumed up from the chair cushion. I coughed as the dust hung around me in a cloud until it finally settled, leaving a fine layer of dust all around.

  "You asked me here for an update?" I asked.

  "No," she murmured as she read over a document with great interest.

  She looked up and set down what she had been looking at.

  "Yes," she corrected herself, "Yes, I'm looking for an update,"

  "All quiet on the home front," I told her.

  I had talked with the guard on watch before I had pulled up in the drive way. I had to appear diligent. I had assumed that Victoria would want an update.

  "Has anyone come to visit her today?" the Queen asked.

  I made a calculated risk and lied.

  "Nope, not a single one," I said.

  "Did she go to work today?" asked the Queen, vague interest showing.

  "Nope, she had the day off," I said.

  "Fantastic," said the Queen.

  I nodded my head in agreement.

  "She didn't go to work, didn't get fired, and didn't get followed home by anyone," said the Queen, "That’s a relief,"

  I didn't feel as relaxed and at ease as I had felt a moment before. I should have known when she navigated me right into a second lie immediately following the first one that she was on to me.

  I nodded my head. I had been caught. I knew it. She obviously knew it.

  "I need to be able to trust you," said the Queen.

  She wasn't as angry as I had expected. Perhaps I would get a slap on the wrist.

  "Is this because of Lydia?" asked the Queen.

  I clenched my jaw. A silent acknowledgment.

  "I just don't understand why you're having me baby-sit your pet when you got what you wanted," I said, "Lydia and I are done. I'm over her. I'm moving on,"

  At least she had enough of a heart to look sympathetic, though more surprised than anything.

  "I never wanted you to get hurt," said the Queen, "I was just looking out for your best interest. And that means…knowing exactly who you can trust when your back’s against the wall,"

  "Well, thanks for orchestrating that little demonstration so I could experience that valuable lesson first hand," I said, no semblance of respect or formality remaining, "Congratu-fucking-lations,"

  "Watch it," warned the Queen sharply.

  She pointed a sharp fingernail and a stern look in my direction. I crossed my arms and sat bac
k in the chair, a second plume of dust billowing out of the cushion and around me. Her expression softened and for a moment it looked like she meant it. Then, of course, she opened her mouth.

  "I can't have Lydia around Prussia," said Victoria, "She is a liability and a security risk,"

  I sent a thinly veiled glare in her direction. I had doubts now. Her words rang with more truth than I would usually believe of Lydia. Lydia had made a choice I never thought she would make. And it could have ended my life, all for high society and power. It made sense; those were the two things she loved. I just hadn't realized it was greater than our love.

  "Having me, Lydia bait, baby sit your pet isn't the smartest move in the world then is it?" I asked.

  I saw her eyebrow go up but I wasn't ready to stop, "You should have just killed her when you found another excuse that was convenient, if not ethical."

  It was a jab at her banishment of Lydia years ago. The Queen hadn't been able to execute Lydia for the murder of her husband, the Chancellor, because Lydia's creator had stepped in and accepted eternal death on her behalf.

  When she had realized that Lydia would live, she found an old law that was legal but hadn't been used in thousands of years.

  By sleeping with me, Lydia had in effect committed high treason. Not sure if the Royal Court would over throw her for sentencing her to death a second time, even when a vampire life had been volunteered as tribute, she sentenced Lydia to a lifetime of banishment with a sentence of eternal death upon trespass.

  "If you want to see unethical you can join the court of Thaddeus and get your rocks off judging them," said the Queen, "But you wouldn't last a day,"

  Not her sharpest retort. She was distracted.

  "I continue to baby-sit, then?" I asked.

  "Yes," said the Queen, "You baby-sit. And you get her to come to dinner tonight,"

  I threw my arms up in the air.

  "You have to be kidding me! We're not just bringing the family pet to dinner. We're catering to her special human diet and letting her think she's our equal?" I asked.

  The Queen cocked her head to the side and my entire body tensed. That was a look I had seen her give her food before. She wasn't above eating another vampire though it certainly didn't taste good. Blood begins to expire as soon as it leaves the human host, inedible after a few weeks though still able to be absorbed.

  "What do you think humans are?" asked the Queen.

  I licked my lips, a quick flip of my tongue across my dry lips. The snake watching the mouse. I had to be a still mouse. And I did the only thing I could - I told the truth.

  "I think we should spend less time playing with our food and just eat," I said, "I think we should make sure we're valuing vampire life more sacred than the life of tasty versions of cattle, of humans,"

  The first part was my motto but the last part sort of snuck up on me. It sounded like Lydia speaking but with my voice. It didn't sound good out loud and it looked like the Queen didn't think it sounded acceptable either. She folded her hands in her lap and bowed her head for a moment. It made me uncomfortable. After several minutes she looked up at me with a grave expression in her eyes.

  "Sebastian, we are just like the humans," she said.

  "Only better," I murmured Lydia's words and regretted them as soon as I said them. Not because I didn't believe, but because I hadn't meant to be Lydia's talking piece.

  "No," said the Queen, "And I'm going to clear this up for you right now. I haven't told anyone this and it's something that will stay between us or I’ll cut your tongue out,"

  I sat up and gave the Queen my full attention.

  "I'm listening," I said, hopeful that she would continue after several seconds sat sitting and staring at me.

  "But are you ready to hear this?" asked the Queen.

  What do you say to that? No? I nodded and hoped that she would just spit it out.

  "We're not of this world," said the Queen, "We are an alien species that crash landed thousands of years ago and annihilated the indigenous species, replacing them,"

  "Well," I let out a breath I had been holding, "That's a new one,"

  I ran my hands through my hair and sat speechless for a moment. I wanted her to be joking.

  "How does that help me with my babysitting?" I asked with a touch more sarcasm than I had intended.

  The Queen got up and pulled a book from a safe behind a painting. The book was ancient, pages disintegrating at the edges. She flipped open the book and showed me the front page. Sure enough, there was her name in a ship log of some kind.

  "A ship?" I asked.

  "Yes," said the Queen, "We spent 16 years in space and I fell in love on that ship,"

  "You never mentioned a husband," I said.

  "That's because he wasn’t my husband. A slave, he was human," said the Queen.

  "Wait..." I said, "Where did you get him?"

  "From our home planet," said the Queen, "Humans are not indigenous to Earth. And we are not indigenous anywhere - we are the result of a man-made virus, the Vampyr virus promising eternal youth and sold to the highest bidder,"

  "This is insanity," I said, turning the pages in the ship log and looking at the different entries, "It can't be...this can't be a forgery. It's all true?"

  I looked into the face of the Queen and found a woman carrying a burden, a secret bigger than her and she had kept it for thousands upon thousands of years.

  "Every word of it," said the Queen, her fingertips running across the top of the ship log pages, "And the virus had unforeseen side-effects,"

  "Are you sure we’re human?" I asked.

  I couldn't imagine being a human, not really. I had been born a vampire. I had hit puberty and had turned as all born vampires did. It was the Halflings that turned later in life, their 20's or so. And the pets, the humans that were bitten and injected were the ones that were turned immediately. They weren't on par with a born vampire and never would be. But they still counted. They were still one of us. And here we had all fooled ourselves into thinking we were superior - when we were the result of what? A science experiment?

  "We are human," the Queen said, "But we have lost our humanity, all of us. It's going to result in our own self-destruction and possibly the destruction of the entire human population,"

  I looked down at my hands and tried to list the differences. The teeth that came down much like a snake when we fed, the heightened senses, the strength, increased brain function, the slowed aging almost to a standstill. We weren't immortal but we were darn close.

  "Why do we even need our humanity?" I asked, "Perhaps we're better this way? These feel like features, not side-effects,"

  "It's all you've known since birth," said the Queen, "You haven't really known love, known pain, known loss, injustices, suffering - these are human things."

  "You want us to suffer so that we can find our humanity again?" I asked, "To feel compassion for our food and what, starve? So that you can keep a human pet and we can kill off our own kind with self imposed feeding restrictions?"

  It didn't sit well with me. We were better than the humans. We were more than the humans. They were food, cattle, pets, and amusement wrapped in one.

  "Prussia is the key," said the Queen, "I don’t know how yet but she is. And if she dies, we all die,"