Almost Lovers

by Cassidy Raindance

  "Too late?" I repeated back to him, unsure what to say to that.

  "You say you're just friends with that guy-" said Robert.

  "Sebastian," I offered.

  "Right, Sebastian," said Robert, annoyed, "You say you're just friends with him but you're always out together and now he's buying you a car and-"

  "That's for my job," I said, interrupting to make sure he didn't get the wrong idea.

  Robert looked at me as if I was slow.

  "The job he got you," said Robert.

  I hadn't really looked at it like that before. Sebastian had done a lot for me, even saving my life and at one point helping me make Lydia furious which backfired somewhat. I wrung my hands, realizing what Robert must have thought.

  "You spend so much time with Lydia and I just wanted-" I started to say that I had wanted him to know what it felt like. I'm so glad Robert interrupted me.

  "Lydia?" asked Robert, pausing a moment and then letting out a laugh, "You know I would always choose you over anyone else, especially Lydia,"

  He gave me that casual sideways grin as if I had been acting silly. He always made me feel like I had been acting silly when he looked at me that way. And that's exactly how I felt now except the nagging fact that he hadn’t seemed at all upset when we broke up and he just went right off with Lydia.

  "You and Lydia didn't sleep together, then?" I asked, fussing with my nails absentmindedly instead of wringing my hands. I concentrated hard on his answer, hopeful that he would say no.

  "Is that what this has all been about?" he asked, stepping back a few steps and grabbing my shoulders gently to hold me in front of him, giving me a deep and concerned look, "If Lydia is the problem..."

  He trailed off and his eyebrows were up, expecting me to say something I assumed.

  "I think she's definitely the center of most of our problems-," I said.

  "Done," said Robert, matter of fact, beginning to walk down the path once more and pausing long enough for me to catch up and walk beside him.

  "Done?" I asked, confused at how the conversation had sort of breezed over the entire Lydia situation.

  "Lydia is done," said Robert, "She's gone, finished, forever. Just you and me," he put an arm around my shoulders and we walked squished together. He looked down at me with those soft eyes and pretty eyelashes fanning around them. He smiled at me and I knew he was going to kiss me then.

  "Just you and me," I murmured back as our lips touched.

  It had worked. All I could think as his lips pressed hard against my mouth was that it had worked. Sebastian had worked. And I had a pang of regret for what this would mean for Sebastian and me. What would this mean for my job? I felt selfish as I tried to think of ways I could simply avoid Sebastian but keep my job and the most amazing car I had ever driven in my life.

  Robert pulled his lips away from mine with a smile across his face. I smiled back at him, naturally, but my mind had nothing but worries. I knew Robert and I could have a fantastic life together. But every time I thought about us now, my mind was pulled to images of Sebastian with that beautiful smile of his.

  I hated myself for it. Kissing Robert, being in the arms of Robert, but the guilt and the shame of thinking of another man. I tried not to let it show in my eyes. I tried to hold on to this moment that I had wanted for so long. Lydia was finally out of our lives. It was just us.

  "How about we get out of here," said Robert, nodding his head down the path, "curl up on the sofa and find something boring to watch?"

  "Sounds...perfect," I said, remembering all the times Robert and I had curled up on that sofa and watched rerun after rerun.

  And like any guilt, that memory of Sebastian and me on the sofa came back to me, that light and gentle kiss haunting me like a perfect nightmare. I tried to keep my smile. And to my relief Robert didn’t seem to notice. He just smiled back.

  Robert and I strolled down the path, arms wound around each other's waists. I couldn't ask for anything more. This had been the ideal night. I tried to remember that instead of all the things I had done, all the things Sebastian and I had done and what it meant for him, for us. We made our way back to the apartment slowly, taking in the evening air and sounds of the night. With everything that had happened, we were finally talking and on our way back to the way things used to be.

  "You look cold," he said to me.

  I had crossed my arms against the chill without realizing it. I smiled at him as he took off his jacket and placed it around my shoulders. His hands on my shoulders still, he leaned close to me. I could see his lips lingering in front of my face. I looked down, my heart beat fast and I knew what he would do next. I could feel it in every inch of me. He placed his forehead against mine and murmured just loud enough for me to hear.

  "I never should have let you go," he said.

  My breath caught in my throat and I stopped breathing - I couldn't breathe. I was so happy to hear him say those words. I had been waiting months and jumping through hoops to get him to say those words. It had taken all this time but it had been worth it. It was exactly what I wanted to hear. And that was when I heard the low grumble. It sounded angry, threatening.

  Confused, I thought it had come from him. I pulled away to look at his face and saw that he wasn't looking at me. He was looking behind us. His arms fell away from me and he took a step back. I followed his line of sight and saw only bushes.

  He didn't look at me; he just kept staring at those bushes. The growling got louder. It sounded like an angry dog, or a wolf. But we didn't have wolves in the city. At least I didn't think we did. I could sense Robert had backed at least a few feet away from me and I realized that made me closer to whatever was growling. I began taking steps away from the bushes also.

  I could feel the tickle of the hairs on my body standing up. It felt like my hair was standing on end, even on my head. I backed away slowly, not taking my eyes off of the bushes. I couldn't tell where Robert was anymore but I didn't want to move too quickly and spook whatever was in the bushes.

  That was when I saw them, the eyes glowing. They were menacing, a blood thirsty red. They blinked at me, slanted and angry. I let out a scream. And right as I turned to run I could have sworn I saw a second set staring out at me from the bushes. But I didn't want to wait and see. I turned and I ran as if my life depended on it because in that moment, I felt in the pit of my stomach that it did.

  I didn't make it more than a few steps and whatever it was landed on me. I fell to the ground, a force heavier than bricks landing square on my back. It had jumped on me. I fell forward and something ran past me in a flash. My eyes followed instinctively to see where it was going. That was when I saw Robert.

  He had made it pretty far. I was much closer than he had been. I couldn't tell if he had run at all. I could just tell that he was on the ground, in the grass. His face looked right at me. Our eyes met and that look chilled me to the bone. They weren't moving. They were calm. They were much too calm for what was happening.

  I watched as a small glistening stream of red streaked across his face. He had blood coming out of his head. My heart lurched and I wanted to go to him. I couldn’t see what had attacked. Whatever it was, it was faster than anything I had ever known.

  I tried to get up, to go to Robert, and that was when everything went black. I fell to the ground, my eyes looking at Robert until I couldn't see anything. And I drifted into a nightmare...in the park...in the middle of the night...being chased by something I couldn't see except those eyes peering out from the bushes and coming to kill me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - Sebastian

  The guard called to ask if I would be back soon and I let him know that I was almost there. He informed me that he was sick of babysitting. I wasn't exactly excited to baby-sit Prussia with Robert either. She didn't know she had been guarded around-the-clock but she did know that I was still interested in her.

  When I got near her building I knew the smell. It was faint and almost indiscernible but I woul
d know it anywhere. It was not a scent that could easily be mistaken for anything else. It was the perfume I had gotten for Prussia. She had worn it. I tried to follow the perfume trail into her apartment building but was confused as the trail went cold at the entrance to her building.

  Instead, it trailed on down the sidewalk, away from her building meaning she hadn't been there in a while, that she must have left. Another scent trail was wrapped in it and down the sidewalk. I followed the smell into the park and I felt my heart jump into my mouth.

  The other scent with Prussia was an overpowering, musky, douche bag smell. An eerie feeling overcame me as I walked through the trees and followed her naive and beautiful scent around the walking trail. I had saved her on this trail the first time we had met. Granted, I had orchestrated the entire thing to make sure our paths collided and to be sure I had a reasonable excuse for insisting to see her but this time...it felt like someone was using my own tricks and for all the wrong reasons. I smelled Robert and someone else. Someone I didn't recognize but someone that was definitely a third wheel. I quickened my pace while trying to be as quiet as possible.

  I followed them to a curving jogging path that wound through some thick bushes. Then I heard growling. I stopped to listen a moment. I could have recognized that growl anywhere. From the moment I had met her to the years she spent giving me a softer growl in the comforts of her husband's bed I had memorized her sounds. It was Lydia. I tried to determine where Lydia might be in the bushes and concentrated on her growl. She was angry. More concerning, she was hunting and Prussia was out here. I narrowed it down to the bushes on my right, nearer to the water and in the shadows but I wasn't moving fast enough. I heard a scream that I knew could only be Prussia and I ran as fast as I could.

  I sprinted through the bushes, breaking through the branches as I ran, and when I hit the clearing on the other side of the bushes I couldn't believe my eyes. I barely had time to react. A vampire was on top of Robert, too far away for me to tell who it was, and another was standing on top of Prussia. It wasn't Lydia. It was someone else. But…I had no idea who.

  She bared her fangs at me, ready for a fight. Prussia was out cold and Robert looked to be dead which would be a blessing in disguise judging by how the vampire was ripping into him, making an absolute mess. I looked back at the vampire on top of Prussia. Prussia looked hurt but unconscious and still alive. A small trail of blood streaked down from the top of her head. I didn't just see red, as the blood trickled down her face, I felt it. I let out a deep growl in my blinding rage.

  "You are sentenced to death by order of the Queen," I shouted, assuming a fighting stance with my hands raised and fangs down.

  "Well," said the woman, "that doesn't really give me much incentive to play nice, now does it?"

  She stepped off of Prussia's body and took a bold step forward, unafraid.

  "I'm not here to give you an incentive," I said, "just the punishment,"

  "I don't see judge and jury here," said the woman, her hand sweeping the empty moon lit park highlighting the fact that we were alone. Her short hair rippled softly with each slight breeze coming through, "Stand aside. Vampires before humans, you know the law. You kill me and you're signing your own death warrant,"

  I swiped a hand across her face and slashed open her cheek. Several streaks of crimson flowed down her cheek and under her chin down her neck.

  "You'll pay for that!" she screamed and out came the claws, arms swinging.

  I crouched low and shot straight into the air landing a hard uppercut under her chin as I jumped up. If she had been human, her head would have popped off just like a daisy in the spring time. She screamed and growled at the same time. The vampire in the distance heard. Standing up from feasting on Robert, the other vampire sprinted over and ran right into me, knocking me down.

  "Run," the vampire screamed after she knocked me down, "Run now!"

  It was a frantic scream, one filled with fear and panic. I knew that voice though never filled with fear and panic. It was Lydia. Her hair was a mess around her face, covered in blood, Robert's blood. Her eyes were wide and adrenaline shot. She crouched low, waiting for me to get up, and had her hands up and ready to fight. If I had ever had any doubt as to her ability to fight, I was about to find out. She stood between me and the other vampire that had landed on the ground hard after my hit.

  Lydia took her eyes off me for a second to see if the other vampire had fled and it was all the time I needed. I was on Lydia in an instant, an arm wound tightly around her neck as we both looked at the other woman.

  "Surrender or I kill her," I said to the woman as she took her time to get up off of the ground.

  The other woman's face registered the current situation and looked at Lydia, confused.

  "RUN!" Lydia screamed.

  I choked Lydia into silence as my arm tightened around her throat. I cut off her air supply and looked toward the other vampire. As soon as our eyes met, the vampire fled. I could carry Lydia but couldn't leave Prussia. I had to let the fleeing woman go.

  I pushed Lydia away from me. She knew running wouldn't do her any good.

  "I swear, we didn't know it was Prussia," said Lydia, gasping for air.

  "Bullshit," I said, "She was wearing the Queen's perfume. You knew the scent and that following or hunting anyone wearing it would bring nothing but trouble. No one except the Queen herself wears that scent,"

  I went to check on Prussia. I could tell that she was still alive. I grabbed Lydia by the arm and dragged her over to where Robert was lying.

  "I swear," said Lydia, "I didn't know,"

  "You tore apart Robert," I pointed to his mangled and bloodied figure on the ground, "There is no way you didn't know that was Robert and that he would obviously be with Prussia,"

  I yanked her back to where Prussia was still laying, out cold.

  "I swear," said Lydia, "The frenzy of the hunt, I was caught up and the lust for blood was too great. I didn't realize until it was too late,"

  I stood there looking at her, knowing that she was an idiot but she was also an idiot that made dumb mistakes, not always intentional.

  "I don't believe you," I said, not really thinking she had done it on purpose.

  If she had, she would have gone after Prussia if she had realized she had the chance. She wouldn't have gone after Robert, especially since she normally loved the kill, loved the chase when there was a woman being hunted.

  "I would never do anything to jeopardize us," she said, "Not ever again. If I had known, I would have left the park and hunted somewhere else,"

  "Why the park?" I asked.

  She stood there a moment with a blank look on her face.

  "It's...," she tried to explain, "It's closest to where I live. Just ...convenient."

  It seemed reasonable enough. Even if she had meant to kill Prussia, she hadn't harmed her. And I didn't have the authority or the desire to kill her just for being with someone who didn't know better. I had never seen the other vampire before.

  "Who was that other woman?" I asked, my eyes squinting and critical.

  "Just," she paused a moment, "someone I met tonight,"

  Lydia wasn't known for vetting every acquaintance she ever met. It's perfectly possible she could have met her tonight without anything about her.

  "What's her name?" I asked. I considered finding her and taking her to the Queen to make sure it never happened again.

  "I didn't catch her name," said Lydia, "And you can't follow and kill every vampire that finds your precious little human tasty in the middle of the park at night. She's not of the Queen's court, she doesn't know the little laws you play by,"

  That was Lydia, getting angry and flustered right on cue. She wasn't really acting strange. I decided not to pursue it. Prussia was alive, well for the most part, and I couldn't really complain that Lydia had accidentally gotten rid of the Robert problem for me. I just couldn't let on that I was happy about it. She might get suspicious.