Almost Lovers (20 page)

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.

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 would 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.

"Well, Robert is your mess to clean up," I
said, picking up Prussia, "Take care of it,"

"What about her?" asked Lydia, pointing to
Prussia.

"Don't worry about her," I said, offended by
her nosiness, "just clean up your mess and tell your little friend
she came very close to dying tonight,"