Free Almost Lovers by Cassidy Raindance Page A

orders.
     
    "What if she had killed me?" I asked.
     
    "I can't have anyone weak on the Royal
Guard, either," said the Queen.
     
    I had underestimated Victoria. She had
always been cold and calculating. All of this business with
Prussia, all the rumors about the Queen losing her mind, it was all
a pretense, a facade. The Queen had a plan and whatever it was she
had the whole Royal Court fooled.
     
    "Did I pass your test?" I asked.
     
    The Queen set her glass down on her desk and
dipped a finger in her drink as if the conversation bored her.
     
    "I would have preferred if you had killed
her, but..." she dragged her finger around the rim of her glass,
"given your history with Lydia I am pleased that you did the next
best thing, all things considered,"
     
    "Not with flying colors," I said.
     
    "No," said the Queen.
     
    She stopped dragging her finger around the
rim of her glass and looked at me then. It was a serious gaze, a
gaze full of thought and contemplation. Of what was the real
question?
     
    "Sebastian, the Royal Court is in danger,"
said the Queen. She finished the liquid in the glass and set the
glass down, "There are forces at work. I don't know who but I have
my suspicions."
     
    "You think it's Lydia?" I asked.
     
    Lydia hadn't been a key player in the Royal
Court in years, exiled even from conversing with the family for
fear of death upon members of the court. She was outcast the moment
the Queen handed out her sentence, a sentence that should have been
mine also.
     
    The Queen waved a hand at me dismissively,
"Of course not," said the Queen, "As much as I hate the little
opportunist, she's not smart enough to assassinate a human let
alone a Royal family member. Murder, yes, but not assassination.
No. But I suspect it is someone in the court. It's someone that
knows us well,"
     
    The silence hung in the air. Victoria's eyes
glazed and I thought I saw her eyes mist for a moment. She turned
away from me. I couldn’t see her face. She looked out the draped
window.
     
    "Then who?" I asked.
     
    "That's what we need to find out," said the
Queen, "I need your support here Sebastian. If the court is
taken..."
     
    She didn't have to say it. It was laid out
in her own history. It was exactly how she had acquired the throne
thousands of years ago.
     
    "The Queen falls, we all fall," I
murmured.
     
    "Yes," she said, still looking out the
window into the garden beyond, "And what a fall it would be. Not
just for us but for the species,"
     
    And just like that, the sentimental and
unstable Queen surfaced. Victoria had been one of the first
vampires on earth. She had seen it all, lived to see more than most
of us could ever imagine. And no one knew for sure if it was
possible for a vampire to become senile. Yet.
     
    That was the rumor from those concerned
about the future of the Royal court. Not only would it mean being
ruled by someone unfit but it meant we were not as immortal as we
thought. It meant we lived with an illusion of escaping death, not
actually succeeding for long.
     
    The longer you live, the more you want to
cling to life. Even if it is a life spent in the shadows.
     

CHAPTER TEN - Lydia
     
     
    I could feel the heat on my cheeks. My tears
disappeared before they made it to my chin, held high. I stormed
out of that castle and made a beeline for Sebastian's car. Sports
cars have tiny trunks. He could have put me in the back seat and at
least given me the chance to tear out his throat and escape. But
no, I ended up with a Prince that actually had half a brain.
     
    The doorman Charles or something didn't let
me slam the front door but I'll damn well slam the door to that
pretty little sports car. And slam it I did.
     
    I shifted the luxury car into gear and spun
rocks out from under the tires as I left. Pebbles bounced off the
door of the castle. I wasn't a Princess but I should have been. And
Sebastian wasn't making a move to stand up to his manipulative and
crazy grandmother.
     
    I blasted