“Why are we out here?” Sascha Rhade asked miserably, leaning back dramatically against the tree she was sitting near, arms flopping in frustration at her sides.
“His majesty wants me to show you how to survive in the wild,” her sister, Alarice, replied, glancing over from where she was diligently setting up their makeshift tent.
“’His majesty’?” Sascha snorted derisively. “You mean ‘dad’?”
“It’s rude to refer to the King of Rhade as ‘dad’, Sascha,” Alarice chastised her, shaking her head with a scowl. “There’s a certain amount of decorum princesses should be expected to have, you know.”
“Come off it, Ricey,” Sascha scoffed, struggling to get the tent set up. “We’re nothing more than assets. Little pieces he can push around on his map to get in the best place to help him with whatever enemy he needs neutralized this week. I’m slated to go into the “diplomatic corps” next year. You know what that means, right?”
“I really don’t want to hear this, Sascha,” Alarice scowled, not looking up from where she was setting up the fire for the night. She had begged their father to let her have this one last night with Sascha. This was not how things were supposed to play out and Alarice was growing rather frustrated. Her sister had done nothing but complain the entire trip.
“It means I’m a whore so ‘His majesty’ can lull people into complacency. I spread my legs for anyone he tells me to so the army can go in and wipe them out later when they think they’re safe because they fucked me. He’s nothing but a well-dressed pimp, Ricey.”
“That’s not true!” Alarice wheeled on her older sister; hands clenched in fists at her side.
“You know it’s true,” Sascha shrugged at her. “You’re being sent off to the Hunters to be daddy’s little knife in the darkness. We’re tools, Ricey! Nothing more, nothing less,” Sascha sighed. “The only one that matters is Galen and he’s become almost as big of an asshole as dad. Another few years and he’ll easily pass daddy up in the ‘pompous dangerous prick’ department.”
“What about us?” Alarice asked quietly, her blonde bangs dropping over her eyes in the late day sun, hiding her face in shadow.
“Did you hit your head?” Sascha cocked her head to the side. “I just said we’re – “
“No! Not what he views us as, what we are. To each other! What about us?” Alarice looked up, her deep blue eyes with a blood red ring running through her irises boring into Sascha.
“What do you think?” Sascha shrugged. “Do you keep two tools together because they want to be close to each other? Or do you not care about how the tools feel and do what you want?”
“I don’t care about tools! I don’t care about the king or Galen or any of the fucking rest of it! Can’t you see? I care about us!” Alarice yelled. “What about us, Sascha? Right here, right now and in the future. What about us?”
“I…I’m sorry, Ricey,” Sascha sighed. Her sister, the soon to be captain of the guard, one of the deadliest archers in the entire kingdom of Rhade stared at her with tears in her eyes, trembling with frustrated desperation. “You know I love you. Right?”
“Do I?” Alarice sniffed. “Because you don’t show it! What am I supposed to think? All you keep doing is talking about tools and stupid crap like that.”
“What do you want, Ricey?” Sascha sighed.
“Pay attention to me! Show me you love me! Show me I’m important!” She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and sagged. “Pretend like the world is going to end tomorrow and show me, Sascha. Show me that no matter what happens… no matter how things go, we were there first. We loved each other before anyone else.”
“You know the things we’ve done aren’t ok, right?” Sascha glanced at her. “No one would understand.”
“And going to war every five months with a new country that never did anything to us is understandable?” Alarice snapped.
“You know what I mean, Ricey,” Sascha sighed, though she had to admit Alarice had a point.
“I know what you meant but how is two people loving each other wrong? How is what we’re doing wrong? It’s not like we can get pregnant, so how is it wrong?” Alarice snapped, plainly agitated. “Besides, since when do you care about what anyone else thinks?”
“You’re really not being fair here,” Sascha felt her sister pressing her into a corner she wasn’t really upset about being put into. “This isn’t something sisters should do. You know how other people will think of this. Of us.”
“I don’t care,” Alarice growled. “It’s not anyone else’s life. It’s ours. Some day you will be given away to someone else. I will be sent to war and all we’ll have of us are memories. I…I don’t want memories. I want you. I want us. I know it’s selfish and I know I can’t have it forever. But for right now? For this moment…is it so wrong?”
“Ricey, I…” Sascha began before stopping abruptly as Alarice stalked forward. Before Sascha could react, Alarice brought her to her feet with the strength of a vampire and captured her lips. Alarice’s tongue slipped between Sascha’s lips, probing the soft wetness of her mouth, dancing over her own in a frenzied, instinctual ballet born of passion and desperation.
Being left on their own so often when younger and largely bereft of love and affection, the two princesses of the Rhade kingdom had always been inseparable. They had learned through tutors of their duties and responsibilities. They had learned things they were expected to excel at like sewing and etiquette. They had learned the ways of the sword and bow and spell and diplomacy. They had learned history and debate and politics. They had learned and excelled at every subject they were presented with.
The one thing they felt only the other could teach had been the most pleasant, however. They had learned through exploration and giggly passion the touch of another’s hands on their skin. They had learned through long lonely nights and stolen moments during the days the spots on their bodies which felt the best when touched.
While she may have looked more the part of the severe and duty-minded princess of the realm, Alarice had always been the one to follow her heart whereas Sascha was more realistic. Sascha knew her role and knew the future would have no place for youthful passions and heartfelt longings. The world would not be kind about what the two shared. There would be no acceptance. There would be no happily ever after for her and her sister.
Alarice was right in a way, though. The two had slipped from the gentle eddy of youthful indulgence into the river’s current. They had a moment more and possibly less to catch their breath before they were swept toward the white-water rapids of duty.
Sascha’s fingers traced along Alarice’s cheeks as the pair’s kiss deepened and lengthened. One last moment before it all ended. Alarice needed this moment and, if she was honest, so did she. Nothing was certain except this moment and even that would end quickly enough. Perhaps they both needed it. One last pleasured gasp. A final cathartic release of childhood forbidden love before turning their small canoes toward the rough waters ahead.
“If we’re going to do this, you have entirely too many clothes on,” Sascha pointed out, stepping back with a smirk, foregoing the mannerisms she was being taught by the courtesans. There would be no breathy purr, no flash of skin, no capturing her partner’s eye with a flirtatious glance and hint of a demure smile. There would be no feet placement to ensure her potential target couldn’t mistake her intentions as anything but her being wholly invested in them. There was only her and Alarice in the darkening woods with a need for the closeness which had sustained them both through the long nights and sweltering days of lives lived in isolated misery.
For a moment Alarice’s previous confidence faltered and she glanced about hesitantly. Sascha pulled at the ties of her traveling dress and let her garments fall to the ground, stepping toward Alarice, eyes never leaving her taller, younger sister’s face. The swell of her breasts, the flare of her hips and the seductive way her body moved as she stepped gracefully forward left no doubt in Alarice’s fevered thoughts her sister was no longer a child.
Alarice swallowed hard, suddenly a little nervous. A switch had been flipped within her sister. Sascha was no longer the fun-loving, flirty royal princess. She was a lioness on the prowl and Alarice was her prey.
“You are too clothed, Ricey,” Sascha repeated with a grin. “Either you remedy the situation, or I will.” Alarice hesitated for a moment before pulling her clothing off until she stood in the fading summer light of the late afternoon sun naked before her sister.
Sascha’s body had filled with the charms of a temptress. Her breasts were heavy and full, her thin waist was toned but soft, her hips were full and sensual, and her legs were well-proportioned for matters of the court. Alarice immediately felt self-conscious. Countless hours spent training in the military had tempered Alarice’s body to a weapon. Her breasts were small with puffy pink nipples above her muscular core. Her legs were lithe and lean, the ideal for a Huntress of the Realm.
Sascha could immediately feel Alarice’s discomfort and stepped forward quickly, pulling her into a tender kiss. Sascha’s hands traveled down Alarice’s muscled back and cupped her small, firm butt, pulling her sister tighter. Alarice started to caress her sister’s back before pausing, moving her hands away quickly.
“That’s enough of your self-consciousness, Ricey,” Sascha growled.
“I-I have callouses from tr- “Alarice began sheepishly.
“You talked a good game earlier, Ricey,” Sascha chastised her. “I don’t appreciate people who don’t believe what they say.”
“You know I believe everything I say!” Alarice hissed, her temper flaring immediately.
“Prove it, sis,” Sascha challenged her. Alarice gripped her older sister tightly to prove a point for a moment and then seemed to melt in the heat given off from their bodies, slowly moving her rough hands over Sascha’s silken skin until they cupped beneath Sascha’s full globes. She pulled Sascha toward her with her sister doing the same and their lips met in another kiss.
“Is that proof enough for you?” Alarice breathed as the two broke their kiss to come up for air. Sascha ran the tips of her fingers over Alarice’s firm ass, up her sides to her breasts, brushing Alarice’s almond-colored, hardening nipples with the tips of her fingernails.
“It’s not a bad start.” Sascha purred with a playful shrug.
Nothing can stand in the way of love. Not even blood. And for vampires that statement has even more meaning