In the four decades that Galina had walked since her death, she had begun to grow accustomed to her life. If it could be called a life, she always reminded herself bitterly. The deep continuous thirst drove her just as it drove those who spotted her to fear her. Once she’d been considered a beauty, the toast of court, as lovely as the princess herself. She’d had admirers and even lovers then. People who smiled and flirted with her, even when she was not theirs to try for. Now she was a monster. Or at least she could only imagine what the rest of the world saw of her, her reflection hidden from her for all eternity. But this too she had grown accustomed to. It was better now, better with a sister by her side.

Mari, the young girl she had once saved from a gruesome fate had become dear to Galina. Their paths had merged together as if a line drew them together. A bond that had become familial to Galina who tried to ignore the ties that had once bound her to a family that was out of reach. She had tried to ignore those bonds in life too, only a few she kept close enough to consider such a tie. But those few had once been dear to her and so were often kept from her thoughts now. No, it was just Mari and herself. They had traveled together now for over a decade and as such had learned much about each other. While in appearance Mari was younger she was in fact older than Galina by almost a century, as such Galina had learned much from her. Mari, however, did often act younger in her impulses than Galina and as such often Galina found herself caring for the girl as if a younger sister. This suited both girls well as they traveled.

The war had made such hunts easy for them, the men wounded in battle were excellent to slack her thirst but they had settled in for the winter and the two vampires and moved to a city. They chased through the streets as silent as shadows watching as a human peeled away from the rest when darkness cradled the city in its grasp.

The man before Galina had been one of those only a few minutes before. He has wrestled for his last breath as Galina drained him from the very lifeblood that kept him alive. The smell overwhelming her until every last drop had drained from his body. She knelt before his body, holding his hand in her own for a moment, looking at the rugged dock worker’s hands white as marble. No matter how many lives she took Galina still felt a deep guilt resonating through her each time. The strength once again flowing through her veins, running its course to keep her alive, made her wonder what this man would have done with his own life. Once she had begun to keep her tendencies in check and had tried to keep to only those who she knew in life might only be a bane on earth. It was the only way to keep herself sane. Or at least one of the ways she kept herself sane, holding on to the smallest shred of her humanity in the only way she could.

Footsteps echoed down the street, only one pair, a slight swaggering shuffle. Galina’s gown rustled as she quickly stood up, unaware of the grace that still remained in such actions. From the sounds of it the person was nearing quickly, she could smell the pulse of blood growing greater with each step. In a swirl of skirts and her dark winter cloak Galina rounded the corner from the street, realizing at the last moment that the hand she had held was not hidden behind the barrels as the rest of the body had been, it lay stretched out onto the street where Galina had tasted the man’s blood. Sloppy work, Mari would tell her when she rejoined Galina from her own hunt.

The footsteps stopped, she could almost hear the pounding of blood through veins. The smell as vivid and wild as the sharpest most enticing flower’s scent. From her hiding place Galina moved slightly, her skirts swishing in the gentle movement as she peered around the corner.

The site that greeted her froze her and she stared at the man, not the one dead on the ground, but the one staring at the corpse. In the gloom of night she could make out the dark hair, the stubble of a beard on his chin, those eyes and that nose. In a moment she was no longer in the cold January streets of London, but instead in a glittering court. The memories flood back before she could help them. A hand clasped around her own, a small note tucked quickly away. The mischievous look that could quickly melt to worry or to the mask of a courtier. The voice as he argued politics and philosophies gathered from his books. The stories of a land Galina had once dreamed to run off to. Instead she’d run into the wilds of Russia cursed to live a life much more dangerous than the one before. Much more dangerous than the one he had tried to protect her from. What must he have thought when she ran from him, from the plans they had begun to discuss?

But now he was here before her. The smell of his blood pulsing through his veins as real as the scent of the bay behind them. His neckcherif unloosened. She didn’t know how he’d found her, but he had. Before she could think, before she could consider what she was doing, Galina had moved swiftly from her corner, her hood still firmly hiding her face she launched at him, sinking her teeth into the beautiful pulsing vein in his neck. Later. Later they would discuss it all.

Word Count: 1000