The rustle of leaves in the forest was the only sound she heard as she meditated, focusing on only clearing her mind of everything. The wind howled like a wounded animal in the distant mountains, here everything was as still as death. The snap of a twig interrupted the silence. Her eyes shot up but didn't move anymore then that. Her green eyes searched the glade, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. Her hand crept across the boulder she was perched on towards her sword and gripped the familiar steel. The woman slowly unfolded her legs, muscles bunching up and coiled like springs. She sprang up and did a flip in the air, turning a full 360 degrees. She held the blade up to the throat of the man who stood before her. "What do you want?" She asked in a whisper, not wanting to disturb the stillness anymore then needed.
She lowered her blade and her azure colored eyes returned to their deep green color, glaring fiery hatred at him. "I was only walking along the trail and what do I find? A little rose all by herself?" The woman sheathed her blade and continued to glare at the man. "Go away Lucian, I have no quarrel with you." She said in her normal voice that was like a spring breeze; warm, gentle, sweet and wonderful to hear. "You may have no fight with me but you owe me a favor from not too long ago." He blatantly lied, waiting to see her famous temper. But what he hadn't anticipated her and the fact that she never took bait. She merely threw it back. "You forget I tried to help you and Sonja, risking my hide! For your little fling!" A cold smile graced her namesake colored lips. Lucian growled menacingly, "It wasn't a fling! I loved her! I loved Sonja with all my being! You saw that Rose!"
The woman he had called Rose nodded gravely. "Yes, I saw. I was her bodyguard and I covered for you and she, while you were seeing to....... your desires. I was her best friend and even I couldn't save her....." She murmured with glassy eyes, tears streamed down her pale face. She slowly wiped them away. "What do you want?" Rose repeated, her long, wavy hair blowing in the light breeze. Lucian smiled coyly in the silver light, "Kraven is planning to overthrow Viktor." Rose laughed coldly back at him. "Then he will die, I know Viktor very well. And I thought Kraven was smarter then that. Perhaps I was wrong? What does it have to do with me?" She turned her back on him, but watched him out of the corner of her eye. Her hand rested gently on the hilt of her weapon. Rose still didn't trust him after all that happened since Lucian and Sonja met. She distrusted him even more since Sonja's death. Her midnight hair blew back over her shoulder, her grey blouse seemed white compared to the shadowy mass in the silver light. Lucian tsked at her, shaking his head.
"Rose, Rose, Rose... Tell me; why is it that you left your coven and Castle Corvinus so shortly after the war started?" Lucian's voice dripped with honeyed sweetness and made her cringe. "Because I felt like it!" Rose hissed, turning around and baring her teeth while her eyes went to their azure color again. "Is it because you knew if anyone found out that you helped the two forbidden lovers, you'd be killed too for the crime?" Lucian asked coldly, unaffected by her outburst. Rose seemed taken back slightly. "But I return when I can to keep the illusion, the illusion that I am off killing your kind, that the coven doesn't always need one of its best death dealers at home." She looked at him, her eyes burning with halfhearted hatred. "I'm not going to help if that's what you and Kraven are seeking. I want no part in further making this war worse. I am not a fighter unless I have to be, now leave me. Don't come near here ever again or I will grant you the death you were denied so long ago so that you could be with Sonja again." She growled the last part, baring her fangs again. "And never forget it is you who owes me, not the other way around."
Lucian smiled wolfishly. "Of course, it was pleasant seeing you again Rose." "Just leave please....." Rose pleaded, her strong front vanishing as the tears flowed without warning. "You are not the only one who lost someone that night...." Lucian nodded, respecting her wishes and knowing of who she spoke of. He turned tail and vanished into the night. Rose fell to her knees, her sword thudding on the warm earth. She buried her face in her hands, crying her heart out. Cold vampire tears leaked through her fingers as her despair was cut open and bled anew. "Oh Caelan , why did you have to leave me here all alone?" Rose whispered into the warm night. "Why did you have to take the blame?"