Hello, ladies and gentlemen! I'll keep this short and sweet - my first Vampire Academy upload, which may turn into a fully fledged FanFiction. Set after Last Sacrifice, sometime during the Bloodlines series. I also wrote this half insane with sickness and exhaustion, so I apologize if it either makes no sense or has a lot of errors.
Sunday was always Lissa's favorite day of the week.
Court etiquette dictated that Sunday was the day on which royal duties could get put off for the sake of family, church, and overall leisure. For the young queen of the Moroi, it meant no meetings, hearings, or Council sessions. There were always papers to be read over and signed, that couldn't be helped, but at least on Sundays this could be done from the comfort of her own home, with the pleasant sounds of Christian cooking in the kitchen and the gentle hum of the television on in the background.
She was reading through new guardian allotment spreadsheets, making corrections and writing in suggestions as she went along, when she suddenly felt Christian's lips pressing against the side of her hear and his arms winding around her from behind the couch. Smiling, she leaned back into him instinctively, and felt his chin rest on her shoulder he leaned against the back of the cushions. There was a moment of comfortable silence before he turned his head again and started nipping at her neck, which caused Lissa to laugh and gently push his head away, playfully irritated.
"Come on, Christian, I'm trying to get some work done," she protested halfheartedly, giggling when he returned a second later, leaving a trail of kisses up and down her neck and over her shoulder.
"So am I," he murmured, and she could feel him smirk against her skin.
Lissa laughed and nudged him away. "Go grab the mail if you're waiting for the food to be done, I haven't checked it today," she told him.
"You're lucky I love you."
"And I get luckier every day," she called out as he moved away towards the door.
The young queen, barely nineteen, settled back into the couch, going back to reading over the guardian spreadsheets and letting out a sigh when she saw how many they were trying to allot to her. Shaking her head, she made that correction, knowing that, in reality, there was only one guardian she would ever truly need.
"Hey, uh, Liss?"
"Hm?" She didn't look up from her work.
"I thought you told the Council to stop sending you ring catalogs."
Lissa looked up, frowning on confusion. "I did," she replied, her tone reflecting her bewilderment. When she asked for something, it happened - this had to be the first time that someone had blatantly went against one of her requests. On top of that, the ring catalogs were normally sent to Christian, dropped as surreptitious hints that the Council was expecting to see a royal wedding announcement sometime soon. It was probably just a simple mistake, she'd fix it in the morning.
"Just leave it and the rest of the mail right here," she said, dipping her head to the table in front of her.
Christian did as she said, and bent down to kiss the top of her head. "I'm going to go check on the food, I'll be right back," he murmured. "And maybe then you can put away the guardian reports and we can do something a little more fun." He quirked an eyebrow as he smirked down at her.
The queen laughed, pecking him on the lips. She wanted to get her work done, yet at the same time, it felt like she had been reading over statements and guardian allocations all day. It was times like this that she wished she had some kind of assistant, and while Christian helped when he could, he often opted to stay out of the politics and provide very much needed distractions. Like now, as she realized she wouldn't be getting any more of these allocation corrections done tonight, and she casually tossed the spread sheets aside and curiously picked up the ring catalog.
And just for the hell of it, she decided to flip it open.
Lissa froze, staring down at the page in horror.
"So, I've been wondering- Liss?" Christian was returning from the kitchen a moment later, but the second he saw the expression on her face, he knew something was wrong. "Lissa?" When she didn't look at him, he came over, both curious and cautious. "Liss, what's going on? You know you-"
Then his eyes fell on what she was looking at and after a brief few seconds, he cursed and ripped the thing from Lissa's trembling hands and threw it away from her. She was frozen, her jade-green eyes fixed on something neither of them could see, and as she shook, Christian immediately took a spot next to her and wrapped an arm around her, the other reaching into his pocket so he could pull out the cell phone he had on him. Upon pulling it out, he dialed the one number he never called unless it was necessary, and put the phone to his ear.
She picked up on the third ring.
"This had better be good, Sparky."
"Rose, we need you over here."
That seemed to get her attention. Christian, even over the phone, could practically feel the guardian mask slide over her features. "What's going on? Is Lissa alright?"
"I, uh…" Christian glanced at Lissa. She still hadn't looked away from something that Christian couldn't see, as if the catalog were still in her hands. "Look, we just need you over here. Either someone's playing a sick joke or there are rebels who are a hell of a lot more ballsy than we gave them credit for, can you-" He didn't even have to finish speaking or explaining, for Rose had already hung up. If it had been anyone else, Christian might have been worried, but this was Rose. She'd be over in seconds.
And sure enough, she was. And Dimitri trailed in her wake, looking every bit as serious as Rose did as the pair of them entered, looking around as if there might be a Strigoi in the room.
"What happened? What's going on?"
Christian, who had now wrapped his arms around his trembling girlfriend, nodded towards the discarded catalog. Rose appeared to take in complete view of the situation, and her eyes narrowed upon seeing Lissa and the state she was in. Immediately on higher alert, she debated between going to comfort Lissa first or checking the catalog.
As always, Dimitri seemed to understand her dilemma before she did, and her already moved to pick up the catalog. He picked it up and immediately a low growl escaped him as he tilted a taped on note towards Rose so she could read it.
Might as well order one of these instead. We don't care which Dragomir we put in the ground.
Narrowing her eyes even further, Rose lifted up the note and her eyes widened in horror.
It wasn't a ring catalog. It was a catalog for coffins.