Dear Tempting

Visitor

Warm water lapped against Reid's bare chest as she soaked in her claw foot tub. Her emerald green tail hung over the white porcelain edge with her vertical fin just grazing the floor. Suds littered the top of the water and she used loofa coated in apple-scented body wash to clean the salt off her body from her morning swim. Her brilliant red hair was tied up into a messy bun on the top of her head, a few strands falling down and framing her face. She had her favorite band playing from the speaker by the sink and she hummed along with the words. 

She was trying to scrub the salt off just as much as she was trying to wash away the flash of Xavier's angry unrelenting eyes. After Reid had downed the whole cooler of blood, she found herself looking like a madman in the middle of that damned parking lot. She had gotten blood all over herself, the pavement and the cooler. It seemed that there was a trick to getting the blood bags open and Reid had not figured it out. 

She ditched the cooler in the bottom of a dumpster in a back alley since it wouldn't quite fit on her bike. She couldn't get Xavier's disgusted face out of her head. He was so angry with her. Reid had no doubt that if Rebekah and Daniel hadn't been involved with her, Xavier would have killed her on that dance floor in front of everyone. Or tied at least. She probably looked like the most pathetic excuse for a vampire he had ever seen. Maybe she could find other ways to convince the Richard's that she was just as much vampire as they were. 

Crash.

Reid sat up at the noise and instantly pulled the plug out of the base of the tub. She switched off the speaker with her remote as she waited for the water to drain. She listened carefully for any other sounds. Nothing. Her heart rate accelerated and she thought it might beat right out of her chest. Grabbing a towel she vigorously drying the water off the best she could. She tried to tell herself that it was just Rebekah coming by to talk to her. It didn't ease her heart rate. 

Once her legs came back into view, she leaped out of the tub and wrapped her black silky robe around herself. She moved as quickly and as quietly as she could, slinking down the stairs her canines out and ready. She peered around the corner of the hall and into the kitchen. Nothing. There was nothing out of place, nothing that set off any red flags. 

But she did here something. Someone or something was definitely here. 

She moved into the kitchen and quickly grabbed her sleek black handgun from the slit she had cut into the back of the toaster. It felt cool in her hands, like a corpse. Reid never liked to kill with her body along. A corpse dead from being torn apart by some kind of rabid animal was more suspicious than a gunshot wound to the head. Most of the time they seemed to put it up to a drug deal gone bad. 

Raising it in front of her she continued to peer around the corners of her house - gun first, canines second. She stopped at the corner of the living room just before the hallway. Reid could hear bare feet patting on the hardwood. 

She jumped into the hall gun raised to the center of the intruder's forehead. 

Reid's glare quickly faded and her finger loosened on the trigger. The face at the end of the barrel was one Reid recognized. 

"I almost shot you!" Reid snarled annoyed. 

Natalia just laughed, "no kidding". Natalia reached up and tossed the gun away from her face then opened her arms wide waiting for an embrace. Her blonde hair was cut shoulder length and her big brown eyes sparkled in the light of the hallway. Her heart-shaped face and a small nose that only improved her cute innocent appearance. Reid hadn't seen her for at least 30 years. 

Reid threw herself into her arms, hugging her tightly and loving the familiarity of the sea that washed over her. Natalia squeezed her back and smiled into Reid's blazing hair.