Page 33 of Love Lives
Rex rolled his eyes at Aldrich, but that was what he got for trying to insult him. Aldrich motioned at the empty club behind Rex. "Why the sudden vacation?"
"They didn't say, but honestly? I blame all the fighting recently. Probably worried they were gonna get Keepers down here. Did you know one was seen near the river? I don't know what poor soul he was looking for, but I wouldn't wanna be him."
"Really?" Aldrich filed that information away in the back of his head. Keepers were never good news, no matter who they were looking for. He'd never seen one in real life, but he'd heard enough stories to want to keep it that way.
Rex pulled a phone out of his pocket and scrolled through something on his screen as if he was just a little bored with this conversation. He was probably checking out Twitter or something, which brought Aldrich back to what the kid had said before.
"What was that about the vampire recruiting people?"
"Oh, you want to know about that?" Rex glanced up at him, even though his posture remained a bit slumped.
"Let me guess, you're not giving information out for free?"
Rex grinned. "What do you take me for? Some sort of gangster? I'm just surprised you haven't heard, even though you're a vampire. And such a good-looking one too." He paused, inspecting Aldrich a little more closely. "Exactly how much of it is fake?”
Aldrich's eyes narrowed. He'd forgotten how quickly incubi could see through glamour charms. One more thing that made them annoying. "I bet you're no stranger to prettifying yourself."
Rex shrugged and gestured down at himself. "This is all me, believe it or not. Born this way, baby."
Aldrich scoffed. Two or three decades ago, he might have been interested, but once you'd been with ten incubi, you'd been with all of them. They rarely brought anything new to the table. And honestly, where was the fun in prey that didn't need to be chased? "Just tell me about this vampire overlord."
"Not much to say." Rex's eyes kept darting to the phone as if he was waiting for a message. Darn millennial. Wasn't that what young people were called these days? "Vampire overlord pops up out of nowhere, goes about uniting the different covens in the city, creates a whole lot of chaos. Everyone's protesting and in-fighting for two of three days, then suddenly, they all fall in line. That's all that I could see from the outside, anyway."
Even as he was listening, Aldrich had a bad feeling he knew exactly who this new overlord was. He didn't like it one bit. If he could be sure that Vlad was still on their side, then maybe, but as things stood... Who knew what that ancient vampire was planning?
"Were you out of town or something?" Rex asked.
"Or something. You don't happen to know where this all new unified coven has set up base, do ya?" Most headquarters wouldn't be large enough to hold that many vampires. Never mind that a number of bases had probably been destroyed by rampant witches...
Rex tilted his head to this side, then that, thinking. "Maybe if you give me your phone number, I'll text you."
"Seriously?"
"You don't wanna know?"
"Okay, fine, whatever." Worst case scenario, he was just gonna have to block that number. Big deal. He told the kid his number. A few seconds later, his phone beeped with a new message. He pulled it out of his pocket and unlocked the screen.Sorry not sorry,the text read.
What?
Shit, had that little...?
Before Aldrich could even finish the thought, someone held a blade to his neck. Too late Aldrich realized that the incubus hadn't been acting by himself. Vampires were smart enough to work in teams, so why wouldn't they?
Only that it wasn't another incubus who had Aldrich in a death grip now. It was a vampire. Aldrich knew it without even turning around. He could have smelled an incubus.
"You had to know this was coming, traitor."
Aldrich recognized that voice. Leandra. They'd been members of the same coven once, children of the same sire. It meant little to Aldrich, but some vampires could be surprisingly sentimental about these things. "I'd say it's nice to see you again, but you're holding a knife to my neck."
"You killed our sire."
Nope, he had not, but arguing about it would do him little good in this situation. "Never knew you were that attached to Zenon."
"I was one of his first."
"Looks like you got over him pretty quickly, though. I hear you already have a new lord. Unless your little helper was lying." Aldrich glanced at Rex, who was watching the two of them with a completely neutral expression.
"We have to band together to preserve the existence of our race."
