Page 47 of Love Bleeds

"Nope." Aldrich gave a small shrug. "Someone used dead man's blood on Nicolai. Nasty stuff. I've never gotten hit with it, but I've heard stories."

"Dead man's blood?" I asked. Something about that just sounded wrong.

"Blood taken from a mortal after their death," Puck clarified. "It's quite potent against vampires."

"Yeah, well, whatever." Aldrich leaned forward. "Nicolai sure was cursing up a storm."

I looked from Aldrich to Puck. All of this must have happened after I'd blacked out. "Someone poisoned the vampire that attacked me?"

"Yup. You got real lucky, kid." Aldrich's tone turned serious. "Someone shot that dart at Nicolai almost the moment I arrived at the scene. They were planning on shifting the blame to me all along. I don't know who it was, I just took advantage." He glanced at Puck and Morgan. "Honestly thought it might have been one of your people."

Morgan shook her head. "Sadly no. We weren't aware that Luke was in danger."

I cringed, because of course they hadn't known. I was supposed to stay in the safe house or stick to my brother.

Aldrich turned to Damian again. "Any chance it was your partner?”

Damian thought for a moment. "I really don’t know. Vlad told me he wasn’t working for Nicolai, but…."

"Who's Vlad?" I asked.

"Another vampire," Damian explained. "My partner for the mission."

"I remember meeting you guys at the club." Aldrich grinned. "I could tell he kind of had the hots for Alice, even if he didn't want to admit it. I still got it."

"That wasn't you," Talon reminded him. "You're not really Alice."

"Way to spoil my fun." Aldrich leaned back in his chair. "I can totally be Alice for anyone who needs me to be. Or any other female." For some reason, he looked at Remy as he said that. I decided not to think too deeply about that.

"So this other vampire poisoned your sire?" I summarized, looking at Damian.

"Maybe?"

"Why would he do that?"

"Maybe he wasn't fond of Nicolai for his own reasons," Remy suggested.

"He didn't kill Nicolai, though," Talon remarked. "All he did was save Luke. Why do that?"

Collin gave his boyfriend a hard nudge.

Talon turned to me and apologized for that comment. "It wasn't my intention to imply that Luke shouldn't be saved."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "I get why you're confused. I'm confused too. Why would some random vampire want to help me?"

Morgan let her fork sink. "We can't assume that all vampires will agree on an issue... But what's more important... Luke, you grew fangs?"

Heat crept into my cheeks as all attention turned to me again. "I... sort of did."

"Fascinating," she said. "I never knew that was possible for us. We have to bring this up with the council as compounding evidence. If you could come with us for the next meeting and--"

"If you want me to help you, you have to help me," I cut her off.

"But helping us is helping you," she insisted. "We're doing this foralldhampirs."

I shook my head. "I know what you're trying to do and I appreciate it, but I need your help with something else."

She regarded me with curiosity in her gaze. I swallowed, unsure how to voice my request, how to make it clear that there was only one thing that mattered to me right now. Not this war between vampires and dhampirs, not the fact that I'd grown fangs or that the mark on my wrist pulsed every now and then as if to remind me that something inside of me had shifted. "I need you to help Damian. He can never go back to that vampire who turned him."