that makes sense, the thing with Max being as old as Al—err, as Royce, but how old is Royce?” Analie asked.
“He’s probably hundreds of years old,” Christoph said, testing his knee. He was thankful that Mouse was holding his hand and helping him keep his balance. Despite the chill, there was something reassuring about her touch. “Like, six hundred or something.”
“Really?” Analie looked to Mouse for confirmation, eyes wide.
Mouse listened to their speculations with amusement. Once she was sure Christoph wasn’t about to fall over, she released him and held out her hand to Analie for the pad and pen.
Mouse wrote down a couple things, frowning over the pad, doing some math in her head.
I’m a little over 400.
Not sure of exact year he was turned, but est. Alec is 2300 years. Prob. a bit more. He was part of Alexander’s army before he was made one of us.
She settled back to wait for their reply, brown eyes twinkling with her mirth at their very low estimates of Alec’s age. It might force their alpha to show the vampire more respect once word got back to him.
“No way!” Analie exclaimed. “He’s been around since forever!”
“Because the world started 2,300 years ago,” Christoph said dryly.
“Shut up, you know what I mean. Jeez.” She shook her head, eyes wide. “I had no idea. No wonder he’s alpha.”
“No wonder he’s what?” Christoph asked, looking sharply at her.
“Alpha of Sh—of his pack. This pack.” Analie gestured around. “I don’t know what you call a vampire alpha! Come on, Gavin says even humans have alphas, even if they don’t call ‘em that.”
Christoph ignored her. “Alexander’s army. Damn. He saw the shaping of western civilization.”
“That is wicked cool,” Analie said, grinning.
'If I had known, I would have never come here, copious amounts of Miller be damned.' Christoph shook his head.
Mouse took back the pad and pen again, smiling wryly at Analie’s reaction. She wasn’t sure what to make of Christoph, but was pretty sure from his expression he was regretting having tangled with Royce.
He is unusually sympathetic to humans for someone so old. He also values humanity in his people. I know sometimes he does cruel things, but it’s always for a reason, and never more than he thinks is absolutely necessary for our continued survival.
John is not a sterling example. He was not turned by Alec, and sometimes he acts poorly toward people, but he has good sense and helps run the businesses so Alec can focus on other things.
Very sorry for scaring you earlier. Please don’t lump me or Alec in with John/Max.
Analie shook her head. “No, duh. I haven’t been around him much, but you two seem different. I could say the same thing about Ashi—he’s a piss-poor example of what a Goliath should be.”
“If you’d have met Barry,” Christoph put in, “or Manny or Damien or Amelia—”
“You would have gotten along with Amelia so good,” Analie laughed. “She’s awesome.”
“Gavin’s a good example,” Christoph added.
Analie nodded, her enthusiasm fading. “Yeah. Gavin’s a good example of a real Goliath. Oh, hey, gimme a sec.”
She hurried to her bedroom, got Gavin’s old jacket, fished around in the inside pocket, and went back to the couch. She showed Mouse the photograph.
It was a picture of Gavin just before a watermelon fight. He wore a white T-shirt with “Go Go Goliath” on it in red and black sharpie. His straw-colored hair was tied back and the picture had been taken when his beard had just started to get unmanageable again. His teeth were slightly pointed and even though his eyes were squinted against the sun, a glimmer of gold was still captured by the camera.
“This is Gavin. He’s pretty much the best person in the whole world.”
Mouse looked at the picture, and the smile froze on her face. It took a very long moment for her to manage to start moving again, and she took great care not to give away her thoughts as she scratched out another note.
He looks nice.
She wrote nothing else. No point in mentioning that she’d barely escaped a raid he’d been a part of when she was newly turned. Max had been visiting another vampire, and she’d been part of his small delegation to negotiate some treaty or another.
The vampire who ran the town they’d been visiting had mentioned they’d been having some problems with Weres. She couldn’t even remember the dead vampire’s name, it had been so long since she’d seen him, but she could still recall the screams, the terror,