Vampire Nightlife

Lukas knew that time had passed a little bit much more than expected.

When he and Chaerin parted ways to go with Junia for the immigration passes, it was under the belief that they'd meet up after an hour or two to reunite.

It was clearly way past that, and while Lukas wanted to speak up about it and leave… he also couldn't just force Chaerin to end the conversation with her relatives.

They weren't actually that bad and were even on the decent end.

If the thing about letting two young Vampire kids grow up by themselves was placed aside. Lukas still thought that was a bad thing and he narrowed his gaze every now on then on the father and mother.

But especially on the grandmother when she came out to join them for dinner.

Lukas thought it was easy to keep his cool, but he had a headache just by being here that he hadn't even sat down at the dinner table.

"Lukas?" Chaerin turned to him, a curious look on her face.

"We haven't really contacted the others that we're staying here. I'm sure that they're worried and think that Junia has left our bodies in a ditch somewhere." Lukas offered her a grin.

"Oh." Chaerin recognized the validity of Lukas' statement, and yet couldn't help but feel as if he was just itching to go. Far away from her and her family.

Was it because she was not any fun anymore? That she was boring him out? Chaerin tried to dismiss the thoughts and went for a smile. A weak one, but a smile nonetheless.

"I would never do something like that!" Junia protested. "And there's no ditches here, even if I wanted to do that."

"Haha, now now dear, I'm sure that this young gentleman is only teasing you." Grandma Charlotte spoke with a crinkle in her eyes. "Since you've already stayed over for some time, why not just contact your friends and let them know that you'll be staying for the night?"

"Mother is right, even if you have the energy to keep traveling, doesn't mean that you should." Chaerin's uncle said.

"As much as I would love to…" Chaerin said, gaze flickering to her family then back to Lukas. "It's really vital that we—"

"Actually, they do have a point." Lukas said. "Chaerin, this isn't a chance that you always get. I'll let Theodore and the others know that you're staying the night here."

"And what about you?" Chaerin frowned. "Will you be with them?"

"I'll be back if the Atticus family lets me back in." Lukas eyed the other members of her family. He wasn't so sure if they were strict, traditional or anything like that.

"He can stay with us." Grandma Charlotte said. "These are Junia's friends. It'll be like a sleepover for them, we could get some sleeping bags and extra pillows. It'll be a fun experience."

"Then that settles it." Lukas glanced at Chaerin and smiled. "I'll make sure to come back and hang out with you and Junia."

Maybe if he knew that Junia and Chaerin were close, he might have accidentally called the former as a cousin—but that wasn't the case at all for them.

And so Lukas took his leave.

***

The nightlife of Nyx was a contrast to Lux in that it was much more vast and filled with people, and that made it even more impersonal.

He didn't think he liked Nyx better because it greatly reminded him of his time back in his human city. However, Lukas pushed that thought away and concentrated on getting back to his destination.

Without Chaerin and Junia around, Lukas practically zipped back to the entrance of Nyx and frowned when he saw no van around.

"Did they leave us?" Lukas muttered to himself. "No, they wouldn't have been able to do that since Junia had the passes. So where did they go? Did something happen to them?"

Lukas' mind flashed to the young Aurelius Lord that they encountered and he clenched his fists together. That shouldn't have been the case, since they told the man to leave them alone.

"But who'd really just take someone's word for it?" Lukas said. He started feeling antsy and looked around the streets some more for any signs of his friends.

He couldn't just suddenly run off to find the Lord by himself for absolutely no reason.

Lukas had more or less learned from his previous encounters that it was better to wait sometimes… well, not really. He had practically jumped headfirst into most of the things and he was tempted to do it again.

"But I sent Rhea on an errand and she has to have had some information on the guy." Lukas frowned. Where was Rhea? She shouldn't have taken that long, right?

"Did she get distracted? Captured?" Lukas knew that she was a Dream Eater, but there was her once mentioning that Vampire Overlords once took Dream Eaters when they went to their Eternal Sleep.

Lukas didn't want to just stand in one place and do nothing. He itched to go from one place to another, but he kept his cool.

'Hey, Drusilla, do you know about the Aurelius House? Do you think they're bad news? Would that guy have ratted us out to his grandfather or something?' Lukas asked.

'Have you not seen his aura? That young Vampire is a blazing fire and can't be stopped. He'll obviously say it out of the righteousness he thinks that it'll do.' Drusilla shuddered mentally in Lukas' head. 'It's always a pain to see such people, luckily you only have a bit of a tendency to do that.'

'Only a bit?' Lukas raised his brows.

'Perhaps a bit more. You're already running as we speak.' Drusilla sighed.

Lukas realized that she was right. He had approached the nearest guard on standby.

"How may I help you?" the guard asked.

"Yeah, I need directions to the Aurelius House." Lukas said.

'This is utterly ridiculous!' Drusilla exclaimed to him.

"Oh, you haven't gotten a map of the city then." The guard said.