It was as we were setting up camp that I caught a glimpse of the figure. It had to be the one who was watching me in the city. Now that she couldn't hide in the mass of bodies, the life in her veins were like a beacon to my senses. She, I believe they were female, was extremely skilled. Had I only my normal sight, she would have been invisible to me.

I wondered who sent her. The Duke was a likely suspect, though it could be any interested party in the city, after all a strange group of people walked into the city and immediately get seen by both the Bishop and the Duke? We were bound to garner some attention.

I frowned, suddenly concerned about the group we left behind all over again. I shook my head; I need to focus. She seems set on simply observing us at the moment, but there's no guarantee that will remain true. I ran through my options.

It's dark, but she likely has some form of night vision ability. My lips quirked at the thought, I hope she does have that ability.

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~Eliara~

Eliara watched the odd man as he obviously had some sort of internal debate with himself. He was an open book to her. While she was skilled at reading people, this man was the equivalent of a children's book in terms of difficulty of reading. She was confused why her Duke would order her to observe these two for an entire year.

Though she didn't understand, she was enjoying her outing. She was getting bored with the surrounding area, every square inch within a hundred miles was thoroughly explored by her. Now, there apparently was an entire new world to explore, it was exhilarating. She dearly hoped the Duke would order her to scout far and wide. However, for now, she must watch this strange man.

She had never seen one such as him. His ears were slightly pointed, and she thought he could be a Half-Elf like her. However, the Duke insisted he was something called a Vampire. Apparently, he used to be a normal human, and something changed him into this Vampire thing.

He was tall, broad shouldered, and muscular. Not as heavily muscled as a typical human but much more muscular than any Elvara she had seen. He had very long white hair tied in a slim ponytail. He had a few strands of hair that was loose and laying loose down his forehead. She could have seen his eyes, but he had closed them for some reason. Didn't he say he was the watch? How lackadaisical.

Her eyes widened as she sensed mana flare from him. She was too late to react as the campfire he was sat by flared into a brilliant bonfire several feet in height. Her incredible night vision was her undoing as she saw nothing but white. She nearly cried out, but her training and experience held her tongue. What was this bastard doing? Was he practicing or simply playing with fire? He just lit a beacon to anything that would want to attack lone travelers.

She blinked away the white afterimage that was burned into her vision. She leaned back, shifting her weight so she could rub at her eyes, and she froze. The cool sensation of a blade across the back of her neck causing her heart to pound. As her vision returned, the man was no longer by the fire. Instead, he was standing mere inches from her, the blade of a scythe curved around her neck, preventing her escape. She traced up the chest that was in front of her up to the grinning face and glowing red eyes of Victor Gale; a twisting serpent around two pupils glared at her. "Hello there."

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~The Sanguine Lord~

Eliara [https://i.imgur.com/hgM5Iyo.jpeg]

Upon causing the fire to flare, which was as simple as flooding the flames with mana, in a bid to destroy her night vision, I leapt in the air high above the flames before shifting into a cloud of blood. I was impressed that she didn't shout at the disruption. Ignoring the surprise, it must have hurt to have sensitive eyes suddenly exposed to that level of light. She did little more than flinch and rub at her eyes.

I flew towards her location and rematerialized in front of her while I summoned my scythe. I rested the blade across the back of her neck, and she went extremely still. She blinked for a couple seconds, willing her eyesight to return. I knew it had when her eyes rose until the met mine.

She was an Elf for sure. Rather, a Half-Elf based on her only slightly pointed ears. It was hard to tell since she was hunched over, but she also wasn't as tall as a pure Elf based on Asha's description. She had honey blonde hair that flowed down to her hips. It was done in a half-ponytail with the tail only reaching her neck while the rest of her hair flowed elegantly to the middle of her back. She glared at me with light chestnut eyes.

Below her eyes were obscured by a black cloth mask that led all the way to the base of her neck. She wore black clothing, befitting her occupation. Her torso was some odd material that was somewhere between cloth and leather. It was a type of vest with a V-shaped neckline and her sides were open exposing pale and toned flesh. Her left arm had a long, form-fitting sleeve while her right sleeve was little more than a shoulder strap revealing some type of gauntlet that went from her shoulder all the way down to a clawed hand.

She her lower body was covered by robes similar to mine, sans the upper half. It was more like a long skirt tied by a sash with throwing knives adorning it. The robe's opening was in front and splayed open by her half-crouched position. She had tights that stopped at her knees. Her leather boots were secured by crisscross straps that led up her calf.

I did a double take at the weird gauntlet. It was black and looked to be made of bare corded muscle; no, more like intertwined roots that took the form of an arm and clawed hand. It almost looked... organic.

I grinned, making sure to bare my fangs and said, "Hello there." Let's hope she doesn't have a few lightsabers because I certainly didn't have a blaster on hand.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

She remained silent as she glared at me. I could see the gears in her head working feverishly to come up with a plan. I continued my interrogation, "Who sent you?" Silence. "Who are you?" Nothing. "Why are you here?" Nada. "What's your favorite color?" A twitch. Of irritation or amusement? Either way, it was progress. I continued with the questioning, switching from the typical questions to nonsensical ones to throw her off balance.

"If you take the circumference of the sun and divide it by the hopes and dreams of an albatross, what color is the Bishop's underwear." That did it.

"Are you an idiot?" She finally asked.

"Aha! She does speak, now we're getting somewhere." I smiled triumphantly. I dropped my scythe on her, they shifted to flowing blood before tying around her in the form of chains. She squeaked and my heart fluttered. No, bad Victor! Do not find the sneaky spy and/or assassin adorable.

I picked her up by the chains on her back like a mother cat picking up her kitten, much to her frustration, and walked over the fire and set her down by the fire. She narrowed her eyes at me, "I'll not yield to torture, Vampire."

"Please, call me Victor. Or Lord Sanguine, your call." I shrugged. "You Veru guys like your titles apparently. Anyway, don't be a dumbass."

"Excuse me?" She spat.

"Dumbass. Did that translate right? It means don't be an idiot. I'm not gonna torture you. What do you think I am, a monster?" I paused and poked at my fangs, "Oh, right." I grinned at her, "Anyway, I don't need to torture you. I'm not sure how much you were briefed, but one of my powers is mind reading. I'll just take you back to the Duke and demand some steep reparations for this transgression."

Her eyes widened in shock, worry, and rage, "No!"

My grin widened and she froze before her glare intensified, "You can't read minds, can you."

In a smug tone I replied, "Nope! Though I had a pretty good idea who sent you and when you called me a Vampire it pretty much confirmed it."

She cursed and muttered, "I'm not usually this sloppy, damn it."

I shrugged, "Must be my good looks."

She rolled her eyes, but I could have sworn I detected a twinkle of amusement before it disappeared. Was that... self-recrimination? I should have paid more attention is Psych class. "Okay, we can't have a proper conversation like this." I stood and approached her. Her already rigid guard heightened more. She stiffened as I reached towards her but relaxed a smidge as I lowered her facemask, and it was my turn to freeze. She was more adorable than a kitten in a teacup. She wasn't exactly gorgeous like the Elves of legend. Some flawless beauty of myth. No, she was extremely attractive, true but she had a splash of freckles on her cheeks and her turned-up nose. She had a slightly faded scar on the left side of her lips from where something cut her.

I stayed a moment too long because she smirked, "What was that about distracting looks?" I blinked and was glad Vampires can't blush. She sighed and said, "I can't believe I got ambushed by someone who blushes as easily as you." Okay, I guess we can blush. Damn it Hollywood.

I cleared my throat and walked towards the tent. I opened the flap and peered inside to a snoring Asha. "Good lord, it's like a chainsaw." I nudged her, "Asha, wake up." It took two more nudges to wake her up. "You're a surprisingly deep sleeper."

She rubbed her eyes, "Mmm, my turn?"

"No, we have a guest." That woke her up, her gaze sharpened, and she stood.

Asha followed me out of the tent and her eyes locked on the woman. "Did you get anything out of her?" she asked.

"Not directly, but I confirmed the Duke sent her. Don't know why, but my guess is to simply spy on us." I replied.

"What's with her arm?" Asha pointed to her odd right arm, and I noticed the slightest grimace from the woman.

"Again, not sure, but it looks organic."

Asha crossed her arms, "So, do we kill her?"

I sighed, "Always with the killing. No, we take her with us." I snapped my fingers and the chains burst into a red mist that was absorbed by me.

"Woah! Lord Sanguine, what the hell?" shouted Asha.

The woman was also stunned for a breath before leaping back and taking a battle stance, "What is the meaning of this?" Her strange arm was revealed to actually be a mass of tentacles as they twisted and rearranged from the shape of a clawed hand into a crossbow-like shape along with a spell of some sort that loaded magical bolt made of shimmering darkness, like spilt oil.

My eyes widened, "Now that is fucking cool. How did you do that? Is the arm some type of prosthetic?"

Asha shouted, "My Lord, focus!" She summoned a trio of ice spikes, ready to pierce the woman at the slightest twitch.

"Enough, both of you. If you mean us any harm, we will simply kill you as Asha suggested. However, if you are just supposed to keep an eye on us, then you might as well make yourself useful and help us fight any enemies we come across in the next year. I'm assuming you were going to tag along with us for the whole year, right?"

She hesitated then nodded, "That isn't... inaccurate. Why not keep me bound? Do you not fear retaliation?"

"Again, you attack us, and you die..." I paused a moment before shrugging, "Or we do, who knows. Besides, if you did want us dead, you had plenty of chances to take at least one of us out."

She sighed and muttered, "And now it defeats the purpose of spying if you know I'm here."

"You have two options," I offered, "You can return to the Duke and let her know you failed not even a day into a yearlong task, or you can tag along with us as a companion and truly get to know us."

She scoffed, "How would I know the face you show me is not a mask meant to assuage the Duke's fears?"

I shrugged, "Using your own judgement. I'm a pretty honest guy. It's too exhausting to try and hide things twenty-four/seven." I paused, "Are the days still twenty-four hours long? I haven't been paying attention. Questions for later, anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I don't give a fuck if you think I'm lying or hiding stuff from you. All I care about is having a badass kunoichi having my back in a fight and not hovering in the background, peeping on me at all hours of the day... however long they may be now."

Her expression grew perplexed, "What is a kunoichi?"

"A female ninja." I answered simply.

She huffed, "What is a ninja?"

Asha interrupted, "It doesn't matter, my Lord gave you a choice, now pick."

There was a moment of tense silence as the woman contemplated. She then asked, "How did you spot me?"

Asha smirked, "Like we'll tell you tha-"

"As a Vampire we can see your circulatory system and detect life." I replied. Asha looked at me with an exasperated look and I grinned.

She sighed and the woman had the slightest uptick in her lips. She relaxed a tad, returning her arm into a hand shape, though this time it lacked the claws. "I'll stick around I think. I cannot return to the Duke with no information. In exchange, I will assist in combat. Be warned, if there is a chance of me losing my life I will retreat. Returning to my Duke is more important than your lives."

I smiled, "That's fair. So, what's your name? I can't keep calling you cute ninja lady in my head all the time."

She rolled her eyes, but I thought I saw the slightest hint of red touch her cheeks. Though it could have been a trick of the fire. "I am Eliara."