Watchers in the Night

A pair of vampires spy on Aurei and Eleazar

4.

Watchers in the Night

 

As Aurei slowly climbed the stairs to her room, very exhausted from the busy day, from behind her in the tavern area, a pair of rats came out of seclusion from a corner of the room and in a moment morphed into a Drow man and woman.

“See?”   The lady said to the man, her eyes sparkling, “She’s so beautiful!”

Chal nodded with a smile, “She is indeed.   Quite stunning.”

“We should take them tonight, my Lord!”

“Patience, my love; we have to have everything in place.   Let the girl enjoy her friend’s wedding first.”

“She acts so… human.  But she has the Ar’Rilla stubbornness about her.”

Chal again nodded, scratching his chin as he pondered something.

“What is it, my Lord?”

“I am wondering, my Love, if perhaps we should not make ourselves known to her.”

“What?!”

“At least not at first.   Hear me out.   She is a Paladin, and if we tell her of our plans and who we are, she will be thrown into a conflict that might torment her so that she fails to act against Soric.   If we could stealthfully, perhaps we could get her to do what we want without revealing ourselves to her… at least not until afterwards.”

 

“You don’t want to meet her?!”

“Relax, Love, we will meet her; but we could help her by not causing her any conflict until after the battle.”

“How will she willingly do our will without our persuading?”

“She seeks the same thing we seek, although for different reasons.   Trust me; she will do what we desire.”

“What if she doesn’t survive?”

“We shall be there to assist her.   She would have little chance of success without us.”

“If she fails, my Lord, we will be destroyed.”

“Yes, this I know.   We shall make sure she survives and succeeds.”

“I would rather have her willing cooperation.”

“She would not assist Vampires; not even us.”

“How will she react to us then afterwards?”

“Perhaps victory will color her reaction.   But let us not get too ahead of ourselves.   We need to prepare.   Let us return to King’s Reach.”

The Vampire lady stood close to him as he began chanting the teleportation spell.   Moments later both were gone.

 

***

 

Eleazar was sitting in bed reading ‘The Great Gathering --- The History of our World’ by the Archmage Kinzer, when Aurei arrived.  

“Hi” He said with a smile, but noticed that she was troubled. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

She began undressing, something that he wished she wouldn’t do in his presence, so he forced himself to look down at the book, though he didn’t read a word.

“Alis is pig-headed.”  Aurei said with a sigh as she stripped off her dress.

“What happened?”  He hazarded a glance over the top of the book, but she was still naked and seemed to be in no hurry to put on her long, wool nightshirt.  He forced his eyes back to the book.

“She is insisting that she and Aeric come with us when we go on that campaign against the Necromancer’s Guild!” 

“Well, I told you they would feel slighted if you tried to exclude them.”

“Yes, but I don’t want them put in danger!   I don’t want any of our people put into danger.   Lute, Pectros, Siris, or Rori.   But they’ll all insist on joining the campaign, I just know it!”  She plopped down on the bed next to him, still naked.

“Uh, I think you forgot something…”

“I need you to rub my shoulders; Alis got me so wound up I feel like a bowstring.”

“Well, put on some clothes first, then I will.”

“Laz, don’t you start too!   I’m alright tonight; I’m too frustrated to try getting friendly with you, so please just humor me, okay?”

With a sigh he put the book down and gently began kneading her shoulders, which were indeed tight.   He forced himself to stare at the back of her head.  

“Laz, I don’t want any more deaths!   It’s hard enough watching them all grow old and die naturally as I stay the same.   But I really don’t want any of the people from Westmark risking their lives in this campaign.   Yet I can’t really stop them, can I?”

“No; not if they really want to go, they’ll find a way.   You know why they are coming, don’t you?”

“Why?”

“Well, several reasons.   First, they want, just like we do, for this whole thing to end.   They want life to get back to normal, and they are willing to risk their lives to make that a reality.   That has been the philosophy of soldiers forever.   Second, they feel loyalty to you and to the King.   They know we’ll need help and they want to be there helping.   Nothing is more frustrating than to not be able to help someone you love.”   For an instant, he thought of his mother and felt again the helplessness.

 

Aurei knew what crossed his mind and turned to take his hand in hers.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, then with a sigh to lighten the mood, said, “Hey, turn back around or get some clothes on!”

 

Instead, she crawled over to him, with her eyes glowing a very alarming red, “Are you worried?”

 

“Aurei-“ He replied, trapped underneath the blankets as she crawled into his lap.   With great effort he forced himself to just look her in the eyes as she wrapped her arms around him.

“Aurei, I don’t think you should be-“   She ended his warning with a rather hungry kiss, and he was certainly not strong enough to not kiss her back.  

He was scrambling for something to say or do to gain control of the situation, when, to his surprise, she simply broke the kiss and then slid back across the bed, scooped up her night shirt off a chair and put it quickly on, then plopped down into bed again.  

Her eyes were still glowing bright red and she had a very intense look on her face, but she just came over and nestled up next to him, “So, what are you reading?”

 

“Um… well, about the separation of the races after the Time of Battles.   Uh, I’m proud of you; you regained control.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that; I’m just not in the mood for a wrestling match with you tonight in which I’ll probably lose.   I’ll just wait until you are asleep, tie you up and then molest you to my satisfaction.”

“Oh, well, now I feel much better.” 

 

Aurei sighed, “Laz, are you scared of getting married?”

“I thought we were going to wait until after the campaign.”

“Yes, that hasn’t changed.   But are you scared of marrying me?”

“Yes.”

She was surprised by his answer and looked at him,“Really?”

 

He smiled, “Of course I’m scared, sweetheart; I’ve never been married before.   Who wouldn’t be?   It scares me to death, because I don’t feel like I know what I’m supposed to do.”

“So you don’t really want to get married?” 

“Aurei, I want to marry you more than anything in the world.   It is the craziest thing I have ever felt, but I really want you to be my wife.   In fact, except for the sex part, I think we are pretty much married right now, and it feels right.   But it’s new territory for me, and so I’m really nervous that I may not live up to your expectations as a husband.”

She rested her head against his chest, “I’m not a bit worried about that.   I’m glad you told me that, because I’m really scared too.   This all happened so fast; sometimes my mind just looks around and says, ‘Whoa!’   But you know what I’m really scared most about?”

“What?”

“This will surprise you.  I’m really scared about… well…”

“Sex?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“Well, me too.”

“Really?”

“Very much so!”

“So neither one of us will know what we’re doing?”

“I know I won’t.”

“What will we do, then?”

“I don’t know; I imagine we’ll figure it out.”

“Perhaps we should practice…” She began nibbling on his ear.

“Or maybe instead we should read a bit from Kinzer’s book?”

Aurei sighed and repositioned herself in his arms, “Oh, okay.”

He kissed her forehead and squeezed her tightly, then turned the page and began reading aloud from the ancient history book.

 

Reviews

[Elina]

"What is she doesn’t survive?” Is has been used here, instead of if.

[Eddie Davis]

You are right, good find! I'm going to call you eagle eyes because you are amazing finding things others have totally missed. I salute you.

[Elina]

Haha! Why, thank you, good sir.