Book excerpt: Despite Loren's seemingly unending string of losses, the adventurers' guild has noticed his promise. They offer him a chance to take a test to prove his mettle and raise his rank. The only complication is that he's also caught the attention of a young woman of strange abilities--a vampire. Even stranger, she's not the only one of her kind eyeing Loren...and some of them may have a connection with the long-lost captain of his old mercenary company.