Aria and Will by Kallysten Read Free Book Online

down from
the mountain. The trip did not even begin to tire them. The Guard's best
archers greeted them with its traditional volley of arrows. A few demons fell;
the rest of them marched on without slowing for an instant. They would reach
the walls quickly, if they weren't stopped. The Guard would stop them—it had
to.
    Behind the walls, the first three streets had been
evacuated. Wilhelm and Bergsen had argued about it again. Civilians had long
since tired of the repeated evacuations, and it was more difficult each time to
get their cooperation. Bergsen wanted to permanently evacuate these streets and
declare them too dangerous for anyone to be there after nightfall; every time
he raised the issue, Wilhelm predicted that such a decision would wreak havoc
on the city. Each house, each apartment within the walls was already packed,
and demanding that two hundred families leave their homes to live with
strangers was asking for trouble.
    Wilhelm was standing on the front line when the Guard
clashed with the demon army. Five years earlier, Bergsen had stood at the front
of the fight next to him, leading his troops through example. But age had
caught up with him, and now he watched the battles from the walls. Wilhelm
couldn't even stand the idea of not being part of the fight.
    Within moments, his sword had sliced a first demon
open from the shoulder straight down to the thick of the belly. Blood erupted,
so dark it seemed black, its scent already thick in the night air. Wilhelm felt
his fangs elongate, and instinct spurred him on. He did not wait for the demon
to finish falling to the ground before he moved on to his next prey. He had
fought demons, first on his own and eventually with the Guard for close to
thirty years, and habit and training always took over as soon as the battle
started. He remained completely aware of his surroundings—he couldn't afford
not to be—but he also swung his sword, parried and moved through the crowd of
demons, vampires and humans without ever hesitating.
    The Guard was superior in numbers to the army of
demons, but not all fighters were as adept with a sword or axe as Wilhelm was;
few of them had even a tenth of his experience. It often took two or three
soldiers to take down a single demon, so most soldiers worked in pairs or small
groups, defending each other's back as they focused on individual demons.
    In the past few months, during each battle Wilhelm had
found his attention and his steps always drifting back toward one such pair of
fighters. The woman was barely past eighteen; still a child, even if she had
cut the long auburn hair that had danced free on her shoulders during all her
childhood. Next to her, her partner was almost a full head taller than she was,
and he moved with the sleek grace of a predator. Whenever Lorenzo caught his
gaze, in the middle of the fight, it was to give him an eye roll that said
quite plainly what he thought of Wilhelm's game. Ariadne, on the other hand,
always pretended not to notice. She was a terrible liar.
    In truth, they did not need Wilhelm's help. The girl
had been born to carry a sword, and Lorenzo made up for what he lacked in
experience with his vampire speed and strength. Together, they managed to carve
a path through demons and remain, most of the time, unscathed. When blood was
shed, it was always Lorenzo's; he never hesitated before putting himself
between Ariadne and a demon's blade.
    Wilhelm had accepted that he couldn't prevent Ariadne
to fight, but he still didn't like to see her so close to danger. It might have
helped if he had been the one keeping her safe, as he had promised himself he
would when he had first met her as a child. Whenever he saw them exchange one
of those silly grins they shared after a kill, Wilhelm found himself gritting
his teeth and handling his sword with more vigor. They were too close, much too
close. It was unwise for Guard members to become romantically involved as these
two had. Unwise, and technically