Free Aria and Will by Kallysten Page A

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fights had been taking place more often in the past few months. It seemed that
the demons had decided that skirmishes weren’t worth the effort, and that
larger fights were more likely to deliver the city to them. There would come a
day when they brought enough troops to the walls to finish the town, and then
nothing but the sun would stop them. There were too many cities, all over the
world, that had fallen like this. Wilhelm knew that it was only a question of
when Newhaven would fall as well, not if.
    He had returned along with the Guard soldiers, riding
in the same truck, walking by their sides, taking the same elevator to his
apartment. It wouldn’t have been any different if he had been alone. He had
noticed the pointed looks at his injured arm, but no one had asked if he was
all right, no one had suggested that he go to the hospital. No one had dared.
No one ever did.
    Something stopped his hand just as he was about to
swipe his card key in the lock. Tired as he was, he needed a few seconds to
recognize the scent lingering on his doorstep.
    “Ariadne.”
    He only realized he had spoken the name aloud when it
seemed to echo down the deserted hallway. If he listened intently, he could
hear a heart beating behind the door and he knew, without the shadow of a doubt,
it was Ariadne’s.
    Immobile on the threshold, he hesitated. He had no
desire to see her at that moment, not after the way their last encounter had
unfolded hours before. She was asking too many questions, questions he didn’t
know how to answer, and he was too tired to play this game now. Maybe he would
just go back down to his office and… And wait for her to hunt him down. If she
had found her way inside his locked apartment, he doubted she would give up so
easily. He might as well get it over with.
    Finally swiping the card, he pushed the door open with
his good arm and walked in. He found her right away, sitting on the sofa. She
was reading one of his books, but she looked up when he entered. Her gaze and
slightly raised eyebrows seemed to challenge him to say anything about her
breaking into his apartment. He wanted to scold her, but the words vanished
before passing his lips. Shaking his head, he walked over to his bedroom and
sat down on the mattress with a slight groan. When he looked up again, she was
by the bedroom door, arms crossed and looking annoyed.
    “Go home, Ariadne. I have nothing to say to you.”
    “Do you ever?” She snorted. “It doesn’t matter. You
can listen.”
    Once again, her eyes held that challenging look that
she seemed so fond of. Wilhelm wondered, as she started rambling about Lorenzo,
and Guard assignments, and unwanted interferences in her life, if she looked at
demons the same way on the battlefield. When he had fought by her side,
guarding her back before he had asked someone else to do so for him, he had
always been too intent on keeping her safe to pay much attention to the way she
looked at their enemies.
    From there, as she kept talking, more animated now but
still just past the threshold, his thoughts drifted toward Bergsen. Wilhelm had
gone to see him before heading to the walls, and he had not liked what he had
found in that hospital room. People were beginning to wonder where Bergsen was.
The excuse that he was taking a few well-earned vacation days was shaky at
best, and it would never hold once he reappeared, looking weaker, paler,
thinner. Questions would be asked, and asked again until they received
satisfying answers. Wilhelm doubted that anything but the truth would do.
    That was what he had been thinking about, during the
battle. That was what had been distracting him from the demons in front of him.
That, and Ariadne, her words and anger still ringing in his ears. That
distraction had cost him. He should have avoided that axe blow; he hadn’t. He
couldn’t let himself be caught off guard like this. With Bergsen already
weakened, Newhaven needed Wilhelm more than ever—as much as he hated