by Kallysten
“No,” he said, so quietly she thought she misheard him.
Before she could ask what he meant, he lifted her off his lap and back onto her own feet. He let go of her as though his hands were burning. Pushing the chair away from her, he stood as well and walked back so that he was standing across from her with the desk between them.
“This… We can’t do this,” he said, gesturing to the space between the two of them.
There was a haunted quality to his eyes, and Aria would almost have believed she had forced him to kiss her. She knew better, though. He had been a more than willing participant.
“Come on, Will,” she said, both disappointed and a little annoyed by his reaction. “No more games.”
* * * *
It had never been a game for me, not when she was a child and all I wanted was to keep her safe, and not when she had grown older and my feelings for her had evolved into something entirely different. To hear her speak of games stirred something inside me, and anger that hadn’t filled my chest since the days after her turning returned to life. Back then, I had been mourning my lost chance at telling her how I felt. This time, I had stepped up to the plate for her, done something I had promised myself I wouldn’t do. And by doing so, I had lost her, again. And again, it was all my own doing.
“I’m not playing,” I said, staring hard at her. “I’ve never played with you.”
“Haven’t you?” she shot back. “What do you call this, then? You kiss me and then—”
“You kissed me. And it was a mistake for me to let you—”
“Why the hell would it be a mistake?”
She looked and smelled as frustrated as I felt myself, but I was convinced I was right. I had to be. Everything I knew told me I was.
Sometimes, being right can be the worst possible feeling.
“You’ve asked me to take command of the Guard. I can’t get involved with you, or with any soldier, for that matter. It would be unbecoming. People would—”
“What people?”
She walked by the corner of the desk and perched herself on the edge of it, arms crossed.
“What…” I shook my head at her. Couldn’t she understand? “The Guard. Soldiers. The other Heads of Squadron.”
Her expression remained blank. “You mean, the people who have known for years?”
“Known what?”
“Oh Will, you’re not that naïve, are you? They know I… have feelings for you. And they think you return them.”
I guess I was that naïve. Or maybe I had never allowed myself to see what was obvious. But now that she had said it, I could see she was right. They knew. It just didn’t change anything, and I told her as much.
Her eyes narrowed and she slid off the desk. Slow steps took her to me. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to retreat.
“Aria—”
I don’t know what I’d have said. She didn’t let me finish.
“I’ve wanted this for five years.”
I didn’t have time to wonder what ‘this’ was. She looped her arms around my neck and kissed me again. And again, I let her. Because I, too, had wanted this for too long. I just couldn’t let it last. Taking hold of her arms, I gently pried them away from me and broke off the kiss.
“Aria,” I tried again, and again she didn’t let me talk.
“I’m not going to stop now, Will. Not because you happen to be my new boss.”
Just a day earlier, her insistence would have delighted me. Now, though, it only etched deeper in my mind how close I had come to having the woman I loved.
“I could send you away like the Majors,” I said, my voice breaking down on the last word.
She laughed. “Right. And you could step into the sun and see if you tan while you’re at it.” Her features turned serious again. “You want to get rid of me? Okay. Tell me, right here, right now, that you don’t love me. Tell it to me, in those words, and I’ll leave as soon as the sun sets.”
I couldn’t say it. Of course I couldn’t.
She smiled, certain that she had won, and started leaning in toward me again. Just at that moment, someone knocked. We stared at each other for a few seconds. A second knock broke the moment. I stepped away from her and back behind my desk. Sitting down, I passed a hand through my hair.
“Come in.”
Three Heads of Squadron walked in, ready to discuss what would happen on the walls that night. There were a couple of looks thrown in Aria’s direction, but not much surprise. She had been right about them knowing. That didn’t mean I was ready to accept she was right about everything.
“We’re done here, Aria.”
She threw me a heated look on her way out. “We’re anything but done, sir.”
I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a promise or a threat.
Chapter 15
The wind was blowing relentlessly over the walls, and had been piling clouds over Newhaven for hours. A storm was coming, and because of it the soldiers were a little more relaxed than usual. Demons usually liked clear nights to launch attacks on the city.
Standing on top of a watchtower with another Head of Squadron, Aria held her jacket closed tight over her chest. Vampires didn’t truly feel the cold, but the illusion of it could be just as uncomfortable as the real thing.
“Look down there,” Paolo said suddenly.
For a second, she thought he had spotted approaching demons on the horizon, but when she followed his gaze she realized he was pointing at something happening at the foot of the walls, inside the city. A man was advancing through the crowd of waiting soldiers, but every few steps someone stopped him either with a military salute that he had to pause to return, or with an outstretched hand and, presumably, a few words. Aria smiled despite the cold. She wished she could have heard what the soldiers were telling Will on his first night as their official leader.
Just hours earlier, he had confided to her his reluctance at having taken this position. She could only imagine how he had to feel now. Was it sinking in yet in that stubborn head of his that he was the only one in the Guard who had doubts about his leadership abilities? If only he could admit he had been wrong about that—and about the rest as well…
“I’m freezing up here. I’ll get down to a lower level.”
Paolo’s chuckle made it clear her excuse was as transparent as she had thought it was, but she had already forgotten about it by the time she reached the top of the walls. Will was there, now alone, surveying the outside of the city. It was hardly unusual for him to do so, but Aria couldn’t remember ever seeing him so tense. It didn’t seem he had grown used to his new position yet. Leaning against the concrete and stone barrier, he looked miserable.
“I thought tonight was your squadron’s night off,” he said, his eyes still on the horizon as she approached. “Shouldn’t you be resting along with your troops?”
“I should,” she replied, hoisting herself onto the wall next to him. “Doesn’t mean I want to. You’d be too happy if I wasn’t here to annoy you, and I don’t feel like making you happy right now.”
He turned his face toward her, an eyebrow raised, and she realized her words could be interpreted much differently than she had meant.
“And I certainly didn’t mean it that way,” she added, very quickly, glad that her vampire physiology meant she wouldn’t turn bright red in embarrassment.
Will looked away again and said nothing. A flash of irritation ran through Aria.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I meant it?”
“I know how you meant it,” he said with something that sounded like resignation. “You’re angry with me.”
“I’m not angry—”
“Aria, if you plan on lying about what you feel, don’t stay upwind from me. You’ve been angry enough with me for the past ten years, I know that scent quite well by now.”
Aria jumped off the wall and started pacing behind him. After a moment, he turned around to face her. She stopped and planted herself in f
ront of him, her gaze intense as she observed him.
“Okay. I’m angry. And getting angrier. Do you know why?”
His lips barely twitched with the beginning of a smile. “I have a feeling you’re going to enlighten me whether I want it or not. Isn’t that what you always do?”
“I’m angry,” she said, ignoring him, “because you’re trying to pretend nothing is going on between us.”
She waited for a sign, anything that would let her know she was getting through to him, but he remained stone-faced.
“The only thing going on between us is that as of this morning I am your commanding officer and…”
His voice trailed off when she growled and pulled out her sword. She felt a rush of satisfaction at the look of alarm that crossed his features, but it vanished when Will turned to look behind him and over the walls.
“Did you see something?” he asked, his voice instantly business-like.
“Yes,” she replied calmly. “I saw a liar.”
Very slowly, he turned back toward her. For a second, the wind shifted. She wasn’t the only one whose scent betrayed anger, she thought grimly. His irritation was reflected in his glare as well.
“I never lied—” he started, but she didn’t give him time to finish. She had learned, long before, that the best attack was to destabilize the adversary and then keep pushing until he broke down.
“Not to me, maybe, or at least not to my face, but to yourself, all the time. And it stops, right here, right now. Take your sword out, Will.”
He straightened up a little, looming a few inches above her and still glaring for all he was worth. “No,” he said coldly. “You put yours away.”
At the very edge of her vision, Aria could see movement. Surely, their argument had been noticed, especially now that she had drawn her sword. Soldiers were coming closer, unsure yet as to whether they needed to intervene or not. They had seen Aria and Will spar more than once in the past weeks. If she had been an onlooker, she would never have believed this was anything but a game.
“Fight with me,” she said, a little louder. She needed to let out her frustration one way or another. Very slowly, she brought her sword to rest against Will's neck.
“Aria…”
Will’s long-suffering sigh and eye roll were infuriating. He still wasn't taking her seriously—had he ever? He was looking at her the same way he had when, as a teen, she had professed her desire to be part of the Guard. He was looking at her as though she were an unreasonable child. She would show him she meant this as much as she had meant her resolve to fight.
“If you don’t pull your sword out and spar with me now,” she warned, her own weapon wavering slightly in her hand out of nerves and drawing a thin line of blood on his neck, “I’m going to kiss you.”
Judging by Will’s shocked expression, he hadn’t expected her threat to end quite like that.
“You’re… what?”
He still wasn’t giving any indication he would comply. With a quiet curse at his stubbornness, she slid back her sword in its scabbard and moved forward. She didn’t give Wilhelm time to retreat. Throwing her arms around his neck, she drew him to her and kissed him, just as she had said she would. For a second as their lips met, she could hear nothing but the wind running past them. Then catcalls, whistling and clapping rose from all sides, it seemed. She pulled away from Will, grinning.
“There,” she said, triumphant. “Now anyone who had a doubt knows for sure. And those who didn’t see it will know before tomorrow. You can’t hide behind that excuse anymore.”
Very gently, Will took hold of her arms and pulled them free from his neck. “Know what, Aria?” he asked, his voice shaking a little. “That we kissed? It doesn’t—”
“That I love you,” she interrupted him.
She would have wanted to whisper it, but she said it loud enough that others would hear. Let him try to deny anything, now, she thought. Let him try to pretend the entire Guard didn’t know what was going on. Let him try to ignore this declaration like he had ignored the clues she had given him before that night.
Holding her unnecessary breath, she waited for his reaction.
* * * *
And how was I supposed to react when the woman I had loved in silence for years had just told me—just told the entire Guard if they were listening—that she loved me?
She had done the very last thing I would have wanted her to do, making public a relationship that, because of who and what we were, shouldn’t have existed. But she had also said those precious words I hadn’t dared hope I would ever hear from her, or anyone for that matter. She stood there, just inches in front of me, her hair swept by the unceasing wind, a look of such hope on her features…
Looking at her, I realized something about myself, something that shook down everything I was, everything I believed about myself and my life. I'm not sure I can explain it, but let me try.
I was turned when I was twenty-seven. Up to the night I met my Sire, my path had been perfectly clear in front of me, traced by family expectations and traditions. Receive the education of a perfect gentleman, care for the family domain after my father, court and marry a woman from my social status, produce the offspring that would one day inherit from me and follow the same path I had walked on. And I would have done all that if not for the vampire clan wars happening in Europe at that time. My Sire had been ordered by her Sire to bring in two things to the clan—Childer, and money. That was why she chose me, she made it clear from the start. In the course of six months, she brought twelve of us to the fold. We already knew how to fight; we had all learned fencing as part of our education. All she had to do was teach us to obey vampire rules and customs. She did so with a fist of steel.
Over the years, I heard from other vampires about the close relationship they shared with their Sire. I certainly never had that with mine, but I learned from her just the same. When the wars ended with a new pecking order amongst older vampires, I was free to leave and, for the first time, lead my own life as I saw it fit. I left my Sire and clan without a look back.
I met up with some of them again, as years, decades and centuries trickled by, but as a whole I was alone. At first, I seduced victims to feed. Time passed. I continued to seduce, but now it was willingly that humans were offering me their necks, and I wasn’t killing anymore. Sometimes, I spent a few months or years with a human, but I always tried to leave before they could get too attached to me.
I had a couple of Childer across the years. People who asked to be turned and whom I liked enough to agree. I taught them everything I had been taught until it was time for them to go on, always knowing better than to get too close to them.
When I came to Newhaven and reluctantly found a new purpose for my existence, I had been a vampire for more than three centuries. During that time, even when I lived with someone, loneliness was a constant in my life and I was fine with it. I was used to it, and it didn’t bother me.
Even when I had decided to tell Aria about my feelings, I hadn’t thought of what would happen beyond my revelation. I just needed to tell her.
And now… Now I knew she did love me as I loved her. Now I knew that voicing my feelings would change everything and transform both our lives. And as stubborn as Aria could be, I knew it would be a long time before I was on my own again.
The idea was almost terrifying. What scared me even more, though, was to realize how well I had hidden to myself over the years that I hated being alone.
I reached out to caress her face and she trembled beneath my fingers. She had shouted her love for all to hear, but the same words were almost drowned by the whistling of the wind when I said them. I knew she had heard me, though. I knew it, because the fear in her eyes was gone, replaced by a joy I had never seen shine so brightly before. We kissed again, and again the Guard around us clapped its approval—not that it mattered anymore. All that mattered was her, and the rest of the world could go to hell for all I cared.
The funny
thing is, it almost did.
Just as our tongues tentatively wove around each other, the alarm sounded over the walls. Demons were approaching. Hands clasped, we went to fight as the rain started falling. The storm and the battle both lasted three long days and nights. At no moment, during that time, did I despair to see the end of the fight. Why would I have, when I had Aria at my side?
Chapter 16
With the storm raging over her head and the sounds of battle all around her, it was instinct more than anything else that warned Aria that Will was calling for her. She swung her sword a little higher, avoiding the demon’s shield and slicing halfway through its thick neck. It hadn’t finished falling yet that she was already turning away and looking for Will. It didn’t take her long to find him, even with the heavy rain blurring everything. He had remained close to her ever since the battle had started what felt like ages ago.
She strode over fallen demons and soldiers—there were too many of them, and she couldn’t let herself look at their faces, not when the battle was still going on—and approached Will. Just as she was reaching him, he took down the demon he had been battling. He passed a hand through his soaked hair, the gesture useless as rain only plastered it over his forehead again within seconds. Aria had fought in the rain before, but this storm was something else.
He glanced at her, showing he was aware of her presence, but before he could say a word another demon had appeared. They started fighting, the metal of Will’s sword clanging loud against the heavier one the demon slashed in his direction. Aria hurried to them, determined to help, but Will shouted as he kept fighting: