Aria and Will Read Free Page B

her head.
“But I’ll join the Guard, when I’m old enough. They will let me, won’t they?”
    Paul muttered something under his breath that might
have been a curse. His mother was more vocal.
    “Ariadne, that’s enough.”
    The thread of fear in her voice caught Wilhelm’s
attention, and he looked at her again, wondering why she was so upset. Did she
believe he would take Ariadne at her word and give her a sword right there and
then? Who did she think he was?
    “Maybe by the time you’re old enough,” he told the
child just as they were reaching the trucks, “the war will be over and there
won’t be need for the Guard anymore.”
    Paul let out a bark of dry laughter at that; he was
shaking his head while he climbed into the back of the truck and helped his
mother. Ariadne was last, and she turned a large smile toward Wilhelm before
following them.
    “Good luck,” she said. “I’ll wave at you next time you
walk in front of our house.”
    He managed to smile at her then turned away and
quickly strode to where the soldiers who would soon to go the front were
gathering. He looked at all of them with new eyes, his fatigue from the past
days all of a sudden lifted. Each one of them had volunteered to be there and
believed in what they did. Maybe the battle wouldn’t turn out so badly, after
all.
     
    * * * *
     
    Are you trying to make me look like a Lolita, and
Will like a pervert? Let’s set things straight, all right? I was twenty-two
when he first let me kiss him, and it was five years later before we did
anything more than that. The age difference will always be there, of course,
but you don’t have to make it look so bad.
    While we’re at it, that’s not how I remember the
events of that night. I do remember squeezing his hand, because I wanted to say
thank you—for bringing me home, months earlier, for talking to my mother, for
being kind—but I didn’t quite know how. Also, I don’t think I was smiling that
much. Hell, the sirens had been blaring for at least two hours when we evacuated.
I was scared I was going to die, or if not me, Mom or Paul. I can’t possibly
have smiled that much. I don’t care what you think you know, I just didn’t.
    As for Will… You’re not explaining much about him,
are you? I guess that means I have to.
    The reason why he came to our door was the same
reason he had for walking through my street so often when he patrolled the
town, or even for deciding to evacuate my street and not the next one. It’s
also the same reason why he kisses me every time we leave for a fight. As old
as he is, with everything he has seen, all the battles he has fought, he still
needs something to fight for. He needs an image at the back of his mind of the
people he’s helping to keep safe.
    When he first met me, in the cemetery, he didn’t
have that connection anymore, he told me, long after we had become lovers. So,
he picked me and my family as the people he’d fight for, the people he would do
everything in his power to protect. With his influence in town, ‘everything in
his power’ turned out to be quite a lot when I joined the Guard, and we had a
couple of heated arguments about that. He can be so stubborn!
    His need for someone to keep alive was also why he
was so upset when I was turned. I thought he would kill my Sire when I rose as
a vampire. For the longest time, I told myself he had just been jealous that he
wasn’t the one to turn me, but now I know better. I know him better. Still,
even after all this time, he always manages to surprise me.
    The last time he did was just days ago, after our last
big battle. As soon as it was clear that the demons had retreated for good and
wouldn’t be back for a while, he gave his orders to his second in command and
then led me to a car with blacked out windows, on the other side of town, where
it would have been safe even if the demons had pushed further in. We were both
covered in mud and blood, and I was dying for a bath, but he