Aria and Will (15 page)

Chapter 17

“I love you.”

Just saying the words filled Aria with giddiness. She
had been waiting to say them to Wilhelm for a long time—for all her life, it
sometimes seemed. She wouldn’t tire of it, especially if Will continued to
answer by kissing her as though his life depended on it. She let out a little
sigh when he ended the kiss to finally pass the threshold of his apartment, and
closed her eyes. The past few days had been harrowing, she was both exhausted
and hurt, but she couldn’t imagine a more perfect instant.

“You should take a shower to clean the wound.”

Perfection ended with those words. She opened her eyes
to find that he had carried her into the bathroom. Despite herself, she
groaned. After three days and nights spent almost entirely in the rain, the
prospect of a hot shower didn’t sound as appealing as it usually did after a
fight.

“Great,” she muttered. “More water.”

He was laughing when he finally let her touch the
floor. For a moment, she thought he would leave her to undress and clean up on
her own. However, he squatted down in front of her and untied the laces of her
heavy boots before pulling them off. When he stood again, there were just
inches between them in the small bathroom. Aria swallowed heavily when he
unbuttoned her jacket and pushed it off her shoulders. Had she been human
still, she would have been bright red by the time he had helped her down to her
underwear, being especially careful as he pulled her fatigues over her injured
leg. She dropped her gaze and cleared her throat. She tried to keep her voice
level, but even so it shook a little when she said:

“Maybe we could take that shower together. You know,
share the hot water.”

The spicy note of lust in his scent suddenly increased
tenfold, but as tempted as he seemed to be, Will didn’t take her offer. “Maybe
another time. I’ll get clothes for you. Dry clothes. And then we’ll look at
that wound.”

She glanced down at her leg for the first time. Her
desire faded at once. She understood, now, why Will had been so insistent in
carrying her rather than allowing her to walk. The wound looked ugly, the edges
jagged and exposing enough muscle to make her squeamish. She was so tired, the
pain barely even registered in her mind. Without thinking, she raised her hand;
immediately, his own was there, taking hold of her and reassuring her.

“You okay?”

Looking back up, she could see the worry on his face.
She knew he had been worrying about her for years, but it seemed like the first
time he had ever shown it. She nodded, unable to push a word past the lump in
her throat. Even after he had left her, she still felt a little awed that she
had finally broken through his reluctance to admit his feelings.

She finished undressing, stepped inside the shower
stall and set the water as hot as it would go. The hot jet, as always, lasted
just long enough for a quick wash and rinse, but even so it warmed her down to
the bones. She hadn’t realized she was so cold. The wound on her thigh stung
under the soapy water, as did a dozen other small cuts on her body. During the
fight, she hadn’t let herself become aware of the pain, but now she had nothing
left to distract her mind from it.

When it was time to get out, she found a fresh towel
by the sink, along with a t-shirt and boxers. She hadn’t even heard Will come
back in. She dried herself and put it all on, grinning like a child at the
simple idea that she was wearing his clothes. Supporting her weight on her good
leg, she limped out. Will called out to her from the bedroom.

“In here.”

He had changed into fresh clothes too and toweled his
hair dry. Leaving a first aid kit on the edge of the bed, he came to her and
wrapped an arm around her waist to help her to the bed. Kneeling down at her
feet, he opened the kit and pulled out a syringe that wasn’t part of the
standard Guard first aid supplies.

“I know what I’m doing,” he said when he noticed her
anxious look. “I’ve had to do this so often on myself, I’ve become pretty
decent at it.”

She silently agreed that he was a more than decent
medic when he injected the numbing agent in four places around her wound and
she barely even felt the pricks of the needle. He then cleaned the wound with quick,
efficient movements.

“I learned the hard way,” he continued as he pulled
out a needle and surgical thread from the kit. “And then eventually a doctor
taught me to do it the proper way.”

He looked up at her face before bringing the needle to
her skin. She tightened her hands on the edge of the bed and nodded. “I trust
you.”

She kept her eyes on the wall behind him as he worked.
She could hardly feel a thing, but she couldn’t bear to watch.

“It’ll scar,” he said after a moment, “but in a few
years, it’ll start fading.”

She risked a glance down when she realized he was
reaching for the gauze and bandages in the kit. The three inches long wound was
now sewn shut with small, even stitches. Will covered it with a square of gauze
that he taped to her thigh before wrapping a bandage over it.

She didn’t say anything, but she could admit to
herself that she didn’t care how long the scar would take to fade. As long as
it lasted, she would have a reminder of the first battle they hadn’t fought
only side by side, but truly together.

When he was done, he reached up to caress her cheek.
Aria luxuriated in the feel of his touch. She covered his hand with hers.

“Thank you,” she said very quietly.

He smiled and stood, leaving his hand against her
face.

“I need to get back to the walls.”

She nodded. She had known something like this would
come. She was even a little surprised he had given her so much time.

“Rest,” he said. “Heal. I’ll be back as soon as I
can.”

He leaned down to kiss her forehead. She bit down on
the inside of her cheek so she wouldn’t let out those protests that wouldn’t
help a thing. The last thing she wanted was to argue with him now. She allowed
him to tuck her in, and even closed her eyes as she listened to him leaving the
apartment. Once the door had clicked shut behind him, she waited for a few more
minutes to give him time to leave the building and get a good head start on
her. When she realized she was falling asleep, she figured she had waited long
enough. To rest as he had admonished her would have been heavenly, but she
couldn’t shirk her responsibilities—not any more than he could.

Her entire body protested when she slipped out of the
bed, three days of almost non-stop fighting crashing on her with aches and
pains she couldn’t ignore anymore. She embraced them instead. Pain and
tiredness meant she had survived.

As much as she liked the idea of wearing Will’s
clothes, they were too large to be practical. She limped down to her apartment
just a few floors below and put on her dress uniform, the one usually reserved
for official ceremonies. She wasn’t only going back because she was part of the
Guard; she was returning to work because she was a Head of Squadron and she had
work to do. If she stumbled on Will and things went as badly as she expected,
she would need every bit of confidence she could muster.

The most recent roster of her squadron in hand, she
first limped to the hospital. The smells of blood and antiseptic jumped at her
as soon as she entered the overcrowded lobby. Almost five years earlier, she
had awakened to a new life with the same scents around her. She couldn’t help
wondering how many soldiers had not been offered the same chance in the past
few days.

All she needed to do to know was step in the small
room reserved for the Guard’s hierarchy and sit down in front of the computer
there. Black on white, the numbers had never been grimmer. She read line after
line—number of soldiers admitted for treatment, number of soldiers who had been
dead on arrival, who had died in surgery, who were likely to die within
twenty-four hours. Her jaw contracted with each number until she thought her
teeth would crack.

A different search yielded results just as
devastating. Her hand trembled as, one by one, she checked off the names of the
injured on her roster, and put a cross by those who hadn’t survived; too many,
in both cases. She wasn’t done, though. The bodies of the soldiers who had died
on the battlefield were kept near the walls, waiting to be identified. She
needed to go see them.

Her mind buzzing with names, she stood and walked out
of the room. She winced with each step, the wound on her leg throbbing with
pain now that the anesthetic wasn’t working anymore. She stopped a nurse and,
within minutes, was walking out with the support of a cane, and almost bumping
into Mary. They reacted the same way, looking each other up and down and
searching for wounds. Aria felt a little better when she saw that Mary had
taken the time to clean up as well. She could smell blood on her, which meant
that a wound was hiding beneath her fresh uniform.

“Aria.” Mary smiled. “I’m so glad to see you. Are you
all right?” She gave a pointed look at the cane.

“Nothing too bad. You?”

Mary’s hand rose to touch her arm. “Nothing I can’t
heal. Did you hear about Jonas?”

Something tightened inside Aria. She shook her head.

“He died during the last wave,” Mary said quietly.
“And Paolo…” She took in a deep breath. “They don’t know if he’ll make it.”

Without thinking, Aria looked back toward the hospital
lobby. She hadn’t thought about what would happen if Heads of Squadron had been
wounded, or worse. Her focus had been on the soldiers so far, but there was
more to the situation, of course.

“Are we meeting?” she asked, turning her attention
back to Mary. “There’s so much we need to reorganize.”

“You’re right.” Mary glanced down at her watch. “How
about… seven hundred in the conference room?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll contact the others and tell them. And Wilhelm.”

There was just the edge of a question in that last
word. Aria nodded.

“I’ll see you there.”

Part of her knew Will would be upset she hadn’t taken
his advice and rested, but he would have to understand. She couldn’t worry
about this now.

She flagged down a passing truck that was returning to
the walls. The four soldiers inside it looked at her bleary-eyed, but they
saluted her and asked if she needed help. She assured them all she needed was a
ride. Going through the lists of identified dead soldiers and looking at the
bodies of those who hadn’t been identified yet was her duty, and as painful, as
devastating as it may be, she wanted to do it alone.

Ice settled inside her long before she was done, and
by the time she had finished annotating the roster of her squadron, she felt
numb. She would send a call to all the soldiers who served under her and have
them gather by the next sunset, but she knew already that too few of them would
come. It would be the same for all squadrons. All they could hope for was at
least a few nights of respite before the next demons attack rolled on Newhaven.

As she was walking out of the temporary morgue, she
caught a glimpse of Will, just a hundred of yards down, talking animatedly to
two soldiers. Without thinking twice, she hurried out of sight, and almost
stumbled on a pile of weapons. Swords, axes, lances, even a few pieces of armor
lay together, probably gathered from the battlefield. Some were broken, others
seemed in need of being sharpened, all were covered in blood. The best weapons
would be cleaned, sharpened and reused. The rest would be melted as scrap.

Something caught her eyes and she leaned down,
balancing her body against her cane. She picked up a sword, and knew at once it
had belonged to a demon, probably even one of their leaders. No one in the
Guard owned anything that fine. The blade was almost four feet long, and the
guard and pommel were crafted beautifully. Demon weapons were always of good
quality, but most of them were plain and functional. This was something else. A
sword smith had to have spent a lot of time engraving the metal with decorative
scrolls and symmetrical snakes on each side of the guard.

There were rumors that, sometimes, demons kidnapped
humans and took them back wherever they came from. Aria could believe it as she
detailed the craftsmanship on that sword. She couldn’t imagine a demon hand,
thick and clumsy, working so intricately, and the designs seemed like something
a human might have crafted. It was only fitting that they had reclaimed this
sword from the demons if human prisoners had forged it. It would only be even
more fitting to find an owner worthy of it.

Still clutching the sword, she found a ride back to
the camp and headed to the armory. She had a couple of hours in front of her
still before the meeting. She intended to leave the sword and a note there, but
she was surprised to find Andrew Benton, the master blacksmith, sitting at his
station. He hurriedly dried his eyes as she entered and said his name.

“Ma’am. How can I help?”

She came closer, and he gestured to the sword in her
hand.

“Do you need me to—”

His voice broke down. Something ached in Aria’s chest
when the tall, gray-haired man she had known since becoming a Cadet started
crying again. She placed the sword on his worktable and reached out for his
hand. He clung to her fingers.

“I’m sorry about Andy,” she said when he had calmed
down. “He was a good man, and a good fighter.”

He nodded, pride shining through his teary eyes and
sad smile.

“He always spoke highly of you. Said you were the best
leader he had ever followed to battle.”

For the first time that night, tears welled up in her
eyes. She knew what it felt like to be led to battle by someone who had earned
her trust the hard way; someone she knew would get into harm’s way if it meant
protecting her. She just wasn’t sure she had earned that trust from Andy, or
any of the members of her squadron. Too wrapped up in her feelings for Will,
she had focused her attention on him during the battle. She had guarded his
back, and rarely paid much mind to the soldiers she had been supposed to lead.
She understood, now, what Will had meant when he had said they couldn’t afford
to become involved with each other.