Chapter 13 Des
Des
Des barely had time to curse Aurelie before the crowd dispersed enough to reveal the demon in question.
To his shock and horror, it was the thrall from the university, the one he’d trailed to the tall man’s house. And worse, it
was already upon its victim, razor-sharp teeth tearing at the man’s throat. As his screams choked off into a bloody gurgle,
Des heard the sound of someone vomiting behind him.
Des slipped into the focused, trancelike state of battle. It was what he’d been trained to do from infancy: Don’t question,
don’t think. React.
His sword was already drawn, his head down as he charged the demon. Every other verita he’d encountered would have stayed to enjoy its meal after going through the trouble of killing it. But not the thrall. It
fled the scene immediately, impossibly fast on its long legs, and Des faced the split-second decision between treating the
victim or going after it.
Des glanced at the man, blinking in surprise when he realized it was the one Aurelie had bumped into earlier. Unfortunately,
it was too late to save him. The thrall had torn out his jugular, and there was no physician in Wisteria who could heal that.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that this demon had showed up within ten feet of Aurelie Blake, again. He started to turn.
Someone tugged on Des’s arm, pulling him back.
“Help him!” a woman cried, gesturing toward the victim. “He’s my husband! We have two children and one on the way.” She cradled
her stomach as tears spilled over her cheeks.
“I’m so sorry, madam. It’s too late.”
She began to wail as the crowd dispersed around them, no longer concerned now that they weren’t in danger.
Des glanced back toward the direction of the thrall and cursed. The demon was gone. A man was dead.
And Aurelie Blake was going to rue the day she’d crossed Destrier Whitlow.
By the time Des returned to the barracks to report to Commander Yew, his tail tucked between his legs as he admitted that
he—a big, strong, scary demon hunter—had lost a notebook-wielding university student, Aurelie could have gone anywhere.
Commander Yew, to his credit, didn’t admonish Des, probably sensing that his shame was punishment enough. “There’s no question
dark magic is involved, Whitlow. We’ve put our best senior guards on the case. Your responsibility was Miss Blake, and as
I understand it, she’s come to no harm.”
“Sir, with all due respect, she’s been spotted near this thrall multiple times now. I believe she may have been visiting the
thrall’s master when the attack occurred. She evaded me. Again.”
“Maybe she just doesn’t like you,” Yew replied, the only indication he was teasing Des a slight twinkle in his dark brown
eyes.
“Oh, I’ve no doubt she doesn’t like me,” Des said. “But if she has nothing to hide, why not make that abundantly clear so I’ll stop following her?”
“Take a seat, Whitlow.”
Des swallowed, doing as instructed. A man had died, and if he hadn’t allowed himself to be distracted by Aurelie, he would
have saved his life. He deserved whatever punishment was coming.
“You’re my best lieutenant. You know it and so does everyone else here. To be frank, I only let you follow the Blake girl
because I thought you needed a break. I should have known you’d take this as seriously as all your other duties.”
Des lowered his gaze, humiliated. “I see.”
“It’s not all bad,” Yew said, with more softness than Des had ever heard from him. “I’ve been trying to decide when to promote
you, and I think the time has come.”
Des’s eyes shot up. He’d been a lieutenant for so long, he’d started to wonder if he’d die one. It wasn’t unlikely; most guards
who died in service did so as lieutenants. Younger guards, like Gareth, came on as junior lieutenants and were generally watched
closely by their seniors. If a guard made it to the rank of lieutenant commander, they’d survived enough demon encounters
that they were likely to survive their service. It was those middle years one had to watch out for.
“Thank you, sir.” Des wondered if he was supposed to stand, what the proper protocol was.
“We’ll have a ceremony for you soon. By the end of the year, certainly. I’m relieving you of watching Miss Blake.”
“Sir, I’m convinced she has something to do with this surge in demon activity.”
“And I’m not. There have been more attacks throughout the whole kingdom recently, including in the provinces.
Sightings of day-walkers are becoming more common.
Whatever Aurelie Blake is doing here, she can’t possibly be responsible for all of it.
Part of the reason I’m promoting you is because I want you on equal footing with the other members of the Iron Swords.
Tracking and killing verita is where you belong. ”
Two days ago, Des would have agreed wholeheartedly. It was all he’d ever wanted. But now, knowing that Aurelie Blake had been
onto him all week, that she clearly didn’t fear demons the way any normal citizen would, that they seemed to appear whenever
she left campus, Des couldn’t help thinking that he had work to do right here in Wisteria City.
“I don’t know what to say, sir.”
“Say thank you. And go get in a solid training session. You look like you have some energy to burn.”
“Thank you. I won’t let you down, sir.” Des saluted and left the commander’s office, heading across the dirt training yard
where other guards sparred and drilled. But despite the good news of the long-awaited promotion, there was an underlying sense
of foreboding he couldn’t deny.
Was it the promotion itself? Was a part of him afraid of what this meant? To be promoted to lieutenant commander put him in
the top 10 percent of the Iron Guard. In that, he could take a great deal of pride, especially considering he was significantly
younger than the other lieutenant commanders.
But it also unofficially meant he was accepting that this was going to be the rest of his life. Not that he’d ever expected anything more, but it suddenly felt like a very serious commitment for someone to make at nineteen.
Perhaps it was that, for the first time in his entire life, he’d seen firsthand this week what other Wisterians his age did.
Namely, talk, flirt, drink, flirt, eat, shop, and flirt. Their futures were wide open, and no one was asking them to commit
to anything for the rest of their lives, except perhaps marriage. That was the privilege of money. Your time was truly your
own to do with as you pleased. Des couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something for pleasure.
His thoughts, to his annoyance, turned to Aurelie. She had a purpose, a vocation, and still seemed to find time for recreational
pursuits. Des didn’t know how someone achieved that sort of balance, but it was nice to know that such a middle ground could exist in theory.
And yet here she was, wandering blithely through the city, demons trailing in her wake, wreaking havoc, all while batting
her pretty green eyes. The audacity. The selfishness.
Promotion or no, if he found out that she was knowingly doing something to attract these demons, he was going to relish grinding
Aurelie’s perfectly balanced life into dust.
By the time Des completed his run, showered, and changed, it was time for the evening meal. He went to the mess hall to find
Daisy had saved his usual seat. Somehow, she always managed to get there early enough to secure one of the few two-person
tables that weren’t reserved for senior staff.
“Where have you been?” she asked, all eyes and freckles, buzzing with barely contained curiosity.
Des didn’t want to admit that he’d lost Aurelie. “I had a meeting with the commander. I’m officially off babysitting duty.”
A small furrow formed between Daisy’s pale brows. “Why?”
“He’s determined she’s not a threat.”
Daisy rolled her eyes and gnawed on a corner of a chunk of bread. “Of course she’s not a threat. What about the threat to her?”
Des speared a steamed potato on the tines of his fork. “Believe me, she can handle herself.”
“What about the attack today? Jasper said she was there when it happened.”
“How does Jasper know about it?”
“You know how quickly word travels here, Des. Are you all right?”
Blood and bones, everyone must know about his failure now. He took a breath in through his nose, releasing it slowly, willing
his pulse back down to its normal fifty beats per minute. “I’m fine. If I hadn’t been distracted by that little hellion, I’d
have gotten to the victim in time and killed that damned thrall.”
“If it’s any consolation, that thrall might have done us all a favor. The victim was a . . .” She lowered her voice. “Barley,
his name was. He was a wanted criminal. Assaulted several women, apparently.”
Des stewed on this new information for a moment. Just because the man was a criminal didn’t mean he deserved to die that way.
He’d had a wife and children. And an attack in broad daylight meant something worse: Commander Yew was right. Demons were
getting bolder.
Des knew better than most how arbitrary death was, and how little demons cared about their victim’s identity. Next time, it
could easily be an innocent under a verita’s claws, instead of someone vile like Barley. Something was wrong here, and deep down he felt it was going to get worse.
Daisy leaned closer. “I’m glad you’re all right, but we need to keep this quiet. Otherwise we’re going to start even more
rumors spreading among the junior lieutenants, and right now we need cooler heads to prevail.”
She was right. Des took a deep, steadying breath, stabbing a green bean because it was his only outlet at the moment.
“So,” she said after a few minutes, “what about the girl?”
“What about her?”
“Don’t you think you should warn her that she won’t have protection going forward?”
He snorted. “I don’t think she saw me as protection, Daisy.”
“Regardless. She’s alone, and she deserves an explanation. After dinner, we’re going to pay her a visit.”
“We?”
“Yes, we. I don’t trust you to go alone.”