Page 1 of Guardian's Dilemma

Chapter 1: Kingsley

Ihad been called into Douglas’s office and stood, looking at the man behind the desk. The entire training ground was a strange mixture of ancient and modern. This particular ridire training ground had been used for over five hundred years and we were one of the most successful covens in the country.

Countless dragons had perished by our coven’s hand and I was proud to work for them, to be one of them. We worked hard, trained hard, protected people from the most evil creatures in existence. It was a hard, unforgiving life but it was the one I’d chosen. I’d do anything to keep people safe from dragons.

Douglas looked at me across his desk and I restrained a shiver. He had piercing eyes that always seemed to cut right through me. I had never mentioned it, but there was something about Douglas that was just a bit more than human. Whatever it was, though, it wasn’t dragon. His magic wasn’t quite like mine, but it was nothing like the dark hum of dragon magic. I had never been able to pin-point what it was, but as long as it wasn’t dragon, it didn’t matter.

He spoke clearly and quietly.

“The council has received a report of a lone dragon living in a small village. We need somebody to complete the reconnaissance.”

I stood taller. I was always his first choice to look for dragons. I could sense them nearby better than anyone else in the coven.

Douglas shuffled some papers, searching through them for the one he wanted. Douglas was one of the ancient things in the training ground. His distrust of technology was legendary and, in my opinion, was not in the best interests of the coven going forward. I would not have said it out loud, but it seemed to me that we should be using every possible resource we could to find and eliminate the dragons.

Douglas was too old to go hunting any longer. Not that he was old, exactly, because he didn’t look a day over fifty, but being an activeridiredemanded speed and strength and skill. As his body had aged, he’d got slower. Anyridirewho lived to be as old as Douglas would end up here, at the training grounds, passing on their expertise and their knowledge or, in Douglas’s case, organising our operation.

“Ah yes, here are the details,” he said. “The report was given by a Gertrude Winters.”

“How does she know about dragons?”

After all, there were so few of them around these days and most people couldn’t see them. If they saw them in their human form, they had no idea that they were facing a monster.

“She’s a witch. Claims to have seen the dragon herself.”

“And survived?”

That seemed unlikely.

Douglas cleared his throat. “One lone dragon, female, living in a small cottage in the village and working in a bakery.”

I nearly interrupted when he said that. I had never heard of a dragon making baked goods before.

“The dragon appears to be in its early twenties, dark-haired, no magic. Your duty is to verify the presence of a dragon and provide details for a team to take it out. Report your findings to Leonard. He will be leading the team.”

My good mood soured.

Even as I told myself it was a bad idea, I heard myself speaking. “Sir? I would like to be part of the team to terminate this dragon.”

Douglas harrumphed and cleared his throat loudly, several times. I knew the signs. He was about to say no. He always did.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Kingsley. You haven’t trained with the team and it would be inefficient to send you out with them on an active mission.”

I ground my teeth. That was always his excuse. I was sick of being the tracker. Always the tracker, never the hunter. I was hardly using a fraction of my abilities. Tracking dragons once there had already been a sighting? That was just a question of turning up and feeling for its magic. I wanted to domore.

I was capable of more.

“If I can’t join a hunting team, can I take on more tracking missions? Actively seek out new leads instead of waiting for reports to come in?”

Douglas cleared his throat again.

“Look, Kingsley, you are an excellentridireand have many skills that we value, but we are a coven. This is not about individual glory.”

I felt bitterness swell inside me and tried to squash it down. I knew this was not about glory. If I had wanted glory, I would have become an athlete or a rockstar, not aridire. The very nature of our existence was secret. The normal, unmagical people that populated the world went about their lives and slept soundly in their beds because we existed, and we protected them from evil. They never knew it, we never told them, and we lived in the shadows perhaps even more than the dragons we hunted.

If there was one thing I had learned though, it was how to be a goodridire. I swallowed down the bitterness and said, “Yes, sir.”

“Very good, Kingsley. Collect everything you need and borrow a car. You’ll need it.”

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