Page 49 of Guardian's Dilemma

Douglas looked down at us, still gathering spells to his fist. He was older and not as fast as me, but he had more experience with magic than I did. He could probably blast the two of us apart.

“You brought a dragon here?”

“Yes, but it’s not like that. I wanted to show you. He’s- It’s complicated.”

Glimmer growled at Douglas again as I tried to sit up, and he crawled on top of me to shield me from view.

I don’t know whether I was more surprised than Douglas, but his face was a picture.

“Is- is that dragonprotectingyou, Kingsley?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Glimmer chose that moment to suddenly be forthcoming. “Because he’s my mate.”

I gave a big shove and sent him sliding off me so I could scramble up. I reckoned Douglas probably wouldn’t blast me into tiny pieces right now. Probably.

“So you say, but that’s not why we’re here.”

“It’s whyI’m here,” said Glimmer.

“Well I’m here because I just found out that Leonard was using dragon’s blood to hunt. I want to know where he got his hands on it.”

I went to step forward again because it was getting hard to see through Glimmer’s protections again as he kept layering them up, but he grabbed me.

“Wait.”

Douglas was watching us carefully.

I held my breath.

At last, he lowered his hand. He had some serious protections around his body, since he was standing in a room with a dragon, but he wasn’t going to attack again.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said.

“Wasn’t sure about what?”

“Whether you were one of them.”

“Me?”

He gave a chuckle and it sounded tired. I realised that brief fight must have taken it out of him, so I ushered Glimmer to the side.

“Let Douglas sit down.”

“Won’t he want to be near the door so he can escape and scream for help and flood the office withridire?” I looked at Glimmer in disbelief and he shrugged. “It’s what I’d do if I were aridireand there was a dragon in my office.”

Douglas chuckled again and said, “I’ll sit.”

Glimmer wouldn’t move unless I went with him so we awkwardly made our way across the office together to give Douglas access to his chair and he sank into it with a sigh.

He took a moment to get some equilibrium back and then he said, “You came from the same training grounds. You were classmates, both sent here for active duty with the same high recommendations. You and Leonard particularly were given impressive references. I couldn’t say no, not without the Council realising that something was up.”

“But somethingwasup.”

“I don’t think the Council counted on me having such an acute awareness for magic. I’ve never met anyone who could match me, except perhaps you. I could sense something was off but it was always very faint. Blood magic doesn’t last long. But gradually I became certain and I started doing a little investigating.”

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