Page 54 of Guardian's Dilemma

“I should have seen it sooner.”

“How?” I asked.

“Douglas saw it.”

“Douglas is hundreds of years old and has been watching them change all that time.”

Kingsley sighed. “I feel… foolish. How could I have been so blind?”

“You trusted them and they didn’t deserve your trust. You just need to find someone who is.”

His dark eyes met mine and I saw the flicker of something in them. If I was feeling hopeful, I might have said it was the first stirrings of love.

I stepped closer to him and looked up into his eyes. My voice was soft and I could breathe in his scent as I spoke.

“I will earn your trust, Kingsley. I will prove to you that I have honour and I do my duty and I protect my treasure.”

I’d thought I was winning him over. He’d been leaning towards me, subtly, but he recoiled suddenly.

“Your treasure,” he spat. “Is that what this is about?”

I blinked. Everything was about my treasure. I lived to protect them. And now I’d found my mate, I lived to protecthim.

“I’m the Guardian,” I said. It was the only way I could explain it. The urge to protect. The need to keep my clan safe. To watch over them. It was everything I was, all boiled down into one simple word.

I didn’t understand why Kingsley pulled away from me.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. I just keep forgetting you’re a dragon, that’s all.”

“I was literally in my dragon form a minute ago.”

“I know. I haven’t forgotten that. I meant- never mind.”

I pressed closer, closing the distance he’d put between us. “What?”

“I keep forgetting that you think like a dragon.”

I waited, but he didn’t say anything else. It looked like that was the problem.

He turned suddenly. “Get dressed, it’s cold out here.”

“Aren’t we flying back?”

“I’d rather drive or get the train.”

“That’ll take longer.”

“Are you in a rush?”

I considered. Lord Somerville didn’t normally check up on me too often, but then we didn’t normally haveridirebreak into our territory, so I couldn’t be sure what he would do. I’d been away for hours and there was a chance he’d try to contact me. I’d left my phone, as usual, by the boundary so he wouldn’t be able to trace it but if they found that, they’d know I’d left the territory. That was forbidden. That was abandoning my duty.

Inside me, my dragon prickled with unease. Going with my mate to confront his coven was important and I didn’t regret it. I couldn’t have let him out of my sight if I’d tried. My dragon wouldn’t hear of it.

But my dragon was also pulling me to go back to my clan and set eyes on my other treasures. I needed to be there to protect them.

Kingsley sighed. He sounded tired.

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