He barely remembered the sight that had greeted him as he flew through the office door. A red mist obscured his vision, and all he had been able to pick out was the sight of Kylie huddled in a crouch beneath the window. The fact that her eyes were wide and animated and that he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest were the only reasons why the house around them remained standing.
The feral temper inside him had urged him to seize the male and rip his head from his shoulders. He wanted to taste the man’s blood, to see the life drain from his eyes, and to know that the foul piece of shit realized that in seeking to harm Kylie Kramer, he had actually sought his own death.
It took a moment for the sight of the cat clinging to the human’s face to register, and for a split second, Dag envied the cat the ability to sink the points of his claws into the man’s flesh. He could almost feel the soft parting of skin and muscle, the click of talon against bone, but then the human wrested the cat from his head and flung it across the room. Dag had gotten one glimpse of the man’s glinting, darkly clouded eyes in the instant before his fist grasped the front of the uniform jumpsuit, but as soon as it felt his touch, the spell on the man shattered. The demonic influence winked out, and left Dag holding a confused, terrified, and cowardly victim of the same attack that had threatened his female.
He threw the man down in disgust and hurried to Kylie’s side. Where he, of course, was greeted not with gratitude, or even an understandable accusation based on his failure to prevent such an attack, but with calmly delivered questions and the sass to which he was quickly becoming accustomed.
This did not mean he approved. He disliked the sensation he seemed always to have in her presence of being somehow off balance. A new experience, it made him question his ability to anticipate danger—hadn’t he missed the threat of the drude and again of the hexed worker until each had nearly succeeded in harming his female? How could he guarantee her safety if being near her created such distracting turmoil within him?
Definite turmoil. Among other things.
He struggled against a flood of unfamiliar emotion every time he drew near to the small human, unfamiliar for more than one reason. For centuries, he had believed that his kind lacked the capacity for the relentless current of feelings that seemed to plague the mortal world. He experienced only the emotions suited to his purpose—rage at his enemy, determination to win victory, hatred of the Darkness, loyalty to his cause. No other had been allowed to distract him, but he could not recall when anything had tried. Yet now, the addition of one tiny mortal female into his presence had shaken the very foundations of his identity. How could he remain a Guardian when all he truly cared about guarding now was Kylie?
Dag brooded over the question throughout the afternoon and long into the night. He sought meaning in the change and found his thoughts returning again and again to the same point, to the conclusion that he had avoided since that first conversation with Knox and Wynn.
Perhaps Kylie was meant to be his mate.
For centuries, the legend had mocked him. He knew of no Guardian in millennia who had been freed according to the stories of the first of his kind. It had become a fairy tale among the brethren, and Dag had dismissed it as easily as any other story meant for children and fools. He would live forever in service to the Light unless an enemy managed to destroy him first, in which case a new Guardian would be summoned. No other option existed, certainly not that a woman of power would come before him and free him from his magical sleep forever. It had seemed not just improbable but entirely impossible.
Until Kylie.
The idea that he could have been so wrong disturbed him. It pointed toward the kind of mistake that could get a human or a Guardian killed, and hadn’t that very thing nearly happened twice? Perhaps the only way to combat the problem was to give in to it.
That idea had his instincts rumbling a satisfied noise that reminded him disturbingly of King David’s loud purr. The instant that he entertained the thought, something inside him settled and he felt a sense of calm like nothing he had ever experienced. It was as if something had clicked into place within him, a piece he hadn’t known was missing yet whose absence had kept the whole machine from operating at peak efficiency.
A fresh wave of energy flooded him, strength reinvigorated his body, clarity at once settling over his mind. It felt as if Fate had simply been waiting for him to see the truth, and now that he had admitted it, he could once again become everything he had always been meant to be.
Guardian, protector, warrior.
Mate.
A smile of satisfaction crept over his features, then just as quickly drained away. He had just accepted the fundamental truth that Kylie Kramer was meant to be his, but one question still remained.
How was he going to break the news to her?
Chapter Nine
Az men est khazer, zol khotsh rinen iber der bord.
If you’re going to eat pork, get it all over your beard.