His chest rumbled, enough that she could feel it against her skin. “The answer to that question would depend on one’s definition of ‘mating,’ in order to determine what did and did not happen.”
“When did you appear before a House subcommittee?” she snapped. “How about we stick to the communal definition everyone except for me seems to be going with? Because the only definition I’m familiar with is the one from Wild Kingdom. And there’s no mistaking that that happened.”
Still, he hedged. “That definition requires that I tell you another story of the origin of the Guardians and the Wardens Guild.”
“I’m wet, and I’m naked. Do I look like I’m going anywhere?”
Dag sighed so hard she thought he might turn inside out. Seriously, it gave her grandmother a run for her money.
“Wynn told you of how the first Guardians were summoned to battle the Seven and to defend the human world from the Darkness.”
Kylie nodded for him to continue.
“For hundreds of years they did this. Ages passed as they woke and slept and woke again, each time answering the summons of the Wardens and battling to defeat the enemy so that the human world could remain untouched. But the Guardians are not of this world, and as warriors, they felt little emotion toward it. They lacked a connection to give their duty a higher purpose. Over time, they began to wonder why they should continue to fight and bleed for a world they cared nothing for. And so, the next time the Wardens called them from sleep, the Guardians failed to respond. They ignored the summons and remained locked in their stone forms, eternally slumbering.”
When she thought about that, Kylie couldn’t say that she blamed them. Even to her, this whole nightmare of demons and Guardians, nocturnis and Wardens, it all felt like someone else’s war to wage, even after she had personally been attacked. Twice. Honestly, the reason she had let herself get sucked in had been Wynn’s end-of-the-world comment, because she lived in the world. If it ended, so did she. But for the Guardians, what did it matter if the human world kept on ticking? They only saw it when they had to risk their lives for it. After a few centuries, she imagined she’d be over that kind of system, too.
“The Guild panicked,” Dag continued. “The threat of the Darkness had risen, and with no Guardians to battle the Seven, it appeared all hope of life was lost. They began to prepare for the worst. But then something happened they had not planned on. A woman appeared before them, a woman of power whose magic rivaled that of any of the Wardens but who had been turned away from a position in the Guild. She refused to believe that the Guardians would permanently desert mankind, and so she knelt before the statue form of a Guardian and she prayed that he would wake and stand against the Darkness.
“The woman called to him, and to the astonishment of the Wardens, the Guardian heard her call and answered. He woke and seized the woman, claiming her as his mate. He vowed she had been destined for him, and that for her sake and the sake of her people, he would again take up the struggle against the Seven.”
Uh-oh. Suddenly Kylie forgot all about Wild Kingdom and started to feel a lot more eHarmony. Did he think this was Girl Scout camp? Because this was turning into the scariest story Kylie had ever heard.
“One by one, women of power appeared, and one by one each Guardian found his destined mate. Each fought for her sake to banish the Darkness once more from the world, and when the threat had passed, each one demanded that the Guild release him from his duty so that he could spend the rest of his existence with his chosen mate.
“From that time forward, my kind has whispered, but only a handful of additional Guardians have ever been said to have found their true mates. It has become a kind of legend among us, a fairy tale each of us has heard and yet none of us truly believed. Until now.”
Kylie really wanted to blame the steam for the way her head was spinning and her heart had suddenly decided to sprint a hundred meters in 0.7 seconds. Oh, if only she could. “I—you—but what—”
Oy.
She took a deep breath and tried again. “Are you trying to tell me that you think I am some kind of sent-from-heaven perfect girlfriend, and we’re going to live happily ever after together for the rest of eternity?”
Dag scowled down at her. “You do not believe me.”
“Right now, I don’t believe I’m not lying in a bed at Mass General in a drug-induced coma, so don’t take it personally.” Desperate for clothing and a little bit of personal space, Kylie finally succeeded in pulling out of Dag’s embrace and shutting off the water. Hurrying from the enormous shower enclosure, she wrapped herself in a short, fuzzy bathrobe (okay, on her, it wasn’t really that short) and bundled her hair into a towel with shaking hands. She wished it was from cold.