Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(15)
He wandered through the main level, finding much the same scene wherever he turned. A room between the living area and kitchen sported not even a box, an echoing cavern between a high plaster ceiling and a gleaming hardwood floor.
Signs of life began in the kitchen, where at least most of the boxes appeared to have been unpacked. Plates, bowls, and drinking vessels in various bright hues filled the expanse of white cabinetry, and several sharp knives hung suspended by a magnet against the wall. A set of canisters on the marble counter depicted a frog-type creature playing a stringed musical instrument, an anthropomorphized pig in a dress and pearls, and a wide-eyed version of a child’s stuffed bear in a polka-dotted bow tie. Despite labels claiming they contained coffee, tea, and sugar, he found each of them as empty as the next.
The office he had already seen appeared to be the room where she spent the most time. If he couldn’t tell by looking around him, he would have known by the way her scent filled the air inside. Already it had committed itself to his sensory memory, unexpected and alluring, and in the enclosed space it teased him mercilessly.
Dag existed for battle, a warrior from the moment of his summoning to his last gasp of air. He had come into being for that singular purpose. Over the centuries it had offered him little opportunity to experience any of the softness of life, from the peace offered by nature’s wonders, to the comfortable companionship of creatures not intimately concerned with the fight against the Darkness. Few humans and fewer human females had therefore ever entered, much less lingered, in his presence.
Still, he could remember no fragrance like Kylie’s. Something inside him had expected sweetness, like sugar or honey, perhaps because of her sweetly delicate appearance. Then she opened her mouth, and he might have expected spice, the sharp bite of cinnamon, maybe, or a bittersweet clove note.
He got none of those. Instead, her fragrance reminded him of the desert, dry and fresh and ancient. Her sweetness came from the smoky depths of gum benjamin and blended with the buttery richness of cedar and the piquant freshness of frankincense. In fact, she smelled to him of the land her ancestors had called Holy, rocky and steep and unexpectedly bountiful. It made him think of a hot sun and warm breezes, of dark eyes and secret smiles.
And, now, it made him think of Kylie.
He should not waste his time dwelling on the human, he reminded himself. His exploration of her dwelling was meant to inform him of her character as it pertained to her role as his Warden. He needed to know if she was quick-witted or deliberate, steady or volatile, courageous or timid.
And hadn’t five minutes of her company in the bell tower provided those answers already? His inner voice smirked. Dag ignored it.
The list of things he had chosen to ignore had grown impressively in the few hours since he had regained his awareness. He would ignore his strange fascination with the small human female who had spurred his awakening. He would ignore the oddity of a female Warden, the first in his many centuries of existence. He would ignore that each of his three woken brothers sported a female Warden whom they now claimed as mates.
Most of all, he would ignore the oldest legend of his kind, the one that told of a bond between a female of power and a Guardian like him that could free him from his endless pattern of sleeping and waking. A legend that offered him a life of his own, free to live according to his desires with a human female at his side to the end of his days.
Irrelevant.
Dag needed to focus on the matters at hand. After speaking to Knox and the witch Warden, Wynn, he understood what the low-level itch at the back of his neck signified. He could sense the threat from the Darkness rising, one greater than any he had faced before. In the past, he had woken to fight against the experimental pushes by the Seven, the subtle probes of their evil seeking a weakness in the prisons that contained them. When matters had become grave indeed, he had even fought beside one or another of his brothers, joining forces to defeat a stronger incursion. Never before had he known anything like this.
The thought of one of the Seven fully present on the human plane nearly staggered him. The last time such a thing had happened predated Dag’s summoning, but each Guardian who ever existed came into the world with the full knowledge of his race, each individual’s experiences cataloged and shared, almost like a hive memory. Each Guardian could access such knowledge at will, so he knew several of his brethren had died returning the Demon to its prison plane of existence. To know also that this time, the Guardians faced the added challenge of fighting without the full strength of the Wardens Guild behind them merely added to his concern.
His greatest worry, however, centered around Kylie herself. He understood that of the current female Wardens, only Wynn had previous knowledge of the Guild and its doings. From what she had told them, only she had any real experience in the practice of magic as well. However, Kylie not only lacked the training of a Guild Warden, she seemed surprised to hear her abilities classified as magic at all. How was such an innocent and unschooled human to face the concerted attack of a nocturni sect, let alone one of the Seven itself?
The answer, of course, was that she couldn’t. Dag would need to remain vigilant, ready to place himself between the female and any harm that might come to her. Unfortunately, he somehow already recognized that doing so might see him incurring an extra level of harm himself—the first from the evil attack, and the second from Kylie herself, enraged at being thrust aside and prevented from fighting her own battles. Already he had noticed her stubborn independence and her sharp tongue, one he would not mind taming, given the correct opportunity.