Guardian by Shannon Mayer Page B

learn.”
    Something about that softened her face. Ahh. I understand. I am the last of the water dragons, as you would call me. She scratched at her jaw with one of her deceptively delicate claws. What is it you want to know?
    Again, this was going easier than I’d thought it should. “I tried to Track the girl, but got nothing until I was so close I was right on top of her. Yet I Tracked one of the hunters here, so I don’t think it was a spell.”
    There are some places, like the room they kept their captives in, that are outside the realms of the veil. As long as the child was there, you would have to be right on top of it to sense her, within speaking distance. If you could have shouted and she could have heard you, then you can Track her. Otherwise, there would have been no way for you to find her.
    “So the room had some sort of spell on it?”
    No. The ground below it has a binding, not a spell. It is a natural occurrence that can be found in a few places in the world. Most are in the wilds, forgotten. But a few, a very few, are considered holy ground. Places of sanctity. The elementals created them as places of true safety.
    “Shit, that was no place of peace.”
    No. The hunters did not know of its existence; it’s ironic that they would use it as their torture chamber.
    I tapped the stone wall with my boot. “And you were here to also guard this special place?”
    Yes. She started to slide back into the water, pausing when only her eyes peered up at me. There is always a guardian with a place like this. Sometimes they are killed; sometimes they are displaced.
    Sometimes they are lost to memory. But they are still there. It is our calling, to guard. For all the disruption you have brought, you and the Wolf, you have also brought purpose back to me. I will guard those who are here, willingly. Unlike those others, who were nothing more than butchers. They bound me with a spell to keep watch over them, when you killed their leader, the spell dissipated.
    That didn’t surprise me. She wasn’t the first guardian to be trapped by magic into serving others. She was silent after that and I supposed that meant our conversation was over. At least my question had been answered; I knew why I hadn’t been able to find Catya. But I wondered if even Jack, my mentor, had known about these hallowed places. Nothing in his minimal teaching had ever hinted at them, which made me think this was lost knowledge.
    “Thank you for telling me,” I said, lifting my hand to the silent surface of the water, knowing she could probably hear me. Maybe she wasn’t so bad; maybe she just didn’t like Liam. The thought made me smile. She and I were perhaps no different. I hadn’t liked Liam all that much when we’d first met, either.
    Inside the castle, I checked on the two sleeping kids. They hadn’t moved a single inch. I threw another log on the fire, and slumped into a chair nearby, yawning. So much for a relaxing vacation.

Chapter Twelve
    The next few days flew by as the two groups slowly made their way to the castle. There was a lot of caution on the part of both groups. The leader of the coven, Rebekah, worried that the rogue werewolf would be hidden amongst the pack, and Peter worried it was an ambush by the hunters to finally wipe out all the wolves.
    Liam ran interference between them, finally sitting them down and pointing out how they could help one another. The wolves could bring in food and keep an eye on things, acting as surveillance, and the witches could keep up the security. The wolves, of course, were worried about their desire for flesh, but Liam and Peter discussed it at length.
    “Peter, you can’t help them overcome it if they never face it. And the witches here can protect themselves if it comes to that.” Liam’s eyes roved over the wolves in the field, reluctant to come within the walls. “They didn’t attack Rylee.”
    “She was a guest, a part of the pack.”
    “Then make the coven a part of your