Callie's Guardian: White Tigers of Brigantia (Book 1)

by Lisa Daniels

  A dull pain in her side woke Ailey. She opened her eyes and looked at a familiar ceiling. The medic tried to sit up, but her side wouldn’t allow for it. With a soft groan, she pushed herself into a sitting position.

  “You are awake!” Ailey turned her head and saw Thelon standing up from her table.

  “Where’s Ash?” She looked around and saw a prostrate form on a small bed in the corner of the room. She flung the covers way from herself, ignoring the pain that protested her actions. “Ash.”

  “He’s not doing well. We’ve tried giving him the potion, but we can’t get it to stay down.”

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “About five hours.”

  Ailey ignored the panic building in her thoughts. “Please bring me my bag.”

  “Ailey, you need to rest-” He put a hand on her arm.

  She shrugged him away. “Just bring me the bag, then leave.”

  “You know I cannot-”

  “He’s not human, Thelon. Ash is a shifter. None of the things you do are going to help him. I may have a solution, but I don’t want someone around second-guessing me.”

  “You know I trust-”

  Ailey turned and looked Thelon in the eyes. “Then please, bring me my bag and leave.”

  “I protest this, but…” He picked up her bag and put it on a table beside Ash.

  “Noted. And thank you.”

  He simply nodded, then left.

  Ailey pulled out the small case with the dagger. The blood on the blade was still wet. Thousands of questions went through her mind as she picked it up by the hilt, but she pushed them all to the side.

  Ailey pulled Ash’s shirt out of the way and placed her hand against his chest. Her eyes noticed the dragon tattoo, and the way it seemed to smile at her from Ash’s smooth skin. Her mind pushed this aside. “Please, Ash, come back to me.”

  Raising the dagger, she brought it down into Ash’s chest over his heart. His back arched, and a rattling filled his chest. Ailey held the dagger in place, the tears streaming from her eyes.

  After what felt like forever, Ash’s body relaxed. Ailey removed one of her hands from the dagger and felt for his pulse. It was weak, but still there. Pulling the dagger out, she placed a clean cloth over the wound.

  “Please, Ash.” She sank to her knees, and put her head on his chest. “Don’t leave me.”

  Chapter 11

  Admitting Defeat

  Ailey felt a warm hand on her face. Opening her eyes, she brought her head up.

  “Good morning.” Looking down at her were the purple and green eyes that she had spent the past few weeks dreaming about. But it was the smile that really caught her attention.

  With a little squeal, Ailey threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips against his. “You’re alive! You didn’t leave me.”

  “You are hurting yourself.” Ash’s strong arms pulled her up onto the bed. His hand gently pressed on her side. “You are going to open it if you aren’t more careful.”

  “I don’t care.” She buried her head in his chest. “I don’t care. You came back.”

  “You know, if you were going to miss me so much, you shouldn’t have drugged me and sent me away.”

  Ailey sighed, “I thought it was best.”

  “Anani stabs himself with a sword, you go roaming into the undercity of Melzi on your own, Cyprian jumps into a damn volcano, and you guys think I am at risk of doing stupid things.”

  “It was a dagger,” she murmured into Ash’s neck.

  A hand moved under her chin and forced her to look up at him. “When he was with you, he used a dagger. The next time I saw him it was a sword.”

  “He’s just trying to save others.”

  “And you were just trying to save others by going alone to hunt a monster. Without having any clue what it was. And without asking for help.”

  “Yes. But it worked out in the end.”

  “But when I try to save you guys, I’m the one who is stupid. You are both saving strangers. I’m taking care of the people I love because they refuse to take care of themselves. Please, explain how that makes me the stupid one. The person that needs to be protected from your schemes.”

  Ailey laughed gently until her side hurt.

  “Oh, and now you laugh.” Ash sighed. “I swear you old people just don’t have any clue about how the world works, do you.”

  “Reprimand me all you want, I’ve earned it.”

  Ash pursed his lips, fighting back a smile. Finally, he gave up and shook his head. Wrapping his arms around her, the shifter kissed her on the top of the head. Ailey nestled against his body, enjoying the feel of his skin on hers. While she wanted more, neither of them was in good enough condition to do more than hold each other.

  “At least we can do this much, though, huh?”

  She curled up into him. “Are you reading my mind?”

  “Just your body language. Your heart sped up, and it was impossible to miss.”

  Ailey giggled, “You are going to become impossible to trick if you keep this up.”

  “I have a few amazing teachers who fail to see the irony in their lessons.” He kissed her head.

  Rubbing her forehead against his chest, Ailey smiled. “I will try to do better in the future. Obviously getting rid of you doesn’t work. I’ve tried it twice now, and the fallout has been unreal. In the future, I think it will be easiest to keep you by my side.”

  Ash chuckled, “Maybe you won’t get any more of these.” She felt him draw his finger along an old scar on her stomach.

  “That one should have been fatal, but my mentor kept my insides in place and fixed it before I was dead for too long.”

  “And yet you try to go it alone.”

  “That happened on a battlefield. It’s impossible to be alone, they kind of insist on having a lot of medics there.”

  Ash scooted down a little so that his head was level with her breast. She lay on her side, looking down into his face. He smiled up at her. “You tried to take on a Keukegn. Alone. I hope you noticed how much trouble I had with it.”

  Ailey’s eyes moved to the dragon tattoo. Her hand reached out and touched it. “A dragon shifter. That’s insane.”

  He laughed in response.

  “I know next to nothing about rarer creatures.”

  “Obviously.” He smirked at her.

  She responded by kissing his forehead. “So there are different types of dragon shifters?”

  “Yes.” He smiled at her.

  “And you are a rare kind?”

  His smile faded. “So I’ve heard. Can we please not rehash your conversation with Anani?”

  “I will wait until you are ready.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ailey wiggled a little bit so that her face was even with Ash’s. “May I ask one more question?”

  “Other than that one?”

  “Are you-” She caught herself, “Always so exacting?”

  He rubbed a hand on her thigh. “It’s one way to prove that I’m not as foolish as you guys believe.”

  “Or a way to sound like you are trying to prove you should be taken seriously.”

  “No more words for you.” He pressed his lips against hers before she could respond.

  When he pulled back, she kissed his nose. “You aren’t always going to win that way.”

  “Well, I’ll give you a couple of days, then I have a guaranteed way to win.”

  Ailey giggled as he kissed her neck. “You are incorrigible.”

  “And?”

  “Handsome.”

  He kissed her eye. “And?”

  “Intelligent.”

  He kissed her other eye. “And?”

  She giggled, then kissed his chin. “And I love you.”

  Ash pulled back a little and looked down at her. “Let’s not get carried away. I mean, I barely know you.”

  “Now you are being…”

  “Rational?”

  “Stubborn
.”

  “I hear that’s what women want.”

  “You need to find a better source. That one is wide of the mark.”

  “Is she? I will make sure to let her know.” He wrapped an arm around Ailey’s back and pulled her to him. “Now, no more talking. You need to rest.”

  There was a minute or two of quiet before she murmured into his chest. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “You’ll need to be more specific.”

  “The notes that helped me find the right cure.”

  “You were knowingly drinking poison. And for every advance you made, you doubled the dose of poison. I wasn’t about to watch you kill yourself.”

  “You were here the whole time.”

  “Not the whole time. Other stuff happened. I mean, you drugged me. I thought that was the end of it, until I had a long talk with a friend.”

  “I will need to thank him.”

  “Her.”

  “I will need to thank her once I finish being jealous that she had a long talk with you while I was here.”

  “I could have been here the whole time.”

  “Keep it up. I will still love you.”

  Ash smiled at her, then gave her a gentle kiss. “I love you, too. Now rest.”

  Ailey nestled into him. After a while she felt his gentle breathing. With a little laugh, she kissed him, then allowed herself to drift off to sleep, knowing that things would finally be alright when she woke.

  The End

  Kerensa’s Dragon

  By: Lisa Daniels

  Chapter 1

  Not All Fools

  Kerensa fought the urge to put her hand up on her hat as the breeze whipped around her. That was something only a woman would do, and the last thing she wanted was for anyone to suspect that was what she was. The young woman had taken a lot of care to make sure that she appeared as manly as she could. With her 21st birthday just past, the young woman’s figure was already a bit strange for a man’s, but she was lucky enough that women in her family relied heavily on their clothing to enhance the feminine aspects they usually lacked. Anyone who just glanced at her would believe that she was a young man in his late teens who took exercise seriously. The problem was if anyone decided to look a little closer. Her hips may not have been much further out than her waist, but it was just enough that a keen pair of eyes would notice the dip. From there it would not take much to realize that the muscular looking chest was not actually muscular.

  After everything she had been through that was the last thing Kerensa wanted.

  For nearly the first 16 years of her life, Kerensa had spent much of her time in books and learning because her mother had almost completely forgotten about her youngest child. With two older brothers and three older sisters, Kerensa had been nearly invisible. It had made the first 15 and a half years completely open for her to choose her own path.

  Then her mother had succeeded in finding a wife for her second youngest child. With all of her other children married to suitable partners, the mother had finally realized that Kerensa existed. Within a week of the marriage, Lady Gwavas had nothing else to do and a younger daughter who, by all outward appearances, was reaching an age where marriage should be the priority.

  It had come as a shock to her youngest child, and not a pleasant one. Suddenly the young woman went from spending her days in the library and talking with her father’s friends to being the object of inspection and criticism. Lady Gwavas’s initially positive appraisal of her daughter had quickly soured after two hours together. Nothing that a young woman should know or be concerned with learning appeared to have crossed her youngest daughter’s mind. When Kerensa had attempted to explain what she had been doing, her mother had not understood anything. It was like the woman and her offspring spoke two completely different languages. There was no surprise that the end result did not please either of the two women. Lady Gwavas muttered about not having enough time to get her daughter prepared for the party that was required to present her as an eligible partner. For her part, Kerensa could not understand why she was being subjected to something that she had never been prepared for up to that point. She had assumed that her own life would be run differently, in part because of her close relationship with her father.

  Compared to his socially conscious wife, Sir Gwavas was level-headed and intelligent. He had never been satisfied in his marriage, but that had never been too much of a problem as it was entirely easy to distract and ignore his wife. She had her own ideas of what her role was, and was never concerned by his expectations. As this seldom interfered with his interests, Sir Gwavas had largely let his wife manage things that interested her. Several of his children showed promise in their abilities, but his wife always whisked them away too quickly for her husband to have much of an effect on their lives. With no real interest in children, this had not bothered the man. Not until Kerensa.

  As a young child, Kerensa was thought to be mute and intellectually inferior to the other Gwavas children. When she was four years old, Sir Gwavas had wandered into her room looking for something one of his servants had told him was in the child’s room. He had questioned why that was the case, but none had been able to provide an adequate response as no one knew how the tool had made its way there. Kerensa was quietly playing. Her soft green eyes turned toward him, but he did not see what his wife, children, and servants saw as the child looked at him. The look in her eye was one of curiosity and observation, almost like she was studying him. She watched him for a moment, as if she expected him to do something. When he simply stood there and looked at her, the young child had returned to her play. Instead of looking for the tool that he had come to get, Sir Gwavas had moved to the side and observed her. After a few minutes, he realized there was a pattern and method to her play – Kerensa was building things with toys, despite not having the necessary education or equipment to construct anything. What had initially looked like a messy pile of dolls was clearly a replication of the cathedral they had been to a few days before.

  Sir Gwavas moved over and sat beside his daughter. He knew that she had never spoken a word, but he was curious if she could hear him or understand if she was spoken to directly.

  “Hello Kerensa. It looks like you have made the dolls into the St. Bernard Cathedral.”

  Her little face shifted back to him, her blond curls bouncing beside her adorable face. She simply blinked at him.

  Thinking that the child could not comprehend, he decided to speak of the place’s relation to their family as he looked over the strange replication of such a famous structure. “You know there is actually a tunnel here,” he pointed at a back area where there was a gap in the dolls, “it goes down several miles and it was used to help hide our family during the civil war four hundred years ago. That is how we came into power, by sticking to the side of the queen, even after she was removed from the throne. It is strange to think how different things would have been if they had not been able to hide there. How different would the family line have been without that help at a critical time.”

  “We wouldn’t be.”

  The voice was small, but very serious. Sir Gwavas looked around the room to find the source. Kerensa’s instructor was nowhere to be found. Frowning, he realized that his youngest daughter had no supervision. “Where is your nanny? Your mother should have someone here watching you.”

  The voice spoke up again from beside him, “In there with him.”

  Sir Gwavas looked around again, but a movement from beside him caught his attention. Looking at his daughter, the man saw that she was pointing to a closet.

  “Kerensa…did you speak?”

  She looked at her father and blinked, her little arm still extended toward the closet.

  The man stood up and strode over to the closet, a look of concern on his face. He pulled the door open and found a young woman and one of his servants mostly in a state of undress. The look of horror on their faces would have been humorous if not for the fact that his daughter had witnes
sed something that was very inappropriate. Without a word, Sir Gwavas closed the door. He walked over to his daughter and held out his hand. A gentle smile played on his lips, “It looks like their business is going to take a little longer. I think you should come with me dear.”

  Kerensa’s face did not change, nor did she say a word as she stood up. Placing her little hand in his, she let her father lead her out of the room.

  The next morning, the young girl woke to see her father standing at the window looking out. “Father?” Her voice was firmer than the day before.

  The man turned with a smile, “I thought that you could join me every morning.” She simply blinked at him. “Would that be alright with you?” he asked realizing that a young girl may not be too keen on spending her days with a bunch of men and their books. A smile slowly crept across the girl’s face and she nodded.

  Perhaps that was why her mother had entirely forgotten about the youngest daughter, because for over a decade she had been in the care of her father. If Kerensa’s mother had thought about her at all, then Lady Gwavas would likely have assumed that her husband would raise the girls with the same understanding and values shared by the other women of their social standing. So, it was that an early misunderstanding of the young girl’s silence and intellect ended up freeing her from her mother’s attention and giving her a world that was better suited to her interests.

  When that life was interrupted a few weeks before her 16th birthday, Kerensa had not taken it well. She had maintained rational arguments with her mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law, but to no avail. The woman could not understand how a young girl could possibly be interested in anything other than socializing and marriage. Kerensa could not understand what they could not understand about how unsatisfying she felt their lives were. Finally, everything came to a head over three years later at a family gathering. Two of Kerensa’s siblings and their spouses were in attendance for the falling out of her mother’s efforts.

  Lady Gwavas was still hoping to make her youngest daughter into a desirable partner, or to at least to teach the young woman the error of her ways. Knowing that the daughter and Sir Gwavas had a tight bond, the woman thought it best to address him with the problem at hand. “Darling, did you know that Kerensa didn’t feel that marriage was good enough for her. She told me this just the other day at the Jostine’s Ball. Apparently, she incorrectly believed that it is unsuitable for the life she thinks she wants. It took a good bit of persuading, but Jeannie and I finally made her understand the truth.” Her husband simply looked at her, so the woman turned to her daughter and daughter-in-law, “Is that not the silliest thing you have ever heard?”