The gryphon flew so close Winter felt the wind from the wings ruffle his hair. But in just seconds, the gryphon had landed with a thump, its wings outstretched as it approached.
“I’m trying to help you.” Winter prayed the gryphon would have some understanding of the emotion behind his words, if not the words themselves. “You’re in the wrong lands. You need to be back among your kind. I can make that happen for you. Please. This place isn’t for anyone as magnificent as you.”
For a moment, just a blink in time, Winter thought the beast understood him – right before he disappeared.
“You know, that would’ve all gone a lot more smoothly if the beast hadn’t shifted,” Sigmund said drily as he held up the second pouch. “Mission accomplished.”
Letting out a long breath, Winter said, as calmly as he could, “Is everyone all right?”
“I’m sorry, sir.” Colins rode over, bowing low over his horse’s head. “I thought Fanshaw was closer than he was. That was all my fault.”
“As long as you two are all right.” Winter nodded, and then turned to Rupert and Pippin, who were making their way back, Rupert back in control of his own horse. “Pippin, thank you. But the next time you ride into the path of a flying gryphon, I am going to make you eat kitchen waste for a week.” He grinned as he said it. It was a running joke between the two of them. Pippin was fond of fine food.
“You’re welcome, sir.” Everyone sat around for a moment, as if waiting to see what Winter would say to Rupert. But it was Rupert who broke the weird silence.
“You saved me, Pippin. My horse couldn’t cope, and you…you saved me. I don’t know how to thank you, but you have my deepest, deepest gratitude.”
“It’s what the Martingales do for each other, sir.” Pippin tilted his head and scratched his curls. “So, at the risk of speaking out of turn, is it lunchtime yet? All this chasing stuff has made me hungry.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“How are you feeling after today?”
Rupert glanced up as Winter came in carrying a tray with a large coffee pot and two mugs.
“I thought you’d appreciate some quiet time to think,” Winter said as he put the tray on the side table. “I can stay and keep you company or…”
“Stay. Please.” Rupert was tired of thinking alone. His morning excursion hadn’t gone anything like he’d imagined it would. What had been more annoying was when they did get back to the castle, Rupert was immediately intercepted by his father’s footman with a message asking him to take a meeting that afternoon, while Winter and his two men disappeared to his quarters, presumably to get rid of the gryphons they were carrying in their pockets.
“Did you want to talk about it?”
Rupert patted the seat next to him and was pleased when Winter came over and immediately sat down, leaning against him in that casual way that made Rupert feel special.
“I’m not sure what I’m meant to be thinking, to be honest,” he said, trying not to sound grumpy about it. His brain had been frantically trying to process everything. But it had been a lot in one day, and Rupert had been struggling.
“I was desperate to show I could be useful to you in capturing the gryphons, and then Pippin had to save me. I had no idea my horse wouldn’t cope, but then it makes sense in hindsight. I’d never seen a gryphon before, let alone a flying one. I should’ve realized the horse wouldn’t know what to do either.” He sighed. “That animal can face down the biggest boar, but that gryphon was more than he could fathom.”
“They are quite magnificent in the air, aren’t they?” Winter chuckled softly. “So totally different from the plodding sedentary creatures you see them as on the ground.”
“It was fascinating and terrifying all at once. Clearly, my horse had more sense than I did.” Rupert rubbed his head. He still couldn’t believe that all his horse wanted to do was run away. Which again, in hindsight, was the right idea, but still unexpected at the time. “I just...I felt so unprepared, and I ended up causing more trouble for you than being a help.”
“There were some good points.” Rupert realized Winter was trying to be fair, which was sweet and went a long way to helping him feel better. “For future reference, that attacking stance with your sword is not something I would have recommended. I clearly didn’t explain how a gryphon would respond to a blatant threat.
“If we were facing something like a wolverine or even a werebear, then in those situations I would say yes, have your sword ready at all times, because those creatures are particularly vicious. Both wolverines and were-creatures are extremely territorial, and even if they’ve recently moved into a new area, they will defend their right to be there with every means at their disposal.”
Werebears?Rupert imagined they might be bigger than the boars he typically hunted.
“Every creature is different, but if you remember the basics that most creatures simply want to live and raise a family with others of their kind in an area that meets their needs, it makes it easier to predict how they’re going to respond to being moved because most creatures don’t enjoy it.”
“That applies to people, too,” Rupert said. “I’d probably be miffed if I were being moved on when I’d found somewhere to call home.”
“Exactly, but if you were being moved on, for whatever reason, you would understand if someone came to you and said they were relocating you to a different location and why. It’s not easy to explain to a creature that we’re actually moving them for their own good, especially if they are close to a village. It probably never crosses their mind that people might panic if they bump into a creature while foraging in the woods – a creature they’ve only heard about in stories.”
Sighing, Rupert nodded. “As future king and consort, we definitely don’t need that sort of panic among the people. Especially concerning creatures that scare horses. You and your family must be doing amazing work to help keep these creatures hidden.”
“We have an advantage.” Winter nudged Rupert’s shoulder, sporting one of his carefree grins. “Most creatures don’t want anything to do with us anyway. Hey,” he added when Rupert smiled. “It was nice of you to thank Pippin the way you did. I was trying to warn you to let your horse just have his head, but I guess you didn’t hear me?”
“All I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears. Pippin saved me, and I would be a fool to ignore a huge gesture like that.” Twisting in his seat, Rupert rested his arm along the back of the love seat, his fingers grazing Winter’s shoulder. “How do you deal with the disconnect?”
