Warrior (Relentless #4)(111)

“She is impressive,” I agreed.

“I’m talking about you. Who knew you had a trainer hidden inside of you all this time?”

I laughed. “Only for her.”

“Trainees everywhere will be sad to hear that,” he quipped as we walked to the door.

I followed him outside and came to a halt when I saw Sara and Sahir walking quickly toward the menagerie.

“Where’s the fire?” Chris called.

“The young griffin we got in today is in distress, and Sara is going to help me with her,” Sahir replied.

Griffins were intelligent creatures, but also vicious when they felt threatened. I’d watched one rip apart a dozen poachers that had stupidly tried to raid its nest after I’d warned them to stay away. A young griffin could be even more dangerous if they were frightened.

“Griffin wrangling? Another one of your talents, Cousin?” Chris said.

“Griffins can be very dangerous when they are cornered. Sara is not going in there unprotected,” I said firmly, walking over to them.

Sara frowned at me. “She’s just a child, Nikolas.”

I stepped between her and the menagerie. “That child could easily rip a grizzly bear apart with her claws.”

She raised an eyebrow. “So could the troll you thought was going to kill me.”

Sahir stared at us. “Troll?”

“I’ll tell you about him later,” she said. “Let’s take care of your griffin first.”

“Not without us,” I said.

Sara huffed and rolled her eyes. “Fine, but you better not frighten her. You two can stay by the door unless the vicious griffin attacks me.”

Chris snickered and leaned toward me to whisper loudly. “I think she’s gotten bossy since she came here. What have you been teaching her?”

Scowling, I pushed him away and followed Sara into the menagerie. I took up a position near the door where I could watch her and jump in if necessary.

Chris didn’t speak when he stood beside me, but his tight grip on his sword told me he was worried too despite his joking.

Sara and Sahir moved toward the cages. She stopped to pet the hellhounds and called a greeting to the wyvern from a safe distance.

My whole body tensed as Sara walked past the cages toward the center of the building. At the same time, I couldn’t help but be amazed by her composure and her lack of fear. You would think she was approaching a baby bird that had fallen from its nest, not a creature that could kill a man with one swipe of its powerful paw.

Despite the instinct that screamed for me to pull her away from this new threat, I did nothing but watch her. I didn’t understand the effect Sara had on creatures, but I had to trust she knew what she was doing.

She stopped and looked up, and my gaze followed hers to the small griffin perched in the rafters of the domed building. The griffin’s feathers were filthy and dull, and it had a bare spot on its neck where some of its feathers had fallen out. Judging by its size, I guessed it to be no more than four or five years of age.

“Wow, oh, wow,” Sara said in an awed voice, staring raptly at the griffin.

“Sara, this is Minuet,” Sahir told her in a soft voice.

“She’s incredible.”

He nodded grimly. “She won’t be that way for long if we don’t get her down from there and get her to eat something.”

“Right, sorry. I’ve just never seen anything like her.” She walked over to sit on the floor with her back against the bars of an empty cage. “Sahir, could you stand with the others so you don’t frighten her?”

He stayed where he was. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m just going to talk to her for a bit.”

I took a step forward when he left her and walked toward us.

He shook his head and held up a hand to stop me. “She’ll be okay,” he whispered confidently.

Sara’s soothing voice filled the room. “I hope you don’t mind me keeping you company, Minuet. I bet it’s pretty scary and lonely for you here. I know how you feel. I miss my family, too.”

The griffin shifted restlessly but made no move to leave her perch.

“Minuet, would you like to hear a story about a girl who got lost far away from her family?” Sara asked softly. “Kind of like you, I guess. It has a happy ending, I promise.

“The girl’s name was…um…Mary, and one day she disappeared, and none of her friends or family knew where she’d gone. They all thought she was lost to them forever. But what they didn’t know was that Mary was very sick, so sick she almost died, and some good faeries had taken Mary home with them to heal her.

“For a long time, Mary lay in a deep sleep while the faeries worked their magic on her. And then one day, she woke up and found herself in the most amazing place she had ever seen.

“Mary was lying in the softest bed you could ever imagine, surrounded by walls made of vines and pretty flowers. Then the vines moved and in walked the most beautiful red-haired sylph who told Mary they had healed her.

“Then she shocked Mary by telling her that she was actually half faerie, which was why the faeries had saved her. She took Mary outside and gave her the most delicious food and drink, then took her on a walk to show her a place so beautiful it brought tears to Mary’s eyes.