And anyway, I don’t even have her number…Kieran thought as the griffin, taking one or two bounding leaps through the forest, suddenly took to flight, soaring upward into the skies, heading for the mountains that surrounded Girdwood Springs.
At least it’s not taking me into the town itself,Kieran thought. Clearly the griffin still hadsomesense of self-preservation. Maybe it was just trying to assert its dominance, and didn’t really have any plans beyond that.
If it tried to take him to the diner to show itself to Natasha, then Kieran would have to do everything he could to stop it. But given his success rate in getting his griffin under control recently, he didn’t like the odds at all.
But that, at least, didn’t seem to be on the griffin’s mind. Spreading its wings, it soared on the frigid winds that tore between the mountain peaks, celebrating its freedom.
We have been confined for too long. We can’t remain as we have been!
Kieran gritted his – at the moment not actually extant – teeth, allowing the griffin its moment. Perhaps if he didn’t fight against it, it would eventually come to its senses and allow him back into his human form, and he could still make his date with Natasha. Perhaps he’d be a little late, but maybe if he gave her a groveling enough apology and came up with areallygood excuse, she might even forgive him.
I’m so sorry I’m late Natasha, but I was kidnapped by the wayward griffin that lives inside my head. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?
For now, however, it was clear that the griffin wasn’t going to surrender its freedom anytime soon.
Kieran could feel the joy surging through it as it took them higher and higher, into the thin air of the uppermost mountain peaks, until the roads below looked like thin ribbons through the trees, and the town itself nothing but a small series of colorful dots formed by the rooftops.
At any other time, Kieran would have been relishing this – it was why he’d come out here, after all. It was what he’d alwaysloveddoing as a kid. It was what, he knew, he’d really been missing all these years.
But your sense of timing sucks!I just want to go see my mate!
He struggled again against the overwhelming power of the griffin, trying to make it see reason, desperately telling it that this wasn’t going to get it what it wanted.
It was only going to achieve the opposite, in fact – Kieran would be surprised if Natasha would give him the time of day after this, and he couldn’t say he’d blame her in the slightest. She was a treasure – a gem of a woman, and she deserved to be treated that way. Being late for their first date was unforgivable, and Kieran could feel his heart sinking lower and lower with every passing minute.
Please,he tried, one last time.Please, can you just fly us back down to the ground, so I can go on my date with Natasha, and I can start paving the way for you to be able to show yourself to her? Is that really so unreasonable?
It was clear, however, that the griffin wasn’t listening to him. And it was equally clear that there was no way he was going to be on time to meet Natasha – and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.
For the second time in as many days, Kieran resigned himself to being nothing more than a passenger in his own head.
Chapter 5
Sitting alone in the diner, Natasha tapped her fingers in sequence on the tabletop.
Fifteen minutes late. How soon is too soon to admit he’s not coming and leave?
Pursing her lips, Natasha told herself to be patient. She wasn’t at work now – nor was she in the big city. There, it was normal to rush, to understand that people’s days were usually packed full and their schedules tight, so wasting their time or being even a few minutes late without explanation was grounds for someone to get up and walk out.
But things ran on different time in small towns – Natasha remembered it well. Things were more…relaxed.
But still – it’s a date. Being on time is just basic courtesy!
Kieran had just seemed so… sonicewhen she’d met him, and then again when she’d bumped into him in the woods yesterday.
Nice – and alsoeagerto go on their date. Those dazzling smiles couldn’t possibly have been faked… could they?
Natasha hadn’t thought so, but now she was beginning to have her doubts. Usually, she prided herself on being able to get someone’s measure pretty quickly. But perhaps she’d been wrong about Kieran after all.
Or perhaps…
Or perhaps, something had happened to him?
A cold shiver ran down Natasha’s spine. If he had a habit of sleeping in the woods, then anything was possible. Could he have gotten mauled by a cougar or a bear? Was he, at this very moment, lying in a hospital bed… or even out there in the middle of the forest, hoping someone would find him? Was he waiting forherto find him?!
Oh my God. Stop letting your imagination run away with you.
No – the simplest explanation was that he just wasn’t coming. Maybe he’d gotten a better offer… or, after seeing her yesterday, he’d just decided he didn’t like her as much as he thought he had.
