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“You are cold!” he accused, his eyes narrowing in scrutiny as he took her in. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Of course I am. It’s freezing out here,” Jill chuckled quietly with a dismissive shrug. “In any case, it didn’t seem like a big deal. It’s just a little cold,” she added, and she felt a tremor of something between unease and feminine excitement as his expression darkened. Though it lacked any heat or threat toward her, there was a possessiveness there that intrigued her and held a hint of anger, though it seemed to be more aimed at himself than her.
Cursing, Agor gathered her closer against his chest and wrapped his wings around her, cocooning her against him. She sank into him gratefully even as he bent an unhappy look at her. “I did not think. I’m sorry, talia. We knew that humans do not tolerate the temperatures and weather the way that we do, but I had wrongly assumed that you would be fine.” His frown deepened as his wings drooped by a small degree. “In fact, I’d hoped you would enjoy it, so to keep me company on some days.”
As large and intimidating as people likely found her males, this was the other side of them that other humans in Rhapsody didn’t get the chance to see. For all that they possessed natural advantages that could easily overpower or outmaneuver human limitations, they were considerate of those limitations. Or at least they were with her, but she suspected, given how polite the Geminidae had been to those on the starship, that courtesy and consideration was a cultural thing—probably part of that discipline their species required to curb their impulses.
With a wry chuckle, she brushed her fingers along the feathery fringe of his aguila and snuggled into his embrace. “Don’t get me wrong, this would be lovely if it weren’t so cold,” she replied, “but I don’t think I’m going to be much good helping out any time of the year other than summer. Not for any length of time anyway.”
“You’re right. Come on. I’m taking you home,” he rumbled, lifting her up in his arms until she was tucked securely against his chest.
She cast a worried glance at the flock. “Are you sure you can just leave?”
He glanced around as well, and he gave her a crooked smile. “They will probably be relieved to get rid of me for a while. Valkeli only barely tolerate being interfered with unless we are sheering. I think we’ve fussed over them long enough if you’ve gotten my counts.”
“That I have,” she declared, patting the bag at her side containing her comm.
“Good. Then they will be fine until I make rounds just before nightfall and will be none the happier to see me,” he assured her, his soft chuckle stirring her hair as he turned them toward the open ledge. “Besides, I think you will enjoy our next little task far better.”
Jill’s fingers curled into his cloak, and she peered up at him curiously. “And what is that?”
His smile turned mischievous as his gaze flicked toward her once more. “You will see.”
With that, he dropped from the ledge and Jill swallowed back a scream of shock, the blast of wind hitting her face and forcing it back into her chest. Still, she stared wide-eyed at the rocks rushing up to meet them and then they were soaring high and lifting even higher by the moment as Agor turned back to the rookery. When they arrived, however, he did not drop to the tower platform that they’d left from. Instead, he circled lower, dropping through various obstacles that seemed unsurmountable from a distance until they were right upon them. He’d clearly flown the route many times, however, because he sailed effortlessly down into a tunnel that deposited them right beside what appeared to be a hollowed-out structure built off the side of the rookery. The closer they got to it, however, the more she could hear indistinct squeaks and squeals and the warbling, rattling rasp of an adult grifalc clicking its beak.
Pausing just outside the entrance, Jill looked up at Agor nervously and he set her on her feet just outside what couldn’t be anything other than the grifalc kennel he’d mentioned. “I stink of valkeli. Are you sure this is a good idea? Maybe I should wash first.”
Agor grinned down at her and shook his head as he nudged her forward with one wing. “They won’t try to eat you. At most, they will be curious. Now hurry and get inside where it is warmer. We keep the kennels heated for the pups.”
That caught her attention. She peered into the kennel with interest as they moved closer to the entrance. “Pups? You have babies?”
“An entire litter courtesy of my cousin,” Agor informed her happily, “and we have a pregnant female who should be dropping any day now.”
A musky smell filled her nose as they entered. It wasn’t unpleasant, but she imagined it was exactly what being in a barn had to be like. Though the lighting was a bit lower than inside the rookery, it took little time for her eyes to adjust to the light and a smile stretched across her face as she saw small, pudgy griffin like creatures stalking and pouncing on each other as they sent their siblings rolling into the straw. Jill bit back a laugh, and her eyes slowly took in the large straw-filled room until her gaze landed on a large grifalc stretched out in the straw, her long, tapered tongue slowly stroking over something held between her forepaws.
“Ah, it looks like we are just in time,” Agor murmured. “It seems Shrifalca had dropped her first litter just for you.”
The grifalc’s head lifted as they neared, her glowing, yellow eyes following them. Curled up against her side were four furry little bodies without a lick of feathers on them. They writhed in a mass, squeaking unhappily until their mother finally took note of them and leaned forward with her beak opened to feed her young. Jill stared in surprise. Although they were obviously live-born, the very avian-like way of feeding totally threw her off. Not that it made the grifalc pups any less adorable. They had little nub wings, and every bit of their body was covered with fur.
“Do they lose the fur when the feathers grow in?”
She felt Agor’s eyes on her, but she was too entranced by the sight of the pups to bother with confirming it. They were adorable!
“Oh, that’s not fur,” he corrected, a smile blatant in his voice at her assumption—she really had to stop doing that. “Not as you understand, anyway,” he corrected, “it’s not quite like your human hair. It is more like Geminidae aguila—very fine tiny feathers. But yes, as the down comes in for their juvenile plumage, it will fall out in those places and then those will eventually be replaced with adult feathers when they approach adulthood.” His voice trailed off and this time she did look over at him, curious as to what caught his attention when she heard him move away from her side.
Sighing, he bent down and picked up a tiny ball of fuzz and shook his head sadly. “Looks like Shrifalca rejected this one,” he murmured.
“What?” Gathering herself up onto her feet, Jill hurried to his side and looked down at the pitiful lump curled limply between his large hands. “What’s wrong with it?”
He gave his head another shake in answer to her question. “There is no real reason. Sometimes grifalc won’t take to her offspring, especially with her first litters.” He peered over at the grifalc in question, his eyes moving among the pups nestled to her. “It looks like she accepted four of the litter, but she has abandoned the runt to save her resources for the stronger pups.”
Jill stared up at him, aghast, as he leaned down to set the pup back in the straw. “What are you doing? You’re not leaving it here, are you?”
He gave her a bleak look. “It is the kindest thing to do. Without its mother to care for it, it will die. It may die anyway, as the runts tend not to grow enough of the protective layers of aguila and feathers. Even if it survives, it will never be entirely healthy and be able to enjoy life in the kennel.” He turned it slowly in his hand so that she saw how thin the aguila was. She could see the white skin beneath it shivering helplessly.
“He’s cold,” she murmured. Quickly, she unzipped her jacket and reached out for the pup. “Here, give him to me. I’ll keep him warm.”
Agor stared at her in shock. “Talia, while grifalc are good companions, they are not pets. If you desire a pet, there are many we can consider having sent from Geminos for our rookery. To try to raise a grifalc as a pet could be a disaster… or at very least a danger to Brydis’s blood pressure when it grows enough to begin ruthlessly destroying the rookery.” His lips twitched faintly at that observation, but his expression remained otherwise forbidding. “I’m sorry, Jill. We can’t take it in. I know how much it pains you to know that. I don’t like it either, but it is a fact of life when keeping grifalc kennels, something that everyone learns when growing up in this sort of rookery. The grifalc won’t be able to work like they are supposed to or have any quality of life or freedom as they wouldn’t be able to have free roam of the mountainside. We would be caging them inside and it’s not right. Besides, as my mother once said, if we took in every abandoned pup, we would be overrun with them because no rookery has space for a large beast who eats their body weight and doesn’t perform a useful task.”
