I caught hold of its long tail just as its body disappeared between the branches. Its wings spread wide as it reached open air and it pumped hard, trying to rise.
No such luck, the little beastie was strong, but it couldn’t lift my one hundred and forty pounds.
With a screech, it began to fall, right behind me.
I attempted to grab the passing branches, but the momentum of my leap had taken me outside the spruce’s canopy. I looked down. The ground was coming up fast, but not nearly as fast as it would have if the wyvern weren’t still struggling to fly with my holding onto its tail.
It screeched again and turned its head toward me. Its mouth opened and a little jet of flame washed over my gloved hand. I could feel the heat, but the spells Rafe had woven into the leather kept it to a tolerable level.
“Stop that!” I ordered, not knowing if it understood English or not. “Rafe, are you going to catch me or do I have to save myself.”
I heard chuckling.
Damnit, everything with him had become a training session.
I triggered my wind tat again and brought the wind up from below me. It takes time to get a good mass of air moving. You don’t just start a gale force wind in a second.
Our fall was starting to slow, but the ground was still coming up too fast.
I triggered my shield and made it into a globe around both the wyvern and myself.
We reached the ground a half second later. My shield absorbed whatever momentum was left from our fall and I canceled both wind and shield tats before we started to roll downhill.
The wyvern was really getting upset now. It chattered like a damn monkey with a cold and twisted around to try and bite my hand.
“Stop that!” I ordered and grabbed its long neck with my other hand. It glared at me over my gloved hand and took a deep breath. It was going to try fire again.
I let go of its tail and pinched its mouth shut.
Smoke poured from its nostrils. Apparently, it couldn’t breathe fire through its sinus passages. After a moment, the smoke stopped and I saw the little guy’s eyes were watering.
“See, I told you to stop. You are going to have to learn manners,” I said.
“What?” Rafe asked.
“I’m not having a pet that can’t learn to behave,” I said.
Chapter 8
RAPHAEL
“Pet?” I asked with what had to be a dumbfounded expression on my face.
“Yes, pet. I think he’s cute and with a little training, I’m sure he’ll make an excellent pet,” Tess said as she held the little beast up to examine it.
“You can’t have a wyvern as a pet,” I said firmly.
Tess lowered the creature and turned to face me. “Give me three reasons why I can’t.”
“Why three?”
“Because if you’re seriously telling me that a Wanderer can’t have a pet, then you must have good reasons. So, let’s hear them.”
For the hundredth, if not thousandth, time I compared my apprentice to myself as Walt’s apprentice. He really didn’t know how lucky he was to have me.
I held up a finger while Tess held the wyvern close to her face. “Okay, three reasons. One, it does not belong here. It’s mythological. We need to send it back to its own world.”
Tess nodded. “That’s a pretty good one, go on.”
I held up a second finger. “Two, it’s a wild animal. You shouldn’t take wild animals and try to make them pets.”
Tess frowned. She glanced at the manticore and hippogriff that stood to either side of me.
“We are not wild animals,” Beast growled.
“The other manticores acted like wild animals,” Tess said.
Beast growled, but had apparently said his peace already.
“Okay, that’s two, even if that one is weak,” Tess said raising the wyvern back to eye level.
“Weak or not, it stands,” I said.
The wyvern blew smoke out of its nose and suddenly a stream of urine sprayed across Tess’s face. She sputtered, turned the wyvern’s body away from her, and cursed.
“Three, it’s not house broken,” I said with smug satisfaction.
Tess let go of the wyvern’s muzzle. She wiped her gloved hand across her face and then glared at me.
“You said three. I’ve given you three,” I added while trying not to laugh.
Beast and Maia were not as restrained as I was and they both laughed loudly in their own manner.
Tess glared at them, but they continued to laugh.
I took a handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to Tess. She took it, sullenly, and then wiped her face dry. She offered the cloth back to me, but I grinned and shook my head. “I can get another one.”
She balled up the handkerchief and shoved it in a pocket just as the wyvern took a deep breath and twisted its head around to face her.
Tess raised her gloved hand in front of her face as the little beast blasted a stream of fire at her. The flames struck her spelled glove without effect. She waited until its fire died and then shook a finger in its face. “I told you to stop that. Bad wyvern!”
The wyvern sank its teeth into her extended finger.
“Ow! Damn, let go,” Tess ordered.
The wyvern kept its jaws clamped shut on her finger. It made a chuckling sound that I would have sworn was laughter.
“I told you, wild animal,” I said, almost avoiding a smile.
Tess glared at me again. “I just have to show it who the boss is.”
