Page 18 of The Beauty and the Griffin

Heat roared through my veins in awareness of his magical authority and power, his intense masculinity, and the non-humanness of him. His voice belonged to the entity I’d sensed the first time I passed through Faraway Castle’s gates all those years ago—rich, mysterious, heartrending . . . terrifying. I longed to tell him how dearly I loved him in return, and yet . . .

“Oh! Oh, no! I can’t!” My voice sounded like croaking in my ears. I ripped my hands from his gentle grasp, burst into tears, and blindly ran.

My next memory is of standing on the lakeshore, gazing at the mountains beyond the lake and their reflections on its rippling surface. The sun was high in the sky. No one else was in sight, but I dimly heard a crowd roar.

My shoes were wet, and my feet ached as if I’d walked many miles. I trembled and gasped for breath as if I’d been crying hard, but I couldn’t remember why. A breeze chilled my cheeks, which were damp. Why did I feel so profoundly . . . sad?

Golden eyes, shimmering with love and sorrow.

I let out a moan, hiding my face in my hands as memories returned in a torrent. The Gamekeeper loved me. He’d asked me to marry him, and I ran from him in terror—as if he were a monster instead of the best friend I’d ever had! As if I didn’t love him dearly.

Oh, yes, I had romantic feelings for him.

But how could I marry someone I’d never seen? I didn’t even know his real name— “Gamekeeper” was his job title. And the unfamiliar magic laced through his marriage proposal was so powerful that it panicked me. If marrying him would be good and safe, why had I run for my life? Was my subconscious warning me?

Suddenly dizzy, I sat down hard on the rocky shore, and the sharp pain in my backside shocked me back to reality. I had just run from my dearest friend. I must have hurt him deeply, and I needed to make amends.

It would be dreadfully awkward, but I couldn’t just leave the resort tomorrow with this between us. As I turned back toward the castle and the gardens, a sense of urgency pushed me into a run. Music, a brass band, and the roar of crowds from the playing fields told me the races had begun.

I was breathless when I entered the topmost garden terrace. “Gamekeeper?” I called softly, then twice more in louder tones. I knew it was useless; he was nowhere nearby. Yet I kept trying. “Please contact me before I have to leave.”

I glimpsed Lady Gillian just before she hurried down the steps to another level on the arm of a broad-shouldered man. Otherwise, the gardens were nearly deserted. I didn’t sense the Gamekeeper anywhere.

As the race noise intensified, I returned to the resort lobby and approached the front desk to ask Sten if he knew how I might contact the Gamekeeper. “You wish to speak with him?” he asked in evident surprise.

“Yes, we’re friends. But I can’t seem to locate him.” I swallowed hard.

A light glinted in the dwarf’s dark eyes, and his mouth twitched behind his gray-streaked beard. “If you’d like to write him a note, I’ll make certain he receives it.” He drew out a sheet of paper and offered it to me, but I wasn’t sure I could put a coherent sentence on paper. I pushed it back. “Please just pass on my request for him to meet me in our usual place tomorrow morning. It’s . . . it’s urgent.”

Little did I know that while I was breaking my heart and worrying over the Gamekeeper’s absence, Princess Eddi had somehow finagled a way to not only compete in the prestigious Faraway Castle Cup race on a borrowed horse but also win.

That evening passed in a blur. I tried to rejoice about Eddi’s amazing success, but my heart wasn’t in it. I had a sinking feeling that her father would blame me for his daughter’s escapade.

At the celebration that evening, I hovered on the sidelines, worrying until I could hardly think straight.

Arabella

Late Saturday night, I received a message from Sten by way of a nightjar:Beatrice asked me to tell the Gamekeeper to meet her in the rose garden in the morning. I’ve been trying to reach him all evening with no success.

I crushed the handwritten note and dropped my fist into my lap. The nightjar waited, twittering softly, but I had no idea what to tell Sten. On prior occasions when our Beast had chosen to vanish, he’d been thorough about it. He’d most likely retreated to his home. I jotted a quick note of thanks for notifying me and promised to handle the matter, then slipped the scrap of paper into the tiny container strapped to the bird’s leg and sent it back to Sten.

Sometimes I wondered how much of the Gamekeeper’s story the dwarves and brownies knew. Many of them might have been alive back then, or perhaps their parents had told them the “Beast” story when they were young. For whatever reason, many decades ago, when he opened this resort on part of his family’s ancestral lands, magical people and creatures had flocked here to help him, and here they remained. Whatever his faults, the lunkhead was beloved.

Beatrice

King Koldo arrived at the resort Sunday morning, filled with a dangerous blend of pride and fury regarding his daughter’s racing victory. He located me as I exited the breakfast room, right after Eddi headed for the stables.

“Miss de Callen,” he began after herding me into a private corner of the lobby, “I am grateful for your faithful service to my daughter these many years. Overall, you have been a positive moral influence and a true friend. However, yesterday’s events revealed deficiencies in your control of her behavior. Aside from this, the royal family’s situation has changed, as you know, since my remarriage. In short, I believe the beneficial time of your service to Princess Edurne Zuri has passed.”

His words only confirmed my suspicion that he viewed my presence in his household as an impediment to Eddi’s relationship with his new wife. The king obviously felt guilty about letting me go with no notice—he promised me generous severance pay—but when all was said and done, I was out of a job. I accompanied my luggage and the bulk of Eddi’s to Bilbao that same day, and on Monday, one of his chauffeurs delivered me and my possessions home to Castle Iker. I was offered no opportunity to so much as tell Eddi goodbye.

Arabella

When Sunday morning dawned, Pukai immediately joined me in searching, by means of our sahira magic, for the Gamekeeper. I already knew the effort was useless; he could elude even Pukai’s detection if he chose. “But he can’t leave the mountains,” she muttered, eyes closed.

“Obviously. He isn’t here at the resort, so he’s either at his home or wandering somewhere in these mountains.”

“We should try visiting him at home first. What have we got to lose?”

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