Midnight Frost

for me to kill?”
    “I’m not sure,” I whispered. “Stand by.”
    I kept going into the woods, with Daphne and Rory behind me. The Valkyrie had nocked an arrow in her bow, but the Spartan girl wasn’t carrying any weapons. Then again, she didn’t need them. Rory could pick up a twig and stab someone to death with it or slice open a Reaper’s throat with the edge of a frozen leaf.
    “You know there are bears out here, right?” Rory said. “Great big grizzlies. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want to come face-to-face with one of them.”
    “They can’t be any worse than Reapers, can they?” I quipped.
    Rory muttered something under her breath about me being flat-out crazy. I grinned and walked on.
    The cries grew louder and more plaintive the farther we went, almost as if whatever was out there could hear us approaching and knew that it couldn’t escape before we found it. Finally, we crouched down behind a tree several feet away from whatever was making the noise. Even though it sounded like a wounded animal, I wasn’t going to rush toward it. Daphne was right when she said the forest was probably full of Reapers, and this could easily be one of their traps.
    “What do you want to do now?” Daphne asked. “Because whatever that is, it doesn’t sound happy.”
    “I’ll go see what it is,” I whispered. “If it is a Reaper trap, maybe we can at least take some of them out before we get to the ruins. Cover me.”
    She nodded, and so did Rory.
    I got to my feet, tightened my grip on Vic, and rounded the tree. I tensed, expecting an arrow to come zooming out of the woods. But when nothing happened, I slowly started moving forward. I’d only gone about ten feet when I stepped into a small clearing and finally spotted the source of the cries—a baby gryphon.
    At least, I thought it was a baby. It was still about three feet long from its beak to the fuzzy tuft on the end of its lion’s tail. The gryphon’s fur and wings were a beautiful bronze that glimmered in what little sunlight slid through the trees to the forest floor. Its eyes were the same mesmerizing shade, although its beak and claws were as black and shiny as ebony.
    The gryphon caught sight of me and stopped its struggles, although it narrowed its eyes and sank down onto its haunches, like it was getting ready to leap on me and tear me to pieces.
    At first, I wondered what was wrong with the creature, but then I realized why it was crying—its back right foot was caught in a metal trap. Actually, trap wasn’t the right word. This thing had so many rows of teeth that it looked more like a torture device. The gryphon must have stepped on the trigger, causing the trap to snap shut, and the rows of sharp metal teeth had dug into the poor thing’s leg. A thick metal chain secured the trap to a tree, keeping the gryphon from flying away. The creature must have been there a while because the blood in its fur had already matted.
    “It’s okay,” I called out to my friends. “It’s not a Reaper.”
    Leaves crunched, and Daphne and Rory moved to stand beside me.
    “That’s a snap-snare,” Rory said, disgust evident in her voice. “It’s like a bear trap, but with more teeth. Reapers leave them in the forest in hopes of capturing gryphons. Fenrir wolves too. The more you struggle, the deeper the teeth tear into your body.”
    The baby gryphon’s tail started lashing from side to side at the sound of Rory’s voice, and it studied each one of us in turn. Its bronze eyes narrowed that much more, and it grew very still, except for its tail, which kept whipping from side to side. Suddenly, the creature leaped through the air, its claws aiming for my throat—
    But the chain attached to the trap jerked it back, and the gryphon thumped to the ground about five feet in front of me. The creature screeched with surprise and pain, but I could also hear the faintest whimper in its high cries. Despite its tough façade, the gryphon was scared, tired, and hurting. I knew the feelings. Reapers and their cruel schemes had a way of doing that to you.
    “Easy, boy,” I said, taking off my gloves, holding out my right hand, and creeping toward the creature. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re going to get that nasty thing off your leg.”
    “What are you doing?” Rory hissed. “That gryphon will bite your hand off if you get too close to it. In case you didn’t notice, it would have torn your throat out if that chain hadn’t