Rallying the Troops

A chorus of howls filled the air, one after the other, and the last one his mother's voice calling them together. Gryphon sighed, leaving off his hunt, but he'd agreed to go along with this scheme because he knew that nothing he said would convince his mother not to go, and he couldn't leave her unprotected. She'd always been infatuated with Valentine Imperialis and stubbornly refused to admit his faults. Somehow she turned the man's bloodthirsty ruthlessness to strength and some ridiculous notion of savage nobility. The man had kidnapped her when he and his siblings were infants, for goodness sake! Gnar's death had more than likely been the result of that wintery move across the continent.

And now Gnar's mother was joining the madman on his insane quest for revenge.

Not that Gryphon was adverse to the idea of wiping out that viper's nest of slavers. The world would be that much cleaner and safer without them. But it bothered him more than a little that they weren't wiping them out to protect anyone or because slaving was an abomination and a blight on wolfkind, but simply because Valentine Imperialis had a grudge. Perhaps, he thought dryly to himself as he reluctantly traced the first howl, it might have been noble for Valentine to avenge his lover if he hadn't been a slaver and a degenerate himself. As it was, though, Gryphon felt more than a little sullied by going along with the hypocrisy of the former alpha's quest. But he wouldn't let his mother go unprotected into a melee with a bunch of cutthroats. Not just the slavers they fought, but their very allies would be scheming murderous thugs. He wouldn't let her go into that without someone there to watch her back.

He stalked warily into the group, eyes narrowed suspiciously as they traveled from face to face. Most of those gathered bore the similar features among them that spoke of close family, and the two strangers that didn't were both brutish and scarred creatures that were probably just as bad as the Imperialis clan. Walking stiff-legged as an offended cat, Gryphon made his way over to his mother and sat behind her.