Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,17

hide its head under its wing, he knew the main reason people gathered information like that was to find a way around it.

She was getting better. He had to give her that. His griffin was having to peck out her lies, untangle them from words that were mostly truth. But everything she said was still hazed around with a fog of deceit. It was as though her whole being was a lie.

Despite his better judgment, he found himself wanting to know more.

The ‘scones’ were good.

Really good.

And not just because they were delicious. Hardwick tried to remember the last time anyone had cooked for him. Picking up a coffee from the station cafeteria didn’t count.

Hell, when was the last time he’d cooked for himself?

Most days, by the end of his shift, he was too exhausted and in too much pain to do more than order takeout. Even when he was stocking up for this trip, he’d limited himself to readymade frozen meals and a few basics. It was some sort of miracle that Delphine had found enough ingredients to do any baking at all.

No. He gazed across the table. The miracle was that she’d wanted to cook for him.

She caught his stare and looked up. Her cheeks went pink. Hell. What was he doing? He had to tell her the truth. Had to—

“I’d really like to try and get back to Pine Valley today,” Delphine said.

Pain shot through his forehead. Hardwick dropped his knife with a clatter. He was half-aware of Delphine getting up from the table and he waved her away, his gesture jerky as he tried to breathe through his griffin’s reaction.

His griffin cowered inside him, puffing itself up to make it look bigger. Hardwick clutched his hand to his forehead. Calm down, he told himself, or his griffin, or both. Breathe through it. It’ll fade soon.

Slowly, reluctantly, his griffin’s feathery ruff deflated. It settled itself back on its haunches, tail flicking.

And the pain faded.

Hardwick sighed. “Sorry, bud,” he whispered, rubbing his forehead.

“What was that?”

Delphine looked like she was sitting down by sheer force of will alone. Her hands were braced on the edge of the table. Her eyes bored into his. If she’d been a shifter, her inner animal would have been blazing out through her gaze, demanding the same answer.

But she was human, and the blazing was all her.

“Migraine,” Hardwick gritted out. “They’ve been getting bad lately. Give it a minute, it’ll pass.”

Until the next time she casually lied to him.

Even that circle-round-the-truth made his griffin pace warily. Hardwick muttered something that he deserved a rap across the knuckles for and forced the pained grimace off his face.

“Thank you for breakfast,” he said, meeting Delphine’s blazing glare with a mild expression of his own. “It’s delicious. Really. Can’t remember the last time I had anything this good.”

Her eyes widened. Some of the fire in them faded—and then they narrowed sharply. “You’re serious. Because you don’t lie.”

“Right.”

“They’re scones.” She looked outraged. “They take no effort! All sorts of food are better than them! Haven’t you been looking after yourself?”

Her mouth dropped open as though hadn’t meant to say that last bit. Or any of it, Hardwick mused.

She recovered quickly. “Not that it’s any of my business,” she added, mildly, and a serrated knife-edge ran around the base of his skull.

Lie.

She did think it was her business.

Hardwick’s mouth was suddenly dry. He sipped his coffee. Didn’t help.

What if she knew?

Or if she didn’t know, what if she could guess? The connection between them. The way he couldn’t stop himself from turning towards her, his constant awareness of her every mood, the changing expressions on her face and the hidden thoughts and emotions she tried not to let show.

He didn’t know how humans experienced the mate bond. They didn’t have an inner creature to tell it to them straight. But they couldn’t be completely unaffected, could they?

Delphine couldn’t be. The emotion blazing from her eyes wasn’t anything that could be explained by her just seeing him as some random asshole who’d saved her life. When he doubled over, she hadn’t backed away, like any sensible person would when the stranger they were sharing a cabin with started behaving strangely.

She wasn’t just concerned, she was mad.

He sorted through what he knew. They both knew where things stood with his abilities—didn’t they? He could tell when she was telling the truth. She knew he could tell when she was telling the truth. Neither of them had said anything about any connection between