Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,21

guilty. She actually glanced around the clearing, as though she was worried someone was listening in. “You can see your griffin, even when you’re in human form?”

“Better than I can when I’m in griffin form. We don’t exactly spend a lot of time sitting in front of a mirror.” He watched her carefully. “If I close my eyes, I can bring it up. Like revisiting a memory, or a picture.”

“And it communicates to you through sign language?”

“Body language would be more accurate. Movements, gestures.”

Or it just stares at me like I’m the world’s biggest asshole. Like it was doing then. He huffed out a breath. All right, buddy. You want to be the one to tell her we’re meant to be together, but every minute in her presence leaves me this much closer to a weeklong migraine?

It shuffled its wings in unhappy acknowledgement.

“That’s—” Delphine shook her head slowly. Some of the light was back in her eyes, now. Not all. “That makes sense. It’s harder to lie with body language than with words.”

Hardwick’s jaw tightened again. That wasn’t the message he’d meant her to get! He sighed, rubbing the side of his jaw where the muscles were starting to jump. “Let’s just get moving.”

“Promise if you need to say something to me while we’re in the air, you’ll wait to land before you try to tell me anything that involves barrel rolls or loop-the-loops?”

Hardwick let out a surprised bark of laughter. “I’ll do my best.”

His head was spinning as he tried to concentrate on shifting. Every time he thought he could put Delphine in a box—a box labelled ‘liar’ or ‘too much trouble’—she said something that went straight to his heart. Or his funny bone, which was even more impressive. He hadn’t thought he had one of those left.

And that second box didn’t fit, anyway. He was the one who was too much trouble.

Delphine turned away again, and he focused on his griffin. Shifting was easier and harder than it had been the night before, when he and his griffin had both been frantic with worry for Delphine. Easier, because although he was used to managing his own fear response in difficult situations, he didn’t have any experience with his griffin being in those situations. Harder, because without the urgency of saving Delphine’s life, calling his griffin out was like trying to get a rusty engine to fire.

After a few moments, though, he began to transform. Lights danced in his eyes and he closed them, letting the shift take over as he cast off the rest of his clothing. There was a feeling like a cool wind blowing over his whole body and he dropped to all fours.

His griffin flexed its back, stretching out knots that his human body hadn’t acknowledged. He scooped up his discarded clothing in one foreclaw and tossed it over to the cabin door. He—

Shit.

He was going to need those clothes for the other end of this little trip.

He paced over to the door and hooked his trousers on one claw. While he was still trying to decide on the least embarrassing and most efficient way to act out ‘could you carry my clothes for me while I fly you to your car,’ Delphine turned to face him.

Her eyes went wide.

Hardwick’s griffin was nothing special. He knew that. His parents had both been griffin shifters; his mom’s feathers were a brilliant, shimmering mahogany merging into silver-dusted hindquarters, and his father had gleaming black feathers with hints of gold at his chest and around his eyes.

Hardwick was grey. Shabby grey, from beak to tail.

“Gosh,” Delphine breathed. “You’re—I mean—I’ve never seen a griffin before.” Her eyebrows drew together, and she pursed her lips, as though she was thinking over something quickly. “Which I already told you, and it is the truth. I thought you’d be more like a winged lion, but you’re—”

He didn’t want to hear what he was. His griffin flicked its tail, indicating its desire to get moving and leave this conversation behind. To his surprise, Delphine caught on at once.

She walked closer to him, her footsteps slow and careful in the snow. He tried not to shuffle his feet as her eyes coasted from his huge, grey-feathered eagle’s head to his hindquarters the color of a lion who’d rolled around in a fireplace. “Behind your shoulders. Okay. Would you mind kneeling down?”

Standing, with his neck stooped, his eyes were almost level with Delphine’s. He crouched down, snow crunching beneath claws and heavy paws as she