Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,26

bedroom for another few hours. Every minute that ground by, he was acutely aware of Delphine in the next room. The sofa creaked slightly as she moved around; water hissed as she filled a glass.

He stared at his watch. Lunch time. No more excuses. Not if he wanted to seem like a halfway decent host, and not the surly prick that he’d probably come off as so far. Damn it.

Delphine looked up as he stood in the door. He had a strange impulse to knock on the doorframe. He cleared his throat. “Are you hungry?”

Her eyes fell to his mouth and her own lips parted, just briefly. He couldn’t look away.

“Um—” Delphine swallowed.

“I’ll make lunch,” he said quickly.

Shit.

He’d told himself she was in shock. In shock, from almost dying, and then embarrassed, from being stuck here with him. But even non-shifters could feel something of the mate bond, couldn’t they?

And her family were shifters. She must know what was going on. Which meant she knew he knew and that he wasn’t doing anything about it, and now he knew she knew and... his head hurt.

And all he had to serve for lunch were frozen meals. He’d planned for this trip thinking he’d only be feeding himself. Not feeding his mate. Not that he was trying to seduce her.

Well, freezer-burned enchiladas were the perfect not-seducing food.

The meal took an excruciating hour to cook. Hardwick couldn’t find an excuse to hide in the bedroom while they were in the oven—and it would have been hiding.

He just couldn’t find an excuse to do anything else, either.

He stood like a lump by the oven, close to wishing he could hurl himself into it.

Delphine was not reading a book. By the time the enchiladas were ready he was pretty sure she was on the same page she’d been on when he started, and that page was page one. She wasn’t looking at him, either. Her eyes were fixed on the page like she was trying to burn through it.

He looked at her. He couldn’t help it.

There were dark shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there the night before. She’d said she slept badly, didn’t she? Had she lain there in the bed, thinking about him as he thought about her? What had gone through her mind?

That he didn’t want anything to do with her.

The thought settled like a rock in his chest. Some instinct he didn’t know he had and definitely shouldn’t have paid attention to made him seek inside himself for that bright light of the mate bond.

His griffin was sitting curled around it, as though the light was a fire it was trying to warm itself beside. Or as though it was trying to protect it. He’d always thought of mate bonds as sure things, as unbreakable as they were magical, but what if they weren’t? What if the mate bond could be broken? Whatever was between them right now felt like a tight string about to snap. If it did—

He reached inside himself and, as gently as he could, touched the glowing light at the center of his soul.

On the sofa, Delphine jumped.

She looked up at him. Too quickly for him to look away.

Their eyes met like a flash fire starting. A shiver went through Hardwick’s spine. This was right. This was the woman he was meant to be with, and they both knew it. He breathed in, luxuriating in her scent. It didn’t even matter that he could only catch glimpses of it, this far across the room. A hint of sweetness, a hint of something wild. The world felt full of possibility.

“What was that?” he murmured.

Delphine went still. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he wouldn’t have noticed it. Nothing about her changed. She was still sitting up, poised for action. Her eyes were lit with something that he didn’t peg as hope until it froze. That look—she—didn’t stop, or back down. It was as though she was... waiting.

The moment stretched out.

Delphine licked her lips. “I... thought I spilled my drink,” she said. Her glass of water was still safely on the floor beside the sofa, untouched.

Hardwick looked away. Pain shuttled around his skull, starting above his left ear and diving deep behind his eye. He swallowed back a grimace.

When he looked back at Delphine, she was still watching him, a strange look on her face.

Neither of them said anything.

He ran away again while Delphine was doing the dishes. Back into the bedroom and the spiral of