Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,39
that was a ghost of the one she’d gifted him earlier. “I don’t have your excuse.”
Hardwick shrugged. “If my parents were still around, I’d spend the holiday with them.”
“I’m sorry.” Delphine covered her eyes. “I didn’t even think—”
“It’s okay. I didn’t mean that as an attack. Just...” He shrugged again. “It was easier having other people around who had the same issue as I did. Sensing lies didn’t hurt them like it hurts me, but it still gave them a weird feeling. Telling the truth came naturally to us.”
Delphine lowered her hands. Her gaze was distant. “I imagine it would be easier,” she said, and the note of longing in her voice made his heart twist. “My father died when I was ten. Maybe if he—but that doesn’t matter. It’s just my mother and my two younger brothers now. And the rest of the extended family.”
“Jackson said a shifter family had booked out half the town.”
“Only half?” Delphine reached for her drink. “It was all right last year. I was here for work, and Mum and the boys came over to surprise me. There was enough for them to do that I could stay out of the spotlight, but with everyone here...” Her fingers fidgeted on the glass. “You’d think it’d be easier to blend in in a crowd. But my family is so into... family things.”
“Like everyone being a shifter.”
She nodded and picked up her glass at last. “Like everyone being a shifter,” she echoed, and sipped.
“How have you managed to keep the truth hidden so long?”
She met his eyes and tapped her temple, one eyebrow raised.
“By lying. Right. I want to know the specifics.”
Delphine let out a deep breath. “The specifics... okay.”
She sounded relieved. Hardwick knew why. This wasn’t the question she’d been dreading. The one whose answer she kept locked up so deep inside it was like sitting next to a construction site.
“How do you know if someone’s a shifter? One, they shift in front of you. That’s a fairly solid giveaway. But it’s not the only way. Two, if they’re a shifter and you are too, you can speak telepathically. Which is easy to get through in a big group setting, where everyone might has well be talking at once and even if they aren’t, you can pretend to be so focused on whatever you’re doing, or another conversation, or one of the kids trying to fly up the chimney to find Santa that you always have an excuse for not catching on. And—” She grimaced. “It helps when you know they’re only going to be talking about certain things, anyway. The pool of conversation at most of my family gatherings in not particularly deep.”
“You just fake it. How long have you been doing this?”
“Three. When you look deep into a shifter’s eyes, you can sometimes catch a glimpse of their inner animal. Especially if said inner animal is having strong feelings about whatever’s happening, like the roast’s just come out of the oven, or someone has impugned the family honor by not rolling over and letting grandmother use them as a bridge over a muddy puddle, or whatever other horrific slight she can come up with. Solution: don’t look at them. That one’s easy.”
“Delphine, that’s horrible.”
“As for your question...” She seemed to wrestle with it. “Fifteen years?”
The bottom dropped out of Hardwick’s stomach. No wonder just being in her presence made his head hurt. “Why?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it.”
She scooped up a forkful of lasagna, avoiding his eyes.
“I can’t,” she said at last. “I can’t tell you.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“It’s not just about me. There’s someone else who—” She shook her head firmly. “I need this to keep working. It’s—important. It might be horrible, and hard, but it’s working.”
To his horror, his head remained clear. She was telling the truth; whatever she was trying to achieve, lying to her entire family was letting her do it.
“It’s working,” she repeated, quietly, “And it—it doesn’t matter, anyway, because you’re not going to meet them.”
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at him then, her expression determined. “You’re not going to meet my family.”
“But I’m your mate.”
The words were awkward on his tongue. As he watched Delphine’s face close over, he realized that was the first time either of them had said it out loud.
He’d just claimed her out loud as his mate, in the same breath as he was telling her what to do.
“And you’re a griffin shifter who feels lies like someone’s beating you up.” Her