Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,49
everyone should have thought she couldn’t possibly be in any trouble.
That strange feeling still churning in her stomach, Delphine send a quick, reassuring message.
I’m fine! Bumped into dragon search and rescue team on the way back. Poor Cole safe but going to be in trouble I think! See you soon!
She got a response straight away.
Thank God. Don’t worry me like that again!
Don’t worry her? What was to worry about? As far as her mother was concerned…
Delphine shoved her phone back in her pocket and bit her lip.
As far as her mother knew, she had no reason to be worried. But if Hardwick meeting the rest of her family went as badly as she expected it to, then that would change.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hardwick
The Belgraves were staying at the main hotel in town. Which was a small hotel, but the only one Pine Valley had. They’d booked out almost the entire place and, Hardwick discovered when they got there, had bullied the manager into giving them private access to the dining room for all their meals. Where the other guests went to eat, he didn’t know, but he didn’t blame them for not sticking around.
He wished the Heartwells had invited them for dinner. They had seemed like nice people.
Not that all the Belgraves rubbed him up the wrong way. Delphine’s brothers were like any dickhead teens, more interested in their own lives than anyone else’s, and her mother seemed nice. She was short and fine-boned, with faded blonde hair. Hardwick guessed she’d married into the family, and when he shook her hand, he got a glimpse of her inner animal: a housecat.
The Belgrave obsession with shifter status couldn’t be that bad, he told himself.
Ten minutes into dinner, he was rethinking that assumption.
He was seated next to Delphine’s aunt Grizelda, one of the shifters who’d been out looking for little Cole. He’d thought this was a good sign until she started talking.
“…The family used to be far stricter about it. But there are only so many winged lion shifter families in the world, after all!”
Hardwick frowned. “But the mate bond—”
“Oh, well, fate has always been a friend to the Belgraves. And really, it could be worse!”
He could be worse, she was saying. As though shifters existed on a sort of scale, with winged lions at the top and everyone else ranked below, griffins included.
Not just griffins, he realized as Grizelda kept talking.
“Take Pascal. Now, I’m not saying that dear Pebbles’ mate isn’t a complete darling, but, well, there’s always the risk, isn’t there? One minute the Belgraves are winged lion shifters, with a genealogy stretching back to before Minos exploded—you really must let me tell you about that one day, Hardwick darling, of course there’s no written evidence but the pictorial is quite enough, and I’ve always felt such a connection with the islands—Well, what I’m saying is, their children might turn out a bit colorful.” She elbowed him, as though she’d just told a hilarious joke. “But as I said, fate has always been kind to us. The Belgrave winged lions always breed true.”
Wow.
Hardwick was aware he was staring like a dead man. Worse, though, was the tension that whispered around the room. Not all the Belgraves shared in it. Pebbles—that couldn’t be her real name, surely—leaned a little closer to her mate, Pascal, whose edges had gone all sharp. Delphine’s mother went slightly pale, and Delphine...
...Was smiling, and laughing quietly at a joke someone else had told, and standing up to fetch another bottle of pinot gris for the table.
Hardwick’s heart sank.
“Doesn’t sound like a problem to me,” he said. “Like you said, only so many lion shifters in the world, winged or not.”
“Exactly.” Grizelda pursed her lips triumphantly and watched Delphine edge out of the room, arms full of empty bottles. “And like I said, we’re not quite so strict anymore. Not since dear Delphy.”
The door swung shut behind Delphine and the hairs on the back of Hardwick’s neck prickled. “What about Delphine?”
Grizelda was all painted-on surprise. “Well! Her mother, of course. When we all heard that Dominic had—”
CRASH!
“Oh, shit!” One of the twins sprang up and started beating at his shirt, which was, somehow, on fire. “Come on, man, fire isn’t fair play!”
“Neither’s getting Livia to telepath you the answers, asshole!” The other one threw another candle at him and the first twin yelped and dodged out of the way. “Aren’t you meant to be studying this shit?”
“Aren’t you meant to be studying med, not setting fire to people?”
“Boys.”
The voice