Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,55
with the man who made her heart ache with joy and sorrow at the same time, instead of with the people who filled her with dread?
What was the catch?
Hardwick searched her face. Whatever he found there made his own eyes darken.
“I thought you wouldn’t be here when I woke up,” he admitted. “I thought you would think you had to leave for my own good. You would have reason to. I know that. I thought it myself, when I first met you, but I don’t anymore.”
“I wouldn’t leave you to face my family alone.” She traced the outline of his stubble.
“I would have escaped. Back into the mountains. Tried to fix the roof.”
Delphine giggled. “You—you’re not kidding. You don’t lie. You really would have?”
“I’m hardy.”
“It’s still freezing.”
“Lions live in mountains like these, don’t they?”
“Mountain lions.”
“What about eagles?”
Delphine resettled herself on top of him. He was warm, and solid, and smiling at her as though she was the most wonderful person in the world, and she didn’t want this perfect moment to end. This silly, pointless conversation that was somehow exactly what her heart had been crying out for.
“What if part of your griffin is happy in the cold and part isn’t? What would you do then?”
“Some of the roof was still up when we left. I could put whatever bit of me didn’t like the cold inside, and the rest could enjoy the view.”
Laughter bubbled out of her. Hardwick smiled, and again, it transformed his face. She was happy. He was happy. This was how things were meant to be, wasn’t it?
“I refuse to believe that you’d really do that.”
“But you know it’s the truth.” He leaned up to kiss her. “And you know I can be hard-headed about things. Once I get an idea in my head, it’s hard to get it to leave. I would have gone up there and tried to make it work. It would have been terrible.” His smile broadened, and Delphine laughed again, and he kissed her again. He murmured against her lips: “Wouldn’t have stopped me, though. I would have stuck it out. Until someone turned up to show me there was a better way.”
“A better way?” she whispered back, her voice humming against his skin.
“With four walls and a roof. And someone who makes me complete.”
She hesitated. Yes, a soulmate was meant to make someone complete. But—her? She hurt him. Everything she was, hurt him. Unless—
She could be someone else. Someone he needed. Someone who could help him, not hurt him.
She could be that person. She would be that person.
“Let’s leave,” she said suddenly, sitting up and straddling his waist. “Now. Before anyone else wakes up. Before—”
Something crashed into the window. Delphine yelped. Hardwick leapt up, getting between her and the window just as someone shouted outside.
Delphine pushed past Hardwick. “Is that—you have got to be kidding me. Anders?”
She strode across to the window. Her younger brother was dangling from the windowsill.
“Hey, sis,” Anders said as she heaved the sash window open. “Happy Christmas?”
“What the hell, Anders? And where’s Vance?” She leaned out the window, expecting to see the other twin hanging from another third-floor window.
“Up here!”
Vance was on the roof. Delphine’s heart jumped. “What are you doing?”
“Having a better plan than Anders.”
“A better plan for what?”
“Catching Santa.”
“...What?”
Hardwick leaned out the window next to her, stared down at Anders and up at Vance, and raised one eyebrow. “Your brothers do this sort of thing a lot?”
“Unfortunately.”
His eyelid flickered and she winced. It was a joke, not a lie, but she knew he was extra sensitive at the moment.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. It means you do like them, after all. Teenage dumbassery and all.”
“Lucky them.”
His eyes sparkled. “They are.”
“Hey, you two wanna not take up the whole window? My fingers are gonna freeze off.”
Hardwick’s eyebrows pinched together as he stepped back. Delphine stuck to his side, slipping her hand into his. “So much for just us.”
Anders vaulted up onto the windowsill using only his fingertips. He grinned at Delphine and Hardwick and dropped inside.
Delphine made an annoyed-older-sister noise. “You’re not even wearing shoes?”
“Better toe-grip,” Anders explained. There was a buzz at the back of her mind, and he rolled her eyes. “Trust Vance to take the lazy route. First, he doesn’t even climb down the building, now he’s still not climbing the building and he’s just gonna walk down the stairs to get to your room?”
“Excuse me? How come my room is suddenly the place to hang out?”
“Oh, we, uh...” Anders trailed off.
Delphine crossed her