Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,65

Be arrogant. Be a Belgrave, for the last time in your life. “Trying to figure out how long I fooled you?”

“How long you’ve been lying to us!”

“What, your Belgrave family-ing didn’t clue you in all this time?” She tossed her hair—actually tossed her hair, like the feisty governess in one of her grandmother’s novels. “I’m surprised. There were a few years, before I left for uni, that I thought you’d figured it out and were keeping quiet to try and salvage the family honor, or something.”

“How dare you!” her grandfather bellowed, which was wonderfully to plan even if it did make her want to run and hide, but her grandmother was worryingly clear-eyed.

“Alastair,” she murmured, and her husband reined himself in. “You know, we really can’t blame her. Even now, she’s only trying her best to distract us from the real problem, the poor dear.”

“You absolutely can blame me.” Delphine spoke through gritted teeth.

One of the angry bees buzzing against her mind stopped. A second later, Anders shouted: “I’m sorry! I was just trying to protect—”

“Protecting your family, is it?” Her grandmother raised her eyebrows. “It appears that there is a bit of that going around. As though proper Belgraves ever needed to be protected. Of course, now it’s all out in the open. We all know exactly how much of a Belgrave—”

“I’m not protecting anyone but myself!” Delphine snapped before she could get any further.

She was only thinking of one person, then, and of the raw, torn emptiness that had opened up inside her when her brother yelled out her secret.

Hardwick choked off a curse. His hand came down heavily on her arm, and the back of his own chair. She spun to support him, and by the time she turned back to glare at her grandparents and try to get the conversation back on track, it was too late.

Eyes were darting towards her mother. Grizelda. Martin. All the other relatives whose names and habits she’d painstakingly memorized over the years. Even the younger generation. Pebbles looked like she was going to be sick. She was gripping her mate’s hand, white-knuckled.

Delphine’s heart felt like Pebbles’ hand. Straining and bloodless.

How had she ever thought she could bluff her way through this? She knew how her family worked. She knew what Belgraves were. There was nothing more important to them than family… and now they all knew the truth about her, they knew she didn’t deserve to be called family.

She wasn’t a winged lion.

She wasn’t even a shifter.

How could she be a Belgrave?

“Mum—” Her voice was a creak. A wisp.

Her mother was standing silently further down the table. She was staring straight at Delphine. Staring at her in a way she hadn’t since—since—

Since the day Delphine’s father died.

Her grandmother sneered. “I always said that Dominic should have—”

“Angela,” her grandfather said, in a fond sort-of-telling-off way that Delphine knew was nothing of the sort. He wanted her to keep talking. He just wanted the appearance of not being one hundred percent ready to let his wife rip into their daughter-in-law.

Her grandmother turned her eyes back to her. “You poor, deceitful girl.” Her gaze was sickly sweet and full of pity, and her lioness stared out, viciously triumphant. “You lied to us. All of us. After Dominic died, we took you in. Treated you like our own, like a real Belgrave, when all this time you were worse than a cuckoo in our nest! And you!”

She turned to Delphine’s mother.

“Are you happy now? First you took our son away, and now you’ve destroyed the entire Belgrave bloodline! Centuries of history, gone!”

“She didn’t know!” Delphine cried out.

Everyone turned to face her. Even Hardwick.

Delphine could have sobbed.

Of course her mother didn’t know. How could she? Delphine had done all of this to protect her.

And now she would hate her for it.

Around the table, her relatives’ faces were twisting with disgust. Uncle Martin and Aunt Grizelda edged away from her. The younger cousins, Livia and Brutus, looked almost as excited as Grandmother. Her brothers—she couldn’t even look at them.

Her mind itched. Pebbles was staring at her like she’d broken her heart.

“This is Auntie Sara’s fault,” Pebbles announced, her voice shaking. She stuck her chin out and glared down the table at Delphine’s mother, who still hadn’t said anything. “You should have said something—if we’d known—”

Delphine’s spine bristled. She could take them attacking her. But not her Mum.

“She didn’t know anything about it!” Her fists clenched as she willed Pebbles to look at her. “And what would