Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,69

a real Belgrave, and… maybe that’s okay.”

“Delphine. No.” Sara’s gaze was firm and loving. “We were relieved when we thought you were a shifter. I’ll admit that. But we would never have treated you any differently if we had known the truth. You still would have been our daughter. You still would have been a Belgrave.” Her hand closed over Delphine’s. “You still are. And a Monroe, too.”

Her maiden name, Hardwick guessed. Delphine shivered.

“You mean that?” she whispered.

“I mean it, Delphy. You are my daughter, and I love you, and your father would say the same if he was here today. You are part of this family. You belong.” She straightened her shoulders. “I think we all agree now that anyone who says otherwise isn’t worth talking to.” The twins nodded fervently.

The hope in Delphine’s eyes hurt Hardwick’s heart. He opened his mouth to reassure her that her mother was telling the truth, but she raised a hand, stopping him.

“You don’t need to tell me,” she told him. “I know she’s telling the truth.”

She rushed into her mother’s arms. Her brothers joined the family hug, their relief an almost solid force in the air and their voices cracking as they told Delphine that they loved her, too, and they didn’t want her to hate them. Hardwick didn’t need his gift to know that they were telling the truth. The tears in their voices were enough.

At last Delphine untangled herself and stepped back, wiping her eyes. “I didn’t think this would ever be possible,” she said. “Thank you. I love you all. But…”

“We’re still exiled from the family breakfast.” Anders had some of the sparkle in his eye back.

“No food, no presents, nowhere to sleep off a non-existent Christmas dinner,” Vance added.

“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” Delphine’s eyes shone as she turned to Hardwick but kept talking to the twins. “Can I make the food and presents and what on earth we’re going to do that doesn’t involve crossing paths with the rest of the family today your problem, you two, while I have a few minutes alone with Hardwick?”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Delphine

They made their way to the center of the square. The last time she’d seen it, before she went port-hunting, the square had been lit up with activity. It was still lit up, but as for activity…

The end of a piece of tinsel came loose and glittered vaguely downwards.

It was the liveliest thing in the whole place.

For the week before Christmas, the Pine Valley plaza had been full of bubbling excitement. Happy cries had echoed alongside Christmas carols as friends caught sight of each other through the tinsel-spangled trees and had impromptu drinks under the strings of fairy lights, or dashing between shop fronts to admire the different festive displays each store had out. It had been like something out of a fairy tale, only instead of being populated by witches and trolls and princesses, Pine Valley was home to a sort of concentrated Christmas magic…

…and Christmas-obsessed dragons, and a pack of the friendliest hellhounds she’d ever heard of, and a surly newly fledged pegasus.

Really, witches wouldn’t have been out of place.

They would be even less out of place now. Without the crowds of shoppers and holidaymakers, it looked smaller, and colder. Even the twinkling lights were a bit sad, with no one to twinkle on.

Beside her, Hardwick let out a relieved sigh.

She looked up at him. There was the ghost of a smile on his lips. Perfect for this Christmassy ghost town… which was perfect for him. Of course it was.

Delphine found an answering smile plucking at her own lips.

Perhaps instead of thinking of the place as abandoned, she should think of it as ready and waiting for them to find it.

Anders let out a jaw-popping yawn. “If I’m going to starve to death, I’m going to starve trying to eat that reindeer.” He loped over to one of the life-sized reindeer models with silver bells and candy canes strung from its antlers and flung himself dramatically across its back. “There. Dead. Wait, are those real candy canes?”

“That’s not a balanced breakfast, Anders,” Sara said automatically. She scanned the nearest shopfronts. “Is that a restaurant? Oh, it’s closed. But there must be something open. Vance, what about that bakery you found last year…” She pulled out her phone.

“It’ll be shut by now,” he said, but went with her when she tugged on his sleeve. They both wandered, so vaguely it had to be intentional, in a direction