Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,72

roaring into the square just before lunchtime. His Range Rover was bright red, with white trim and tinsel around the windows. The horn played the first bars of the chorus of ‘All I Want for Christmas’.

The twins sagged under the onslaught of uncoolness. Delphine, still tucked against Hardwick’s side, raised her head in surprise. Her mother sent him a silent question and, when he confirmed who the newcomer was, smoothed her clothing self-consciously. He didn’t know how to reassure her.

“Don’t worry, Mum,” Delphine said. She laid her head against Hardwick’s shoulder and waved to the dragon shifter as he leapt out of the truck. “Jasper Heartwell has a human mate. I don’t think he would—”

“Belgraves!” Jasper called. “I heard there was a Christmas crisis brewing!”

Who told him that? Hardwick wondered. The light in his chest throbbed and Delphine turned to him, surprise on her face.

“Did you just ask—” she began, then shook her head. “There was a snowy owl hanging around earlier. I think it might have been Olly, Jackson’s mate. She must have heard—” She bit her lip.

“And she sent in the cavalry.” Hardwick kissed the top of her head.

Jasper drove them up the valley towards his family homestead. The Heartwells’ home was massive and solidly, reassuringly lived-in looking. Cars and trucks were parked higgledy-piggledy on the drive. Children’s toboggans and skis were piled up next to the huge double front doors. Another toboggan was perilously balanced on the roof. Occasional patches of the building’s log cladding were a darker shade, charred-looking.

Hardwick stared. Not just charred-looking. Charred.

Jasper cleared his throat. “My daughter’s work,” he explained. “She found her dragon very early. And flying. And fire breathing.”

“She sounds like a quick learner.”

“Precisely!” His eyes lit up. “And now that we’ve installed a few extra rain barrels, we haven’t had any actual near-disasters in, oh, months.”

“And during the winter you have the snow, as well,” Delphine added.

“It does have an excellent dampening effect, that’s true. Now…” Jasper pulled into a spare park and twisted around in his seat to look at all of his passengers. “I don’t know the details of how you ended up out in the cold at Christmas, but nobody’s going to bother you about it once we’re inside. Heartwell Christmases are about celebrating, not prying.”

Hardwick’s griffin stretched out its neck, but it couldn’t find a whisper of a lie in Jasper’s voice, or his multi-colored eyes.

“I appreciate that,” Delphine said softly.

Jasper grinned. “Then let’s head inside.”

Christmas at the Heartwells was not just about celebrating; it was something worth celebrating. Hardwick braced himself as he walked inside, but the only thing that hit him was a wall of heat. The conversation in the living room was closer to a roar, with a toddler in the middle of the room, surrounded by shredded wrapping paper, supplying a high-pitched shriek that cut through the rest.

People were talking. Laughing. Exclaiming over gifts, and telling stories, and a thousand other things all at once, and no one was lying.

The knots in Hardwick’s shoulders eased. Inside him, his griffin relaxed, the feathers on its spine feeling out-of-place as they lay down.

Jasper started a lightning round of introductions. “Hardwick and Delphine, you’ve already met my sister and her husband.” Opal and Hank waved from a sofa, where they were snuggled together, picking at the last scraps of buttered croissants and various cheeses. Their son was sprawled in front of the enormous, spangled Christmas tree, his head firmly in a book. “Cole you know, and this is my mate, Abigail—” A short, plump woman looked up from where she was sitting on the floor with the toddler, and Hardwick saw only humanity in her eyes. “—and my daughter, Ruby—”

“The fire-starter?” Hardwick asked in an undertone.

Jasper laughed. “My little firebug! I mean—no—not now, sweetheart…”

The adorable toddler disappeared. In her place, a ruby-scaled dragonling crouched in a nest of wrapping paper. She eyed the flammable stuff with keen interest.

Abigail made a warning sound, and Jasper swooped in and grabbed their daughter as smoke started to pour from the dragonling’s nostrils. He ran out the French windows leading outside just as she let out a tiny burp of flame.

Abigail stood up. “Welcome to the madhouse,” she said, smiling at them all. “I’d say this hardly ever happens, but I’m not sure there’s any point. Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Abigail! The emergency presents!” Jasper called from the yard, where Ruby was doing her best to set fire to a snowman.

“Breakfast first!” she called back. She raised her eyebrows at