Christmas Griffin - Zoe Chant Page 0,8
Big deal.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh, forgive me. ’Cos when people drive halfway up a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm, they’re usually not trying to avoid their families.”
“I wasn’t avoiding anything.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
This was beginning to feel more like an interrogation than a rescue mission. “The only reason I was out today was to run an errand for one of my relatives.”
“The only reason?”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. What the hell was his problem?
“Look, I’m grateful that you helped me, but I don’t see how my reasons for being out here are any of your business.” She forced herself to look into his eyes, not thinking there could be any danger in it.
That was a mistake.
Oh, God.
His eyes were so dark they pulled her in. Something fluttered in her chest. Blood pressure problems following a stressful event, she told herself, but she wasn’t convincing anybody. Least of all the slow, languid heat that poured through her limbs. It was the complete opposite of the vigilant bundle of nerves she’d always thought of as her true self. And between them… a spark.
Her lips parted. Sitting in the armchair across from her, he looked just as stunned. He leaned forward. The deep line between his eyebrows eased. “Did you—”
A flicker. Something alive and curious looked out from behind his eyes. She knew at once that it wasn’t him. It was something else: an inner animal, staring out even while he was in human form.
He was a shifter.
Idiot. This was why she never met anyone’s eyes. Not for long enough for something like this to happen, anyway.
She tore her eyes away, before he could hunt in them and find nothing there.
She had to get this conversation back on track.
“How did you—” She didn’t know how she was going to end the sentence. Find me? Know I was there? Get me back here? She shook her head, hoping it would knock loose some inspiration, and instead it throbbed. She hissed in a breath and put one hand to the back of her skull.
“Let me.” The man stood up. Her stomach flip-flopped. He was tall. Not tall and broad, like the Belgraves, but not slender, either. He was lean and powerful, like the joy of flight given form.
He sat down beside her on the sofa and reached for the back of her neck. She tipped her head forward and held her hair out of the way. It was tangled and matted. Which wasn’t worth feeling self-conscious about, but her cheeks heated up regardless.
“You weren’t bleeding when I brought you in, but you have a lump. I’d guess you fell, hit something just hard enough to stun, and the cold did the rest.” His fingers were gentle as he inspected the bruise and Delphine closed her eyes automatically. It almost didn’t matter that it hurt, if he was touching her. “It’s still swollen. I’ll get you some ice.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. The tip-tilted feeling inside her, her uncertainty—it was too much.
Delphine twisted until she could look up into the man’s face. This close, she could see the color of his eyes: so dark a brown they were almost black.
He hadn’t moved his hand when she turned around. His fingers rested against her cheek.
She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to kiss him almost as much as she’d ever wanted anything.
And it was that almost that stopped her from doing it.
“What’s your name?” she whispered.
He held her gaze. “Hardwick.” His eyes flickered. “And yours?”
“Delphine Belgrave.”
“I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but…”
Her brain itched. She glanced around the room, half-expecting to see one of her relatives lounging in a corner. The brain-itch was her one claim to any sort of shifter magic. She couldn’t hear telepathic words, or talk to anyone else using only her mind, but when someone tried to talk to her mind-to-mind, she got a little, scratchy buzz in the back of her head. Like static from a T.V. in another room. But there was nobody here except her and the strange, watchful man.
And that was definitely telepathy. She turned back to the man, like a pendulum swinging back on course. If she’d had any doubts before—and her life was all doubts—this settled it. He must be a shifter. Which meant—
It meant that at last, she was on solid ground. This was something she knew how to handle.
She bit her lip. “You’re a shifter, aren’t you?”
His eyelid flickered in recognition. But he still wasn’t giving anything else away.
That didn’t matter.