by Chant, Zoe
“But I’m still doing it. I’m only laying here, and even though I’m with you, I’m still thinking: what if one of my relatives comes through that door? What if they don’t, but they still try to call out to me telepathically? Half my brain is constantly on the alert, working through ways to fix any possible situation, and... and it hurts you.”
“It shouldn’t.” He couldn’t bear the look in her eyes. He looked away. “Not if you don’t lie out loud. I shouldn’t react to you just thinking things.”
“But you are.” She sat up and swung her legs off the side of the bed. “You’re meant to be detoxing.”
“I’m—”
“You’re sick. And me being here isn’t helping.”
Hardwick pushed himself upright. “It isn’t your fault.”
“But it is, isn’t it? And even if it’s not my fault, I can’t stay here if I’m hurting you.” She almost managed to hide the effort it took to keep herself together, and then something snapped, and she sagged. “Sorry. I shouldn’t even be trying to hide how I feel about this, should I? Fine. It sucks. I hate it. I hate that I can’t be the person you need me to be.”
“Why can’t you?”
She looked trapped. Hardwick tried again.
“I know they’re your family. But they’re terrible people.”
“Only most of them.” She gave a bitter laugh. “Some of them are only awful. One or two are pretty nice.”
“So, keep those ones around. You don’t need to live under your grandparents’ thumb just because you share a family name. You’re not even—”
“Don’t. Don’t say it.” Delphine stood up, wringing her hands. “I’ll go for that walk and let you rest.”
“I wasn’t going to say—”
“You should rest. Without me here. Shouldn’t you?” She squared off against him, arms crossed, eyes blazing. “Is that the truth?”
“...Yes.” Hardwick growled in defeat. “It is. I should rest.”
“Alone.”
“No.”
Delphine turned away, all business and angles and unhappiness as she gathered her jacket and outdoor gear. “Try to get some sleep. I’ll call Jasper and see if he knows of any spare rentals around town. Or Jackson might be able to put you up. He and Olly are good people, I’m sure they’d be better at... all this... than any of my family.”
“Delphine, wait. Please.”
It was that last word that made her pause. She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes shadowed with hope.
You’re not happy. That’s what he had been about to say. He’d thought that Delphine’s desperate need to fit in with her family was because she had some sort of personal issue around not being a shifter, and she’d set her family up as some sort of flawless goal she wanted to be like, but that couldn’t be true. She admitted her family was a pack of assholes. And she was miserable. All those lies she told, the whole fake life—and it left her miserable.
But he was in no position to ask questions. His head was spinning too badly for him to string more than a few words together. Even longer thoughts unraveled in his mind before he got to the end of them, torn away by the crashes of pain in his skull.
“Stay,” he asked. “Please. Even if it hurts.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Delphine
She stayed. How could she not?
More like how could you, she accused herself. You should leave him. He’ll be better off without you.
His face was a rictus of pain. It wasn’t fair, Delphine thought. It wasn’t fair that someone could be that pale and close to passing out, and still hurting that much. Wasn’t fainting meant to be a relief? But Hardwick seemed trapped, his body twisted from his so-called ‘gift’ and not even giving him the escape of unconsciousness.
“Tell me what you need,” she begged. She bent over him, as though the pain he was experiencing was something external that she could protect him from. “Please. There has to be something I can do.” What is the point of me being his mate if all I do is cause him pain?
“The truth,” he gritted out. “Tell me something that is true.”
Something true?
“I want to protect you,” she whispered. Hardwick shuddered, but it was a shudder of relief, not pain. She stroked his hair, rested her hand on the back of his neck where the muscles were hard as stone. “I don’t want you to hurt like this anymore. Or at all. I—”
She braced herself. The instinct to shy away from the truth was so embedded in her she had to force herself to peel away the lies that wrapped around it before the thought was even fully formed.
“—I’m a bit freaked out, how quickly I’ve come to care about you. I know that’s how mate bonds work, but I’ve never had any sort of magic before. It’s so new to me that it’s terrifying. I want to be with you, but there’s part of me that might run away at any second, because how can even magic make this work?”
And you wanted me to run, she added silently. You wanted me to leave without saying anything. Without knowing the truth.
Her words were easing something within Hardwick. His breathing became slower. The knife-like edges of his shoulder blades pressing through his shirt relaxed.
“Thank you,” he whispered, his voice the last ragged edge of something almost worn through.
She stayed there, whispering nonsense until he was asleep—no, she reminded herself, not nonsense. True things. How she was worried he was overextending himself. How he should have told her that he was so much worse here than when they were alone. How she would have done something—she didn’t know what, but something. Anything to keep him away from her family and the pain they caused.
It wasn’t until she was certain he was asleep that she let the words that had been prickling in her throat out.
“I don’t see how this is going to work,” she whispered. His eyelids didn’t even flicker. “You and me. Fate must have gotten it wrong. I don’t even know who I am without the story I’ve told my family. How could I be good enough for you?”
* * *
When his breathing eased and she could move without risking waking him up, Delphine crept away and tried to call the people she knew who lived locally. No luck. Jasper wasn’t picking up his phone, and neither was Jackson. Delphine left them both messages, outlining the situation in terms even more delicate than she would have used to extricate Mr. Petrakis from a disaster of his own making, and did not return to the hotel until much later that night. Until Hardwick had the rest he needed.
If he was asleep. God, she hoped he was. Not just because he needed it—though a better, less corrupted mate probably would have only wanted it for that reason. She wanted him to be asleep when she returned because she didn’t want to return to the conversation that had hurt so much earlier.
She knew what he’d been about to say. And she didn’t want to hear it.
That she wasn’t a real Belgrave.
That everything she’d ever feared was true, and she was the weak link that would tear her family apart.
By the time she crept back into her room, Hardwick was dead to the world. She hoped he hadn’t even noticed she was gone. And she waited by the doorway, watching him like a hawk, until she could convince herself that her presence wasn’t hurting him even in his sleep.
She closed the door softly and tried not to feel as though she was breaking into her own room. She hadn’t even been this self-conscious when she actually broke into Hardwick’s life.
But she hadn’t known what she did to him, then.
So she held her breath, and tip-toed, and brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas, constantly on edge that she would make a noise, or bump into something, or that just the sheer power of her presence would be enough to drag Hardwick from his hard-won sleep.
Eventually, though, there was nothing else for it. She had to go to bed.
If only the hotel room had a sofa. Or even an armchair. The single desk chair crammed in one corner would be impossible to curl up in, but—m
aybe there was an extra blanket in the cupboard. She could camp out on the floor, or...
While she was dithering, she’d walked—crept—closer to the bed.
Hardwick was lying on his back. He had one arm thrown up over the pillow, and his face was the most peaceful she’d ever seen it.
Guilt twisted in her stomach. Of course she’d never seen him look peaceful. Because she’d always been there. Hurting him with her very presence.
And he hadn’t said anything. Not until she’d forced it out of him.
She should have said more, today. She should have found some way to save him from having to meet her family. From having to see her around her family.
Without lying to them about why they needed to stay away.
That would be the trick. And that was another problem. If it was a trick, would it work, or would it only make Hardwick’s condition worse?
If lying to help still hurt him, what was left?
She knew what he would say. Tell the truth.
Could she?
She looked down at him. The deep lines that etched his face had softened in sleep; he looked younger. Relaxed. She suddenly realized how constantly on edge he must be around other people. Whoever he was with, whatever they were talking about, he was just waiting for someone to stick a knife into his head and twist it.
He’d come all the way out here to recover after a year of using his abilities to help people, and she’d burst into his life like a custom-designed weapon.
She stepped closer. He didn’t stir.
Maybe she could do better.
There had been a moment, hadn’t there, when he’d looked at her without flinching? Not counting that incredible, exhilarating evening they’d spent making love. That couldn’t count, she decided; it felt too unreal. Too raw and perfect. But after that, when they each knew the other’s secret and before he’d started asking and asking her about her family, there had been... comfort.
She closed her eyes and focused on the light inside her. The mate bond—lodged in her heart, with the delicate strand of gold connecting her to Hardwick. Every time they’d touched, kissed, understood each other, it felt stronger.
But it was still so delicate.
She reached out to touch Hardwick’s face and he rolled towards her, his hand coming up to hold hers. He was still asleep. Still looking relaxed, and calm, and like it wasn’t her at all that he was touching. Her heart filled her throat.
Not wanting to wake him up, she gently slid into the bed beside him. She tucked herself against his side, the same way she had earlier in the evening, before she figured out that what he really needed was for her to leave. But it was different now, wasn’t it? He wasn’t hurting.
Even if she had to leave before he woke up, she could stay now. Just for a while.
* * *
‘Now’ turned into all night, and in the morning, there was no time to escape.
“Delphine?”
Hardwick ran his hand down her back, softly, almost tentatively, as though he was trying to convince himself that she was really there. Delphine had been dreaming—she couldn’t remember of what, just that it was soft, and easy, and the world felt right.
She opened her eyes and for a moment, her dream was real.
Hardwick was gazing at her with sleepy eyes. He looked as relaxed as he had done when he was asleep.
“You stayed,” he murmured.
“I couldn’t leave you here alone,” she said at once. On Christmas morning. And just like that, the spell was broken. “I—I mean—maybe I should have—or I should have left before you woke up, that’s what I meant to do—”
“Stop.” His sleepiness was all gone now; he looked alarmed. She was getting this all wrong. Even when she tried to tell the truth, she got it wrong. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He pressed his forehead against hers and the shining mate bond in her heart glowed. “No lies, remember?”
And then he kissed her. His hands slid under her pajama shirt, caressing her waist and the tense line of her back.
She should have kept saying nothing. That seemed like the intelligent thing to do. Instead, when he finally pulled away, she asked:
“Do you feel better? Yesterday, you were—” I was scared, she wanted to say. But this wasn’t about her.
He brushed a strand of hair off her face. “I won’t tell you I’m feeling one hundred per cent, but I’m... improved.” He snorted. “I could probably make it to breakfast without collapsing.”
Breakfast. With her family. Her thoughts must have shown on her face because Hardwick rested a gentle hand on her cheek.
“Or not,” he said. “Seeing as the thought of it makes you miserable.”
“It’s not only that. It’s the thought of them hurting you, and…” And something so much more selfish she almost stopped herself from saying it. “And hurting me, too. After spending time with you and being able to tell you the truth about what I am, being around my family… It’s so much work. And it feels as though I’m not me when I’m around them. I keep thinking, None of you know me at all. Maybe that’s a good thing!” Even as she said it, it felt less like a joke and more like another horrible truth she had been keeping from herself. “When the truth does eventually come out, at least they won’t all hate me. They’ll hate the fake version of me I’ve been feeding them all these years.”
“And who is the real version?”
“I—I don’t know. I’m worried she doesn’t exist, under all the lies.” A hard bubble of laughter forced its way out of her throat. “That’s the trick! I don’t know what I’m worried about. How can I really be hurt by my family if I don’t even really exist?”
“Delphine, you exist.” Hardwick’s caress was soft, but firm. “Of course there’s a real you. I know you. You just need time to figure yourself out.”
She shivered and pulled closer to him. “Not now.”
“If you hate every minute of being with your family anyway, why not tell them? And you have me in your corner, now. You won’t have to face them alone. Why not tell them today?”
“And ruin Christmas?”
“And finally have a Christmas you can enjoy on your own terms.”
For a moment, the idea tempted her. A moment that made her light-headed with adrenaline. “No,” she said quickly. “It’s not only my secret to keep. And I’m not the only one who’ll be hurt when it comes out. Not even the one who’ll be the most hurt.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible.” Hardwick’s voice was a possessive growl. “But it’s your decision to make. In which case…” He rolled over, pulling her with him. “We don’t need to see them at all. We stay here. Just us.”
“I—” Delphine bit her lip. “I’m confused.”
Stay here, instead of facing her family? Stay here, 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 momen
t 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?”
