by Chant, Zoe
“We couldn’t stay there any longer! It’s awful. Grandmother and Grandfather said—”
Her mate’s expression pinched and Hardwick sensed the strange mental whisper of private telepathic chatter. Pebbles’ chin went up.
“You’re right. That’s family business.” Her expression settled. “Auntie Sara, Delphine, we want you to know that we’ve decided—”
Hardwick braced himself. He’d guessed that the revelation that the Belgrave line didn’t run ‘true’ with Delphine might cause problems for Pebbles and her bird of paradise mate, but however panicked they were now, he didn’t trust them not to twist lies around their words.
“Wait.” Delphine stood up and moved in front of her cousin. Between them and him, Hardwick realized. “Before you say anything, you have to know that Hardwick can sense it when you lie.”
Calculations flashed behind Pebbles’ eyes. “Oh, that’s—”
“And it hurts him.” Delphine’s voice flattened. “And if you hurt him, I’ll throw you out of here, family or not.”
Hardwick’s heart filled. His mate was protecting him. From her family—the same family that, a day ago, she would have thrown herself into traffic to appease.
But not him. The light in his chest flared, and the emotion that flowed through it from his mate was as good as a word: Mine.
He was hers. And the same as she was protecting him, he would make sure she found the confidence and trust in herself to defend herself as much as she was defending him.
“Oh, er, that’s…” Pebbles looked lost. Her mate took her hand.
“Tell them, then,” he said.
Pebbles drew herself up. “It’s chaos down there,” she admitted. “Everyone’s fighting. You just left. And I thought—it wasn’t fair, how they abandoned…”
Hardwick sucked in a breath. It wasn’t a full lie, but it was close enough.
Delphine actually growled.
“I mean—I mean they started looking at us, too, and Grandmother asked if we were sure we wanted to have children, and how she understood that young people these days sometimes wanted to have c-careers instead, or travel, and that if that was what we wanted then it would be just fine with her.” Her face went blotchy, red vivid against white. “They’re not even mates! They’ve been pretending all this time that Belgraves are so, so blessed, and the truth is it’s all a lie, it’s all fake. She said we shouldn’t…”
Her voice wavered out and she buried her face in her mate’s shoulder. He stared at the rest of them, his gaze defiant, and Hardwick wondered how much it had taken from the other man over the years to be a part of the Belgrave clan, surrounded by their cultish self-absorption.
Delphine had wanted to spare him that. The day by day, week by week wearing away of his own beliefs and wants and hopes against the driving force of Belgrave selfishness.
“So, we are here now,” Pascal said. “Not as fast as you, though.”
“Did they throw you out?” Delphine asked, her voice tight.
He shrugged, but there was a tension in the movement that made Pebbles raise her head and brush his hair off his face. “The party atmosphere was not so great by then, anyway.”
“And you’ve come here to—”
Pebbles replied. “Apolo—no. Shouldn’t lie.” Her mouth twisted. “You were so brave, leaving like you did. I don’t feel brave. I feel like I’ve been so stupid, and I should have seen so much earlier… including you. We practically grew up together, Delphy, and I never saw…”
“I never wanted you to.”
She drew in a ragged breath. “Grandfather said that you’re the one I should be angry at. Because you hid the truth and if I’d known earlier that you weren’t a winged lion shifter, I would have made better choices. As though Pascal isn’t the best choice I made in my life!”
“We brought our bags. And your luggage, too.” A nervous smile. “I do not particularly wish to go back to that hotel, but if you are finding other accommodations, perhaps we could…”
“Join the party!” Jasper suggested, clapping his hands together. “Er—if that’s all right with our other guests, of course.”
Delphine hesitated. Her indecision fluttered down the mate bond—and then her certainty, bright as the midday sun. “Of course,” she said. “They are family, after all. Real family.”
Pebbles and Pascal weren’t the only Belgraves to slink through the Heartwells’ door. The other younger cousins appeared mid-afternoon, bedraggled and beaten down, and Jasper was merrily run off his feet trying to find places for them all to stay. They all had the same story: that once Delphine left, the Belgrave clan had started to splinter, revealing cracks that ran so deep nothing could keep it together.
Hardwick took Delphine aside during a quiet moment, to check that she was alright.
She looked dazed. “I think I am,” she said softly, watching Brutus and Livia help Ruby build a snow-lion in the yard. “I… I don’t know. I should feel awful, but I don’t. I did what I always feared. Tore my family apart.”
He waited, and after a few moments, she lifted her chin and looked him in the eyes.
“But I don’t feel awful. I feel like if all it took for my grandparents to lose control of the family was me leaving before they could cast me aside, then they deserve to watch it all fall apart.”
The sudden growl in her voice went straight to his heart. He pulled her to him, kissing her until they were both breathless. “Good,” he rumbled against her lips.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
Her lips curved against his. “My Christmas present.”
His heart almost stopped. He hadn’t gotten her anything. No matter than he hadn’t known she existed until a few days ago, and there hadn’t exactly been time to go shopping. “I didn’t—”
“You did.” She nuzzled against him. “Because of you, I get to figure out who I really am, when I’m not trying to be something I’m not. And I get to do that with you. That’s the best Christmas present I could ever imagine.”
They slipped into the shadows. It was almost dinner time; any minute now, someone would come hunting for them. This time, though, he wasn’t sure they would go.
Delphine’s eyes shone in the dying light. “You’re looking happy,” she said.
“So are you.”
She smiled, and the glow in his chest lit up. The light that had kindled first as a weak, flickering thing flared like a bonfire. “I wonder why that might be.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” she agreed, reaching up to kiss him again. “I don’t.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Delphine
Hardwick’s scent filled her mind as he pushed her against the wall. Wild, passionate, and hers.
He gasped against her lips. “Do that again.”
Mine.
The feeling darted down the mate bond, sharp and greedy and unashamed. Hardwick moaned.
“And you’re mine.” His voice sent lightning down her spine and made heat unfurl between her legs.
The Heartwells had offered them their guesthouse for the night. Opal had called it ‘that little cabin down by the edge of the property,’ but that hardly did it justice. Not after the ‘little cabin’ she and Hardwick had spent their first few nights together in.
Honeymoon suite, more like.
The small house was tucked away privately, out of sight of the main lodge. Its décor was all solid wood and thick pillows and infinitely fall-upon-able. She and Hardwick hadn’t bothered unpacking the luggage that Pebbles and Pascal had smuggled up. The teasing desire that had built almost to breaking point as they laughed and talked and celebrated with the Heartwells and the newly forged, smaller Belgrave clan had lasted until they closed the door behind them and then shattered. Spectacularly.
She knew Hardwick hadn’t packed many shirts. That didn’t stop her from ripping his off.
His chest was hot under her fingers, his heartbeat a drum that echoed in her own c
hest. She kissed his collarbone, his pecs, ran greedy fingers down the planes of his abs and hooked them into his belt. He growled something that was all meaning and no words, his own fingers slipping as he tried to pull off her own shirt. She teased him, drawing the belt through its buckle oh-so-slowly, and he swore deep in his throat.
“Please,” he begged, and she let him go, stepped back, raised her arms obediently for him to strip her.
He was more controlled than she was. He dropped to his knees in front of her, raising the hem of her sweater inch by inch and peppering her bare skin with kisses. Every touch made every other inch of her skin want to be touched. By the time he reached her breasts, she was shaking.
This was so much more intense than the first time they’d had sex. That had been all fierce need, lust mingling with frustration and the half-wonder, half-terror of knowing the connection she’d sensed was real. Now, Hardwick’s mouth on her was like a blessing, sweet and longing.
He dropped her sweater on the floor and pulled down the straps of her bra one at a time, caressing the soft skin of her breasts and touching his lips to her nipples. Goosebumps prickled across her skin. She gasped, arching her back, her whole body singing out more, more.
“Please, I want you to—” Her breath hitched as he circled her nipple with his tongue. “—teeth—”
He bit down, gently, and Delphine’s legs almost gave out. Only Hardwick’s strong hands around her waist kept her upright. And he kept biting, light, teasing brushes of tooth against skin, up her neck, to her heat-washed lips.
There was a question in his eyes. “What is it?” she asked.
“Last time…” His hands ghosted down her sides. She hitched her hips towards him, and he moaned as her stomach pressed against the hardness between his legs. “It was incredible. If you want to do that again—”
“I want,” she murmured, raising one finger to outline his lips, “whatever you want.”
His pupils darkened. “Slower?”
“Slower.”
“God, I love you.”
Love. The word dove home in Delphine’s chest, piercing her heart. She was helpless as he kissed her again, as slowly as he’d asked for, his fingers slipping under her waistline and pushing her trousers down. Slowly, slowly. She would want fast and hard again, she knew, but this, now, was perfect.
He teased her until she thought she would go mad. She was slick with need, hot and loose-limbed with want. When she slid down his body, laying kisses in a trail that went from his neck to his stomach, his arms tightened around her as though he thought she really was falling. She gently pushed his hands away and sank lower.
He groaned as she pulled at his belt again—slowly, slowly—and she relished the sound. When she freed his cock at last a thrill pulsed between her legs.
She kissed the end of it first, then along one side. Hardwick’s hands tangled in her hair. “Oh, God, Delphine—”
His hips twitched as she wrapped her lips around his tip and she drew back, a smile hovering around her mouth. “Who said he wanted ‘slower’?” she reminded him.
The expression in his eyes made her breath catch.
She held his gaze as she put her mouth on him again, sucking his cock in with sensual, excruciating slowness. She tasted a hint of salt as she swirled her tongue across the head of his cock and felt Hardwick’s groan thrum against her lips. Her own hum, pleasurable and low, made him twitch against her.
When she thought they were both about to break, she pulled away and rose to her feet again. Hardwick crushed her to his chest, his breathing ragged. They made their way to the bedroom, feet tripping over themselves, every step an excuse to stop and kiss and run hungry hands over one another. At last, Hardwick picked her up and lowered her gently onto a coverlet that was soft as a cloud beneath her back. He eased her pants off and stood back, his dark eyes hooded as he stared at her.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his voice honey mixed with gravel.
There was no self-consciousness. Delphine glowed beneath his hot gaze, basking in his admiration. How could she be self-conscious about being this man’s mate?
“And I’m yours.” Her voice was husky.
He lowered himself over her with the grace of a predatory animal, his lean muscles hardly hinting at his strength. When his skin touched hers, she gasped. He was all heat, all desire and passion and perfect, possessive want.
She opened her legs and he pushed himself inside her. Last time, his brutal pace had left her breathless; this time, her chest was tight with wonder. Every sensation was amplified, from the stretch of his thick length to the whispers of love he breathed into her ear. She angled her hips, welcoming him in, wanting him to fill her completely. When he finally hilted himself completely it was so perfect, she thought she would break apart.
Then he rocked his hips against hers, and she saw stars.
She clenched around him, slowness impossible now, her orgasm a rolling, storm-whipped ocean of peaks that grew higher and higher. Arms outflung, she was barely aware of her cries until Hardwick muffled them with a kiss. She wrapped her legs around his hips so that next time he pulled out she stayed with him, locked in place, her hips lifted off the bed, and when he thrust down again he drove another storm of pleasure through her.
She was limp and exhausted by the time he came, one hand gripping her hip with bruising strength and the other knotted in her hair. He kissed her, pleasure a growl on his lips as his cock pulsed.
“I love you,” she whispered, all other words beyond her.
“And I you.” He raised his head. She sank into his dark eyes, just looking at him. Why not? There was no need for words. She’d already drowned in pleasure, and he knew that she was his. Just like he was hers.
The mate bond suddenly burst into brilliant light. She’d likened it to a sun before; now it was as though she was in the sun, her whole body filled with white-gold light. Hardwick exclaimed in wonder. He pressed his forehead against hers, and the sheer strength of the love that poured through the mate bond into her heart overwhelmed her.
Yes, she thought, yes, like this, forever. This is what I want. She sent that feeling through the mate bond to his heart, too, and his joy was a spring chorus in her soul.
The light faded, but her whole body felt light, as though it was feeling an after-image of the mate bond’s magical power. Hardwick rolled over and gathered her to him.
“Happy Christmas,” he murmured to her.
“The first of many,” she promised him.
And it was the truth.
Epilogue
Delphine
Hardwick dropped a crate on the kitchen table and brushed off his hands. “That’s the last of them.”
Delphine resisted the urge to dust off the rest of him, too. He’d managed to keep his clothes on the first few times he shifted, but they had enough luggage that the last few trips, he either hadn’t managed it or hadn’t bothered.
Hardwick caught her admiring glance and raised one eyebrow.
Why am I resisting the urge? she asked herself and sauntered over to carefully brush quickly melting snowflakes off his broad shoulders.
“Enough to last us through the end of January.” She put her arms around his waist and surveyed the kitchen. There were another half-dozen wooden crates brimming with groceries on the table, not including the perishables she’d already begun storing in the fridge and chest freezer. Hardwick might have been happy living off frozen pizza alone when he tried this the first time, but a girl needed her gooey cheeses, damn it.
The Heartwells had been over the moon when she and Hardwick said they needed a place to stay—and that the old cabin Hardwick had rented for Christmas just wasn’t going to cut it without an emergency roof replacement. Opal and Jasper had pored over their property listings with so much glee that Delphine was left wondering whether the dragon siblings hoarded gold, like all the stories said, or vacation homes.
After ruling out houses that were too close to town, too close
to the winter sledding tracks, or otherwise unsuitable for reasons that seemed perfectly clear to the Heartwells but mystified Delphine, they had settled on a rustic one-bedroom cottage that was so far off the beaten track you had to fly in. Hardwick had flown Delphine in first, with the key, and then made as many trips as it took to bring in all their gear.
They’d had plenty of offers of help, of course; every flying shifter in the valley had volunteered to help ferry bags and boxed, but Hardwick had declined. Delphine was glad about that. It meant that this time together started the way it was meant to go on: just them.
She leaned against him, as though she was trying to warm him up and not the other way around. There was no doubt left in her mind that they were mates, and meant to be together—but ‘meant to be together’ in the long run and ‘meant to be together right now’ weren’t necessarily the same thing.
“A whole month,” she said. “I’ve still got the car keys if you decide you need the time actually alone.”
Hardwick stiffened in her arms. “Why would you say that?”
Because—She bit her lip and forced herself not to weave a make-nice story. Hardwick was watching her, a familiar, hard wariness in his eyes. “Because you’re still exhausted and you’re still hurting more than you should when people lie, and I—I don’t know how good I’ll be at not lying. I’ll do my best. But I don’t want to slip up and hurt you.” She raised one hand to rest against his cheek.
He didn’t rush to reassure her. That was reassuring in of itself. He was taking her seriously. And taking his own health seriously.
“You don’t hurt me anymore,” he said, covering her hand with his.
She swallowed. “You don’t have to—”
“Delphine. Do I lie?”
Delphine stared into her mate’s dark eyes. “No, you don’t, but…” Self-consciousness was an itch beneath her skin. “If you’re trying to save my feelings—I know that just being around me gave you a headache, when we first met. You don’t have to… to…”