Page 11 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

What the hell.One more bad decision couldn’t make this night any worse.

She grabbed his face between her hands and kissed him.

His lips were soft. Somehow, she’d expected them to be sharp, like his eyes.

The taste of him shot straight through her. She wanted more. She wanted to lick him all over. No, she wanted totellhim she wanted to lick him all over, and make his face burn with shocked lust all over again. And then do it.

She was sure the last frog she’d kissed hadn’t muddled her mind like this.

She wanted—

I want him to kiss me back.

His lips were soft, but the rest of him was rigid with shock. The Peony she recognized—the one who did not maul random evil wizards—emerged slowly as though from a great mental depth.Oh.

Maybe this wasn’t just a bad decision. Maybe it was a terrible decision.

Then he let out a shuddering gasp. His mouth opened beneath hers. He kissed her deeply, savagely. She was vaguely aware of his body unstiffening. Was he going to put his arms around her? Oh god, she wanted him to hold her.

She—

The ruffled-restless-mischievous feeling inside her flared to life. Everything went blurry.

The next minute, she was staring at Mordecai’s shoes.

What?

She looked down, and her vision whirled. Not only was the floor a lot closer than it had been a second ago, but those weren’t her feet. They werepaws.Fuzzy, sand-colored paws. Her nose twitched; a thousand, thousand smells crashed into her senses, andwhiskerstrembled at the edges of her vision.

Oh no. Oh no no no no.

The tree-trunk-like columns of Mordecai’s legs bent. He knelt in front of her, his face pale with shock, his eyes like chips of distilled and frozen midnight. “Peony?”

He ran one hand across his face. Shock gave his face more life than she’d seen on it yet.

The shock gave way to something softer. Tentative. He lowered his hand.

*Peony?*

His lips didn’t move, but his voice rolled through her mind. Her hair—herfur—stood on end. Telepathy was one of the shifter abilities she’d missed out on so far in her life.

Wait.

She could hear Mordecai’s voice in her head because she was a shifter. He could speak telepathically… because he was, too.

She had found her soulmate.

And it was Mordecai Leith.

He knew,she thought suddenly. He was a shifter. He must have recognized her as his mate when he first saw her.

And he’d tried to leave. Without saying anything to her. If he hadn’t slipped on the ice…

She stared up into his dark eyes, and he looked… resigned.

She really hadn’t thought she had any heart left to break. But she was learning so many things about herself tonight. What was one more?

4

---