Page 58 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

“You’re not.” He nestled her closer, burying his face in her hair and breathing her in. “I need someone who can stand up to me.”

“By biting you?”

“If necessary.” He kissed the top of her head. “I can stand a few love bites from a creature so absolutely unterrified of my dragon that it wants to chase it like a mouse.”

“Oh, really?” She lifted her head and grinned at him. Light filled his heart, flowing down the magical bond between them. “Like your dragon’s way of playing is rolling over on its back and pretending to be grievously wounded. Or… faking a sprained ankle.”

Mordecai smiled. “Figured that one out, did you?” He took her hand and kissed it, fingertip by fingertip, then pressed her palm against his lips. *My dragon isn’t the only one who enjoys having someone who doesn’t think it’s terrifying.*

*Really? Because I’m sure I could manage to find you terrifying. If I tried very, very hard.*Her eyes were smiling.

“I am your villain, after all,” he murmured against her palm.

“The evil wizard who wanted to destroy my tower. How could I find you anything but scary?”

“Thank you,” he said wryly. “I spent years perfecting my terrifying nature.”

It wasn’t a lie. What would he have been, if he hadn’t felt he needed to present that face to the world and his grandmother?

“And I never let my dragon be anything else,” he admitted. “I thought a dragon had to be fierce, and…” He broke off awkwardly.

Peony’s gaze was understanding. “Since you had such a grand revenge planned, you and it both had to be scary enough to see it through?”

“And the other way around. Because I had this terrifying inner animal, I had to use it to further my revenge. Why would I have a dragon, if not to raze my enemies?”

They both looked inside themselves, to where their inner animals were playing in the place where their souls joined.

He was still smiling. This was ridiculous. What right did he have to be this happy?

“Every right,” Peony informed him abruptly.

“I never gave it enough space to find out what it really was. WhoIreally was. My grandmother’s revenge kept me from traveling… and there isn’t any place for dragons in the city,” he said.

Peony lifted her face and kissed him. “Well, I’ve got plans for that,” she declared. “As for right now… Luckily, there isplentyof room for dragons on my family’s property.” Her kiss turned to a grin. “And I can’twaitto see you transform. Thank goodness you only told me now, though. I can’t imagine how crushing I would have found it when I thought my cat meant I had to be pliant and weak.”

Mordecai stared pointedly at her cat, who was murdering his dragon’s pointed tail. “Quite.”

“You didn’t know me before it,” she said defensively. “Before my cat appeared, I would have died rather than be… be anything like I have been the last few days.” She flushed hotly.

“No? No clawing?” He drew her closer. “No purchasing irritatingly inexpensive clothing when I’m trying to treat you? No romantic dates running errands for your work? No holding yourself hostage in cat form and forcing me to go to dreadful clubs?”

She grinned at him, all teeth. “I would have folded the first time you scowled at me.”

“Thank god for your cat, then.”

“Yes,” she said and kissed him.

They untangled from one another, eventually, and then began the less enjoyable process of untangling themselves from the car.

“Ow—”

“Is that your seat belt?”

“Watch out, if I bump the handbrake, we’ll roll into a ditch.”

“Miss Fisher. Cars this expensive do not roll into common ditches.”

She giggled. “What if you’d gotten into your car before your dragon tried to trip you up, the night we met?”

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