Page 63 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

His head was resting against the seat back, eyes closed, pitch lashes fluttering faintly beneath eyebrows that were only slightly less forbidding in slumber. His chest moved with slow, heavy breaths, and his arms, though they were still wrapped around her, were loose and relaxed.

It’s a Christmas miracle,Peony thought, without a trace of irony. She never could have imagined the Mordecai she’d met at the bookstore letting his guard down so thoroughly in company. And yet here he was: utterly at peace. Even the deep lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth had smoothed out. He looked younger. Happier.

I barely even want to pounce on him,her cat admitted.

“Come on, Mr. Leith. Upstairs.”

His eyes opened blearily as she tugged him upright. “Hmm? Oh— G’night, everyone.”

Peony’s childhood room was a converted attic space.

Mordecai looked around, still half-dozing, as she pulled him through the door. “Cozy,” he remarked.

“Don’t rub it in. I wanted the attic room so I could live my dreams of being a poor mistreated Rapunzel in the drafty tower, but Dad insisted on insulating everything and sweeping out all the spider webs.”

“I can see why the Hypatia appealed so much to you.”

“Ouch. Rude.”

The ceiling was A-shaped, with one big dormer window looking out over the woods and the dark, starry sky. Thanks to Julius’s determination that his middle child not freeze like a Gothic heroine in the winter, the room was warm and dry, even with the curtains open. She pulled them closed, and the space was even cozier: her beloved bookshelves, the lamp that sent ghostly flower patterns onto the creamy walls, the framed pictures of magical landscapes full of fairies and witches and dragons.

Mordecai ran his fingers along the frame of one of the dragon pictures, his lips twitching.

“That inaccurate, huh?”

“You’ll have to wait and see.” He pulled her to him for a kiss, then looked down. “That’s a small bed.”

“You’d better take the floor, then.”

His eyes danced. “I think we’ll manage.”

They fell into bed together. Mordecai was asleep again within moments. Peony’s thoughts were scattered; her cat was tucking itself into a tight ball inside her, tail over its nose, and Mordecai’s heart beat strong and steady beneath her head.

“I love you,” she whispered, and even though she was sure he’d been asleep, his arms tightened dragon-possessive around her.

*Good.*

She laughed and fell asleep nestled against his chest.

16

Mordecai

Mordecaiwasusedtowaking on Christmas morning with a mixed sense of dread and sick relief. Dread because Christmas morning meant a meal with his grandmother and the anger that twisted around her like barbed wire; relief because Christmas morning meant only one day until after Christmas, when his grandmother deemed her family responsibilities over for the year and he could look forward to a precious almost-a-week on his own.

I’ll never spend that time alone again. The thought filled him with a warm, heavy happiness, like his blood had turned to sweet honey.

Peony was in his arms. They were in her family home. A family where people loved each other. It felt like something from one of her books lined up against the wall: the same level of reality as a world with wizards and spells.

Which is a strange thing for someone who has a dragon in his head to think, he laughed at himself.

He’d caught snatches of Peony’s conversation with her mother the night before. Fern loved her daughter with a ferocity that he would have been jealous of, except that he couldn’t envy his mate anything. She deserved all the love in the world. And, having met her family, he understood why even with all that love, she’d felt out of place waiting for her inner animal to appear.

Waiting for him.

Peony frowned. “What are you thinking about? I can already tell it’s bad.”

“I should have found you earlier. If I’d been less focused on my revenge . . .” And, hell, how small and petty that word sounded here, surrounded by love.

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