Page 1 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

1

Peony

Thecheerfultonesofa Christmas carol jingled from Peony’s pocket. She precariously balanced her pile of books in one arm and dug around in her candycane-patterned work apron until she found her phone.

It was the day before Christmas Eve, and she had a good idea who would be calling. One of her regulars—the ones who hadn’t made it into the shop to pick up their orders, or the ones who risked fate every year by leaving their present shopping to the last possible minute and begged her to find a miracle copy of the season’s top sellers when the shelves had already been picked bare.

Good news, Mr. Asterley, I kept a copy aside for you…She was already imagining what she would say, when she saw the name attached to the call.

Mom.

Her stomach clenched as she dismissed the call.

I already know what she’s going to say. And I’m at work! I’m too busy to talk now. She’ll understand.Excuses flew through her mind faster and thicker than the snowflakes whirling around outside the bookstore windows. None of them helped with the guilt.

Her family couldn’t wait to see her for Christmas Eve dinner. And she couldn’t wait for Christmas to be over.

I used to love Christmas. What happened?Silly question. She knew what had happened. Christmas had been fun when she was a kid, but now, every year it wasYou haven’t found your mate yet?AndPoor Peony, almost thirty and still no idea what her inner animal is.The fact that they said it with love only made it worse.

Everyone in Peony’s huge and hectic family was a shifter, but, unlike other magical families, their inner animals stayed locked away until they met their mate. On top of that, shifter forms weren’t inherited in her family. Her inner animal could be anything: a griffin like her older brother… a pegasus like her mom… a flying silver snake like her uncle…

Or a unicorn, like her little sister. Not that that was the reason she was dreading Christmas extra this year. The knowledge that her little sister would be there with her mate and her baby bump and her magically wonderful shifter form, and she would still be plain old Peony.

At least I’ll have SOME good news to share this Christmas. She juggled her phone back into her apron pocket and rubbed the shinyManagerbadge above her nametag. Mr. Blanderley had called her into his office a few days before, and honestly, she’d half expected that it was all over and he was going to fire her. Instead, he’d given her the promotion she’d been dreaming of since she started working at the bookstore.

So why does it feel so hollow?

Because it’s just a job. Because my real life hasn’t started yet. How can it, when I don’t know what my inner animal is?

What if I’m a water horse and books don’t fit in my new, damp lifestyle? Or a griffin who thinks books are nothing more than some padding to line my nest?

Her heart sank.

Why bother trying to achieve anything if it might all be swept away when I find out who I really am?

She swallowed. Oh, right.Thatwas why she maybe felt the teensiest, tiniest, ittiest bittiest bit not her usual happy perky self.

She paused in the middle of checking her pile of books against orders in the system, and her reflection stared back at her from the computer screen. Her dark curls were pinned back behind a pair of reindeer antlers festooned with holly. Her berry-red lipstick glowed against her brown skin.

But had the shadows under her eyes been that deep when she’d started work? And where was her smile? Sure, the shop was closed for the day and there weren’t any customers around, but as soon as she was done with these orders, she had a party to prep for.

Parties were fun. Where was her fun face?

The Hypatia Bookstore took up the old main foyer of the Hypatia Building, a grand Beaux-Arts building that groaned with history and old-world elegance. At least, a better-maintained version of it might have done. In reality, the Hypatia mostly just groaned. Pre-war plumbing fought it out with pre-war wiring for which of them would break next, and if the ancient chandelier that loomed beneath the foyer’s vaulted stained-glass ceiling was ever lit again, it would probably send the whole place up in flames.

The bookstore was the only business left in what had once been a sophisticated arcade on the ground floor, patronized by the wealthy and no doubt incredibly stylish and good-looking people who lived in the magnificent apartments above. These days, Peony was the only long-term resident alongside a revolving door of students and tourists misled about the current less-than-sophisticated status of the apartments.

But Peony loved it. She loved the mystery. The grandeur. Thepotential. The Hypatia had so much history—and it could have so much future, too.

If she won the lottery…

Hah. I’d have to play the lottery first. And that means I’d need to be able to afford a lottery ticket.Peony ignored the little voice in her head that said,You’d need to be a type of animal that cares about old architecture, too.

Peony might not have a mate. She didn’t know what her inner animal was. But she could throw a mean end-of-year party for her beloved bookshop and its employees, and that had to count for something, right?

For one night, the Hypatia Bookstore shone. Who cared about worn-out utilities and glitchy internet when glowing fairy lights turnedfadedintomysterious? Who worried about that one soft patch of flooring when she walled it off with bookshelves so nobody could accidentally sink into it? And who would even notice the rest of the Hypatia Building looming dark and ominously damp behind the fairytale bookshop in its foyer when these three hundred square feet of it were bursting with light and music and fun?

Not Peony, that was who.

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