Page 20 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

6

Mordecai

Peonywastooquiet.

You should have killed them.His dragon saw things very simply.

Just for once, he would have liked to see things simply, too.

He ground his teeth as his breath plumed out into the frosty air like an echo of the firestorm his dragon wanted to pour over the men he’d left toasting their good luck in the club.

If Peony had asked him to, he would have. Damn the consequences. The rage that had built inside him as he realized he’d been duped would have been so easy to let out. If she’d been angry, if she’d wanted her own white-hot revenge, he would have given it to her.

But she hadn’t been angry. She was so quiet and so still that only the warm weight in his pocket reassured him she was still there.

*Miss Fisher—*

*Don’t.*She could not have made it more painfully clear that she didn’t want his help.

And what sort of help could you offer her? What good are you? You can’t even get your own revenge right. Your life’s work, and for what? They’re happy. You didn’t destroy them. You helped them. Might as well have shined their shoes for them on your way out.

For one brief moment, he had thought that was why Peony had wanted to come to the meeting: to see his carefully laid plans come to nothing. He had imagined her conspiring with the others to humiliate him.

But the confusion and misery pouring from her mind set him right. And the way they’d talked about her…

*Miss Fisher,*he tried again. *Peony. Say something to me.*

*I’d like to go home.*Her voice was a tiny, frail thing. He wanted to take her in his hands and comfort her. *No, wait. I can’t go there now. Not—*

Not when the Hypatia would echo with the cruel words of her boss and his friends.

He flexed his hand before he did something stupid like touch her.

*Not the Hypatia,*he said, and the relief that flooded into his mind from hers hurt. *I’ll take you to my house.*

She didn’t speak on the drive or during the excruciating elevator journey to his penthouse. Mordecai glared at his reflection in the elevator’s mirrored walls and decided it was a good thing she couldn’t see him like this. The doorman hadn’t batted an eyelid when he’d walked in. The man deserved a raise; Mordecai looked like he was ready to murder someone.

Of course he didn’t bat an eyelid. He’s used to seeing you like this. Everyone is.But his mate?

I’m meant to be gentle for her. A lover. Not… this.

Even a human would be able to see the dragon in him like this. The doorman was probably going to have nightmares about burning villages.

He took one last look at his thunderous expression and bit back a sigh.

As though she doesn’t already know who I am.Smiling and acting pleasant wouldn’t save him now.

Still, he tried to wrestle back control over his face as he stalked to his apartment. By the time he was standing in his living space—his sanctuary, as he’d always thought of it—he at least no longer looked a hair’s breadth from burning the entire city to the ground.

Peony was still silent in his pocket. He paused. “We’re here.”

*Oh.*She tentatively stuck her head out the top of his pocket.

He froze, suddenly unmoored in his own body. Knowing she was there was one thing, but seeing her ears twitch as she looked around the room sent him so far off his bearings it was either freeze or collapse.

She trusted me to hold her. To take her to where she wanted to go, while she was stuck in this tiny form.Nobody had ever trusted him like that before.Every time I try to pull away, she comes one step closer to me.

She looked around. He waited, silent, one arm held out oddly from his side because he suddenly didn’t know what to do with it.

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