Page 23 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

Peony’s tail lashed. She sprang from the vanity and dashed back into his bedroom. *I don’t care if it is fate! This can’t be what’s meant to be. WhatI’mmeant to be. A person’s mate is meant to be their perfect companion, someone who’ll complement them and strengthen them, not some useless little—*

“Not me?” His voice was pure ice. It left his lips numb.

Peony-the-cat turned her luminous green eyes on him.

He realized, too late, that the expression in Peony-the-cat’s eyes wasn’t hatred. It was desperation. And the hurt in his chest wasn’t only his own.

His mate was as profligate with her emotions as she was her thoughts, and he’d made the classic negotiating mistake of focusing on his opponent’s words, not the feelings they hid.

You’re also thinking of her as your opponent,his dragon whispered. He winced.

But it was too late. She hadn’t seen desperation in his eyes; she’d seen ice and heartlessness. Her ears flicked back. She jumped up onto the bed, the better to glare at him.

*You left,*she accused him. *You saw me, and you must have known I was your mate then, and you stood up there and took everything away from me and then you LEFT.*

Her voice was a snarl in his head. The smell of rust and ashes filled his nose.No, don’t,his dragon whispered urgently, but the words were already snapping from his frozen lips.

“Left what? You saw me. You felt what I did. Why would I stay when you clearly didn’t want to acknowledge the connection between us?”

*I didn’t know!*

Her psychic shout was so loud, it took him a second to piece out what she had actually said. He frowned. “What do you mean, you didn’t know?”

She edged backwards, discomfort radiating from every hair on her body. *I didn’t know. Okay? I couldn’t tell you were my mate until I kissed you.*

“How is that possible?” He would have assumed she was lying, except she was so obviously unhappy that she’d revealed it. “All shifters recognize their mates on sight.”

*I wasn’t a shifter then.*

He stared at her cat form.

She tried to roll her eyes and almost fell off the side of the bed. *Yes, yes, okay, I know how it sounds. But I wasn’t. My family are shifters, but not until we meet our mates. I don’t know why it works that way for us, so don’t ask me.*

“You’ve never shifted before today?” That explained why she hadn’t been able to transform back into her human body. And— “Telepathy must be new to you, as well.”

She sunk down low, a tiny cringing loaf. *Yeah. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?*

“Your actions do seem a lot less mad, in hindsight.” He sat down beside her.

*That’s nice of you to say, but I think we both know it’s a lie.*She sighed. It washed through his mind, and the fist-like knot in his chest loosened. *I’ve never… I don’t…*

Her thoughts tumbled over one another. He waited for her to straighten them out. Her frustration made sense, now.

Her first shift.What had his first time been like?

Dark,his dragon said.Cold.

He shivered.

“It must have been hard, knowing you were a cat shifter but not being able to access that side of yourself,” he said to fill the silence.

She flicked her whiskers at him. *I didn’t know I was a cat shifter.*

“Did no one in your family—?” He stopped himself. If nobody in her family had found their mates, of course they wouldn’t know they were cat shifters. But then how would they have known they were shifters at all? Was it a family legend? That would explain her frenzied reaction. If she had no point of reference for what it was like to shift, the sudden explosion of psychic abilities, no wonder she had found it difficult.

*Shifter type isn’t inherited in my family. It’s random. No, not random, it’s…*The fur over her shoulders twitched. *It’s a reflection of who we really are. Which means none of us really know our true inner selves until we meet our mate and shift for the first time. I always hoped… but that doesn’t matter now.*She drew a ragged breath. The force of it in his mind shook him. *I spent my whole life waiting to find out who I am, and this is it. I’m tiny and cute and adorable and helpless.*

This has nothing to do with me after all.The relief was immediate and immediately followed by a rush of guilt. His mate was hurting, her whole understanding of her own nature turned on its head, and his first reaction was relief that he wasn’t the target of her anguish?

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