Page 66 of Her Purr-fect Christmas Mate

“Howdoesthis keep happening every year?” Peony tsk’d quietly. *You’d think Santa would have figured it out by now.*

“There’s only one thing for it.” Heath huffed out his cheeks and put his hands on his hips. “We’ll have to carry all you kids up into the trees to find your presents!”

“Hooray!”

Shifters exploded into animal form all around the yard. Mordecai watched, a strange feeling unfurling inside him, as the picture-perfect Christmas scene turned into something from a fairy tale.

He understood the benefits of an exercise like this: none of the children were shifters, so they couldn’t communicate with the adults telepathically when the adults were in animal form. This forced them to find other ways to communicate: sign language, body language. There was no guarantee the children would find their mates early. Being able to understand their shifter relatives without the use of telepathy would be a vital skill as they grew up. The grown-ups had to slow down to make sure the kids understood and were safe, and the kids got to order them around and see their parents and aunts and uncles make fools of themselves scrambling after brightly-wrapped presents. The older children got to explore the bridging gap between childhood and adulthood, taking on some of the responsibility of knowing it was all a game while honing their own skills and looking out for the littler ones.

It was a good ploy, all said.

But that wasn’t why he felt so strange.

“Auntie Iris, will you help Jessamine and me?” A tweenager approached them, holding the hand of an awed-looking child of some other, younger age. Mordecai hunted through his brain for references to child ages and came up blank.

Younger than twenty, his dragon suggested.

He snorted.Yes. Technically correct. I am fairly sure the tiny tot who barely comes up to my knees is younger than twenty.

“Of course! Elaine and I would love to help you find your presents.” Iris transformed into an ethereal unicorn. Beside her, Elaine shrugged herself into a massive bear. The two kids jumped on their backs, and they headed off into the trees.

“What if the presents are high up in the trees?” Peony called after her sister.

*Then Elaine will throw the kids up!*Iris shouted back.

Peony did an exaggerated double-take. “You’llthrowthem into the trees?”

Jessamine shrieked with delight.

Peony shook her head. “At least with the flying shifters, you don’t need to worry about someone catching you on the way down.”

“But I don’t want to flyorbe thrown,” said a small voice.

Mordecai looked down. A little boy was staring up at the trees with a worried expression. He couldn’t have been much older than five or six. Probably. “What’s your name?”

“Briar.” His eyes widened. “Are you Peony’s husband? Who’s a dragon?”

New traveled fast in his mate’s family. From the amused noise Peony made, his cheeks had just gone an interesting color. “We’re not married.”Yet.

*Yes, YET,*Peony agreed placidly. *One of us has to ask the other, first. You’d better be quick about it if you want to get in first.*

“But I am the dragon shifter.”

Briar looked around. Mordecai and Peony were among the last adults left in front of the house, and the others were all flying shifters. He looked at Peony. “And you’re a cat?”

“That’s right.” She shot Mordecai a self-deprecating thought.Days of drama over what my inner animal is and what it means about my soul, but to most of the people here, I’m just Auntie Somebody.

“Cats are small.”

It wasn’t hard to follow the poor kid’s train of thought. If scared old Santa had been careless enough to drop his presents up high, his choices were either cling to someone’s back and fly up into the canopy—something he clearly didn’t want to do—or wander around on the forest floor and hope someone shook them down.

Being thrown around by Elaine probably didn’t appeal, either.

Peony kneeled down in front of Briar, a mischievous grin on her face. “That’s right. My cat isverysmall. But you know what it’s good at?” She looked up at Mordecai. “Climbing.”

Mordecai hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said he didn’t shift in the city because there wasn’t room. No one could miss a creature the size of his dragon flying around the skyscrapers.

But out here? He was the perfect size.

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