Santa Soldier Bear - Meg Ripley Page 0,31

had been reaching out to each other. Now, it was her mind that reached out toward his like a curling wisp of magic in the December air, something so intrinsic and natural that Melody hardly even knew what it was as it was happening. But it persisted nonetheless, yearning toward its one goal.

Roman got up and strode away from the cubs, his body changing as he moved toward the back door. His snowy fur melted away as his ears returned to their human shape, and he straightened up onto two feet as his paws once again became fingers. That strand of something that had reached out so desperately, so instinctively for him slammed into a wall as he became a human again, just in time to open the back door and disappear.

The cubs looked disappointedly after him. Melody did, too, but she couldn’t dwell on that. The most important thing at the moment was the children, not some man who couldn’t seem to make up his mind about where or who he wanted to be. She swiveled her head, looking for something to distract them from having lost their playmate, and found a late-season flower growing along the fence line. Melody pounced toward it and purposely missed, leaving it bobbing and weaving in her wake. Lucas and Ruby batted at it joyfully.

Out of the corner of her eye, Melody watched the house. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, that perhaps he’d realized he had something he needed to do with Amar for the mission or that he’d eaten some leftovers that’d been in the fridge too long. But Roman had given no explanation when he went inside, nor was there any sign of him returning. Whatever his problem was, she wasn’t going to find out anytime soon.

9

Roman shut the door behind him and curled his hands into fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. All he’d wanted to do was talk to Melody a little and make her realize that he hadn’t meant to offend her. He wasn’t about to make up with her, not in the way that mates would if they were going to make their connection a permanent one. There was just something about her being angry with him that he couldn’t stand, and he’d wanted to fix it. Roman wouldn’t be staying there in L.A., but he didn’t want to go on with the rest of his life knowing she thought of him as an asshole.

Then the kids had gotten involved. At first, Roman thought that might make it easier. They might soften Melody up a bit, make her more willing to listen to him. She didn’t have to change her mind about him completely, she only had to know that he hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. The conversation Roman had wanted had been lost in the playtime of the backyard, and before Roman knew it, he was far too busy wrestling on the grass with the cubs to think about anything else.

Other than how striking Melody was in her true form. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a snow leopard shifter before. They weren’t nearly as common as the typical bears, tigers, and wolves. Though even his own form wasn’t the most common, he knew it was nothing compared to the magnificence of Melody. Her feline was lithe and quick, sidestepping without a hint of hesitation to nudge Ruby when she got off balance. She happily twitched her tail in the air to create a plaything for the children, who seemed to get quite the kick out of chasing her. At one point, Melody pretended to stalk Lucas and Ruby from behind a bush, digging her paws into the grass and wiggling her hind end in the air. That had certainly caught Roman’s attention, but the children were far more intrigued when she sprang out at them and dodged to the side as though she’d missed.

But then that little nudge had shown up in the back of his mind. Roman had recognized it instantly. Shifters of the same clan shared a telepathic link, one that allowed them to communicate with each other when in their animal forms. He had the same thing with his clan in Wyoming, and it was what made a clan truly feel like a family. Roman had always heard the stories of fated mates who experienced the same thing and how their bond formed that connection just like blood ties did. For the longest time, he