The Snow Leopard's Mate (Glacier Leopards 1)

He’d never imagined that his mate would be someone like Alethia.

When he’d thought about it, he’d always pictured a tomboy, a woman who wore hiking boots and a baseball cap instead of heels and makeup. He’d always figured that a woman who liked clothes and nail polish and… all that stuff…wouldn’t be happy with him.

But now that he’d met Alethia, he knew different. She’d been so happy that he was willing to listen to her talk about the things she liked. It was such a simple thing. Sure, he couldn’t hold up his end of a conversation about lipstick or whatever, but he wouldn’t say no to learning a bit about things that had always been a total mystery to him.

Besides, anything that made her look that insanely beautiful had to be worth talking about.

She’d probably be happy if he bought her some… things.

Grey’s instincts liked that. A present for his mate. The snow leopard inside him was eager to kill something and drag it back for her to admire.

Fine, he’d stalk the wild feminine accessories and get her a surprise.

He frowned, thinking. Clothes needed to be tried on, and he had a vague understanding that women were very particular about that point. Makeup… He’d be completely hopeless. He’d walked past makeup aisles in stores and glanced down them, totally bewildered at how many options there were, wondering how the hell women knew what to get. He’d have a ninety-nine percent chance of getting the wrong thing.

Maybe a bath… thing? One of those things you put in the bath and it smelled good. Or a perfume. Surely it’d be hard to go wrong with that. His sense of smell was excellent.

And this was only the beginning. As time went on, if he did listen to her, he’d learn what she liked.

Grey thought about years in the future, being able to bring home her absolute favorite perfume. Or some piece of jewelry that she’d eyed in the store but turned away from

because it was too expensive.

Years in the future.

This was his mate, sleeping next to him. He was distracting himself with little things because this seemed too enormous to be real, that he could have stumbled across his mate so accidentally, now, tonight.

If he’d refused John’s invitation, he’d never have met Alethia. Had it been some kind of fate that led him to accept? He’d never know, but he was more grateful than he could say.

Years. They were going to have years.

Grey watched Alethia breathing softly in sleep, and smiled.

***

Ali woke up to her phone buzzing.

Normally, she was groggy and disoriented when she woke up, and if she was somewhere unfamiliar, it took her a while to sort herself out and remember what she was doing there. But not this morning.

She smiled at Grey’s long body. He was blinking awake as she leaned over to grab her purse from where she’d dropped it by the bed last night.

She looked at the phone. It was Molly. “Hello?”

“Where are you, Ali? You said you’d help me get ready for the club this morning!”

Molly had a book club, but it did more eating and drinking than reading. Ali didn’t have any interest in joining, but she was drafted to help clean and make snacks for it whenever it was at their place.

Yesterday, Ali vaguely remembered, Molly had said, I’m hosting book club this week. Ali had said, Mmm.

Ali would much rather stay in bed with Grey than go help Molly frantically try and clean the whole house while simultaneously surfing Pinterest on her phone for the perfect hors d’oeuvre recipe.

She could hear it now: This says violets are edible! I could garnish it with violets! Do we have violets growing anywhere around here? Wait, where are you going, the counters need to be scrubbed!

But if she didn't help, Molly might just spontaneously combust.

“I’ll come home and help,” Ali sighed. “Give me a little while to get there.”

“Where are you? At some guy’s place? Tell him to get his butt out of bed and drive you home!” Molly shouted, clearly hoping to be heard by some guy on the other end of the line.