His face sad, Mike shook his head. “Romeo has always said that that was what made Dante so damned selfish. After they returned, Dante was freaky about ever running out of food or trying to help someone. He started hoarding things and turning on anyone who threatened him.”

Her heart ached for her mate. It must have been horrible for him to be afraid for his life while trying to find Tyla. And all because of a joke.

“I hope Donatello punished them for what they did.”

Mike sighed. “He did, but the damage had already been done. Like Acheron so often says, there are a lot of things in life that ‘sorry’ doesn’t fix and that was one of them.”

“Ever since then,” Leo said, “Dante can’t stand for anyone to leave him. He practically climbs the walls if he can’t account for his family.”

“That’s why he went to find you two when you were lost, isn’t it?” she asked.

Leo nodded. “His worst fear is to have someone he loves not be able to find their way home again.”

Tears filled her eyes as she looked down at the ring Dante had given her when they mated.

Now it all made perfect sense.

Why he didn’t want a wandering Katagari female for a mate…

Why he tolerated his brothers even when they drove him insane…

Why he had freed her sister and the other women to travel with her…

And why he had given her Donatello’s ring.

Closing her eyes, Pandora conjured up an image of Dante.

Dante was watching the acid metal band on a TV monitor. But his mind wasn’t really on the act or the handouts and CDs on the table in front of him.

It was on the fact that he should never have let Pandora go.

You can’t keep her…

He should have at least tried.

But at least she wasn’t out there alone. He’d made sure that she would have her sister with her.

A warm hand touched his arm.

Grinding his teeth, Dante turned, ready to rebuff yet another woman coming on to him. He was really getting tired of telling them he wasn’t interested.

But as he opened his mouth and his eyes focused on the beautiful face of his latest admirer, all thoughts scattered.

It couldn’t be.

Not this soon.

“Pandora?”

“Hi,” she said with a smile that made him feel sucker-punched. “I missed you.”

This had to be a dream. His pantheress couldn’t be back.

He wanted to tell her that he’d missed her, too, but the words wouldn’t come. All he could do was react.

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her fiercely, letting her feel that every part of him wanted her never to leave him again.

Pandora laughed at his heated welcome. “I think you missed me, too.”

Dante left her lips to take a deep whiff of her hair so that he could memorize and savor it. “You have no idea.”

Actually, she did. She hadn’t doubted the twins before, but this thoroughly confirmed their story.

She nuzzled his neck, inhaling the warm spicy scent of his masculine skin. “Want to get naked?”

He laughed. “Yeah, but not here.”

Pulling back from her, he took her hand and led her to a secluded corner so that he could flash them into his room.

They were both naked and in his bed three blinks later.

Dante couldn’t breathe as he felt the impossible softness of Pandora lying beneath him.

Nothing felt better than her caresses. The fact that she was warm and welcoming. He slid himself inside her, and groaned at just how good she felt.

Pandora savored his hardness inside her and now more than ever she was glad she was human and not a real panther. Her Katagaria cousins only sought sex when they were in heat.

She could seek it anytime she wanted and she wanted Dante right now. Needed to feel his strong, powerful thrusts.

But the human in her wanted even more.

It wanted him with her forever.

“Will you bond with me, Dante?”

Dante froze as her whispered words went through him. “What?”

She held her marked palm up. “I don’t ever want to leave you and I don’t want to live without you. Not for one minute. Bond with me, Dante, so that neither one of us is ever abandoned again.”

He took her hand into his and kissed her as love for her overwhelmed him.

He thrust against her hard and furiously as she repeated her vows to him and he returned them to her.

This time when his teeth grew, he pulled back to stare down at her an instant before he sank his fangs into her neck.

Pandora arched her back as the pain of his bite quickly turned to pleasure. Her head spinning, she sank her own teeth into his shoulder.

For that one instant in time, every thought and emotion Dante felt coursed through her.

Any doubt she’d ever had about him fled as she felt his love for her, and it ignited her own.

This was what was meant to be.

He was hers and she was his.

She cried out as she came in a fierce wave of pleasure. Dante’s own growl of pleasure filled her ears.

Joined together, they drifted through the ribbons of ecstasy until they were fully drained and spent.

Dante collapsed on top of her and she cuddled him in her arms. “I love you, Dante,” she breathed. “And I promise I’ll never again leave you.”

He smiled languidly as he stared at her. “I love you, too, Pandora, and anytime you want to leave, I’ll gladly go with you.”

Epilogue

In the Marriott’s lobby, Dante stood off to the side with Acheron while everyone at the hotel was packing up to leave. All the Klingons, Storm Troopers, fairies, and so on were now in normal dress with only scattered parts of their costumes evident as, one by one, they returned to real life.

Dragon*Con was over.

Just like Ash had promised him a year ago when he told him to come to Atlanta, it had been a remarkable weekend that would stay with him forever.

“You knew Pandora would be here when you told me to come, didn’t you?” he asked the Atlantean.

Ash shrugged. “There’s always room for error, but yeah. I did.”

“You’re a scary SOB.”

Ash laughed.

Dante felt Pandora’s presence behind him.

Turning, he saw her and Simi coming over to them.

Simi was beaming as she carried a wide collection of bags. “I gots my last bit of shopping done,” she announced proudly. “You should be glad, Dante, your panther-woman don’t buy much.”

“You know you could have spent whatever you wanted,” he said to Pandora.

“I know, but all I wanted was this.”

He frowned as she handed him a small wooden box. “What is it?”

“Open it and see. I bought it just for you.”

Dante opened it to find what appeared to be a bell-shaped necklace. “I don’t get it,” he said.

Pandora took the necklace out and placed it around his neck. “This is just in case you ever again have to fight someone else. Next time, I’ll know which panther you are and I won’t accidentally cut your head off. I plan on living a long, long life with you, Mr. Pontis. And no one, not even you, is going to stop me.”

A DARK-HUNTER CHRISTMAS

Prologue

Born to impoverished Irish immigrant parents at the turn of the century, James Cameron Patrick Gallagher entered this world with a large chip on his shoulder.

It didn’t help any that he was birthed in the backroom of a sweatshop that should have been condemned, to a timid, fretful woman who’d been forced to return to work just hours after she had delivered him into the hands of his nervous, alcoholic father. A father who was indifferent to the boy at best and violent at worst.

From the moment of that first wail forward, Jamie spent his life fighting for respect. Fighting his way out of the poverty that haunted him as he grew up in the Irish slums of New York.

At age fifteen, he found his way out.

The year was 1916 and two important events happened to him. His father died after he slipped and fell into the river on his way home from a three-day drinking binge. Two weeks later, Jamie went to work for the renowned gangster Ally Malone so that he could support his mother and eight younger siblings. A thug and a bully, Ally had shown him a way to make money that had made Jamie’s poor mother’s knees ache from the untold novenas she had prayed for her son.

But that was okay as far as Jamie was concerned. His new lifestyle afforded him the ability to buy his mother silk pillows to cushion her work-worn knees, and instead of praying with a cheap wooden rosary, she now had one made of gold and ivory.

It was a rosary she’d thrown in his face the day she had learned the real truth about her son: Jamie wasn’t a poor innocent lad being led astray by those out to take advantage of him. By the time he was twenty, he was a fierce gangster to be reckoned with.

Disowned by his mother, he’d given his younger brother a reputable job so that Ryan could care for the family without their mother knowing it was Jamie’s ill-gotten gains that kept them all fed.

Jamie had learned to harden his heart and to care for no one or nothing. He became Gallagher. A man who had no other name. One who let no one near him, let no one know him. He was ice-cold and rock-solid.

Until the day Rosalie had come into his life and chiseled away his granite casing. The daughter of Portuguese immigrants, she had been walking home from an all-day Mass.

Jamie had stumbled over her in his haste to catch up with a “business” associate he needed to take care of.

It had been a cold winter evening with snow falling down on the city. February 11, 1924  – a date that was branded into his heart and mind for all eternity. The minute Rosalie had turned her dark brown eyes on him, his entire body had been consumed by fire. For the first time in years, he felt something more than cold, blind hatred.

“I’m so sorry,” she had whispered in her exotic accent, brushing at his expensive, handmade suit. “I didn’t see you for the snow.”

“It was my fault,” he hastened to assure her. No doubt any other man in his position would have hit her or yelled at her. That thought sent a wave of unreasonable fury through him.