“Mouthy thing,” he says endearingly.

We walk along the Grand Canal, passing tourists as we go. I watch boats move down the canal. Looking out over it are gift shops and restaurants, their warm light spilling out onto the streets.

Venice. It’s even more wonderful than what I imagined it would be like.

“Before we go, can we take a gondola ride?” I ask.

The Bargainer’s upper lips curl when he sees one such boat pass by us. “Why would I ever—?”

“And can we swing by one of those gift shops so I can get a mask?”

I’d also like some gelato—and perhaps a blown glass bottle—but I won’t push my luck too far.

He groans. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘Don’t mix business with pleasure’?”

A sly smile spreads across my face. “Aww, are you suggesting I’m pleasure?” My heart is thumping way too loud.

He frowns severely at me. “I’m definitely rubbing off on you.”

He really is.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” I say, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards a little area along the canal where several gondolas wait.

Behind me the Bargainer says, “I’ll only agree to this if you do me one favor—”

Me do him a favor? “Yeah, anything.”

“Please give me my balls back at the end of the evening.”

Present

Even after we land in front of Des’s home and Eli is a whole body of water away from us, the Bargainer doesn’t immediately release me. Instead, his claw-tipped wings brush against my hair as they wrap around us protectively.

“Des?”

His wings twitch.

He lets out a shuddering sigh. “I kept thinking that something was going to happen to you,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. “I kept seeing that animal turning on you. I feared I wouldn’t get to you in time.” His entire body trembles.

Right now I feel oddly vulnerable with him. Maybe it’s the raw honesty in his words; Des has always been careful to bury his feelings under wit and wiliness. Maybe it’s that I felt that same fear when I saw Eli lunging for him. And maybe it’s simply being held in his arms after choosing this life, and not the one I left back at my house.

I lean my forehead against his, placing my hand against his cheek. “Thank you for coming for me,” I say.

I fear what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.

“Cherub,” he says, his voice serious, “I will always come for you.”

We stay like that for another minute, unmoving. It’s actually kind of nice under these wings of his, but eventually I get antsy to put my own two feet back on the ground.

“Des,” I say, “you can put me down.”

Reluctantly, he releases my legs, letting me stand, but he keeps my upper half still caught up in his arms. His wings pull back, but they won’t fold nicely behind him. Instead, they keep spreading and retracting, spreading and retracting, looking agitating.

“He visited you during one of the Sacred Seven,” Des says. “He thought of you as his mate, and he knowingly put you in danger.” Now his wings billow out around him, flapping angrily, those talons of his looking particularly sharp. Des releases me. “He is no true mate if he thought to do that.”

Des is right of course, but I’m not even thinking about me at the moment. All I can see when I close my eyes is Eli charging at Des. He would’ve killed him.

And then another thought strikes me.

“Oh God,” I say quietly. “We left a fully shifted werewolf in a residential neighborhood.”

“I already contained him; he can’t venture beyond your property for the night. Hopefully by morning he’ll have gotten control of himself.” Des looks at me apologetically. “I’m sorry about your house.”

I’m just relieved he can’t hurt anyone else for the moment.

And then another horrifying thought hits me.

I won’t be able to go back home tonight.

Not unless I want to chance another encounter with an angry werewolf.

I rub my face. I glamoured and then spurned an alpha werewolf.

Once he was back in his right frame of mind, he could put out a warrant for my arrest. Even if he decided not to press charges, he’d do something to punish me for glamouring him, spurning him, humiliating him. The alpha in him would demand nothing less.

He knows exactly where I live, and earlier he made it more than clear that a locked door wouldn’t stop him from entering.

Tonight I can’t go back, but could I go back tomorrow? Or the next night? Or the next? Would I feel safe knowing how easily he broke in and how quickly he shifted?

Des’s eyes are sad. “Cherub, my home is your home,” he says, reading my thoughts, “for as long as you need it.”

I look over my shoulder, at the sprawling house behind me. All that furniture Des had me purchase, it had all been to furnish a single guestroom in his house.

A room I’d now likely stay in.

And when he confronted Eli, Des hadn’t acted surprised or confused by any of what happened back at my home. And the only reason for that would be …

I swivel back to him. “You knew,” I say, remembering how he taunted my ex earlier. “You kissed me that first night knowing I was with Eli.”

My anger’s rising.

The Bargainer knows my heart; he knew I’d never settle for being romantic with two men at once. All he had to do was plant the seed—brush a chaste kiss along my lips and suggest that he and I would be intimate. Easier than snapping his fingers, I’d broken up with Eli.