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“He visited you during one of the Sacred Seven,” Des says. “He thought of you as his mate, andhe 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,humiliatinghim. 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. “Youknew,” 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.

And now there’s a room in Des’s home just waiting for me.

I feel like a fly caught in the Bargainer’s web. I’m playing right into his hand.

I went from a controlling man to a scheming one.

Des’s jaw tightens. “Callie—”

“Do you do this for all your clients? Force them to break ties with their boyfriends? Furnish a room in your house just for them?”

He steps up to me, his eyes bright with life. “I’m not doing this with you. Not tonight.”

“No, you won’t, will you?” I challenge. There’s fire in my veins, fire that’s been building from the moment Des reentered my life. “You’ll just run like you always do.”

He catches my face. “Does it look like I’m running, Callie? Does it look like I’m trying to leave your side?”

“But you will,” I say fervently.

How did this conversation become me airing my own insecurities?