What did he get out of it? Not a damn thing except a pain so profound that he felt as if something were shredding his heart.

“Here,” Ash said, handing him a beer. “Have a seat.”

Sighing, Dante took the beer and grabbed the chair where Pandora had been sitting on his arrival. “I did the right thing, right?”

“No,” Simi said as she wiped barbecue sauce off her chin. “The panther woman didn’t want you to leave her and now you made her go away. That was just stupid if you ask the Simi. Not that anyone ever does, ’cause if they did, then they would be smart. Some people are smart. But many, like you, are too stupid to ask me what I think. See?”

“It’s not that simple, Simi,” Dante said, wondering why he was trying to explain himself to a demon who had no understanding of human emotions or animal relationships. “She doesn’t want me to own her.”

“Well, the Simi doesn’t understand that. Owning’s not so bad. I own akri and he kind of fun.”

Dante arched a brow at Ash who didn’t bother to correct his demon.

Whatever. Those two were far beyond his understanding anyway.

“I’m telling you, Faith,” a woman said as she and a friend walked by them. “There’s a portal in the handicap stall downstairs that allows people to drop in from alternate universes. I was in there with Amanda helping her with her costume when this woman popped in, holding an axe. She immediately popped back out.”

Dante laughed at that, even though a fierce pain cut through him at the memory.

Only his pantheress would be so bold as to defy his orders.

“I better go pay for that axe before someone puts out an APB on my mate,” he said to Ash, Cas, and Simi.

But as he got up and headed down to the dealers’ room, he couldn’t squelch the need he felt to find Pandora and bring her back.

He wouldn’t do that to her.

Dante was nothing if not a panther of his word.

5

Pandora spent two days in La Costa with her sister and the other females while Leo and Mike tutored them well on how to use their powers. They also tutored some of the unmated females on things she didn’t even want to think about.

But none of her newfound freedom made her happy.

In fact, the longer she stayed here, the more her heart ached. Every time her gaze fell to her marked hand, she thought about the panther she’d left behind.

No, she thought about the man. The one who had given her so much.

“How’s Dante doing?”