The next day, Ella woke up feeling empty. She couldn’t believe Dante was gone. A part of her had feared he wouldn’t leave her no matter what she said. But he had.

And immediately.

She shouldn’t have been surprised. He’d always done what she wanted, whether it was going at her speed, wooing her, standing up for her. He’d always listened to her wishes, treated her like a queen.

And saving his life had been all she could do for him.

She changed into her bridesmaid gown, because her sister had made a friend her maid-of-honor, and looked at herself in the mirror. It was a pretty dress in periwinkle. The color of bluebells. Made of chiffon in sheer, feminine layers with off-the-shoulder sleeves.

She’d been excited to show it to Dante. After she figured a way out of this and got back to town, maybe she could win him back over. Maybe she could run right after her sister was married and escape in the confusion.

She was a grown-ass woman, and she didn’t have to fall to the whims of an overgrown cat.

But she had to be careful not to let him know anything was up first.

She pinned on small, silver ball earrings and pulled her hair into a low, curly knot, leaving a few pieces out around her face. She went minimal on makeup, just a hint of blush, some mascara, and some lip-gloss.

She sighed in the mirror, trying to make her expression look less tragic. It would be best if Cliff thought she was fine with this. Not excited, but fine.

She heard her family talking downstairs, loudly, and realized they were probably only finding out now that Dante was gone.

She slipped her matching heels on and grabbed her clutch and walked out to look over the stairs.

Cliff was there, wearing a black suit similar to the groom’s, but with a blue tie instead of a black one. It was less fancy as well. His stupid dark hair was groomed carefully to the side, making him look even oilier.

Not that there was any way he could look that would make her not hate him right now.

“You look beautiful,” he said, moving to the stairs and ignoring the shock on her family’s faces as he reached out his hand.

She slowly came down and took it, ignoring their gasps.

“But where’s Dante?”

“Ella and I got back together last night,” Cliff said.

“But…” Ron narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

“But things were going so well with Dante,” Grace said, looking between Cliff and Ella. She bit her lip. “Did something happen?”

“Yes, something happened. Ella hired that stupid date, and then she found out she had a real man that loved her and decided to stop playing charades.”

“You mean Dante was hired?” Grace asked. “I thought we—”

“Oh my gosh, can we deal with this later?” Melanie cut in, annoyed. “It’s my day!”

Ella ground her teeth together. “Fine. We’re going anyway.” She went out with Cliff, knowing he would at least expect her to accompany him to the wedding site.

“We’ll follow after,” Grace said. “Melanie still has to get dressed. Can’t let the groom see the bride!”

Ron was still staring at them in open-mouthed shock. “Ella, are you sure about this?”

Her heart thudded in the direction of her toes. “Yes.”

“Then fine,” Ron said. “I’ll drive with the two of you.”

Secretly, her heart leapt with relief. As long as they weren’t alone, maybe she could put him off. The three of them got in Cliff’s car, and the drive to the venue was uneventful.

When they got there, Cliff waited for her dad to get out of the car to go talk to relatives and then pulled her aside. “Don’t even think about leaving me,” he said. “I know you’re probably planning to get sneaky, but I’m not going to give you even a second.”

“I could put up a fight right now,” she said. “Scream bloody murder. Would your ‘friends’ really want to create a fight right here in the middle of a gathering?”

“Not a big gathering,” he said. He had a point, there were only close friends and family there. Melanie had wanted something bigger and flashier, but as Ben was still trying to get his career off the ground, she’d had to settle for small.

“Either way, would you really hurt people just for me?”

“Not if you don’t make me,” he said. “All you have to do is behave and be calm. Soon you’ll be mine, and there won’t be anything to fight about. I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

He grabbed her by the hand before she could protest and fairly dragged her to their seats in the front row. Before them was a wooden stage made for the ceremony. It was draped with white material to make it look like a podium, and behind it was a huge, wooden arch covered artfully with roses and other flowers.

It would have been a beautiful scene if Cliff wasn’t next to her.

How had life taken such a one-eighty in just a few days?

And would things have gone even worse if Dante hadn’t come home with her, or would she be better off not knowing she had a love out there that she couldn’t be with?

She zoned out until the music started and her sister came out in a veil and a beautiful dress, looking radiantly happy to have all eyes on her. Despite her own predicament, Ella tried to be happy for her sister.

But it wasn’t fair. Her sister got to choose and she didn’t. She’d thought she’d escaped the horror of her childhood, but it had come back to haunt her.

She’d been right to stay away from her hometown.

Tears bit the corners of her eyes as the minister stepped forward between the bride and groom to start vows.

It should be a beautiful moment, yet…

She gasped as she felt herself jerked forward out of her chair. She hadn’t even felt Cliff take her hand, and now she was being dragged toward the podium, even as she tried to fight him, pulling back.

“No,” she hissed. “Don’t do this.”

“Ella!” Grace said as Ron stood to stop them.

“What the hell are you doing?” Melanie spat, throwing her veil back to show her beautiful face was bright red with fury. “You’re ruining my moment.”

“Let me go!” she said, tugging back on Cliff.

“You release my daughter,” Ron said, trying to come between her and Cliff.

Cliff swung and caught her dad on the jaw, to the shock of everyone present. Ron stumbled back, and Cliff looked at the crowd as he gestured to his friends to come forward. She counted at least ten, dressed in suits, as they came up to the front of the podium to stand by them.

“No,” Ron said. “You can’t get away with this.”

“It’s going to be a double wedding,” Cliff said ominously, getting on the podium and trying to drag her onto it.

“Ew!” Melanie screamed, batting him with her bouquet. “Get off. You’re ruining it.”

Cliff reached back to shove her to the side, and Ben caught her, pulling her out of the way and off the podium.

Like everyone else, he seemed to realize there was no reasoning with his clearly insane brother.

The minister had crept to the edge of the platform, and Cliff was now alone in the center, yelling like a crazy person and yanking on her arm.

She dug her feet into the wood in front of her and braced all her weight against him.

Dammit, maybe he would force her, but she wasn’t going to make this easy.

“You do this or I’m going to let my friends attack your family,” he hissed at her.

She jerked back extra hard, and he lost his grip, but then he just jumped off the platform to scoop her up in his arms, ignoring her flailing as his friends kept her father from reaching her.

This was all ridiculous.

I hate shifters. I hate them! she thought as she kicked hard, trying to escape Cliff’s hold. I’m going to hate them forever.

She was busy pounding on his chest when she became aware of a loud, high whistling sound, like something dropping from the sky.

She put a hand up, but whatever it was, it was coming down too quickly, right at them.

She flinched as Cliff jumped back from the podium, bracing himself as they heard a large crash and something landed hard in the middle of the platform, sending up a huge cloud of dust and wood and flowers and obliterating the beautiful arch.

As the dust slowly cleared, she saw a figure standing in the middle of the wreckage of the podium. He head was down, and he was stumbling to his feet.

But there was something odd about him, something moving behind him.

As he stood up straight and they unfurled around him, she realized he had… wings? Other than that, he was familiar. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

It was Dante, looking as handsome as ever with his mussed golden hair and some kind of suit on, though it was now torn from his crash landing.

Thick, scaling wings grew out of his back to make massive shapes on either side of him.

Was Dante some kind of human bat?

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing his neck as he looked at her. “I hope you can take back what you said about shifters. Because I am one.”

She’d never been gladder to see a weird bat creature in her life. She struggled to get to him but realized belatedly she was still being restrained by Cliff.

Dante snarled and took a step toward them. “I suggest you set down my mate.”

“She’s my mate,” Cliff said. “And what the hell are you?”

“If you find out, it’ll be the last thing you see,” Dante said. “Now I’ll say it one more time. Put. Down. My. Mate.”

Cliff looked like he was considering his options.

Ron was standing with Grace, his arm protectively around her. The wedding guests were shifting nervously. Dante flapped his wings and stepped out of the wreckage of the podium, walking menacingly toward Cliff.

“Too late,” he said darkly, raising one hand, which had long talons where his nails had once been.

Cliff gasped, and Ella looked down to see thick streams of something wet-looking and metallic moving up his legs, almost like gold.

She looked at Dante in shock. The metal stuff wound up around Cliff’s torso as he yelled and began to struggle, but she could see it was slowly restraining him. As it wrapped around his arms, pulling them farther apart, she began to struggle to get free.

Just as Cliff was about to let go of her, Dante stepped forward to catch her in his arms.

He stepped back, holding her against him, supporting all her weight with one arm. How was that even possible?

Cliff was now caged in a delicate, webbed cage of gold, his eyes mad with rage, as his friends looked around helplessly.

“Try and shift now, bastard,” Dante said with an evil grin.

Cliff struggled, but couldn’t even move. His eyes darted around angrily to his friends. “Do something!”

They froze, all backing up as they stared at Dante. He looked in their direction, took a deep breath, and blew something over them that looked like a huge cloud of sparkling powder, billowing over them like flames.

When the cloud dissipated, she saw all of Cliff’s friends standing there frozen, coated in golden dust like particularly oddly posed statues.

“What the hell are you?” Cliff shouted maniacally.

All the guests were now silent, and Ella’s family had backed away as well. Her dad looked at her reassuringly, as if he also understood she was safe now that Dante was here.

“You dared to threaten my mate,” Dante said, setting her gently down behind him and then stepping forward to protect her. He put a hand out to the side, and with a flash, a long, golden object appeared in his hand, nearly blinding in the bright sun.

She looked closer and saw it was a rapier, a thin, skinny sword like they used in fencing.

The hilt was ornate, the tip extremely sharp, and the whole thing looked to be made of gold. Dante strode up to the frozen Cliff and pointed the tip of his blade into the other man’s neck.

Ella caught her breath, and she wasn’t the only one, as the entire congregation went silent around them.

What was Dante going to do?

* * *

Dante stared at the man who’d tried to take his mate from him, daring him to say something stupid.

He’d love nothing more than to ram his sword through this insolent cat’s neck.

He’d been here since the morning, hovering in the sky over the service, waiting for this piece of shit to show up and make his move.

To his delight, he’d realized that without his ring restraining him, he could hear thoughts from a long distance again. No longer only close range.

He’d been gone all night, flying home and then driving to see Aegis to harass him into taking off his ring. He needed to shift to be able to protect his mate, and he needed Aegis to trust him.

He’d promised the emerald dragon a lifetime of service if that’s what it took to get the ring off, but after hearing the situation, Aegis said he would do it just to get the annoying golden dragon off his porch.

After all, all Aegis and the oracle had wanted was for Dante and the others to care about something greater than themselves. And Dante did.

His strength, his wealth, none of it mattered except for how he could use it to help her.

So he’d flown back here in dragon form the minute Aegis had removed his ring and unleashed his powers.

He’d never been so grateful for wings.

When he’d heard Ella’s terrified thoughts last night, realized she was trying to protect him from a very real threat from other shifters, he knew there was only one solution.

And this solved two problems. He could kill the insolent beast who took his mate while also showing her who he really was.

Because he didn’t care anymore.

He didn’t care how many memories he had to erase (because that was one of his abilities) or how many mountain lions he had to fight or how his mate would feel about his dragon at first.

He had to protect her. She was worth more than his life.

“Let me go,” Cliff said, staring down at Dante’s sword defiantly.

“No,” Dante said. “I don’t think so.” He looked over at Cliff’s men. “Should I release them? They’re going to suffocate.”

“Let them go,” Ella cried out, coming forward to grab Dante’s shoulder.

“It was a joke,” he muttered. Then he raised his hand that wasn’t holding his rapier and the dust fell away from the men and they dropped to the ground, gasping.

“Phew,” Ella said, still holding on to him. He pulled her into his side and looked down at her.

“Nice dress,” he said.

She gave him an embarrassed smile. “I’m just glad you came back for me.”

“Hold on to me,” he said, walking forward to put a hand on Cliff’s shoulder. “In a minute, I’m going to erase everyone’s memory who isn’t touching me. People will be distracted for about twenty seconds, and I’m going to get this guy out of here. No one will really know what went on, so make something up.” He glanced at Cliff’s lackeys. “Blame them maybe.”

“Okay,” she said. “What about you?”

“Meet me in those big woods over there,” he said, pointing.

She nodded nervously as she held on to him.

“Okay,” he said. “One, two… three.”