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He shared my expression. Damn, he was good.

“Helen, these are some of the other members of the task force,” Dom began without preamble. His tone was icy. Somehow I didn’t think that ice was directed at Helen. “The one flirting with my receptionist is Christian.”

Christian walked to the woman, straightening his tie. He held out a hand to her, giving her a smile full of all his usual charm. “Pleasure to meet you, Helen.” His English accent was more apparent than usual, his voice silky smooth.

She shook his hand, giving him a cool nod. Dom and Helen looked at Caleb and me at the same time, as though they were in sync. “The blond in the dress is Jillian.” His voice was impersonal. I felt a stab of something unpleasant in my chest. I schooled my face into its best impassive mask. It came very natural even when I was upset.

I looked at Caleb. Dammit, he had that expression down perfectly, too. “The one holding Jillian’s hand and mimicking her for some mysterious reason is Caleb. Everyone, this is Helen. Please come in and have a seat, and I will explain.”

“Nice to meet you,” Helen said in a cold, crisp, British accent. She turned and headed to the large conference table in the office they had just come out of.

Dom stepped to the side, waving us in so that we had to walk past him. In a playful mood, Christian skipped over and grabbed my other hand.

Oh, lord, what was he up to?

He swung our joined hands, grinning. “I felt left out,” he explained to the room at large, shrugging.

Caleb and I rolled our eyes. The boys were messing with Dom. What else was new?

I sighed, walking toward the conference room.

The guys walked with me as though it were something we did all the time. Walking hand in hand, the three of us…Yeah, right.

We stopped at the doorway. Dom had it blocked so that the three of us couldn’t enter all at once. Christian relinquished my hand without protest, gliding to the table and smoothly pulling out a chair with the back facing us, waiting.

Caleb let me enter first, keeping our hands linked and letting me file in ahead of him. It was surreal. Caleb was the least affectionate creature on the planet, possibly every planet, and suddenly he wouldn’t stop holding my hand?

I barely made it a step into the room before I was stopped by Caleb’s grip.

I glanced back with a questioning look.

I hadn’t even sensed Dom moving, but he had a death grip on Caleb’s wrist that looked like it might snap it in half.

Caleb’s free hand moved instinctively to a spot on his lower back. “Don’t,” I warned him, knowing he always had nasty tricks up his sleeve. Literally.

“If you pull a weapon on me, you’d best be certain that it is something that can kill me.” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end at Dom’s dangerously soft growl.

Power crawled along my skin. It was such a strong wave of it that I wondered if every druid in the building felt the punch of it.

Caleb’s hand lowered back to his side, empty. His mouth tightened, and something I’d never thought to see swam behind his eyes.

He was scared of Dom, I realized, stunned. Was fear the thing that made him feel the need to rile the Arch? He had always been like that with him. He loved to rattle the tiger’s cage.

Caleb finally released my hand, and I took a few steps back, further into the conference room. Dom still kept hold of his wrist, squeezing so hard I couldn’t believe it hadn’t snapped like a twig yet.

It was more than a bit odd watching Dom handle a Caleb who looked like me that way.

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” Dom said, his voice bleeding like murder into the room, “but touching her has a very steep price. I tore the last man I thought was sleeping with her into little, tiny scraps of flesh. It wasn’t a fast kill. I toyed with him. Tortured him until he bled out, and I drank his blood, ate his heart, and took his life’s power. I bathed in the wreckage of his flesh. I’ve never enjoyed a kill so much in my life. Even now, knowing he was set up, his death is a fond memory for me, because his hands were still on her in those pictures. You don’t want to die like that, trust me.”

Oh Lord, I thought.

Caleb’s little joke had put Dom in a dangerous mood.

“Dom,” I spoke up. “You misunderstand.” I put a hand on his arm, and he shuddered.

“Sit down, Jillian. That isn’t helping,” Dom thundered. But moments later he released Caleb, who whipped away from him, sitting down quickly at the seat beside the one Christian held out for me.

CHAPTER SIX