Everyone had their limits. It looked like he’d have to find Felicity’s. He understood her trepidation, really. But Julianna was nothing to him. A political pawn. That’s all. He and Felicity had something unique. Something he couldn’t remember ever feeling. He’d been crazy for Helena, but that happened ages ago. He’d grown since then, hardened. What he and Felicity had between them was different from what he felt about Helena. What they shared made him feel urgency and raw hunger.

It wouldn’t be easy but he’d find a way to convince Felicity. He would have to tread carefully. If he started flinging around the word mistress, she might never forgive him. He grinned. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. Hell, maybe in forever. Felicity was a treat he planned to slowly unwrap and savor.

“So your brother stole my best friend, took her back to his place and was making out with her?”

Dom shrugged. “I don’t know how or what happened exactly.”

“You said they were ‘getting heavy’. Your words not mine.” She glared at him as her patience waned.

He glanced at her before resuming his perusal of this part of the city. He didn’t come south very often—at all. He found himself curious, very much so, to see where she lived. He also planned to find a way into her house tonight. Strange but he wanted to see where and how she lived. Had she decorated her house with her own personal flare? He could see her living in such style. He’d seen her portfolio with her work; she was quite good.

“I was merely relaying what Vas told me,” he said.

His lips twitched with a grimace as they pulled into a poor looking neighborhood. Buildings had boarded up windows sprayed with neon graffiti; cars were low-end and looked like they didn’t run. One even had a missing tire. In the distance sirens blared. A tall man standing at the corner of the block under a broken street light glanced their way, pocketed something in his hoodie, and then ducked his head and kept walking.

Dom ground his jaw. “You live around here?”

It took her moment to answer. “Yes.”

She answered so quietly, almost shyly, that he looked over at her. She had her arms crossed and anger written across her face. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said.

His own anger surged. She would not ignore him. Something was wrong and he’d be damned if she’d disobeyed him.

He opened his mouth to speak, then slammed it shut. He heard it first, caught the roar of a car engine. Dom’s eyes swung left as they came up at an intersection.

The car was already barreling straight for them. This car wasn’t a dump. This one had an engine and nothing he could do or say could stop the impending crash. Dom had little time to react.

He flung himself over Felicity, wrapping his body around hers just as the car slammed right where he’d been.

Horns blared. An ear-piercing crunch of metal slammed again his eardrums. Their car jerked then lurched across the pavement in a head-whipping spin. The putrid odor of smoke and rubber tires filled his nostrils. He glanced and saw his driver, a human servant, crushed beneath the front end of the car that hit them. They stopped moving just as quickly.

Felicity shook beneath him like a twig. He didn’t waste any time. Someone just made an attempt on his life. That thought wasn’t even what made him fling their car door open, shove her out and he next as he rounded the cars to the passenger seat of the car that had hit them. That car that had intentionally hit them. It’d been waiting. That meant someone was watching him and Felicity. Someone knew he was coming this way within the last hour and had planned this on short notice.

Someone wanted him dead.

None of that mattered.

What made him tear off the driver’s side door one-handed, pull out the were who was slumped dazed over the steering wheel and pound his fist repeatedly into it was the fact that Felicity had been in the car.

Someone had almost hurt Felicity.

Dom didn’t just see red, he breathed it.

If someone would have asked him in that moment if he’d ever been angrier he would have said no. He’d never felt this heart-pounding fear before for another person’s life. Now that he had he knew he could never forget it. Never forget the intense, gripping fear that she might have gotten hurt because of him.

The son of a bitch he held by the collar was going to pay.

“Dom, stop it! Let him go! What the hell are you doing?” said Felicity. She came up beside him, frantically running her hands through her hair.

Crunch. Snap. Plsssht.

His knuckles didn’t even hurt even as the were’s face didn’t look like a face anymore. He had to punish him. Make him go away. He tried to hurt Felicity. He wanted to kill her.

“STOP IT!” she screamed.

Dazed, Dom turned to meet her wild eyes. His fist opened and the were dropped to the ground. The bastard wasn’t dead...yet.

Pulling out his phone, he dialed his brother. “Grayson, I need you at...” he spotted the address of the intersection and relayed it. “Make it fast. There’s been an attempt. Yeah, yeah, I think so too.”

He snapped the phone shut then pulled Felicity along. “Which one’s your house?”

She was breathing hard, only a few seconds away from panicking. “What?” Even as he steered her away from the wreckage, her head turned back to look at it.

He jerked on her arm, pulling her into his body and forcing her to look up at him. “I asked you where you live.”

She pointed a shaking finger down the block. Dom didn’t bother trying to walk her there. He just bent down, grabbed her, and lifted her up into his arms. She gasped as her arms went around his neck and a blush crept over her cheeks.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking you home.”

“We were just in a wreck! We have to go back. Why were you beating the hell out of that man?”

Anger rose hot and swift inside him. “That wasn’t a man. It was a were, and he’d been waiting for us which means we were being watched earlier. This was a setup. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get us both out of the open.” He started running. Weres could run just as fast but it’d still be better than idly strolling down a public street.

“There, that’s my house.” She pointed to a small brick home, probably a rental. It was quaint, and no way good enough for her.

He took her keys, opened the door, and shoved them both inside before locking it tight. “Stay here,” he ordered, and then set off to go through her house.

He used all of his senses to catch anything off.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, sounding peeved.

“Making sure no one’s in your house.”

Bathroom, clear. Living room, clear. Bedroom...smells just like her. Great, now he was hard. All rooms clear. He came back to her. She had a raised eyebrow, a cocked hip, and a taunting look on her face.

He wanted to kiss it right off her but now wasn’t the right time.

“My brother will be here soon.”

“Good then he can explain about Beth.”

Dom shook his head. “Not that brother, my brother Grayson.”

Both of her delicate little eyebrows rose. “Well, you have too many brothers.”

A smile curled at his lips. “Couldn’t agree more.”

“So, Grayson’s from...a different mother?” she asked hesitantly.

Dom’s smile was tight. “Yeah, he runs a protection service.”

“As in bodyguards?”

“Exactly but he doesn’t work with humans. His service caters to weres and vampires. It’s a niche market but one that’s quite profitable.”

He liked this, he thought. Just talking to her in her own home. A home much, much more plain than he’d anticipated. In fact, her couch was thread-barren and cheap. Her kitchen table served as her dining room table since her house was a one-bedroom one bath. The wood chairs at the table were scratched and beat up. The board to one of the chair legs hung off, broken.