He blinked away the tears and glared at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You can’t imagine what it’s like.”

No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine having my own free will and personality restored to me and being distraught about it. Then again, I couldn’t understand volunteering to give it all up in the first place.

Dominic stepped forward to put his hands on the back of the chair across the table from me. His knuckles turned white as he met my gaze. “Last week, I was a hero. I made a difference in this world. I saved lives that no ordinary human being could have saved.” His eyes glowed with fanatic intensity. “My life meant something. Now I’m just another guy.”

My hands clenched into fists and I ground my teeth. I tried to moderate my response, I really did. But he’d hit a nerve, big time. “Just because I’m not hosting a demon doesn’t mean my life is meaningless!” I snapped. Okay, forget for a moment that I was hosting a demon. I was still trying very, very hard not to think about that. “My life means a hell of a lot to me. Why should yours mean any less to you?”

The coffeemaker gurgled to a stop. I’d have ignored it in his shoes, but he shoved away the chair he’d been gripping and turned to the kitchen. I couldn’t believe he was actually going to serve me coffee after that little exchange, but he opened a cupboard and pulled out a pair of mismatched mugs. When he reached for the coffeepot, a red stain spread across the back of his white button-down shirt. A stain that grew as I watched it, forming a long stripe across his shoulder blades.

My mouth dropped open, but Dominic was oblivious as he poured the coffee. It wasn’t until he’d set the mugs on the table that he noticed my expression. His eyes widened.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I swallowed hard, wondering if that stain could possibly be what it looked like. “Your back,” I whispered.

To my surprise, a rosy blush colored his olive-skinned cheeks. Not the reaction I’d expected.

“Did that happen when the God’s Wrath people came after you?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

He shook his head, his blush deepening as he stared at the scarred tabletop instead of at me. “Uh, no. Saul — my demon — healed those wounds long ago.”

I like to think of myself as this tough chick who has seen everything, but in some ways I still had a core of naiveté to me. I honestly didn’t know what to make of what I was seeing, didn’t understand his blush.

“Did they attack you again?”

He looked at me, and his expression changed from embarrassed to bemused. “Are you for real?”

I think maybe at this point, some little corner of my mind was making sense of things, but it wasn’t a conscious corner. “Why are you bleeding?”

He blinked, then laughed. “Yeah, you’re for real.” He pulled out the chair he’d been standing behind and sat. He’d lost all his righteous indignation. And all his embarrassment, apparently.

“I’m bleeding because my lover got too rough with the whip.”

It was my turn to be embarrassed. My face practically glowed with it, and my gaze dropped to my coffee cup. I hadn’t taken a sip yet, and right now I didn’t have any inclination to change that.

“Oh,” I managed, and wished Scotty would beam me up.

“Another disadvantage to being without my demon,” Dominic continued. “Before, my lover could hit as hard as he wanted, and Saul would heal the damage. Now he has to learn how to be careful of my fragile human flesh.”

Yeah, I still wanted to get the hell out of there. But I have to admit to a certain level of morbid fascination as well. This guy was so different from me, he might as well be another species! I risked a glance upward and found him watching me with a mixture of amusement and bitterness.

“So you actually like being whipped so hard that you bleed?” My stomach tried to roll over at the thought. I stopped it by sheer force of will.

But Dominic shook his head. “No, that was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“But you liked it when you had your demon to heal you,” I persisted.

Again he shook his head. “I like a little pain, but not that much. It was Saul who liked the hardcore stuff. He stopped me from feeling it when it got too rough for me.” A hint of a sad smile. “When the God’s Wrath mob beat me, I didn’t feel a thing. Saul took it all, until it was too much even for him and he struck back. But I’ll never have that kind of protection again.”

“Because of me.”

But Dominic surprised me again. “No. I know it’s not your fault. If you hadn’t done it, someone else would.” He met my eyes. “That doesn’t mean you and I will ever be friends. I hope to God I never lay eyes on you again after today.”

I don’t know why, but that hurt. I shoved my untouched mug of coffee to the side, spilling some of it in the process. Then I pushed my chair back from the table and stood.

“The feeling is mutual,” I told him. “You’re a sick puppy, Dominic. Get help before you get yourself killed.”

His eyes blazed as he surged to his feet. For a moment, I thought he would come over the table after me, but he just skewered me with his eyes.

“Don’t you dare judge me! You don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”

“I know you let your lover whip you bloody! And I know if he enjoyed doing it before, he’s going to keep enjoying it even when you don’t. You need to get out.”

“No, you need to get out, Ms. Kingsley. Get out of my house!”

I managed to shut myself up, but it was a near thing. If his lover had enjoyed ripping his back to shreds when his demon could heal him, then that meant he was a real sadist. How long would he be satisfied with the tamer pleasures that were all Dominic could now tolerate?

I didn’t know this guy, and he hadn’t given me much reason to like him. But maybe because I felt responsible for his being in danger, I genuinely wanted to help him.

He followed me to the door, I think so he could have the pleasure of slamming it in my face.

I turned to him before I stepped out. “Tell Adam that if he hurts you, I will personally hunt him down and exorcize his ass.”

I think I kind of hoped he’d tell me Adam wasn’t the sicko who’d done this to him. No such luck. He just ushered me out the door and closed it firmly behind me.

CHAPTER 10

After my productive interview with Dominic, I took yet another train ride, this time to go back home and stay there. It was Friday night, which would usually be a date night, but I wasn’t what you’d call in the mood. I figured eventually I’d forgive Brian for not giving me an alibi, but not yet. I called him when I got home just to let him know where I was, but our conversation was brief and tense.

When I got off the phone, I straightened up the house a little, then changed my alarm code yet again. I’d showered earlier in the day, but since I wouldn’t be working off all my stress in bed, I figured now was a good time for a hot bath. I let Calgon take me away for about a half hour, and it helped.

I was just wrapping myself in my terry-cloth robe when my doorbell rang and shattered every hint of relaxation in my muscles. I cursed.

I should have known Brian wouldn’t give me time to come to grips with what he’d done. He wanted me to get over it now, and he was going to get in my face about it. It’s one of the things he does that drives me crazy. He can’t just let me be angry for a while without trying to fix it. I think in his life, he’s used to working things out on a short timeline. Arguments in his family are patched up before the sun sets on them.

I’m not that way. Never will be. It’s not that I don’t want to be. I mean, who wants to spend half of their life pissed off? I just wasn’t raised in an atmosphere where I could learn to do it. You might think that because I was the rebel of the family, they had no influence on me. They did. It was just the wrong kind of influence.