Dawn Endeavor 3: Julian's Jeopardy by Marie Harte Page A

into an inner rage he found harder and harder to shake. He understood Tersch's despair, the need to release the rage, to hurt someone else the way he hurt. Swearing because he felt no end in sight for this confusion and anger, the need for something he couldn't quite name, Jules slammed his fist through the shower's tiled wall.
    Bone broke and reformed, but the pain didn't help his frustration. Now he had a hole in the wall and more unanswered questions. Too bad Sheridan wasn't here.
    She could have helped.
    He froze.
    Sheridan.

    The name rang inside his mind like a bell, and his beast perked up, aroused and alert.
    That quickly, the clarity faded.
    But now Jules had a name to go with his dreams. Sheridan.
    He finished cleaning himself and turned off the shower. Have to get Jack in here to take a look at the mess I made. At least he can be counted on to be discreet.
    The handyman had a decent sense of humor and respected Jules's authority.
    Jack Keiser had been an operative in the government at one time, a badass who decided marriage suited him a lot better than the probability of dying on the job.
    The odds of living through the dangerous missions he'd been assigned worsened over time. Jules grinned. Then again, Melissa, Jack's wife, probably hadn't given him much of a choice.
    Another love match. Another relationship that seemed to work, despite the drudge of day-to-day living. Jules's own parents had their own happily-ever-after, even dying together in a plane crash just days after he'd joined the Circ program.
    Fallon loved Olivia more than his next breath, and the woman would do anything for her mate. Hayashi and Morgan fairly lived in each other's pockets, joined at the hip. Tersch, for all his denial, fit well with Fallon and Olivia, who'd seemed to take the big Circ under their wing.
    Everyone but Jules had someone special, and his solitude, even among the men and women he considered family, tore at him.
    For all of two seconds.
    The moment of self-pity infuriated him, and he suppressed his pathetic needs.
    When his beast moaned, wanting a mate, Jules shut him up, fast. Suck it up, princess. You’re alive, and you have a job to do. Quit whining. You sound as bad as Tersch.
    Jules reached for a towel. He dried off and, after dressing in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt, headed downstairs into the family room the team used as a common center.
    The large kitchen overlooked the area, which not only had a nice plasma television, pool table, and poker table, but also easy access to the outside via a set of French doors. A fireplace used to heat the downstairs during the colder winter months sat at the opposite end of the room. At present, Hayashi and Morgan played cribbage at the poker table.
    He snorted. Trust Hayashi to play a game requiring math. Their sophisticated Circ, as Jules liked to think of him. Hayashi listened to classical music, read books, and wrote poetry—for fun—and had a mate who could speak several languages as well as kick ass in the gym—in spite of the fact that Morgan wasn't Circ.
    Wasn't Circ yet could borrow Hayashi's energy to turn himself into a Circ-human hybrid. Shit, by harnessing Hayashi's energy, Morgan could grow bigger and stronger, but without the fangs, claws, and skinlike body armor. But Jules still didn't buy the story that Morgan wasn't Circ. He didn't know how Morgan pulled it off, but his beast knew Morgan was Circ. The same way Jules knew Mrs. Sharpe and Ava Belle had a lot more going on under the surface than either woman would admit.
    “Hey, team leader. What's up, hoss?” Morgan grinned and fucking winked at him.
    Calling me hoss because he knows it irritates me. Ignore him . Jules drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Hayashi, Morgan. You two seem to have developed a card fetish.”
    Hayashi snorted. “I'm just trying to let him recoup his losses. Morgan is down four sets of laundry and dish duty on Thursdays.” Morgan scowled. “That's because you keep