Page 2 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)

Ryan opened the door to his cabin, one of the interior ones with none of the amenities.

In fact, it was little more than a metal-walled cave.

He didn’t mind. As a Ranger, he’d spent years using his pack as a pillow.

And then there was SERE school. Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

He’d once spent three days barefoot in the woods with a combat knife, a length of twine, and a candy bar.

So, no, he didn’t mind a cheap cruise fare.

Likely the only times that someone like Markham had to use a pale imitation of SERE skills was when slipping the advances of an unwanted male or surviving a day-long marketing seminar with bad coffee and stale croissants.

Ryan might not mind the claustrophobic cabin dominated by a double bed, but he did mind the lack of options for camouflage onboard a cruise ship.

He wasn’t a spy for God’s sake. He was a warrior.

Urban warfare still involved military gear, weapons, and tactical clothing.

Not flip flops and swim trunks. And if he wanted to contact operations control where cell service didn’t exist, he’d use a sat phone.

He felt as restless as a wild horse trapped inside a catch pen, stripped of every instinct but the need to bolt.

Slipping off his sneakers, he doffed his clothes, folding each item neatly and stacking it in the small closet at the side of the cabin.

Then he pulled on the swim trunks that Olivia had packed for him.

She’d found a ridiculous blue-and-green swim camo pattern.

When she’d handed them to him—in front of Beta Nagy, no less—she’d commented dryly that she wanted him to feel at home in a pool.

Olivia Kastrioti. She was like a den mother, quartermaster, and master sergeant all rolled into one. When he’d signed on to work for Kastrioti Security Services, he’d assumed that her husband, Mihàil, would give him his marching orders even though Olivia had recruited him. He’d assumed wrong.

Oh, Ryan had no doubt that the imposing Albanian general called the strategic shots when it came to their interminable battle against Dark Irim —Fallen Watchers who’d traded purpose for power and made Earth their playground.

But the demi-angel worshipped the ground that his beautiful wife walked upon.

And he was too intelligent not to see how exceptionally capable she was tactically.

Or how she never forgot their central mission: to protect innocents.

It was almost as if the CIA had trained her to be a zoti ’s lady—a title of respect in Albania for a leader’s wife.

A lord who was also a drangùe —half man, half dragon.

Mihàil had once told him the old Albanian myths got the shape right, if not the source.

Storm warriors, they were called. Born to fight monsters like the kulshedra.

The truth? They weren’t born to save anyone.

The Elioud were fallout from a war Heaven never finished.

But St. Michael hadn’t abandoned them. Redemption came with a mission—to protect the world from what their forefathers had unleashed.

A mission Olivia’s younger sister knew nothing about.

After Ryan had donned the absurd camo swim trunks, a T-shirt, and flip flops, he grabbed the lanyard with his cabin keycard and slung it around his neck.

Then he pressed the tiny waterproof earwig into his ear.

Its specialized long-range harmonic technology would permit him to communicate with Olivia back at the Kastrioti estate in Fushe-Arrez, Albania.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work inside the ship’s hull. He had to go out on deck.

And somehow manage to speak without anyone catching sight of him talking to himself. As always on this job, a cocktail in a plastic cup and a slightly unsteady gait would have to suffice as cover. Not exactly what the Rangers had trained him for.

As he shut the cabin door, laughter echoed down the passageway. He stiffened. Being caught belowdecks with little room to maneuver gave him the creeping willies. He hadn’t joined the Navy for precisely this reason. Jumping out of an airplane was much preferable to living inside a tin can.

Turning, he saw a young couple in their late twenties strolling toward him holding hands.

A memory of walking hand-in-hand with Arly on a beach in the Bahamas took him by surprise, squeezing his chest like an invisible harmonic vise. It had been more than a year since his fiancée had dumped him and the pain still caught him unaware at times.

Damn, dude, get ahold of yourself he lectured silently as he nodded at the couple.

Ryan returned to the pool deck, alert to the cruise goers and crew members who crowded the passageways and public spaces.

He saw nothing to raise any red flags. Which made perfect sense.

Olivia had shared no intel on any human terrorist activity related to this sailing, just said she wanted eyes on Markham, who wouldn’t understand or appreciate having a former Army Ranger bodyguard.

If Olivia had specific worries, likely they related to the shadowy world of the Elioud , a race of demi-angels tasked with defending humanity against Dark angelic forces.

As he made his way across the pool deck, Ryan scanned the rows of chairs and tables. No one paid him any attention.

Scratch that. There were several women in one of the hot tubs who seemed to watch him as he made his way to the stairs to the upper deck.

Despite the wet hair and swimsuits, he recognized the rest of Markham’s friends: Caroline Hartley, Mercedes Lopez, Alexis Hammond, Ivone DeSousa, and Germaine Grimes.

He’d memorized the names and all the salient details from the mission brief.

Along with Tessa George and Jasmyn White, Dianne Markham’s friends could be best summed up in a few words: entitled brats.

Not individually, no. Some were downright admirable.

Mercedes Lopez, for example, was a critical care nurse at Mass General Hospital in Boston.

And Germaine Grimes worked in research on infectious-disease panels at a small startup in the suburbs.

In fact, most of the women had something to do with healthcare.

It was the one thing beyond drinking too much and dating like sailors on shore leave that they shared.

Even Markham did social-media marketing for local hospital systems and doctors’ offices.

Ryan ignored the titters from the five women in the hot tub as he mounted the deck stairs.

He could feel their lascivious gazes on his ass.

Obviously, they didn’t see a lot of men who followed the Ranger physical-fitness regimen.

Then again, they’d have to go to the gym more often to increase their odds of doing so.

At the top of the stairs, he headed straight toward the front of the ship. It was crowded even on this upper deck as people soaked up the sun on this sailing day. Tomorrow it would be deserted as the passengers hit the penultimate port of call, Split, Croatia.

Dammit . He’d forgotten his cover cocktail in the onslaught of focused female gazes.

He looked down at his cellphone, which displayed a tracking program.

He’d dropped a nanotracker on Markham on the first night of the cruise.

Miró Kos, the Kastriotis’ head of development, had assured him that it was virtually impossible for Olivia’s younger sister to find it, let alone remove it.

It was also impervious to scans, temperature fluctuations, and water exposure.

The tracker was so tiny that he’d had to use a specialized delivery device in the form of a dissolvable sticker to attach it to her purse—a sneaky act he hadn’t learned in the Rangers.

After that, the nanobots in the tracker, keyed to Markham’s personal harmonics, activated and migrated to her skin. A little creepy, true, but effective.

The tracker showed that the package was in her cabin.

Ryan checked his phone. He’d missed check-in by almost half an hour. Olivia wouldn’t say anything, but he’d worked for the Kastriotis long enough and gone through enough action to be able to hear what wasn’t said.

He tapped his earlobe where his own nanocomm array clung to his skin. “Aerie Actual, this is Demon Slayer.”

His call sign had seemed appropriate last year when he’d witnessed his first actual daemons and possessed humans, but right now with the smell of the Adriatic fresh in his nostrils, it just seemed overwrought.

Ryan shifted both forearms onto the railing and pretended to gaze into the distance.

Maybe he’d look like he had a momentous decision weighing on him.

“Demon Slayer, this is Harlequin. You’re thirty minutes’ late checking in.” Olivia’s calm voice betrayed nothing. “According to the cruise itinerary, you’re sailing today. You haven’t gotten distracted from your mission, have you?”

“No, ma’am,” said Ryan, irritation hardening his tone. So much for thinking that his commander wouldn’t call him on being late.

“Then I’ll have your sitrep.”

“Package appears to be trying to evade her friends, Harlequin. She nearly made me this morning in the ship’s library when she ducked inside.” He left out the gut-punching kiss from the daily summary.

“Why?” Now a sharp note broke his commander’s normally smooth tone.

Ryan’s irritation made him blunter than was wise. “Probably because they’ve been trying to get her laid ever since she went cold turkey from dating apps and going to clubs.”

“That’s your take?” she asked. “Based on what? That Dianne’s traveling with her girlfriends instead of a boyfriend? That you got into her phone and didn’t find the Flrty app with dozens of swipe-rights on it?”

“Based on the fact that she doesn’t drink as much as they do.

Or wear skimpy clothes. Or send come-hither glances at all the men around her.

” Ryan shifted his weight as he looked east. He could see the Albanian coastline as a slate blue along the horizon.

“At least three of the other women have hooked up on this trip. And the rest cheer them on. Except your sister.”

“But you think she used to be like them.”

“Hard to imagine spending so much time with friends you’re nothing like,” said Ryan.

“Plus, she didn’t scrub their social media accounts.

Her friends Jasmyn and Tessa have also said a few things when she’s not around.

” He didn’t add that they’d complained that Olivia's sister thought she was better than them now.

“Maybe they’re the sort who like drama. They’re stirring up trouble. I know the type.”

“Except none of the other women disagrees or sticks up for your sister. Not even the two with steady boyfriends.”

Olivia sighed. Even though she was hundreds of kilometers away in the Albanian mountains, it sounded like she stood at his shoulder.

“Dianne always did have poor taste in friends. Okay, listen, just keep a safe distance for now. If she really does suspect you shadowing her, it’s going to make your mission harder.”

His mission? Somehow, he was supposed to get close enough to Dianne Markham to convince her to go with him to Fushe-Arrez when she disembarked. And if that kiss was anything to go by, she wouldn’t forget him or go anywhere with him, not if she really wanted nothing to do with men.

He didn’t share his doubts. “Copy that, Harlequin,” he said instead, filing the emotional IED under not my problem .