Page 6 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)

As they walked, Dianne’s awareness of the large male next to her bordered on the extreme.

She didn’t have to look at him to sense how much space he took up.

Or feel the heat he generated. Or smell his musky, woody cologne.

On some primal level, she recognized an apex predator.

Dangerous, perhaps deadly even, but still she felt safe.

Maybe it was her hypersensitivity that alerted her to a subtle shift in Ryan’s demeanor as they came out onto the pool deck where dozens of people—men, women, and children—already gathered around a crewmember handing out glow sticks.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

He looked down at her. She saw his expression change as he did, his narrowed eyes widening and the tightness around his mouth easing. She didn’t think it was because he liked what he saw in her face. Rather, her gut told her that he didn’t want to alarm her.

“Sorry, I get a little antsy around groups of strangers. Hazard of the job.”

“You run into a lot of trouble working for an Albanian businessman? What is he? A mobster?” Dianne laughed at her question. As if Olivia would ever have anything to do with a criminal, let alone marry him and have his baby.

Ryan’s hand came back to Dianne’s waist, stopping her laughter. “You’d be surprised what kind of trouble the Kastriotis attract” was all he said as he encouraged her to the side of the deck.

He stopped in front of a pillar, turning his back and leaning against it.

This time, he pulled her into his side as she’d wanted him to do earlier, but it only served to emphasize the tension in his body.

His gaze continuously scanned the growing crowd and the crew setting up as a band in the center of the deck between the two pools.

Either something was definitely wrong or he was a delusional paranoid.

Dianne needed to distract herself from her growing uneasiness. “How’d you come to work for my sister and her husband?”

Ryan spoke without looking at her. “I met your sister in the hospital in Prague last summer. She offered me a job after I stepped in to defend her friend Beta from a Russian thug. Got shot for my efforts.”

“Shot?” Dianne’s voice squeaked, her eyes widening.

Ryan looked down at her. “Don’t worry,” he said, smiling a little now. “It’s not the first time. It comes with the territory when you’ve seen combat.”

“You’re ex-military?” Dianne couldn’t keep a slight hint of scorn from her voice. She’d never met anyone who’d taken a career in the military seriously. It seemed like a less-than-optimal career choice.

“Yes, ma’am. Army Ranger. Don’t worry,” he said again as Dianne pulled away from him.

“It won’t rub off on you.” He sounded amused, but Dianne also thought she heard a bit of sarcasm, too.

“We’re not actually on a date. My mission is to get you safely to Albania, and for that my military training comes in very handy. ”

There it was again. Of course, he hadn’t moved on after she’d told him that she wasn’t going anywhere with him. Boy, did it rankle that she was simply a mission for him. She took a decided couple of steps from the imposing male, who watched her with hooded eyes as she did.

Or maybe what bothers you, girlfriend, said a tiny inner voice , is that this gorgeous male specimen clearly doesn’t think much of you or your friends.

Ryan hadn’t said so in so many words, but Dianne had sensed it when the others showed up in the lounge earlier. His posture. His demeanor. His brooding silence. He thought that they were frivolous, silly women. It didn’t matter that she’d started to view them—and herself most of all—that way too.

Crossing her arms, Dianne turned from The Beast and watched the antics of a group of preteen boys and girls chasing each other with glowing neon wands, their necks ringed with matching electric magenta, luminescent sky blue, and acid yellow.

For a brief instant, she wished she could go back in time and have nothing more to hold her attention than whether she could touch her friends with a glowing, flexible plastic stick before they could tag her.

“Would you like some?” Ryan’s question interrupted Dianne’s wallowing reverie.

“What?”

He nodded at the children. “Those chemlights?”

“Oh, I don’t care.” Dianne shrugged and turned back as the trio of crew members in the band began a sound check while the group’s singers stood in front of mic stands watching the drummer and bassist.

Across from where she and Olivia’s guard dog stood, Dianne saw Germaine, Tessa, and Jasmyn enter the pool deck.

On Germaine’s right, a black-haired man in a loose, white island shirt and blue island-style pants seemed fixated on her cabinmate’s every word.

Tessa and Jasmyn, not far behind, giggled and stumbled among a small group of people that Dianne had seen them with at various events throughout the week.

She suspected that they all were imbibing in more than alcohol, though they were certainly doing plenty of drinking.

“Here.”

Dianne had forgotten Ryan as she’d observed the others. She looked down as she felt a tap on her right hand. He’d slipped past her and claimed a few glow sticks from a nearby crew member.

Dianne glanced at the cluster of plastic rods, some thinner than others. “Thanks.”

She started to take them from him, but Ryan snapped several of the thinner ones at one time in a massive fist before handing them to her.

“Cool trick.”

“I try.” Even though he said this lightly, Ryan’s gaze wasn’t on Dianne. He was surveying the deck again.

Dianne’s uneasiness returned. She looked around as she linked several luminous bands around her wrists.

She saw nothing unusual. The band had started playing 80s music, and people now danced, joy suffusing their faces as they waved their glow sticks and sang along to familiar lyrics.

Everyone wearing white and light-colored clothing practically glowed under the dance party’s numerous black lights.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Ryan. “Your constant vigilance is starting to freak me out.” She laughed a little, trying to downplay her jitters.

His response only added fuel to them. “Good. It’ll make you pay attention.”

Dianne sucked in a startled breath. His jaw had hardened under its short beard, and even in the dim ambient lighting, his gaze had a sharp edge.

Then she realized that despite being dressed casually, his black chinos and graphite-gray button-down shirt meant that he didn’t glow.

He’d essentially turned into an indistinct silhouette while her white jeans and the sequins in her blouse made her a target.

He’d prepared for the party. To watch her? Or to guard her?

Or something else?

Crew members wove through the gathering twilight dancers, their trays carrying shot glasses of phosphorescent-green liqueur and clear cellophane packages of gummy candies. Dianne’s gaze caught the candy’s shape. It reminded her of Jasmyn’s contraband ‘treats.’

Over the next half an hour, more cruise guests swelled the ranks of the party until the entire pool deck writhed with swaying, jumping, and undulating bodies of all sizes and ages.

Although there was a final night tomorrow before the cruise ended, only the young and diehard partiers would stay up drinking while everyone else packed for disembarking.

Tonight was the night for everyone to let loose.

Dianne wanted to enjoy herself, so she pretended that Ryan’s proximity signaled interest in her rather than a job requirement.

It was a pleasant fantasy, aided by a few shots of the melon liqueur she grabbed when Ryan’s gaze traveled elsewhere.

Although he didn’t dance, she danced next to him, shrieking and singing as her tipsiness increased and the crowd grew more rowdy from the free-flowing alcohol.

Every now and then Ryan stepped in to glare at anyone who got too close to Dianne, and once he even grabbed a guy and shoved another who’d stepped in to sandwich her between them in a common club-dance bump-and-grind.

She had no idea how long she’d been dancing when the music transitioned into a ballad. As people trailed off to refresh their drinks and plop, red faced, into chairs at the tables lining the sides of the deck, Dianne turned to Ryan and grabbed his hand.

“Dance with me,” she said, an overwhelming desire to push the fantasy as far as it could go rising, heady and reckless, in her inebriated brain.

His face went blank, and he let her drag him farther onto the middle of the deck among a knot of devoted dancers.

Dianne turned as Ryan came to a stop behind her, pressing herself against his chest and going onto her toes to wrap her arms around his neck. For a moment she didn’t think that he was going to react, and then his warm, woody musk enveloped her as his arms came around her waist.

Sweet Lord, but he felt so good.

Sighing, Dianne closed her eyes and nuzzled the base of his neck.

In response, he pulled her against him until she could feel every delineation of his pectoral muscles and the ridges of his abdomen through two layers of clothing.

They fit together perfectly. She wriggled herself against his heat, her breasts tightening in reaction to the stimulation as her core tingled.

She wanted this man, and she didn’t care what happened afterwards.

Almost as soon as she had that thought, the band segued into Highway to Hell , the hard-rock anthem’s guitar chords and growling vocals calling the assembled partygoers to dance to the final song of the party.

Everyone still on deck—which seemed to be everyone on the cruise not already in bed—surged back into the open area between the two pools.

And then all hell broke loose.

Dianne’s eyes snapped open, but the world had already tilted into chaos.

She blinked. All around her, fluorescent whites glowed ghostly under the black lights, their skin tinted with unnatural pulses of violet and green, as if their bodies no longer belonged entirely to them.

Shadows pooled under cheekbones and jaws.

Open mouths seemed too dark—grotesque, yawning things—as if something inside the dancers wanted out.

A chill twisted up her spine. Not from the breeze.

Then Jasmyn and Tessa crashed into her, pulling her from Ryan with clawed hands and manic laughter. The crowd surged behind them, jostling her off balance. Their eyes were wild. Grins stretched too wide. Fingernails bit into her arms as they dragged her away.

Staggering, barely able to keep her balance, Dianne caught the band’s lead singer tearing into the chorus as the crowd exploded—popping and jumping like kernels in a scorching skillet, waving glowing batons, their voices rising in manic unison.

Somewhere in her mind, something tried to swim free of the haze. This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

She looked back—just in time to see Ryan standing perfectly still, a dark monolith against the writhing sea of dancers.

His eyes locked on hers.

And then the crowd swallowed her.