Page 9 of Helsing: Demon Slayer (The Dragon’s Paladins #1)

D ianne swayed on her feet after he said that, and Ryan cursed himself silently for not taking care of her injuries and physical needs first. There was time enough to bring her up to speed on the reality of the immaterial world of angelic beings and the hidden war being fought between the Heavenly Host under the Archangel Michael and the Fallen Watcher Angels, or Dark Irim , and their vast legions of evil minions, human and spirits.

Like the daemons who’d possessed the dance party on the pool deck of their cruise.

“We can discuss this later,” he said, setting the emergency lantern he’d activated down on the small desk. “It’s time to take a better look at you.”

“I’m fine,” she said, but the sharpness she intended ended in a slight groan that ruined it.

Turning to her, Ryan said, “I’ll be the judge of that” as he placed both hands on her upper arms and eased her toward the bed.

She didn’t resist and let him guide her to a sitting position.

The gorgeous blonde who’d knocked his socks off earlier at dinner and nearly distracted him from his one job—namely protecting her—looked worse for the wear.

Her right eye had swollen shut. The silky blond hair that his fingers had itched to run through had become a tangled mess with an obvious bald spot low and on the right side.

Angry scratches crisscrossed her cheeks and the skin of her bare arms, even the skin of her upper chest, showcased by the formerly dramatic V-neck of her blouse.

“First, some water,” he said, stuffing his fury at her injuries into the mental compartment that he’d built for such distractions. If he hadn’t, he might have been dead in combat a long time ago.

He opened the small refrigerator wedged next to the closet. He’d stockpiled several bottles of water even though he’d brough a large refillable metal bottle in his luggage. In his experience, he could manage a survival scenario without a lot of things, but drinking water wasn’t one of them.

“Here,” he said, handing her the bottle. Thankfully, she accepted it. “You’ll need to flush out whatever toxin they spiked the shots and gummies with, so keep sipping that.”

“It felt like ecstasy, only worse,” she said. When Ryan looked at her, she shrugged, winced, and went on, “I tried it in college at a club.” She didn’t elaborate, but Ryan sensed regret in the curt statement.

Kneeling, he searched in his backpack, which he’d slid under the desk.

He had several chocolate bars there. He swiveled on his knees and handed Dianne one of them.

“We all make mistakes. Mine just involved a fast car and alcohol. Make sure you eat some of that chocolate.” He nodded toward the candy bar she held.

“Dementors are real, and sugar helps when your adrenaline crashes.”

He paused a moment as she took that in. “But this wasn’t just a party drug gone bad.

The daemons manipulated the reactions of those who’d taken it.

Anything nasty, cruel, selfish, ravenous—all of humanity’s basest inclinations—the daemons fed on and amplified.

Then they possessed anyone who opened the door of their will to them. ”

“It seemed like damn near everyone except you,” said Dianne before sipping water. She looked at the chocolate in her hand. “WiseHerb. I don’t recognize this brand. It must be European.” She raised it to her nose and inhaled. “Rosemary? That's an interesting choice.”

Ryan returned to his pack to search again.

“Take it up with your sister.” He turned with his med kit in hand.

“That’s her company. It mostly makes herbal products, but she recently negotiated a deal with Ghanian and Sierra Leone cocoa farmers to import cocoa beans as long as they don’t use child labor.

I brought some of the first product lines. ”

“Sounds like Olivia. Out to save the world.” Ryan heard a note of bitterness leavened with wistfulness in her voice.

He opened the kit on the bed next to Dianne and pulled out a penlight. Snapping it on, he turned to her. “Look at me. I’m going to check your pupil, see if you got a concussion from being tossed around like a bag of potatoes.”

She sat patiently while he used his thumb to raise her eyelid and told her to look in different directions. The uninjured eye reacted normally, but it didn’t rule out a concussion. He’d know more when the swelling on the other eye subsided.

“What was that you sang back there?” she asked as he turned the light off and dropped it into the med kit. “It sure didn’t sound like something you learned in the Army.”

He grabbed the cotton swabs and hydrogen peroxide to clean the cuts on her face, upper chest, and arms.

“Saint Benedict’s Prayer for Exorcism,” he said as he doused a cotton swab.

“Seriously?” she asked.

He heard the skepticism in her voice. Ignoring it, he continued to dab the cuts on her face.

She persisted. “That seems a little superstitious for a badass ex-soldier.”

Dianne appeared more focused on their conversation than what he was doing, which was good. He was sure the lacerations stung, especially as the daemons would have used harmonic spurs to disrupt the cells they sliced through.

“You’d be surprised. Many of us wear medals into battle, even if we’re only battlefield believers. But since I’ve worked for your sister and her husband, I’ve learned that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your modern philosophy.”

Dianne pulled back at that. Her single eye, its blue iris flecked with slate, fixed on him. “Hamlet? You’re seriously quoting Hamlet to me?”

Now Ryan tossed the used swab onto the desk next to him with a bit more force than necessary. “What? Dumb gym bro can’t read Shakespeare?”

Dianne flinched, and Ryan regretted his fit of pique. As he turned to run his fingers through her hair, checking her scalp for unseen cuts and bruises, she said, “I’m sorry that my friends called you that. I should have said so before.”

Ryan looked at her. She looked upset even through the wild bramble of bloody cuts on her face. “Eat that chocolate,” he said gruffly, “your blood sugar is crashing.”

She blinked and reached for the chocolate bar where she’d left it on the bed next to her hip.

As she moved, her breasts brushed Ryan’s chest where he leaned over her.

A zing of electricity shot through him, making him want to growl.

He ignored it. It had just been a long time since he’d been this close to a woman’s body.

But he had a mission to do, and he’d vowed never to pursue pure, selfish pleasure again.

Dianne unwrapped the candy bar and broke off a square. “Would you like some?” she asked, holding it out to Ryan.

It would be so easy to lean in and let her feed the chocolate to him, her fingertips caressing his lips until he captured them with his teeth ….

Ryan shook his head. “I can wait until I’m done checking you. This patch on your scalp looks pretty tender. You’ll need to shower and wash it thoroughly so it doesn’t get infected. I’ll get you some antibiotic cream for afterwards.”

Dianne had popped the chocolate into her mouth. “Mmhmm,” she said.

Ryan began running his hands over her as he’d done in the corridor after the rabble of daemoniacs had ripped her from his hold.

His heart thudded at the memory. He’d thought he’d lost her in the powerful harmonic eddies swirling around them.

Their malevolent joy at gaining the object of their pursuit had damn near destroyed the structural integrity of that part of the cruise ship.

Even now he could recall the spongy feeling of the steel beneath his feet.

But the daemons ’ distraction had been their undoing. As usual with the dumb mothers, driven and pulled this way and that by their irrational lusts.

That, and Ryan had nearly flared. He wasn’t even an Elioud , just a former soldier wearing specially designed harmonic tactical gear.

But, damn, he was glad that Miró worked for the good guys.

It was his harmonic chainmail that protected Ryan.

Was that the reason the daemon had referred to him as a ‘paladin’?

He shoved that thought to the side. He’d ask the Elioud warriors when he returned to the Kastrioti Estate.

Over the past year, he’d learned to live with all the gaps in his knowledge of the angelic realm and its intersection with the human world.

Beta, who’d married András in a battlefield ceremony last December, had told him not to pout about it in her typical straightforward way.

“Do you think that you are alone in a scary new world?” she’d asked. “What exactly about being in military intelligence prepared me to transform into a dragon, hm?”

“ Good point,” he’d said. He didn’t have the cajónes to tell Beta she didn’t need the military or anything else to teach her how to be a dragon.

“I’ll shower when I return to my cabin,” said Dianne, bringing Ryan back to the present.

“Negative,” he said, his hand coming to her left shoulder. She winced and pulled away. He slipped his fingers inside her sleeveless blouse to feel along the top of her shoulder and around to her back. “That hurts?”

Dianne nodded. “Yes. That demented woman somehow managed to throw me against the wall. I banged my shoulder pretty hard.”

Ryan eased onto the bed and moved Dianne so that he could raise her shirt. He shone the penlight on her upper back where a massive bruise had already turned an ugly purple on her shoulder blade.

“I’ve got a cold pack and a sling. I can tape the pack to your back while you keep your arm elevated.

I think it’s just bruised, but we’ll know more when we can get it x-rayed.

” He pulled her blouse down and knelt on the floor again to manipulate her right knee.

“This too. It’s pretty swollen, but I think it’ll be okay after I wrap it and put a cold pack on it.

You’re not going anywhere for a few hours, so you might as well lie down and get some rest.”