Page 30 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker #1)

B y the time I pulled into the parking lot next to the shop, I was struggling.

The vamp had probably broken at least one of my ribs, and I wasn’t struggling to breathe, exactly, it just hurt.

A lot.

So for the second time that night, I took my time getting off my bike, even if this one was for very different reasons.

I was just starting to think that maybe, in fact, I would curl forward, rest my head on whatever was most convenient, and take a quick nap before I worried about going inside.

Fuck me, vamps packed a wallop.

The hard slamming of a car door woke me up, and only then did I realize that I had started to fall asleep standing up. Shit.

The string of profanity that followed was...impressive, half incomprehensible, and decidedly Irish. I lifted my head and looked around to find Davin heading toward me at speed.

Shit.

Hadn’t he left? He had. He’d driven off at the same time as me. He hadn’t followed me to Broken Dreams, or else he’d have known what had happened, but he definitely had a clue now.

“What did I tell you?” he demanded as he reached me. “I told you not to go. But no, you’re thick as a plank. Your mam told me you wouldn’t listen, but it’s even worse than she said.”

I turned to look at him and almost fell down, because I still hadn’t gotten off my bike. Shit. Had I hit my head? I didn’t remember hitting my head. Or maybe I was bleeding internally. That was a great thought.

I usually healed pretty well, but maybe I should have driven over to see Doc myself.

Before I could even finish thinking it through, I was being lifted off my bike and into, fuck my life, a princess carry.

“Oh no. No you don’t. I can walk for myself Mr. Badass,” I insisted, pushing at his chest trying to make him put me down.

Either I was stronger than I thought, or I’d convinced him I was okay, because he did in fact put me down.

Twist poked her head up to look at him, then me. “You do smell of blood, Father. You should tell him you fought well.”

I scoffed. “I did not. I fought like a five year old in a slap fight, because I haven’t had self-defense classes since Mother made me take them when I was a teenager, and that was my level at the time.”

Davin lifted a brow at me.

“Twist said I fought well. I did not. Her? She kicked ass. She literally fucking dismembered a guy who tried to take off my head with a baseball bat. It was terrifying.”

She preened like a damned bird, looking smug and—well, what was I gonna say? If she hadn’t been with me, I didn’t doubt I’d be dead. Thank fuck for the cat distribution system.

“Come on,” Davin finally said, his voice softer, less angry. “Let’s get you inside and see how bad it is, yeah? You’ve got a first aid kit, don’t you?”

“I do,” I agreed. “Danger of growing up alarmingly squishy among vampires. My mother almost melted down once when I skinned my knee on pavement. Started talking about what a terrible invention it was and she wished she could go back to before then, when it was easy to raise children.”

His brows drew together, and he looked as alarmed as I felt about the whole thing. “Pavement.”

“Pavement,” I agreed. “My mother is older than pavement, Davin. What do I do with that?”

“You...I think you just be grateful for her wisdom. She’s a smart woman, and she cares about you.”

“—gross,” a girl said as she walked past us, heading for the beach. “I don’t know why anyone would go around showing that off.”

I turned to her, frowning, ready to tell her that whatever it was about my appearance that so offended her, she could take a damn hike, then I realized she wasn’t looking at me. Sure, because there was nothing wrong with me and?—

“Jaysus,” Davin whispered next to me, and I absolutely could not disagree with him.

Because running down the paved walk that went the length of the beach was Arthur Agincourt, and that man was something the fuck else.

Long lines, accentuated by his rather form-fitting running shorts, and no shirt at all.

He had those little muscles that you only got by being not just ripped, but dehydrated too—a sex pack— six pack.

Seriously, though, who could think straight when confronted by that much hot perfection in one place?

He had come from behind us, jogging what would have been too fast for me, heading toward the store, but he wasn’t breathing hard. Didn’t seem like he was doing much more than taking an evening stroll.

The girl, who it turned out was on her phone, angled her head to look at me and Davin. “I know, right? Who goes around showing something like that off? Gruesome.”

Then she turned and headed the opposite way down the beach, away from us and Arthur and the shop.

I leaned toward Davin. “Does gruesome mean something different in modern slang than it used to mean in the dictionary? Like, cool or gnarly or wicked or...whatever?”

The look he turned on me could have peeled paint. “How the feck should I know what American slang means, these days or any days? I’m struggling enough to try to stop using Irish slang.” Then his eyes narrowed, and his lips pursed. “But I suspect not.”

“Seriously? Gruesome means bad things, but that dude’s hot like the surface of the sun.” I paused and narrowed my eyes, frowning, because that was probably a weird bit of American slang too, so why would he know it? “Do you have that in Ireland?”

Again, he tore his gaze off the hotness that was Arthur jogging and turned back to me, unimpressed as ever. “Do we have the surface of the sun?”

“Oh my god, you’re such an asshole. I’m saying he’s hot. Super hot.” I waved back toward where the guy was jogging, thankfully away from us now, so he wasn’t likely to hear me going on about his assets. “You know what hot means, right?”

“I do,” he agreed. “But I suspect the girl was only looking at his leg. Or lack of one.”

His...I let my eyes drift down the retreating man’s back, from an impressive pert ass down muscular thighs, and.

..one shapely calf, and one leg that ended at the knee, followed by metallic thing that looked like modern art.

Ah. Well, I’d known that was a thing already, from what Bannockburn had said.

Except...I turned to glare at the woman going the opposite way. “What the hell is wrong with her? Who says a thing like?—”

Davin had to catch me, because my feet went out from under me, and when his arms tightened around my injured ribs, the whole world went a little sideways. I might have whimpered like a small dog, but I would never admit that to anyone. Not even Davin and Twist, who’d witnessed it.

It was then that Davin gave up and went back to carrying me, and I didn’t even protest.

“I might have a broken rib,” I wheezed as he power-walked toward the shop. “Quite possibly. She got in a really good swing on me.”

“Keys,” Davin muttered as he reached the front door, only to pause when Twist was already pulling them out of my jacket pocket, having climbed out to grab them and hold them up for him. “Look at you,” he said, duly impressed. “Certainly cleverer than your da.”

I wanted to glare at him, but honestly, I just didn’t have it in me at that moment.

I sighed and accepted being carried across the threshold like a blushing bride in an old story, then laid ever so gently onto the sofa in my apartment office.

He left me there a moment, and came back with a damp rag and the first aid kit from under my bathroom sink. Smart man.

He peeled me out of my shirt and tossed it toward the hamper, but I didn’t see if he hit it or not, my whole attention captured by the vampire who was my business partner.

He felt my side like it was something he’d done a thousand times before, checking someone for broken ribs.

Then he smiled. “Just cracked, I think. Nothing out of place. Going to have a wicked bruise though, and it’s going to hurt a good while.

” He glanced up at me and grinned. “Or is that not proper American use of ‘wicked’?”

“I think it’s fine,” I mumbled, and that was weird. I blinked repeatedly, trying to pull myself up a bit, wake up, so I wouldn’t fall asleep while he was checking me over.

He laid a soft hand over the center of my chest, holding me in place with no effort whatsoever.

Fucking vampires. “Stay there. It’s not fine.

It’s going to hurt you.” He pulled out alcohol swabs, cleaning some abrasions I hadn’t even realized I’d had on my knuckles, cheek, and brow, and then putting a butterfly bandage on the brow.

“Don’t think any of the rest of these need bandaging. Now cough for me.”

I lifted a brow at him, but he was unimpressed, so I gave a tiny cough. His expression went even flatter, less impressed, so I tried again, with a little more feeling. And that hurt like a bitch, but I didn’t feel anything moving in my chest.

“You can get a full breath?” he asked. I nodded, so he went back to inspecting me for other, smaller things.

As he looked me over, he spoke, almost muttered.

“Some people are just like that woman. Anything they think of as an imperfection is awful, and everyone else should be ashamed of it and try to hide it. My da was like that, and I was the imperfection he couldn’t stand. ”

I winced at the notion, but I couldn’t offer any equivalent.

My mother had been odd, and maybe not a good mother by some people’s standards, but I thought she’d done pretty damn well by me.

She had alternately smothered and neglected me, but most of it made perfect sense.

She had a more than full-time job, and vampires didn’t have kids. We were in an unprecedented situation.

I could speak on the situation in a more abstract way, though, since Davin had made the opening.

“Anyone who only sees that he’s got a prosthetic limb and is disgusted by it is a fucking weirdo.

First of all, that thing looks cool as hell.

Secondly, that man is gorgeous. Something that sets him apart from other people, makes him unique?

It’s only bad because I assume he went through an awful experience to end up in this situation. ”

“I agree,” he said, voice quiet and thoughtful. Of course, Davin’s voice was usually quiet and thoughtful. Weird. I was too used to my own company, and that guy? He never shut the fuck up. “And I agree that he’s beautiful.”

“Sweet. We can ogle him together if he jogs by on the regular.”

That broke the somber mood and got him back to laughing. That was right. He should be laughing. He had a nice laugh, warm and rich and beautiful.

It was only when the light flipped off that I realized I was drifting my way to sleep again. This time, though, all the willpower in the world couldn’t have dragged my eyes back open.