Page 41 of Helsing: Demon Slayer
In answer to his question about suturing his wound, she said, “About as happy as you sound,” as lightly as she could.
Reaching down, she picked up the loose square from the chocolate-paprika bar and held it out to him. He leaned over on another, deeper, groan and held her wrist with shaking fingers while he guided her hand to his mouth.
He stopped midway to look at the ring on her middle finger. “That’s an interesting design,” he said. “I’ve never seen a ring with a skeleton key on the bezel of a ring before. It almost looks like it can be used to unlock something.”
After he’d managed to get the chocolate square with his lips, Ryan sighed as he chewed.
Dianne brought her hand back to the steering wheel and gazed ahead, though she kept darting glances at him as much as she dared while driving.
They’d driven in silence for several minutes before she finally found the courage to confide in Ryan. “It does unlock something. The key, that is. It unlocks my cousin Emily’s diary. I had it made into a ring to remember her. She died when I was sixteen.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere.
She looked at him. He also looked less tense and pale. “Thank you.”
Before Ryan pulled out his cellphone, they came to a three-way intersection and had to choose whether to go left over a bridge or right around an outcropping of rock. No sign indicated where the latter headed, but Ryan seemed to know where they were.
“Take a right,” he said, his voice sounding more normal. “We’ll get on the A1/E65 toward Trebinje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It’s a bigger highway, which may be a problem if thedaemonsfind us. But now that we’ve left the others behind, I think it’s a better option.”
“Copy that,” said Dianne, echoing his earlier response to Olivia as she turned.
Ryan looked over at her, a smile quirking his mouth. “Thanks for helping with the Molotov cocktails back there in Split. We make a good team.”
Dianne couldn’t believe how good it felt to hear that. “I knew those long hours bartending in college would pay off eventually,” she said, grinning at him.
“I guess facing a bar lined with drunken frat boys isn’t too different from facing a line ofjihadis,” he said, humor clear in his tone. “They come in hot and take shots at a beautiful woman who’s captive behind the bar. You probably got pretty good at defending yourself.”
Beautiful woman. He thought she was beautiful. Now she felt downright giddy.
“More like drunken dads and husbands on vacation with their families,” she said. “But yeah, I learned a few moves, starting with befriending the bouncer.”
“Bet he expected a little quid pro quo for his services,” said Ryan, his voice rough with something more than annoyance. Jealousy, Dianne realized, and she latched onto it.
She shot a glance at him, trying to see if her read of him was right. He was staring out the windshield, his jaw clamped, and his eyes narrowed. His clenched hand on his thigh told its own story. He didn’t look like he was going to pass out again any time soon.
“What if he had?” she asked.
He looked at her, his eyes still narrowed. “That’s not part of the job,” he said, his jaw muscles working. “It makes him worse than the guys hitting on you. It makes him a bully and a manipulative asshole who uses women for sex.”
“I never said the bouncer propositioned me or that I took him up on it,” she said, holding his gaze, but her heart was pounding. His observation came way too close to describing her cousin Emily’s ex-boyfriend. “He didn’t, by the way.”
“Not my business.” Ryan looked away, but Dianne noticed that his hand unclenched and his battlefield glare disappeared. But then he looked back at her and said, “If he had, I’d beat the shit out of him if I ever met him.”
“Good to know,” she said, secretly pleased. She was also convinced that Ryan would be more than a match for the bouncer, who’d been large but soft and pudgy.
No guy had ever threatened physical violence on her behalf, but she realized she liked the idea of having her own personal defender. Too bad it had to end once they reached her sister’s house in Fushë-Arrëz.
Or did it? She decided to see how he’d react to her next words. It wasn’t the kind of thing you told someone over cocktails. But something about the way he looked at her—quiet, steady, no trace of amusement—made her want to try. Just to see if he’d flinch … or lean closer.
She took a breath before saying, “Better than you beating the shit out of me.” She used his words on purpose—not as an accusation, but to signal something raw, something she wasn’t ready to name out loud.
The change that came over Ryan’s features took her breath away. She imagined the lightning in his gaze could strike someone dead. It was in sharp contrast to the granite of his jaw.
When he spoke, his cold voice sent chills down her spine. “Any man who lays hands on a woman is less than a man. A beating is too good for him.”
“You’d just love Jai then. He strangled my cousin Emily to death six weeks after she graduated high school.”
Silence descended like a thunderclap. Dianne had no idea why she’d dropped that conversation bomb. Maybe it was to quell whatever crazy feelings had started to brew inside of her the longer she was in Ryan’s presence.
