Page 57 of Smokescreen (Knight & Daywalker)
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.HadI 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 whenI 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—sixpack.
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?”
