"How do you figure?" she asked, flabbergasted by his words.
He flashed a fanged grin at her. "I might have lost some skin, but I got kissed by a beautiful woman who was happy to see me. I gotta say that's pretty epic in my book. Definitely not a worst-case day here."
Given what she'd seen of his past, she knew that for a fact. Still ...
"Thank you."
He frowned. "For what?"
Being here.
Being you. Things she couldn't say out loud without embarrassing herself to the deepest level. But she felt that gratitude so much that it made tears prick at her eyes.
After a few seconds when she didn't respond, Jess looked over at her. She was staring at her hands as if they belonged to a stranger. A cloak of sadness enveloped her. "You okay?"
She nodded. And still she looked at her hands. "I killed a ... Daimon tonight."
"What?"
Swallowing, she glanced over at him. "You were right. They'd lied to me my whole life and kept that knowledge from me. I don't know what to believe now."
"Believe in yourself. Trust your instincts."
"Is that what you do?"
Jess snorted as old memories burned. "No. Not doing it is what got me shot in the back by a man I thought was my brother. I like to think I learn a little as I go."
But sometimes he wondered. Like right now, there was a part of him that wanted to trust her, and if ever someone should know better than that, it was him. She'd already proved that she was willing to hurt him to get what she wanted.
And she'd also run to him when he was hurt to make sure he was still alive.
After she hit him with a car, of course. Yeah, okay, so that part sucked. But she had come back when she didn't have to. It was more than a lot of people would do.
"We're not going to make it back to your house, are we?" He heard the fearful undercurrent in her voice.
"Don't get maudlin on me. We're not dead yet ... any chance those demon powers of yours have anything to help with this?"
"Not that..." Her voice trailed off as if an idea suddenly occurred to her. "Don't wasps hate bad smells?"
"I'm not fond of them neither. Is there something you need to tell me? 'Cause right now, I really can't open a window."
She made a sound of disgust at his offbeat humor. "Whenever the powers surge, they put off an awful smell. I was thinking-"
"I prefer the idea of me driving through the worst BOB ever than having you smell up the car with demon funk to choke us down. No offense, my sight and hearing aren't the only things my Dark-Hunter powers boost."
"BOB?"
He loved that out of all that, she'd gotten only one word. "Baked on bugs. Or in this case, I guess I should have said BOW-baked on wasps."
She started to laugh, but something slammed into them so hard, it snapped her forcefully to the right.
Jess cursed as he lost control of the car and they spun around. He wasn't sure what had struck them, but it felt like a semi.
On steroids.
All of a sudden, there was a lone howl.
Coyote. He'd know that sound anywhere. The only question was if he meant it as a taunt or an order for his servants. When the car finally stopped moving, it ended up embedded against a pole.