Oh God, three more days until I could get my walking boot and sleep. That seemed like eternity right now. Usually I would try to exercise to burn off the stim adrenaline, but with a gimpy leg and a gimpy arm, I was prettyuseless.
Damien came out of the kitchen and then ranupstairs.
Good, stay away from me. Please God, don’t let him touch my arm again.I was hot just thinking about it. Men that beautiful shouldn’t bereal.
I sounded like a lovestruck teenager. Stupidstims.
He came back down the stairs carrying a small black carbon-fiber box and a toolbag.
Setting the box and bag on the coffee table, he sat next to me, close enough that I could feel his bodyheat.
Great. He smells goodtoo.
Ugh.
“You wanna turn on some music?” heasked.
Yes! Get me out of myhead.
“Only if I get topick.”
His lips pulled back, showing his teeth and an adorable dimple in the side of his cheek. “Ladies choice.” He opened the bag and pulled out somewires.
God, he wascharming.
I leaned across to the side table where the speakers were and laid my new phone on top. Opening the music app, I searched for something not too metal but not too slow either. Bruce Springsteen was always a goodidea.
“Glory Days” belted out of the speakers and Damiengrinned.
“What?” I asked, settling back into thesofa.
“You sure you’re twenty yearsold?”
“Shut up, my musicrocks.”
He just continued to smile, cranking a bolt on the carbon fiber box with a wrench. From this angle, I had an amazing view of his biceps. If Maxine were sitting here and not me, she’d straddle him, throw the wrench on the floor and screw his brains out. She’d give no thought to the fact that he was a client, or that falling for people meant you could get hurt or any of that. She’d just act on her impulses. My legs throbbed with need at the thought, and I cleared mythroat.
“What’s that?” I pointed to the box, trying to get out of my loopy stimhead.
He handed me a green wire. “Hold this and feed it in slowly. Don’t let it gettangled.”
I did as he asked, and he popped open a side access panel, pulling the wire through slowly. “This is a plasma brick. It’s basically the same technology as the bands we’re developing, but these can be set on the ground in a perimeter so people could potentially hide inside. Then when ghouls tried to pass the perimeter, they wouldn’t be allowedentry.”
My mouth dropped open. “That’s brilliant! That would totally change everything. We could have small colonies of civilians inside, with a plasma brickperimeter.”
I fed the wire slowly as he tugged on it. “In theory it’s a great idea, but I’m not sure how it could work if the sentries found a way to fly over and dropin.”
The Galadrias. Everything had happened so fast lately I hadn’t even been able to talk with anyone about their recently revealedsecret.
“Can you believe they breathe fire?” Iasked.
He shook his head. “I can’t believe you talk to themeither.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, it freaked me out the first timetoo.”
He grabbed a tiny screwdriver. “Do you think if the ghouls left, your telepathy would go awaytoo?”
I could see the science part of his mind working, and it was a testament to how smart he was. That was a very goodquestion.
