[ Knight in Shining Leather ]
Carol gasped and stared in surprise at the man laid out on the pavement in front of her. She pressed her hand to the bruise that was slowly forming on her cheek, the bruise wasn’t the worst she’d had by a long shot, not when it came to Ed. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking when she’d left. She knew he’d find her, he always managed, but she hadn’t expected him to find her so soon. When he’d dragged her into the parking lot of the bar and hit her she hadn’t expected anyone to step in, nobody ever did. Then again Ed wasn’t usually so obvious when he hurt her.
"Nobody’s ever done that for me," she said to the man with the strikingly blue eyes. If he hadn’t just done what he did she probably would have been intimidated by him. She probably should be anyway, with his wild hair and blood smeared across his knuckles. "I don’t know how to thank you for that," she said.
The fight had come over Tig like a fever--it'd lasted barely more than a couple minutes, but he felt the ebbing flows of adrenaline kicking up a storm through his veins even now. It'd been part instinctual, gut reaction and part self-destructive. Truth was, he'd needed the fight nearly as much as this woman clearly needed someone to stand up for her. Everyone had needs. An occasional release valve on the pressure that build inside Tig's fists was one of them.
"Yeah, don't worry about it," Tig said, absently, and meant it. This was Charming. They had to protect Charming…and its citizens. Everyone one of them. Scumbags like that--beating on women and shit--well, they had no place here. He tapped his finger over his patch. "See this cut? This means I'm your guardian angel for tonight." His eyebrows knit in concern at the blueish mark on the side of her face, and then he pressed, "You got somewhere you can go?"
