Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 1
Contents
Forward
Dashing Devil Collection 2
Book 4
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
♥︎ Chapter 11 ♥︎
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
♥︎ Chapter 17 ♥︎
♥︎ Chapter 18 ♥︎
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
* Chapter 41
* Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
♥︎ Chapter 49 ♥︎
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Epilogue
Dashing Devil 5
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
♥︎ Chapter 11 ♥︎
♥︎ Chapter 12 ♥︎
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
* Chapter 18
* Chapter 19
* Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
♥︎ Chapter 37 ♥︎
♥︎ Chapter 38 ♥︎
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
♥︎ Chapter 54 ♥︎
♥︎ Chapter 55 ♥︎
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Dashing Devil 6
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
♥︎ Chapter 8 ♥︎
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
♥︎ Chapter 39 ♥︎
♥︎ Chapter 40 ♥︎
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
* Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
* Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Epilogue
Afterward
Forward
Welcome back and thanks for picking up the next stage in Boyd and his loves’ adventures. As always, I’m grateful for your continued support. Seriously, thank you for being part of what makes sharing these stories such a joy and sustainable for me.
I want to also give a special shout-out to my family for supporting my chosen path and to my editor Dutch Palmer, who added so much more value than you know to this story.
This collection results from nearly a year of effort—from the second week of August 2023 to the final week of July 2024. You’ll notice that some chapters have additional marks. Hearts indicate an explicit chapter. Asterisks indicate bonus chapters that are new with this omnibus collection.
My editor, Dutch Palmer, and I have done our best to give you a great, clean story. That said, even with multiple passes made by multiple sets of eyes, I’m sure we missed some things. If you spot something we missed and are of a mind to, please let me know about it. The best way to contact me is through my email at G.D.Brooks.Books@gmail.com.
If you are interested in seeing the sausage being made, I’ve started a Patreon where I will post future chapters before they are published—though there will be a free subscription section that will let you leave me a message.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the next leg of Boyd’s journey.
Thanks for reading,
G.D. Brooks
Dashing Devil Collection 2
Books 4, 5, and 6
Dashing Devil
Book 4
Shadowed Savior
Written by G.D. Brooks
Edited by Dutch Palmer
Dashing Devil 4: Shadowed Savior
Written by: G.D. Brooks
Edited by: Dutch Palmer
Copyright © 2023 by G.D. Brooks
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Audiobook rights owned by Royal Guard Publishing.
ISBN: 9798870617848
First Edition, 2023
For permissions requests, contact: G.D. Brooks
G.D.Brooks.Books@gmail.com
Disclaimer: The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Prologue
Hopewing couldn’t sleep after her conversation with Boyd. She hadn’t expected to sleep well for the next few days anyway, given their impending doom, but thought anxiety or mourning her oncoming death would be the cause of her restlessness—not the electric excitement that currently filled her.
She’d even tried to… take care of things… but was still filled with what felt like boundless energy caused by erotic thoughts driven by Boyd’s words. He had promised to come for her. More importantly, he’d said he intended to fulfill his older promises.
That meant he wouldn’t just save New Eden and her from the Last Dragon, but that he would stay by her side and watch out for her. And she would do the same for him. They would finally be together.
They’d made that promise with all the innocence of childhood. At the time, it had carried none of the implications that both Silvie and she later applied to it. Even if Hope wanted their promise to always be together to have romantic significance, she knew Boyd might not see it that way.
That didn’t stop her from desperately wanting him to, though. Silvie had insisted that he did—or at least that he would. More than anything, Hope wished for that day.
Hope had seen beneath her silver-haired friend’s mask—though they were as close as sisters—enough times to know that Silvie wasn’t infallible. She could and had been wrong about many things, even things related to Boyd. More importantly, she had never promised that they would be together. Which was telling.
A few short days ago, she’d encountered Boyd again for the first time in years. That encounter had filled her with hope. She’d followed Silvie’s advice and made her desire for a romantic relationship with him clear by stealing a kiss. Then, just like Silvie HAD said he would, he’d not only accepted her feelings but admitted that he returned them.
Hope had spent the following days in a giddy glow. Between what Raev, Boyd’s second lover, had said about Boyd not
That was almost as good as coming from the man she loved himself.
Then, word had come that the Last Dragon was heading for New Eden. Losing the city would be terrible, but they had several days’ notice and could avoid any human losses. Thinking this would only be a disruption and that ultimately all would be well, she took this news as a speed bump on her happy road.
When she’d realized that with no more New Eden, there would be no Eden’s Protectors, her hopes had soared to new heights. This might finally be her chance to transfer out from under her current team’s Captain and their shared handler. This would be a relief, even if getting onto Boyd’s team was still unlikely.
Then that blasted idiot of a team Captain of hers went off script in a press conference. He was supposed to encourage people to leave the city calmly and assure them that arrangements were being made for their safe departure. He was supposed to say that Eden’s Protectors would remain on site to keep the peace until the final moments of the evacuation.
Instead, he’d proudly announced that he would slay the Last Dragon and save the city in his usual pompous and overblown manner. The fool even encouraged New Eden’s citizens to stay—endangering more than just his team—because it was perfectly safe.
A third of the citizens had banded together in protest of the evacuations at that point. Facing civil unrest throughout much of the city, the higher-ups made the call to let Archangel attempt to slay the Last Dragon. To make matters worse, they ordered Hope to assist him as he requested. While they dealt with the powerful mythical threat, the rest of Eden’s Protectors would stay in the city to ensure peace.
They had effectively ordered her to her death to appease the public, all because of that jerk’s arrogance. That had been a roadblock instead of a speed bump on the happy road she’d blissfully been cruising on. Actually, more like a massive sinkhole. She’d used what favor she’d garnered from being a good little Hero and dutifully following often pointless orders, along with a healthy dose of actual tears, to get permission to call Boyd and say goodbye.
Her handler had always had a weakness for tears. But that weakness was only for waterworks from the opposite sex. He would mock or punish a boy or a man for even tearing up, let alone shedding tears, regardless of the circumstances.
Hope was oh-so-glad she had called Boyd. She had reported the sinkhole standing between her and her happiness, and Boyd paved right over it in an instant. He told her just to keep on walking. Not only that, but he would do what he could to make sure their paths crossed so that they could walk the rest of the road together.
That was why Hope was much too excited to sleep. She’d tried, but she found her pillow something of a trampoline. Her head just kept bouncing off it. New Eden had a lovely Old-Earth gift-giving holiday called Christmas. She’d often heard the term ‘like a kid on Christmas Eve’ to describe her condition.
She thought it fitting to try a remedy she learned from a Christmas movie. Warm milk.
She was on her way to the kitchen to make some, wishing she could enjoy one of Boyd’s brownies with her glass of milk when she heard raised voices coming from what was officially called the ‘rec room’—though it was more often referred to as the ‘man cave’.
Ugh! Hope hated that term, though it was an appropriate description for the ones who used it and what they used it for. Archangel mostly used it, along with the other male members of her team to entertain fans—who were always attractive young women. They’d styled it after an upscale bar, so Hope seldom had reason to enter the room. Because it didn’t have a door, she often saw or heard the revelry that occurred within.
Archangel himself never took any of his ‘fans’ to bed; he had an image to maintain. But he regularly allowed them to fawn all over him, flirting shamelessly. If it weren’t for that image, Hope was sure he would go much further than he did. Using and discarding people was par for the course with narcissists, after all.
His ‘condition’ was also why she wasn’t surprised when he encouraged her to behave like his strumpets. He wanted her to fawn all over him and became frustrated when she wouldn’t. He’d thought it a threat when he’d implied that plenty of women would love to fill the shoes he wanted her to.
She didn’t care. She’d gladly hand over the shoes she now had to wear if it got her off this team. Hope encouraged him to do as he pleased, just not with her—outside of endangering civilians with his showboating, of course.
It was their shared handler who sickened her the most. It was clear the man wanted her to fall for Archangel as much as the jerk himself did. For some reason, he continuously felt the need to provide excuses or explanations for the man’s many and varied character faults. Her handler insisted that ‘a good woman like her would straighten him right out’.
He attempted to make being with Archangel feel like a duty, an obligation. It was worse than the way Archangel tried to push her into returning his often-emotional advances. With her own handler’s encouragement, Archangel behaved as if he was entitled to her.
“…should never have said you could slay the Last Dragon because you cannot,” the voice of her handler, Victory Seeker, stated firmly. He and Archangel—for that must be who he was talking to—had an odd relationship. Victory Seeker was one of the few people Archangel would listen to, but even there he was selective in what advice he took.
Hopewing slipped up to the corner, stealthy as a cat, ensuring she stayed out of sight from those conversing within the opulent man cave. She had a flashback to her days back in the PAC, although back then she’d had much more interesting quarry to stalk.
“You don’t know that,” Archangel stated confidently. “Something has hurt it. Why not my swords? They’ve cut everything and anyone we have tested them against.”
“Because those with stronger Powers than yours have tried and failed,” Victory Seeker growled. He continued assertively, “most of them died in the attempt. Those who did so hoping to buy time for civilians behind them to escape died Heroes’ deaths and are worthy of praise. Your death will not be celebrated as such.”
“Must you be so dramatic?”
Hope could almost hear Archangel roll his eyes and she was certain his lips had settled into that petulant smirk he thought made him look superior to whoever he was talking to.
“I will not let the overgrown lizard kill me,” he claimed. “I’ll just Flash in and lop its head right off. In the outside chance that my Gold Swords don’t work, I’ll Flash away before the overblown stinking animal realizes I was there.”
Hope heard Victory Seeker expel a disappointed breath before stating, “You are not the first to think it would be so simple. Your Power set is not unique. Others with similar abilities have tried to do what you just described—and they died trying. You would know that if you studied the histories I assigned you to read.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Archangel snorted. “As if I could learn what makes a good hero from a book.”
Once again, Hope could hear Archangel rolling his eyes.
“I’ve skimmed the passages you assigned. I pass your stupid quizzes, don’t I? Besides, the giant salamander has never been injured before. Don’t you see? It is obviously weakening as it ages. They assumed it was immortal because it has lived for so long, but they were wrong. It is just long-lived, but it is aging and, in its old age, it has grown weak. If something hurts it, my Gold Swords definitely will. There is nothing stronger in the world.”
“That may be the case, which is why you are being allowed to make the attempt at all,” Victory Seeker reluctantly confirmed. “It is much more likely that the Last Dragon encountered something even stronger than itself out in the Wild Lands. It was injured by some as yet unknown beast with a Power that nullified its resistances.”
Hope could picture her handler’s ice-blue gaze trying to bore a hole into Archangel’s thick head. She also bristled at the unknowing comparison of Boyd to a beast, especially given the source.
“Which is why you must engage it far enough away from the city to allow time for an evacuation should you fail,” Victory Seeker continued. “You must also publicly endorse the message that the civilians who have placed their trust in you should evacuate, in case you fail.”
Hope despised Victory Seeker for many, many reasons.
Despite that, she had to admit that he always put the safety of civilians first. In many ways, he was the very image of what a Hero should be. But he was also a jerk, and Hope sometimes imagined dogs peeing on his leg to make herself feel like there really was a force like karma in this world.
