Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 138
Up until now, he’d attributed the practice of keeping those you wished to manipulate isolated to cults. He hadn’t thought the Authority would use such tactics, but he probably should have.
“But why did I see Connor and Daisy?” Boyd asked. “Was it just because I know them?”
“And because you care about them,” Silvie confirmed. “Moonbeam wasn’t sure if Daisy would appear or not. She said she might not because the Daisy you have had the most interactions with is invulnerable and can teleport about. Your mind might not have been able to perceive her dying in a dream because of that. I guess that means—because she was there and not invulnerable—you see her as the vulnerable young woman she is under that tough, feisty exterior and… uh… literal invulnerability.”
Silvie pressed in close, kissing his cheek. “That’s so sweet, Darling.”
‘Kuh-he! Another good analysis,’ Mindy added after her signature giggle.
Silvie rose up, nuzzling his cheek for a moment before settling back across his lap. “But Moonbeam was sure Connor would be in your dream in the place of those kids because you know and care about him.” Those silver-flecked blue eyes dimmed. “The subconscious doesn’t like to hold back and isn’t shy about twisting the knife, Darling. It showed you things in the worst way possible.”
Silvie paused. “Or at least that’s what Moonbeam said. So, yeah, because Daisy was there, it means you really care about her, too.”
As Boyd processed the dream and its implications, a sense of resolve began to form within him. Losing those two innocent children had obviously stirred something deep inside him, a realization that life was fragile and the impact his actions had on those around him. Connor and Daisy’s faces lingered in his mind, reminding him of the relationships he held dear and the importance of protecting them.
Silvie’s gentle touch brought him back to the present, grounding him with her unwavering support. He knew that, moving forward, he would carry the burden of this newfound awareness with him; that it would guide his decisions. At the same time, he couldn’t let himself drown in the blood-tar of guilt that threatened to consume him.
That meant doing what he could to maintain his mental well-being—which started with his physical health. The pacing and conversation had lasted long enough that the adrenaline surge the nightmare left him with had faded and fatigue washed over him in its place.
Silvie always looked perfect, but he noted the sleepiness that dimmed her normally bright eyes.
“Thank you, my love,” Boyd rumbled as he stood, casually lifting her into a princess carry. “This helped me understand myself.”
“It was mostly Moonbeam.” Silvie still smiled up at him, and he sensed the joy that his words created within her, despite how she downplayed them.
“Mindy wouldn’t have let you help me with this if she thought she could do a better job,” Boyd told her as he turned and started carrying her back to bed. “She knew the way you would explain what she told you would help me as much, if not more, than anything she could do, herself. Otherwise, she would have done it herself. You know how seriously she takes my mental health.”
‘Well, I do live here,’ his darkest love said with a pout. ‘Can’t let the neighborhood get all run down.’
“You think so?” Silvie asked.
She sounded so hopeful as she snuggled into his chest.
“I know so, my love. The Mindy in my head confirmed it,” he said with a smile. “Now, let’s get back to bed. We’ll stay off to the side, just the two of us tonight. It’s been nice.”
As Boyd carried Silvie back to bed, a sense of calm washed over him. The weight of the dream and its revelations still lingered like fog in the corners of his mind, but he felt a newfound clarity and determination stir within him. He wasn’t done with processing, coping, or whatever he had to do with this cry for help from his subconscious, but he knew he would come out of this stronger and more resilient than he’d been.
Chapter 28
Daisy was overwhelmed. She hadn’t intended to overhear Boyd talking with Silvie about his bad dream, but she had. She had always been a light sleeper, waking up with the need to wander her home and make sure everything was as it should be several times a night. It didn’t really bug her now that she was living out here.
No one cared if she took naps from time to time. And it wasn’t like her duties were onerous. Her Power made cleaning a breeze, and she’d come to enjoy cooking so much that she actually looked forward to the time she spent in the kitchen.
Back when it was just her and Connor, she’d also woke up feeling the urge to patrol her home. Occasionally, she’d even sleep patrol—only partially waking to pop from room to room and fly around a bit. It had become something of a habit.
Before moving out here, it had never really bothered her. She felt much better knowing everyone she cared for was safe. After patrolling like that, she instinctively sought out the most comfortable surface available to sleep on when she was done patrolling.
But her stupid subconscious had decided that the chest of the big doofus was the most comfortable surface in this place, and that had created… issues. The issue was that she kept waking up on Boyd’s bare chest. His big, firm, and stupidly comfortable bare chest.
How could something so firm be so soft? Not to mention warm.
And to add insult to injury, the big lug had been infuriatingly understanding about the whole thing. He’d even helped her sneak away before the girls who constantly surrounded him caught her the first few times—or most of them.
Tinker had later revealed that she had caught Daisy the first time it had happened. Fortunately, Tink was shy and kind enough not to say anything about it.
Mindy just straight-up knew everything she did, but her ‘privacy clause’ kept her from saying anything. But then she had been caught by Raev. And Raev was too much of a trickster to let that juicy bit of gossip go unreported.
When Laura found out, the teasing had been merciless.
Daisy would have considered quitting out of sheer mortification if this wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime shot at such an amazing job. The teasing had ended soon enough. As soon as they found out it was related to her urge to patrol the base, which they attributed to her Change, they lightened up and only teased her a little.
Even Laura.
The fairy woman hadn’t been sleep-patrolling tonight, though. She had been wide awake and flying from room to room when the obnoxiously good-looking doofus and Silvie had walked into the Great Room. Both were mostly naked. Daisy wasn’t sure why she had done it, but instead of popping back to her room, she’d hidden in one of the big potted plants on the middle tier.
The big lug wasn’t exactly a soft-spoken man, and she’d heard everything he said and most of what Silvie had said. It really didn’t help that when he finally stopped pacing, they settled into a seat no more than fifteen feet away from her hiding spot.
Why in the world was the big doofus having any form of a dream that involved her? It was bad enough that his mind had used Connor as a stand-in for those kids… but her, too? And that meant that he saw her as a vulnerable young woman?
What in the hells?! And why did that give flight to a hundred fluttering butterflies inside her stomach instead of pissing her off?
For as big of a doofus as he was, Boyd had never intimated, acted like, or said anything about seeing her as vulnerable. It was one of his few redeeming qualities. He treated her with respect and in no way tried to coddle her.
She had been certain the cushy job with life-altering benefits had been a means to an end, but he had kept things between them professional, if friendly. He respected her desire to keep most of them at arm’s length.
Completely professional. Which was a good thing.
So why did hearing that he cared about not just about her brother, but also about her make her traitorous heart go pitter-pat like that? It should stick to pumping blood through her body at a steady rate like it was supposed to.
Stupid heart.
It really didn’t help that another of her Change-driven urges was coming back. Ever since she’d heard the pain in the big doofus’s voice after those poor kids died, she felt a compulsion to keep him here at home where he couldn’t be hurt. Where he was safe.
Along with that came the drive to make sure he was fed and cared for.
She had only ever experienced that aspect of her Change’s urges directed at Connor, which made sense. He was her little brother, after all. And with their parents gone, it was natural that she’d developed instincts for his care. Her instincts were just a little stronger than most… that was all.
It didn’t make sense for them to be directed at the big doofus, though. He was just her employer. Nothing more.
That wasn’t even accurate. Officially, she worked for Glorith City. Boyd was more like her… co-worker. Nothing else. Then why did she find herself getting all protective of him like this?
She couldn't shake the feeling that the big demon needed someone looking out for him, even though he was the one who had taken her in, given her a job, and treated her with respect. It was a strange swirl of emotions raging within her, and she wasn’t sure how to navigate them.
She needed advice. So far, Laura hadn’t led her astray—despite her tendency to tease her more than Daisy liked.
As soon as the big lug and Silvie got up to go back to bed, where it was appropriate to be that level of naked, she popped out of the Great Room and reappeared in Laura’s bedroom. Growing to her usual size, she landed with a soft thud beside the more mature woman’s bed and gave her friend a shake.
“Hey, Laur, I need you.” She kept her voice soft, not wanting to startle the sleeping woman.
“I’m up!” Laura half shouted as she jumped out of the bed, almost knocking Daisy over.
She startled the fairy a lot more than Daisy had startled the former nurse. She was three running steps to the door when she paused in place and looked around, finding a wide-eyed Daisy standing beside her bed.
“Oh hells,” Laura sighed, padding back to the bed, “I thought it was another drill.”
“There are drills?” Daisy asked, surprised by just how wide awake the older woman now seemed, despite having been roused from a deep sleep less than thirty seconds ago.
“Yeah,” Laura replied as she laid down and reached toward the foot of the bed to pull the sheet up. Looking around, she picked a thong and t-shirt up off the floor and put them on.
Daisy rolled her eyes. At least Silvie wore panties and a camisole to bed. It seemed Laura slept in the buff.
“The alarms only play in the rooms that one us Heroes are in,” Laura explained. “It’s no surprise you didn’t know about them.”
“One of us ‘Heroes’, huh?” Daisy asked with a wry grin.
Unfortunately, her friend had chosen to drink the Kool Aid, something that Daisy enjoyed teasing her about at least as much as Laura enjoyed teasing Daisy about her conflicted feelings for the big doofus.
“You know it!” Laura grinned back at her, proving once again that she was more or less impervious to teasing. She made a show of looking around her room before saying wistfully, “I’ll be saying goodbye to this room soon. I think I’ll miss it… a little bit.”
“What do you mean?” Daisy asked.
This was the first time her friend leaving the room off the clinic had been mentioned.
“I’ll be joining the big bed soon.” Laura shrugged and waved for Daisy to follow as she walked toward the door to her living room. “I figure I’ll make him wait until the third date, after I truly become one of the Devoted, before I start sleeping in there with everyone else.”
A thoughtful expression crossed her face/ “I wonder what that’ll be like. I suppose you already… ah… never mind,” she cut the thought off. “Not the time. Either way, I will probably keep a room like the others do, but I might move up to their hall.
“But who will man the medical bay?” the fairy asked.
“Ha! When was the last time we used it?” Laura flipped a question back at her in return. “There are few things that Hope can’t fix and that can be treated here, but not a whole lot—and any of them happening would be pretty unlikely. If someone came in here in the dead of night needing help, I’d probably just call for the S-Ranked healer.”
She shrugged. “Might as well just have people come to where we will both be sleeping instead.”
“I didn’t think you were into women.” Daisy’s brows came together as she fluttered after her friend.
“Not romantically, or even physically, really,” Laura agreed as she made her way to her fridge to grab a bottle of water. “But that isn’t a requirement for sleeping in the same bed with my sisters. Especially a bed that size.”
“Sisters?!” The fairy rolled her eyes so hard it was almost audible. “Please.”
“He he he.” Laura gave her a wink. “What else do you call five other women who love the same man you do?”
“Won’t it be weird?” Daisy asked as she looked around with a frown. She cast some bubbles over a water ring one of those dang bottles had left on Laura’s kitchen table.
“Only Raev, Hope, and Silvie are really into girls. Mindy is into whatever makes Boyd happy, but not so much because she is attracted to any of us. Tinker isn’t into women and has been sleeping there for some time,” Laura said with a casual one-armed shrug, something she had obviously picked up from the big doofus at some point.
She smirked at Daisy. “You cuddle up to me half the time on movie nights. Does that mean we are romantically or physically into each other?”
“Well, n-no!” Daisy shook her head much more emphatically than her reply sounded. “But this is different. You are definitely going to at least see some stuff happen between the others.”
“Heh!” Laura let out a short bark of a laugh. “I imagine I will.” Her gaze grew distant, and a wistful smile graced her lips.
Daisy giggled at how dreamy her friend suddenly looked. Her small hand clapped over her own mouth. She was in no position to tease, at the moment.
“The others say Boyd acts drastically different with each of them, so I’m actually curious to see what that will be like. But I don’t imagine you came here at…” She glanced over at the clock built into her stove. “…three in the bloody morning to talk about my future sleeping arrangements and voyeur kinks. Now that the jolt of adrenaline I got when you woke me up is fading, what’s up?”
“I’ve woken you up a few times and you never reacted that violently before,” Daisy said. “Were you having a bad dream or something?”
Now that it was time to talk about her returning and retargeted urges, Daisy found that she wasn’t ready to talk about the target of those urges.
At all.
And why did thinking about the big doofus set the butterflies to flying around in her gut? Stupid butterflies.
“That was a while back.” Laura gave her a knowing smile. “That was before I was properly trained on how to wake up.”
“You were trained on how to wake up?” Daisy could hear the disbelief in her own tone.
That seemed more than a little excessive to her. She knew the big doofus had made her friend do some really crazy stuff, all in the name of getting ready to be a Hero, but how the hell did one train on how to wake up?
Chapter 29
“Of course I was.” Laura’s reply made it sound obvious that a person required training on how to wake up correctly, fully alert and ready for anything. “I have to be able to react properly to the situation I am waking up to. If it’s just morning and time to wake up, I have a nice slow transition. However, if I’m waking up because of unusual stimuli, I immediately come to with a surge of adrenaline and I pop right to my feet.”
She rubbed the back of her neck, obviously remembering some of this training. “It’s… ah… just a small jolt of adrenaline, so I don’t crash too hard when it fades.”
That sounded like the voice of experience. And it made Daisy want to ask the big doofus just what Laura had done the first few times as she adjusted to this training.
“That way,” Laura continued, “I can immediately get to the Osprey during an alarm or react to an attack.”
“Did… did someone attack you in your sleep as part of this training?” That sounded more like abuse than training to Daisy. But if so, the fact that Silvie called Boyd a ‘training terrorist’ was starting to make sense.
“Training terrorist, indeed,” she murmured.
“Ha! If you call throwing a bucket of ice water on me a second or two after creating a stimuli that I could feel or hear ‘attacking me’… then, yes.” Laura grinned, then shrugged. “It wasn’t even Boyd who did it. Silvie and Raev took it in turns,” Laura said, then smirked at her. “But that’s enough avoiding whatever brought you to my room this early in the morning. I’ve got pre-training in three hours and really need some more sleep. As much as I love you, Daiz, tomorrow is going to be rough enough with a good night’s sleep.”
Daisy took a deep breath as she figured out how to phrase what she wanted to talk about. Laura would understand. She’d helped Daisy deal with her Changed urges before. It was better that she just spit it out, so she did: “My urges are coming back. And they’re bad.”
Laura’s smirk transformed into a small frown. “I thought you said you were happy that Connor was at his school because he was doing well and making friends. You seemed confident he was safe and well cared for… did something change?”
“They… my urges aren’t attached to Connor this time,” Daisy admitted, albeit hesitantly.
Her cheeks heated with a preemptive blush. She knew her friend was going to tease her about this, at least a little. “They are… they are starting to show up for Boyd.”
“Ha!” Laura gave a short laugh before smoothing her features. “In what way or ways… and when did it start?” Laura shifted her stance and set the water bottle down, focusing on Daisy as her face settled into a professional, concerned frown.
