Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 2
“Fine…” Archangel sighed. “I’ll make a statement that they should be ready to run in the extremely unlikely situation that I don’t kill the flying snake with a single blow.”
“Good, there will be another press conference tomorrow,” Victory Seeker sounded pleased. “This time, you will stick to what the PR folks wrote on the cards. If you fail to do so, I’ll cancel your next three relief sessions.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Archangel snarled back.
“They are a privilege, not a right,” Victory Seeker said firmly.
Hope thought he sounded like he was speaking to a petulant child—as he often did during his chats with Archangel. This was mostly because the description applied to the spoiled brat.
“You’re lucky I’m not canceling them outright for your failure to stick to the cards earlier and creating this mess,” the older man snapped.
“Fiiinnne,” Archangel whined, drawing out the ‘n’. “I’ll read your stupid cards.”
“I figured you would come around,” Victory Seeker said dryly, before continuing more firmly. “Now, as far as your quizzes go, you achieve barely passable results—typically on your second attempt—which does not show that you are learning the lessons that are available to you through them. These are vital lessons that would lead to you being the best Hero that you could be.”
Hope had to restrain a giggle that the frustration in Victory Seeker’s tone nearly brought forth so she didn’t reveal herself. It was hard because she knew that the histories in question were the ones Victory Seeker had assigned them in the PAC when they’d transferred from the young to the middle-aged groups.
Archangel struggled with material designed for ten-year-olds.
“Whatever, old man,” Archangel scoffed. “Remember that you chose me. I didn’t choose you. You should count yourself lucky that I take your stupid quizzes at all.”
“I chose you because you have the potential to be great,” Victory Seeker began raising his voice, “but only if you stop letting that potential rot on the vine. Without proper training, you waste all your gifts, your Power, and all that potential. Training which I could give you. I could teach you discipline, strategy, tactics… all the things that the best Heroes master and which you currently lack.”
The older man sighed. “All the things you will need to address the threats The Authority will face, but do not currently possess.”
“Puh-leaasee,” Archangel continued his impression of a spoiled seven-year-old. “Spare me your lectures. You’ve repeated yourself so many times that I hear you scolding me in my dreams.” The younger man snickered. “I deserve better dreams than that.”
Victory Seeker had to be seething, Hope thought.
“Maybe my lessons will sink into that thick skull of yours in your sleep and you’ll finally stop acting like a child,” the once S-Ranked Hero said, then he snorted. “No, that comparison is a disservice to children. Every child I have trained had more discipline than you do by the time they were five. Maybe such dreams will make you stop acting like a baby.”
“You don’t get to talk to me like that,” Archangel shouted back. “I could have you reassigned with a single call.”
“Do it,” Victory Seeker’s words contained an icy threat, “and you’ll never beat him. He, despite his obvious and lurid flaws, is highly skilled in all the proficiencies a Hero should master. He will beat you.”
“Please,” Archangel scoffed again. “The Corruptor wouldn’t stand a chance against me. That fight would be over in seconds.”
“Yes,” Victory Seeker agreed with Archangel, “he would defeat you in seconds… just like he should have done with Omega Ray, had he not let emotion cloud his judgment. In a controlled duel, he would crush you.”
Hope realized that Victory Seeker was hoping to get Archangel to compete against Boyd.
“Omega Ray was mine,” Archangel seethed. “That beast stole him from me. I was going to be the one to defeat him. You even said I would.”
“I now believe I misinterpreted the text,” Omega Ray explained. “I thought it meant Omega Ray when it said my student would defeat the one called the strongest in the world and take their crown. Some wonder if the Corruptor is now the strongest in the world. I believe it will be him you must defeat.”
“I have every intention of doing just that at the earliest opportunity,” Archangel sneered, smugness filling his tone.
Hope would like to see him try. The results would be quite… entertaining. Victory Seeker had been correct, of course—Boyd would mop the floor with Archangel. She briefly wondered if he might literally do just that if she asked him to. He’d never had a problem beating up someone for Silvie, even after his self-imposed isolation and the separation that grew between them.
A silence fell over the room. It was one Hope recognized from her own conversations with Victory Seeker. He was a master strategist, but not much of a conversationalist. He often held up a hand to forestall those he spoke with while he ran down a thought or an idea that they had given him.
“Yes,” Victory Seeker eventually said, “do that. We will have you challenge him to a duel if you can kill the Last Dragon. You will say that it is to settle once and for all who is stronger—the one who killed Omega Ray or the one who killed the Last Dragon.”
Hope’s tender heart clenched. Victory Seeker was up to the same manipulations he’d often pulled back at the PAC. Silvie and she had eventually worked out that he used Boyd as a whetstone to sharpen other trainees. The onetime Mentor often pitted trainees who needed a kick in the pants against Boyd, knowing that he would beat them. Victory Seeker then used that humiliation to drive them to train harder.
Hope never understood why it worked. Boyd was the best of them… of course he defeated them! Why would they consider that a humiliation?
She also recognized Victory Seeker’s tone. It was one he used when a conversation was about to be over. Hope guessed this one would end with Archangel storming off in a huff. If he did, he would run right into her.
Hope retreated to her room. She had to set up a call with Silvie.
Chapter 1
Laura was in a state, and she wasn’t sure how to define it. She was angry with someone she had no right or reason to be angry with, but that was as far as she’d been able to narrow it down. What Raev had said the other day while recovering from her fight with Omega Ray kept playing in her mind, too.
“But you know why you got mad, right? It’s because you want to be connected to him—even if you aren’t ready to admit it,” the vixen had said.
She was also angry with herself.
Calling Kitsune Raev indicated that she had abandoned her promise to maintain a professional boundary with Heroes. They had far too high a mortality rate to allow attachments to form.
Surprisingly, that hadn’t stopped her from volunteering for this post—despite it being on a secluded base surrounded by Heroes. When Glorith City’s Director Davis called looking for recommendations, she’d volunteered for the job. To be honest, it had been rather impulsive, and she questioned her sanity after concluding that call with the Director.
Davis hadn’t confirmed it was The Devoted that she would be assigned to, but he hadn’t denied it when she had asked. Which, when it came to Davis, served as an affirmation. He hadn’t even hinted that he wanted her to take the position and was frankly surprised when she’d volunteered—although he seemed amused once his initial surprise had passed.
Laura couldn’t deny her motivation for volunteering, even to herself. Raev’s statements about there being a brief window and wanting to be close to him when it opened had played in her head just before she’d volunteered. So much for keeping Heroes at arm’s distance.
What was she doing? Just because his other lover—Silvie, as Laura had taken to thinking about her—said he differed from other Heroes didn’t mean he was any less reckless. Boyd had just flown out to fight the Last Dragon. The only thing they knew about that was more dangerous than Omega Ray. And just like how he’d raced to battle that city killer without a second thought, he’d run headlong into another impossible fight—a fight he had a high probability of not coming back from.
As if the universe was conspiring against him, Boyd’s Power allowed him to injure the unassailable ancient monster. Now, his head was full of thoughts of heroically slaying the beast—and he had quickly talked Silvie and Mind Witch into joining him in this madness.
Laura briefly hoped that Mind Witch could convince him otherwise, but their mind Powers led to a short-lived and non-verbal disagreement. Then they’d called Tinker into the room, who Laura also thought might talk some sense into them.
Nope.
The little genius had been onboard before she’d walked into the room—the only questions she wanted answers to were about the various requests Boyd had made. It seemed she was eager to get started on making dragon-slaying equipment.
At that point, Laura just wanted to throw her hands up in the air. The big lug and Silvie had zipped towards danger, ostensibly to save Silas and his wife Sinoe. Laura figured those two would likely become dragon food before Boyd and Silvie even got there. Ultimately, it was her fear that this man who had made her hope again would suffer the same fate that provoked her anger.
Laura had just received news that Boyd and Silvie engaged the Last Dragon when an alert sounded in her clinic to be ready for treating serious injuries. This had to have been within minutes of the fight starting. Despite his multiple promises to be more careful—and his oft-repeated mantra that he and his team, the Devoted, didn’t break their promises—it sounded like he’d been seriously injured almost right from the start.
Furious at him and herself for caring so much, Laura prepared her trauma cart for the worst-case scenario. She loaded it up with auto-sutures, burn cream, and anti-septic salve. She filled one entire drawer with various strengths of painkillers and other narcotics. As long as they got him back here alive—even if it wasn’t in one piece—she swore he would live to face her wrath.
It had been almost as bad as the horrors her mind had conjured while she waited by the elevator for the Heroes to return. His torso seemed to be mostly okay, but the tops of his wings and his lower legs were a mess. The armor that was supposed to protect his shins and the tops of his feet had fused to his skin. At the very tops of his wings, Laura could see bone peeking through where the skin had been flayed off.
She’d gotten him into the clinic and dosed with some of the strongest drugs she had within that first minute of seeing him. Then, with Tinker’s help, she had peeled those greaves from his lower legs. They’d melted and virtually sealed to his tibias.
If this had been anyone else, she’d have automatically amputated the affected limbs before infection could set in. Given his almost miraculous regenerative ability, Boyd would probably be out of commission for less than two days. And knowing him, he’d probably start hatching a plan to slay the dragon—despite what it had done to him. Every time she thought about it, she just got mad again.
Now it was late in the evening, and visiting hours were officially over. She shooed the young women out and engaged Boyd in a brief argument about how long he needed to rest. She ‘let him talk her down’ to four more hours of sleep and another four hours of bed rest. He likely only needed the four hours for his lower legs to heal up and he would be fine to move around.
She was most worried about his wings, which took the longest to heal when she first treated Boyd after his heroic actions landed him in the ICU. These burns weren’t that much different from the damage his wings had suffered then. Burns were always difficult—primarily because of how much pain they caused, even when a regenerative factor healed them.
Laura had been surprised to learn when treating her first Hero with a regenerative ability, that regenerating new nerves was far from painless. That meant getting up early in the morning as soon as Boyd awoke—not that she’d sleep deeply, prepared to rise at the slightest noise that indicated her patient was conscious—checking the conditions of his burns and administering another new dose of painkillers.
She’d been groggy from only getting a few hours of sleep, although Boyd came right awake and was immediately his friendly and charming self. He’d asked for a view screen and, while he responded promptly to any request or comment she made during the exam, he’d had his nose buried in it throughout. She’d glanced over his shoulder at one point and saw what looked like a map, but it had way too many lines and colors for her to decipher anything useful from it.
It sort of looked like two mountains with a narrow valley between them, but that was all she could gather.
Laura’s exam didn’t take long, and Boyd didn’t push to get up earlier than the additional four hours of bed rest he’d ‘talked her down to’ the night before. He seemed content to stay in bed with the viewscreen.
So, Laura took a nap in one of the other ward beds.
A softly spoken conversation abruptly woke Laura, giving her the impression that only a few minutes had passed. To her surprise, when she checked the clock, she realized that almost three hours had elapsed. It started with a round of good mornings. While it was obvious Boyd tried to limit the volume of his deep, reverberating voice, she was only a few beds away.
It sounded like the whole team had gathered, although Raev’s tone was fairly rough around the edges. Their affectionate pleasantries took a few minutes, with everyone getting a hug and kiss of varying lengths. Laura had noticed this morning routine many times. It usually happened before breakfast, when all the women gathered around Boyd to join in.
That had answered her question about how these women might deal with jealousy issues. There weren’t any. At least, none that Laura could observe.
At first, she’d thought that they’d all been selected for Boyd’s team because they didn’t feel a sense of possessiveness—at least when it came to romantic partners. Her interactions with Silvie and Raev over the last few days had changed her thoughts on that. Instead, Laura realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t feel envy or jealousy, they just didn’t let it cause any issues. What surprised her the most was how Boyd’s attentiveness to his partner’s needs prevented any envy or jealousy from lingering.
By now Laura had figured out that they were working out a group dynamic, a family just like Silvie had described to her. There was no jealousy—or rather, what little jealousy that developed didn’t get very far—because they openly supported one another. They treated it as normal that they were all with Boyd.
And Laura realized that it had become normal, even to her. She just hadn’t figured out if she wanted to be a part of it. She was intrigued, she had to admit, or she wouldn’t still be here.
She also had to admit—at least to herself—that while these other women weren’t having issues with jealousy, she was. Boyd had made sure she knew she was invited to their meals and considered part of the team. He had been courteous and even charming, including her in conversations whenever she’d joined the team. He had, however, kept the professional distance she normally would have appreciated between them.
However, that professional distance became even more aggravating, though not as much as what had happened the longer she was here.
Boyd had avoided her—to the point where it had to be deliberate. He wasn’t obvious about it, but always seemed to have somewhere else to be whenever she was around. Especially if they were alone together, which had only happened twice in the base’s rather fantastic gym.
The second time this had happened had even been a test. Boyd kept a fairly regular routine, so it wasn’t hard to figure out when he would be in the gym. She’d showed up unannounced halfway into his workout and started stretching in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror on one wall. She was right where she knew he couldn’t help but see her, and where she could surreptitiously watch him checking her out. In less than five minutes he switched from the gym to the general-purpose room, even though she was dressed like the other women. This was an hour and a half earlier than usual—and all because she’d showed up.
Between that and seeing the way Boyd paid attention to the women in his little circle on the regular, jealousy had reared its ugly head in her heart. Laura was honest enough with herself to admit, at that point, that she was a little more than just intrigued. Then the damn fool went out and tried to get himself killed—again. Listening to the affection and affirmations he so freely gave while lying half-awake a few beds down made his reckless nature harder to remember.
“It’s time to bring us into the loop,” Mindy’s tone changed as she got the others on track after she was the last to collect a hug and kiss. There didn’t seem to be a particular order. Tinker had been first this morning, followed by Silvie, then Raev. “How is it you plan to kill the Last Dragon? Convince me.” This reminded the half-awake Laura that the big idiot had every intention of trying to commit suicide by dragon again.
Chapter 2
“Oh, we don’t need a plan if we just want to kill it,” Boyd stated jovially. “That would be easy. I’d just have Tinker make a big spear with a wide obsidian head for me to charge and have Silvie fly it through the big lizard’s head.”
“That could totally work!” Tinker’s high voice half-cheered and half-gasped. She somehow fit more words into smaller lengths of time than anyone Laura had ever met. “Why aren’t we doing that? We could do that right now! We’re tracking her location, we could just fly by in the ship and shoop, no more Last Dragon.”
“Saving the city from the Last Dragon is the primary objective. And while having Silvie zip through the dragon’s ear-hole with a Black Flame charged spear would do that, it would put her in a risky position and could compromise our secondary objective and won’t do anything to aid our tertiary objective,” Boyd’s deep voice reminded her. “It doesn’t further our larger goals all that much.”
