Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 62
“Stop taking the things your family does on your own shoulders, Tink. You aren’t them, nor are you responsible for them.” A growl entered his voice as he continued. “I’m really going to regret not killing him when I had the chance by the time this is done, aren’t I?”
“Probably,” Tinker replied sadly, “but it would have been really bad if you had.”
“My image will never be worth the lives he is responsible for taking.” Boyd sighed, but then shook it off.
What happened had happened, and now he could only act. Self-recrimination wouldn’t do anyone any good. Boyd came to a decision.
“Kayla has probably published a list of names of the Changed who have gone missing. If not, shoot her a message and ask for one. Please gather the footage from the parties that includes people from her list for me.”
“I can do that.” Tinker nodded succinctly. “What’s this Granny mentioned about a missing girl?”
“A missing young woman,” Boyd rumbled. “She meets the profile and is likely connected to one of Archangel’s little parties. She was taken out of Glorith shortly after the duel, which is new‒and feels pointed. Daisy knew her, as well, which I’m really hoping is just a coincidence. There is a chance that someone pieced together the Baker’s connection to our team because of the duel, but if that is the case, they acted awful quickly on that information.”
“It seems unlikely that this girl was targeted specifically for any connection to you—even a secondary connection,” Granny replied. “And she isn’t the first Changed to be taken from Glorith… just the first in several years. Miss Bailey’s list includes six others who were taken from Glorith over the past twenty years. It seems she did post a list online… I’ve already assembled and sent you a briefing on all the cases where Miss Bailey’s and our investigation overlap. It will be from Tinker’s address.”
“Thank you, Granny,” Boyd rumbled. “I’ll take a look at that and see what I can share with Miss Bailey.”
“You’re going to tell her about the parties?” The very idea seemed to shock Tinker.
“I’m considering it,” Boyd replied. “We can’t act on the information ourselves, because The Authority doesn’t consider video evidence valid unless it is captured and stored on their systems. It’s too easy to create fake footage. The press, however, is welcome to report on whatever they want. Kayla could go public with the evidence, the public could at least see these supposed ‘Heroes’ for the monsters they are.”
Realizing something, Boyd pinched the bridge of his nose. “At the same time, it would put our favorite reporter right in said monster’s crosshairs.”
“Couldn’t she just move back out here?” Tinker asked. “I liked her.”
“Given my very public antagonistic relationship with Archangel, it would bring her credibility into question.” Boyd shook his head. “I’ll go review the briefing Granny kindly prepared and think it over. The available team will discuss it with Royce before I make a call. Granny, I look forward to having longer conversations… soon. Tinker, I’ll see you shortly, but please know that I’m not mad about Granny.”
“Um, thanks for not freaking out,” Tinker replied, looking up at him as she stepped away from his side. He sensed on their Bond that their normal parting kiss would be weird for her with Granny watching.
“Yes, thank you for not getting me deleted.” The image of an idealistic grandmother reappeared with a warm smile.
“Of course,” Boyd winked at Granny, but then decided to tease Tinker a little. Her blush was so damned cute, after all. “I suspect getting my new grandmother-in-law killed would absolutely spoil our current ‘exploratory’ phase after the honeymoon, and we can’t have that.”
“Puh-what?” Tinker sputtered. “How much of the conversation did you overhear?”
Boyd smiled down at flustered lover, gave her another wink, and enjoyed the brief moment of joy such teasing brought—he knew he’d need it before submerging himself in some truly disturbing data.
When he turned and strode away, Granny chortled in delight.
“Granny?! How much did he overhear?” Boyd heard his smallest love demand of her digital grandmother.
Chapter 5
Boyd sat back in his office chair and let out an explosive sigh. Mindy, who had been sitting on his desk reviewing the same information as it entered his mind without having to see the screen, slipped from her perch and into his lap.
The deep purple silk nightgown with black lace detailing felt nice as she shimmied forward on his thighs. When she draped an arm around his neck and pressed the rest of herself into his bare chest, it also felt nice—especially given the warm softness of the sumptuous body she was very proud of cultivating. That, combined with her Power, soothed some of the frustrated anger that had built within him as his review of the data confirmed his worst suspicions.
All eighteen of the Murder Parties he had footage of featured at least one name from Kayla’s list of missing Changed. Some of those events featured more than one Changed. The correlation meant that he had been thinking too small. He’d assumed he knew about each of this group’s twenty-six victims through the footage Tinker, or more likely Granny, had procured.
Kayla’s research had made him aware the list was much longer—one hundred and thirty-nine names long. Each was a young woman or a teen. Just like Kayla had said in her interview. The list spanned twenty-one years. But for the first eighteen of them, only two or three names were added each year. These last three years had seen ninety-one names added.
Given what he knew, Boyd figured Archangel was the primary cause of the increase. He really regretted not killing that guy.
‘Hush my love,’ Mindy soothed his thoughts, pressing her face into his neck.
His reaction to reading the briefing had caused enough turbulence in his mind to rouse and summon his now permanently connected love. She’d rushed to soothe him, not bothering to take the time to make up her face. She looked as beautiful without the dramatic makeup as she did with it, in his humble opinion.
‘Killing him in the duel would have tarnished your image,’ she continued.
The mental her that resided in the comfortable wood slat room spoke directly into his consciousness. ‘And before you say your image isn’t worth it,’ Mindy smoothly countered his argument, ‘it really is. Your image is what will be vital to making the real changes we need to prevent anyone from doing what he did ever again. If you’d killed him in the duel, things would have gotten worse for Changed everywhere.’
‘And yes, we do know that,’ Mindy overrode his next point. ‘Think about what his group would have done… what groups like them would have done. Yes, another girl got taken before you were able to prevent it. But dozens would have been taken by now if you had killed him. Innocents would have died in revenge killings for a man you rightfully brought to justice. Instead, you let him live—for now—so you can do so much more good.’
She was right. Boyd grumbled wordlessly.
‘Of course I am right.’
Boyd rolled his eyes. He’d had no good options available at the time, and he’d made the best decision he could—but that didn’t make it any easier. It also didn’t matter. All he could do now was move on and take action.
‘I think we should wait until we can guarantee her safety before we bring Kayla in like you intend to,’ Mindy offered. ‘We have some time, even with the increased pattern. If you give her any information connected to the parties now, it will put her in immediate danger. If we wait a few days, she can at least get a warning out before their next victim is taken.’
She was right again.
Boyd had a call scheduled with Director Davis and Royce that afternoon, one he’d planned to use to nag them about getting his loves back to him. It was pointless, but at least he would feel like he had done something—anything—to bring them home. At least now the call would have a useful purpose, in addition to his nagging them to do what they were already doing.
“Kuh-he!” Mindy giggled out loud. “Alright my love, go burn off some energy in the gym. You’re late for your morning workout and you get a bit too… energetic… if you miss it.”
Boyd could think of better ways to burn off some energy.
“Kuh-he!” Mindy twisted in his lap while brushing bed-rumpled raven hair out of her face. Her milky skin truly didn’t require the makeup she loved to wear, and her bright amethyst eyes popped just fine on their own. She pressed her soft lips against his in a brief kiss before displaying some of her new athleticism by leaping away from his grasping hands.
‘Save it for later!’ The her in the wood slat room made the word ‘later’ a promise as his eyes locked on the way the hem of her dark purple nightgown barely covered her swaying ass. ‘I haven’t even brushed my teeth yet, and some of us didn’t get perpetually fresh breath as part of our Powers.’
Mindy was through the door that led deeper into the private section of their base before he regained control of his eyes. It wasn’t the result of her Power, just her splendid body—and the way that nightgown clung to it. With a grunt, Boyd stood and made his way to the gym.
He strode into the gym to find Raev spotting Laura on one of their machines that mimicked a bench press. The spotter was completely optional, as the machine would detect any trouble—even lifting the bar if necessary. Raev seemed to be there to provide moral support.
“Come on, just two more and you’ll beat your personal record,” Raev encouraged as her five tails fanned lazily behind her.
The fox ears that stuck out of her mane of fiery red hair tracked him before her ovoid pupiled emerald eyes did. Those gorgeous orbs lit up and filled with warmth for a moment before the usual playful spark replaced it.
She turned back to Laura and said, “And look at that, the Big Guy just walked in to see you do it.”
Laura started her penultimate lift with a restrained groan of effort. Boyd dragged his eyes away from their full-time trauma specialist, part-time spy, and regular gym-rat as the motion caused her sculpted muscles to flex across her mostly uncovered form. He settled his roving eyes on the display of the machine.
A hundred and eighty-five pounds may not have sounded like much to him, but it had to be close to thirty percent more than the woman’s body weight, which was more than admirable for a non-Powered. Change that, he reminded himself, for a non-enhanced-Powered. Laura’s power over liquids didn’t enhance her magnificent body.
He leaned against the weighted pull-up machine he usually started with to watch her final rep—though not too closely.
“Come on, just one more!” Raev continued to offer encouragement as Laura let the bar drop back down in the proper slow and smooth motion that ensured she eked out the maximum benefit from each rep.
“Gonna keep your promise?” Laura’s warm tone was breathy with effort as she paused briefly at the bottom of the lift.
Boyd did his best not to pay too much attention to how sexy she sounded. He remained firm on Laura being an ‘if’ and not a ‘when’ addition to the ranks of his Devoted. And until he hopped off that fence, it wouldn’t be proper to pay too much attention.
He was already being greedy with five loves. A sixth might be one too many.
Besides, Hope was first. If Boyd was being honest with himself, Hope had always been first—with Silvie a hairsbreadth behind her. He’d never admit that openly, of course.
‘Except to me, my love,’ Mindy purred. ‘It’s okay to have a favorite—as long as no one is left out or left behind. Hope is and has always been first because her shy nature makes the chase into a hunt, and her angelic Power draws you to her like a lodestone attracts iron.’
Boyd couldn’t help the blush that heated his cheeks at Mindy’s comment. He didn’t bother trying to deny it—not to the woman whose mental presence literally relaxed in his mind, binge-watching his thoughts like a never-ending reality show she couldn’t get enough of.
Yes, Hope came first—no matter how fine a woman Laura was, or how obvious she made her intentions.
“We Devoted always keep our promises.” Raev smiled down at Laura in a way that blended playfulness and predatory intent.
Boyd wasn’t sure he liked that smile—or what his foxy love was likely committing to. He liked it even less when she turned it on him and called out a little louder, “Isn’t that right, Big Guy?”
Boyd knew this was a trap, if not how.
Because he didn’t know the nature of the trap, he also had no way to avoid setting it off. Deciding that the crafty kitsune would just have to be punished later, based on the nature of her trick, he could only reply, “That’s right, the Devoted keep our promises.”
Raev smiled at him for another moment before turning back to Laura, laid out on the bench before her. “See? I’ll keep my promise… now you just need to set your record. Come on, one more!”
“You better,” Laura growled as she began the lift that would set her new personal record. Her muscles flexed and strained through it, and he saw her jaw set in effort.
“A bit more,” Raev offered as Laura struggled to push the bar up the last few inches that would make it a proper lift.
“You got this,” Boyd rumbled his own encouragement.
Laura groaned through the last inches until the bar clicked into place and the machine took the weight.
“That’s right, L, you showed that bar!” Raev cheered in her best impression of Silvie—who normally led the cheers when they were in the gym. She gained very little through regular lifting, so only bothered when Boyd got after her.
“Phew,” Laura brushed the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, panting as she regained her breath. “I thought I would never get past one-seventy-five.”
“Weren’t you at one-sixty-five at the beginning of the month?” Boyd asked with a chuckle. Adding twenty pounds to the bar over the course of a month was nothing to scoff at.
“Yeah. But Raev added forty pounds to her bar in the same time frame,” Laura grumbled as she sat up. Collecting her sports bottle, she took a long pull from it. “Ah,” she sighed after taking a few swallows with her head tilted back in a way that made her throat flex—though Boyd didn’t pay attention to that, of course.
She gave him a wink when done, then added, “and you have added literal tons to your PR, mister ‘not quite S-Rank’.”
“Yeah, but we cheat.” Raev laughed as she adjusted the machine for herself, setting it to three hundred and ten pounds. “I plateaued at three hundred for ages—a hundred pounds short of C-Ranked strength before getting Enhanced. My Enhancement shot me up to just over four hundred pounds, and then I added another twenty or so pounds for Tinker’s and then Mindy’s boosts.”
Boyd set the weight for his own machine and started strapping on the belt that would make the basic pull-up worth doing for someone capable of lifting not quite three hundred times their own body weight. He didn’t quite hear Laura’s reply to Raev, but the velvet chuckle his foxy-featured love made in response gave him a general idea what it had been about.
Instead of letting himself get distracted by the two beautiful women, he got to work. He started with a warm-up weight of thirty tons, and went through twenty super-slow reps. His regenerative Power made the need for traditional stretching almost obsolete; he saw barely measurable improvements to his gains when warming up in such a manner.
Just enough to justify doing them.
He felt Laura’s eyes on him as he went through the slow motions and failed to restrain the urge to flex a little extra and put on a show for her. At least he wasn’t arguing with himself anymore. Instead, such conflicts of will now showed through in subtler ways.
With his warmup done, Boyd set the weight to his new maintenance level of sixty-five tons and got to work. His usual focused state was no more difficult to find or maintain, now that he and his Gestalt were of one mind. The only change was that he now had the ability to let his eyes wander over his lovely companions while staying in the zone.
The downside to this new ability was that while he was focused on the next rep, he lost his focus on keeping his eyes away from places they didn’t belong. This meant he became an equal opportunity voyeur—and couldn’t help but notice the remarkable results Laura’s hard work had on her figure.
She obviously knew it, too. Shortly after he’d agreed to stop avoiding her, she’d figured out how to wait for him to enter workout mode before moving into his field of view to use a piece of equipment. If he wasn’t facing a piece of equipment, she moved into the open space he could see for calisthenics or yoga.
Today, Raev and Laura seemed to be working together. As he went through his pull-ups, bicep curls, triceps extensions, cable rows, dumbbell flys, shoulder presses, and lat pulldowns, he watched as the pair did similar upper body exercises. They looked a hell of a lot better doing so than he did, completing each exercise in tightly fitted and skin-exposing workout clothes.
Although, based on the lust that was slowly building in his foxy love—which he noted matched what he could occasionally see in Laura’s pale green eyes—the ladies might have disagreed with his assertion. It was something of a novel thought, and he found himself glancing at himself in the mirror from time to time to see what they were looking at.
Until very recently, Boyd had been completely unable to think of himself as attractive. He just didn’t see it. Oh, he had been told often enough, especially these last few years with Silvie. But Boyd had allowed the poison that had been fed him by his Mentor and others of similar ilk spoil the complimentary words.
As he continued his grueling workout—to include his lower body and tail—he couldn't help but steal glances at his reflection between looks at the curves and slopes of the gorgeous women that shared the gym. It was a sight that had once filled him with a profound sense of otherness, of monstrosity.
But things had changed. And so had he.
Boyd’s Change, the transformation that had made what a normal boy went through in puberty the equivalent of a bad hair day, had given him the appearance of a demon from the depths of old earth’s myths and legends. Massive, crimson-lined leathery wings stretched out behind him during some exercises, and his long, spade-tipped tail snaked along the floor as if it had a mind of its own during others.
