Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 8
Raev swayed her way over to the drawers to select a pair of yoga pants to pull over her long and shapely legs. “Apparently they had been together for, and I quote, ‘seven seasons’, which I took to mean not quite two years. They had something of a whirlwind romance but his family didn’t like her because she had, um, loyalty issues… because of her nature. They loved each other, though, and she really wanted to be loyal—if only because it mattered to him. They eloped and moved out to the Wildlands, where her nature wouldn’t get her in trouble.”
“Hmmm,” Boyd hummed.
While he thought moving a lover out into the Wild Lands seemed a little reckless just to keep her loyal, he also understood how difficult it was to control that type of an aura. Well, no, he tried to understand, but gaining control over his own aura and its similar effects had been a top priority.
Then again, the things men were willing to do for love often defied understanding. For instance, it would have been much easier to find a woman who did not have deep-seated drives which made staying loyal difficult. Or come to terms with said drives.
Boyd glanced down as Raev slipped her long legs into her yoga pants—not that he was one to talk.
“So while they weren’t together all that long,” Raev continued, “they spent about a year and a half with only their companion for company—only occasionally visiting towns but never staying long.”
“I imagine that would create a strong bond.” Boyd sighed. “I’m sorry she lost it.”
“Yeah,” Raev agreed as she pulled on a deep green tank top on.
Raev was of the opinion that bras were only necessary for exercise or when out in public, and Boyd was perfectly alright with that. “It’ll be a while,” the redhead admitted, “but I think she’ll pull through. Obviously, it’s still fresh, so it’s hard to say.”
“Well, thanks for looking after her,” Boyd tucked his now-dressed lover under his wing and turned to lead her to where Silvie waited for them in the planning room.
Their war-room, as he thought of it, was off the hall between his suite of rooms and the hallway that led to Tinker’s lab. That hall also had a digital library, two smaller meeting rooms, several empty offices meant for administrators, and a room for doing remote press conferences or recording statements. Royce had an office set aside there, but the rest were preemptively included to address their longer-term goals.
They passed through the smaller-but-still-large living room in his suite and then his personal office space before entering their massive Great Room. The opulence would take some getting used to, but he would learn to live with it despite his preference for minimalism. He would do so primarily because his lovers would also live in the space for the foreseeable future—and they deserved nice things.
“Happy to do it, well, not happy because of the… well, the circumstances… but you know what I mean,” she tucked herself up against him as they walked. He wasn’t sure if it was a result of their Bond or just the fact that the pair had received extensive physical training, but moving in synch together like this was smooth and simple.
“I do,” Boyd chuckled, then remembered he had never followed up on the only thing he could find of Silas after he was washed away by the blue-white energy the Last Dragon breathed. “Did she get the bow?”
“Bow?” Raev’s head tilted to the side as she looked up at him from beneath his wing and arm.
‘She was drunk by the time anyone remembered it,’ Mindy stepped in, ‘it is on a table in the Great room, in the middle tier close to where Tinker is napping, I’ll join you in just a moment.’
“The bow Silas was wearing survived the attack,” Boyd answered Raev. “I found it half sunken into molten stone. The string was gone but the wood looked to be completely fine. I couldn’t place what it was made of, but I thought Sinoe would like to have it.”
‘He called it Unyielding Yew,’ Mindy filled in. ‘Silas was very proud of it and I’m sure Sinoe will be happy to have it.’
“I’ve heard of that,” Raev said out loud, confirming that she had been included in the mental portion of the conversation. “It’s supposed to be pretty much indestructible—though somehow the trees still went extinct.”
Boyd was surprised the redhead had heard of it, and his expression must have showed it. When Raev looked hurt, he schooled his features. The spike of insecurity he felt across their Bond worried him.
He squeezed the still frowning woman into his side with a wing-enhanced hug. “I’m sorry. I don’t doubt that you know about it, I was just surprised because it isn’t common knowledge, even among Heroes.”
“One of those fun fact things I learned during some trivia night,” Raev mumbled.
Boyd was familiar with it as well. A few historic Heroes had made use of the rare timber for their signature weapons. It looked and acted like wood—except that it could apparently survive the Last Dragon’s powerful breath weapon. Very few things could damage Unyielding Yew. But as with everything on the planet, Powers tended to create exemptions to words like ‘unstoppable’ or ‘unyielding’.
Just like his Black Flame nullified the Last Dragon’s ‘indestructible’ status.
Chapter 8
Their planning room was a large conference room, with banks of workstations against the right and left wall from the entrance. The center of the room was taken up by a large three-dimensional map table that was an upscale model from the ones Boyd was familiar with from the classrooms at the PAC. The ceiling over the map table dropped a bit to hide some of the projection equipment installed in it.
He’d been looking forward to an opportunity to use it. Silvie had beat him to it, though. He wondered how she had set up the basic icons and avatars they would use to display simulations on the map.
There were bars of light in the corners where the walls met the otherwise high ceilings, including around the dropped ceiling above the map table, that provided comfortably bright but soft illumination. The lighting promoted focus, and all the technology and furnishing were done in shades of white and gunmetal gray to remove distractions.
Silvie, Raev, and Boyd gathered around the three-dimensional map that depicted a holograph of the twin rocky mountains just over a hundred miles north of New Eden. A line representing the Last Dragon’s predicted flight path ran between them, and there were two dots that had been placed along it. The line itself was red, while one dot had golden wings floating over it to represent Hope. The other dot had a sickly green skull over it that Silvie had picked out for Archangel.
Boyd glanced at the map’s legend to see how Silvie had labeled things. The sickly green skull was labeled ‘Golden Idiot’. She really didn’t like that guy, but Boyd couldn’t blame her.
“It wouldn’t be terrible if he could hurt the Last Dragon,” the big Hero allowed after Silvie filled them in on Archangel’s plan—although calling it a plan was being generous.
It only included Hope and him. Hope was to fly out with Archangel and wait at her marked location while he moved forward to face the Last Dragon alone. His teleportation Power should allow him to close and even strike the mythic terror with relative impunity. Unfortunately for Archangel, there was nothing to suggest that he could harm the ancient dragon.
In addition to teleportation, Archangel had the Power to summon energy weapons with a destructive output similar to Silvie’s eyebeams, which he called his ‘Golden Swords’. The combination made him capable of dealing with most threats—even those that were S-ranked defenses. The Last Dragon’s energy-based defense had been tested against much stronger forces, though. Omega Ray himself had even made an attempt back when he’d first become the World Hero.
Apparently, Archangel was convinced the Last Dragon was mortal, aging, and weakening—instead of the much more likely scenario that it had simply met someone or something with a Power that trumped its energy defense. At least that was what Silvie had gathered from Hope.
Raev hit play and a holographic model of the dragon flew along the red path as Archangel’s green skull moved forward to meet it. Boyd expected the attempt to result either in the man’s death or a prompt retreat to Hope’s golden wings. In this simulation, after failing to harm the dragon, Archangel’s green skull retreated without Hope, who they knew would attempt to stall the dragon and buy some time for the civilians she had been sworn to protect to evacuate from the doomed New Eden.
Boyd hadn’t programmed the simulation to do more than that—yet.
He’d passed it on to Silvie, who hadn’t done more than add the icons for Hope and Archangel. Boyd glanced down to the map’s legend again and smirked when he saw the other icons for the team. Silvie represented herself with halo, Raev with a foxtail, Tinker with a wrench, and Boyd with his demonic wings. For some reason, she’d represented Mindy with a black and white serpent.
He sensed a story behind that but didn’t think now was the time to ask about it.
‘Kuh-heh,’ Mindy sent, chortling in Boyd’s mind. ‘Yes, there’s a story there… one you’ll find out about sooner rather than later.’
Mentally, Boyd rolled his eyes at her. ‘Are you coming?’ he asked.
‘Be there soon,’ she replied, though Boyd could hear an undertone of humor in that response. He shook his head, refocusing on the map.
He would be filling in details for the actions each of The Devoted’s members would take as they finalized each of their plans. He hoped to have Plans A through D entered into the simulation and mapped before dinner. They would need most of the time they had to practice the maneuvers, but each member of his team had a solid foundation of training for him to build on.
“You’re being generous,” Silvie snapped, frowning as she gave him the look, which she wasn’t very good at, “and you shouldn’t be. Not with that… that jerk-face.”
Boyd smiled at the combination of Silvie’s ineffectual mean look and her PG version of invective. She rarely used profanity, opting for more polite options in almost all circumstances.
“Okay,” he allowed, “it’s a crap plan. He’s really just going to charge it?”
“Pretty much,” Silvie shrugged her shoulders, which did nice things under the snug-fitting light blue tee-shirt she’d worn—because, like Raev, she’d foregone a bra.
She’d paired the top with a pair of white shorts that barely covered the cheeks of her rear and none of her smoothly muscled legs. The color combination was one of Boyd’s favorites and she liked the way it worked with her naturally tanned skin and shining hair. She preferred to keep her long silver hair down, hanging to the top of her wonderfully tight little butt.
“He’s certain the Last Dragon is weakening,” Silvie continued. “He’s probably worried that if he misses this chance, someone else will do it and claim the fame he feels is rightly his.”
“Heh,” Raev let out a snort from where she leaned against the edge of the map table. “Boy, is he going to be pissed when the Big Guy takes it down.”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Silvie agreed with one of her bell-like giggles. Her bright, silver-flecked blue eyes darted to Boyd and away again before she added, “He’s such a narcissist and he hates Boyd.”
“Gasp!” Boyd said the word instead of actually gasping. “The vague clues you’ve dropped about Archangel having something against me, in particular, have convinced that he is the one trashing my name in the news and causing my media blackout!”
“What?” Silvie gasped, “no… come on… I’m not losing my touch that much, am I?”
She pouted at him. While her mean look had a long way to go before it had the desired effect, her pout never failed to tug his heartstrings.
“No, my love,” Boyd chuckled as he pulled her under his arm for a brief side-hug, “Mindy already let it slip.”
“She what?!” Silvie looked surprised as she floated away from their brief embrace.
“Ha!” Raev laughed. “This is why I’ve been avoiding the news. I knew I couldn’t keep it from you if I knew.”
Unlike Boyd, the ladies on the base could freely consume current media, though they had been instructed not to share any news related to Boyd with him. Raev had chosen to join Boyd in an unofficial blackout, Tinker didn’t enjoy watching the news, and he was too polite to seek information from Daisy or Laura.
Boyd had gained tidbits here and there from Mindy, Silvie, and even Royce that had helped him form his list of who might be slandering him.
“I did no such thing,” Mindy sighed as she came into the room.
The door had been closed when he’d spoken, but her Power would have made her privy to the conversation through one or more of their thoughts. Boyd turned and looked at her with a smile. Her raven hair was down in a tousled look that framed her face with two sections as the rest draped over her shoulders. Her midnight black hair contrasted magnificently against her nearly ghost-white complexion—which she augmented with dark, dramatic makeup that also made her amethyst eyes pop.
She wore mostly black clothing. Today she’d selected a spaghetti strap tank top that had a few deep purple lace embellishments—including a little bow that seemed placed to draw Boyd’s attention to her prodigious chest. She’d paired it with black, painted-on pants that had a stripe of purple lacing down the sides of her legs. The ensemble drew extra attention to her overt hourglass shape and made the already difficult task of stopping his eyes from tracing her plentiful curves nearly impossible.
As his gaze roamed from her dark purple lips to those curves, something caught his eye that hadn’t been there before. It wasn’t the first time her wardrobe had left her shoulders and arms mostly bare, but it was the first time Boyd had seen the crimson and black snake tattoo that distracted his appreciation of her curves. Its tail seemed pointed down towards her cleavage as it ran up over her right shoulder before coiling its way down her arm to where a diamond-shaped head rested at the top of her forearm.
For some reason, it made him itch.
“Archangel was already at the top of Boyd’s list,” Mindy said, “and I gave him a clue that was only a little less vague than your little ‘slip-up’. I would have been more careful, but Boyd managed to hide his suspicions from me.”
Those purple-painted lips compressed into a line as she narrowed her gaze at him. “Just like all the planning he’d been doing for the…”
“Stop right there!” Boyd barked, interrupting her. “Don’t move!”
He was trying to maintain his calm, but every muscle in his body had gone rigid when Mindy came a little closer and Boyd recognized the ‘tattoo’ for what it was. His tail and wings were suddenly held stiff out behind him, primed to move in whatever direction he needed them to.
For one thing, the snake’s amber eyes had blinked. For another, Boyd’s extensive training had included identification of the Wild Land’s creatures—including beasts as rare as the one that currently threatened his lovers.
It posed no danger to Silvie, but he wasn’t certain if Raev’s resistance would stand up to the monster’s fangs. And if they pierced her skin, the creature’s vicious venom would kill her—painfully. Hell, its venom would likely kill him, though its fangs would not be able to pierce his skin. Mindy wouldn’t stand a chance, and there was nothing Laura could do about it. Hope might be able to save them, but her Power had never been tested against its toxin.
“Calm down,” Mindy rolled her pretty purple eyes at him as she continued to approach the table.
Boyd berated himself for not having his sword, or at least his dagger on him. Taking his would-be-lover’s arm off wouldn’t be an option under almost any other circumstance, but it was all he could think to do. Hope could help her regrow it.
“Wow… seriously? Calm down.” Mindy glared at him. “And don’t you dare pull my arm off. I am aware of my passenger and she is perfectly docile.”
Boyd doubted that. He knew such creatures attached themselves to hosts, delaying their attack while the host took them back to their nest so they could transfer to their young, patiently waiting for the parent to leave before eating the young. It was just biding its time.
“Silvie, please explain.” Mindy rolled her eyes as she held out her right arm, the one with its potentially deadly occupant, toward his lover.
“Obie is fine, Darling.”
Boyd reached out to hold her back, but Silvie zipped away before he had a chance to yank her away from Mindy. She darted to the other side of the table and held out her hand, palm up, near the dangerous creature’s head. The snakes promptly rose from Mindy’s arm, shifting from a two-dimensional tattoo just long enough to transition to his silver-haired lover.
Boyd almost acted in that instant, but froze when Mindy hissed, “I am going to be so pissed if you kill my pet.”
It would have been hard for him to target, anyway. Only the part that was moving between the women was three-dimensional. The tattoo slithered down Mindy’s, briefly became three-dimensional as it crossed over from Mindy to Silvie, then slithered up Silvie’s arm before disappearing under her tee-shirt. It was a living tattoo.
“Aww,” Silvie cooed, pulling the collar of her tight tee-shirt out to look down at her chest, “you scared her.”
“Explain,” Boyd rumbled, miffed at the pair for not informing him about keeping an exceptionally dangerous B-ranked creature on their base.
Chapter 9
“I knew you would react like this, which is why I waited until now to tell you about Obie. Twenty hours of bed rest is about as softened up as you get, and I didn’t want you to kill her before I had a chance to explain.” Mindy shrugged as the Inkshadow Viper—which was apparently named Obie—completed the transition.
“Silvie,” she instructed, “please go float in the corner until he calms down.”
“C’mon, Obie, you’re safe with me,” Silvie cooed down at her chest before blurring to float in the corner, far away from his squishier women.
Inkshadow Vipers couldn’t bite while they were impersonating tattoos and their fangs would break on Silvie’s skin, so it made Boyd feel a little better knowing that it was now on her and far away from the others.
