Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 9
“Okay, so first off, I’ve had Obie for years—for five years, to be precise,” Mindy began. She walked around the large map table towards him. “I got her as soon as I could. She’s legal, registered, and I’ve proven to The Authority’s standards that I can safely handle her. She has never bitten a human—not once. Although, and I think you’ll like this, she has been trained to strike on command… on my mental command.”
Boyd’s heart rate steadily dropped from its furious pounding—which Mindy assisted by draping her arms around his neck once she reached him. She guided his head with two fingers to look at her instead of staring at Silvie where she floated in the corner, whispering down at her chest while stroking her belly in an attempt to pet and calm the dangerous, Powered creature.
Mindy’s explanation also helped Boyd calm down a lot. Especially the part about striking on her mental command. Mindy was rather squishy, especially compared to Silvie, who he already worried about more than he knew he should.
“Yes, Obie could save my life someday.” Mindy smiled up at him. “I promise you she isn’t a danger to anyone I don’t want her to be. She’s quite intelligent, enough so that my Power allows me to connect with her to a limited degree. So, not only is she trained, but I also know she doesn’t want to bite anyone. We’re much too big for her to consider eating and I’ve told her no one wants to hurt her.” She shrugged. “She trusts me.”
“Well… okay then,” Boyd rumbled, finally allowing his shoulders to slump. “Couldn’t you have like… told me first, instead of just walking in with her.”
“I could have…” Mindy smirked. “But this was much more fun. It’s not easy to make you go pale.”
“Now who is being a little shit?” Boyd muttered.
“Ha!” Raev barked out another short laugh. “You could have warned me. The snake didn’t scare me, but the Big Guy’s bark sure did.”
“Sorry,” Mindy looked over her shoulder to where Raev had resumed leaning against the map table with a slight frown. “It’s okay now, Silvie. You can bring her back over.”
Silvie zipped right over and pulled her tee-shirt up to display a black and red snake tattoo that wrapped around her toned abs, its head resting on her ribs. The amber eyes blinked again, seeming to stare at Boyd.
“Kuh-he!” Mindy laughed. “Obie thinks my mate is scary, which she approves of because you will keep me safe.”
“She knows who I am?” Boyd asked. He knew the creatures were smart, but that seemed a bit much.
“Yes, she recognized you from pictures,” Mindy replied.
The taller woman held out her arm to Silvie’s bare stomach. “Okay, Obie… come back to momma.” Sure enough, the Inkshadow Viper smoothly transitioned back to Mindy. The snake tattoo coiled itself up her arm, over her shoulder, and disappeared out of sight.
“She just ate, so she’ll take a nap beneath my clothes for now. Just pretend she isn’t there.” Mindy draped her arms back around his shoulder and put a serious expression on. “Now, I’m going to help you forget about her by whacking you over the head with something you need to account for in your planning.”
Boyd’s eyebrows raised.
“Not the dragon-slaying part,” Mindy clarified. “This is about the press conference part and the people you might meet during it.”
“Alright,” Boyd responded warily.
His caution was born from the spike of anxiety he felt from Silvie as soon as Mindy brought the issue up, the serious expression on Mindy’s face, and the fact that he was in very close proximity to a B-ranked Powered creature.
“Victory Seeker relinquished his Mentor position after you started your testing over a year ago, at which point he became a Handler,” Mindy said out loud as he felt her probing his mind, likely prepared either to soothe or to calm him with her Power, should he require it.
Boyd blinked, snorted out a brief laugh, and then grinned. “He did? Oh, I can’t wait to tell Royce. He’ll get a kick out of the high and mighty Victory Seeker falling so low as to become a Handler.”
“Royce already knows,” Mindy continued, “because he has been running damage control on the Archangel situation and Victory Seeker is Archangel’s handler.”
“Ah,” Boyd said.
He sighed. It would have been fun to tell Royce. Boyd remembered all the times Victory Seeker had openly ridiculed the Handler position. He believed Heros shouldn’t need someone to coddle them in order to do their duty properly. Often right in front of Royce during joint meetings.
“It’ll still be good for a few jokes when I can talk to him about it.” Boyd’s grin faded. “We’re going to have to keep Royce out of the loop on our plans, though. He would be required to report it up the chain and I can’t see Glorith City’s leadership, all the way up to Director Davis, not ordering us to stay out of this.”
He frowned. “We’re going to have to limit our contact with Royce and Glorith until this is over, which shouldn’t be hard. In this case, it truly will be better to seek forgiveness than permission.”
“Speaking of,” Raev inserted herself into the conversation, “I meant to ask how you plan to get around that.”
“We don’t need to seek additional permissions at this point,” Boyd responded with a shrug. “We are operating completely within our orders. I’ll have arguments prepared—don’t worry—but we won’t actually need them unless we fail and have to abort. Davis might grumble, but I’m sure he’ll happily agree to take credit for his team slaying the Last Dragon. He’ll say he quietly authorized the mission… after we succeed.”
“Which is great, but… sometimes I don’t get you,” Mindy admitted. Her amethyst eyes studied him with a worried look on her face. “I thought I’d need to calm you down after telling you about… him.”
“I haven’t forgiven him for failing me the way he did,” Boyd growled, brows drawing together.
He understood that she’d expected him to react strongly to hearing that he might encounter Victory Seeker. Though Boyd would prefer never to see the man again, he didn’t think encountering him would be an issue. “I hate the bastard for a lot of reasons, but he was doing his duty in his own twisted way.”
“No.” Mindy shook her head sadly, hands unclasping from around his neck and resting on Boyd’s shoulders. “He wasn’t doing his duty… and someday I’ll get you to see that.”
“I’ll take your word on that, for now,” Boyd agreed.
Mindy had already more than proven to him that his beliefs—even those he held to most firmly—might be… just plain wrong.
“But, unless it will interfere with our dragon slaying mission, I’ll ask that you leave it until after that part is done.”
Boyd could admit that the news made his plans to use the press conference to deliver some subtle verbal jabs at Archangel, with the intent of provoking a duel with the idiot, that much sweeter, but he had more pressing things to focus on.
Those amethyst eyes probed deep into his amber gaze, her hands never leaving his shoulders. “You are likely to find news that Victory Seeker is also Hope’s handler more upsetting,” Mindy continued. “It was something that Director Stafford arranged because Hope is used to control Archangel’s behavior.”
Boyd stiffened, his face going flat and his tail lashing behind him of its own volition. Mindy winced, evidently worried how he might take this next piece of news.
“Archangel is obsessed with Hope, which is likely related to that aura of hers. While I don’t believe they have stooped so low as to order her to encourage his obsession, it is one reason they consider Hopewing vital to her post and have blocked her every transfer request.”
“We’ll have to do something about that,” Boyd ground out, his deep voice as ominous as a looming thundercloud.
His hands had closed into tight fists as the wave of anger Mindy had been waiting for rippled through him. She didn’t do anything to him yet, mostly because Boyd didn’t need her to. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, forcing his hands to unclench. His tail, however, still lashed the air behind him.
That they manipulated not only Archangel, but Hope as well was unacceptable—for several reasons. For one, making Hope stay on a team she didn’t want to, simply because some pompous asshole was obsessed with her was beyond excusable. It was pathetic. Anyone involved in that decision-making process lost any right to the authority they held by way of their position.
They obviously could not be trusted to make proper and moral decisions.
For another, Victory Seeker’s participation obviously tainted the process. Boyd was only okay with ignoring Victory Seeker’s continued existence so long as he no longer held sway over those who mattered to Boyd. If he was anything like what he used to be as a Mentor, he was not fit to be Hope’s handler.
“Yes, as soon as possible,” Silvie agreed enthusiastically. “Hope isn’t being directly abused or anything, but she isn’t happy.”
Boyd was glad he had already figured out the quickest way to free her. It seemed the subtle jabs he’d planned would have to be upgraded to explicit disrespect. Thirty-three more days was the maximum time he would allow her to remain in close proximity to Victory Seeker. That was mostly because it was the very soonest he could secure her transfer away from Eden’s Protectors.
“You’re growling.” Mindy’s soft hands shifted from his shoulders to take his cheeks between them. ‘Your public image might take a hit, but it would work. He would respond strongly if you publicly called out his failings like that,’ she sent telepathically.
Boyd stopped growling and took another deep breath. While he understood that building his image was important, he needed Mindy to understand that he would absolutely destroy that image if that’s what it took to get Hope out of her current situation.
‘I understand,’ Mindy comforted him, ‘but it won’t come to that. You won’t have to lower yourself too much to provoke him. A few direct insults will do the job, I think.’
“There’s one last thing you need to know… for now,” Mindy said out loud. She finally shifted her eyes from Boyd’s amber orbs. “Silvie, would you like to tell him?”
“Well, Darling,” Silvie said with careful sweetness, floating closer but not trying to supplant Mindy, “Archangel has a grudge against you because he’s obsessed with Hope… and she is obsessed with you.”
“Right,” the word came out in a grunt.
Mindy hadn’t needed to help him control his anger before, but the fact that Hope was kept from doing what they both wanted by such constraints threatened his control over that still simmering rage. His other self surged out of his home in the depths of Boyd’s mind and posited that their ship could get them to New Eden quickly. They could literally sweep…
Mindy stepped in and suppressed that thought, soothing his other self with her purple vapor and coaxing it back into its innocuous wooden-slat box.
“Archangel is also apparently averse to training,” Silvie continued, unaware of Boyd’s mental struggle and activity, “which old jerk-face wants to correct.”
The demonic Hero blinked, returning his focus to what his lover had been saying. “Our old Mentor would,” Boyd agreed—putting as much disdain into ‘Mentor’ as he could—to prompt her when she hesitated.
“So, in the incredibly unlikely scenario that the Golden Idiot kills the Last Dragon, he is going to challenge you to a duel. They’ll spin it as finding out who is stronger—the Hero who killed Omega Ray in a desperate struggle, or the Hero that slayed the Last Dragon.”
“That’s beyond dumb.” Raev laughed. “I’ve seen Archangel fight and I’ve seen Boyd with his anti-porter training; the Big Guy will mop the floor with him.”
“That’s the point.” Boyd sighed, suppressing the grin that threatened to form on his lips to keep his excitement from Silvie.
“After Boyd beats him, Victory Seeker will convince Archangel that if he completes his training, he can turn the tables on Darling in the next fight.” Silvie scowled. “It’s not exactly a new trick—he played the same game over and over when we were in the PAC to motivate other blockheads—but what do you expect from an old hound like him?”
“I’ll take that into consideration, my love,” he smiled at Silvie, “but as you said, Archangel has to kill the Last Dragon first. Since I’ll be the one to do that, he would have to be beyond reason to challenge me.”
Or provoked beyond that point by someone with extensive training on how to use words to get people to do dumb things.
‘The Golden Idiot, as Silvie called him, is also fairly dumb,’ Mindy helpfully added, ‘and overconfident to a fault. I doubt he’ll give you much trouble, and I should be able to help give you pointers on… which I see you planned to ask for, so good.’
Boyd pulled away from Mindy so he could bend over the map table, mostly to hide his face from Silvie for a moment. It was the only thing he could think of at the time to hide the savage grin that erupted on his face.
Most Hero Duels were simply for honor, but the challenged had the right to set the terms and could demand anything the challenger had the power to do. The Captain of every Hero Team could unilaterally dismiss a member from their team, at any time.
Hope only had to hold out for thirty-three more days. Then, she would be free of Eden’s Protectors.
Chapter 10
Boyd used the map table to locate and designate the various gathering points for the team, as well as the designated target area he wanted to drop the Last Dragon into. From there, he mapped out the team’s movements for plan A and they ran the simulation several times. Mindy, Raev, and Silvie were each able to recite the basic steps by the time Tinker’s hour-and-a-half nap was over. Mindy judged that would be enough for the little genius to get another five or so hours of quality work in before sleep deprivation began to impact her cognitive functions.
Mindy made a wonderful remote alarm clock, gently waking Tinker from her restful slumber. Their resident mind reader then informed Boyd that Tinker would need at least an hour before she was ready to see him again and that she’d asked him to set up a conversation with Laura about which numbing agent to use. Boyd was instructed to ask Laura for the most effective local numbing agent with the shortest life that would have the least impact on his motor control.
Boyd did as he’d been asked, finding their trauma nurse in the clinic where she was just finishing up wiping down the rack Boyd’s wings had healed on and changing the bedding in the large hospital bed he’d so recently occupied. When he explained what Tinker had asked for, Laura stood for a moment, tapping her chin with one finger before turning to a series of drawers along one wall.
He’d thought she was going to open one of those drawers, but she went to a large viewscreen off to one side instead. Laura tapped the screen several times, glanced up at Boyd, and then tapped the screen twice more.
“Don’t you have what Tinker needs?” he asked.
“I have several things that would work,” Laura admitted, “but I’m concerned about the time most of them would take to wear off, given that you can’t afford delayed reactions or responses for what you’ll be doing. I’m giving Tinker a personalized drug cocktail I had the auto-lab synthesize based on your size, metabolism, regenerative healing factor and Changed physiology.”
Boyd blinked. He hadn’t realized Laura could do that.
“Just make sure you don’t try anything crazy for at least six minutes after using this, okay?” Laura poked him in the chest. “I’ve just gotten used to seeing you around all the time, and I don’t want to miss out on the eye candy. I promise to get this to Tinker, and will even work with her on a delivery method.”
He could only nod as his eyes tracked Laura’s scrub bottoms as she walked out the door. Had she just called him eye-candy? Shaking his head, Boyd headed back to their war-room.
For the next hour, Boyd mapped out Plan B and then brought the team back in and ran through that simulation until they all had the basics down. His raven-haired lover seemed grateful for the excuse to stop when she informed him that Tinker was ready for him. Given the groan of relief he heard from both Silvie and Raev, she wasn’t the only one ready to take a break from the intense planning session.
He didn’t know why Mindy looked so relieved. Her part in Plan B would be relatively easy, as far as complex movements and positioning went. Boyd had insisted that each member of the team learn the more complex movements he and some of the others would make, though, so she still had a lot to memorize, he supposed.
“How are we looking?” Boyd asked as he walked into Tinker’s lab, keeping his tone even so as not to sound excited, just in case his idea wouldn’t work, or to sound worried, so that Tinker wouldn’t have any reason to think he didn’t believe in her. Building egos was a delicate, precise process. You could hammer someone with a hundred compliments, but make one misstep and you might find yourself back at square one—at least until you had a solid foundation of self-worth built up.
Tinker heard the door open and swiveled on her stool to face him. She had obviously showered and redone her hair into the simple yet adorable twin braids she had adopted as her go-to look. She had put on little in the way of makeup, not like her doll-like features required it.
Her outfit had also been switched out for one of her leg-baring, body-contouring, soft but still wonderfully tight light-pink rompers. It was the kind with buttons down the front—several of which near the top had been artfully left undone. A pair of thick, pink slipper-socks covered her dainty feet, likely required by the cool tile floor of her lab.
“We’re looking good,” she said, but then frowned and sighed as she admitted, “You were right. If we combine the grav-clamps with physically anchoring the wing thruster units to your bones with several screws, it should be stable enough to run at a hundred percent of the larger units’ output.”
“That’s great news!” Boyd smiled gently, then decided to address the defeat he sensed on their Bond. “But for the record, I don’t take being right about this as some sort of victory over you. This isn’t an ‘I told you so’ moment or anything like that at all.”
