Dashing Devil Omnibus 2: Books 4-6, page 91
“Are they that dangerous?” Laura asked with a raised brow, looking far less certain about the idea she likely thought would make the course a breeze. “I see Heroes use them all the time. The Pulse Brothers, for example, but also a lot of tech users.”
“The Pulse Brothers use jump packs,” Boyd corrected her. “Jump packs are similar to jet packs, but don’t allow for sustained flight. I still wouldn’t recommend one for you, but if you want to try one you are welcome to knock yourself out. Hopefully not literally. Tech users are a special breed. Many of them have Powers that allow them to integrate with or better understand the technology they use, which grants them finer control than most. I’m not saying you can’t learn to use one, but learning to fly safely takes time—even for those of us with wings.”
“Okay, but I can have Tinker make me other things? What about a grappling hook?” Laura asked with some excitement in her voice. Boyd watched as a series of ideas crossed behind her eyes.
“Sure,” Boyd shrugged again. “The gloves and adhesives were an idea as to how you might use your Power to climb walls, but you can brainstorm with and ask her to make whatever you would like.”
“Wait. Shouldn’t I be focusing on using my Power over gadgets?”
Laura was looking for traps in his instructions. Which was good, and meant that at least one of the training videos had sunk in. A Hero had to keep an eye out for catches in conversations with all sorts of people.
“I personally stayed away from gadgets and even weapons through most of my training so as to make sure I wasn’t dependent on equipment that may or may not be available, or that could fail when I need it,” Boyd replied, keeping his tone neutral. “However, I have always been at least an A-Ranker with a diverse Power set. Many lower-ranked Heroes use such things to good effect, allowing them to address situations and enemies that they otherwise could not. Raev, for example, is an excellent shot with side arms. She used stun and pulse pistols to make up for her lack of a ranged offensive ability… although lately, she has decided to move away from them.”
“That wasn’t much of an answer,” Laura complained, glaring up at him from where she sat on the floor. “You always give vague and terminally unhelpful responses to my questions.”
Boyd chuckled and then smiled at his frustrated trainee.
“It’s intentional. The purpose of this exercise is to get you questioning your limits. What you can do. What you can use. The solutions to problems you can come up with. How well you think outside the box. Once you start questioning these things, you start pushing your boundaries. If I answer your questions directly then all we achieve is setting new limits for you, the ones I inadvertently put in place for you with my advice.”
Laura blinked at him again, then her lips pursed. “Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because this exercise is also a test. One of the things being tested was your ability to problem-solve on your own,” Boyd explained. “It’s an area to improve on for you, which is likely the result of you focusing your ability to do so on medical-based tasks. I’m no doctor, but my understanding is that the majority of the time the goal is to identify a problem and then use existing prescribed methods to address it. That’s great, but only to a point. A Hero has to be ready to invent their own methods to address problems, so we’ll focus some training on getting you into that mindset.”
Boyd could read in Laura’s expression that she wanted to take offense to his statement but couldn’t. He decided to throw her a bone, “I’m not saying you have no ability to think outside the box. I saw the acid burns on the wall yesterday. Trying to burn handholds into it was an excellent idea and would likely have worked on a different material like concrete or wood that is more susceptible to acids. I don’t know exactly what materials this room uses to create the obstacle course, but it is not concrete or wood. It was still a good idea.”
“Thanks, I guess,” Laura grumbled, still clearly not enthused that he had called out what she likely thought of as a learned strength as a weakness.
“That’s enough for today,” Boyd rumbled as he stood from his chair. “Your practical skills training later will be with Tinker. She’s been chomping at the bit to sit down and discuss different fluids you might make use of in the field and has samples of some she wants you to try to play with. You can also talk about any equipment you might want to try out with her.” He reached down to offer her help standing.
She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet. “Thanks,” Laura said as she brushed imaginary dust off herself. “I think I’m going to try to stick to minimal equipment like you suggested. For now at least. It’s probably a good idea to see what I can do on my own before I start to become dependent on gadgets and things.”
Boyd nodded his approval. He had nothing against Heroes who leaned on equipment, but he did view it as a crutch. It would be better for his trainee to start her career learning what limits she could reach on her own. “A wise decision,” he summed up his thoughts.
“I’ve at least learned that if you say something like ‘I personally’ it means you think that whatever follows is better than the alternative.” Laura laughed before turning and gingerly walking towards the door that led directly to the base’s medical ward. “See you at breakfast.”
Boyd chuckled and turned to head for the elevator and up to the Great Room. He planned to pass through it on his way to the medium-sized bedroom to rouse his loves, but he heard a soft sniffling sound on the way. He followed it to its source and found Daisy doing some prep work for breakfast.
“Good morning, Daisy,” he announced himself as he approached.
The fairy spun to face him for just a moment before she quickly turned her back on him to resume chopping potatoes for hashbrowns. In that moment, he could tell that while she wasn’t actively crying, she had been recently.
“Good mo-rning!” She tried to inject a bright and cheery tone into her voice, which was abnormal on its own, but it was also spoiled by a tightness in her throat that made her choke on it.
Boyd sat in his customary spot and asked, “Is everything okay?”
“Ehem…” Daisy cleared her throat to ensure she wouldn’t choke on her words again but then sniffled before saying, “Yeah, everything is fine.”
The big demon didn’t think he should push. Their fairy housekeeper never responded well when he did so. Instead, he created a mental list of things that might elicit tears in the spitfire. He hadn’t talked to Connor in a few days, but he doubted she would just be crying if something happened to him. She was more likely to steal the Osprey if something was wrong with her brother than cry during breakfast prep.
The list wasn’t all that long, so he took a shot in the dark. “Is it about Bianca?” Boyd had been trying not to think about the young woman who was very likely dead by now. She was an innocent he’d failed to protect.
Daisy’s shoulders stiffened and her fluttering wings faltered, causing her to drop a few inches before she recovered and returned to the right height to make use of the kitchen counters. She didn’t respond, but he saw her head nod slightly once.
“There is still a chance…” Boyd tried offering the only platitude he could. Unfortunately, it wasn’t well received.
“Don’t bullshit me!” The fairy woman interrupted him with a hiss as she whirled in the air to level a red-rimmed glare at him. “I don’t need false hope. I get it, I know the statistics on missing person cases. I looked them up last night. She’s dead. She was probably dead before we knew she was missing. I don’t need someone telling me there might be a chance. I need the truth.”
Boyd sighed and nodded his agreement. She said she needed the truth, so he would give it to her… even if he doubted it was what she really wanted. Still, prolonging the healing process would be good for no one.
“If not before we knew she was missing, then certainly shortly afterward. If whoever took her intended to let her live, they would have released her once her case made the news.”
Fresh tears welled in Daisy’s iridescent eyes as her face crumpled into remorse. She sank to the floor and covered her face with both hands before turning away from him. Her shoulders shook with restrained sobs.
Boyd knew better than to try to hug or otherwise physically comfort the young woman. He didn’t have any words that would make what had happened to her friend alright. All he could offer was a promise.
“I can’t change what happened to her,” Boyd rumbled softly. “All I can do is promise you that I will find out what happened to her and who is responsible. From there, I will ensure that whatever monster took her faces justice. I’ll make sure that they can never hurt anyone ever again. I promise.”
Daisy kept her back to him, face still buried in her hands. “You mean it? You promise?”
“I do,” Boyd confirmed. “And by now, you should know how seriously we take our promises around here.”
“Yeah, I know.” Daisy nodded again before she straightened up and wiped her eyes with a kitchen towel before turning to him. Her bright eyes were filled with a blend of sadness and anger and Boyd felt a pang in his chest, witnessing the depth of her sorrow. “I know you don’t make promises you can’t keep. Are you close to catching them?”
“I suspect that she was taken by the group we are targeting,” Boyd confirmed. “I had a little hope we might find her during our last mission against them. Now, with this next one, we will be making a lot of arrests.”
He growled, “Once those arrests are made, we can Mental Powereds pull the heads of these monsters apart until we know what happened to her and who did it.”
A familiar fiery resolve reentered the fairy woman’s eyes. “Then make sure to end this group, rip them out root and stem. It ends with this. For Bianca. For everyone that they’ve hurt.”
Boyd nodded, the weight of the task pressed down on him. “For Bianca, and for all those ensnared by their malice. We’ll bring an end to their evil. That’s a promise.”
“Good,” Daisy responded, but then seemed unsure what to do with herself.
“Take the rest of the morning off, I can handle breakfast,” Boyd half offered and half ordered. “I’ll give Laura a break from her training videos, too. Spend some time together. Do something you enjoy. And remember, every one of us is here if you need us. You are not alone. Hope is correct when she says that even if you aren’t one of my lovers, you are a part of this family.”
“Thank-herk-you,” Daisy’s gratitude was broken by a sob as new tears sprang to her eyes. “I could use a little time. I’ll be fine by lunch, though.”
“It would be fine if you weren’t,” Boyd replied with his warmest rumble as she started to make her way toward her room. “Take as long as you need. We can manage a few meals on our own.”
“No, I’ll make lunch. I appreciate the morning off, but staying busy has been good for me. See you then,” Daisy said before she fluttered off to her room.
Boyd sighed as he watched her go. The lives the Ascended had ended were only part of the damage they had done. Daisy was a prime example of how each loss caused ripples, harming to every life that the victims had touched.
Soon, their evil would be brought to light and the monsters would get what they deserved.
♥︎ Chapter 37 ♥︎
Boyd sat at the edge of the bed where he had been deposited by Mindy and Hope before they disappeared together into the goth’s walk-in closet. He busied himself by paying close attention to the Bonds he shared with the two women. Feeling the building anticipation within each of them, he let it fuel his own. His angel’s excitement was blended with anxiety, just enough to make the experience delicious for her.
He picked up that being alone with Mindy and having the goth prepare her for him was thrilling in a strange way. It was both a little scary and enticing for his angelic love. The big demon had enough insight into the woman and her proclivities by now to understand some of it, but not why it got attached to Mindy.
‘I’ve made a promise not to tell you what was discussed the other night,’ the Mindy in his mind spoke up. ‘But I can see that you’ve figured out that Hope seems to crave a fall from grace much like you crave pushing your lovers to the very limits of their pleasure. Use that for context and think of it from her perspective, especially from when she last knew me.’
Boyd put a little thought into it while still paying close attention to his Bonds. He had obviously been caught up in his own issues at the time and had done a lot of harm to Hope and Silvie by pulling so firmly away from them. Back then, he’d thought he was inherently evil. He was certain they would be better off if he kept his distance.
He had been wrong about many things.
He knew he wasn’t fully responsible for those mistakes. He had been young and under the effects of both educational programming and literal brainwashing—but that didn’t erase the hurt his pulling away had caused. When people experienced pain, they looked for a cause so they could avoid it in the future.
Hope never would have blamed him. She also was under the effects of programming and brainwashing, depending on when her compulsions had been removed. She couldn’t have blamed The Authority, which only left her one place to put it.
Sure, Boyd had pulled away from her and everyone else for a while before Mindy was taken from him, but he became much more adamant about it after what had happened. Then, after years of blaming her for the harm Hope, Silvie and Boyd had experienced, for the Mind Powered goth to have showed back up and have been welcomed into his life before her? And not only that, but his ex had set him on a mission against The Authority—something the angel had not been aware of before coming to the base.
It was no wonder she’d held a grudge and was less than trusting.
To Hope, there was a very real possibility that Mindy had turned from the righteous path and had manipulated those she loved into joining her. He was fairly sure that it wasn’t a good sign for her sense of moral preservation that the angel was so willing to throw in with them. He did take comfort in the fact that she was not turning evil because he already had and she was willing to throw anything and everything away because she wanted to be with him. But that was only because he hadn’t turned to evil.
‘Kuh-he!’ Mindy laughed. Then she continued with a warm tone, ‘Yes, it’s a very good thing that she became obsessed with you at a young age—the calm, strong, patient, caring, tough, and dependable boy who saved her countless times. I shudder to think what might have happened to her if she’d attached her drives to a lesser man, one who would have abused her.’
A shudder ran down Boyd’s spine at the thought.
‘No. Forget I mentioned it.’ Mindy wiped the idea away before it could gain much ground. ‘She found you, and latched on to you—the one who will help her explore her drives safely. But now isn’t the time for dark thoughts.’
The door to the closet opened and Boyd wondered why she’d bothered using her Power to clear his mind, knowing that the sight of her would derail such dark thoughts. Hell, it derailed anything remotely close to coherent thought, dark or otherwise.
Mindy stepped out first. Her raven hair was pulled into a loose bun, and she had a smirk on her darkly painted lips. His gothic love wore a black leather bustier with garters that connected to thigh-high platform boots, her choker… and nothing else as far as he could tell. She held a wooden box in one hand as she swayed towards him.
Mindy took a step to the side to reveal the angel that trailed behind her. Hope’s long golden hair was left to fall in waves down her back. She wore a set of lingerie made up of scraps of white lace held in place by gold ribbons that crisscrossed to wrap around her supple form. She had garters, as well, but they were connected to two golden straps that wrapped so tightly around her thighs that the pale flesh pushed out above and below the wide cloth ribbons. Her lower legs and feet were completely bare.
She walked on her toes, carefully placing one foot in front of the other to make sure her hips rocked back and forth with each step.
‘Stay seated,’ Mindy urged when he thought to rise to meet them. ‘Just give her that in-control smirk of yours that we all love… and yes, keep your eyes on her right now. I need you to play along for the setup, but otherwise your only role today is to be yourself. I’ll let you know when to take over.’
Boyd had begun letting his eyes roam over Hope, drinking her flawless form in from the moment he saw her. At Mindy’s instruction, he schooled his awed expression into the practiced smirk that she’d requested.
Hope came to a stop before him, her halo burning a warm, lovely pink. Though less than a foot shorter than him when standing, she tilted her head down and looked up at his seated figure through her long lashes. Seeing his confident grin, she gave him a radiant smile.
Now that she was closer, Boyd realized that she wore more makeup than he’d ever seen on her—which still wasn’t much. Some mascara darkened her already long lashes and she wore a thin rim of eyeliner with just a dusting of shimmering gold eyeshadow gracing her eyelids. Her lips were painted a slightly darker pink than their normal tone and finished with a high sheen.
He felt an itch across their Bond that he had come to recognize as Mindy using her Power on one of his Devoted a moment before Hope’s wings spread wide and Mindy stepped up behind her. His darkest love leaned down close to her ear once the angel’s wings were out of her way, the platform heels of her boots making her taller than the barefooted angel.
“Tell him what you want,” Mindy purred in Hope’s ear, giving Boyd a lascivious smile.
He sensed that while Mindy was acting in a role that wasn’t to her tastes, she found she was enjoying it much more than she’d expected.
‘Kuh-he!’ She giggled. ‘I have to admit, Raev hyped it up pretty well.’
“I would like Mindy to use her Power to teach me how best to pleasure you,” Hope said with an earnest sincerity that contained none of the arousal the admission caused to bubble up inside of her. “I want her to control my movements and show me directly how to serve you, my Lord.”
