Jeeves arrived then, perfect timing, as always. He bowed and waved one hand. A free-standing clothing rack appeared, with 10 outfits hanging on it.

  “Will any of these meet your needs, my lady?”

  Ruby jumped up with a brilliant smile and rushed to examine the outfits. There was a good variety, ranging from comfortable-looking medieval clothing for in-town wear to sturdier options for battle.

  Jeeves added to me, “And perhaps this for you, sir.”

  He extended a hand and a knife sheath appeared in it. Made of a strange black crystal, it held no blade and included a pair of straps, one at each end, like it was intended to fasten snugly to an arm or thigh. Identify triggered instantly.

  “Stiletto Quiver. Uncommon. With a capacity of up to 100 throwing knives, the stiletto quiver can fire knives in rapid succession with variable force, depending on the amount of mana infused into the sheath.”

  “That’s perfect,” I laughed, taking the sheath and clapping Jeeves on the shoulder. He felt solid.

  “Very good, sir.”

  It was super light, and when I positioned the sheath over my left bracer, it sealed in place, its straps wrapping around the bracer, then fading into it. When I checked the sheath in my inventory, it showed capacity of 0. All I had to do was will 100 of the crystal shard daggers onto it and poof, just like that, it was charged and ready.

  “I need to test this out.”

  “Indeed,” Jeeves said. At a gesture, an armored dummy appeared at the other side of the room. A large leather backdrop appeared behind it.

  “Smart. Preventing damage is easier than repairing it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I pointed my left hand at the dummy as I focused my mana on the sheath. Mana flowed into it, so I kept pushing more until it felt full. Then I willed the sheath to fire. It made only the barest scraping sound of crystal on crystal as one of the throwing blades shot out of the sheath like a bullet. It tore across the room and struck the armored dummy with a resounding crack.

  I expected the shard to explode on impact, but instead it punched through the thick breastplate and tore through the dummy’s chest before pinging loudly against its armored back. Then it exploded inside the dummy’s chest.

  “Whoa! That’s got some punch to it.” I felt like a character in Assassin’s Creed with one of their signature wrist daggers. Mine was even better.

  “Will that suffice, my lord?”

  “Home run, Jeeves. How much did this cost?”

  “There was no charge, sir.”

  “How is that possible? Sythrak said he could get us great rates, but no merchant gives stuff away for free.”

  “It appears his bonus from processing your initial purchases and sales proved several times more than he expected. He provided this sheath as a token of good will.”

  “And with hopes I return soon?”

  “Undoubtedly, sir.”

  “Sure. I was going to return anyway. I’ll take the bonus. It’s perfect.”

  “Very clever of you, sir.”

  Chuckling, I turned to check on Ruby. All of the outfits were gone and she had changed into one of them already. She now wore a ranger-looking outfit, complete with fitted black leggings, tall black leather boots with shiny buckles, and a form-fitting brown leather vest over a long-sleeved teal blouse. With her plum-colored cloak thrown back, she looked like she’d stepped out of a fantasy adventure movie.

  “What do you think?” she asked, spinning to give her cloak a flare.

  “Looks a lot more comfortable.” And super hot. Of course, anything she wore would look great. “Might need a bow if you go for the ranger look a lot.”

  “Might have to.” She glanced at Jeeves and added, “I’ll take all of them.”

  “You are a woman of taste and fine breeding.”

  “How much do I owe you?”

  “My lady, you are a guest in this house, therefore any expenses incurred in assuring your comfort and security are deducted directly from the treasury.”

  Meaning he’d dipped into my funds. I didn’t remember exactly how much I’d had, but when I checked, my counts hadn’t dropped much. The outfits must have been a lot cheaper than the others we’d purchased.

  “Can you get her other gear repaired?”

  “Indeed. Leave them at any time and I will ensure they are returned in pristine condition.”

  “I like having you around, Jeeves,” she said.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  He disappeared, and I dropped into one of the overstuffed chairs. Ruby slid into another one, looking more relaxed than ever.

  I took the moment to channel a flow of mana into my Luscaan Explorer boots. Sythrak had suggested they’d become far more useful once they soaked in my mana for a while. The boots drank a surprising amount of mana and grew slightly cool against my feet. I left them to soak.

  Ruby said, “Lucas, I wanted to talk about something else.”

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  “Shoot.”

  She sat up a bit straighter, her expression turning serious. “Most of us got hurt at least once today, and those injuries really debilitated us. Like when Lana got her leg stripped to the bone, or Andy got hit by one of the mandrills.”

  “Sure, those were pretty severe.”

  “You suffered worse, though.”

  “Lots of times.” Thinking of all the times I’d nearly died was a sobering list.

  “When you were fighting the Alpha, stuck in the air and flying across the clearing, he hurt you pretty badly, didn’t he?”

  “Nearly ripped me in half. That guy’s seriously strong.”

  She paled and shuddered. “I saw you fighting it. I could see it was hurting you, but that only seemed to make you angry. You never stopped fighting back.”

  “If I stopped even for a second, he would have killed me.”

  “He would have killed any of the rest of us.” Her steady gaze bored into me. I wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but the point seemed important to her.

  “And today when the Overlord bit you . . .” She paused and swallowed, looking a bit green. “Lucas, your entire lower half was . . .”

  “Yeah, that really sucked, and it really ticked me off.”

  “Yes. A horrific injury that would have killed any of us only made you angry.”

  “Well, I screamed first. My stats are higher than—“

  She cut me off. “No. It’s not stats. Anyone else would have done a lot more than just scream. We all would have hesitated, or tried to flee. Vivaldi, Lucas, none of us would have even dared attempt what you did, and those are just two examples.”

  “What are you getting at? I did what I had to do to protect . . . Everyone.”

  I nearly said ‘to protect you’ but that felt a bit too on the nose. I had done it to protect her, and Tomas and Jane and Steve and, well, yeah, everyone.

  She nodded slowly, her huge eyes with their tantalizing hints of gold like will-o’-the-wisp lights holding mine. “You are motivated to protect us. I see that. I’ve seen it since day one, but it’s more now, isn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?” The topic was getting a bit uncomfortable. Did she think I was insane, or something?

  “That first day, you took on the ogre, and the second morning you took on that insane elk.”

  “Yeah, that thing nearly killed us.”

  “Right. Back then, you admitted you didn’t like fighting up close, but felt you had to. When you got hurt, you reacted more like the rest of us. Now you don’t. You rush into danger like you can’t wait to fight. You ignore pain, and you somehow hold your own against monsters that by all rights should kill you, or that had already mostly killed you.”

  Did I? I thought back over my seemingly countless battles. I guess she had a point, but I didn’t see it as such a big deal. So I shrugged and tried to keep my voice light. “Okay, but like you just admitted, I have to do it to keep you safe.”

  She leaned back in her chair, but still watched me. “I worry about you, Lucas.”

  I chuckled then. “Worry about the monsters that get in our way.”

  “I’m serious,” she said with a scowl that unfortunately made me grin. So she pulled a silk pillow out of her inventory and threw it at my head.

  “Okay, sorry. I just don’t see the point.”

  “The point is the same point we talked about once before. We’re gaining power. You’re getting stronger than anyone else, despite what your levels say. I don’t want to see that power corrupt you or turn you into something different, something . . .”

  “What? Less human?”

  I asked it more as a joke, but she nodded. Ouch.

  For a moment, I sat back and considered her words. My thoughts did seem to move faster as my stats increased, and I considered things deeper, somehow. I used to be able to watch tv for a couple hours and not really think about anything. Not any more. As I focused, the truth started to gel.

  “Partly, it’s the fact that I know I can heal. Pain doesn’t have the same effect because it’s transitory. I’ve got much faster regeneration than most, and I’ve got tools to help me heal even faster. Then we’ve got potions.”

  She pursed her lips, nodding slowly. “I never really thought about it like that.”

  “I doubt most folks have, but I’ve been forced to fight a lot more than anyone, so I’ve had to deal with a lot more pain and therefore a lot more healing. Back on Earth, pain was necessary. It warned us to stop before we damaged ourselves more. Here, it doesn’t matter as much.”

  She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, leaning her chin on top, her gaze still locked on me. “That’s a bit unnerving.”

  I shrugged. “We can’t limit ourselves to how we lived back on Earth. This reality is different, so we have to adapt.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy that, but you said that is only part of it.”

  I hesitated a moment. I wouldn’t say more to anyone else, but this was Ruby. I found I couldn’t keep any secrets from her. Well, except for all the stuff surrounding the experiment Cyrus was running on me, which admittedly was a lot. Still, I wanted to be open and honest with her as much as possible.

  “I spent a night as a werewolf.”

  “You told me about it. Sounded terrifying.”

  “And amazing. They regenerate so fast, pain means nothing. They can throw themselves into battle with almost total disregard for their own safety. They can take a bunch of mortal wounds and ignore them. That’s enough to win most fights. Ever since that night, well, I see pain differently.”

  “Are you saying you’re still affected by that wolf experience?”

  “A little, yeah.” Memories of how I’d thought of the pack and prey and my rights as the strongest hunter, and of the powerful emotions that swept through me sometimes. Even thinking of it triggered an echo of the wolf-like pride that told me I should just seize her and make her mine, as was my right.

  Shuddering, I pushed the thoughts aside. Not helping.

  “Maybe don’t get another transformation spell,” she suggested.

  A rush of intense rage boiled through me at those words, so unexpected and so fierce I growled and clenched my fists before catching myself. With an effort of will, I drove the anger aside and forced calm on my thoughts again.

  Ruby was watching me way too closely, one perfect eyebrow raised. I blew out a breath and nodded. “Yeah, might not be great for my long-term emotional stability.”

  “Or your humanity.”

  She slipped out of her chair and dropped to a knee beside mine to take my hand in hers. “Take all the benefits you can from that experience, but don’t let the rest drag you down and turn you into the monsters you fight.”

  “Working on it.”

  She held my gaze for another moment, and her presence did help quell some of the lingering wolf rage pulsing at the back of my mind. I took a deep breath and gave her a confident smile. She returned to her seat and I remembered something to change the topic.

  “Did you know Elizabeth Maberly is in town?”

  Ruby started in obvious surprise, but then blew out a breath and nodded. “Yeah. She’s the new council member.”

  “Have you spoken with her?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not? She was your boss, right?”

  “She’s not my boss here,” she said simply.

  “Oh. So not the best working environment?”

  She shrugged. “It was okay, mostly, but she’s a very proud and very selfish woman. Everything had to be about her.”

  “Actress.”

  That got a chuckle. “Yeah. That was one of the reasons I applied for the job. Figured if I worked for a beautiful actress with a rising career, I could just do my work and everyone would ignore me.”

  “Except, what? You were too good and too beautiful to be ignored?”

  “Not exactly. I mean, yeah, I’m good at my job, but under all that glamor and bluster, Elizabeth was very insecure. Anything that could even remotely challenge her perfect world was attacked with absolute ruthlessness.”

  “Including you?” I hadn’t been very impressed with Elizabeth the one time I’d met her, but she was sounding like a total dragon lady.

  “Mostly, it was good, but I could see the signs. Any time I got a compliment about my work, she took it as a personal insult or a challenge to her superiority.”

  “Then don’t go anywhere near her again. Here, you don’t owe her anything.”

  Ruby sighed. “We weren’t on bad terms, but we were heading in that direction.”

  “Well, if she gives you any Handel, you can nunchuk all over her Amadeus.”

  That got a laugh. Then she rose and said, “I need some rest. It’s been a busy morning.”

  I almost asked her if she wanted to see the other suites upstairs, but that could easily be misconstrued as an invitation to see my bedroom. I wasn’t about to risk upsetting the fragile agreement we’d made. So I saw her out, then headed for the master suite, feeling pretty good about things.