Nadine cursed herself for not contacting a teleporter then, knowing that her training had failed her in some way.
But wherever she was, it was quiet, and oddly enough, it felt relatively safe.
She was in an alley, definitely an alley in Centralia based on its cleanliness alone, and as soon as she sent a mental message to the teleporter, she also asked them to confirm her location.
Nadine was somewhere around 100th and 51st Street, not too far from her home country.
The teleporter would be there any moment, and he would take her to Oscar, the man who operated the secure communication channel. He would find a telepath who could piece together what had happened to Nadine, and why she’d ended up here. Then again, these types of telepaths, the ones with the psychometry skill, were hard to come by.
But it was pretty easy for Nadine to piece together a big part of the puzzle: someone had saved her.
The teleporter had just arrived when Nadine discovered that her Zero Ring was missing. She panicked, looking around for it, and even had the teleporter, a male with spiked hair, help her search the alley.
Nothing.
So this wasn’t as clean of an escape as Nadine would have liked.
There had been a trade-off.
If only Kevin could find some grapes.
The former immigration advisor felt like a king, an exemplar, a cut above the rest. And with the Zero Ring on his pinky finger, that was exactly what he was.
More powerful than he had ever been, with confidence he had never experienced, Kevin now had a thirst for revenge, a desire to see to the deaths of his enemies.
The only thing was, Kevin didn’t have that many enemies.
Sure, there was the flying exemplar who had fucked his wife—that guy was definitely going to get killed. And there was his brother, who had used his influence to deny basic healing rights to the Western Province, but he’d be a better pawn than a target for death—at least for now.
There was also his wife, Susan, whom he would also have to kill, and possibly a few of his coworkers who had never been that nice to him. He remembered some of them from the rooftop, and he’d probably need to take out Selena too, just because she had always been a bitch to him.
The ring he’d stolen from Nadine granted him the power to bring supers to their knees.
And in the few hours that had passed since he’d saved Nadine’s life, Kevin had formulated a plot as to how he would go about doing this, how he was going to get the revenge he sought.
For now, there was Turquoise and Obsidian, both of whom had started to treat him even nicer than they had before. He could already tell the difference in their eyes when they looked at him, the respect, the way they waited on him, the mantras Turquoise said under her breath as she took Kevin in.
Their dynamics had changed. He was their leader, and he would treat them better than Paris ever had.
Another thing he’d noticed was that their neurotoxin excretions didn’t work on him when he wore the ring. A pity, because he liked the intoxicant.
Regardless, it was probably better this way.
Kevin had been reborn, and his rebirth was going to cause a lot of deaths.
And that was what he felt as the sun came up the next morning, his eyes on the horizon, both cat girls asleep on his chest, their ears flickering ever so slightly.
If only Kevin could find some grapes, he would ask Turquoise to feed them to him.
No, he would tell Turquoise to feed them to him.
There was nothing particularly special about the room Roman sat in.
He’d been to the Human Resource offices before, when he’d been a new hire as part of a mandatory training. The HR offices were on the second floor, with windows overlooking the small pond next to the administration building.
An office with a view—what he wouldn’t give for that.
Roman had already received a funny look from the receptionist when he’d entered, a woman in her early forties who wore a designer scarf. Ultimately, she hadn’t asked why he was so bruised up, and he hadn’t offered any explanation.
But he knew the question would come, and he was ready for when it did.
“I’m Dante,” a bald man in glasses said as he stepped into the room. He was dressed in a pressed overcoat with embroidery over its front pocket and matching black slacks.
“Roman Martin.”
Dante kept up his fake smile as they shook hands, as he took in Roman’s face and the fact that his hand was bandaged. What he couldn’t see were all the small cuts and abrasions covering Roman’s body, the scabs that had formed, and the various bruises he couldn’t recall acquiring.
Fighting was hard on the body—Roman knew this. And he also knew from his past experiences at the fighting bars of Centralia that smaller injuries usually made themselves known after the fight.
“Nice to meet you, Roman. I see that you are…” Dante hesitated.
“It’s not what it looks like. After what happened, I needed to blow off some steam. I went to a fighting bar. The steam is gone, but now I’m a little worse for wear.”
“I see. Nothing illegal about that.”
“Exactly.”
“Please, sit,” said Dante as he took a chair in front of Roman. “Do you have the paperwork?”
“Sure do.” Roman opened his shoulder bag to retrieve several pieces of paper he’d made that morning regarding his wife’s death.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t have obtained the paperwork—no, Roman had slept in, and he hadn’t felt like taking a teleporter across the city to obtain a Notice of Death. Besides, as he was seeing now, the HR guy didn’t really question any of the paperwork, focusing instead on what had led to Celia’s death.
“And she was like this for the last two years?”
“Give or take.”
“That’s so long.”
“It was excruciatingly long.”
“And what was the cause of the coma?”
“Trauma.”
“Please elaborate.” Dante scribbled some notes down on a piece of paper.
“I’d rather not.”
The HR representative looked up at Roman and frowned. “I can only approve your bereavement leave request if I have adequate information. This is completely confidential; nothing that is said in this room leaves this room.”
“I’ve just lost my wife. This is the evidence of me losing my wife. If you need more information, you can view the archives via our office’s telepathic record keepers. It has been the worst weekend of my life, and there isn’t anything else I’d like to say about it.”
“Okay, Mr. Martin, that’s fine,” Dante said as he scribbled some information down. “Now, regarding your employment here, is there anything you’d like to report to me while we are having this one-on-one meeting?”
“What do you mean?” Roman asked, an idea coming to him.
“Have you had any issues with your immediate upper management or anything company related that you’d like to discuss? If so, now is the time.”
He considered this for a moment, focusing on a decal pinned to the HR guy’s lapel. “If I felt management was abusive, what would happen?” Roman finally asked.
“Well, if it is their first or second offense, they’d be put into mandatory Inclusion Strategy Training. In fact, one of the workshops starts later this week and goes into the weekend. It is a comprehensive course that requires the use of an empath with mood-adjustment capabilities for those who prove to be difficult to reach.”
Roman did his best to suppress a grin.
Dante looked at him over the rim of his glasses. “Is there someone in upper management you’d like to discuss?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. And this same person also made a comment about my deceased wife that I’d like to have filed.”
All in a day’s work, Roman thought as he made his way to his favorite bench next to the office, the one in front of the small duck pond. Coma and Celia sat on the bench, both looking
out at the water, thin smiles on their faces.
“How did it go?” asked Celia, looking up at him with her soft purple eyes.
“It went well. I’m off for the rest of the week, and somehow, I got my boss in trouble.”
Coma smirked. “Was that intentional?”
“They gave me an opening, and I took it.”
The masked doll shrugged, her breasts bouncing up and down as she did so. Roman glanced at the ducks in the pond, one of which had lifted out of the water, flapping its wings and causing quite a commotion with the others. It was a bit chilly, but not too bad, a breeze blowing up from the south.
“What are we doing now?” asked Celia. “I could look at the ducks forever, if that’s what you’d like. It would be nice to go swimming, too.”
“We can’t go swimming here,” Roman said, cracking a grin. He would continue to find this out, but Celia the doll always had something cute to say.
“Then what are we doing?”
“I have a Heroes Anonymous meeting later today, and I’ll meet with Ava before that.”
“Will we see Harper?” asked Coma.
“Is that what you’d like?”
“It’s what you seemed to like.”
“I don’t know.” Roman turned away from them. “I need to get my, well, for lack of a better phrase: ducks in a row.”
Celia tilted her head at the ducks in the pond. “Do ducks usually line up in rows?”
“No idea, but you know what I mean. We do need to kill some time, though. The red-light district won’t open for at least another hour.”
Roman saw another duck lift out of the water and figured he’d go for it. Focusing on the water beneath a black duck, Roman physically lifted the duck, the water spraying around it as if it was attempting to nest at the top of a fountain.
The duck beat its wings for a moment, and Roman let the water drop back into the pond.
As the two dolls laughed, an idea came to him that he’d been meaning to try. He turned Coma and invited her over to him.
Roman willed his ability to Coma. At first, it didn’t feel like anything was happening. Then he reached this strange threshold that he could sense, a threshold he could press through, and once he did…
Roman glanced at his power dial, and he saw that for once, the green bar had raised.
What he had experienced before was mostly activity in the red and bottom blue bar. This was something else, something new, and what Roman said next would change the course of his afternoon.
“Can you feel that?” he asked her.
“I can feel… something.”
“I want you to try to do what I did with the water, try to lift it up.”
“Lift up the water?” Coma looked to Celia.
“I bet you can do it,” Celia said, a smile on her face.
Coma spread her fingers and stuck her hand in front of her body. As she did so, the surface of the pond began to tremble, droplets pushing upward.
“Good!” Roman said, clapping. “Try harder, focus even more.”
Coma closed her red eyes, and a small pillar of water began to lift from the surface of the pond. It fell back down immediately as she let out a gasp of air, her mouth agape.
“You can do it,” Roman told her, breathing heavily himself.
Coma tried again, the water lifting out of the pond and annoying the ducks.
“Hold it just a little longer,” he told her, and after she’d held it for about thirty seconds, Coma released the water.
“I have a superpower now?” she asked Celia.
“It sure looks like it!”
A couple approached the pond, two men from one of the different departments. Rather than stick around, Roman nodded for Celia and Coma to come over to him, instantly calling his power back, too. “Let’s get out of here; we can play with this later.”
He went ahead and ordered a teleporter to take them to a diner near the entrance to the red-light district.
They appeared outside the diner a few seconds later, and after a short wait, the three were seated in a small booth with a view of the entrance.
Roman couldn’t help but smile as his coffee came to him and he looked across the booth at the incredibly gorgeous living dolls who sat before him, Coma with her black hair, mask and ruffled clothing, and Celia with her red hair and tight superhero outfit.
As they spoke of lighter things, of plans for the week and places they’d like to visit in Centralia, Roman kept a watchful eye on the red-light district.
Eventually, he saw the person he was looking for, a young woman with light-gray hair in a tight dress. Roman remembered her name instantly—Emelia, the empath with violet eyes who had sold Celia to him.
He waved the waiter over. “Can I get my food to go? Something has come up.”
“Did you see her?” Coma asked as the waiter left to the kitchen.
Roman nodded.
“Great, I’m excited to meet the next one.”
Celia placed both elbows on the table, so she could rest her face in her palms. “I wonder what you will call her. Perhaps we can name her.”
“Do you have a name in mind?”
The two dolls looked at each other and shrugged. “We’ll have to meet her first,” Celia finally said.
Coma nodded. “Agreed. Let’s meet her before we name her.”
“Fair enough,” said Roman, “fair enough.”
The end.
House of Dolls 2 is out now!
https://geni.us/HouseofDolls2
New RELEASE
https://geni.us/WeCouldBeHeroes
(Yes, a series about Sam from the H-Anon Meetings!)
Not everyone can say they met their new girlfriend while being detained for impersonating a superhero.
Hell, not everyone can say they have a superpower.
But Sam Meeko can, and this is the story about how he discovered his strange power (hint: through police brutality), the people he met immediately after (hint: three beautiful women), and the kick ass team they formed once they realized there was a vampire outbreak descending upon their city. When the cops don’t know what the hell is going on, and the real Centralian superhero teams can’t be bothered, saving the day falls to this ragtag bunch of half-powered superhero hopefuls.
Assuming, of course, that they can get their acts together.
Back of the Book Content
Reader,
I really hope you enjoyed this book. It is my second foray into superhero fantasy, the first being my best-selling series, Cherry Blossom Girls.
I plan to expand more on Centralia and the rest of the countries in House of Dolls Book Two, which is out now. I also have plans of growing the world and fleshing it out through other series related to House of Dolls, the first being We Could be Heroes, which follows the adventure of Sam, is out now!
(Yes, the Sam that inspired Roman to animate sex dolls. It’s a wild and fun book, a bit campier than the House of Dolls series, but filled with great characters, world-building, and ton of cameos, from Mister Fist to Emelia to Catherine the wind user).
Anyway.
Your reviews are greatly appreciated, and if you enjoyed this book, please take a moment to review House of Dolls and let other readers know.
I’ll wait. Did you review it? Thanks!
You can find out more about Harem Lit books (like this one), by joining the Facebook page here.
If you’d like to hear about my future releases, see early previews, and meet other like-minded readers, join my Facebook group. We’ve hit 700 readers, and our next goal is a thousand. This page is also a great resource for asking questions you might have about my 30+ books and multiple series.
Yours in sanity,
Harmon Cooper – [email protected]
Other Books by Harmon Cooper
My best-selling Superhero Harem Adventure about a sci-fi writer and the superpowered women who are trying to kill him. Fun content, adult read!
https://geni.us/Cherr
yBlossomGirls1
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https://geni.us/MonsterHuntNYC
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(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)
https://geni.us/TheLoop
If you love dark fantasy, RPGs, Witcher, Punisher, or Mad Max, you'll love this powerful gamer trilogy about a man and his wolf companion.
https://geni.us/LastWarrior
Tokyo, Japan meets online fantasy gaming and South Park-styled humor. Yakuza, goblins, action, intrigue - add this book to your inventory list!
(This one is related to Monster Hunt NYC)
https://geni.us/FICK
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House of Dolls Page 28