Royal Reboot: Level up, Your Majesty!

Not a Date

His boots hit the ground hard, crunching through wet grass and half-rotted leaves. His chest burned. Breath ragged. Sweat soaked through both shirts, sticking to him like he’d fallen into a river instead of running through a park.

He was fast. Fast enough to outrun most things. Not fast enough to shake whatever the hell was glued to his back. It moved like death itself and triggered something automatic in him. Instinct.

Run.

He never heard footsteps. But he felt it. That odd feeling at the back of his neck that screamed not normal.

Goddamn terrible timing. Tonight was supposed to be different. Tonight, he’d finally worked up the nerve to tell her. Not just that she was beautiful, but that he couldn’t stop watching her because he knew she watched him too.

Lately, even thinking about her had him on edge. Restless. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t keep pretending that watching her from a distance was enough.

It wasn’t enough.

His fist clenched to stop the shaking that had nothing to do with the chase or the cold.

The trail spit him out onto a quiet street lined with aging heritage homes. Most windows were dark. A few cars sat idle along the curb, their windshields fogged over.

Silence.

No more pressure on his back now. Maybe he lost the bastard.

He was strong, too. Not just fast. The kind of guy people only chased if they didn’t care about making it home.

He turned.

“Fuck.”

A pair of eyes locked onto his. Sharp. Cold. Lethal.

His body reacted before his brain could catch up. He didn’t plan to fight, but something inside pushed him forward anyway. He just needed to get home. Needed to see her.

He dropped a hand under the nearest sedan and lifted it with a grunt, muscles tight, veins drawn.

“Why the fuck are you after me?”

He expected fear, or panic, or any reaction at all.

She didn’t even blink. She just stared at him like she wasn’t even part of the world.

He squinted, trying to refocus, to make sure she wasn’t another trick of his mind. That had been happening more lately. He blinked again. Still there. He couldn’t waste time. She was in the way.

He snarled, teeth grinding, and threw the car at her.

A blade blinked into her hand, light eating shadows. She moved once. That was it. One clean arc, fast as hell. Even with enhanced vision, he couldn’t follow it.

The car split clean in midair.

Metal hit the ground with a crash. Glass burst outward, then froze around her like it feared her more than gravity.

She didn’t walk through the wreckage. She stood in it, untouched. Wind played with strands of silver hair, catching the moonlight just enough to make it glow. The glass sparkled before falling slowly onto the footpath.

She didn’t look like a threat.

She looked like something pulled from a tragic folktale. The kind of girl too perfect to survive the ending. But when their eyes locked, he stopped breathing.

Her eyes glowed red. Too hot, too cold. Divine.

That word slammed into his mind like it had been waiting there. Divine? Seriously? What the hell?

He started to speak, but she was already in front of him, close enough for her scent to fill his lungs. Sweet. Dark. Dangerous.

A touch at his neck, and the lights went out.

THUD.

Static crackled in Astra’s earpiece.

“Miss Astra,” her partner’s voice came through, dry and slightly amused, “would it kill you to give the poor man a reason before knocking him out?”

“It might,” she replied, already pinging her location to the Council’s cleanup crew. Her fingers slid across the display, loading her next target. “And talking takes time. Time means perp number five gets to finish what she started.”

She moved to end the call.

“Wait—” he cut in. “Fifth target?”

Astra frowned, glanced around, and spotted a camera dangling from a residential eave. The red light blinked at her.

She glared at it.

In her ear, a long sigh followed. “We still haven’t discussed your… new arrangement.”

“We’re discussing it now,” she muttered, “apparently.”

“Unilaterally, I’d say. Also, five targets? In one night? That’s not just above quota. It’s a direct violation of health and safety protocol.”

She could hear frantic keyboard clicking and knew exactly where this conversation was going.

“Council’s understaffed. Don’t narrate the obvious.”

“Except,” he said, tone light but leaning toward concern, “none of these targets were assigned to you.”

She paused briefly. “I traded with Billy.”

“Billy? As in Agent Billy at St. Kevin’s?”

Slightly longer pause. “Yes.”

“And what did you offer him in return?”

Before she could answer, a black van rolled into view at the far end of the street. She noted the plate. Council crew. Efficient, despite the shortage.

She stepped into the shadows, already locking on her next mark.

“…Miss Astra?” he asked again, when she didn’t answer.

“Lunch.”

“You bought a field assignment with a sandwich?” He didn’t sound like he believed it.

“It was an Angus burger,” she said. “Double.”

He sighed. “That’s not how this works. If anything, he should be buying you lunch for doing his job.”

Astra didn't reply, or want to. Her mind was already shifting back into hunt mode.

The sexual assault predictions were spiking. No surprise, not with Lust on the loose. The Council had brushed it off as a statistical anomaly until Gifted agents started dropping. Now even deep covers like Astra and Billy were back on street duty.

Precognition wasn’t science fiction anymore. Council tech could see the shape of violence before it landed. But foresight didn’t stop it, it only gave warnings.

There weren’t enough agents to cover it all.

So the Council triaged.

Terrorism came first. 

Then murder. 

Then assault, either sexual or first-degree.

Everything else could wait.

Astra was one of the Elite Gifted Agents. The kind they sent when the targets were too dangerous for anyone else to touch without dying in creatively horrifying ways.

Her partner’s voice returned, different this time. Curious. Too casual to be casual.

“Astra,” he said, gently, “according to records I absolutely have permission to access…”

Right. The lack of formality meant he was about to be annoying in a way she couldn’t argue with.

“…you’ve requested Saturday off.”

Click. 

Scroll. 

“Which also means Billie’s pulling double.”

Of course. “You're spying on my schedule now?” she grumbled.

“It’s not spying if I have clearance and use it responsibly.”

She rolled her eyes. He probably saw it somehow.

“I’m just saying,” he continued, “in three years, you’ve never asked for a day off. Not for rest. Not for injury. It’s… refreshingly uncharacteristic.” His voice softened. “In a good way.”

“I…” she hesitated. “Yeah. Whatever.”

He didn’t speak. She could hear the sound of tea being sipped, followed by the soft chime of his treasured bone china cup meeting the saucer. Then, slowly, that familiar, annoying amusement returned to his voice. Too warm and knowing for her liking.

“Miss Astra… are you finally taking time for someone?”

She cut the line.

One last target. Then she was done for the night. Maybe she would sweep the street again afterward. Just to be thorough.

Not that she was nervous about Saturday.

She had asked Eydis out like it was no big deal, with such forced casualness it barely qualified as a question. Probably why Eydis had looked so confused.

Because Astra could face monsters without blinking, could fight ancient evils without hesitation, but she could not face that. A rejection. Now she understood why Theo feared it, even though he had no feelings for her.

It was…

She slowed.

Human.

She blinked again, willing her heart to calm down. Then again, making Eydis slightly off balance was something Astra had started to enjoy a little too much.

Still, no matter how much she had tried to downplay it, nothing, not a crime wave, not a corrupted Gifted, not even Lust itself, was going to ruin her Saturday.

Her… d—

Astra swallowed the word even in her thoughts. Her throat bobbed. Fingers twitched. Jaw tightened.

Seriously?

For the first time in years, her footsteps rang clear against the concrete as she stalked toward her final target.

And somehow, her shadow felt just a little lighter.

Eydis studied her reflection and let out a quiet sigh. The black dress, lace-trimmed and falling just below the knee, fit better than she’d expected. The silk hugged nothing; it suggested just enough. She tied the front ribbon, then buttoned the row of gold accents on her sheer sleeves. The look was understated by her past standards, yet tasteful all the same.

And best of all, no corset. Surely they weren’t that bad to wear, but if this night went the way she suspected, she’d need all her lung capacity. One hundred percent, because running out of breath mid-seducti—

Anyway.

She traced the lace at her sleeve and insisted silently that it was just a coincidence. Just fabric. Nothing more. Definitely not a calculated nod to anyone’s suspicious appreciation for lace.

She gathered her dark waves and draped them over one shoulder. Her exposed skin prickled, though not from the cold.

Violet mist drifted along her arm before forming into a serpent, dark as shadows with a gleam like violet oil.

“Your Majesty,” Envy purred, “not to undermine your divine right to vanity, but even Pride would’ve called it quits by now.”

Eydis didn’t answer. She kept adjusting her eyeliner, as if precision alone could prepare her for an assassination involving an overly curious Sin.

“Still,” Envy slithered on, uninvited, “you’ve absolutely levelled up. That dress looks sinuous on you. Unlike those war-crime rainbow kitty T-shi—”

Her glare could’ve accelerated Envy’s next skin-shedding cycle.

Envy flinched. “Iconic T-shirts! Visionary, really. Timeless. The T-shirts were… art. Uh—contemporary! Maybe abstract?”

Before its flattery could trip over itself again, a soft pop snapped through the dorm room. A pair of ravens appeared, not flying so much as asserting their right to be here.

“Really, Envy,” cawed one, shaking a glossy wing. “With the wealth we’ve discreetly redirected, Her Majesty could purchase an island. Several, if she’s nesting. Fashion critiques are redundant.”

The other cocked its head. “And if you’re in the mood for flight, Your Majesty, we’ll have a jet perched and primed before the snake finishes its whining.”

“Whining?!” Envy’s tail lashed. “I am a confidante of the highest caliber! Right, Your Majesty? Why so quiet? Normally by now, you’d have fired off a one-liner and at least two mildly alarming BDSM references.”

Eydis calmly clipped on a pair of ruby earrings. Then she turned, a smile already playing on her merlot-coloured lips.

Envy watched, equal parts fascinated and terrified.

“BDSM? One cursed video, and you’re suddenly the spokeserpent for kink.com?” she said coolly. “Ambitious.”

“You were the one who watched it…” Envy muttered.

Her voice dropped, her eyes flashing gold. “The ravens are right. I am missing one final accessory tonight. And no, it’s not air travel.”

Envy brightened.

“A snakeskin purse,” she said sweetly. “And lucky me, I’ve found just the right texture.”

Her elegant fingers curled slightly, and the air folded inward, shaping a blade of living night that leaked faint violet light. “Only shadows can strip shadows clean. The texture holds best when the donor’s still squirming.”

Envy dimmed instantly.

“W-Wait! I thought we were still in the consensual-strangulation phase!”

The ravens cackled with delight. Eydis rolled her eyes and waved them into the shadows, blade included. She didn’t have time for their games. Let Gluttony babysit their egos.

She had bigger problems. Colossal, even. Like the slight, very inconvenient tremble in her hands.

Not that she was nervous. 

Please. 

She was the Queen of Not-Nervous. Anxious? Her? Never.

And she would sooner curse her reflection than admit it to Envy, to the birds, or, worse, to herself.

Still… this was a date. Right? Or close enough to pass for one in this hell-dimension. One of those “Hey, wanna come over?” invitations. Except Astra had phrased it with more charm and then disappeared for two nights to punctuate the point.

Eydis had Goggled the signs. Twice.

This was a date. Not the sticky kind. Where she came from, courtship involved matchmakers and the explicit blessing of the Queen of Shadows, her mother.

Eydis had skipped all of that. The former queen had never insisted. Never cared enough to say no. Or yes.

There was one small benefit to being raised by someone who didn’t bother to interfere.

Eydis supposed that counted as freedom.

A soft knock tapped at the door. Right on time. Completely unnecessary, since it was Astra’s room too.

Eydis inhaled like she was about to face her mother, not her possibly-maybe-sort-of date.

Calm down. This isn’t a date.

It isn’t—

Then she saw Astra. Her first thought was…

It is a date. Absolutely. Definitely. 100%.