Dreams of a Dark Warrior (14 page)

might have no other bodily functions, but last night when he slept, he must’ve been dreaming
really hard
about cheerleaders.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Natalya raised her right hand. “Hand to goddess.”

“Speaking of big cats. Cougar, he’s a
zygote.
”

“Can I help if I notice him? I haven’t been around available males in eons.”

“How’s that?”

“I was taken hostage at the Battle of Seven Hil s.”

Regin snapped her fingers. “I remember now.” She’d been pissed to miss that epic conflict between the

fey and the centaurs. Nothing hurt Regin’s feelings like not being invited to war. “We’d heard you died

there.”

Natalya shook her head. “Good old King Volós planned to ransom me, but failed to realize that I was

ignoble and no one would pay. It took me a decade to escape.”

“How’d you do it?”

“His nephew—and royal heir—took me out of my cel to make me his concubine. I acted receptive, right

up until I ganked him with my poisonous claws, then decapitated him.” Natalya said this dispassionately,

but her eyes flickered. Normal y her irises were the color of plums, but with emotion, veins of black forked out. “At last I’d escaped. Then less than a week later, I was captured by these wanks. Your takeaway

from this story: I need to get laid.” She cast a keen glance at the kid.

“He’s like six hundred years younger than you are.” Regin pointed a finger at the ceiling and declared,

“I refuse to be the moral compass of our cel ! Most weekends I have an intoxispel bong attached to my

mouth like a respirator. I love scatological humor, and I list ‘pranks involving nuclear waste’ and ‘making demons eat things’ as my hobbies.” Hubcaps, fire extinguishers, pizza boxes. Though she was friends

with many of the demon species, she made the rest of them suffer.

“Valkyrie, if there was ever a cradle to be robbed … Gods, just
look
at him.”

Admittedly sigh-worthy. But Regin merely shrugged. “What are you going to do with him if he wakes?

Make porn for the security cameras while I plug my ears and drone
la-la-la
? Besides, he’s not ful y immortal yet. You claw him and he’s dead.”

Natalya glared at her claws.

“Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who wil never be jumping through your flaming hoop—”

Regin caught the sound of Chase’s nearing footsteps. She recognized his long-legged stride, the echo

of his heavy combat boots. “Here comes the Blademan. …”

NINE

I
s anything wrong, Magister?” Dixon asked, fawning expression in place as they moved down the

corridor, assessing new prisoners.

“No.” His tone was brusque, his answer a lie.

Declan was having a shite day, and it wasn’t even noon.

Tests on the vampire’s ring had revealed nothing—which made Lothaire’s interrogation this afternoon

even more critical.

Declan stil hadn’t crushed his unnerving fascination with the Valkyrie; her cel was coming up fast.

And he’d found out that yet another magister’s prisoners were on the way to his facility, though Declan

hadn’t even surveyed the ones brought in while he’d been away hunting.

Dixon had offered to bring him up to date on the recent arrivals. He’d accepted because she’d brought

him the additional doses and because he’d assumed—rightly—that she wouldn’t dare broach the subject

of
them
anytime soon.

Now as they passed cel s newly fil ed with more creatures from “myth,” she relayed details of their

capture and backgrounds.

One cel contained Cerunnos, sentient creatures possessing the head of a ram and the body of a

serpent. Another held a number of revenants—zombies con-trol ed by some unseen Sorceri master.

Even a winged Vrekener—a horned demonic version of an angel—had been captured.

Declan grudgingly admitted that this wasn’t a bad haul, though not nearly the caliber of his last one.
Nor
in the same league as my next will be
. He’d been laying a trap for the most powerful immortal ever to live. A vampiric demon …

When they passed the cel of Uil eam MacRieve, the Lykae said, “You’re the magister?” His Scottish

brogue was thick, his eyes blue with rage.

Declan merely stared at him. In less than half an hour, Dixon was scheduled to examine the were-wolf.

She and her team would be doing the regular workup, but they’d also be testing a sonic weapon devised

to immobilize a creature with his acute sense of hearing.

Turning strengths into weaknesses.

MacRieve bared his fangs. “When I get free from this place—”

Without a word, Declan continued on, ignoring him. If he had a quid for every time one of them said,

“When I get free …”

I’d be even wealthier than I currently am.

Al these immortals smugly thought they’d escape soon, assuming that humans could never contain

them. Yet in the centuries of the Order’s history, none had escaped.

And no one would be breaking that perfect record under Declan’s watch. He’d instal ed so many

security fail-safes that commanders and other magisters mocked him. They cal ed this Instal ation

Overkil .

What they considered costly excess, he deemed standard precautions.

The metal wal s of the cel s were solid steel, three feet thick. The forward glass wal was made of the

same material used for space shuttle windshields. If reentry into the earth’s atmosphere couldn’t crack

that glass, then an immortal with a torque sure as hel couldn’t.

But if one
did
breach the glass, then hydraulic bulkheads—barriers of six-foot-thick steel—would drop into place, sealing each of the three corridors. And once those bulkheads dropped, a self-destruct

sequence would engage, overridden only by an officer.

Every contingency planned for,
he mused, even as concerns about overcrowding weighed on him.

“You seem distracted,” Dixon said. “Is it because of your upcoming interrogation?”

“Lothaire wil be just one among many vampires,” he replied cool y, belying his interest in this one.

Though the Order knew more about their kind—their origins, weaknesses, any anomalous powers—than

about any other species, aspects of Lothaire proved a mystery.

Certain vampires could harvest memories if they drank blood straight from the flesh. And if one kil ed

as he fed, he could usurp a victim’s physical and mystical strengths. Over time, the older ones grew

maddened from so many memories, their irises reddening.

Lothaire had that harvesting ability and was one of the oldest vampires alive, yet his eyes hadn’t turned

ful y red. Somehow he’d refrained from drinking as much as his brethren, shrewdly clinging to what little

sanity he stil possessed.

The Enemy of Old was an anomaly. Anomalies fascinated Declan.

Stil the vampire had stolen enough memories to suffer bouts of instability and hal ucinations. Declan

had observed him slicing his black claws across his wrists to dine on his own blood as he conversed with

himself. While at other times, his red eyes had seemed to burn with intel igence and cunning.

Declan wondered which side of Lothaire he’d encounter this afternoon.

In any event, he expected a worthy opponent. Natural born vampires like Lothaire were physical y

incapable of tel ing a lie, so they resorted to trickery and verbal misdirection; by al accounts, Lothaire was a master of deception.

No matter.
I will best him. Just as I will best the Valkyrie in her interrogation tomorrow.

As they approached her cel , his skin pricked with awareness. For the most part Declan had ignored

her—until earlier this morning when his curiosity had prevailed, and he’d pul ed up her cel on the monitor.

She’d been braiding her hair into haphazard plaits that he somehow found pleasing to the eye—though

one would think she’d grow more proficient at braiding after a thousand years. When a fight had broken

out in a cel down the ward, she’d bitten her knuckle, then cried out dramatical y,
“Can’t we all just get
along?”

Did she consider this some kind of game? Once Declan had finished with her tomorrow, she’d

understand how dangerous her position was. …

For now, seeing the Valkyrie in her cage, imprisoned right along with the other unnatural beings would

remind him that she might be fair of face, but beneath the surface she was stil one of them. A detrus.

Her beauty just made her more dangerous.

He’d been taught by the Order that they were abominations walking among humans, fil ed with untold

malice toward mankind … a perversion of the natural order, spreading their deathless numbers

uncontrol ably … a plague upon man that must be eradicated. …

Experience had taught him no differently.

TEN

W
hen she heard Chase’s low voice in a clipped conversation as he approached, Regin resumed her

customary spot on the floor.

Footsteps closer … closer …

And then he appeared—pale, angry, with his gaze fixed directly ahead. His pupils were dilated—

everyone here knew he was on something. And he stil sported those same black leather gloves. Rumor

held that Chase hated to be touched, wore the gloves to avoid it.
Freak.

At his side was Dr. Dixon, the head researcher/dissector. Though Dixon wasn’t a pound-candidate per

se—she had an athletic figure and even features—she was no looker either. She had lifeless brown hair,

and her oversize glasses were the type that only a supremely confident woman could pul off.

Chase seemed to be half-listening to the woman, answering in monosyl ables—while Dixon was visibly

lusting over him.
The sick mortal two-bit.

When they paused at a cel diagonal to Regin’s, she tried to determine what the woman saw in him.

Regin supposed his thick coal-black hair was nice, and his features were attractive enough. He had a

strong chin, defined jawline, and prominent cheekbones with shadowed hol ows beneath them. His nose

was thin and straight.

He held his broad shoulders erect in a proud military posture, and his soldier garb was pleasingly butch

—shined combat boots, a black crewneck pul over with shoulder patches, and camo pants that were fitted

around his narrow hips and muscular legs.

Al in al , she might turn and check him out if he passed her on the street, but he was nothing like the

other magnificent embodiments of Aidan. Not to mention his mental state.

A drugged-up freak of a torture expert?
Have at him, Dixon.

In the old language, Natalya murmured, “He’s noticeably gazing away from you. Why do you think that

is?”

Regin had expected him to stare at her in confusion, to demonstrate that he’d begun to feel some pul

toward her. Instead, he acted as if she didn’t exist.

Which made her bristle. She was always the center of attention. Silent, lethal Lucia had once told her

that she loved how Regin always stole the show—because that meant Lucia could go unnoticed in the

shadows.

It felt bizarre to be ignored in general, much less by an embodiment of Aidan—who used to stare at her

so hard that he’d run into trees.

Answering in the same, Regin said, “How should I know why Chase acts the way he does?”

“Uh-huh.” Natalya clearly sensed that there was more to this than Regin was letting on. “You wouldn’t

have noticed, of course, since you’re busy checking out al of him, right down to his tightly muscled backside.”

“You take that back, fairy.”

“Ah, look at the magister’s hand. He just clenched and unclenched a fist. I wonder why.”

“As if I care.” Final y a reaction!