Dreams of a Dark Warrior (41 page)

over her rib cage. That hideous wire jutted up in the center.

Declan shoved his fist against his mouth, swal owed back vomit.

“This wil be over soon,” Brandr promised her. “And you’l never have to go through it again. Close your

eyes, Regin. If you trust me, you’l close them.”

At length, she did.

Only then did Declan cross to the table. He could see why Brandr needed her perfectly stil . The man

was going to have to lower those cutters directly beside her beating heart.

How many times had Declan cursed an immortal’s resilience?

Now he prayed for hers.

Regin lay in a twilight, her mind refusing to go under, even as Brandr began clipping in her chest.

The gruesome sound of those cutters—
snip, snip
—echoed in the room. She thought she was stil

begging him to wait til later to do the rest. To give her a chance to recover from the staples.

Reasoning with him like a coward.

Her tone was mewling, like a little girl’s. She was appal ed at herself.

Oh, gods, had he let Chase inside? She opened her eyes, but a murky film shaded her vision. Was that

brute holding her shoulders down? She flailed against him, but he was immovable. “Let me go, let me go!”

“Regin, be
still
.” Chase’s voice sounded thick.
“Please.”

She kept struggling. Metal scraped bone.

“Damn it, Chase!” Brandr pul ed the clippers out. “You’ve got to keep her stil !”

“Aye,” he rasped. His big hands covered her mouth and nose.

Terror flared. Suffocating her?
Can’t get air!
She kicked her legs out, digging her claws into his hands.

Instead of helping her escape, Brandr muttered, “You are the coldest son of a bitch I have ever met.”

Blackness took her, and it was almost a … blessing.

When Declan removed his hands from Regin’s face, Brandr gazed at him like he was a monster.

“See to her before she wakes!”
Can’t do that a second time.
Her little claws were stil embedded into the backs of his scarred hands. “What are you waitin’ for?”

Brandr shook his head hard, then returned to the knot. “I’ve almost got it. It’s tangled, though.” Clipping, untangling, clipping. “One piece left—”

A spray of blood erupted from her chest.

“What the hel happened?” When Regin’s lids slid open, Declan snapped, “Goddamn it, she wakes. … ”

But her head lol ed to the side, her eyes sightless,
deadened
. No, not
waking
. “Regin!” he roared. Her heart had stopped, punctured; no breath fil ed her lungs. He swung his head up.
“What the fuck did you
do?”

“I’m not a surgeon—I’m just trying to clean up what
your
people did to her!” In a rush, he yanked away the last of the wire.

Declan squeezed one of her hands in both of his, wil ing her regeneration to take hold, that

preternatural healing that coaxed her kind back from the brink again and again.
Live, Regin.

Brandr had just finished when she sucked in a breath, her lids sliding shut. Life returned, though she

remained unconscious.

“It’l take more than this to kil her,” Brandr said. So why was he so visibly relieved, running his arm over his sweating brow? “She’l heal quickly if we can find something to hold her skin together for a few hours.

But there’s no tape, no sutures.” As he searched for an alternative, his gaze flicked over Declan’s

uncovered hands but he didn’t address them. “Maybe if we knotted some fabric around her torso—”

“I’l hold her. To keep the wound edges pressed together.”

Brandr narrowed his eyes. “Am I wrong to trust you?”

“Again, I’m no’ bloody askin’.”

The man gave a nod, but hastened to add, “Only til it closes or she starts stirring. If she wakes against you, she’l just fight and reopen the wounds.”

Declan gingerly lifted her from the table, then sat on the floor against the wal . With her back to his

chest, he wrapped one arm over her breasts, and the other around her waist, squeezing her against his

body. Her head rol ed on his shoulder. She was so smal and frail. Her skin was cold.
Dim.

“I’l return to check on her.”

Once the door closed, Declan shuddered out a breath, his sight gone blurry. He lowered his forehead

to her shoulder.
“My God, Regin,”
he rasped. How much more could she take? “Stay with me, brave girl.

Hold on.”

Her body might heal, but would her mind? She’d told him torture col ected over the years. …

“I wish to Christ I could take this pain from you.” Unable to stop himself, he desperately rubbed his

cheek against hers over and over, murmuring her name repeatedly. “I’l never let you be hurt again.

Never. For the rest of my life.” Then he froze. Their faces were wet?

“You’re cryin’, lass?”

He jerked his head back, brows drawn in confusion.

She
wasn’t.

FORTY

N
eed to sleep,
Lothaire thought.
To get information about the ring. Time is running out.

But he cracked open his eyes when the berserker final y emerged from that back exam room. The

male looked shel -shocked. His hooded eyes were bleak but glowing as they searched out the fey. When

his gaze fel on her, his body coiled with tension.

At the unmistakable look he was giving her, she stood, her breaths shal owing. “H-how is Regin?”

“She’l be fine,” he said, his footsteps unwavering in her direction.

Ah, but Lothaire wasn’t the only one watching this transpire. Young Thaddeus’s eyes were flickering.

Without stopping, Brandr grabbed her hand, murmuring low, “Need you. And you need me.”

She gazed at Thaddeus—who tensed to act, yet didn’t—then fol owed the berserker as if in a daze.

When they disappeared into the night, Thaddeus kicked the leg of a table.

Lothaire exhaled. “You don’t want her anyway. Her blood’s poisonous to our kind. If you bedded her,

you would feel the need to drink her. And at your age, you wouldn’t have the control to stop yourself. Is

one fuck worth your life?”

“Why are you even talking to me? You busted my lip earlier.”

“So I did.”

Thaddeus glared. “When you hit me, was that like to. … to get me out of harm’s way? Or something?”

“I did need you out of the way.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Thaddeus mum-bled, sinking back down onto the floor, nursing a

bottle of Coke.

“That’s not what you need to be drinking,
paren’
. I saw how you reacted to the scent of the Valkyrie’s blood.” Thaddeus’s fangs had shot longer, and he’d grown hard, squirming in his seat. His expression

had been alternately lustful and aghast.

If Lothaire hadn’t recently gorged on the magister’s high-octane blood, even he might have been

affected.

“I give you a week, maybe two, before you’re driven to bite someone.”

“I don’t know
how
to… to bite or drink! But you could teach me.”

“And what could you possibly do in return?” Lothaire waved a negligent hand. “Play footbal for me?

Break in my jeans real y wel ?”

“At least tel me what else I am.”

Lothaire didn’t actual y
know
. So instead, he said, “Our slate is relatively clean.” But not quite. “You would do wel to keep it that way.”

He didn’t have time to tutor a fledgling vampire. More important developments were afoot.

Lothaire needed Chase and the Valkyrie together.

My Endgame demands it.

If Nïx had been steering the Vertas, he’d just as easily been steering the Pravus—he could see the

chessboard so clearly, hundreds of moves ahead. That soothsayer could foresee people’s actions;

Lothaire could predict their reactions.

Now a blood debt from a Valkyrie lay within reach. But first he needed to set two pawns on a path

together. So how to get Chase into Regin’s bed? To rekindle their fabled tale?

Using all my considerable talent, if need be.

Don’t move a bloody muscle,
Declan commanded himself. The longer Regin slept and healed, the

longer he could hold her.

And right now, he
needed
to hold her. Withdrawal gripped him hard.

Normal y the drugs would leach little by little out of his system. Now they were just
gone,
sucked out by a goddamned vampire.

Sweat beaded over his skin, and he had to gnash his teeth to keep them from chattering. His legs were

restless and tremors racked him, but he fought to keep stil , ever careful not to wake her.

Because the contact with her battled the worst of his symptoms.

He’d hurt her; she hated him. And stil , having her in his arms soothed him in ways unknown to him

before. He’d been dead-on when he’d realized he was seeking this every time he’d planted a needle in

his arm.
Never again.

An hour passed, then two.

She’d just stirred for the first time when Brandr returned. He was soaked through, appearing in better

spirits. He reached for Regin. “She’s healing, her skin knitting already.”

Her wound was reddened, but it had indeed closed completely. Declan reluctantly released her, his

arms cramping as Brandr col ected her. “Where are you taking her?”

Again, the man’s gaze fel to Declan’s uncovered hands, but he didn’t remark upon the scars. “Out with

us.”

“Then put a goddamned shirt on her!”

Brandr raised his brows. “Aidan’s definitely in there. Somewhere.” He worked Regin’s shirt over her,

gently threading her arms into the sleeves before he left with her.

Alone, Declan found the door to the lavatories, searching until he located a sink that stil pumped wel

water. He scrubbed his face, then looked into the mirror, hissing in a breath.

His irises were … glowing.

Because I’m a berserker.
With the spirit of a bear stirring inside him.
My eyes will be changeable with
emotion.

No wonder they were now. Shame and regret roiled within him.
She’s lost to me …

Declan had recognized that he had a choice: possess Regin, or end himself. He’d lived too long with

the strain.

As he’d predicted al those years ago, it was about to break him.

Lost …
Which made his decision easy.

When he returned to the main exam room, Brandr was cozying up to the fey while Thad glowered in

their direction. Lothaire, stil atop that cage, looked like he was actual y sleeping.
No doubt keen to get to
my memories. Have at them, leech.
Declan didn’t see Regin. “She woke?” Alarm spiked in him. “Where is she?”

Thad said, “She’s outside, cleaning up.”

Declan turned to go after her.

“I wouldn’t fol ow her if I were you,” Brandr said. “She’s about to blow, and she took a sword. Even

injured, she’l kil you.”

Natalya added, “Give her some time to lick her wounds in private.”

“I can’t let her remain out there. No’ alone.”

Brandr shook his head. “An armed, thousand-year-old Valkyrie fil ed with an unholy rage? Who would

be crazy enough to face her right now?”

Me.
Declan was already sprinting up the bunker stairs. He pushed out into the gale and sped

heedlessly down the treacherous terrain.

Not far from the bunker, he found her in a smal clearing. She knelt in the mud, topless, with lightning

exploding directly above her. Her hair was a soaked mane covering her bare back, her pointed ears

peeking out.

Her shirt and a sword lay beside her. She was angled so that he could just see her face as she peered

down at her chest. With a light touch, she inspected her wounds.

Guilt nearly fel ed him. If he accepted that some members of the Lore weren’t evil—like Regin and

Brandr—then his commanders had been right.

I
am
more of a monster than the creatures out there.

First the strain, and now this guilt over the things he’d done?
Too much for one man to shoulder.

Regin raised her face to the pounding rain, mut-tering to the sky, her expression one of pure fury.

When he saw that, he knew she could never be brought to forgive him. Never.

So it’s over.

She slowly donned her shirt, then reached for the sword. In a flash she was on her feet, weapon

raised. Lightning struck mere feet behind her; she didn’t flinch. “Time for you to die, Chase.”

It’s long over. …

Chase’s eyes were glowing in the night, fil ed with …
shame
? “Do what you need to.”

“You think I won’t?” He was a madman who’d harmed her friends and imprisoned children. Who’d