Dreams of a Dark Warrior

ELEVEN

One minute, Regin had been bathing at the sink; the next, she’d been abetting an escape attempt.

She’d glanced up to see two guards dragging Uilleam MacRieve past their cell. The werewolf was supposed to be drugged, but he didn’t seem completely subdued. His head lolled, but not with each step. Her ears had twitched, and she’d known something was up.

Straightaway, she’d called to the guards, “Oh, boys?” She’d sauntered to the glass in only her black lace bra and panties. “I need some assistance.” When they slowed, agog, she’d purred, “Can one of you help me find my orgasm?” Then she’d pivoted, presenting her admittedly mind-blowing ass. “Oh, look, clumsy me, I dropped something.” She bent over from the waist.

With the guards distracted, MacRieve had shoved them away, hopping his cuffs to bring his bound hands in front of his body. Claws and fangs bared, he’d attacked.

“Fight! Fight!” the inmates began yelling.

Prisoners all along the ward banged on the glass walls, their shouts echoing down the corridor.

“Zing! Kick their mortal asses, Scot!” Regin cried along with the rest of them. “Fuck ’em up!”

Behind her, the kid banged his head faster, faster. Natalya leapt up to hold him still.

With a howl, MacRieve slashed one guard’s jugular, then bit at the throat of the second one, blood dripping from his fangs.

Suddenly, Chase stormed into the fray, bellowing as he tackled MacRieve. They wrestled over the floor, trading vicious blows.

Normally the werewolf would thrash him—the Lykae were among the most powerful of all the sentient creatures—but MacRieve had been weakened by his torque.

Still, Chase shouldn’t be winning that handily. He wasn’t merely subduing the wolf, he was beating the living hell out of him.

Fighting like a berserker. A lean bear in winter.

The way he moved …

Right before her eyes, his muscles began to tighten and expand, his body growing larger, stretching his layers of black clothing taut. His massive gloved fists cracked bone each time they connected.

When more guards arrived, they had to peel a bludgeoned MacRieve away from the magister’s assault.

Once they’d taken the Lykae away, Chase rose, his big chest heaving. His normally pale face was flushed, making his gray irises more vivid. His hair was finally shoved out of his eyes to better reveal those chiseled features.

At that moment, he was handsome, powerful, and so much like Aidan that she gasped. Just as with Aidan, she was uncontrollably attracted to him.

An invisible force. Like two magnets.

He swung his head around at her. Instead of looking surprised by her lack of clothing, his gaze raked over her heatedly, taking in every part of her.

A look both scorching and possessive.

A look that made her pulse race.

His irises flickered. The color of storm clouds lit by lightning. As if unaware of what he was doing, he took two steps closer to her.

She mirrored his action, then raised her hands to the glass. Her claws curled against the barrier between them, her breaths gone shallow.

All else was forgotten. Declan Chase was forgotten. All she could see was Aidan.

Want to be near him.

But when she realized he would soon leave her behind, an old habit rose to the fore. In ancient Norse, the words tumbled out: “Take me with you, warrior.”

Take her with him?

At that instant, Declan was tempted to do just that.

Christ almighty, her body.

He exhaled a shaky breath at the sight of her dressed only in tight black lingerie. Her bra and panties were mere scraps of lace, displaying taut legs, a narrow waist, and curvy hips. High, plump breasts spilled out from the cups.

Her glowing skin was damp and smooth.

When she shivered and her nipples stiffened, he was rapt.

Then he remembered what she was. Abomination. Enemy.

Casting her a look of scorn, he abruptly turned away. He strode to his quarters with his fists balled and his mind in turmoil.

Because he was hard.

God preserve me. For her.

Not possible. The medicine prevented him from getting aroused. Hadn’t he done two doses last night? And the night before that?

Yet there was no denying the effect she’d had on him.

Inside his room, he paced, fighting the urge to watch her on the screen. Abomination, enemy, his mind repeated over and over.

He inhaled deeply—only to release a hoarse breath as the fabric of his pants rubbed his aching shaft.

With a bitter curse he sat at his console and pulled up her cell. She was still staring at the glass, giving him a view of her from the back.

Tight black lace against damp golden skin. Her pert arse was too generous to be covered by her small panties.

He heard a groan, was shocked to realize the sound had come from him. His cock was now throbbing.

It’d been so long since he’d been hard, longer still since he’d come. Enjoy it this once.

While he might not miss sex, he damn sure missed the feel of spending hot seed from his body.

Stroke himself off to a detrus?

Declan was at risk of beguilement. Knew it. There’d been operatives who’d fallen for immortals—he’d always thought them stupid beyond measure. No miscreat was worth the consequences.

Cast out.

Never.

He shot to his feet, pacing once more. Get control of yourself. He could beat this. No man possesses a stronger will than you, Dekko.

He had work to do. His duty. There’d just been an escape attempt—with casualties—and he was due to interrogate Lothaire shortly.

Once he’d broken the vampire, Declan would go for an extended run over the sizable island. He knew every part of it—the forests, the mountain caves, the rocky shores, knew where each incendiary bomb was located.

Because I planted them all myself. Declan secretly considered it his own territory. Now he envisioned the miles he’d cover, the way he’d push his body to exhaustion. …

Minutes ticked by. In time, he exhaled, confident that he’d regained control. The Valkyrie had sent him reeling, but he’d found his footing once more.

Go break the vampire.

But first Declan needed to erase the security feed of his unexpected reaction to the Valkyrie. He never knew who was monitoring those videos. He pulled it up, scrutinizing their interaction, struggling to understand what power she had over him.

He was about to delete the scene when he realized something that couldn’t be right.

At the end, she hadn’t spoken to him in English—nor in that unknown language she spoke with the fey.

This was something new. Yet he’d understood her.

“I’m not going to lay off until you tell me,” Natalya said to Regin in the old language.

For the last two hours she’d demanded to know why Chase’s eyes had changed, why he’d changed, in reaction to Regin. Unfortunately, the fey had witnessed the entire exchange as she’d tended the kid.

Regin answered in the same tongue, “Just don’t tell anyone in the grapevine what you saw.”

“Only if you let me in on what happened. Other-wise …”

Regin glared. “Fine. After you vow to the Lore never to repeat what I’m about to tell you.”

Once Natalya did, Regin outlined her and Aidan’s history, his past embodiments, his deaths. She finished with, “And now he’s reincarnated once more. This time … as Declan Chase.”

Natalya gasped. “Then all you have to do is make Chase remember his past? Just get him alone so he can kiss you?”

“Yeah. That’s all it ever takes.” For some reason, her kiss did a rewind on each reincarnation’s mind, sending him back to that one particular moment in Aidan’s life, just before he’d claimed her the first time.

“No one keeps me from you,” he’d growl.

And then nothing could.

He would claim her in a berserkrage and die shortly after from some freak accident or assassination. Over these thousand years, that pattern had repeated itself again and again.

Now, if she was with him when it happened, Regin could use his print to remove her torque and escape, leading others back here to free their allies.

Natalya rose, pacing. “What is your hesitation?”

“I told you what he meant to me!” And earlier, all of her old feelings for him had resurfaced.

“Chase will interrogate you soon. And then you’ll be vivisected. More important, then I will soon be vivisected!”

“I know this!” Regin was murderously pissed at Chase. But actively plotting to kill Aidan? She recalled the way his eyes would crinkle when he grinned, could hear his laughter as if it were yesterday. Remember when I vowed I would love you. …

“These mortals plan to exterminate us all,” Natalya said. “And they actually seem to be making strides. Still, the fey will live on. But how many of you Valkyrie are left?”

Not enough.

Regin thought of Lucia, out there about to face her worse nightmare alone. I’ve got to get to her.

By hastening the death of a male I’ve mourned for centuries?

Behind them, the kid spoke for the first time, muttering, “You … glow.”