Dreams of a Dark Warrior

THIRTY-NINE

Declan shot forward to help her, ignoring the bloody hand she raised to ward him away.

Brandr shoved him back. “She doesn’t want you to touch her!” He knelt beside Regin. “Listen to me, Valkyrie. The wire holding your rib cage together doesn’t come out on its own. Nor the staples. I’m going to have to cut them out of you.” Regin’s silvery eyes grew stark.

Oh, bloody hell, no. “She’ll heal on her own. She’ll regenerate.” They always do.

Brandr cast him a black look. “You had this done to me too, remember? And I know that I was ripping those staples out of my chest over an entire day. I had to dig for the wire, unknot it, and pull it free—in between the times I blacked out. At least she’ll have someone to help her.”

Regin was still coughing, blood dripping from her lips, her staples straining.

Declan’s gut churned as realization sank in. He knew this had to be done.

“Is there some kind of remover here?” Brandr asked. “For the staples. Maybe some kind of anesthetic?”

“They would have used sutures back then. And any chemicals were removed from the bunker.”

“I’ll need a blade.” Brandr lifted her into his arms.

“Take your pick.” Lothaire smirked. “We’re surrounded by them.”

Natalya found a scalpel, gravely handed it to Brandr.

Brandr jerked his chin toward a pair of clippers. “Fey, can you grab those bolt cutters as well?”

They weren’t used to cut bolts. Declan stepped for-ward. “I’ll see to her.”

Regin cried, “He’s … not touching… me!”

From his vantage on the cage, Lothaire exhaled loudly. “Whatever you do, be quick about it. If the storm abates, her lightning will be like a beacon to the Pravus. And I for one need rest before I face yet another army of immortals.”

“I’m doing this, Chase,” Brandr said simply.

On some level he must trust the berserker, Declan realized, because he allowed Brandr to carry her into a back examination room.

As Declan watched from the doorway, the berserker laid her on a metal table, then took off his shirt, balling it under her head. “Regin, when you feel like passing out—just let yourself. This is going to get rough.”

“You know I can’t … with enemies here. Vampire. Chase.”

I’m not your enemy. No longer.

“Just turn off those Valkyrie instincts for once. I’m not going to let anyone harm you. I’ve waited a thousand years to protect you.” He brushed his hand over Regin’s hair. “Let me do it now.” Then he marched to the door.

Before Brandr slammed it in his face, Declan met eyes with her. He parted his lips to say something—I’d take this pain for you. No one will ever hurt you again.—but no words came out.

Outside the room, Declan began to pace. He hadn’t protected her. He’d gotten her out of the facility, but this had happened when she’d been directly under his watch.

He’d done nothing except hurt her from their first meeting. When he’d gutted her in a dirty street. When he’d poisoned her.

And when she needed me most, I was high in my room, failing her.

Each time Brandr excised a staple, Declan could hear her biting back a cry. The strain was crippling him. But now it was accompanied by the onset of withdrawal symptoms. Teeth-clattering tremors threatened.

At her first real scream, an answering roar was ripped from his chest. Where was his vaunted willpower now? His lack of emotion?

How many times had Webb told him, “You’re devoid of emotions like that”?

I’m not. That gnawing anxiety overwhelmed him until he nearly doubled over with it.

Then came another scream, thunder clapping immediately after. Everyone stared at each other, leery.

The storm intensified, seeming to rock the mountain until even Lothaire raised his brows.

Regin cried, “No, no, Brandr, now just wait—”

When she shrieked, Declan rammed his head against the tiled wall, gritting his teeth. This is my doing.

Have to get to her. He strained against his bindings, his heart beginning to thunder as it pumped blood to his muscles. Coursing, coursing … With another yell, he busted the straps, then charged to the door.

Natalya planted herself in front of him.

“Out of my way.” —Nothing keeps me from her.—

Just as he raised his hands to toss her to the side, Brandr came out. He had streaks of blood up his bare chest. He barely gave Declan’s freed hands a glance. To the fey, he said, “She won’t pass out, and the next part is going to be bad.”

Declan snapped, “That wasn’t?”

“What can I say? Your bitch Dr. Dixon did a hack job on her.”

Because she was in a hurry to finish before I woke from my stupor.

“The wire got mangled into Regin’s rib cage, and some of the bones have already grown over it.” Brandr looked at Natalya. “I need someone to hold her shoulders down. Either you or the boy.”

Natalya nodded. “Of course I’ll do it.”

“Use the restraints,” Declan grated.

She hissed, “How easily you say that.”

“I tried using them,” Brandr said. “Regin has to be perfectly still or the wire’s going to pierce her heart. I can’t strap down her chest because of the size of the opening.”

Declan ran his hand over his face. “Neither of them will be strong enough to hold her still.”

“And you will be, Chase?” Brandr demanded. “It’s clear you’ve begun to think of her as yours—”

Lothaire guffawed.

“—so can you watch me slice open your woman?”

Natalya drew Brandr aside. “You’re not considering this? The fiend looks like he’s about to have a psychotic break.”

Declan didn’t deny that, just said, “I’m no’ askin’.”

Brandr studied his expression. “Maybe he should see it.”

When Natalya reluctantly deferred, Brandr turned back to the room.

Am I ready to see this? Declan inhaled deeply. You reap what you sow. He entered, halting in his tracks at the scene before him.

Brandr was squeezing her bloody hand in his, and Regin was gazing up at him, crying, shaking her head miserably. “We c-can do … the rest tomorrow.”

She was bare from the waist up. A line of pitted skin crawled up the middle of her torso, and blood tracked down her sides. Between her breasts, Brandr had sliced the line wide open until her skin gaped over her rib cage. That hideous wire jutted up in the center.

Declan shoved his fist against his mouth, swallowed back vomit.

“This will be over soon,” Brandr promised her. “And you’ll never have to go through it again. Close your eyes, Regin. If you trust me, you’ll close them.”

At length, she did.

Only then did Declan cross to the table. He could see why Brandr needed her perfectly still. 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 still begging him to wait till 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 appalled 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 pulled the clippers out. “You’ve got to keep her still!”

“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 still 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 hell happened?” When Regin’s lids slid open, Declan snapped, “Goddamn it, she wakes. … ” But her head lolled to the side, her eyes sightless, deadened. No, not waking. “Regin!” he roared. Her heart had stopped, punctured; no breath filled 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, willing 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’ll take more than this to kill her,” Brandr said. So why was he so visibly relieved, running his arm over his sweating brow? “She’ll 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’ll 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 till it closes or she starts stirring. If she wakes against you, she’ll just fight and reopen the wounds.”

Declan gingerly lifted her from the table, then sat on the floor against the wall. 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 rolled on his shoulder. She was so small and frail. Her skin was cold. Dim.

“I’ll 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 collected 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’ll 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.