"Jealous?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "Of course I'm jealous."
"I'm surprised you'd admit it."
"You were mine first. My dibs are ten centuries old."
"What Dixon and I do is none of your concern."
"Well, if she's your type, then whatever. I just thought a man like you would crave a real woman. Someone who's strong enough to handle your power and sensual enough to slake you." Regin moved to the center of his desk, sitting atop another stack of papers. This time he didn't seem to notice at all.
"At least she is a woman. And not a Valkyrie."
"Baby, I'm all woman." She spread her legs suggestively, so he was sitting between them. "Uncuff me and let me show you what you've been missing all your life."
***
Declan believed she'd do it. He could lay her back on that desk, strip off her clothes, and enter her right now.
The most beautiful woman he'd ever encountered.
And for a moment, everything within him was in perfect accord with the idea.
All day his thoughts had returned to that dream of her and the berserker. He'd grown hard at intervals, wondering how much longer he could go without relieving the pressure that continued to build.
His concentration had been wrecked, his workload escalating. Running an installation of this size was a job for five men--and he delegated little--but he'd never minded, preferring to stay slammed with work.
Now it felt like the reins were slipping from his grasp. Professionally, personally. Sexually?
"Come on, Chase," she murmured, "I can feel your tension--you're like a powder keg about to blow."
They will separate you from your purpose ... "I'd never lower myself to bed one of your kind."
She shrugged, but he thought he caught a flash of hurt in her eyes. "Might not be me. But it's not Dixon, either."
"So certain?"
"I know you, remember?"
"Prove it, then."
"I know you're in constant turmoil. Your past lives competing with your present." She lowered her voice. "You once told me that it feels like a beast is inside you, frenzied to get out. From the look on your face, you still feel that way."
How the hell could she know that?
Years ago, when Declan had finally confessed to Webb about that constant sense of urgency clawing at him, Webb had nodded knowingly. "It's a calling, son. That's what you feel, have always felt." Declan was to channel that into his vocation--destroying the deathless ones.
So why did the strain fade whenever he was with Regin?
"You dreamed about me last night, didn't you?" she asked. "You always used to in the past, told me you did right up to the point when you remembered all."
Immediately on edge, he demanded, "How did you make me experience that dream? Was it dreamcasting?"
"I don't have that ability."
"Bullshite!" His accent slipped yet again.
"Chase, even if I could dreamcast, how could I do it ... when I'm wearing a torque?"
He swallowed. No, no, anything's possible in the Lore. Another being could have affected him, or Regin could even have done this to him before he'd captured her.
"Face it. You are a berserker, and you are a reincarnate."
If I'm one of them, the Order will kill me. His eyes darted. No, she's got me spooked. This isn't real.
When he gave a hard shake of his head, she said, "Then how do you explain your strength and speed? Unless you take top-secret military speed or hyper-steroids to hulk out?"
"I do nothing to make myself stronger." Just the opposite.
"Then what?"
Blood that wasn't my own. "Maybe I was nicked in a battle with one of your kind and was exposed to tainted immortal blood. Perhaps I've picked up traits of the creatures I hunt."
"That's not how it works. You can't just pick up traits. At least, not permanently. Not unless you die with one's blood in your veins and get transformed into an immortal."
Maybe he wasn't turning into a Neoptera?
She grinned at him as she asked, "You haven't died yet, have you?"
I ... don't know. Those beings could have done any manner of things to him over those days and nights.
His heart sped up as he tried to pierce that haze. Damn them all to hell, a man should know if he's died or not.
As if she'd read his mind, she said, "If you hate us this badly, then you or someone you love was hurt by immortals. Considering your scars ..." She pointed to the ones on his face, the ones that were relatively invisible compared to the rest covering his body.
"So you have me all figured out."
"You're not denying it, then. I'm guessing your parents were killed?"
Killed was too mild a word for what the Neoptera had done to them. Those creatures had voracious mouths that opened vertically, their lips razor-sharp for cutting flesh. Their tongues were prehensile, stretching inches long.
Declan had felt them probe beneath his skin. Now he barely stifled a shudder.
"Chase?"
"You didn't guess a wife and children," he said absently. "Though most would, considering my age."
"No, you've never been married."
"And how could you know that?"
"In all your lifetimes, you've never even had a relationship with another. I'll bet you've never slept with the same woman twice."
Dead on. "Why would you say that?"
"You hate it with others. You feel sick afterward." In a softer tone, she said, "Because you're missing what we had and want to stay true."
He clenched his jaw, recalling all the times he'd barely kept from vomiting, remembering with humiliation the times he hadn't. ...
"Aidan--"
His gloved hand shot up. In an instant he had her hair wrapped around his fist, yanking her head down. "Do not call me by that name again, Valkyrie. This will be your last warning."
"Okay, fine," she said mildly, but her eyes had flashed.
Silvery eyes gazing up at me, with her hair coiled around my fist as I guide her down ...
He released her with disgust.
She was undaunted. "Let's talk in your room. Take me there."
"Why would I possibly do that?"
"Because that's where your bed is, and that's where I belong."
He imagined her in his bed as she'd been in that dream, spread out like an offering, her bared skin alight. Her thighs would be parted with blatant need, those golden curls slick with it. ...
Duty, purpose, he repeated urgently.
"Come on, Chase."
"Tell me, if I take you to my room and put you in my bed, what do you think would happen?"
"I can draw you a diagram. Hint: I'm slot B, and you're tab A."
"I meant the ultimate outcome. Do you think I'll free you if you please me enough? You're not the first detrus who's tried to whore for her freedom."
"Whore for my freedom?" She laughed again. "What if I just wanted to whore for whoring's sake? Maybe I miss sex with you. Maybe I crave it."
"Wouldn't be surprising. Most immortal females behave like they're in heat."
Her brows rose. "You are the one who taught me about pleasure."
Memories from that dream continued to arise unbidden. --Press your lips here, Reginleit.--
"And now in another lifetime, you ridicule me for missing it? Come on, Chase. Take me to where you live. Scared I'll find some footy pajamas? A Fleshlight? I want a bath almost as much as you need to watch me take one. I get so much more talkative when I'm clean. Loreans are really fastidious, you know."
"I do know that. The sole aspect of your kind that's positive." He leaned back in his chair. "This subject ends now."
She sighed. "Stubborn. Just like a man I knew whose name starts with A."
"I'm not this Aidan you revere. I'm nothing like him."
"You're so similar it's uncanny. You're both warriors, the strongest and best at what you do. That's been the same with each of the reincarnations."
&n
bsp; Curiosity got the best of him, and he asked, "What were the others?"
"You've been a knight, a privateer, and a cavalry officer. Warriors all. Yet each embodiment emphasizes specific facets of Aidan's personality. The first was Treves, a medieval French knight, notorious across Europe. He represented Aidan's ruthlessness and power."
"How did you meet him?"
"Fate. We were both in France one winter for a castle siege."
"Shouldn't you have been in Valhalla?"
Sadness flashed in her expression. "I never get to go back to Valhalla. Once you leave, you're forbidden to return." Before he could ask her about that, she continued, "Lucia--she's my favorite sister--and I were defending the old Earl of Lanbert's castle."
"Why?"
"Lanbert's forefathers hailed from the North, and his line still worshipped the Valkyrie. Lucia and I decided to reward their prayers and offerings--by pledging swords and bow to the defense of their home. Plus, we were bored out of our gourds."
"Was Treves another ally?"
"Not at all. You see, we were defending the castle against you."
NINETEEN
Against me?" Chase raised his brows.
"Uh-huh. Castle-taking was your thing. You 'commandeered' key strongholds for King Philip all over Europe, and you'd set your sights on Lanbert's keep." Regin drew her calves under her to sit cross-legged on his desk, daring him to say something. Getting comfy when cuffed was damned near impossible.
He glowered but said nothing.
"Every day your army trenched in closer to the castle, almost in trebuchet range. But we'd known it was only a matter of time. Your men were fanatically loyal, and you were a master strategist. Lucia was running out of arrows. My blades were dulled from cleaving bone. We hadn't slept in days ..."
When she began describing the setting--the smell of smoke and tar, the lingering rock dust from the battered castle walls, the smithy's constant hammering--he leaned back in his chair, the marked tension in his shoulders lessening.
As she recounted the weeks of battle, the foot-soldier offensives and arrow exchanges, he relaxed even more, resting his hands behind his head. Chase liked these tales.
"Then came the day of reckoning. The trebuchets were loaded, and so close that we could hear the ropes straining. Before you fired them, you rode up to the portcullis, astride a wild-eyed stallion. Skirmishes slowed, quieting until only a stray sword clanged here or there. You were tall, not as tall as you are now, but massive in armor. I would have known you were Treves even if you hadn't been carrying your standard, a red banner with two ravens in flight."
"Ravens?" Had tension crept back into his shoulders?
"The symbol of Woden, remember? At the time, we just thought it was a coincidence that Treves had it." She slanted him a glance. "You know this mark?"
Chase shook his head. "Go on."
After a hesitation, she said, "For some reason, you raised your gaze to the rampart I defended, doing a double take at me."
In an irritable tone, Chase said, "Perhaps because you glow."
"I was cloaked from head to toe," she said with a saccharine smile. "To Lanbert, you bellowed, 'Surrender your castle, or I'll raze it to the ground.' Your ultimatum didn't sit well with me, so naturally, I voiced my opinion."
"Which was?"
"That you should go copulate with a pig. It sounded way cooler in medieval French."
Chase raised his brows.
"But at my words, you jolted in your saddle, your horse growing even more wild-eyed. You called to me, 'You defend that rampart, female?' I answered, 'To the death, prick.' Again, way cooler in medieval French."
"You antagonized the leader of a superior force?"
"What were you going to do? Trebuchet us even harder?"
"So how did he respond?" Chase asked.
"You called out, 'Lanbert, send down the black-cloaked woman as my war prize, and I will end my siege. We close this eve with peace between us.' Everyone was floored. For Treves to quit a siege without a victory? You'd won dozens of castles--you never lost. Even more shocking was that you wanted a woman."
"Why was that so shocking?"
"Because Treves belonged to a monastic order of knights. No damsels allowed. Lucia and I didn't know what to make of this. You couldn't know that I was a Valkyrie. But why else would you want me? Of course, Luce made the obligatory war booty cracks, and we yucked it up."
Lucia had finally begun to shake off the worst of Cruach's torture. After centuries, she'd relearned how to laugh.
"You weren't afraid?"
Regin rolled her eyes. "I fear nothing. Besides, we thought it great fun that you were telling Lanbert to send me down. The old earl could no more command me than I could ask Woden to wake from his godsleep. But by this time, I was fraught with curiosity. I simply had to face you. When I strolled out of the castle, you rode up to meet me."
Regin would never forget how he'd looked. Up close, she'd gotten a better sense of his size, but she hadn't been able to see his face. His visor had shaded his eyes, and the winter sun had been at his back, paining her preternatural sight. "Treves and I ... bantered." She could still hear his voice:
"You've come to sacrifice yourself to me?"
"Have you not seen me in battle, knight? I sacrifice nothing with this move."
"Woman, you became my prize as soon as you crossed from that keep."
She lifted her chin. "Or you became mine."
"You ordered me to take off my cloak. Though I didn't take orders, I did enjoy shocking people with my wicked-cool glowing. So I pulled my hood back. You hissed in a breath, but you had a surprise of your own. Just as your waving pennant blocked the direct sun, you lifted your visor. I caught my first glimpse of your gray eyes and nearly fainted. They'd begun to glow."
At first Treves had appeared confounded, muttering, I've never seen you, but you haunt my dreams. Then his gaze had narrowed with intent, and he'd stabbed his standard into the ground.
"Before I could blink, you'd swooped me up into the saddle in front of you. To your men, you called, 'We war no longer!'"
Now Regin studied Chase's reaction. He hardly seemed to be listening. "And we lived happily ever after," she said, which was not remotely true.
"Stopping there?"
"You seem really preoccupied. You don't like my knight's tale?" She certainly didn't like the end of it. Treves had died in agony before the next sunrise, convulsing in her arms as she'd helplessly watched. After fighting across half of Europe, Brandr had reached them just as Treves took his last breaths.
"Am I boring you?" Never in a thousand years had Regin asked that question.
Chase shrugged noncommittally, his dark brows drawn.
What is going on in that complicated mind of his? With Aidan, she'd always known what he was thinking. But this Irishman was continually throwing her. She scooted to the edge of the desk again. "You probably just want to can the chitchat and get to the kissing, huh? It's understandable."
At his quelling look, she shook her head slowly. "No? Well, then I'll give you some advice. Free of charge. You're probably up to your ass with work, and you're hating it," she said. "Chase, you weren't meant to run this place. You're a hunter, a warrior, who was born to be in the thick of the fray."
"Do you think that I desire or need your advice?"
"I am way older than you are."
"Yet still more immature."
"Easily. You want to tell me what you're thinking about?"
At length, he said, "If each reincarnation personified aspects of Aidan, what were the others?"
"Gabriel the Spaniard was humor and sex. Edward, my young English cavalryman, was ..." She trailed off, affected as ever by her heartrending memories of him. "Edward was pure love."
"You believe I'm one of these reincarnations. What do you imagine I represent?"
"I think you could be all of them," she said. "But right now, you're Aidan's dark obsession. You're drowning, Chase, and deep down, you kn
ow I'm your lifeline."
He steepled his fingers. "I find it interesting that you tell of a man who turned his back on everything he'd worked for. A knight who ended a siege for a woman. Then on the heels of that you advise me not to run this installation?"
"I just recounted what happened with Treves. Besides, he was by no means the king's lapdog--he'd questioned his ruler's actions from the beginning and had stood up to him before. There was talk that Treves could seize the throne whenever he felt like it."
Which was why Philip had already had an assassin waiting in the wings. When Treves had disobeyed Philip's command to take the castle, the king had ordered him poisoned.
For choosing me over a victory, Treves had paid with his life. ...
The Valkyrie's gaze grew distant, her eyes flickering color. When she faced him once more, she said, "Lemme ask you, Magister--have you ever stood up to your boss before?"
Earlier he'd suspected that this tale was all part of a setup, serving her agenda. Now she'd just confirmed his suspicion.
While Declan had been relaxing his guard with her, she'd been working him over, every word she'd spoken carefully chosen. "If I don't act like your knight, then I'm a lapdog?" In a disgusted tone, he said, "Perhaps I should betray everything I've ever known for you?"
"I could make you happier than the Order does." So sure of herself.
"I'm not in this for happiness, Valkyrie. And I don't question commands, because I believe in the objective--protecting humankind. My kind."
"I think you want to leave all this behind to be with me. Chase, I'm only waiting on you."
"Abandon my mission? Never, Valkyrie! Who would do this work if not for me?" His gloved hands fisted. No one had ever infuriated him like she did! He was supposed to be emotionless by nature. He injected those numbing concoctions every night. So why were these rages still taking him over?
Without thought, he stormed to his filing cabinet, yanking out a worn file of pictures--photos of the casualties in this war. If he ever doubted his purpose or resented the pain in his battle-worn body, he brought out this folder. Nothing could solidify his resolve more effectively.
He wanted to show her what he fought against, and to observe her reaction. To see for myself that she won't even blink.
"If it wasn't for me, then the pack of viper shifters that hit this orphanage"--he tossed a set of four photos onto the desk--"would still be targeting easy prey." The graphic pictures depicted the bodies of children and nuns, swollen and fed upon. "They'd been dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, then envenomed until paralyzed. They couldn't even scream."