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.
FORTY
Need to sleep, Lothaire thought. To get information about the ring. Time is running out.
But he cracked open his eyes when the berserker finally emerged from that back exam room. The male looked shell-shocked. His hooded eyes were bleak but glowing as they searched out the fey. When his gaze fell on her, his body coiled with tension.
At the unmistakable look he was giving her, she stood, her breaths shallowing. "H-how is Regin?"
"She'll 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 followed 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 football for me? Break in my jeans really well?"
"At least tell me what else I am."
Lothaire didn't actually know. So instead, he said, "Our slate is relatively clean." But not quite. "You would do well 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 Nix 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.
Normally 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 still, 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 still, 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 collected her. "Where are you taking her?"
Again, the man's gaze fell 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 still pumped well 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 all 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, still atop that cage, looked like he was actually 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 follow her if I were you," Brandr said. "She's about to blow, and she took a sword. Even injured, she'll kill 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 filled 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 small 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 felled 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, filled 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 captured her and let mortals cut on her.
He yelled, "Then do it!"
She gasped at the unbearable pain in his expression, the hopelessness. What in the gods' names had happened to him in this lifetime?
No, it doesn't matter.
He strode toward her across the clearing, growing more incensed with each step--as if he were pissed that she hadn't attacked him. "Swing that fuckin' sword!
"
Regin clutched the hilt. "You have a death wish?"
"See--this--done." Getting closer. "Why are you hesitating?"
She didn't know!
"You want to put me down? Aye, you should yearn to. Do it now!" When he was a few feet from her, he lunged forward; she raised the sword point to his chest. Right at his heart.
But she couldn't drive it home.
He shoved his chest against the point until it sank into his skin. "Goddamn it, do it! Don't you want revenge, Valkyrie? All that pain you suffered was my doing! Mine! Directly from the start."
Lightning struck with her frustration, thunder booming instantly. The winds howled around them.
"Do you know what I was thinking before I captured you in New Orleans? That you were just another job to complete before I got to return home. Another detrus added to my personal collection of them. That night, I stabbed you with my sword. Remember how I twisted it inside you?"
She remembered all too well, the pain, the betrayal. One of many to come. ...
"And don't forget when I tortured you. The poison was so strong that you dislocated your shoulder from your seizures. Oh, and that vivisection? I must have ordered them on hundreds of your kind. Maybe thousands. And I never once doubted that I had every right to."
"Because you believe immortals are unnatural?" she bit out. "That we're animals?"
"Less than animals." As if he was quoting someone, he intoned, "Abominations walking among us, filled with untold malice toward mankind. A perversion of the natural order, spreading their deathless numbers uncontrollably. A plague upon man that must be eradicated."
"Then why save me from those vampires tonight? Why allow the vivisection, then turn around and rescue me? You could've stopped what Dixon and those fucks did to me!"
"You want to know why I didn't stop them? Because I was high in my room, Regin. With a needle jammed in my vein. While you were getting butchered, I was knocked out, oblivious to the world."
Her lips parted wordlessly.
"Think of everything I've done to your friends and allies. That's what I do--I hurt your kind. I take them from their homes, from their families." His eyes were haunted, his lashes spiked with moisture. Voice hoarse, he rasped, "Put me out of my fuckin' misery, woman. Do it."
Gods, he was so damaged, so ... ruined. As she gazed at his eyes, dim impressions arose in her mind. Her face wet with warm tears? Why couldn't she remember?
Suddenly, he gripped her shoulders--to yank her into him.
FORTY-ONE