Dreams of a Dark Warrior

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