Dreams of a Dark Warrior

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