Dreams of a Dark Warrior

many pirates died in shipwrecks?”
    “You’re forgetting one thing—the timing. All of these deaths happened within hours of them bedding me. I’m your curse! Why can’t you accept that … ?”
    Declan shot awake, eyes darting as he took in the murky morning.
Not in a tent?
For a moment, he couldn’t place where he was.
    Then he spied Regin. She was up, getting dressed, glowing like the sun in the persistent rain.
    She tilted her head at him. Under her gaze, he resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to throw on his clothes.
Still new to me.
    But she gave his scars little attention, and he relaxed, musing about how she’d slept curled against him. Just as protecting her had fulfilled him, so had merely holding her.
    Fulfilled.
Such an alien feeling, he’d scarcely known how to label it.
    The rightness of her in his arms alleviated his lingering withdrawals, gave him something infinitely more pleasurable than the shots had ever provided. …
    Just as he contemplated dragging her back down with him, she said, “We need to get back.”
    “Aye, I know, then,” he muttered, rising to don his pants. Regin watched him unabashed, and again he thought she
might
just be liking what she saw.
    But when he dragged on his pullover, they both frowned. His clothes were tight.
    “Aren’t you supposed to … go back down? Muscle-wise?”
    “But I didn’t hit a berserkrage. Maybe it’s because I’m clean of drugs?”
    “Um, you shot up the day before yesterday.”
    But a vampire sucked me dry.
He shrugged.
    “Were you dreaming just before you woke?” she asked, shivering with cold.
    “Here, lass.” He crossed the distance to her, yanking off his sweater. “The material stays dry, it’ll keep you warm. Arms up, then.”
    With a roll of her eyes, she lifted her arms so he could tug it down over her. It nearly reached her knees. He took the opportunity to clasp her against his chest, resting his chin on her head. “You will no’ put your arms around me?”
    “I don’t want to encourage you. Now, answer my question.”
    “I dreamed of you and Edward in his tent, discussing the curse. He felt the same way about it as I do now—that it’s bullshite.”
    She pushed against him until he released her. “Edward died the next day.”
    “How?”
    “A sniper fired on his troops. He pushed me out of the path of a bullet. The back of his head was just … gone. A mortal sacrificed his life over an injury that would’ve taken me a day to recover from. I’ve been as good as widowed four times. And with this lifetime, you’ve been doomed for five.”
    “If last night was my
doom,
Regin, then you can sign me up for a hundred more go-rounds.”
    She narrowed her gaze. “Don’t you dare ridicule me or this … this situation! I nearly lost my mind with each death. Aidan bled out in our bed. I held Treves as he yelled in anguish from poison. My pirate? My beautiful Gabriel? A violent storm bashed his ship apart. A falling mast crushed him, killing him instantly. His body was swept overboard, and I-I couldn’t find him … c-couldn’t bring him back.”
    “Damn it, lass, this curse will no’ affect you and me.”
    “With everything you’ve seen in the Lore, how can you doubt this?”
    “I don’t doubt that curses exist—I’ve
been
cursed by a witch, and I remember how it felt. I’d
sense
something if a curse was hanging over me.” He brushed his knuckles down her silky cheek. Would he ever grow used to theluxury of simply touching her skin? “I do no’ know how to convince you of it, but I feel this in my gut. We’re beyond it.”
    “Even if there were no curse, and even if I could forgive you for all you’ve done to me, I can’t get past what you’ve done to my friends. You’ve got a lot of fates on your head.”
    “What if I get everyone in our crew off the island? Would you forgive me then?”
    She shook her head. “That would still leave Carrow, Ruby, and MacRieve. And Lucia must be alive and well. Every single one of them has been jeopardized by your actions.”
    “How Lucia?”
    “I’m supposed to be with her when she faces Cruach.”
    “You know I’ve no control over her fate.”
    “The stakes are steep for me, Chase. I could never forgive you if Lucia was forced to fight an enemy as vile as that by herself, because I was
otherwise engaged
. She’s everything to me.”
    “Then you’ve laid out my tasks. I’ll take care of them one by one.”
    Regin folded up the pullover’s