Dreams of a Dark Warrior

the guy I was telling you about.”
    Lucia’s eyes went wide. “This isn’t the man who … tortured you?”
    “It’s complicated, Luce. J-just help me get him back to Val Hall.”
    “Help
him
?” Garreth growled. “After he tortured my cousin Uilleam? Who, incidentally, is seconds behind us and bent on mauling this mortal.”
    Freed of his collar, Brandr stepped up. “He’ll have to go through me.” His eyes glowed, his muscles burgeoning.
    Natalya flared her poisonous claws. “And me.”
    Thad bowed up his chest. “Me, too.”
    Garreth looked ready to tangle. Lucia plucked her bowstring, her loyalties torn. A howl sounded in the near distance, footfalls crashing closer. …
    It was Malkom who broke up the tension. “The magister tortured me, as well.”
    Great, another hater.
“You got your revenge, demon! You want more?”
    “I have Carrow because of him,” Malkom said. “I want no revenge. I seek to repay.”
    Carrow gazed up at Malkom like a sap. “Let’s start by tracing him the hell out of Dodge.”

FIFTY-SIX

    F or two days, Chase lay in her bed at Val Hall, pale, still, his heartbeat so sporadic that at times she thought he’d … died.
    Brandr had paced a hole in the rug, while Regin struggled to hold on to hope.
    No one had any idea what would happen, not even Nïx, who’d only absently said, “Such a sweet little boy.”
    Now, as another morning broke, Regin rechecked the curtains, ensuring that no light reached him. “Will you stay with him, Brandr? I need to go downstairs for a bit.”
To go on a fool’s errand.
    “Of course.”
    She leaned down and kissed Chase’s damp forehead. Strapping on her borrowed sword, she marched from her bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door of Val Hall.
    Thad and Natalya were on the porch swing, drinking coffee and holding vigil with Nïx.
    Regin’s sisters had initially taken issue with a half vamp like Thad and a dark fey like Natalya gaining entry past the wraiths, but Regin had been adamant about their staying.
    Thad asked her, “Is DC going to be okay?”
    “He’s
totally
gonna pull through,” Regin said, but even she recognized that she sounded half-hysterical, her words tinged with that out-of-place confidence people had when staring down a gun barrel.
    “Don’t be long, Regin!” Nïx called. “And if you see Bertil, tell that little scallywag that it’s past his bedtime!”
    Huh. Nïx is
literally
batshit cray-cray.
    Regin tossed her hair toll to the wraiths in order to cross their guard. With their forbidding presence and brute strength, those flying, spectral creatures kept anything out of—or in—the Valkyrie’s manor.
    But the yard was another matter. Regin cast a murderous look at the crowd gathered along Val Hall’s drive. They were like vultures, waiting there either to celebrate Chase’s death—or to kill him.
    The only thing that kept them from advancing? The recently repaired driveway gate, imbued with Carrow’s protection spell.
    Regin flipped the crowd off with both hands, bobbling her birds up and down for good measure while mouthing,
Suck it.
Then she headed to the swamp on Val Hall’s property.
    Near the water’s edge she stopped beside a monument, one that looked totally out of place in the bayou: a Norse rune stone, draped with swamp moss, on “indefinite loan” from a Scandinavian museum of natural history.
    Taking a deep breath, she knelt in front of it. Clearing her throat, she muttered, “Are you there, Wóden, it’s me Regin.” She gave a nervous laugh.
    “I know you and Freya sleep, and that praying toyou is probably just a big fat waste of time. But I have to try. Seems I’ll try anything.” Another steadying breath. “So, Wóden, I need you to do me a solid and save the life of Declan Chase, a.k.a. Aidan the Fierce. …”
    She trailed off.
This is stupid.
She needed to be by Chase’s side, not talking to inanimate objects.
What if he … dies while I’m gone?
She swallowed. Then he’d still be
gone
. Attention back on the rock, she said, “Look, I know I’m not your favorite daughter, never have been. But I’m still your daughter! If you’re punishing Aidan for his hubris, then know that you’re punishing me too. No, you’re
destroying
me.”
    Though she tried to bite back the words, out they came: “I’ve
hated
you for this! How can you do this to me? For a thousand years, I’ve lived with this curse, when I should have been living with him.”
    Her voice broke,