Dreams of a Dark Warrior

you?” He stood, rising before her, naked, big and bold. So beautiful she wanted to weep. “If you knew my feats, the clashes I won to escape those vampires. Don’t you understand?
Nothing
can keep me from you! Nothing could touch me. With you as my woman, I
feel
immortal already.”
    And gods, he
looked
it.
    “Wóden should be honored to have me as a son.”
    “Aidan!”
    “Will he deny me when I win a thousand battles bearing his mark?” He pounded his tattooed chest. “I will win the entire world in his name if I have to!”
    The power of this warlord’s body. The strength of his will. The might of his sword …
    He was so confident that even she began to believe it. If they were together, why couldn’t they do any-thing?
    He rejoined her, covering her once more. “And you will wait for me. I do not ask this of you. I demand it.” His lips descended on hers, his rough kiss brooking no refusal.
    As she arched up to him, she knew she would waitforever. Something about this male had always drawn her, captivated her. She couldn’t explain it, but she was through fighting it. Love or not—this was her man and always would be. …
    More hours of blissful coupling followed, more unimaginable pleasure.
    And afterward, as she began drifting to sleep with their bodies still joined, he cradled her face with his callused palms, brushing kisses over her forehead, her cheeks. “I promise you eternity, Reginleit. And each day I will love you more than the one before—”
    Suddenly pain stabbed in her torso like fire. “Aidan!” A blade had sunk into her? How? In a panic, she pushed up against him. Blood poured as she disentangled them.
    “Reginleit?” he bit out in confusion. A sword tip jutted from his chest.
    “Aidan!”
she shrieked.
“Ah, gods, no!”
    A vampire loomed behind him; the assassin had traced into their home and stabbed Aidan from behind.
    The vampire wrenched the sword free, raising it to finish Regin as well. “For the lives you took yesterday, berserker! For your wars … now you and your woman die!” He swung; Aidan shielded her with his body, taking the blow across his back.
    Just as the vampire readied to strike once more, Brandr burst inside, cleaving through its neck with his ax. The vampire collapsed.
    Brandr cast one look at Aidan and fell to his knees. “
Nay, Aidan,”
he rasped. “The fiend must have followed you back.”
    Still struggling to protect her, Aidan rolled onto his lacerated back, reaching for his sword.
    Brandr hastened to hand it to him, but said, “There are no more, my friend. R-rest easy.”
    When Aidan turned his head to her, shock threatened to engulf her. Even as she numbly curled up beside him, in her mind she was still shrieking, still hungering to slaughter the thing that had done this.
    Aidan’s mighty chest labored for breath. “Brandr will earn ohalla and watch over you.” He faced his friend. “Vow it.”
    His voice ragged, Brandr said, “I vow it.”
    Seeming relieved, Aidan turned back to her. “I love you, Reginleit.”
    She swallowed back a sob.
This cannot be happening.
“I-I love you, too.”
    “Nay. Your heart is … still your own.” He raised a bloody hand to her face, and she knew he’d lost sight in his eyes. “
I but needed more time
.”
    She seized his hand in both of hers, squeezing hard. “Then
take
it, warlord. Take more time—you fight for us! You heal so quickly, you can recover from this!”
    But his lids slid shut, his breaths rattling. Brandr roared with grief.
    “Aidan, come back to me.”
She wept over him, tears spilling onto his skin. “Come back to me, come back to me!”
    Just before his breaths ceased, he vowed,
“Somehow, love … I will find you.”
    ***
    And Aidan did.
    Yearning for Regin endlessly, he was reborn again and again for the next thousand years, re-embodied in different guises and lives, with no memory of his past. Yet each borrowed lifetime ended more tragically than the last.
    A pair of lovers—bound and cursed by fate.
    Some say ’tis Wóden who punishes Aidan for his hubris, dooming him to perish just when he’s found Reginleit and remembers his love for her.
    Some say Aidan’s indomitable will proves so strong that, at times, he can escape the Reaper’s gaol; but no man can elude that dark scythe forever.
    Others say that the Valkyrie’s kiss was so sweet that it enchanted the mortal, who finds her through eternity by following a mad longing within his heart.
    Whatever may be