Dreams of a Dark Warrior

to mobilize in an instant.
    Initially, he’d considered storming this place, inflicting as much damage and destruction as possible. But there were other Valkyrie inside, and though their species was uniformly female, they were among the strongest and most vicious in the Lore.
    Regin might be slight, but she could likely lift a car by herself.
    To bring in a team would risk his soldiers’ lives unnecessarily, and he’d already lost men at a recent capture. A powerful, older vampire had put up a fight as few others ever had.
    Plus, Declan had no idea how to battle those wraiths guarding the house. No, he’d wait until Regin the Radiant was separated from her kindred. Then he’d strike.
    He approached the row of cars, pulling the bug from his jacket. Determining which one was hers proved simple enough. The
RegRad
license plate on a red Aston Martin was a dead giveaway.
    The field notes in his dossier had described her as ostentatious, prone to flaunting her uniqueness in public. No wonder she’d been targeted. One of theOrder’s objectives was to prevent civilians from ever discovering the deathless beings living in their midst.
    He eased open the door and affixed the bug under the driver’s side headrest. After testing the sound with his earpiece, he gingerly shut the door and turned to leave—
    Out of the corner of his eye, he spied a light, turned to it.
    Through one of the mansion’s front windows, he spotted her, or at least the radiance she emanated.
    She does truly glow. …
    He silently moved in, camouflaged behind a tree about two hundred feet from the front porch. He couldn’t see her face, but from the back, her figure was curvaceous. She wore a pair of indecently low-cut hip-hugger jeans and a cropped red T-shirt that revealed her midriff.
    Indeed, two swords in black leather sheaths crisscrossed her back.
    Her blond hair cascaded all the way to her waist, except where it was braided into haphazard plaits that jutted out all over the top and sides of her head.
    Declan suspected she would be as attractive from the front; Lorean females often were. He detested all immortals but especially the females. They used their seductive looks as a weapon, a tool to rob mortal men of their senses.
    They will separate you from your purpose, lure you to your doom.
How many times had his superior told him that?
    A row of bushes between him and the house rustled.Another enemy lying in wait? The Valkyrie had plenty of adversaries. And they had no idea danger lurked so close—
    The front doors burst open; a woman stormed outside.
    Regin.
    He released a sharp breath.
    Those wild braids held her hair back from her face, revealing all her delicate features. Her cheekbones were high and defined, her nose pert. Blond brows drew together over her vivid amber eyes, and her full lips were parted.
    She radiated a pure golden light.
    A feeling of recognition swept over him. At once, the near crippling tension he’d endured for decades began to ebb. Why? How?
    She wasn’t the first unearthly beauty they’d tracked—the Order’s island compound was filled with them—so he would’ve thought himself prepared for her comeliness. But he feared she might be the
most
beautiful.
    At least to me.
    “Make a hole, bitches!” she yelled to the wraiths, tossing one of them … a braid of hair? When the red-robed beings parted, she strode down the steps, her thick-heeled boots clicking.
    Out on the lawn, she stopped and cocked her head, drawing those swords with a lethal grace. One of her pointed ears was visible and clearly twitching as she scanned the night. She would see Declan … would
sense
him.
    He was about to slip back when the bushes nearby rustled once more.
    Without a second’s thought she dove into them, pouncing on whatever skulked there. A moment later, a ghoul’s severed head came flying out. When she bounded from the shrubs, her swords were already sheathed and twigs protruded from those haphazard braids. She reached up, felt them, then left them there with a shrug.
    When a trio of other women staggered out onto the front porch, Regin held up the head and made an exaggerated curtsy. They cheered drunkenly. Witches, no doubt. They were the Valkyrie’s allies and notorious drunks.
    One laughed, tripped over her own feet into a pratfall, then laughed again.
    Regin turned back to face his direction. With her skin glowing brighter and her expression animated, she punted the ghoul’s head like a football, then