Dreams of a Dark Warrior

into him. He inhaled her scent, felt her body, hesitated.
Stab her, incapacitate her.
    When she thrashed against his chest with inconceivable strength, his training took over and he planted his sword into her side, twisting the blade within her.
    Lightning struck nearby. She gasped at the pain. A debilitating wound, even for an immortal.
    Blood bubbled from her lips and poured from the gash. Her little body trembled against him, her skin cooling as her light
dimmed
.
    Wrong!
his mind screamed. Dizziness hit him as that familiar tension multiplied, knotting every one ofhis muscles, nearly crippling him. He swayed, quickly withdrawing his blade.
    Without him supporting her, she collapsed, curling up on the filthy street. As blood streamed from her side, she narrowed her eyes up at him. They were bright silver, brilliant. Her blond lashes seemed to glitter all around them. Two tears spilled.
    Wrong.
    He clenched the hilt of his bloody sword, his gut churning until he almost vomited.
    “
You,”
she bit out. She gazed at him with recognition, brows drawing together as if with … betrayal. “You’ll
pay
.”
    Some of the remaining soldiers stared at the exchange in confusion. Reminded of his mission, Declan grated, “Bag her.”
    Disabled by her wound, she couldn’t defend herself as two soldiers bound her wrists behind her back. She drew a breath to shriek, but they slapped a special tape over her mouth. Another pair descended on her, one with a black sack for her head and another with a sedative-filled syringe. She struggled wildly as they tightened the sack over her.
    Once they’d administered the sedative, her body twitched twice, then fell limp. Utterly defenseless.
    This creature had demonstrated monstrous power. Now she lay as if dead.
    His men disarmed her, then tossed her into the sole functioning van. Her shirt rode up, revealing the bloody wound Declan had given her.
    Why was he sickened? He raked his hand throughhis hair, then squeezed his forehead. His skull felt like it was splitting.
    A thousand times he’d struck, collecting enemies to be taken back to the Order’s compound. What was different about this one?
    “Magister?” a soldier said. “Are you all right, sir?”
    Declan gazed at their captive, then down at his gloved hands, noting how they shook.
No, I’m not fuckin’ all right!
He’d almost wished his hands had been bare when he’d taken her. To feel a woman’s flesh after so long …
    He’d craved touching her even as he’d stabbed her.
    Sick.
    Declan peered at the soldier. As he coldly said, “Of course, I’m all right,” he thought,
They’re being led by a madman.

THREE

    I n the transport plane’s cabin, Declan scuffed to the bed, only partially dried off from his recent shower. He shed the towel around his hips, then fell back on the foam mattress. Shoving the heels of his palms against his eyes, he rubbed till his lids stung.
    His fatigue wasn’t surprising. Whenever he un-leashed his abilities, he suffered acute exhaustion, which was one of the reasons he took medicine to diminish them. Plus, he seldom slept on these hunting trips.
    Just hours after the Valkyrie, he and his remaining men had set back out and bagged an easily captured witch. Now, at last, he could return home.
    He should be out cold, but the tension within him wound even tighter. For as long as he could remember, he’d felt a constant pain in his chest coupled with a punishing anxiety that ate at the pit of his gut. To this, he added frequent nightmares about a fiend at his back, his body gored by steel, and a woman’s screams.
    That harrowing sense of loss …
    He called it
the strain
. Because even as a lad, he’d known it would break him one day.
    His medicine helped, but those nightly injectionscouldn’t quell it completely. It proved too strong, too pervasive.
    Right now, the strain was grueling, and he’d depleted his travel supply yesterday. They were still hours away from their isolated destination—a secret installation in the stormy southern Pacific. Which meant hours before he could score more.
    Declan supposed it was his fate always to be injecting something.
    The ride was jarring, the weather turbulent. He didn’t mind flying, had trained as a pilot, but this nauseated even him.
    Or maybe it was the aftereffects of this night’s work.
    The betrayed look in the Valkyrie’s eyes still con-founded him. When capturing immortals, he’d been critically injured, even bespelled once;