Dreams of a Dark Warrior

weaknesses.
    Webb had turned over control of the base to Declan a decade ago. Since then, Declan’s life had fallen into a routine: work out in the morning to deaden his abnormal strength, oversee operations, interrogate some of the higher-priority captives.
    Now he reviewed several backlogged cases as he mindlessly ate a military MRE—and awaited a doctor’s house call.
    After finishing his meal, he pulled up the feed from cell seventy to front and center on the monitor. Fegley and a guard were just tossing the Valkyrie to the floor inside. She was still unconscious with her head bagged.
    “New roommate, fey,” the warden said to the female assassin already in the cell. “She’s a Valkyrie. Maybe this prisoner will actually talk to you.”
    The fey didn’t move to assist her, merely stared at Regin with cold indifference.
    Odd. From what he understood, the fey and Valkyrie were ancient allies. Of course, the assassin wasn’t completely fey.
    The other inmate—a teenaged halfling—continued banging his head against the wall. The boy hadn’t known he was a detrus, hadn’t known they’d existed,until he’d been dispatched here by one of the four other magisters. Apparently, he’d committed no crime other than setting his sights on the wrong girl—a magister’s daughter.
    Upon arriving here and seeing living, breathing monsters, the boy had gone nearly catatonic.
    Declan hadn’t even been eighteen when he’d faced these beings for the first time. He had survived the encounter.
    But not intact. …
    For long moments, Declan watched the even rise and fall of the Valkyrie’s chest. Her T-shirt was hiked up, revealing her flat belly and her wound. The skin there had already closed.
    Typical immortal resilience. How many times had he cursed it? With their ability to regenerate, they were nightmare adversaries.
    Not to mention when they possessed other powers. Like the vampires’ and demons’ teleporting or the witches’ spellcasting. Without the Order controlling their number, there’d be no stopping them.
    He drummed his fingers on his desk. The Valkyrie was fresh from ten murders, and still he was curious about her, wanting to know more than the limited details in her file.
    What is wrong with me?
Of all the immortals he’d been sent to capture, Declan might hate her the most—for flaunting what she was, for being proud to have
offed
his men.
    And Declan wasn’t
supposed
to be curious; he was simply supposed to act—under orders. For nearlytwenty years, he’d followed commands, had been the weapon the Order wielded.
    He wasn’t content in his life, but at least his sense of purpose warred with the strain. He owed everything to Webb—his life, his career, whatever sanity he still possessed.
    Someone buzzed his inner chambers. Only three people would dare: Calder Vincente, a former Ranger and his right-hand man, Webb on his infrequent visits, and Dr. Kelli Dixon, the physician in charge of prisoner research.
    He glanced at the video of the outer hallway. Dixon, with a familiar metal case in hand.
    Though he wanted only to observe the Valkyrie—to relish her reaction when she awakened and comprehended her position—he had business with the doctor. He donned his gloves, then buzzed her in.
    She entered, her smile fawning. Which he despised. Sometimes Dixon acted like a schoolgirl fan of his. He knew she was attracted to him, but then for some reason women usually were. The more coldly he treated them, the more they seemed to desire him.
    Yet even if there were any aspect about Dixon to tempt him—her looks were forgettable, her figure boardlike—she of all people should know why anything more was impossible.
    She waited for him to ask her to sit. Since the only place in this corner of his chambers was his bed, he didn’t.
    “How was your trip?”
    “The hunting was plentiful.”
    “That’s what we’ve heard.” She pushed her large glasses up on her nose, casting him an MD’s assessing glance. “You look exhausted. Were you able to sleep?”
    “I’ll catch up over the next week.” Normally, he slept just four hours a night, yet that got shaved down to two on these hunts. And he’d been gone for two weeks, completing lengthy preparations for his three captures.
    “How was your heart rate? Any palpitations? Any adverse effects of the medicine?” Dixon had been supplying him with his injections for more than a decade—ever since she’d begun giving Declan his yearly