Dreams of a Dark Warrior

stand.
    Her eyes darted around.
I’m in a cell?
So this was the Order’s facility?
    A black-haired female was bounding back to her feet, her purplish eyes narrowed. She wore tight club shorts, a leather halter, fishnet stockings with ripped holes, and the stiletto boots Regin had already been acquainted with.
    “I recognize you,” Regin said. “Yeah, you’re Natalya the Shadow. Dark fey assassin.” She remembered the female’s onyx-colored lips and claws. Her
poisonous
claws. Rumor had it that her very blood was black.
    “And you’re the glowing Valkyrie.”
    They’d had a contentious relationship in the past. Regin and her sisters used to snicker and call Natalya the Killer Fairy. Until she’d flung poisoned knives at them. Now Regin defensively reached for her swords—
    “No swords for you.” Natalya swept back her mane of stick-straight jet hair and began stalking around her, claws bared.
    “And no daggers to throw for you.”
    As they circled each other, Regin flared her own claws as she tried to get her bearings.
    Within this small cell, there were two sets of bunks, a toilet, and a sink. Three of the walls were made of solid metal, while the front was a wall of thick glass. In the corner was a second inmate, a young male, maybe late teens.
Don’t know what kind.
He was knocking his head against the metal wall, his eyes glazed.
    Down a long corridor were even more cells.
    Attention back to Natalya. “Aren’t you s’posed to be dead?” Regin asked as they each assessed the other for weaknesses. Natalya’s gaze flickered over the remnants of her wound, Regin’s over the weird collar Natalya wore.
    Regin reached up to her neck. What the—
I do too?
She yanked on the metal band, but couldn’t break it.
    “Not dead,” Natalya said. “Just put on involuntary hiatus.”
    “So are we fighting again, or do you always kick people in greeting?”
    “Your m.o. is to attack first and ask questions later. Mine is the same. Seems to me that we don’t have that luxury if we’re going to escape this place.” She lowered her hands. “I think we might need to join forces.”
    Normally the fey and Valkyrie allied. But Natalya was a dark fey—half fey overlord, half demon slave. “I’ll agree to a truce, but I’ll escape this place with or without your help,” Regin said, lowering her hands as well.
    She didn’t need any dark-fey deadweight slowing her down. As soon as Regin knew the lay of the land, the schedules, and the security protocols, she’d devise something. “In any case, my sisters will come for me soon.”
    “That’s what everyone else keeps saying, but no one has ever mounted a rescue. We think this installation is hidden from the outside.”
    In a smug tone, Regin said, “Everyone else doesn’t have Nïx the Ever-Knowing in their corner.”
Though Nïx might be the one who put me here!
    “Seems the most powerful oracle alive could have given you a heads-up about your capture.”
    “She does everything for a reason,” Regin answered truthfully. Her every stray glance or offbeat Nïxism could be pivotal in shaping the future. But deciphering these portents took more patience than Regin possessed.
    “I’ve got information you need,” Natalya said. “The immortals have a grapevine of gossip passed from cell to cell. In the two weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve learned much about this place. And about our captors.For instance, I know the magister took you down personally.”
    “Magister?”
    “Declan Chase. Tall, pale face, soulless eyes.”
    “Completely soulless.” This time. “How did you know?” Regin spied a camera above, placed to capture everything within. She’d bet he was watching her right now.
Creepy.
    “Because he stabbed you in the side. He’s also known as the Blademan. Sometimes the Order catches us in sweeps, and sometimes they target us specifically. Appears that you were on the magister’s shopping list.”
    “And magister means
in charge
?” Great. Aidan was the bossman of these mortals—the ones insane enough to provoke immortals.
    “I believe a magister is one step below a commander.”
    Behind them, the young guy’s head banging increased tempo. “Uh, you wanna to tell me what his drama is?”
    He was handsome and dark-haired, built like an athlete, but he couldn’t be more than seventeen or eighteen. He looked disconcertingly human, wearing some high-school football T-shirt, broken-in jeans, and weathered cowboy boots. “’Cause