Dreams of a Dark Warrior

at her with animosity.
    “So, where are you taking me, big guy?” No answer.
    Yesterday, guards had hauled Lothaire by after Chase had finished “interrogating” him. The vampire’s shirt was ripped open, revealing skin seared to ash. His hooded red eyes had flashed to Regin, and he’d hissed something in Russian.
    Lothaire was an enemy—one who’d hurt the Valkyrie in unimaginable ways—so it’d been impossible to muster up sympathy for him. She’d hissed back, “
Do svidaniya,
bitch.”
    Now it was Regin’s turn for an appointment with either Declan or the mad scientist.
    In a lower tone, she asked the man, “So am I going to get a zipper in my chest?”
    Had there been a barely perceptible shake of his head?
    “Am I about to be interrogated?”
    Nothing.
Shit, interrogation it is.
    Soon after, he led her into an austere room with a camera in the ceiling, an obvious two-way mirror on one of the white walls, and a table with two chairs in the center.
    Vincente pointed to one of the chairs, the one bolted to the floor. “Sit.”
    “S’all the same, I think I’ll stand—”
    He shoved her down, hooking her cuffs to a bar in the back of the chair, immobilizing her.
    Once she was all battened down, a tech in a white lab coat entered to sink an IV into Regin’s arm. The clear line snaked up to a bag, most likely filled with some kind of pharmaceutical torture juice.
    Regin got the gist. The interrogator would be able to push a button and serve a dose.
    After Vincente and the tech had left, Chase entered, his expression drawn, his ink-black hair still wet from a recent shower. He’d shoved it back off his smooth-shaven face, revealing more of those chiseled features, as well as the thin scars that climbed up his cheek. Dark circles marred his chilling gray eyes.
    For all his faults, Declan Chase had a kind of sinister, wretched attractiveness. She took comfort in knowing that, for some reason, the man was as miserable as she currently was.
    Without a word, he sat across from her. He wore his usual military threads, but today his wool pullover stretched tighter over his deep chest and broad shoulders. He was more muscled than she’d initially thought.
    “Well, don’t you look all butch today?” When he shot her a killing look, she stomped one foot. “
What?
What’d I say?” It’d been a compliment.
    Up close like this, there was no mistaking his unsettling hatred. Though she’d resisted any escape plan that involved Chase remembering his past, now she realized she might have to declare him a misfire regardless.
    She gazed around with a bored air. “This feels just like
Law and Order
. But shouldn’t you lawyer up before I throw the book at you? No? So what’s in the IV bag?”
    “Pain poison. Taken from the Sorceri Queen of Agonies and replicated for our purposes.”
    A queen was a sorceress more powerful at manipulating a certain element than any other Sorceri.
    Bottom line: this is gonna smart.
    “Another tool cribbed from the Lore? Like with these torques. And rumor has it that this facility is mystically hidden. You use mysticism when it suits you, even though that’s
our
realm.”
    As if she’d never spoken, he said, “You’ll tell me what I need to know, or I’ll administer a dose.” He held up a control pad with a red button in the middle.
    “Torture doesn’t work on my kind, just pisses us off. It starts to collect over the years.”
    “Valkyrie, I will get answers from you one way or another. Either through this painful exercise in futility, as you believe, or through a civilized conversation.”
    “You call this civilized?” She strained against hercuffs, leaning in to whisper, “Psst, Chase. The sexual tension between us is grueling.”
    His face grew even colder, as if she’d just spoken blasphemy.
    “So you’re the bossman around here, huh? I saw you took down Lothaire. You’ve got some low-hanging goolies to mess with him.”
    “Do you have information about that vampire? It might affect your own treatment.”
    “Turn informant? Sing like a canary? The more I talk, the better I’ll get treated?”
    He just continued to stare at her with an undisguised loathing.
    “Then get ready for an earful! So everybody thinks Lothaire is hotter than the sun he’ll never see, but I don’t get it.” Some of her Valkyrie sisters had deemed him as mesmerizing as a shiny-shiny. “I mean, yes, his body is magnificent—when not extra crispy—but he’s a leech, a