Dreams of a Dark Warrior

castles—you
never
lost. Even more shocking was that you wanted a woman.”
    “Why was that so shocking?”
    “Because Treves belonged to a
monastic
order of knights. No damsels allowed. Lucia and I didn’t know what to make of this. You couldn’t know that I was a Valkyrie. But why else would you want me? Of course, Luce made the obligatory war booty cracks, and we yucked it up.”
    Lucia had finally begun to shake off the worst of Cruach’s torture. After centuries, she’d relearned how to laugh.
    “You weren’t afraid?”
    Regin rolled her eyes. “I fear nothing. Besides, we thought it great fun that you were telling Lanbert to send me down. The old earl could no more command me than I could ask Wóden to wake from his godsleep. But by this time, I was fraught with curiosity. I simply had to face you. When I strolled out of the castle, you rode up to meet me.”
    Regin would never forget how he’d looked. Up close, she’d gotten a better sense of his size, but she hadn’tbeen able to see his face. His visor had shaded his eyes, and the winter sun had been at his back, paining her preternatural sight. “Treves and I … bantered.” She could still hear his voice:
    “You’ve come to sacrifice yourself to me?”
    “Have you not seen me in battle, knight? I sacrifice nothing with this move.”
    “Woman, you became my prize as soon as you crossed from that keep.”
    She lifted her chin. “Or you became mine.”
    “You ordered me to take off my cloak. Though I didn’t take orders, I did enjoy shocking people with my wicked-cool glowing. So I pulled my hood back. You hissed in a breath, but you had a surprise of your own. Just as your waving pennant blocked the direct sun, you lifted your visor. I caught my first glimpse of your gray eyes and nearly fainted. They’d begun to glow.”
    At first Treves had appeared confounded, muttering,
I’ve never seen you, but you haunt my dreams.
Then his gaze had narrowed with intent, and he’d stabbed his standard into the ground.
    “Before I could blink, you’d swooped me up into the saddle in front of you. To your men, you called, ‘We war no longer!’”
    Now Regin studied Chase’s reaction. He hardly seemed to be listening. “And we lived happily ever after,” she said, which was not remotely true.
    “Stopping there?”
    “You seem really preoccupied. You don’t like my knight’s tale?” She certainly didn’t like the end ofit. Treves had died in agony before the next sunrise, convulsing in her arms as she’d helplessly watched. After fighting across half of Europe, Brandr had reached them just as Treves took his last breaths.
    “Am I
boring
you?” Never in a thousand years had Regin asked that question.
    Chase shrugged noncommittally, his dark brows drawn.
    What is going on in that complicated mind of his?
With Aidan, she’d always known what he was thinking. But this Irishman was continually throwing her. She scooted to the edge of the desk again. “You probably just want to can the chitchat and get to the kissing, huh? It’s understandable.”
    At his quelling look, she shook her head slowly. “No? Well, then I’ll give you some advice. Free of charge. You’re probably up to your ass with work, and you’re hating it,” she said. “Chase, you weren’t meant to run this place. You’re a hunter, a
warrior,
who was born to be in the thick of the fray.”
    “Do you think that I desire or need your advice?”
    “I
am
way older than you are.”
    “Yet still more immature.”
    “Easily. You want to tell me what you’re thinking about?”
    At length, he said, “If each reincarnation personified aspects of Aidan, what were the others?”
    “Gabriel the Spaniard was humor and sex. Edward, my young English cavalryman, was …” She trailed off, affected as ever by her heartrending memories of him. “Edward was pure love.”
    “You believe I’m one of these reincarnations. What do you imagine I represent?”
    “I think you could be all of them,” she said. “But right now, you’re Aidan’s dark obsession. You’re drowning, Chase, and deep down, you know I’m your lifeline.”
    He steepled his fingers. “I find it interesting that you tell of a man who turned his back on everything he’d worked for. A knight who ended a siege for a woman. Then on the heels of that you
advise
me not to run this installation?”
    “I just recounted what happened with Treves. Besides, he was by no means the king’s lapdog—he’d