NINETEEN

Against me?” Chase raised his brows.

“Uh-huh. Castle-taking was your thing. You ‘commandeered’ key strongholds for King Philip all over Europe, and you’d set your sights on Lanbert’s keep.” Regin drew her calves under her to sit cross-legged on his desk, daring him to say something. Getting comfy when cuffed was damned near impossible.

He glowered but said nothing.

“Every day your army trenched in closer to the castle, almost in trebuchet range. But we’d known it was only a matter of time. Your men were fanatically loyal, and you were a master strategist. Lucia was running out of arrows. My blades were dulled from cleaving bone. We hadn’t slept in days …”

When she began describing the setting—the smell of smoke and tar, the lingering rock dust from the battered castle walls, the smithy’s constant hammering—he leaned back in his chair, the marked tension in his shoulders lessening.

As she recounted the weeks of battle, the foot-soldier offensives and arrow exchanges, he relaxed even more, resting his hands behind his head. Chase liked these tales.

“Then came the day of reckoning. The trebuchets were loaded, and so close that we could hear the ropes straining. Before you fired them, you rode up to the portcullis, astride a wild-eyed stallion. Skirmishes slowed, quieting until only a stray sword clanged here or there. You were tall, not as tall as you are now, but massive in armor. I would have known you were Treves even if you hadn’t been carrying your standard, a red banner with two ravens in flight.”

“Ravens?” Had tension crept back into his shoulders?

“The symbol of Wóden, remember? At the time, we just thought it was a coincidence that Treves had it.” She slanted him a glance. “You know this mark?”

Chase shook his head. “Go on.”

After a hesitation, she said, “For some reason, you raised your gaze to the rampart I defended, doing a double take at me.”

In an irritable tone, Chase said, “Perhaps because you glow.”

“I was cloaked from head to toe,” she said with a saccharine smile. “To Lanbert, you bellowed, ‘Surrender your castle, or I’ll raze it to the ground.’ Your ultimatum didn’t sit well with me, so naturally, I voiced my opinion.”

“Which was?”

“That you should go copulate with a pig. It sounded way cooler in medieval French.”

Chase raised his brows.

“But at my words, you jolted in your saddle, your horse growing even more wild-eyed. You called to me, ‘You defend that rampart, female?’ I answered, ‘To the death, prick.’ Again, way cooler in medieval French.”

“You antagonized the leader of a superior force?”

“What were you going to do? Trebuchet us even harder?”

“So how did he respond?” Chase asked.

“You called out, ‘Lanbert, send down the black-cloaked woman as my war prize, and I will end my siege. We close this eve with peace between us.’ Everyone was floored. For Treves to quit a siege without a victory? You’d won dozens of 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’t been 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 of it. 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 questioned his ruler’s actions from the beginning and had stood up to him before. There was talk that Treves could seize the throne whenever he felt like it.”

Which was why Philip had already had an assassin waiting in the wings. When Treves had disobeyed Philip’s command to take the castle, the king had ordered him poisoned.

For choosing me over a victory, Treves had paid with his life. …

The Valkyrie’s gaze grew distant, her eyes flickering color. When she faced him once more, she said, “Lemme ask you, Magister—have you ever stood up to your boss before?”

Earlier he’d suspected that this tale was all part of a setup, serving her agenda. Now she’d just confirmed his suspicion.

While Declan had been relaxing his guard with her, she’d been working him over, every word she’d spoken carefully chosen. “If I don’t act like your knight, then I’m a lapdog?” In a disgusted tone, he said, “Perhaps I should betray everything I’ve ever known for you?”

“I could make you happier than the Order does.” So sure of herself.

“I’m not in this for happiness, Valkyrie. And I don’t question commands, because I believe in the objective—protecting humankind. My kind.”

“I think you want to leave all this behind to be with me. Chase, I’m only waiting on you.”

“Abandon my mission? Never, Valkyrie! Who would do this work if not for me?” His gloved hands fisted. No one had ever infuriated him like she did! He was supposed to be emotionless by nature. He injected those numbing concoctions every night. So why were these rages still taking him over?

Without thought, he stormed to his filing cabinet, yanking out a worn file of pictures—photos of the casualties in this war. If he ever doubted his purpose or resented the pain in his battle-worn body, he brought out this folder. Nothing could solidify his resolve more effectively.

He wanted to show her what he fought against, and to observe her reaction. To see for myself that she won’t even blink.

“If it wasn’t for me, then the pack of viper shifters that hit this orphanage”—he tossed a set of four photos onto the desk—“would still be targeting easy prey.” The graphic pictures depicted the bodies of children and nuns, swollen and fed upon. “They’d been dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, then envenomed until paralyzed. They couldn’t even scream.”

She peered down at them, her lips thinned.

“Or how about this?” He flung another picture in front of her. This one showed mauled Wendigo victims with their limbs ripped apart, their bones cracked open. “The Wendigos had sucked out the marrow while their prey was still alive. I destroyed every single one in that pack. Even the humans who’d been transformed into their kind.”

As if she sensed she’d do well not to say anything, the Valkyrie remained silent.

The next set of pictures made him rock on his feet; his mother and father tied up on the floor, their flesh consumed to the bone. Their expressions frozen in terror forever. “What about the Neoptera?” he demanded, his voice ragged. “I’ve eradicated dozens of them during my twenty years with the Order.”

For some reason, he shoved the picture of his parents in front of her.

And, damn her, her eyes flickered with sympathy. He slammed his fist down on the desk, bellowing, “Don’t you fuckin’ dare feel sympathy for them! They were mere mortals, beneath your notice!”

“Of course I feel sympathy!” She shot to her feet, bristling. “That’s why I’ve killed as many of those creatures as I’ve come across! You’re locking up immortals who would be your allies—”

“Ally with you? You’re indolent. Your own sister said that all you do is fight needlessly and get high.” They were toe-to-toe.

“Oh, you’re one to talk about getting high, Major Tom! You’re flying out of this atmosphere most days.”

He ignored that. “You serve no purpose, have no reason to exist.”

Again that flash of hurt shone in her eyes. “I have a purpose, you asshole! Ever heard of Cruach, the god of human sacrifice and cannibalism? Every five hundred years, he rises, bent on turning all of humanity into maddened cannibal killers. Alongside my sister, I fight him. Me! I’ve faced him twice before. Only this time, he’s going viral. We’re talking apocalypse.”

Declan had heard of Cruach before, but they had limited intel on the being. Yet another immortal threat. Yet more information for the taking …

“I’m supposed to be facing him right now, but you have me locked up here!” She drew her lips back from her small fangs, reminding him of what she was. “Because of you, Chase, the world is teetering on the brink of apocalypse, immortals and mortals in jeopardy.”

He’d speak with Webb about this, determine a plan of action—

“So I might not have documented my work with handy trophy pics, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve put a god on ice two times before, and I’m keen to do it a third!”

A red film covered his eyes, and he roared, “Trophy?” He buzzed Vincente to come get her—before he throttled her. “Get out of my sight.”