Dreams of a Dark Warrior (Immortals After Dark, #10)

by Kresley Cole

When Declan threw a towel over her, he saw her silvery eyes were wide. He moved in front of her, hissing under his breath, “I will protect you.” Then he turned to his commander, battling the urge to bare his fucking teeth that the man had seen her unclothed.

By Chase’s reaction, Webb was a superior officer. Yet Chase faced him with his shoulders back and said, “I want her.”

Chase stretched his arm in front of her protectively. “I’ll continue to do whatever you ask, but she belongs to me.”

Gods, his arrogance was magnificent—and so familiar. Aidan had expected Wóden to bestow ohalla on him; now Chase was demanding Regin as his due.

Alone, he turned the monitor back on, staring at the Valkyrie. What wouldn’t he give to sink down behind her, draw her close, and sleep like the dead? A dangerous thought. A nearly undeniable pull.

When Declan looked at her, he didn’t think of her as some vile detrus; he thought of her as . . . his.

“That subject?” Declan lunged forward, his hand shooting out to wrap around Webb’s throat. “That subject is my woman!”

“She’s mine. You don’t touch what’s mine. You will not take her from here. I’ll protect her with my life.” Regin hadn’t been separating Declan from his purpose. She is my purpose.

Regin. Declan finally understood what his victims had felt when he’d tortured their mates. A madness to protect.

He’d even quelled his abundant pride and sworn fealty to a vampire king—one who sat upon Lothaire’s own throne . . . .

Dorada would keep him from what he desired so violently? The centuries of toil, the sacrifice. At the thought, fury spiked within him, coursing through his ancient royal blood. Think of her. So young, beautiful. Think of those innocent eyes gazing up at me with delightful fear.

When the three of them caught up to Lothaire, he frowned at his new retinue of immortals but didn’t deign to annihilate them.

“Hold on, Valkyrie.” With unexpected gentleness, he scooped her up, clasping her to his chest. “I’m gettin’ you out of here.” “Hate you.” She was too weak to fight him. So dizzy. To black out now, with enemies all around? Her Valkyrie instincts screamed for her to be wary. “Hate me all you want—after I save your life.”

“Why . . . save me?” As she struggled, his pitiless face grew blurry. Gazing down at her, he growled, “Because I’ll protect what’s mine.”

When he’d saved her from those vampires, he’d wanted to yell with the rightness of protecting her. The instinct to make her his woman and defend her to his last was primal, ingrained in him.

Declan had nothing else to hold on to, no other reason to fight what he was feeling for her. Now it grew inside of him, flaring to life like an out-of-control fire. Mine. I’d die to protect her.

“When this is over, she goes with me,” Brandr said, decapitating one in a spray of brown ooze. “Over my dead body.”

He and Brandr began fighting back to back with Regin in the middle. That’s how berserkers fight. Back to back, guarding the prize.

Yet something caught his attention far on the other side of the facility grounds. It was Vincente, running hand-in-hand with that succubus. He was shirtless; she was no longer wasting from hunger—

“How’d you escape all the vampires out for your head?” In a monotone voice, Lothaire stated, “I’m that good.”

The magister’s body twisted as the flames began to lick closer to his legs. As if he could see his female, Chase stretched one arm out, reaching in her direction. His eyes glowed with fear—but clearly not for himself.

“Don’t touch her!” Touch what’s mine, and I’ll punish you.

“Your blood is steeped in power.”

“Among other things. I believe I might be high. But I like it.”

“Chase, they’re pure evil. I’ve fought them all my life,” Brandr said. “Hell, I’ve probably fought him!” Lothaire calmly said, “An unlikelihood, as you still live.”

“Thad cleaned out the PX store. He’s a natural at looting. I was quite proud.” Thad beamed. “Well, the Scout motto is Be Prepared.”

He’d done nothing except hurt her from their first meeting. When he’d gutted her in a dirty street. When he’d poisoned her. And when she needed me most, I was high in my room, failing her.

His body had been maimed. Yet his face . . . As she’d backed away from him, her lightning had struck, illuminating his visage. A face made more beautiful by lightning. He’d looked like some kind of tormented, dark angel.

When their gazes met, he didn’t bother hiding what he was feeling. I want you so much. I’d give anything to redo the last month. To rid myself of these scars for you.

The magister didn’t approach her, didn’t try to speak with her, but he cast her a darkly possessive look.

“Once she escapes this island, she will leave you behind without a second thought.” And I’ll follow. That’ll be the way of things now.

“Sounds like you were planning on getting laid before you die.” “I was, until you—how’d Regin put it?—until you cockblocked me.”

Here he was, hiking a mountain trail at the bottom of the world with a reviled vampire enemy, a vampire lad, and a berserker. And this was the closest Declan had come to male bonding since he’d run with a gang back in Belfast.

“Start being honest with her. Aidan always let her know what he was thinking. And he fairly much treated her like a queen.”

Lothaire said, “I have a much better plan.” “Why help him?” Thad asked pointedly. “When you don’t help anybody else?” Lothaire exhaled ruefully. “Incurable romantic.”

Ignore Regin? When even now his gaze was scope-locked on the back-and-forth swish of her hips and arse? Need hammered at him. Without those shots, lust was riding him hard.

“Live by the sword, love by the sword,”

“Boyo, understand me”—his gaze pinned Brandr’s—“if I get a chance with her, I’m fuckin’ takin’ it.”

Was he gorgeous, like the original Aidan had been? No. But he was intriguing. And right now, Chase looked like a man who knew what he wanted and who was on the cusp of taking it. Magister Chase, the man, was . . . sexy.

The clever and relatively young Declan Chase met two out of her three criteria. He’d always been generously endowed, but this . . . Her claws were curling for it.

“No’ a magister anymore, no’ one of the Order.” She shrugged. “Oh, because you’ve lost your installation?” “I’m no’ a magister anymore, because you wouldn’t be a magister’s woman.” He strode into the water.

“Stop that!” She punched his mouth again. He pressed his newly bleeding lip to the other side of her neck. “What is wrong with you?” Another hit to his face left his jaw singing. But he merely rubbed his chin over the tip of her pointed ear. Every time she struck, he responded with a kiss or touch. “Is that supposed to hurt, Valkyrie? You hit like a wee girl.”

Instead of deflecting her hits, he grasped her perfect breasts, groaning from the weight of them in his hands. Soft, damp flesh against his palms. Her nipples were tight points . . . . With a groan, he rocked his hips up beneath her.

One of his eyes was swollen. His lip was busted. The skin over his broad cheek was split. His legs were bleeding. And still he was hard as rock.

want you so much. It’s like a fever in me.”

You think I’m just going to forget all you’ve done to me?” “No, no’ forget. But I can salvage this thing between us. I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done.”

“Cried over you like a wee babe.” He pinned her hands over her head. “I can feel, Regin. And it killed me to see you like that!” His eyes began to glow. “Which really pissed me off, Valkyrie. Because any last hope that I could live without you vanished.”

“It will always be you, Regin.” His free hand curled under her thigh to position his shaft.

Heaven was pleasuring her with her lightning overhead to let him know he was doing it right.

Splat. Tagged his other thigh. Which left only one place that she hadn’t hit. A big target. He followed her gaze down. “Do no’ even think of it. You do it, and you’ll be cleanin’ me up.” Splat.