Dreams of a Dark Warrior (36 page)

Stil scrambling for purchase, Volós dropped one sword to clamp his gaping throat; Natalya took

advantage, catching the weapon. She used it to lop off Volós’s forelegs, sending him toppling forward.

“Give your nephew my regards!” With a scream of victory, the fey took his head.

Revenge. One down, one to go.
“Grab your trophy, Nat, and let’s book.”

As Natalya sliced the queue from the back of Volós’s head, Regin grabbed Thad’s shoulder. “What

were you doing with Lothaire?”

Thad pointed. “He’s getting away! We’ve got to stick with him.”

“No way, kid. That leech is bad news! Evil as hel .”

“Not al vampires are evil—I’m not! And he saved you two, didn’t he? He’s strong enough to get us out

of here. After we find the Blademan.”

“Blademan?” Regin gazed at Lothaire fearlessly striding forward through the commotion. He was like a

snowplow as beings cowered.
Lothaire can take me straight to Chase.
“I’m fol owing him.” She snagged Volós’s second sword from his clenched fingers.

“Oh, fine!” Natalya said. “Just be wary, Thad. And take this.” She handed him her sword, preferring to

load glass shards between her knuckles again. “Swing first, ask questions later.”

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

deign to annihilate them.

As they passed Carrow’s cel , Regin peered inside, but the occupants were long gone. No piles of ash

remained either, so Regin was hopeful. Brandr too was missing.

She spotted Chase just as Lothaire tensed in front of her. The magister was fighting his way through

the ward, somehow fending off waves of creatures.

Regin and the vampire said in unison,
“He’s mine.”

Lothaire turned to her with silky menace, his bloodstained face as hard as a marble statue’s. “Chase

remains alive for now. Or you
do not
.”

Regin was raising her sword and opening her mouth to argue when vampires traced al around them.

Red-eyed Horde vampires. Who looked surprisingly enraged at Lothaire.

“We’ve been searching for you, Lothaire,” the largest one said. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out that

you betrayed the Pravus?”

Another added, “The Enemy of Old has clearly al ied with the Vertas, now working with a Valkyrie, a fey,

and a…” He gestured toward Thad.

The leader said, “You freed the rage demon king. He guards the wel with his queen. There’s no

retaking it.”

“Was that I?” Lothaire shrugged nonchalantly, but his eyes were reddening. “Ah, yes. It was.”

Regin had heard about him freeing Rydstrom, a Vertas demon king, and had mul ed the vamp’s

motives. But then she’d learned that Lothaire had extracted a high price for his cooperation: Rydstrom’s

vow to give the vampire
anything
he wished in the future.

“Shal we get on with this, then?” Lothaire sighed. “I’ve pressing business to attend to.”

The vampires appeared astonished by his gal . Most of them began to converge on Lothaire, Natalya,

and Thad, but a trio closed in on Regin, separating her out.

One told her, “You’ve slaughtered so many of our brothers, Valkyrie, over your unending lifetime. At

last you’l pay.”

“We’re not going to kil you,” said another. “Not at first.”

They began tracing al around her, delivering blows, then disappearing before she could strike with her

sword. The torque made her so sluggish. …

One backhanded her, whipping her head around. Blood flew from her lips, her staples straining.

Another’s hit sent her skidding across the glass-strewn floor, leaving a trail of crimson like a mop

swipe. The third lifted her limp body by the neck and a thigh and flung her into a swaying stone wal .

Before she could scramble out of the way, the wal col apsed over her, pounding her body into the floor.

Pain exploded al over; consciousness wavered.

The vampires weren’t finished. One snatched her hair to drag her from the rubble as she shrieked.

As if in a dream, she heard Chase’s answering bel ow.

Suddenly the glint of a sword flashed at one vampire’s throat. His head tumbled to the ground.

The remaining pair turned on their attacker.

Chase. Standing just there. His eyes were blazing, his body larger, his muscles swel ing with his

berserkrage.

They rushed him. With uncanny speed, he sliced through one’s neck, seizing the other by its throat.

Squeezing, squeezing. His brutal power … The vampire’s eyes bulged just before Chase separated its

head from its body.

Then Chase ripped free the masses of concrete that covered her as if they were feathers. “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 al around? Her Valkyrie instincts screamed for her to be wary.

“Hate me al you want—after I save your life.”

As Chase lifted her, she gazed back at the fight. Lothaire was stil surrounded in a battle to the death.

Natalya and Thad had escaped? Yes, Natalya had somehow snagged a charge thrower and was

threatening to fire it as she backed herself and Thad out of the clash. He was scanning the area, yel ing,

“Regin!”

Regin drew a breath to cal for them—

“Ah-ah, Valkyrie.” Chase shoved his gloved hand over her mouth as he took off in the opposite

direction.

Only when they were clear did he remove it.

“Why … save me?” As she struggled, his pitiless face grew blurry.

Gazing down at her, he growled, “Because I’l protect
what’s mine
.”

Darkness took her.

THIRTY-FIVE

D
eclan cradled Regin’s limp body in one arm; with his other, he struck with his sword, clearing a path for them.

Stil fil ed with that incredible power, he effortlessly slashed through the melee. With every back and

forth swing of his blade, he cleaved off heads, adding to the carnage.

Mangled bodies lay everywhere. Heinous creatures devoured fal en soldiers, raping others. Some

beings had weapons, which meant that the storage area had already been raided.

He glanced down, saw a female’s severed arm, stil covered in a sleeve from a blood-soaked lab coat.

Dixon’s oversize glasses lay crushed beside it in the same copious pool of blood. She couldn’t have

survived that.

So Vincente was missing, Fegley likely fal en, and the doctor was done—

The floor shifted beneath his feet. Rocks stil rose, flames soaring. The entire area was unstable, could

cave at any second. Time was running out.

If he could get to a truck, he could drive to a smal airstrip a few klicks away. There was an old twin-

prop plane that
might
start. But the impound lot was too far from here.

With luck, there might be a vehicle in the warehouse loading bay. As he headed there, he spared a

glance at Regin’s new injuries. Too much blood to determine the extent of damage, but he could tel the

staples had held at least. She would heal. She’d glow again.

I will see to it.

When he’d saved her from those vampires, he’d wanted to yel with the rightness of protecting her. The

instinct to make her his woman and defend her to his last was primal, ingrained in him.

God help him—because he’d surrendered to it completely. 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.
The realization didn’t shock him, just confirmed what he’d been grappling with for weeks.

Once he reached the loading bay entrance, he shoved open the double doors. Inside, cracks in the

roof al owed rain to pour inside, and the ground buckled. The area was dark, yet he could see clearly.

Another mystery explained—berserker senses.

Scanning … scanning … A truck! He sprinted to it, slowing as he neared. A section of rafter had

crushed the engine. “Fuck!” Twenty-one minutes left. He turned back to the entrance.

Brandr blocked his path, his sword raised.

The man took one look at Regin, and his face fel . Declan thought he muttered, “I’ve failed him.” Then

he charged forward. “Put her down, you sick fuck!”

Declan raised his own sword, pointing the tip at the berserker. “I don’t want to fight you,” he said

honestly. Whatever Declan thought of him, the man had protected Regin in the past. “And I’ve no time for

this.”

Brandr seemed to grow larger, his eyes wavering, but the torque stopped him from hitting his

berserkrage. “Give her to me!”

Standoff. “Not goin’ to happen.”

“Then we fight—” Brandr went stil . “Wendigos near. I smel them.”

Red eyes appeared in the shadowed corner of the warehouse, blocking the sole exit. Dozens of the

creatures scrabbled closer, their fangs dripping, the claws of their feet skittering over concrete.

Declan clutched Regin tighter. “Fuck me.” She stirred, giving him a fitful shove against his chest, but

she didn’t wake.

Brandr mumbled, “Yeah, feck me, too.”

“We put this aside for now,” Declan said. “If your aim is to get Regin out of here safely, then we’re in

accord.”

“Take off your glove, Blademan, and free me of this col ar. Or we’ve got no shot.”

“I can’t unlock it.”

“And I should trust that?”

Though the words stuck in his mouth, Declan said, “I vow it to … the Lore.”

At that, Brandr hissed a curse. “One scratch, Chase. That’s al it takes. I wil put you down if it

happens.”

Declan laid Regin against the back wal . “Same here, Brandr,” he said, turning toward the oncoming

threat.

The largest Wendigo made a guttural sound, and the pack charged them.

Declan and Brandr fought alongside each other, their swords slashing, drawing arc after arc of the

creatures’ brown blood.

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

“Over my dead body.” Declan took another’s head.

“Not a problem. After what you did to me and to her? You want to give her more of that?”

With each of his sword strikes, Declan felt that same déjà vu overwhelming him. Somehow, he knew

when Brandr would swing, could sense when to sidestep the man’s sword. There was an ebb and flow

between them, even as they continued to argue.

“I didn’t do that to Regin—didn’t order it! I didn’t even know about it.”
Slash.

“Bul shit!”
Sword whistling.

“It’s true.”

“It doesn’t matter, Blademan! It happened under your watch. You captured her. You’re responsible.

Gods, man, her skin is
dim
!”

The berserker was right.
All of this is my doing.
He had to atone. “I’m tryin’ to get her out of here alive.

There’s a plane. But we’re running out of time. …”

“That’s the least of our worries right now.”

For every Wendigo they took down, it seemed another appeared, closing in. He and Brandr began

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

When the pack tightened the circle even more, and Declan barely deflected the swipe of a knifelike

claw, Brandr said over his shoulder, “They’re too close. Too many. I’l do Regin. Then you.”

Declan swung madly. “We’re not bloody there yet!” But in his heart, he knew they were.

Another near miss. No more room to maneuver—

Suddenly glass shards protruded from the fronts of the Wendigos’ throats and legs. The creatures

reeled, frantical y clawing at the glass.

Declan cleaved through one’s neck. “Ask questions later!”

He and Brandr took advantage of the Wendigos’ injuries, fel ing one after another. Final y, no more

emerged to take their places.

When a host of convulsing, headless bodies fanned out from them, Brandr cal ed, “Who the hel ’s in

here?”

Out of the shadows, Natalya the fey sauntered, with glass shards between the knuckles of each hand

and a charge thrower strapped over her shoulder.

Brandr murmured, “Wel , hel ooo, trouble.”

She nodded. “With a capital T, if you please.”

That halfling fol owed her, out of breath, his eyes a touch wild, his sword coated in brown Wendigo

blood. He hauled a sizable pack on his back. Containing what?

“Did we hear something about a plane?” Natalya said.

Ignoring her, Declan scraped his sword along the bottom of his boot, cleaning the contagious blood off