"Ravens?" Had tension crept back into his shoulders?

"The symbol of Woden, 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 bel owed, 'Surrender your castle, or I'll raze it to the ground.' Your ultimatum didn't sit well with me, so natural y, 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 cal ed 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 cal ed 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 all owed. 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 rol ed her eyes. "I fear nothing. Besides, we thought it great fun that you were tell ing Lanbert to send me down. The old earl could no more command me than I could ask Woden to wake from his godsleep. But by this time, I was fraught with curiosity. I simply had to face you. When I strol ed 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 real y 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 noncommittal y, 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 continual y 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 quel ing 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 instal ation?"

"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 careful y 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, swol en 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, bel owing, "Don't you f**kin' 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 kil ed as many of those creatures as I've come across! You're locking up immortals who would be your all ies-"

"Al y 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 ass**le! 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 kil ers. 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 smallfangs, 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."

Chapter TWENTY

Late that night, once Declan finally slept, his body was restless, twisting in the sheets, his mind assailed by dreams. ...

"What manner of creature are you?" Treves asked the woman before him.

He'd hoped they'd be enemies no more, and even now she was sidling closer to him.

"You do not remember me?" In his tent, her face proved even more radiant, her eyes and hair shining like sun-struck amber.

"I have not met you, had never seen you before this morning." Except in dreams. Yet as soon as he'd heard her voice, he'd felt a stirring in his chest. "Are you a witch?" One who's bespelled me?

"No. Not a witch." She removed her swords and cloak, revealing her strange garments-an armored vest of stiffened leather over a fine linen blouse and a kirtle so short that her thighs were visible above her high boots. He swal owed. She had taut, smooth thighs made to cradle a man's hips. Not that he would know from experience.

"I am a Valkyrie, an immortal. One of Woden's cherished daughters." She said these words as if they should have some meaning to him. "Have you heard of us?"

"Only myths carried from the lands of the North." He recal ed that the Valkyrie were a type of warrior goddess.

This female expected him to believe she was one among them. And why shouldn't he? What else could explain her glowing skin and smallfangs, or the pink claws that tipped her delicate fingers?

He removed one gauntlet to run the backs of his fingers over her high cheekbones, his lids growing heavy. Her skin was impossibly soft. With each touch he marveled that such a female was in his keeping.

My prize, and an earned one.

His forfeiture of that castle would enrage his king, who had steadily been losing patience with him. I might have a price on my head already. No matter. As Treves gazed down at her, he knew she would be worth any consequence.

And answering to another was a yoke that had never sat easily upon his shoulders anyway. He and his king would come to terms over this. Or I'll pluck that crown from his head.

"You know that I am Treves. What is your name?"

"They cal me Regin the Radiant."

"A fitting name, belle." When he tucked a wild braid behind her ear, his eyes widened. The tip was pointed. "A Valkyrie's ear?" He was captivated by this creature, now taking her hand and smoothing the backs of her little claws over his face. "Why do you seem so familiar?" And how could he feel half in love with her already? As if he'd fal on his sword should they be parted?

"We met, ages ago." She seemed alternately sad and excited, brows drawn one instant, a breathless smile blooming the next. "But if I tell you, you will think me crazed."

"No more than I, to have dreamed of a woman I'd never seen." Ever since he'd come to this castle, he'd been beset with dreams of her.

"In a past life, you were a berserker, a warrior in Woden's guard. You served my father." She paused, then added, "And you'd planned to wed me."

Wed her? He drew even closer. "I do not know who you believe I am, but I will gladly be this man."

Her eyes searched his expression as she said, "You were cal ed Aidan the Fierce."

Clearly her affections had already been claimed by this Aidan. "Why do you think me him?" She had mistaken Treves for someone else. I cannot surrender her.

I will not.

"Your eyes glowed like a berserker's. And I sense it's you. The fact that you've dreamed of me convinces me beyond doubt." When he cast her a dubious look, she said, "You've been re-embodied, your soul housed in another form."