Kresley Cole - Dreams of a Dark Warrior

Lucia’s solution to Regin’s solution? Leave her behind when she was nursing a hangover.

Abandoned me like last year’s wardrobe. Regin’s claws dug into the steering wheel. After a millennium of never leaving each other’s side. But last year’s wardrobe is determined to make a comeback.

“Nïx, you promised you’d tell me where Luce is if I did everything you asked me. I cleaned your room. I took your Bentley to the shop after you went off-roading again. And I put in hours at the Lore foundling house with those little punks.” Regin had begun to call it the Lorphanage and predicted it’d stick. “I need to keep moving anyway. You know he’s returning soon.”

Aidan. With his heart-stopping smile and big, possessive hands. Though she longed to see her Viking in any reincarnation, she’d decided that he might actually live a full life if he never found her.

Nïx sighed. “Have you truly given up all hope of finding a way to be with him?”

Regin glanced over at her, trying not to feel even a sliver of hope. “Any reason not to give up?”

“I believe my advice to you was ‘Go find and bang your berserker.’”

“Huh. Well, see, I tried that, and it didn’t quite work out for me.” The last four times! “I just can’t … I’m not doing it again.” The guilt got worse with each reincarnation. She was his doom, might as well deal the deathblow herself.

Aidan had been sword-struck in his first life, poisoned in his second, crushed during a shipwreck in his third. In his fourth, he’d been shot. All directly after she and his reincarnation had made love for the first time.

“Unless you can tell me things might be different this time?” Regin added. Damn, could she sound more desperate? But Nïx helped other immortals with things like this. Why not me?

“What would you do to be with him, hmm? What would you sacrifice?”

“To break this curse, I would do just about any-thing.”

“Just about?” After long, tense moments, Nïx said, “I have no resolution to tell you.” She couldn’t foresee everything, wasn’t all -knowing. Instead, she’d been dubbed the Ever-Knowing, because her visions had appeared without fail for three millennia.

“No resolution?” She hadn’t expected Nïx to pony up the answer to a thousand-year-old curse before Regin ran her next red light, but a crumb of hope would’ve been nice.

“No matter,” Nïx said. “You must find something to occupy yourself. There’s more to life than destroying vampires.”

“Right. Like destroying evil cannibal gods with Lucia,” Regin said, proud of her segue.

“Always back to Lucia. You’re exceedingly loyal to all your friends—even to your own detriment.”

“Whatever. Loyalty’s not a bad thing.”

“It is when you leave heaven for it. It is when you have nothing to show for it. For instance, your some-some meter is reading empty. What about that nice leopard-shifter pack that wanted to date you? The benefits of a variety pack of males cannot be overstated.”

If the rest of her sisters—or, gods forbid, her witch buddies—found out Regin hadn’t been laid in nearly two hundred years, she’d never live it down. But like some stupid, sappy tool, she stayed faithful to Aidan and his reincarnates.

“Are you happy, Regin?”

She gave Nïx the look her question deserved. “I’m the prankster, remember? The happy-go-lucky one. Ask anyone—they’ll tell you I’m the cheeriest Valkyrie.” She studied Nïx’s expression, this time noticing the shadows under her sister’s eyes. “Why? Are you happy? You seem tired all the time.” She didn’t mention Nïx’s shrieking fits or disappearances, the bizarre eccentricities that only grew worse.

“I’m actively involved in steering the lives of thousands of beings. Which directly affects hundreds of thousands, which indirectly affects millions, with a ripple effect reaching billions. If someone said, ‘It ain’t easy being Nïxie,’ I wouldn’t call him a liar.”

Regin never really thought about the pressure Nïx might be under. If the bat made her happy and calmed her, then … Welcome to the family, Bertil.

In a prickly tone, Nïx said, “And yet all anyone talks about is how the Enemy of Old is making power plays in the Lore. His power plays are child’s play compared to mine.”

Like Nïx, Lothaire the Enemy of Old was one of the oldest and most powerful beings in the Lore. But the vampire was pure evil.

Nïx sniffed, “Lothaire’s no saner than I am.”

As Regin opened her mouth to correct her, Nïx amended, “Not much saner.”

“There, now.” Regin reached over to pat Nïx’s shoulder, but that bat hissed at her. “Why don’t you hook up with someone, cozy away with a male for a few weeks? Weren’t you seeing Mike Rowe?”

“I do miss that baritone-voiced rapscallion.” Nïx sighed. “But above all else, I’m a career woman. I’ve no time to dally.”

“You could take just a short vacay, you know? See some sights.” This might be one of the most lucid conversations I’ve ever had with Nïx.

“I’m three thousand and three years old.” Nïx turned her vacant gaze out the window. “I’ve seen everything —” She sat up, eyes wild. “Squirrel!”

Strike lucid . “Hey, I know, you could come with me to find Lucia!”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to be found just yet. You know she’ll call you before the final showcase showdown with Cruach. For now, I’ve told you she’s with MacRieve.”

“ With with? ’Cause I refuse to believe that yet another Valkyrie is making time with a werewolf.” Much less the prim and proper Lucia.

The earthy Lykae revered sex and matehood; Lucia’s magical skill with a bow was celibacy-based. If she got horizontal with a guy, she’d get kicked out of the Skathians, losing her archery forever. Which she needed to fight Cruach.

Hence the fleeing from MacRieve and all.

“Refuse or accept, I call ’em like I see ’em,” Nïx said. “Now, I have just one final task for you in the Quarter. I need you to go take out some adversaries. Make it an example killing.”

“Example killing? Must be Tuesday. And you’re not going to get in on the action?”

Nïx blinked at her, aghast. “Who will sit Bertil?”

Regin groaned.

“Besides, I’m going to visit Loa’s voodoo shop. She’s having an Accession sale. Everything must go.” She snickered.

“If I do this, will you finally tell me how to find Lucia?”

Another pet of the bat. “Don’t worry, dearling. You’ll fly out tonight. I promise.”

“Are you talking to me or Bertil? Oh, me? Then, fine.” She gunned the car even faster, speeding toward the Quarter. Lucia, I’m on my way … just hold tight. “Tell me where my victims are.”

Late for what? What the hell had the soothsayer meant? Declan was half-tempted to confront Nïx, but she was not to be engaged, by his commander’s order.

So for now he bided his time, pursuing the pair of Valkyrie. Since his Humvee stood no chance of keeping up with Regin’s sports car and maniacal driving, he’d tracked her vehicle while he listened to their conversation—or what he could make out over the static. It was as if an electrical field had interrupted the relay.

What he’d heard had made little sense to Declan—talk of berserkers and cannibals and some absent sister. All he knew for certain was that Regin had been dispatched to kill.

Not who, not where, only why.

An example killing.

Historically her enemies were the vampires and certain species of demons. She might lead him to an entire nest of their kinds.