Dreams of a Dark Warrior Read Free Page B

what possessed you to leave the safety of your home, child?”
    “I am no child! And I’ve been safe enough.”
Except for the bloodthirsty foes I had to face to reach this side of the conflict.
“I’ve slain vampires.” But it’d been close.
I lost my sword early in that skirmish, too.
    He waved away her words as if they were mere fables. “Reginleit, answer me.”
    Though she suspected she should be secretive and cautious with a stranger like this, she’d never learned to be either. And she needed his help. Out spilled the truth: “I followed my favorite sister when she followed a man. He promised to wed Lucia, yet I am uneasy. She is everything to me, and I believe she is in danger.” Regin couldn’t explain how she knew, but she felt as if time was running out for her sister.
    “You left heaven for her? Though you can never go back?”
    “’Tis forbidden for a Valkyrie to return.”
    “Then I applaud your loyalty.”
    “She would do the same for me.” As exasperated as Regin made her—indeed, all her sisters—she knew Lucia loved her.
    “You sought me this night,” he said. “What would you have me do?”
    “I need assistance to find Lucia.”
    “Done,” he said with a shrug. “I will do everything possible to reunite her with you.”
    Regin blinked up at him. “Because you serve Wóden?”
    “Nay.” He rose to pace, running his hand over his mouth. “I do this because we will serve each other.”
    “I do not take your meaning.”
    “There is no easy way to say this. Reginleit, when you are grown, you will become my wife.”
    “Are you mad, mortal?” she cried, her skin glowing brighter. “Like my sister Nïx?”
    “Nïx the Ever-Knowing, the soothsayer?”
    “She’s touched with visions. What is your explanation?”
    He looked to stifle a grin. “You are direct, a good trait. But I’m not mad. I’m a berserker. Do you understand what the men of my people are?”
    “I’ve heard tales of your kind. You’re stronger than other mortals, faster. And you’re all possessed by the spirit of a beast. The snarling, the fighting, the possessiveness—all the traits of a lean bear in winter.”
    “’Tis true. And the beast in me sensed its mate, rousing inside me from your very first words. I thought you would be older when we met, but I feel fortunate just to have found you.”
    He said this as if it was an understatement. She was speechless. A rarity.
    “In the morn, I will take you to my family’s holdings in the north,” he continued. “My parents will complete your upbringing and keep you safe until I return for you. I will bring your sister there to join you.”
    An actual madman stood before her! This situation grew interesting. Regin found she might like to play with mad mortals. Feigning an earnest tone, she asked, “And how long would it be until you returned for me?”
    “Mayhap in five or six years. When you are grown, and I have warred enough to earn my own immortality. Then we would wed.”
    Ah, she remembered now. Berserkers could earn
ohalla,
deathlessness, from Wóden once they’d won two hundred battles in his name. They tattooed his mark—dual ravens in flight—upon their chests.
    She wondered if the battles had come before the rule, or if the rule had spurred the battles. “I’m to sit there and wait for you? What if another mortal decides I’m to be his chattel instead?”
    His hands clenched. “You are meant for
me
alone,” he said in a strange tone. “Do you understand what I am saying?”
    “I’m not ignorant of such things.” She was almost completely ignorant of such things—of men, of coupling. She couldn’t comprehend why her sister would ever voluntarily leave the paradise of Valhalla to follow a man.
    One I do not trust.
    “Reginleit, you will not know another male.” His gaze held hers. “I consider us wed from this moment on.”
    What a crazed mortal; how touched in the head. Her father would turn this berserker to ash if he dared