The Immortals After Dark 11: Dreams of a Dark Warrior

He drew his head back, his gaze narrowed. "No one keeps me from you, Reginleit." When he realized his very accent had changed, his jaw slackened with shock.

I am this man she spoke of.

Which meant that she belonged to him. "Mine. Woman, you are mine."

"A-Aidan?"

Blood surged within him as a frenzy took hold. "I have come for you." Love for her pounded in his chest, matching the fever of his need.

Her eyes went wide, the irises pure silver. "You've remembered me!"

"From the moment I took your lips."

"H-how?" She arched beneath him. "How could you return?"

He didn't know; as he drove into her body, it didn't matter. "Nothing keeps me from you. Nothing! " He cupped her face, pul ing her up to him. "Tel me that you belong to me."

"I belong to you." Her claws sunk into his back as she gasped and writhed. "Ah, gods, I've missed you so much!"

He felt her sex tightening around his shaft, knew she was about to cl**ax. I will take her over the edge, will make her scream with abandon.

"Follow me!" she cried.

"Wherever you lead." Plunging into her madly, he did. ...

Declan woke with his back bowed, his hand on his cock, precisely two quick pumps away from spending.

"Regin!" he bel owed when his seed erupted. He f**ked his fist, imagining it was her tight little quim as lash after lash of scorching se**n struck his torso. He yel ed until his voice went hoarse, until the pressure finally ebbed. ...

He was left gasping for breath, sprawled on his bed-with no pain, no anxiety, no strain. Only after- shudders from the most powerful ejaculation he'd ever experienced.

He'd masturbated to a dream about a detrus and had come so hard, his spend had nearly reached his chin.

I hadn't known I could come so hard.

How had he lived without this for so long?

He groaned, wal owing in a kind of sick satisfaction. The guilt would arise soon enough, but for right now, he lay stunned, his limbs boneless.

Sick.

What was happening to him? Just like the Treves she spoke of, Declan felt like he was going mad.

And, as in the dream, he'd begun having those stray thoughts, as if someone else was inside him.

In the end, Treves had been taken over by Aidan, the berserker's memories overriding the knight's, sublimating them.

The f**k that will be happenin' to me. No, this was an entrancement. Regin was a born kil er, an unnatural, deathless female. Damn it, he didn't feel this way about her.

Go run, go train. Go kil something. But relaxation made his muscles lethargic, not with sleepiness, just ... ease.

Yet soon enough humiliation begun to burn within him. Here he was, nearly comatose with pleasure after stroking off to one of them.

Where's your iron will now, Dekko? With a bitter curse, he forced himself to rise and wipe off his chest. Stay away from her. Ignore her. Fight this-His private line rang. Webb.

Just in time to make the humiliation and guilt complete. Declan crossed to his console, answered the call.

"You sound like hel , son. You losing your voice?"

There was something in Webb's tone that immediately set him on edge. Paranoia gripped him yet again. "No, sir." Just my mind.

Webb wasted no time. "I've received some disturbing reports about you and the Valkyrie."

"No doubt from Fegley." Though Vincente was privy to Declan's dealings, he didn't suspect the man for even a moment.

"Perhaps it was. The fact remains that I've heard disconcerting things."

"She delivers information to me," Declan said. "Information you ordered me to get."

"Then why haven't any transcripts been uploaded?"

Because Declan needed to edit them first-so her pleas for him to kiss her never went on record.

"They will be," he bit out, the harshest tone he'd taken with the man since that first night in the hospital.

A long pause fol owed. "Look, son, guarding the monstrous ones is relatively easy. It's far more difficult to guard the innocent-faced ones, the beautiful ones. The ones that sound like us, dress like us, mimic our species in every way. They cal to our sympathy. You're there because you have no sympathy.

You're devoid of emotions like that."

Declan's mind flashed back to his training-the intermittent sleep and food deprivation, the combat simulation with live rounds and no pulled strikes. He remembered the butt of a rifle slamming into his temple as his commander yel ed, "You're more of a monster than the creatures out there. ..."

At seventeen, he'd been shown photos of what detrus did to mortals. Hour after hour of grisly images for days. No sleep. In the end, his bloodshot eyes had rol ed back in his head, and he'd col apsed.

To this day, I punish myself with photos. ...

"They'l fil you with doubt," Webb continued, "make you question your mission. Is it already happening?"

Making his voice like steel, he said, "Absolutely not, sir." He refused to elaborate, refused to try to convince Webb to see that he was still solid.

He remained staunch, his hatred stoked as hot as ever.

"Good." Webb exhaled a relieved breath. "In any case, I'm arriving next week."

Next bloody week? No! Not that soon. But knowing it was inevitable, Declan said, "Very good, sir."

Have to beat this obsession with the Valkyrie. Webb would see through Declan's indifferent guise in a heartbeat.

"I look forward to viewing the new addition to your col ection. Is everything on schedule for Malkom Slaine's capture?"

My next acquisition. Slaine was a vampiric demon, a made immortal creature. Through some unknown ritual, a demon could be poisoned with a vampire's blood, gifting it with the strengths of both species.

Col oquial y known as vemons, they were rumored to be the most powerful of the beings in the Lore, stronger even than a Lykae in his prime.

There were only four known vemons alive. Declan wanted to destroy them and forever bury the knowledge of their genesis.

"We've set the plan in motion." Declan had dispatched Carrow the witch to Slaine's home-a hel plane cal ed Oblivion-in order to lure him into a trap. In return, he'd promised to free her and her young cousin.

An easy lie. After his hel ish entrancement, Declan held a singular hatred for witches. And the young one had already kil ed twenty soldiers with her unearthly powers.

Carrow was due back in less than a week. He gave her a six-in-ten chance of succeeding.

"Everything's on schedule, sir."

"Excel ent. And while I'm there, you and I are going to take some time off. We'l have a proper visit outside of work and all this madness."