She didn't know when Chase might summon her again-if ever-so she had to make this one chance count. To rekindle his memories, she needed either to coax him to kiss her or to provoke the berserker inside him.
Sex or protracted violence should do it.
"Yeah, weirdly, our cel doesn't have laundry facilities. So I figure I'll wash undies at one time and outerwear at another, always keeping some cover for the cameras. I'm not shy, but frankly, I've had my limit of men chubbing themselves to videos of me. It's moved from simple idolatry to something more sinister." She sauntered over to his desk, hopping atop it, sitting on his papers. "A little too Caged Heat, you know?" Those angry eyes were rapt on her bouncing br**sts.
Between gritted teeth, he ordered her, "Remove yourself from my desk, Valkyrie."
"Fine, huffy." She hopped down and began exploring his office. He said nothing, merely restacked his papers as he observed her.
The decor was modern and posh. Aside from the large mahogany desk and matching floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, he had a luxe leather couch and chairs. Office cabinets had been built into the wal s. Two enormous windows revealed a temperate forest shadowed by night. Only so many places in the world where trees like that grew. ...
Yet there were no pictures or decorations. The bookshelves were empty.
She turned to him. "I'm just relieved you weren't one of the men going fap-fap-fap to my vid. Or were you?" she asked with a stage wink, but his demeanor remained frosty. "So, what's with the gloves? The rumors say you don't like to touch others, or be touched. Care to comment?" She settled on the couch, drawing one knee up to her chest. "I wonder how you have sex. Or maybe you don't."
He'd turned off his anger, his interest, everything. A light extinguished. "You know nothing about me."
"The Blademan's blade is sheathed, huh?" She gave him a slow grin. "I vow to you that I know you better than you know yourself."
"So you keep saying."
Survival time, Regin. She took a steadying breath. Aidan would want me to live.
Besides, she didn't have any choice. Lucia needed her help; Regin needed to survive. Yet still she had difficulty with this plan. Centuries of secret hopes and waiting warred with the need to save Lucia-and herself.
Valkyrie won. "Yeah. A long time ago you were cal ed Aidan the Fierce. I've known you for over a thousand years."
The tension in him eased somewhat. "And yet I'm not even forty."
"You reincarnate. A lot."
"Reincarnate. And often, too? Now, this sounds interesting," he said with a sneer. "How many times would this make it?"
"This is the fourth time that I know of."
"Do I look the same?" He was clearly toying with her.
"Your eyes are the same, but the rest of you is always different. I can recognize you, and you always sense I'm familiar. Even now on some level you do, don't you? Our little torture session probably hurt you just as much as me."
"You're insane," he said easily, confidently.
"I vow to the Lore that I'm tell ing the truth. You know I'm bound by that vow."
"Only when it's made to another of the Lore."
His darkening expression warned her she was on thin ice. Of course, when had that ever stopped her?
"I know you don't want to believe you have anything in common with me. But you are of the Lore." She heard his leather gloves clenching beneath the table, knew he was probably envisioning strangling her.
"Look, let's make a deal. I'll tell you more info about the Lore than you've ever gotten out of any prisoner, and You'll grant me some concessions."
"Such as?"
"As long as I'm giving you information, you don't torture me or Carrow. Or Brandr and Uil eam MacRieve any more than you have," she said. "Or Natalya and Thad. Just lay off me and those friends, and I'll divvy."
She could see the wheels turning. He ful y believed she was nuts. But he also was weighing the odds that she'd reveal something he could use.
Again Chase took the bait. "Agreed. So tell me, Valkyrie. How did you and I meet?"
Chapter FIFTEEN
You were a warlord in the Northlands," the Valkyrie said.
Declan waved her on. But, as she'd done before, she seemed to be wrestling with a decision. Likely deciding the best way to deceive the mortal.
Or perhaps this wasn't a game. Many of the older immortals grew maddened. She might believe what she said.
Yet her eyes looked lucid. "A berserker warlord."
He froze. Of all the factions she could choose ... Brandr had looked familiar to him. As had Regin.
No, this was some sort of scam, a plan to undermine him. He stifled his anger, knowing he would have to tolerate this bul shite in order to garner information from her. "Tel me what you consider a berserker to be." To even pretend this was a possibility rankled, but he didn't see an alternative.
"A berserker is a mortal born with uncommon speed and strength," she said. "He worships the bear and can channel its ferocity into a berserkrage, making him as strong as the most powerful beings on earth. At least temporarily. Afterward, he's debilitated." She cast him a measuring glance.
He evinced no reaction, even as a suspicion began to arise. This might all go back to ... Nix.
"The berserkers swore all egiance to Woden and fought battles in his name."
Though myths rarely corresponded with reality, Declan had researched the Valkyrie's. "Woden is all egedly the father of the Valkyrie."
She nodded. "I'm the daughter of gods. well , two of my three parents are."
"How is there a third parent?"
"When a maiden warrior cal s out for courage as she dies, Woden and Freya strike her with lightning and rescue her to Valhal a. I was in the lightning." She glanced at his expression. "You don't believe me, do you?"
"Immortals are notorious for aggrandizing their own origins. But I've learned never to discount any-thing completely."
"Fair enough."
"Though I do wonder, if your parents are deities, why would they let you be captured by me?"
"Woden and Freya sleep to conserve power. They take sustenance from worship, and the last few centuries have been lean on the Norse god devotion."
If any of this was true ... Information here for the taking. "Who is the third parent?"
"She belonged to a people cal ed the Radiant Ones, an ancient race of mortals who glowed. Does it soften you toward me to know that a mortal woman birthed me?"
It ... surprised him. "Where is she? Where are the Radiant Ones located?"