He glowered but said nothing.
"Every day your army trenched in closer to the castle, almost in trebuchet range. But we'd known it was only a matter of time. Your men were fanatical y loyal, and you were a master strategist. Lucia was running out of arrows. My blades were dul ed from cleaving bone. We hadn't slept in days ..."
When she began describing the setting-the smel of smoke and tar, the lingering rock dust from the battered castle wal s, the smithy's constant hammering-he leaned back in his chair, the marked tension in his shoulders lessening.
As she recounted the weeks of battle, the foot-soldier offensives and arrow exchanges, he relaxed even more, resting his hands behind his head. Chase liked these tales.
"Then came the day of reckoning. The trebuchets were loaded, and so close that we could hear the ropes straining. Before you fired them, you rode up to the portcul is, astride a wild-eyed stal ion.
Skirmishes slowed, quieting until only a stray sword clanged here or there. You were tal , not as tal as you are now, but massive in armor. I would have known you were Treves even if you hadn't been carrying your standard, a red banner with two ravens in flight."
"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?"