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Authors: Kresley Cole
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for her head and another with a sedative-filled syringe. She struggled wildly as they tightened the sack over her.
Once they’d administered the sedative, her body twitched twice, then fell limp. Utterly defenseless.
This creature had demonstrated monstrous power. Now she lay as if dead.
His men disarmed her, then tossed her into the sole functioning van. Her shirt rode up, revealing the bloody wound Declan had given her.
Why was he sickened? He raked his hand throughhis hair, then squeezed his forehead. His skull felt like it was splitting.
A thousand times he’d struck, collecting enemies to be taken back to the Order’s compound. What was different about this one?
“Magister?” a soldier said. “Are you all right, sir?”
Declan gazed at their captive, then down at his gloved hands, noting how they shook.
No, I’m not fuckin’ all right!
He’d almost wished his hands had been bare when he’d taken her. To feel a woman’s flesh after so long …
He’d craved touching her even as he’d stabbed her.
Sick.
Declan peered at the soldier. As he coldly said, “Of course, I’m all right,” he thought,
They’re being led by a madman.
THREE
I n the transport plane’s cabin, Declan scuffed to the bed, only partially dried off from his recent shower. He shed the towel around his hips, then fell back on the foam mattress. Shoving the heels of his palms against his eyes, he rubbed till his lids stung.
His fatigue wasn’t surprising. Whenever he un-leashed his abilities, he suffered acute exhaustion, which was one of the reasons he took medicine to diminish them. Plus, he seldom slept on these hunting trips.
Just hours after the Valkyrie, he and his remaining men had set back out and bagged an easily captured witch. Now, at last, he could return home.
He should be out cold, but the tension within him wound even tighter. For as long as he could remember, he’d felt a constant pain in his chest coupled with a punishing anxiety that ate at the pit of his gut. To this, he added frequent nightmares about a fiend at his back, his body gored by steel, and a woman’s screams.
That harrowing sense of loss …
He called it
the strain
. Because even as a lad, he’d known it would break him one day.
His medicine helped, but those nightly injectionscouldn’t quell it completely. It proved too strong, too pervasive.
Right now, the strain was grueling, and he’d depleted his travel supply yesterday. They were still hours away from their isolated destination—a secret installation in the stormy southern Pacific. Which meant hours before he could score more.
Declan supposed it was his fate always to be injecting something.
The ride was jarring, the weather turbulent. He didn’t mind flying, had trained as a pilot, but this nauseated even him.
Or maybe it was the aftereffects of this night’s work.
The betrayed look in the Valkyrie’s eyes still con-founded him. When capturing immortals, he’d been critically injured, even bespelled once; but never had one looked at him with recognition and then … hurt. As if he’d broken the gravest promise.
Never had he nearly vomited in the midst of a capture.
He lifted the rubber-edged dog tags hanging around his neck. Behind one, he’d soldered a small medallion, an old Irish charm for luck. His da had bought it for him when Declan was a lad. At times like this, Declan would rub his thumb over it, though no luck had ever come of it.
It was a reminder of what her kind had cost him, what they were capable of.
The Valkyrie had killed ten of his men.
And yet he couldn’t stop himself from glancing athis cabin door. She was in the transport bay. He could reach it easily from here.
What is this?
Why did Declan feel like he’d die if he didn’t see her that second?
He recalled that expression of ecstasy on her face—and the way he’d responded. He remembered his thoughts at that moment, was shamed by the ideas that had arisen.
To touch that glowing skin, to
Once they’d administered the sedative, her body twitched twice, then fell limp. Utterly defenseless.
This creature had demonstrated monstrous power. Now she lay as if dead.
His men disarmed her, then tossed her into the sole functioning van. Her shirt rode up, revealing the bloody wound Declan had given her.
Why was he sickened? He raked his hand throughhis hair, then squeezed his forehead. His skull felt like it was splitting.
A thousand times he’d struck, collecting enemies to be taken back to the Order’s compound. What was different about this one?
“Magister?” a soldier said. “Are you all right, sir?”
Declan gazed at their captive, then down at his gloved hands, noting how they shook.
No, I’m not fuckin’ all right!
He’d almost wished his hands had been bare when he’d taken her. To feel a woman’s flesh after so long …
He’d craved touching her even as he’d stabbed her.
Sick.
Declan peered at the soldier. As he coldly said, “Of course, I’m all right,” he thought,
They’re being led by a madman.
THREE
I n the transport plane’s cabin, Declan scuffed to the bed, only partially dried off from his recent shower. He shed the towel around his hips, then fell back on the foam mattress. Shoving the heels of his palms against his eyes, he rubbed till his lids stung.
His fatigue wasn’t surprising. Whenever he un-leashed his abilities, he suffered acute exhaustion, which was one of the reasons he took medicine to diminish them. Plus, he seldom slept on these hunting trips.
Just hours after the Valkyrie, he and his remaining men had set back out and bagged an easily captured witch. Now, at last, he could return home.
He should be out cold, but the tension within him wound even tighter. For as long as he could remember, he’d felt a constant pain in his chest coupled with a punishing anxiety that ate at the pit of his gut. To this, he added frequent nightmares about a fiend at his back, his body gored by steel, and a woman’s screams.
That harrowing sense of loss …
He called it
the strain
. Because even as a lad, he’d known it would break him one day.
His medicine helped, but those nightly injectionscouldn’t quell it completely. It proved too strong, too pervasive.
Right now, the strain was grueling, and he’d depleted his travel supply yesterday. They were still hours away from their isolated destination—a secret installation in the stormy southern Pacific. Which meant hours before he could score more.
Declan supposed it was his fate always to be injecting something.
The ride was jarring, the weather turbulent. He didn’t mind flying, had trained as a pilot, but this nauseated even him.
Or maybe it was the aftereffects of this night’s work.
The betrayed look in the Valkyrie’s eyes still con-founded him. When capturing immortals, he’d been critically injured, even bespelled once; but never had one looked at him with recognition and then … hurt. As if he’d broken the gravest promise.
Never had he nearly vomited in the midst of a capture.
He lifted the rubber-edged dog tags hanging around his neck. Behind one, he’d soldered a small medallion, an old Irish charm for luck. His da had bought it for him when Declan was a lad. At times like this, Declan would rub his thumb over it, though no luck had ever come of it.
It was a reminder of what her kind had cost him, what they were capable of.
The Valkyrie had killed ten of his men.
And yet he couldn’t stop himself from glancing athis cabin door. She was in the transport bay. He could reach it easily from here.
What is this?
Why did Declan feel like he’d die if he didn’t see her that second?
He recalled that expression of ecstasy on her face—and the way he’d responded. He remembered his thoughts at that moment, was shamed by the ideas that had arisen.
To touch that glowing skin, to
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