Gods, the feel of rending flesh ... what need have I for a sword?
Landing softly, she hunched low, ready to spring again as the towering warrior bellowed, "He carries hidden daggers?" He gaped at the deep furrows in his skin, slashes that had severed even his leather scabbard. "Aidan, his death is mine! Any taller, and he'd have slit my throat."
Regin said, "I chose not to slit your throat. Thank me with ale."
Suddenly a huge palm closed over her nape. Another hand captured her wrists behind her. Hissing with fury, she twisted around and sank her smallfangs into a brawny forearm.
'Twas the warlord! Aidan had her. How had he moved so quickly?
Lightning struck outside, thunderclaps rattling the hall. If only the bolt would hit me!
"Cease this!" He roughly jostled her until she had to release her bite. Before she could blink, he had her cloak clutched in his fist.
"Nay! Do not!"
He ripped it back. Sucked in a breath. Promptly dropped her.
All around her, wide-eyed men closed in. She hissed again, pivoting to keep the threats in sight, baring her claws and her fangs.
One of them asked, "What is she?"
Aidan frowned down at her. "She is merely a little ... girl."
Brandr said, "By Woden's beard, she glows!"
Regin spat, "He does not wear a beard!"
At her words, recognition flashed in Aidan's expression. His gaze lit on her pointed ears, then her eyes. By the way he stared, she knew they were wavering from amber to silver. "You are a Valkyrie. The one whose skin lights up the night. We've heard tales of you."
"You know nothing of me!"
Raising his brows in challenge, he quoted a recent edda: "'Eyes like amber cast in sun, skin and hair of firelit gold. Formed to war, courage as none, beauty to behold.' You are Reginleit the Radiant."
Now several of the men murmured, "Reginleit," in awed tones.
But not Aidan. He shook his head. "Brightling, you are a very long way from home."
Of course that ass Brandr said, "She is one of Woden's treasured daughters?"
Shoulders back, Regin said, "Most treasured. Above all my sisters." Except for Lucia. And Nix. Likely Kaderin. No need for these mortals to know that perhaps she was not a favorite of his. At present.
"Then why are you in the middle of a war, instead of the safety of Valhalla?" Aidan seemed angry about this. "You're so small." He'd begun to look at her with a peculiar intensity, different from the other men's, more ... protective.
"What concern is it of yours where I might be?" She shoved her braids from her forehead, lifting her chin. "And I'm not that small."
"You are"-he ran a hand over his face-"young."
Beside him, Brandr asked, "What is it, friend? Your eyes grow fierce."
Aidan opened his mouth, closed it. Then he gazed around the scene as if seeing it anew. "Gods." He reached for her with a hand raised, as if to shield her vision. "Come with me, little one. 'Tis no place for you."
She backed up a step.
He cast her a disapproving frown. "I have pledged my life to serve your father; you were born of his lightning. I could no more harm you than I could myself." When she relaxed not one whit, he said, "Come. You must be hungry. You can dine in my quarters." He gathered her sword, offering it to her hilt first.
"There will be plenty to eat."
They would have plenty of food. His army had scavenged this countryside like locusts. All the game that she could have hunted had been slain.