Today, when he’d been in his berserkrage, those eyes had glowed like storm clouds ablaze with lightning.

Now he pulled the woman onto his lap, no doubt to join in the debauchery. And lo, there he goes. … He began to unlace her straining bodice.

“My liege, a moment,” one of the guards hastened to say. To catch the warlord before ’twas too late?

“What is it?” Aidan didn’t look up from his task of freeing the female’s ponderous breasts. Once he’d loosened her bodice, his big hand dipped down to grasp one.

“This boy demanded to see you.”

Boy. Males always assumed she was of their sex, simply because she wore trews and carried a sword.

Aidan turned, his gaze falling on Regin. “Who are you?” he asked, his deep voice booming. Throughout the hall, the enthusiastic skirmishes and fornicating slowed.

She answered honestly, “I am a weary traveler in need of assistance.”

At her words, his brows drew together. “You sound … familiar.” He removed his hand from the woman’s bodice and sat up straighter, his demeanor now tense. As if her very voice had set him on edge. “Though your accent is strange.”

“Yours is not my first tongue.” She spoke the ancient language of the immortals first, his Norse mortal language second.

“Come forward.”

Though it nettled to take orders from a mere human, Regin stepped forth.

His gaze grew alert, assessing. She knew he was scrutinizing everything about her—her walk, the uncommonly fine material of her cloak, the gold brooch that clasped the hood in place.

The wench tried to reclaim his attention by cupping his face, but Aidan brushed her hand away. When she wriggled suggestively in his lap, he scowled at her and said something in her ear that sent her flouncing away with a huff.