“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 Wóden’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 Wóden’s treasured daughters?”

Shoulders back, Regin said, “Most treasured. Above all my sisters.” Except for Lucia. And Nïx. 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.”