Ragnarök Rising

by Nora Ash

  “But why does it matter who I am?” I asked, having about zero desire to try and huddle up underneath a tree during the torrential downpour my vision had shown me. “I’m just a human—remember?”

  “You’re also the omega fated to protect her mates through Ragnarök,” Grim said. “If Saga suddenly shows up with a claimed omega in tow, some will realize why. And they’ll see it as us trying to stop Ragnarök.”

  “And that’s… a bad thing?” I asked.

  “The Jotunns want Ragnarök to come,” Saga said. “It marks the time where they will finally overthrow the gods.”

  “And screw the rest of us?” I shot Bjarni a pointed look. He’d been so busy telling me Jotunns weren’t evil, he’d apparently forgotten to mention how they were jockeying for the end of the world to roll around.

  He ignored me, giving me a thoughtful once-over. “What if she wasn’t an omega, though?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest when his gaze lingered for a bit too long. “Why, do you have a cure that’ll turn me beta again? Because then I’m all for it.”

  “I’m gonna miss your tits,” Bjarni sighed. He handed over the piece of ripped cloth he and Saga were busy wrapping tightly around my chest, skimming my exposed skin in the process. His hands were so warm compared to the chill of the air, it sent a shock all the way into my blood. They were both so close to me, I was practically swarmed in their heady alpha scent, and despite the awkwardness of being half-naked in front of all three brothers, I had to fight not to let their nearness distract me.

  Not that I wanted anything they had to offer.

  “I’m not gonna miss you ogling them,” I replied tartly. “But breathing was nice.”

  Saga chuckled, his warm breath ghosting over my nape and setting the small hairs there on end. “We’ll free them as soon as the storm’s passed and we’re on our way to the Spine again.”

  “I’m sure you will,” I muttered.

  Another chuckle rumbled from Bjarni this time, as Saga secured the cloth and pulled one of the extra tunics his brothers had brought in their packs over my head. It was so long, it hit my knees. I cast a sad look at Verdandi’s black leather top stuffed into the bag—it might have been overly feathery, but right now I felt like a little kid playing dress-up in her dad’s clothes.

  “Let’s cover that pretty face, hmm?” Bjarni said, offering me a cheeky wink. And then he bent to scoop up a handful of mud, and proceeded to smear it across my cheeks and forehead.

  “Ugh, is that really necessary?” I complained. “Does being dirty really make me look less like an omega? Or are you just being a massive sexist right now?”

  “It’ll help with the disguise,” Saga said, spinning me around to face him. “Grim, give me a hand.”

  The dark-haired alpha, who’d been waiting on the outskirts while Bjarni and Saga tied my breasts flat, sauntered over. “Can’t do a little illusion work on your own, brother?”

  “Shut up and get to it,” Saga said as he grabbed my face lightly between both hands and studied it much like an artist would a clump of clay. “I’ll do her face—you do her hips and ass.”

  Cool, strong hands landed on my hips from behind, and every hair on the back of my body stood on end when Grim stepped in close. I could feel the odd chill from him, as if his strong body was Neptune, gravitational pull tugging on me. But in front of me Saga radiated with alpha heat, like the sun warming my front and stabilizing the uneasy drag from Grim’s frigid presence.

  I was so preoccupied with the warring sensations of heat and cold I didn’t notice the magic before darkness interwoven with sparks of light swept around my body.

  Saga touched his fingers to my cheek bones, directing the dark energy in a smooth flow along my features. He caressed my jaw and brushed against my lips, smoothing his hand down the column of my neck in a light but firm grip that—completely uninvited—made me remember his dominance when he’d claimed me.

  Behind me, Grim dragged his knuckles up from the swell of my hips, working his fingers over my waist and up to my bottom rib in slow, gliding movements. I breathed in deeply and tried to ignore tingling sensations of awareness spreading from the chilled bite of his fingertips sinking through my clothes. An exercise that wholly died when he smoothed one hand down the front of my stomach to rest over my sex.

  I jolted hard, the sheer shock of the intimate touch making me gasp out loud, but Grim’s touch was clinical—detached. He pressed against my mons, then slid his hand back around to my hip and over my backside to join with the other.

  Heat radiated from my cheeks as he rubbed over my ass and down my thighs with the same precision of a doctor assessing a patient. Maybe if it’d just been him, I would have been fine—but his cold yet intimate touches were underlined by Saga’s warm, gentle caresses to my face, and my body lit up from the inside like a Christmas tree.

  Heat rushed from Saga’s fingertips through my skin and down my body to warm every place Grim touched, sending my blood through my veins in heavy pulses until I was acutely aware of every single inch of my skin—and the way my nipples strained against their confines.

  Holy damn, how can a bit of magic take to finish?

  Just as I was certain I wasn’t going to be able to keep it together any longer, they both stepped back from me, the darkness fading from my body as swiftly as it’d come.

  “Well, that’s certainly something,” Bjarni rumbled, a lopsided grin lighting up his scruffy face as he took me in. “But I’m still aching to bury my head between your legs until you gush.” He adjusted his cock through his pants with a large hand, but not before I saw the beginning of a swell at the front of them.

  My blush heated up about a million degrees as uninvited flashes of what he’d suggested tore through my mind, spurred on by the lingering sensation of his brothers’ touches. Without looking in his direction I turned and walked to the slow-moving creek we’d been following since morning and bent over it to catch a look at myself.

  The transformation was startling. I still looked like me, but… also not. More accurately, I looked like I would have, if I’d been a twelve-year old boy. My lips were slightly narrower, the Cupid’s bow less pronounced, my cheekbones softer and my jawline sharper. From what I could see of my waist and down, Grim had evened out the curve of my waist and hips. And—I blinked twice and leaned closer to double-check. Yup. I had a hint of a male form at the apex of my thighs.

  “It’s her scent,” Grim said, pulling my attention back from the jaw-dropping image in the water. “No illusion’s gonna cover that.”

  “I can wash,” I suggested. But when I turned around to look at them, the dark-haired alpha just gave me a dark look.

  “It won’t help,” Saga rumbled, and I didn’t miss the hoarse note to his voice. I wish it didn’t affect me—but it did. It pulled on something deep inside, laid bare by the heightened sense of awareness his and his brother’s touches had left me in. As a—most unwelcome—result, the rasp of Saga’s voice sent shockwaves through my body and into my clit.

  “Not when you smell like that,” he continued, advancing on me with a single step that spoke of agility to rival a large cat’s.

  My heart slammed into overdrive, mixed instincts vying for dominance as I found myself caught between an urge to run and a need to surrender.

  “Stop that,” Grim hissed. “You’re making it worse, and it’s not going to be long before the storm’s on us, and we still have a couple of hours to Udgard.”

  I blinked, heat of an entirely different kind reaching my cheeks when I realized what, exactly, it was they could smell: my arousal.

  “Goddamn alphas,” I muttered, hiding my face in my hands to regain my sanity.

  “We need to find something to mask her smell,” Bjarni rumbled. His voice had also taken on a distinctly hoarse note, but the devilish grin on his face was more mischievous than anything else. “And I think I have an idea.”

  19

  Saga

  I had to give Anna
bel credit—for a woman her size, she put up a hell of a fight when it dawned on her what Bjarni’s plan was.

  In the end, though, it didn’t matter. My blond brother was much faster and much stronger than her, and he simply pinned her down on the forest floor as he rubbed deer droppings in her armpits, hair, backs of knees, and inner thighs while she kicked and cussed and promised him a lifetime of misery.

  She spent the rest of the walk quietly seething, only offering Bjarni the filthiest of glares whenever he tried to charm his way back into her good graces.

  I didn’t mind, though. His plan actually worked; she no longer smelled tantalizingly like omega and Annabel. And—instead of walking by his side as she had since I lost my temper with her—she stayed near me as we made our way to Udgard. Not quite by my side, but hovering around my vicinity, drifting nearer when she was too preoccupied snarling at Bjarni to realize.

  I’d regretted my earlier harsh words the instant they were out of my mouth, and I felt the painful yank from my bond as her trust in me shattered into a thousand pieces. But it had to be done. I had to use any means necessary—including my magic—to get her to follow me. Anything to make her pick me over him.

  As if summoned by my thoughts, the other end of the connection shuddered, and I gritted my teeth to refrain from rubbing at my chest. A few feet away Annabel gasped and pressed her hand to her chest.

  Magni.

  He was only an echo for me, and that was closer than I’d ever wanted to be to that prick. The sooner Loki found a way to rid Annabel of his claim, the better. Perhaps then she’d finally see that I only wanted what was best for her.

  That I wasn’t her second choice.

  I clenched my fists when Magni’s words echoed through my head. Waiting for table scraps.

  All my life I’d had to fight to prove that I was good enough, worthy enough, and even now, after I’d claimed the omega who would save my bloodline… even she hadn’t picked me first.

  He was right—she’d been on the cusp of her heat, and she’d still fled into the wilderness to escape me. Into his arms.

  And now, the only way she’d truly be mine was if Magni’s claim was annulled.

  “Saga?” Annabel’s quiet voice sounded from my side. From almost as close as she’d been while I’d disguised her, and the beautiful scent of her need rose heady in my nostrils. Even her desire I wasn’t able to quell, because if I gave her what she truly needed, she’d only hate me more.

  “What?” It came out angrier than I’d intended, and I felt her recoil a step. I kept my gaze on the path ahead.

  “I… Never mind.”

  Regret flared hot in my chest, but she was already dropping further behind, putting physical distance between us mirroring the strained bond pulled tight in my chest.

  “We’re here!”

  I snapped my attention up at the sound of Grim’s call, every muscle in my body tensing as I spied Udgard’s walls in the distance. Now was not the time to worry about my frayed bond.

  The first drops of rain began to fall as I stared at the stronghold, praying that I’d be able to keep Annabel safe.

  We weren’t the only ones seeking refuge from the storm in Udgard. Jotunns poured through the tall gates of the fortress to the mead hall within, while others rushed around outside to finish up their chores before the weather got too bad.

  Annabel stared wide-eyed at everything from the many gruff-looking Jotunns to the impressive stone and timber structure rising up above us. The door was maybe thirty feet tall, and the sprawling building itself representing an oversized version of some unholy marriage between a large farm and a fortress. The function was something similar.

  “Keep quiet and close,” I muttered to my brothers as we entered the hall. “The less attention we draw, the better. And you—” I looked at Annabel. “—do not move from my side under any circumstance. Got it?”

  She nodded instantly, pushing up close against me when an eight-feet-tall Jotunn shoved his way past us. He looked like there was more than a few drops of troll somewhere in his ancestry.

  When I offered her my hand, she clung onto it with no hesitation and my bond hummed in my chest, because despite everything, she still sought my protection in times of danger. Magni might have frayed our connection, but it wasn’t damaged beyond repair.

  The mead hall sprawled out wide and huge. It was the center of activity in Udgard, workers, warriors, and travelers from near and far finding their way here every day of the year. Udgarsloke, the chieftain, opened his halls for everyone who passed through his desolate land—though not everyone made it out again. Those too weak to protect themselves often found a slave collar around their necks as payment for their host’s hospitality.

  “Over there,” Bjarni said, nodding to a quiet corner far from the roaring hearths. It was past several rows of long tables already more than half full of laughing, shouting men. Warriors mostly, it looked like from their armor and weapons.

  My brothers closed in around Annabel, Grim to her other side, Bjarni in front, shielding her from view as we crossed the mead hall. We might have disguised her, but the less anyone got a chance to look at her the better. It was the first time my mate had been this cooperative since I picked her up at the airport what felt like eons ago, and I felt her anxiety flutter in our bond. But also something else—curiosity.

  I glanced down at her, and saw her peeking out between the bulk of Grim’s arms and his body, taking in everything with her mouth half-open in wonder.

  “Are you enjoying this?” I asked, frowning at the great hall to try and guess what’d piqued her interest enough to challenge her natural sense of danger at being surrounded by so many violent brutes.

  “No. Well… it’s just… everything looks like it’s from the Viking era. It’s like seeing living, breathing history,” she said, then grimaced when the troll-blooded shoved past us to sit down on a half-empty bench. “Or at least living, breathing legends….”

  I eyed her quietly as she took in Udgard’s mead hall with an unmistakable curiosity, despite the looming danger of the aggressive Jotunns around us. She might have been disguised as a boy, but the flush in her cheeks and gleam in her eyes still brought my cock to attention. Not many humans ever crossed the fabric between Midgard and Jotunheim, but of those who did, none had held their head high in the center of Udgard, surrounded by Jotunns. Yet Annabel did. She wasn’t cowering, and despite her strong grip on my hand, the looming danger didn’t quell her curiosity.

  I’d never considered I’d be interested in the Turner girl promised to my lineage for anything more than the sweet pull any omega offered. But Annabel was something more. Something different.

  Underneath the steady urge I had to bend her over and shove my dick up her cunt I’d battled since the first time I saw her, intrigue slowly grew. Bjarni was right—she was fierce. Like a warrior. Even if she was just a human blessed by the Norns with clear sight.

  “I’ll grab us something to eat,” Bjarni said as Grim and I sat down, keeping Annabel between us. “And if you give me a smile, I’ll find you a honey cake too, sweetie.” The last bit he said while looking at Annabel, a hopeful smile on his bearded face. She completely ignored him.

  Bjarni’s smile faltered at her silent rejection and he turned to fetch the food. Poor sod wasn’t used to having to work for forgiveness. He’d usually flash a smile and have whatever womenfolk he’d upset forgive any and all transgressions. A not small part of me was decidedly gleeful that Annabel wasn’t that easy. At least I wasn’t the only Lokisson she was mad at.

  “Who’s that?” Annabel asked, bringing my attention to the front of the hall with a nod.

  I followed her gaze to the dais, where a large Jotunn sat leisurely sprawled on a low throne made of wood and animal hides.

  “That’s Udgardsloke. The chieftain of Udgard. And it’s best if he doesn’t notice us.”

  “Why?” she asked, frowning as a young woman wearing nothing but a slave collar and a skirt made
from sewn hides kneeled by his side and offered him a large horn full of mead. “Because you’re the sons of a god?”

  “Not exactly,” I said, smirking as the slave girl reached between Udgardsloke’s legs and freed his cock, causing Annabel’s cheeks to flame red before she quickly averted her gaze. “We’re on good terms. And he’s been known to even host Thor on occasion—he’s a lot less prejudiced than the mighty gods of Asgard. But he’s also one of the most conniving men in all the worlds. He’s outsmarted even Loki on more than one occasion—and I don’t want to take my chances that he won’t be able to see through your disguise.”

  “Oh. Right.” She pointedly kept her eyes away from the dais as the slave girl bobbed her head up and down between the chieftain’s thighs. “Looks like he’s too busy to worry about us anyway.”

  I chuckled at her obvious discomfort. She may be a warrior at heart, but she was also still just a human girl—and I found her embarrassment at basic needs adorable. “Not everyone would rather run through a blizzard than have their needs tended to, sweetling.”

  She shot me a glare. “I thought you were going to murder me in a heathen ritual.”

  “I’d never hurt you,” I murmured, stroking a finger along her cheek. “None of us would.”

  “No, just rape me,” she said, but despite the anger in her voice she didn’t move away from my touch.

  “This song and dance again? We both know you wanted it. Do you not remember how your body begged for my cock? How hard you came on my knot? Why do you insist on playing the victim, Annabel, when we both know you’re anything but?” I slid my thumb down to her lower lip, smirking when her breathing turned just a bit uneven.

  “You need to stop playing with the girl,” Grim growled quietly from Annabel’s other side, his voice terse. “Her scent is seeping through.”

  I inhaled deeply and caught the first delicate whiff of female arousal and shot my mate a knowing grin. Yeah, she liked playing the unwilling party, but she couldn’t hide her body’s instinctive response.