by Nora Ash
And then… then our bond flooded with the worst sensation of them all: regret.
“I’m sorry. Sweetie, I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered, voice trembling against my ear. “Oh, gods, what have I done?”
Nineteen
Modi
I was pulled from unconsciousness by the most unpleasant yank from something tender and unyielding anchored in my chest.
Groaning, I fought gravity to force my eyelids open. My vision was blurry and took a moment to refocus.
I stared up into a cracked ceiling, and I was lying on some form of hard surface.
A floor, Modi. If you’re staring at a ceiling, it’s probably a floor.
My nose throbbed, as did the rest of my head, and I groaned again, wanting nothing more than to sink back into sweet oblivion.
A woman's sobbing broke through the low hum in my ears, pushing away any and all thoughts of passing out as that awful thing in my chest spasmed again, shooting a bolt of adrenaline right to my brain.
“Annabel, please, please stop crying.” A male voice laced with desperation mixed with the sobs.
Bjarni.
I bolted upright, cursing my vision momentarily blurred again. When it faded, my heart skipped several beats.
On the bed only a few feet from where I sat, Bjarni lay curled on top of a stained mattress as if he was protecting something precious. Or someone.
Bile rose in my throat when my hazy gaze landed on where his knot plugged a woman’s yawning entrance wide, and finally everything came back to me in all=too-vivid detail.
Annabel.
My Annabel.
My sobbing, distraught Annabel whose distress alone had yanked me from the depths of unconsciousness.
Black rage slammed over my mind so instantaneously and completely that every ounce of fear and regret I’d experienced since claiming her vanished. Instinct alone got me to my feet faster than my concussed head would otherwise have allowed.
Without hesitation, I followed the momentum and threw myself on top of Bjarni, roaring like a beast, intent to maim.
“Get off her! Get off my mate!” My fists weren’t as coordinated as they would normally have been, but I got a good few whacks in on the blond giant who’d penetrated my woman before he managed to rear up and throw me off.
I thudded to the floor, my shoulder impacting with the hard surface heavily enough to cause the floorboards to groan.
I was on my feet again in an instant, prepared to resume my attack, when Bjarni held up a hand.
“Stop!” he shouted. “We’re fucking tied, you imbecile. You’ll hurt her!”
Hurt her. Hurt her?
Those two words echoed in my throbbing head, pausing my already raised fist mid-air.
“Modi. Modi, stop.”
That voice.
I stared at the bed, blind to anything but the girl twisting toward me underneath Bjarni’s bulk.
He growled unhappily, but didn’t move to stop me as I stumbled forward like a puppet on a string, that tight ache in my chest pulling me toward her. I fell to my knees by the side of the bed, reaching for her face.
“Annabel?” I murmured. The adrenaline in my blood was waning again and my vision was turning blurry once more. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said, her voice soft despite its rasp. “I’m not hurt.”
I frowned, the throb in my chest telling me an entirely different story. I pressed the hand not cupping her cheek to my ribs, rubbing them. “I…”
The silence between us seemed to stretch into eternity. The painful tugging in my chest was easier to manage now that I was close to her, but it still felt… wrong.
My bond to her, I thought, my dazed mind still having difficulties grasping at any one concept. It was my mating bond.
I rubbed at my ribs harder, my breathing turning ragged.
I’d claimed a mate.
A human, mortal mate. A woman I barely knew. My brother’s woman.
Stars above, why?
I stared wide-eyed at Annabel, the sensation of being inside of her echoing in my dazed memories.
She had felt like home. Or so I had thought at the time, because she was the first woman I'd ever penetrated. I had not paused to think—I had acted on blissful instinct when I bit down on her neck, marking her as mine for eternity.
Who knew my lifelong, noble aspirations to never screw a woman would lead to mating the first one I stuck my dick into? Fucking priceless.
And stupid. So, so stupid.
I regretted it the moment my brain returned to a semi-functioning state and I realized that that gnawing, aching, tender new thing in my chest was a leash directly from my immortal soul to her mortal hands.
I'd claimed my brother’s mate.
I'd claimed a mate.
I'd claimed a mate who belonged to three other men.
And I regretted it. Stars above, how I regretted it. But there was no going back. Mate claims were for life. Every alpha learned that at his mother’s teat.
That now horrifically familiar void in my gut opened up again, sucking me down in a spiral of despair.
“Modi.” It was a pained whisper, an achy spasm in my chest drawing back my attention to the girl on the bed in front of me. Her face was drawn and tears fell silently from her red-rimmed eyes as she looked at me—and I knew she felt every ounce of regret in me as keenly as I felt the turmoil in her.
But it wasn’t just pain that radiated back at me from our bond this time. It was anger.
It took me a moment to realize that the sensation didn’t originate from her—it came from Bjarni. I felt him through my connection with her. As if things were not messed up enough already.
“You ungrateful piece of shit,” he growled, his voice low but still threatening. “You have regrets? You, who took her the moment I turned my back? You have some fucking nerve.”
Of course. I felt his rage—he felt my emotions too.
My face burned. I was unsure if it was with anger or shame. I latched on to the anger nonetheless.
“Don’t say another word, Lokisson, or I might forget your connection to the girl and toast your sorry ass,” I hissed. It was an odd sensation, seeing him on top of the woman I had claimed—I wanted to tear him apart for claiming what was mine, but at the same time, that horrid bond in my chest shuddered at the thought of hurting him.
Hurting him would be hurting Annabel, and myself.
Gods be damned, this was a complicated nightmare!
“Guys. Please… Please don’t.” Annabel’s hoarse voice snapped both our attention to her in the blink of an eye. “I can’t… Everything is so messed up, and I can’t contain it. I know this isn’t what any of us wanted, but we didn’t have a choice. The Norns saw to that. Please, can we just… focus on our task? This isn’t going to get any easier with you two fighting, and we have a job to do.”
A job. I had been so laser-focused on saving Magni’s ass I had not cared about anything else—right up until I sank my teeth into Annabel’s neck.
I blinked as I stared at her wan face, suddenly realizing that my entire world had shifted in more ways than one. I still loved my brother, sure, but all I could think about at her mention of our task was that, Loki or no, once my brother was free from Odin’s righteous fury, Ragnarök was still here.
Annabel was still going to die.
Sick terror clenched my gut, followed by immediate, white-hot determination. No. I was Modí the Brave, son of Thor, slayer of Jotunns. I was never going to let that happen. I could not.
“We have to stop Ragnarök.”
“I know,” she said, wincing when Bjarni rolled them over and his coital tie pulled on her abused opening.
She looked so small in his arms, so… frail. Exhaustion painted every line of her face, bruises covering her skin from where he and I had held her in place while we took our pleasure from her mortal flesh.
She was the epitome of an omega: small, weak, and built to submit. Yet supposedly the Norns had d
ecided that she would be the key to ending Ragnarök.
This tiny mortal.
Our bond flickered in my chest, pulling me from my musings. I frowned, rubbing at my ribs, but before I could process the alien sensation, Bjarni nuzzled at Annabel’s messy hair and emitted a low rumbling noise.
A fucking purr. He was purring for her, soothing her frazzled mind and body as if he had no care in the world. As if this situation was in any way normal.
I had not purred for her after I took her.
I stared at them as the bond instantly relaxed and Annabel’s eyelids fluttered, intense jealousy mixing with relief at the absence of tension in our connection. It was so easy for him—Hel, he would probably have claimed her even if he wasn't caught up in some ridiculous web of Fate and family obligations.
I could sense every tender emotion he felt as he stared in wonder down at the little thing in his arms. It was tinged with uncertainty and pain, but the soft, warm emotions were unmistakable.
Underneath all the bullshit, he cared for this human girl.
Annabel pressed her back closer to the blond alpha’s body, her features easing with every rumble vibrating through his chest. When she put her hand on his arm in a display of gratitude, something in me snapped.
I moved without conscious thought, rage, jealousy, and need pulling me onto the bed. She did not open her eyelids when I slid down next to her, pressing my naked skin to her front. She shivered at the contact, but a small hum of appreciation escaped her throat.
At least she was getting jerked around by bullshit instinct too. I knew she did not care for me, did not even really like me, but she craved my nearness as much as I did hers.
Staring a challenge at Bjarni, I forced a loud purr from my chest as well, drowning out his low rumble.
The blond giant narrowed his eyes at me as he increased his volume, a touch of aggression to the tone.
Between us, Annabel sighed. “Alphas,” she muttered. But she kept her eyes closed, and soon she drifted off to sleep, sandwiched between the two gods who had given up their own fates for her.
Twenty
Bjarni
Annabel slept for nearly twenty hours. I dozed in and out of consciousness while she rested, alternating with Modi. We didn’t discuss staying awake to guard the omega between us. We took turns naturally. The schedule worked itself out.
I guessed that was one of the "perks" of sharing a bonded mate—there was another alpha to watch over her while I slept.
Of course I’d have happily traded the ability to sleep peacefully if it meant my Annabel belonged to me and me alone. Perhaps then she wouldn’t have sobbed in my arms after I made her mine.
Agony twisted in my gut and I buried my face in her messy hair to calm the pain with a lungful of her scent. She hadn’t wanted this—she’d confirmed as much when she'd said the Norns were behind our mating.
I couldn’t even blame her—of course she didn’t want this. No omega would want a bond with four alphas, four men who pulled her in four different directions, tore at what made her whole, and shattered any sense of individuality she may have had before.
I hadn’t fully understood how fractured she was, how broken, until my bond hooked itself by her heart and I felt the depths of her despair.
I’d never thought I’d regret claiming Annabel, but I did. I’d fantasized of how I’d take her for so long, how I’d ensure she gasped my name with reverence, begged me to put my mark on her.
Seeing Modi on top of her had wiped away any such notions, leaving only the basest of instincts to take.
Just like every other alpha who’d claimed her against her will.
She could never love me like I loved her—and I’d spend eternity living with that knowledge intimately lodged behind my ribs.
Or at least until Odin killed Saga and Magni, and she, Modi, and I all died excruciating deaths alongside them.
Dread sank in past the misery. I’d failed her. I’d failed all of us. It had been my job to convince Loki to help us, and I’d been unable to.
The ache of my father’s betrayal throbbed behind the numbness created by Arni and Magga’s deaths, a nightmare that refused to wane in the light of day.
“Bjarni?” Annabel stirred, her sleepy murmur followed by a hand sliding to my hip. “What’s wrong?”
My anguish must have woken her. I squashed down the thrill of her care. Of course she cared—my pain was hers.
“Nothing,” I lied, reaching out to stroke her cheek. “Go back to sleep, sweetie.”
“I’ve slept long enough,” she muttered, straightening to a seated position. Her movement woke up Modi, whose eyelids fluttered, gaze zeroing in on her the moment he was conscious.
“Annabel?” His voice was thick with sleep.
“We need to get moving,” she said. “Bjarni, did you reach Loki? Does he have a plan?”
“Are you strong enough to move?” Modi asked, frowning as he scanned her pale flesh, eyes resting on her many bruises. “We can afford a few days’ rest, if you need it.”
Such a different tune to what he'd sung before he'd stuck his knot in her. I snorted.
“I’m fine.” There was no patience in Annabel’s voice as she withdrew from both of us to dangle her feet over the edge of the bed, stretching her legs experimentally. “We don’t have time for this protective alpha routine. Bjarni?”
I glanced at Modi. His face tightened, turning stony at her rejection. Poor sod. He probably hated every instinctive urge clamoring to go overbearing alpha on the girl he’d had little patience for before mating her, and she wasn’t having any of it.
“Loki isn’t going to help us,” I said. “We have to find a way to save them on our own.”
“What?” Annabel’s voice broke, either from outrage or shock—possibly both. “His own children are in danger! Did you explain to him that Saga and Grim might die?”
“I did. He doesn’t care.” It was hard to get the words out. My father—my father—didn’t care whether we lived or died, so long as he was safe. “We will get nothing from him, so it's best we spend what time we have left finding another way to free our brothers.”
“We don’t need another way,” Modi growled. “I never expected the traitor to risk his own neck—I came prepared to force his surrender. I suggest you get on board.”
I stared at him. However grateful I was that he didn’t take the opportunity to twist the knife of my father’s refusal to help, after I’d so adamantly claimed he would, it was hard to hold back an eyeroll.
“He’s the God of Mischief," I reminded him. "He’s way too powerful for us to force him to do anything he doesn’t want to—believe me.”
A small, warm hand rested on my leg, sending a jolt of sensation to my ribs. When I looked back, Annabel’s brown eyes locked with mine, glowing with intent.
“There is no other way, and you know it. He may be the God of Mischief, but right now, he’s what stands between us and the lives of those we love. He doesn’t want to help? Fine. We don’t give him a choice. One way or the other, he’s going to get us your brothers back. That I promise you.”
Twenty-One
Annabel
“The only way we stand a chance is if we take him by surprise.”
I looked up at Bjarni as he paced in front of the makeshift board he’d made from scavenged pieces of paper and a broken chair. On it he’d drawn a rough layout of Loki’s location, along with a few scribbled notes. As much as he thought his father wasn’t going to be overcome by our ragtag little group, he’d committed to trying.
Possibly because we all knew that without Loki, we didn’t stand a chance. He might be powerful, but it’d be infinitely easier to beat him than it would Odin and all the forces of Valhalla.
“How will we manage to surprise him?” Modi cut in. “He already knows we’re here. He knows we want to bring him before Odin.”
“He won’t expect me to come back,” Bjarni said, and the bitter twinge in his voice made me look clos
er at him.
I hadn’t taken any time to ponder what it had been like for him to go to his father and be denied. I’d been too wrapped up in my own misery at the painful new bonds thrashing in my chest like warring serpents.
I’d never considered that the pain I felt throbbing through me from Bjarni’s tie was more than his regret over claiming me—I’d been too focused on the agony our connection caused us to think about what he’d endured.
Part of me wanted to go to him—to offer him what comfort I could.
I stayed seated on the floor.
There was too much there—too much turmoil, too much festering contagion—and I knew if I poked a hole in the fragile scab I’d managed to form since waking between my two new mates, it’d all come pouring out. The hurt, the resentment… the regret.
And I… I couldn’t face it. Not now. Not when everything hinged on all of us keeping it together so we had at least a chance to save Saga, Magni, and Grim.
Once Saga and Magni were safe, there would be a time to deal with the bitter emptiness of confronting the fact that two of the men fated to be mine regretted their claims. Until then, I couldn’t offer any more of myself to either man, no matter how much my stupid, frayed heart panged to ease the pain radiating through both newly carved bonds.
“The difficult part will be to sneak up on him without alerting him of our presence. And, of course, to capture him. My father is… very strong,” Bjarni finished, his gaze flickering to Modi. “We’ll need magic. But be cautious. He sensed Annabel searching for him.”
Modi nodded, folding his massive arms over his wide chest. “I think that can be done. I can guide her power. Stealth is not my wheelhouse, but Anna’s abilities should be able to conceal mine. The biggest problem will be to capture him and contain him until we reach Valhalla.”
Anna.
I glanced at the redhead, forcing down the jab in my chest at that particular pet name. It was what my parents called me, my friends. It’d slipped from his lips so effortlessly I doubted he’d even noticed. I knew he felt anything but friendly toward me; our aching bond betrayed as much.