by Nora Ash
Pealing laughter sounded from the rubble of the house where Loki was halfway into some sort of feathery costume. His legs, which had been human the last time I checked, were now long and spindly like a bird’s.
“If you have any desire to tangle with gods, little omega, you need to get a lot better at deciphering between what’s real and what’s not,” Loki mocked. And with that, he pulled the costume over his shoulders, leaving a heron where he’d stood.
I gaped at it as it took flight, my breath still coming in harsh gusts.
By my side, Modi growled and raised his hand. Blinding light split the air, and a bolt of lightning struck the heron. It shrieked and fell, a plume of smoke from its tail feathers following its path to the ground. It landed in the snow on the other side of the small clearing where the cottage had stood.
As one, Modi and Bjarni stalked toward it, bringing me stumbling along. It was only when Loki climbed out of his bird costume, sputtering snow and cursing, that it finally dawned on me exactly what had happened.
He’d penetrated my mind, found my worst nightmare… and made me believe he'd summoned it into reality.
He’d made me relive the horror of that vision—of knowing I would lose my mates.
Rage unlike anything I’d experienced rose from my gut and filled my limbs with leaden fury. Oh, was he going to pay!
I thrust both palms out and threw my magic at Loki, screaming with fury.
He managed to dodge at the last minute, darkness rising around him as he summoned his own magic.
“Don’t make me hurt you, girl,” he called out. “You’re still valuable to me, and to my blond oaf of a son.”
His words only made me angrier. He didn’t want to hurt me because he believed I was needed to secure his lineage—and to save his own hide from Ragnarök. He didn’t care if his sons survived, so long as one of them stayed alive to tie me to his blood.
I fired another ball of energy at his stupid face, seething when his dark magic swallowed it up.
“Careful, Annabel. You have to conserve your magic,” Modi cautioned. The warm press of his hand against my nape steadied me, his magic flowing into me, sparking along my veins.
Loki’s dark magic swirled, and from it sprang two wolves the size of work horses. They snapped and snarled, bounding toward us with froth dangling from their maws.
“More trickery?” I asked my two companions.
“The kind of trickery that can tear your throat out,” Bjarni growled. He clutched his sword and leapt forward, swinging it at the two beasts. His blade sliced through the first wolf’s neck, cleaving the animal in two. It died with a haunting howl, its body disintegrating into a plume of smoke.
The other wolf snarled and threw itself at Modi. A sharp jab of pain lanced through my bond with the redheaded god, and I whirled just in time to see lightning strike, illuminating the wolf’s ethereal body from within before it too became naught more than fog.
Blood dripped from a gash on Modi’s cheek. He touched it with his free hand and cursed under his breath. “Damned trickster."
“Told you,” Bjarni said.
Modi snarled, hurling his arm forward. A spinning bolt of lightning shot at Loki, but before it could impact, he flicked a finger at it and it turned into a burst of brightly colored butterflies.
Again the God of Mischief manipulated the dark energy around him. Beneath us the earth rumbled, and I squeaked and reached on instinct for both my mates just as vines sprouted up from the snow, wrapping tightly around our legs.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t have time to teach you younglings how to wield magic properly,” Loki called out with mock regret. “I’ve really got to get going. I’ll see you on the other side of Ragnarök.” He gave us a wave and turned to walk away without any sign of urgency.
“Come back here, you scoundrel! We are bringing you to justice for what you have done!” Modi barked.
If it had been a less serious situation, I might have mocked him for his choice of explicative. Once again he raised his free hand and called down a bolt of lightning, sending it into the vine wrapped around his trapped legs.
Black scorch marks were the only indications he’d even hit his target—the plant bound him as tightly as ever.
“Shit!” I muttered, reaching for my own magic. Without having to ask, Modi guided me, and I sent a bolt of our combined energy directly into the unnatural vegetation keeping me trapped.
It swayed a little, but sprung back to form.
“Stop him—worry about getting free later!” Bjarni hissed to my right. He squeezed my hand. “Hurry, sweetie. If we lose sight of him, we’re never catching up to him again.”
He had a point.
“Guide me,” I said to Modi.
The redhead’s presence in me intensified as he took control of my flow of magic and reached. Loki, who’d gotten to the edge of the clearing while we fought his vines, stumbled as the snow beneath his feet wrapped up along his thighs before freezing to solid ice, locking him in place.
“Nice,” Bjarni chuckled. “See how he likes it.”
Loki twisted around to glare at us over his shoulder. “Careful—you’re starting to make me mad. I might need you alive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t very easily make you wish for death.”
“Ignore him,” Modi mumbled. “Work on the vines. Quickly now.”
“We’re not going to beat him with magic,” Bjarni said without taking his eyes off his father. “He’s too experienced. If we’re going to take him, it’s gonna have to be with brute force.”
“Brute force has a tendency not to work against experienced magic-users,” Modi grumbled even as he directed my flow of energy at the vines. “Case in point—two gods and a Norn-blessed girl currently stuck in a damned bush!”
“I think he might have a point,” I said, pointing at Bjarni’s sword. “Give it to me.”
My blond mate arched an eyebrow, but handed me his blade pommel-first.
Gently I placed my palm on the blade and called on my magic once more. Frankly I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but even without Modi’s guidance, my magic seemed to flow into the metal until it resonated with that well deep inside me.
I blinked my eyes open and handed it back to him. “Try it out.”
Apparently trusting my abilities far more than I did, Bjarni grabbed his sword and swung it at the vines around his feet. They parted with a satisfying slick of his blade, the brambles falling to the ground. A few more swings, and he was free.
“We do not have time for you to free us too,” Modi said, his voice urgent. I followed his gaze and saw Loki make quick work of the last block of ice still encompassing one of his feet. It looked like he was aiming a high-powered laser at it, the way it melted around his flesh.
“I’ve got this,” Bjarni rumbled, raising his blade. His handsome face was locked in a fierce scowl. “Cover me.”
He leapt across the clearing, his powerful legs carrying him faster than a regular human would be able to move. He roared a battle shout and the air vibrated around us all, raising the small hairs at the back of my neck.
More vines sprouted around his feet, but he slashed through them with a single swing of his sword, hardly slowing to do so.
Two more shadow-wolves leapt from Loki’s fingertips, and then another two.
One died from lightning, the other from a ball of golden energy, and the two remaining from Bjarni’s blade.
Loki bared his teeth at his son and raised both hands out straight, sending a shockwave through the air that shot Bjarni backward as if an invisible giant had kicked him in the gut. He landed on his ass by my side, gasping for breath.
“Damn!” Modi growled as I bent as best I could to ensure Bjarni wasn’t injured.
“Just winded, sweetie,” he panted. “Don’t… waste your focus… on me. Focus… on my… asshole father.”
I glanced at Loki, who’d finally managed to get free and was fleeing at full speed this time. Modi pulled bolts of lightn
ing from the sky, but he only managed to slow the cowardly god by forcing him to raise his magic in protection or dodge the blasts.
We were never going to capture him this way.
Unless…
It came to me more as an instinctive pull rather than a thought. My hand still clutching Modi’s, I reached my other out to grab onto Bjarni too.
A current of awareness passed between us, not spurred by magic, but every bit as intense. And then, without giving any of us a moment to prepare, we became one.
All barriers of flesh and identity blurred and vanished, sweeping me into a warm, throbbing awareness. Anger, hurt, love, fear, desperation, longing—they were my emotions, and they were not. They belonged to all of us. I felt them—both of them—cocooning me from all sides, their consciousnesses shielding me.
And I felt their strength.
We were one.
My mind blinked back into reality, where I was once again staring into Bjarni’s blue-gray eyes. Only now they glowed with a light that seemed to radiate from within him—from within all of us.
“Go,” I said.
Bjarni didn’t pause. He barreled across the clearing once more. Loki shot more waves at him, making the air itself shudder, but this time my mate plowed through them as if they were no more than a mere breeze.
Wolves made from shadow sprung at him—five, seven, ten. He cleaved them all with his sword, and my arms felt the swing as if I were wielding the blade myself.
Loki ran, but he wasn’t nearly fast enough. Bjarni was on him before he could make it four steps, falling atop of him like a feral bear.
Loki attempted to evade him, his figure fading to mist, but electricity sparked from Bjarni’s grip, lighting up the God of Mischief and jolting him back into flesh with a scream.
Finally he lay still, his long body sprawled in the snow beneath his son.
“I got you, you traitorous cunt,” Bjarni growled, and I felt his rage as keenly as if it were my own. “God of Mischief? God of Cowards, is more like it. I hope you regret betraying your own blood before Odin takes your head.”
Twenty-Four
Annabel
Modi showed me how to infuse my magic into a length of rope he pulled from the rucksack they’d carried with us from Asgard. It was tricky, my fingers fumbling on the twine and my vision blurring.
Now that the fight was over, the connection between the three of us that had flowed so freely seemed barely there, and I had to focus to keep my rapidly waning power connected with Bjarni so our prisoner didn’t escape before we could tie him up.
“Just a little longer,” the redhead said quietly when my hold on the rope slipped. He steadied me with his grip around my body as well as his presence within my magic.
His sparking power tightened around mine, pulling it into place rather than guiding it now. Not that I minded—with every second that passed, it became harder and harder to think of anything that wasn’t sleep.
Blasted magical drawbacks. It seemed a real inconvenience that any use of it resulted in bone-deep exhaustion. If it weren’t for Modi and Bjarni, I’d be well and truly fucked.
Well, I’d be fucked regardless, because of course sex was the only way to replenish my strength.
God, being an omega sucked.
“Why are you laughing?” Bjarni asked over his shoulder. It came out as a grunt, the only indication that he was expending any strength in holding down his father.
Was I? It took me a moment to realize that the jarring sound pounding in my ears wasn’t my blood—it was the sound of my own deranged chuckling.
I swallowed, killing the inappropriate laugh to refocus on the rope. “Sorry, I’m… really tired.”
Finally Modi managed to wrangle the dying embers of the golden light within me. The rope lit up, then faded, looking like any old measure of twine, but I could sense the dull throb of my powers radiating from it, even if what was left inside me was barely a flicker.
“There we are,” Modi said, his magic sliding from mine and leaving me hollow. “That should keep you from attempting to slither away again before you have faced judgement for your ill-doings.”
He handed the rope to Bjarni with one hand, keeping his other arm wrapped tightly around me—a gesture I was grateful for, because I was pretty sure I’d have faceplanted in the snow without his support.
“Foolish children,” Loki growled as Bjarni tied his wrists behind his back. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not responsible for this mess! I’m just the scapegoat—as usual.”
“Yes, the true mark of a falsely accused man,” Modi drawled. “Running away to hide until it is all over, all the while ensuring you and yours will survive the calamity. Well, I guess you get to be grateful that we are bringing you back so you can prove your innocence to the gods of Asgard.”
“Frankly, Father, I no longer care much if you’re innocent or not,” Bjarni said, his voice rougher than Modi’s as he sat up, yanking the dark-haired god to his knees. “You were going to leave my brothers to their fate after all your talk of the importance of our blood. You can hang, for all I care. Or burn. Or sit in a cage with ravens picking at your flesh—whatever Odin’s got planned for you. You’re already dead to me.”
“Boys, boys.” This time Loki’s voice was gentler—smoother. “You’re taking these unfortunate events much too personally. You wouldn’t truly expect someone with my, ah, history with Asgard to willingly offer my neck, hmm? But clearly things have changed… I am willing to cooperate with you, if you vow to help me escape before Odin shortens me by a head.”
“I think you forget that that was an offer we gave you before you were defeated and bound,” I said, my voice raspier than I’d have liked. Even flanked by two powerful alphas, Loki clearly wasn’t the type of being you wanted to display any sort of weakness to. “We don’t need anything from you now that we can’t take.”
As if on cue, Loki turned to me, his dark eyes shrewd even as he molded his features into one of concern. “Is that true? You look so frail, my daughter. Your magic is all but gone. How are you going to stop Ragnarök from taking everyone you love if capturing me has nearly drained your life essence?”
“That’s not for you to worry about,” I gritted. I would stop it somehow, even though I knew he was right. I’d seen the World Serpent—only one of the heralds of Ragnarök—and deep down I knew I wasn’t nearly powerful enough to take it on. Not even with my mates by my side.
Perhaps it’d been hubris all along. If the gods themselves weren’t strong enough to stop Ragnarök, then what chance did I have, Norn-blessed or not?
The thought that had niggled at me since Verdandi’s cave rose like a mountain in my chest, crushing what little strength I had. Was this all for naught? Were we doomed?
“I can help you,” Loki said softly. “Thor’s son can’t show you how to truly reach your potential—he isn’t experienced enough with the kind of power that lies within you. I am. I can teach you to control it.”
“Stop it!” It was a roar so fierce it shook me out of the daze I hadn’t even realized had settled around me. I looked up at Bjarni’s rage-twisted face just as he pulled an arm back and socked Loki right in the nose.
Blood spattered, and a sickening crunch mixed with the god’s pained wail as he tumbled into the snow, unable to break his fall.
“If I ever catch you using your powers on my mate again, I’ll kill you myself!” my blond giant snarled. He glared down at Loki for a few seconds before he turned to me, his features softening at my confusion.
“Don’t listen to him. His tongue is dipped in poison—he will deceive you first chance he gets.”
I blinked, looking back at Loki as realization dawned. He’d manipulated my insecurities, twisted my fears until his suggestion seemed like the only solution. I had no doubt that if Bjarni hadn’t intervened, I’d have fallen fully under his spell and accepted his offer.
Eyes narrowing, I glared at the God of Mischief. “Nice try.”
It was a lot easier to ignore the chill of the god’s words when he sounded like a fifth-grader with a cold. Looking away from him, I leaned into Modi.
“Let’s make camp for the day. I have to rest. Tomorrow we bring this asshole to Valhalla and get your brothers back.”
It wasn’t just rest I needed—Modi and Bjarni knew that as well as I did—but I wasn’t about to admit what else I required in front of Loki. Not that he wouldn’t be able to hear it, seeing as there was only a tent wall separating us.
“Here, sweetie. It’s not the feast a warrior deserves after taking down an enemy as magnificent as the God of Mischief, but at least it’s warm.”
I looked up at Bjarni as he pushed through the tent flap carrying two steaming bowls of something that smelled delicious.
“A warrior, eh?” I said, eagerly grabbing one of the bowls. It contained a meaty stew. Leave it to Bjarni to conjure up a beautiful meal in the middle of the woods during a blizzard.
“You’re a warrior if I ever saw one, Annabel,” he said softly as he sat down in front of me with his own bowl, legs crossed. “We could never have captured my father if you hadn’t been here. What you did today is no small feat.”
“I didn’t do it alone,” I reminded him, blowing on a spoonful of stew. “I couldn’t have done it without you and Modi. I don’t know what happened out there, but…”
“But it wouldn’t have happened without you,” he interrupted, blond eyebrows pulling into an uncharacteristic frown. “I don’t really understand magic, but I do know that thing came from you. Even the, ugh, connection between Modi and I ran through you. Through our bonds to you.”
“You think?” I asked before finally shoveling the first spoonful of food into my mouth. It exploded in flavor and comforting warmth on my tongue, and I closed my eyes to savor it.