by Nora Ash
Loki rose up to his full height, his face twisted with horror visible through the gray nothingness as he stared at us. “You’re taking us directly to Hvergelmir! Hvergelmir! Do you know what slumbers there? Do your puerile, foolish little minds not grasp the danger? You take us there, you take us to Níðhöggr’s door, and you will cost us all our lives!”
In the little time I’d known Loki, I’d learned you could never trust his words. He was the God of Mischief, or trickery and betrayal. But right then, as I looked at the absolute terror on his otherwise so divine features, I knew into the marrow of my bones that this time—this time he wasn’t acting.
He believed we were going to die.
Thirty-One
Modi
“Nidhug?” Annabel asked, butchering the word completely, yet removing none of the chill just the sound of that name caused. “You’ve mentioned him before, right? Who’s he again?”
“The Devourer,” Loki said, his face as pale as the fog surrounding us. “Your foolish mates are planning on bringing us directly into his maw.”
“I’m sorry, that’s really not an explanation,” she snapped. “Some of us aren’t all that well-versed in mythology.”
Loki turned to look at her. His eyes seemed dark as midnight as his gaze locked on her small form. “Perhaps that is the problem, human—you and your kind have forgotten what you once knew to be true. You have forsaken the old ways. Forsaken your old gods, your old fears.”
Annabel only blinked once, then turned to Bjarni. “Your dad is speaking in riddles. Could someone please tell me in plain English why this Nidhug is so bad the god of misery is shaking in his boots? What can possibly be worse than what we’ve already seen? Because I gotta tell you, that sea serpent we flew over on our way to America was kind of terrifying on an entirely new level.”
“Mischief,” Loki bit. “The God of Mischief.”
Bjarni ignored him. “Níðhöggr isn’t worse than Jörmungandr, per se. He is a monster that dwells underneath Yggdrasil, gnawing at its roots and feasting on the flesh of murderers, adulterers, and oath breakers. He is a great dragon, foretold to break free of his prison and fly across the worlds to herald Ragnarök. He is the embodiment of earthquakes, volcanos and destruction.
"And yes—we have to pass very close by the well he resides in to get to the portal. So long as he is asleep, we’ll be fine.”
Annabel swallowed thickly. “Oh. Great. Another well-dweller. At least it’s not like Ragnarök is already here and there’s every chance he’s awake and ready to rumble…”
“We do not have another choice,” I said, though I couldn’t fault the fear wavering in her voice. “It’s this portal, or nothing.”
I know,” she said, her lips flattening in a determined line. “We’ve survived so far. We’ll survive a little dragon-action, too.”
“Well. Hopefully there won’t be any dragon action,” Bjarni rumbled. He did not bother pointing out that any action involving an awake Níðhöggr would most definitely end in a gruesome death. And not for the dragon.
“You’re mad,” Loki hissed. “I’ve gone along with this nonsense so far, but enough is enough! I won’t end my life in the maws of Níðhöggr for this folly!”
Niflheim was quiet. I had only briefly accompanied my father here once when I was young, and the heavy press of the fog and chill of the air had stayed in my memories. But even then, it had not been this silent. In the absence of warmth and light, there had still been life, albeit hidden.
Hurried footfalls from the darkness, vermin and serpents slithering underfoot—we had even caught a glimpse of one of the mist-like Jotunns that inhabited this world, though it had disappeared the moment it saw us. Beasts had howled at night, sending goosebumps up my adolescent skin even as I had put on a brave front for my father. The world was cast in eeriness then as well, but it was still different now.
This time… there was nothing. Not a snake rattled the frozen grass, no beasts called out in the night. There was only deep, ominous silence and that ever-present mist clinging to our faces and threatening to cloy its way into our lungs for every breath.
Except from Loki’s muffled curses through the sock Bjarni had stuffed in his mouth when he grew tired of listening to his protests.
The journey was physically easier than the trek we had overcome in Midgard to reach the portal there. Despite the frozen ground underneath our feet, there was no snow to wade through and no heavy inclines either.
Yet as we made camp at the end of the second day, the mental drain was undeniable. I saw it in Bjarni’s drawn features and felt it in the tension in my bond to Annabel. She was stressed and anxious, the barbed hook in my chest aching worse than my own worry for the day ahead. If we had estimated correctly, tomorrow would be the day we passed by the great well of Hvergelmir—and passed through the final portal to Asgard.
If.
I glanced at Annabel, who had pulled Loki’s gag from his mouth to offer him water and food. If Níðhöggr still slept, before midnight tomorrow we might reunite with mine and Bjarni’s brothers. Annabel’s other mates.
It was an odd sensation, thinking about my omega reuniting with the alphas she had been longing for since we left. I was not jealous. Watching Bjarni with her that one night had provoked my possessive urges, sure, but all it had really done was make me more desperate to penetrate her myself. The thought of Magni and Saga fucking her? That didn’t faze me either.
And yet… it wasn’t not jealousy. I had seen her fierce, protective love for them back in Asgard when she tried to challenge the god-king himself. Felt her longing to be reunited with them. And I knew, once they were free and with us again, it would no longer just be Bjarni’s bond to her that left me on the outside. An intruder looking in.
I pushed down the violent roil in my gut at that thought and went to sit by the small fire Bjarni had started, grabbing myself a plate of the stew bubbling over it. It did not matter how she felt for her other mates. What was between her and I was a business arrangement. Fate’s insistence. Why should I care that from tomorrow she would have three other alphas to dote on her, rather than just one? Her magic would be just as powerful—perhaps even more so.
The four of us ate in silence, the sound of firewood crackling only interrupted by occasional slurping. Even in Niflheim, Bjarni managed to cook delicious meals.
Loki's voice shattered the quietude. “I am curious, Modi.”
I grimaced—having him silenced for most of the day had been a blessing, but Annabel insisted we remove the gag to let him eat his meals in peace.
“Don’t make me stuff that sock back in there before you’ve finished,” Bjarni warned. “You’re not getting fed again before breakfast.”
“If Thor has betrayed you, which side will you and your brother fall on? His? Or your newfound friends’?” Loki continued, ignoring his son.
“The Hel are you talking about?” I growled, lowering my spoon to glare at him.
“Don’t listen to him—he’s fucking with your mind again,” Bjarni warned before he sat down his bowl with a sigh. “Time for the sock, old man.”
“I am just asking a simple question.” Loki shrugged, turning his focus back to his food. “You could be right—he could have sent you to capture me rather than go himself because he has full faith in your abilities. Sure, he wouldn’t have known how that handy little connection to your new mate works, but let us say that he did, in fact, trust his son to bring me back.
“What I find ever so curious is how he ignored your plea for help. I am certain he knows nothing of this map my foolish son chose to reveal to you. How did he expect you to make it back in time to save Magni? Unless—”
“Do not!” I snarled. Fury at the mere thought of what he was hinting at pounded in my temples, making the stew thick in my throat. I thrust the bowl to the ground, glaring at the asshole trickster attempting to smear my father’s name.
“Unless he never meant for you to return with me,” Loki finished
, raising his gaze once more. His dark eyes bored into mine.
“I thought you didn’t know who the traitor was?” Annabel said.
“I do not.” Loki shrugged again. “I am merely speculating. I find it odd that a man as dedicated to honor and family as Thor wouldn’t come to his son’s aid when both his sons' fates are on the line. And, seeing as I have a vested interest in your survival, little human… I can’t help but wonder where your redheaded mates’ loyalties will fall. If Thor turns out to be something other than he pretends.”
Bjarni, who had made it to Loki’s side, sock in hand, hesitated. His brows locked in a frown as he glanced back at me over his shoulder.
“You cannot seriously be listening to this horseshit,” I growled, shock and fury lancing up my spine. “My father is no traitor!”
“Well, no… maybe not,” Annabel said, her voice soft. “But…”
“But nothing.” Betrayal stabbed through as I swung around to glare at my mate. She had seen me. Back in Oslo, she had forced her way into my innermost, and yet she thought for even a second that Loki’s words might be anything other than poison spewed to sow suspicion between us?
“You dare question my father’s loyalties? You dare question my loyalties? You?”
“Calm down.” Bjarni moved fluidly, his shoulders widening as he stepped between Annabel and me, though he kept his pose nonthreatening. “No one’s taking his word for anything. But you’ve got to admit—it’s odd that Thor didn’t come for us when you called on him, no?”
“Thor has served Asgard for eternity. You will not smear his name in my presence,” I hissed, leveling my glare at him.
When Annabel came to stand by his side, her hand on his bicep as she looked at me with her brows locked in a matching frown to his, I narrowed my eyes further. Just look at them! They were so completely in sync. The picture-perfect pairing. They looked so at ease together, so… right. If it was not for Fate, Annabel would likely still have let him claim her and to Hel with the rest of us.
To Hel with me.
She thought I was sired by a man capable of bringing around the end of the worlds. She thought I was capable of betraying her.
I turned around before my temper got the better of me, stomping into the fog. This time, the chilly dampness of it clinging to my skin was a blessing against the pounding of blood in my temples.
“Modi!” Annabel called after me.
I ignored her, lengthening my strides as I disappeared into the mist.
They let me cool off for the better part of an hour before they came for me.
I knew they had found me before I heard their steps. That aching in my chest from my bond to Annabel eased incrementally the closer she came, and through her, I sensed Bjarni’s presence.
“Not smart to leave Loki unattended in the midst of Niflheim,” I said, not bothering to rise from the fallen log of tree I had been sitting on for the past half hour.
“Not smart to storm off into the fog on your own,” Annabel countered.
I looked over my shoulder at her just in time to see the outline of Bjarni’s hulking figure retreating back into the mist, leaving her in my care.
“I am a god. I can take care of myself."
“I know.” She hesitated for a moment, then stepped closer, stopping just a few feet from me.
I turned back to stare into the nothingness.
“Modi…” Her hesitation was present in her voice too. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Neither of us did.”
I closed my eyes as the throbbing in my blood threatened to return. “You did not mean to upset me, human? Did you not hear me? I am a god.”
I got to my feet and strode past the tree trunk, invading her personal space. She was small, an omega of stature if not of temperament, and I loomed over her. It felt good.
“Fate or no, you do not possess the ability to upset me.”
She rolled her eyes. Rolled. Her. Eyes. “Yeah. Sure. You’re a fountain of Zen—the embodiment of divine calm. Can we cut the bullshit for just a moment? Please? This is important. Can you think of any plausible reason for Thor to ignore your call?”
This again. I bared my teeth at her. “I am warning you, omega, do not repeat Loki’s poison again.”
Annabel huffed, frustration playing across her pretty features. “Modi… I know it’s going to be tough to consider, but… we know there’s a traitor in Asgard.”
“Yes. It is Loki,” I said, eyes narrowed to slits. “Which is why we have got him trussed up and are dragging him all the way back to Asgard.”
“No,” she said. “The traitor is in Asgard, and Loki hasn’t been for a very long time. I’m not saying he’s a saint, but he isn’t the traitor we’re looking for. I think it’s someone else.”
“Someone like my father?”
Annabel grimaced. “I don’t know. But I saw you when he didn’t respond to your call. You know something’s not right about it. I’m not saying we charge in and accuse the god of thunder of anything, but Modi… you gotta be prepared to at least consider the possibility. And… and if he is… the traitor… I need you to tell me you won’t turn on us.”
And there it was. She thought I was capable of turning on her. She had no concept of how profoundly she had changed my very DNA, my every waken thought and connection I had ever had—no idea how tightly I was bound to her.
Because she did not feel the same. Her innermost was split between four alphas, and I… I was the one she would have chosen to deny, had Fate let her.
Rage descended on me, a scalding counterpoint to the frosty mist clinging to my skin. I snarled, only losing myself further to the embrace of violence when she shrank back in the face of my anger.
“You think I will hurt you, omega?” My voice was twisted, unrecognizable, but I did not care. There was nothing but the fury. The betrayal.
Instincts.
“You think I, Modi the Brave, son of Thor, will hurt you? I suppose you do. If you think my father capable of betraying all nine worlds, you must think me capable of every horrible thing your little human mind can conjure up.
“There is only one thing I can do to you, omega. One single thing I can force upon you. You think I am a piece of shit? No better than Loki the Betrayer? By the Allfather—I will show you exactly what I am!”
She yipped when I grabbed for her, her hands reflexively coming up to stop me. It was easy to ignore her human weakness—but the look in her wide eyes proved much more difficult. For one agonizing heartbeat, she stared at me with genuine fear—and every ounce of strength in my body crumbled into a pile of ash.
But then, as if she saw something in my eyes too, her look of terror faded, leaving vulnerability and understanding behind.
Pity. She pities you.
I bared my teeth, anger rising again. She did not fight me when I yanked her toward me this time, and it only angered me more. Toothless. She knew I was not going to force her, not truly. She knew I was incapable. She was allowing me to act her alpha, pretending to surrender.
I tossed her over the barrel of the tree trunk I had sat on, my focus mercifully shifting at the sight of her ass thrust up and out in her tight leathers. This. This was the easy part.
I yanked her trousers down, pulling them over her boots so I could step in between her legs.
She twisted her neck to look at me over her shoulder, her lips parted in soft pants. “Modi,” she whispered. “It’s okay.”
“I do not need your permission!” I growled, though we both knew I was lying.
I pressed my palm up between her thighs, reveling in the full-body shiver that transferred from her soft flesh into mine. She was not as dry as I had expected, but she was not wet enough for me either. Another day I might have knelt behind her and sucked her clit into my mouth until her pussy gushed for me—but not today.
“You ask if I will betray you,” I rasped, rubbing my palm against her lower lips with enough force to catch her still-hidden clit. “Maybe I will. Maybe the Norns have
woven it into their vile net. It will not be my fault then, will it? We are all just caught up in Fate’s game, no free will of our own. That is why you and I are tied together in the first place, little omega. Why fight what Fate has decided?”
She mewled in response, spreading her thighs for my palm. Moisture clung to my skin and I smiled wryly.
“My poor omega. So willful, yet so completely enslaved to every base instinct. I could take you against your will—and your body would only aid me. Do you feel as trapped as I do?”
I undid my pants and pulled out my achingly hard dick, pressing it up against her lower back as I leaned in over her, my hand still working her rapidly dampening sex.
“Modi,” she moaned. “Don’t care. You’re mine! Just fucking fuck me!”
She was as needy as when her heat had made her crawl on her knees to suck my dick. My body panged with longing to spear her open, and I growled and bit down on her neck where the fresh scar from my claim shone bright pink.
She went lax underneath me, her soft flesh wonderfully compliant against mine as she whimpered softly. Wetness gushed from her pussy, soaking my hand. She may be far too mouthy and demanding, but at least her body knew how a good omega behaved.
I relaxed my jaw and pushed back up, holding my weight on one hand on the trunk while I shifted the other from her pussy to my cock. Wet, hot heat enveloped my cockhead, and I groaned, all thoughts vanishing at that first, blissful touch of her cunt.
“Modi-oh! Ow! Slow… Please, slow!” Annabel’s voice hitched as I pushed up inside of her, hilting her to the balls. She was so blessedly tight—too tight. A week without penetration had allowed her slick tunnel to turn less pliable.
“You wanted to get fucked,” I snarled. I pulled my hips back, only to thrust back into her tight flesh with the full force of my divine body. “Little omega… you will be fucked.”
She howled underneath me, rearing up in an instinctive bid to save her little pussy. I pressed a hand between her shoulder blades and pinned her to the trunk, grabbing her hip for leverage with the other, and fucked up into her again.