by Nora Ash
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Everything in me roiled as my mates fought off against a creature they both knew couldn’t be killed. “No, no, no!”
Bjarni sprinted across the grass and jumped, thrusting his blade at Nidhug’s side. The metal screeched against his scale, a slightly duller tone than the lightning, sending Bjarni flying backwards from impact.
I reached out with my magic, tendrils of it melding with the bonds I shared with both men without my conscious input. It was like a puzzle piece snapping into place—that perfect connection I’d felt with them only once before. Their battle rage was mine, their bravery, their fury, and their desperation to ensure my survival.
I caught Bjarni before he hit the ground, mine and Modi's powers cushioning his fall. He immediately launched himself across the clearing again, sword drawn.
I tried to focus my magic into his blade, but caught the glow of fire out of the corner of my eye. In the last second, I changed direction and pulled the barrier up around Modi again, shielding him from the flames.
Pain lanced through my body. Nidhug caught Bjarni with one of its claws, smacking him into the ground and tearing a cut along his thigh.
I screamed, fear and fury blending into a desperate inferno as I shielded my blond mate from the dragon’s wrath, too.
Sweat beaded on my brow and my pulse drummed in my ears, muffling all other noise. My magic was draining. Fast.
Keep fighting!
I don’t know whose command lanced through my mind, but it gave me another surge of energy. I roared a challenge and gathered my power, thrusting it outward with all my might. The golden ball of energy soared through the air and slammed into Nidhug’s side with a low rumble.
The dragon staggered, and I had a moment’s worth of elation. He could be defeated!
Snarling, he swung his enormous head around, his alien eyes locking on me. He flapped his wings, the gust of it pushing both me and Loki by my side to the ground before he opened his maw and shot a burst of fire at us.
No! No!
Sickening fear that didn’t belong to me seized my body. From each side of the dragon, my mates shouted and beat at its impenetrable scales, lightning bolts bouncing off its flesh as they did everything in their power to take the beast’s focus away from me.
Nidhug ignored them as if they were nothing more than annoying flies.
I managed to raise the shield before its fire hit, groaning with the effort of keeping it up as the power of the dragon beat down upon me.
Hands grabbed onto my shoulder and shook.
I hissed, looking behind me at Loki, who was shaking me hard enough to disturb my concentration.
“If I drop this fucking shield, we’re both dead!” I growled between labored breaths.
“Hmmmmnng!” He released my shoulder, but held out his bound wrists, his dark eyes imploring as he gestured toward the still-fire-breathing dragon. Even without words, his plea was clear.
I stared at him, weighing my options. This was Loki, god of fucking everyone over. There was every chance he’d make a run for it the moment he was free, and I was in no state to stop him.
But… if we didn’t get help, we would be dead in a very short time, anyway. I only had minutes left of my magic reserves.
I pulled the sock from his mouth and yanked at the tight knots tying his wrists together. My divided attention made the shield above us flicker, heat from the flames encasing us slipping through.
“Shit!” I pushed harder, forcing my magic out again, until the heat eased. Only when the flames relented did I return to Loki, franticly pulling at his rope.
“Go for his tendons!” Loki roared at my mates, who were still fighting to regain Nidhug’s attention. “Quick!”
They moved as one, darting behind a hind leg each. They swung their swords in unison, hammering them in against the tendons above his heel.
The dragon snarled and turned his long neck toward them, whipping his tail like a weapon. They both sprang aside before he could hit them, and he turned to swing at them with his claws.
“Hurry,” Loki breathed. “They aren’t going to last long without your magic shielding them, and once they’re dead, he’s coming for us.”
“Noble to the fucking end,” I growled, pulling desperately at the knots. Whoever’d bound them—Bjarni, if memory served—had been overzealous in his execution. I had to grasp onto one of the flickering tendrils of my magic and shot a bolt into the rope to force the first knot apart. The rest came easier.
The rope fell to the ground by his feet and I stared up at the dark god, waiting for him to snap his fingers and disappear in a cloud of charcoal mist. Or possibly bats.
Another searing burst of pain along my back made me spin around to the horrifying vision of Modi falling to the ground, ruby liquid spraying from a long gash in his back. Nidhug pulled back his mighty claw dripping with my mate’s lifeblood, readying his final strike.
“Modi!” I screamed, throwing everything I had at him.
My magic sliced through the air and burst against the dragon’s leg, shoving him off course. He hissed and righted himself, but instead of coming for me, he opened his maw, focusing on my wounded mate lying gasping before him.
I tried to force another bolt of magic out, but all I caught were a few embers that sparked in the air around me before fizzing into nothing.
Panting, I collapsed, my vision swimming. I had no more to give.
Modi. Modi. No.
A cool hand wrapped around my nape and shocks of power rushed through my body like voltage rushing through a depleted battery. I jerked and spasmed, the intensity forced through me too much for my body and mind.
“Meld with them. Now!”
Loki’s command came with the strength of a hundred barking hounds, and I reacted on it without thought. I reached for my mates through our bonds, pulling them to me with everything I was.
His magic burst through me like an invasive ravishing, horrible yet powerful, unlike anything I’d experienced before. He fanned the embers of my own magic, and through me connected to my mates, pulling their strength into me.
Lightning flashed, the sky above the well turning black. Everything took on an ashen color, a living, breathing black-and-white image.
Lightning flashed again, this time striking the dragon. Another bolt struck his scales, the horrible screech of impact making my teeth smart.
Nidhug roared, swinging his huge body from Modi to us. When he breathed his fire, I was ready with the shield.
Bjarni ran around the giant beast’s body while he was preoccupied with me and Loki, sword gleaming in his hand.
“Infuse his weapon!” Loki shouted over the roar of the fire. “He needs your power to penetrate the scales!”
I reached out, my consciousness entering Bjarni’s through our bond. He welcomed me, warmth and love and fear of loss so intense it threatened to shatter my focus enveloping me. I pushed through and into his blood, down, down until I reached the metal of his sword. It hummed and sucked in every ounce of magic I pushed into the sharp steel.
I jolted back into my own body just in time to see Bjarni roll underneath the mighty beast and aim his sword straight up at its chest.
Another shattering bolt of lightning slammed into Nidhug’s back, making him toss his head back with a roar, fire gathering in his throat.
But before he could aim it at us again, Bjarni thrust his sword up with all his strength, his muscles bulging as the tip sliced through the dragon’s chest and sunk into its body all the way to the hilt.
Nidhug’s roar died in a long, bone-chilling wail. It stumbled, reaching for the sword with its front claws. Bjarni rolled away and scrambled to his feet just as the dragon slumped to its side, its enormous body colliding with the ground sending a shockwave through the landscape.
I fell to my knees next to Loki, bracing my hands against the singed grass to watch the dragon’s death throes. The stone wall around the well shattered from his kicks, huge boulders flying
into its depths with hollow clatters until finally Nidhug stilled.
Dead.
Victory brought me the rush I needed to scramble to my feet, my focus shifting from the defeat of an impossible foe to fear once more.
Modi was injured.
Spurred by adrenaline and fear, I ran across the battlefield toward his slumped figure lying on a small patch of green amidst a sea of ash and embers. The second I was by his side, I fell to my knees and grasped his face between my hands, my only thought to look into his eyes once more.
Modi groaned, his eyelids fluttering open. His blue gaze met mine, the pain in them undeniable.
“Oh, Modi!” I pressed my mouth to his, breathing in his scent, roaming my fingers over his shoulders, his hair and his jaw in search for confirmation that he was there, that he wouldn’t leave me.
Only when his arms came up to rest around my body did I pull back, certain that yes, he was going to make it.
“You absolute twat!” I snarled, smacking my palm against his chest.
He coughed and groaned in protest.
“What the fuck did you think you were doing, charging in against a fucking dragon like that? Telling me that I don’t need you? That we should run away and let you fucking die?” I hit him again.
“Anna,” he mumbled, reaching up to capture my wrist before I could whack him a third time. “I could not… let you die.”
“Why on Earth would you think I could let you die?” I snarled. “This stupid bond goes both ways!”
“No. Ours is… damaged.” He coughed again, wincing as he did. “You will never love me…. like you do them. My fate… My fate is to die for you.” Then his eyes widened a little. “You… you thwarted Fate! You were meant to run!”
I stared at him, mouth agape as the million insults I wanted to hurl at him fought to be the winner. This idiot alpha really believed that Fate had woven us together so that he could die for me?
Then the full impact of his words set in and sorrow flooded my chest. He thought I would never love him, and how could I blame him? I’d thought the same thing, wallowing in the pain and longing of my bonds to Saga and Magni. Even Bjarni… I’d thought I couldn’t love him, when the truth was right there, staring me in the face.
I’d been so stupid. So goddamn, inexcusably stupid.
“I love you,” I whispered, wiping at the tears that started trickling from the corners of my eyes. “You’re every bit my mate, every bit a part of my soul. There is no difference in how much I need each one of you, Modi. How could you think I would run and leave you to die? You’re my mate. My life.”
He stared up at me, the expression in his blue eyes inscrutable, but I felt the roil of his emotions in our bond. “How? How can you love me? I have felt your anguish since the day I put my mark on your neck. Your regret.”
“As I have felt yours,” I said softly, cupping his cheek with my now-damp hand. “Do you love me, Modi?”
His gaze didn’t waver from mine as the silence stretched between us. Finally, he said, “I would die for you a thousand times over, Annabel. I did not choose to love you. Fate forced me to. But I cannot deny it. Not anymore.”
I cracked a smile at the regretful notion to his confession of love. “That’s what every girl wants to hear.”
He snorted a laugh that devolved into another cough.
“I need to heal you,” I said, frowning down at his bloodied body, my focus switching back to the present.
“You do not have the strength,” he murmured, eyelids closing halfway. “I just need… to rest for a little while.”
“We don’t have time for rest.” The rumble of Bjarni’s voice made me look up. My blond mate stood behind me, the golden rope I’d untied from Loki’s wrists in his hand, now looped more loosely around the dark god’s neck. They both looked as exhausted as Modi and me.
“Help her,” Bjarni said, nudging his father toward me before he slid the rope off his neck, though he stayed alert.
“Isn’t it enough that I saved the day and killed the bloody dragon?” Loki muttered. But—somewhat to my surprise—he knelt by my side and put his hand on my nape. His magic filled me again, far less intense but still unpleasant.
I suppressed the shudder of his presence inside of me and grasped on to his offered power, directing it through my own before I let it spill into Modi’s broken body.
Modi’s injury was deep and ran the length of his spine, and it took me the better part of an hour to heal it enough so that he could sit up.
“That is enough, Anna,” he said, grasping the hand I’d pushed against his chest and lifting it off, separating my magic from his wound.
I looked him over, squinting to focus on his face when white dots danced in front of my eyes.
“You have used too much of your energy, mate,” he murmured, pressing my hand to his lips before he stroked my cheek. When our eyes met, the emotion I saw dancing in his made my heart stutter.
Fate might have forced it, but yes, he did love me. We’d both been such fools.
“Her energy?” Loki muttered, letting his hand fall from my neck to the ground. His voice was raw, exhaustion painting every syllable.
I twisted to look up, catching Bjarni’s gaze. I’d felt his steadfast presence throughout the healing process, his nearness strengthening me.
“Bjarni, I… I’m so sorry.”
He cocked his head. “Don’t be.”
“No, I am. And I should be. I’ve been so wrapped up in my pain I didn’t allow myself to feel anything else. I love you too. I should have been able to tell you that from the first moment.”
He cracked a smile and reached down, pulling me to my feet and into his chest. “I know. Now come—we’ve slayed the dragon. It’s time to save some damsels in distress, hmm?”
“I am so telling Saga you called him a damsel,” Modi said, wincing as he pushed himself to his feet. “I am sure he will love it.”
Thirty-Five
Grim
Three weeks.
It had been three weeks less a day since Bjarni left with the girl and Magni’s brother, and all we had discovered in their absence was that Mimir wasn’t in Valhalla and Freya had vanished from Folkvangr.
In the first few days, Magni’s sister had proven herself a valuable ally. She’d asked questions I would never have been granted an answer to and lobbied for me, Magni, and Saga to receive some freedom to move around Valhalla during our captivity.
But on the fourth day, after discovering Freya’s disappearance, she’d informed us that she would leave to search for her, certain that the wayward goddess was linked to the traitor she’d claimed resided in Valhalla and leaving us to search for clues on our own.
I shot my brother a look across the room. Not that he and Magni had been particularly helpful.
“She’s still alive,” Magni murmured as he slid down on the floor by Saga’s side.
Saga nodded, clenching his jaw as he looked from the scroll in his hand up at the redhead. They shared a long look, one that made me uncomfortable every time I saw it.
It had become their mantra: "she is still alive." Those were some of the only words they’d spoken since Annabel had left Valhalla. Most of the time I wasn’t entirely certain they even registered that I was around, or perhaps it was simply that they didn’t care. They searched through old texts in a bid to discover Mimir’s whereabouts, but I had the distinct impression they were only doing so because it was what the human omega needed.
When I looked at my brother, I knew in my gut that he would watch the world burn, and us along with it, so long as he found a way to keep Annabel safe through Ragnarök.
Worse was the knowledge that while he had turned his back on me, his bond to Thor’s bastard seemed stronger than iron. They even fell asleep together each night, their mutual and pathetic need for comfort allowing them to seek it in one another.
I shuddered and focused on my own scroll. If this was life as a mated alpha, I was starting to suspect that death
was preferable.
The bitter thought that perhaps Saga would now be more inclined to let me select that option than he had while we'd planned for Annabel’s arrival to our farm wormed its way through my mind.
I rubbed at my forehead and stared out the window in our tower room. Not that there would be much of a choice one way or the other if Bjarni didn’t return with our father before the moon rose tomorrow.
I tossed a scroll containing yet another of Mimir’s more absurd prophecies to the floor, shooting a disgusted look at the two other alphas. Magni’s hand covered Saga's, a silent, intimate gesture of support. The brother I’d grown up with would have never accepted such closeness with a man who was supposed to be our enemy, shared mating claim or not.
“There is nothing helpful in these records,” I bit through clenched teeth. “No indication of where Mimir is, and certainly no help in discovering who this supposed traitor is. If there even is one.” At this point, I was starting to think Freya was less reliable than we’d given her credit for. She was the goddess of love, after all—not intrigue. “Perhaps Ragnarök is simply here because it is time, and there is nothing we can do to stop it.”
“You’re wrong, little brother,” Saga said, his voice surprisingly gentle. He looked up at me, possibly for the first time in days. His eyes were as dull as they’d been for the past three weeks, but the flicker of fire in them heartened me. “This isn’t the time for everything to end. Once you and Annabel are united, you will understand.”
“Hel’s beard!” I snarled, my patience shattering. “What happened to you, Saga? You used to be cunning, clever—an actual god, not… this empty shell of a being! Annabel is not the answer to everything! She is a human girl. That’s all. A vessel, at most!
"Look at yourself. You’re crumpled on the floor, incapable of so much as saving your own ass from the god-king. Waiting for a woman to come rescue you! I am not about to join you in this madness. You two enjoy your misery. I am going to find a way for us to escape.”
I stormed out of the tower room, slamming the door behind me. There hadn’t been any Valkyrie guards stationed outside of it for weeks, which was fortunate, seeing as I’d been shouting about staging an escape.