The mist evaporated in a burst of lightning and scattered around me in twinkling flakes. I blinked dazedly at Modi baring his teeth in my face as the world slowly racked back into focus.
“You’re bleeding all over the place. What kind of a seer are you?” he growled as he wiped none too gently at my face and nose. His hand came back red. “I knew taking a human on this journey was a folly.”
“Well, if you wanna argue with the Norns, be my guest,” Bjarni said as he shoved him out of the way, wrapping an arm around me so he could ease me to the floor. “There we go, nice and easy now.”
The floor was cool under my palms as I steadied myself against it, but thankfully my leather pants shielded my butt from the chill. I was still feeling kinda dazed from whatever I’d just done, and I was grateful to not have to try to keep my balance.
“Well?” Modi pressed. “Did you find our wayward goddess?”
“I spoke with her,” I said, but was interrupted when Bjarni promptly pressed two fingers around my nose and tilted my head backwards.
“Whant are ynou dnoing?” I protested, batting weakly at his hand. “Staph int.”
“Don’t be difficult,” he hummed, unconcerned with my efforts to shoo him. “The sooner we get this nosebleed taken care of, the sooner you can tell us what Freya had to say.”
I bared my teeth at him in irritation, but since my lower face was blocked by his ginormous hand anyway, my annoyance went fully ignored.
In Bjarni’s defense, his nose-pinching did stop it from bleeding within a few minutes.
“There,” he said, releasing my nostrils to give my thigh a light pat. “Now, you say you spoke with Freya?”
Modi, who’d been impatiently pacing between us and the altar while my nose got it together, stopped abruptly by my side, arms folded across his massive chest. “Be quick about it, omega.”
I glared at him. “Well, as I was about to say—she says there’s no time to look for her. That humans can’t go where she is anyway. And basically that our only focus should be to stop Ragnarök. And that it has to be us. No one else.”
So if a certain Mister Lightning Fingers could stop trying to send me back…
Modi gave me an incredulous look. “Really? That’s it? Nothing helpful whatsoever?”
“No, the connection wasn’t holding any longer,” I said, trying not to feel like a complete failure despite the irritated god. “I... my energy is kinda… burned out, she said. After healing Magni.”
“Burned out?” Modi threw both arms to the sides. “Burned out? Then what the fuck did she suggest we do? Build a campfire and watch you sleep for a few days? Bjarni, even you must be able to see that this isn’t going to work. If we’re not back in Asgard with Loki in tow before the moon is full, both of us will lose our brothers!”
“Njal’s prick,” Bjarni muttered, rubbing his beard with fingers still speckled with my blood. “He has a point, sweetie. Finding my father isn’t about stopping Ragnarök. If we take you back, we’ll still be able to fulfill Mimir’s prophecy once Saga, Grim, and that redheaded idiot are safe. Maybe it’s better if we do. Let you rest?”
He was being sweet; I dimly recognized that. Trying to gentle me into going back, and largely out of concern for my wellbeing, it seemed. But a flood of panic instantly washed away all rational thought as the same sensation of urgency set in as it had when we’d discussed finding Loki back in Valhalla.
It had to be me. I didn’t know why, or even how I knew that—I just knew that something horrible would happen if I didn’t. Something that made the sore bonds in my chest quiver and ache with desperate foreboding.
“I don’t have to go back,” I blurted, clutching Bjarni’s arm. “Please, don’t, I—I don’t need to rest to regain my energy.”
“What do you mean?” he asked at the same time as Modi said, “How, then?”
“I…” I drew in a deep breath, steeling myself to say what I needed to. This had to be done. It was the only way.
“One of you needs to have sex with me.”
Seven
Bjarni
“I beg your pardon?”
The sheer shock in Modi’s voice made a rumble of laughter work its way up my chest. Annabel’s suggestion was a surprise to me too, but definitely a delightful one. Modi sounded wholly less thrilled.
“Freya said… Well, she said I had to let my mates tend to me to restore my energy, but they’re not here. And I can’t go back before we find Loki. Not even… Not even for this. So one of you will have to do it.”
There was steely determination in Annabel’s voice, as well as a slight wobble. She wasn’t keen, that much was obvious.
I reached out to stroke a hand over her cheek and saw the vulnerability in her eyes. No mated omega liked submitting to another alpha, but Annabel wasn’t going to turn around and let Trud take her place. Not even for this, as she'd said.
Whatever had her so determined to search for Loki, at this moment, I understood that it was everything to her. She was right—she had to come.
“You are my brother’s mate!” Modi snapped. “Under no circumstances am I bedding you!”
“Not a problem,” I hummed, offering Annabel a smile when she paled under Modi’s outrage. “Sniffling little godlings don’t know how to please an omega anyway, hmm? I’ll bed you anytime you ask me, sweetie. As much and as often as you like.”
“It’s not about what I want, Bjarni,” she bit, lowering her dark lashes to avoid looking at me—but she kept clutching my arm, as if she needed something solid to anchor herself with. “I… I need to find Loki. I need to save Saga and Magni.”
“I know,” I said softly, pressing my hand against her cheek until she tilted her head to rest against my touch. It made my skin prickle—such a tiny submission, yet such a big step for the little omega who’d been bonded twice against her will. “But if you ask me for this, I will bring you pleasure. I’ve wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
“Are you serious? You’re going to screw your own brother’s omega?” Modi spat. “Even for a Jotunn, that’s repugnant.”
I rolled my eyes and looked at him over my shoulder. “She will be mine as well soon enough. But until then, she still needs tending. If this is what she asks, this is what I’ll provide. You can throw a tantrum about what needs to happen if you like, but it is happening. She’s staying with us, she’s helping us find Loki—and for that to happen, she needs her magic to work properly.
"Stay and watch if you need the pointers, or go kick rocks—I don’t care—but either way, stuff a sock in it. Your yapping could wilt even the hardest of dicks.”
Modi opened his mouth, rosy splotches of anger coloring his cheeks as he gaped at me. I halfway expected him to jump me, and I tensed my muscles in preparation, but instead he just glared, eyes like the darkest of thunderclouds.
“Screw the human whore if you so desire,” he gritted. “If Magni is happy to share her with your brother, why not you too? Why not the rest of Jotunheim? But if she hasn’t gotten her magic back once your knot’s tied in her simpering cunt, I’m going back for Trud with or without you.”