She whimpered, stilling her hands and flattening her palms against me. I bent my head for hers and she met me in a searing kiss.
She took my first thrust with a rough groan, her face still screwed up in pain sharply contradicted by the rhythmic pulses from her core. I peppered her lips, cheeks, and jaw with kisses, gasping encouragements into her ears for every roll of my hips, squeezing my eyes shut to the blinding flashes of pure bliss rocking through me every time I bottomed out in her.
Soon she reached for my face, pulling me down to return my kisses. Her legs wound around mine, heels digging into my hamstrings as she urged me deeper. Her moans spilled liberally from her lips, nothing but pleasure echoing in them now, and I wanted nothing more than to keep hearing them forever. But the tension low in my shaft spoke of the impending end to this, my first union with the woman who would be mine.
I groaned in protest and tried to hold it back, but it was no use. Annabel's slick sounds, mewls, and whimpers and that unending, tight squeeze sent me hurling toward the edge, and there was nothing I or any known deity could do to stop it.
Cursing, I thrust a hand between our bodies, finding Annabel’s clit with my thumb. I pressed in and rubbed—and Annabel lost it.
She screamed, pushing herself up against me, clutching onto me as if I was the only thing that kept her tethered to this world.
The flutter of muscles clasping me tight as she came for me was my final undoing.
Blackness took my vision as pleasure unlike anything that should have existed gripped me by the throat. I ceased to exist in that moment, and all that was left of what I’d once been was raw nerves and the unwavering knowledge that this was it.
She was it.
My Annabel.
She cried out underneath me, weakly pawing at me again as my knot molded her trembling flesh, forcing her to stretch and open as it hooked behind her pelvic bone. It hurt her, I hurt her, and I was so sorry to cause her pain and yet not sorry at all. Because this? This was how we were meant to be. Tied together in flesh, tied together in soul.
Mindlessly I buried my mouth in her neck, desperate to complete our bond and mark her as mine for all to see. But as my teeth dug into her skin, I knew it was wrong. It wasn't the right time. I needed her heat to truly make her mine.
“Shit! Fuck!” I snarled, smacking my free hand against the stone floor. “Godsdamnit!”
She whimpered underneath me, hazy eyes darting to my face. Fear shone through, her instincts flaring at the presence of an angry alpha while she was at her most vulnerable, and I instantly tampered down my disappointment.
“Shh, shh, you’re all right,” I crooned, slipping my arm underneath her so I could roll us over and ensuring she could lay on me instead of the hard floor.
She winced and whined at the movement, and I swallowed a groan as it caused my knot to tug on our tie, pressing in harder against her clit until she shuddered in climax once more.
“No more,” she rasped once her pussy’s hard spasms on my knot eased again. “Please. No more.”
I kissed her brow and released her nub of nerves, moving my hand to her round ass instead.
“I wish you’d been the one to claim me first,” she whispered, her voice hollow. It wasn’t a compliment. It was pain. Longing.
It was harder than I’d thought it would be to force a purr from my chest, but I did it. For her.
The girl who should’ve been mine.
Eight
Annabel
I meant it.
I wished Bjarni had been the one to claim me—the only one. And the thought wracked me with guilt and tore at my chest where my bonds to Magni and Saga were linked.
I loved them. Stars help me, I did. But it wasn’t love alone. It was fear and anguish and fury as well, and everything in between, and I resented them for how they’d forced their claim on me even if I understood why. Even if I could forgive them, because Fate had fucked us all over, and I’d do anything to save my family too. I was doing everything to save them.
But Bjarni…
I lifted my head to look up at his bearded face. His eyes were closed, the arm not wrapped securely around my back resting against his forehead while he purred to comfort me. He was… so much simpler. Kinder.
He was still every inch an alpha, and he’d been rough when he took me, but there’d been so much consideration in his touches too, so much gentleness and awe. Worship.
In another life, if he’d been just a man, I could imagine falling in love with him. He was everything a woman could want from her mate: strong, gentle, loyal. Beautiful as fuck. A generous lover.
And all I could feel now as I lay tied to him, his seed still slicking my inner walls… was emptiness.
Despite how fully he stretched me, how his presence inside me anchored me to him more intimately than I could put into words, I only longed for the two men who’d claimed me already.
I didn’t love Bjarni. I couldn’t. There wasn’t room inside of me for any more of that anguished, burning, all-consuming thing filling my chest.
I hadn’t realized before—hadn’t had time to think, to process everything that’d happened to me since that cave back in Iceland—but a human omega was not built to withstand more than one claim. I’d always thought it wasn’t done because alphas were jealous, possessive creatures who’d never dream of sharing unless the literal end of the world was here. But now? Now I understood.
Fate might have five mates in store for me, but I was barely holding on with two. I wasn’t me anymore; I was one being split in two, in danger of coming apart at the seams. The only thing that kept me together was knowing that if I didn’t complete my mission, Magni and Saga would die, and I’d cease to exist.
I hadn’t fully understood it before, but as I lay in silence and listened to the alpha’s soothing purr, I finally found the quietude I needed to grasp my future.
If I were to take more mates—if I were to care this much for three more men—there would be nothing left of me. No lungs to breathe, no heart to beat; just shredded tissue and a broken mind.
Which meant that while I’d have to accept their claims to stop Ragnarök, I could never love Bjarni. Nor Modi. Nor Grim.
“Are you done with this lewd ritual? Can we get on with saving our brothers?”
Modi’s voice broke through the great room, shocking me out of the daze Bjarni’s purr had eventually lulled me into despite my morose thoughts.
The alpha underneath me tensed, his purr halting. “Odin’s tits, let a man’s knot go down before you barge in demanding results, hmm? We’re still tied.”
I looked over my shoulder just in time to see Modi roll his eyes and level us with a disgusted look. “And your dick’s a magic-blocker? Evening’s almost upon us. Find me Loki.”
It was almost refreshing, the way Modi could make me feel like a straight-up harlot. Being around the Lokissons and Magni, I’d pretty much gotten the impression that nothing could be considered depraved in the eyes of the Norse gods. Case in point: the last time we’d visited Folkvangr.
However, Modi’s obvious disgust with how I’d gone about replenishing my power was palpable, and it went a long way to push my sadness to the backburner, making room for mortification instead.