"In the meantime, you will mate the omega and you will make certain she is kept from Thor’s bastard. Use her powers to ensure our bloodline lives—and keep her in line. We can’t risk her expending her magic trying to save the whole world, let alone Thor. Prophecy or no.”
I stared at my father for the longest moment, words refusing to form in my dazed mind. He still looked exactly like the man who’d come to visit us when we were children—who’d whispered the secrets of Valhalla in our ears and told of us our glorious destinies—tall, dark, mysterious, and beautiful in his divinity.
I’d always thought he loved us, that his cold mannerisms were just who he was, but he still felt… something beneath the surface. Because I’d loved him. He was my father.
It was only now, as I stood before him desperate for his help, that I understood. We were pawns to him, chess pieces he controlled to ensure his own goals.
He would never risk his own life to save my brothers. They were expendable.
I was expendable.
“Father…” I whispered hoarsely.
“Quiet!” he hissed. Dark magic rose around his body. On his shoulders, Arni and Magga’s squawks rose to shrill screams. “This is your punishment, son. Fail me again and it will be your brothers'—or your children's, should you sire any with the omega before our paths cross again.”
The magic flickered, turning into flames as they fully engulfed his body. His eyes shone bright white, making me squint to see.
I wished I hadn’t.
Flames licked up his shoulders and set fire to the birds trapped there. Their agonized cries tore through my chest and I roared, lurching to save them.
Invisible bonds kept me in place, howling with rage and sorrow as the two ravens who’d watched over me all my life died screaming in the dark fire.
When there was nothing left of them but ashes, the fire died as swiftly as it had started, my father’s eyes darkening once more.
“Do not seek me out again until Ragnarök is over,” he said, his voice calmer now, though still laced with anger. “And do not fail me again, Bjarni.”
Power grabbed my body and pushed, and I flew through the air, through the walls of the cabin and deep into the woods, landing on my back in the snow in a small clearing of trees.
I stared up at the darkening sky through the canopy high above, the silence of the forest overwhelming my senses. Grief and fury warred behind the wall of nothingness wrapping around my insides like a comforting blanket, but I was too numb to feel it.
Blessedly numb.
In the span of the past few minutes, so much had died.
My lifelong companions.
My belief that I was ever loved by the man who sired me.
My hope.
I lay in the snow for a long time before I found the strength to get to my feet. Back in Seattle, a woman was waiting for me. She needed me. My brothers needed us.
Even in the depths of nothingness, there was that. There was Annabel and Grim and Saga.
The trek back to Seattle was faster than the journey out, but it felt infinitely longer.
I kept expecting Arni to land on my shoulder and chatter some rudeness at me before he nipped my earlobe, kept peering to the sky in hopes that this was all just a horrible nightmare that I would wake up from any minute.
All that met me was solitude and snow.
Shortly after dawn, the numbness broke and grief took its place. I wished it’d been anger, but I wasn’t so lucky.
Tears trickled silently down my face and into my beard, making me thankful for my loneliness. If anyone had seen one of Jotunheim’s greatest warriors sobbing like a babe, my days would have been numbered. Weakness was the precursor to death, and right then I felt weaker than I’d ever thought possible.
The only thing that gave me the strength to keep walking was knowing that a few blocks away, Annabel was waiting for me.
Eighteen
Annabel
“Modi!”
I cried out my alpha’s name as he penetrated my weeping sex once more, the agonizing new bond hooked behind my ribs flooding with pleasure, numbing the pain.
I’d lost count of how many times he’d mounted me since he'd put his claim on me, the times in between a hazy fog of hormonal madness and misery. We hadn’t spoken—hadn’t needed to. I felt his regret like an ice pick between my ribs whenever he wasn’t buried inside of me, only the pleasure he found there overriding his anguish.
My heat refused to break, and as horrible as it was, I was grateful, because once it was over, there would be nothing to ease the torment.
Modi grunted behind me, his hands finding their now-familiar place on my hips and yanking me back onto his thick dick.
At least this part didn’t hurt any longer. He’d fucked me so many times my pussy swallowed him without protest. Even the knottings felt sort of good now.
I mewled, digging my fingers into the ripped mattress, closing my eyes as red-hot pleasure crawled through my pelvis and down my thighs. “Harder!”
“What in the ever-loving fuck!”
A roar that didn’t belong to my lover ripped through my brain, seemingly coming from everywhere around me.
I opened my eyes, squeaking in shock when the hands on my hips and the dick inside me were ripped away, leaving me empty and cold as another roar shook the apartment.
Dazedly I looked over my shoulder, naked fear gripping my lungs at the sight.
Bjarni was there, only he looked nothing like the gentle giant I’d come to know.
His face was twisted in fury, red and almost unrecognizable, teeth bared as he stood over Modi where he’d flung him to the floor.
“My omega! You claimed my omega! You, who think she is so beneath you! You, who looked down on me for wanting her!”
He didn’t wait for a reply. In the blink of an eye he’d lifted his foot and brought it down onto Modi’s skull with a sickening crack.
I shrieked as agony flared in my chest, sharp and unbearable.
“Modi! Modi, Modi, no! Please, no!” I scrambled to get off the bed, all thoughts of heat and regret gone in that horrible, too-long moment when my mate lay still on the dirty floor.
“He’s gonna live.” Bjarni’s voice was still a growl. He shoved Modi’s limp body with a foot, and my new mate groaned softly but didn’t stir otherwise.
Relief flooded my mind, anger taking the place of panic.
I bared my teeth at the man who’d hurt my mate, who’d stopped him from sating my desperate need. “You’ll pay for that!”
My own voice was barely recognizable, hoarse from screaming and raw with primal fury. I grasped for the well of my magic, my reserves filled from uncounted mountings, determined to blast this prick into next week for what he’d done to Modi.
Only Bjarni had other ideas.
He narrowed his eyes in response to my bared teeth, and before I’d managed to summon my power, he crossed the space between us, grabbed me by the scruff of the neck, and shook until I lost my grasp on my magic.
“This is what you want, Annabel?” he snarled. “You want to fight me?”
“You hurt him!” I growled back, though whatever receptors he was pressing into had my body lax and compliant no matter how much I wanted to claw at him.