He kissed me back with matching fervor, and in it I found the truth: He would help me find a way out of the madness. Somehow, he would. My gentlest mate.
“Bjarni,” I whimpered between kisses. “Bjarni…”
He undressed me, never separating our lips for more than a breath, large hands covering first my breasts and then sliding low, finding where they fit so perfectly on my hips.
His own clothes followed, a rumble of longing leaving his throat as I drew my hands up along his body to rest them on his thick pecs.
“You’re beautiful,” I whispered. Somehow along the way I’d forgotten what he was—an alpha god in his prime. Seeing him naked in front of me, there was no denying it. He was big and thickly muscled, blond fur soft under my palms as I took in every lean angle of his body and face.
He cracked a grin, eyes dark with hunger as they roamed over my bare form. “No one’s called me beautiful before, sweetie. Handsome, yes. Mighty. Big. But nothing so soft and gentle as beautiful. You’re the beautiful one, little omega, with your lush tits and those chocolate eyes of yours.”
I sucked in a breath when he bent his head and took one of my nipples between his lips as if to underline his point.
“Mountains are beautiful. Storms. There’s nothing soft of gentle about those.” I gasped as he flicked his tongue over the sensitive bud and slipped one hand from my hips to my clit, thumbing the hood shielding it. “I think you’re beautiful. Don’t tell me your masculinity is too fragile to take it as a compliment.”
He grinned against my breast, the vibration drawing a moan from me before he popped his mouth off my nipple and pushed me down on my back on the furs. Looming over me high on his knees, he looked feral and fierce.
“Are you really daring your alpha to show you there’s nothing fragile about his masculinity, mate?”
“Maybe,” I breathed, excitement crawling up my inner thighs and right into my clit.
Bjarni’s grin turned to a smirk, the look of a predator, and I bit my lip in anticipation. But when he fell on top of me, catching his weight on his arms, his expression softened.
“Don’t push me, Annabel,” he said, voice rough but resigned. “Your exhaustion is painted all over your face. I’ll be gentle—this time.”
Gratitude made me wrap my arms around his wide shoulders even as I pouted at him. He was right—I was worn to the bone, both from the magical exertion and the long walk to find Loki, as well as my heat and double-claiming before that.
Once upon a time, back when I’d thought I’d never be the kind of woman to spread her thighs for an alpha, sex had always been soft and gentle. I’d thought that was how I liked it—a slow build that never rent me of control.
Now I knew different. From the first time Magni had been inside of me, I’d known my body craved rough, unyielding submission despite my mind’s protests at the concept. In this moment, though, gentle sex sounded like chicken soup for my ovaries.
I stroked a hand along his shoulder to his jaw, pulling him into a deep kiss by his chin. He hummed with want, ravaging my mouth with his in the most languid, exquisite way.
I’d never known a kiss could be so undeniably laced with desire and yearning, yet so slow and gentle at the same time. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though; Bjarni himself was sweet and gentle, yet entirely fueled by passion and instincts, and his kiss showed me with all possible clarity exactly what kind of man my newest mate was.
“Make love to me,” I breathed.
“Gladly,” he growled, the velvet gravel of it pebbling my nipples and making my clit throb.
He slid down my body, pressing kisses along my skin until he came to my flushed sex. Groaning, he sucked in a breath, scenting me.
“Gods, you smell so good,” he rasped before he pressed in, splitting my labia with his tongue.
His clever lips found my clit the next second, and then he showed me how an alpha makes love.
Twenty-Five
Modi
“I wonder what Thor’s going to say about both his sons sharing a mate with his least favorite god’s offspring,” Loki said, his tone conversational. The swelling had finally gone down enough that he was able to make himself understood—not that that was particularly a boon, as far as I was concerned.
“Does she moan as prettily when you’re inside of her—or is it more of a grit-your-teeth-and-think-of-Valhalla deal with you?”
I shot him a glare, wishing with all I was that Bjarni would have managed to knock out his teeth while he was at it. “Quiet. Your cheap parlor tricks will not work on me.”
“Sure. I guess we can just enjoy the peace and quiet, then.” He gave me a meaningful look just as another of Annabel’s broken moans momentarily drowned out the unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting flesh from within the tent.
I knew Bjarni would bed her when I offered to take first watch again. She needed it to replenish her magical reserves, and one of us had to help her with that. As much as my cock had begged me to swallow my pride and volunteer, I chose not to.
Last time I had taken her, I lost myself completely. I said words I never thought I would say, felt things I never thought I would feel. These were not sensations I wanted to repeat while Loki and Bjarni listened.
But that was before I felt the elation and relief from them both minutes before the sounds of sex began. Whatever had transpired between them, it had changed their connection significantly. Now where I had felt pain and confusion in my connection to them, there was hope. Joy.
Love.
None of which belonged to me.
"Jealousy" was too mild a word to cover the seething agony and fury bubbling in my blood as I was forced to sit and listen to Annabel give herself to another man like she never would give herself to me—and with none other than Loki as a captive audience to my suffering.
Just. Instincts.
“Do you enjoy listening to them? Is that it?” Loki continued after a long moment of silence save the sounds of sex from the tent. “No judgement—I’ve been known to indulge in a bit of voyeurism from time to time myself. It just surprises me, what with knowing your father. He’s all days been all about the immediate gratification… less so the subtle pleasures. Or self-sacrifice. I didn’t expect his proud son to be much different.”
Fighting the urge to strangle him to release some of my pent-up misery, I got up to throw another log on the fire with more force than was necessary.
“You speak on what you do not know, trickster god,” I growled. “If you wish to keep your teeth, maybe you shut your mouth.”
Loki snorted, the sound somewhat distorted by a pained moan thanks to his broken nose. “I can’t help but wonder why you chose to mate the girl. I don’t have to do any parlor tricks to know you’re not exactly keen—much unlike my son currently enjoying himself. It’s not as if your father went out of his way to indebt her family a thousand years ago.” His tone was sour. “I’m dying to know why you and your bastard brother decided to ruin my carefully laid plans.”
“There is a prophecy. Supposedly we can stop Ragnarök by mating her,” I said, avoiding his too-sharp eyes by staring into the fire. “What kind of gods would we be if we did not try to stop the end of the world?”