“Annabel! Run!”
The change in Grim’s demeanor was so sudden and complete, it took me a second to process his command. One moment he’d looked like he wanted nothing more than to tear my head from my shoulders. The next, pure terror washed over his features—a look so alien on his pale face it made my heart skip a beat.
On instinct, I looked over my shoulder just as a thud rung through air and made the hillside shake.
A great, gray monster rose behind me, similar in appearance to the troll that’d nearly killed Grim in the creek: a huge, gray body, thickly muscled limbs, and a round face with small, black eyes and protruding fangs. Though where the other troll had been furry, this one’s skin was bare and roughly textured, giving the impression it was made from rock.
It was also much, much bigger. And it was lumbering down the hill.
Toward me.
My stomach dropped, terror kicking through my veins. Clutching Mimir to my chest, I leapt forward, forcing my exhausted muscles to sprint. The second I passed him, Grim turned around and followed me.
“Faster, Annabel,” he snarled behind me. “Faster!”
But I couldn’t run any faster. Maybe if I hadn’t been so drained, I would have been able to outrun it, but ten steps in and my muscles were already screaming, my vision blurring.
I didn’t see the root in my path. One minute I was forcing myself forward, teeth gritted against the fatigue. The next, my face smacked against soil, and I slid a few feet on my stomach before coming to a halt. Mimir went flying out of my grasp, bumping a few times as he rolled down the path.
“Shit!” Grim skidded to a stop by my side, cool hands grabbing hold under my armpits—but before he could haul me to my feet, a great shadow fell over my prone body.
“Stars be damned!” Grim snarled, releasing me. For a dazed moment, I thought he was going to leave me behind, but then the metallic slide of his daggers being yanked out of their sheaths sang through the air.
I managed to roll around just in time to see the dark-haired alpha take up stance between me and the troll, weapons at the ready.
He was strong; powerful beyond any mortal, even without his magic. Yet seeing him before that huge monster made my gut clench with uninvited terror.
Alpha god or no, he was still one man with two slivers of metal against a beast who looked like it had been carved from the mountains themselves. And if he died, all I loved would die with him.
The troll paused, as if it couldn’t quite comprehend that anyone would be dumb enough to get in the way of its intended prey. Then it roared, the trees around us shaking with the force of it, and raised its enormous club.
Grim dodged out of the way and leapt up, digging both daggers into the side of the beast and using them for leverage to pull himself up.
The troll roared again and swung its cudgel-free hand, smacking into Grim and ripping the daggers from its flesh. He crashed to the ground, rolling twice before he sprang back to his feet, but the troll was already moving toward me again.
“No, no, no!” I kicked against the ground, digging my heels into the soil to push away, but it was too little and too late. Thick fingers the size of tree branches closed around my torso and hauled me into the air.
I shrieked and clawed at its hand, but to my frail human fingers, its skin might as well have been truly hewn from rock. My nails broke against its rough hide, my feet impacting with nothing but air as I kicked.
The troll lifted me up, up, up until I was face to face with its boulder-like head.
It’s going to eat me!
The thought came unbidden, the pure terror of it making me scream the first thing that came to me.
“Grim! Grim!”
The troll pulled me closer to its face, its breath hitting me fully in the face. The stench of rotting meat made me gag.
Not like this. Please, not like this!
A snarl ripped through the air, followed by the troll’s angry growl. It dropped its club and swiveled around, grabbing for something over its shoulder.
Grim appeared on its other shoulder, teeth bared and eyes flaming with pure rage. I’d seen Bjarni succumb to battle lust before, had felt his berserker rage throb in our bond as he’d fought Nidhug. He was a warrior through and through, a true Viking god. I’d never imagined his icy younger brother possessed the same fire, but as Grim clung to the monster’s neck with his knees and raised his daggers to strike, I finally saw it: the wild, primal power within him that was born not of mist and shadow, but blood and flesh and bone.
Quicker than the troll could readjust, Grim raised both daggers and dug them deep into the Troll’s neck.
Gray blood sprayed out. The beast bellowed, furious now, and swung around again—this time releasing its grip on me to grab for Grim with both hands.
I flew through the air and crashed into the ground, my head smacking hard against the surface.
“Annabel!”
Blackness swallowed me whole.
My throbbing head was the first sensation that greeted me once my consciousness slowly returned.
“Eugh,” I protested, squinting to protect my sore head from any sudden bursts of light. But the air above me was dark, only a faint flicker of light playing along the stony ceiling.
I was in a cave.
Muddy thoughts of the troll snapped back into my tender brain, and I gasped in a breath. Had it captured me? Was Grim—
As if summoned by the mere thought of his name, the dark-haired Lokisson appeared above me. He stared down at me, brows locked in a frown. “Can you see me?”
“Yeah, of course I can see you,” I croaked. “What happened?”
He pressed his cool fingertips against my temples on both sides. The light pressure on the right side smarted, and I cringed. “Any nausea?”
“No,” I said. “The troll? Are we safe?”
Grim exhaled a slow breath and leaned back on his heels, seemingly content that I wasn’t extra-dying. “Yes. For now.”
“Is he still looking for us?” I whispered, the thought of being attacked by that monstrosity again sending shivers up my back.
“No. He is dead.” Grim didn’t take his eyes off mine. “But there are others like him in these parts. And worse. You could have died today.”
I had an inkling where he was going, but I wasn’t biting. “So could you.”
Grim bared his teeth at me, but there was more irritation than anger in his eyes. “Are you truly that stubborn? You want revenge so bad you’re willing to kill your mates? It’s not a matter of if, Annabel—it’s when, if you don’t return my use of my powers.”
My chest clenched like it always did when I thought of what I was gambling, but I forced my expression to remain calm. Without Grim, everything would be lost, regardless of mine and my mates’ deaths. That was the reason for my bargain. In that awful moment of clarity when I’d seen my means of escape smashed to pieces on that beach and heard him tell me I was his soulmate—and that it meant nothing to him—that was when I’d realized that my only chance of saving the nine worlds and my mates was to chain Grim to my heart with a matebond.
I’d hated mine when they were first forced on me. Hated how tightly they bound me, how completely enslaved I was to them. It hadn’t mattered. With each bite on my neck, I’d given myself completely to the alphas who’d claimed me.
But it worked both ways. As bound to them as I was, they were equally so to me—dedicated to protect me till their last breaths. Which is why, despite the aching bonds behind my ribs screaming at me to take Grim’s offer and protect myself and the men I loved, I only raised an eyebrow at him.
“And you? Are you too much of a coward to see for yourself what kind of pain you’re inflicting?”
His nostrils flared, mismatched eyes darkening. For the longest moment, we stared at each other in silence, each waiting for the other to break.
Finally he drew in a deep sigh and rose to his feet. “Fine. You win. I will claim you.”
I blinked, not entirely sure I’d heard right. “You… You will?”
“If that is truly what it takes for you to remove this band, it is pointless to continue this argument.” Considering how much of a fight he’d put up, he seemed… nearly indifferent now. He moved out of my field of vision and I sat up to follow him, leery of a trap.
A campfire burned in the middle of the cave. On the ground around us several animal hides were strewn, logs and rocks organized in piles.
He’d taken me to the troll’s cave, I realized.
“Just like that?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Just like that,” he repeated, poking idly at the fire with a long stick.
“No tricks?”
He gave me a contemptuous look.
“All right, then. I’m glad. I guess I’ll… let you know when my heat comes around.” I hadn’t really thought through what it’d be like—being claimed by Grim. The physicality of it.
Determinedly, I pushed those thoughts down until they were nothing but a murmur. I knew from experience that I would care way less about embarrassment and awkwardness once the urges to mate awoke in me. I’d worry about having to get naked and intimate with the cold god then.
“Where’s Mimir?” I asked, partly to change the subject and partly because the memory of him bumping down the hill after my first fall came back to me, along with a wave of worry.
“Likely where you left him,” Grim said without so much as looking up from the fire this time.
I gasped, outraged. “You left him? What if some other troll finds him?!”
“We should be so lucky,” he mumbled.
Angrily I pushed up into a seated position, pausing for a moment as my head spun and throbbed. “I know you’ve gone all dark side, but leaving a defenseless man to be trampled or eaten by monsters is low, even for you.”
Grim snorted. “Defenseless? He lured me to sleep and had a Nightmare attack me. He’s far more powerful than he likes to pretend, plum. You shouldn’t let your soft heart forget that.”
I glared at him. “He’s a head. You’re really so vindictive you’d let a divine prophet die just because he had to use trickery to escape you? Do I have to remind you that you’re the bad guy?”
Grim finally looked at me over his shoulder, resting his knuckles against his knees. A dark sheet of his hair fell over his face, concealing his lighter eye. “I know you think so.”
I shook my head and forced myself to my feet. The world spun once, then stilled. “Grim, you’re literally doing everything you can to bring about the end of nine worlds. It doesn’t get much more bad guy than that.”
“And yet you insist I claim you,” he murmured softly, not taking his gaze off me. “An evil, vengeful god. The villain of your story. What does that make you, Annabel?”
“Desperate,” I said, my voice as quiet as his. Without waiting for a reply, I turned toward the yawning mouth of the cave and headed for it.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Grim’s voice cracked like a whip, the softness gone.
“To find Mimir.” I looked at him over my shoulder. “Chill out. I’m not attempting a grand escape. Even if I could make it more than half a mile before collapsing, it would be pretty counterproductive to leave you behind, now that you’ve agreed to my bargain.”
“You’re not leaving this cave until my powers are restored,” he said, getting to his feet. “There are far too many trolls in this area, and I won’t be able to take down another. Not for a few days.”
Only then did I notice that he was holding his left arm close to his body and carrying most of his weight on his right leg. He hadn’t come out of that battle unscathed.
“I’m not leaving Mimir out there,” I said. “Besides, who knows if one of that troll’s friends won’t stop by for a visit? I don’t think this place is any safer than out there.”
“Mountain trolls aren’t social creatures—they usually don’t cross into each other’s territories if they can avoid it. This cave is the only place we won’t risk another attack. And you are staying, Annabel.” He took a step toward me, intent in every line of his face.
“Then you should have brought Mimir when you took me here,” I said. “I’m not trying to be difficult—I’d rather avoid another monster encounter too—but I can’t leave him in the mud in the middle of troll territory.”
Grim stared at me for another long second before he pulled his nostrils up in a sneer. “Fine. I’ll get him. But I swear, if you are not here when I return, I am cutting off his tongue, gouging out his eyes, and slicing off his ears. Do you understand?”
I swallowed thickly before nodding. “Got it.”
He shot me another dark glare, pulled out his daggers, and then stalked out of the cave.
I stared after him for a long couple of seconds. For someone who seemed to take offense to being called a bad guy, he sure had a way of saying the most villainous things.
It didn’t take long before Grim returned, this time with his daggers sheathed and Mimir’s mud-dripping head dangling from one hand. He was carrying him by a fistful of hair, and from the angry sounds coming from the prophet, he was none too pleased about it.
“…spect for your elders!” Mimir barked. I didn’t catch the first part, but I didn’t need to.
“Grim! That’s not okay!” I said, rushing over to grab the prophet from him.
Grim released his grip without protest and headed toward the fire.
“Are you okay?” I asked Mimir, making sure I cupped his head by the jaw as I lifted him up to inspect him for damage. Thankfully, apart from the mud and a few bruises, he seemed unharmed.
“Your mother should have drowned you before you could crawl,” the prophet snarled in Grim’s direction. Anger still flashed in his eyes when he turned his focus to me, but his tone turned somewhat milder. “I am, no thanks to that brute. I have a good mind to teach him what it’s liked to be hauled around by the scalp.”
“That would require hands,” Grim shot back.
“Ignore him,” I interjected when Mimir’s eyes widened with outrage and he opened his mouth, undoubtedly to retaliate. “He’s just in a bad mood because he finally realized I’m not taking off his ring before he claims me.”
Mimir’s mouth slackened, his gaze flicking to me, to Grim, and then to me again. “He… agreed?” His voice was quiet now, almost a whisper.
I nodded. “Apparently we’re camping out here until… my heat. He says it’s safer.”
“It is. But…” Mimir frowned. “If I were you, I’d be wary, plum. He must know a matebond will increase his urges to protect you exponentially. I’d bet a good horn of mead he’s got something sinister planned.”
“I’m sure he does. But it’s the only chance I have at changing his mind. And we need him—you know we do,” I whispered, glancing over my shoulder to make sure we hadn’t caught Grim’s attention. But the darkhaired alpha showed exactly zero interest in either of us.
“We do,” Mimir agreed. “But we need you as well. You are the key, Annabel. If you are lost, there will be no more Asgard, no more Midgard—no more of anything. Don’t put your faith in his better nature. He may not have one.”
After a while, the offensive stench of mountain troll numbed my sense of smell. It made staying in the cave much more tolerable, but after four days, I was about to lose my mind.
At least I thought it had been four days—Grim refused to let me so much as look outside, and without hunger or thirst, it was difficult to gauge the passage of time. All I knew was that we had been there forever, twiddling our thumbs while Ragnarök proceeded as planned in the living realms.
I was beginning to suspect that this was why Grim had accepted my bargain. If I was stuck in a cave instead of searching for ways to escape Hel, he didn’t need his magic to protect me, nor did he need to expend any energy in stopping me. He just had to wait until it was too late for me to do anything anyway.
I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait for my heat to make an entrance. Supposedly it was a monthly thing for omegas, but I wasn’t sure there had been a month between my two previous heats, nor exactly how long since my last one. And clearly my hormones were all kinds of fucked up anyway, given my singular period since I’d been pulled into this mythological clusterfuck. It could be weeks before my heat. Months, if I was really lucky.
Mimir seemed to be doing his best to distract me from my darkening thoughts. He told me stories of his many adventures before he lost his body, most of them about his and Odin’s travels.
“Are you still good friends with the god-king?” I asked after he finished a tale of an old woman they came across while disguised as peddlers. She had bought a pretty comb from them, haggling with the two gods until they sold her the trinket well below its value just to get rid of her. But she had wished them “Odin’s blessings” as they parted, and in return, Odin had indeed blessed her—with youth.
And later on that evening, he’d blessed her again, this time with a child, much to the dismay of his queen.
“He sounds kind of... vain and unfaithful, for a supposedly wise god. But I could be biased—I’ve not been a fan since he tried to have my mates killed.”
Mimir chuffed through his nose. “Gods and men are much alike, in that aspect. We all have flaws. Odin has all days vied for recognition and worship from mortals.”
“And your own flaws?” I pried.
Mimir gave me a half-smile. “Too numerous to count, plum, pride perhaps chiefly among them. No, Odin and I are no longer friends like we were.”
“Is that why you lived in that well before you were taken here? Did Odin banish you there?” He seemed the type to banish people to wells.
“I chose the well of my own free will. Its waters bring wisdom. I did not, however, choose to leave.”
I resisted the urge to suggest he might have decided to live by the well, rather than in it, but who was I to deny a bodiless god his quirks? “And the creature that took your place? Was it drawn by the water too?” I shuddered at the memory of the thing that had nearly killed Magni.
Mimir gave me a long look. “I suspect it was placed in my well after I was taken.”
“You think someone deliberately set a trap for us? But who could have known we’d be going there? Verdandi wouldn’t tell anyone—I think. I mean, I don’t know her, but—”
“Verdandi would never betray you,” Mimir interrupted. “Think, child. Who would gain from your death?”
“Loki,” I said. “If he could have stopped me, then—”
“Loki was hiding in Midgard then,” Grim broke in. I jolted at the sound of his voice—he’d ignored me ever since fetching Mimir, and I’d more or less gotten used to him being a silent shadow.
“He is right,” Mimir said softly. “The trickster god had no access to my well.”
I frowned. But who else would have gone to the lengths of planting some vicious monster in hopes it killed me? If Loki was behind the coming of Ragnarök, if he wanted me out of the way bad enough to have had Grim lure me to Hel—
I jerked upright, my spine straightening. If Loki had wanted me dead, why hadn’t he left me to die along with Modi and Bjarni when we’d faced Nidhug? He could have run, saved his own skin, and gotten rid of us all in one fell sweep.
“Loki isn’t behind this,” I murmured, more to myself than anyone else. “I was wrong.”
They were staring at me, Grim with darkness in his eyes, Mimir with intent, but they were both silent—unable to tell me anything more, thanks to whatever spell had been put on them to keep them quiet.
How long had Grim been working for them? Before we arrived at Valhalla? Or had he been turned after?
I spent the next couple of hours in silence, working over what little information I had of who might be behind it all. It’d been a sort of comfort, really, when I was sure it was Loki. Not knowing was infinitely scarier, even if some small part of me was relieved we wouldn’t have to kill Bjarni and Saga’s father.
But would we have to kill Modi and Magni’s? I remembered my concerns—concerns Bjarni had shared—when Magni’s pleas for help to get us back from Seattle had gone ignored. And I remembered the power of the entity that had faced Saga and me during our trials to enter Asgard.
Wasn’t Thor supposed to be the mightiest god of them all?
As far as evidence went, it was weak. I’d accused Loki too hastily, ignoring how easy it would have been for him to end my life without having his son kidnap me to Hel. Sure, before I knew he couldn’t have been behind the well creature, I’d assumed he had some nefarious and magical reasons for not killing me the old-fashioned way, but I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. I wasn’t going to do that again. Even if Thor had proven to be a prime jerk and an awful father, it didn’t necessarily mean that he was trying to bring about the end of everything that’d ever lived.
But who, then?
I rubbed irritably at my neck, the sweat on it making me itchy. I didn’t know nearly enough about the intricacies of the gods to hazard a guess, and yet somehow it was my job to figure out not only who was behind this whole catastrophe, but also stop them. Because why not? It wasn’t like Asgard was littered with literal gods who could maybe get off their collective asses and do something about it.
The feathers decorating my armor brushed against my throat, aggravating it, and the leather clung to my chest, overheating my body.
Growling, I pulled at the feathery piece, intent on freeing myself from its constrictive confines, when realization struck and my fingers stilled.
I was sweating.
Slowly I lowered my hands, my mind switching from trying to puzzle out the betrayer’s identity to the here and now.
My blood felt too warm in my veins, and when I focused inward, my pulse drew me down to the heavy press low in my abdomen.
It was happening.
I bit my lip, anxiety flaring as I glanced over my shoulder at Grim. He was staring blankly into the fire, an unmoving sentinel, just like he had for the past four days. Waiting.
I should have felt relief; I’d been waiting for this. Once it was done, we could continue our search for a way out of Hel, and Grim…. Grim would learn that there was no choice but for us to fight against Ragnarök. Together.
But… I rubbed a hand against my chest, the leather still too tight on my skin, eying him again. This was… so very different than it had been with my four other mates. Saga, Magni, and Bjarni had all been keen to bed me, eager to put their marks on my neck. Even Modi, who’d been reluctant at first, was all heat and primal urges underneath.
Grim? Grim was ice and shadow and hate.
My supposed soulmate, who had killed me without hesitance.
Enough wallowing, Annabel. No amount of trepidation was going to change what had to happen now.
Trying to will my hands to stop shaking, I began to undo the straps tying my armor in place. First the plumed chest piece, then the wrist guards. My boots. I kneeled and undid my belt and leather trousers, sliding them and my panties off my thighs, until I was naked.
Still warmth licked along my veins, the momentary relief of being bare drowning as my temperature climbed. There was only one thing that would bring me true relief.
I walked on bare feet across the cave floor toward the fire. And Grim.
Only when I stopped by his side did he glance up at me.
“What—?” His smokey voice quieted as he took me in, eyes sweeping up the length of my body, pausing for a long second at the apex of my thighs. When he met my gaze again, dark determination shone in his.
Without another word, he rose to his feet and turned fully toward me.
He stood so close, his natural coldness leeching through the distance between us, pulling on me with the whispered promise of relief. His scent, though still dimmed by Hel, seemed stronger now. Delicious. Alpha.
Uninvited images of licking his throat popped into my head, and I swayed toward him, my body momentarily taking over.
His cool, strong hands closed around my forearms, stopping me. The shock of his chilled skin against mine pulled me out of it enough to draw my focus from his throat to his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I… I’m not sure how to do this.”
It was true. The other times, I had been so deep in my heat my instincts had taken over, making me say and do things I wouldn’t have if I’d still been in control of my mind.
Now? It was still early, and I still had the ability to feel shame. My body hummed with interest at Grim’s presence, heat pulsing more heavily in my womb, but it wasn’t strong enough to force me to my knees and beg for him to mount me.
I should have waited until it was.
“I’m sorry,” I repeated, pulling away from his grip. I turned around before I could see the look on his face and retreated to my corner. Without looking back, I dropped down on the dried skin I’d used as a bed these past few nights, wrapped my arms around my knees, and pressed my face into them to wait for the sweet oblivion of my full heat.
Hours. It would be hours of increasing torture before it crested, if the past two times were anything to go by. I gritted my teeth and clasped my knees harder, trying to push down a sudden wave of despair. If my mates had been here, they would’ve seen me through this without shame or misery. They would’ve surrounded me with love and laughter, inflicted upon me guilt-free pleasure until every cell in my body was sated and my mind at peace.
Peace.
It had been mine for the briefest of moments, that night in the arms of the four men who loved me, before I’d been ripped from them again. I longed to be back there on the soft furs in that room in Valhalla, longed for it so much my heart ached.
A cold touch on my shoulder made me draw in a sharp breath, my sadness scattering. I hadn’t heard Grim approach.
He wrapped his strong fingers around my braid, then tugged, pulling my head back. He knelt down behind me, his body dwarfing mine as he bent his head to murmur into my ear, “Have you changed your mind, omega? Are you no longer interested in fucking me?”
I swallowed thickly, unsure how to respond. Was he toying with me? Mocking me? My blood pulsed, heating my thoughts until they were too hazy to grasp.
Grim leaned in closer, and I shivered as the chill of his body enveloped me from behind, making every hair stand on end and my nipples tighten. Still keeping his fist locked in my hair, he ran his nose up the side of my neck, a rough noise escaping his lips that woke my clit with a shudder.
“You smell almost like you did that night at our farm on the cusp of your first heat. So needy. Your scent nearly drove my brothers to force you up against the kitchen counter.”
“I remember,” I croaked. “You stopped them. Was it… Was it for their sake? Or mine?”
He only snarled in response and slipped his free arm around my midriff.
Even through his leather armor, it was such an intimate embrace from the alpha who had barely stomached my presence up until now. I drew in a shuddering breath, my mind reeling, but my body reacted on pure instinct, leaning into the man whose scent and touch promised blessed relief.
“Were you scared your first time underneath the Thorsson bastard?” he asked, his quiet voice surprising me as much as the question itself.
I looked at him over my shoulder, tried to decipher his intentions, but his face revealed no emotion.
“Yes,” I said. “I was. But the heat was… more insistent. I didn’t register much else apart from the need.”
He chuffed a breath through his nose, but it wasn’t quite a laugh. “And now? Are you still afraid?”
“Yes,” I admitted softly, because it was the truth. “But not of the sex—of what comes after.”
“What comes after is your doing,” he reminded me, a thread of anger in his voice. “Remember that.”
He yanked my head back harder, making me arch my back and drop to my knees with a grunt of pain, before gliding his hand down my stomach and between my thighs.
I keened without meaning to, my knees spreading wide of their own accord. His fingers skimmed my still-hooded clit and I cried out again, a zing of pleasure tightening my spine. His skin was like ice against my molten flesh, heightening the sensation as he delicately traced the small fold hiding that bundle of nerves.
“Grim… touch me there,” I gasped, all thoughts other than need fleeing my mind, all traces of embarrassment lost to the undertow of lust.
He breathed against my neck, the air on my skin as cool as his fingertips pulling back on my hood, exposing my clit.
“Yes,” I hissed, pressing my back into him more fully. “Please, yes.”
“So eager,” he murmured. “One tiny little touch, and you’ve forgotten your shame of having to surrender to your enemy. I wonder—if I let you stew until your heat fully consumed your mind, would you force yourself upon me?”
Probably.
I whimpered. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”
If I’d been fully with it, I wouldn’t have begged him—wouldn’t have shown him how desperate I was to avoid the agony of being without his touch. The second the words were out of my mouth, I cringed, expecting him to use them against me—to make me suffer for what I’d forced him to agree to do.
He breathed against my neck again, the shakiest note to it, and then brushed his fingertip up through my folds to ghost his touch over my bared clit.
I quivered, my breath exploding out of my chest at the blinding sensation of his featherlight caress. It was like fire, like ice—too strong, too much for me to contain. He brushed it again, and again, and I cried out and reached back, blindly digging my nails into his thighs bracketing my hips, needing to feel him under my palms to anchor me through the torrent of impressions.
How? The question echoed in my mind as I writhed in the alpha’s grasp, my climax fast approaching despite Grim giving my clitoris little more than featherlight attention.
“How are you doing this?” I gasped. “Oh, fuck, I’m… I’m—!”
I keened and came, the rising tension in my abdomen snapping as ecstasy danced along my spine.
Grim held me in place, fingers resting lightly against my pulsing bud of nerves until my orgasm ebbed. I groaned softly, and he released his hold on my hair and moved his hand from my pussy, letting me sag forward to support my weight on my knees. Despite still feeling light with the echoes of pleasure, my body was already heating up again, more insistently this time. Urgent.
Through hooded lids, I turned my head to look at Grim over my shoulder.
He was watching me intently, his expression still inscrutable—but his gaze was not. His eyes were dark with a hunger I recognized all too well, and relief flickered in my gut. Relief—and desire. He wanted me. Despite his anger, his plans, his hatred… he wanted me.
Slowly I bent forward until my cheek pressed against the dirty hide, arched my back, and spread my knees, submitting.
Grim snarled, the sound running through me like high voltage. I gasped as my body clenched in response.
“Alpha,” I cooed. “Please.”
“Alpha,” he growled, the note of mockery not fully swallowed by the rumbling timbre of his own desire. He moved closer, and once again the chill of his body brushed against my skin before he touched me. “Is that the game you wish to play, Annabel? A submissive little omega aching for her alpha? You don’t need to pretend with me. I see your iron. Your fire.”
“It’s not a game,” I said, grimacing as my abdomen clenched again, forcing slick to trickle down my thighs. “I need you. Please.”
Silence followed. And then—cold, heavy pressure on the back of my neck as he rose up on his knees behind me, one hand keeping my head to the skins while the other…
“Yes! Please!” I whimpered as he traced my already sodden lower lips, teasing me open without ever truly touching me where I needed him most. And still, just the lightest brush of his skin against mine had every nerve in my body alight with sensation, as if I was somehow attuned to him. As if the icy magnetism of his presence had sucked me under, and every cell in my body now yearned to meld with his, until I was finally… complete.
“I need you,” I croaked. “Inside me, Grim. Please.”
Air rushed from his lungs, his grip on my neck tightening and his featherlight fingers against my pussy flattening. I groaned incoherently at the firmer touch and rocked against his palm, icy fire licking up my spine.
It felt so good. I moaned again, pressing down hard to grind my clit on his fingers, but just as the first whispers of orgasm were within reach, he removed both hands from my aching body.
I hissed in protest. “No, please—”
The rustling of his belt buckle made me swallow, my plea dying on a gasp—a gasp that turned sharp when he grabbed my ass and spread me open.
The first brush of his cockhead was so cold against my molten flesh, it should have been soothing.
It was anything but.
Fire raced up my spine, my heat covering me in sweat even as I shivered at his touch. Inside, inside! He belonged in me, belonged with me—
Grim hissed when I bucked and tried to spear myself on him, his grip on my ass turning painful as he held me in place.
“Please, please—!” I begged, mindless for anything but the urgency pounding in my blood.
I needn’t have.
Grim snarled, the sound rough and oh-so alpha. And then he took me.
Cool, unrelenting pressure caught in the mouth of my pussy for a brief second, but my slick, eager flesh opened for him, stretching to the point of delicious pain.
Grim made a choking sound I barely registered over the rushing in my ears and forced the head of his cock fully inside.
Yes!
I cried out, nails digging into the hide beneath me as my entire body lit up from within, the sensation rooted in that burning, aching, throbbing part of me wrapped around him. I didn’t get to revel in it, because Grim only paused for a moment. Sliding his hands up to my hips and grasping me hard enough to bruise, he pushed the full length of his cock inside me in one slow, smooth slide, forcing me wide all the way to my cervix.
“Nngh!” His cry mixed with my own as we both stilled. Everything was heat and ice, and I was so perfectly full, so entirely complete. My body thrummed with energy, a mixture of light and darkness swirling before my eyes, blinding me to the world. There was only him, inside of me. Where he belonged.
Grim slumped over me, his armor digging into my skin. His breath came in harsh, sharp gasps against my ear, the scent of alpha enveloping my senses.
“Grim,” I murmured. “Grim.”
His lips skimmed the shell of my ear—not quite a kiss, but the gentleness of his caress sent shivers down my spine. He groaned again, gliding his hands from my hips to my waist, bringing me with him when he sat back up.
The change in position brought me into his lap, straddling his cock still hard and unyielding inside me. With one hand, he released my waist, dragging his palm along my torso, over a breast, and up to my throat. His grasp was like iron, his hold on me unbreakable. I leaned my head back, resting it against his shoulder, reaching back to dig my fingers into his thighs.
Grim’s first thrust was ecstasy made flesh. His cool, girthy cock filled me in a rough push, and I mewled at the brutal pleasure. He didn’t pause when he met the bottom of my passage this time, instead giving me another harsh thrust. And another. And another.
I arched and spread my thighs as much as I could while he took me with rough, urgent groans, his previously light touches exchanged for bruising strength and dominance. It was exactly what I needed—what my body needed to ease the fires of my heat.
I cried out for him again and again, his name spilling from my lips to the tune of my pussy’s syrupy smacks each time he drove home. He clutched me closer in response, held me so tight I struggled to breathe, but I didn’t care. I just needed more of him, more of his cock, more—!
“Oh, fuck!” Without warning, every muscle in my body clamped down tight, my back tightening like a bowstring. My climax struck like a lightning bolt, pleasure seizing me as my pussy erupted in a series of flutters around his thickness.
Grim let out a strangled sound, his entire body freezing as his shaft thickened in my entrance.
I forced out a noise of protest through his grip on my throat, but Grim didn’t draw out my torment. With a grunt of effort, he pressed his swelling knot home, the brutal bump hooking deep in my pelvis.
I wailed and clawed at my alpha’s leather-clad thighs in retaliation, light exploding behind my eyes as equal parts pain and pleasure lanced up my abdomen and down my thighs. But his knot was immediately followed by cool, soothing liquid. It filled my pussy and bathed my cervix, alleviating the pain with each powerful spurt, and making my lover shudder and gasp against my ear.
“Grim,” I rasped brokenly, his name the only word filling my mind. Grim, Grim, Grim. This was home. This was completion.
A deep growl rumbled through his chest and into my back in response.
And then he buried his sharp teeth in the back of my neck—and my soul.