Freya’s glade was as quiet and serene as we had left it. The trees surrounding it still wept—a trait that greatly disturbed Bjarni—but no monsters lurked nearby. There was still a mark in the grass where Annabel and I had lain together only hours ago.
I stared at it, remembering everything that had happened between us in that spot. I had sworn I would give anything to undo what I had done. Fate had taken me up on my bargain. I was going to get through this, even if it broke me.
“I love you,” Annabel said softly.
I turned around to face her, and was greeted with her beautiful face and the barest hint of a smile. She trailed her hand up my chest and cupped my cheek. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
Silently I pressed my cheek into her palm. There was no point in answering.
“Come,” she said, taking my hand. I let her, but when I looked up, I saw her four other alphas standing a few yards away. Watching us. Waiting. For her.
Dark ice clutched at my lungs. My fingers tightened around hers as I stood frozen to the spot. Willingly. I was supposed to give her to them willingly? My mate. Mine.
I wasn’t in control of the low snarl that rumbled out of my throat.
“Grim,” Annabel whispered. She moved closer to me, pressing herself tight against my body as her eyes sought mine. “You can do this, baby. For our daughter.”
Our daughter. Our little spark of life who would never see the sun if I didn’t go through with this.
I let my free hand slide over Annabel’s abdomen before I drew in a breath and nodded. It was as much acceptance as I could muster, but it was enough.
Annabel pressed a kiss to my chest and pulled away. Without releasing her grip on my hand, she turned back around and led me to the others.
“We’re ready,” she said, giving Bjarni a chuckle when he lit up in a wide grin filled with easy excitement and just a touch of heat.
“It’s been weeks,” my brother huffed at Annabel’s amusement. “If you didn’t want me desperate, you shouldn’t have gotten yourself kidnapped, sweetie.”
“Man has a point,” Magni added as he sauntered a step closer. “Even in Hel you make my body yearn, pet.”
“Take it slow,” Saga warned. He was the only one of them who was looking at me rather than our mate, and he wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he was evaluating me, gauging the probability of me making good on my threats.
“If we can share her nicely, so can he,” Modi said, impatience coloring his voice. “No one went slow the last time we did this.”
“You and Bjarni weren’t exactly nice about anything at the beginning,” Annabel reminded him, her tone sharp. “And neither were Saga and Magni. Give him some space.”
“He’s had weeks by your side,” Magni protested. “Weeks. You don’t know how bad it’s been, Annabel. I wanted to claw through my own chest every single second of every single day—we all did. I want to tell you how much we’ve missed you, but that word simply isn’t enough to explain…” He trailed off with a grimace as he touched his ribs.
Annabel took a step forward and placed the hand she didn’t have clutched in mine against his chest.
“I do know,” she said. “When it looked like I would never be able to return, I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing you again. I need you too, Magni. I’m aching for you. But we need to take care of each other, and right now, Grim is struggling. So please, be gentle with him.”
I swallowed a growl and returned Magni’s irritated glare. I didn’t need any of them to be gentle with me. I needed him to get his hands off my mate.
Annabel patted Magni’s chest, drawing his attention from me back to her. She raised up on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on his lips that he quickly returned, humming with pleasure.
Anger churned in my gut at the sight of them, but before I could lose myself in it, Annabel pulled on my hand, urging me closer.
Hesitantly I obeyed, until I pressed up against her back.
“Closer, Grim,” Annabel groaned between kisses. “I need you closer.”
I obliged her—I could never deny her my body—and she hummed a happy note as the curve of her ass pressed tight against me and I buried my head in her hair. My hands slipped from hers to her hips, anchoring us both with my grip.
This felt… better. My fury still roiled under the surface, hot and bitter, but Annabel’s closeness kept it in check.
I breathed in against the side of her neck and wished I could smell her before I rubbed my nose along the tendon there, drawing goosebumps along her skin.
Annabel moaned into Magni’s mouth and moved her hips against me, drawing my attention to my already rock-hard dick. How did she do this? How did she make me yearn to be inside her even when she was surrounded by other alphas?
I pushed my contemplations aside and allowed myself to drown in the pulse of desire—forced my mind to focus on nothing but the feeling of my mate against my body and how much I needed her to sate me.
Soft footfalls drew nearer, and through my haze of ever-growing lust, I sensed the others surround us. Hands reached out, touched her, brushed against me in a soothing caress before someone pulled her armor off, letting her breasts spill free.
I drew my hands up from her hips to grab them both, groaning against Annabel’s neck at the soft sensation of them filling my palms.
In front of her, Magni bent and wrapped his lips around one of her nipples, drawing a shuddering gasp from Annabel.
I snarled, fury rising through the haze at the fact he thought I was offering him her breasts, but Annabel reached back to clutch at my hip, returning my attention to her.
“It feels… feels good, baby,” she moaned. “You want the other?”
“All of you is mine,” I reminded her roughly, earning me a warning growl from someone else—Modi, it sounded like.
“The lady asked you to suck on her tits. If you don’t, brother, I will,” Bjarni rasped by my side.
“Please, Grim,” Annabel urged, arching back against me. “I need you to suck me.”
I grunted at the plea—somehow I suspected she knew I could never deny her when she begged me so sweetly. I shifted, moving to her front where Magni was still playing with her left breast, seemingly oblivious to my presence. I bent my head next to his and latched on to her right nipple.
“Ooh, Grim!” Annabel gasped. She laced her fingers through my hair and tightened, clutching me to her breast as if she feared I would let go.
I sucked her nipple deeper into my mouth and earned another gasp from my mate. Nothing felt like this. Sucking and licking her tight nipples was an intensely sexual sensation, heightened by Annabel’s audible pleasure, but there was something else too—something primal that lulled my darkness and soothed my anger with every pull. I pushed the thought away, disinclined to pursue the origins of that warm sensation of comfort and safety I found at her breast.
Bjarni stepped up behind her, pulling her tight to his body and nuzzling at her neck with a low rumble.
Annabel whimpered and clutched harder at me and Magni, but when I let my fingers slide down to the apex of her thighs to give her more stimulation, I brushed over Bjarni’s hands deftly undoing her pants. I growled a low threat at his uninvited presence.
“We can fight over who gets first taste of her pussy later,” Bjarni said mildly, not pausing as he opened her pants and yanked them down over her hips. “Help me bare her.”
“I’ve got her,” Modi said. He stepped between me and Magni and knelt, then looked up at Annabel. There was worship in his eyes as he slowly pulled her pants all the way down her legs and off. It made me feel… uneasy to see an old enemy so open, and I refocused my attention back on the plump breast in my mouth, teasing the tip of its pert nipple with my tongue.
My mate moaned sweetly, her eyes flickering to mine. The hazy glow of desire in them was achingly familiar by now, and I forgot about the others and held her gaze as I sucked her hard.
Annabel squeezed her eyes shut and groaned, digging her fingers into my scalp, only to yank savagely the next second when her eyes flew back open and she let out a keening wail.
“Fuck! Modi!” she cried, her gaze moving down. A fine tremor played across her features before she threw her head back against Bjarni’s chest. “Yes! Yes! More!”
I pulled back from her head and looked down at what had caught her attention so thoroughly. Modi was still kneeling between her thighs, his mouth now firmly pressed to her small sex. From the hollowing of his cheeks, I could only assume he was giving her clit as much attention as I had been her nipple.
Something hot and uncomfortable crept up through my chest as I watched Thor’s son pleasure my mate—some ungodly mix of seething jealousy, scalding desire, and deep, dark despair.
I had never pleasured her like that. I’d wanted to when she was in heat, and the scent of it had overwhelmed my senses and begged me to bury my mouth between her thighs until her flavor filled me. But I hadn’t.
I didn’t think of her much, when I was with Annabel. Sex with my mate was nothing like it had been when it was forced upon me by someone I despised. I loved every second of being entangled with my mate. Even the terrifying intimacy when the pleasure of it overwhelmed my inner resistance and our souls merged felt like nothing else ever could. And yet that one thing, that one way of giving her pleasure, I hadn’t undertaken.
I stumbled back a few steps as I stared at Modi licking and sucking at Annabel’s clit so thoroughly, she seemed to be incapable of coherent thought while she writhed between the three alphas. The hand that had held me tight to her breast now clutched at Modi’s hair, urging him deeper, and he… His eyes were closed, and sheer revelry was written across the planes of his face. He loved it just as much as she did, that much was clear.
A hand clasped onto my shoulder, making me jolt and snap my head around to glare at Saga.
My brother didn’t release his grip, despite my bared teeth. He only gave me a long, searching look, as if he understood that something about watching Annabel ride Modi’s tongue made my lungs tighten, a pit of despair opening in my gut.
“Lay her down,” he said to the others, moving his attention back to them and Annabel in their midst.
They moved as one, easily shifting her down onto the grass. Bjarni knelt by her head, stroking her face while freeing his cock with his other hand. Magni was still busy with her left breast and Modi sprawled on the grass between her thighs, clutching at them as he licked the full length of her slit before refocusing on her clit. I couldn’t take my eyes off him, couldn’t shut out his groans of pleasure as our mate ground against him with increasingly frantic gasps.
“That’s my girl,” Bjarni rumbled as he petted her hair and stroked his thick cock. He grabbed her arm and pulled her resistant hand from Magni’s head to his own bobbing erection. “Let it come.”
Annabel wrapped her hand around him seemingly on instinct. Her movements on his cock were jerky and erratic, most of her focus still on Modi’s tongue, but Bjarni still hissed with pleasure.
“Gods, yes!” He arched and wrapped one hand around hers, guiding her movements over his pulsing flesh. With the other, he reached for Magni. Thor’s bastard looked up at my brother’s touch, but instead of pulling away like I had half-expected, or even snarling out a warning, Magni threaded his fingers through Bjarni’s and held on tight.
“I’m… I’m…!” Annabel’s voice, high-pitched and desperate, broke on a moan as her body arced into a tight bow. I sensed the wave of pleasure roaring through her as it crashed against the barrier in our bond.
She collapsed back onto the grass with a sated sigh and smiled down at Modi. He gave her a few more licks before he returned her gaze with a grin.
“Missed you, Anna,” he murmured, voice raw from his own pent-up desire.
“I missed you too,” she whispered, her smile fading as she stroked the hand not wrapped around Bjarni through his hair, as if she were sharing that moment only with him.
My gut clenched as the dark thing in me welled up. All I saw was another man between my mate’s thighs. In my mate’s heart.
“Snap out of it!” Saga hissed. He shook my shoulder hard, and I realized the darkness was welling out of me in a threatening cloud of power. I was seconds from surrounding Modi with it and squeezing until he was gone.
But if I did that, if I killed him, Annabel would die too.
Growling with the effort, I pulled my magic back inside of me. It thrashed against my restraint, volatile and furious, and I tightened my grip on it, willing it into submission—even if every cell in my body ached to unleash it on the alphas who dared touch my Annabel.
Saga gave me another long look. Then he shifted his grip from my shoulder to my hand and yanked me forward a few steps.
“Get up, Thorsson. It’s our turn to make her moan,” he said.
Modi gave him a frustrated look over his shoulder. “You can do that after I’m done.”
“Don’t be greedy,” Magni chided, nudging him with a knee.
Modi bared his teeth at his brother, but Annabel stroked her hand down his face to cup his chin, regaining his focus. “I will need you just as much later as I do now. I will never stop needing you, Modi.”
It dawned on me then, through my own seething jealousy and darkness, that I wasn’t the only one struggling with this. Only Modi didn’t so much as attempt to hide the vulnerability in his eyes as he sought Annabel’s gaze, searching for the truth in her words. He sighed softly as he found it and bent his head to place a final kiss to her nether lips before he pushed off the ground, relinquishing his place between her splayed thighs.
“Come,” Saga said to me. He pulled me forward, leading me to that sacred space.
I stared down at Annabel’s glistening sex. Even though I couldn’t scent her arousal, it was evident in the slick sheen clinging to her puffy lips, in her soft gasps as Magni returned his focus to her breast, and in the tremble running the length of her legs as Saga knelt by her waist. He brushed his hand through her dark thatch of pubic hair before he pinched the hood of her clit and pulled it back, fully exposing her already swollen nub.
“Come, brother. Your mate needs you too,” he said, his voice soft—cajoling.
I fell to my knees as if someone had snipped the thin thread keeping me upright. The darkness rushed in my ears, drowning out everything but my own ragged breathing and the too-fast beat of my pulse. Instincts pounded at my brain, every alpha cell in my body desperate to bury my mouth there and force that bared little clit of hers to climax. I wanted to—I wanted to so badly it hurt—but I sat frozen, incapable of doing what my mate needed me to do.
“Grim.”
Annabel’s voice broke through the rushing in my ears. I jerked my head up, catching her gaze. She sat up, ignoring the growls of annoyance from Bjarni and Magni, and cupped my face with both hands, ensuring I saw nothing but her.
“You don’t have to do that, Grim. I need you. You pleasure me in so many ways. This does not have to be one of them.”
She understood; I knew that as I read the sorrow in her eyes. I hadn’t been explicit about this part, about what had happened when I had been made to bed my stepmother, but I didn’t need to.
I bared my teeth around a snarl. It had been a thousand years and she still took from me. From Annabel.
No. No. I would not let her do this, would not let her ruin how I pleasured my mate.
I grabbed Annabel by the shoulders and pushed her back down on her back before I refocused on her eager pussy.
Saga reached down again and pulled her hood up once more, baring her clit. But instead of waiting for me, he bent to give her a flick of his own tongue.
“Ah, shit!” Annabel jumped and tensed at the teasing caress, and her clit throbbed in response.
Saga rolled his eyes up to meet mine. There was a challenge in them, egging me on, but also…
I frowned at him as it dawned on me—he thought I didn’t know how to do it. He was trying to help me.
“I don’t need a guide,” I growled at him. He only lifted his eyebrows and waited, and I huffed, then bent to swipe my tongue over Annabel’s exposed sex.
My mate jumped again and hissed. One hand fluttered down to rest on my head, but despite the tremor in her muscles, she didn’t yank me closer.
I let the tip of my tongue draw a light circle around her clit and was rewarded with a throaty moan. Gods, if only I could have smelled her. My head throbbed and my dick ached. The rushing in my ears was back, but there was no hesitance left. This was Annabel, my mate, and I wanted to devour her.
I opened my mouth and dug my tongue between her folds, sucking her in until she writhed for me and chanted my name over and over.
I pulled back, wanting to see her face, but as I did, Saga dove down to replace my tongue on her clit.
“Saga!” Annabel whimpered, shifting her grip from my hair to his. Her other hand was once again preoccupied with Bjarni’s thick cock.
I glared down at my brother. As if he sensed my anger, he looked up at me and shot me a provoking grin before tilting his head to the side, offering me space without moving away.
I stared down at him until he turned his attention back to Annabel’s pussy, licking teasingly on the right side of her clit and leaving the left for me.
“Please… Please!” Annabel gasped. I wasn’t sure if she was begging me or him, but the sound of her pleas pulled me down to her center—to that part of her that had brought me to my knees.
When I swiped my tongue along the left side of her clit, she whimpered and tensed, tugging harshly at my scalp. The pressure was gone the next second, and from the way Bjarni expelled a breath, I knew her fingers were now wrapped around his cock. Ignoring him—ignoring everyone but her—I focused on the little pleasure bud under my tongue.
I didn’t need her hand in my hair to guide me. It was easy to read her writhing, easy to follow the squirm of her hips to lick her just how she needed it. I didn’t care that my efforts made my tongue dance with Saga’s, only growling warnings at him when he became too greedy and encroached on my territory—I only cared that this was my mate, my home, and every cell in my body throbbed with need to show her how much I loved her.
“Please suck me, please! Suck me!” Annabel’s plea held an edge of desperation, one I knew well. I released my grip on her hips to shove Saga away, ignoring his snarled protest, and finally wrapped my lips around her pert little clit. And then I sucked it.
Annabel keened and bucked hard, but I re-anchored myself on her hips and suckled her like I had her breasts so many times before. Finally she arched for me, practically levitating, and froze.
I barely heard her through the rushing of blood in my ears. My mouth filled with her climax, smearing my lips and chin, and even though it lacked her beautiful scent, it still went straight to my dick, making me ache to bury myself between her quivering thighs.
But I couldn’t. Not yet. I had to give her this first.
Sucking ever gentler, I stayed on her clit as Annabel writhed and came for me, and when the longing to be inside her became too great, I thrust to fingers into her fluttering sheath and curved them after that secret spot inside.
My mate’s wail took on another tone, and she ground herself against my face as I forced her into a second climax. Only when her body’s spasms had eased into gentle trembles did I back off her swollen bud and slip my fingers from her wet inners, lifting up to look at her. My mate.
Her gaze was hazy with exhaustion as it met mine, but that curve of a smile gracing her soft lips made my heart tremble. Gratitude. Gratitude and love were in that curve.
I didn’t break eye contact as I raised fully onto my knees, grabbed her left leg to slide it over my hip, and drove myself inside of her.
Annabel gasped and tensed, her eyelids fluttering shut for a second at the strain of taking me. But when she opened her eyes again, nothing but love and desire shone back at me.
“Who gave you permission to go first, Lokisson?” Modi growled from somewhere outside the haze of bliss shuddering through me at Annabel’s slick embrace.
“Don’t fight. Please. Don’t fight,” Annabel gasped, her words turning to a moan as I gently pulled myself halfway out of her, making her pussy cling to my girth. “I’m… I’m here for all of you. Oh. I promise. Oh, God!”
“I’ll remind you of that,” he said, a richer note to his growl this time as he took her hand and wrapped her fingers around his thick, throbbing cock. “Because I have every intention of catching up on every night we’ve missed, Anna.”
“Yes,” she whimpered, and I wasn’t sure if it was in response to him, or to the slide of my cock filling her to the brim once more. I didn’t much care either way.
I barreled into her, losing the will to stay gentle, and groaned with her every time I hammered home. Pleasure fizzled up my spine, down my thighs, and deep into my pelvis, and I knew I would forever lose myself here, watching her come undone while she clutched Bjarni’s and Modi’s dicks, with Saga and Magni sucking her nipples and heightening the pleasure I was stoking.
A soft caress against the wall in our bond made me shudder, the rough rhythm of my hips stuttering at the intimate touch. I knew what she wanted, but even through the pleasurable haze of sex, even through my instincts roaring to unite myself with her in every way possible, I resisted.
“Please, Grim,” Annabel moaned. “I need you. I need you… everywhere. Inside me. Please.”
I bared my teeth and growled a curse in response, never slowing my thrusts even as my inner barrier threatened to give way. How could she do this? How could her pleas make me fall to my knees and surrender myself in every way?
“I don’t… want—”
My panted protest died on a grunt as her muscles squeezed me.
“You’re safe,” she gasped, blunt teeth digging into her pillowy lower lip. “You’re safe with us, Grim. I promise. Please. I need you. I need all of you.”
She felt too good. I sensed it—that instinctive urge to give in. The overwhelming roil of my essence pressing against that wall, desperate to unite with her. Every slick thrust pushed me closer, no matter how hard I tried to hold back.
But if I let go, if I gave in… they would be there. Her other mates. I would open myself as fully to them as I would her, and I couldn’t…
A strong hand clasped around my forearm, jerking my attention from Annabel’s eyes.
Saga looked up at me, his mouth still close to her wet and swollen nipple. There was heat in his eyes, but also… love.
“It’s okay, Grim,” he rasped, his voice hoarse with pent-up need. “Let go. We’ve got you, brother. We always will. Let go.”
My brothers. The men I had given everything for—the only ones who had ever mattered to me before Annabel. I’d wanted to kill them for their claim on my mate—still did, despite the roar of the mating high—but somehow having them here with me… For these few breaths, it felt… okay.
I flashed my eyes to the Thorssons, my lip curling at their presence. Not okay.
But Annabel was happy with them, comfortable. Loved them. And… so did my brothers, unfathomable as it was to me.
If they trusted them, so could I. I had no other choice.
When I looked back to Annabel, she released her grip on Modi and Bjarni—much to their displeasure—and sat halfway up, dislodging Magni and Saga.
The glade erupted in angry alpha growls, but my mate only had eyes for me. She reached up and wrapped her arms around my neck, guiding me down on top of her.
“I need you, baby,” she whispered in my ear, voice raw and maddening. “Make me come, Grim. Don’t worry about the rest of it. Just give me your knot and make me come.”
There was no way for me to deny her.
With a hiss, I buried my face in her neck—and gave her exactly what she’d asked for.
Having her this close, begging for me to force her wide and make it hurt, ensured it only took a few dozen hard thrusts for my knot to swell. Annabel’s panting breaths turned to whines as I ground the ever-growing bump through her straining lips, forcing her wider and wider. She dug her nails into my back, her teeth marking my shoulder, but she wrapped her legs around my hamstrings and clung tight, relishing the painful stretch.
When I pushed my knot past her pelvic bone, we both came. My groan of release drowned in Annabel’s high-pitched scream—a scream that muted to a dull throb as my essence rushed through our bond, broke down the wall between us, and flooded into her consciousness, melding my soul with my mate’s.
Her warm, golden glow rose to greet me, swirling around my darkness and pulling me close.
“Annabel,” I groaned, blind to anything but the pleasure of her fluttering pussy and the sweet embrace of her soul. “My Annabel.”
As always, her essence was like a warm caress—like the sun breaking through the clouds after a long winter—and I lost myself in her.
And then I felt them.
They were… curious, but restrained as they touched us—our bodies and minds. I shuddered at the foreign sensation, and Annabel held me tighter.
“Stay. Please, stay,” she whispered. “I need you. We need you.”
I didn’t have the strength to deny her, even if that dark, icy part of me recoiled at being so intimately bared. But this was it; this was what she needed. This was what the curse of our twined fates would always have led to.
Too exhausted to fight anymore, I lay on top of my mate, my knot buried in her depths and my face pressed into her hair—and I let them in.
They saw everything. Every weakness, every bitter, petty thought. Every wound. And every dark deed.
Grim.
My name was a sorrowful whisper in my mind. It came from Bjarni; I knew that from the warm, bright blue shimmer in my consciousness as my deceit was laid bare. But no anger followed—not even from the Thorssons—because they saw too the overwhelming devotion and desperation that had forced me to align myself against them.
They understood. And they forgave me.
I shook in Annabel’s arms as they watched my complete and utter capitulation brought on by the love for her that I had tried and failed to fight. Only warmth and amused empathy met me from the four men who had surrendered their own hearts.
And when they saw the moment I realized my mate—our mate—was pregnant, saw my gut-wrenching understanding that I had sparked a life, and the agony of knowing that I had doomed my daughter to the same darkness that had swallowed me whole…
“Ha! A daughter!”
“You’re pregnant, pet?”
“You’re giving us a baby girl, sweetie?”
“Truly? Even here, the Fates have blessed us? Anna, this is wonderful!”
They drew away, the four of them, pulling from the intimacy of our union as their excitement echoed in the glade. Several palms clapped my shoulders, even as they focused their words on Annabel.
Her daughter. Fathered by me, yes, but… they saw her as theirs too. Ours.
I blinked my eyes open, too dazed to speak as my mate smiled up at me before her gaze darted to the alphas surrounding us, pure joy crinkling the corners of her eyes.
The connection between us was still wide open, and her gratitude and love swelled around me. I felt them too, through her—not as clearly as before, not as intimately, but I felt them.
Mine. They were all mine. The understanding was crystal-clear and shocked me to my core.
I should have been furious. Should have fought tooth and nail to lay claim to what was mine—my mate and my child—but I wasn’t. Because they… they belonged to me too.
I kept waiting for my alpha instincts to kick in, but the primitive part of me was… soothed. Content. Safe in his pack.
My family.
Annabel’s gaze flicked back to mine as if she’d heard that thought through our bond. Perhaps she had. She placed a hand against my chest, over my heart, and whispered, “You were the final piece. You complete us.”
The spark came of its own accord, a dark kernel pulled from the very depths of my being, glowing faintly as it passed through our bond and into Annabel to light up her eyes from within.
“What—?” Her voice died as she moved her hand from my chest to her own.
“A part of me,” I murmured, placing my fingers above hers. “Forever yours.”
“I feel you in me,” she whispered, eyes wide. “Your power. I can…”
She tugged on something, and my magic answered, hers to command as much as I was.
Hesitantly she released her grip on it, letting it retreat back into me.
“This is how we can beat Hel. This is how we stop Ragnarök,” she said. “It’s why the Norns wove us together.” She looked up at the others. “I need you to do that too. Right now.”
Saga lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, you do, do you?”
“Someone should teach that demanding little girl some manners,” Magni drawled. The heat in his voice was unmistakable, and it dawned on me that they all had yet to sate their desires the way I had. The thought of them taking her had infuriated me before, but now it seemed almost… natural that I share my mate with my brothers—old as well as new.
Annabel huffed. “It’s always about sex with you lot. I’m telling you I figured out how to save the nine goddamn worlds, and you just want to get laid?”
“Yes. Yes, we do,” Bjarni said matter-of-factly. He looked at me. “How’s that knot coming?”
“If Grim gave you his kernel after a climax, it would seem plausible that we would require similar circumstances to give you ours,” Modi said. “After all, I know of no spell to make it happen, and I suspect if one did exist, Mimir or Verdandi would have provided it.”
Annabel quirked a brow at the redhead. He only smiled in return.
“Fine,” she sighed, sounding nothing like the wanton woman who had writhed between the five of us only moments ago. “If you insist.”
“That’s the spirit,” Magni chuckled.
“Poor Annabel, having to spread her legs for all her alphas, one after the other, until we’ve had our fill,” Saga said. He reached for her and stroked a couple of fingers over her cheek. “How ever will you get through this, hmm?”
“It’s a good thing our mate likes her cunt sore and used,” Magni purred. “And her pleasure forced.”
“I do not!” Annabel lied, the indignation in her voice almost enough to block out the glazed look of mounting desire at their taunts.
“Your knot?” Bjarni asked again, impatience lacing each syllable. “If you need help, the thunder god’s sons know a handy trick.”
Saga snorted and lifted his chin at Modi, who was shifting to move around Annabel’s still-prone body. “I wouldn’t. He’s not as mild-mannered as the rest of us.”
I gave Modi a withering stare that made him settle by Annabel’s side with a grimace before I returned my focus to my mate. She reached up to brush a hand along my cheek and asked, “Are you good?”
I only managed a hum in response. I didn’t have the words for anything else.
“Good,” she said, giving me a soft smile that turned mischievous at the corners. “How is your knot coming, baby? Because the last time we did this, there were some very… intriguing suggestions on how to settle one quickly.”
I quirked an eyebrow at the decidedly wicked smirk on her lips, but before she could clarify, Saga said, “I’m not shoving a finger up my brother’s ass, sweetling. I can’t fuck you if I’m dead.”
“I didn’t know you were a scaredy-cat,” Annabel huffed as she stuck out her plump lower lip in a pout, earning a chuckle from him.
“Hmm,” Modi hummed as he eyed me up. “I suppose it’s good you have far braver mates, then.”
I blinked as he moved around me, the implication of his words slow to set in. So slow it wasn’t until I felt his hand on my lower back that I realized what he had planned.
Shock rocked through my body, alpha instincts flaring in a heartbeat. I snarled and whipped my head around, baring my teeth at the male who sought to penetrate me. He only flashed me a knowing grin, popped his middle finger between his lips, and sucked it lewdly.
I snarled again, but instead of reaching for him to tear his head off—like I should have wanted to—I only clutched Annabel’s shoulders. Because despite the alpha instincts roaring at the unnaturalness of getting penetrated, that new emotion in my gut, that sense of family and belonging and home, whispered of something more. Something I didn’t understand, even as I turned my gaze back to Annabel’s and held my body perfectly still, waiting.
Modi brushed his hand from my lower back to my ass, spreading me none too gently. And then the wet touch of his finger rubbed across my exposed anus, making my entire body shudder and another snarl rip from my throat.
But my eyes stayed locked in Annabel’s, and I drank in the look of excitement on her pretty face and her fast, shallow breaths as she waited with me.
When he slipped his fingers into me, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced. The stretch was small but entirely alien and wrong, yet so… so right. I threw my head back and hissed a curse as Modi shoved in deeper, angling the tips of his fingers against a too-tender spot.
“No!” I roared, the alpha in me finally breaking through, but it was too late.
Modi pressed down and rubbed that spot hard—and the deepest release of my life grabbed me by the throat and choked off my roar until it was a long, drawn-out wail. I came so hard I shook, clutching onto Annabel as if she were the only thing that could anchor my soul through the onslaught of sensation.
“Fuck, Grim…!” my mate mewled underneath me, and for a horrifying moment I thought I was hurting her—but the flutter of her pussy on my cock told me the truth. I rocked mindlessly against her, groaning like a wounded beast until I had nothing left to give. Modi slipped his finger from my ass, leaving me trembling and not entirely sure what I had just let happen.
He had once been my sworn enemy.
No one spoke as I slowly eased off Annabel. My knot had retracted completely, and both my mind and my nerves were raw with the overload of sensation that had washed over me since we’d returned to the glade—but my cock was still hard and made Annabel squirm as I pulled out of her.
“Well. I guess no one’s gonna to crack any more jokes about how Magni and I mended fences,” Saga said, interrupting the silence. He looked from me to Modi, then down between Annabel’s still-splayed legs where my abundant release flowed. “Though from the looks of it, it’s a more pleasurable alternative to your little lightning trick.”
“I will never not crack jokes about the two of your milking each other’s knots,” Bjarni rumbled. He reached for Annabel’s hand and brought it back to his still-throbbing dick. Obligingly, she wrapped her fingers around it.
“I didn’t milk anything,” Magni growled. “I was entirely incapacitated. He molested me.”
“You’re welcome for saving your ungrateful ass,” Saga said, his attention more on Annabel’s slow movements over Bjarni’s dick than either Thorsson. He shifted languidly, moving to her hip, ensuring their focus was on the argument rather than his intentions.
“Will someone explain what happened between the two of you?” Modi asked, frustration lacing his words as he turned to Magni—giving Saga the in he needed. “Enough with the hints!”
My eldest brother moved quickly, grabbing Annabel by her hip and rolling her toward himself and away from me and Modi. She squeaked and laughed—and then groaned deeply when he seated his cock to the hilt in her still-open pussy.
Modi’s head snapped to them, eyes widening with outrage. “You thieving bastard! You have no honor!”
“None,” Saga moaned, eyes closed with reverence as he shuddered in Annabel’s embrace. “Not when… it comes to this. Fuck, sweetling. I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” she said, voice dying on a whine when he rolled his hips, filling her anew. She let go of Bjarni and wrapped her arms around Saga’s shoulders, clutching him to her. “So, so much. Oh, Saga… Yes. Please, yes.”
Bjarni grimaced at the loss of her touch, but didn’t try to force her hand back. We all felt Saga pulse through our connection with Annabel—his yearning, his relief, and his desperation. I finally understood then why Annabel had been so adamant that I couldn’t break their bonds to her without irrevocably damaging them. No matter what I had been told, no matter the power needed to destroy something as eternal as a mate bond, I saw the foolishness of my convictions as Saga gave himself to our woman. He would love her until the end of time itself, and no spell would ever change that.
We all watched in silence as my brother coupled with our mate—heard his gasped whispers of love and felt his eternal gratitude that she was back in his arms. That she hadn’t been lost to him like he had feared in the darkest parts of his mind while they had searched for her.
He laid himself bare—not only to her, but to us as well, allowing himself to be as vulnerable as I had been in her embrace. Memories fluttered through our connection, some muddled, some clear. Every weakness, every fear was laid out for us as his defenses drowned in the pleasure of making love to his mate once more.
I wasn’t conscious of moving. I only realized I had when my palm connected with his shoulder and my darkness wove through the bond, through Annabel, and into Saga, soothing his raw soul like they had done for me. The others joined me, and when Saga gasped out in pleasure and allowed his tie to swell into place, we felt his climax like a storm crashing through our connection.
Annabel’s whine as she took his knot, and her subsequent cry of completion, sent ripples through that blasted bond, chasing Saga’s pleasure. I groaned through gritted teeth at my cock’s responding throb, tightening my grip on Saga’s shoulder to stem the urge to rip him off and mount her again.
Even through the onslaught of four other alphas’ desires, Saga only had a mind for Annabel. He groaned softly as he rocked his hips into her, ensuring his knot kept her trembling in one, long climax, and peppered her neck and jawline with kisses and sweet words of devotion.
And then it came, a fleck of flint traveling through their connection from him and into her, glowing softly as it settled within Annabel’s soul. It lit up her eyes from within until, some long moments later, her body finally stilled underneath his and peace flooded our bond.
“Thank you,” she croaked.
Saga smiled gently at her. “For you, I would give everything.”
“I know,” she murmured, turning her head to rub her forehead against his arm. “As I would for you.”
“I know,” he echoed. “My fierce little mate.”
They lay in silence for some long moments, and despite our combined urgency to have her, none of us interrupted their quiet afterglow.
Until somewhere in the region of twenty minutes had passed and Magni had seemingly run out of patience. He got to his feet and asked, “Finger or lightning?”
Saga finally looked up to give him a nasty glare. But instead of threatening violence, he growled, “Finger.”
Magni grinned—with more than an edge of maliciousness to the curve of his mouth. “My pleasure.”
Saga snarled at the emphasis on pleasure—a sound that only deepened when Magni knelt behind him and reached down.
I didn’t see the moment of penetration, but Saga’s hissed, “Fuck!” and the stuttering of his hips made it plenty obvious.
“Want a cum like your brother’s?” Magni asked, that evil note to his voice mirroring the smirk on his face.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” Saga snarled, twisting his head to glare at Magni over his shoulder. “Stop! Gods, stop, you fucking bast—!”
The rest of his sentence died on a long, deep groan as his eyes rolled back in his skull and his entire body quivered.
The echo of his release shuddered through us all.
Magni only pulled his hand away once Saga had stilled completely. The moment he withdrew, my brother collapsed in a boneless heap on top of Annabel.
“Godsdammit,” he muttered breathlessly. “You’re going to regret that, Thorsson.”
“Don’t care,” Magni said. “Get off her. You can have your revenge later.”
“I will,” Saga growled, only managing to muster an edge of a threat through the aftermath of his orgasm. He placed a kiss on Annabel’s lips, then managed to push himself off her body and roll onto his back on the grass by her side. He made no move to get up as Magni crawled in between Annabel’s still-splayed legs.
“I’ve missed you, pet,” the redhead murmured, a hoarseness to his voice that wasn’t only from sexual urgency. “Every second of every day.”
“Don’t cry,” Annabel whispered. “I’m right here, Magni. You found me in time.” She cupped his face with both hands, and I saw the single tear trailing down his cheek as he closed his eyes to savor her touch. “I’m right here, my love.”
Magni groaned and bent for her lips. He kissed her slowly at first, savoring every brush of her mouth over his, until the need for her turned too painful to resist. When he buried his cock inside her, his groan of pleasure shuddered through their bond and deep into all of us.
I closed my eyes at the reverence vibrating through that bond—at the relief and wonder he felt now that he was finally reunited with his mate. He’d been lost without her. His pain flowed freely through our connection, followed by images of him sobbing on his knees at night, pleading to the stars above to return her to him.
Claiming her was the first time he had ever felt like he truly belonged. She was his home, much like she was mine—his center—the only one who could drive away the agony of a life lived feeling unwanted. Unloved.
Magni didn’t hold back any of his painful scars as he made love to our mate. For me, I dimly realized—he wanted me specifically to see, because he wanted me to know he understood, and that I wasn’t alone with my festering wounds carved from the darkness of a past not too dissimilar to his.
Home. This was home. My safe place.
I pressed my palm to his shoulder, allowing some of my cool darkness to flow through Annabel and into him, soothing the echo of that raw pain.
Magni grunted in response, amusement and gratitude filtering back to me—from him and his brother.
Modi’s pain still tinged our connection, even as Magni refocused on the pleasure of mating. He had watched his brother’s mistreatment and been powerless to stop it, and that old ache still festered. Seeing Magni like this, surrounded by love, by his true family, went a long way to soothe it.
Annabel’s moaning turned sharp, pulling my focus from the Thorssons to her just as Magni pushed his knot through her pelvis and roared his release.
His kernel was blue-flecked green and came eagerly on the rush of his climax, embedding itself deep within Annabel even as she was still writhing on his knot. It illuminated her, that blue-green light glowing through her eyes for several long seconds until the two of them collapsed, panting and spent.
“I will love you through the end of the world and beyond, woman,” Magni said softly. He found the strength to lift onto his elbows and planted a couple of gentle kisses on Annabel’s lips, smiling as she didn’t manage more than an exhausted groan in response. “You can have every ounce of my power, so long as you let me remain by your side.”
“By her side is fine. But if you remain inside of her for much longer, you’re going to experience what the Lokissons have already,” Modi growled, shattering the peaceful moment. One look at him made it plenty obvious that watching Annabel come again had pushed his patience over the edge for good.
Magni chuffed through his nose. “Relax, will you? I’m still seeding her.”
“I don’t care,” Modi said, and from the roughened sound of his voice it was clear he was telling the truth. “I want her. Now.”
Magni bared his teeth at his brother’s aggression, but he didn’t have the fire to follow through, thanks to the clamp of Annabel’s pussy. “Fine. But I’ll take the lightning. Keep your fingers out of my asshole.”
Modi didn’t respond—he just knelt behind the pair and reached forward. Lightning flashed, and Magni jerked hard and spat out a string of curses. Another flash of lightning had him howling and rolling off Annabel. When he glared at his brother, there was murder in his eyes, but Modi paid him no mind. He sank down on top of our prone mate with a shudder.
“Anna,” he murmured, lifting one of her legs over his hips to ease her onto his cock. She gasped at the immediate penetration, but Modi was gentler than the rest of us had been. He pushed into her inch by slow inch, rubbing small circles on her clit with his free hand to ease the sensation of his entry. Only when he was fully seated within her did he leave her sensitive bud to reach for her face instead.
“I waited a lifetime for you, my mate. Don’t ever leave me again.”
“I won’t,” she said, pushing her chin into his palm, eyes closed. “Never again.”
Modi’s pain came slower to us than Magni’s. He was hesitant, but he didn’t fight it in the end. There was such shame in his relationship to his family—in his love for a mother who had hated his brother, and his worship of a father who might not have deserved it.
But the deepest scar for Modi was still fresh and pink and smarting at the edges. He hadn’t thought Annabel loved him—still found it hard to truly believe, even though he himself had fully surrendered to the Fate that had been woven for him. He saw himself as an outsider in our little group—someone expendable.
Annabel’s essence flared as that particular thought filtered through. Fury filled our bond—fury and a love so intense it made Modi’s hips stutter mid-thrust.
“You still believe this nonsense?” she growled. “How can you still think such things? You are mine, Modi. Mine.”
She pushed at his shoulders, and he let her roll them over, leaving Annabel on top. She straightened her back, placed her palms flat on his pecs, and stared down at him.
“What will it take for you to hear me, mate?” she asked. “Just the thought of you gone, of our connection permanently silenced… It makes me want to die. You are not expendable. You are mine.”
With that last, growled word, Annabel rolled her hips, letting her pussy rise along the proud column of his flesh embedded within her. Her lower lips clung to him, showing the rim of his head bulging through the thin flesh before she sank back down with a moan.
“Mine!” she repeated. She dug her nails into his chest, but Modi seemed too far gone to feel it. His eyes were half-hooded and filled with worship and desire, and though we all felt his simmering alpha instincts fighting against letting his female put him in such a submissive position, he let her ride.
Annabel loved it. It may have started as an urge to show her troubled mate that she wanted him, but there was no hiding the rush of elation weaving through our bond. She moaned shamelessly as she rode him—a wild warrior queen taking what she wanted from the men who worshipped her.
A goddess.
The word flickered through my mind and settled in my chest as I watched her rise and fall on that thick cock, and I doubted even Freya could have mastered five alphas the way our mate did now.
Her pussy still clung tightly to Modi’s hard flesh, though the shine on the rigid pole left the unmistakable proof that our mate was an omega and built to take us. All of us.
My own cock throbbed painfully at the sight of their joining, more than eager to return to those hallowed depths, and I gritted my teeth to resist the building urgency in my abdomen. Even if I somehow managed to hold back until Modi was done, it would come to a fight if I tried to have her again before Bjarni took his turn to reunite with her.
I was halfway through planning how to overpower my battle-hardened brother and somehow keep him restrained while I took Annabel again when my mate let out a particularly deep moan, and a memory struck me. I’d seen her straddling a man once before. In Freya’s Hall, she’d been astride Magni when Bjarni and I arrived—but she hadn’t been alone.
I narrowed my eyes as my plan veered down another path. Modi had asked about that incident—perhaps he’d like a demonstration instead?
And if not, he would have to accept it as payment for how he’d gone about releasing my knot.
I moved behind Annabel to kneel between Modi’s sprawled legs. She chirped happily when I reached around her to grab her breasts, another moan spilling from her lips as I rolled her pert little nipples between my fingers and bent my head to lick at her neck.
“You are the only woman who could do this, mate,” I murmured hoarsely in her ear as I let one hand slip from her breast to her clit. She eagerly spread her thighs to let me rub it. “Bring five gods to their knees and make them worship you in their surrender. Do you feel powerful, Annabel? Because you are. Let me worship you like you deserve to be, mate. Please.”
Annabel’s response was an unintelligible, but enthusiastic groan, and I hid a smile against the side of her neck as she leaned back into me.
“So eager, little goddess,” I whispered against the shell of her ear. I stroked my hand not busy on her clit down to anchor on her hip. “Be strong for me now.”
I pushed her forward with the bulk of my torso, making her lean over and rest on top of Modi, stilling her movements on him, and released her clit to reach for my throbbing cock.
Neither of them seemed to clock on to my intentions before I guided the tip of my erection to the root of their joining and pressed forward.
“Shit, that’s cold!” Modi hissed as our members touched.
Annabel jerked hard and whipped her head around to stare at me over her shoulder. “What are you—no! Nope! Absolutely n—nnngh!”
Her protests died on a drawn-out groan, every muscle in her body tensing as I managed to wedge my head into her already stuffed opening.
Everything was pressure, heat… ecstasy. I felt Modi through the bond, the pleasure roaring through his veins as violently as it tore through my own body, and in between us… Annabel.
She sobbed, her entire body trembling with the effort of taking us both as her pussy slowly, reluctantly adjusted to the harsh stretch. Her fists were tight and clutching onto the grass, knuckles white, and I knew there was more than an edge of pain for her.
I mumbled soothing words of encouragement into her ear and reached down to gently stroke her clit while I held still and waited for her body to adjust.
“What… in Odin’s name… are you doing, Lokisson?” Modi panted between gritted teeth. He was clutching at Annabel’s hips—whether to ensure she didn’t try to move off us, or to anchor himself, I didn’t know.
“Mating my woman,” I rasped. “Showing you how your brother bonded with mine.”
Modi’s eyes widened even as he swallowed a groan at an involuntary spasm traveling up the length of Annabel’s sheath, transplanting into the both of us. I didn’t give him time to protest. Slowly, agonizingly, I pushed my hips forward and drove my cock home.
Annabel’s wail drowned in Modi’s roar as I rubbed along his meaty dick until I was finally fully seated within my mate. She seized hard, and I hugged her tight and tried to soothe her, but only ragged grunts escaped my throat. My vision swam, turning Annabel’s messy hair into ribbons of bronze and white, and all I could sense was how tight her pussy clutched me, how hot Modi’s cock felt against mine, and how completely the sensation of both took my breath away. My heart pounded in my ears, and my soul was a swirling vortex of pleasure and him, with Annabel as our center.
I moved on instinct alone, pulling halfway out and drawing howls from both Annabel and Modi. But when I forced my way back up inside again, Modi pulled halfway out, drawing a shudder from my body at the slick sensation of his cock moving against mine. He pushed in, and I drew back, again and again, the seesaw rhythm building between us as naturally as drawing breath, even as our mate screamed and cursed our names right up until she came so hard it hurt.
Modi swore too and stilled as her muscles rippled and clamped down, forcing us to pause while she cried out, ecstasy crashing through our bond.
It lasted almost a full minute before she collapsed on Modi’s chest in a boneless heap.
He looked up at me, locking his gaze on mine for a short moment before heat tinged his cheeks. “She’s had enough. Pull out.”
Saga snorted. “She can take plenty more cock than that, Thorsson. Or are you not enjoying the experience as much as your brother did?”
“I didn’t enjoy anything!” Magni protested. “You forced it on me!”
“Ha! You looked to enjoy it plenty when we arrived. I remember a spectacular amount of cum when Saga milked your knot dry,” Bjarni said.
I didn’t hear Magni’s reply—I tuned them all out as I stared back at Modi. “You can pull out, if you’ve had enough.” I didn’t wait for him to respond before I gave Annabel another thrust.
Modi hissed and Annabel whimpered, but she wasn’t as painfully tight after her climax, and pleasure crawled through my nerves and into our bond. I only managed one more stroke before Modi joined me, once more taking up the seesaw rhythm that had us both groaning.
It took a while for Annabel to give in. She was still fighting us through her second orgasm and halfway to her third, cursing and clawing in between sobs and mewls of pleasure, but we both felt the truth in our bond. Despite her resistance, her omega instincts had her pussy gushing and pleasure throbbing down our connection with every rough push through her trembling channel.
But somewhere between orgasms, her threats of murder and mutilation shifted to pleas for more.
“You surrender so prettily,” Modi growled. “My perfect little omega whore.”
I might have been furious at another male using such language for my mate, but Annabel’s response was a moaned, “Yes,” followed by a ripple along the sheath of her pussy that made it plenty obvious she didn’t mind. In fact, every growled vulgarity edged her closer to another climax—and both of us along with her, thanks to the rhythmic pulses of her slick muscles around our cocks.
“Look at you, omega—so desperate for sex you allow two alphas to open your little cunt horribly wide. Is this what you would have been, had Fate allowed it? Nothing but a whore for alpha cock, bending over to be violated in exchange for pleasure?” Modi hissed against her ear as he thrust up hard, rubbing his cock deliciously against the both of us.
I groaned along with Annabel, and then cussed when her pussy clamped tight and she reared up against me.
Mindlessly I reached between us to rub her clit through her orgasm, but the shuddering release was too much to bear. I felt my own knot start to swell just as Modi hissed, “Shit! I’m gonna—”
It took everything I had to pull out, leaving her spasming pussy to be plugged by her other mate. He fucked up into her hard a few more times, then forced his knot past her pelvic bone with a roar of release.
Her responding cry undid me. Trembling, I rested one hand on her thigh and jerked my cock roughly once, twice—
My groan mixed with Annabel’s and Modi’s climax, that all-consuming rush of ecstasy swirling through our connection and deep into my soul.
I slumped by Modi’s side, sliding my hand from Annabel’s thigh, up her hip, and to her shoulder as I shivered through the final echoes of orgasm.
Modi’s kernel came in the afterglow. Deep blue and glowing, it rose from him and sank into our mate as she lay unconscious on his chest. I wasn’t sure exactly when she’d passed out, but the realization shot a jab of fear through my haze.
I forced myself up on an elbow and brushed her hair from her eyes. “Annabel?”
“She is not hurt,” Modi murmured. He petted her scalp and smiled gently when she made a soft sound in response, despite her unconscious state. “Just exhausted. Our mate is tougher than she looks.”
Our mate.
“She is,” I whispered. “Tough enough to bring five gods to their knees.”
“Five gods—and Ragnarök itself,” he agreed.