by Nora Ash
Too new, a voice whispered at the back of my mind. Memories of my rudimentary magic teachings on our journey through Hel made me grit my teeth and wish I could have trained her from a young age. If I had, maybe we would have had more than that sliver to cling to.
If I hadn’t been so scared of what she was to me, I could have insisted she be brought to us earlier. I could have hardened her mind for this. I could have protected her better. But there was no point in wishing for what could have been, and no time left for regrets.
I grabbed Annabel’s hand and pulled her off Bjarni’s chest and onto her feet. “Don’t give him a chance to get another hit like that in!” I barked and wrapped my free hand around her nape. “You always hold that shield in place, no matter the force of a strike. Draw from us when you need to, but do not let him in.”
She nodded shakily, but her gaze hardened as she stared at our enemy. His focus was on the three alphas circling him, and Annabel recognized the threat.
I felt a tug on my innermost, and then the hazy bliss of her consciousness spilling into mine. She rippled through my mind, making me shudder, and then I felt them. Like those blurry hours of pleasure in Hel, they became part of me, and I a part of them. I felt the strain of their muscles as they swung their weapons as if it were my own arms carrying through—felt Bjarni get up from the floor and join the fray—and I felt her burning through us all, making us stronger, faster, better.
I gritted my teeth and anchored myself, willing my focus to remain on my own task. But by the stars, she was so strong. My golden goddess; she was our muse, our conductor, and I saw the dismay in Odin’s eye as he fielded my brothers’ attacks with far less ease than he had expected. He had thought us barely an annoyance—just bothersome enough to attempt to rid himself of us before we could come together, become this—but he had not expected a true threat.
I remembered his words as he’d swayed me to his cause. He had told me how this insignificant human girl would never be strong enough to prevent the inevitable, how my worry that I would murder my own brothers in a jealous rage was the only outcome if I surrendered to Mimir’s prophecy. I had believed him, because he had seen every fear I carried and spun them so perfectly that there had seemed to be no other option than to betray them all.
It was only now, as Annabel lit up like a beacon in the darkened hall, that he finally understood there was nothing insignificant about her.
I had two seconds’ worth of pride. Then Odin’s lips pulled up in a feral snarl, and my entire being seized with horror as he lifted his staff and sent out a shockwave, blasting the four alphas around him and Trud’s slumped, half-unconscious body off the dais in a scattered heap.
“Brace, Anna, brace! Brace!” I roared, wrapping my magic around her in a protective cocoon and steeling it with every scrap of my willpower.
The impact from Odin’s next strike made me drop to my knees and vomit bile. Annabel shrieked somewhere past the ringing in my ears, and I crawled toward her, pulled by instinct to make sure she was unharmed. Golden light encapsulated me, followed by soft fingers darting over my face.
“I’m okay,” I croaked, because she was okay, and that was all that mattered. “You have to take more. Don’t be afraid—take what you need, Annabel, and end this.”
“No more playing the defensive,” she whispered, but despite her decisive words, there was a tremble in her voice.
“You know she can’t win,” Odin said, his voice nearly gentle. He walked down the stairs, his staff still lifted to keep the others pinned to the floor.
“What happened to you, Grim?” he asked as he stopped perhaps ten yards from us. Every muscle in my body tensed in preparation for another strike, and Annabel’s magic thickened around me and the others, but Odin simply cocked his head.
“You were so determined you would never mate the girl, and were—dare I say—eager to take her life, but then I find you here, in my home, nothing but another dumb alpha enthralled by omega cunt—throwing away your own life as well as your brothers’. I thought you would give anything for them to live? That was our bargain, I believe.”
“What happened is that I opened my eyes,” I spat. “Annabel, now.”
I felt the yank on my magic as my mate pulled power from all of us, sending a ball of pure, golden energy right at Odin.
He waved his hand, clearly expecting for it to dissipate, but the light didn’t so much as flicker before it impacted with the god-king.
And for the first time in perhaps millennia, Odin flinched.
The force of Annabel’s magic was so strong he was forced to yield ground to keep from getting knocked off his feet. He braced with a leg behind him, his ravens screeching, and stared at us with an expression of utter disbelief and rage.
I wet my lips. That Annabel had affected him at all was quite the feat, but whatever damage she’d done was limited. A ruby trail trickled from one of Odin’s nostrils, bathing his mouth in red, and though part of me reveled in the fact that my mate had essentially backhanded the most powerful of gods, another part dreaded what might come next.
All in all, she had him pegged—Odin was, at heart, a bully. Perhaps he had not always been this way, but eons of watching his followers turn from him had planted a bitter seed in his brain. This betrayal was the fruit that seed had bore, all rooted in a desire not just for power, but for recognition.
Annabel’s magic might not have been enough to destroy him, but it now threatened to shatter the illusion of omnipotence he had worked so hard to maintain—the same illusion upon whose altar he’d been willing to sacrifice the nine worlds.
Looking at him now, I knew exactly the kind of person he was. He was my mother, beating a child to make herself feel powerful while proclaiming it was for my own good. He was my stepmother, so eager to have the upper hand over someone—anyone—she’d rape a vulnerable teenager. He was my father, so concerned with his own schemes and pride that everyone around him became little more than cannon fodder.
Odin was every god and Jotunn and creature I’d ever met who was so small and sick inside they needed to gain power through fear, rather than love. I’d almost become that person myself; only Annabel’s patience, devotion, and courage had saved me. I no longer needed the walls I’d once built around myself to keep others at bay. I no longer saw compassion as a weakness, no longer believed a façade of perfect control was worth killing for.
But Odin didn’t know her love. He hadn’t known any kind of love in ages. This—Ragnarök, his ability to destroy and reshape our universe—was all he had.
So when he turned from us, staff still raised, I knew it wasn’t a retreat. He had to preserve his legacy and future. He had to destroy his opposition so completely whatever survived the apocalypse would immortalize it in hushed tales and epic song.
And to do that, he had to make an example out of Annabel.
“I have given much to get where I am,” he mused as she struggled to summon another fount of magic. “You’ve heard the stories, no doubt—how I learned magic; how I plucked out my own eye. None of this was handed to me. That’s the trouble with you younglings. You want it all just as badly as those who came before you…”
My heart shuddered so hard it nearly stopped. Odin was standing over Magni, gazing down into the young god’s face not with anger, nor disappointment, nor contempt—but with complete and utter apathy writ upon his face.
“…but what are you willing to sacrifice to get it?”
“No!” I shouted, intending to lunge at the god-king’s exposed back, but my muscles failed me. I dropped to my hands and knees, clutching at my chest as if I could somehow reach the void within where my magic ought to be. Annabel had drawn from me so much, the well was all but dry. I could barely stand, let alone wield my daggers against the All-Father, even as a slow and terrible smile began to spread across his face.
“What are you doing?” Annabel demanded. Her mounting panic sizzled through our bond, compounding my own and joining with cacophony of f
ear and fury emanating from the rest of her mates. “Stop!”
“I am teaching this brave new world a lesson,” Odin replied as she frantically tried to siphon just a little more magic from me. But I was tapped; if I gave her any more of myself, it would have to come from my very soul.
Odin turned his head from Magni then, regarding his ravens. “Bear witness—the goddess of love is dead, and so too shall be the last vestiges of her power.” And then to me, he added, “Your matebond has doomed you. It has become a weapon in my hand. Were it not for your foolish attachments, I would have to stand against all of you, but now… well, why kill all of you when just one will do?”
Annabel paled. My brothers roared, cursing and spitting as they tried in vain to out-muscle the magic holding them to the ground. Modi cried out, doing his best to reach for his sibling, but even his terror could not overpower Odin’s will.
“Brother…!” he gritted, straining against his bonds with all he had.
It wasn’t enough.
Magni seethed, teeth bared, and he hissed through them at his grandfather, “You’re… a coward… killing me… on my back…”
Odin only smiled. “Oh, my boy. All your days, I’ve tried to teach you the benefit of working smarter, not harder. But you never did heed a word I said.”
He raised his staff higher, a cold white light spiraling around it, creeping along its length where it culminated near Odin’s clenched fist. There it blazed, casting out the shadows from the room, replacing them with a luminescence so blinding that to behold it was to stare into the sun.
Annabel shielded her eyes, voice trembling when she said, “I can’t let him do this, Grim. I’m sorry. Please understand…”
And all at once, I did. I understood completely. For the first time, without doubt, or fear, or shame, I knew what I had to do.
She began to rise just as Odin aimed one last barb at me: “I told you it was a weakness.”
Without warning I grabbed Annabel’s cloak, using it to pull myself up at the same time I pushed her down, back to the floor and some semblance of safety. She grabbed for me, screaming my name, but it was too late. I’d made my choice.
I wished I could tell her it would all be okay, but there was no time, and no way for me to know for sure. This half-baked plan that had struck me sure as lightning was little more than a desperate gamble, but it was all we had—all I had left to give.
A leap of faith; all I could do was hope I wouldn’t crash and burn, or I’d leave Annabel and the others in the same dire straits Magni’s death would bring about.
But if I didn’t intervene, that fate was assured. And so I rolled the dice, slammed shut my connection to my mate, and drew upon the remnants of magic in the wellspring of my soul.
It was just enough for me to meld into what few shadows lingered in the great hall, transporting me instantaneously from Annabel’s side and into the path of Odin’s killing blow.
“Grim!” she screamed, and not just her, but my brothers too, a chorus of anguish that nearly drowned out the howl of magic as it struck me head-on and divided my atoms.
Thirty-Three
Annabel
“Grim!”
The force of my scream shredded my vocal chords, but I barely felt it. My agony originated elsewhere—from a deep, soft place in my chest where one of my matebonds had stretched taut, then snapped.
This can’t be happening. After everything…
But it was. The flare of Odin’s magic had died, swallowed by Grim’s dark, and in its wake had left behind only his body collapsed against Magni’s. He was so, so still.
The clash of competing magic was enough to dissipate the bonds holding the others down, and enough to send Odin reeling. He staggered back, away from my mates as I rushed toward them, tears blinding me.
“Grim!”
I fell to my knees beside him, brushing his hair from his face as Magni tried to summon the strength to push himself up. But he was feeling it too, the same excruciating hollowness where Grim had once belonged—and still did.
I cupped his pale face in my hands. “What did you do? What did you do?!”
There was no light in his eyes, no spark to illuminate their fire and ice. Amber had turned to flat, tarnished copper, and the blue I once so adored had gone a dark, lifeless gray that reminded me of everything I’d hated about Hel.
“Don’t do this to me,” I implored him, shaking him and hoping against all hope to get a rise. “Don’t you dare leave me, Grim Lokisson!”
Sobbing, I fumbled for one of his hands and pressed it hard against my womb.
“Don’t you dare leave her.”
“Annabel…” Magni began, my name falling broken from his lips. I could feel his concern not just for Grim and my grief, but for the lingering threat still in the room.
But then Grim moved, fingers twitching against my armor, and all my attention was on him once more.
“You idiot,” I hiccupped, covering his hand with both of mine. “Why did you do it? After all we’ve been through, how could you?”
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, lips ashen, gaze unfocused—and yet he was still here, still alive, anchored to me by our hands pressed against our unborn daughter. “There… wasn’t time… for anything else…”
Violently I shook my head. “It’s not fair. I can’t do this without you. We can’t do this without you. I don’t want to!”
His touch had always been cold, but with each passing second, it was becoming frigid. Magni placed his hand on my shoulder, only highlighting Grim’s lack of heat. His face was bloodless, his once-pale skin now white, save for the bruises that still lingered around his eyes. He was still here with me for the moment, but gods… he looked like a corpse.
“I’m... still with you,” he said, though his voice had grown more distant, devoid of its usual power. “Always… here…”
Beneath my hands, he moved his own, a weak spasm heading up the midline of my body, toward my chest, where it stopped over my heart.
“Here, Annabel,” he whispered again, tapping his fingers for emphasis, but just barely. “I’m right… here…”
“Brother!” Bjarni breathed, falling to his knees on Grim’s opposite side. He too was weak, body ravaged by Odin’s magic, yet he’d managed to cross the distance to be at his brother’s side as he… as he…
Died.
Saga came next, limping beside Modi, each supporting the other as they stared at Grim’s withering form. There was pain writ across my dying mate’s features despite how slack they had become—a pain which was reflected in the expressions of the four other males gathered around us.
“Please stay,” I begged him, taking his hand once more and kissing the tips of his fingers like I could breathe life back into him with love alone. “Please… I can’t do this alone…”
“You’re not… alone,” he told me, struggling to get the words out between spasms that wracked his lithe, muscular frame. “You’ll never… be alone… again… I made sure…” His teeth chattered in the wake of an awful bodily contortion. “Now go… You have… a destiny…”
“Not without you!” I shouted, willing him to understand at last how important, how vital, he was to me, to us, and to all of this. But Grim just touched my chest again in the same place he had before.
“I’m here… Here…”
A rattle sounded from deep in his throat, and I wailed as Magni grabbed me, pulling me from Grim’s seizing form. Bjarni made a sound I’d never heard him make before, small and helpless, as he lay his head on his brother’s chest and held him as he convulsed.
I buried my face in Magni’s shoulder as he shushed me, stroking my hair with a trembling hand, but I derived no comfort from his touch. I knew only pain; pain, and a bottomless grief that was slowly, steadily morphing into a murderous rage.
“She… She won’t…” Grim was whispering to Bjarni. “She won’t… go to Hel… this time… Our matebond is… broken…”
“Please, brother,” Bjarn
i answered, tears tracking down his handsome face—a face that never should have known this kind of sorrow. “Save your strength. We’ll find a way to—”
But Grim wasn’t listening. In this godsforsaken place, surrounded by his mates and family, Grim Lokisson stopped breathing.
The sound that ripped from my chest was foreign even to my ears. I’d never known I could make a sound like that, so full of torment and despair. But it came again, a bitter torrent so powerful it made my teeth hurt.
Magni held me, as much for comfort as to keep me from launching myself at Odin, who had at last regained some semblance of composure and was stalking toward us from across the room.
“It did not have to be this way,” he said, almost sounding sorry. “You could have stayed with him in Hel—eked out an eternity for you and your soulmate in the land of the dead. The rest could have joined you, and you would have spent all your days together. If only you had given up this ridiculous prophecy…”
The bastard should have read the room. All four of our heads turned to him at once, a slow, synchronized prelude to the wrath brimming within us all. Beyond our grief, beyond our despair, was a righteous fury yearning to be set free. And in my chest, my magic was expanding, more potent than ever, fueled by a desire to ensure Grim’s sacrifice would mean something.
One day I’d tell our daughter about what he did and how it saved us all. And to make sure that happened, I had to do as he’d bid.
I had to embrace my destiny.
I didn’t realize I was glowing until the light emanating from me began to play on Odin’s face, making his ravens shuffle uneasily on his shoulders. I rose without help and felt Magni do the same behind me, then come to stand beside the rest of my mates, flanking me—waiting for me to lead the charge.
“You called our love a weakness,” I hissed, my magic flaring, filling me from head to toe. “But it was the only thing that could have spared you a hideously painful death.”
“You bore me,” he easily replied, raising his staff to issue a blast of magic.
