slid over my features, taking in my every expression. She was so aware of me, as if I were a planet and she my moon—a curious sensation, since she pulled on me like gravity itself. It wouldn’t be long until I could no longer fight it—until everything I was would be wrapped around her.
“I suppose we wait,” I said, shrugging with a casualness I didn’t feel. “Make camp. See if Mimir can make something useful happen.”
“You’re so rude,” she scolded, giving me a stern look. “She was killed. I think it’s fair to have a bit of a breakdown.”
I chuffed through my nose and walked to a willow tree on the other side of the glade, where I sank into the soft grass beneath it. Hel had sucked all color and life from every inch of this world, but this close to Freya, a kernel of life remained. Perhaps this was not entirely unexpected from the Goddess of Fertility.
I gave Freya’s hunched figure a careful study. Did she have enough power left to revive Annabel?
If he had plunged a knife through her heart, her death was final—like Annabel’s would have been, had my brothers not been doomed if I’d done the same to her. But still…
My gaze fell on the white flowers surrounding her, then on the two ravens jumping from branch to branch on the outskirts of the glade, and finally to my mate. She was clearly eavesdropping on whatever the prophet was saying, despite how inconspicuously she tried to look as she paced.
She was so determined, so utterly willful in her refusal to accept defeat. If the ravens were right, if Freya could give her the means, she would make it happen. If anyone could defy death, it would be her.
I leaned my head back against the willow’s trunk and closed my eyes, wishing I could protect her from what lay ahead.
A firm pressure against my shoulder made me blink my eyes open, realization that I’d drifted off jolting adrenaline through my body and rendering me wide awake.
Annabel looked up from where she’d nestled in against my side, a soft smile curving her lips as our eyes met. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She reached up to let a fingertip smooth over my forehead. “I rarely get to see you sleep. You looked troubled. Did you have a bad dream?”
I scoffed, but didn’t move away from her touch. “We are in Hel. If we dream, they are unlikely to be pleasant.”
“Mmm, I suppose that’s a good point.” She shifted against my side, rolling up on her knees so she could straddle me. The firm pressure of her groin against mine alerted me to her intentions before I caught her mischievous smile. “You know… it seems like we have the rest of the night. And you haven’t made me practice my control since Arni and Magga joined us.”
“You want sex?” I asked flatly.
Annabel grimaced and poked my chest. “Way to kill the mood. I was trying to flirt with you. I miss you.”
“I’m right here,” I countered, even if my cock was already rising to the occasion.
Annabel huffed and leaned in close, her breasts pressed firmly against my chest and her breath tickling my throat. “I miss you inside of me, Grim. I miss what it feels like when you lose yourself to me,” she whispered. The heat in her voice made memories of exactly that flicker in my brain, and I swallowed a groan as my cock swelled to full size and prodded insistently at what lay above it.
“We are not alone,” I reminded her, catching her hips when she ground down against my hardness.
“So?” A genuine frown crossed her features when she pulled back to look at me. “It’s not like Mimir hasn’t heard us every single time—and watched a few as well. And Freya is the Goddess of Love. You know that whole thing with Magni and Saga was her idea.”
She was right. I shouldn’t mind. It was just sex.
Except sex with Annabel was… It was so much more than physical. When I was inside her, the sheer elation of joining with her stripped me of control, and my every wall came crashing down—and there was nothing I could do to prevent that.
Understanding broke behind my mate’s eyes, and her gaze turned soft and sorrowful. “It’s not about Freya or Mimir, is it? It’s Arni and Magga.”
I sneered, even as my innate ice gripped my gut tightly. “They’re nothing but flying rats. If