on my leg again, but Grim held firm, his mouth a tight line and those mismatched eyes swirling with an emotion I didn’t care to decipher. I reached for my magic and hurled it at him, giving no thought to conserving my power nor what would happen to my soul if I killed him with the blast.
Grim managed to raise a dark shield around himself in time for my light to part around him in a harmless flash.
I bared my teeth and reached for another ball of energy, but that dark shield wrapped around me and sank deep, containing my magic within me.
“I said enough,” Grim repeated, his voice firmer as he released my ankle and got to his feet.
I tried to throw myself at him to strike him again, but invisible bonds pressed my arms in tight against my sides, leaving me completely immobile.
I snarled and spat and strained against his magic cocooning my own, immobilizing it as thoroughly as it did my body, but I wasn’t strong enough.
“Enough.” Grim said, softer this time, as he closed his thickly muscled arms around me and pulled me back against his cool chest. “If you spend any more of yourself, I will need to join with you to ensure you are not left depleted.”
“What’s the matter, you don’t want to add rape to the list of your crimes?” I snarled, flexing my muscles to try and buck against his grip.
“I would rather not.” He brushed one hand from my ribs to my abdomen before anchoring it on my hip. “But if you leave me no choice, I will not hesitate.”
A chill lingered on my skin from the path of his hand, even through my leather clothes. Like a ghostly caress against my stomach. And the spark of life within.
Slowly I stopped fighting until I hung limp in his arms. I would kill it if I continued expending my powers past my limits. Freya had been clear on that. Her. She’d called my baby her.
Grim’s baby. Not Bjarni’s, not Modi’s. Not Saga’s. Not Magni’s.
Grim’s.
I’d not fully taken in what the goddess had told me before she died—the words themselves, yes, but not the emotional extent of them. The consequences.
I was pregnant. I was carrying a daughter. And thanks to her father’s treachery, she would be born in Hel. She would never know color, or warmth. Or joy.
“I know you hate me, Annabel,” Grim said so softly as tears slid down my cheeks. “You think I betrayed you, but this was the only way. In time, you will come to understand.”
“I think?” I bit through the tears. “I think you betrayed me? You killed Freya. You made sure I will never see my other mates again, you made sure we won’t be able to stop Ragnarök. I don’t think anything, Grim. I know.”
“You still don’t understand how hopeless your quest was,” he murmured. He pressed his nose against the side of my head and rested his lips on the shell of my ear. “The prophecy was a lark. The Norns wove nothing but a web of pointless misery for you, and for that, I am sorry. Because I can never share you, Annabel. Just the thought of them touching you makes me want to kill all four of them. It makes me yearn to slay my own brothers. And that… that I can never let happen.
“I may be wrapped up in this foul web now, but I still remember my duty to Bjarni and Saga. My only goal was for them to live through this, and if they die by my own hand in a fit of jealousy because I cannot control this… thing I feel for you… I can’t let that happen. I won’t. Even if the cost is the end of everything.
“So they will remain alive, the new gods of a new world, and we will be nothing but a faint memory to them once I break their bonds to you. That will be my gift to them.
“And you, Annabel… you will stay here, with me. You can hate me for as long as you need to. I understand. But I will guard you, always. I will protect you, and I will make you a queen. My gift to you.”
“Queen?” I whispered. “What do you mean queen?”
“Once Hel takes her army of undead to the shores of Midgard, there will be no one left to rule this realm. I will make you its new queen—make sure every creature left here bows