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