I shout his name, my hands flying to his head as my knot swells and I explode against his tongue. My cock pulses, ropes of cum pouring into his eager mouth. He swallows every single one, tears in his eyes.

He leaves me gasping for air and shaking, 2500 years of pain ripped from me.

After a moment, the knot shrinks enough for my cock to slip from his lips. He rises to his feet, pulling me back into his arms. His forehead rests against mine, his breath a shaky exhale.

"I was never afraid of what I felt,” he whispers. “I wasn't worthy of you, Adriel. I'm not worthy of Abigail, either.”

“You’ve always been worthy.”

“Nei. Look what I did to you." His thumb brushes along my scar, the gesture tentative, almost as if he’s afraid to hurt me.

I can't help but flinch at the reminder, the painful memories still too close to the surface. But before they can take hold, his eyes lock with mine, full of regret.

"How am I supposed to forgive myself when you're the one who suffers because of what I did? You were on that battlefield because of me. You were tortured for years because of me." He swallows hard, his throat working convulsively. "I hear you moaning at night, pleading for the pain to stop. I feel your grief.”

“You feel it?”

His lips turn up at the corners. “You were in my soul long before today. At night, when you were sleeping, I threw the doors open wide for you to try to ease your pain.”

Gods. I never meant for him to feel that. I thought my pain was my own.

He presses my palm over his heart. “You’ve always had half of my soul. But no Fae warrior in Valhalla had ever been soul-bound before you claimed mine. I didn’t let you in the way I should have back then because I knew when I did, everyone would see what I always knew—just how unworthy I was of the gift we were granted.” He presses his forehead to mine. “And I was right. I fucking broke you.”

“You didn’t break me.”

“Ja, I did. You’ve been bleeding since I let you walk out the door onto that battlefield 2500 years ago, Adriel.”

I sigh, my eyes drifting close. If he’s to blame, then so am I. He didn’t send me to the battlefield. I chose to go. Because fighting was easier than admitting that he was breaking my fucking heart every time he sprang away from me as if terrified of getting caught with his hands on me.

I was convinced he wanted to keep us secret—that his duty to the Fae and his oaths kept him silent. But neither of us is innocent. We both have our own share of guilt and shame and blame to carry.

And none of it matters now.

“We were chosen for her,” I murmur, something I never understood until recently. I always wondered why us, how us. We both swore the same oath to Valhalla. Soul-binding should have been impossible. And yet...we managed it. I raged for centuries about that.

It took Abigail appearing for me to finally understand that the Norns bound us to one another just like they bound us to her—a failsafe to ensure we could never do her any harm, even through one another. And they gave us eons to figure our shit out and prepare for her, to train, and ensure we were ready to protect her at all costs.

He nods, his forehead bumping mine. “Even then, the Gods tried to prepare us for her coming. Did we fail, Adriel?” His voice shakes. “Did we fail her?”

“Nei,” I rasp, swallowing the little whisper of fear. “I refuse to believe we’ve failed her. I still feel her in my soul. We’re still breathing. It means there’s still hope.”

“There must be hope,” he says on a quiet exhale. “We can’t lose her.”

We stand quietly for a moment before the plea chokes me, and I have to voice it. "Don’t fucking break us," I whisper, my voice cracking. "Don't break her, Damrion. Don’t walk away from us, don’t shut us out. Just...fucking don’t. We need you. She needs you."

"I don't want to break anything. I just want to love you—both of you." His words are a plea, desperate for me to understand. "Helvete, Adriel. I've been going mad not being able to touch the two of you, to hold you. The three of us together like we were last night was the best moment of my life. You two are everything to me. Everything."

Before I can respond, he pulls me into another searing kiss that threatens to consume me. There's a wildness in him, a hunger I've never seen before. But just as quickly as it began, he breaks the kiss, panting as he looks into my eyes.

"But we're not doing this without her," he says firmly, his resolve unwavering. “That’s the way it was meant to be—the three of us.”

"Agreed," I reply without hesitation. Whatever this just was between us—it wasn't right because she isn't here, caught between us where she's meant to be. "Never again without Abigail. She's ours."

Once upon a time, things might have been different. She wasn’t even alive yet. But that’s not the case now. She’s as much a part of me as he is. We’re one soul split between three bodies. It’s all of us or none of us. She comes before all things. The way the Norns intended. The way our oath demands.

I rest my head against his, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat against my skin. Feeling at peace with him for the first time since Álfheimr fell. "Promise me we'll get her back."

"I promise you,” he vows. “We're getting her back. I won't rest until we do."

Chapter Six

Abigail

Chains bite into my wrists, pinning me to the cold stone slab beneath me. Water drips from the stalactites above, running in rivulets down the walls to puddle on the floor. Cold drops splash against my skin.

I shiver from the cold, fighting the moan trying to break from my lips.

Hushed voices whisper in the dark—the Forsaken trying to decide what to do with me. I don’t think they thought this far ahead. They assumed once I was in their hands, my visions would be theirs.

They thought wrong. I may have walked willingly into the portal, but I’ll never betray the Fae and my sisters. They can kill me, but they can’t beat the truth from my lips. They can’t turn me against the Light. I’ll die before I reveal what I know.

"Tell us what you know," a Forsaken demands, his malevolent yellow eyes locked on me from across the cavern. Even from a distance, pure evil radiates from him. He’s foul and corrupt, a twisted caricature of a man.

I think he’s their leader—at least, he seems to be. I’ve seen him in my visions before. If he has a name, I don’t know it.

"The pain will end if you tell us what we want to know, Seer," he says.

I remain silent, my teeth clamped together in defiance. Even though every fiber of my being quakes with fear and aches with pain, I refuse to give in.

If they want to break me, they’re going to have to try harder. I won’t tell them what I’ve seen. I won’t tell them about the shards of the portal Damrion keeps hidden. If I do, everything is lost. That much is absolute certainty. My visions have never wavered on that fact. If I give them anything, I fall to the Dark. And if I fall, my sisters fall with me.

I won’t damn us.

"Stubborn girl," the Forsaken snarls, his patience wearing thin. "You think because you have visions you know the vastness of our power? You know nothing! I can rip your mind to shreds, leave you a broken shell. The Fae won’t have any use for you then.”

“Perhaps not, but neither will you,” I remind him, smiling through the pain. “Break me, and you’ll never get your hands on the shards of the portal or my visions.”

He moves toward me suddenly, seeming to float in the darkness, though I know he doesn’t. He’s still standing on the other side of the room. This is just a trick, another way to scare me.

“Then perhaps I’ll simply sever the connection between you and the Fae tied to your soul,” he snarls.

For the first time since I stepped through the portal, genuine terror surges through me—too hard and fast for me to hide it. It rips through the bond tying me to Damrion and Adriel.

I gasp, slamming the barriers closed as quickly as they flew open, but I know they felt it anyway.

I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.

The Forsaken laughs, a cold, emotionless sound. There is no humor in it. Nothing but pure evil. My fear pleases him.