“Damn you,” I growl, trying to push him off me, but he’s implacable, a wall of fury and determination.
His mouth comes down on mine in a searing kiss.
He consumes me, his lips hard and demanding against mine. His fingers tangle in my hair, his touch lighting up the sparks of Magn flowing through my veins.
My hands fist in his hair, tugging him closer as I rise up to meet his savage possession with my own. I nip at his bottom lip, and he groans into my mouth, the sound shooting straight to my already throbbing cock.
His hands are everywhere—sliding under my shirt, gripping my hips to grind his erection against mine, pulling me into him. I touch him, too, desperate to feel him in a way I haven’t in millennia. Desperate to feel anything but the emotions threatening to drag me under.
He seems to know exactly how I feel. He wraps his fist around my cock through my pants, squeezing as he bites my lip, grunting my name. I grasp him too, touching, squeezing, groaning—trying to ground myself as 2500 years of our pain and fear for Abigail threaten to destroy me.
Fire and ice, we clash and meld, consumed by grief and anger. By a need that time has denied us. His taste is intoxicating, drowning me in sensations I'd long forgotten...healing wounds that have festered for centuries.
He drops to his knees at my feet, my zipper inching down beneath his hands, his golden eyes locked on mine.
“Damrion,” I gasp as he pulls my cock free, wrapping his fist around me. I writhe in torment, caught in his gaze.
"I was never afraid to love you," he whispers, fierce truth blazing in his eyes, throbbing in his voice. He plunges down on me, taking me all the way to the back of his throat.
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."
