A bottomless river of black essence swept into me, mixing with the pure, clear pool that watered Yggdrasil. I sucked him down, reveling in the charred edge of his essence. Darkest chocolate and roasted coffee mixed with the deep, endless cold of eternal darkness.
When he slumped to the side, Svar took his place. Offering his throat but not his cock. As if he still feared he might be too dangerous for me to love him.
“I want them both.” I didn’t recognize the growl in my voice. The hunger. My fangs ached so much I bit him again and again, hard, messy bites tearing his alfar hide. “I want it all.”
Dörr tightened one arm around me and seized Svar’s nape to drag him closer. “Then you shall have him.”
“Bind me, my queen,” Svar rasped. “Only then will I trust myself.”
His bond rippled like a still, silent oil slick disturbed by a single small pebble, pulling me under its surface into pure Darkness. I pressed my mouth to one of my bites and pulled hard on his essence.:I trust you, and that is enough.:
Dörr wrapped his arms around my other Blood, reassuring and steadying him, while also pressing us all together. “I trust you, brother. You may be the Deadliest, but you love us both too much to ever harm her.”
Svar flowed into me like an avalanche of darkness loaded with sharp edges and poisoned blades. The tip of his barbed cock sank into me, hesitantly at first, then deeper as he felt my pleasure. My complete lack of fear. He was dangerous, yes, but unable to harm me through the ebb and flow of my own power.
I didn’t dull his edges or dilute his poison. I intensified it. My Deadliest. Reveling in his danger. He filled me, impossibly wide. His spikes lay like ridges along his shaft, increasing sensation without hurting me. So good I couldn’t even focus enough to feed. My head fell back against Dörr’s chest, my entire body quivering. I fought to open my eyes so I could see his face.
Buried to the hilt inside me, he stared down at me, his pink eyes shining like a full moon colored by a gorgeous sunset sky. “I would fall back to the Endless Slough to touch you one last time.”
I reached up to cup his cheek in one hand. “You never have to fall, my Deadliest. But if you do, we will always fly to catch you, the same as you came to catch us.”
GUNNARR
I watchedher take the dark alfar one by one. Then the ice man. Afraid to interrupt or distract her, I kept my mouth shut. My thoughts as silent as possible.
For decades, I roamed the world wherever my nose and stomach led. Being alone had never bothered me. In fact, I would have said I preferred the endless dark winters on the ice, fishing and sleeping, sleeping and fishing. Thinking my thoughts to the aurora borealis. Perhaps that’s why the others heard my thoughts so easily. I’d never learned to dampen the ideas sparking through my mind, bleeding from one color to the next against the velvet sky.
Best I learn how to pull the winter dark down inside me and mute the constant chatter. I did not want to be sent away for being an annoyance.
She lifted her head from Lokken’s throat and turned to pin me with gleaming eyes. Gulp. She must have heard my thoughts despite my attempt at staying quiet.
Licking her lips, she sat up fully, shifting around on her alpha’s body to face me. Though Lokken still held her opposite arm, his mouth pressed to her wrist.
“Surely my Hungriest hasn’t already finished feeding.” Voice gentle and light with teasing, she held her other hand out to me. “I’mcertainly not finished feeding on you.”
On my hands and knees, I scrambled closer, weaving between limbs and wings so I could offer her my throat. I didn’t wish to anger Dörr by delaying when she hungered.
But instead of immediately sinking her glorious fangs into me, she cupped my cheek in her palm and tipped my face back to hers. “I will never send you away, Gunnarr.”
“Forgive me, my queen.” Nerves made my tongue flap faster. “I meant no disrespect. I don’t know much of anything about proper Aima courts and queens. On Svìn, there wereno formalities. People came and went all the time, trappers, fishermen, traders…”
I’m babbling again.Eyes wide, I clenched my jaws shut.
“I don’t know anything about proper Aima courts either. I grew up in a tiny, secluded cabin on a private island in the middle of a lake in rural Minnesota. I may have seen more court life in Norway, but I don’t remember it. Even if I did, I want my court, my House, to be a place of love and warmth and laughter, not proper etiquette.”
“I know Norway well, my queen. I’ve likely traversed nearly every square kilometer and certainly all the coasts, which is significant because of all the fjords sliced by glaciers. Probably walked my fat ass around the equator a dozen times or more.”
Her lips quirked. “I quite like your ass. Especially in those little white shorts.”
The tips of my ears crisped with heat, and it was all I could do not to wriggle around like an eager puppy and show her said ass again. Which absolutely would not help my case whatsoever. She didn’t need a fool in her court who ate everything in sight and couldn’t shut off his mouth or his thoughts for five seconds.
“You don’t have to prove your worth to me, Gunnarr. You’re mine. You’re not going anywhere.”
“But why?” I blurted before I could stop myself. “I’m fucking useless. I can’t fly or fight or pull freaky ice waves up out of the ocean to catch you. I don’t know beans about court or politics. I can barely control the shift, especially when you feed on me. I can’t control anything. Even my own damned tongue. I’m good for a laugh, I suppose. Or to make sure your food isn’t ever poisoned. Though I eat so much, you’ll never know what killed me if there is some kind of poison that works on Aima. Is there? I don’t even know. So maybe that’s not?—”
Her hand slipped to my nape and she pulled me closer, stilling my frantic words. “The goddess sent me exactly the Blood I want and need.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as her mouth ghosted over my throat in light kisses.Hold as long as possible. I won’t shift this time.
