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I knew that voice. A moment passed, while I wished I had strength to lift my hand and smack his smug, scaly head.

“Ah, well. I will go back to examining the treasures I stole from her cloak. Such interesting bottles, so many⁠—”

“Asshole,” I said. Well, gasped. The air felt like knives moving past my vocal cords.

“Ass god, you called me,” Skadi purred as I used every scrap of energy I had to open my eyelids. “The god of your ass. I admit, I do like that part of your small, weak body. Though not as much as your disrespectful mouth. Welcome to my home, little spy.”

I couldn’t turn my head, but something helped lift me. Lusca? Yes. His face swam into view on my right. We sat in a bowl of ice, a shallow, walled structure made of deep turquoise and silver shards twice as tall as me.

“Where…” I couldn’t finish my question. Lusca lifted a metal container of water to my lips, and I drank, though the rim of the jug turned slightly orange when it came into contact with my mouth. I was still burning, literally.

“We came north, to Skadi’s home,” Lusca explained as I drank. “We’ve been here for a few days. Skadi has recovered much of his strength.”

“The dry,” I rasped. “You.”

Lusca’s smile was instant. “Skadi and I share power now.” I glanced at the ice god, who was preening and plucking things from his side.

What? That fucker. He had my poisons. He had the containers I’d worked for years to collect, that I’d traveled all over the world to obtain and learn about. As I watched, he used a sharp-edged fingernail to pick at the knotted thread embedded in the wax of one of the most valuable and deadly ones… “Stop that!”

He flicked a dismissive glance my way. “Make me.”

“Damnit,” I growled. I couldn’t move. A smile slid over his face as he straightened and crawled across the smooth ice toward me. Somehow, the poisons all vanished. Where the hell had they gone? He had to have put them into his form. “Fuck.”

“That is an exceptional idea. In fact, it is what you need.” He was naked, and his body gleamed with silver as he moved so that he hovered over me, not touching my skin, but the cold of him met the heat of my own body as he waited. “You need a mate inside you to help quench that fire. A powerful mate.” His smile curled again. “One who can give you something you need… something you have never had.”

His hand moved, and my eyes followed it as he gripped the base of his rigid, thick cock, where the two knots rested. I licked my lips, wondering how those would work.

Lusca’s soft laughter echoed off the walls of the bowl… No. The nest. It was a nest I lay inside, with these two mates. “I think he’s right. You should find out how they work. How they feel.”

Nest. Nest. The word echoed in my mind. I needed something. I had to do something before I could welcome my mates into my… A sob emerged from my lips as my hands moved instinctively, fruitlessly scrabbling on the ice, looking for…

“I will be your blankets,” Lusca crooned. Somehow, his body felt soft, plush. From the corner of my eye, I could see vaguely transparent tentacles, light purple and thick, forming a nest of power inside the ice. “There, you see? You have everything you need. All you must do is say yes.” His voice dropped. “Yes to your kraken. Yes to me.”

“My dragon?” I teased.

“Yes, my little enemy,” Skadi hissed just before cold lips pressed against mine, teasing, frosting the surface of my endless heat like a promise of bliss. “I will be your dragon.” Something cold brushed across my shoulders, my breasts, frost nipping at the tips as he explored my skin from head to foot. I gasped as my body suddenly tightened, then released, like something inside had awoken and was stretching for the first time. “And you will be my goddess.”

Steam rose between us, and I sucked in a breath as he hovered over me. Lusca’s hands were on my hips, his power creating a nest that I reached out and arranged, choosing to think of them as cushions. The part of me that had been mostly asleep for years, since I’d prayed to be released from my nature in a cavern in Starlak, was fully awake now.

“More,” I whispered. I was still caught in a web of exhaustion, but I didn’t need to move. My mates were doing everything that needed to be done. Skadi’s hands smoothed my hair so gently, it felt cruel when I needed more. “More,” I demanded, louder.

His hands moved lower, over my cheeks, my neck, to my breasts. His touch lingered in the center of my chest, where something hung on a cord… My nautilus necklace.

For some reason, the thought of the nautilus had me drawing back inside, like there was something there I couldn’t examine. Shouldn’t think about. Lusca hummed a snippet of a song beneath me, and I let it go.

Skadi’s fingers moved again, still soft and slow. Everywhere he touched, the pain receded, though the fire inside almost seemed to reach for him. Finally, one hand dropped lower, to the place on my abdomen where he’d stuck his tentacle, or tail. “Consent, little spy?”

Was he planning to do it again? To block out the heat? I nodded, and he smiled, his hand dropping lower, cupping my mound.

I arched my back up, Lusca’s form surrounding me as I moved, holding me up. My thighs parted, and one of Skadi’s fingers slipped between my lower lips, rubbing gently. More steam filled the nest.

“Smell her,” Skadi murmured. “Such a lovely scent. Salt and rain and mint…” He dropped his head down to my mound and drew in a deep breath. I tried to close my legs. Skadi tsked. “Brother, could you please? I need more room.”

Lusca’s arms dropped to my thighs and gently but firmly opened them. His breath tickled my ear. “Enough?” he asked, his deep voice vibrating against my back.

“Wider. I want to taste her here,” Skadi said.

Lusca sent a thought into my mind. Do you want this?