Chapter Five

Adriel

" W e need to find her," Damrion snaps, pounding the table with his fist.

"I know." Dax tries to soothe him, but he's beyond that. He's been beyond soothing for hours. He's running on pure rage now. "I've already sent word to the other Seers. They're doing what they can to help, but…"

Everyone at the table falls quiet, the rest of his sentence hanging unfinished. We all know what he intended to say, however. They may be Blooded, but they aren't Valkyrie. They aren't Abigail. They don't possess even a tenth of her power.

Without her visions to guide us, we're blind. We have no way of finding her, let alone of rescuing her. The only advantage we had in this battle was her. And by all accounts, she walked willingly into their hands.

The warriors we left behind to guard her say she followed the Forsaken into the portal without a fight. As soon as they vowed to leave us alive, she let them take her.

Pain rips through me—infinite and excruciating. We failed her. Had we just forced her to talk to us. Had I refused to leave her side...

There were a dozen different choices we could have made that didn't end with her in the hands of the Forsaken. But she didn't give us a chance to make any of them. She chose for us, knowing that it ended with her in chains.

Her in chains...

Gods.

Memories claw at the walls of my mind, threatening to shatter them.

Chains biting into my wrists.

The searing pain of the blade cutting through my flesh.

The agony of the whip slashing across my back.

Endless years of darkness and pain.

I leap to my feet, knocking my chair back.

Everyone stops talking, glancing at me.

"Adriel?"

I ignore Damrion and stride toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Reaper calls.

I don't answer him, either—I can't. I stumble out the door, gasping for breath as it slams behind me. The icy mountain air blasts through me. I suck it into my lungs in greedy gulps, allowing it to ground me and shore up the walls in my mind.

I'm not in Jotunheim . I'm not in chains.

I'm in Eitr. I'm free.

But Abigail isn't.

I feel Damrion behind me long before I hear him. I always feel him when he's nearby—he's an electric current running down my spine.

"We're going to find her," he says when I spin to face him.

But I'm not in the mood for platitudes and promises. Not right now.

I'm not in the mood to talk to him, either. For the first time in 2500 years, he let me into his soul today. Without reservation or hesitation, he let me in, sharing his grief and pain with me.

"Back off, Damrion," I warn him. I don't want to fight with him tonight, not after what we've lost today. But the memories of Jotunheim are too close and my emotions are too raw. There's only one way this will end between us—the same way it always ends. In a fight.

"You're in pain. Let me help you. Please," he pleads. The same plea reflects in his golden eyes.

"Help me? You can't help me," I snap. The weight of our shared history presses down on me, suffocating me. There's so fucking much of it, and most of it hurts. We're fire and ice, destroying each other over and over again.

"What do you want from me, Adriel?" he sighs, his expression pained. "I'm trying here."

"I don't recall asking for anything other than for you to back off."

"Do you want me to walk away from you and the way I feel? Is that what you want?" he asks, frustration burning in his eyes.

I stare at him for a long moment, anger and bitterness churning inside me. After all these years, he finally lets me into his soul, and he's already trying to run.

"Do whatever the hell you want, Damrion. You will anyway." I throw the words at him like daggers before turning to walk away, refusing to have this fight with him now. The past is too heavy, the present too uncertain, and our future too dim.

He grabs my arm, refusing to let me walk away. " Nei , don't walk away. Talk to me, Adriel."

My temper flares as emotion bubbles over. I slam him back against the wall, my hand around his throat. "Don't fucking touch me," I snarl, my face inches from his. "You lost that right when you left me to die."

"For the last time, I didn't know you were alive!" he growls, his golden eyes locked on my face. "I never would have left you there had I known."

"You should have known!" I shout. "If you'd let yourself love me, you would have known. You've been in my soul for 2500 years. I've felt you every fucking day. I knew that you were alive. I knew when you were hurt. I know everything because I feel you. But you never let me into yours until today. You were always too goddamn afraid." I hate the way my voice cracks as if I'm some Fae recruit facing his first battle.

"Adriel," he says.

But I don't allow him to finish. It's my turn to talk. "I waited 2500 years for you to let me in. And it takes Abigail being taken from us before you finally do. And even now, you're still so fucking ready to walk away. You'd rather break everything than let yourself love either one of us. She deserves better, Damrion. We both do. So you can go to hell." I push him away, desperate to escape the memories and emotions tearing at me.

But before I make it more than a step, he grabs me again, shoving me up against the wall this time.

"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."