Chapter Sixty-Two
Aric
I’m buzzed but not drunk, at least not on alcohol. Which sounds stupid even in my own head, but Rey is sitting on my lap. Pressing into me. I can’t get her close enough.
“Room. Now,” she says.
“The alcohol—” I start but she shushes me with a finger to my lips.
“I’m completely sober,” she assures me. “Reeve did pretty much all of the drinking.”
I hear the soft roar of music, people laughing, a new game of beer pong as I lead her down the hall and up the stairs to the back of the house.
“This is your room?” she asks when we get there.
I frown and glance around. “What gave it away?”
“The massive bed and the fact that there’s literally nothing in here at all? No decorations, no pictures. Almost like you’re afraid to settle down.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “It’s not that I don’t want to settle down.
” Slowly, I walk her into my room, shutting the door behind me.
“It’s that I destroy everything I touch, or for a while, it seemed like that.
From the lightning and storms, to the frost, to…
my parents. Everything around me eventually dies.
Isn’t that what ice does? The bitter cold? Takes life?”
She shrugs and wanders closer to the bed, pulling me along by the hand.
“Some might say it actually gives life. Doctors use extreme cold all the time to slow people’s hearts in order for them to heal.
They quite literally put them on ice to slow down death.
So maybe you’re giving life, not taking it. ”
I nod. “So what do you believe, daughter of Odin?”
“I believe in life. Believe in you.” She stands on her tiptoes and, in the blanket of darkness and a sliver of moonlight, my enemy kisses me softly.
With one touch, I don’t feel like a monster ready to be unleashed. I feel like a man. Like myself. I wrap my arms around her and deepen the kiss. No going back.
And I don’t want to.
Her hands slide beneath my shirt, tugging it up and over my head. Our eyes lock, hers blazing, mine—Gods, mine are surely already too far gone. I scoop her up into my arms, walking us back until her bare skin presses against the wood of my bedframe.
She slides down my body, tugging at my jeans. My head drops back as her heat sears into me. My hands are everywhere—her hair, her throat, gripping her ass like I’ll never let go.
This is right.
Us.
Together.
My heart slams in a hungry cadence for more. The world itself vibrates in tune with it—like the storm gathering outside is echoing me.
Her hands tangle in my hair, tugging hard enough to hurt, and I groan.
“You did say it was for pulling,” she mumbles against my lips.
Her head tips back, laughter spilling out like sunlight, and I kiss down her throat, drinking it in, memorizing the sound.
My lips leave behind a sheen of frost everywhere they touch, like my body’s marking her—claiming her—not with chains or force but with everything I am. With the monster she swears can give her life.
With the choice I never thought I had.
I don’t choose death.
I don’t even choose life.
I choose her.
She shudders against me, eyelashes fluttering as ice crystals spark and drift through the air, caught between our breaths. Thunder growls in the distance. I know it’s me—my emotions splitting the sky—but I don’t care. Let the world hear it. Let it know.
Our mouths crash together, frantic, desperate, a battle neither of us wants to win. She flips me onto my back, her body straddling mine like she’s waited lifetimes for this. Her bra goes flying.
I reach for her, my voice hoarse, raw. “You’re beautiful.”
I seal my mouth over hers, working the rest of her clothes off with so much urgency until it’s nothing but fire and ice, thunder and lightning. Her heat. My cold. Our skin colliding in the only way it ever should—without barriers, without hesitation.
She arches into me, and I can’t stop touching her—thighs, hips, the curve of her waist, the swell of her breast beneath my palm. Every part of her begs to be memorized. Every shiver she gives me stokes the storm roaring through my veins, begging to be released.
“Aric…” My name falls from her lips like a plea and a prayer, and I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from the sound of it.
We move together, slowly at first, learning each other, testing the edges of restraint. Her lips part beneath mine, her hands in my hair, tugging me closer, deeper. The ice inside me cracks and melts with every sigh she gives.
Maybe I was meant to break for her all along.
Thunder rolls, rattling the windowpanes, as if the world itself knows what’s happening.
I flip us, bracing her beneath me, my forehead pressed to hers as I reach for a condom, slip it on.
“This is right,” I whisper, because it feels like the truth. “Us.”
Her answer is a kiss so hungry, so affirming, I could come apart right there.
And then her breath is catching as I slide into her, and everything else ceases—no runes, no Gods, no betrayals.
The world could burn, and I’d still choose this.
I’d still choose her.
She moves with me, like the storm’s rhythm belongs to us alone.
Every kiss I brand down her throat is answered with a shudder and a gasp, her body clenching around me and the thunder outside faltering like even the storm can’t keep up with our pace.
She claws at my back, running her nails down either side of the runes.
With a cry, I sink farther into her, losing myself to the rhythm, feeling her body grow taut, her legs and arms wrapping tighter around me.
When it happens—when we both finally let go—it’s not just release. It’s annihilation. The house rattles. The lights blow out. Outside, the music cuts off mid-beat. The whole world goes dark because of us and the intense sensations racking my entire body.
Because of our bond.
“That’s…not normal.” Rey’s laugh is breathless, wrecked, beautiful.
“No.” I sigh, brushing her damp hair back, pressing a lazy kiss to her temple. “Maybe next time we just start with the lights off.”
Her laugh bubbles again, softer this time, as she curls her arms around me. “Yeah. Good call.”
But the thunder still shakes the walls. Too loud. Too constant. And I know—I can’t control it. I also start to hear voices, lots of them, weaving up from downstairs. The storm’s clearly brought the party back inside.
“Bathroom?” she asks finally.
I nod toward the door. “Through there. Connected to my game room, where I keep all the fun stuff.”
“Nerd.” She slips out of bed and throws on a sweatshirt, giggling when she smacks into the wall before finding the switch. Light spills from the game room, warm and yellow against the dark.
Minutes pass, but she doesn’t come back.
“Rey?” I call. My chest tightens when I don’t hear her voice. I drag myself out of bed, still raw, still undone, then throw on some boxer briefs and stalk toward the bathroom.
I freeze.
Sitting in the corner of my game room, right next to my shelf of manga like it’s always belonged there—like I fucking put it there myself—is the cow. Audhumla. The cosmic cow, Ymir’s nurse, carved in stone, her ridiculous horns gleaming beneath the light.
“What the hell—” My throat closes. “That’s supposed to be in his office. I didn’t bring it here.” It’s ugly as hell and freaks the shit out of me.
Rey’s leaning against the farthest wall, arms crossed. “But that’s definitely it, right? Who would have put it in here? This seems too easy.”
“You’re right,” I admit. “But let’s not look a gift cow in the mouth. We got what we came here for.”
She doesn’t look at me. But her whole body is tense. Then suddenly, she thrusts her hand toward me.
“Bite me.”
“What?” My stomach lurches.
“Bite me, Giant. I mean that literally. We can’t exactly go grab a kitchen knife right now with everyone inside.”
Gods. It’s like the command itself threads through my blood. I know it’s out of necessity, but still. The second her wrist brushes my lips, I’m gone. My teeth sink deep. Her blood floods my mouth—alive, scorching, intoxicating. The monster in me roars awake, clawing for more, hungering for freedom.
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t break eye contact. She pulls her hand away and slaps it against the rune on Audhumla. Her blood.
I want to stop, but it’s like whatever she awakened won’t be contained. In the next breath, I slice my teeth along my palm and slam it over the rune.
Othala flares.
The burn rips through me, searing down my spine, but it’s not just fire this time.
The world blinks out. My vision goes black.
And then—
I’m there.
At the beginning.
“Odinfather,” the voice whispers in my ear.
Another battlefield, the hammer flying across a bridge and into a giant fist. A man larger than the people huddled around him praying.
They’re covered in frost, and they’re moaning, crying out in loss, crying out for the hammer to avenge them.
The moment the weapon hits his hand, five of them die at his side like a sacrifice. His face is blurred, but he turns, and suddenly he’s in the basalt archway like he came through a portal.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It must be done.” Several others appear beside him. An infant and a few people in strange costumes, swords and arrows strapped to their backs. Everyone is covered in blood.
“You force its hand, its will.” A voice wheezes from a body broken, bloody on the ground, half burned. “Odinfather will have this realm and everyone in it.”
“His reign”—the massive Giant raises the hammer—“is over.”