I fought against the unnatural exhaustion and lethargy suffusing me. Arms, legs, eyes—none would obey me. Like swimming against the current, I persisted, focusing my energy on one body part at a time until I came awake with a start and gasped. Cold air filled my lungs, and the arms around me tightened.

“Betha!” Grim’s usual lightness was gone, and his face, outlined against the gray smoke curling behind him, was stark.

Smoke?

Move! I commanded my eyes, and head, to move. But I merely flopped in the direction of the smoke, staring in horror at the flames completely engulfing the cabin. My vision bounced and danced, and I realized Grim carried me away from their home. But the flames, tall orange-red fingers, stretched above the trees.

“Wait!” My voice was a croak, but Grim heard me and slowed.

“What are you doing?” Raynor demanded. Arriving at my side, face pale, he grasped me as if Grim had tired and needed his help.

“Wait!” I repeated, this time a little stronger. “What’s happening?”

“The elders,” Raynor explained. “They came. We barely got out in time.”

“Fenris!” I cried. I’d been so selfishly caught up in the twins, struck stupid by their sexiness, I’d left him unprotected. “And your mother! We have to go back. We have to help them!”

“No,” Grim answered. I’d never seen him so emotionless. “Fenris would want you protected, as would Mor. We will return after we find a safe place for you.”

Panic gave me strength, and I shoved my hands against Grim’s chest, a sign for him to put me down. I wasn’t sure until my feet hit the ground that they would hold me up, but they did. Standing up was step one. Step two was finding Fenris.

Anger and panic warred inside me. Who were these people who thought they could hurt me? And then—finding me unavailable for death-meting, went after my husband?

Or skaoi.

Or ice giant.

Whatever. He was mine.

Using my rage to fuel me, I burst into motion. Raynor and Grim cried out after me, but I ignored them, rocketing through the forest, using the trail of smoke to guide me back to the cabin. Above me, the sky roiled and snow began to fall, fast and thick. It blinded me, but still I ran. A crash of thunder and series of lightning bolts shook the ground, which split in front of me. I leapt over the chasm, crashing to the forest floor only to roll and leap up on my feet again.

Part of me was impressed by my roll, and a teeny tiny part of my brain made a mental note to try it again when death wasn’t on the line. A cool hand brushed mine, and I spared a glance over my shoulder. Grim and Raynor ran behind me, faces harsh in their focus. Grim’s hand wasn’t a clutch of support. He was trying to stop me. Putting on a burst of speed, I managed to outpace him and exploded through the trees into the clearing in time to see Fenris struck by lightning.

“Fenris!” I cried.

In slow motion, he hit the ground, eyes open, body unmoving. His beautiful eyes held mine, and I stumbled toward him. One moment he was twenty feet away, and the next I fell on my knees beside him.

“Fenris,” I whispered, touching his head, his face, his hands. He wasn’t in his Jötnar form, but his eyes flashed white, broadcasting his attempt to cover himself in it. A flash of pink caught my eye, and I stared at my hand. Blue. Pink. White. Pink. Terrified, I scanned for the twins. I found them, still as statues, staring at Fenris then over my head.

I followed their gaze and sucked in a breath. Beings, ten feet tall at least and so deep a white they were nearly blue, watched me. Their white eyes held no awareness, no fear, no compassion.

The elders.

One of them held Freya before him. His fingers dug into her shoulder, and she winced, easing one shoulder toward the ground as if she could dislodge his grasp.

“Live or die, human? What do you choose?” His voice was breathy, cracked and tremulous. Old.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

White eyes changed to blue then back to white again. “Your husbands and their mother. Do they live or die?”

Husbands. Twisting, I glanced behind me. Grim and Raynor tried only to protect me, and had put themselves in danger.

They grimaced, teeth bared. Lines of pain etched along the corners of their eyes and mouths. As they lay unmoving, white smoke curled from their bodies along the black line of charred flesh visible through their clothing.

A small quiver of movement when they breathed and a cry thanking some Norse god from Freya left me boneless, collapsing against the snow-covered ground.

“Live.” I gasped. “I want them to live.”

“Betha.” The first sound in my name stuttered as Fenris regained control over his voice. Turning my head, I met his eyes and saw the refusal there.

“Then you die.”

I didn’t know who spoke, but I did see the icicle, as long as a sapling, fly through the air toward me. A concussive wave left my body as I attempted to block it with my arms. The ice shattered into shards, reflecting back to the elders.

Lightning struck again, this time behind me and then between me and Fenris. It struck continuously, scorching the ground, melting the snow and leaving huge puddles of mud and muck at each point of impact.

Inside, the magic I’d only begun to discover was out-of-control. I tried to grasp it and fling it at the elders. I didn’t care if I made a giant snowball, as long as it destroyed those things trying to harm my husbands.

But it didn’t work like that. The more I searched for it, the farther away my power felt until I finally cried out, “Stop! Take whatever you want, just stop hurting them!”

Time stopped, and faster than my eye could follow, the elders surrounded me. “You choose to die?”

Of course I didn’t choose to die. I wanted to live a long and happy life with these men. In the short time we were together, I’d fallen in love with them. With them, I could have had a future I’d never anticipated. Their acceptance of me, and joy in me, were more than I’d ever let myself believe I deserved.

This world needed more people—men—Jötnar like them.

“I choose for them to live. Whatever that means,” I finally got out, and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the pain.

But it never came.

Frigid air blew through me, through my bones, absorbing my magic and pulling it through my skin in a rush of snow and ice. I cried out and heard Fenris, Grim, and Raynor’s answering yell. The wind rushed past my ears, louder than a train until it all stopped.

And there was nothing.