Pain had me gasping and clutching at the heavy weight on my chest as I woke. For a few seconds, my thoughts spun. Why did I hurt like my heart had been torn out? Yet my head was clear for the first time in days. A warm body pressed against mine, heat soaking into me despite the chill that travelled down my spine.

Something was very—

"SHANNON!"

I bolted upright, eyes searching my surroundings as the horrifying images of my goddess, my beautiful consort, being ripped apart by those fucking hellhounds and vrykolakas played as a torture reel in my mind. The light dying in her hazel eyes. The feel of teeth and claws rending flesh and bone as I tried to send every bit of life essence down the bond into her, to will her to survive.

"I love you."

The agony of our bond shattering. My soul shattering.

I couldn't breathe. Fuck. My lungs spasmed as seidhr swirled around me. Arms held me tightly, hugging me. A low, hoarse voice sobbed next to me. Hot tears on my shoulder.

"Please, Loki. I can't lose you, too. Please."

Elatha.

With teeth gritted, I clawed back control of my seidhr and finally saw beyond the nightmare images still flashing through my mind to the strong arms that held me. His dark hair was against my cheek, with his face pressed against my neck. A lump in my throat, I hugged him back, sliding my arms around him and one hand into his hair to hold him to me with savage intensity.

His sobs deepened and my agony swelled as my tears soaked his hair. For hours, we held each other and poured out our grief in a storm of rage and anguish. Until neither of us had any more tears to give.

We'd lost her and all my reasons for not binding him to me no longer mattered. I'd been a fool to not appreciate the time I'd had with both of them. To be so afraid of it. The dark gaping pit that had held my bond with Shannon mocked me. My soul would never be whole again.

Stomach churning, I forced the words past the emotion lodged in my throat. "Elatha, I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry."

Tear-soaked silver eyes met mine, then narrowed.

"Don't do that Loki. Don't you dare take on that blame. It's not what Shannon would have wanted. This was not your fault," Elatha growled, grabbing my tunic with his fist.

So fierce. Just like our Shannon.

I kissed him and poured all of our pain and regret into the passion that sparked between us. Not for energy. Not for some game between us. To show him how much he'd come to mean to me. For love.

"I love you."

He kissed me back with an eagerness and anguish that couldn't help but suffuse our very beings. We'd lost our Shannon and that wound would never fully heal. Not ever.

But this... between the two of us... this I could heal.

Helping each other shed our clothes as we continued to kiss, I laid him down beneath me. With careful fingers, I prepared him. And when his breath broke on a whispered plea, I sank into the heat of his body.

His eyes widened, hips rising to meet mine as we held each other. Loved each other in a slow, careful melding of body, mind, and soul.

"Loki... oh shells..."

"I love you, Elatha," I told him, watching his gaze unfocus as he groaned and shuddered, unable to hold back the relentless tide of completion. The heat of his release splashed against my abdomen, where he pressed hard and rigid between our bodies.

Still, I continued and brought him to climax twice more, enjoying the tight clench of his body around me and needing the physical connection to him. The comfort of flesh.

"Please, Loki... I need to feel you cum inside me. Please," Elatha groaned, then clutched my hair to meet my eyes. "My soulmate... my love."

"I love you."

With her words echoing between us, the knowledge and remembrance in our joined gaze, I let myself go, and as my seed gushed within him, the bond opened between us.

The raw anguish of our grief.

The heat of our love.

It combined and swirled back and forth between us with the eagerness and energy of a child anticipating a long-awaited gift.

A child. My child. My son.

Shannon's son.

Agony speared me anew.

"We have to try to save Aidan." Elatha's voice was a husky murmur in my mind. "I don't know what happened to Baldur, but perhaps the pale-haired woman knows."

Rubbing at my chest, I frowned. Was it still possible to save Aidan? I had no memory of any pale-haired woman. "Who?"

Elatha shared an image with me of a tall, slender silver-haired woman with narrow features and ice-pale blue eyes. A long white hooded cloak, trimmed in silver fur, wrapped around her.

Furs not dissimilar to the ones covering this bed. After withdrawing from him with a lingering kiss, I sat up and took notice of the room we were in. Blue ice walls, ceiling, and floors surrounded us, radiating light into the room. A wooden dresser with drawers stood against the far wall and a doorway presumably led to the bathroom.

I had no memory of arriving here.

"She captured us and brought us here. How is your head?"

The headache that had plagued me since Ao Guang's attack was gone. I took a few moments to search within myself and found the bruising healed. As were the injuries I'd received from hellhound and vrykolakas claws.

"I appear to be healed. My concussion is gone."

"She said she'd healed you, but I was afraid to believe her. I'd brought a second power module, and I gave it to her in exchange."

The odd tone in his voice told me he was hiding something. In the next moment, the memory slipped through to me. He wasn't yet familiar enough with shielding himself. Especially not to me, a natural telepath and his soulmate.

With a snarl, I pinned him to the bed. "Don't you dare do that again! I just lost Shannon! I can't lose you, too, Elatha!"

He met my gaze unblinking and unrepentant, jaw jutting stubbornly and eyes pooling with unshed tears. "So did I. I'd do anything to save you, Loki. Anything. You can't expect otherwise. I love you."

Rage exploded at the thought of him dying and my lips descended in a ruthlessly feral kiss. Biting his lip, I tugged his hair as I scraped my teeth along his neck. I nipped his ear, almost drawing blood, even as I drove my cock into him.

"I love you, too, Elatha," I growled as I thrust hard and fast. "You are not allowed to fucking die on me!"

He met me stroke for stroke, equaling my ferocity as we took each other in a pounding of hips, a tangle of limbs, and hands fisted in each other's hair. Rolling on the bed, savage instincts and need driving us, we cried our pleasure and lost ourselves within each other.

For a time.