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Wren beckoned to her daughter, Starling, who was a perfect selkie princess with her dark hair, and more importantly, my flower girl. I winked at her, and she showed me the small pearl-handled dagger I’d given her the day before, “in case anyone tried to touch the petals.” Then she stepped out in front of me with her basket of peony petals, dropping them haphazardly on the sand in our path.

The air was filled with scents of crushed flowers, the ocean, and dozens of gathered Omegas when Haven and Wren finally kissed my cheeks and stopped to join their families. Not all of my crew had been able to come, but my nine siblings were all there. I raised an eyebrow at the bulge in my youngest sister’s pocket as I passed her. She winked back and pulled out a gold necklace I’d previously seen on Queen Yvonna’s neck.

I was so proud, I could cry. Not that I would. My tears had a way of bringing on rainstorms, and the night was beautifully clear.

Before I could pick out any more faces in the crowd, I found myself standing next to Vilkurn, who leaned down to whisper, “Remember when you said death was preferable to marriage?”

“I never said that,” I lied.

His dark eyes shone. “Remember when I said I loved you as much as any child I could ever have?”

A tear drew a line down my cheek. “No.”

“Well, I do,” he murmured. “I’m so proud of you, Ratter of Rimholt.”

“The Great Ratter of Rimholt,” I corrected, my voice trembling like I was still the little girl he’d found in a cage, trapped by an Alpha, starving and weak. Who he’d given food to, and knives, and training that had helped me survive. “I love you, too, Boss.”

It was his turn to tear up, and he pressed a kiss to my cheek. Then he stepped back and I took Goran’s hand in mine. Goran brushed the tear away and put it to his lips as Leviathan began to speak.

“We gather here today to celebrate the mating and marriage of Rada…” He hesitated, since I’d told him I’d stab him if he listed all my titles. He winked. “...daughter of the Goddess, to these seven magnificent mates.” He spoke their names, along with all their titles, which took a while. All of them bowed to me when he finished. “Let the seas and skies be witnesses to their bond, and may their love last until the moon falls from the sky.”

There were more words. Vows, promises, even some poetry.

I couldn’t hear all of it. My heart was too full, just like my life. I’d never dreamed of a wedding like this. I’d never wanted one mate, and certainly not seven.

But when Goran kissed me so passionately that I worried the sand under our feet might turn to glass, I knew I wouldn’t change a thing.

“Kiss our mate, brothers!” He released me, and I spun into the arms of Serak. Then Lex, Kellin, Lachlan, Lusca, and finally Skadi. “Is there anything you want for a wedding gift?” Goran teased, when the ice god let me up for air.

“Nothing I haven’t already stolen,” I replied sweetly. “Or will soon.”

“You’re not giving up the thieving?” Queen Vali called out. I lifted an eyebrow at Levi, who’d just given us a wedding gift: a rumor of a group of Omega mermaids who had been trapped in an undersea cavern for a decade.

I called back, “No, your Majesty. I’m just getting started.”

It was true. I’d stolen life out of the jaws of death, and I wasn’t even close to done. I would keep on stealing every scrap of joy I could find, and saving those who had none, until my very last breath.

SERAK

One year later

Our goddess was nowhere near Skadi’s glacier, and it was a damned good thing. Skadi was overstepping in a way that would almost definitely end with him getting stabbed, possibly with her obsidian dagger, and not with affection.

He might even deserve it. I was a little surprised she hadn’t been listening in on the current conversation and returned to stab him already. Even if she was a goddess now, she was still a spy. None of us could keep secrets from her, not that we tried all that hard.

Though I thought I might have succeeded this time. Tonight was the first anniversary of her commitment ceremony with Goran, and I’d made her a special gift.

I reached for her through our bond. She could hide her thoughts from us, but didn’t do it often. But when she and Lusca had taken off on Frol a few days earlier, she’d refused to tell the rest of us where they were going, or when they’d return. She’d only promised a century of celibacy to anyone who followed her on her errand, then slammed the door of her thoughts on all of us.

Only Skadi and I, as her most powerful mates, could still vaguely sense where she was, when she didn’t want to be found. Skadi wasn’t paying attention. He was too busy tormenting our brother-mates.

“She is the one who declared it, not me,” he said, reclining on his ice throne and eating frozen grapes. Kellin had shown Rada a picture from an old, rare book, with an engraving depicting the Royal Omega Cyndil at the celebration after the Battle of Belgorn. All her mates had been seated on thrones like this one, but crafted from bronze.

Skadi had immediately created similar ice thrones for all of us inside the ice castle he’d created recently at the seat of his power. Except for Rada. He’d expected her to sit on his lap and declared himself “her favorite god, her cloak, and now her throne.” It had been a smooth move, and the results had been fun for Skadi, as she’d used her throne for a solid two hours before allowing him to come. Watching our little mate dominate the haughty ice god was ridiculously amusing.

What had been funnier was observing as the other mates slowly realized he’d made our thrones smaller, if only by a few inches. Goran’s he’d made weaker, too, and the Warlord had ended up sitting on a pile of ice splinters, cursing while Rada giggled from Skadi’s embrace.

But it wasn’t Skadi’s assumed role as cloak or throne that was the issue today.