Bloodlines

by Trisha Lynn

.... Loki ....

  He watched their final hour of practice from the dense forest, his falcon form camouflaging into the trees. He'd spent an hour tracking a rogue Fae in southern Oregon with Marston and ensuring that he was safely brought back to the Fae realm. Then another hour mirror speaking with Magistra about any news on the curses or stones or whatever else Marla had done to him.

  Magistra had come up with a counter spell, something that should get rid of the curses. She just needed to obtain more mistletoe and Abryxus from a Neberuk herbalist, unless Loki wanted to traipse through Neberuk's dense forest to find the needed ingredients himself, which he told Magistra he did not. Then he'd need to return to Faerie in order to do the spell. It was stellar news, except he had no idea when he could return to the Faerie realm. Granted, he could probably leave Adeila in his team's hands for several hours in order to go to Faerie, do the ritual and come back, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to give up his duty of watching her fully for that long. Today had been bad enough. Being gone for almost three hours had killed him, but he'd needed to help Marston and he'd needed to check in on Magistra's progress.

  Now he watched the progress his team had made on preparing the Princess for any upcoming attacks that may happen, although he'd seen nothing amiss, he was still pleased to see her learning some of her own strength, and that of her magic's.

  She was getting the self-defense moves down, but it was obvious that Sorryn was being easy on her, probably to build some bit of her self-confidence. She was a smart girl and probably knew that he was taking it easy on her, but Loki worried that in a real attack she'd expect herself to gain the upper hand like she did with Sorryn, and that likely would not happen with this minimal amount of training. He'd have to speak to his second and best friend about ramping up her self-defense training.

  As he watched further, he was mesmerized with how she worked with her own magic. She was comfortable with it now; comfortable with how it felt and worked within herself. It was also becoming easier for her to thrust the magic out and into something, or someone else. When she caused the tree to heal, he was impressed, but then when she kept going and caused the branches to lengthen and fresh buds to grow, to then push farther and cause at least half a dozen saplings to spring up around her, he was plain awestruck. That was some advanced Earth magic.

  She obviously needed a little bit of training on control, but making saplings grow out of the earth like that was something that was quite an advanced achievement. Her parents would be very pleased with her progress. He'd known she'd had it in her, it was just getting her to come to terms with it, and be comfortable enough with the power and magic that boiled within her to see her potential.

  When the girls walked inside, Sorryn remained, his eyes twitching to the tree line where Loki hid. With a bit of pride at his friend's intuition, he flew to the ground, and returned to his true form.

  Sorryn's eyebrows lifted, but a faint smile played on his lips. “I'm guessing you witnessed some of that?”

  “Indeed. Some impressive work, all around. However, I want you to step up the self-defense moves; she is getting too comfortable with besting you. She needs to know a real attacker would not be so easy.”

  Sorryn raised a brow again, but nodded. “I intend to do just that. I just want her to get some of the moves down with confidence before pushing my weight around.”

  Loki nodded, he understood Sorryn's easy, lengthy, thorough teaching style and appreciated that fact for the Princess. She knew so little about the world out there, let alone the Faerie world. He knew that Sorryn training her in these things was probably quicker to gain results then him. Plus he knew for a fact he could not handle tousling her around, or having her body pinned beneath him. It would completely push his control over the edge, and embarrass the both of them. That was not something he could afford to let happen.

  Although he could also admit that he didn't really want to be around too much to watch her and Sorryn rolling around and pinning each other either, it brought about emotions that he could not afford to have. Emotions he'd never had, and were not even remotely willing to accept. He'd never once been a jealous person, but watching the final few moments of their self-defense practice had damn near killed him. He'd tried to watch from a strictly professional stand point, but when Sorryn had pinned her to the ground with his body and she had bucked and arched trying to dislodge him, it had taken every ounce of control he possessed to not fly down there and gauge out his friends eyes, and then switch to his true form and beat him into a pulp.

  Even now, he felt the emotion rearing its head as he saw the sweat clinging to Sorryn's chest and back, and see the tiniest scratches on his arms from the Princess's attempts to get free.

  He grunted aloud despite himself, looked once toward the house, where he could hear the feminine laughter, then in a rush switched to his falcon form and flew over Sorryn's head. Close enough that the tall Fae had to duck his head slightly.

  “Hey!” Sorryn grumbled, but he chuckled and shook his head.

  .... Sorryn ....

  “Damn, jealous, idiot.” Sorryn was no imbecile, he knew how Loki felt. Had seen the emotion swirling in his eyes. He was too close to Loki, both friendship and teammate, to not see it, but it couldn't be helped. Sorryn knew all about the curse, and he knew that was why Loki could not train the Princess himself. Which was fine with Sorryn, he enjoyed teaching, always had, and she was a quick and easy study. She was also far stronger, quicker and wittier then she even gave herself credit of.

  He liked watching her think through a problem, then go with her instincts. He was falling in love with her, but not in the romantic sense. He was falling for her witty smile, and cunning mind. He had begun caring very strongly for the Princess. He was happy that they would be friends, and he hoped that once Loki got this curse broken, he too could help with her training and his jealousy could be squashed.

  Loki had nothing to worry about, his feelings for the Princess were purely platonic, but he did have feelings. He did care.

  He wanted the Princess to have people that loved her. He felt like she had gone too long without a support group of people that loved her, unconditionally. He was looking forward to being part of that, despite his best friend and boss' take on it.

  With a shrug Sorryn went inside to check on his women.