As he did, Lia felt another presence there, a worried-feeling presence, somewhere in the back of her mind. The presence pooled in her chest as liquid warmth, and Lia could almost see Loki there, his light green eyes looking through her darker green ones at his two brothers.
She felt Loki assess the situation.
She felt the exact instant he made up his mind about what he was seeing.
Relief flooded through her then, filling her chest, her throat, warming her face and belly. That relief remained tinged with a sharper, denser bite of worry, but the edges of that smoothed the longer he watched his brothers smile at her.
She found herself wondering if Loki knew she could feel him there.
She found herself wondering if she was losing her mind, imagining things.
Perhaps not for that. The Trickster God smiled at her, winking inside her mind. But certainly for allowing me to make you my mate, little elf.
Is that what I did? Lia thought dryly. Allow you to make me your mate?
Most certainly. It is an entirely mutual event. By definition.
Sighing a bit, and deciding to let it go for the moment, Lia combed her fingers through her long blond hair, looking out towards the ocean.
So we’re okay, then? Lia thought at him next, still aiming her smile at Thor and Tyr. They’re not going to whisk you away to an Asgardian prison if you come back here? Or if I look away for a few minutes? Or in a week? Or after a few months have gone by?
No, no. My brothers are hardly perfect, but they are not liars.
Then bring my damned sister back, Loki, she thought at him, sharper, making her thoughts deliberately louder as she gritted her teeth. Now. Or I might throw you into the ocean myself. Naked. Covered in fish guts to attract the sharks.
Pausing at his delighted laugh, even as that warm presence in her chest grew hotter, more dense, more filled with desire and affection, Lia added,
And if you ever leave me like that again, without telling me a damned thing, you’d better sleep with one eye open, God of Mischief.
Hey, Loki thought back at her. You knew who you married.
Without knowing I was MARRIED AT ALL, she retorted.
Feeling Loki’s amusement grow in equal amounts with that hotter, denser reaction, Lia sighed. It was impossible to stay angry though, as much as she might have wanted. That liquid heat continued to fill her chest, what felt like desire mixed with affection mixed with… well, other things, perhaps emotions stronger than lust or affection…
Pushing it briefly out of her mind, Lia refocused on Tyr.
The God of War was smiling at her again.
Lia saw the knowingness in that smile, the amusement that lived there.
More than that, the understanding.
Realizing Loki’s brother must have picked up on her talking to Loki, she blushed.
Chuckling a little, Tyr only smiled wider, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her to his side in a hug.
“It is all right, sister,” Tyr whispered in her ear. “I don’t blame my brother for keeping a close eye on you.”
Immediately, Lia felt an annoyed burst of heat off Loki.
Tell flirty brother McFlirty to kindly keep his hands to himself, the god muttered. Tell him he’s about to get a black eye… or perhaps a broken knee… or perhaps some Alfheim sand fleas in his sock and underwear drawer for the next several centuries…
Lia stifled a smile, rolling her eyes.
You’re an idiot, she informed the god.
And you are a wholly disobedient, problematic human, he told her. Tell him what I said. Tell him now. And stop touching him. He’s a shameless flirt… but I wouldn’t put it past him to act on it, if only to annoy me.
Lia snorted, shaking her head.
Leaning into Tyr’s side, she folded her arms, gazing out at the California shore, watching the waves roll under and around the yacht.
Despite what Loki said, she felt absolutely nothing weird from Tyr. Furthermore, she wasn’t about to brush off his brother, just because Loki was a paranoid freak.
Lia–– the god growled.
Let’s just nip that in the bud right here, Trickster God, she thought at him. If you expect total obedience from me, or for me to avoid all other men for the rest of eternity, or even for me to dutifully play my assigned role in little dramas like this one on a regular basis, we need to have a talk about this whole “mate” business.
It’s too late for that.
Is it? Lia snorted. Is it, really? Because your brothers are still here. As in RIGHT HERE. As in, I could tell them I have absolutely no intention of being your mate, and intend to ask you to undo whatever weirdness you did to me to convince them to believe it.
There was a silence in her mind.
In that silence, Lia felt Loki back down.
She felt him acknowledge her words, even as his presence somehow shifted, growing more submissive, more conscious of the two male gods with her.
It also turned a lot more grumbly.
Feeling that, Lia fought another laugh.
Jeez, Loks, she thought at him, rolling her eyes. Are Asgardian jails really that bad? Is it really worth shoving yourself into a marriage you didn’t intend, just to avoid one?
There was another silence.
You think that’s why I did this? he thought back.
He actually sounded offended.
Lia felt her amused smile fade as he went on.
I give up my plans to design a perfect Earth, he thought at her. Hand my brothers and my control-freak father the ultimate leverage over me. Eat crow by admitting I let myself fall in love. And your response is to accuse me of orchestrating the whole thing just to avoid being caught? By two brothers who had absolutely NO IDEA where I was until you crossed my path? Really? That’s your ultimate conclusion, Lia Winchester?
Biting her lip to keep from smiling, she watched him glare at her from his mind.
She could almost see those leaf-green eyes.
For your information, my darling, my love, light of my world, I NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN CAUGHT. I could have eluded them forever down here. Easily. I could do it now, and steal the ring AGAIN, if I was willing to leave you behind. I could have done precisely what I told you I would do with that ring, without Thor or Tyr ever catching up to me, or knowing how I’d inserted myself in the human world. So you’ve got it all completely backwards, love. Really, you should be terribly flattered––
Should I? she thought back, amused. Flattered? Really?
Terribly, he reiterated. It is all utterly unprecedented. A ridiculous compliment. Furthermore, I thought you knew me better. I thought you knew I could EASILY outsmart my two brothers… my modesty about Tyr’s intellect as compared to my own notwithstanding.
Lia snorted again, shaking her head at a man who wasn’t there.
At the same time, some deeper, stranger, perhaps slightly masochistic part of herself almost believed him, and almost was a tiny bit affected by his words.
Maybe even a little bit touched.
She still understood why Thor wanted to thunk him on the head, though.
She suspected she might want to do that herself, from time to time.
17
Father Of Mischief
“Now in German…” the patient voice said, languid in the late afternoon sun.
Lia heard a mumbled response from a younger, significantly more female voice.
She didn’t make out the exact words of that response, since she was still walking across the hand-painted tiles that covered their indoor patio, heading for the open, double French doors that led to outside. Pushing through those same doors, Lia joined the two of them on the enormous stone balcony in their Parisian apartment overlooking the Seine.
Seeing her little sister, Maia, sitting there primly, books in her lap, blue eyes serious as she gazed at the man across from her, Lia smiled, in spite of herself.
Then she looked at the man instructing Maia, and rolled her eyes, snort
ing.
Loki had an arm folded behind his head, cushioning his skull where he stretched out on a yellow and pale blue striped sun lounger. She noticed he’d moved the lounger since she’d last been up here, re-positioning the outdoor furniture such that it got a full dose of direct sunlight from the yellow orb in the sky.
He wore designer sunglasses. A black, collared shirt open at the neck displayed his distinctive band of black and gold, runic tattoos. Burgundy pants clung to his long legs. Italian shoes adorned his feet.
Adjusting his head on his arm, he seemed to look only at Maia.
“German, pet,” Loki repeated, his voice a touch warning. “That was Russian. As you very well know. Let’s try it in German, first––”
“Just how many languages are you teaching her?” Lia mused.
She plopped down on the lounger next to him, handing him a mocha cappuccino. She’d made it exactly the way he liked it, with four shots of expresso, whole milk, fresh whipped cream and chocolate shavings on top.
“I thought it was just French and Spanish this week,” she added, watching him take a sip of the coffee, grin at her, then lean up to deliver a kiss on her mouth.
“I could ravage you right here,” he said, reaching for her. “Marry me. For this coffee alone. Marry me, and I will slaver you in exotic cheeses…”
Maia laughed.
Lia pushed his hand away, grinning.
“…Two languages aren’t enough?” she continued, undaunted, drawing away from a second kiss. “Don’t you think she should get French down first, considering where we’re living?”
Loki sighed, leaning back on the striped lounger.
“Tut-tut, my love,” he said, setting the coffee mug on a small glass table. “…and no, no, no, no. I assume you are joking. That will never do. Our little piglet must simply SHINE and surpass, no matter what school she attends, no matter what country we reside in. She must blind and deafen EVERY OTHER human cub with her superior intellect and skills. She must show the bland nothings of your species, particularly those with whom she shares a classroom, that she is their intellectual, moral, and cultural superior in every way––”
Lia burst out in a laugh.
“So this is your new plan for world domination? Turning my sister into some kind of sleeper agent to take over humanity?”
“Whyever not? She’s obviously the most superior specimen of your species already. Well… apart from you, and I’m too greedy to use you for such things.” He tugged at Lia’s blond hair, smiling at Maia. “She’s splendid. Already head and shoulders above all the other rug-rats. She only needs a little coaching is all…”
That time, Maia huffed at him.
“I’m getting straight A’s,” the younger Winchester informed him, indignant.
She sat up straighter where she perched on the lounger on Loki’s other side, still wearing her school uniform. Lia assumed she must have come straight up here after walking home from the nearby academy.
Presumably to find Loki––not her, as in Lia herself.
“I’m the third best in my class,” Maia said proudly.
“Ah, you see?” Loki lowered his sunglasses, looking first at Maia, then back at Lia. “She is falling horribly, terribly, embarrassingly behind, and it’s only been a month. I blame myself entirely. This is simply NOT acceptable. We can’t have two, whole, ordinary humans boasting of their superiority! No! I will not permit it! I will not stand for it!”
Seeing the faint smile at his lips, Lia burst out in a laugh, sliding onto his sun lounger to share it with him. When he scooted over to accommodate her, Lia leaned her head on his shoulder, sighing a bit in spite of herself.
“You’re a nut,” she told him, feeling her muscles relax. “And stop teasing poor Maia! She’s going to think you’re serious.”
“No, I won’t,” Maia insisted.
Scooting over a few more inches to make room for her, Loki wrapped an arm around Lia’s back, squeezing her against him and caressing the strip of bare skin between her fitted, lime-green, recently-bought pants and the bottom of her cropped halter top.
Both articles of clothing, along with her slip-on flats, were ridiculously expensive.
She found them in a designer boutique while on one of her wanders with Loki, and he’d insisted on getting them for her when she mentioned in passing she thought they were cute.
She still hadn’t gotten used to the money.
Never, not once in Lia’s life until now, had money not been an issue.
She’d been a professional thief, but the vast majority of her spoils always went to someone else, to provide luxuries for someone else. Before now, it seemed like all she did was worry about money. Mostly, she worried about how she would ever get enough together to buy Maia’s freedom.
She was still getting used to not having to worry about that.
She was still getting used to not having to worry about a lot of things.
“You’re one of those parents,” Lia teased, glancing up at Loki without giving up her comfy position with her head on his shoulder. “Joke all you want, but you really are. I never in a million years would have guessed you’d be one of those parents.”
“Which parents, my love?”
“A hyper-driven, super-involved, psychotically-motivated super-crazy parent who thinks their kid can do anything.”
“Maia can do anything,” Loki said, indignant.
“Yeah,” Maia said, sticking her tongue out at Lia.
“Besides,” Loki said. “I insist all of my children excel at everything they attempt.”
Maia looked faintly outraged at that, turning her stare on Loki.
“I’m not a child.”
“You are most certainly a child,” Loki countered, looking over his sunglasses at her. “You are your sister’s ward, which makes you a sort of pseudo-offspring of hers, if I’m understanding the legal technicalities of child management on this world. That is the legal truth of the thing, even if you are biologically siblings.”
Pausing, Loki added, with a flourish of his hand,
“Being your sister’s mate, and her official snuggle-bunny, that makes you MY ward, little Maia… a stepfather, if you will. And I insist ALL OF MY OFFSPRING be equipped to face any and all unexpected contingencies in life. Regardless of their age or exact species.”
“Species?” Maia giggled.
“Precisely. Do you know you have a brother who is a shape-shifting water dragon? And another who is a giant wolf?”
“You’re crazy,” Maia told him.
Loki winked at her, wrapping his arm tighter about Lia.
“I love only your mother, however,” he said. “So you are, of course, my favorite. Do not tell my other children that, however, or one of them might eat you. They are quite possessive.”
Lia smacked Loki on the chest, but Maia seemed to have lost interest in her demi-god and full-god step-siblings. She was focused back on her own preoccupations with Loki.
“So teach me more about picking locks,” Maia complained. “You said you would.”
“Wait, what?” Lia lifted her head, staring between her and Loki. “Maia, no! Absolutely not! Loki isn’t teaching you that!”
“Why not?” her younger sister said, motioning at Loki. “He promised he would. He said he’d teach me once I made some progress on French. He also promised to teach me how to shoot the guns you guys have hidden in the locked closet. And how to fight people with knives. And how to break passwords. And how to hack computers…”
Lia’s eyebrows rose higher and higher.
She looked at Loki, who smiled at her faintly from behind the sunglasses, shrugging as he squeezed her tighter against him.
“The little peanut must be prepared for life,” he said, matter-of-fact. “It is a brutal, uncaring world you’ve brought her into, my pet. She won’t always have Stepfather Loki there to pull disgusting perverted humans off her. She won’t always have Stepfather Loki there to rescue her from beachside mansions, after
she is kidnapped to act as leverage against her sister who is being blackmailed to pay off a multi-million dollar debt left by her backstabbing mother who cheated a cruel mobster…”
Lia rolled her eyes, but Maia burst out in another spate of giggles.
Loki looked at Maia over his sunglasses, smiling fondly.
When he glanced at Lia, she pursed her lips, quirking her eyebrow at him.
“So you’re turning my kid sister into an assassin?” Lia said. “That doesn’t strike you as slightly… extreme?”
“I expect ALL of my children to be able to pull their own weight,” Loki repeated loftily. “Anyway, you’ll give her an inferiority complex, otherwise… my darling, talented, slightly terrifying wife. I can’t have my little pincushion feeling like she wasn’t given the same advantages in life as big sis.”
“Advantages?” Lia smacked his arm, half-amused, half-outraged. “Is that what you call it? Advantages? Really?”
“How many languages do you speak, dearest?” Loki asked her, now staring at her over the expensive, orange-tinted shades.
Lia frowned, thinking. “Five?”
“And can you fire various guns and rifles and such?”
“Well… yeah.”
“You are a talented thief. An excellent getaway driver. A safe-cracker who is quite good with explosives, knives––”
“I had to learn all of that stuff,” Lia reminded him, poking him in the chest. “I had absolutely no choice. And nothing remotely like a normal childhood.”
“PRECISELY,” Loki said, laughing as he pushed her poking finger away. “Which is why I must overcompensate in teaching our dear little platypus here. Why would you not wish me to teach the same skills that proved so valuable to you, to our adorable, clever, tricky little ward? She’s a positive sponge with your brains and her own unfettered innocence… is she not? Why not load her up with as many life skills as we can? She’ll likely hate both of us in a few years anyway, and run off with a biker named Thad. Or worse… a televangelist.”
Loki shuddered.
Maia burst out in another laugh, and the god winked at her, grinning his shark’s grin under the orange-tinted glasses.
Loki Page 15
