by C. Gockel
Tara holds Lionel’s hand as she drags him into the lab … he’d pulled her into his arms so easily, had rested his chin on her hair, but now his steps are slow and heavy. She is afraid to let him go. If she lets him go, she’ll wake up and this will have been a dream. It already feels too dreamlike. He’s too quiet; he must be in trouble.
Dr. Eisenberg is already back in the lab when they enter. “You found him,” he says.
Tara looks back. Lionel is back to being short and Elvish again. His hair is dark blonde, his face is clean-shaven and pixie-like, but his eyes are the same icy blue as ever. She’d recognize them anywhere.
“Yes, Dr. Eisenberg,” Tara says.
Lionel whispers, “So this is the dangerous Doctor Eisenberg?”
It’s the longest sentence he’s said.
Dr. Eisenberg peers at him from over his glasses. “Me? No, I’m not dangerous at all.” He looks at Tara like he’s just swallowed a frog. “I’ll go now … Tara, take the day off if you need to convince your friend to stay.” With that, he leaves … fast. A tiny part of Tara registers him leaving, but mostly she’s just worried about Lionel. Something is wrong; she can feel it.
Pulling him into her office, she shuts the door with his hand still in hers, and turns to look at him. The Promethean Wire is blocking his illusion. He’s tall again, and his ears are pointed, but he has a neat beard—something she never saw on any elf. His hair and beard are the same brown as the illusion’s … even his eyebrows are darker, but his lashes are still light. Dyed, she realizes. The jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers he’d been wearing have become the sort of rough trousers and tunics she’d seen in the Dark Lands.
Perhaps seeing the direction of her gaze, he touches his hair. “Illusion is less taxing if it is based on reality.” His eyes drop. He looks at their hands.
“You’re in trouble,” Tara says, clutching his hand to her stomach. “Aren’t you? Odin is coming for you … you have to go back to the Dark Lands. You can’t stay.”
“Can you stay?” he asks, tilting his head, eyes hard. “You and Dr. Eisenberg are in as much danger as I am,” Lionel says, stepping closer. She feels his breath on her forehead, and shivers when he whispers, “When Odin finds Loki … he’ll come for you and him as well as me.”
Tara gulps. She lets out a breath, and tries to imagine her and Eisenberg continuing their research in the Dark Lands. Would they be able to set up a lab in that fortress she’d seen when they’d first gone through? The one that is constantly under siege? Could the squabbling branches of her government put aside their differences and approve funding for such a project … She scrunches her eyes shut. It would never happen.
“My work … my life is here,” Tara says.
Lionel pulls away, his fingers slip from hers, and she finds herself grasping at empty air. Walking over to her bookshelf and studying the titles, he says, “I suppose your life is here.”
The distance between them makes her ache. “… and you must live it.”
Tara shakes her head, and has a sensation like she’s falling. She’s going to lose a second man due to her overdeveloped sense of duty and obligation. Her nails bite her palms. The thing is … she can’t change direction … too much is on the line.
Lionel bows his head. “I should congratulate you, of course.”
“Congratulate me?” Tara whispers.
He looks over his shoulder at her. “On your marriage.” The words are as flat as any he’s delivered to Odin, and the tone makes the words a jumble she can’t discern. What happened to the closeness between them?
… And then the words do sink in. “Marriage?”
His brows draw together, his lips turn down, and Tara actually feels her heart lift to see some emotion from him, even if it’s anger. “Your assistants already informed me of it,” he says, his voice bitter.
Tara’s hand goes to her mouth, and she feels torn between laughing and crying. “I’m not getting married, Lionel!”
Turning to her, he shakes his head and locks his hands behind his back. “They said that your mother has set the date.”
Tara nods. “I’m sure that she has. But I haven’t.”
“You’re courting …?” He takes a step closer to her.
Tara shakes her head. “No, no, I’m not.” She starts to laugh at the same time a tear slips down her cheek. She’s not courting, though not for John’s lack of trying. If she’d met him before Lionel, she’d be head over heels … John is a good man; handsome, considerate, interested in something permanent. He also thinks that the World Gates should all be closed—as though they could be. Before Lionel, Alfheim, and Asgard, she would have agreed with him. Now she knows humanity can’t hide and they must adapt.
And also …
“Do you think I could get over you so quickly?” she whispers.
Lionel takes a step toward her. “I don’t know … I don’t know your culture, and we didn’t make promises. You would be within your rights to …”
There’s only a step between them, and Tara closes it. “I couldn’t let you go that easily. I’m not made like that.”
Lionel reaches for her, releases a breath, and lets his hands slide down her side to her hips. Heat trails in their wake. It radiates from his fingers straight to her core. Her lips buzz with the kiss she wants so very much.
Lionel bows his head. “May I court you, Tara?”
“Yes,” she whispers. Oh, yes, yes, yes, now kiss me.
He huffs softly, and presses his forehead against hers. “I don’t even know what human courtship entails.”
Her left hand winds around his neck; her right caresses the point of one of his perfect ears. “We go on dates ...” she says, her voice breathy. His body is tight against hers, and she can feel he wants her as much as she wants him.
“Dates?” he asks, and she realizes her brain had said that final word in English.
“To … the theater,” she supplies. “To meals, on long walks together.”
“I don’t want to wait … let’s begin this courtship now. We can … go to a meal. The person on the orientation said there are places to get food around here, and gave me currency.” Lionel straightens, starting to pull away. Tara holds him fast.
“Lionel,” she says. “I can’t go on a date with you right now!”
He meets her eyes. Tilts his head. “Why not?” he asks, voice strained.
Eyes locked on his, both hands caressing his ears, she says, “You’ve been away so long. I can’t sit across the table from you. You’d be too far away … Maybe we could just go back to my home?”
His head drops forward, but then she leans back. Eyes wide, she says, “Unless that is too forward in your culture. It’s not something I would normally do—but it’s you … and I ...”
Lionel’s eyes slip closed. He chuckles. “No, it’s not too forward at all.” He pulls their bodies flush again, sending shivers of warmth through her. He drops his forehead to hers, and she softly caresses his ear again. Frustratingly, he does not kiss her. In a soft voice, he murmurs, “I should tell you, you’re right, protein bars are foul … but velociraptors really do not like pepper spray, antibiotics are wonderful, and also I think you might have misrepresented your rank here, because your talisman worked … I have never known of any sorceress who could create a talisman that could charm a kraken. Inky helped my mother and I escape a troop of Light Elves.”
Tara’s fingers pause and her eyebrows lift, wondering where this is going.
“I must thank you, for all of that,” he says in a hushed whisper. “You saved my life and my mother’s. I am debt bound now to protect your life—from Odin, and from Dark Elves that may have less than noble intentions here.”
“You can’t indebt yourself to me!” Tara protests.
His hands still. “Yes, I can, and bind myself to you in doing so.” His icy blue eyes meet hers. “I am realizing, just now, how much we don’t know about each other and our cultures … I need to be bound to you.”
&n
bsp; Tara gulps, and her eyes get blurry and hot, understanding what he’s saying. We’re going to have some misunderstandings, but I want to be yours.
Tara smiles up at him, her body still buzzing, another fat tear rolling down her cheek, and a smile on her face all at the same time. “I want to be cellmates forever with you, Lionel.”
He leans in. She can hear the smile in his voice when he whispers, “You won’t be able to get rid of me,” against her lips.
… And then he finally kisses her.
Epilogue
“Daddddd! Are you going to come up and watch the launch?” Sol’s shout echoes from the stairway to the roof all the way into the kitchen, two stories down. How many times has Lionel told him not to raise his voice in the house? If he responds, he’ll have to shout back, and, in Earth “psych lingo,” he’ll wind up modeling the very behavior he wants Sol to stop.
Frowning, Lionel steps into the kitchen … and hears a crunch beneath his feet. He takes another step, and hears another. Lifting his foot, squinting in the low light of late evening, he sees the remains of crushed Cheerios on his sock. He lifts the other and sees the same.
From the breakfast nook, he hears a clink and then munching. Lionel follows the sound, each of his steps punctuated by a crunch. Rounding the corner, ears flattening against his head, he finds his daughter Zari, eating a bowl of Cheerios. Cereal and milk are puddled around her on the table, but Zari seems not to have noticed.
Tara has a theory that baby mammals are cute so their parents don’t eat them. Lionel sighs and leans against the wall of the nook. He’s in one of those moments when he really feels the meaning of those words. Lionel’s and Tara’s children are growing faster than elves but slower than humans, and Zari looks like a three-year-old human even though she is six. At the moment, her chubby toddler-like cheeks jiggle with each spoonful. Thankfully, her brown curls are pulled away from the mess in a charming poof at the back of her head. Her tiny, delicate pointed ears are perked slightly forward, and her large hazel eyes are focused on the back of the cereal box. Whatever she is reading obviously has her enraptured.
Crossing his arms, Lionel clears his throat. Zari starts and spills the contents of her spoon on the table.
“Daddy!” she says with a wide grin. She drops the spoon into the bowl, and more milk splashes onto the table. Lifting up the cereal box, she swings it in a wide arc toward him and Cheerios go spilling out the bottom everywhere.
Apparently not noticing, she says proudly, “I was hungry but I made my own snack!”
Lionel rubs his temple. “There’s a hole in the bottom of the box.”
“What?” says Zari, inexplicably, shaking the box and spilling even more cereal.
Lionel holds up his hands. “Just. Put. The. Box. Down.”
Zari’s face crumples. “I made my own snack.” Her lower lip starts to tremble.
She’s going to cry. Lionel drops down into a crouch. “And I am so, so proud of you.”
She beams.
From the stairwell, Sol shouts, “Are you coming or not? They’re gonna launch any minute now!”
Zari looks in the direction of her brother’s voice, her eyes getting wider.
“Do you want to see the launch?” Lionel says.
Zari nods.
Lionel takes the box from her hands. “Just this once, I’ll pick up for you.”
Hopping from the seat, she runs toward the stairs, feet crunching the whole way.
Lionel quickly puts the box on the table, takes a step to the light switch, hears the crunch of cereal beneath his feet, gives in, focuses, and creates a pea-sized sphere of ball lightning. It’s enough to illuminate the whole kitchen and the nook, and to see that Cheerios are everywhere. If Chicago was still under the gremlin infestation they had a few decades back, Lionel would suspect their involvement.
“Dad!” shrieks Sol.
Giving in, Lionel shouts back, “I’ll be there in a minute!”
He and Tara have guests on the roof. He can’t leave the cereal on the floor. Their guests will crush the little Os and deposit the crumbs in every cranny in the house.
He hears Tara’s voice from the stairwell. “What happened?”
Using his feet to sweep a path through the Cheerios, Lionel makes his way to the broom closet. “Zari made a snack.”
“But they’re everywhere …” Tara gasps.
Lionel reaches the broom closet, and Tara says, “The vacuum is broken …”
Lionel nods. “I’m going to use the broom.”
“Throw me the Dustbuster!” Tara says.
Lionel tosses it to her, and she catches it midair. She’s wearing a pretty white party dress.
“Are you sure you want to—?” Lionel starts to ask.
“Yes,” she says, grabbing the pleated skirt and bending over to “dustbust” the kitchen. “It might attract gremlins.”
Lionel grabs a broom, puts the dustpan under one arm, and begins frantically sweeping.
“Dadddddd! Mommmmmm!” shouts Sol.
“We’re coming!” shout Tara and Lionel over the sound of the Dustbuster.
Lionel pauses his sweeping to grab a dishtowel to mop up some milk, wincing at the dirt that he sops up with it. “There’s more over there,” says Tara.
Flinging another dishtowel on the other puddle, Lionel goes back to frantically sweeping.
“The joys of parenthood,” Tara mutters.
Lionel only manages a “Mmmf.” A long time ago, he thought that the reason the name Odinson didn’t work on him was because he rejected Odin’s ways. Now he thinks that the reason it didn’t work was because for all practical purposes, Odin really wasn’t his parent. Parenthood is sometimes swooping in to make a heroic save, but mostly it’s boring, mundane things like cleaning up milk and cereal, and keeping your temper when your child is only trying to be helpful.
He sweeps all of his herded Cheerios into the dustpan and dumps the mess down the garbage disposal. Tara grabs the milk-soaked towels and races past in a blur of white fabric. “I’m throwing them in the washing machine. We’ll have to do a load tonight or they’ll stink!” she calls. Lionel’s too busy capturing renegade Os to reply.
A few moments later, they’re both standing, slightly breathless at the stairs.
“Ready?” she asks, smiling up at him.
It’s been decades since they met, but Tara’s hair is still full and black, and her dark skin is still smooth. Tara isn’t magical, although there are treatments humans have concocted to make themselves so. The treatments sometimes have adverse reactions on developing fetuses, and Lionel and Tara have a crazy idea that they might have another child someday. Still, in the past few decades, Tara hasn’t aged any more than Lionel. Lionel’s magic is in stasis, in holding things together. The energy he once poured into making himself small, he pours into her telomeres, holding them together, letting them age together. Their relationship hasn’t always been easy. Their children have made it harder in many ways, but also bound them together in ways he couldn’t have imagined when they met. Tara may not be his soulmate in the Elvish sense of the word, but she has left an indelible mark upon his soul. He can’t imagine facing his own old age without her.
“Ready,” he says. He motions for her to go up the stairs in front of him. Snapping his fingers, he winks out the ball lightning and follows her up.
When they reach the top, the sun has already set. Dr. Eisenberg—Gil—and his wife, Irma, are relaxing on lawn chairs, fruity drinks in hand. Rosa’s new husband John, and Tavende’s husband Eric are sitting near them. Lionel’s mother and Rosa are hovering just behind Sol and Zari.
To the east of the house, a beam of blue light shoots up into the sky.
Bouncing, Sol shouts, “It’s starting!”
The adults all ooh and ah.
“What’s happening?” Zari says.
Sol stops bouncing and says in a serious, scholarly tone, “It’s a magical space elevator. It counteracts gravity, much like a flyin
g carpet. It allows space ships to take off.”
Wrapping his arm around Tara, Lionel finds himself chuckling at Sol’s very grown-up reply.
“Maybe I can get him to lecture for me!” Gil says.
“Is the spaceship magic?” Zari asks.
“No, dummy, it’s engineering,” Sol replies.
“Which is pretty magical,” says Irma as Tavende whispers something sharp in Sol’s ear.
The number ten flashes in the sky, and then a nine. Throughout the neighborhood, voices rise from the roofs in a countdown. Everyone on Tara and Lionel’s roof joins in.
And then the space ship, a sleek disk, leaps up into the magical space elevator in a streak of silver. People clap and cheer.
“Technology and magic together,” whispers Tara, the blue light of the space elevator reflecting in her eyes.
“As it always should be,” Lionel says.
Tara smiles up at him. He kisses her, and the magic between them still works.
~FIN~
Thank you for reading Soul Marked to the very end! I have four romances planned in the After the Fire series, and hope to release the next one in February 2018. Sign up for my mailing list to get new release notices and discounts. If you enjoyed the universe this story was based in, and want to read more about Loki and some of the humans mentioned in this story, check out Wolves, I Bring the Fire Part I, free on all vendors.
Also by C. Gockel
I Bring the Fire - an Urban Fantasy/Sci-Fi Series featuring Loki, Norse God of Mischief and Chaos
Wolves: I Bring the Fire Part I (free ebook)
Monsters: I Bring the Fire Part II
Chaos: I Bring the Fire Part III
In the Balance: I Bring the Fire Part 3.5
Fates: I Bring the Fire Part IV
The Slip: A Short Story (mostly) from Sleipnir’s Point of Smell
