by C. Gockel
Closing her eyes, she takes a sharp breath and then sneaks her hands under his arms to his back and squeezes tight. Loki kisses the crown of her head and heat rushes from where his lips touched to the tips of her toes.
Pulling back from her, just a little, he meets her eyes. His lips are quirked in a half smile.
Kissing her brow he says softly, “Thank you.” Pressing another kiss to her forehead he says, “...for staying.”
He pulls back again, and she meets his gaze. She can feel her heart beating in her chest. The air between them feels denser. There is still a quirk to his lips but his eyes are very serious. He traces a finger from her forehead down her nose. She doesn’t know why she does it, but when he reaches her lips she closes her eyes and kisses his fingertip.
When she opens her eyes the quirk on his lips is gone. He’s going to kiss her. She’s sitting in Loki’s apartment, in his bed, and she’s not naive enough to think that it will just end in kissing. She should get up right now.
She doesn’t move. She can’t move.
Loki leans forward and presses his lips to hers, and she freezes in shock—not at the kiss, but at how soft the kiss is. For some reason she just thought he’d be all teeth and tongue.
He pulls away and her eyes open; she hadn’t realized she’d closed them.
“And thank you for making me sandwiches,” Loki says, a smile in his voice. Amy’s mouth drops in a small ‘o’. He kisses her lightly again. And then once more. On the third time Amy finds herself responding. She closes her eyes and feels his tongue dart over her lips, gently as if asking for permission. His hands dart over her shoulders, and his fingers graze the neck of the robe, a silent request to pull the barrier away.
She should get up, she should back away and stammer excuses...
One of his hands drops from her neckline and smoothes down her side and she shivers.
Maybe she should just do it, have sex with Loki and get it out of her system. Sex is all anticipation and then inevitable let down. On the plus side, when it’s over, she won’t be tempted again, her curiosity will be quelled and...
Slipping his hands down and around her backside, Loki pulls her onto his lap.
She gasps, feeling him beneath her, warm and solid, alive and real.
He looks at her for just a moment, his face very serious, his eyes dark.
“Yes?” she whispers, an answer or a question, or just a gasp, she’s not really sure. They should talk about this, about the fact that she’s on the pill and—
Loki’s lips are on hers a moment later and she forgets everything else.
Chapter 5
Lying back on Loki’s bed, Amy stares at the ceiling. It’s still illuminated by the soft yellow reading light on the nightstand.
Her body is humming and she feels like an idiot. Not for sleeping with Loki, but for the two miserable pathetic relationships she’d endured—one for a whole year—exchanging a tedious activity for companionship and affection. She’d thought they were nice guys, but it’s occurring to her now that they were just selfish pricks with...with...selfish pricks!
Beside her Loki lies on his side, eyes closed, a smug smile on his face. One very warm, very naked leg goes over her stomach, an arm goes over her chest. Both limbs are too heavy, and both are very welcome.
It nearly undoes her. She licks her lips. “You don’t seem like the snuggling type,” she says. Bad boys are not supposed to snuggle.
“Mmmmmm....it’s just foreplay,” he says, a smile audible in his voice.
That makes her body go warm again. There will be more? She blinks up at the ceiling, afraid to look at him.
It worked. Sex never works for her. Up until today she thought she was broken.
The hand across her chest moves to rub her shoulder. Leaning in, Loki whispers in her ear. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
Amy’s eyes go wide and she squeezes the thigh that is across her stomach with both hands. Turning to him she says, “I thought you knew I did?”
Gray eyes gleaming, he gives her a trademark smirk. And then his face softens. Still smiling, but not as sharply he shrugs. “It’s always nice to hear.”
Unable to help herself, she kisses him. His response is soft—and sleepy. When he pulls away his eyes are already closed. Apparently, magic doesn’t extend to god-like stamina, or maybe he’s just used too much magic of late.
Loki gives her shoulder a final squeeze, and then she watches the familiar pattern of his muscles trembling and relaxing as he falls back to sleep. She fights the urge to run her hands through his hair. Instead she traces the line of his nose and the crease of his slightly too thin lips with her eyes.
She remembers how happy she’d felt at the pub with her friends from college. How he just seemed to fit. Right now, his face smoothed by sleep, a ghost of a smile still on his lips, he doesn’t look like a magical being who’s lost wives and children and is bent on destroying another world. He looks like a guy just a little older than her. She watches him for a long time. She’s so thirsty it’s uncomfortable and preventing sleep, but she just doesn’t want to move.
At last she gives in, struggles out from under his limbs, and goes to the washroom. When she comes back she finds Loki has stolen her pillow and has it wrapped in the death grip he had on her. She snorts. Thief.
Lying back down on the bed again, she pulls the white fluffy duvet up to her chin and stares at him some more, unwilling to turn off the light. His thick ginger hair is in need of a trim, and with a messy mop on his head he looks so normal, so human, and just as vulnerable as anyone else when he’s sleeping.
Amy closes her eyes for just a moment, feeling warm and content. And then a woman’s voice crackles in the room around her. “Odin, so help me! By the Norns, if that’s you in my bed I will cut off your cock—again!”
Amy’s eyes fly open. The white duvet under her fingers is now a heavy gold brocade coverlet. She sits up with a start. She’s on a bed in an opulent room with furniture that looks vaguely Asian. Everywhere are fabrics of deep reds, blues and golds. The bed beside her is empty, but standing in front of her is a tall woman with gray eyes, red hair and a whip-like figure. She’s wearing a tight blue short sleeve top that stretches down to a full orange skirt. In one hand she holds a wickedly-curved knife.
Her eyes narrow when she sees Amy. “Who are you...and why are you in my bed?”
Amy yanks the coverlet a little closer. The woman isn’t speaking English or Jotunn, but Amy understands. “Amy Lewis...I ummm...think I may have come here by accident...I’m really sorry,” she answers automatically in the woman’s own language.
“Lewis...Never heard of you,” says the woman. Eyes narrowing, she gives Amy a leer, and then bending down takes the bottom of the duvet in her hands and gives it a wicked yank. The fabric leaves Amy’s fingers so quickly she swears she’s still holding it. She opens her fingers in surprise.
The woman looks at her naked body and licks her lips. Waggling her eyebrows she says, “Nice tits.”
Amy swallows. Sleeping with Loki is not a good way to pursue ‘normal.’
x x x x
The sound of an incoming text wakes Steve up. He opens his eyes to the glow of streetlights, unfamiliar shadows, musty air, and the whoosh of a heater. He is on a too-small couch, and the pain in his neck as much as his phone is telling him to get up.
The phone buzzes again. Fumbling with it he sees his ex-wife Dana’s name in the caller ID. He lets out a breath of air. Dana is with Claire up in Lake Forest—far enough away to be safe. He looks at the time on the phone. It’s just past 6 am, too early to call unless...Claire has run away to the train station and tried to come down to see him on her own before. Feeling a dread more potent than he felt in Afghanistan or battling trolls, he sits up quick and reads:
Daddy
He shakes his head. Claire has ‘borrowed’ her mother’s phone again. Steve types quickly. Yes, Honey. Where are you?
Home mom’s sleeping pops on the screen and
Steve’s body sags with relief. And then on the screen he reads, Where are you? Steve lifts his head in the almost darkness and looks around the shadowy room. ADUO’s building is no longer safe and they had to move their offices. They’ve taken over some floors in the Illinois Continental Bank Building. They’re right across the street from CBOE now, and by the sounds of things outside the office door, they’re still moving in.
In my office, he types back.
Safe? Claire types.
Steve looks at a shadow hanging on the back of the door. It’s the combat gear he wore yesterday, helpfully supplied by the National Guard. It’s only stained with a little troll blood. But the boots—he stares at where they sit beneath the uniform. They are caked with mud and blood and substances he’d rather not identify.
Yep. Steve types.
Claire’s response is instantly on the screen. I saw fighting and monsters on tv
Time to change the tone. I’m stuck doing paperwork. But I did get hurt. Steve types.
What happnd? Isit bad?
Papercut. Steve responds.
Dad! Steve can see her scrunching up her nose and making a disapproving face at him.
Another text pops on the screen. See you this weekend?
Steve stares at the words, and then looks to the dirty boots. Sure will, he types, without any idea if it’s true.
Mom up. Gotta go.
Steve stares at the screen a moment more, and then lifts his head. He’s relieved that Claire is safe and that the conversation is over, and bereft at the same time.
Rubbing his eyes he takes a deep breath and inhales the smell of antiseptic soap from the gym a few doors down. Standing up he goes to the combat gear. He has a feeling he’ll need it.
A few minutes later, he opens the office door and his senses are assailed by lights and activity. Steve’s temporary office is at the edge of a large room. In the middle of the room there is a central stairwell where Steve sees men and women carrying hospital equipment to the floor above. This floor has been turned into HQ. FBI and National Guard troops are moving furniture, manning phones, and are stationed around laptops.
Stepping out of his office, Steve heads towards a short, older man of Filipino descent at the center of most of the motion in the room. It’s General Bautista of the Illinois National Guard. General Bautista is just about the only thing that has gone right in the last 24 hours. Pragmatic, experienced, and competent, he’s taken the whole “yes, magic is real and your government has been hiding its existence from you” in stride. He may be pissed—Steve would be—but instead of fighting with Steve’s people, he’s ordered his men to help get civilians out of the Loop and has been receptive to ADUO’s insights into how to most effectively combat trolls.
“Mayor Ronnie is asking for a meeting,” someone says to Bautista.
Steve runs his tongue over his teeth to keep from saying something he’ll regret. The move by the governor to send in the guard is turning into an ill-timed tug-of-war between the mayor and governor.
“Tell him I’m busy,” says Bautista. He pauses to nod at Steve and then bends over a map of the city. All around, members of the guard and FBI mill on the floor together. Thor is sitting on a desk, arms crossed. Jameson is nowhere to be seen. By Bautista’s side, Stodgill says, “The Mayor is requesting that the police and fire department be given control of containment and the Guard be withdrawn.”
That doesn’t bode well.
Bautista grunts. “When the Governor calls us back, we’ll leave.”
“Another troll spotted in the parking lot across from the Holy Name Cathedral!” one of Steve’s guys says, ear to a phone.
“That’s farther north than anything so far...” someone says.
For a moment all eyes in the room flit between the General and Steve.
“And the fifth in 24 hours,” Steve says.
“No, Sir, the sixth. One appeared while you were asleep,” says the agent with the phone.
Steve sucks in a breath.
“My men handled it,” says Bautista.
“Mind handling this one, too?” says Steve. What he needs to do can’t wait any longer.
“My pleasure,” says Bautista.
As the Guard move into action, Steve takes a digital tablet from the agent. He checks his email. Brett traced the IP address of the computer Amy used to a proxy server in the Czech Republic. Brett also hacked into her account. Besides sending a note to the office, she sent one to a neighbor asking her to watch after her dog Fenrir and her ‘unusual pet mouse Mr. Squeakers’ who’d gotten loose the night before. Steve tilts his head at memory of Fenrir, the ugliest dog he’d ever seen—and remembers Amy’s rescue of a pigeon his first day on the job as Acting Director of the Chicago Branch of ADUO. Her taste in pets is as unfortunate as her taste in friends.
Shaking his head, Steve hits a few buttons and navigates to several secure files. Some interrogations have already begun on the few elves they captured. At what Steve reads his eyebrows go up. The elves are very helpful...but there is one question that causes them to shut down. He blinks. Two have even died—not violently, or by tearing out their eyes. Quietly, with no trace of magic, or known poison, and after apologizing profusely for ‘the pain we’ve caused your people.’ It’s eerie, and makes Steve’s blood go a little cold.
Scowling, Steve looks down a long hallway towards an elf no one has interrogated yet. Steve starts to leave the room, tablet in hand. And then thinking better of it, he says, “Thor, come with me.”
Together they walk towards the office’s copy room. Lifting an eyebrow at the big man, Steve says, “We’re going to talk to the prisoner. Don’t ask him who he works for. Apparently they die when asked that. Any idea why?”
Thor’s eyebrows rise. “I will not ask it of him.”
It’s not an answer, but they’re already at the copy room door. Two FBI men are guarding the entrance. Steve nods at one and he opens the door. Together Thor and Steve enter the cramped room. One small light is on above a utility sink. The elf that Steve apprehended earlier is sprawled out on his side on the floor, apparently asleep, hands handcuffed behind his back. Steve turns on the overhead lights and the elf scrambles up against the wall.
“Time for our talk,” says Steve. He’d wanted to do this earlier, but after the fire, an attempted theft of Cera, elves, and the trolls, he’d needed a bit of a nap. Steve could have left the interrogation to someone else, but there was no way Steve was missing this.
The elf stares at Thor in a look of pure terror and swallows. Good. Not only will Thor be able to tell Steve if the elf is outright bull-shitting, but the warrior will also make a damn good bad cop.
“Come on,” Steve says, going behind the elf and pushing him by his bound hands. “We’re doing this right.”
Steve steers the elf, who is shaking like a leaf, down the hall to a makeshift interrogation room. There is no one-way mirror, but speakers and cameras are in every corner of the small white room. The only furniture is a table with two chairs on either side. Nodding at one side of the table, Steve says, “Sit.”
The elf hastens to obey.
Steve doesn’t bother to sit down on the chair on the other side. Leaning on the table he smiles. “Mind telling us your name?”
Swallowing, the elf says, “It’s Liddell.”
Steve straightens and tilts his head. It’s the truth, he knows it from Amy’s account of Alfheim. Liddell had been heading to the dark lands with his wife to escape the child price. Apparently, in the land of the “light” elves, as Thor calls them, the queen is very particular about who can reproduce. Before any family can have a new child, someone else in the family has to agree to die. A logical precaution in a race that is immortal by default—but still harsh. Offspring who enter the world otherwise are confiscated, the parents punished.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Liddell says, voice shaking. “We were going to wait for the week’s end when there would be less people. We...I didn’t want to hu
rt anyone.”
“Liar!” says Thor from behind Steve’s shoulder. “You want to acquire Cera so you can confront your queen and plunder the land of the Light Elves! How is that not hurting anyone?”
Sucking in a deep breath, Liddell snaps. “No! We want Cera so that we can create a void like Asgard has! So we can dispose of the queen’s dark spells before they poison our lands.”
Steve blinks. He remembers the mention in Amy’s report of how the Light Elves dumped spent magic into the river that ran towards the “Dark Lands.”
Thor takes a step forward. Liddell kicks backwards so that his chair slides across the floor.
Straightening, Thor says, “You cannot believe this man, Agent Rogers. He is a traitor to his queen.”
“I speak the truth!” Liddel says, half standing. “All family but my wife and our son live in the queen’s lands! That is true for all the dark elves! How could we wish to see them plundered?”
“You are a traitor to your queen!” Thor roars.
“I don’t believe in queens or kings anymore!” Liddell shouts. “Or in being a slave!”
And that hits a bit close to home. Steve feels his jaw tighten.
“Know your place!” shouts Thor.
“Both of you be quiet,” Steve says, lowering his voice to a whisper.
Thor looks at him angrily. Liddell’s eyes flit to Steve, and then go back to Thor. His frame slumps a bit.
Steve lets the silence continue for a bit longer than is comfortable even to him.
Crossing his arms, Thor makes a rumbling noise. Liddell starts to shuffle his feet.
Sitting down at the chair across the table from Liddell, Steve says. “When did elves first start coming to Chicago?”
Liddell meets his eyes. “I have only been visiting since the arrival of Cera.”
Steve tilts his head.
Looking down, Liddell says, “The first new gates between our realms opened approximately four years or so ago. We have come on exploratory missions since that time.”
Steve leans forward. “Four years? But Lo—” Steve pauses for a breath. “But we had it on good authority that the gates were being opened by Cera, and she’s only been here a few months.”
