by Susan Harris
“Do you two know each other?”
“You could say that, Tom.” Xavier said with a cackle. “I see my son still does not like to tell people which family he belongs to.”
As his boss and his partner stared at him, Ricky opened his mouth, surprised at how calm his voice was. “Oh forgive me, Da. I thought I was thrown out of the family for joining the guards? I didn’t think you would like me admitting that I was the black sheep of the Moore family. My mistake; it will never happen again.”
To Ricky’s surprise, Sarge chuckled and clasped him on the back. “Damn, Xavier, I’ve been waiting for someone to put you in your place for years. Figures it would be your own kid that did it.”
Xavier’s face almost went purple in rage as Sarge walked around him and asked what they had been called about. Chester, the head of the Cork vampires, a creepy SOB in Ricky’s opinion, told them about a theft of some rare spells from the vault where all the rare and valuable things were kept. They stood outside the massive iron door, and Ricky could feel the power the leaked from it.
Chester told them that no one but council members had been in the chamber the day the spells were stolen, and all of the council had passed the truth test with a Griffin. Ricky closed his eyes, his brain raking over all the information he stored, the countless nights he had stayed up reading books about supernaturals and learning every minute detail he could about them. Few creatures could bypass security cameras, magic wards, and fingerprint scanning for entry to the vault. Even less could do all three. That meant the thief had to be one of the council members, or someone posing as one.
“Ricky, son, I see the wheels in that big brain of yours turning. Tell us what you think.”
Sarge’s words hit him like a goddamn baseball bat. Ricky glanced at Derek, who stood, arms folded across his chest and just nodded. Sarge also gave a brief incline of his head for Ricky to continue.
Echoing the thoughts in his head, Ricky began to lay the crime out.
“The security in this place is top notch. I spied twelve hidden cameras and a few motion sensors, and I can feel the wards underneath the floorboards. The fingerprint scanner means no one but a council member can gain access to the vault. Some creatures could get into the vault with brute strength, yet, that would set off any alarms.”
Ricky began to walk around, thoughts swirling in his head. He flipped through his mind catalogue until he found what he was looking for.
Turning to look at Sarge, Ricky grinned. “We’re looking for a chameleon. But not just your average chameleon. Either one who can change his or her appearance by touching a photograph, or a chameleon who has been under the nose of the council, close enough to touch each council member and get an imprint of their physiology.”
Derek returned Ricky’s grin, and Sarge told the council to turn off the heating, lowering the temperature to freezing as chameleons cannot change shape in the cold. It would flush out their thief. Sarge also said that he would send some uniforms to patrol in plain clothes, in case the council needed any more assistance in solving their thief issue.
Derek strode across the floor and motioned for Ricky to follow. As Sarge came up behind him, Ricky spine stiffened as he heard.
“Boy, your mother misses you.”
Boy, even now.
Ricky didn’t even look back. “She knows where I live, if she misses me that badly.”
Legs shaking like a newly born foal, Ricky made it outside before his stomach revolted, and he vomited into the bushes in front of the council headquarters. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he gave a small smile to the two men who studied him.
“Sorry.”
“Humph,” grunted Sarge. “You have nothing to be sorry about. Never liked the man, like him even less now. Come on, Ricky, let’s get out of here.”
They’d never spoke of it again, and Ricky was glad for that. It was after that experience that Derek started asking him for a pint after work, involved him in trips to rugby matches with Donnie. Caitlyn also began to be less cold, providing small smiles when he tried to make her laugh. It was Derek who stopped him from drowning when Sadie had cheated. But could Derek help him to keep the demons in his mind at bay this time around?
“Ricky, you need to stop with the drugs.” The words were spoken softly, but Ricky heard the order in Derek’s voice.
Ricky glared at him. “Can you yank this fucking magic from me? You gonna turn me into a wolf in the hopes this curse in my veins is wiped out? How the hell am I supposed to raise a child when I’m fucked up inside?”
“You can beat it.”
“I’m not sure I want to, Derek.”
Derek growled at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Slipping his hand into his pocket, Ricky pulled out the small baggie with the two remaining pills and held it up for Derek to see. “When I take these, it’s just me, Ricky, in my head. No magic, no dead Da, and no Sadie. There’s no voice telling me that I will never be good enough for Melanie or that she’s gonna find a nice handsome vamp to shack up with. There’s no Xavier Moore telling me that I don’t deserve Zach. I’m free from it all.”
“Drugs aren’t the answer, Ricky. Let Caitlyn or Donnie drain the drugs from your system and get help with your magic. No one wants to lose you like this.”
Ricky laughed, and it sounded bitter in his ears. “You don’t get it, D. These pills are all that is holding me together. Without them, I’m a ticking time bomb, and I could explode at any time. And this time, you might not get the chance to evacuate the area. I’ll take you all with me. I don’t want the magic, I never have.”
Ricky stormed up the steps without another thought, taking them two at a time before he was out in the open, much needed air filling his lungs. He wanted to scream into the abyss, let go of everything banging around in his goddamn head. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket, barely noticing as drizzle landed on his arms.
Halfway to his chair, Ricky smacked himself in the face. He’d forgotten about Zach.
Yeah, some dad he was going to make.
Loki
The moment Erika had killed the troll, the ring imploding around the Valkyrie as the troll fell down dead, Loki had been in the ring, not caring who saw him. He’d gently scooped up Erika, careful not to injury her any further, and vanished with the unconscious Valkyrie in his arms. Now, the woman lay in his bed, above the covers, Loki having tended to her wounds, but still she did not wake.
Minutes had turned into hours as he sat by her bedside, awaiting the beautiful storm of a woman to wake. She looked almost fragile as she slept, though he would never admit it to her. From the very first day he laid eyes on her on the sands of Valhalla, Loki had been captivated by the fierce fire burning within her. He told himself she was far too young to be anything to him and had tried to keep away from the lure of this woman.
Yet, he found that he wanted to visit Valhalla more and more, the disappointment of arriving and finding Erika had gone out to retrieve souls still confused him. It had not been in Loki’s makeup to long for something; he usually went and took what he wanted. But it felt different with Erika, as if she were his to protect.
Perhaps she had been right when she said that caring for someone other than yourself only brought heartache and misery. Loki had been born many, many decades before her, and he understood her cynicism, for he had been forced to watch his children persecuted because they were his. He had spent his youth mocked and ignored for being the son of Laufey. After Odin slayed him, Loki was raised in the court of Asgard. Hidden by his father who was ashamed that his son not a frost giant, Odin had taken the boy who looked like a normal Asgardian boy back home to be raised alongside Thor.
Frigg had been a wonderful mother, sitting for hours and hours reading to Loki when Odin took Thor away to be trained as a warrior. They had spoken of poetry and prose, and at night Frigg had kissed Loki on the forehead, just as she had done with Thor.
Loki had used the love Frigg had given
him, tucking it amidst the cold and bitterness inside him that made him feel like he was different from the Asgardians he’d been raised with. He tried his hardest to be there for Ever, who had more responsibility on her small shoulders than Thor and him combined. He shared his love of books, and showered her with meaningful gifts.
When Frigg had died, Odin had lost all reason and focused on gaining back any semblance of power he felt he had lost. In the end, Odin had alienated the only family that remained. Even his son, Thor, was horrified at his actions.
Loki had spent his grief causing mischief and havoc wherever he went, sating his body and leaving a trail of heartbreak in his wake. He cared for nothing but his own self-gratification. His children despised him, his brother Thor was exasperated with his behaviour and his sister, Ever, had her own battles to fight.
It was only a mere few months before meeting Erika for the first time that Loki had come across a remote village and bedded the chieftain’s daughter, incurring the wrath of her medicine woman mother. This had curbed Loki’s appetite for mayhem a little as the medicine woman told him of the path he was heading down.
Loki slipped off the bearskin rug, the young woman rolled over and sighed, content with the vigorous sex they had just had, but Loki was not feeling at all sated. He didn’t spare the woman a glance when he exited the hut. He froze when the woman’s mother, a medicine woman revered by her people, who was almost as old as Loki, but not quite, confronted him. Skin so dark, she almost became one with the shadows, her eyes reminding Loki of an abyss, like a stairway to Hel. There was power in her stance, and the age she chose to portray had nothing on her true appearance, if the woman remembered her true face at all. Her walking stick rattled in the wind as she snarled at Loki.
“You have defiled my daughter. Now no man will marry her.”
The woman’s birth language, a smattering of clicks and grunts, sounded harsh, but Loki heard the words only in his mind, translating the language to one he understood. The beads in her hair seemed to move on their own like Medusa’s snakes as Loki shrugged, uncaring about his nakedness.
“She should be thankful to have been bedded by a god. No man will ever compare.”
The woman shrieked and lashed out her stick, but Loki moved fast enough to catch it in his fist. Her eyes, before a murky shade of blue, now went completely white as the woman cackled, the sound cracking in the air, like some sort of ancient magic clinging to his skin.
“You have always only cared for yourself, Loki, son of Laufey. You think you are a gift among men, and this will never change. But I see what is coming, Trickster, and she will be your unbecoming.”
“What do you mean? Tell me, old woman, and tell me now!”
His own power snapped free of his control, whipping and clawing at the woman who laughed as gashes appeared along her bare arms.
“There is one who can set you free or bind you further. She will be all that you wanted and all that you could dream of possessing. A soulmate who will want nothing to do with you, and you will be helpless under her spell. You have power now, but she will be the one who will reveal your true power.
“She will be your end or your beginning. The future is not set, dear Loki. But I shall enjoy watching you suffer, should she decide that you are not for her. Because once you love, and love with all your heart, you will not come back from it.”
The medicine woman sank her walking stick into the ground and it shuddered with magic. Loki felt the power of her words deep in his soul. He vanished from that place, never to return, but her words had always stuck by him, especially when he met a warrior with honey whisky hair who made his blood sing mere months later.
Loki had tried to stay away, afraid that Erika would be his downfall, but nothing but death itself could keep him away from her. She scowled far too much for such a beautiful woman, and Loki revelled in trying to get her to smile. His heart hitched the first time he had made her laugh. He’d brought her treats from Midgard, decadent chocolates, sweet smelling flowers, and even a blade or two made from the finest Asgardian steel.
Erika had been suspicious at first, as if she had never received a gift without an ulterior motive. But Loki had coaxed her, so much so that when he arrived on the shores of Valhalla, after a torturous period away, Erika’s eyes had betrayed her excitement to see what he would arrive with next, all the while her face a blanket of emotionless expression.
A groan dragged him from his thoughts as Erika shifted in the bed, and Loki bolted upright. He summoned a glass of water, holding it to her lips as she drank, taking it back when she coughed, grabbing her ribs as she did.
“Gods, I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus.”
“It was a troll, so possible same thing.”
Erika, stubborn as ever, pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned her head against the wall. “Where am I?” she croaked, clearing her throat as she peered at Loki under tired eyes.
“My bed.”
“Oh this is great. First you diss me and dismiss me, then you drag me to your bed while I’m out cold. Doesn’t say much about you now, does it?”
“What can I say, when I imagined having you in my bed, you were very much awake and very athletic.”
She groaned again, shifting as if to get out of the bed. “Wow, can we just pretend, for one second, that you’re not a complete douchebag?”
Letting out a hiss, Erika tried to move the leg that was almost crushed by the troll, and Loki pinned her gently to the bed with his hands on her shoulders. “Damn woman, just stay where you are for a minute. Less than twenty-four hours ago, you were beaten to within an inch of your life. Let me look after you.”
Blinking at the tone of his voice, she sighed and rested once more on the bed, not before glancing down at her clean wounds and the shirt she wore. She rolled her eyes as Loki grinned.
“Up all night to get Loki…could you not have put me in anything else?”
“Forgive me, Erika. It was the only clean thing in my wardrobe.”
“Yeah, whatever you say.”
Erika’s long lashes brushed her cheeks as she closed her eyes, and for a second, he thought that she was asleep once more, yet her breathing did not change. Coming to the other side of the bed, which was big enough to fit more than a couple, Loki kicked off his shoes, and laid down on the bed, making sure that there was an acceptable distance between himself and her battered body.
He folded his arms behind his head, waiting for her to speak. When she opened her eyes, big, rich-coloured eyes the same shade as her hair, she looked at him and asked, “Did you stay up all night to make sure I was okay?”
“I find it hard to sleep. My mind has a terrifying capability of being dark and tormented. My dreams are rarely pleasant.”
“Are you afraid of your dreams?” her voice was merely a breath, an intimate whisper, the unspoken words hidden behind her silence. Just like me…
“Yes,” he replied quietly, wanting to be honest with her in a way he never was with other people. “More than I would like. I am too old not to be scared. I have seen more than you can imagine. War. Death. Murder. The world changes, but it doesn’t.”
Loki closed his eyes for a moment, loathe for Erika to see the conflict inside him. When several seconds had ticked by, he felt her tense next to him, clearing her throat as she said. “Loki.”
He angled his body so he could look at her without her having to move over much. Her tongue flicked over her full lips to moisten them, and he instantly wanted to kiss her.
“Thank you for looking after me. If you hadn’t been there, I’m not sure Felix would have kept me alive. A fighter half dead isn’t of much use to him.”
Loki reached out, brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I told you that I cared for you, Erika. I would never want to see you hurt.”
She stretched out her limbs, and he heard bones crack, wincing as she flexed and moved her muscles. He wanted nothing more than to keep her here, protected from the harm she seemed so
keen on inflicting on herself. An image popped into his head, of Erika running a hand over her stomach, smiling at him as she carried his child. It hit him like a battering ram, but not because it was an unpleasant thought. It made his heart swell.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you have sin on your mind.”
“When it comes to you, that’s where my mind goes.”
“Ass.” She snorted, a small smile curving her lips.
“I think I like you like this,” he admitted.
She quirked her eyebrow. “What? Beat up and unable to flee from your bed?”
“In my bed, wearing my clothes, in my personal space where I have never brought anyone else.”
“Yeah right.”
Loki turned, sliding over the bed until there was no space between them, his elbows keeping his weight off her still sore body. He held her gaze, which widened as she saw the truth in his eyes. “I have never, in all my years, brought another woman into this loft, let alone this bed. This bed is for the woman I intend to make mine and mine alone. Look at my eyes and know the truth.”
Erika sucked in a breath, her hand reaching out and grazing the side of his face. He found he could not restrain himself any longer. He leaned down so that his lips pressed against hers, gentle at first, Loki was fully aware that he had almost lost her mere hours before. That thought sent his instincts haywire and he deepened the kiss as soon as she opened her mouth and welcomed his tongue inside.
His erection strained against the seam of his jeans as Erika sucked on his lower lip. He felt his control slip, almost thankful when a new aura entered his home, stopping him before they were at the point of no going back.
“Oh my gods! My eyes…. I can never unsee that!”
Flopping over onto his back with a groan, Loki grinned at his sister. “Then perhaps you should knock before you barge into someone’s private quarters. Another few minutes and you might have seen more of me than you ever wanted.”
