19| IN WHICH THINGS SEEM TO GET WORSE

The dress was cut open around her wound, sliced viciously by her brother. The blood had soaked into the fabric, staining it red, along with painting her skin vibrantly.

Upon turning around he lets his eyes briefly graze over her figure, every inch and scar of her skin was now engrained into his memory, but now his eyes were firmly locked onto the angry, red cut along her stomach. The crimson red blood against the pale skin of her stomach made him even more sure that she was completely chaotic, it was a mark of her insanity in that once she was harmed by her opponent the darkness took over and would put a swift end to the enemy.

But why that made him uneasy he did not know.

Lusine hisses through her teeth as he cleans the wound. Her pain was written all over her face, despite her best efforts to hide it with her cold expression. Finally, she asks the question that had been biting at her tongue since she saw him rip Lycus off her. "Why did you save me?"

"Did you not want me to save you?" He murmurs in response, his fingers working around the cloth. His eyes did not meet hers.

"I could have handled it," Lusine complains, but she knows the truth. There was no way she could have saved herself. Her brother was driven and dying. He had nothing left to lose with the woman he loved murdered, his sister turned against him and his mother and father oblivious to his destructive tendency. Lusine was as good as dead with his hands grasping her throat. Without Loki she would have passed.

"He was going to kill you and you know it." Loki draws his hands and the cloth away from Lusine, dipping it back into the water bowl. He lifts up a bottle of alcohol and tips it onto the cloth. Lusine eyes it, knowing the pain to come.

As he wipes it across her wound she winces, a breath of pain escaping her lips, but she carries on talking to attempt to distract herself. "The last time I saw you was when Cloris died and you did not say a word to me. Thor had to comfort me in your place, Loki."

"You didn't seem all that bothered to be in his arms instead of mine," Loki huffs, pressing a little harder than he should have. Lusine squirms, her hand clasping around his wrist.

"Don't take your anger out on me. I've been nothing but good to you. It did bother me that you weren't the one comforting me, don't ever dream of thinking it didn't."

Loki looks down at her hand wrapped around his wrist before looking up, looking into her eyes for the first time since they'd been together. They were as he'd remembered them. Heroically blue, compassionate and holding so much for him to take that he couldn't help but stare into them in awe of the beauty. He yanks his hand away from her.

"Don't try to use your magic on me, Lusine, it will not succeed in getting you what you want," He hisses, stepping away from her.

"And what is it that I want, Loki? Because, from you, I don't know what I want anymore. It doesn't seem like you care about me in the way I care for you."

"You think I don't care?" His tone rises, his hand curling into fists at his side and his jaw clenching show Lusine his prevailing anger. "I saved your life, Lusine!"

"Did you do it to save me? Or did you do it to save my power? Because right now, I'm not sure if you even have any feelings or emotional attachments to me." Lusine is strangely calm. Whether that's because she has already expended all her energy to defeat her brother or because she doesn't want to shout at Loki, she does not know.

Loki cannot help but look into her eyes again. He steps forward, his hands cupping Lusine's cheeks gently. His thumb runs along her skin, her soft elegant skin. "I feel..." He begins, his eyes darting to look at her beckoning lips. Even in the heat of an argument she looked flawless. Perhaps that was her only flaw. She was flawless and that is what drew people into her. Her looks could kill. "I feel an attachment to you. You draw me in, Lusine." He bends his head down, pressing his lips to the skin beneath her ear. "You make it hard to leave." His hands drop to her thighs.

"Then don't leave," She says, but Loki ignores her. She breathes in sharply when she feels his teeth graze against her skin ever so lightly, but it was enough to send her mind spinning.

"Your loyalty is weak. You embarrassed me in front of my family and their friends at the dinner table, Lusine. Made me look a fool through your uncertainty."

"I am loyal to you," She breathes, her hand moving to his shoulder as his lips run down her neck to her collar bone. "Loyal to you and only you."

"I find that hard to believe," He says against her. Lusine leans her head back, a breath escaping her. He draws away from her, his hands sliding along her legs to her knees. "You loved Cloris dearly, yet you claim you love me."

"Please don't bring Cloris into this."

"You don't deny it." He steps away from her, folding his arms across his chest.

"I loved Cloris, yes." She runs her hand down his arm. "But you are just as captivating to me as I am to you. Perhaps it's not love, but I'm willing to fight for you. I told you I'd get you that crown one way or another."

Loki turns away from her and strides to the door. He lingers in the doorway and looks back over his shoulder at her. "And I told you you'd be my queen, but it seems you're unstable."

Lusine looks down at her hands in her lap. She didn't understand why he was choosing now to be so cruel to her. It wasn't as if she'd changed mentality.

-

Cloris's funeral couldn't have come sooner. Lusine was more than ready to have this funeral and have the honour Cloris deserved given. It seemed like an eternity ago Lusine drew the blade across her throat to end the suffering induced by none other than Pelia, who Lusine swiftly ended.

Cloris' body was the definition of a beautiful view as she lay on the carved wooden boat, red roses arranged along her body and a bouquet clutched in her grasp. Her dress was a pure white to match the innocence of her heart, Luisne requested she wear white. Her body would be set ablaze. Cremation was a dignified way to go and Lusine decided that fire would set the soul free.

The boat would float along the river as it burnt until it went over the edge of the waterfall, out of sight but never out of mind.

Starring straight ahead, Lusine stands in between Loki and Thor with her lips pressed tightly together and her fingers linked together. Loki stands with his own stony expression, his hands to himself, making no effort to express any form of comfort to Lusine as she stood beside him trying to hold herself together. The feeling that you're going to break down at any second was one which seemed to be common with her as of late.

She allows herself to glance at him with adamant disgust in her glimmering oceanic blue eyes.

She imagined that he'd always be there for her when she needed him the most. When she needed his sympathy he was not there, but when she needed someone to fight for her he was there without her so much as letting his name roll from her tongue.

When he needed her she was there in a heartbeat. If he wanted someone to spend the night with, Lusine was the one he ran his lips over and touched until she was tingling. But when he didn't want her there, there was no use in her even attempting to make contact with him. It was as if he were alien to her. All in the blink of an eye and that made her feel defeated. Not angry, defeated and disgusted in that she realised his intent with her. But then she'd go back to him because of his silver lined whispers and his sexual tendencies which Lusine could not help but to embrace with deep pleasure running to the core.

Upon seeing her, Thor knows what Lusine is feeling and leans down to speak to her. "You should speak to him other wise you shall never know why he is holding his tongue." He pats her on the shoulder softly, his heart hoping she will find her happy ending that she so desperately deserved.

"Thank you, I will in time." She swallows her anxiety, but she can still feel it deep in her stomach.

She looks on as Cloris' boat is cast out into the water. Pressing her lips thin, she steps forward, wincing in pain as she raises her arms up to signal the archers to fire their flaming arrows that signify the last time Lusine would ever see the poor, innocent hand maid she had brought with her to their doom. That was one thing she regretted. Not killing Pelia. It was bringing Cloris with her. Cursing herself for her selfishness in seeing such a pretty face and having to take it for her own.

And now she is alone and she feels nothing but agony.

"She was only seeking comfort, brother, there's no need to neglect her," Thor tells Loki, his eyes darting to where Lusine stands in case she could hear what he was saying. Despite being on her good side, he didn't know what she could unleash. "I don't know what you said to her, Loki, but she misses you."

Loki looks to Lusine at his brother's words. He was right, but he wasn't going to say that aloud. Instead he acts and strides toward Lusine with a form of sorry about him. One which Thor was glad to see woven into Loki's skin.

He slips a cold hand along the bare skin of her lower back and breathes in her fireside smell, it was familiar and he liked it. She shudders, stepping away from him. She doesn't look at him until she sees the boat of flames disappear of the end of the waterfall, escaping into the bliss that is the afterlife.

Lusine turns on her heels, looking at him with her cracked eyes and her broken black heart. It lurches out of her chest when he steps toward her. She can't help but look at his lips, they taunt her as they move with his speech.

"I apologise for my coldness, I did not mean to upset you by turning my back on you, my love," My love. He had called her his love and she had heard it loud and clear. It rang in her ears, bouncing against every ounce of her being because she knew he was lying to her face. He did not love her, but she loved him and that's what she hated about herself. She wished it was her sailing over the waterfall to the after life, but alas she was here being encased by her weakness.

Her eyes are empty as they look at him. He sees it, breathes it, but he does not believe it for one second. There wasn't a single possibility that Lusine Volkov hated him, and he knew it, but he also knew that she was dangerous and now she didn't trust him.

"You couldn't have had worse timing. I was in mourning and you left me thinking as if I was worthless because I needed to be comforted. How could you do that to someone who is as horrifically broken as I?"

"I was wrong to turn my back on you, Lusine," He says, stepping towards her. His hand lifts up, slipping around her cheek and cradling I softly as he moves his lips to her ear. "But chaos is coming and I could not afford to have my plans flawed by betrayal."

Lusine smiles slightly at the mention of chaos. It was her fuel. The very thing that kept her alive and now he was bringing it to her. "I've been waiting a hell of a long time for this chaos that you've promised, you better not disappoint me, Loki."

"Tomorrow it shall come. Dress nicely for our guests, I am sure they will appreciate the gesture." His breath is warm on the bitter skin of her neck. Not a warmth many are willing to endure, but Lusine endured it like a flaming hot summer. She basked in it, soaked up the heat and enjoyed it, despite the risks. She doesn't have anything left to lose now. Cloris is dead. Her brother is as good as dead and her parents are sure to disown her after what she did to her brother.

It was his fault Cloris was dead and now he'd paid for it, Lusine told herself as she curled her arms around Loki. Her eyes close as she leans against him, her body was tired and her mind was near death, and yet she breathed as well as ever.

"I do not want to stand with my family at the coronation tomorrow," She whispers, her hands coiling into the fabric of his cloak.

"Stand with me. No one will question it, they know who you are and who you are to me," He says, careful not to say the wrong thing to the already emotional girl.

Lusine laughs, her body vibrating with the sudden unfamiliarity. Loki frowns too. He had been so careful, what went wrong? "I'm sorry," She mutters, noticing Loki's tense body between her arms. "I just find it slightly amusing that what we have is considered a romance. It's hardly a romance, it's more a 'you bring me chaos and in turn I'll sleep with you' kind of deal."

"It's true, we are chaotic, but I wouldn't say that we're not romantic at all."

"Chaos isn't romantic, Loki."

It was true, their love is chaotic. But their love is still love, and that's what mattered in the ways of the world. Even if their passion for one another was undiscovered, it was unstable and drilled with holes. Spiked with the deadliest toxication of poison, designed to kill and avenge. A relationship based on aspects of lust and crime was not one to be envious of in the slightest, but as Loki pressed his lips to her cheek she couldn't help the smile that over came her.

Not matter how hard she tried to resist, she still wanted it all.

And she would have it all in time.

-

2512 words

i'm super into this right now despite my back ache and feeling like this is getting shit. I feel like the next chapter is going to be a p good one though so that'll be fun to write. kinda the effects of what lusine has done are catching up to her and not in a good way (whenever is it a good way, lau, way to go)

love from, lau