A S G A R D

It had been an hour before we finally reached the palace. I spent twenty minutes pinned against a tree, choked until I reached my last few breaths. He spent another ten minutes pinned to the ground with my fists gliding across his face. I had hoped to replace the feeling of my soft caress from earlier, but he didn't fail to make mention of it between punches.

I came to appreciate the illusion he had around us as we walked through the palace halls. We were both panting like we had just got back from war and I swung over his shoulder like an unfortunate casualty of it. Towards the end, I didn't necessarily mind being carried, but it kept my eyes from the deep, bloody scratch just below his cheekbone. That little wound was enough of a win for me.

His route was predetermined. Straight to my room. It was the same one I stayed in before which was oddly...comforting for some reason.

He pulled me from his shoulder so I stood at his side before he cast me out from under the illusion. In a blink, I was being escorted by the Allfather wearing an Asgardian style dress that would have never been my first choice in dressing, but I digress.

Two guards stood outside of my room, one on either side of the double doors. They looked much more put together. Well trained. Better than they looked under the actual Odin.

That frightened me, I'll admit.

"Keep her in here." Odin starts, pushing aggression while he catches his breath. "If she tries to leave, chain her. If she resists further..."

The guards nod at his orders as if the last part had been a mutual understanding. They grab my arms as Odin starts down the hall, pushing me deep into the room and closing the doors before I could turn around to protest.

A sigh escapes me as if it had been held in for an eternity. This room was once lathered in the kindness of Frigga, but it seems she took those rose gold lenses with her. This was the den of iniquity in its true most initial form. It had to be. There was only one other place I've ever seen as this red. An elegant, silky red.

The walls are still lined with the dark, oak bookcases that made the space so comforting to me in the first place. I gravitate to them as if they could be some kind of anchor before I start to trail a finger along the spines of each old novel.

It was a strange feeling to familiarize myself with this place again. I started to remember some memories quite vividly. The conversation with Frigga at the fireplace, her death days later. The nights Jane and I spent studying the Aether in the library, only to retreat to this room when it closed to look over her own quantum research. The nights spent with Thor looking for impossible answers at the bottom of a bottle, only finding some sweet, ignorant bliss that let us dance without any care in the world.

The slightest smile rose to my lips as I watch the moments a second time. It seemed pointless—the excruciating effort put into burying those memories so deep—for how could something so radiantly good possibly bring so much destruction?

Do you still have to ask yourself that?

It was what followed. The memories that mocked me for playing in the light too long. Standing in the midst of flames, watching Asgard burn around me. Because of me. The artful illusion that projected my every fear. The way I had almost accepted my fatal defeat—twice.

There is a root to this all. The memory hit me like its need for revenge has been pent-up for years. That kiss stole what I had thought to be my last moments of life, yet it promised a fateful death for my future. His velvet lips pressed against mine with indescribable force—frustrated with himself, infuriated at me. He was hungry. I was wild. It was uncontrolled and entirely uncontrollable.

I lost in that moment whether I'd openly admit it or not, but he didn't win either. The game had changed after those few seconds and we stood before each other at the start of round two utterly defenseless.

It was in the beginning when the darkness within myself claimed him; mind, body, and soul. It craved his fall in all it's beautiful chaos. But there was a moment after that kiss where the darkness sought after a union with my emotional self—a partnership no one could have expected—where they agreed to fight together against whatever feeling I felt then and there.

But they're losing, aren't they? They wouldn't admit if they were, but they fled down on Earth in the same panic they did on that ocean planet. They left me, defeated by something with enough power to scare away the devil itself.

In all of our years together, it has never been fleeting. Darkness has always been there wholly or not at all. I feel it fighting now. Dimming and flickering like light.

Never had I thought I would be the one desperately calling for darkness. It always found me so effortlessly. I have no reason to want to fight against it and if it tells me something is wrong, I will listen. It will always be my most trusted ally. The most reliable thing I've ever known.

The closest thing I will ever come to love.

I snatch my hand back from the wall as if the books had fed me the emotions themselves.

Soft, indistinct curses flow effortlessly from between my lips as I start searching for clothes that don't make me look like I'm a character in a renaissance play.

The closet was bare and the clothing drawers held nothing but a sewing kit and a few complementing utensils. I grab the scissors with a quick—fuck it—and start to the fabric of the dress. I disassemble the crinoline under the skirt so the dress hugs my skin smoothly in a sleeker fashion. The sleeves were anything but, not reaching any further than the ends of my shoulders. They were fine enough for the movement of my arms, but it fell into a rather low, v-cut neckline—one much more scandalous than the other women of Asgards may I add—that it robbed the dress of its supportive potential.

It was rather impractically made, but I'm sure it wasn't specifically tailored for an impromptu escape mission. So I'll give them that much slack.

I stab the end of the scissors into the fabric just above the knee and start to cut around my legs. The end of the dress gradually pools at my feet more with each hurried cut, freeing my legs from the unnecessary restraint.

I do a few quick kicks and swings into the air to make sure I could move as efficiently as possible before ridding the evidence of my amateur customizing job in the drawer as if it wouldn't be obvious at the first sight of me.

The jump from one of the windows would be a risky one. My room is a few floors above the treetops, but directly over the main palace doors. The god had doubled the number of guards at that post, which didn't necessarily mean I couldn't take them, but I would much rather leave little to no trace of my breakout until I'm halfway back to Midgard.

Earth.
It's called Earth.

"I have to get out of here," I whisper aloud before deciding to test just how well 'Odin' has reformed Asgard's sad excuse for guards.

I start towards the double doors, pulling them open as if I lived here as anything other than a prisoner at the moment. They were not in the slightest intimidated by my fronted confidence and did not seem eager to entertain any warpath of mine. Almost instantly after nearing the line where my room meets the hall, two swords are clashed together before me, blocking any further advances.

"Miss, I don't want to restrain you, but I serve the Allfather. Not you."

I smile loosely before readying myself. "I'll take my chances."

My arm swings to one of the guards, quickly driving the end of the scissors into their shoulder. I throw my back into the guard on the other side, pushing off of him to blow the stabbed guard back with both my feet.

I throw my arms behind me and wrap them around his neck before crashing the back of my head into his nose and throwing him forward over my shoulder.

The upper hand didn't last long. Their recovery time was quicker than expected. That, or I'm just not used to the guards under Odin fighting back after one hit. Just as quickly as I had them both on the ground, two hands grab my legs and pull them from under me. In a blink, the two are now standing over me, each claiming an arm to bring back into the room.

I may have underestimated them.

A third guard emerges from the hall with a pair of cuffs tagged to a long chain. He couldn't have been far from my room with that quick of response time, but he was watching from somewhere hidden from my eyes. 'Odin' had this room under more surveillance than I thought.

Noted

The guard was quick to cage my wrists before locking the other end of the chain to a latch on the ceiling. The fight left me as I watched them work. They coordinated smoothly, worked as a unit. Each one was sure of themselves and that of the man next to them. They've become a great team, it seems.

My body suspends in the air only slightly, feet just nearly kissing the floor. He would stand perhaps just an inch taller with me like this, my eyes falling in line with his chest.

At least it wouldn't be the worst view.

The double doors swing open as they finish fastening the last latch. Without a word from 'Odin', the guards start out of the room, nodding past him in dutiful obligation.

The gods' eyes rake up and down my body, avoiding all eye contact until he hears the doors shut tight behind him. He drops the illusion around him in that second, cocking his eyebrow in a weak attempt to hide some kind of gratification dancing in his eyes.

"I don't know what else I expected."

"Why am I here?" I challenge, not looking to entertain him any further.

He starts to pace deeper into the room, his face fallen to stone.

"You shouldn't be," he barks decisively as if he had assured himself of that fact every day of my absence. "You should be dead on Morag. Rotting on the ocean floor--"

"I wasn't the one who made the decision otherwise."

He subtly studies me, holding back his irritation behind the muscles in his jaw. The last moments on that planet haunted the room in its entirety, solidifying the tension in the air between us. He would ignore it, no doubt.

"A dead man has all the time in the word, and time is just what I need." He starts, lulling on the words as he finishes his inspection. "What time is best spent without the presence of those who want you dead the most."

I roll my wrists in the cuffs dramatically to draw attention to his clear hypocrisy. "I'm afraid I'm not following."

"You were the top liability I set out to tend to after my death--"

"I'm flattered."

He shoots his hand up to silence me, and I shamefully did. He continues after he was sure his stare had left a scar.

"Yet when I watched you on Midgard, I found I was wrong about something, and I am never wrong."

My eyes follow every step in his thoughtful pace, but he is nearly impossible to read. "I'm sorry to disappoint," I apologize blankly.

"Mm, not entirely," he hums, with a cock of the eyebrow and a subtle pull of his lips. "The influence you had was comparable to that of someone else I know. It was as if he trained you himself. I had no reason to doubt any association. I thought he sent you as a test of some sorts. I didn't see them when I looked in your head, but he would never be that careless to leave a tool so vulnerable after all."

My lips part and let out a rather breathy huff, a concoction of disbelief and some defense to my dignity. "A tool?"

"Against me, yes. We are not necessarily friends, but I owe him something that I think best in my hands." His face falls gravely stern. "It seems I have an advantage I didn't think I had, but despite what you may think, I would not let arrogance cease any efforts to keep it that way." He thinks about his next words before spitting them out through a grin only he could appreciate. "That is thanks to you."

He stops his pacing and with a slow, but sure hesitation, he turns towards me. His eyes fixed on mine as if he dove wholly beneath the glossy surface with no intentions of leaving.

"It seems you have no idea of the things you are capable of. Your potential is endless. Enough for me to mistake you working with some of the more powerful people I know. Yet, you don't strive to be any more than you already are. Because of them." His attention was unwavering, but I didn't necessarily give him any reason to look away. I stared right back, doing more harm than good. He saw right past the threatening veil of dark green beams, or perhaps I didn't use enough effort to keep it up.

It was the way I held onto his every word like they were my one guilty pleasure that enticed him to continue. His eyes darkened, bathing himself in the fact that these words can have some kind of euphoric effect.

"But then I looked deeper," he whispers, "through a lens all too familiar to you and I." He takes steps forward, the stare never faltering. "I found, perhaps, that you are fully aware of that. That you are concerned about the comfort of people around you." He clicks his tongue slowly as his eyes trail my jaw. "How good of you."

I push out words I never thought I would say. "You overestimate me."

"No," he laughs quickly, helpless to stop it. "I'm afraid not."

He stalks forward as if it took no conscious effort. "You joined them when you didn't need them. You let them take you when you could have slit their throats in seconds." His stare falls subtly to my lips. "You let them touch you when they didn't deserve it."

My breath hitches as he takes a hold of my chin, bringing his face an inch from mine. I tense and bring the chains to rattle against each other, but it seems of little concern to him.

"I won't let you waste any more of yourself." He looks anywhere but my eyes, burning each word slowly into every line of my face. "You are going to be of great use to me and at that time I will be sure to bring out every part of you that you try to hide. I want to see it all."

"You're mine," he rasps. "Into your sweet death at my hands. Mine."

I swallow my throat clear until I'm sure the words won't stutter. God do they want to.

"I am not a possession," I whisper, "And I have no interest in being a weapon unless it is the one that drives through your heart."

"Try it." He grins, eyes landing before mine. "Let's play our game, Safiya."

My eyes fall to the lips. They were dangerously close. Too familiarly close. Somehow, the idea of murder always brings us the closest and it took a few more seconds for him to realize that. He steps back, letting loose of my chin, not ready to lose so quickly again.

The silence cut into me like a blade, sharpened by our unspoken worry, twisting deeper with each passing second until I relieve myself.

"Why did you kiss me?" I push out softly, sure that no matter how quiet I spoke that he would hear me. I almost wish he hadn't as the words left my lips.

His eyes grow meaner, addressing me more directly than he ever has. "Do you think I wanted to?" He keeps himself back, but his stare is like a physical touch, silencing any response I could have come up with. "Do you truly think I planned to do anything other than hurt you for how deranged you make me feel?"

I speak with the last of my fleeting confidence, parting my lips with an almost edging pleasure that comes with his rage. "Humor me."

He tightens his jaw, muscles near popping. "Don't."

Perhaps I'm suicidal. "Don't what?"

"Don't look at me like that."

I tilt my head up as he starts to draw closer, trying to regain any control he has siphoned out of me from just the silk in his words. I won't be able to survive under his stare for much longer and he knows it. How did I let him know that?

The roaring tension in silence reaches us again despite our attempts to keep the air occupied. Our noise isn't working. His eyes aren't helping.

"You can only cheat death so many times," I whisper, his lips a brush away from mine. "Don't willingly walk to it."

My words hold no impact. They are more likely a distant buzz beyond the dense, craving hunger devouring his body whole. He moves from my face to round behind me, eyes smoothing over every detail of the body that hangs helplessly in front of him. Eyeing down his prey.

"Tell me to stop." His breath trails along my neck, marking his path until his lips find my ear. He presses his body against mine and I swallow the gasp that threatens to leave me. His voice brings pleasure in itself.

His fingertips start up my inner thigh, lifting the hem of the dress, waiting for my voice to slap him back. "Tell me now, Safiya," he whispers, almost pleadingly.

I open my mouth, but it shuts instantly. I can't find a single defense against his touch, but I know there are a million. There has to be. I needed one. He needed one.

His hand grabs my thigh in a desperate attempt to keep his fingers from moving any further. He loses himself to a deep, husky drone.

"I need you to tell me to stop."

I turn my head to the side, not daring to look him in the eyes, my mind desperately trying to stitch together the last of my composure, but it's all fled, every bit of resistance.

"I can't," I barely whisper.

My breath catches violently as he rips off the thin, flimsy fabric that stood between us. He grabs me wholly, greedily, curling his fingers over the smooth, slick skin.

The sound he made when he found me wet nearly sent me over the edge.

He growled. Like an animal.

He curses himself darkly under his breath before nipping the nape of my neck, dragging it with his teeth.

I cry at the bite, but it turns into a moaning mess within the second. I bite down on my lip to keep it in, but he laughs wickedly into the crook of my neck, now completely overcome by a deep, lustful beast.

"No. None of that." His fingers find the mouth of my sex, pushing themselves deep inside and quickly finding a rhythm that robs me of any restraint. He moans under his breath at the sounds that escape from my lips, quickly taking away any playful tone that lingered in his words.

"I'm going to make you say it," he growls in a promising whisper.

I throw my head back hard against his chest, his hot breath burying itself in my hair.

"Whether you're screaming it at the top of your lungs or sobbing it through a pleasure that threatens to tear you apart."

I look up slightly before my eyes closed to see his mouth gaped. Dark, lustful eyes watching how his fingers pumped viciously, in and out. How he works me into a senseless frenzy.

The chains rattled against each other as I start to lose myself more and more. His thumb finds my clit and works it skillfully, targeted until I cry out in a moment of seconds.

I could feel my walls start to clench around his fingers as he bites at the skin under my ear. He knew where I was. I didn't have to tell him with the instincts of a predator at an all-time high.

He moves his lips to find me amidst the waves of pleasure. He spoke. Softly. Deadly.

"Say my name."

My eyes shoot open, immune to any feeling for that one moment. It was smug. A velvety voice that tempted submission.

His fingers slowed, curling agonizingly slow as he drew closer to my ear. He gripped me tighter to stop my attempts to ride his fingers myself. He held me torturingly still.

The god. My opponent. The prisoner. The prince.

He withdrew his fingers and I sank into his chest, a wavering sigh tumbling from my lips.

He noticed. No, he noticed and it bothered him. His name. The word I never let slip. The humanity I never grant any of the 'gods' I kill. He wanted it.

He moves his body off my back and rounds to my front, looking down at me with a dark, predatory lust that teetered on manic. He grabs my face painfully with one hand, eyes choosing lazily between my eyes and my lips.

He was more aggressive, but he was slowly losing any of the strategies he came with. He wanted me, and he would risk himself to get it.

"Say. My. Name."

The darkness in his words keeps me on the edge of my orgasm. I stare back at him with eyes that struggle not to roll back into my head. He was going to break me. That was sure.

"No," I protest more to myself, but the word is extremely weak nonetheless.

He waves his hand and the chains disappear from my wrists. I fall into his chest, struggling to stand straight on two feet. I quickly push off of him, leaving him in the center of the room as I start to walk back towards the wall. He stalks towards me, our eyes fixed on each other.

He whisps away his armor with the swipe of his hand, leaving him in his underclothes that do a horrid job at keeping him in. His toned stomach shows through his dress shirt, arms threatening to burst the sleeves. My gaze lingers on the tightness around his growth until I back into the wall, the impact drawing out a gust of air and my eyes back to his.

He is quick to follow, pushing me deeper into the bookcase by my hips. His lips hover over mine, hooded eyes staring deep into mine.

"I will fuck it out of you until it's the only thing you can say. Is that what you want?"

I drop my eyes to his collar, bringing my finger to his chest. I swallow the ball in my throat as I pull open the first button, letting the sheer force behind it snap it off.

He looked like he was nearly about to eat me whole.

He watched me rid of each constraint, slowly, one by one. My breath shuttered slightly underneath his stare, but I wouldn't dare show anything close to fear. I wasn't scared as much as I should be, perhaps. As much as he wanted me to be.

I part the sides of his shirt and slip it down his arms to his wrists that held fixed on my hips. I start to his belt, the simple touch prompting more force behind his hands. He pushes me deeper into the bookcase with a warning growl, but I keep going. I rid of the belt faster, then his pants, throwing them away and freeing his impossible stiff latter from its restraint.

I finally meet with his eyes again. Those scorching, mischievous, sinful eyes that drive me utterly insane. Fucking crazy.

I slapped him. Hard. Right across the face.

And that was it.

He rips my dress in half with one hand, latching his mouth onto my free breasts. Sucking, then biting out screams of satisfaction.

Picking up my legs to wrap them around his waist, he retaliated, pushing into me with unreserved force. One thrust tore a cry from my stomach that I never knew had been there. My heels dig into his ass as my nails rake up and down his back, drawing blood as I can faintly see over his shoulder.

He hisses from the pain, but that deep, threatening moan entices me further. He thrusts faster, harder, as books start to fall from the shelves around us.

We were tearing each other apart.

My eyes rolled back into my head. His merciless cock, his hot, punishing tongue, his groans. The fucking sounds he makes.

I was slipping—beyond every dimension of pleasure I've known. I was completely sedated. No words could leave my open mouth nor would they even try to reach my mind. It's when I neared the fourth orgasm that I seemed completely unresponsive, yet I felt everything all at once.

They were faint, little moans that left me, but nothing more. He brought his lips to my ear, chuckling deeply at what he's done. He had been doing everything in his power to deter his own release, but he couldn't hold any longer. He was determined to get me here, and he did.

"Say it," he whispers softly, hoping to reach the part of me still conscious.

I try to regain myself in my last hopeful seconds, but I'm helpless to stop it. The word barely slips from my lips.

"Loki," I breath faintly. Almost silently.

"Louder," he growls, thrusting harder with the last of his restraint.

I felt my orgasm building, the intensity worse than before. This one would break me.

"Oh my god, Loki." The words come through sobs.

He pushes his final times, knowing full well he's done it. My walls close tight around him for the fourth time. He brings his lips to my ear once more, whispering sensually, "Scream it."

The stress blazes up my spine until the feeling takes over every sense in my body. My eyes shoot open at the thrust that hits my cervix harder than he has before. "Loki, holy--fuck!"

He bites down on my shoulder, riding through my orgasm as he does his. The noise he makes is almost louder than mine even with his teeth sunk deep into my skin.

He thrusts lazily into me as we both come down from our highs. He held my legs around his waist as they started to fall. My arms stay tight around his neck to hold myself up.

When his breath was back to a steady pace, he carried me to the bed and threw me down, hovering over me to inspect all the marks he made. He ran his hands up and down my body almost absentmindedly as his eyes take in every curve. He kissed my neck, trailed down to my collarbone, smoothed over the bites on my breasts with his tongue.

He made his way down between my legs, kissing the opening of my sex once more before delving his tongue deep inside.

I gasp with the air that's left in me and grab a fistful of his hair, throwing my head back against the sheets as my legs naturally rest upon his shoulders, opening themselves to his skillful tongue.

I was wet again in an instant, my body craving more of him in any way they could have him. Right when I thought I couldn't take anymore, my sex proves a mind of its own.

"Loki," I rasp softly, not necessarily to him. Not necessarily to anyone.

He hums against me, pressing a hand on my hips to keep me down.

My eyes roll back again and my legs tremble viciously as he sucks my clit directly, drinking in my fifth orgasm, then cleaning me up completely with his mouth afterward.

He slithers from between my legs up to my body until he hovers over my lips. He watches my eyes for a while as they flutter in and out of consciousness. But as I lay beneath him, withered from his touch, I wasn't the one who looked defeated.

I couldn't help but narrow my eyes as I look up at him, but even that took the energy that I didn't have much of. My hand weakly brings itself to his cheek, only mustering up enough strength to run my thumb across the skin for a second or two.

He catches my wrist as my arm falls almost instinctively as if it were a sure thing he was helpless too, and he stared down at me for what seemed like hours with those fucking eyes of his. There was something in them that was so unmistakably pleading as he had just sold his soul.

It was a distant feeling as my eyes started to close, but I could feel him bring my head to the pillow and the comforter up to my shoulders. He kissed the corner of my mouth before getting off the bed. It was slow, yet brief, but longer than I had expected, and it was that corner of my lips that stayed warm.

I force my eyes open to watch him with the last of my energy. He threw on his clothes and started to pace the room, cursing to himself quietly under his breath while making silent, evidently thoughtful glances over to me. It wasn't just anger. It wasn't choleric. I don't know. I don't know.

His words were indistinguishable. His body became a blackened blur. The feeling of his eyes on me became a familiar sensation. I used any effort I could muster to bring the blanket closer, and I fell asleep to the sound of the double doors crashing shut behind him.