As Loki's passion grew, the temperature of the room dropped severely. His lips, warm against mine at first, grew cold and his hands turned icy.
I pulled away first, gasping for air. He merely moved to my neck, leaving a trail of cold kisses down my throat. I closed my eyes.
"Loki," I said. "Stop." Being his usual self, he didn't listen. He continued to do exactly what he wanted to do. "Loki." God, I didn't want him to stop. But my conscience weighed heavy in my mind.
I took my hand and pressed it gently against his sternum. I flinched as the sinewy muscle tensed at my touch. Then, with all my strength, I pushed him away from me.
He didn't fall as far back as a normal person would under that amount of force, but it was enough to get him off of me. I looked into his face and saw the same blue tinted skin I had seen a week ago. "What are you?" I asked.
He looked down at his hand, holding it up as if to get a better view of it. Then he looked at me.
"Does that bother you?"
It didn't, but I knew it wasn't natural. I shook my head.
"Well, isn't that strange. You are looking at something my people consider to be an abomination." He chuckled, but it wasn't happy. "You never cease to amaze me, Veronica. You are so unlike anyone- god or human- that I have ever met." He came closer, brushing the back of his hand against my cheek.
"And that is saying something seeing as I have been alive for a thousand years."
I looked into his face. I could just make out several faint scars over his left brow and cheek. It also looked like there were a few along the right side of his jaw. I could tell that his physical appearance wasn't the only thing that was scarred. He was hurt, angry, and alone. Plenty of reasons to be upset, really, but not enough to make me join him.
"I want you by my side, Veronica. Together we can take over this world. Make it our own. Make it stronger. Better."
"Better for everyone? Or for you."
He didn't answer.
"That's what I thought. My answer is still no." I bent down to pick up the papers I dropped.
Then, out of nowhere, I was slammed against the wall. I tried to blink the stars out of my eyes as a cold hand shot to my throat. "If you are not with me, you are an enemy," Loki quietly said. "Keep that in mind."
I looked around the room for something, anything that I could use to defend myself. I tried to pry his hand off, but it was too strong.I was physically impaired by Loki's hand at my throat, but not mentally. My right calf brushed against something on the wall. I glanced down, realizing it was an electrical socket.
Electricity! I kept calm and remembered the process I had used to move the lightning the night of the ball.
I looked back at Loki, then focused all my thoughts on channeling electricity towards his form. I felt a current form around my right hand, coagulating in a ball around the tips of my fingers.
Without moving my hand from my side, I flicked my hand towards Loki's torso. The ball of energy hit him and he went flying. I slid back down the wall and I realized that he had been holding me up against it three feet in the air. He fell back against my desk with great force.
He sat up, a knowing smirk playing around his lips. "Ahh. I see. It seems my dear brother has more than one mortal whore. I never thought the Mighty Thor would give his powers to a mere mortal. You must be very special indeed."
I gave him a dirty look. "What are you talking about?" How dare he talk about Jane or me like that. Besides, though Thor and I had been close, it was more a brother-sister kind of love than what Thor and Jane shared. Had shared… I corrected myself.
His smirk gave way to a look of anger, which he quickly covered up. I could tell he was struggling to keep his voice steady, to not let me see what he was really feeling. "That woman who turned him so soft. Now, what was her name? Dear me, I cannot remember. What was it? Jamie? No…"
"Her name's Jane," I said coldly, growing tired of his arrogance. Of course he knew her name. He was just trying to piss me off. And it worked. "And she is not a whore."
"Yes. Jane," he said, ignoring my last comment.
"And Thor is going to stop you. If he doesn't, I will."
His nostrils flared at the mention of his brother and there was a funny look in his eye. "Don't worry. You will come around." He stood up, straightening the lapels of his coat. He took the papers from my hand, uncapped a pen, then signed them in a flowing script. "It is only a matter of time. And I can be very, very patient, Veronica." He tilted his head back slightly, exuding his usual sense of arrogance. He cupped my chin in his hand, which had grown warmer now, and leaned in and planted one last taunting kiss on the corner of my mouth, then he was gone.
"Who's worrying?" I asked to the empty room.
I crossed my arms and walked back to my desk. I opened my purse and pulled out a small mirror. I rolled my eyes when I saw my ruffled reflection. I smoothed my hair, grimacing at a bruise that was beginning to form around my throat from where Loki had choked me. I snapped the compact shut and slipped it back into my bag.
He had kissed me. I had let that selfish bastard kiss me. Only afterwards did I find it appalling, disgusting even. But you didn't think that at the time… my conscience protested. I buried my face in my hands, something I had taken to doing quite regularly since meeting Loki.
I needed to get away from him, but I didn't know how. Thor was gone. I had given up on him weeks ago as far as the cell phone situation was concerned. I had decided I could wait the situation out, outlast the storm, so to speak, hoping Thor would magically return.
If my attraction to Loki had been one-sided, I would have been able to ignore my feelings, get the job done. But by letting me know that he felt at least some attraction to me- as much as someone like him could possess for another person- he had gained a lot of leverage over me.
"Gah." I let out an irritated sigh as I pushed the rolling chair I was sitting in away from my desk and got up. I put the pens and papers that Loki had bumped into back in place. There, now he had never been there. I grabbed my bag, punched out, and left for the day.
I went back to my apartment. As I neared the top of the stairs I could see a piece of cream colored paper taped to my door. I went up to it and ripped it off.
We know what we are, but not what we may be.
I recognized the flowing script immediately. Loki had been here.
And he was quoting Hamlet?
Well, I guess even the god of mischief had to enjoy the classics. But the words chilled me. Was he insinuating that I was going to change my mind eventually? It seemed like he had made that point pretty clear at the office. But that was all I could make of the rather random note on my front door.
It occurred to me that he was also showing me that he remembered where I lived. I crumpled up the paper and threw it in the waste basket.
I went to bed early that night. I was exhausted from the stress of the day and couldn't focus on anything I tried to read. I even got so desperate as to turn on the small T.V. in my living room, but I couldn't focus on any of the shows. I flipped to the news, but all it was talking about was some political bill in the senate. I hated politics, so I had turned the T.V. off and gone to bed at 8 p.m.
I sank into a dreamless sleep.
The next morning, I got up and went to shower. My stomach lurched when I saw the same piece of paper that had been on my door yesterday. It was crumpled, but someone had smoothed it back out. It was folded in half so the quote was on the outside and a corner was wedged behind the mirror at my eye level.
With trembling hands, I pulled it down and unfolded it. My heart leaped into my throat when I saw what was on the inside.
So, yeah. That's another chapter. Let me know what you think please!
