7 Center


Natasha unrolled the scroll, the first one Thor had given her – it seemed ages ago already. Loki sat beside her on the furs and watched every movement with intense interest. "Why did you not teach me magic before?" he asked.

"What?" She squinted at the question, already lost in the feeling of magic from the unknown words on the parchment.

"I asked you to show me the scrolls the day we met, and you avoided my question. Why?"

Natasha took a long, deep breath and shook her head – she didn't want to talk about the desires that exploded in her belly when she thought or read about about magic. "You tell me what to do and I do it. Isn't how this works?" She wiggled the silver cuffs on her wrists at him for emphasis, the jeweled restraints he had placed there before the banquet.

"And yet I saw your face soften this night when we watched the ice dance together. Why is that?" His gaze was like a spear to her gut, a pin in the butterfly she kept hidden from everyone, even herself.

She settled the collar around her neck to give herself time to think; for some reason her intuitions told her to be honest with him. "Prince, I thought your society was violent, fierce, unprincipled – but I now see there's beauty in Jotunheim as well as savagery. When I watched the ice dance tonight, it … well, it touched me."

His red eyes were intent on her face. "Touched you," he repeated.

"Yes."

"Why did you spit in my face when we first lay together?" Loki didn't move when he asked the question, but Natasha sensed the simmering tension under his calm; something about the way the lines on his skin shimmered as though they could convey emotion, told her he had been surprised by her attack after they first lay together and perhaps hurt by it as well.

She crossed her legs, and the chains hanging from her collar clanked together over her breasts. "Look, you and I will have to come to an understanding. I've been in charge of my life for decades, and when you kidnapped me – no matter what reasons you told yourself at the time – it took away that control."

"But you are my mate."

"But I had no choice in it. If you had come to me in Asgard or even Manhattan and said, Hey, wanna come to Jotunheim and hang out with me in my ice tower? and I'll fuck you every chance I get with my big blue schlong, I might have jumped at the chance. But no, I got scooped up and dragged off as though I were the heroine of some dumb romantic fantasy."

"You did choose me." His red eyes narrowed. "When we saw each other in the fire you wanted me then, and I wanted you. Perhaps you lied to yourself about it, but we were mated before we ever met in the flesh."

Natasha sat still, the anklets pressing into her flesh. Absently she noted the pain and discarded it. "Still, I…" she started to argue.

"Why did the ice dance affect you so?" he interrupted.

"I used to be a dancer. Well, at least I was in false memories – it's a bit complicated."

"What are false memories? You will explain this to me." Loki hooked his index finger through her belt and played with the chains hanging over her thighs idly.

"My mind was altered to believe I was a ballerina – a dancer, like the ones downstairs. I even remembered my breakthrough role – The Firebird."

Loki dropped the chains, surged forward to cup her face in his hands, and kissed her again and again on her eyelids, cheeks, neck, and lips. "But you are my firebird! It was the first thing I thought when I saw your image in the flames."

Natasha moved away and reached for the scrolls. "Do you want to give this a try or not? And I suppose I have to warn you first these scrolls have a strange effect on me. Amora warned me about it, but I can't seem to move beyond my own desires. I suppose she wants me to attain a higher plane. I can see the possibilities of magic within the lines written here, but this …"

"Natasha." Loki interrupted her once more. "Your words make no sense at all. What are you trying to tell me?"

"Sorry." She tried again. "Whenever I try to read these scrolls it affects me physically – in my body, you know."

"Do you become ill?"

"No. It makes me…" Natasha fumbled for the right words; in truth she wished she hadn't brought it up. The minted liquor she had drunk with dinner seemed to have affected her more than she thought.

Loki grasped the loops of chain hanging from the collar still locked around her neck and pulled her closer so she leaned on his powerful thighs. "Just tell me."

"To be honest, when I read the scrolls it makes me want sex."

A slow smile spread over his face, and he closed the gap to kiss her gently. "But this is good – for me. I suppose it is why you wanted to avoid our lessons, little firebird. Together we will find the delight in the magic together and make the spells come alive with our sex."

"Loki, that won't work." Natasha pushed him off once more. "Amora said I must suppress it if I want to create magic from those scrolls, although if I'm honest for once each time I look at the words my body goes crazy. It's like I can't control myself. And you don't know me, but control is what I do. I monitor my emotions, my breathing, my heart rate…"

"Natasha." He pulled her back into the circle of his arms and moved his lips to her neck. "Enough words. Could it be the scrolls are calling to you in a way this enchantress might not understand? Perhaps you need to give in to your instincts, to allow the feeling to run through your body, your veins, your skin, the way Luke Skywalker did in the saga you related to me." Abruptly he palmed one breast, licked her neck, and blew on it. "Let yourself experience the true gift of magic for once."

She tried to disentangle herself, but he pulled sharply on the heavy belt so she sat flush against him with her back against his chest, his breath in her ear. "Now," he repeated.

His violent insistence brought her close to the edge, and Natasha's hands trembled as she unrolled the scrolls. "This," she pointed to one line, "shows the user how to create a ball of light in her palm. I can see it so clearly, but I can't… ohhhh." Right on track her clit began to flutter with the now-familiar skirl of erotic desire from the written runes.

"Oh," Loki echoed. "Yes, I see it as well." He raised one hand, palm flat, and Natasha's eyes widened as a globe of green light flickered and appeared over his fingers.

"How did you manage that?" she gasped. "I've been trying for days. And you just – fuck, how did you do it?"

"You," he whispered in her ear. "You helped me do it. You pointed out the lines, and I was able to bring them to life."

Natasha squeezed her thighs together and panted as she tried to ignore the feelings surging through her. "This one intrigued me," she said when she was able to talk, pointing to another section written in green. "I'm pretty sure this spell changes the user's physical appearance…mmm. I, um, I wanted to try turning blue when I saw it – can you believe that?"

"Did you?" His hand cupped her forearm, gentle and firm. As she watched, the blue faded to ice, to pale flesh, paler than her own skin. Loki's hand slid to her shoulder, to her chin, and forced her to face him – the red eyes were replaced with green pupils, the lines on his skin no more; only the black hair remained, framing the elegant cheekbones, hawked nose, and cruel lips.

Bullets exploded in Natasha's bloodstream, shrapnel of want and magic all mixed up in a swirl of lust. She could feel the enchantment on his skin – hell, it was inside his bones – sparking like a downed wire in an ice storm, lethal and beautiful. Without giving herself time to think she spun and arced one leg over him so she sat in his lap to make it easier to plunge her fingers in his black hair, to cover his mouth with hers, to taste the cold lips, lick teeth and tongue. There was no way to get enough.

It was his turn to push her away. "Do you want me, little firebird?"

"Yes." Natasha tried to suppress her frantic breathing, the heartbeat she felt in her chest and her sex.

"Then you may have me, but only if you say you are mine."

"Loki…" Natasha thought of the inevitable ending to their story, the oncoming day when she would double-cross him to gain her freedom. Yet that receded under the snapping of magic between their skins, the great head of his prick rearing between her legs, the forbidden knowledge in his eyes.

"Tell me," he insisted. "Tell me you are my mate, and you may have me."

"Loki." Her heart stuttered in her chest. "I'm yours."

"You are my mate?"

"Yes!" She screamed as he picked her up and settled her with one fluid motion onto him, onto where he had once been purple-blue with desire, and now red with the illusion of human blood, where he had been cold once and now warm, so warm – no, hot with it…

Natasha flung her head back and sank onto him, experiencing each delicious inch. "Say it," Loki growled. "Tell me."

She could barely speak, and when he twisted beneath her to find a certain delicious spot inside, and when he teased her with such understanding pity and said, "That feels nice, does it not? Tell me, and I will do it to you some more," and she lost her mind and all control to shout she was his, she belonged to no one else, and it would always be that way, and those promises must have worked, because he thrust into her warm fluttering butterfly again and again until they both screamed with release.


In the circle of his arms, Natasha droused. She felt warm for the first time since her arrival in the frigid realm, and when she woke, eyelashes fluttering on his marble chest, she saw Loki's face turn blue. He shuddered and quickly turned pale once more; it seemed he strove to keep his assumed face.

"Listen. Doesn't that tire you out?" Natasha asked. "Take a rest, and let me see you as you really are."

"When I wore the skin of mortals just now you promised yourself to me. And you did not spit this time."

"Hey." She sat up and framed his face with her hands. "That had nothing to do with your physique and everything to do with my independence. You could wear black and pink zebra stripes for all I care as long as you keep fucking me like that."

Loki pushed her onto her back and hovered over her. "Are these words true?"

Natasha nodded slowly. "Yes, they are."

Slowly his skin turned blue, and his eyes regained their red color. One large hand cradled her head, and Loki kissed her as gently as snowflakes heralding an impending storm. "This word 'fucking' – what does it mean?"

"What we just did." Natasha couldn't help smiling.

"Yes. This?" A sly twist slished his engorged penis inside her once more, and she gasped and reared under him.

"Yes, oh yes."

"Fucking. I like this word."

"It is not a nice word, you understand – oh, baby, just keep doing that."

Loki suckled her throat, bit the pink tips of her breasts. "Only to use between us in our furs, is that right?"

Natasha got her legs over his shoulders, held his red gaze. "Yes. Yes. Yes."

His breath came heavy and quick; she felt it on her neck and tasted the pine scent of him – so alien and already familiar. She had made love thousands of times with countless lovers, many of them practiced at what they did to make her weak with pleasure. But none of them found such a crazy rhythm; instead of the usual in-out-in-out of sex, Loki slid out and out and then thrust with one strong push, teasing the spot until it felt her clit expanded between her lips, extended inside…

Oh. She would lose her mind with such intelligent fucking. It would never, ever be the same again.

Loki pulled her onto his lap, held her hips and swiveled her in strange figures; she could picture them – complex polyhedrons, figure 8's, all compounded by the exotic rhythms he insisted on. It made her pleasure increase and stay just out of reach, both at once. When she was certain she would lose her mind with desire he created a little green ball of light to glow between them, and that final touch of enchantment pushed her over the cliff where she fell, shrieking in ecstasy.


Much later, after several more bouts of lovemaking, Loki covered her carefully with the silk-lined furs. Outside the ice pattered on the windows. Natasha sensed a vengeful spirit nearby – Helblindi, probably, sulking in a dark passage as he listened to the sounds coming from their room.

Loki brushed those thoughts away as he gently moved the curls from her face. "You," he said. "You are my center."

She fell asleep too quickly and completely to wonder what those words meant.