My Wonderful Beta - Scarlet Kingston

I am so happy with all the reviews, allerts and faves. Your love for this story makes me write more.

This loading dose of Caroline`s talents


Loki`s voice was as smooth as velvet when he had offered Caroline to teach her how to control mind reading. She remained silent for a while, and when she spoke every word of hers dripped with suspicion. 'Why would you do this?'

Loki kept a little smirk on his face, while his voice sounded serious, 'Let`s say that I want you to be more confident around me. I am your prisoner, yet you fear to come near me, and all this clumsy cautiousness of yours just makes me sick. Your knowledge about medicine cannot give you the skill. If you want to remain a simple bookworm, and continue using your astonishing powers in a most foolish way, then keep doing what you're doing. Keep hiding.'

That was it. Caroline closed the connection and stood from her bed. She quickly changed in comfortable jeans and a tunic and 'flew' out her apartment toward Stark Tower. She wanted this. She wanted to improve her skill. Loki could have seized her as before, but he didn`t. She had had this conversation with him and he didn`t threaten her safety in the slightest.

When she was in the taxi reality started coming to her. What was she doing? She was so excited to finally find a teacher who would show her something she didn`t know already. Was it a trap? What would happen if he tried to approach her again? The last time she was with him, she had experienced something too oddly pleasurable for her to ever confess it out loud.

The time for traveling between her home and Stark`s passed in what seemed like seconds as her mind raced through these thoughts. When she stood in front the tall building her heart was pounding as if she was a scared rabbit. The fear, however, was quickly replaced with anger. She was stronger than this. What was she afraid of? She should be afraid of nothing. She only needed to have strong will, and that should be enough for her to defeat even the most ferocious monster. With these thoughts, she headed for the entrance where two armed guards asked for her identity and purpose for visiting. She quickly lulled them to think Stark had called for her, and they let her in.

Her soft shoes lightly tapped along the corridors leading to the green room on the 110th floor, where she was already expected by the god of Mischief. She stopped in front his door and knocked. The door opened and there stood Loki, tall and dressed in his Asgardian attire without the armor.

He smirked at her, "You came?" He motioned to the room and let her enter, frowning as he felt the energy field, her shield, wrapped around her body.
She turned to him. "You promised me answers, and to teach me how to use my mental powers better, so I came."

He lifted his hands as if to protect himself from her and said with sarcastic voice, "Oh, don`t you want to sit first? Rushed work is work poorly done."
She looked away and her shoulders dropped. "Just don`t mock me, ok?"
The sadness in her voice surprisingly stuck him. "If you call teaching a thing or two mockery, then what would you say to me when you find yourself capable of winning mind combats with powerful mind manipulators such as I?"

Her eyes slightly grew at the mentioning of mind combats. "Sounds really great. But why would you do that?"
"I hate questions with 'why' in them." He thought of the time when Thor came to him and showered him with such questions.
"Oh-ok. Then what is the reason behind the want to teach me battle you?" She gave him one of his mischievous looks and smirked at him in a way he would.

Loki returned the smirk and regarded her with an evaluating up and down look. "Didn`t I tell you already? Shall I repeat myself? The mind influence is the only reason you are afraid of me, is it not?"
"I am not afraid of you."
He raised his eyebrows so high that creases formed on his forehead. His emerald pools glistered with distrust and something dangerous, or was she imagining it? "Come again?"
She gulped nervously. "Ok! I might find it impossible to compare with your mental skills, thus causing me to be more cautious when it comes to this."
"There is something more to it, Carró. You are afraid of what I may do to you. Physically." Loki`s gaze became slightly smug with a raised eyebrow. His smirk had fallen, leaving his lips slightly parted.

She could hear the slammers of her heartbeat in her ears. Her eyes narrowed. "If you only try something…"
"Stop!" His look hardened. "Let us not threaten each other. What I want you to understand is that I will not try anything to harm you. I could have captured you long time ago. I knew you were trying to reach my mind the moment you touched my mental shields the night when Thor came to visit me. Don`t look at me with those big eyes! I knew about you wanting to be in my mind even before I let you in. How do you think my barriers had fallen? Don`t tell me you thought you did it yourself. This happened only once, when the precious Hawkeye of yours pierced my shoulder with an arrow carrying electrical shock."

"I…"
"Open your mind!"
"What? No!" She stepped backwards.
"What are you afraid of?" His voice was softer. "What could I do, that I couldn`t have done before?"

Addison inhaled. She held his gaze with hesitant eyes before lowering her mental shield. She still kept the one around her. They stayed one against another in tense silence. He made a nod to her. "When you are ready."

It was an invitation. Caroline let her mind touch Loki`s, and he smiled. The feeling could actually make him giddy. He mentally spoke to her. 'I must confess little Carró, that you have a talent. There is no mind reader out there who can manage such a delicate touch. If I was several hundred years younger, your mental presence would have been imperceptible for me.' He smirked knowingly at her.

Addison felt his excitement about her mental presence. She didn`t really know how to feel about it. Emotions, being feeling states with physiological, cognitive, and behavioral components, are always sincere. No human or god could deceive their emotions. She felt proud and weak in the knees at the same time.

Loki continued talking to her, 'Now, first lesson. Imagine your apartment. You have decorated it yourself with the creativity of your mind and the powers you have. Also, you often change the furnishing and decorations. You like how your place looks now, do you?'
'Where are you going with this?'
'See, your apartment is too feminine and simple for me. I`d prefer it to have more ornamental furniture with leather, fur on the ground, green and black colours, and golden walls.'

Her eyes grew wide at him and her mouth formed a perfect 'O', when she got the image of her new looking apartment. 'I can`t believe you did` this! I hate this shade of green! No offense meant Loki, but I do!' She wished her place to turn back to its white and peach colours, only to find that it quickly turned back to black and green. They battled over the colours of her place until Caroline decided to project to Loki an image of her apartment in black and green while she changed it to its original colours, and waited for his reaction.

'Do you surrender?' Loki lifted an eyebrow.
'No. I just changed it,' came her lie.
Loki looked at the image but he only saw his colours and not hers. He smiled. 'You win.'

Her face lifted with excitement. 'Really? I do?'
'Don`t be so excited. This was the easiest of exercises.' That sounded very cutting.
'But if it was easy, why did I win?' She raised an eyebrow at him.

'The first lesson was about you using a deceptive move to try and persuade the opponent they have won the combat.' He paused. 'Next. We go to my chambers in Asgard.' He gave her the image of his bedroom and said, 'This is a little far away for you, and now I want you to do the same exercise.' They changed the room completely, going through all the colours of the rainbow, and decoration of any sort.

Asgard was so far away for Caroline that she quickly got tired. She willed herself to be strong, but her brain needed its sleep and started betraying her. Loki on the other hand was only having fun. His actions came with easiness. His magic was of a different nature from her will-powers. It seemed that he often needed spells and special movements of his fingers, wrists, or even the whole of his hands. This time he also used deceiving manipulations, without letting her delude him so easily. In the middle of the game combat Caroline`s legs gave away underneath her and she collapsed on the floor. She then sat down Indian style and tried to continue, but Loki had already disconnected with her mind. He crouched before her and smiled, saying with gentle voice, "This is enough for tonight. You are exhausted. You didn`t think it will be easy, did you?"

She didn`t answer, only gave him a small tired smile. Her heart was already sleeping. Her mind was a mess. He tried to put his hand on her shoulder and it worked partly. Her shield had this soft feeling as when he had tried to persuade her to take it down. It stood millimeters away from her skin, moving with her, and protecting her from any harm or magic that would come from the outside. What the shield couldn`t stop at this moment was Loki scooping Caroline up in his hands. 'Come now, you need to rest. And don`t think of shifting to your comfy green apartment, for I am afraid you might materialize in the wrong place.'

"My comfy green apartment? You bastard.' She was completely relaxed in his hold, with eyes shut and hands bent and resting on her chest.

He smirked and placed her on his bed. He himself retired to the comfy dark green couch. Lying on his side, he looked at the form, now sleeping soundly on the bed. He found himself missing her mental presence already. It was too easy for him to trick Caroline into sharing her powers with him. Her exhaustion occurred partly because he was trying to drink as much of her powers as possible, without her noticing. He felt more alive than ever before. He would have never been able to have influence on anything outside of her shield if it wasn`t for her gift of powers.

Loki couldn`t go to sleep after this loading dose of Caroline`s talents. She had shielded her mind from him again. It showed him she didn`t trust him fully yet. But it was fine with him. As long as she wanted to let him train her, he would take what he wanted, and she would acquire good skill in the art of mind manipulations. It bemused him how she had decided to develop this one talent out of so many. The same was the talent he had chosen to use and improve more than his other talents.

The god of Mischief had noticed that Caroline would open her mind for anybody when she tried to read his mind and during their conversations. He decided the next thing he will teach her, would be how to open her mind only for the person or people she had chosen to read, or speak to.

Suddenly Addison mumbled, "Not green, no…"

Loki was completely amused. She was dreaming about him. He got up from the couch and approached the bed where Caroline had buried her head in the pillow and was searching with her hand for something. Loki made the lights go down, and took the comforter to cover the young woman in his bed. The moment she felt the cover Addison relaxed and her hand stopped its searching movements. A soft moan escaped her mouth as she hugged the comforter to her. Loki cursed her shield countless of times as he couldn`t place a simple kiss to her forehead, something he strangely wanted to do now.

For the rest of the night he remained around the bed, sitting in an armchair and whispering sweetly in her ear. He may not be able to influence her with his magic through her shield, but she could well hear him through it, so Silvertongue yet again took advantage of what circumstances offered him. He didn`t want to admit it, but the few mewing sounds and soft moans he had earned from her were more than welcomed.


Loki's whispers... That could be a great turn on. What would you have Loki tell you?