I own nothing, forgot to mention that bit before. Also, I've put two up at once today to get the ball rolling on this story to see if it gets any interest. If you like it I'll carry on, so tell me what you think cause it's always awesome to get some feedback, good or bad.
Loki skimmed the stone across the pond with a careless flick of his wrist. There was no challenge in the activity anymore. He had mastered it so long ago, without the assistance of magic, that it no longer gave him any gratification upon completion. He sat down heavily upon the stone seat, swilling the contents of his goblet around before taking another sip of the sweet, heady wine.
"How do you do that without magic?" a musical voice asked him.
He turned to find a young woman behind him, her arms crossed gently across her amble bosom, as she stood quietly waiting for his response. She was a light-elf, her faint glow visible in the half light of dusk. Her strawberry blonde curls fell down her back in a cascade and her light blue eyes watched him from under delicately arched brows. The golden band around her forehead declared her to be a member of the Ljósálfar royal family.
"It's a simple thing, just a flick of the wrist and the right amount of strength." He replied, failing to climb to his feet despite her status being similar to his and warranting the gesture.
"And why did you bother to learn this trick?" She pressed, sweeping into his line of sight. Her pale blue gown hugged her physique in a way that should not be becoming for a princess, but somehow was on her. She looked like a royal treat to be devoured.
"I don't really know." He smiled, standing to his full height and stepping into her personal space. He immediately sensed the magic that surrounded her, ancient and instinctual magic. She was protected in more ways that she probably realised. "Having dexterous wrists comes in handy in certain situations. Who are you, may I ask?"
"I'm Esmerée, Princess of Ljósálfar."
"So you're the one they're using as a bargaining chip with the Svartalfheim. You're going to marry their eldest prince."
"Not if I have any say in the matter." She sighed, taking a step away from Loki and turning to look out at the sunlight dancing off the pond.
"I don't believe you do have a say in the matter." Loki returned, stepping up behind her, a mere inch from her body.
"I have to consent in giving him my body. If I chose not to do so the marriage would be void."
"And would you risk your life on Svartalfheim just to null the marriage? By invocation of that clause you open yourself up to the punishment involved."
"And what do you know of our ways Loki, son of Odin?"
"I know enough." His hand ghosted down her spine, "And what I do know tells me I wouldn't wish to see such a maiden be whipped for not allowing her husband his martial rights."
"Rights." She snorted delicately. "What rights should any man have when it comes to the body of a woman? My body is my vessel, I own the rights to my body and no man should have any rights which conflict with my wishes. It's barbaric."
"I agree," He smiled, his hand barely brushing the curves of her buttocks as he withdrew it once more. "But that is not for us to say. They have their ways, just as we have ours. What are you doing out here without a chaperone?"
"Looking for mischief." She smiled at him, eyes sparkling with the last rays of the sunset.
"You found me." He laughed, offering his hands out to her in supplication. "What can the God of Mischief do for you, fair maiden?"
"He could steal me away from my fate." She said, a half smile on her lips.
"I don't think that would be classed as mischief. That is more along the lines of abduction and kidnapping. Not my forte."
"You underestimate yourself I think." She bit her lip and turned to face him, her hands linked behind her back. "Do you know what the main clause of the wedding contract pertains to?"
"No."
She stepped closer to him, her chest mere inches from his armour. "That I must come to him as a pure maiden, one who has never known the touch of a man. They have even placed magic around me which make it impossible for a man to touch me."
Her hand swept forward, taking hold of his wrist and bringing it towards her. Slowly she pressed it to her cheek. "It would seem that you by-pass those spells. I thought as much."
"Why?" He asked, his thumb unconsciously stroking her cheek close to her bottom lip.
"Because I've seen you before. You came to me once, in a dream. You touched me then, I sensed some inheritance in you was not from Odin. I often wondered what your touch would actually feel like in the flesh…"
She trailed off as his thumb brushed her bottom lip.
"And how do I compare to your dream?"
She reached her hand up and cupped his cheek. "Much more real."
"What do you want from me, Esmerée?"
"Just this." She moved forwards, standing on her toes to press a kiss to his lips. He froze in place, neither returning the action nor rebuffing it. He felt her hesitation, knew that she would withdraw her invitation in a matter of seconds and for once in his life he decided to be entirely selfish about something. His father assumed that Thor was the son to be watched and nurtured while Loki was all but self-sufficient. One act of selfishness, as well placed as this one, would show Odin that he could not ignore his youngest son without consequence.
He wrapped his long arms around her petit frame and pulled her closer, her slippered feet barely touching the ground below her. His mouth devoured her with a ferocity that he had not realised he possessed. She gasped as his hand reached down to cup her buttocks, lifting her until she wrapped her legs around his body.
"Are you sure you wish to play this little game, child?" He asked, drawing away from their kiss with some effort. "The grace period in which to withdraw is but a small window of opportunity."
Her answering smile was so full of lust that Loki thought for a moment that some kind of metamorphosis was happening before his eyes. Her face, once so open and innocent, was now a mask of a desirous siren. She was a wanting woman as she clung to him, her thighs clenched around his waist.
She purred into his ear, her breath ghosting across the shell. "Let us make some mischief."
Loki sat upright in bed, her voice ringing through his head. He could still feel the heat of her body on his. He glanced around the room, not recognising his surroundings for a moment until he realised where he was. They were are the summer house.
He flopped back against the sheets of his bed and stared up at the canopy above. His body was still buzzing from the dream, the memory of her body wrapped around his. She was so soft and compliant, wanting and begging him for his touch. The dream Esme was so far detached from the one sharing this house with him that he barely knew her.
She was afraid, of what he wasn't sure. She would not speak to him, or in his presence, and he couldn't understand why. He had not given her reason to fear him. It was more puzzling that he cared to admit. It had been seven days in which she remained silent and unmoving, choosing to sit in the garden and stare out towards the waterfalls. It was unnerving. Loki was a man used to self-imposed seclusion but he found her ability to remain silent and still most unnatural.
He found himself unable to sleep once more and after some deliberation decided that a glass of mead would perhaps aid him in drifting off. He climbed from the bed, his simple sleeping robes forming on his body as he crossed the room and opened the door. He made his way quietly to the kitchen, trying not to make any noise at all as he passed her bedroom.
His efforts were in vain though as he found her seated in then the reception room with her blanket wrapped around her. She was once more staring into space as though seeing something in the middle-distance. It was an expression he had seen on his mother many a time, it was the expression of a seer.
"Does sleep evade you too, my lady?" He asked, approaching her as he would a startled animal.
She turned her head to the sound of his voice but her eyes did not regain focus, she was lost in whatever she was seeing. The smile that graced her features startled him. It was warm.
She gave a breathy laugh, "Sleep is for the dead, my lord. I am neither dead nor do I wish to be so. Not when I have so much to enjoy."
"I see." He mused, his brows furrowed with confusion. "And what is it you have to enjoy, my dear?"
"Why you, you silly man." She laughed, "You and that delicious silver tongue of yours, it keeps me merry both in the bed and out of it."
He froze in place, what mischief was this? She was parlaying with him like a familiar, as though there was so bond between them beyond once nights passion and weeks enforced company.
"What steals your sleep, my prince?" She asked, her voice sharp while her eyes were beyond him, asleep it would seem.
"Dreams." He offered.
"Troubling dreams?"
"Not really, memories would be a more accurate description from them." He took a seat on the loveseat angled towards where she sat. He perched gingerly, ready to bolt at the first sign of discourse.
"What memories haunt you tonight?"
"The memory of our first night together." He whispered.
Her brows crinkled and she blinked a few times as though trying to focus her eyes. He raised out of his seat a fraction, readying himself to depart if she returned fully to the present. The moment passed and her face relaxed. "I would not have thought those memories would be troublesome to you, my prince."
"Not troublesome as much as frustrating." He agreed, measuring her mood before he continued. "They always end before they reach their climax."
The smile that graced her features then was akin to the one she had worn in the palace garden when she had her warm body pressed so tightly against his. "Well it wouldn't do to leave a Prince of Asgard without satisfaction now, would it?"
Somehow, within her dreamlike state, she climbed to her feet and moved towards him. He felt cornered as she closed the gape and straddled him, her eyes still eerly elsewhere the entire time.
"Now, you must enlighten me, at what point did your dream end?" Her lips moved forwards, inch by inch until they were a hairs breadth from his own. He knew right then he should stop, he should rouse her from this state and tell her what she was doing but he didn't. He instead closed that imperceptible gap and took her lips in a kiss so searing he thought he may combust from heat alone. She moaned, her hips grinding down against his growing arousal and sending pulse of hot, liquid lava up his spine.
She bit his lip in a not so gentle manner which drew a dark groan from him, a rumble of pure animal response that he could not control. At the sound she froze, her teeth still nipping at his lips. He opened his eyes to find hers staring into his, entirely focused upon him.
She was back in the present. And she didn't look very happy.
He barely had chance to register the movement before a flash of blinding light hit him and sent him flying over the back of the sofa and sprawling onto the ground.
A sound, akin to a battle cry, split the very air of the room. "What did you do to me?!"