Loki's doings always had a purpose.
He listened to the quiet, steady breaths of Anthony. The mortal had stopped crying a while back and fallen asleep against the mage's chest, but his hands were still holding onto him tightly. Not even in his sleep he relaxed completely.
Carefully, he lowered the man onto the mattress, but Anthony was still clinging to him and thus Loki was forced to lay down net to him if he didn't want him to wake up. He figured that he could just as well stay here until the mortal slept deeply enough for him to leave.
In the darkness of the room, there was a faint shine of blue light where Anthony's tunic had gone askew. Slowly and carefully, Loki reached out and tugged the fabric further aside before he trailed a finger over the glass encasing and the metal. The energy radiating from the small device tingled in his fingertips and made him shudder.
The reason he had taken Anthony in had been curiosity.
When he had seen him on that marketplace, he had not looked at a person. He had felt a pull from that glowing light in the man's chest and had followed that blindly until he stood in front of Anthony and took the mortal's appearance in for the first time. Admittedly, after a few minutes his quick wits and sharp tongue had made him even more intriguing. Seeing that he wasn't going to learn more about the device emitting the strange energy anytime soon, he had decided to buy Anthony.
Loki was surprised at how fast this mortal had wormed his way into the god's heart. While that might be an overstatement, it was true that he had grown fond of Anthony in the course of just two days. Although the man was clearly scarred by past events, but he was by all means not broken. He had a fighting spirit behind that toothy smile and clever facade that was equally admirable and infuriating.
Enjoying the strange sensations that the glowing light sent down his spine, Loki allowed his thoughts to wander further. He still wanted to know what exactly the device was, but he figured that he wouldn't get the best results by just ripping it out of Anthony's chest to examine it (to be clear, that had never been his intention, but slight exaggeration add a certain something to every explanation). But he had picked up by now that there was a story behind it and to learn about that, he would need to gain more of his slave's trust than he had now.
...So maybe he didn't want his trust just for gaining knowledge, that wasn't so bad, was it? There was obviously another person under the shell Anthony had built around himself, and while he had been comforting the mortal just minutes ago, Loki had felt the strong urge to get his hands on anyone who had dared to hurt him that much.
The fact that he acted with plans and purposes in mind didn't make Loki heartless.
He listened to Anthony's calm breaths and watched the steady rise and fall from the mortal's chest, everything bathed in a soft blue light.
Loki frowned.
Carefully, with a faint rustle of fabric, he leaned in closer and narrowed his eyes. Spreading from the light in the man's chest, there was a thin web of black lines. He had seen it when he had ripped Anthony's shirt the day on the market, but he was sure that it had been smaller than, the lines less long and dark. Sure, he didn't know much about his mortal slave, but he had been among humans long enough to know that neither the device nor these spider-web lines were anywhere near normal. Slowly, he began to trace one with a fingertip, but it made Anthony writhe and whimper uneasily in his sleep, and Loki didn't want to risk waking him up now.
The prince pushed himself up on his elbows and tried to pull back quietly, but the slave's hands were gripping his tunic even more fiercely than before and some muttered, indistinct words spilled from Anthony's mouth.
Sighing, Loki settled down on the mattress (and if he was smiling, well, there was nobody who could call him out on it, was there?) and decided to stay until Anthony slept deep enough for him to leave.
He didn't even notice falling asleep.