Chapter 11.
Loki walked to Thor's Chambers, knocking and his rather naked and angry brother opened the door. He blinked in confusion and stared at Loki with a pillow over his genitals, a woman in the next room giggled and caught her breath and Loki looked confused. Thor stared back in equal confusion, adding up to something that made no sense in Loki's mind.
"Did you not just send a Paige to request my presence?" Loki asked, and Thor shook his head and adjusted his pillow.
"No, as you can hear and see, I was otherwise occupied with Indra." He said with a grin, leaning forward to speaker lower to him. "I had to ask her true name, it is lovely, is it not?"
"Beautiful Thor. You did not send for me a few moments ago?" Loki repeated and Thor shook his head again. A different voice behind Thor calling his name and he grinned, his eyebrows wiggling.
"It seems Sasha is missing me as well. Nine hels, they love to hear me groan their names in passion." He said and ice water filled Loki's veins. He turned on his heel, running back to his Chambers and leaving a confused Thor standing in his door, a brown haired girl in a very short shift jumped up on his back with a giggle and he laughed. His hands cupping her backside, and he turned to slam the door with his foot. Thor growled through the heavy wood, and shrieking giggles filled the air as Loki ran. It was a ruse, and he left Lorien alone.
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Lorien turned the bed covers back and loostened her robe as she lay down for her rest. Her mind raced with what had happened, her heart filled with joy that he had accepted her confession and she now had a chance to fill her life with the love she so craved. She lay back on the pillows, the silk sheets cool on her skin and she blushed as she wiggled her toes. She had read in a book about how women could bring themselves to feel passion, as to how it felt when a man took them and she felt curious. She was not sure how to go about it, but she knew what the basic steps were.
She lay on her back, closing her eyes and picturing how Loki had kissed her. Her mind wandering to how his bare chest looked, so pale and his narrow frame so defined by muscle and smooth skin. She wondered how it would feel to have him hold her to him, how his skin would feel against hers as he kissed her and felt a trembling warmth fill her legs and belly. Her hands pulled her shift up over her legs, stopping the progression of the fabric under the sheets at her thighs and let girlish fantasy take her mind. Her fingers traced slow circles over her skin, and she licked her lips nervously as her hands shook.
She slipped her trembling fingers under the shift, parting her legs slightly and she saw in her mind his hand in a gentle caress over her smooth skin. She gasped, the cool breeze from the open balcony raising goosebumps over her body, and she slowly ghosted her fingers up her bare thigh. Slowly, and gently slipping thr tips of her fingers higher, finding the warmth her body offered and gasping as she discovered the center of herself. She let out a soft whimper, a tightness forming in her belly and she gripped the sheet under her with her free hand. In her mind, he kissed her trembling body as her heart pounded in her ears she whimpered again and she felt the tightness build in her stomach. Her hand began moving with a rhythm and she bit down on her lower lip to keep from gasping and making too much noise, the trembling in her toes contuning and she gasped as her whole body tensed and her eyes flew open. She sat up, gasping and holding the hem of her shift in her fist. Her eyes filling with fear as she heard the door in the other room open and she ran into the Bathing Chamber, locking the door and scrubbing her hands in the basin to hide what she had done. She sank to the floor, the sounds of someone knocking startling her as she dried her hands.
"Lorien! Are you hurt?" Loki asked through the door. She looked at it, her guilt rising to a fever in her veins and she opened the door. She peered through the crack and she looked at him, his face drawn in worry and she blinked at him.
"I am well Sir. I was readying to rest." She replied and he opened the door further, looking around the room. He pulled her into an embrace and she squeaked in shock, her hands curled against her chest and she felt odd in her chest.
"It was a ruse, someone was here. I saw someone leaving, did you hear anything at all?" He asked her and she shook her head to answer. She wanted to be shocked that someone may have seen what she did, but he pushed her back and looked at her closely. He turned her head, frowning and Loki blinked at her.
"I am well Sir. Don't fret over me, for I am just a small thing." She replied and he stared into her, his eyes relaxing and he ran a hand over her hair.
"You are never to call yourself that again in my presence, you may think yourself less than a pearl, but you are so much more." He said, holding up a finger and she nodded. She picked up her robe, covering herself and he looked away to let her keep her modesty. He sighed, leaning against the doorframe, and his eyes fell back on her face bathed in moonlight. Her hair shining from the warm glow of the fire behind it, and her cheeks flushed. He held his hand out to her and she took it, her cheeks flushing as he held it close to him.
"There is so much evil in this realm right now, and few who care about it. I wish for a day when you are free to chase the sun, to never look back and to take a husband as you see fit Lorien. Where you are not trapped, suffocating of loneliness and able to love as your heart chooses." He said, his eyes on the stars through the window. "There is only conspiracy here, intrigues set forth by men who seek to make slaves of us all. Not freedom to be at peace, and always looking over your shoulder to avoid the blade before it meets flesh."
"You... you would send me far from here Sir?" She asked him, her heart breaking and she felt her stomach clench in worry. She wanted to call herself a fool, to beat herself and cut the graceless organ from her chest that took her this far. He pulled her close to him, his arms tightening around her and she shivered, her eyes blinking back tears.
"No. I cannot let you go, I think that I would wither and die without you." He sighed, she gasping at his words and she looked up at him to see his smile. She blinked at him, her heart sinking and she wanted to hide away.
"What do you do then? To stop these men Sir?" She asked and he shook his head. His eyes closing and he couldn't look at her anymore, his plans would turn to dust if she knew too much. He knew what gift he would demand if he succeeded, and he pressed his lips to her forehead and he traced her eyebrow with his free hand.
"Don't worry yourself with that, you are worn from so much strain this day. Go and rest Little Flower, I cannot have you wilting from exhaustion." He said and she nodded, his arm slipping from around her and she stepped back over to the bed and she removed her robe. She fabric falling from her shoulders like a whisper, and she laying down and resting her head on the pillows. He went to his chair by the fire, watching the flames and listened for the door in the next room. Keeping vigil over the girl sleeping on the bed, and praying that he was wrong.
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She ran across the fields, her heart pounding in her chest as the hooves of the horses drew closer. She cried out, the net around her and she fell to the grass and cried for help. She was hoisted to her feet, struggling and she saw the face of Lord Brom over her. He licked his lips, grinning wickedly as her hands were bound behind her back. She cried, his reeking breath on her face and she struggled as she was thrown down to the earth. She tried to crawl away, but her gripped her hips and pulled her back as he flipped her skirts over her back.
"Don't worry, this will be great fun for me." He grunted in her ear as he thrust into her. She screaming as he raped her in the field, and she saw a man holding her fathers head in his hands in front of her. She screamed again, the violation growing and she cried. A voice from far away calling her name and she screamed out again, begging someone to kill her for the same she was enduring.
"Lorien!" She heard, waking up and finding herself tangled in the sheets of Loki's bed. He was shaking her gently, her gasps for air softening as she sobbed out and she held onto him. She buried her face into his chest, her tears falling and he rocked her gently. His hands smoothing her tousled hair, and she looked up at him. Their eyes met, and he leaned close to kiss her. The warm fire crackling nearby and she felt his arms tighten, his embrace more caring than one she had ever experienced before. She parted her lips, feeling his move against hers and she gasped as his hands held onto her waist.
He lay her back, laying his body next to hers and she blushed at him him as he leaned over to kiss her again. Their mouths not wanting to part and she whimpered slightly, he shifting to his side and leaning back and caressing her cheek. He gazed at her, her hands on his chest and he drew his thumb under her eye slowly to burst away a tear. His caress trailing over her lips and to her chin, slowly holding her neck from behind to cradle the back of her head as they kissed again.
"No one will ever touch you Lorien, I swear it." He said, his lips trailing down her throat and she sighed as they traced across her collarbone. She found his shoulder with her hand, laying on the bed and she stopped, her breath catching in her chest as he brushed the hem of her shift up her legs. She shook her head, pulling it back down and she trembled in fear. She pressed her lips together, and blinked back tears at the memory of the dream and he stopped. His eyes fixing on her face and she swallowed hard, her flushed cheeks and breath laced in desire and modesty.
"He... he took me in my dream. It... it was awful." She whimpered, and Loki lay back on the bed and sighed. He hated Brom, and he prayed that she would not fear him anymore when she saw him dead for his treason. "I am sorry Sir. But I cannot do this."
"Lorien, I understand. I will not force you, nor shall I dishonor you in that way." He said, taking her hand and putting it against the skin of his chest, closing the wrapped tunic over it. "I swear it, as long as this organ beats in my chest, you will not be harmed."
"Thank you Sir. I trust your words." She said and he let go of her hand. She moved closer to him, her hands closing over his and she lay her head on the pillows. "Would you just hold me, to keep the dreams that haunt me away?"
"I will, I would be honored." He said, kissing the top of her head and he smiled at her. He let her find a position that was comfortable, feeling her doze and he cursed everything that happened to her. He hated her being forced into Slavery, yet was happy it happened, for he never would have found her. Never have seen another like him, and never known that he had a chance to be in love with such a beautiful creature.
Three years ago, he searched the Archives for any records of the War. Finding a document covering a Village in the West, it was attacked by the Jotun and many brave souls were lost. Records indicating that a girl was taken as a thrall, and that is was Laufey who had taken her. The Villagers recounted her screams through the night, she returning in the morning, beaten and covered in her own blood. She told the people how she was raped, her body used by the King of the Jotuns and she was sent into the woods to die alone. Loki hated those people for rejecting her, and he learned the name of his mother in the end.
Aeron, his mother sent out to die, and most likely carrying him in her womb. He found some records later, how she made her way to Jotunheim, her belly round and she in the beginnings of labor. She pleaded with Laufey to save her baby, to raise the boy she birthed and she died bringing him into the world. His shorter stature marking him too weak to survive, and he being left in the temple as a sacrifice. He found Odin's account of finding him, nameless and starving near the cooling open body of his mother. The dead girl dying to give him life, and Odin had written that he gave the infant a name. He named Loki, his writing showing that he took pity on the infant and shielding him in his armor for the journey to Asgard. The entire time, raising the abandoned baby as his own son, never wanting the child to feel rejected by any man under his rule.
The bitter tears he shed as he read about the Rites given to his mother, marring the ancient text and falling on the pages. He had the truth, he was a bastard, born of a rape, and left to die in an act of rejection by his own sire. He was nothing to his own father, cared for by two people who though it wrong for him to die. The girl in his arms now, suffering the same fate. He mother delivering to her father, to be hidden and raised as as Asgardian but to never find her other half. To face a lifetime of loneliness, or to face being persecuted for the blood she carried in her veins.
He could just let the Coup occur, to hide what he and Lorien knew from Thor and Odin. Taking himself and she to hide, living out their days in the countryside and never bothering another soul. But allowing Frigga to be tortured, possibly forced to wed the murderer of her son and husband was a fate he could not allow to happen. For all his faults, she was his mother and he would not see her harmed by any force. She was only a gentle woman in her own rights, and she did not deserve any harm.
Soon dawn began to break, the sky turning gray and first light bathing the room. His mind making itself up as he looked down at the sleeping girl, her face relaxed and her hands curled between them. He would save the Line of Odin, and in return, he would demand the laws be changed or at least free Lorien. He wanted to free all the girls like her, and this particular one, he would marry and keep as his wife. Her sister being raised and tutored by the best scholars in Asgard, and allowed to choose her own path and profession. He smiled at the idea, a silent prayer in his heart that Lorien would accept his proposal. He pictured how beautiful she would look, the blushing virginal bride and he lay her on the bed to slip away to see Odin. To save a Royal Bloodline, to free all the slaves, and to claim the heart of one beautiful girl.