I stretch luxuriously, fully conscious of Loki’s eyes on me. His face is very appreciative, and I don’t think he realises he’s licking his lips. I give him a roguish smile and ask, “Seeing something you like?”

“Oh, yes,” he breathes, advancing on me. I laugh, scrambling backward, and turning a fall off the bed into a quick roll that brings me to my feet. The wide bed lies spread between us. Loki’s smile acquires a predatory edge as I bite my lip and fade back to the wall. Slowly, he leans forward, planting his hands on the edge of the bed. “How far will you run, my Synne?”

“Oh, not far,” I tell him, using one of his own tricks and leaving a fetch in my place. Invisibility is a specialty of my own, and I use it now to slip around behind him into the wider part of the room. I don’t like seeing myself from outside, but the amusement of this game is more than worth the slight discomfort. A caress of my fingers becomes a brush of air against Loki’s cheek as he reaches out to my fetch.

Laughter gives away my location as his head whips around, shorter hair swinging around his face. I drop the invisibility and dart behind the huge wooden fire-settle, still giggling. The speed of his lunge across the room takes me by surprise, and before I can respond he has me by the shoulders, gazing down into my face.

As ever, his sheer presence serves to steal my breath away. All our merriment falls away as we look at each other, stillness closing around like a cloak. I cherish these moments, the warmth in his green eyes as they rove my face, the soft brush of his fingers pushing the hair out of my eyes, the parting of his lips just before he leans down to kiss me.

We have learnt to slow the frantic edge of our need, drawing time out slow as honey with teasing. His fingers, long and supple, thread into my curls, cradling the back of my head. I let my tongue trace the edge of his lip, taunting. I do not taunt long before his kisses become more demanding, teeth biting at my mouth. I whine, low in my throat, and scrape my nails on the bones behind his ears. His hands run down along my spine to wrap my waist, bringing a shudder to my body.

Loki lifts me, and I love his strength, trailing gentler kisses, tiny and soft like kitten toes, all over my face. I let my head fall back, and he takes the implied invitation to my throat, drawing his lips along to the pulse there. He licks it, and I shudder again. “Synne,” he whispers against my throat.

“Loki,” I say back, slow and languorous. I pull forward and lean my forehead against his shoulder, wrapping my arms around him.

“You are amazing,” he murmurs, and I smile.

“I love you,” I tell his shoulder hesitantly. The jolt as my feet hit the floor is startling, but not as much as the dramatic pressure of Loki’s mouth on mine. He is crushing me in his arms, a desperation in his touch that has been absent these long months. I can barely breathe for the passionate fervour of these kisses. Before I know what is happening, he’s swept my feet from under me and has laid me out on the bearskin, still kissing me. A swift half-second brush of his hand has me nude beneath him.

I open my mouth to speak, and one long hand closes over it. For once, obedient, I fall silent. He lifts his hand, gazing down on me. “Stay you there and wait for me.” I turn my hands out in acquiescence. He rises over me, tall and dark and slender and everything I dream of, and begins very deliberately to remove his garb by hand. I have to clench my nails into my palms to keep from moving, from simply tumbling him to the floor with me.

Each inch of pale skin revealed is more tempting than the last. The way Loki smiles at me, I know he knows my thought. Finally, finally, he is unclothed, and kneels back over me, splaying his hands over my hips. He gives me my favourite sly smile, and with tantalising patience slips one long finger into me. I cannot restrain a gasp, and Loki’s chuckle answers me. He takes his time, first one finger, then two, and three, paying attention to the small bud of flesh between my thighs, pulling me to the edge and letting me slide back.

This is a new form, but now I recognise the game, same as it has ever been. He pushes, I resist, until one of us gives in. I know he will win this round, but the play is in how long I may hold out against him. I give Loki a challenging smile, daring him onward.

He pushes my thighs apart now, settling between them, and I admire the smooth flow of his muscles as he leans down to replace fingers with tongue. I’m only left to feel the loss of fulfillment for a moment before his hands are back at their work, drawing me upward to dizzying heights. Over and over, until I give in and plead, “Loki, please, I need you.”

His answering laughter against my skin is nearly enough, until his sudden absence draws me back yet again. I am writhing desperately beneath him, letting my whole body beg for release. The yearning is so very strong I am reduced to whispering, “Please,” under my breath.

The pleasure and relief is utterly indescribable as soon as he sheathes himself in me. The breath is driven out of my body yet again. I can hear it in his groan when he comes to rest deep within my body, burying his face in my neck. “Permission to move?” I say, low, and he nods.

Some things, I have learnt in our time together, and one of them is the way of caressing him within me without need of great external motion. I clasp him tight, and it occurs to me that I could return the favour he paid me, drawing things out, but my own eagerness overrides that thought. I roll my hips, liquid and just enough to keep us spiralling upward into bliss, and take my climax at the moment Loki gasps my name, like a prayer.

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“Brother!” roars Thor exuberantly across the dining chamber. Loki winces slightly, brushing a hand over his temple. Despite numerous — distractions, he had in fact spent a great deal of the night studying evolutions of shapeshifting spells, and consequently not gotten much sleep. He’d hoped to slip in, collect some food, and slip out again, none the wiser, to return to his abandoned bedmate.

Luck is not at all on his side, however, as close on Thor’s heels come the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif. Volstagg immediately swaggers over to clap Loki upon the shoulder. “I hear you have joined the ranks of men, young Silver-tongue!” he booms, helping himself to everything upon the boards. “Who is the lucky maiden?”

Loki casts about in vain for escape; even Hogun’s usually grim visage shows signs of humour. Fandral is openly grinning, the bastard.

“I’d … rather not say,” he manages, fighting down a blush.

“Oh, come now!” Volstagg cajoles. “What, are you shamed?”

“I confess, I had thought, brother, that you were a lover of men!” Thor laughs.

Loki thinks privately it is just as well he were not, for he is well aware that in his own mind no man can measure up to Thor.

“May not a man keep some things to himself?” he protests.

All four men grin at him, clearly expecting him to boast. He busies himself piling a platter with small foods, trying not to meet any eyes. Even Sif is arching an inquiring eyebrow in his direction.

He turns, and Fandral is at his side suddenly, peering into his face, a slight frown etching his brows. “Was it not good, lad?” he asks, quietly. “Is that why you won’t say?”

He gives up trying not to blush, and concentrates instead on not fleeing the room. Several unfamiliar expressions flicker over Fandral’s face, and out of the corner of his eye Loki sees him motion behind his back. Incredibly, Thor instantly turns and engages Hogun and Sif in conversation. Fandral lounges against the serving board, arms folded, and eyes Loki.

“You have lain with a woman, and yet you blush like a boy still, Loki. Did you think we would think less of you?”

“You could hardly think less of me, for how little you think of me now,” Loki mutters.

Fandral acknowledges this with a wry snort, but presses on. “You do not bear the look of a man unsatisfied. In fact, you look … well-satisfied, indeed. What harm in telling us the girl’s name? Do you wish to keep her for yourself? Surely you will tire of her eventually.”

Loki bites his lip, hard. What he wants is to smash Fandral across the face for what he is suggesting, and only the thought that Fandral does not know the truth holds him back. What he says, carefully, is, “I will not have you speak so.”

Stark astonishment paints Fandral’s face while he whispers, “You’ve fallen in love with the girl.”

“No,” Loki denies immediately. He’s not even sure if he’s lying or not; he just doesn’t want Fandral to be the one who helps him to that sort of revelation.

“For fuck’s sake, Loki,” Fandral mutters, covering his eyes with one hand. “A bit of honesty wouldn’t go amiss right now.”

Loki eyes him sidelong. “I’m not trusting you, Fandral,” he hisses. “Leave off, or I’ll fill your bed with snakes.”

Fandral raises one eyebrow, making a cynical face. “Fine. Keep your secrets. Keep your girl.”

Balancing his full platter on one hand, Loki bares his teeth at Fandral in what cannot possibly be called a smile. “I always have.” Pausing on his way out the door, he glances back. “As for my lady, I shall keep her.”

He revels in the stunned silence he leaves behind.

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He has been aware of Synne watching him for a long time, as if suddenly a new and kinder spotlight were focussed on him. It is little trouble to manufacture an encounter in a location inimical to spellwork, to trap the girl so he can probe her intentions.

It’s something of a shock to him to discover just how completely transparent she is, how utterly guileless. It’s unfamiliar … and desperately welcome. A friend. A friend with no ulterior motives, no creeping desires. He latches on to it with the vigour of a drowning man for water, and nurturing the relationship is easy.

Not like his relationships with the Warriors Three (impossibly grandiose name for the trio of fighters that follow his brother’s every whim) or his relationship with Sif; struggling, stunted things centred around the training rings and his combat-mad brother. His frustrating, golden brother. That relationship doesn’t bear thinking about.

Yet somehow Synne coaxes it out of him, slowly; with her simple silences, slyly worded questions, merry laughter, and continuous, unflagging interest in him, over his brother. He can’t remember a time when he has been the focus of someone’s sole attention in a good way, though he knows it must have happened. He does notice, over time, that she never takes sides. So a seed of doubt remains.

After all, he is no stranger to deep-laid plans.

---

He hopes Synne doesn’t notice how he’s been watching her; they have been working together over the shapeshifting spells for some time now. He, of course, had little trouble mastering the basic spell-runes, but Synne struggles, so he has been tutoring her. And watching her.

He finds it a little troubling, how much he can’t keep his eyes off her. True, she is an elegant exemplar of a young Vanr lady, blossoming out into curves and long limbs, joyous face framed as ever by tumbling and unruly blonde curls. But there are other ladies of Asgard who cast her immature beauty into shadow (Amora, whose epithet is the Enchantress, comes to mind), and he can find no reason within himself why his attention should be wrapped up in this one.

He considers laying the matter before an adult, as he had done with ease as a child, but adolescent sensibilities hold him back. And he keeps watching her. Watching is all he can bring himself to do, ridden by fear of rejection as he is. Synne is the one person in Asgard he feels he can claim as <i>his</i> friend; he can’t countenance disrupting that.

But … is she watching him? No, more likely her mind is caught up in thoughts of the many young warriors that throng the courts of Asgard (boring, sweaty, uncouth fellows). He calls her name, and nothing has ever surprised him so much as what follows. He does not mean to reveal his hesitant hopes, but the word tumbles out of his mouth before he can call it back.

And then she is kissing him shyly, and instinct overwhelms caution; his arms go round her supple form and he can hardly bring himself to let go. But he has to know; the doubt will devour him if he does not ask. “Synne, are you sure?” It nearly chokes him to say it, but he forces the words out. “Is it not my brother you want?”

Her answer surprises and delights him, and even as she bespells his outer clothing away, he spares a moment to wonder how he ever could have doubted her. She has always been loyal. He pulls her down, unable to bear another moment without kissing her sweet mouth again. In fact, every bit of her body should be kissed and worshiped, and he proceeds to do so, removing her clothes with the same spell, and beginning with her temples and working down.

Afterward, as they lie together in his bed (he cannot quite believe his luck), she shapes him a sweet compliment, and slyly demands more kisses. The joy on her face makes him feel better than he ever has before; Synne’s radiant smile is entirely due to him. Their kisses become slow and languorous, and he takes the time to try some of the other things he has overheard Thor and Fandral mention. The warmth of her body next his is glorious.

What, he wonders, has he done to earn this?

And how long before it, too, is dragged away?

He resolves, on the verge of sleep, to cling as tightly as he can. If nothing else, this one thing will be his alone.

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We are sprawled together on Loki’s enormous pale bearskin, which together we had hunted and caught, in a traditional way for once, his sword and my seithr (and how pleased was Odin Allfather as we dragged the carcass back to the palace) — we are sprawled before the fire, and he is lecturing me about shapeshifting, a skill which he has mastered and I have not. But I have stopped paying attention to the words, and I listen only to the smooth flow of his voice. Already he is being called Silver-tongue, for the elegant shapes of his words and honed perfection of tone.

For myself, I do not think often on Loki’s voice. I only revel in it, as flowers do in sunlight.

“Synne?” The change of tone is what captures my attention. My awareness slips back to reality from fantasies I hesitate to admit, and I realise that I am staring at him, and he is very close. I hope desperately that he thinks the heat of my face due only to the flames, and something small, and new, and precious inside wonders if it would be so bad for him to think differently.

I can’t bear to look away from his eyes now, so green against his pale skin, even paler framed by black hair. I’m sure everything I’m thinking is written on my face. I’ve never yearned for a mind-reading spell so much in my life.

“You look so serious,” he says now, frowning very slightly. “Were you even listening to me, Synne? Though you struggle with these spells, I did not think it required such concentration. Where has your thought gone?”

“I did let my mind wander,” I reply slowly.

“Your gaze … I thought for a moment … but it is of no moment.” Loki smiles at me, and it is almost his familiar grin, full of mischief, but it has an edge now, an edge that is both new and familiar. It is the smile he wears, these days, as he accompanies Thor, and the Warriors Three, and my old companion Sif, now a warrior among warriors. I pretend to myself that only I, of Loki’s friends, see him most truly.

I return his smile, and ungovernable instinct leads me to say, “What did you think I was thinking of, Loki?”

“Me,” he whispers, so low I can ignore it if I wish, and I realise, tardily, what that edge on his smile is made of.

It is always being second. It is learning seithr, and being half-shamed that his aptitude is for magic and not combat. It is feeling inferior, and always comparing himself to his brother, and always, always wanting to be more and not knowing how.

And now there is a new thing I want deeply, more than anything in my life, and it is to blunt that edge on Loki’s smile and blot the sadness from his eyes. Nothing but the snap of the fire fills the room now, and if I let myself think about what it is I am going to do, it won’t happen, so I don’t think, I just lean upward and hold Loki’s gaze, and brush his lips with mine. Almost instantly his arms are about my shoulders, and everything fierce and hungry fills the kiss.

I want to laugh, tasting the desire he pours into the meeting of our mouths and yet the restraint he is exercising not to simply take control. If there is anything a daughter of the Vanir knows, it is seithr and sex. This may be my first personal taste of the latter, but I am not uninformed, merely inexperienced. When Loki lets go, I know, it will be as so much else between us, a heady struggle for leadership.

For myself, merely initiating this kiss is all the letting go I need. Everything is Loki and there is no more pain. Trusting my weight to his grip, I wrap my hands into his hair, growing long and curling about his shoulders, and set my teeth gently into his lip. The gasp he makes into my mouth is very rewarding. I can feel his shoulders beginning to tremble, and even as he is returning the favour he lowers me to the rug and braces his hands either side of my head.

“Synne, are you sure?” There is so much tangled in his tone, wonder and fear and anguish and yearning and need, it is almost a blow. “Is it not my brother you want?”

This, now, is foolishness, and I intend to make certain he knows it. I mind myself of a trick or two Sif has taught me, and turn the tables on Loki. His shock at my manoeuvre is plainly writ on his face as I kneel over his prone body. I laugh, soft and low, and stroke my fingertips down his chest. Beneath my hand, his jerkin and tunic fade away, leaving naught but undershirt. Bending over until our noses touch, I whisper, “Your brother doesn’t deserve me, Loki Odinsson.”

“And so I do?” His tone is sardonic, but without the cutting edge with which he is wont to flay the slower-witted in Asgard.

A smile crinkles my eyes. I remind him, drawing back slightly, “I could quite easily fend off any unwanted advance by your so … impetuous brother. He has made none.”

“As to that, neither have I,” Loki ripostes.

“Until now,” I say. “You appreciate me, and I appreciate you. Let us form a mutual appreciation society, and leave your brother out of it.” I do not leave him time to argue further; the war of words is one in which Loki revels, but it is not that type of combat in which I wish to engage. So I stop his mouth with mine.

There is no question of force when he responds enthusiastically, pulling me down to him. There are no worthy comparisons for the way his mouth tastes, or the caress of his hands along my bare skin. I smile into this kiss, recognising the same spell with which I partially disrobed him but a moment before. Spilling me over onto the rug again, he smooths hair out of my face and presses kisses into my hairline before rising over me, silhouetted against the firelight.

It throws golden shadows onto his white skin and lays a canny, catlike sheen in his green eyes. “You are so beautiful, Loki,” I murmur, breathlessly watching him remove the rest of his clothing. Every inch revealed makes me long to possess him that much more, to exchange marks and dominances and every other thing we can think of.

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he says, sly, and I laugh and tell him, “You are a delight to my eyes. No one else matters.”

For that I earn another kiss, slow and hot and probing. The flicker of desire that fuels my daydreams is swiftly being fanned into conflagration; I want Loki. I let my eyes slip closed and learn him with my fingertips – the soft arch of his ears, perfectly sloping down to the line of his throat; the hollow of his collarbones, too thin in some eyes but perfectly suited to his lean build. The faint marks of combat-scars on his arms, some of them made by me, stand out like brands under the blind sensitivity of my hands. With the lightest possible touch I glide down over his chest, tracing the outline of muscles in his abdomen, and feel him tremble.

All the while, he is lavishing my upper body with kisses, shaping the line of my jaw with his lips, gently biting at my earlobe, licking the hollow behind my ear and drawing his teeth down the curve of my shoulders. A faint hum of magic accompanies the tingle of tiny sparks along the nerves of my collarbone. “Look at me,” Loki whispers against my skin, and so I do.

His eyes are enormous and crystal-dark, his mouth flushed pink, and I cannot help the hum that escapes me. It brings a smile to his face, different than any I have ever seen, and which I cannot describe. His hands capture mine, pressing them against the floor. I resist, to start with, but he gives a minute shake of his head, and I allow him to overpower me.

“What are you doing?” I ask laughingly. My hands are pinioned, but my legs are free, and I twine them about his calves, tracing with my toes idle runic patterns. He lays his forehead against mine, and his hair, dark as a starless night, falls to curtain our faces.

“I wish to possess you,” he murmurs, his tone rough.

“And yet you hesitate, and restrain me,” I tease, kissing the tip of his nose.

“I … ” he begins, and falters into silence.

Intuitively, I think he must feel the same as I: there is ever trepidation when embarking on a thing never before attempted. “I, too,” I tell him, very quietly. “But I had rather not beg. No thought of consequence has ever given you pause before; shall it now?”

“No,” he responds sharply, challenge-light flaring in his eyes.

My smile curves in response, and I use my legs to pull him closer to me, though my arms are yet held in his grip. Our hips meet, and his eyes roll closed at the sensation. There is heat and pressure and wetness in even this limited joining, and I rock my hips into it. “Please,” I whisper involuntarily, “please, Loki.”

“Not here,” he manages at last, releasing my wrists to support himself over me. “You deserve better than the floor, Synne of the Vanir.” A twist of his hips and thighs frees him from the cage of my legs, and he thrusts himself to a kneeling position at my side. “My Synne,” he says tenderly, and pulls me up into his arms.

I bury my face in his hair, breathing in deeply. My heart is pounding, my limbs trembling. Despite my mother’s teaching, I nearly feel my body has betrayed me with this near-uncontrollable desire. We kneel, clasped each in the other’s hold, for a brief moment.

Then Loki springs to his feet, pulling me along, and I do not resist, and we stumble along the floor, pausing every few steps to plunge into heady kisses, our hands seeking every opportunity to touch the other. In the shadowy reaches of Loki’s rooms, I cannot see the low bed until he tumbles me upon it, crawling up the length of my naked body.

The heat of our closeness is nigh unbearable. His long fingers wrap around my hips, and I fumble to grasp and direct his phallus. Poised, we pause, gazing, hardly daring to breathe.

Then he pulls my hips upward to meet his, and slides deep within me. Every fibre of my being focusses to that point of meeting, and I am distantly aware of lunging toward his descending mouth and locking my arms about his neck. He is growling, faintly, deep in his throat, and I cannot resist giggling into the kiss. Loki nips at my mouth, each one punctuated by a thrust, and it doesn’t take very long before I am helpless to giggle, moaning into his chest and curving my fingertips into his shoulders.

We ride a rhythm like the wild crashing of the seas, and the tension I feel gathering in my body I can liken only to the thrumming of the Bifrost’s power. I find myself grasping his hair, and half our kisses, frantic and gasping, land far elsewhere than mouths. Loki’s eyes, green and black and fierce, remain fixed to my face, and mine to his.

Freeing one hand, Loki brushes his fingertips along my cheek and traces into my hair. His pace slows. “Synne, ah Synne,” he whispers, and the pleasure the slower pace engenders in me is excruciating. I know we have come to this joining untouched by any other, and I cannot think enough to comprehend how he came by this knowledge of how to please a woman. I throw my head back against the thrilling of my nerves.

Somehow, Loki manages to roll us over, and now I ride above him, and he thrusts up into me, bringing a new blaze of ecstasy into my body. Now that he need no longer support himself above me, his hands roam my skin, tracing runes over breasts and abdomen and sliding over my hips. I reach one hand toward him, and he clasps it tightly and brings it to his lips, dragging kisses full of teeth over my knuckles.

I bite my lip, overwhelmed by sensation, and once again throw my head back, trailing my hair along his thighs. I feel him chuckle against our joined hands, then his other hand is between my parted thighs, doing I know not what. I know only that in conjunction with his phallus within me and his mouth against my fingers, I am utterly drowned in sensation, and the coiled tension whiplashes up my body.

His name tumbles from my mouth as I climax, and mine draws him pulsing within me, his lips shaping my name against my hand.

Gasping, I struggle not to collapse against Loki, but he draws me down to rest on his heaving chest. I nestle my face into the curve of his neck, kissing away the fine sweat there. One arm holds fast about my shoulders. He brings his other hand to his lips, licking at the fingertips, and I cannot help hiding my blushes.

His body vibrates with his laugh, even while he repositions us once more, side by side and facing one another. The motion disengages our bodies and I whimper. Loki’s hand to my mouth silences me. He tips my face up just enough to capture my mouth in a passionate kiss, and another tremble wracks my body.

“I do not know what to say to you,” he murmurs, breaking the kiss. I put my hand into his, and smile in utter happiness.

“Whatsoever is said of your skill with a sword in combat, you and I will know of your prowess with the sword of the loins,” I whisper.

His eyebrows arc upward in surprise before a pleased smile curls his mouth. “I don’t know how to return that compliment,” he tells me.

“Then put your mouth to better use,” I suggest.

Smiling with more contentment than I have seen in a long time, Loki complies.

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He can hear the whispers.

He cannot remember a time when he could not hear the whispers, around him. There is no silence for him.

Sometimes he cannot make out what they are saying, and he conjures words in his mind. Other times, the speech is all too clear, and he longs desperately for the unintelligible susurrus, which is terrible, but hurts less. Always, always, even when he is alone, he knows there are eyes upon him.

How could there not be? He is a prince of Asgard.

He does not know if he can be what they expect of him. Even if there were not — Thor — he fears he would fail to live up to the expectations of his people. As it is, how could he not falter in comparison to his mighty brother, so obvious an exemplar of Asgardian values?

He wishes to be a skald, fears he suffices only as a jester. What worth his skills in seithr to a society whose highest value is combat? It is long since a man’s magic drew the derogatory epithet argr, but he hears it hissed in dark corners.

Why can they not value him for what he is? Truly, he does not wish to compete with his brother for the throne; he wishes, childishly, that his father could rule forever. Underneath that wish, though, is the dread of Thor’s ascent to the throne.

He is beginning to be called Silver-tongue, for his wit and skill at deception, but he does not ever lie to himself. His brother is mighty, but he is rash, and hasty, and disinclined to listen to counsel, even from his brother. These are not qualities sought in a king.

Yet what can he do? Any word he speaks is considered by most to be envy of his brother. And his father is so tired. Sometimes it shocks him, how very tired his father is. He dares not add to Odin’s burden.

All he wants, truly, is for life to be easy. Simple. Pleasant. To be honoured for his own skills, not merely as Thor’s brother, Odin’s son. Something for himself.

Maybe then the whispers would stop. Maybe then he could stop comparing himself, ceaselessly, to all he knows, and falling short.

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