Darkness Vanquished (A Loki Love Story) Book 3 in Darkness Series

Without You

*This chapter contains sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.

(His point of view)

Her eyes burn into mine. I see the sudden look of deep concern written within them as she discovers my relentless tears. But past that, I see my whole world layed out before me. My entire future, every single moment of time to come. My entire existence is bound to her soul, and it overwhelms me to the point of bewilderment.

My once frozen, unfeeling heart is aching without mercy. It distorts in mangled beats from no longer having the ability to withstand this overpowering moment. Now that I am with her again, here in OUR home. Now that I have her safely in my arms, clinging so lovingly to my body. I have longed for this to the point of madness...to the point of losing all remaining sanity that had been left within me after she was taken.

It all comes washing over me as the incredible force of feelings cry out in undeniable realization.

She is really here. She is back home. With me. She is really alive. She is with me again.....

All of the horror that I have been forced to trample through, all of the pain that I have endured. All of the damage that was done to my heart as I lay, watching her struggling for breath in that hel of a dungeon. It all comes, roaring and thrashing in torrential waves. It smothers me from the inside out. I look up at her and for an instant, all I can see is that gruesome and bloodied mask that wore on her face. Her swollen, black eyes. Her dry and cracked lips. Her beautiful, brown hair completely mangled and caked in dried blood. The green hue of her sickly skin. The withered, disturbingly waning prominence of her protruding cheek bones. The look of the dead had drenched her being. She had become death. And it took her. Death took her from me.

I lost her....I lost her.....I could not get to her in time. She was gone........

I swallow painfully, almost heaving from the struggle against my building sobs. I tighten my arms around her, clinging to her for dear life. She takes my face in her hands once again, forcing me to keep my eyes on hers.

"Loki, what is it?" Her gentle whisper is heaven as her warm breath breezes over my moistened cheeks. I want to speak, but if I open my mouth again, I will lose it. If I part my lips even once more, I will be forced to succumb to my domineering anguish.

"Please, Loki, tell me what is wrong." The yearning in her voice only increases my internal agony. I shake my head, attempting to release my face from her grasp. But she does not loosen her grip on me. She curls her fingers around my cheeks, wiping away my now gushing tears with her soft thumbs.

"You can tell me," she whispers. I inhale through my nose. The purity of her fragrance instantly swallows me whole, summoning my lips to barely part as I release my withheld breath. And just as I had feared, I almost shout as I give into my torment. I bury my face in her chest, sobbing without further restraint. I hold onto her so tightly that my arms begin to shake. But their tingling numbness does not even phase me as I only pull her in nearer to me. I could never have her close enough. Not after what has happened.....

She wraps her arms around my neck before allowing one of her hands to run through my hair. She begins rocking me every so gently. I feel her rest her cheek on top of my head. I attempt to hone in on the beating of her live heart as it is pressed against my ear. I then focus in on the subtle thuds, one after the other. I silently thank the gods above that it is beating once again, that it is not motionless and still, rotting away in the empty vessel that was once her body. This only tears at my insides all the more as my eyes twitch from the horrid memory.