The Last Shifter (a Loki romance)

Chapter 63

The first thing I saw when we reached Asgard was Heimdall lying unconscious on the floor. I tried Loki again but still got nothing. Something was very wrong.

"Get him to the healing room! Leave my brother to me."

"Hey, that's my husband you're talking about!"

"Arista, he lied!"

"I know, and I had a personal hand of developing those lies! You were not fit to be king, that's why Odin banished you, we needed to trigger a personality change in order to bring you back. We did that! Now all we need to do is wait for Odin to wake up!"

"If he ever wakes up, you yourself said even mother has little hope!"

"Can we not fight about this now? Come on! Look at Heimdall, we've been invaded and I can't contact Loki!"

"How do you know we've been invaded?"

"Look!" There were two dead Frost Giants on the bridge, "They'll be here to kill Odin while he's vulnerable and asleep."

"Come on." Thor grabbed me and used Mjolnir to fly us up to my balcony. The doors to Odin's room were open and there was an icy trail leading to it.

"Let's hope we're not too late." I grabbed a dagger, not that it would do much good against a Frost Giant, but it would be something. But I had no need to worry, we found Loki embracing Frigga, another dead Jotun, and a pile of ashes up against the wall.

"Loki!"

"Thor!" I ran to my husband and Frigga rushed to her biological son.

"I couldn't reach you. I got so scared! What happened?"

"I made one more desperate attempt to impress father. The Jotuns are leaderless now." I gave the ashes a second look.

"Laufey?" Loki nodded.

"He's dead. He's gone."

"You realize what this means, right?"

"That my monstrous father is dead?"

"It also means that you're king of Jotunheim." Loki's eyes grew wide.

"Why don't you tell her?" Thor butted in, "How you sent the Destroyer to kill innocents and to battle me!"

"What?"

"I was trying to erase the knowledge of his presence from any Midgardian government and to see if you would sacrifice yourself for the sake of those innocents. The sort of quality a king should have, to know when too much is too much."

"You're a talented liar, brother. You always have been."

"It's good to have you back. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to destroy Jotunheim." He used Gungnir to push Thor through the wall and turned to leave but I got in front of him.

"Wait, Loki–"

"Please don't try and stop me. I cannot cope with being the rightful ruler of the cold hell."

"Have you forgotten everything I told you?! About–"

"Just stop!" He shoved me out of his way and left before I could stop him and Frigga was by my side in seconds.

"Go after him! There is something dark about him that wasn't there yesterday!"

"What was he doing today?"

"I do not know, I was here."

"I should never have left him."

"You could not have known, just go after him."