nine
"forgive but never forget"
The sensation of Loki's mouth on hers lingered as if it were her first. Not that she would ever forget her first. No, she would never forget Regina, but Loki was something else, something brand new with a spark that sent her entire body into flames.
Wildfire sprawling across the extensive plain of her skin as his fingers trailed up her leg, slipped beneath her dress she'd worn only because she knew green was his colour of choice. Thought it might sweeten the deal.
It must've done for his fingers didn't stop until they were between her legs, working their magic while her own hands wound through his hair, barely remembering to keep the protective illusory magic up.
Back pressed against the glass, they moulded together and she wondered if keeping him locked away was what had made him rougher than usual, a dark lust in his glinting eyes.
When release had come for her, she was more than ready and embraced it, back arching, toes curling as he pressed her harder against the glass, and her legs at his waist clenching around him.
Loki withdrew his hand and relented his grip. Her toes met the floor, shuddering from the coldness as her body flamed.
"Will there ever be a day you do not set me alight with a single touch?" Lusine whispered, his breath on her mouth as she spoke, sultry eyes brimming with longing.
Loki did not respond. Instead, he pulled back from her, pacing across the floor as she straightened her dress and fixed her hair.
Lusine watched him, flames dying down only slightly. If he were willing, she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
"You should leave," He said, closing himself off, "before they become suspicious of your absence."
"You want me to leave?" The fire was suffocated as her eyes shuttered.
"I do not want them to think you in league with me," Loki replied sternly, holding his ground as he folded his hands behind his back, facing away from her. "Perhaps you do not want to be anyway. A man can never know with deceiving eyes like yours."
"A man can never know anything if he does not look into those eyes," Lusine snapped back, the fire fizzling out and replaced by an icy wind. "Do you still not trust me after all that we have been through?"
Now he turned; she stepped back under the strength of his eyes. "You claim many things to be true, Lusine, but do you really mean it when you utter your words of loyalty from between those liar's lips?"
"Why are you pushing me away again?" Lusine questioned, taking two steps forward to make up for the one she'd lost. "I have lost too much to lose more."
The begging tone coiled around her voice that rattled her strong exterior, making the wolves in her heart appear nothing more than lap-dogs.
"Do you love me with that blackened heart of yours? Is it even capable of such feats anymore? or is it rendered irrelevant, controlled by the whim of the void? Do you love or do you simply find yourself lusting for my touch to set you alight?"He hissed, taking a step towards her, chin high as he looked down on her. "Am I just another one of your past-times on your path to destruction?"
Lusine grabbed his hand that dared point at her and held it tight.
"Have I not made my love for you clear?" She asked, cursing that she had to look up at him to speak. "I killed my own brother, betrayed my family, let myself be cast into the void all for you."
He raised his dark brows. "For me or for yourself?" He pulled his hand from her and turned to pace his glass cage.
"Everything I did, I did for you."
"I have had a lot of time to think whilst a prisoner of Midguardians. I came to wonder whether I was a fool for trusting you," He said.
"You can trust me," Lusine said, begged.
"Can I?"
The cruelty of his words stuck like a dagger in her spine, leaving her paralysed to the spot. Even after clawing herself from the grasp of death and declaring her love for him to be true, he still doubted her. Saw her as a tool, a weapon. Thought she saw him merely as a means to satisfy her needs and pushed her away with the same hands that had sent her into oblivion.
Beyond the voices telling her he was not worth her time, she'd given it all to him and now she lay on her back in the dust once again, bleeding out.
"I want to trust you, Lusine, do not misinterpret me," Loki claimed, putting a hand on his chest. "but I have come to the conclusion that I cannot."
Lusine pressed her lips together, fists clenching and un-clenching at her sides at her loyalty being painted as disloyalty, dishonesty.
"I ran myself into ruin for you," She breathed, clutching onto control tightly, praying that it did not slip between her fingers again. "And this is my repayment." Lusine forced her chin high. "You weren't complaining when your tongue was in my mouth."
Loki laughed lowly. "I can do this without you. I can conquer a world begging to be conquered without you. I can achieve glory without you by my side," He said, his voice strong and heavy, packed with the want that had plagued him for a lifetime. "And I will."
"I have never doubted you," Lusine shot back. Her voice was a growl in her throat as she snarled at him, "This is the last time I will allow you into my life as a lover. From the moment I leave this cell, you become my enemy," that familiar wolfish grin found its way onto her wet face, framed by her damp hair, "and I will stand between you and your victory until death. That I vow on my life and the honour of the Moon Goddess."
Before he could speak to her again, she teleported from the cell, took a step away as she stared in, face warped by disgust and tears that sent rivers running down her cheeks, currents rapid.
"You will not win, Loki Laufeyson." A voice of pure venom met his ears, her power rippling through the air as she swept from the room with a new conviction that could not be shaken even by the mightiest of hands.
A streak of light had shot through her black heart. The first in years. But it was strong, fierce and ready to battle head on with whatever might come her way. No matter who that may be.
-
-
Lusine tried her best to hold her head high as if her heart hadn't just crumbled to dust in the palm of the God of Mischief and Lies. Walking with conviction, but tearing apart on the inside because even after everything she'd done since first meeting those prickling green eyes, it still wasn't enough.
She wasn't enough and it had utterly ruined her.
Brushing the tears from her face, she drew in a breath to begin to steady herself, holding tight because if she was going to bring Loki to his knees before her wrath, she would need the Avengers to hold him down as she drove the dagger in.
As if conjured by the very thought, Steve Rogers came marching around the corner, face like thunder as thought consumed him.
And he very almost walked right past her. That was until he saw the state of her and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Is everything okay, Miss Volkov?" He asked, studying her closely with those ringed blue eyes.
"Yes," She replied stiffly, "and yourself, Captain?" The question fell from her lips before she would pull it back, but she found that she did not regret it when his expression opened to her.
"Are you busy right now?" Steve scratched the back of his neck, hoping for one answer but expecting another from the woman before him who'd needed to be pinned to the floor by an Asgardian to be restrained. And even then, maybe she could've fought her way free if it weren't for the tranquilliser.
"I was just-" Lusine cut herself off, standing a little taller. "No. I'm not busy," She said, deciding that if she needed them then they needed to trust her like one of their own. Only then could she achieve. "Is there something you need me to do for you, Captain?" She questioned, voice honeyed.
He blinked at her once, twice, before he replied, "Come with me. There's some unanswered questions that I am tired of waiting for answers for."
"Then lead the way," Lusine said, offering him a wonky smile obscured by cheeks that shone with fresh tears.
It wasn't until the two of them had slipped away into the storage room hidden from eyes that did not pry that Steve spoke again after jumping down onto the walkway.
"You've been crying," He commented, glancing over his shoulder at her as he moved through the cramped room and Lusine jumped down behind him, not faltering even for a second.
"I have," She confirmed shortly, the rawness of it still cooling, hissing like a hot steel blade shoved into a pool of water.
"It's not any of my business, clearly, but why were you crying? Homesickness?" He asked. His care was sweet, she had to admit and that little streak of light inside of her revelled in his kindness, basked in his brightness where it had only known darkness for too long.
Lusine remained silent for a moment, considering whether she should indulge him in her qualms and decided that the best foot forward would be honesty, even in the face of shame.
"Steve," She began, his name strong and true in her bristling voice, "if I tell you this, you must not tell it to anyone. Not a soul. Do you understand me?"
He turned his head to look at her again, frowned a little but said, "It is not my story to tell, Miss Volkov. You have my word."
"Thank you," She replied. "After I woke today after my... incident," his expression seemed to falter at its mention, "I took the time to rest, shower and then I wanted to see Loki. So, I went and used my abilities to get in."
"You didn't let him out, did you?" His panic rose above them.
Lusine sighed through her nose. "No, of course I didn't."
Steve had stopped walking and turned to face her, to pay attention to what she had to say because the gentlemanly side to him couldn't have his back to her whilst she explained the cause of those staining tears at her eyes.
"At first, I was pleased to see him and he seemed pleased to see me too. The two of us have had many fights and flaws in our past, but in that moment we were good and he looked at me like I was the moon on a dark night, held me like I was his. Everything was good until he turned on me again, belittled me with his words and told me he didn't need me at his side. To him, I am nothing but a weapon of mass destruction and that is the sharpest blade between the ribs."
Lusine drew in a shaking breath, squeezing her eyes shut to hold in the tears. No more, she begged herself, no more tears over him.
He doesn't care about you beyond the power you posses.
"Have you ever had your heart crushed by someone you gave everything to? Let rule your entire life. Have you ever let someone run you into the ground, grinding you down to the bare bones where you could barely remember who you were through the grip that controlled you? Because that is a killer, ripping me apart, tooth and claw."
Her throat was tight. Constricting the words as they rose from her mouth, crossing the distance between them. Whatever power lay within her was too slow to snatch them back before they flew.
"I knew that you had relations with Loki," Steve said, "but I did not know that it was in this manner. I'm sorry for the way he has treated you."
Lusine almost laughed. "Why are you sorry?" The wonky smile was back again. "You're not the one who kept going back to him even though he'd made me bow at his feet. Never his equal. How could I be so stupid?"
"You're not stupid," Steve braced a hand on her shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze, "you were just in love."
"Love makes you blind," Lusine whispered emptily as she placed a hand over his. "Loyalty makes you nothing but a shell."
Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Lusine cut him off wanting to secure his promise of silence with power, but choosing to trust in the Captain in stars and stripes. "Now, let's find whatever you came here for and get the hell out of here."
With the warm smile he gave her, she knew his silence was secured and she took a moment to bask in the prospect that she'd accomplished without the use of her power for once, for the first time in a long time. Lusine returned the smile genuinely. It reached the corners of her mouth and flooded her eyes with a brightness that Steve didn't think he'd actually ever seen in her before.
And it floored him.
-
2309 words
28.4.18
don't worry, lusine isn't going to fall in love with cap like 2 seconds after she declared war on loki lmao