When Loki's consort and soulmate marries his rival to save their son from a curse, a prophecy leads to consequences even the God of Chaos couldn't predict.
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The Unseelie Goddess of War's revenge against Asgard's Dark Prince puts him in a no-win s...
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"Damn, but I missed you," Loki said as soon as he cleared the portal horizon behind Elatha and I. His pleasure at reconnecting surged down the bond.
Yet, I sensed something else as well. Curiosity, anticipation, and even some worry blended together with strong arousal. There were some very explicit musings going on, and it wasn't Loki or me. After this many months, I knew the flavour of his thoughts, compared to my own.
"Are you picking up on this?" I asked Loki, sending him one of the more interesting images that passed through my thoughts as we followed Elada out of the portal chamber.
"No, not at all. I guess that definitively answers the question on whether or not he's your soulmate as well. It seems Elatha isn't aware of what he's sending you. You've gotten good at only sending what you want, with less leaking through the bond. He may not realize it's activated between the two of you," Loki told me, both amused by the image and also... there was something there he hid from me. "He's got excellent taste. Your ass is divine, darling."
"But shouldn't you be picking up on his thoughts as well?" I asked.
"Did you want to rest or head up to the surface immediately?" Elada asked, distracting us from our mental conversation.
He turned to face us as we came out into a large park-like area. Like the Atlantean outpost we'd just left, there were walkways, fountain-looking structures I assumed were connected to the transport system, and clusters of silver spires in various spokes of a central wheel structure. We'd come from a central spire and above us, the green glow of an energy dome stretched overhead.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"We're currently at a midpoint, approximately equally distant to India, Australia, and Antarctica," Manannan said. "Where do you need to go?"
"China," Loki replied. "The closest door to Helheim is in the Wei River Valley in Shaanxi Province, as that's where the largest loss of life has occurred in the shortest period of time in the last millenia."
Elada nodded. "Right. The big earthquake about five hundred years ago. We felt the tremors in our outpost off the coast of China and Japan."
"It would be better if we rested at that outpost, instead of here. I'll need to contact the Shen before we enter China, since we'll be going through what they consider to be their territory," Loki said. "It might take them some time to reply, or they might be available to see us immediately."
"It's a five day swim to get to that outpost from this one," Elatha said. "Unless you have a faster way to get there?"
"Heimdall can't pinpoint the location of your outposts with the interference of the water's energies, so although the bifrost could pick us up from the surface, he wouldn't know where to set us down to be near the outpost," Loki said.
I was surprised at Loki's willingness to give the Atlanteans that information.
"It's to Asgard's advantage if we can build an alliance. I'm sure they've wondered why we've never attempted to visit since they moved their cities under the water," he reassured me, answering my unvoiced question. "We've had very limited contact with them over the last four thousand years here, although its only been eight hundred on Asgard and Alfheim. I've always wondered if it was our war with the Sidhe around that time that prompted them to sink their cities."
