The Heat of the Snow // A Loki Fanfiction

Chapter 8

Warning! Sexual content ;) And extra long chapter, please let me know what you think so far <3

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The sky is still clear by the time you and Loki make it to the dogsled—completely at odds with the turmoil going on inside your head. You don't know how you've got yourself into this situation. It's not like you make it a habit to hang around the guests. In fact, you try to have as little to do with them as possible.

What's so different about him? It can't be the fact that he's good looking. Nor how you catch him looking at you as if you were a glass of cold water on a hot summer's day. The intensity of his gaze makes you uncomfortable, so it can't be that.

Maybe it's about how he makes you feel something other than the usual day-to-day feelings you try to run from...?

You roll your eyes and call out another command to the dogs, angrily aware of Loki's presence at your side. There are several layers of thick winter clothes between you, but there might as well not be. His heat permeates your jacket as if you were skin to skin.

Does he have this effect on everyone? He must do. Even your father was taken in by him—treated him differently to how he treats other guests. Why?

You cast a sideways glance in his direction, your breath catching when his eyes meet yours—so fucking blue, they could be carved out of the ice beneath your feet. With a shiver, you tell yourself to concentrate. The routes are dangerous up here. The last thing you need is to be distracted by some guy who knows how hot he is.

That's when his gloved hand brushes your side. And you gasp, keeping your face fixed forwards.

"How long to go?" Loki shouts through the wind.

The dogs bark as they round another corner. "A...a little while yet," you manage to shout back. If he does that again, I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe throw him off the sleigh.

For the next fifteen minutes, you focus on the horizon, and mercifully, so does he. The glades of untouched pillows of snow, the trees with their heavy hanging branches, the clear sky—a dark shade of blue and pink, touched only by the smallest curve of sunlight. The way the soft light glitters through every snowflake as it falls. A hidden wonderland in a cruel unforgiving world.

You pull slowly to a stop by a particularly large glade with an overhanging shelter, and the next time you glance at Loki, his mouth is open in wonder. For a moment, you can't help staring at him—being witness to the private feeling of seeing this place for the first time. You're hungry for his reaction, suddenly excited for his approval.

"What do you think?" you ask breathlessly.

For a long while, Loki can't even say anything. "I've never seen a more beautiful place," he admits quietly, stepping down off the sleigh.

The glades and trees stretch out in soft mounds before coming to a sudden stop. And down further, there are dark black rocks and deep green trees surrounding a large jagged pool of bubbling water. The temperature difference is clear by how the snow has melted here...by how thick tendrils of steam coil upwards, meeting the cooler air.

"This is one of my favourite places ever," you say, coming to his side and gazing out at the view.

Loki finally looks at you then, your face full of so many emotions he can't place. "What happened here?" he asks with a frown.

The question snaps you back to reality. "What?"

He takes a breath, mentally cringing at how your disposition changes so rapidly. He says carefully, "I mean...it's clear it means a lot to you. Why?"