Sorcha's Secret World, Part 2: Mystery and Mischief.

Chapter 11, You told me you loved me.

My mind was reeling.
I couldn't make sense of what Loki had been telling me. I had so many questions, but no idea where to even start.
I wanted to scream at him, yell at him, but I didn't know where to start with that either.
I pulled up my legs and rested my forehead on my knees, trying to focus on my breathing. My heart was racing in my chest.
Loki was quiet.
I felt his hand on my shoulder for a moment as if he wanted to comfort me, only to pull it away again as if he wasn't certain if I would even want to be comforted by him.
I wasn't certain either.

Slowly my breathing returned to something resembling normality.
I raised my head and looked at Loki through my tears.
He had wrapped his arms around his knees, almost mirroring my own position, one hand tangled in his hair. He looked so small, so vulnerable.
His eyes met mine, those beautiful, beloved blue eyes now filled with pain and fear. And shame. It was almost more than my heart could bear.
"There is more..." he whispered before I could reach out to him.
"Loki..." I wasn't sure if I wanted to know.
"Now you know this much, you may as well know all of it," he said, sounding miserable.
I nodded silently. Perhaps it would at least answer some of the questions I had.

"I awoke in August 2018. I was tied up and had a dagger to my throat.
To my horror, I realised the person holding it was wearing my face, holding that dagger with my hand, and was speaking to me in my voice.
I couldn't understand what was happening, I was weak, sick, dizzy and disoriented. But he kept talking, seemingly loving the sound of his own voice, glad to have an audience."
Loki gave me a humourless grin. "I suppose he gets that from me."
"That was after he escaped the Illuminati," I realised, slowly beginning to put the pieces together. "Richard warned me when that happened, but he never sought me out."
"No, he didn't. He had other plans for you, far more devious than you could have imagined." Loki's eyes didn't meet mine.
"He calls himself Beaumont now, preferring to leave the trappings of the past behind him.
He awoke after my attempted suicide, thinking it had succeeded.
For decades he lived my life, as I lay in slumber, taking advantage of the wealth I had acquired and the aliases I built to further his own ambitions.
It was he who got involved with the Morninglight Cult. It was he who was on the island the day the Lady Margaret returned and it was he who took Excalibur realising he could use it to unleash the Dreamer that was trapped in the Gaia engine below the island. It was he who you fought and ultimately defeated."
"But why? Why did you not tell me that? Why hide from me that you weren't the one responsible?"
I couldn't understand at all. For all these years I had thought Loki was to blame for the horrors that had been inflicted on the people of the island, people I cared about, people I had to come to think of as my responsibility.
"Would you have believed me?" Loki asked bitterly.
"When was I supposed to have told you? When you so easily defeated me when we first met, when I was on the island under the guise of 'Lucas Lefay'?
What was I supposed to say: 'It wasn't me, it was my evil twin?'
You didn't give me a chance to talk, you were more than eager to break my ribs with that blasted hammer!"

So that was when we first met. Lucas Lefay. My head was spinning.
Everything I had thought I knew about my husband seemed like a lie.

I stood up and started pacing. I felt so angry, so betrayed. I felt like a fool.
"You could have told me later, you could have told me when I took you into my home, or after you proposed, or after we got married... there was plenty of time!
You lied to me!"
"I did."
"You hid all of this from me!"
"I did."
"You told me you loved me!"
"I do!"
Loki had stood up as well. He reached out but I angrily pushed his hands away.
"Sorcha! Whatever I am, whatever I have done, whatever I have lied about... I never lied to you about that.
I love you, I have always loved you and I will love you for the rest of my life!"
"And how can I believe that?"
Loki's shoulders slumped, his hands dangling limply by his side. He looked down for a moment, unable to meet my eyes.
Finally, he looked up again, his head slightly tilted as if he was uncertain how I would react to his next words.
"Because you promised.
Because you knew.
Because I warned you."
His voice grew stronger, a sudden anger flared in his eyes. His hands balled into fists.
"I warned you I would lie to you, I warned you I would hide things from you!
And you know what you said? Bring it on!
That's what you said!
You promised you'd stand by me, you promised you wouldn't leave me, you promised I would never be alone again!
You swore, in front of the spirit of my dead mother, you would love me forever!"
Loki's voice became quiet again, his eyes pleading with mine.
"I love you, you know that. You know me, you know me better than anyone."
"Do I?" I asked bitterly. "Do I know you at all? Up until half an hour ago, I didn't even know the day we first met."
Loki looked away.
"This is why I didn't tell you. I knew I would lose you.
How can I possibly tell you the rest?"
The rest? What more could there be?
I tiredly rubbed my eyes.
Less than an hour ago we were sitting in the study, both of us working away, simply enjoying each other's company.
Now it felt like our marriage was built on quicksand, and everything we had created together was falling apart.