Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter XIX - Epona

"Loki!" Aila raised her arms, circling them about his neck when he bent over to kiss her, employing his tongue in indecent ways that made Epona avert her gaze uncomfortably.

Loki? Epona's jaw fell ajar as she turned back instantly to gape anew. She has spoken that name before!

The man in question soon settled his length comfortably behind Aila's back. His legs were covered in snug trousers that seemed molded to his musculature, his corded thighs easily discernible when he bent his knees either side of Aila's torso. Beneath the black mantle, he wore only a plain over-tunic of fine-spun wool, the ensemble simple save where the neck and cuffs were decorated with gold braid.

Once he had pushed the sleeves of his tunic up over his elbows, for the room was stuffy and overly warm, he ran his fingers gently through her damp hair as he placed light kisses atop her head and at her temples. Thankfully, those were at least chaste in nature. Seen in this light, he seemed altogether almost innocuous at present. However, for all that, she still could not remove the memory of how his features had been transmogrified the instant she had dared to vex him. Best beware of that one.

"You cannot stay here!" Epona stilled her shaking and steadied her hands at her thin waist. "Aila needs room to have her child and you are crowding her abominably." Albeit she did not look suffocated by his presence. Quite the opposite, for she had stopped twisting and fretting uncontrollably. In fact, she seemed almost serene and not at all like a woman in the throes of childbirth.

"Children," Loki informed her succinctly.

"Pardon?" Epona moved closer, the better to hear him.

He raised his sardonic head and smirked at her. Holding up two long fingers, he wriggled them mordantly at her. "A pair," said he, "not one."

"Oh gods! Twins?!" Her mind was reeling with the notion, for one had seemed horrible enough, but two...? "No!"

"Suit yourself." He went back to ignoring her, crooning and whispering his demoniacal words into Aila's ear.

"You did this!" You debased her, you fiend! As Ragnar did to me!

Though thankfully that cur, Ragnar, and his violence had not cost her Brenna's life. But she had need now to vilify this intruder, this God of death, as he rightly deserved, but was not maddened enough to risk his wrath further than what she had already dared to say aloud.

"This is your doing," she reiterated, indicating Aila's belabored breathing and paroxysms.

Loki, finding Epona's distress amusing, purposefully misinterpreted her meaning. "That is generally what happens when a man and a woman-"

"Gah! Do not mock me! I know full well how tis done!"

"Mock you? What a sensitive little thing you are." He considered her quietly. "Resilient enough, but wanting of humor, certainly."

Epona shook her head disbelievingly. Was he serious?! "This is no time for levity!" One moment a monster and the next almost... human!

"Why ever not?" He watched as Aila squeezed his hand, sustaining another bout of contractions with more of her soft moans. "Aila and her sons are faring well; I am, therefore, a man much satisfied at present."

"A man?!" she threw her head back incredulously. "You and I both know there is no man in this chamber."

"I shall consider that a compliment." Loki's grin was strangely sincere as he kissed her friend's head.

Epona suspired loudly, mostly nonplussed by their strange interaction and leery of the fact that Aila so obviously sought his presence here. Should not the girl be begging him to leave! Surely she knew who and what he was! But he, on the other hand, was somewhat tame now that he had what he wanted, and she knew not what to make of his behavior either; or his irksome raillery.