The Confectionary Chronicles || HP/SPN

Lollies and Loki- CH9

CHAPTER NINE

Hermione woke up in her bed with a gasp, bolting upright to a sitting position and nearly hitting her head on the bunk above her. She could feel herself shaking, trembling, could feel the sharp pounding of her heart against her ribs and the short, shallow pants escaping her throat. She felt too tight and too hot, her skin sensitive and twitching.

Her mind seemed to stall as she tried to figure out what had happened, what she remembered last; vague recollections flickered at the corners of her mind, a confusing tangle of memories; lines of heat winding, curling, claiming, sinking down under her skin and into her bones as the warmth in her chest she'd always associated with her god burned all the way through.

There was something tied around her wrist, the foreign weight of it against her sensitive skin enough to make her look down. It was a knotted braid of leather, silver thread and feathers, an Ancient Norse design that she recognised from one of her books and when she ran a trembling finger over the feathers, they felt slippery and staticky to touch.

And then she remembered; the monster in the sea, salt water forcing its way down her throat, flooding her lungs, a desperate prayer for help... and then the sun in her eyes, blinking against its brightness, turning her head away towards the silhouette of a man she'd never seen before, yet was so achingly familiar that she knew exactly who it was that had rescued her.

And when he turned to her, when those golden eyes had seemed to look right through her to her very soul, any lingering doubt disappeared.

Loki had come for her. He had saved her. Her god had saved her.

His skin had been hot to touch, far hotter then a human's, like a living flame was flickering under his skin; fitting for Loki, she thought as she stared, wide-eyed and wondering, down at the braided bracelet, the god of mischief and chaos and fire.

"Like it?" A light, playful voice asked.

Hermione's head jerked automatically around towards the sound, to where a stranger/not-stranger was lounging against the wall, a grin on his face, too-bright golden eyes gleaming with something she couldn't place. He was like the sun; bright and brilliant, otherworldly— there was an air about him that was distinctly not human; something wild, something that set off the age-old instincts inside her that warned of power and predator.

The realisation of just who it was standing there was so shocking that Hermione could barely process it, but she still managed to scramble off her bed, ignoring the trembling in her limbs, dropping to the floor so she could kneel in front of her god. He looked fond as he reached down, running his hand over her untameable curls, spilling uncontrollable over her shoulders. So close to him, she could feel the heat pouring off him, like she was standing next to an open stove.

"Hello Hermione," Loki said, voice warm like sunshine.

"You sound American!" She blurted out before she could stop herself, her cheeks immediately flushing pink with mortification.

"You meet a god and that's the first thing you say?" Loki teased and her blush deepened.

"It's just– I was expecting a Scandinavian accent," she mumbled, embarrassed.

"I have a great Scandinavian accent," Loki grinned. "And a damn good British one too, when I want. I've just been hanging out in America these past few centuries."

Hermione nodded, putting that away to think on later— right now she was too busy being occupied by something else entirely. "You... you saved me," she repeated her earlier words, the same wonder in them as she gazed reverently up at her god.