Page 52 of Black Onyx
“I’m not sure that’s something you should sound so pleased about,” he points out.
“Maybe not, but maybe I know something you don’t,” I sing-song back at him purely to wind him up.
He eyes me out of the corner of his eye, and I try to suppress my grin as he turns his head towards me and narrows his eyes. “What do you know?”
I simply shrug, knowing that it will wind him up more, and that’s absolutely one of my favourite things to do.
He lets out a deep sigh like I’m the most infuriating person he’s ever come across and then changes the subject, “I haven’t seen Poca about recently. Is he staying invisible to us?”
I’m surprised that he’s still wanting to talk to me so much so that he’s starting a new conversation, but I’m not willing to question it and risk missing out on this chance to maybe get to know him a bit better. I’m not stupid enough to think that he’ll carry it on for very long, and I’m sure he’ll piss me off enough at some point to make me insult him.
“No, he hasn’t been around. I’m not sure where he is, but as I said before, it’s not unusual for him to go for periods of time. I’ll only get worried if I summon him and he doesn’t come because that means he’s been blocked from me somehow.” I explain.
He looks at me sharply, “Speaking from personal experience?”
I nod once, not wanting to talk about it in depth. Thankfully he lets it drop, maybe because he doesn’t want to push but more than likely because we can hear the guys behind us.
Storm pauses to wait for them, and we both turn around to watch their approach. They all look tense, but Loki is trying to make up for it by being his usual jovial self and Killian is playing up to it and teasing him as Loki complains that his stomach is eating itself. A lovely image.
While the others are all smiling at their banter, Reaper is stoic, and when I try to catch his eye to see if he’s okay, he studiously ignores me moving to Storm and bending his head close to talk to him. I immediately feel the sting of rejection, and I can practically hear the slamming of the gates between us as he puts his barrier back up.
Before I can dwell on it too much, I’m swung up into Loki’s arms as he buries his head in my neck and squeezes tightly. I allow myself to wrap my arms around him too. I was so damn worried when he hit that tree.
“Are you okay?” I ask, not even bothering to hide the thread of worry in my voice.
“Aw, Love, were you worried about me?” he asks, leaning back slightly so he can see my expression. When he realises I really was, his smile softens, “I’m okay, Love. It’ll take a lot more than that to really hurt me.”
I nod, feeling slightly mortified that I got emotional, well as emotional as I get anyway. All softness fades from his expression as his eyes fall to my neck, anger flaring within them as he lets out a low rumble. I tilt my head slightly.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“Well, it’s not great. I don’t blame Reaper for ripping his fucking arm off.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath; when he opens them again they’re no longer deadly but still not exactly calm.
By now, all others have started walking ahead again. So Loki and I are left behind slightly. Killian looks back at me being held in Loki’s arms and gives me a soft smile, one full of meaning. However, that meaning escapes me entirely.
“Let’s heal you up before Reaper catches sight of it. We don’t want to go through that again so soon.” Loki says, placing me gently on the floor and then looking at me for permission as he brings a hand up to my neck.
“Sure, and don’t worry, I’m not going to bother asking what you meant with the Reaper comment,” I assure him when he immediately looks worried that he’s put his foot in it.
“Thank you, Love.” He replies as his hand warms on my neck and his eyes start to glow green, which, considering they’re usually purple, is a strange thing to see.
“Do your eyes usually glow green when you heal?” I ask since he healed my back last time, so I couldn’t really see his face.
“What?”
“From the shock in your voice, I’m guessing no.”
“No, they don’t. They go red when I feed but otherwise, they stay purple.”
“Odd, come on, let’s catch up with the others,” I say, wondering whether now a good time would be to bring up the fact that my magic has been playing up recently.
“Come on, guys, the tavern guy is so grateful we’ve dealt with it; we get a free lunch before we head back,” Killian calls from the door and all thoughts of letting him know about my magic flee as we both bolt towards the door.
We both rush past a highly amused Killian, “You guys are as bad as each other when it comes to food.”
We both decide to ignore him, throwing all sense of propriety out the window as we take our seats at the table.
“You guys alright?” Mayhem asks.
