For Advance/Early chapters :p
atreon.com/ScoldeyJod
We stood in the ruin of the warlock's tower, two survivors breathing in the night air of Qarth. The black dust of a thousand-year-old evil, an abrasive scrape on the senses, settled around us, clinging to our sweat-damp leathers.
Daenerys hadn't let go of me. Her arms were locked around my neck, her body pressed so tightly against mine it felt as if she was trying to merge our very atoms. I held her just as tightly, my own arms a steel band around her waist, my face buried in her soot-stained hair.
I was not weak. I was wired.
The adrenaline of the battle was a chemical explosion in my veins. My Seidr, my magic, was a deep, thrumming ache—not empty, but sore, like a muscle pushed to its absolute limit. The final gambit of unleashing my core Jotunheim nature had been a massive, pounding exertion, but it had worked. The cold that now radiated from my skin wasn't a sickness; it was my true nature, raw and exposed, a stark contrast to the living, breathing furnace I held in my arms.
"It's done," I whispered again, my voice a rough, victorious growl.
"He's dead," she whispered back, her voice muffled against my chest. "They're all... just dust."
"Yes." I pulled back, just enough to look at her. Her face was a mess. Streaked with soot, sweat, and the dried, phantom tears of the illusions. Her lilac eyes were wide, luminous in the starlight, and blazing with a raw, primal triumph that made my heart hammer. "And your children are safe."
On her shoulders, Rhaegal and Viserion were hissing, their small bodies vibrating. Drogon, however, remained on my pauldron, his head high, his molten-gold eyes fixed on me with a new, unnerving intelligence. He had tasted battle. He had tasted my power. He knew.
"We can't stay here," I said, my voice all strategy, all Loki. The exhaustion was a heavy weight, but it was the exhaustion of a god, not the frailty of a mortal. "The city saw. The collapse... this will not go unnoticed."
She nodded, not taking her eyes off my face. She was high on the victory, on the sheer, violent release of it. She was the Unburnt, the Stormborn, and she had just walked through a new kind of fire.
I took her hand. "Back to the gilded cage. It's the only place we are safe, for now."
The walk back to Xaro's palace was a silent, urgent procession of two. The Qartheen streets were empty. The pale, ghost-like citizens watched us from behind their high, barred windows, their faces pale with a new fear. They had seen the tower fall. They knew.
We didn't speak. The pounding of our feet on the marble, the frantic, pounding beat of our hearts, the hiss of the dragons—it was the only sound in the world. Her hand in mine was small, hot, and vice-like in its grip. It was not a plea for protection. It was a statement of unity.
When we reached the massive, bronze doors of our chambers, Jorah was there, as promised. He looked like a man who had aged a decade. When he saw us—filthy, covered in black dust, but alive—the relief that washed over his face was profound.
Then his eyes traveled to our joined hands. To the way she stood so close to me, her shoulder pressed against my arm. To the way Drogon, her dragon, was still perched on my shoulder.
The relief vanished, replaced by that familiar, aching despair. He knew, just by looking at us, that everything had changed. He had been replaced.
"Irri is alive," he said, his voice a dead, flat monotone. "Awake. She is... resting."
"And Doreah?" Daenerys asked, her voice cold.
"I had her... taken care of. My Queen." He couldn't look at her.
"Good," Daenerys said. She dropped my hand and walked past him into the chamber. "Guard this door, Jorah. Both of you." She nodded to Irri, who was huddled by the fire, her eyes wide with terror. "No one is to enter. No one. Do you understand?"
"Khaleesi, you are wounded," Jorah protested, seeing the dried blood on her leathers.
"It is not my blood," she said, her voice a final, chilling command. "Guard the door."
Jorah flinched as if struck. He looked at me one last time, his eyes a mixture of pure, undiluted hatred and a new, grudging terror. He bowed his head. "As my Queen commands."
I stepped inside. The heavy door boomed shut behind us, the sound of a vault being sealed.
We were alone.
The adrenaline, the pure, frantic fuel of the fight, chose that moment to recede, leaving a deep, physical exhaustion in its wake. But it was the ache of a battle won.
"Loki," Daenerys breathed. She was standing in the center of the room, her body still thrumming with energy.
She turned to face me, and her eyes raked over my body. "You're... cold," she whispered. It wasn't an accusation of weakness. It was a statement of fact, of awe. She could feel the chill coming off my skin from across the room.
"I am," I said. "It is my nature. My blood."
"You gave your power to save my children," she said, her voice a low, fierce growl. "You let him drink you to save them."
"He thought he was drinking from a cup," I replied, a slow, cold smile touching my lips as I unbuckled my armor. "He found an ocean of ice. He drowned."
"And now..." she said, walking toward me, her movements slow, deliberate, predatory. "You are cold."
"And you," I countered, my eyes dropping to her form, "are fire."
She reached me, her small, hot hands splaying flat on my bare chest as the last piece of armor fell away. The contact was a sizzle, a shock to us both. Her skin was a furnace; mine was a block of arctic ice. It was a chemical reaction so intense it made us both gasp.
"You are shaking," I noted.
"I am... alive," she hissed, her lilac eyes blazing. "He tried to take you. He tried to take my children. He is dust."
She kissed me.
It was not a kiss of comfort. It was not a kiss of love. It was a chemical reaction. A frantic, desperate, furious kiss that tasted of soot, dried blood, and vengeance. It was the kiss of a survivor, of a queen who had just stared into the abyss and clawed her way back. Her lips were rough, demanding, her teeth grazing mine. It was a claim.
My exhausted body responded with an explosive, desperate craving. My hands came up, cupping her face, and I kissed her back with all the pent-up fury, fear, and possessive hunger in my soul. It was a raw, pounding collision.
Her hands were frantic, tearing at my tunic, needing to feel the skin beneath. "You are mine," she growled, her mouth leaving my lips to find the bare skin of my neck, her teeth scraping my collarbone. "Mine. Not his. Not some... dead thing. Mine."
This was not seduction. This was an exorcism. This was her, the Unburnt, burning away the warlock's cold, dead touch, replacing it with her own living, breathing fire.
I grabbed her, my own control shattering. I ripped the Dothraki leathers, tore the silk robe, my movements frantic, brutal. The sound of tearing fabric was an erotic violence in the quiet room.
I lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around my waist, her ankles locking behind my back. She was naked, her skin hot as a forge against my own. I carried her to the wall, pressing her back against the cool marble, my body caging hers. Her lilac eyes were wide, her breathing shallow.
"You were so cold," she whispered, her hands splayed on my chest, her heat trying to chase away the chill. "I thought... I thought he had..."
"He failed," I growled, my mouth descending. I kissed her, deeply, swallowing her fears, her words. I kissed her like I was starving, my tongue dueling with hers, a frantic, desperate battle for dominance that she gladly, eagerly, lost.
My mouth moved lower, over her jaw, down her neck, finding the soft, full curve of her breast. I took her into my mouth, suckling hard, my teeth grazing her nipple.
She screamed. A short, sharp, electric cry of pure, unadulterated pleasure. She arched against the wall, her nails, which she'd broken in the tower, scraping bloody furrows down my back. The pain was a secondary, exquisite pulse beneath the pleasure.
"Loki, please," she begged, her hips rising in a shameless, desperate invitation. "Now. I... I need to feel you. I need to know you are real."
I moved between her legs, my own need a pounding, physical ache. I was exhausted, but my desire for her, my need for her, was a force of nature. It was the only thing holding me upright.
I looked down at her. Her body, pale and perfect, open to me. Her center was wet, slick, ready. She was the only warmth in a universe of cold.
I entered her with a single, deep, possessing thrust, burying myself to the hilt.
We both cried out. It was a sound of reunion, of victory, of life. She was so tight, so hot, her body pulsing around me like a second heartbeat. It was a climax of sensation, a blinding, perfect rightness.
"You are mine," I grunted, my voice a rough, broken sound, my forehead resting against hers. "You are mine."
"I am yours," she sobbed, her legs locking around me, pulling me impossibly deeper. "I am yors."
I began to move. It was not the frantic, pounding rhythm of the gala night. This was slow. Deep. Deliberate. Every thrust was a claim. Every withdrawal a promise. I was relearning her body, and she was relearning mine. It was a fierce, intimate, powerful movement.
She rose up to meet me, her hands on my hips, guiding me, demanding more. Her fear was gone, replaced by a raw, burning hunger. She was the Mother of Dragons, and she was taking her monster, her god, her prize.
"Faster," she commanded, her voice a breathless hiss.
I obeyed. My exhaustion was gone, burned away by her fire. I moved, a frantic, pounding rhythm, driving into her, our bodies slapping together, the sound a defiant, living drumbeat in the tomb-like silence of the palace.
The world dissolved. There was no Qarth, no warlocks, no thrones. There was only this. Only the slick heat of her, the scrape of her nails on my back, the taste of her on my lips, the pounding, glorious, living feel of her body pulsing around mine.
I felt her climax build, her inner muscles tightening. She arched her back, her head thrown back, a beautiful, shuddering scream tearing from her throat.
The sight of her, the sound of her, shattered my last vestiges of control. I roared, a guttural, inhuman sound, as I followed her, my own release exploding, a burning seed of life, ice, and magic, a final, definitive claim that branded her as mine, forever.
I collapsed on top of her, my body spent, my mind sharp. I rolled off, pulling her with me, my arms a steel cage around her.
She lay, boneless and sated, her head on my chest.
"We have to leave this city," she murmured, her voice thick with sleep, her fingers tracing the new, bloody scratches her nails had left on my back. "Xaro is a traitor. The Thirteen are our enemies. This... this is not a home. It's a cage."
"I know," I whispered, my lips brushing her temple. I felt taxed, but not empty. She had filled me, her fire chasing away the last of the warlock's chill. I felt... whole.
"We have no ships. No gold."
I smiled against her skin, a slow, cold, Loki-smile. The last vestiges of David's conscience were silent. There was only the promise of vengeance.
"Oh, I think we do," I whispered. "Xaro has a vault, Khaleesi. He lied to us. He said it was empty. But a man who lies so much... he must be hiding everything."
She pulled back, her lilac eyes, luminous in the dark, finding mine. A slow, terrible, and beautiful smile spread across her face.
"My monster," she breathed.
"My Queen," I replied.