fic: "Assembly, Care, & Feeding of a Queen's Court" by Tielan - Chapter 9
TITLE: Assembly, Care, & Feeding of a Queen's Court - Part 9: The Price Of Protection
SUMMARY: Thor was unable to protect as his instincts demanded, unable to fight with the strength of his Jewels, unable to do anything but watch.
CHARACTERS: Thor, Jane, Darcy, Erik, Maria
WARNINGS: (highlight to see) Unwanted sexual advances.
DETAILS: Master Post
Chapter 9: The Price Of Protection
The floor was not the most comfortable place to sleep, but Thor's preferred choice of bed was out of the question.
He approved of Erik's suspicions about him - they were right. He was here to earn his way into Jane's bed. Where Erik was wrong was that he posed any danger to Jane.
So he made his bed in the downstairs workroom, amidst the papers and books and herbs of Jane's studies, and let the old, familiar dreams take him.Sif came to stand by him at the window, looking out on the bright city spread out beneath the palace, her expression grim. "I can't speak up in the tribunal on your behalf, Thor."
"And I do not expect you to." He belonged to Sif, as a Warlord Prince belonged to his Queen. She was expected to defend him; and she would. He knew that to the core of his being. "I will pay whatever price they ask of me. Whatever the cost."
She'd cupped his cheek in her palm. "And if the price is death?"
"Then I will pay that, too."
Thor turned over on the camping bedroll Jane had given him to sleep upon. It was worn and a little musty, but strong with the psychic scent of her - and the faint, faded psychic scent of her father. The first time she had helped him down to the bedroll out in the cold fields of night, with the stars bright overhead and the wind flowing through the sky, he'd smelled that scent - male and tender with love - and been jolted by the strength of the possessive hunger that rose in him.
His hands had tightened on Jane's arms, intending to draw her down to him, to erase this other male's scent from her skin, from her memory - before she gasped in surprise and he realised what he was doing and his error in doing it. Not a lover's scent, but a father's.
The hunger remained, but Thor could wait to satisfy it. He could wait for Jane to come to him.
He had time."Exile?" Hogun blinked.
"Well, it's better than death," Fandral noted. "Although not by much."
"Where you go, we'll go," Volstagg declared. "The Warriors Three stand by Thor."
Loki had said nothing - not at first, his features sharp and studying. "It's more than just exile, isn't it? Thor?"
He'd been holding himself so still, trying not to sense Black Widows' Tangled Webs closing in around him even as he stood there. Trying to believe this was not happening to him.
Loki's hands on his shoulders negated that. "What did they do, brother? Tell me and whatever it takes-"
And Thor had opened his inner psychic barriers to his brother - when had they ever held secrets between them? And Loki had been silenced.
Something slid across Thor's skin, waking him from a dream of bright battle and clear laughter. Horror crawled along his psychic senses, a foulness that stained the night with its presence and had no place here in Jane's townhouse.
He rose quietly, his bare feet nearly silent across the floor before he passed his body through the wood of the door so as not to make noise opening and closing it.
Above him, in the upstairs hallway, a shadow paused on the landing, nothing more than the faintest flutter in the darkness. *Thor?*
She spoke his name like a caress, and Thor leaned into the tightly-focused psychic thread - from her to him, even as he listened to the noises around the house and his instincts pricked at his skin. *I felt something.*
*Yes. Like scratchy rope against my skin.* She came down the stairs, using Craft to silence the sound of her footsteps, the ties of her thin wrap trailing behind her. *I thought I heard voices before - only-*
*Only?*
The spell fell with startling abruptness, a net to capture unwary prey.
Thor instinctively reached for depths of the Ebon-grey, but the tangled webs of the Asgardian Widows blocked him from accessing his full strength. He was left with only a handful of power.
Only a handful of power to use against the spell as it settled around him, trying to freeze his muscles and bind his bones. Only a handful of power to fight the shadowy men who stepped through the door, their movements confident and without the fear they should have shown had they known what waited for them in the darkness.
Even hampered by the spell clawing at his psychic senses, even without the complete capabilities of his Ebon-grey Jewel, Thor was still battle trained for war, and dangerous in his own right as a Warlord Prince of the Blood - passionate, protective, and vicious.
His blood ran hot as his temper ran cold. Thor moved without conscious thought.
The first male died as his neck broke - Thor's fist took him in the softness beneath his jaw. The second was barely more ready, although he at least had a knife in hand when Thor called in his blade and spitted him through the chest.
Honourless men, to break into a witch's house by darkness with a spell designed to incapacitate-
This was no accident, but a planned, prepared break-in, with an intended target-
The third man called in a pikestaff with a blade that shone with Green-Jewelled power and slashed it across Thor's shields, breaking them in their weakened state.
"Tho-!"
"Continue to fight and she dies," snarled the man whose hand clenched around Jane's throat, cutting off her warning cry.
One look was all Thor needed to see the lay of the land.
He raised his hands in surrender, saw the blunt end of the pikestaff coming for his head, failed to dodge-Moonlight gleamed bluish off the angled shards of basalt that had given the Hrimthurs their nickname among the Asgard - Frost Giants, and Thor threw back his head at the sky and breathed deep of the chilly air.
Generations past, it had been a common enough pastime for Asgardian youths to run raids into the heart of Frost Giant Territory to steal something of value. It had fallen into disrepute when Thor was no more than an infant; his mother had brokered a deal with the Lady of the Hrimthurs and no more raids were permitted.
"One of your best ideas, this," he murmured to Loki as his brother came alongside him. "A challenge worthy of warriors!"
"And here was I just thinking it was fun," came the droll retort. "Have you given thought to how we'll leave our mark?"
Thor had. And when he told Loki, his brother's glittering smile spoke eloquently of his accord.
His head ached as though he'd been drinking the mountain mead all night. Only-
Thor jerked up as someone shook him ungently, then overbalanced and fell onto his back, his arms bound behind him with tightly-wrapped ties.
*Mother Night, how hard is your head?* Lady Darcy demanded. *I've been kicking you for the last five minutes!*
*Jane,* he managed, using a psychic thread since he couldn't seem to speak.
A muffled 'unnnnh!' drew his attention to the bed in the middle of the room - Jane's bed, with Jane on it, her wrists and ankles tied to the posts, her nightgown damp with sweat. There was a gag tucked firmly in her mouth and her eyes were wild lit by the witchlights hanging either side of the bed. She thrashed, dragging at the ropes that bound her, but to no avail.
Hot fury filled Thor, brought him to his feet-or tried to. The world tilted about him and nausea clutched at his gut. He sank to his knees. *The spell-*
*Disorients you. It gets worse when you struggle. If you sit still it doesn't hurt so bad.*
Don't struggle? Ask him rather, not to breathe! Yet Thor forced himself to go limp, because he needed all his wits about him to get out of this. And, indeed, the room stopped twisting about him, and the psychic bindings on his body and mind relaxed - not entirely, just a little.
*Where is Erik?*
In answer, Darcy moved back a little to show him the slumped shadow of Erik. *He kept struggling and I guess the spell overwhelmed him.* Her psychic voice quavered a little before she got control of it. *I don't suppose you can get out of the spell?*
Thor was already trying to break through the bonds that held his wrists behind his back. At the Ebon-grey, he need barely have strained himself. Limited to his present levels of power, he had no strength at all."And this is considered a suitable punishment for a Warlord Prince of the Asgardian court?" Loki asked in rank disbelief. "For a raid that was once a common occurrence among the Asgard?"
"Once," said Odin curtly, turning from the window of the palace. "No more. That custom ended when we formed the treaty - for good reason."
"And we have not raided them in the years since," argued Loki, his pointed face pale and sharp. "Surely that argues for some lenience in the punishment!"
"He killed a male of the Hrimthurs' court!"
"A stripling brat of a Frost Giant! And it was an accident!"
Thor listened to them, hunched over, his elbows on his knees, silent. He felt dulled - as though a light within him had been covered over. Once again, he reached for the full depth of his Jewelled-power and came up with...nothing. Or, if not nothing, so little power that it seemed almost pointless to use it.
"Be careful what you say, my son," Odin told him grimly. "He was also the son of the Territory Queen and she was prepared to take her Territory to war on account of his death."
"And so Thor is the sacrifice we make for peace?"
His father bowed his head. "Yes."
The door of the room swung open and a man sauntered in. "All comfortable, Jane?" He addressed his words to Jane rather than to Thor and Darcy. His smile was foul as stagnant water as he sat down on the side of the bed and brushed his fingers across her cheek. "We're going to have a little talk - continuing the one we started four years ago and which was so rudely interrupted by that bitch primping herself as Queen."
Thor tried to lunge to his feet, ignoring Darcy's psychic hiss to stay still. Again, he collapsed on the floor, unable to go on.
"You see?" The man laughed nastily. "Your friend can't help you, although he'll bloody himself trying against Hobie's Green shields. It'll be entertaining watching him - if I was going to watch." His hand stroked down Jane's throat as she tried to ease her body away from him. "But I've only ever had eyes for you, my dear Jane..."
He flicked a finger and the gag untied and floated away by Craft. Jane spat. "Maria warned you what would happen if you ever tried this again, Nigel!"
"The Lady Hill is not here. Nor are her males." Nigel said, and his hand splayed across Jane's breast and squeezed. Thor felt himself go cold - the blind, unthinking rage of a Warlord Prince. "I am. And I'm going to do what I should have done years ago..."
Jane's jaw tightened and she tried to twist away as Nigel bent down to kiss her, but she had no room on the bed, tied as she was.
Thor fought the spell, pushing himself as far as he dared before he gave up, panting. If he had his full Jewelled strength, he would plunge to the depths of the Ebon-grey, pulling Nigel and his accomplices down with him, smashing through their inner webs, leaving them broken and unable to use Craft.
If he possessed his full Jewelled strength, he would never have been here in the first place.
But he was sealed off from the strength that was his - by Birthright and Offering. Unable to protect as his instincts demanded, unable to fight with the strength of his Jewels, unable to do anything but watch as this upstart prick violated a witch whom Thor had come to hold dear.A rustle woke Thor, a woman's voice muttering crossly to herself as she swished through the long grass of the field, hauling something awkward behind her - something which smacked him in the belly as she fell over his prone body.
"Oh!"
He had caught her as she fell, cradling her slim figure against his own so she might not fall hard, and caught his breath at her scent. Her hair was a dark spill over his hands, and her face a pale oval by the starlight. "Careful," he murmured and felt her still at his touch, her breath coming short against his throat.
"I...I wasn't expecting to fall over someone in the middle of a field," she retorted, and if there was a breathlessness in her voice, her gaze was direct and did not drop shyly before him.
"Then you come out here often?"
"And never tripped over anyone else." Her words were tart, and brought a smile to him, unthinking. "May I get up now? I'm a little short on time."
"A lover's assignation?" His voice felt rough in his throat, almost scratchy at the thought of another male putting his hands on this witch.
"Much rarer." Her smile lit up the night around them, delight and eagerness that had nothing to do with him, yet which touched him all the same. "A conjunction of planets."
How long had it been since he had felt? Seasons. Perhaps even years.
So far from home, so long in exile from his land, his Jewelled strength, and his people, Thor felt the first flash of hunger then, desire as bright and warm as a flame within his soul for a witch whose name he didn't even yet know.
With no hope of fighting the spell, Thor forced himself to turn his attention to working out how to break it. But it was solid and well-crafted, fuelled by the power of a Green Jewel, locking them within their strength.
Locking them within their strength...
Thor could sense the Jewels of the others in the house - Jane's Rose Jewel, Darcy and Erik's Yellow Jewels, the Purple Dusk Jewel that the male, Nigel, wore, and the Green Jewel - Hobie's - that held them all in place...
On the bed, Jane fought and bit and called for help, but Thor felt the aural shield around the house, preventing any noise from escaping. There would be no help from outside.
Only from inside. Only from within.
He sank to the depth of the Rose, felt the barrier of the Black Widow's web block him, felt his Ebon-grey strength fill him to bursting before the excess flowed away as water through his fingers. Yet he was still aware of the Ebon-grey beneath him. The power that was rightfully his still sang to his senses.
He could reach that power once, for just long enough to drag down the Green and shatter the Purple Dusk. But he would break the tangled web that the Widows had wound around him, and would end up broken in turn.
And yet, everything had a price.
If the price is death?
Then I will pay that, too.
Thor didn't let himself think. Instead, he took a slow breath and plunged deep into his strength, ripping through the tangled web that bound him, feeling the power rush in on him like a weight too heavy to be borne, a pressure that would break through his self and leave him shattered.
But not before he took his enemies with him.
He tore through Nigel's Purple Dusk web without effort - the man was neither warrior nor prepared for such an attack. Hobie fared no better at the Green, although he put up a little more of a fight - for all the good it did.
Thor felt them break and let them go.
He sank to the Ebon-grey, landing lightly on the web that sang with his colours, and let the rushing power flood through him, embracing it like a lover. One last moment to be what he had been born to be - an Ebon-grey-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood - before it all ended.His family said their farewells in the cool light of dawn, privately, in the Queen's apartments.
Thor didn't remember much of it - his father's gruff blessing, Loki's subdued anger, Sif's reassuring steadiness. Everything seemed muted after the tangled web had closed around him, as though a part of him was sealed away.
But he remembered his mother's kiss, her hands on his brow, on his breast, her lips and her tears on his cheek. He remembered her last words to him, soft as a caress and powerful as a prophecy.
*Be worthy of your Jewels and you will find your way home, my son.*
Thor let those words echo in the emptiness of his spirit as the guards escorted him away, no longer a Warlord Prince of the Asgardian court; just a Rogue without a Queen.
Erik's Yellow Jewel was no match for the power of an Ebon-grey-Jewelled Warlord Prince who'd regained his full strength and was hovering on the savage edge of his nature. So Erik let his eyes do the protesting, and allowed himself to be verbally reassured by Jane before he and Darcy floated Nigel's unconscious body downstairs.
After a moment's hesitation, Thor took Jane's hand and drew her into his lap on the bed.
She didn't protest as he settled her against him, sensing the edgy need in him even as a part of her shied away from him, wary after Nigel's assault. And Thor thanked the Darkness that she was willing to give him this much of an anchor in the internal storm that was the return of his nature and the power of his Jewels.
As a Warlord Prince teetering on the killing edge, Thor desperately needed balance - a feminine connection - and he could not ask it of Jane, not the way he wanted, not so soon after tonight. Maybe some time in the future - next week, next month, next season - just not now.
Unfortunately, he needed that anchorage now.
He smoothed his hands along her arms, pressing his cheek against the line of her neck and shoulder, hoping that her touch might be enough to soothe him; aware of the hungry ache that warned it would not. A door opened downstairs - the front door - and unfamiliar male voices drifted up to them. In his arms, Jane shifted, but only looked up at him as his arms tightened around her. "It's just Maria."
A moment later there were footsteps climbing the stairs, and then a woman stood at the door of Jane's room, her expression wary, her eyes tired as the took in the scene, before her clear, grey gaze came to rest on him.
Something loosened within Thor as he looked back at her. A Queen. Young and light-Jewelled, yes, but with a sense of a deeper, darker strength about her. Close to the Offering, then, and fierce with the soul of a warrior as she looked upon him.
"Prince." She took a single step into the room and no more. "Jane, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. It was close but not-" Jane's voice quivered. "I'm fine, Maria."
The steady gaze shifted to Thor. "Is she telling the truth?"
"I'm right here, you know!"
"And he's a Warlord Prince who considers you under his protection. He'll give me the truth." Her eyes demanded answers of him. "Prince?"
"Lady." His voice felt rusty; but her strength smoothed out the rough edges in him, settling what Jane alone couldn't soothe. "Jane speaks the truth."
"Good." She exhaled, soft and sure, and her eyes met his without fear. "I think we need to talk."
--
Chapter 10: Dichotomous
SUMMARY: Thor was unable to protect as his instincts demanded, unable to fight with the strength of his Jewels, unable to do anything but watch.
CHARACTERS: Thor, Jane, Darcy, Erik, Maria
WARNINGS: (highlight to see) Unwanted sexual advances.
DETAILS: Master Post
Chapter 9: The Price Of Protection
The floor was not the most comfortable place to sleep, but Thor's preferred choice of bed was out of the question.
He approved of Erik's suspicions about him - they were right. He was here to earn his way into Jane's bed. Where Erik was wrong was that he posed any danger to Jane.
So he made his bed in the downstairs workroom, amidst the papers and books and herbs of Jane's studies, and let the old, familiar dreams take him.Sif came to stand by him at the window, looking out on the bright city spread out beneath the palace, her expression grim. "I can't speak up in the tribunal on your behalf, Thor."
"And I do not expect you to." He belonged to Sif, as a Warlord Prince belonged to his Queen. She was expected to defend him; and she would. He knew that to the core of his being. "I will pay whatever price they ask of me. Whatever the cost."
She'd cupped his cheek in her palm. "And if the price is death?"
"Then I will pay that, too."
Thor turned over on the camping bedroll Jane had given him to sleep upon. It was worn and a little musty, but strong with the psychic scent of her - and the faint, faded psychic scent of her father. The first time she had helped him down to the bedroll out in the cold fields of night, with the stars bright overhead and the wind flowing through the sky, he'd smelled that scent - male and tender with love - and been jolted by the strength of the possessive hunger that rose in him.
His hands had tightened on Jane's arms, intending to draw her down to him, to erase this other male's scent from her skin, from her memory - before she gasped in surprise and he realised what he was doing and his error in doing it. Not a lover's scent, but a father's.
The hunger remained, but Thor could wait to satisfy it. He could wait for Jane to come to him.
He had time."Exile?" Hogun blinked.
"Well, it's better than death," Fandral noted. "Although not by much."
"Where you go, we'll go," Volstagg declared. "The Warriors Three stand by Thor."
Loki had said nothing - not at first, his features sharp and studying. "It's more than just exile, isn't it? Thor?"
He'd been holding himself so still, trying not to sense Black Widows' Tangled Webs closing in around him even as he stood there. Trying to believe this was not happening to him.
Loki's hands on his shoulders negated that. "What did they do, brother? Tell me and whatever it takes-"
And Thor had opened his inner psychic barriers to his brother - when had they ever held secrets between them? And Loki had been silenced.
Something slid across Thor's skin, waking him from a dream of bright battle and clear laughter. Horror crawled along his psychic senses, a foulness that stained the night with its presence and had no place here in Jane's townhouse.
He rose quietly, his bare feet nearly silent across the floor before he passed his body through the wood of the door so as not to make noise opening and closing it.
Above him, in the upstairs hallway, a shadow paused on the landing, nothing more than the faintest flutter in the darkness. *Thor?*
She spoke his name like a caress, and Thor leaned into the tightly-focused psychic thread - from her to him, even as he listened to the noises around the house and his instincts pricked at his skin. *I felt something.*
*Yes. Like scratchy rope against my skin.* She came down the stairs, using Craft to silence the sound of her footsteps, the ties of her thin wrap trailing behind her. *I thought I heard voices before - only-*
*Only?*
The spell fell with startling abruptness, a net to capture unwary prey.
Thor instinctively reached for depths of the Ebon-grey, but the tangled webs of the Asgardian Widows blocked him from accessing his full strength. He was left with only a handful of power.
Only a handful of power to use against the spell as it settled around him, trying to freeze his muscles and bind his bones. Only a handful of power to fight the shadowy men who stepped through the door, their movements confident and without the fear they should have shown had they known what waited for them in the darkness.
Even hampered by the spell clawing at his psychic senses, even without the complete capabilities of his Ebon-grey Jewel, Thor was still battle trained for war, and dangerous in his own right as a Warlord Prince of the Blood - passionate, protective, and vicious.
His blood ran hot as his temper ran cold. Thor moved without conscious thought.
The first male died as his neck broke - Thor's fist took him in the softness beneath his jaw. The second was barely more ready, although he at least had a knife in hand when Thor called in his blade and spitted him through the chest.
Honourless men, to break into a witch's house by darkness with a spell designed to incapacitate-
This was no accident, but a planned, prepared break-in, with an intended target-
The third man called in a pikestaff with a blade that shone with Green-Jewelled power and slashed it across Thor's shields, breaking them in their weakened state.
"Tho-!"
"Continue to fight and she dies," snarled the man whose hand clenched around Jane's throat, cutting off her warning cry.
One look was all Thor needed to see the lay of the land.
He raised his hands in surrender, saw the blunt end of the pikestaff coming for his head, failed to dodge-Moonlight gleamed bluish off the angled shards of basalt that had given the Hrimthurs their nickname among the Asgard - Frost Giants, and Thor threw back his head at the sky and breathed deep of the chilly air.
Generations past, it had been a common enough pastime for Asgardian youths to run raids into the heart of Frost Giant Territory to steal something of value. It had fallen into disrepute when Thor was no more than an infant; his mother had brokered a deal with the Lady of the Hrimthurs and no more raids were permitted.
"One of your best ideas, this," he murmured to Loki as his brother came alongside him. "A challenge worthy of warriors!"
"And here was I just thinking it was fun," came the droll retort. "Have you given thought to how we'll leave our mark?"
Thor had. And when he told Loki, his brother's glittering smile spoke eloquently of his accord.
His head ached as though he'd been drinking the mountain mead all night. Only-
Thor jerked up as someone shook him ungently, then overbalanced and fell onto his back, his arms bound behind him with tightly-wrapped ties.
*Mother Night, how hard is your head?* Lady Darcy demanded. *I've been kicking you for the last five minutes!*
*Jane,* he managed, using a psychic thread since he couldn't seem to speak.
A muffled 'unnnnh!' drew his attention to the bed in the middle of the room - Jane's bed, with Jane on it, her wrists and ankles tied to the posts, her nightgown damp with sweat. There was a gag tucked firmly in her mouth and her eyes were wild lit by the witchlights hanging either side of the bed. She thrashed, dragging at the ropes that bound her, but to no avail.
Hot fury filled Thor, brought him to his feet-or tried to. The world tilted about him and nausea clutched at his gut. He sank to his knees. *The spell-*
*Disorients you. It gets worse when you struggle. If you sit still it doesn't hurt so bad.*
Don't struggle? Ask him rather, not to breathe! Yet Thor forced himself to go limp, because he needed all his wits about him to get out of this. And, indeed, the room stopped twisting about him, and the psychic bindings on his body and mind relaxed - not entirely, just a little.
*Where is Erik?*
In answer, Darcy moved back a little to show him the slumped shadow of Erik. *He kept struggling and I guess the spell overwhelmed him.* Her psychic voice quavered a little before she got control of it. *I don't suppose you can get out of the spell?*
Thor was already trying to break through the bonds that held his wrists behind his back. At the Ebon-grey, he need barely have strained himself. Limited to his present levels of power, he had no strength at all."And this is considered a suitable punishment for a Warlord Prince of the Asgardian court?" Loki asked in rank disbelief. "For a raid that was once a common occurrence among the Asgard?"
"Once," said Odin curtly, turning from the window of the palace. "No more. That custom ended when we formed the treaty - for good reason."
"And we have not raided them in the years since," argued Loki, his pointed face pale and sharp. "Surely that argues for some lenience in the punishment!"
"He killed a male of the Hrimthurs' court!"
"A stripling brat of a Frost Giant! And it was an accident!"
Thor listened to them, hunched over, his elbows on his knees, silent. He felt dulled - as though a light within him had been covered over. Once again, he reached for the full depth of his Jewelled-power and came up with...nothing. Or, if not nothing, so little power that it seemed almost pointless to use it.
"Be careful what you say, my son," Odin told him grimly. "He was also the son of the Territory Queen and she was prepared to take her Territory to war on account of his death."
"And so Thor is the sacrifice we make for peace?"
His father bowed his head. "Yes."
The door of the room swung open and a man sauntered in. "All comfortable, Jane?" He addressed his words to Jane rather than to Thor and Darcy. His smile was foul as stagnant water as he sat down on the side of the bed and brushed his fingers across her cheek. "We're going to have a little talk - continuing the one we started four years ago and which was so rudely interrupted by that bitch primping herself as Queen."
Thor tried to lunge to his feet, ignoring Darcy's psychic hiss to stay still. Again, he collapsed on the floor, unable to go on.
"You see?" The man laughed nastily. "Your friend can't help you, although he'll bloody himself trying against Hobie's Green shields. It'll be entertaining watching him - if I was going to watch." His hand stroked down Jane's throat as she tried to ease her body away from him. "But I've only ever had eyes for you, my dear Jane..."
He flicked a finger and the gag untied and floated away by Craft. Jane spat. "Maria warned you what would happen if you ever tried this again, Nigel!"
"The Lady Hill is not here. Nor are her males." Nigel said, and his hand splayed across Jane's breast and squeezed. Thor felt himself go cold - the blind, unthinking rage of a Warlord Prince. "I am. And I'm going to do what I should have done years ago..."
Jane's jaw tightened and she tried to twist away as Nigel bent down to kiss her, but she had no room on the bed, tied as she was.
Thor fought the spell, pushing himself as far as he dared before he gave up, panting. If he had his full Jewelled strength, he would plunge to the depths of the Ebon-grey, pulling Nigel and his accomplices down with him, smashing through their inner webs, leaving them broken and unable to use Craft.
If he possessed his full Jewelled strength, he would never have been here in the first place.
But he was sealed off from the strength that was his - by Birthright and Offering. Unable to protect as his instincts demanded, unable to fight with the strength of his Jewels, unable to do anything but watch as this upstart prick violated a witch whom Thor had come to hold dear.A rustle woke Thor, a woman's voice muttering crossly to herself as she swished through the long grass of the field, hauling something awkward behind her - something which smacked him in the belly as she fell over his prone body.
"Oh!"
He had caught her as she fell, cradling her slim figure against his own so she might not fall hard, and caught his breath at her scent. Her hair was a dark spill over his hands, and her face a pale oval by the starlight. "Careful," he murmured and felt her still at his touch, her breath coming short against his throat.
"I...I wasn't expecting to fall over someone in the middle of a field," she retorted, and if there was a breathlessness in her voice, her gaze was direct and did not drop shyly before him.
"Then you come out here often?"
"And never tripped over anyone else." Her words were tart, and brought a smile to him, unthinking. "May I get up now? I'm a little short on time."
"A lover's assignation?" His voice felt rough in his throat, almost scratchy at the thought of another male putting his hands on this witch.
"Much rarer." Her smile lit up the night around them, delight and eagerness that had nothing to do with him, yet which touched him all the same. "A conjunction of planets."
How long had it been since he had felt? Seasons. Perhaps even years.
So far from home, so long in exile from his land, his Jewelled strength, and his people, Thor felt the first flash of hunger then, desire as bright and warm as a flame within his soul for a witch whose name he didn't even yet know.
With no hope of fighting the spell, Thor forced himself to turn his attention to working out how to break it. But it was solid and well-crafted, fuelled by the power of a Green Jewel, locking them within their strength.
Locking them within their strength...
Thor could sense the Jewels of the others in the house - Jane's Rose Jewel, Darcy and Erik's Yellow Jewels, the Purple Dusk Jewel that the male, Nigel, wore, and the Green Jewel - Hobie's - that held them all in place...
On the bed, Jane fought and bit and called for help, but Thor felt the aural shield around the house, preventing any noise from escaping. There would be no help from outside.
Only from inside. Only from within.
He sank to the depth of the Rose, felt the barrier of the Black Widow's web block him, felt his Ebon-grey strength fill him to bursting before the excess flowed away as water through his fingers. Yet he was still aware of the Ebon-grey beneath him. The power that was rightfully his still sang to his senses.
He could reach that power once, for just long enough to drag down the Green and shatter the Purple Dusk. But he would break the tangled web that the Widows had wound around him, and would end up broken in turn.
And yet, everything had a price.
If the price is death?
Then I will pay that, too.
Thor didn't let himself think. Instead, he took a slow breath and plunged deep into his strength, ripping through the tangled web that bound him, feeling the power rush in on him like a weight too heavy to be borne, a pressure that would break through his self and leave him shattered.
But not before he took his enemies with him.
He tore through Nigel's Purple Dusk web without effort - the man was neither warrior nor prepared for such an attack. Hobie fared no better at the Green, although he put up a little more of a fight - for all the good it did.
Thor felt them break and let them go.
He sank to the Ebon-grey, landing lightly on the web that sang with his colours, and let the rushing power flood through him, embracing it like a lover. One last moment to be what he had been born to be - an Ebon-grey-Jewelled Warlord Prince of the Blood - before it all ended.His family said their farewells in the cool light of dawn, privately, in the Queen's apartments.
Thor didn't remember much of it - his father's gruff blessing, Loki's subdued anger, Sif's reassuring steadiness. Everything seemed muted after the tangled web had closed around him, as though a part of him was sealed away.
But he remembered his mother's kiss, her hands on his brow, on his breast, her lips and her tears on his cheek. He remembered her last words to him, soft as a caress and powerful as a prophecy.
*Be worthy of your Jewels and you will find your way home, my son.*
Thor let those words echo in the emptiness of his spirit as the guards escorted him away, no longer a Warlord Prince of the Asgardian court; just a Rogue without a Queen.
Erik's Yellow Jewel was no match for the power of an Ebon-grey-Jewelled Warlord Prince who'd regained his full strength and was hovering on the savage edge of his nature. So Erik let his eyes do the protesting, and allowed himself to be verbally reassured by Jane before he and Darcy floated Nigel's unconscious body downstairs.
After a moment's hesitation, Thor took Jane's hand and drew her into his lap on the bed.
She didn't protest as he settled her against him, sensing the edgy need in him even as a part of her shied away from him, wary after Nigel's assault. And Thor thanked the Darkness that she was willing to give him this much of an anchor in the internal storm that was the return of his nature and the power of his Jewels.
As a Warlord Prince teetering on the killing edge, Thor desperately needed balance - a feminine connection - and he could not ask it of Jane, not the way he wanted, not so soon after tonight. Maybe some time in the future - next week, next month, next season - just not now.
Unfortunately, he needed that anchorage now.
He smoothed his hands along her arms, pressing his cheek against the line of her neck and shoulder, hoping that her touch might be enough to soothe him; aware of the hungry ache that warned it would not. A door opened downstairs - the front door - and unfamiliar male voices drifted up to them. In his arms, Jane shifted, but only looked up at him as his arms tightened around her. "It's just Maria."
A moment later there were footsteps climbing the stairs, and then a woman stood at the door of Jane's room, her expression wary, her eyes tired as the took in the scene, before her clear, grey gaze came to rest on him.
Something loosened within Thor as he looked back at her. A Queen. Young and light-Jewelled, yes, but with a sense of a deeper, darker strength about her. Close to the Offering, then, and fierce with the soul of a warrior as she looked upon him.
"Prince." She took a single step into the room and no more. "Jane, are you okay?"
"I'm fine. It was close but not-" Jane's voice quivered. "I'm fine, Maria."
The steady gaze shifted to Thor. "Is she telling the truth?"
"I'm right here, you know!"
"And he's a Warlord Prince who considers you under his protection. He'll give me the truth." Her eyes demanded answers of him. "Prince?"
"Lady." His voice felt rusty; but her strength smoothed out the rough edges in him, settling what Jane alone couldn't soothe. "Jane speaks the truth."
"Good." She exhaled, soft and sure, and her eyes met his without fear. "I think we need to talk."
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Chapter 10: Dichotomous