Page 26 of Loki's Heart

He needed to do what he had always feared. Not just for Revna’s sake but for his own. Because the truth was, while he had feared hurting her over the years, the fear had been very much his own, too.

Fear that he might kiss her and lose himself.

Or, as he now realized,findhimself.

Whatever the reason, he needed to cross a new boundary. Do what he had been dreaming about for far too long. Taste what he had longed to taste.

So he cupped Revna's head and brought her lips to his.

Kissed her, however sound asleep she seemed.

When he did, everything faded away but what he had felt over the years. The emotions. Memories. Happiness when he saw her. Sadness when he left. The growing need. Boundless desire. Raw lust.

But most of all,love.

An emotion so strong he knew he could never get enough of it. Wouldn't trade it for anything. Not when it was her.

Revna.

His little demon.

His greatest love.

It was chaste. How else could it be kissing someone caught in a deep, dark sleep? Yet it was still there. Warm. Her. His.

Their lips touching for the very first time.

“Loki?”she whispered into his mind, her inner voice soft. Wondrous. Closer by the moment.“What are you doing?”Closer still.“I can’t feel you.”Even closer.“I want to, so much, but I can’t....”

Suddenly, as though her craving clawed its way to the surface along with her soul, her very heart, he felt warmth fill Revna. Energy and revitalization. Pure life. Then,whoosh, the volcanic flames around them grew brighter still, and she kissed him back.

It felt like his heart,hisvery soul, burst into flames when that happened. When she filled his arms with life and kissed him in a way that told him so much. That wrapped around them and bolstered their power to a point of no return. To a height they could drown in until the end of time. He didn’t think it was possible, but his own ancient magic had claimed him as well. Both of them. And it was unmistakable.

They were Forging in Fire.

Though their hearts had been returned, they were forever each other’s.

They had just become fated mates.

And they would have stayed that way, lost in each other, if they hadn’t felt Cian’s life force draining.

“No,” Loki and Revna roared simultaneously, leaping to their feet.

While jarring for Revna to be thrust back into her body, she had just become more powerful than ever. Divine. And she was as furious as him at what Yrsa was doing to their friend.

“Don’t come any closer.” Yrsa wrapped her body around Cian’s more firmly and narrowed her eyes at them. “If you do, I will end him.”

“Do not heed her,”came seven seer voices in their minds.“For you’re not alone in your fight.”

Where Yrsa might have been confident before, those voices, seers, were of her own world and every bit as furious as Lokiand Revna. So furious that when the ground opened up in combination with everything they threw at her, she never stood a chance.

Chapter Seventeen

Revna had never executed such sweet revenge as she did when her fellow Vanaheim seers collapsed the lava-ridden basin at the top of the mountain, then snagged Cian with magic while she and Loki dove in after Yrsa.

With good reason, Revna was filled with tremendous new power. Strength and magic that somehow, oddly, felt like it had been with her all along. Or perhaps that was merely the sensation of knowing that since birth, no, before it, Loki had been with her every step of the way. While hours ago, she never would have believed such a god could love her, never mind commit to her for all eternity, now she didn’t question it in the least.

Why?