Good afternoon, and I hope you’re having fun with the Faerie Tales and Fantasies chat!
I thought you might like to get to know Loki from The Trickster’s Lover just a bit better, so here’s a second excerpt from the novel.
Enjoy, and feel free to ask me anything!
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Excerpt (Caroline and Loki are in Caroline’s apartment, sharing mead)
He was smiling now. I smiled too, feeling the muscles in my shoulders relax. “So this is…Midgard,” I said, running my fingers over the smooth, golden rim of my goblet, wanting to keep him smiling. “And you come from…” I hesitated. It just sounded so crazy.
“Asgard,” he said, gently.
“So there really are Nine Realms? Are they…different planets?”
Loki laughed. “You mortals love to count things. You love to put names on them. As if that somehow led to understanding.”
“So there aren’t nine of them?” I asked. “Or they aren’t planets?”
He smiled at me and shrugged his shoulders.
“Fine,” I said, feeling slightly annoyed. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Loki took a sip of his mead and gestured out the window. “What do you see?” he asked.
I saw the darkened windows of the brick apartment building across the street, and the streetlights shining against the bare branches of the sycamore tree, their pale bark folding like skin. “The branches?” I asked.
He nodded. “Now, what are they? Is each branch one world, or are they all part of the same tree?”
I shook my head. “But Asgard isn’t a part of this world. I mean, you can’t walk there…” I trailed off, looking at Loki.
He laughed again. “Of course you can walk there,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “If you know where to walk.”
“But it’s not on a map,” I insisted.
“The realms overlap,” he said. “Maybe not as much as they once did. But we’re all part of the same World Tree.”
“Yggdrasil,” I said. “The World Tree. That’s a… a metaphor for social structure.”
Loki laughed again. “No, it’s a tree,” he said. “It’s an ash tree.”
I was absolutely lost.
“Here,” he said, putting down his goblet and leaning close to me. “I’ll show you.”
His lips touched mine, soft and cool, and my mouth parted for him. I could taste the honey mead on his lips and tongue as he entered my mouth, lingering. I tilted my head and his tongue moved further into me, slowly and delicately. I felt the world around me dropping away, my entire being focused on his soft lips, his urgent tongue.
I gasped when he pulled away. Slowly, the world came back into focus. He raised his hand to brush my cheek.
“There,” he said, with a small catch in his voice. “We’re two separate people, sharing the same space. And when I’m inside of you…well, where do you end and I begin?”
“We…overlap,” I said, and he smiled.
“Show me again,” I said, leaning towards him.
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If you’d like to read more, you can find The Trickster’s Lover on Amazon.
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