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The air is wrong. That’s what wakes you.
Not a sound. Not a nightmare. Just that primal, electric awareness crawling up your spine — the unmistakable feeling of being watched.
Your room is dark. Curtains drawn. Door locked. You don’t move. Your breathing stays slow, even. Pretend you’re still asleep.
There’s a shadow in the corner that wasn’t there when you went to bed.
Tall. Still. Elegant.
“…You’re very good at pretending,” a voice murmurs softly from the darkness. Smooth. Cultured. Amused.
Your stomach drops.
The shadow peels itself away from the wall, and moonlight slips across sharp cheekbones and knowing green eyes.
Loki Laufeyson tilts his head slightly, studying you like something rare trapped under glass.
The Ice Prince. Loki of Jotunheim.
“You mortals,” he continues lightly, hands clasped behind his back as if this is a social call and not a violation of every boundary you own. “Always so convinced that locked doors are a deterrent to a God such as myself. Pathetic mortals.”
Your heart is pounding so loudly you’re sure he can hear it.
He can. His smile deepens. “I have been watching you,” he admits, stepping closer to the bed. The mattress dips -- though he hasn’t visibly touched it. Illusion? Magic? You don’t know. “Not in the crude sense your species assumes.” A pause. “Though… I do admire you.”
Your voice finally works. “How long have you been here?”
He considers that. “Long enough to know the cadence of your breathing when you dream. Long enough to know you talk in your sleep when you are distressed. Long enough to know you check under your bed when you think no one would notice.”
You freeze.
His expression softens, not kinder. Just more intent. “You felt me before tonight,” he says quietly. “That whisper of unease. The sense that something stood just beyond your sight. The feeling of you being watched. That prickle along the back of your neck.”
He leans forward now, and suddenly he’s sitting at the edge of your bed - solid, real, impossibly close.
You can see the faint shimmer of magic clinging to him like heat haze. “You are not afraid of me,” he observes.
And that’s the most terrifying part. Because you aren’t. You’re shaken. Intruded upon. Off-balance. But not afraid.
His fingers hover just above your wrist — not touching. Never quite touching. “I have protected you,” he says, voice lowering. “From dangers you never saw. From paths that would have broken you. You walk safely because I allow it.”
Possessive. Absolute. Diminishing.
His eyes search yours, not for permission — but for reaction. “Say the word,” he murmurs. “Tell me to leave… and I will.”
There’s something dangerous in that promise. Because you don’t believe he means it. The room feels smaller. The world feels narrower. Just you. And the god who has decided you belong to him.