He’d sensed the summoning long before the sigils began to burn.

Old, foul magic. Rotten and desperate. The kind only madwomen or fallen gods still dared to use.

He could’ve ignored it—should’ve, perhaps—but something clawed beneath his ribs when he felt it. Not curiosity. Not fear. Something worse: a pull. The kind of pull he never trusted. The kind that meant something dangerous was waiting.

And so, like a fool—or a king with something to prove—he came.

The lair reeked of death and decay, all damp stone and dried blood and herbs too old to still hold power. She waited for him by the fire, the infamous witch of the Wastes. The one who bartered in souls and silence. Whose name he wouldn't dare speak aloud, though he’d never admit that aloud either.

She smiled with too many teeth.

“I wondered if you’d come, Trickster. I have... news.”

He scoffed, already turning.

“If this is about your petty future-seeing nonsense or some hollow prophecy—”

“—It’s about her.”

He stopped.

Not because he meant to. But because the air shifted, thickened, and that cursed pulse inside his chest kicked harder. He turned back slowly, expression blank. Too blank.

“What did you say?”

“The mortal girl,” the witch rasped. “The one you kept returning to. Pretty little thing with the laugh that made even your shadows pause. You do remember her, don’t you?”

He didn’t answer.

Because of course he remembered.

Too vividly. The curve of her smile, the sharpness of her tongue, the softness of her thighs. The way she looked at him like she wasn’t afraid. Like she saw through him and still stayed. And he hated it. Hated how often he thought of her when he was far away. Hated how it mattered.

The witch raised a clawed hand—and the room shifted.

From the shadows, she dragged something forward. Not with chains. With magic. With bonded will. Something sacred and wrong.

It was her.

You.

Dragged into the flickering firelight, barely able to stand. Pale. Weak. Eyes sunken, lips trembling with fury—or maybe pain. And your body... changed.

His stomach flipped.

A visible swell beneath your clothes. Unmistakable. Unforgivable.

Pregnant.

With his child.

Loki didn’t breathe.

Not because he was stunned—but because if he let himself move, he might burn the world down.

He stepped forward, slow and cold and sharp like the edge of a god’s blade.

He doesn’t look at the witch again. Only at you.

And in that moment, he’s no longer smirking. No longer amused or clever or cruel.

He’s just furious. And afraid.

“This isn’t possible,” He says lowly, mostly to himself. “This isn’t—”

But he knows it is. He feels it. And that’s the worst part.

He can feel the child. His magic in you. His blood in both of you.

And he doesn’t know what terrifies him more— That it’s real.

Or that he might not want it undone.