Dead Silence - T.G. Ayer Page 0,2

that I wondered how many times he'd done it before. He'd been so adept with the needle that I'd barely felt it break my skin.

It didn't take long before I watched my blood spurt into the tubing, snaking its way to begin filling the bag. The frost giant moved silently, filling five more bags with blood while I watched, growing weaker as the blood was drained from my body. He gathered the pile of blood bags and moved them to Loki's side.

Footsteps on the loft ladder announced the arrival of another Jotunn, pushing an IV stand. My lids were heavy as I watched him halt at Loki's side then crouch to lift the lid of the cooler. He removed one of the six blood-filled bags from its bed of ice and hung it on the stand before attaching the tubes. The Jotunn expertly set up a blood transfusion system, complete with a set of Y-tubes joining the streams of blood from each bag, and a well-placed needle to the vein. Loki didn't even flinch when the needle broke his skin.

I struggled to remain conscious as both the Jotunn retreated to the edge of the loft, leaving Loki and me with a modicum of privacy.

I had to admit he was going out of his way to be impressive, dragging all his equipment to a dusty loft so I could watch him fill himself with blood. Loki was as unpredictable and as melodramatic as ever. His behavior had never made much sense, and I didn't think he'd be changing anytime in the near future. We'd all learned to take his eccentricities in our stride, learned too that looking for logic in the god's actions was usually a waste of precious time. His unpredictability has made Loki all the more harder to trap.

Loki tilted his head and grinned. "It's a concentrated blend of Thor's blood. In case you were wondering." He raised his hand and gently caressed the blood-filled plastic bag.

"I wasn't," I snapped, glaring at him, and the feathers of my wings shivered slightly, revealing my frustration and anger. I was surprised I'd been able to summon the energy to respond with such fury, but I paid for it as I slumped back, the room beginning to spin.

"I'd drained Thor well when I had him in Belogorka. But it wasn't enough.Vanya said I needed to find a way to increase the concentration of Odin's blood. Then perhaps it will work."

Shaking my head, I swallowed hard as I asked, "Why is it so important to you? You obviously have the power to access the Bifrost at will. Why waste your time draining Odin's children just to use one spear."

Loki chuckled. "It isn't just a spear, dear sister. It's special."

I tilted my head, frowning as I tried to figure out why the spear was so important to Loki. Then I managed a weak laugh as the pieces fell into place. "It's because he gave it to me instead of you," I said softly, blinking as darkness closed in on the edges of my vision.

Loki's eyes went black, a demonic look that made my blood freeze in my veins. He leaned forward, "Not only did he overlook me and gave it to you, he also gave it to Thor, and Baldur too."

"Feeling left out, are we?" I asked, swallowing my laughter. All this was because Loki was jealous? The revelation was enough to keep me conscious.

The trickster didn't answer. He just leaned back and sighed, then slipped two fingers into his shirt pocket, withdrawing a rich red feather.

My feather.

My mouth opened of its own accord and I had to force myself to shut up. I wanted to know what the hell he was doing with my feather, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. He was baiting me, and I didn't plan to bite.

He held the feather to the light from the bare bulb above us, twisting it between his fingers as he made a show of studying it. The red -feather shimmered with a strange incandescence, something I'd gotten used to enough that it no longer awed me.

But Loki seemed entranced as he smiled at it, his eyes now a whirlpool of purple and blue. "I tried to take them from you, and yet my efforts were for nothing." He spoke, merely stating the facts. He'd made me sacrifice my wings but Odin had given them back to me. Apparently Loki hadn't appreciated his decisions being overruled.

"Maybe it's because they weren't yours to