The Last Shifter (a Loki romance)

Chapter 15

Loki's POV

I was worried for Arista. I could see the dark bruises under her eyes and yet there always seemed to be something keeping her awake. First her lack of sleep in prison from the conditions, then being forced to go and inspect the Vanaheim villages just after waking up from an exhaustion-induced coma, only a fool would think she had slept during the few hours she'd had to herself in her room, especially after her fainting spell, and now the dragons were hatching. She was on a direct course for death. Not only from the lack of sleep but of nutrition and from expending too much energy. She'd only had one decent meal in the past week and had already burned off the energy that gave her, as well as most of the fat on her body. I could see her ribs beginning to poke through her skin. I could certainly feel them through the thin fabric of her dress as I held her against my torso and watched as the eggs continue to wobble.

Although Arista had been convinced that she would not be able to fall asleep without the aid of a spell, she succumbed to slumber after less than five minutes of trying. Every now and then, she would shift, forcing me into an increasingly uncomfortable position and the light of dawn chased away the darkness of the night. It was a good hour of just watching them wobble back and forth, as if being blown by a strong breeze, before real progress was made. At the first sound of cracking on the inside of the shell, I began to coax Arista awake.

Arista's POV

Darkness surrounded me. It was like I had been deprived of my senses. Where was I? Normally, silence rings in your ears but that was not the case for me now. It was just complete and utter quiet. I couldn't even hear the sound of my own breathing. Wait, how did I know I was breathing? I tried to move but found no limb attached to me. I couldn't see any, nor could I feel any. Where was I? Then, something broke the silence. A voice. A voice telling me to wake up. It was masculine but soft, like he was whispering. The voice was familiar but I couldn't place it. As seconds passed, the voice grew more and more frantic and increased in volume. Where had I heard his voice before?

"Ishmarta! Wake up!"

I gasped and shot upright, banging my forehead on Loki's in the process.

"Don't you EVER call me that AGAIN!" Loki looked taken aback.

"Arista, you weren't waking up. I was on the verge of causing an explosion!"

"Whatever you do, don't call me by my birthname in public or anywhere else someone might hear."

"Why?"

"Because it makes me subject to that person. My greatest weakness. Whoever knows my birthname can command me to do anything they want. My parents were the only ones who knew it at first and they told me when I was old enough to understand what it was. Since then, Bor is the only person I have given it to, he was an honorable man. I only wish I could say the same for his son."

"That's my father you're talking about."

"Need I explain why I am saying that about your father? He wanted to keep me locked up like an animal." All memory of my dream had been lost. I knew I had had one but I didn't remember what it had been about.

"Fine. The eggs are about to hatch. You requested I wake you."

"That I did." I removed myself from his lap and kneeled closer to them. I still couldn't feel him when I reached out. I couldn't really feel anything. Only unintelligent life-forms. Even the baby dragons took a lot of effort to sense and communicating with them through that thin eggshell was out of the question. Something I had taken for granted before was the fact that no physical barrier could stop my mental scanning and now the thinnest, most fragile barrier kept me from doing that. I couldn't focus on my own problems right now. I had to turn my attention to the new life about to enter the world. The first cracks were beginning to show in the first egg.