The motion was as natural to me as breathing, the fluid, violent dance of war. My sword felt warm in my grip as I faced my enemies. They were a dark shadow against our moonlit snow, a crowd of disorganized rabble, little better than barbarians in their ugly brown furs and tromping clumsy boots. I watched them cradle their flames to keep warm and knew with satisfaction that I would not be returning home until I watched their blood fall scarlet on the snow. The glaring white surface of the ground made me blink, and my vision grew blurry for a moment, I squinted, and a sharp pain made me shut my eyes and open them again, the sound of the battlefield faded, replaced by angry voices.

"Why did you do that? I told you I could handle her." "The queen gave orders..."

"She would have been receptive to me..."

"Oh come now, you think you can just charm the girl? She wouldn't just leave her house and come with you because you're dreamy."

"Do not mock me, Caleb."

I surfaced out of the dream. My body was stiff, and I was lying on something hard. I tried to open my eyes and realized why everything seemed so dark. There was something over my eyes, a blindfold. In horror, I tried to rip the blindfold off and discovered why I was so sore. My hands were tied behind my back, and I was obviously lying on them. Tentatively I tried to move my legs and found myself tied at the ankles as well. Jolts of panic ran through me, making me nauseous and weak. Visions of the terrible things I'd heard on the news ran through my head like a horrible slide show.

"Well, you didn't need to truss her up like that," the first voice said crossly. "She's a slip of a girl. Are you afraid she'll be too much to handle? You've locked the van door from the outside."

Even in my current predicament my mind repeated the phrase "slip of a girl". My six foot status had never allowed anyone to call me that before. I remembered the man standing on my lawn, how he'd been taller than me.

"I had my orders," the second voice, the one called Caleb said. "You know how much is riding on this. I'm not going to go and make her mad, am I?"

"You let me deal with the girl when we get to the palace. I won't have you man-handling her like that again," the first voice grumbled.

The palace? What the hell. Was this some kind of joke? I squirmed around on the hard surface, trying to get whatever I was laying on to stop digging into my back. Obviously we were going to be driving for some time, since I was pretty sure there were no palaces in Grande Prairie. Where were we going, Europe? How would someone hide out in a palace? Were they taking me to another country? I had another huge jolt of panic....was I being sold into slavery? I went still and tried my best not to hyperventilate, feeling every bump and rut in the road.

We drove for what seemed like ages, but it could have been minutes. My back was stiff, and my cheeks felt tight where tears had dried. I clenched my eyes shut and tried to fade out again. Dreaming about hacking at people in battle was preferable to lying here helplessly, wondering if I was going to be sold to some playboy sultan or something.

One of the men suddenly spoke up, "What's that?"

I felt the van slow, neither man spoke for a moment, and then the other voice said,

"Road block?"

"Oh that's just great," someone, Caleb I think, growled. "We've got a girl tied up in the back, officer. Hope that's not a problem."

"We'll just freeze them if we have to."

I processed this while the van slowed to a halt. Freeze them? As in, what I had done to my first kiss? Maybe this wasn't about slavery, maybe I was mixed up in something...weirder.

The electric whirr of the van window rolling down, and then someone from outside said,

"Hello, boys..."

Someone shouted, making me stiffen against my ropes. There was a giant clunk noise, and then a muffled groan, and the sound of someone shouting.

"Caleb!"

I wished desperately that I could see what was going on. More shouting, shuffling, clunking, something slammed into the side of the van and I gasped. There was silence, then a scrabbling sound from behind me. I concentrated on breathing evenly. Every muscle in my body was so rigid I was almost vibrating. Something creaked, and I smelled fresh air glide in from behind me. The van door was opening. A grunt of effort, and I could picture someone levering themselves up into the back of the van. I couldn't stand it any longer,

"Who's there?" My voice was quavering, high and thin. I hated how afraid I sounded.

Shuffling, coming closer, and then something brushed past my cheek. I flinched, and whatever it was drew back.

"Hold still," a deep voice murmured. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Fingers grasped the blind fold, tugging it upwards, and the sudden flood of light made me blink furiously, eyes watering. Gradually his face came into focus.

A mop of brown curls framed a friendly face with warm brown eyes. He had an earring in each lobe, the black wooden kind, and short necklace of black beads. He was smiling at me, he was adorable. He was also just smiling at me and not moving.

"Could you untie me please?"

"Oh!" He looked startled. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Here, I'll help you sit up." He looped one arm under my shoulders, guiding me into a sitting position. As he worked at the ropes around my wrists he talked.

"I'm Loki, by the way. You must be Megan."

"How do you know my name?"

"I was sent to make sure they didn't get you."

I tried to process this. "Um, sent by who exactly? And who are they?" I felt the ropes come loose at last, and sighed with relief, rubbing at the sore spots on my wrists.

Loki shuffled down towards my feet, still on his haunches, and began picking at the knots tying my ankles together. He studied my face as he did so.

"They really didn't tell you anything, did they?"

"Tell me what?" I knew I should just be grateful to my rescuer, but I was starting to get annoyed. "Does this have anything to do with the girls at school who look like me and the fact that I can't feel the cold anymore? Am I some kind of genetic freak that the government is after? Is this some kind of X-men thing?"

"Um." Loki bit his lip, which was extra adorable. "Something like that. Come on, we have to get you somewhere safe. Those guys won't need their van for a while, so we'll take it."

He helped me get to my feet, his hands on my waist as he guided me over the tarps and random crap that were in the back of the van.

"Wait a minute, you're bound to be shaky on your feet for a bit." He jumped down and offered me his hand. "Come on, steady now."

I took his hand and stepped down carefully. He was right, my knees felt watery. I stepped onto the snowy road in my bare feet, being careful to tread slowly so I wouldn't slip. Wind whipped past me, penetrating my thin night gown and blowing my hair back. I blushed a little as Loki studied me, his hand on my waist.

"Not cold at all, huh?"

"No." I shrugged. "I don't know what's wrong with me. Thanks for saving me, by the way. What did you do to those guys?"

"Ah, they'll be fine." Loki waved a hand carelessly. "Minor concussions is all. Their skulls are too thick for it to really make a difference."

We came around to the front of the van and I saw my kidnappers lying in the snow to one side of the road. One of them I recognized as the man who'd stood on my front lawn looking at me. I stepped forward to look down at him. He almost looked like he was sleeping, except for the blood on his temple. He had short blonde hair and a square jaw. He was undeniably good-looking, in a hard way. I shivered and glanced over at the other man, then froze. There was no mistaking the bean pole figure splayed out on the ground. His spectacles were beside his head, one lens was shattered. I stared down at my unconscious English teacher in horror.

"Mr. Scott?"

"Someone you know?"

I turned to Loki, who was leaning against the van staring at me curiously.

"My English teacher from high school." I rubbed my eyes furiously, as if that might make it go away. "Okay," I rounded on him. "Tell me what's happening."

"Get in," he said, and for the first time he looked stern. "I have to get you somewhere safe first."

I stayed where I was for a second, than nodded. "Alright. But explain on the way."

"Deal."

We climbed into the van. The keys were still in the ignition, and Loki started it and turned it us around, heading back into Grande Prairie.

"Where were they taking me?"

"Jotunheim I expect." I stared at him, and he blinked at me. "What?"

"That word sounds made up."

He shrugged. "Well, it's not. It's where the Jotun live."

"The who?"

Loki sighed. "This is going to be a long ride, so I might as well explain." He cleared his throat importantly. "You, and yes, the girls you met in your school, are all from a very long line of Jotun. I mean, you're not full Jotun, you've only got the blood in you, but it's enough."

"What the heck is a Jotun? You're not explaining this very well." I stared out at the snowy landscape in frustration. "How does this explain why I can't feel cold? Or why five girls at my school look like me? Or why I got kidnapped?" and I added for good measure, "or why the first guy I kissed turned into a popsicle last month!"

Loki glanced over at me, and a crooked little smile appeared on one side of his mouth. He looked mischievous. "You only had your first kiss last month?"

I blushed furiously and looked down at my bare feet. A pool of slushy ice was forming beneath them. To my relief Loki turned back to the road and continued his story.

"Well, I'll try as best I can to explain. Those people back there who tried to kidnap you, are your kin."

I stared at him in shock. "What? That can't be. My family abandoned me. Why would they try to get me back by kidnapping me?"

Loki's mouth straightened out into a thin line. "None of your story is really true. You weren't abandoned. Your human mother was, shall we say...convinced, to leave you somewhere at a young age. Most of your parents are probably dead, I'm afraid to say."

I blinked furiously at tears welling behind my eyes. This was all terrifying, and confusing and unreal. When I spoke my voice was cracked. "Why?"

Loki looked at me unhappily. "I think maybe the queen thought the bond between a real mother and her child was too strong, plus your mother would have known who the father was."

"Who?" I whispered.

"A full blooded Jotun," Loki said grimly. "A frost giant."

I couldn't help it, I laughed. It wasn't a particularly happy laugh, in fact, it came out sounding rather like the hysterical blat of a terrified sheep.

Loki stole a look at me out of the corner of his eye, "Don't believe me?"

I wanted to point and laugh at him, call him a nut case. I wanted to shrug all this craziness off and go back to California. Then I looked down at my feet, which were sitting in a puddle of melted ice that felt like bath water, and I knew he wasn't lying or crazy. It was still hard to wrap my head around though.

"I can understand if you need a minute," Lockie murmured.

I stared out the window, watching the silent white landscape roll by. My mind felt like scrambled eggs, like one big jumbled mess.

"So, this queen....she's a..a Jotun, obviously."

"She is," Loki nodded.

"And she had some Jotun men go and...and have sex with human women and then had the women killed because they knew too much, and the babies adopted. And now she's trying to get us back for some reason?"

"The ones that survived, yes. She had a good deal more babies out there then just you five. Some of the blood didn't mix well, and some of it died out all together. It was a kind of experiment we think."

I looked at him sharply, "And what's your stake in all this? Who are you? Are you with the government or something?"

He grinned, "Not quite. I'm a son of Muspell, of the Fire Giant clan."

I shut my eyes and leaned my head back on the seat with a groan, "You've got to be kidding me. I was barely dealing with this Frost Giant thing."

He smiled at me, "Sorry, but it's true. Our people have pretty much always hated each other."

"Then why are you helping me?"

Locki hesitated, than gave me another bright smile, "I'm supposed to make sure you don't get to the queen, that's all."

"Why does the queen want me?"

Loki shrugged, "We're not sure. She's experimenting with human and Frost Giant blood, but we've always mingled with one another, it's nothing new. But we've been doing surveillance on the queen for some time now, since she's bound and determined to start a war and kill us all, and we know she has plans for you, we just don't know what."

"Well, that's comfortingly vague," I muttered.

Loki grimaced, "Yeah, sorry. All I know is that you don't want to get mixed up with her. She's sort of a bitch."

"What's her name, this Queen?"

He shrugged, "She calls herself Eira. Weird name, right? It's Norse. I don't know if that's her real name or not, she's been around for way longer then I have." He turned and winked at me, "I hear she's apt to give visitors the cold shoulder."

"You're just hilarious." I wasn't done questioning him, "but you're not getting off that easily. Where is this palace I was supposed to go to? It can't be near Grande Prairie."

"It's not near anywhere actually," Loki glanced at me sideways again, and I shook my head in dismay, "You're going to tell me it's in some different dimension or something like that, aren't you?"

"Something like that," He grinned, "It's a bit much to take in, I know."

"So what now? We're going to a hotel to lay low until she gives up on me?"

His smile faded, "I'll take you to a hotel, but she won't give up on you. You can't stay in Grande Prairie. Do you have friends you can go to somewhere else? Somewhere hot, preferably. She hates warm places."

"I...yes, I guess so. I'll have to go back to California for awhile, is what you're saying." That didn't sound bad at all. Loki was shaking his head,

"No, I'm saying you'll have to hide there, permanently. They'll keep looking for you, so you can't come back here, and you can't tell anyone where you're going."

I frowned, "But my foster parents..."

"They can't know. No one can know."

"But they'll be worried." Or at least Dave would be. I suspected Janet would throw a party if I went missing.

Loki gave me an apologetic look, "Sorry, that's just the way it has to be. You have to run. These people don't play games, and they're not nice."

I remembered the feeling of the smothering rag pressing over my mouth and nose, the feeling of fading to black. I shuddered and nodded reluctantly.