Chapter 15 #2
I’ve accidentally glimpsed Nettie’s reading app before. There is no bottom to that particular rabbit hole, and I say that with equal parts horror and admiration.
Nettie spots a server with a tray of mimosas and flags him down as if she’s hailing the last lifeboat off a sinking ship.
She grabs three glasses, passes them around, and takes a long sip.
She also tucks a fourth behind the napkin caddy, an insurance mimosa.
Bess reaches over and returns it to the tray before the server can escape, all without a word or a glance at the culprit.
Border patrol in a pantsuit.
“Sweet fizzy heaven,” Nettie breathes.
“It’s champagne and orange juice,” Bess says.
“Exactly. Heaven.”
I take a sip of my own mimosa, perfectly balanced, cold, and dangerously easy to drink, then scan the crowd again.
Magnus has materialized near a cluster of women in velvet capes, clearly enjoying himself. He informs them, loudly and to no one who can hear him, that velvet is “a fabric for sinning.”
I make a mental note to keep him away from the drapes in my suite.
“Is your sexy suitor from the great beyond here?” Nettie asks, following my gaze.
“Unfortunately, yes. He’s currently nibbling earlobes and whispering who knows what into them. Something naughty, no doubt.”
Nettie perks up immediately. “Hey, hot stuff from the other side!” she calls out to absolutely no one the rest of the room can see. “Come to mama!”
Half the lounge turns to stare. Nettie sips her mimosa, entirely unbothered. Eight decades of not caring will do that for a person.
Magnus’ head swivels toward us, and a grin spreads across his face, slow and villainous.
Oh no.
He glides over in a lazy swirl of silver stars and settles in next to Nettie, who shivers slightly as he leans close.
“Your friend invites me,” he purrs against her ear. “How delightful. Shall I tell her what I think of her—”
“Don’t you dare,” I mutter.
Nettie looks at me. “Is he here?”
“He’s here.”
“What’s he saying?”
“Things I’m not going to repeat.”
“That good?”
“That inappropriate.”
“Honey, at my age, inappropriate is a food group.”
“Then consider this an all-you-can-eat buffet,” I tell her.
“I’d like it noted that I’m sitting right here,” Bess says.
“Jealousy is a terrible color on you,” Nettie tells her.
Magnus grins wider and shifts even closer to Nettie, who remains blissfully oblivious to the seven-foot ghost currently invading her personal space.
Somewhere in the afterlife, there’s a customer service department, and I have complaints. I’ve started a list. It’s alphabetized.
Sienna steps to the front of the room and claps her hands for attention. The chatter dies down as women find seats, mimosas in hand, their faces flushed with champagne and anticipation.
“Ladies!” Sienna’s voice projects better than I expected. “Welcome to our discussion on morally gray characters. Specifically, the Viking heroes we love despite their questionable everything.”
“Or because of it,” someone calls out, and the room erupts in laughter.
“Good point,” Sienna concedes, smiling. “So let’s start with the big question: why do we love these men? These warriors who pillage and conquer and have absolutely no concept of modern communication skills?”
“Those delicious thighs,” Nettie says immediately.
More laughter.
“Okay, yes, the physical appeal is undeniable,” Sienna says. “But what else?”
A woman in purple velvet raises her hand. “The redemption arc. They start out ruthless, but love changes them.”
“The protective instinct,” another adds. “They’d burn the world down for the heroine.”
The sentiment lands a little differently when somebody in this room may have burned Astrid’s world down two nights ago. I keep my smile pinned in place and my ears wide open.
“The emotional vulnerability underneath all that violence,” someone else contributes. “They’re damaged but capable of deep feeling.”
Magnus leans closer to Nettie. “They love us because we’re dangerous. Because we take what we want. Because we don’t apologize for our nature.”
I resist the urge to tell him that’s exactly the problem.
“What about the consent issues?” a woman near the back asks, and the room goes quiet.
Sienna nods seriously. “That’s a valid concern. A lot of Viking romance involves dubious consent at best, especially in older titles. How do we reconcile loving these stories with recognizing the problematic elements?”
“We acknowledge it,” Poppy says from her seat near the front. “We can enjoy the fantasy while understanding it would be horrifying in reality. Fiction lets us explore darker themes safely.”
She says it with the serene calm of a librarian. As if fantasies are things she files neatly and never once lets off the leash. I’m starting to wonder if that’s true.
“Context matters,” Freya adds from the windows, not turning around. “Historical accuracy versus romanticization. We’re not reading these books for a documentary on actual Viking culture.”
She’ll debate the room, but she won’t face it. Interesting.
“Plus,” Nettie chimes in, “the good ones make it clear the heroine has agency. She chooses the Viking. She wants the Viking. It’s not about being conquered. It’s about being claimed by someone you’ve already claimed for yourself.”
Bess looks at her. “That was unexpectedly profound.”
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain mimosas,” Bess tells her.
“Those too.”
Morally gray, indeed.
The discussion rolls on, women raising hands and sharing opinions, the conversation flowing as smoothly as the champagne.
They debate favorite books, worst tropes, best redemption arcs.
Someone brings up a series where the Viking hero learns to read because the heroine loves books, and half the room sighs in unison.
Literacy. The ultimate aphrodisiac.
Take note, gentlemen. Skip the flowers and bring a library card.
Magnus keeps up a running commentary in Nettie’s ear that only I can hear, making increasingly inappropriate observations about which women he’d care to “raid” and how modern clothing is both a tragedy and a tantalizing mystery. He’s currently locked in a losing battle with the concept of a zipper.
“What sorcery is this fastening?” he demands of no one. “And why does it taunt me so?”
A thousand years of pillaging, undone by a notions department.
“Your friend smells of cinnamon,” he murmurs to Nettie, who can’t hear a word of it. “Delicious. I could nibble her for hours. And the small fierce one with the hair of fire—” He tips his head toward Bess. “I would let her plunder my longship any day.”
“Please stop,” I say under my breath.
“Never,” he replies cheerfully.
I need an adult. Unfortunately, I am the adult. This is the whole problem.
My phone buzzes against my hip. Ransom, romantic as ever.
Ransom: Status?
I text back a mimosa emoji and the word surveilling.
Three dots appear, then vanish. He’s either proud of me or drafting a lecture. With that man, the two frequently arrive in the same suit.
After a solid forty-five minutes of discussion, and several rounds of mimosas, Sienna gives two sharp claps. “All right, ladies! Let’s take a quick break for refreshments. Stretch your legs, grab some food, and we’ll reconvene in fifteen minutes for the dramatic reading portion of our program!”
The lounge breaks into a genteel stampede as women surge toward the refreshment table like Vikings storming a village. Appropriate, really. And I stand by what I said earlier. You can learn a lot about a person from a buffet, and this crowd is telling on itself in droves.
Fifteen minutes. That’s all that stands between me and fifty women performing Viking love scenes in accents of their own invention. I should question a suspect while I still have my wits about me.
I rise and search the crowd. Freya hasn’t moved from the windows. She’s still standing there, staring out at the endless ocean, her black leather jacket stark against the afternoon light. Alone.
Nobody stands that still at a party unless they’re guarding something. Or grieving something. In my experience, it’s usually both. And whatever it is she’s carrying, it looks heavy from here. My heart squeezes for her, suspect list or no suspect list.
I glance at Bess and Nettie, who are already deep in a debate over the merits of salmon versus cucumber sandwiches, then back at Freya.
Time to see what the unconquered queen is hiding.