“Oh,” she says, and her voice is barely above a whisper. “That’s nice.”
“You’re coming.”
She glances up at me through her long lashes and frowns. “I am?”
I nod. “We snuck you out last night and we can do it again. We’ll have private transportation all the way to the mountain, so we won’t see a soul. And then we hike.”
“For how long?”
“It’s just a couple of hours at the most. It’s easy. Mostly. Unless it snows. It probably won’t.” I pause. “You in?”
She bites her lip in thought. “What if I say no? Will you still go?”
Is she testing me? Fine. I’ll pass.
“I wouldn’t. I’d tell Viktor I’ll see him another time. Look, Ella, we don’t have much time together, and I’m not wasting a single second without you.”
Her brows shoot up. Guess she wasn’t expecting the truth outside of question time.
“Okay,” she says, a small smile appearing on her lips. “Then I’m in. Wait, what about Jane?”
I sigh. The cabin is tiny. There’s a loft and a bedroom beneath, and that’s about it. I’m not sure how the hell we’ll all fit but I shrug. “It’s a tight squeeze for everyone, but I’m sure we can make it work.”
But later when Ella goes to tell Jane about it, Jane quickly declines.
“Do you really think I’m going to go hiking up a bloody mountain and then stay overnight in a cabin that’s probably surrounded by bears? Maybe the princess doesn’t mind roughing it, but in a case like this, I’m very much a lady.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that Norway doesn’t really have a lot of bears, but her point was made. It was also followed up with a salacious winky face, which made me think she was sitting this out for other reasons.
And maybe Ottar got a hint because he also declined.
Which left Einar—who never sits anything out—and Ella.
And Viktor, of course, who arrived at the estate fairly quickly. That’s one good thing about being royalty—you’re treated like royalty. He got on a private jet and landed in a rural airfield not too far from here.
“You made it,” I tell him. Ella and I are standing on the front steps of the house as he gets out of the car I sent for him.
“I bribed the pilot to fly faster,” he says with a wink. Viktor is a tall motherfucker, about six-foot-five and obnoxiously blessed with a movie-star face. When the tabloids would have their “Battle of the Sexy Single Princes,” Viktor always came out on top. I blame his height. And his face. And his charm. You see, if anyone is meant to be king, it’s him, even though I know before he met his fiancée, Maggie, he was second-guessing his role.
As Viktor smiles at Ella and approaches us, I lean into her and whisper, “It’s proper to address him as Svenskefaen.”
“Okay,” she says with a nod and waits until Viktor extends his hand.
“It’s so nice to meet you Your Serene Highness,” he says.
Of course he would know the official way of addressing Ella.
Which makes what she’s about to say that much funnier.
“Thank you, Svenskefaen,” she says.
Viktor jerks his head back and stares at her a moment before erupting into laughter. “What?” he barks. He looks at me accusingly. “You taught her that, didn’t you!”
“What, what?” Ella asks, bewildered. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” Viktor says, trying to compose himself. “I’m so sorry. But you just called me a damn Swede.”
Ella goes bright red and then turns to me. “You shitbag!”
I giggle and try to avoid her fists which are currently pounding into my arm. “Hey, you’re an honorary Norwegian now. If you want to be like us, you have to learn how to insult the Swedes.”
“It’s true,” Viktor says dryly. “Only Norwegians would come up with a derogatory slur toward Swedes. We, on the other hand, would never stoop to that level.”
“Maybe you should,” I tell him. “It’s more fun down here.”
After Ella is thoroughly embarrassed, we don’t have much time to stand around. We’ve already packed, so we grab our backpacks that I found in one of the storage rooms and get in the car.
It’s a three-hour drive to the ski resort town of Geilo, with the trail to the cabin located about thirty minutes past that. It’s already dark by the time Einar swings the car into the parking spot at the end of a deserted road, and I know Ella is getting nervous.
“Shouldn’t we stay in a hotel?” she asks as we stand outside the car, putting on our hats, gloves, and backpacks. Einar is lighting up everything with a lantern.
“We’ll be seen in a hotel,” I tell her and reach over to tighten the straps around her chest. A grin spreads across my face which in turn makes her laugh.
“You know I can do that myself,” she says.
“I know,” I tell her. “Any excuse to touch you.”
“Besides, hotels aren’t fun,” Viktor speaks up. “They’re boring. Unless you’re alone with someone…” He trails off and in the white light I can tell he’s thinking of Maggie.
Damn Swede.
I look at Ella. “What Viktor is trying to say is that this is what we always do. Hike up in the dark or around sunset. Makes it more exciting and makes it so you won’t run across any hikers on the way up because, believe me, if people catch wind that we’re there, the cabin will be surrounded before you know it.”
Ella still doesn’t look convinced, and I don’t blame her. But she straightens the backpack on her shoulders, puts her chin up, and puts on a brave face.
Which, of course, only makes me admire her more.
And I wasn’t lying either when I said the hike wasn’t hard. The first quarter is up an old logging road with a fuckton of switchbacks, then the road peters out into a path through a bog, and then the path ends, and you have to just guess your way. The sky opens as the pine trees start to become sparse, and we’re surrounded by rocks and moss and low cloudberry and blueberry bushes that will gleam golden under sunlight. At night everything is dark and haunting.
Aside from a soaking foot rom stepping in the boggy ground, everyone handles the hike with relative ease, even as Ella huffs and puffs.
“I’m so not in shape,” she whines as she hikes ahead of me.
“Well, you certainly look it. Do you want to take a breather? Need some water? A beer? Viktor’s already drinking a beer.”
“Skal,” comes Viktor’s voice in the dark.
“I’m fine,” she says and keeps walking.
The last part of the climb is the steepest, and of course, the higher we go, the colder it gets. As far as I can tell though there’s been no recent snowfall. It’s mid-October and anything goes at this time of year.
Luckily, we’re over the bare face of rock and back into the treeline again where it’s easy to grab tree trunks to keep ourselves on the path.
Then the cabin rises out of the forest like a ghost.
“This is it,” I tell Ella as we all stop in front of it, catching our breath. “What do you think?”
“I like it,” she says after a moment. “I guess I was expecting something more…”
“Royal? No. This is barely maintained, barely used, and barely functioning, and that’s just the way we like it.”
Originally the cabin was built by my mother’s grandfather way back when, and it wasn’t until she became queen that it came into the royal family’s hands. It really is small, as is the custom for these types of places in the mountains. There’s a little shelter to the side where firewood is stacked, as well as skis and snow boots.
Inside there’s a fireplace, a tiny couch and chairs which have been the setting for many drinking games, a tinier kitchen, a bedroom and a loft upstairs, to which you have to take a long ladder. Family heirlooms and old knickknacks clutter up the rest of the space. The cabin is like a time warp to the 1940s.
It’s cold as balls though, so we all rush about trying to get things heated up. Viktor starts bringing in the wood while Einar starts lighting all the candles.
“Where do I sleep?” Ella asks fretfully.
“Anywhere you want,” I tell her.
Though, god, I’d so rather sleep with you than Viktor. Or Einar.
And those are my choices. I hope I’m conveying that with my eyes.
I must be, because she looks up the ladder. “There’s a bed up there?”
“All yours if you want it.”
She scrunches up her nose. “I’ll have to pee in the night. That ladder will be the death of me. Where is the bathroom anyway?” She pokes her head around the corner into the kitchen as if she expects to see a toilet.
I jab my thumb to the door. “There’s an outhouse.”
A look of pure horror comes across her face.
“If it’s fit for a prince, it’s fit for a princess,” I tell her.
“I’d rather go pee on a reindeer,” she says.
I laugh. God, I could fucking kiss her right now. Why the hell did I agree to share my time with her with Viktor and Einar?
That sharp lance of fear that I’ve been trying not to feel over the last few days comes in and comes deadly.
We really don’t have much time.
“Are you okay?” she asks softly, frowning as she looks me over.
I shake my head. “Yeah. Sorry. Just spaced out there.”
“I’m used to that,” she says and then gently touches my arm, as if to say she knows, as if to say she’s here.
Helvete.
I need something to drink.
Thirteen
Magnus
Once the fire is roaring in the cabin and things are starting to warm up, candles flickering all over, the four of us sit down around the rough-hewn wooden coffee table that I’m pretty sure my grandfather cut from a tree around the corner. In fact, I think the whole cabin was built by trees felled just feet away.