Page 65 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

“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.

CHAPTER 16

Iweave through the crowd of velvet-clad women toward the windows where Freya stands alone, staring out at the Baltic as if she’s weighing a swim she wouldn’t come back from.

Magnus drifts beside me, his silver stars barely visible in the afternoon light. Behind us, the Observation Lounge hums with the Velvet Viking Book Club making the most of their fifteen-minute break from our discussion of morally gray characters, which mostly involves storming the refreshment table and topping off mimosas in preparation for the dramatic read-aloud portion of the program. Fifty women, one steamy chapter, and accents nobody licensed. The countdown is on.

I detour past the refreshment table just long enough to liberate a smoked salmon pinwheel. A woman shouldn’t interrogate on an empty stomach. That’s not in any detective handbook, but it should be.

“The raven-haired beauty,” Magnus purrs. “Shall we see what secrets she’s hiding? I do hope they require unlacing.”

“We shall,” I mutter under my breath. To anyone watching, I’m a woman having a heartfelt chat with a window. The crew stopped noticing months ago. I hear there’s a betting pool on my sanity, and frankly, I’d like in on it. The odds can’t be good.