“Agreed. I’ve been keeping an eye on him, and he seems fine. Answering a lot of questions for him. You’re welcome for that, by the way. Telling him about you getting caught up in the slave trade was rough. You owe me like, seven hundred solid make-outs or something.”
“Seven hundred, eh? That might take a while.”
“I’m okay with that. After you brush your teeth, that is.”
I grimaced. “Oh, sorry about that. I really didn’t mean to puke on your hand. Totally gross.”
His eyebrows tented in the center of his forehead. “Well, I think that’s what I get when I shove my fingers down your throat. But I think that entitles me to seven hundred and one make-outs, doesn’t it?”
“At least. You should’ve held out for an even thousand.” I chewed my eggs, moaning gratuitously at the decadence.
He grinned at me, his hand brushing through my hair and squeezing the follicles. “You scared me, you know. I wish we could just hang out here and rest for a while, but the potion for curing the Depravity of Man curse has a time limit. Havard said the fresher the better. As soon as you’re up to it, we have to move.”
My eyes widened. “Oh, right. Okay. Won’t it take Foss awhile to arrange a party for the whole island and do the whole ‘Foss is back from the dead’ song and dance?”
“Foss is already gone. He set out last night after we made the potion with your blood. I would imagine he’s already presented himself to the chief, and a party for the island is being announced as we speak. That means you get to don your best Mrs. Foss gear and smile for the cameras.” His tone was light, but I could tell the words tasted bitter in his mouth. “A dress came for you from him earlier this morning.”
“Oh. Wow, that’s a lot to process. You guys don’t waste any time. I feel like I’ve been out for a week.”
“Nope. Just a few hours. Maybe eight or so.” He handed me the water. “Jamie took a dose of the cure before he left to lift his birth curse, and mixed a little in his canteen of water to give to the baby once he’s born, just in case the curse is transferrable. I’m hopeful tonight will be a good night of sleep for Jamie. Back with his pregnant wife, unlaplanded, uncursed. I’m sure I’ll barely recognize the guy when we get home.”
“That’s awesome. Did Foss take it?”
“Not yet. He said he wants his curse to be gone with his people at the party. You know, in case he has to do anything ruthless before then. Wants that edge.”
“What a great reason.” I finished my eggs and swung my legs to the floor, testing their follow-through with the job of holding me upright. Jens helped me to stand, letting me lean on him until I got the hang of it. “What about the Tomtens that’re after Jamie?”
Jens shook his head. “If all goes as planned, they’ll be hunting around the Darklands forever. Toms don’t have jurisdiction in Fossegrim, and they don’t even know Jamie was here. If anyone’s looking for you, they’ll have to go through Foss, and after he gets reinstated, that’ll be tough for anyone to do. You’re safe.”
The promise caught me off-guard. “I haven’t heard those words in a while.”
“You’re still real pale, hun. I wish we could put this off a few more days, but Foss needs his wife queen if he’s going to take back his place from whoever has it now. It might get bloody before the end, so I’ll be with you the whole time.”
I squeezed his hand. “Good. I like you close.”
“Really? How about this close?” He spidered his fingers across my face so I couldn’t see anything. “How about this way? Is this what you meant?” He pretended like he was going to hop on my back and demand a piggyback ride.
I laughed, and the sound felt good in my soul that had felt like a barren desert last night. “Yes, exactly like that. Hop on, princess.”
“Man, I missed you,” he said, squeezing me like a squeak toy. “It’s been so tense with all this curse business, dead people coming back, and my best friend being in your head. Nice to laugh a little.”
“I believe you promised me a dress,” I said, looking around the room and finding nothing.
“In the bathroom. I’ll fill the tub for you. Do you need any help, or can you manage?” Then he crossed his fingers. “Please tell me you’re weak as a daisy and need my help.”
I shot him a withering glance. “Pass.”
He held his chest like I’d shot him through the heart with an arrow.
I shut the bathroom door and breathed out my nerves, readying myself to step back into my role as a Tribeswoman once again.
11
1472 I-Don’t-Give-A-Crap Avenue
When Foss came back to the small house we were holed up in, he looked like a new man. His chest was barreled, he wore new clothes that looked expensive and well-fit to him. His new boots were shined, and there was a light in his eyes that had been muted since he’d left his homeland.
“The chief’s demanded an audience with you, Lucy, as soon as you can manage it. He’s putting together a grand feast for tonight, and messengers have been sent out to every household, including criers in the marketplaces.” Foss held up his hand, as if bracing us for the best part. “I told him that you insisted on performing a blessing on the Gar everyone’ll drink before it gets served, and he said he’d be honored. You can just dump the cure in then. The curse will be lifted throughout the entire island in one night. The plan will actually work!”
Jens clapped Foss on the shoulder in congratulations, hefting his red pack onto his back. “We’re going to the chief’s, then?”
Foss nodded, his smile that of a younger man. Undraland looked good on him. I felt bad that he’d had to stay away for so long. He stood proud in the doorway. “As soon as you’re ready.”
Jens opened the front door. “I’ll walk with you guys to the chief’s, but then I told Linus I’d show him the sights. He’s never been here before.” In answer to my quirked eyebrow, he said, “I’ll scope out the chief’s place, make sure it’s well guarded, and then go out for like an hour or two. We’ll meet you at the party.”
“Okay,” I replied slowly. Linus wasn’t meeting my eyes, and Jens was too nonchalant about leaving me without a guard. They were in cahoots about something. “I know you two are planning something. If you’re pooling your pennies to buy me a unicorn, I want a purple one. I’d just send a yellow one back. Shipping disaster.”
Jens pulled me forward and kissed me. “Purple, it is.”
“I know you’re up to something,” I warned him.
“The less you know, the better. If anyone asks where your Tom is, tell them I’m scouting the area in invisibility mode.”
I pointed at Linus. “I know you’re keeping a secret from me.”
Linus scoffed. “You’re one to talk. Jens told me about Olaf and the whole being thrown into a birdcage to sell off as a slave incident.”
I stiffened, but knew this wasn’t the time for a twin takedown.
Jens waved the others out the door. “Give us a minute. It’s the last time I can kiss my girlfriend till we leave this stupid island, and I don’t want you both watching me.”
Foss made a show of turning his head in slow motion toward Jens with his eyes wide, watching him like a hawk without blinking. “Go ahead. We’re not watching.”
I laughed, pleased that Foss had grown a sense of humor. I shoved them out the door and flung my arms around Jens’s neck, pulling him down to really lay one on him.
Jens pulled back, looking up at the ceiling to say his piece. “We walk out that door, and you’re Foss’s wife. That means you have to play the part, and I’m nothing more than your guard.”
“I know.”
“So whatever’s left between you two, seal it up and say goodbye, because after we’re done here, I’m not coming back. I can suck it up this time because I know it’s the last time. But I’m serious, Lucy. I can’t watch you be in love with him.”
“I love you,” I whispered.
“I know. But you love him, too, and I need you to
do what you can to leave it in Fossegrim once we go back home. So get it out of your system. Be the wife, and then say goodbye.”
“You know I have no choice in this whole being his wife thing. You know I’m not trying to throw anything in your face.”
“I know. It’s why I can be cool. But only until the curse is lifted. Then we leave. You, me and Linus.”
“Okay.” I knew he wanted to do some serious relationship talk, but it wasn’t the time. I didn’t want to talk about Foss. I wanted something to remind me of the future I would be walking into if we made it out of Fossegrim alive.
I’d caught him off-guard with my passion, and used my advantage to back him into the wall with the fight I possessed in my kiss. I knew Jens was trying to decide if he had the wherewithal to pull away and talk like adults.
I changed his mind for him. Teenagers. We would be teenagers and leave adulthood for the true grownups. Jens and I would run off into the sunset, hop on a plane for London and live under pseudonyms just for fun so we could pretend we were secret government agents. “Run away with me,” I begged between kisses.
Jens’s knees weakened, and he tackled me to the floor, making sure my landing was cushioned by his arms, so I didn’t smack down on the wood. “Name the place. Name the time. I’m already there.”
His lips and hips meshed with mine, and we rolled around on the floor in a half-wrestle, half-make-out. He pinned me, and then I pinned him, our lips seeking out the other’s like a metal detector mining for a friggin’ spaceship.
Jens put me into orbit when his hand reached down and cupped my calf, tracing his thumb up the back of my leg and leaving little pinches along the underside of my thigh. “I love you. I love you,” he whispered as my back arched against his palm.
“Prove it,” I challenged, my tongue finding its way past his lips.
Jens slipped the capped sleeve of my red gown down off my shoulder and pressed his lips to the naked skin that begged for him. “I will. Every day, I will.” He groaned into my shoulder when Linus’s fist pounded on the door in parental warning. “Your skin tastes…” He sucked on a quarter-sized space between my chest and my shoulder, making me shiver beneath him. “I can’t get enough.”
The front door opened, and I peered over Jens’s shoulder to find Linus with his hand over his eyes. “No joke, I’ll crack you over the head if you don’t get out here right this second, Jens.”
“I’m coming,” Jens said, cluing Linus in to the fact that we were on the floor.
Linus’s jaw tightened. “Lucy, get off the floor. No sister of mine’s going to roll around on the ground with some guy. Dad would have a field day with this.”
“It’s fine, Linus,” I said. Jens hoisted me up and delivered one more kiss to my willing lips. “We’re adults.”
Linus was fuming. He had the look of Dad about him. “Adults, eh? Do you have a mortgage? Do you have a job? Do you pay bills?”
“Um, yes to the first one and the last. And I think this little adventure qualifies as a job.”
Linus’s nose raised. “Is that what you want to have said to me? Mom and Dad sat us down and gave us the longest speech of my life about not having sex before we were married.”
Oh, yeah. I hadn’t really been paying attention to that one. I mean, until Jens, I hadn’t even kissed a guy, so I didn’t think those rules had anything to do with me. Linus had been the popular one with no problem getting a date. I swallowed. “Well, they’re not here. I can make my own choices.”
Linus was livid. He lowered his voice, and I knew that tone. It was his pre-planning cadence that issued a warning before the strike was ordered. “All the more reason to honor what they would’ve wanted for us. It’s not a stupid rule. If Jens can’t wait to have sex with you until you’re married, then you’re with the wrong guy. No joke, Loos, but this is Common Sense 101.” He turned to Jens, who was looking up at the ceiling to avoid Linus’s stare. “And you, keep your hands where I can see them. This is why Dad wouldn’t let you near her until she turned twenty-one. He’d hoped you would’ve grown up and stopped being so selfish.”
Jens bit his lip before speaking. “Line, love you like a brother, but you can’t tell me or Lucy what to do. We weren’t about to have sex with you right outside. You have no clue what we’ve been through to get here. She’s had Jamie in her head almost the entire time we’ve been together. Cut us a little slack.”
“Do you have a job?”
“Yes. You know guarding you two is my job.”
Linus’s tone was clipped. “Can you afford a place to live?”
“Lucy and I already have a house together!”
Linus was fuming now. “You… what?”
Jens paled. “Not like that. She was the only Kincaid left. You know I have to live with my charges.”
“Hey!” I was indignant that Jens relied on that to be the reason we’d lived together instead of our obvious love.
“Not now, Loos!” Jens warned.
“Are you going to marry my sister?” Linus demanded.
I wanted to shrink into a hole. My hands wrung together and I stood on the balls of my feet. “Stop it, Linus! You’re ruining it!”
Jens’s pitch climbed. “I told you I was going to! As soon as this is all over, we can talk about things like that. You know how much I love Lucy.”
Linus squared his shoulders to Jens, facing him as a man, and demanding Jens to respond as such. “Then you’ll take no shortcuts with her. That’s my sister,” he said, pounding his fist to his chest. “You’re my best friend. You should know that whoever ends up with her’s going to have to take the long way up the hill and thank his lucky stars for the chance. She deserves your best effort, not shortcuts.”
Jens closed his eyes. “You’re right. One hundred percent. I respect your parents. We can wait.”
My mouth fell open. I had no words. Linus and I rarely fought for real, and I didn’t want to get into it with him over something that was none of his business. Instead of shouting, which I felt I had every right to do, I raised my chin and spoke quietly. “Jens, could you wait outside please?”
Jens exited without a word, offering Linus a “good luck” look on his way out.
Linus was unyielding. “I’m firm on this, Loos. Mom and Dad had rules. Not many, but that was one of them.”
“You don’t get to run this conversation!” I yelled, losing my upper hand in one go. “You have no clue what it’s been like for us! I love Jens, and I won’t have you telling me what I can’t do.”
“Don’t argue with me. They’re not my rules. Argue with Mom and Dad. Disappoint them. Let them down.”
I stumbled back, shocked. “How dare you talk to me like that?! You all lied to me! You didn’t tell me who I was or where I was from. You let Uncle Rick and Jens do the dirty work.”
“We were dead! We didn’t let anyone do anything! Mom and Dad were going to tell you, but they died!”
I mimed a puppet talking nonsense with my hand and rolled my eyes. “Remind me to wet blanket you when you meet the woman of your dreams, you jag. Bottom line, you don’t get to be the boss of my life. It’s up to Jens and me.”
Linus crossed his arms over his chest. “Then I won’t approve.”
My voice was shrill as I shouted. “You can send a note of complaint to 1472 I-Don’t-Give-a-Crap Avenue, care of my live-in boyfriend!”
“You’re such a brat!”
“You’re being a dictator!”
The door popped open and Jens bellowed, “You’re both being children, now get out here and put a cap on the drama. We’ve got things to do.” When Linus and I glared at our guardian gnome in unison, Jens backed up. “That’s freaky. Never thought I’d get the double evil eye. Calm down, both of you.”
When we followed Jens out of the house, Foss was sniggering. “I thought I brought out the worst of your fight. This should be fun.”
I huffed and pushed ahead of them, taking the lead toward the main road, which is where I a
ssumed we were headed. The gold tassels at the bottom of my red dress swooshed when I walked, brushing against the tops of my sandaled toes and distracting me from my mission of vengeance against Linus.
When we reached the main road, which was a wide dirt path separating the sparse green from the sand, Foss’s hand slid down my arm. “You’re my wife. You walk behind me or beside, not ahead.” He jerked his thumb to Jens and Linus, who fell back several feet. Foss lowered his voice. “The chief very much wanted to speak with you. He thought you fled to the Other Side after I died, but the story I told was that you rescued me from the fire Olaf set to my household, and we ran off to kill Pesta in secret before she could set up on the Other Side, threatening your kingdom.”
I watched the stars glint off his face with a sour stomach. “I wish you hadn’t scarred yourself. You’re wearing my blood. I don’t know that I’ll be able to get used to that.”
Foss picked up my hand and wrapped it around his arm. “You won’t have to. Once you help me lift this curse, you and Jens can go back to the Other Side. I’ll be here. You won’t have to get used to my scar because you won’t see me anymore.”
I’d tried not to dwell too much on that inevitability. One nightmare at a time. “You should have your land back. I want you to be happy.” I didn’t say that I would miss him. It would have made things too muddled. But I would miss him.
12
The Return of the Viking Kind
The chief’s house was far larger than Foss’s had been. I could tell that the chief had grown up around opulence in some capacity, while Foss had been mimicking the ceremony of it all. Foss liked the work, while the chief reveled in the daily tasks as well as the pomp that came with the power he’d managed to acquire.
On the way to the one-story house that was so wide, I felt like I needed a map to maneuver my way to the room the chief insisted we take, we were greeted by hundreds of Grimens. Word had spread quickly that Foss was very much alive, and the entire island, it seemed, had something to say about it.
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