Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80439 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“I came inside you,” he says, just in case I didn’t notice.
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I won’t get pregnant. I’m on birth control for my periods.”
The look of relief on his face is palpable. “Good,” he says. “Because you’re young, and this isn’t how someone should decide they’re going to have a baby.”
“Yeah,” I say. I feel kind of dazed and a little achy and sore and all the emotions I got out in those tears I shed have left me feeling strangely calm and almost elated at the same time.
“I will give you my number,” he says. “But I am not going to be around for a while, so…”
“Don’t worry about feeding me a line,” I tell him. “I have older sisters. I’ve heard them all secondhand. We had a good time. Just let it be that.”
He frowns at me. “Are you sure? Losing your virginity is a big deal. I don’t want to have taken that from you and then run off, but…”
“You haven’t taken anything from me. You gave me an experience, an amazing one, and…”
At that moment, his radio crackles.
“All units deploy immediately to East Side. Fire in warehouse seven.”
“I have to go,” Thor says. “But I’ll find you.”
CHAPTER 3
It has been a big day, but I am in such a good mood. I had a one-off no-strings sexual encounter with an itinerant heroic firefighter and there’s a new baby and we’re going to rebuild the old house and everything is going to be perfect and nothing is ever going to go wrong again. Also? I might seriously go to space. I enjoyed goat herding, but maybe there are other goats on other planets who need to be herded.
I’m appreciating the simple things in life. The sun is shining brighter. The smell of the hospital disinfectant is particularly sharp. There is a spring in my step and an ache between my thighs and…
I step into Freya’s hospital room and find the whole family gathered. Skör must have managed to find his way out of work to be here. Impressive. Bjorn is on Ragnar’s lap, yanking aggressively at his beard. Ragnar is pretending it doesn’t hurt, because he’s a big soldier and a toddler can’t possibly be seen to do him any damage.
“The fire inspector has been,” Mila says. “The cause of the fire has already been determined.”
It feels like I was gone for ten minutes, but apparently entire lifetimes have taken place since I got laid in a closet.
“It has? How?”
“Bjorn accidentally started the fire,” Mila says. “He knocked one of Dad’s old lamps off the chain by hitting it with a poker.”
“That must have taken some serious upper body strength,” Ragnar says, proud of his feral little creature.
“Yes. Anyway,” Mila continues. “Skör was telling us that the land is actually worth millions now. So it might be time to sell the place and cash out, now that we have children who need to be provided for…”
Sell? No. The word is awful and disgusting. Sell the property? Sell the bones and our father’s ashes? Give away everything that was given to us, betray his vision in a single generation? Mila’s baby won’t even know that the place existed, and Brenna will never run in the garden.
“We can’t,” I say, thoroughly confused. “You know we can’t. It was left to us. To our family. It’s not intended to be sold.”
“It’s intended to provide for…” Skör starts to say. He is a tall, broad, blond man in a suit. His beard is trimmed close to his chin. His hair is cut short. It’s a very specific look for a very specific kind of man. One who doesn’t know how to put a nail into a piece of wood, much less build a home.
“Make him stop talking,” I growl.
Mila puts her hand on his. She knows this needs to seem to come from her, even though I know every single word of it has probably been drafted in a fucking email written by the man next to her.
“Why not keep the land,” I say. “And provide for the children the old-fashioned way. Their fathers’ labors can pay for them, the way our father’s labor paid for us. We can rebuild the longhouse…”
“It wasn’t insured. It was too old,” Skör says.
I look at my sisters and I realize that I’ve mistaken this for a conversation. It’s not. They’re just telling me what’s going to happen. Skör has been planning this since he claimed Mila at her choosing ceremony. Ragnar has nothing to do with it, or much less. Business doesn’t interest him. Going into space and finding sentient things to kill, that’s more his business. I used to be scared that he’d find a colony and decide to settle there.
From time to time, there are opportunities for high ranked military officers to take control of their own colonies. I used to worry that he would take Freya and the babies away. Then I realized that what I was really afraid of was being left behind. That was when I started thinking about applying for a voyage myself. If I wasn’t going to be chosen, and I wasn’t going to bear children, then I had to do something with myself.