The Wild Heir(103)

I give his hand a squeeze, feeling overly emotional for the second time today. “Thank you,” I whisper.

He smiles but his breathing suddenly becomes more labored and his face seems to pale.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, my pulse quickening.

He nods, takes in a few deep, shaking breaths and clears his throat. “I’m fine, Magnus. I just feel…anyway, I’m happy that everything is sorted.”

“Well, I still don’t have Ella.”

“I’m sure she just needed time to think.”

“I found her wedding band by the sink.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

I feel like if I mention it, it will come true, but I can’t ignore what’s really worrying me. “Father, the clauses she put in the contract. What if she’s going to use them?”

“And ask for a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“Over a fake pregnancy?”

“No. But she never really got to know me before we married. There’s so much baggage behind me. What if something else one day raises its ugly head? What if she discovers that she can’t handle being with me? What if she decides that marriage with me was a mistake?”

My father chuckles softly, which then turns into a wheezing cough. When he finally recovers he says, “That’s called divorce, Magnus, and it’s available for everyone. Not just you. Those clauses are there because Ella had to have some sort of control over this situation. You can’t blame her. And she’s young. She’s so young to be thrust into this new role, she has no idea how to handle this and neither do you. You just have to trust that what she feels for you is genuine and let everything else go.”

I look down at my hand on his. “What if she stops loving me after this?”

“She won’t. I promise. It’s a hurdle that will make your love grow stronger. Take it from me. You’re going to have a lot of hurdles.”

“What if…?” I trail off. I could go on and on.

“Ignore the what ifs,” he says. “Ella is complicated and passionate and fierce. Just like you. You have a fierce Viking heart, handed down from your ancestors. So, love fiercely, Magnus. Love bravely. Love her with everything you’ve got.”

It feels like I have a brick in my throat. It all sounds too simple and yet I know there’s nothing simple about love at all. But I can continue to be brave with my heart.

“Thank you for listening,” I tell him, taking in a deep breath. I glance up at him. “It means the…”

Something stops my words.

My father’s eyes are closed.

His face seems more ashen than it was seconds ago.

He’s not moving.

He’s suddenly so unnaturally, eerily still.

No. No. No.

I squeeze his hand. “Father?”

Nothing.

Oh god.

I lean over him, peering at him. “Father? Wake up. Wake up.”

No response.

“No, no, please!” I cry out, feeling his neck for a pulse, trying to see if he’s breathing. I can’t find it. His chest isn’t rising.

“Nurse! Someone! Help!” I start yelling, frantically grabbing his other wrist to check, lightly slapping his face.

No, this can’t be my father dead.

This has to be a dream.

This can’t be real.

“Help!”

The door bursts open and the nurse rushes in, followed by Sven and Tor. Tor pulls me out of the way while the nurse checks for vitals.

“We need an ambulance, now!” she yells, and Sven brings out his phone, dialing it.

Then my mother is in the room, panicking, and Mari, crying, and I’ve never felt so alone so suddenly before, like everything beautiful and light and joyous in my heart was suddenly sucked out like a vacuum, like my father was taken with it.

Mari comes to my side, tears streaming down her face and I put my arm around her, holding her close to me, holding on for dear life.

Soon the medics come, and the stretcher, and I’m escorted out by people I don’t know, and I’m lost and I’m surrounded by people but I’m alone and my father…

God, please don’t take him.

I’m not ready to lose him.

I can’t imagine life without him.

As he’s taken out on the stretcher to the ambulance, I lean against the wall in the hallway and slump to the floor, the sorrow inside me flooding up like a tidal wave.

For a moment the numbness and the confusion fades.

For a horrible moment I feel everything I have lost.

The tears that I had held back can no longer be tamed.

I cry, tear drops splashing to the palace floor.

I never had the chance to tell him how much I loved him.

My father.

My king.





Twenty-Three





Ella





“You’re not wearing your wedding band,” my father comments.

I look over to him in the same daze I’ve been trying to shed for the last twenty-four hours. “What?”

“Your wedding band,” he says again. “Where is it?”

I swallow uneasily. “Oh. It’s by the sink. It’s a bit loose so I always take it off to wash my face.”