Page 21 of Viking Vengeance Cruise

I sigh the official sigh of women everywhere dealing with men who believe they’re gifts to humanity. Somebody really needs to check the receipts.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only answer that matters.” He tries to pull me close again, his lips brushing near my temple.

I frown and shake my head, literally shaking it to clear the fog he’s pumping into my brain. “Magnus. Focus. I need information, not seduction.”

“Why not both?” His grin widens, all charm and zero shame.

“Because one of us is dead and the other is married.” I hold up my left hand and wiggle my wedding ring in his translucent, troublemaking face. “See? Taken. Unavailable. Spoken for. Married to Ransom Baxter, who is very much alive and very good at violence.”

“I was once very good at violence too,” he says wistfully. “It’s how I got this cloak.”

I decide not to ask the cloak’s previous owner for a reference. Odds are he’s down one corporeal frame himself.

He nods my way. “Your husband is a lucky man.”

“He is. Now tell me about Astrid before I stop dancing with you and start demanding answers, and trust me, nobody enjoys me when I demand. Ask my husband. Ask the buffet staff. There’s an omelet chef on deck twelve who still flinches when I approach.”

Magnus gives a theatrical sigh, as if I’ve asked him to do calculus instead of answering basic questions about a murder victim. But then the swagger dims a notch, and I catch a glimpse of the man behind the paperback persona. Assuming there is a man behind the paperback persona. With Magnus, I’m genuinely not sure. He might be pectorals all the way down.

“Astrid Storm was a retired hospital administrator,” he begins, still swaying with me to the invisible music. “She founded the Velvet Viking Book Club twelve years ago. Ran it with an iron fist inside a velvet glove.”

“Velvet, naturally. The woman committed to a theme,” I say. “I respect that.”

“I’m a romantic.” He brushes his fingers down my arm, and a shiver sneaks through no matter how hard I fight it. “She was independently wealthy via an inheritance from her late husband. She used that money to control the group. She funded the annual cruises but demanded absolute loyalty in return.”

“Generous with a leash attached.” I let out a low whistle. “The most expensive flavor of free there is.”

And these cruises don’t run cheap. Ask me how I know. I may work on this ship, but Ransom and I still pay for our own cabin so we’re not relegated to steerage with the rest of the crew. Marriage comes with many perks. A free cabin is not one of them.

Money and mandates. Poppy’s little jab from last night just got a promotion from catty to evidence.

I lean in, genuinely interested now and temporarily forgetting that I’m being romanced by a dead Norseman. “Ooh, tell me more.”

Magnus beams, sensing a victory, and dips me again. I let him, because I’m willing to be manhandled by a ghost if it means cracking a murder wide open. My priorities are questionable at best. My spine files a formal complaint on the way down, and something tells me my husband would co-sign it.

“Astrid’s perfect marriage to her wealthy late husband was a lie,” he murmurs, his face inches from mine, his dark eyes locked on my lips, which is a boundary violation in at least two realms of existence. “It made her miserable. And it made her want to make others miserable in turn.”

“What sort of lie?” I ask, trying to stay tethered to the actual mystery instead of the fact that this ghost smells of woodsmoke and pine and something else I can’t quite identify.

Wait. How does a ghost smell of anything? And more importantly, can he bottle it for my husband?

“The sort of lie that⁠—”

The door bursts open, rattling the octopus chandeliers.

“Trixie?”

Ransom stands in the doorway looking wild-eyed and slightly unhinged. His dark hair is a mess, clearly raked through a dozen times, and I’m willing to guess I’m the reason. His suit is rumpled, and his cobalt blue eyes are churning with concern and a touch of premeditation.

And he’s staring at me bent backward at an impossible angle in the arms of absolutely no one he can see. From his perspective, I’m hovering in midair at a forty-five-degree angle, presumably having lost my mind. Which, frankly, is the most reasonable explanation available to him.

Magnus lets out a growl, low and territorial, aimed at Ransom. Then he lifts me. Straight up. Toward the ceiling.

“Oh no. No, no—Magnus!” I yelp, rising higher and higher until my head nearly grazes the crystal tentacles of the nearest octopus chandelier. From this vantage point, I can see Ransom’s face cycle from confused to panicked to speeding toward furious. I can also see dust on top of the chandelier, and I make a mental note to speak with housekeeping if I survive. Standards don’t take sick days.

“Trixie!” Ransom runs toward where I’m hovering.