The Wild Heir
Karina Halle
Metal Blonde Books
Copyright © 2018 by Karina Halle
First edition published by Metal Blonde Books
May 2018
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by: Hang Le Designs
Photography by: John Kenny
Model: Justin Holcombe
Edited & Proofed by: Kara Malinczak & Roxane Leblanc
For the Halles of Todalen – uff da!
Contents
WARNING
A Note From the Author
1. Magnus
2. Magnus
3. Ella
4. Magnus
5. Ella
6. Ella
7. Magnus
8. Ella
9. Magnus
10. Ella
11. Magnus
12. Magnus
13. Magnus
14. Ella
15. Magnus
16. Ella
17. Ella
18. Magnus
19. Magnus
20. Ella
21. Ella
22. Magnus
23. Ella
24. Magnus
Epilogue
Afterword
Acknowledgments
A SNEAK PEAK OF “SHOW ME THE WAY” by AL JACKSON
About the Author
Also by Karina Halle
WARNING
Although fun and fluffy, this book is not recommended for sensitive readers.
It contains the Lord’s name in vain, ample amounts of swearing in English (and in Norwegian!), and some foul-mouthed sexually graphic situations.
If you are a reader who has problems with the things I mentioned above, pleeeeeeease take heed.
Thank you!
A Note From the Author
I’ll try and make this quick so you can get on reading about sexy royal scandals and arranged marriages.
As you have probably guessed from the title, this is a ROYAL ROMANCE about Magnus, the Crown Prince of Norway.
As such, I must put this teeny tiny disclaimer here:
This is a work of fiction.
The actual Norwegian Royal Family is amazing.
(I am actually Norwegian myself…and Finnish and Canadian but I digress).
But this book is not based on them.
Same goes for the Liechtenstein royal family.
I know this is all without saying but people getting funny about their royals. Once again - this is totally a work of fiction and not based on any royal family.
However, I will tell you that the real Prince of Norway met his Princess when she was a single mother at an EDM festival, so when royal romance books might seem unrealistic, let’s not forget the truth is stranger than fiction!
Which means, hey, your chances of meeting a prince and stealing his heart aren’t that bad.
I also want to quickly point out to all my Norwegian family members - I know most of the characters have the same names as you but rest assured I did not name them after you! But of course, I was thinking about you and my beloved Norway while writing this book.
And yes, I suppose the Queen is named after my aunt Else :D
PS if you’ve snatched up The Wild Heir and you’re wondering if you need to read another book beforehand, rest easy - you don’t have to! Yes The Wild Heir is a spinoff of The Swedish Prince (where Magnus made a brief appearance) but you don’t need to read The Swedish Prince before you read The Wild Heir. The Wild Heir is a complete STANDALONE!
If you do plan to read The Swedish Prince though, it’s right here and FREE in KU!
HAPPY READING!
One
Magnus
“You fucked up!” Ottar says yet again.
Not exactly the thing you want to hear mere seconds before you’re about to fling yourself off a 3,200-foot cliff and free fall to the fjord below.
But in this case, as Ottar has spent the last five minutes drilling into my head what an idiot I am and how badly I’ve fucked up my life, hurling yourself off a cliff seems like the right thing to do. Maybe the only thing to do in this situation.
As I run toward the edge of Kjerag Mountain, I keep my eyes focused straight ahead at the fjord cutting through the valley like a blue knife, and let all thoughts, all worries, all self-awareness, melt away.
I jump.
Those first few seconds of free fall are what I imagine being born is like. A terrifying rush as you’re propelled from the solid and steady world you know into the cold abyss. There’s nothing like it, leaving safety and life for what should be certain death.
Then you’re flying, arms out, weightless, a bird in the sky, an angel’s descent, a step beyond being human.
Then you’re falling.
Wind rushing against your face, pulling your skin back into a smile, rattling your helmet. There’s nothing to anything anymore, nothing but you and the wind and the greatest adrenaline rush you’ll ever know. Better than sex, even.
Maybe.
The timer goes off, interrupting the rush before my brain has started to blur together. I quickly reach into the chute to deploy it and I’m jerked back, the blast of the free fall reversing for a second as the parachute spreads and the easy descent begins.
Usually this part of the jump is where your heart starts to slow, where you realize where you are, what you’re doing—that you made it. You’re safe. As you float down to earth, you carry nothing inside you but awe, knowing that you’re just a tiny bright-colored parachute soaring toward a cerulean-blue fjord, eagles at eye level.
But there is no peace and tranquility today.
There is none of that sharp focus and clarity that always comes during a jump, where my scattered world seems to pause, just for one wonderful minute as I fall from the sky.
All I can focus on are Ottar’s words slicing through my head. I fucked up. And it’s not just his words either. It’s my sisters, it’s my parents, it’s the press. It’s the damn prime minister.
When you’re royalty and you do something stupid, everyone in the whole world, let alone the whole country, gets to weigh in on it.
And I’m the Crown Prince of Norway, heir to the throne, and my latest scandal just set the public image of our country back another hundred years.
No wonder it was easier to jump today than most days.
A scream pierces my thoughts and I look up, even though I can see nothing above me but the electric yellow of the chute. That was Ottar’s scream. This is only the second time the guy has BASE jumped, and for him, it’s one too many. Hell, no sane person would attempt this sport, but I have the nickname “Magnus the Mad” for a few good reasons.
The screaming seems to stop after a bit, which means Ottar probably pulled his chute, and now I have the ground to worry about.
Focus, fuckface, I tell myself, willing my brain to stop racing around and work before it’s too late. Everything is throwing me off. I grab the pulleys in front of me and steer myself toward the people standing on the small peninsula below me, hoping Ottar follows suit. His last landing was about as graceful as a cow being flung from a catapult.
There’s only a small patch of grass to land on—overshoot that and you’re going to smash into rock or the ice-cold waters of the fjord. Maybe it’s because my mind has been so liquid, but the grass is rushing up fast and I know that this is going to hurt like a mother.
My feet strike the ground and my legs immediately crumple, sending pain up my shins. I duck into a roll across the grass and the
n spring up just before my shoulder hits a slab of rock.
Helvete.
All the bystanders standing around are gawking at me and my not so graceful arrival.
I push my helmet on straighter, adjust my goggles, and give them all a quick bow. “Not a bad landing when the alternative is death,” I say with a big smile.
A few of them clap. These people just seem to be tourists, their speedboats pulled up along the shore, cameras around their necks to capture the crazy fuckers like me who do this famous jump.
And Ottar.
He’s screaming again, his legs kicking out as he rapidly descends toward us, his arms jerking on the handles, completely out of control. If he doesn’t slow down and steer he’s going to smash right into a few people, and then the rocks behind them.
This is going to get ugly.
Everyone is scattering, unsure of what to do, and I know this is all out of Ottar’s hands now. Even with his goggles covering up his eyes, I can tell they’re open wide, his mouth agape as he seems to freeze from terror.
I don’t even think. I start running toward him and leap up, crashing into him in the air while trying to wrap my arms around his thighs.
Somehow I manage to pull him down, like I’m plucking a big, fat, hairy bird out of the air, and then he’s crashing on top of me, squeezing the air out of my lungs as I smash into the ground.
“Oh my god, Your Highness!” he yells at me, and even though my mouth is full of grass, I’m already mumbling for him to shut up.
He rolls off me, and then I lie back, trying to catch my breath and hoping no one else heard his address.
“I am so sorry!” he goes on, patting my arms and thighs. “Are you alive?”
Poor Ottar. He never wanted to do any of this shit with me. In the past, he was the guy waiting in the car, hovering on the sidelines. Then, with my father having some health issues this year, Ottar started actually going with me on my activities. If I wasn’t going to quit doing them, then at least Ottar would be there closer than ever, keeping an eye on me, making sure I was, well, alive.
But now it’s not just him making sure I’ll survive to be king, it’s to make sure I don’t run off into the woods and do something stupid. Or more stupid than jumping off a cliff. I have a bad reputation with my family as being slightly impulsive. Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been blowing off the bodyguards and royal guards and escaping every chance I could get.
“I’m fine,” I tell him, sitting up and looking around. The people are crowded together, watching us from a distance as if Ottar was a bomb dropped from the sky.
“You saved my life, sir,” Ottar says, placing his meaty palm on my shoulder. “I don’t know how to repay you.”
I eye his hand and then shrug it off me. “Well, you can start by dialing back your Samwise Gamgee.”
“Of course, sir,” he says, looking a little embarrassed. I think it’s more from nearly dying and me having to save him, rather than the Lord of the Rings nickname, because I swear he’s always two seconds away from calling me Mr. Frodo. “But again, I’m so sorry.”
“Not your fault,” I tell him. Not my fault either. “You could help me up though.”
“Yes, sir,” he says, grabbing my hands and hauling me to my feet. I can feel the crowd inspecting us even more now—probably because of the way Ottar is addressing me, like I’m someone—and I’m tempted to do yet another bow to play off two bad landings in a row.
But someone has their camera out, aiming it in our direction, and I can't tell if it's because they want to take a picture of the two fools who just landed or if they think I'm someone of importance.
I give the camera a tight smile and look down at Ottar, who is a good half a foot shorter than me. "We should probably get this stuff off and head to the boat."
Down along the shore is a sleek, white speedboat with teak trim, the name Elskling written with flourish on the side. The man waiting patiently behind the wheel is Einar, one of my bodyguards and my getaway driver. Like Ottar, he's always nearby, usually trailing me, because I'm trying to lose him. He used to be in the military though, so he's a hard man to lose.
I hear the faint click of a few more cameras coming from the crowd but this time I don’t indulge them with a second glance. I quickly get my gear off and then as Ottar is still fumbling with the straps across his chest, help him too.
There’s a collective “oooh” from the bystanders and I crane my head back to the sky where the next jumpers are descending, three of them in a row. From this distance they look like brightly colored stars that have burned through the atmosphere.
Another click steals my attention.
Everyone is watching the jumpers except for two men.
Men with cameras aimed right at Ottar and I.
Men I should have recognized before but with all the commotion, my mind wasn’t able to focus.
You’re an idiot, Magnus.
“Hey, isn’t that—?” Ottar asks, but he trails off as the two men turn around and start running toward one of the waiting boats.
“Shit,” I swear, wondering how many photos they got.
It’s not that I was doing anything inappropriate, per se, but I had promised my family I would stay out of the paparazzi’s eye for the day, and well, those two fuckers are the bane of my princely existence. The whole reason I came out here was to avoid having my photo taken since usually the paparazzi don’t follow me all the way out to Kjerag.
But these guys aren’t the normal paparazzi. First of all, they’re Russian twins who look an awful lot like the T-1000 from The Terminator. Second of all, they act like the T-1000 too. They’re fucking unstoppable. No matter where I go, those douchebags are there, taking photos and selling them to the highest paying gossip mag or trashy tabloid. I’m not saying that I cry myself to sleep at night over being known as the “hot and sexy single prince,” but it sure makes you a media darling.
“We need to go,” I tell Ottar. “Now.”
Normally I would just let this go, but since these assholes will without a doubt be selling the first photos of me of what will be known as “The Aftermath” followed with the headlines “Suicidal Prince Jumps Off Cliff (His Personal Secretary Tries to Save Him)” and “Not Fit to Rule,” I feel like it’s my duty to care as much as it’s their duty to treat me like I’m an animal in a zoo.
We start jogging across the grass to the boat and throw our stuff on board, then wade into the ice-cold water up to our knees before climbing in. Einar is at the wheel, frowning beneath his aviator glasses that glint violet and blue like they’ve been polarized a million times over.
I step beside him, shouldering the brute out of the way and taking over the controls.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll drive,” I tell him, glancing over my shoulder at their speedboat which is zooming off, before shoving the gear into reverse and gunning it away backward from the shore.
Ottar nearly falls overboard, holding on to the rail for dear life as Einar grabs the console to steady himself.
“I’m pretty sure your mother would file this under reckless driving!” Ottar yells, trying to straighten back up, only for me to whip the boat forward and take off after the Russian’s boat.
“Pretty sure my mother wouldn’t want me to be paparazzi fodder either,” I tell him with a wink.
“Just let it go,” Ottar says with a sigh that’s squeezed out of his lungs as he falls into the railing again.
But even though I’m pretty fucking good at escaping from my problems, the fact that they’ve followed me here says I’ve got to face them. Head on. Mad Magnus style.
“Let it go?” I repeat. “You’re the one who told me I fucked up just moments before I jumped. I fucked up, so now I have to fix it.”
“Sir,” Einar says, clearing his throat. Even if his psychedelic sunglasses weren’t covering his eyes, I wouldn’t be able to read them. Sometimes I think Einar is built in the same robot factory as the Russians, but his maker decid
ed to give him extra muscle.
“I’ve got it, Einar,” I tell him. “Why don’t you make sure Ottar doesn’t fall overboard?”
Einar doesn’t move, and from the way his mouth is pressed into a firm line, I don’t think he likes it when I tell him what to do. I know he doesn’t. I can order Ottar around, but Einar is just a bodyguard, there to protect me, not anyone else.
I don’t need his protection, but that doesn’t stop him from going everywhere I go. Even when I go on a date with a lady, he’s somewhere lurking in the background. The only privacy I get is when I’m fucking them and I have to hope he’s not spying through a window. Don’t get me wrong, the idea of being watched while having sex excites me to no end, but seeing Einar’s grave, pockmarked face would totally kill the vibe.
That said, in some ways I wish he had been watching the other week when I’d gone into Heidi’s house.
When I’d gone into Heidi’s room.
Not necessarily when I proceeded to screw her senseless that first time.
But the second time, when she propped up her phone and said she wanted to record us having sex as a keepsake, a memento.
I’d agreed to it, because, well why the fuck wouldn’t I want to be filmed sticking my dick in her? Usually I don’t even bring it up with the ladies because their adventurous sides only involve doggy-style and maybe some light choking or spanking. Filming us having sex? Forget it.
And I was feeling bad since earlier that evening I broke it off with her. Not that Heidi and I were anything serious, but we’d been on a few dates we somehow managed to hide from the public—and her father—and I could tell she wanted a lot more from me. As in, she wanted to become the next princess of Norway.