All the Love in the World: A Holiday Anthology

by Karina Halle

  “Can you just…pee into a bucket?”

  “Viktor!”

  He sits up, holding his head. “Please no yelling. My brain can’t take it.”

  “It’s not my fault you overdid it last night. You know, tonight is the party night.”

  “Every night is a party night with Magnus. I’ll power through.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure the beer you’re going to have this morning will help.”

  He shoots me a sly look. “You jealous?”

  “Of your hangover? No. Now please, I need to pee.”

  “I won’t look,” he says. He leans over to his side of the table and grabs a glass of water. He drinks it all and then hands it to me. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “Pee in there.”

  “Viktor,” I warn him.

  “Do you really want me to get up out of this nice and cozy bed and go outside and dig you a path to the outhouse?”

  “Yes!”

  “But that means you have to go outside too.”

  He’s right. I’m going to not only wait for him to clear the way, but then I’ll have to pile on all my gear, my boots, then sit on a frozen toilet seat.

  “What do you do when you have to shit?” I ask him.

  He shrugs. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “Okay. Fine.” I grab the glass from him. There is no way my aim is this good. “You know what, I’ll just hold it and wait for one of the real men to do the job.”

  He grumbles, sighing dramatically as he throws back the blanket. “Fine.”

  I watch as he goes over to the door. He opens it, a blast of cold wind coming in. “Holy shit.”

  He closes the door again and looks around. “I don’t even have a shovel, Maggie.”

  Looks like I’m going to be peeing into a glass after all.

  And they said the royal life was glamorous.

  When nine a.m. rolls around, we finally get texts from the other cabin. It looks like they all discovered the same problem at the same time.

  Thankfully, Magnus was prepared for this, probably having gone through it a few times. He and Orlando armed themselves with shovels and spent a good hour digging a tunnel through the snow to the outhouse and then over to our cabin.

  Then came the fight over who got to pee first.

  Luckily, by the time our path was clear, I was able to go.

  Then we headed to the main cabin to make breakfast and fret about the weather.

  Viktor makes a mean version of scrambled eggs, so with him cooking away, with Aurora helping, the rest of us watch the snow keep falling and falling.

  “We’re snowed in,” Askel says glumly. “There’s no way we’re going to get out of here tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say that,” Magnus says. “I’ve talked to Einar and Ottar and everyone else down below, they’re trying to clear the trail back up here.”

  “With this constant snow falling from the sky?” Aksel says, gesturing to the window. It’s a whiteout, obscuring the view until all you see is snow.

  “Look, we have enough food and drink to last a week,” Ella says. “The worst-case scenario is they can bring a helicopter and get us out.”

  “Yes, but that will make the news,” Aksel points out. “And I have to make a speech tomorrow evening in front of the nation. You know, about the new year ahead. I can’t miss that. It’s tradition.”

  “You know what you need, Aksel?” I tell him. “A beer.”

  He gives me a sharp look. Oooh, those blue eyes can ice you to death.

  “Maggie is right,” Magnus says, getting up and going to the kitchen. “This is the last day of the year, and we’re snowed in. There’s nothing we can do about it, so why don’t we all just try to make the best of it?” He brings out beer. “I think day drinking needs to commence now.”

  “About bloody time!” Aurora chortles, grabbing a beer from Magnus. Then she gives me an appreciative wink for suggesting the beer in the first place.

  We all watch as Magnus hands out the beer and then holds out the last one to Aksel. “You might be a king and all, but you have to learn to relax,” he says to him. “This is your one chance out of the year. Make it count.”

  Aksel stares at the beer, looks up at Magnus, and then over at Aurora for the final consult. Aurora sticks up her thumb and enthusiastically nods her head.

  “Fine,” Aksel says, plucking the beer from Magnus’s hand. “You win.”

  Aurora silently claps behind him.

  “Good,” Magnus says with an exaggerated sigh. “Finally, I win at something. Okay, so let’s all skal to the last day of the year.” He eyes me apologetically. “I guess that tea will have to do.”

  I hold the mug of chamomile by the handle. “Stop worrying about me. I’m already having fun.”

  “Okay. To the end of this year and to the next,” Magnus says.

  We all raise our mugs and beers and cheers to that.

  Then, as one might suspect, the day slips by slowly. I mean, for me. I’m sober as hell. For everyone else, it might be going really fast. All I know is that everyone is getting progressively drunker by the hour. Even Aksel is getting a little buzzed. At least his eyes are softer, and his mannerisms looser.

  Sometimes being the sober one at a party is super annoying, especially when all you want to do is join in. But, because I’m used to not drinking by now, and I know I’m not about to change it, I settle into my role of mama goose. I keep an eye on my royal friends, and I watch them like it’s the best of reality TV. Forget the Real Housewives of New Jersey, how about the Real Royals of the Nordic Realms.

  Everyone is celebrating their drunkenness differently.

  There’s Aurora, who has discovered the bag of party favors and is running around decorating the place with tinsel and stick-on stars, already wearing a plastic top hat and glasses with the numbers 2020 across them. She’s drunk for sure, but she seems to be running on her own energy.

  There’s Ella, who is drinking wine with Stella on the couch, deep in conversation. Occasionally one of them laughs at something the other one said, and I have a feeling they’re talking about their husbands, considering how similar Orlando and Magnus are. They may be the two princesses here that were born into the lifestyle, but judging from their flushed cheeks, glossy eyes, and happy smiles, they’re relishing the chance to just be normal.

  Then there’s Magnus. Oh Magnus. He keeps heading outside with the shovel, like he’s a giant kid in a sandbox, constantly shoveling away snow from the cabin, then coming back inside to drink a couple of beers with the boys.

  Orlando keeps pace with him, though he does get a bit sloppy and starts dancing on the coffee table once the first bottle of champagne is opened. I find it highly entertaining, even though Stella looks like she’s ready to crawl under the couch and never come out.

  My Viktor stays relatively sober out of solidarity for me, but also because I know he has a hangover that won’t quite go away. He’s been helping me with the food, since someone needs to feed these poor fools. Here’s the thing about royals that I’ve discovered: they’re all damn helpless. That’s what they get for being waited on hand and foot since the day they were born. They didn’t come out of the womb with a silver spoon in their mouths, that utensil was made of diamonds.

  Thus, it’s up to someone like me, who grew up in California in a dead-end town, in a house where we didn’t have much money, who had to raise her siblings after our parents were killed, to keep these people fed and satisfied.

  Unfortunately for them, we don’t have a lot of cooking options in a cabin like this, so in the end Viktor and I settle on hot dogs. Sure, they’re like reindeer dogs, since that’s all the rage here in Scandinavia, but it’s still a cheap and easy dinner. They’re all so drunk though, I don’t think they’ll complain.

  Finally, there’s Aksel.

  And lo and behold, the King of Denmark is getting drunk.

  It’s a Festivus miracle!

  He’s
been quite the social butterfly, going from group to group, talking to everyone and making sure they’re okay. He’s come into the kitchen to check on me and Viktor so many times, he’s started to remind me of Leslie Neilson in Airplane. I am this close to calling him Shirley.

  But it’s nice to see him happy, and the more he drinks, the more publicly affectionate he’s being with Aurora too, pulling her to him, groping her, kissing her. You know, all in a very dignified way, but still. Suddenly I feel sorry for the other two couples who have to share this cabin with them tonight.

  Meanwhile, the snow keeps falling. Magnus is keeping in touch with the bodyguards down the mountain who are trying to clear the path, and though part of me is a little concerned about being snowed in here for too long, especially being pregnant, for the most part everyone seems to have forgotten.

  When dinner is over, the drinking continues.

  Aurora puts on Lizzo.

  Then Orlando decides to have a dance competition between the men, which builds in hilarity until the crescendo: Aksel tries twerking.

  I have never laughed so fucking hard in my life and I am so thankful that his wife had her phone out, recording every single move. If that video was ever released, it would put Magnus’ sex tape to shame.

  Time continues to tick toward midnight.

  I’m starting to get sleepy, and by eleven-thirty I’m not sure I can make it. I doze off on the couch a few times, despite the loud music and the laughing and the yelling and the occasional bursts of impromptu dancing.

  “Almost there, my Maggie,” Viktor whispers in my ear.

  I jerk my head awake and look around. He smells like pot. I wrinkle my nose and look at him. His eyes are red and glazed. “Who did you just get high with?”

  “Who do you think?”

  I look across the room at Magnus who is tearing into a bag of chips like some ravenous beast. Ah.

  “Come on,” Viktor says, pulling me up to my feet. “Dance with me.”

  I laugh as he does his best to put his arms around me. “This isn’t dancing Viktor, this is waddling.”

  “Then waddle with me,” he says, smiling down at me. Boy, is he ever stoned. But the way he’s looking at me makes me feel like I’m more beautiful than ever.

  “I can’t wait to meet our baby,” he whispers to me, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.

  I grip him tight, my stomach filled with butterflies. God I love this man. My prince. “Me too.”

  “Hey, party hat time!” Aurora shouts, ruining the moment as she puts the plastic hats on us and hands us our glasses. We slip them on, laughing.

  I take a moment to look at everyone else in the room. They’ve all taken our cue and are dancing with each other, each one of them stinking drunk and cute as can be.

  “Are you ready?” Magnus yells, holding up his phone which is showing a countdown to the new year. “Ten!”

  “Nine!”

  “Eight!”

  “Seven!”

  “Six!”

  “Five!”

  “Four!”

  “Three!”

  “Two!”

  “One!”

  “Happy New Year!” we all scream together, blowing our party horns and cheering.

  “Happy New Year, Maggie,” Viktor says to me before kissing me long and soft on the lips.

  Chapter 5

  Aksel

  “Happy New Year!”

  The cabin explodes in a cacophony of cheers, filling with hoots and hollers, laughter and the incessant blare of the party horns.

  I stare down at my wife in my arms as we slow dance from side to side. I’m starting to think she’s holding me up. She may be drunk, but I am definitely drunker.

  “Happy New Year, my queen,” I tell her, my eyes locked on hers.

  “Happy New Year, my king,” she says to me, grinning.

  I lean down and kiss her. It’s customary on New Year’s Eve to kiss the one you’re with, but the moment my lips meet hers it spurs on something deep inside of me, like a switch was just flicked. In seconds, I’ve gone from the jubilation of ringing in the new year, to wanting to be nothing but alone with her. I want everyone else in this cabin to disappear, so it’s just the two of us, and then I want her down on her knees and calling me her majesty.

  I think she knows this too, because her eyes squint as she studies me, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her full lips. “What’s going on in that brain of yours, Aksel?” she whispers, her voice taking on this fuck me throaty quality which both gets me harder than ice, and also tells me she knows exactly what’s going on in my brain.

  And in other parts of me.

  I wrap my hands around the small of her back and pull her into me so my erection is grinding against her. She lets out a small gasp, her eyes going wide, pupils dilating in lust. “Care to get out of here?” I ask.

  She laughs, running her hands down my back and taking a firm hold of my ass, keeping me pressed against her. “And go where? The snowbank?”

  My eyes dart over to the door. There’s a lock in the bedroom. Last night, Aurora passed out early, but tonight both of us are awake and raring to go. Even though I’m more drunk than I’ve been in a long time (I have a feeling I did some things earlier that I’ll regret), I also feel extremely clear-headed in my want and need for her.

  She bites her lip and looks around the room.

  No one is paying us any attention. The rest of them are all making out with each other like a bunch of teenagers. This is what happens when you get a bunch of royals snowed in together in a cabin with an endless supply of booze.

  And I’m about to use that to my advantage.

  I take Aurora’s hand and we walk across the room to the bedroom and slip inside before anyone notices.

  I quickly lock the door.

  As I turn around, Aurora is already dropping to her knees.

  She knows exactly what she’s doing.

  She reaches up, undoes my fly, then brings out my cock, expertly holding it, licking up the sides while keeping her eyes on me.

  My hands go into her dark hair, gripping her there tight, but after a few pumps of my cock into her mouth, her lips sucking me deep, I know that I’ll come this way, and way too soon.

  “The bed,” I growl, yanking her head back, staring down at her. “Get your jeans off.”

  Her brows raise, her cheeks flushing, and I know she loves it when I’m being bossy. It’s the role I was born to play.

  She gets on the bed, trying to get her jeans off, but I’m impatient.

  “Stop,” I command. “Turn around. Get on all fours.”

  With her jeans gathered at her knees, she tries to turn around, a little too slow for my liking.

  I march over and grab her by the waist, pulling her toward the end of the bed, her ass right in front of me. With one hand I position my cock at her entrance, teasing her, feeling how wet she is already. With the other I push down at her shoulder blades until the side of her face is pressed into the blanket.

  With her ass raised, I spank her lightly across both cheeks, then drive myself into her, all the way to my balls.

  She lets out a yelp that’s drowned by the music outside the door, and I grab her by her hips, my fingers pressing hard against her tender flesh. I pull out slowly, feeling the agonizing tease of how tight her cunt is around my cock, how the angle as I push back in takes my breath away. Because her jeans are keeping her legs together, it’s the most beautiful, agonizing squeeze.

  I’m not going to last long.

  I start pumping in faster, my hands sliding to her waist, pulling back into me as I drive into the hilt again and again. She’s shaking the bed, crying out, her face distorted against the bed, her mouth wet and open. I reach down and slide my fingers over her clit, making her moan, her body tense and tense and tense.

  Finally she’s unleashed, coming hard around me, her limbs loose, quivering, until she’s collapsing beneath me. I grab her ass, holding on tight as I bring myself to a finish
, one, two deep hard thrusts that slam the headboard against the wall, and then I’m coming.

  “Fuck,” I groan loudly, my head spinning while my balls empty out inside of her. The world goes sideways, and all thoughts leave my head until it’s as silent and wiped clean as the falling snow.

  Then everything comes back into focus.

  The sound of our labored breathing.

  The rocketing heart in my chest.

  The sweat beading on my forehead.

  “My god,” I say, running my hands over her ass and collapsing on my back beside her.

  “My king,” she says to me, barely able to lift her head. “But I could switch it to God for tonight.”

  I grin at her and pick up her hand, holding it to my lips as I gaze into her eyes.

  “Not a bad way to start the new year.”

  She smiles back, making me feel breathless all over again.

  I really am the luckiest man.

  The next morning, I wake up with a raging hangover, the kind that I’ve only suffered through once or twice in my life. In fact, it’s so bad that my headache has me up at six a.m., and I’m unable to go back to sleep.

  Aurora is sleeping deeply beside me, so I carefully get out of bed, slip on pajamas and the robe I packed, and go to the window.

  It’s pitch-black outside, the sun won’t rise until nearly nine. But the snow has stopped. There’s just enough light to see the powdery snowdrifts between the pines, a most peaceful scene.

  I take it as an omen.

  A good start to the new year.

  A fresh, clean slate.

  I step out of the bedroom and into the rest of the cabin.

  It’s total chaos. Bags of chips and food are everywhere, as are champagne bottles and beer cans. It looks like a bunch of teenagers were here last night.

  Especially with Magnus sleeping on the floor instead of up in the loft, lying on top of the couch cushions and snoring deeply. My eyes go over to the couch that’s pulled out, my sister Stella and her fiancé Orlando passed out on top of the covers. They’re still in their clothes, as is Magnus.

  I gently kick Magnus with my foot.