“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 then 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 decided 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.

Naturally, I had to nip that in the bud, even though apparently when I break up with someone I still think it’s cool to film a sex tape afterward. Just another example of my impulsiveness getting me in trouble.

God, did I ever fuck up.

But that’s all out of my control and who knows what’s going to happen to me now. Since the news broke yesterday, I’ve yet to speak to my parents about it, though I could feel their anger simmering all the way from their palace in downtown Oslo.

I’m feeling that same anger simmer through me right now with only one place for it to go.

I increase the throttle on the boat, and now we’re steadily catching up to the paparazzi speedboat. Soon we’ll overtake them.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Einar says quietly, his eyes focused on the boat as it gets closer and closer.

“Do I ever know what I’m doing?” I repeat, biting back a smile.

And even if this doesn’t work, who cares? They deserve it and more.

“Hey!” I yell at the photographers as we pull up alongside their boat. “Get any good pics?”

My voice is carried by the wind but they both look over and in unison raise their cameras.

I proceed to give them the finger and a big fucking smile.

Then I swiftly grab the wheel and yank our boat to the side, creating a giant wake and ensuring a wave of water flows over the side of their boat, soaking them from head to toe.

I burst out laughing and then gun our boat in the opposite direction toward our boat launch at the end of the fjord, leaving the two fuckfaces yelling at us in Russian, sopping wet and shaking out their cameras which are no doubt ruined.

Serves them right.

“Nice maneuver, sir,” Einar says after a moment, and I glance at him to see the hint of what could be called a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Thank you, my good man.”

“You know they’re going to try and sue you for that,” Ottar pipes up, slowly staggering up the side of the deck, never letting go of the railing.

“You’re a killjoy, Ottar,” I tell him. “Let me have my fun.”

I know it’s the only fun I’m going to have for a while.

* * *

Even though I’ve always had my pick of where I wanted to live, including various royal palaces throughout Norway, I’m rather fond of my tiny apartment. Okay, maybe it’s not tiny by normal standards. It does take up the entire top floor of a corner building in Majorstuen, one of the city’s “hip” neighborhoods, and I have more room than I know what to do with, but it makes me feel a lot more normal to live this way rather than in a palace.

Ignoring the fact that the floor below me is where Einar and Ottar and various rotating guards live, the floor below that is an H&M. On the street, trams trundle on by, a sound I find soothing, and people hurry to and fro, shopping and hitting up the bars.

The paparazzi know I live in the neighborhood but aren’t exactly sure where. The windows that face the street are tinted, obscuring me from people and when I need sun, I head up to the roof where I have a whole private deck free from prying eyes. And there are more than a few entrances into the building, including a tunnel that pops up a block away in a small gated courtyard.

That’s how my mother will be getting here tonight. I feel bad having her go through the tunnel since it was built in the 1800s and it can get pretty dank in there, but she was insistent that she come visit me as soon as possible.

It’s all bad news. The fact that she wants to discuss something with me here instead of at the palace where my father and youngest sister, Mari, are says a lot. Like there are less witnesses in case she wants to murder me.

I’m looking around the apartment, wondering if I should hide my knives, or, at the very least, the large Viking axe I have on display on the wall, when there’s a knock.

I stride over to the door, running my hand through my hair to make sure it’s all in order (my hair is usually messy and longer than she thinks is appropriate), take in a deep breath, and open it.

My mother and her bodyguard, Per, are standing in the hall. I catch a glimpse of Einar in the background, heading down the stairs.

“Magnus,” my mother says to me in a curt voice, which is her default voice at any given moment.

“Mother,” I say right back. I flash her a smile which used to charm her but doesn’t seem to have that effect anymore. I meet Per’s eyes, but just like Einar, they give me nothing. More robots in fine suits.

I clear my throat and gesture to the apartment. “Well. Come in, then.”

She nods and glances at her bodyguards with an internal message for them to stay where they are. Then she steps inside and I close the door after her.

“You cleaned up,” she says, stopping in the middle of the living room and looking around. It’s an open plan apartment which means you can see most of it from any location, and normally it’s a mess. Even though I have a housecleaner who comes in here every other day, it doesn’t take long for the place to look like a tornado ripped through it. Let’s just add Messy Magnus to my list of nicknames.

“I tried to make it fit for a queen,” I tell her.

“Bullshit,” she swears, shaking her head and eyeing me sharply.

That’s my mother for you. She might be the Queen, but she can be as crude and blunt as I can be. While my father is easygoing and gregarious, if not a little loopy, my mother says what she wants, when she wants. She’s fearless.

At least she normally is. As sharp as her gaze is tonight as it cuts into me, I can see the sparks of fear behind her eyes, which in turn brings out the fear in me.

My heart starts to speed up and she nods at the two armchairs by the fireplace, an heirloom bearskin rug between them. “Sit down. I have something I need to talk to you about, and for once, I need you to listen.”

I swallow hard. “You don’t want coffee or?” I glance at the kitchen as if making her an espresso will buy me some time.

“Magnus,” she says sternly. “Sit.”

So I sit, and she sits across from me. She’s a petite woman, only about five feet, two inches tall, but even in a casual silk pantsuit that borders on pajamas, she’s formidable.

She doesn’t say anything for a moment which ratchets up the tension in the room to an unbearable amount. I finally have to say, “Look, I am so sorry about what happened—”

“Stop,” she says, raising her palm. “Just stop. You don’t need to apologize. Though I do wonder if you are ever truly sorry about anything.”

That was a cheap shot.

“What happened, happened,” she goes on. “There’s no stopping it. All we can do is damage control, if we can even do that.”

“I’m sure the prime minister understands that—”

“The prime minister,” she roars, her dark eyes blazing, “does not understand! For crying out loud, Magnus, you filmed a sex tape with his daughter!”

“I was breaking up with her,” I say feebly, covering my face with my hands because fuck I don’t want to talk about a sex tape with my mother, even though it’s all over the fucking news.

“That’s how you break up with people?” She’s incredulous. I peer up at her to see her shaking her head in disgust. “First of all, what the hell were you doing with Heidi Lundström to begin with?”

“She’s a fan,” I try to explain. “I mean, she wanted to go out with me. We’ve met so many times over the years, you know it was kind of inevitable. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend and we were at that fancy charity event for frogs and wetlands or something and…”

“Did you not think for one second that perhaps she was off-limits?”

I shrug. “Well, no.”

“Of course not. Because you never take one second to think about anything. Always jumping into everything like you’re out of control. You are out of control, Magnus. Always have been. I—we—have tried everything to rein you in over your twenty-eight years and nothing has worked.”

“Hey,” I say, hating that she throws this shit in my face. “I did think. In fact, I thought maybe for once it would be a good match since she has a similar lifestyle to mine and knows what it’s like to grow up in a family of power, but she’s a lot, uh, more unstable than I realized.”

“Well, since you’re unstable too, I can see why you bonded,” she says, pretending not to notice me wince at the unstable remark. “But honestly, a sex tape?” She says the words like they’re in a foreign language. “You didn’t once think about the repercussions of that?”

“Why would I?”

“Because that sort of…thing, it always gets loose. Haven’t you learned anything over the years with celebrity scandals?”

“That’s Hollywood.”

“And the same dynamics apply here. Obviously you’ve learned nothing about being a prince. Instead, you try and shun it every chance you get. Is that what you want? You want to abdicate? Is that why you’re self-sabotaging?”

“I’m not self-sabotaging! And I don’t want to abdicate.”

But my voice trails off at the end of that sentence as it always does when abdication is brought up, when I’m reminded of what a poor choice I am for a king, how terrible I will be.

“Look,” I continue, leaning forward with my elbows on my thighs, my fingers laced together as if in prayer. “I made a mistake with Heidi. I obviously didn’t want to humiliate her or the prime minister, even though I think he’s always hated me to begin with. Can’t we do damage control here? Can’t we tell the press that it’s a fake? Surely someone did hack into Heidi’s phone like she says. Can’t we say that person made the whole thing up with, like, Photoshop or something like that?”

She exhales through her nose and gives me a steady look. “Not when Heidi has already admitted to the press what happened. Rather proudly, I might add. I think that girl has some, how do you say, daddy issues.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I mutter under my breath, having a flashback to some rather questionable words Heidi muttered during sex. “So what do I do?”

“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do, Magnus. And you’re not going to like any of it.”

I take in a deep breath, wondering what kind of royal terrors await me. “Okay,” I say slowly. “What is it?”

She rubs her lips together, taking her time. I know she does this because I’m terribly impatient and hate having to wait. I also know she loves to see me squirm.

“First of all, you’re going to have to apologize to the prime minister and Heidi. In person. And then later on camera during a press conference.”

“What!?” I exclaim. “On camera? But…the world will eat that up with a fucking spoon. That will make us look weak.”

She gives me a sour smile. “We already look weak, thanks to you. The entire monarchy has now been razed to sub-standard levels. We are the laughing stock of the country, of Europe, of the entire world. Magnus, the damage you’ve done with this is just the straw that broke the damn camel’s back. All respect that this royal family has earned is gone and in a world where monarchies are no longer in vogue nor in real power, this will have lasting effects.”

Well, fuck.

“Okay,” I tell her, gathering my courage. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes. You will do it. And you’ll do the next thing as well.”

“What next thing? It can’t be worse than that,” I say softly, but from the look in her eyes I can tell it is. I brace for impact.

“The next thing…” she starts and then seems to wince at what she’s about to say. “Magnus. You’re going to have to get married.”