Page 1 of Valhalla is Full of Hunks
1
IOLA
“Lovely, yes? It’s the end of days.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin when a friendly voice came out of nowhere to string these two contradictory sentences together.
“Uhhh…” I eloquently replied.
Slowly turning to face the person speaking to me, I had to tamp down a slutty moan at how godsdamnhothe was.
The thing about having a type meant every time I flew to Sweden on business, I was forced to appear professional while beating back my permanent lady boner. Before my first trip, I’d honestly thought the Skarsgard family was simply blessed. Now I knew almost every Scandinavian native had been hand-sculpted by the gods to torture me.
And Sexy Sven here is no exception.
He was blond—of course—with the pale skin and blue eyes this country was known for. His height tracked, too. Dude had to be at least 6-foot-5 and was doing nothing to make himself look smaller, as many other Swedes had politely done in my short-ass presence. He was casually but immaculately dressed in clothing that was no doubt designed in a lab to be moisture-wicking, wrinkle-free,andlady-boner-inducing.
Continuing my unapologetic perusal, my gaze caught on his Rolex before finally noticing he was holding a stack of thick textbooks.
Brawnandbrains, apparently.
Dazed beyond repair, my attention drifted back to the artwork in question—noticing it for the first time. It may havelookedlike I’d been admiring it before, but I’d been blankly staring while contemplating my entire future during a blessed break between meetings.
Meetings that could have been an email.
Ididenjoy working for Ancient Olive Skincare. But I’d also expected my promotion to Acquisitions Director to be more…something.Exciting? Glamorous?
Including a juicy benefits package featuring an entire stable of Skarsgards?
But, apparently, Herculeia is the only one who gets to magically wash ashore on hot-bod monster island.
Hmph.
I didn’t begrudge my bestie her happiness. Hera knows she’d dated some doozies during her long career of sleeping her way through New York City. If anyone deserved a herd of fancy-peened boyfriends to dote on her—and fuck her into the Squishmallow nest every night—it was my ride-or-die.
But TWELVE?
Save some dick for the rest of us.
Ho.
A polite cough reminded me that Mr. Smokin’ Hot Scandinavian was waiting for me to respond to his weird icebreaker.
“End of days, huh?” I blurted out, flashing the same vapid smile I’d been wearing all morning while tuning out cloudberry harvest data.
“Indeed!” Blondie nodded enthusiastically, apparently justdyingto chat about morbid randomness with a complete stranger. “This piece depictsRagnarøkkr—or Ragnarok,as you most likely know it. An exact translation would be the ‘final destiny of the gods,’ but I greatly prefer Wagner’s interpretation of ‘Twilight of the Gods.’ It’s more… ephemeral, don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” I deadpanned, my lips twitching with a smile over his flowery, yet seemingly genuine, ode to a doomsday legend.
While Iwasenjoying ogling the man in front of me, I had absolutely nothing of value to add to this conversation. Yes, I’d heard of Ragnarok.But all I could conjure up at the moment was Chris Hemsworth swinging his huge hammer around a fabulous rainbow bridge like some sort of LGBTQ+ fever dream.
Viking Pride, y’all.
The Swede grinned crookedly in return, and I almost melted into a puddle of swoon and vaginal juices. He was too perfect to be real—angelically aglow in the mid-afternoon light filtering in through the Stockholm University library’s skylights.
High above the mid-century architectural pieces, of course.
Rudely reminding me I was here on business, not pleasure, the timer on my phone chimed, signaling the end of my fifteen-minute break. “That’s my cue.” I shrugged apologetically, legitimately sad to leave this delicious piece of man meat behind. “Back to the grind.”
