The first boat came back full. Casper stood at the harbour wall and watched Magnús Jónsson’s crew haul the nets hand over hand, the cod spilling onto the deck in a silver-grey heap that caught the morning light. The boat sat low in the water. The catch was heavy enough that the gunwale dipped when…
Toby couldn’t sleep on Skalavik. He couldn’t sleep in most places that weren’t his own bed. The Mayfair penthouse had a Hästens mattress, blackout blinds operated by a wall panel, and a white noise machine calibrated to the exact frequency of distant rain on glass. The bed in Svartborg had a mattress stuffed with lumpy…
Content Warning: This chapter contains a virginity examination by a familial authority figure, coercive control framed as protection, and self-inflicted genital pain as a learned punishment response. Look after yourself first, and give this chapter a miss if this’ll be difficult for you. Casper smelled the alpha on his own skin the entire walk back….
The shelter was a shallow cave, an overhang of dark rock with driftwood stacked along the back wall and a fire pit ringed with stones that had been blackened by years of use. The fire was already burning. Casper must have laid it out before his swim. Casper pulled the tunic over his head as…
Toby was going to die on Skalavik. Not in any of the ways he’d half-imagined during the crossing. Not swept off a jetty by a rogue wave, not poisoned by whatever root vegetable passed for fine dining on these rocks, not bored to death by another of Guðmundur’s lovingly detailed histories of herring quota management….