Page 46 of The Viking in the Vault (Galactic Librarians #2)

ELENA

E ven with all the terraforming tech I could possibly provide, Earth remains messy.

I’m starting to think that’s just Santa Rosa: messy, loud, humid, and salt-drenched.

The waves crash against the beach in a steady rhythm, gulls cry overhead, and someone’s blasting Mer-human music from a speaker farther down the shoreline.

Aliens of every Pact species walk on the beach together, enjoying our new coast.

But this particular stretch of sand?

This one belongs to my family.

I sit with my sisters and my mom on an old quilt that lives in Marcy’s minivan, our feet buried in the warm sand.

Marcy’s hair is tied up in a scarf, sunglasses perched on her head, and she’s sipping a margarita from a can while Lisette paints her toenails neon green. I lean back on my hands and just…watch.

The view is pretty great.

Farther down the beach, Ragnar is getting mobbed by my niece and nephew—both of them shrieking with joy as they pelt him with wet handfuls of sand.

He’s shirtless, tattoos gleaming turquoise with salt and sun, laughing so hard he can barely dodge.

Fenrik is barking and dodging around with them, bolting into the ocean every so often and emerging to shake and spray the whole group with water.

Lisette squints down the shoreline, pausing mid-stroke with the brush dripping neon green onto the quilt.

“Not to be weird,” she says, tilting her head slightly, “but your man is insanely hot.”

“Lisette!” Mom chides.

“No, like—objectively,” Lisette insists. “I mean, look at him. The antlers, the shoulders, the laugh? It’s giving ‘immortal warrior-dad at beach day’ and I am very much not immune.”

Marcy chimes in without missing a beat. “Elena brought home a mythical creature and he still somehow knows how to fold a fitted sheet better than you do.”

Lisette flicks her paintbrush at Marcy, making Marcy squeal and flinch.

I snort. “You might not be so complimentary if you realized how terrified he is of microwaves.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Lisette says. “And honestly…a man like that doesn’t have to be useful. He could just lounge around naked all day and I’d be happy?—”

“ Lisette Draycott!” Mom hisses. “My goodness…”

I shrug, biting back a grin as I look at him again—kneeling in the sand as Ava climbs on his back and Leo starts a dramatic death scene after being lightly tapped with a plastic shovel.

Ragnar plays along with grave seriousness, declaring, “No, young warrior, your clan needs you!” before Fenrik races over to lick Leo’s face.

Leo bursts into giggles, rolling in the sand as Fenrik’s tail wags a mile a minute. Ava is trying to braid seaweed into Ragnar’s beard, and from the look on his face, he’s enjoying every second of it.

My heart clenches in the best possible way.

“I still can’t believe he left his entire crew for you,” Lisette murmurs.

She caps off the nail polish and sets it aside, her expression uncharacteristically earnest. “Like…I know that’s the point of love and everything, but that’s a pretty serious flex.

Does he have a cousin or something who might want to relocate to Earth?

Or maybe he could recommend me for a sick job on Kanin?—”

Marcy snorts into her margarita. “Lisette, you can’t even handle winter in Florida. You’d turn into a popsicle on Kanin.”

“Not if I’m in a hot alien lodge with a seven-foot viking.”

“You want to be the main character in a soap opera,” Marcy cackles.

“No,” Lisette says. “I want to be the main character in Elena’s life . Which is now canonically a sci-fi beach romance with family healing and a very well-endowed extraterrestrial husband.”

I groan and cover my face with both hands. “Why are you like this.”

Lisette shrugs. “Because I’m single and emotionally stunted, obviously.”

Marcy raises her can in salute. “Same.”

Mom mutters something about "these children, Lord help me," but she’s smiling too—watching Ragnar with a fondness I never thought I’d see in her.

She was skeptical at first. Very skeptical.

But I think it was the way he offered to help cook, then actually listened to her instructions, that finally won her over.

Or maybe it was how gently he tucked Ava into bed the first night, humming some old Skoll lullaby none of us understood but all of us felt.

Now he’s just…part of it. Like he was always meant to be here.

“Seriously, though,” Lisette says, stretching out on her back and throwing an arm over her eyes. “What does the rest of your life even look like now? Are you going to stay on Earth? Go back and forth? Build a climate lab on the beach? I need to know what genre we’re working with here.”

I pause, staring out at the water, my fingers trailing lazy patterns in the sand.

“I don’t know,” I admit softly. “Right now it feels like everything’s changing. The terraforming trials are working. We’ve already seen a measurable drop in sea level rise along the coast. There’s funding coming in from the Pact. I’m not in survival mode anymore. I’m just…alive.”

“Damn,” Marcy says, blinking behind her sunglasses. “That’s a genre shift if I’ve ever heard one.”

I nod, smiling. “Yeah. I think maybe I’m finally writing my own story instead of chasing someone else’s.”

Lisette groans dramatically. “That was so corny. I’m gonna throw you into the ocean.”

“Do it,” I say, and lift my margarita in mock salute. “Ragnar will fish me out.”

Sure enough, he glances back like he felt me say his name.

When our eyes meet, he lights up like the sun—and then promptly gets knocked over by Leo and Ava, who have somehow roped Fenrik into a game that seems equal parts fetch and capture-the-flag.

Ragnar rolls to his feet with a growl that makes the twins squeal and run.

I press a hand to my chest.

Lisette sighs like her soul is leaving her body. “Okay, but if he ever breaks your heart, I get to avenge you. I’ve already made a list of emotionally devastating insults to yell at him in Skoll.”

“He’s not going to break my heart,” I say quietly.

And I believe that.

Because for the first time in my life, I know what it means to be rooted—to be loved without needing to prove myself. Not as a researcher. Not as a savior. Just…as me.

And Ragnar?

He’s not the tide…not the sand. He doesn’t shift, doesn’t sink. He will not disappear .

No…he’s an oak. Sturdy, steadfast. Putting down roots, one day at a time.

And the two of us are going to grow together.