PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF THE IRON SEAS
Heart of Steel
“Rising star Brook has created two completely mesmerizing characters whose journeys in this gritty and treacherous world make for heart-stopping fun!”
—RT Book Reviews (top pick)
“Heart of Steel is an exciting and stimulating read. Fast-paced, with plenty of humor and gripping action that grabs you at page one. While you don’t lose any of the swashbuckling high seas, er, sky adventures nor Ms. Brook’s superb world building, whose depth and heart makes this series, Heart of Steel isn’t as emotionally dark as the first in the series—The Iron Duke. Which is perfect because these characters would never have survived that sort of story line. It’s not often you can find a couple who complement each other as well as these two do. Yasmeen and Archimedes are a fantastic couple whose chemistry and dynamics are off the charts. Their steamy sexual games last well towards the end and provide us with plenty of entertainment.”
—Smexy Books
“Yasmeen and Archimedes were a fantastic hero and heroine and a solid couple. I haven’t read many steampunk novels, but if the writing is half as good as it is in this series in other books in the genre, I really need to check out more.”
—Paranormal Haven
“The world that Ms. Brook has created with this series is incredibly fascinating, with a wonderfully intricate alternate history that adds such depth to the story. Archimedes is one of my absolute favorite heroes, and he and Yasmeen were truly perfect for each other. Recommended for fans of incredible steampunk, of adventuresome heroes with a truly romantic nature, and of kick-ass heroines who keep their awesomeness long after their hearts are engaged.”
—The Romanceaholic
“A straight-up adventure. Daring escapes, explosions, zombies, treasure hunting, and one man’s quest to fall in love with the woman with a heart of steel…Heart of Steel has characters worthy of adoration, a gripping adventure, and a romance to cheer for.”
—Vampire Book Club
The Iron Duke
“I loved it! As far as I’m concerned, with The Iron Duke, Meljean Brook has brilliantly defined the new genre of steampunk romance. From now on, everyone will compare other writers in the genre to her.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author
“A stunning blend of steampunk setting and poignant romance—smart, sexy, breathtaking, and downright addicting. I’m ready for the next book or anything else Meljean Brook writes.”
—Ilona Andrews, New York Times bestselling author
“Engrossing steampunk adventure…[A] complex, gripping read.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“With adept writing and a flair for creating believable worlds, Brook’s first in the Iron Seas series showcases her masterful storytelling.”
—Booklist
“A high seas/airborne adventure that’s filled with zombies, pirates, and deadly betrayal. Along with the pulse-pounding adventure, there’s plenty of serious sizzle for readers to enjoy.”
—Romantic Times (4 1⁄2 stars)
“I absolutely loved this book…Everything from characters to world was done with care and precision…Any current fan of Ms. Brook has to read this one and those who aren’t fans should. Steampunk has never been written so well.”
—Night Owl Reviews
PRAISE FOR MELJEAN BROOK’S DEMON SERIES
Demon Forged
“Dark, rich, and sexy, every page makes me beg for more!”
—Gena Showalter, New York Times bestselling author
“Another fantastic book in a beautifully written series. [It] has all the elements I love in Meljean’s books—strong, gorgeously drawn characters, a world so real I totally believe it, and the punch of powerful emotion.”
—Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author
“A dark, gripping read…The characters are brilliant, and the breathtaking romance, vivid setting, and darkly delicious adventure will immerse readers in this spellbinding world until the satisfying conclusion.”
—Romantic Times
Demon Bound
“An excellent entry in a great series…Another winner as the multifaceted Guardian saga continues to expand in complexity while remaining entertaining…As complex and beautifully done as always.”
—Book Binge
“Be prepared for more surprises and more revelations…Brook continues to deliver surprising characters, relationships, paranormal elements, and plot twists—the only thing that won’t surprise you is your total inability to put this book down.”
—Alpha Heroes
Demon Night
“Meljean is now officially one of my favorite authors. And this book’s hero?…I just went weak at the knees. And the love scenes—wow, just wow.”
—Nalini Singh, New York Times bestselling author
“Poignant and compelling with lots of action, and it’s very sensual. You’ll fall in love with Charlie, and Ethan will cause your thermometer to blow its top. An excellent plot, wonderful dialogue…Don’t miss reading it or any of Meljean Brook’s other novels in this series.”
—Fresh Fiction
Demon Moon
“The fourth book in Meljean Brook’s Guardian series turns up the heat without losing any of the danger.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“A read that goes down hot and sweet—utterly unique—and one hell of a ride.”
—Marjorie M. Liu, New York Times bestselling author
Demon Angel
“I’ve never read anything like this book. Demon Angel is brilliant, heartbreaking, genre-bending—even, I dare say, epic. Simply put, I love it.”
—Marjorie M. Liu, New York Times bestselling author
“Brook has crafted a complex, interesting world that goes far beyond your usual…paranormal romance. Demon Angel truly soars.”
—Jennifer Estep, author of Widow’s Web
“Enthralling…[A] delightful saga.”
—The Best Reviews
Titles by Meljean Brook
DEMON ANGEL
DEMON MOON
DEMON NIGHT
DEMON BOUND
DEMON FORGED
DEMON BLOOD
DEMON MARKED
THE IRON DUKE
HEART OF STEEL
RIVETED
Anthologies
HOT SPELL
(with Emma Holly, Lora Leigh, and Shiloh Walker)
WILD THING
(with Maggie Shayne, Marjorie M. Liu, and Alyssa Day)
FIRST BLOOD
(with Susan Sizemore, Erin McCarthy, and Chris Marie Green)
MUST LOVE HELLHOUNDS
(with Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, and Ilona Andrews)
BURNING UP
(with Angela Knight, Nalini Singh, and Virginia Kantra)
ANGELS OF DARKNESS
(with Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, and Sharon Shinn)
Riveted
MELJEAN BROOK
BERKLEY SENSATION, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2012 by Meljean Brook.
Cover photo by Claudio Marinesco.
Cover design by Rita Frangie.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / September 2012
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brook, Meljean.
Riveted / Meljean Brook.—Berkley Sensation trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61135-7
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Imaginary societies—Fiction. 3. Iceland—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3602.R64274R58 2012 2012022736
813’.6—dc22
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
Acknowledgments
To Jill Myles and Ilona Andrews: thank you so much for being there, holding my hand, and kicking my butt. I owe you guys so much tea. Special thanks to Telma Teixeira and Olguín Venustiano, who both assisted with foreign languages in the novel (and a belated thanks to Rosario, who helped many times before.)
To Monica Jackson, who fought to turn the world around: You flipped some of us. I truly believe that everyone else will follow, someday. I just wish that you were here to see it.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Chapter One
Before Annika had begun her journey, her mother had assured her that the people in the New World weren’t all that different from the women in their village of Hannasvik. Annika’s mother reminded her of how the peoples of Africa and Europe had sailed across the Atlantic four hundred years ago, fleeing from the Mongol Horde that had ridden from the east on the backs of their conquering war machines—just as Hanna and the Englishwomen had escaped the New World slavers and had made their home in Iceland a century before. She’d spoken of the enormous mechanical warriors that the New Worlders had built on their coastlines, sentinels that served a warning to the Horde, should that great empire ever develop a navy and follow them across the sea—just as Hannasvik’s trolls protected their village and intimidated any enemies who might attempt to drive them from their home.
The Horde never followed the New Worlders, however. The sentinels stood for centuries, staring out over the open sea while wars over territory and trade routes were fought behind their backs, and they were slowly stripped of their armaments and engines.
And they were slowly falling apart. Annika glanced up through the drizzling rain and eyed the immense Castilian warrior guarding the gates to the port city of Navarra. In the four years since she’d left Hannasvik and joined Phatéon’s crew, Annika had come to accept the truth of her mother’s words: Individually, the people of the New World weren’t that different from those in her village.
The governments and rulers, however, must have been.
No elder in Hannasvik would have allowed Annika or any of the other engineers to neglect their trolls, not when lives depended upon their maintenance. The same obviously wasn’t true in the New World, and Castile’s sentinel was the worst. Aboard Phatéon, Annika had seen every machine still standing along the Atlantic coastline—from Johannesland’s colossus in the north to the Far Maghreb’s twin warriors, three thousand miles south of the equator—and the warrior in Navarra was by far the most decrepit. Rust ate away at its plate armor and crested helmet; corrosion pitted the iron around every bolt and rivet. Sand had drifted into the crevices, forming a solid mass at every joint, topped by grassy nests. Gray seagull dung crusted the spiked shoulders and gauntlets.
Once a marvelous and deadly machine, now it was simply dangerous. Even if the sentinel had still possessed the engines to walk, the great hinged knees would have buckled after a single step. Struts buttressed its lower half now, a framework of steel supporting the towering legs that served as Navarra’s port gates.
What a horrible waste. If the Horde had come to the New World, they likely wouldn’t have been intimidated by such useless machines…unless the New Worlders’ defensive strategy was to crush any invaders beneath a rusted ruin. More likely, however, visitors to the city would be killed by falling pieces.
Visitors like Annika. Only an hour earlier, she had walked the north port road through the gate and into the Castilian city without being crushed—but while she’d been at the printer’s office purchasing another season of personal advertisements, an icy breeze had begun to blow in from the ocean, stinging her cheeks with rain and sand. A strong gust might rip away the sentinel’s giant hand or armored shoulder and throw it to the ground, squashing Annika in the street.
If a steamcoach didn’t squash her first.
A horn blasted near her right ear. Two tons of rolling iron sped by, the front wheel whipping her skirts forward. With a yelp, Annika yanked the red silk tight to her leg before the rear wheel could catch the fabric and rip it away—or drag her along the sandy road behind it. That damned idiot driver. Only a blind man wouldn’t have seen her walking along in a brilliant crimson skirt and canary yellow coat.
Though the coach was already lost from her sight beyond its dense trail of smoke and steam, she yelled after him, “You rotting rabbitchaser!”
Pointless, but satisfying—until she sucked in a lungful of the acrid smoke. Coughing, she pounded her fist over her chest, then glanced over her shoulder just in time to avoid the three-wheeled cart that rattled around a horse-drawn wagon and attempted to squeeze between the plodding beast and her leg. Her fierce scowl went unnoticed by the driver.
Well, hang them all. It was true that the row of shops that separated the north and south roads made narrow corridors of each street, leaving little room to maneuver—but they were headed in the same direction, and the port gates were only a hundred yards away. Was running her down to gain a few seconds truly necessary? Given the manner that some of them handled their vehicles, she suspected they were aiming for her.
Perhaps they were. Perhaps she’d broken some unspoken Castilian rule that no one aboard Phatéon had thought to warn her about. Perhaps she was unintentionally giving a message: Please crush me to a bleeding pulp alongside this road.
And now that the thought had entered her mind, it wouldn’t leave. She looked over her shoulder again. No vehicles were bearing down on her…yet.
Oh, and her mother would have been shaking her head now, telling Annika that her dread was a product of her
imagination. That might have been true, once. Growing up, Annika’s tendency to woolgather had been a source of consternation and amusement for the women in the village. Her imagination had continually gotten the best of her—and was precisely why she currently served as second engineer aboard an airship, flying from port to port, rather than eating supper every night in her mother’s cozy earthen home. She’d often fancied dangers that weren’t there and daydreamed when she should have been wary.
No longer, though. Within a few months of joining Phatéon’s crew, Annika had discovered that port cities in the New World each came with a unique set of dangers, and she’d learned to be wary until she was familiar with them. Manhattan City’s entry inspectors didn’t just examine the documents proving her origin and certifying that she wasn’t infected by the Horde’s nanoagents. They groped her legs and arms to make certain she wasn’t hiding a mechanical apparatus beneath her clothing—and swinging a fist at an officer who groped too fervently would land her in a cell until her airship’s captain bailed her out. Inside the city, a curse spoken within hearing distance of a constable resulted in a hefty fine; exposing a bare ankle or elbow earned a rebuke and a trip in a paddy wagon back to the port’s gates, where her salacious behavior was reported to Captain Vashon and the airship threatened with docking sanctions.
In Oyapock, however, Annika could have walked naked down the paved streets without garnering a second look—and given the number of light-fingered war orphans who swarmed visitors entering Liberé’s capital city, it was only by virtue of her trouser buckles that her pants weren’t stolen off her bottom while she wore them. On her first visit to Oyapock, Annika might have considered nudity a blessing, however. The city sat at the mouth of the Orinoco River; accustomed to colder climes, even Annika’s lightest clothing had seemed to suffocate her. But the urchins hadn’t left her nude on that trip—they’d taken her money and her hair instead. She hadn’t felt them lift the purse from her waist. A slight tug at the back of her head had been the only warning before her thick braid had disappeared and her curls sprang into a dark halo. With her hand in her newly shorn hair, she’d stared in openmouthed shock as they’d scampered away. She’d learned, though. Now she kept her hair short and only carried as much money as she needed into Oyapock, leaving the bulk on the airship.
Riveted Page 1