Riveted

by Brook, Meljean

  Annika searched through their packs. Her spanner and his pistol had been taken. She pressed her lips together in frustration, then smoothed her expression when she heard the crunch of approaching footsteps.

  A moment later, David ducked through the low entrance. Her heart gave a wild leap, and her body followed. She threw herself into his arms, loving the strength and the warmth as he caught her against him, surrounded her.

  “All right?” His voice was gruff.

  “Yes.” Everything had been awful. But not now. “You?”

  She felt his nod against her hair. His arms tightened, and he held her, held her. Finally, he stepped back, cupped her face in his hands.

  “We need to leave here,” he said.

  “I know how. We just have to find the right time. We can wait until then.”

  “Yes.” He glanced at the bed. “We’re sharing?”

  “I told Källa that you will be the father of my children. I didn’t want to be separated.”

  “Good. To both, if you’ll have me. I’d like to make babies with you.”

  She grinned. “You’re thinking of that now?”

  “It’s a better thought than any other I’ve had today.” He dropped a quick kiss to her mouth, stepped back to unbuckle his coat. “So that was my cousin?”

  His question held a note of wonder. He only had a little family left, she remembered. What did it feel like to suddenly gain more?

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And the boy, too.”

  Judging by the flatness of his voice, Annika guessed that he’d assumed the same about Olaf that she initially had. “Yes. He is Paolo’s son.”

  His brows rose. “Paolo’s?”

  “Yes.” She watched him shake his head, as if he were trying to reconcile that information—or perhaps trying not to imagine the act that had led to it. “What is Paolo like?”

  “Confused,” he said. “Not childlike, though he possesses an innocent sense of wonder at times. I remember him differently—as forthright, focused, and thoughtful. Gentle and kind. Now, he only focuses for short times.”

  “Is he still kind?”

  “Yes.” He withdrew his journal from the pack, then slanted her an unreadable glance. “Did Källa tell you what he intends to do?”

  “Send a capsule to the moon—along with plants and soil—so that he can build a farm.” And she’d laughed wildly until she’d realized Källa had been serious. “I didn’t believe it.”

  “It’s all true.” He looked around again. “No desk?”

  Nowhere to sit at all, except for the trunk and bed. “Only at the table. We’ll sit there soon for supper.”

  “All right.” He tossed the journal onto his pack. “Will you lie with me until then? I need to gather my thoughts before I write, anyway.”

  She’d gladly lie with him. For the first time since she’d seen the airship’s shadow on the snow, the thin, sour coating of dread and panic receded from the back of her throat. She pillowed her head on his shoulder, flattened her hand over his heart.

  Perhaps this was love, too. Not just the tearing desire. Just the contentment of being with him, at a time when she shouldn’t have been able to find any ease.

  “What thoughts are you gathering?” she asked after a moment.

  His chest lifted beneath her hand as he drew a long breath, released it slowly. “I’m worried about the glacier’s stability.”

  “The quakes?”

  “Not just the quakes. Paolo’s plan. They’re digging through the rock and ice over the volcano’s caldera, placing explosive charges designed to collapse part of the glacier into the magma chamber below.”

  While they were on it? “Will that work?”

  “Honest to God, I don’t know. I’ve never heard of anyone trying to force an eruption—but if that magma chamber collapses, it will sure as hell do something. And I’m not sure the steam pressure will be redirected through the boreholes as they hope it will be.” He shook his head. “They’ve drilled other boreholes that will force the steam into the hole below the tower. The plan is to drop the capsule into that primary borehole, letting it plug. The steam builds up and forces it out—like a cork from a bottle.”

  “Launching it to the moon.” She felt silly even saying it.

  “Yes.”

  “Will that work?”

  His laugh rumbled against her hand. “I have no idea. He’s calculated the necessary pressure needed to produce the proper acceleration, but whether the volcano can produce that sort of pressure…It’s impossible to know.”

  “But you can’t express any doubt.”

  His laughter stopped. “No.”

  “At least he’s not hurting anyone.” Unlike his last big experiment.

  “That he knows of.” With another deep breath, he pulled her closer. She felt his inhalation against her hair. His hand stroked the length of her back, before beginning a leisurely massage down her spine. “And Källa is here. Are you glad you’ve finally found her?”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip. “And no.”

  His fingers paused. “No?”

  “When she left, it was because she’d taken the blame after I almost exposed Hannasvik to outsiders. She was protecting me.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I did. But I always thought that the names she called me were a joke. The sort of thing you say when you tease someone that you love. Annika the Woolgatherer, Annika the Rabbit. I didn’t know until today that she truly believed them. That she believes I’m too weak to survive the New World.”

  “And you’ve spent four years proving her wrong.”

  Perhaps. But she wasn’t wrong about all of it. “She said that I’m only brave when I’m in a troll. That’s true, I guess.” She sighed. “What do you think of Lorenzo?”

  He didn’t immediately answer. Annika turned to lie against his side, pushing up on her elbow to look down at him. He wore a troubled expression, his brows drawn.

  “That bad?” she wondered.

  David nodded. “He’s determined to help his father, no matter the cost. I knew that. But I don’t know whether he understands right from wrong and does the wrong anyway…or if he truly believes that there’s nothing wrong with what he’s doing, and that the greatness of his father’s quest justifies the steps he takes.”

  To knowingly commit evil, or to commit evil without recognizing that it was. “Which is worse?”

  “The second.”

  Annika didn’t completely agree. She supposed it depended on the circumstances. “Which do you think Lorenzo is?”

  “The second.” He lifted his hand, smoothed back the curls from her forehead. “Everyone makes choices that they know aren’t right. And we recognize that they aren’t right, so we feel regret or remorse, even if we’d make the same choice again. It’s a part of being human, part of what separates us from beasts. But I can’t see any regret in him. He killed everyone on Heimaey simply to test his father’s æther suit—not even as a necessary evil, but because he could. That giant balloon out there is filled with the gases released during their drilling. They deflated it over the town while he walked through the streets wearing that suit.”

  Horror settled deep, splinters of ice in her stomach and heart. “He walked through himself?”

  She would have guessed that he’d forced one of his men to do it.

  “Yes. So he’s not just willing to do anything to help his father—he has no remorse, and no fear.”

  “That’s terrifying,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” David said, and held her tighter against him.

  Lorenzo was the observationist, but Annika found it almost impossible not to watch him during dinner. She couldn’t make herself stop—and she simply couldn’t understand him. How could he laugh and play with Olaf, and be so gentle with his father? How could he ask after their comfort, and promise to see that a desk was brought to their chamber the next day? How could he look and act so human when only a few days ago he’d stroll
ed through a town while the women died around him? When he’d been the one to cause their deaths?

  The father could not have been any more different from the son. She saw him looking at her several times, shy and hesitant, and offering her a sweet smile when she met his eyes. She didn’t know what to think of the posts stuck to his head, but when Källa gave her a warning glance, she understood that it was better not to ask—at least for now.

  Paolo seemed genuinely adoring of Källa—who liked him as well, even if not in the same way she’d been with Lisbet. Some of his shyness dropped away when he realized Annika was her sister.

  He pushed his stew away, eagerly leaning forward on his forearms. “You are Annika the Rabbit?”

  Oh, that had never bothered her before. It stung now. She frowned at Källa. “You told him?”

  “There was not much else that I could say about home.”

  And they couldn’t now, either. Aware of Lorenzo watching, she let her irritation go. She didn’t want to give him anything, didn’t want him to know her in any way.

  “She described you as more colorful,” Paolo said.

  “I usually am, but I lost all of my clothes.”

  “Oh? What are you wearing, then? It must be the most wonderful illusion ever created.”

  She had to smile. “I lost all of my colorful ones.”

  “A whale ate them,” David said dryly.

  Annika covered her laugh, didn’t dare look at Lorenzo. Said like that, it sounded almost as absurd as…flying to the moon.

  “Ah.” A deep, wistful smile softened Paolo’s face. “I used to dream that I would be a whale. It seemed a wonderful thing, floating through the ocean, warm with my own blubber—and very far away from people, except for the whalers.” Humor replaced the softness of memory. “Of course, if I were a whale, I would shoot a harpoon back at them, and laugh at their surprise. I once considered making such a creature—a submersible, of course, not a true whale. But I thought it would be too silly, in the end.”

  Annika couldn’t stop herself. “So you didn’t finish it?”

  “Oh, no. Only the schematics. I’m not allowed to buy engines anywhere in the New World. That stipulation was included in my parole.” He looked to Lorenzo. “My son has been wonderful, procuring them for me at his own expense. I’m afraid I take terrible advantage of him.”

  Warmth filled Lorenzo’s expression. “Nothing is too much for you, Father.”

  “Not even the moon,” David said. “What made you dream of that?”

  The wistful smile came again, but tinged by the memory of sadness, pain. “In the insanitarium, I could see my window from my bed. I would not be feeling well, very often. And they didn’t always let me move. But I could see the moon as it passed my window—and it always seemed so very cold. So empty and lonely. I thought it would be an amazing thing to look up and see a man there. And eventually, many men building cities instead of war machines. We could labor together to create the perfect world, where everything would be clean. So clean. It could be a new start.”

  Paolo’s voice was unbearably hopeful. Unbearably sad. Her throat tight, Annika found David’s hand beneath the table.

  “It would be an amazing thing,” she said.

  Looking charmingly pleased, the older man flushed a little. “Yes, well. Until then, we do what we can here. Every bit helps.”

  To keep everything clean? “Such as using the pipes for heating instead of many stoves.”

  “Yes! I would rid our chambers of oil lamps, if I could.”

  “He truly would,” Källa said, laughing. “Please don’t encourage him, Annika.”

  “I won’t,” she said, then looked to Paolo again with a grin. “Have you seen the electric lights? I visited a fair in Nova Lagos once, and they had one on display. A man pedaled a velocipede, and it illuminated the entire tent.”

  “I refuse to pedal all night,” Källa said.

  “That is why the hot springs are—” Paolo stopped, his face lighting. “Have you seen the bath chamber? I just remembered that Källa once said that you enjoyed the springs very much. This is not the same, but quite a lovely feature of this camp.”

  She had seen the room not very far from her own chamber, filled with steam, pipes, and a tin tub. Annika had never used a tub in her life, and she couldn’t help but imagine that it was like sitting in a giant’s cooking pot. “I was in the chamber earlier. But I can make do with a pitcher.”

  “Oh, no, I must insist. It is quite lovely, I promise. Like our own little spring.”

  “Annika’s very modest,” Källa said on her behalf.

  Beside her, David seemed to choke.

  “No one can see you there,” Paolo assured her. “It is private.”

  “I—”

  “Would love to, I’m sure,” Lorenzo said quietly, and Annika’s protests died away. “It must be difficult and sweaty work, driving the walker.”

  Feeling as if she’d suddenly been caught in a snare, Annika nodded. “Yes.”

  “But I couldn’t help noticing that you do it very well.”

  “She’s better than I am,” Källa said.

  “In that case, I wonder if you would drive the men to the ice tunnel tomorrow while Mr. Kentewess is with my father. Since you also believe that his goal is an amazing one, I’m certain that you would like to contribute to his project as well.”

  Annika didn’t want to. But she couldn’t waste the opportunity to see more of the glacier, and perhaps the means of escape. “What is the ice tunnel?”

  “The ice cap is almost a half mile thick in places. We can’t drill that far to place the charges, so we’ve dug a tunnel that allows us to start at a more reasonable depth. We have to carry the workers to thes current location.”

  “Beneath the ice?” David shook his head. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “There were tremors today. We heard the ice crack,” he said.

  “So there have been on many days. But there’s never been a cave-in or tunnel collapse.” Lorenzo offered a strange smile, as if the sides of his lips had been jerked back. “Isn’t that right, Father?”

  “Yes.”

  Annika looked to Källa, who nodded.

  “I insist,” Lorenzo said.

  Instead of ice blocks, wooden planks formed the bath chamber’s walls. Copper pipes crossed the ceiling, dripping hot water to the boards below. David’s eyepiece fogged the moment he entered. Switching to thermal offered him a view of a fuzzy yellow mess. He reached for one of the towels rolled up on the shelf instead.

  Annika looked doubtfully at the tin tub sitting beneath a gooseneck faucet. She tested the stream of water with the back of her hand, nodded. “It is nice.” She glanced back at him. “Do you want to join me? It’s big enough for two.”

  Though David would have liked to, he shook his head. He wasn’t prepared to show her that much of himself yet. “You don’t have to drive to the tunnel tomorrow. Lorenzo can insist all he likes; I won’t have you forced into it.”

  “I know. But if nothing else, I’ll have access to a troll, and permission given by Lorenzo to drive it. If I ever have to use the troll to smash him flat, the guards won’t be so quick to shoot at me when I start her up.”

  If she chose to go, then David would try to push away his worry. “I’m beginning to realize that you’re a bit bloodthirsty.”

  “No.” She pulled her tunic over her head, revealing the beautiful curve of her spine. Familiar heat pooled in his groin. “I just like to see people get what they deserve.”

  “Which includes smashing them flat.”

  “All right. A bit bloodthirsty, then.”

  David supposed that he was, too. But he didn’t want to think of Lorenzo now. He dragged a chair up to the tub as she peeled away the rest of her clothes.

  She kicked away her drawers, glanced over her shoulder. “You plan to watch?”

  “I’m hoping that you’ll teach me how to be modest.”

  Her grin matched his,
then changed to a quiet hiss when she stepped in. David lived and died a thousand happy deaths in the brief second when she bent over to brace herself, rump high and her sleek thigh lifting over the edge. A soft groan filled the chamber as she eased down, and he could only imagine her making the same noise if she eased down over him, hot and wet. God. His cock swelled as he pictured it, and David welcomed the throbbing ache, loved the wholehearted response of his body. Annika didn’t deserve anything less.

  And by God, when he looked at her, even the painful constriction of his trousers felt good.

  She dunked her head, came up dripping and pushing the hair out of her face. Her eyes opened and met his. With a playful smile, she moved toward him and folded her forearms on top of the tub’s rolled edge. She crooked her finger, gesturing him closer.

  He was happy to oblige. Bracing his hands on the edge of the tub, he leaned forward. “Close your eyes.”

  She did, her wet eyelashes forming spiky fans against her cheeks. He sipped a warm drop from her jaw before coaxing her lips open, his heart pounding and his eyepiece fogging again as he savored her taste.

  When he drew back, she followed him for a few inches, her moist lips parted, her cheeks flushed from the heat and the kiss. Slowly, as if her eyelids were heavy, she looked up at him. He didn’t want to wipe his eyepiece clear again when she did. He didn’t want to ask her to look away.

  Damn it all. He hated having half of his vision obscured.

  He rubbed the lens shield clear. She watched—not his eyepiece, but his face. God knew what she saw.

  But of course, being Annika, she told him.

  “David, I want to tell you…I don’t know if any of this hesitation is to spare my feelings, but I wanted you to know, the scars, the steel—they don’t matter to me.” She stopped. Frowning, she pushed the wet flop of curls back from her forehead, tried again. “No, that’s not what I mean. They do matter, because they are a part of you. But I don’t see them in the same way that I think many others do.”

  From that first night on Phatéon, when they’d spoken so easily after Mary Chandler had called him horrid, he’d known that Annika didn’t see them in the same way. But he still did, sometimes. “I was almost never this self-conscious with stumps. That was just…what happened. And when people reacted or stared, it was easier to push away.” He lifted his hand. “But this, I did to myself—and sometimes it’s grotesque, even to me. Not always, because I don’t think of them much unless I’m aware that someone is looking. And they’re damn useful. But I have moments.”