Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

dreaming of?”
    “You.”
    Smiling, he pushed her hair back. They’d made love yesterday—the greatest pleasure he’d ever known. Nothing could have prepared him for it. Not just the luscious clasp of her body, but her trust, her complete abandonment to the need between them.
    Only yesterday. It seemed so long ago, now—too long. Bending his head, he kissed his way up her neck, took a long taste of her mouth. Not to arouse, but the sheer wonder of being with Annika. David could hardly comprehend how much he loved her.
    But he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her now.
    She looked up when he broke the kiss. “That was better than the dream.”
    “As it should be.” Though reluctant to leave her, he sat up, tucked the coat back against her side. “I’ll go out and look around.”
    “Take my red scarf. Tie it to the pole.”
    A bright flag that could be seen from a balloon. “Good thinking.”
    He dropped another quick kiss to her mouth and crawled through the angled entrance. The sun hadn’t yet risen. An inch of ash lay over the snow, powdery and light like flour. No trees grew on this slope, and if there was any vegetation, it was all covered. Dark clouds huddled overhead.
    To the south, a plume of steam and ash still rose over the glacier, but not the billowing volume of the night before. If any lava still flowed, it had cooled enough to lose its fierce glow. Some of his tension eased away. Lorenzo had triggered an eruption, but not a catastrophic one, and it was already decreasing in strength. His gaze searched the edge of the glacier. No evidence of a flood, but he hadn’t expected one in this direction. Most of the damage, if any, would have occurred on the southern side.
    For now, he couldn’t let himself dwell on his worry for his aunt, Dooley, everyone in Vik. They knew floods might follow an eruption. They knew to find high ground. They knew to stay out of the ash—and nobody lacked for goggles and scarves. If Lorenzo had fulfilled his promise, they wouldn’t lack for food, either.
    He and Annika still did. Switching to his thermal lens, he searched the barren slope for signs of heat, for a dog or a rabbit holed up in the snow. Anything to bring back to her, to reassure her that they’d be all right.
    There was nothing.
    A heavy weight settled in his chest. He moved across the slope and farther up the rise. The sun slowly rose, throwing a band of brilliant pink across the eastern sky. He listened for a chirping bird, a bark. Nothing.
    Bundled in a blue scarf and fur hat, aviator goggles over her eyes, Annika emerged from the snow house as he came down again. Her gaze swept the slope.
    “No tracks,” she said.
    Not one. “Maybe frightened by the eruption and still hiding under the snow.”
    “Or there weren’t any here.” She pulled off her mitten, reached into her coat. “I thawed it, despite the texture. I don’t want it to break our teeth.”
    The flatbread, ripped in half. David shook his head. “I’m infected.”
    “You still need to eat.”
    “Not as much.”
    “You’re twice as big as I am.”
    “And a quarter of it is metal.”
    “David.” Her gaze was warm and steady. “You have to consider the rest.”
    “Don’t say the rest, damn it.”
    She did, anyway. “This will last us three days. If Källa can’t come for us by then, if we haven’t found something else to eat, we’ll be in serious trouble—and we’ll both need to be as strong as possible.”
    “It can last you six days.”
    “And by the end of six days, what then? I’m still hungry. And you’re dropping into a fever as the nanoagents try to save you from starving.”
    Certainty filled her voice. David couldn’t even argue. He’d gone a few days without before, but never that long. “How do you know that?”
    “My mother’s infected, too. She got caught out during a storm once, got turned around in her troll. She was raging with bug fever when we found her, and had to put her in the snow to cool her down.” Beneath the certainty, the patience, he heard the strain inher words. “You may be the only one who can save us, David, so you will eat this now .”
    God. He knew she was right. He still had to choke it down, feeling as if he stole every single bite from her mouth.
    Her relieved exhalation slipped through the folds of her scarf and frosted the wool. “It’ll be all right. It takes longer than three days for even us rabbits to starve.”
    He couldn’t think of it. His throat thick,