Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

significant lift of her brows, she glanced toward Austra Longears just as Frida’s troll gave a huff.
    “I suggest that you don’t make her wait, Mr. Dooley,” Annika said. “She’s likes to talk as she drives.”
    “Well, then.” He offered a tip of his hat to Annika, then a nod toward David. “We’re off. We’ll see you when.”
    She felt David’s gaze on her as she walked ahead of him, as she climbed into the troll. In the next moment he had her back against the wall, his mouth opening over hers in a desperate, deep kiss. She returned it with every pent-up emotion of the past week, every bit of joy that he was there, that he touched her again.
    With a groan, he dragged his lips from hers and held her, hisbreath ragged. “I need you, Annika. So much. Being proper this week has been hell.”
    It had been, though a wonderful sort of hell. She pressed kisses to his jaw, his throat. “Then why were you?”
    “I wanted to put everything in order before I came to you. You said you wanted to be near to me. Are you certain, Annika? Because I can’t let you go.”
    Her throat tightened. He hadn’t let her go. He’d saved her by never letting go.
    She’d never let him go, either. “I’m certain.”
    “Then tell me where you hope to go, what you hope to do. And I will do all that I can to be with you.”
    She hoped to be with him. But, no—that was not all that she hoped. “I intend to drive this troll into Smoke Cove, to tell my aunt Valdís that she was right about me. I will walk it through the street, and come out of the chest hatch, and the people will see that I am flesh and blood.”
    “No hiding?”
    “No.”
    “And then?”
    “I thought I might accompany you on your survey.” She grinned against his mouth. “I can act as a guide—and it is much easier to get around by troll.”
    “We aren’t finishing the survey. Not the one we intended. Dooley, Goltzius, and I have all changed our goals.”
    Oh. “Where will we be going then?”
    “Not far from your home. I wanted to stay close. So I will be working with Paolo, surveying the southern peninsula. I could use a guide with a troll.”
    She would love that. “Based in Smoke Cove?”
    “Yes.”
    “And when you’re done?”
    “I’ll stay in Iceland. This island can keep me busy for the rest of my life.”
    Traveling throughout her home? But not just driving a troll. “I have enough fabric for the rest of my life.”
    “And bows?” His hands slid to her bottom. “You should make undergarments and sell them. If they affect everyone the same way they do me, you’ll soon be a rich woman.”
    She laughed. “And if they don’t?”
    “Then you can just wear them for me.”
    “I’m wearing some now,” she said softly, and watched the desire flare in his gaze, felt the tightening of his body. “And I feel like a wolf.”
    He bent his head. “The troll’s in the middle of the street.”
    “I know. It’s so improper—”
    His mouth captured hers, and the need twisted inside her. She buried her fingers in his hair, clung as he lifted her. There was no time to waste, and no time at all, only the huff and the heat of their breath, the tug of a bow and his groan upon finding her wet, her cry as he slid deep. There was nothing but his arms wrapped around her, the drive of his body, his urgent words of love in her ear.
    Nothing but David—and so much more than she’d dreamed.

Epilogue
    The volcano slept, as it had since Hanna and the Englishwomen founded their village. In the first years, the women hadn’t worn beads. The names of those who’d died had been inscribed on large stones at the base of the mountain. Annika didn’t know when or why the first woman had buried her mother’s or her sister’s runes, but the tradition had begun in the first generation.
    When the time came, Annika didn’t believe that her soul would need help finding her family’s. She didn’t believe that burying the runes helped the dead at all.
    She did believe that it helped those still living.
    David had gone quiet when she’d started Austra Longears up the path. Here and there, patches of snow still lingered, but most of it had receded with the spring. She’d approached the volcano from the south, and they’d spent the previous day trampling through the rock arches and soaking in the steaming springs that stank of sulphur but were heaven to bathe in. Later, as she’d lain in his arms, he’d read the runes at her neck, asked her to tell him