Iron Seas 03 - Riveted

slammed the door in David’s face. But not at every moment, he realized. The nurse spoke to her, and he saw the softness there, the warmth—the tight smile that seemed to suppress laughter. Then she caught the eye of an aviator and tossed her head, every inch the arrogant, rich woman again.
    What would the Church be protecting them from? David wasn’t Catholic, but he’d read some of the more contentious historical debates while at the university. Remembering the wake of terror following the first reports of the Horde’s frenzies, and the Church’scall for leniency toward sodomites at the same time several kingdoms had been writing severe punishments into law, one possibility seemed more probable than others.
    Carefully, because even the suggestion could harm the young woman, David said, “You think they’re Sapphists?”
    “I don’t know what that means.”
    “They share a bed.”
    “Yes.” Her gaze didn’t waver from his. “I also heard the aviators say that it’s a sickness, and the cure is a man between their legs. Do you think so?”
    He frowned. “Forcing any woman is indefensible.”
    “No,” she said. “Do you think it is a sickness ?”
    The directness of her query demanded honesty. “I haven’t thought about the reasons for it.”
    “You need to. Before you pledge yourself to helping Källa, before Hildegard comes for you. If you think it’s a sickness, you need to give those runes over and let them be.”
    Understanding slipped in, and in the space of a breath, tore apart every assumption he’d made. Reeling, David shook his head, trying to reorder everything he’d learned about his mother’s people, to see through this new lens.
    Why hadn’t he seen it before? Good Christ, it was so obvious. She and Källa had two mothers, yet they were sisters. They were a community of only women…and both Annika and his mother had kept them secret, protecting them.
    They were right to protect them. God knew what would happen if the women were discovered.
    Her gaze was still on him. Her stiff expression gave little away, but she held herself tight, her mittened hands shaking. “Will you think on it, David Ingasson?”
    David nodded, hoping the response would reassure her—and realized that he had thought on it before, though not regarding women. He knew of several male colleagues who were rumored tohave shared more than tents during their expeditions, though the rumors were quiet, for fear that the men would be hurt by them. David wasn’t interested in that sort of companionship for himself, but he didn’t care that others did. He didn’t care that his mother’s people did the same.
    Except for one.
    Was this why Annika had told him she wouldn’t share his bed without love? It would be a simple claim that could keep men at arm’s length without risking herself.
    David had no right to ask. He knew it. There was small hope of anything ever coming of his attraction to her…but he needed to know if that little hope was actually no hope at all. “You?”
    She bit her lip, clearly uncertain, and David felt like an ass.
    “You don’t have to—”
    “I don’t know,” she said. A worried line formed between her brows. She glanced back at the deck, and her voice lowered to a whisper. “I don’t know. There was a girl, a friend. I hoped it would become more, but it never did. Then I thought perhaps there weren’t enough women in Hannasvik, and so I couldn’t meet the right one.”
    Then she’d begun searching for Källa. “But it would be difficult to find someone in the New World,” he realized. She’d be taking a tremendous risk.
    “Yes.” She exhaled a shaky breath. “But I also wondered if I was like some of the other women who preferred men, even though they’d never seen one. I thought that when I left, I would know for certain. But I didn’t. Four years, and there was no one that I…no one…”
    Her lips pressed together and she stared out over the water. Tension held David still. She seemed on the verge of bolting, and he feared that a word or a movement might startle her away. He couldn’t imagine the terror that must be coursing through her now in sharing this with him. He’d have done anything to ease that for her, but he knew there was little to do—only clench his fists andwait, his chest aching for her, his mind filled with slowly building anger.
    This shouldn’t be so terrifying to confess. She shouldn’t have to fear anything.
    “I have felt