Read Online Riveted by Meljean Brook - Free Book Online

bed…
    He wouldn’t say no. Hell, he’d like to spend the entire journey there, even if only to watch her face as she talked. Even if she insisted on the dark, even if she insisted that he didn’t kiss her or touch her skin more than necessary, he could still watch her face through his light-enhancing lens.
    God.
He shook his head. Who was desperate, here?
    Maria Madalena Neves wasn’t.
    A few seconds after his soft knock, the door whipped open—and yes, she was absolutely beautiful in a blue silk gown that would have been more suitable in a ballroom than at a captain’s table. Her hair was long, dark, and curling. Plump lips pressed into a tight line. Two spots of red appeared high on her pale cheeks.
    “What do you want, senhor?”
    Nothing, now. But he had to make certain. “Excuse my intrusion. You are Senhorita Neves?”
    “Yes.” She tossed her head, blue eyes flashing. “I know you as well, Senhor Porco. I know what you’ve heard about me, and why you have come crawling to my door. Do you truly think I could ever be so wretched that I would lower myself enough to let you touch me, pig?”
    She stepped back. The door slammed, shuddering against the jamb. David stared at the wood for a long moment, then pushed his fingers through his hair again, mildly surprised that her ire hadn’t burned it away.
    So that hadn’t been her. Damn.
    He knocked at Lucia’s door. Powder puff in hand, she opened it, looking up at him curiously. “David?”
    “Don’t sit me next to Miss Neves,” he said. “The woman I met had short black hair and an enormous red skirt over yellow trousers. Do you know her?”
    “Yes.” Lucia gave a merry laugh, nodding. “Yes, I know her. That is Annika Fridasdottor. I meant to introduce you to her tonight.”
    Annika.
Perfect. “Who is she?”
    “Oh, David. I have been trying to discover the answer to that mystery for almost four years.” She batted his nose with the puff. “We’ll see if you do any better than I have.”

Chapter Three
    When her stomach rumbled a hungry complaint half an hour before supper, Annika wished that she’d taken the stranger up on his offer. She lay facedown in her bunk instead, with a hollow belly and a pillow over her head, trying to sneak in a few minutes of sleep.
    Sleep wouldn’t come. Her mind spun out waking dreams, refusing to rest.
    What sort of supper would they have eaten? For a week, she’d been craving roasted mutton; surely the inn would have served that. And a thick, salty gravy that she could sop up with crusty bread. She could have devoured an entire haunch and still had room to lick her fingers after.
    Oh, and she had to stop imagining this before she drooled into her mattress. It still faintly smelled of the sweet straw beneath the cotton cover, and nothing soured a bed as quickly as moisture seeping into the stuffing. She would dream of the stranger, instead, and of what his answers to all of her queries might have been.
    Though she still couldn’t imagine a good reason to chase aftervolcanoes. To study them, he’d said. What was there to study that couldn’t be viewed from afar? They shook the earth and terrified the sheep and ponies. They spewed ash that turned the daytime sky to gray and the nights to red. They poured lava down their snowy sides, sending up billowing steam that could be seen for miles, melting ice into rivers of mud that destroyed everything in its path. Everyone in Hannasvik knew to keep their distance from an eruption.
    So there must be another purpose. Annika had once imagined herself descending into the mouth of a volcano—but she had also been five years of age and her ears still ringing with tales of dragons who hoarded their gold in mountain caves.
    Perhaps that was what the man sought. Not dragons, because no sensible person believed in them, but glory. That seemed almost as foolish as searching for a dragon’s hoard, but perhaps the stranger was like Sigurd, who’d been manipulated by Reginn to