by Bec McMaster
"It's lovely," she whispered, looking around. The place seemed completely different tonight. No capering jugglers or acrobats. No drunk men wandering around.
Just her. And Kincaid.
And the twitter of birds, settling in for the night.
Moss carpeted the ground, and little lanterns were strung through the trees. Not bright enough to light the garden, but it felt like she was following a mysterious trail. A rush of water whispered ahead of them. His waterfall.
Ava saw it and rushed to investigate, her soft-soled boots crushing the grass. Someone had set a string of lanterns over the waterfall, and light gleamed on the churning foam.
She had not expected a fairy tale, but she felt almost as if she stood in one.
Ava's breath caught.
"Come here," Kincaid murmured, holding out his hand to her as he stood on the gaping precipice of a clearing. "There's a reason I brought you here."
From the top of the small ridge, she could see London spread out in front of her, the Ivory Tower where the queen ruled pointing like a pale finger into the sky. There were no stars over the city—the smog probably obscured them—but thousands of little lights twinkled in the velvety darkness, reminding her of just how alone the two of them felt. Lawn stretched out in front of her until it reached the far wall that circled the Gardens. A cool breeze stirred her skirts, and Kincaid slid his arms around her, his heat sinking into her body.
"You were right," she said. "I barely managed to explore that night. This is lovely." Turning to wrap her arms around him, she lifted on her toes to kiss him. "Thank you."
When she drew back with a smile, he frowned. "What?"
"It's just"—Ava gestured to the clearing, and the picnic someone had set out for them—"I was expecting lurid art, or sumptuous red velvet throws and a bed covered in furs. This is almost"—dare she say it—"romantic."
Kincaid rolled his eyes. He swirled his cloak off his shoulders and laid it down upon a bed of moss, and suddenly she realized why he'd worn such a luxurious cloak. "I'm not so much of a boor as to fuck you in some bordello."
The word was typical Kincaid. But she suddenly wondered if he used such a word to distance himself. Ava hid another smile. She had called him romantic, after all, which was probably the worst thing anyone had ever accused him of.
"Stop it," he growled, glaring at her.
"I didn't say anything!"
"You're thinking it." He gestured around them. "I left all of the details up to Charlie. The lad's clearly a closet poet."
"You took me to the place where it all began for you," she teased. "A garden, which you know I love. And I can smell strawberries in that basket. My favorite."
"I hadn't even noticed," he scoffed.
"Strawberry jam," she pointed out, because he'd made such a big deal of it at breakfast the first time she'd eaten it on toast, as though he'd only expected her to consume blood.
Kincaid clasped his hands behind his head, a small smile playing across his mouth. "All right, I admit it. I wanted you to have your fairy tale, even if it was just for one night. Instead, you corrupted me in the carriage."
"Corrupted you?"
Kincaid snagged a handful of her skirts, dragging her into his arms. "Had your way with me, tempted me into the most ungainly loss of virginity known to man...."
"Fucked you," she said, and watched heat fill his eyes.
Kincaid curled her closer, his hands on her bottom as his glazed eyes locked on her lips. "Now who's the one with the dirty mouth?"
"I swear you're rubbing off on me," she told him, but she swayed into his touch. Thirty minutes ago she would have said she needed a day to recover. But the craving virus did heal everything, after all.
"Miss McLaren, are you propositioning me with those eyes?"
"Yes," she whispered, sliding her hands up his chest and stretching onto her toes. Confidence bloomed within her. She'd always wistfully wished she was a little more like Gemma, but had she mistaken the other woman's sauciness for confidence? Now she could be just herself, just Ava, but an Ava who felt like she could take on the whole world in this moment.
She kissed him, tasting the sweetness of his mouth. It wasn't enough. Every encounter between them had been rushed and hurried, a mad scramble in the darkness. This time she wanted to take her time.
She pushed his coat off his shoulders, and found the buttons of his shirt. Kincaid made a growling sound deep in his throat as he helped her remove it. "Miss McLaren," he breathed, dancing her backward as she slid a hand up his bare chest. "I like this side of you. But I think we're unfairly positioned."
Gentle hands found the buttons on the back of her dress, and he turned her around, kissing the slope of her shoulder as he began to tug them free.
"It's cold," she whispered.
"I'll warm you up." The dress slipped from her arms and shoulders, curling around her feet. "And if you're thinking about the cold, then I'm clearly not doing my job correctly."
Helping her to step out of the discarded dress, he turned her around with an appreciative little twirl. "Mmm. This needs to go." Crinoline and petticoats both fell prey to his deft fingers. Ava shivered as he captured her waist and kissed the smooth slope of her upper breasts. Her corset clasped at the front, and he laid waste to it, tossing it aside and running his hands up to cup her unbound breasts.
Finally, all that remained were her chemise and stockings. Ava could feel chill fingers of wind sliding straight through her chemise, but the look in Kincaid's eyes heated her within. Her nipples were cool, hard pebbles behind the fabric. He circled her slowly, fingertips trailing across the back of her hip. "Strip," he told her.
A thousand doubts sprang to mind; her scar, her small breasts, the way she'd be completely vulnerable to his gaze. What if he found her lacking?
"I believe I gave you an order," he whispered, moving behind her and tugging the pins from her hair.
Ava slowly slid her chemise off one shoulder, trembling a little. This was Kincaid. He never made her feel doubt, but her breath caught. "Are you certain?"
"I want to touch you all over," Kincaid breathed, capturing her waist and pressing against her so she could feel the steel of his erection. "I want to taste every inch of you. So yes, Ava. I want you naked. I want all of you. I want you to be mine, and I intend to claim you."
Her chemise ghosted down her body, and Kincaid sucked in a sharp breath. His hand slid up her stomach, capturing her breast. Ava moaned a little, and then he was pressing a kiss to the back of her neck, biting her there.
Suddenly she was no longer so shy. All she felt was need, her vision going dark as the hunger roused.
Kincaid gathered her in his arms and laid her upon his fur-lined cloak. Lantern light gilded his shoulders, and Ava ran her hands up his chest as he knelt over her, pressing a kiss to her collarbone, then her breast, then her nipple. The shock of his mouth made her cry out, and he made good on his promise to taste her all over, spreading her thighs and dipping down to spear his tongue into the thatch of blonde hair there, until she was no longer thinking about her nakedness or vulnerability, lost to sensation as he lapped and teased at her until she screamed.
"How do you do that to me?" she gasped, running her hands through his hair as he kissed his way back up her body, tracing his tongue over the long scar between her breasts. It was so unbearably sensitive, she had to pull his face away.
"I love hearing you cry out," he whispered.
Cool air kissed her skin. Ava dragged her fingertips along the hard line of his jaw, tracing that familiar stubble. She could see the stars over his shoulders, though most of Kincaid was a shadowy outline now. One of the lanterns nearby had faded. Without his expression, she was limited to communication through touch, or whispered words.
But she didn't feel like speaking right now.
"You frightened me," he whispered, nipping at her fingertips. "I've been trying not to think about it, but seeing you like that... coming so close to losing you—"
"You didn't lose me." Ava captured his face in both hands, a glint of light turning his eyes silver. She couldn't read his thoughts in them. "But it frightened me too. There's so much I haven't done. So much I haven't seen, or felt." Ava brushed her lips against his, a sweet caress. "And thank you, I needed this. I wanted it to be you. I wanted you to be my first."
She didn't dare say, and last.
He wouldn't like that, and she didn't want to complicate things—they'd agreed, damn it—but there was a little part of her that could imagine a life with Kincaid by her side.
Long, slow kisses every morning when they woke; a man who championed her at all times, encouraging her to speak her mind and step outside the laboratories where she felt her safest; seeing his face light up in a smile when she first stepped into a room; having him tease her and whisper naughty words in her ears.
Silence greeted her words, a drawn-out silence in which she thought they were both holding back.
"Don't ever forget me, Ava," he finally whispered, and there was the answer to her unspoken question.
This wasn't going to go any further, and a part of her grieved.
"I don't think I ever could," she admitted. I never expected you to come into my life like this. I never.... Her heart felt like it was in her throat. I never realized how much I want you to stay.
His face slowly lowered, his breath stirring over her lips. And then he kissed her.
Gently.
So softly the ache of denial made her moan and arch up into him. She'd asked for fleshly pleasure, for him to make her a woman, but what she hadn't expected in this moment was connection or tenderness.
Kincaid was charming, and brash, and loud. Everything about him was physical, from the way he flung his arms wide when they argued, to the way he pushed her against a wall and claimed her mouth when he kissed her.
But this... there was a hesitancy here. As though he wanted to say something, and yet couldn't quite bring himself to do it.
"Liam." A sigh of surrender on her lips.
She grew bold, reaching for his trousers and capturing the tented arch of his cock. Kincaid groaned, bracing himself on his hips over her and thrusting into her hand. He held her hand there, forcing her fingers to close over his thick length. "That's it, Ava."
She brushed his hand aside, fumbling with his buttons, desperate to feel his heated flesh upon hers, helping him tug his trousers down around his hips, finding the leather belt of the girdle around his hips, and pausing—
But he captured her hand, pushing it aside, and she could see his head shaking. "No," he whispered. "I can fuck you like this," he whispered, undoing the placket on his trousers and capturing her hand, pressing it against the swollen erection that spilled into her hands.
"But—" She wanted him naked.
"I can't get the brace off, not easily. It's fine." A hint of frustration came into his voice. "I hate it, but it gives my legs strength."
"You're perfect, Kincaid." This time she threw his own words back at him. "Strong, and brave, and always at my side. My very own knight in shining armor, if you believed in fairy tales."
A faint laugh exploded through his chest. "You never give up, do you?"
"Sometimes the fairy tale comes true." Ava smiled sadly.
Silence. He was thinking. Then his body pressed into hers, and she could feel his hardening erection hot against her belly, the buttons on his trousers pressing into her naked skin. "Then let's pretend we believe in fairy tales."
Even though she knew it roused him when she used his dirty words, she stroked the hair off his temples. "Make love to me. Give me a memory I'll never forget." She kissed his jaw, then his cheek, tracing the sharp lines of his face with her lips. "Just this one night, and then we can pretend the fairy tale is over, and you can fuck me as often as you like."
"As you wish," he breathed, and kissed her again.
This time Ava pushed everything but the feel of his body out of her mind, and set about making love to the man she... was falling for.
* * *
Kincaid lay there beside her, staring at the faint stars in the sky as Ava's head rested on his shoulder and her body curled against him, leg thrown carelessly over his. Soft breaths stirred the hair on his chest, and he glanced down at the blonde curls strewn across his shoulder. Moonlight turned them silver, and he couldn't make out her sleeping expression, but he could imagine peace there.
The trust she placed in him shattered him.
The emotion in her eyes, the thoughts she could never quite hide....
The way she looked at him destroyed him. Because there was something there tonight that hinted at more, something he desperately wanted to see.
He'd never been in love before. He'd seen the way Maggie looked at Xander, the way Byrnes looked at Ingrid, and thought it such a foreign experience he hadn't quite noticed it creeping up upon him.
He'd never asked for this feeling of unsolicited tenderness. It scared the hell out of him at times.
The future stretched in front of him, a future where Ava accepted what he could offer her, and it was the most tempting dream he'd ever had.
The thought of losing her had terrified him yesterday; the thought of a future with her, however, was infinitely worse. He didn't want to depend upon her. He didn't want her to see his body deteriorate until his heart finally stopped working. It was her heart, she held it in her hands, and she didn't even know it, but he couldn't... he couldn't....
His breath caught, his stomach knotting, and the muscles in his left calf launched into a painful cramp that made him grit his teeth as he silently tried to straighten his foot to alleviate it, and finally succeeded.
Kincaid stroked the pale curve of her back, dragging her cloak over them. Her body was cool, the result of being a blue blood, but he didn't complain. This moment was precious in a way he had never expected. Ava nuzzled into his throat as he shifted, a quiet, reflexive move that made him freeze.
They were so different. He'd never seen it coming. The hot flame of his temper to the cool logic of hers; the sweetness of Ava's smile, to the seductive quality of his own. His humanity versus her blue blood nature.
Complete opposites in every way, and yet she complemented him, fitted so perfectly against him. She gave him hope, and laughter, and a lightness that had been missing from his life for years, and he drove her to stand up for herself, and to see how perfect she was despite her own misgivings.
I could love you, he finally admitted to himself, twining one of her curls around his finger. I could wake every day like this, and smile every time I saw your face. I could spend the rest of my life with you, and make something of my life. Something more than this, something that could last forever.
But the problem was, he knew he didn't have forever.
And she did.
Twenty-Three
AVA SET OUT the next day with renewed vigor, leading Kincaid on a merry chase through the streets of the East End and the docks. Malloryn had provided her with a list of potential importers who had connections to the Orient, and she was determined to track down some of the caterpillar mushroom.
It was the key to finding Ulbricht. Or the dhampir. Or whoever had killed Major Winthrop.
It was during their fifth visit they finally struck gold. Kincaid had decided to ride his velococycle again, insisting she cling to the back of him in a set of split skirts Gemma provided. He pulled up out the front of an importer near the docks, eyeing the huge warehouse, and Ava scrambled off the velococycle in a mad rush. She still wasn't used to it.
"Relax," he told her. "I barely shifted out of second gear."
"You are utterly mad! You— That thing— We nearly hit a carriage." And as far as carriage-driven collisions went, she felt like she'd had her fair share of almosts.
He turned the engine off, eyes twinkling as he lifted his goggles. "They're the latest rage in the streets, Ava. Every man will be riding one soon."
She growled deep in her throat, and
then faced the building. "Mr. Leicester and Sons. He imports rare items from the White Court, India, and Nepal. Furniture, rare books, decorative hangings, timberwork. Malloryn suspects the furniture covers an opium smuggling operation."
Kincaid dragged off his leather gloves, examining the place. "One guard by the look of it. Shall we go in?"
"What?" she challenged, swinging her parasol. "No questions about me getting hurt?"
"I've seen that parasol in action," he pointed out. "And while I would like to keep you safe from harm, Ava, leaving you behind would be counterintuitive to our case. I need that big, intelligent brain of yours to pick apart the truth." He glanced around. "There's a feeling in the streets today, as if one catastrophic spark will unleash a torrent of fury. I just.... We're running out of time. I want to stop this war before it begins."
He looked so earnest. But those would be his friends out there in the streets, all the humanists he'd once known and led.
"I want to stop it too," she said quietly, for everyone's sake, not just the humans.
"Then let's find our murderous mushroom." Kincaid led the way. "I can't believe I just said that."
Ava smiled.
Inside the factory, several men used cranes to manipulate large crates. The noise was enormous, and one fellow directed them toward the office. "Mr. Leicester will know if we've imported any of the items you want to buy."
They changed direction.
A man caught her eye, quickly looking away from her.
"Do the men seem to be staring a little more than usual?" Ava murmured, clutching her parasol.
Kincaid looked around, moving closer to her. "Do you have your pistol on you?"
She blinked up at him. "Yes." But the idea of firing it at someone was completely different from trying to hit a target. She wasn't certain she had it in her.
"Keep moving," he told her. "You're right. They are watching us."
All the hairs on the back of her neck lifted. Ava swallowed, and marched behind him. Behind the glass windows of the office, a man was leaning over a desk, marking things off on a sheet of paper. He saw them coming and froze, his weedy little mustache quivering.
