by Bec McMaster
"He must have some sort of remote detonator," Malloryn observed. "He's blowing them up, not poisoning them."
But how many charges had Ulbricht set?
Pistol fire pinged off Kincaid's shoulder armor.
"Keep moving!" the duke barked, and then they were running through black clouds of smoke.
Starfire bursts in the darkness indicated pistols firing at them. Something hit Kincaid, throwing him off balance. Another bullet ripped into the chest-plate, hammering a punch into his ribs. His mech hand shattered as he flung it up to protect his face, and Kincaid had the sudden sensation someone had actually shot him, as Malloryn drove him under cover with Ava and Charlie.
"Covering you!" Charlie called, firing over his shoulder and momentarily silencing their opponents.
Kincaid slumped on his back, sucking in lungfuls of air.
"Are you all right?" Ava demanded, touching his shoulder.
He held up his ruined hand. Fifteen years with this steel fused into his flesh. fifteen years of blood and sweat in order to pay for it; his brother's life; his sister's suicide; it had seen him through all of it. "Hell."
It felt like losing the bloody hand all over again, and his forearm ached from the impact.
"I'll buy you a new one," Malloryn barked, returning fire.
"All good," he breathed, meeting Ava's eyes. "Just winded me, and shattered my hand."
Her face was so pale. "I couldn't see you! When the vat exploded, you and Malloryn vanished and—"
"I'm here. I promise, luv," he said.
She sucked in a shaky breath, and then helped him sit up.
"Gemma?" Malloryn snapped. "Byrnes? Are we all alive?"
"Get out of there!" Byrnes's voice echoed in all their ears. "Ulbricht's rigged all the vats. We're too late."
Not only too late—they'd walked into a frigging trap.
"Where's Ulbricht?" Malloryn demanded.
"Evacu—"
Another whoosh of hot air, and the second vat went up, a fireball of heat blossoming out from its base. Shards of metal hammered into the tanks on either side of it, and glass shattered, spewing waves of blood across the floor.
Ava screamed. Kincaid hauled her to her feet, using his body and mech-suit to protect her. "We've got to get out of here!"
"Working on it!" Malloryn yelled back.
"Kincaid!" Ava cried, as he scanned the room.
"What?"
"I think there's a bomb under here," she said in a very quiet voice.
Both he and Charlie looked at each other, and then knelt where she'd been to see. A small case was attached to the base of the filtration device, and it was ticking.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are, Malloryn," a voice called.
"Above us!" Kincaid croaked. And there on the mesh walkway was a figure wearing a black cloak. Ulbricht.
"We're pinned down." Malloryn shot a look at the door.
"The bloody bomb's ticking down! We have to get out of here!" Kincaid eyed the distance. "How good a marksman are you?"
"Tolerably good," Malloryn replied, "though I'm better with knives."
"Can you shoot him from here?"
Malloryn eyed the distance. "Perhaps."
"Charlie?"
The lad shook his head. "I'm out of bullets too."
Kincaid sighed. "I have an idea, but you're not going to like it. I can make that shot, but I need a moment to take it. I need his mind on something else."
"I want him alive," Malloryn snapped.
"I want to get out of here alive," Kincaid snarled. "That bomb's about to go off any moment now."
"It's got a minute on the clock," Ava called, kneeling in front of the case.
Malloryn's lips pursed. "Blood and bloody ashes! Fine."
"Come out, Malloryn. Let's settle this once and for all."
They looked at each other.
"I'll distract him," Malloryn said tersely. "You kill him." Then he bolted across the open floor. He aimed a scattered shot toward Ulbricht, and the lord ducked, then strode across the walkway, tracking Malloryn with his pistol.
Kincaid eased out of the shadows. He was packing Firebolt bullets. Ulbricht rained bullets down upon Malloryn, forcing the duke under cover.
Come on. Turn this way just a little bit. Sweat dripped down his face, and Kincaid focused on the lord's head, the rest of the world vanishing around him.
"Hurry!" Ava called.
He eased out a slow breath, squeezing the trigger. The shot exploded out of his pistol.
Ulbricht's head burst like a ripe melon. The headless body stiffened, and then slumped forward onto its knees and hit the walkway.
"Got him!" Kincaid screamed. The other SOG members seemed to have vanished.
Malloryn sprinted to his side. "Let's get out of here! Ava, how much time?"
"Twenty seconds!"
Kincaid grabbed her by the hand and hauled her to her feet. "Run!" he said, shoving Charlie ahead of him.
* * *
Hell bloomed around them, fiery with rage. Ava's eyes stung, and she couldn't suck in enough air to breathe. The oxygen in her lungs was hot and thick.
"Keep low," Kincaid bellowed, shoving her through the smoke.
"This way!"
A hand yanked her forward. Malloryn. She had no idea where Charlie and the others were. Behind her another explosion rocked the factory. Then another, like some sort of chain reaction.
The force drove them all into the nearest wall. There was a hand pushing her, a huge shape behind her that yelled in her ear, "Run!"
A doorway loomed ahead of them.
The second she was through it, the heat and light cut down, leaving her in the relative darkness of the back room. So much... smoke. Ava coughed.
Something loomed in front of her; something falling. Ava screamed, and then a hand on her back sent her sprawling. A heavy weight hit her in the back. Part of the roof? A timber support?
"Kincaid!" She pushed herself off the floor, dislodging several timber struts.
Kincaid strained beneath a heavy roof beam, the steel in his armor buckling, and his knees shaking as he ground his teeth together. "Get out of here!"
No! "Not without you!" She tripped on her skirt as she leaped to his side, trying vainly to help him shift the beam. The stupid fool! He'd tried to protect her from the worst of it. "You're not invincible, not even in your bloody suit!"
His arms shook. His ruined hand was peeling in on itself, unable to support the weight.
"Ava!" She saw the whites of his eyes starkly against his sooty face—the look in them. "Get out. Get out before it's too late."
And suddenly she knew what he was telling her.
The heat drained out of her face, a shiver of horror trailing cold fingers down her spine.
"No," she sobbed. This wasn't happening. "I love you. I'm not going to leave you here all alone!"
"Don't let me die here knowing I've brought you down with me. You've got a whole life to live."
"Malloryn!" she screamed. "Malloryn, help!"
"Curse you!" Kincaid ground his teeth together, forcing his knees to straighten.
She could see the strain in his face. Flames licked up the wall nearby, the heat drying her eyeballs. There was no hope, no matter where she looked. Kincaid was trapped, and if he moved then this part of the roof would collapse upon them.
If he didn't... then they'd burn alive.
Ava's head spun. There was another beam nearby. One that might be able to support the one that was threatening to crush him. She darted for it, grabbing hold of the hot end and burning her hands. Withdrawing them with a flinch, she looked around. Nothing to protect them. No time to worry about it. Ava ripped shreds off the bottom of her dress and wrapped them around her palms, then grabbed hold of the beam again.
She put her back into it, all of her weight. It barely shifted. "Damn you!" Her hands were blistering hot. Pushing and shoving, she tried everything she could to get it to move.
"Ava,
go! For the love of God, get out of here!" He started coughing.
"I. Am. Not. Leaving. You. Here!"
Another explosion ripped through the factory, the hot rush of wind sweeping her skirts out behind them. Balls of flame whizzed past her ear.
"No!" Ava screamed, as the ceiling fell down upon him.
Twenty-Nine
"KINCAID! KINCAID!" SHE screamed, staggering through the murky dark as the dust finally stopped raining down.
He'd been there one second. Gone the next.
Ava coughed, fighting her way over rubble. "Liam!"
Then the duke was there, materializing so suddenly she almost screamed. "We've got to get out of here," Malloryn said grimly. "That explosion took out the support beams in the roof here. They missed some of the blood vats, but I don't like our chances that the rest of the roof won't come down."
"Malloryn?" Gemma called through the listening device in Ava's ear.
"Alive! I've got Ava. We'll meet you out the front," he called.
Ava dug her heels in. "No! Not without Kincaid."
"Ava." The duke grabbed her by the arms, shaking his head apologetically. "Ava, sweetheart, I'm sorry—"
She didn't want to hear it, and fought him until he was forced to let her go. "He wouldn't leave me behind. Please. Please. He saved your life."
Emotion fought logic on his expression. Then his resolve firmed. "One minute. That's all I'll give you, Ava. Then we leave, with or without him."
Relief flooded through her. "He was just here."
The smoke obscured the mess of the wall where it had fallen upon them. She saw the end of the bloody beam Kincaid had been trapped under, crushing a metal workbench along the wall, but not quite all the way. Suddenly hope went through her. "He was under this when the wall fell! He won't be crushed! It's holding the weight of the wall and roof off him."
Ava started flinging pieces of metal and timber off the pile of rubble. Fire licked at the edges of the mess, and she started coughing. "Kincaid? Kincaid!"
Malloryn produced the tracking beacon. Orange light gleamed across his pale skin, and the heat of the fire was tremendous. The compass hand swiveled steadily, leading him to a certain spot. "He's under here!"
Then they were both tearing at the pile. It suddenly heaved beneath them, and Ava's heart soared. "He's alive! Kincaid?"
She pulled aside one last piece of timber, revealing the man she loved. Ava gave a sob of relief. "Liam!"
Kincaid's chest heaved. The mech-suit was dented, the carapace that protected his chest caved in and bloodied.
"A-va," he gasped, seeing her.
She slid to her knees, hauling wreckage out of the way.
Malloryn kept kicking pieces of rubble aside. "Not much time, Ava."
Ava tried to lift the beam. It shook, but despite her blue blood strength she couldn't shift it. Then Malloryn was there, his smooth aristocrat hands sliding under both sides of it. "I've got it. On the count of three you need to pull him out from under it."
The duke gave her confidence and hope. Ava scrambled to Kincaid's ankles, latching on to each foot. "Got him," she called.
"Make it quick." The duke met her gaze. "One. Two. And three!"
He lifted the beam several inches, straining under the weight. Ava wrenched hard, dragging Kincaid out from beneath it. "Clear!"
Malloryn dropped the beam, but she was on her knees, capturing Kincaid's face in her hands. His eyes rolled up in his head, then he blinked, his breath coming in wet rasps. Her heart fell.
"He's bleeding," she whispered. "Inside, I think."
And she, with her cursed anatomical knowledge, knew what that meant. She'd done enough autopsies in her time. She'd always kept her feelings locked away inside her as she played investigator with the body, but this time it was Kincaid's body she saw lying there on the mortuary slab in her imagination. "No."
"He's still breathing. Ava," Malloryn warned, taking her hand. Streaks of soot stained his face as he glanced around. "The entire building's going to come down."
"Get her... out..." Kincaid rasped.
There was a certain look on the duke's face. "Lead me out of here, Ava. I'll carry him."
She helped Malloryn draw Kincaid up over his shoulder. Kincaid moaned in pain, but there was no time to lose. "This way!"
She could barely see. At least the smoke was funneling up through the hole in the roof, though her skin felt blistered from the heat coming from the main floor of the factory. Ava coughed and staggered, her searching fingers finally finding the door. Then they were through it.
Cold, pure air seared her lungs. It hurt so much, but she kept moving, leading Malloryn as far away from the burning factory as she could.
They finally collapsed a hundred feet away, and Malloryn shuddered as he gently laid Kincaid flat on his back.
"Kincaid? Liam?" She slapped his face gently, her breath catching in her lungs for one heart-stopping moment as she tried to see whether his chest still rose and fell—no, no—before Kincaid blinked at her, his lashes stirring weakly.
"There's only one way to save him," Malloryn murmured, "though he won't like it."
Ava looked up, through raw smoke-burned eyes. "The craving virus."
Hope and dread wove her into knots. He'd mentioned his reasons in not accepting the vaccination, but was that enough?
Kincaid groaned, and shifted beneath her touch. Malloryn looked down. "It's his only hope, and even then I don't like his chances. He's bleeding inside. Kincaid, can you hear me?"
Those very blue eyes looked even bluer against his smoke-stained face. "You're gonna... infect me?"
"Only with your permission," Malloryn replied.
There was a long, drawn-out moment as her future revealed itself in her imagination, barren and lifeless, and lacking the one person she needed....
"Please! Please don't leave me. I've lost everything, and I've survived it all... but I don't think I could survive losing you. Not when I've just found you. Not when I've just realized you were what I've always been looking for." Collapsing over Kincaid's chest, she buried her face in his throat, sobbing tearlessly. "I love you. And I know you don't want this, but please... please stay with me. Please say yes."
His human hand curled around her, catching roughly in her hair. "Ava...."
"Now or never, Kincaid," Malloryn warned.
Ava clung to him breathlessly, begging him silently to give her the answer she so desperately needed.
Kincaid shuddered. "Do it."
Thirty
THE WORLD BLINKED in and out of focus. Shadows, smoke, pain.... Voices echoing as people he knew barked orders.
His head swam. Then his body was moving, jolting slightly as something shifted beneath him. A carriage? A woman settling onto the seat beside him? Kincaid coughed up blood, and then he was struggling to breathe, his lungs flooded, his heart hammering weakly in his chest....
He could still taste Malloryn's blood.
"We're losing him!" Ava cried.
"Be patient." Malloryn. The prick. Cool and commanding even now. "Give the virus time to work its way through him."
Kincaid's chest heaved. Then he was rolling—or being rolled—and he choked up the blood in his lungs, his throat working desperately for oxygen. He couldn't breathe. Pressure flooded his head, pounding through the veins at his temples.... His ears rang, and his eyeballs bulged in their sockets.
The world went black, sensation fading.
Everything was warm, and dark. A cocoon devoid of sound. Silence. Nothingness.
Peace.
Then... a single voice intruded. "...keep him breathing...."
Pressure on his chest forced pain back through his lax muscles, and a mouth hovered over his own, forcing air into his lungs. Kincaid swam up through the nothingness, crying out silently as he fell back into his body with a heavy feeling. Sensation hammered back into him, twice as agonizing as before as all the nerve endings in his body fired to life again. He wanted that peace again. No
pain there in the warm dark, but there was something holding him back.
Something....
"I'll never forgive myself," Ava whispered, and distantly he thought he felt a cool hand in his. "He tried to save me."
Don't cry, luv. But she was, and there wasn't a damned thing he could do about it.
He wanted to kiss away her sadness. To curl her in his arms and let her feel safe there forever. To hold her one more time... that was worth the pain and the fear and all the complicated emotions that roared through him.
What would you do if you had a future? Orla had once asked, and he couldn't answer her then.
But he could now.
I would love Ava. Forever.
Someone breathed into his lungs, and Kincaid started to thrash. There was something happening deep in his chest, a pain, an agony, but also a kindling, as though someone stoked the fires on a steam engine. Hot little sparks fired along his nerve endings. The world went dark, but this time it was his vision, rather than his senses fading.
"He's back, he's breathing!" That sounded like the duke.
Jaysus. Was Malloryn resuscitating him?
Kincaid thrust upward. "G'away...."
"There he is. Get some more blood into him!" Malloryn yelled. It was all so very distant, as though there was a bubble around Kincaid, keeping their voices at bay. "Or he'll start convulsing."
A hot coppery scent washed past his nose, and his mouth watered.
More. I want.... The urge to strike and take what he wanted was blinding.
"Drink," someone urged, and then there was a woman's wrist against his lips, and the sweet scent of Ava's perfume. Her wrist. Her blood welling in his mouth, hot and salty, and both disgusting and yet insanely seductive, for some reason.
"Drink and live," someone else murmured. "The more of the virus we can get into him, the better his chances of surviving."
Byrnes?
Then sound rushed in with a snap that made his ears pop.
Kincaid came to, cradled in Ava's lap, his mouth wrapped around her wrist as he swallowed her blood. He wanted it. Wanted more. Maybe it was his body hungering for heat after the chill of his near death, or maybe it was the predator awakening inside him. He didn't know, but his chest hurt like a bastard, and he'd never been so aware of all the aches and pains in his body.
