"You're looking particularly deadly today," he noted.
Gemma smiled as Ava hesitantly tipped the flask to her lips. "Only today? I must be slipping."
"I pity the poor bastard who crosses your path."
She rapped her knuckles on his breastplate, and the spikes squealed against the metal. "One could say the same."
His glance brushed over Ava's blonde curls, and Gemma saw the direction of his gaze. She nodded, almost imperceptibly, and relief filled him. They'd all keep an eye on her.
Ava's chest rose and fell breathlessly as she lowered the flask from her lips. Her eyes gleamed black. Ava patted his cheek, and he captured her hand there, turning the move into a kiss to her palm.
"What was that for?" she asked.
"For being you," he said, stroking his thumb down her palm. "For being brave, and kind, and absolutely fucking perfect."
Heat pinkened her cheeks. "Hardly poetic, but appreciated, all the same."
"Here are the rules," he continued, capturing her face in both hands. His mech fingers dug into her cheek a little. "Survive at all costs. Watch your back. And stay with one of us at all times."
"Only if you promise to focus on your own task-and not on whether I'm safe or not. You're at risk too, you know."
His heart swelled in his chest. She was one hell of a woman. Kincaid reached over and cupped the back of her nape, dragging her up onto her toes so he could kiss her. He captured her mouth, devouring the taste of her. A kiss full of fire and passion, and something else. Something he couldn't quite put into words.
"Anytime you're ready," Malloryn said tartly, and Kincaid heard the sound of a pistol being loaded.
"You're just jealous because neither the baroness nor your future wife are offering to kiss you at the moment," Gemma shot back.
"I don't want to kiss Miss Hamilton," Malloryn growled, "and Isabella will come around. Are we ready? I for one would like to bury Ulbricht alive."
Kincaid broke away from Ava, breathing hard. The others could damn well wait.
"Let's go," Malloryn called. "Be wary. We don't know what Ulbricht is planning. He wants to destroy the draining factory and lay the blame at the feet of humanists, thus starting another war. We're about to stop him. At any cost. I will not see my city go up in flames again."
"Let's show the Sons of Gilead what the Company of Rogues can do!" Charlie called, darting ahead.
"Bloody hell," Malloryn muttered, and then they converged on the factory.
* * *
Gemma picked the lock at the back of the factory, using a glimmer ball to see what she was doing. Kincaid guarded her back, his enormous mech-suit blocking the light from any guards that might have been posted. Byrnes, Jack, Ingrid, and Ava were out there, removing any of said guards, but they couldn't be too careful.
He didn't like Ava being separated from him, but he couldn't argue against Malloryn's splitting of the teams. His group would be heading into danger first, which meant they'd draw the heavier fire. Better for her to be out there at this moment, rather than inside. And Ingrid had promised to kill anything that went near her.
Verwulfen had a protective instinct a mile wide.
"Got it," Gemma whispered, and then she turned the door handle so slowly sweat dripped down his spine.
Malloryn and Charlie slipped inside behind her. Inside the draining factory, the dull throb and roar of the steam engines that ran the machinery covered the hiss of the pistons in his suit as he brought up the rear.
He'd never been inside one of the factories before. The four of them fanned out, shadows in the night.
A grunt echoed. "Hey-"
Faint moonlight gleamed through the windows, highlighting a lithe dark shape that fought in a swift flurry of blows. A guard. And one of the Rogues. Kincaid held his pistol low. He could feel his blood rushing through his veins, but he kept his flickering gaze on the room, and not on whoever had attacked the guard.
"He's down," Gemma whispered through the communication device. And he could just make her out, lowering an unconscious-or dead-body to the ground.
"Humanist?" Kincaid asked.
Gemma knelt over the body. "Blue blood."
They looked at each other.
"Ulbricht," Malloryn breathed, with the tone of a man who would dearly love to get his hands on the vicious lordling.
Malloryn flickered through a patch of moonlight, gesturing them forward with his fingers. Kincaid brought up the rear once again as they all paused in the doorway that led onto the factory floor.