The Mech Who Loved Me(78)

As it was, 23 percent CV levels meant at least eight minutes' worth of paralysis via hemlock, she deduced, as the stranger used his shoulder to push through a door into a small house, and what was clearly a kitchen. Every blue blood reacted to hemlock differently, depending upon how far gone they were with the craving and what their CV levels were.

A teakettle hissed on the stove, and sirens wailed in the distance. Ava was nothing but a passenger, a witness in her own body, unable to control a single thing about her destiny. The last time she'd felt like this was when Hague kidnapped her.

"Bloody thing," the dhampir muttered, wincing at the kettle's high-pitched whistle, and then looking up as the stairs creaked beneath the weight of someone.

Don't come down, Ava wanted to scream, but nothing was working, least of all her throat muscles. She could barely even breathe.

"Aye, aye," a woman's voice called down the stairs, "I'll put the bloody cat out, you old fool. It's the least-"

The woman's voice cut off. Ava couldn't see what happened, but she heard the gasp.

"Here now! What are you doing in here? What have you done to that poor girl-"



       
         
       
        

The dhampir smoothly drew his pistol and it retorted with a sharp bark.

No! A choked noise came from Ava's throat. His body had turned just enough for her to see the little old lady go down like a puppet with its strings cut, tumbling down the last three steps, and Ava's fingers twitched.

"Shit," the dhampir muttered, slinging Ava into a chair and propping her there, before he crossed to the corpse and scraped a hand over his mouth. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Geraldine?" a man's voice called from upstairs. "What happened? I thought I heard a bump? Did that blasted cat trip you up?"

Nine minutes.

She was starting to come round. She could feel her feet at least. Ava flopped and wiggled, throwing her body to the side as much as possible. The chair tipped on two legs... then went over with a bang, sending her sprawling onto the floor where she hit her head and split her lip.

She ignored the pain. Please, please let the old man have heard me....

The dhampir took the stairs two at a time, his pistol held against his thigh. No. No! An almost moan came from her lips.

"Here now-"

Three gunshot retorts echoed and Ava gasped hopelessly as something heavy hit the floor above.

She had to get out of here.

The dhampir seemed unlike the Zero they'd all spoken of last month. "Zero moved almost faster than I could see," Kincaid had muttered when Ava fixed up his nose.

"Took down Byrnes, and he's good," Ingrid had added.

This fellow seemed young and inexperienced. Maybe he was freshly made? A new agent of the faceless enemy that worked against them. Maybe she could use that.

A cat hissed somewhere in the house, and more gunfire echoed. There was a furious animal snarl, and then a curse. Something smashed. The cat hissed again.

Come on. Ava swallowed, trying to make her fingers move again. The paralysis finally seemed to be wearing off, and there was a rush of heat through her veins as if the craving virus fought off the hemlock within her. She could smell blood. Geraldine's. The sudden surge of interest from the darker side of her locked on it, and Ava instinctively quashed it down, before realizing the craving could help her. In a heightened state of bloodlust, a blue blood was stronger, faster, even more deadly.

Possibly able to quell the hemlock in her veins faster.

Ava swallowed, thinking of blood. The thought left her both queasy and interested. Not helping. Damn it. Her natural reticence to drinking blood worked against her.

Think of... what? Was there anything about the bloodletting experience that excited her?

Kincaid. Her face flushed with heat, but now wasn't the time for missish delicacy. She'd been trying to forget the moment they'd shared in the gardens of a pleasure house a month ago. Now she forced the memory to mind. His hands on her upper arms, squeezing gently. His coat around her shoulders. The scent of him, all mechanical oil, cigars, bay rum, and something... something uniquely him. The scent of his skin, his sweat, his tooth cream, his arousal.... The way the vein in his throat suddenly seemed to pulse, as if it were calling out to her. 

Heat flooded through her. Arousal. Yes. The color began draining from the room, which was precisely what she wanted.

Another crash echoed above. Her abductor was clearly wasting time looking for the cat.

She let her imagination roam, picturing what might have happened if she wasn't a lady, and if Kincaid wasn't disgusted by the bloodletting process. She could almost taste his skin beneath her lips, and what it would feel like to trace her tongue over the vein there....