eyes lost to the amber of the wild within her, her
body frozen as if she both yearned to drag him
back and push him away.
It was the first time he'd seen how haunted she
herself appeared, and though he'd expected the
sight to assuage something inside him, instead it
did the opposite. The darkness within him rose,
thick and choking, demanding that he go back to
her.
But Byrnes turned away from it.
After all. He'd promised.
SOMEHOW
SHE'D
GOTTEN
TURNED
AROUND.
Ava swallowed hard, her fingers clenching
around her reticule's handle as she slipped through
the shadows. The garden looked familiar. She'd
been here before with Kincaid, she was certain of
it. Just as certain as she was that she was travelling
in circles. Damn it. Where were the others? She'd
told Kincaid that she was heading to the ladies’
refreshment rooms for a moment, but somehow
she'd gotten lost.
A little chill ran down her spine, and her
lungs squeezed tighter.
Don't panic, she told herself. Don't make a
fool of yourself when everyone's around. The
others were all clearly enjoying the night. She'd
forced herself to come, determined to try and fit in
with the rest of the group, no matter how badly out
of place she felt. But the truth was that she'd
perhaps pushed herself beyond her own natural
boundaries.
Gemma teased her for being provincial, but it
wasn't the worldliness of the place that had her out
of sorts, but the fact was that she had rarely been
out and about in three years.
I'm not ready for this.
There. That was the truth. The crush of people
unnerved her, and the dark shadows and private
grottos everywhere only added to her unease. Ever
since she'd survived the ordeal that made her a
blue blood, she'd been taking small steps back into
a normal life, trying to pretend that everything was
all right. The Nighthawks Guild had become a
home to her, and in a way she'd thought she was
getting better. She could manage small excursions
away from the guild, could even view crime
scenes, but the past few days at Baker Street had
started the nightmares again, and desperate for
some normality she'd thought that a night out with
the rest of the company might improve matters.
She'd been wrong.
Instead, tonight had only revealed the truth.
Whatever was wrong with her was not going to go
away so easily. She was right back where she'd
started during that first year with the Nighthawks,
when every shadow made her jump and she'd
suffered from her hysteria attacks.
A woman's laughter echoed nearby, and a man
murmured something to her. Something explicit
enough to make Ava blush. She stumbled away
from them, trying to find the main pavilion. Even
those shadow shows would be better than this. At
least the others would be there.
A branch cracked beneath someone's foot.
Ava froze.
Then it came again, as though some large
shape forced its way through the luxurious gardens.
Ava made an inarticulate sound in her throat
and brandished the lacy parasol she carried. "S-
stay back!"
The
shadow
stilled,
fading
into
its
surroundings, until she wondered if she were
imagining things.
Ava swallowed, her pulse pounding madly in
her ears and a rushing sound filling them. She was
on the verge of a hysterical attack.
"It's only me," a deep, roughened voice said,
and Ava nearly collapsed against the brick walls in
relief.
Kincaid's hard face looked like it had been
carved out of stone as he stepped out of the
shadows. She'd never thought she'd have been so
genuinely enthused to see him.
"Oh, this spot's already taken," said a pouty
young lady, materializing at his side and
practically wrapping herself around him.
Kincaid never took his eyes off her. Ava's
corset laces dug in to her ribs, and she was fairly
certain she was going to faint.
"Unfortunately, luv," he told the woman, "I
seem to have remembered a prior engagement."
The woman gaped. "What?"
"Here's a monkey," he told the brunette,
slipping her a five-pound note. "Drink's on me."
The brunette's lips thinned, and she said
something as she strode away, but Ava was shaking
too hard to hear it. Don't do this, she told her body
desperately. Not now. Not in front of him.
Kincaid unnerved her. He was too large, too
broad-shouldered, too... imposing. And there was
never any kindness on his face, though she'd tried
to steer clear of him at Baker Street.
"What are you still doing out here?" he
growled. "Thought you were going back in to see
Gemma?"
"I just came to... to take a walk, and I've lost
my way—or maybe I deliberately wandered off the
path, because I saw some sort of exotic greenhouse
with these plants that I've never seen before, and I-
I wanted to see if I could collect a sample. I
collect ferns you see." Somehow her mouth was
running away from her, all of the words spilling
from her lips in a steadily rising stream, until she
sounded almost hysterical. "And then I got turned
around... and I couldn't find my way back, and
now... now I can't... can't breathe..."
"You're safe now," he told her, watching her
with those intense eyes.
"I can't... I c-can't...." Not safe. Never truly
safe again. She knew the truth of that statement far
too well.
Dark blue eyes smoldered down at her. She
had to look away, but as she moved, his hands
came down upon her shoulders and turned her
around. Ava gasped. Her heart was racing, and she
felt like she was about to fall face-first into the
greenery.
"Here," he said, and brushed the loose curls
at the back of her neck over her right shoulder. A
second later there came a sharp tug, and then her
bodice gaped.
"What are you doing?" She slapped over her
shoulder at his hand.
"Unlacing your corset," he replied gruffly, and
resumed his task as though she hadn't protested.
"So you can breathe."
Another button popped loose on the back of
her dress, and then rough fingers brushed against
her exposed nape. Ava froze, only this time, it had
nothing to do with fear.
The cold steel of his mech hand brushed her
skin, and another button popped loose. Then two
more. Ava was gasping by now, but somehow the
touch grounded her, made her feel less and less
like she was spinning out of control.
"H-how do you know... your way around a
woman's undergarments so well?" she blurted, then
instantly recoiled. Oh, goodness. She'd practically
handed him a sarcastic rejoinder. Of course he
knew what he was doing. The way he'd been
watching those women behind the silk screen
tonight had made her almost uncomfortable, and
when he'd sensed her watching him, there'd been a
knowing look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." Stop talking, right now. But her
mouth wouldn't listen. "Of course you know what
you're doing. You were out here alone with that
woman, after all. I'm sure you weren't just taking a
stroll. Oh, God. Don't listen to me! I'm just.... I d-
don't—" She clapped her hands to her mouth,
silently praying for the ground to open up and
swallow her whole. The movement made her
corset and dress sag, and she clutched at them,
realizing she could catch her breath now.
Even as she felt twice as vulnerable.
A warm coat slung across her shoulders.
"Better?"
"No." She shuddered, and somehow her hand
came up and caught his when he went to remove it
from her shoulder.
She could sense the hesitation in him, the
reluctance. "Please," she whispered. And then his
other hand came down upon her left shoulder, and
he squeezed. Ava let out the first full breath that
she'd managed since this entire ordeal had begun.
"Sit," he suggested, and those firm hands
guided her to the stone bench.
Long minutes ticked out as she sat there. At
first Ava concentrated only on breathing, on trying
to regain her equilibrium. Some part of her couldn't
take her hand off his, even though it was made of
metal.
"I'm sorry," she finally whispered. Those
hands slipped from her shoulders, leaving her
strangely bereft of his warmth, as he settled beside
her on the stone bench.
"Happen often?"
"Sometimes. I thought I was past it. It's...
being somewhere new, I think."
He stretched his long legs out in front of him,
his hands resting on either side of his hips on the
bench. Their shoulders brushed against each other
and then his hand came to settle on hers again.
Ava looked down. His hand dwarfed hers,
and his skin was so much darker than her own. He
didn't speak, which made her feel both comforted
and a little out of her depth, but seemed content to
remain there.
She tugged the coat tighter around her bare
shoulders with her other hand. What a mess she
was, with her gown gaping and her corset awry,
and her body starting to tremble as it came out of
the hysteria fit she'd almost suffered.
"You don't leave the house very often," he
murmured.
"It's
safe
there."
The
words
came
automatically, and she cringed. She couldn't speak
of the horrors that she'd suffered through four years
ago. Couldn't even remember them without
dredging up the panic that she felt.
So she mentally began counting, going up in
sets of prime numbers. And through it all, Kincaid
simply sat there.
"I thought you hated blue bloods."
"I do."
Ava tugged her hand out from under his and
clenched them in her lap.
"But you don't look like a blue blood," he
added. "And you don't act very much like a blue
blood. And I'm trying to come to terms with the
whole bloody lot of you in the house."
"Language," she chided.
Kincaid arched a brow at her and withdrew a
flask from his waistcoat pocket. Without the coat,
he looked enormous, his shirt straining over those
heavyset shoulders and the muscles in his biceps
stretching the white cotton. He lifted the flask to
his lips, then paused, staring at her.
"Please don't look at me like that," she
whispered.
One of his eyebrows lifted. "Like what?"
"As though I'm some foreign object you're not
quite certain what to make of." The same way that
her father had looked at her when she'd vowed she
wanted to enter the medical profession, or the way
that her fiancé had looked at her when she'd tried
to be more ladylike for him. And then couldn't
resist speaking about stupid things that ladies did
not speak of in polite company.
Kincaid lowered the flask. "I'm not quite
certain what to make of you," he admitted, and then
frowned again. "And you were looking at me."
Ava's shoulders sank. It was like Edinburgh
all over again, like her father's home, like the
entire rest of her life. The only place she'd ever
belonged had been at the guild, and the only man
who ever made her feel like a normal young lady
had been Byrnes. He didn't care if she spoke too
much, or had a peculiar interest in autopsies and
the way the human body worked. He'd always been
interested in what she had to say, as though she
were nothing out of the ordinary.
And now he was interested in someone else.
Oh yes, she'd faded into the wallpaper the
second Ingrid walked into the room at Malloryn's
study, and she knew it. The worst thing was that
Byrnes still treated her exactly the same, and in the
whatever she'd thought had been going on between
them had clearly only been in her mind. Not his.
"Here," Kincaid said, his knees spreading so
that their thighs touched as he turned to offer her
the flask. "You look like you could do with a little
something."
The rich scent of whiskey hit her nose. Ava's
mouth watered, but it wasn't just for the liquor.
Something dark and heated flashed through her
body as the craving awoke within her.
And wasn't that just the perfect end to the day.
"Sip?" Kincaid asked, offering her the flask.
She didn't want just a sip. She wanted to drain
the whole bloody flask. "Bottoms up," she said
cheerlessly, and set about doing precisely that.
"Hey, hey, easy now."
Strong hands caught the flask and for a
moment she was half turned into his chest and the
suddenly quite intriguing scent of his aftershave.
Her vision changed, turning to little more than
shades of black and white as the predator within
her stirred. Suddenly she could see the minute
hairs on the side of his jaw, the small abrasion
from his razor... and the pulsing thud of his pulse
through the vein in his throat. Everything inside her
locked on that.
"Jaysus," Kincaid muttered. "Thought you was
going to spit it all back out."
"My father's Scottish," she found herself
saying as she stared at his throat. A
part of her
wanted to press herself against him, to push him
down upon the stone bench, set her lips to his
throat, and.... She blinked as a flash of image came
to her; the rich, heated taste of his blood as she
suckled at his skin. It was so intense that it took her
breath away. "I grew up sipping whiskey."
It wasn't going away. Ava glanced up from
beneath her lashes as Kincaid scratched at his jaw.
Her vision locked on his fingers, on his throat, his
pulse, his....
She thrust the whiskey flask at him and stood
abruptly; anything to get away from him.
"Hell," Kincaid swore as the whiskey sloshed
over his hand. "What are you about now?" He
looked up, and then every muscle in his body
stiffened as he saw her eyes. Something ugly crept
over his face, and Ava lowered her damning eyes
that were no doubt as black as tar.
"I think I'm having some sort of... out-of-body
experience." She pressed her hands to her heated
cheeks.
"You mean, you wanted my blood," he
practically snarled, facing her like a spitting cat.
"Yes.... No!" She clapped a hand to her eyes,
and hunched over herself. Oh God, it won't go
away. "I do not want to drink your blood, like...
like some sort of animal. I'm... a young lady. Not a
monster." She patted her own pockets. "And I
didn't bring my own flask." Why hadn't she brought
it? She knew the risks. The formula must be taken
at regular intervals, and she had at least another
two hours until she needed to take it, but she was
feeling not at all herself right now. Oh, she'd had
moments since she was infected with the craving
virus, but not like this. Ava gulped in a breath of
air.
"Yeah, well, I only got whiskey, not blood."
"I wouldn't drink blood if you had it! I carry
my own protein-enriched synthetic formula with
which to sustain myself in the absence of blood."
"You're a blue blood and you don't drink
blood?" Kincaid sounded incredulous.
"Not all of us like what we've become," she
retorted, "and after the first few months I began
dabbling with a formula to sustain myself. It's not
the same, but I appear to be able to survive on it."
Those enormous arms crossed over his barrel
chest and an evil expression touched his face.
"Then what happened just then?"
"I
momentarily
forgot
myself,"
she
stammered. "And it's your fault! You... unlaced my
gown! And you were touching me, and sitting so
close to me... and sometimes I cannot help the way