by Bec McMaster
"What I said before?" He headed for the stairs, glancing over his shoulder. "That was a compliment."
About...? Ava stared after him, before it struck her. You're not like any other woman I've ever met....
Suddenly her cheeks felt hot again.
* * *
"Orla tells me... you brought a girl... home," Ian rasped, his lungs catching at the effort, though he smiled.
Aye. And she's plaguing my mind. "Didn't have much of a choice. There was a riot."
All the laughter and cheer Ava brought into his life vanished. Kincaid refused to look at his uncle's withered legs where they lay under the blankets. The Ian he could remember was a monster of a man, hale and hearty, with a laugh that could shatter your eardrums. He used to throw Kincaid up in the air as a child, until he was shrieking with laughter, and he'd been the father Kincaid never had, after his own abandoned his mother a year after his birth.
It was hard to look at him like this. Harder to imagine what his uncle was going through. All alone in here, trapped in his bed, with his body dying inch by inch and Orla forced to clean up his messes, to feed him, to turn him, to bathe him....
"I'm sorry," he said bluntly. "I haven't been avoiding you."
Ian fumbled for his hand, his thin forearm barely able to lift off the coverlet. Kincaid caught his uncle's straining grasp, his fingers brushing against paper-thin skin.
"I know, you... daft fool." Ian tried to squeeze, but the effort was lackluster at best.
And it hurt to look at him. Hurt to sit here and listen to Ian's lungs slowly forcing themselves to work, even as the muscles that surrounded them resisted. It was some sort of palsy, the doctors said. A slow degenerative swan dive that stole his uncle bit by bit, and ran in the family.
Heat seared his eyes.
"Here, now," Ian scolded. "No tears, Liam. Tell me... about this girl. This... pretty girl you brought home."
And so he told him about Ava. It wasn't as though he made her out to be something she was not, but he let himself open up in a way he rarely did, if only to give his uncle some hope. And it was difficult not to notice his voice warm at the words, a warmth that seemed to flood through him whenever she was around.
Trouble. Kincaid stared at the patterns on the coverlet, seeing the heat in her cheeks when she'd blurted out the fact she thought she was going to die a virgin.
He'd been half ready to offer to help her out with that prospect, but she... she wasn't like the usual sort of women he seduced. And he couldn't offer her anything else. Perhaps they shared an attraction, but they came from different worlds, and they were travelling to different places. Maybe he could show her she wasn't undesirable, or even difficult to be around, but he'd only break her heart in the end, and he wasn't bastard enough to start them down that road.
And so he only told his uncle half the truth.
"She sounds... lovely," Ian rasped.
"She is." He paused. "She's a blue blood."
"A leech?"
"She's not like that." He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head, the muscles in his chest stretching. "I'm earning good coin at the moment." The change in topic made Ian's eyes narrow, but Kincaid pushed on. "I've got enough saved up... to see you with a nurse, or even to admit you to—"
"No."
"Or what about renting another house?" he continued, despite the expected resistance. "We could get one with bedrooms on the ground floor, and I could design a steam-powered wheeled chair that could give you some independence—"
"No."
"Why not?" He leaned forward, the front two feet of the chair hitting the timber floor. "Why do you have to be so bloody stubborn?"
"I'll not see... you into debt for—"
"So you can enjoy what's left? Or so it's easier on Orla? I'd care for you if I could, but we can't afford for me to lose this job!" Kincaid shoved to his feet, unable to sit still any longer. "The Duke of Malloryn's offered me the assistance of the Royal College of Physicians. They're working on this disorder, and I could insist upon having a doctor to call upon you. After all, a blue blood's saliva can heal wounds, and the craving virus can heal anything, so there's a chance they could extract the healing components of the virus from a blue blood and—"
"Malloryn? The duke?"
"He's pleased with the work I'm doing and so—"
"No!" This time his uncle twisted in the sheets, a flinch of frustration that was all his body would allow. "I'm done, boy. You're the only one... who won't accept... it."
"Can't."
"Won't." Ian gurgled deep in his throat. "I'm content. Just leave me... be. I've accepted my lot. The only thing that could hurt me at this... stage is false hope."
"There's no saying it's false, until we explore all of our options."
"I don't... want to explore... them! I don't want... to hope!" Tears gleamed in his uncle's eyes. "Just let me die, Liam."
"Maybe it's to give me some hope then?" he shot back, and Ian froze.
Their eyes met.
Kincaid cursed under his breath. "Forget I said it." He turned and paced to the window, lifting the lower pane of glass so fresh air flooded the stale room. Being in here made him sick to his stomach. And what kind of coward was he? To condemn Orla to this fate when he himself couldn't handle it?
Keep telling yourself it's the prospect of work that keeps you away.
He lowered his head, knowing Ian was watching him. Knowing his uncle could read his mind.
"I'll let you die," he whispered, "though I can't watch it. I can't." Not again. He'd seen men die a hundred times over in the enclaves and he wasn't certain what was better—a sudden, brutal accident, or this long, slow decline.
First his brother, then his uncle on his mother's side. The Kincaid men laughed at the Kincaid curse in a show of bravado, but it was only when he was alone his laughter turned bitter and hollow.
"I won't ask you to," Ian said gently, and that was even worse, because it should have been him comforting his uncle—not the other way around. "I know what it cost you to hear of William's death."
Will's face flashed into mind, pale and gasping for lack of breath, his dark eyes pleading. Kincaid hadn't been able to say goodbye, as the enclaves had only granted him one day of leave to visit his brother before the end—and the end came shortly after, Will slipping away before Kincaid even knew about it.
It was a kind death. A merciful one, Orla said. But he felt the weight of it on his soul every damned day.
"You should find some joy with your girl," Ian said breathlessly. "It's a long, lonely life, Liam—"
"Or a short one," he said brutally, shaking his head. "And I find joy on a regular basis."
"An anonymous roll in the hay's all well and good... but that's not—"
"It's the sort of thing that doesn't destroy people’s lives. I provide a widow or two with a bit of fun on a lonely night, and I don't make promises I don't intend to keep. It works for all of us. But Ava's not... not like the others. She's the type of girl who wants things I can't offer."
"Like love?"
"Like a husband, a home, and a family," he said bluntly.
"You could give her all three."
"It would be better if the bloody curse died with me, so let it. I promised myself no children."
"It's only... a bit of bad luck," Ian said, with a cough. "No such thing as curs... curses—" He broke into a hacking cough.
Kincaid hastily reached for the glass of water on the side table, and helped his uncle sit up just enough to sip it. Ian spluttered until the fit finally subsided.
Lowering him back down, he tucked the blankets up under Ian's chin.
"Curse or not, I can't offer her a future." Pressing a kiss to his uncle's forehead, he pushed away from the bed. "I'll fetch Orla for you." Then he strode from the room, and nearly flattened poor Orla.
"What are you arguing with him about?" she demanded.
"Nothing."
"If you've set him off again
—"
"He's fine." Kincaid shoved his hands into his pockets, shuttering the sorrow that punched inside his chest like a fist trying to hammer its way out. His voice softened and he barely got the words out. "I agreed to let him die."
"Oh, Liam."
He shook her off and tugged his money pouch out of his pocket. Orla started to protest, as he'd expected. "Shut up and take it. He's my blood too. And you need to pay the rent."
Ignoring the suspicious gleam in her eyes—Orla never cried—he folded her fingers around the coins he poured into her palm, and forced her to accept them.
"You're a good man, Liam Kincaid, and don't ever let anyone else tell you otherwise," she said.
He tugged on the end of her braid with a sad smile, hoping she didn't see through him. "Stop ruining my reputation. I'm a devil, and the ladies love me for it."
That earned him a narrowed look. He'd grown up with her, and they could read each other like books.
"What?" he demanded, opening up a new script, one that was easier to deal with than the other one.
"And does herself downstairs love you for it?"
Bloody hell. Not Orla too. He should never have brought Ava here. "It's not like that." He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "We work together—"
"She's pretty."
"Is she?"
That earned him a snort. "Not your usual sort at all—"
"What gave it away? The craving virus?"
"The intelligent, well-articulated and clearly educated conversation. The frills. The lace. The way she looks at you—"
"She's completely innocent. I don't trouble myself with virgins. And she's not looking at me like that." Which was a blatant lie that would have earned a slap to the back of his head from his mother, God rest her soul.
Ava looked. She lingered too sometimes, and he was rake enough to know tumbling her into bed might require a little bit of effort, but not a lot. Someone was curious.
And hurt. He was wise enough to understand Byrnes's recent marriage had something to do with Ava's sudden lingering looks.
Orla crossed her arms over her chest, eyeing him with an evil look. "I know you, Liam Anthony Kincaid. You want to trouble yourself with her, virgin or not."
"It's complicated."
"I assure you it's not. You've told me many times it's simply a matter of inserting your cock into—"
Kincaid clapped his human hand over her mouth. "Jaysus, woman. That's enough. She might be able to hear you."
Orla's eyes were expressive enough that he grinned, and let her go. With a sigh, she reached up on her toes and brushed a kiss against his cheek.
"Don't break her heart," she whispered softly, as he turned for the stairs.
"I don't intend to."
"Don't let her break your heart then."
A flinch went through him. "No fear of that, Orla-luv"
"No?" Her words haunted him as he started down the stairs. "If you weren't worried about it, then you'd have had her twice over already."
He paused halfway down the staircase and looked up at her. "She's not the sort of woman you tumble."
"She's the marrying sort?"
He nodded.
Orla's eyes turned big and soft with sorrow. "Oh. Maybe you should tell her then. Let her make her own decisions?"
Not a chance. Kincaid turned his back on her before she could see what was on his face. Thank Christ Orla understood why he couldn't ever touch Ava, even if Ian did not.
Five
"YOU'RE QUIET," AVA murmured as she examined the body.
The riot had disbursed by the time they left Kincaid's uncle's house, leaving the streets oddly bare, though its echoes remained. Rubbish lay strewn in the gutters, glass was smashed in several shop fronts, and a smoky pall hung over everything. There'd been a full dozen Nighthawks holding the scene for her—three times as many as usual for something like this—and they'd been tense as she and Kincaid arrived.
"Got anything?" Kincaid clearly didn't want to discuss the odd scene at his uncle's house, and the way he'd barreled them out of there with barely a goodbye to his cousin.
And then, of course, there was that half-muffled argument she'd tried desperately not to listen to, humming under her breath as voices rose.
"I'm not certain." Ava looked down at the deceased blue blood on the examiner's gurney. She'd been lucky Dr. Gibson, the Nighthawk who managed the mortuary at the guild, had been rostered on when this came in.
"Apart from his name...." Kincaid glanced at the notes the Nighthawks had given them. "Mr. David Thomas. Unfortunate cause of a riot. I wonder if they'll put that on his headstone?"
"Mr. Thomas had nothing to do with the riot," she protested, stroking a gloved finger gently over the deceased man's face. Black veins traced their way through his skin, making him look half-mottled and violent. That was unusual, and clearly where the “disease” had gotten its name. "There was obviously malcontent in this borough with blue bloods, and when he died—revealing his true nature—it set off his neighbors."
They'd heard it all as they entered through the throng of neighbors: such a nice man; never knew he was one of them; a craver living right here on the doorstep; where was he getting his blood from, I demand to know....
Unusual that nobody had ever suspected him. Mr. Thomas's pale skin and preference for night should have given it away, though perhaps—with the response his death and subsequent coming out had achieved—there'd been good reason to keep his true nature under wraps.
It had been a long time since she'd felt uncomfortable with what she was. Or more to the point, uncomfortably aware other people thought her ilk monsters. London had been at peace for three years, damn it.
Ava sighed, and slid her magnifying goggles up on top of her head. "I've taken samples of Mr. Thomas's blood and the froth at his mouth to make sure there's no sign of chemical interference." Not that poison had much of an effect on a blue blood, despite the fact hemlock paralyzed them for several minutes until the virus burned through it. "But something tells me I won't find anything. Gibson would have tested the other victims’ blood work. He wouldn't miss something like poison. This fellow appears to have suffered some sort of apoplectic fit, and bitten half his tongue off. The veins disturb me, however, and I think this needs further investigation." What had made them stand out like that? They looked black, and his irises were violently dark, as though the darker side of the craving virus had roused in him before he died.
Blue bloods had darker blood than humans—an almost bluish-red which gave them their name—but that didn't account for the blackness.
There was limited sign of livor mortis too, as though barely any blood had pooled in the corpse's back and legs.
Internal bleeding?
The only time she'd seen something similar was when Malloryn found Zero's body slumped in the cells last month, with no sign of a break-in. Malloryn had intended to question Zero about the whereabouts of her fellow dhampir, and just precisely what they were up to, but she'd been dead.
And dhampir were just one step along in the evolution chain for a blue blood. Ava paused. The black veins looked very similar, though Zero's capillaries had all burst, and she'd bled internally. Though the craving virus should have healed her, especially with the CV levels Zero had, for some odd reason it hadn't.
Something stopped her body from healing, even as it caused her to bleed.
Was this the same? Was it some sort of disease? A malady that killed only blue bloods and their evolved brethren, the dhampir?
Or something else?
"You think there's more to the death than there seems?" Kincaid asked.
"I'm just wondering.... Zero had black veins just like this when she died," she replied vaguely, peeling the blue blood's lip up to see if there was anything in his mouth that might have caused this.
"If Malloryn thought this had anything to do with Zero's death then he wouldn't have sent us. He'd have been here himself, probably with Byrnes and Ingrid
, despite their wedding."
"You think I'm conjuring a link between the two deaths?"
"Six deaths," he pointed out. "There's been five blue bloods go down with whatever this is."
Ava quietly gathered her skirts around her and stood, fussing with her gloves as she pried them off. "But you think I want this to be connected?"
Kincaid's mercurial gaze settled upon her, and he crossed his arms. "I know you want a case—"
She threw her gloves on the floor. "That is not true, damn it. Or yes, it's true—I want a case. But I'm not simply trying to conjure a link because I want this to connect back to the missing dhampir, or even Ulbricht. I've been taught to assess facts, not find a conspiracy. And the facts state this man died in mysterious circumstances, and his symptoms are familiar in some ways—though not all—with the mysterious death of our dhampir captive. Even you have to admit the black veins are conspicuously similar."
His gaze remained flat. "If this does lead back to the dhampir, then perhaps it would be best to bring in the others."
"What are you saying?"
"That neither of us is equipped to deal with those monsters. I'm human, and you're...." He suddenly seemed to realize she was glaring at him.
"I'm what?" Ava practically dared him to say it.
After all, she'd heard it all before. She had hysterical attacks at times; she'd panicked the one time she'd tried to shoot a pistol at a man who'd tried to kill her; and she felt both a little ill and excited at the sight of blood, which was ironic in itself considering the craving virus. What sort of blue blood disliked the idea of drinking blood?
She was not Gemma, femme fatale and dangerous spy.
She was not Ingrid, whose Amazonian build and verwulfen temper frightened even the boldest of men.
She was Ava. Quiet conqueror of the laboratory, the woman most men overlooked in favor of others, and awkward enough in company she generally sought to avoid it these days.
A muscle in Kincaid's jaw ticked. "You... are no match for a dhampir."
Ava threw her hands in the air. Coward. "Who is a match for a dhampir? One of them took down both Byrnes and you without breaking a sweat."