Page 125 of The Mech Who Loved Me
Those very blue eyes looked even bluer against his smoke-stained face. "You're gonna...infectme?"
"Only with your permission," Mallorynreplied.
There was a long, drawn-out moment as her future revealed itself in her imagination, barren and lifeless, and lacking the one person sheneeded....
"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 realizedyouwere 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. Pleasesayyes."
His human hand curled around her, catching roughly in herhair. "Ava...."
"Now or never, Kincaid," Mallorynwarned.
Ava clung to him breathlessly, begging him silently to give her the answer she so desperatelyneeded.
Kincaid shuddered. "Doit."
Thirty
THE WORLD BLINKEDin and out of focus. Shadows, smoke, pain.... Voices echoing as people he knew barkedorders.
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 hischest....
He could still taste Malloryn'sblood.
"We're losing him!"Avacried.
"Be patient."Malloryn. The prick. Cool and commanding even now."Give the virus time to work its waythroughhim."
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 theirsockets.
The world went black, sensationfading.
Everything was warm, and dark. A cocoon devoid of sound. Silence.Nothingness.
Peace.
Then... a single voice intruded."...keep himbreathing...."
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 holdinghimback.
Something....
"I'll never forgive myself,"Ava whispered, and distantly he thought he felt a cool hand in his."He tried tosaveme."
Don't cry, luv.But she was, and there wasn't a damned thing he could doaboutit.
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 roaredthroughhim.
What would you do if you had a future?Orla had once asked, and he couldn't answerherthen.
But hecouldnow.
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 sensesfading.
"He's back, he's breathing!"That sounded liketheduke.
Jaysus. Was Mallorynresuscitatinghim?
