Page 78 of The Mech Who Loved Me
Ava swallowed, thinking of blood. The thought left her both queasy and interested.Not helping.Damn it. Her natural reticence to drinking blood workedagainsther.
Think of... what? Was there anything about the bloodletting experience thatexcitedher?
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 outtoher.
Heat flooded through her. Arousal.Yes. The color began draining from the room, which was precisely what shewanted.
Another crash echoed above. Her abductor was clearly wasting time looking forthecat.
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 veinthere....
"He-pp." Ava licked the blood from her lips to wake the predator within her. Her tongue seemed heavy but she was once more in command of it, and it was getting easier to blink. Easier to twitch her fingers and toes. She was nearlythere.
He must have heard thenoise.
Footsteps paused above her, then turned unerringly toward the stairs. The cat kept making that horrible yowling sound in its throat, but thedhampirignored it. His heels thundered on the staircase, and Ava forced herself to move, tocrawl.
"Where do you think you're going, MissMcLaren?"
Toolate.
Frustration tore through her. She was so close to burning the poison out of her blood, and her inner predator was definitely sitting just beneath the surface. Thedhampirknelt in front of her and hauled her upright, taking in the jerky movement of her hand, and Ava's gaze locked on his throat. "I'm an idiot," he muttered, slinging her back into the chair, and then looking around, patting at hispockets.
No more hemlock, sheguessed.
His eyes lit on a tea towel, which he tore into strips and used to bind her arms to thechair.
"That's better," hemuttered.
Poor Geraldine stared sightlessly at the wall, a black-red flower of blood blooming in the middle of her forehead. Ava's vision kept coming in and out ofcolor.
"Shit," her abductor swore again. "Ghost is not going to appreciate this mess." He seemed to realize the water cart sirens outside were still wailing, and looked at her. "All right, let's do this." Reaching inside his waistcoat, he produced a small leather satchel and unrolled it on the kitchencounter.
Ava flinched back as far as shecould.
"What... do you... want with me?" Or at least that's what she tried to say. Everything tingled. "What are you...doing?"
"I'm only obeying orders." Thedhampirplunged a syringe into a wax-sealed vial, drawing up some sort of pale greenliquid inside. "Relax, Miss McLaren. This won't hurt too much and then it will allbeover."
No.No.
She twitched, forcing weak limbs toobeyher.
The last time she'd been a prisoner of a man she'd been powerless too. And he'd hurt her, destroyed her life. Ava's vision dipped through shades of gray, the color bleaching from the world around her as some inner rage she'd never recognized rose like a snarlinganimal.
She'd felt the craving take her over before, when she'd smelled blood in the early days of her infection, or when emotionovertookher.
But this time sheembracedit.
Feeling flooded along her limbs, along with the surge of blood. The killer looked at her, as if he'd sensed something different, and his lips thinned. "That's enoughofthat."
Stabbing the syringe into her neck, he pumped her full of a cold substance that burned through herveins.
Ava screamed, a gargle of sound that scraped her throat raw. A flash fire of arctic cold filled her body, flooding her vision with red. She could smell blood. Taste it in her mouth. Something cool slid down her cheek. Ava touched it, finding a tear of glistening black, that would probably be a bluish red if her vision was normal, and the irony bit her. She hadn't been able to shed a single tear since her infection, only this single bead ofblood....
There was a coldness in her chest that made her lungs ache, but her clockwork heart ticked on, pumping blood through her system. It hurt. So much. But this was not the worst she'd ever endured. Pain was an old friend. Hague had hurt her worse than thisdhampircould ever dream. Ava clenched her teeth, embracing the predator within her, and then slowlylookedup.
The relief in thedhampir'sexpression wavered, his eyes darting to the syringe in his hand, then back to her face again. Whatever reaction he'd expected from her, this wasnotit.
