"KINCAID! KINCAID!" SHE screamed, staggering through the murky dark as the dust finally stopped raining down.

He'd been there one second. Gone the next.

Ava coughed, fighting her way over rubble. "Liam!"

Then the duke was there, materializing so suddenly she almost screamed. "We've got to get out of here," Malloryn said grimly. "That explosion took out the support beams in the roof here. They missed some of the blood vats, but I don't like our chances that the rest of the roof won't come down."

"Malloryn?" Gemma called through the listening device in Ava's ear.

"Alive! I've got Ava. We'll meet you out the front," he called.

Ava dug her heels in. "No! Not without Kincaid."

"Ava." The duke grabbed her by the arms, shaking his head apologetically. "Ava, sweetheart, I'm sorry—"

She didn't want to hear it, and fought him until he was forced to let her go. "He wouldn't leave me behind. Please. Please. He saved your life."

Emotion fought logic on his expression. Then his resolve firmed. "One minute. That's all I'll give you, Ava. Then we leave, with or without him."

Relief flooded through her. "He was just here."

The smoke obscured the mess of the wall where it had fallen upon them. She saw the end of the bloody beam Kincaid had been trapped under, crushing a metal workbench along the wall, but not quite all the way. Suddenly hope went through her. "He was under this when the wall fell! He won't be crushed! It's holding the weight of the wall and roof off him."

Ava started flinging pieces of metal and timber off the pile of rubble. Fire licked at the edges of the mess, and she started coughing. "Kincaid? Kincaid!"

Malloryn produced the tracking beacon. Orange light gleamed across his pale skin, and the heat of the fire was tremendous. The compass hand swiveled steadily, leading him to a certain spot. "He's under here!"

Then they were both tearing at the pile. It suddenly heaved beneath them, and Ava's heart soared. "He's alive! Kincaid?"

She pulled aside one last piece of timber, revealing the man she loved. Ava gave a sob of relief. "Liam!"

Kincaid's chest heaved. The mech-suit was dented, the carapace that protected his chest caved in and bloodied.

"A-va," he gasped, seeing her.

She slid to her knees, hauling wreckage out of the way.

Malloryn kept kicking pieces of rubble aside. "Not much time, Ava."

Ava tried to lift the beam. It shook, but despite her blue blood strength she couldn't shift it. Then Malloryn was there, his smooth aristocrat hands sliding under both sides of it. "I've got it. On the count of three you need to pull him out from under it."

The duke gave her confidence and hope. Ava scrambled to Kincaid's ankles, latching on to each foot. "Got him," she called.

"Make it quick." The duke met her gaze. "One. Two. And three!"

He lifted the beam several inches, straining under the weight. Ava wrenched hard, dragging Kincaid out from beneath it. "Clear!"

Malloryn dropped the beam, but she was on her knees, capturing Kincaid's face in her hands. His eyes rolled up in his head, then he blinked, his breath coming in wet rasps. Her heart fell.

"He's bleeding," she whispered. "Inside, I think."

And she, with her cursed anatomical knowledge, knew what that meant. She'd done enough autopsies in her time. She'd always kept her feelings locked away inside her as she played investigator with the body, but this time it was Kincaid's body she saw lying there on the mortuary slab in her imagination. "No."

"He's still breathing. Ava," Malloryn warned, taking her hand. Streaks of soot stained his face as he glanced around. "The entire building's going to come down."

"Get her... out..." Kincaid rasped.

There was a certain look on the duke's face. "Lead me out of here, Ava. I'll carry him."

She helped Malloryn draw Kincaid up over his shoulder. Kincaid moaned in pain, but there was no time to lose. "This way!"

She could barely see. At least the smoke was funneling up through the hole in the roof, though her skin felt blistered from the heat coming from the main floor of the factory. Ava coughed and staggered, her searching fingers finally finding the door. Then they were through it.

Cold, pure air seared her lungs. It hurt so much, but she kept moving, leading Malloryn as far away from the burning factory as she could.

They finally collapsed a hundred feet away, and Malloryn shuddered as he gently laid Kincaid flat on his back.

"Kincaid? Liam?" She slapped his face gently, her breath catching in her lungs for one heart-stopping moment as she tried to see whether his chest still rose and fell—no, no—before Kincaid blinked at her, his lashes stirring weakly.

"There's only one way to save him," Malloryn murmured, "though he won't like it."

Ava looked up, through raw smoke-burned eyes. "The craving virus."

Hope and dread wove her into knots. He'd mentioned his reasons in not accepting the vaccination, but was that enough?

Kincaid groaned, and shifted beneath her touch. Malloryn looked down. "It's his only hope, and even then I don't like his chances. He's bleeding inside. Kincaid, can you hear me?"

Those very blue eyes looked even bluer against his smoke-stained face. "You're gonna... infect me?"

"Only with your permission," Malloryn replied.

There was a long, drawn-out moment as her future revealed itself in her imagination, barren and lifeless, and lacking the one person she needed....

"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 realized you were 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. Please say yes."

His human hand curled around her, catching roughly in her hair. "Ava...."

"Now or never, Kincaid," Malloryn warned.

Ava clung to him breathlessly, begging him silently to give her the answer she so desperately needed.

Kincaid shuddered. "Do it."