Reckless Honor

by Tonya Burrows

  She leaned over him and did her best to wipe the dust from his visor. “Jean-Luc, can you hear me? It’s Claire. If you’re conscious, talk to me.”

  He mumbled something. Voice ragged and raw, but she understood.

  Marcus frowned. “Did he just ask if you like piña coladas?”

  Laughing softly, she sat back on her knees and wiped away tears with her dust-coated hands. “And getting caught in the rain. He’s okay. He’ll be okay.”

  For now, at least.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Vienna, Austria

  Back in a hospital. Again.

  Jean-Luc supposed he should be glad it was a real hospital this time, the kind he’d expected the first time around, but he couldn’t work up the energy. All he felt since waking up here was…tired. He was so tired being everyone’s human guinea pig. He lifted his arm—the one that by all current medical knowledge should still need stitches—to study the thread of IV plugged into his vein. No Akeso to save him this time. All the doctors could do was give him an experimental cocktail of antivirals and hope something worked.

  It pissed him off. After everything, was this how he’d die? Hooked up to machines and vacuum-sealed away from everyone he cared about? He thought he’d already beaten this damn virus, but here he was tangoing with it again.

  Weird, though, that he didn’t feel sick. It had been over a week since Ostermann’s castle of horrors. Last time, he’d been ringing death’s doorbell within a week after infection.

  True, he didn’t feel good. No doubt about that. He felt like a steaming pile of shit, but it wasn’t the same as before. Some of the aches and pains he attributed to the piece of ceiling that had fallen on him while he and Ra’id had been trying to escape the castle. He’d broken a couple ribs, and had rattled his brain enough to cause swelling. All that coupled with Delta Hemorrhagic Fever, and he strongly suspected he shouldn’t even be conscious right now. But he was wide awake, and he wasn’t as sick as he should be. Instead of the drowning-in-his-own-lungs pain he’d experienced the first go-round, this felt more like a flu bug.

  Had Ostermann re-engineered the virus to kill more slowly? Was the worst yet to come? He shuddered to think of it.

  A hissing noise, the sound of an airlock breaking, drew his attention. He dropped his arm back to the bed and looked at the door. Waited for the doctors and nurses to come poke and prod at him some more, but only one person entered. He knew who it was immediately. He’d learned to recognize her despite all the protective gear.

  Claire.

  His throat closed up. This was the first time she’d visited since finding him in the castle. Everyone kept assuring him she was okay, but hadn’t given any more information than that. Eventually, he’d just stopped asking. He hadn’t wanted to admit to himself how much it hurt that she hadn’t come before now.

  She stopped beside his bed and studied him. Like he was a goddamn rat under a microscope rather than her lover.

  “How are you?” she asked softly.

  “Oh,” he said, heavy on the sarcasm, “just peachy.”

  She reacted like he’d slapped her. Physically drew back and stared at him in shock. He would not feel bad for that. They might as well have this out now, otherwise she’d stick around and watch him wither away again. He couldn’t stomach that thought.

  “I…” She trailed off as her voice broke and tried again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to visit sooner. Marcus and I were too close to the smallpox. We had to be vaccinated and I was sick for a few days after.”

  He looked away from her. He didn’t want to think of her sick and shut away in a room like this for a week. It made his chest ache. “I told you to leave me. To find the hostages and get out. You shouldn’t have gone back in for me.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave you,” she said softly. “I love you.”

  He felt tears burning his eyes and squeezed them shut. Marcus was right—he was going to break her heart.

  Just not by choice.

  He wanted to stay with her forever, but fate, fickle bitch she was, refused to give him that opportunity. Was it because of how he’d lived his life? He’d hit every sin on the list, most of them more than once. This had to be his punishment. To find the one woman fascinating enough to hold his attention for more than a night, the one woman he wanted to hold close and love—and have her ripped away from him by forces outside his control.

  The old Jean-Luc would have cracked a joke right now just to hear her laugh one more time, but he didn’t have it in him. There would be no more laughter from her for a long time if she stayed until the end.

  He remembered the field hospital, and all the tears she’d spilled for him. And that had been before she’d fallen in love. This time, it would be so much worse, and he couldn’t let her suffer through that pain. If he was going to break her heart anyway, it might as well be a clean break before she had to watch him shrivel away.

  So he kept silent. Didn’t return her declaration of love. Didn’t even acknowledge it. And all the while his heart was crumbling piece by tiny black piece. The virus wouldn’t kill him today, but this conversation might.

  Claire seemed unsure of what to do with his silence and fidgeted for a moment before finally reaching out a gloved hand. “I know you’re angry, but we’re doing everything we can to—”

  He shook her off. “Yeah, you’re fucking right I’m angry. I’m not a science project.” He grabbed the IV and yanked it from his arm, ignoring the sting of the needle sliding free. “I’m done with all of this. Let me die in peace.”

  She made a small noise behind her mask that sounded a hell of a lot like a muffled sob. It hit him straight in the gut with the force of a hurricane.

  “I don’t want you to die,” she whispered.

  “I’m going to. Not much either of us can do about it.”

  “Jean-Luc—”

  “You should have stayed away.” He turned away, painfully swinging his feet over the side of his bed and giving her his back. He couldn’t look at her. His poker face was for shit right now, and she might see his every ragged emotion right there. If she saw how much this hurt, she’d absolutely stay, and he couldn’t have that. “It was fun while it lasted, cher, but it’s time to call it quits.”

  She didn’t move for a long moment. He waited, forcing himself not to twitch or give anything away. He curled his hands into fists on the edge of the mattress. Nobody had ever accused him of having exceptional willpower, and it took every shred of control he had in him not to beg her to stay. He was terrified of dying alone. And more terrified of watching the pain he’d cause in her as he died.

  So she had to go. He’d do this one unselfish thing. For her.

  Finally, the airlock hissed again as the door opened. He still waited for a solid sixty seconds before he bent forward and let out the sob he’d been holding in.

  …

  Claire held herself together until she emerged from decontamination and saw everyone waiting on the other side. Jean-Luc’s whole team was there, including the formidable Tucker Quentin.

  Marcus had been leaning against the wall, but pushed away when he spotted her. “How is he?”

  That was when she lost it. She hugged herself as tears erupted from her eyes. “He doesn’t want to see me. I think he’s giving up.”

  “Like hell he is,” one of the other guys said. He was a muscular man with short-cropped hair and stormy gray eyes. She hadn’t officially met him yet. He’d arrived with another man, Gabe, while she was sick in quarantine after receiving the smallpox vaccine. “Let me in to talk to him.”

  “C’mon, Quinn,” Jesse said. “You have a toddler and a newborn at home. You wanna risk takin’ that shit back to them?”

  Quinn crossed his arms and scowled at the door she’d come through. After a moment, he sighed softly and shook his head. “Lâche pas la patate.”

  “What?” Claire asked, wiping at her eyes with shaking hands. She recognized the words, French for “don’t drop the p
otato,” but she didn’t understand how they applied here.

  “It’s something he told me once,” Quinn explained. “Said it’s a Cajun expression for ‘don’t give up.’ Someone needs to remind him of it.”

  Marcus pulled her in for a hug. “You guys don’t get it,” he said to the group over her head. “You didn’t see what this virus does to people. Whether he fights it or not, it will kill him. It came damn close the first time, and the only reason he survived is because of Claire’s research.”

  Lâche pas la patate.

  Don’t give up.

  No, she wouldn’t. If Jean-Luc couldn’t fight, she’d do it for him. She broke away from Marcus and marched over to Tucker Quentin.

  He watched her approach with a mildly amused expression in his blue eyes. “What can I do for you, Dr. Oliver?”

  “I need supplies. We’re two blocks from the Medical University of Vienna. I know the infectious diseases professor there and he’ll let me use his lab. I refuse to let him die.”

  Tuc flashed his Hollywood smile and covered her hand with both of his. His palms were warm and surprisingly calloused for a billionaire. “I was hoping you’d say that. I even started looking for a lab for you, though I’m glad to know that won’t be an issue. Get me a list and you’ll have everything you need, no matter the cost. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was so broken, it came out as little more than a whisper, but she knew he heard her by the light squeeze he gave her hand.

  “Save our boy. Again.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Three days dragged by.

  For seventy-two long hours, Jean-Luc waited for the virus to do its job, dreading the pain he knew was coming.

  But it never came.

  His two broken ribs still hurt like hell when his pain meds wore off, but he could breathe. He wasn’t coughing up blood. He wasn’t boiling with fever.

  He actually felt pretty good.

  The morning of the fourth day, he was sitting up in the chair beside his bed, staring out the window at the bright blue sky as he picked at his breakfast, when the airlock hissed. His coullion of a heart did a little dance. Even after everything, it still hoped the person entering his space was the one he most wanted to see.

  But she was gone. Marcus said she’d left the day he’d told her off and hadn’t been back since. Which was good. It was what he’d wanted…

  Right?

  Mais, oui. Exactly what he’d wanted. Despite his surprisingly good health, he was still waiting for death to call his number. Ostermann must have messed with the virus so it killed slower. Claire herself had said the slower the virus killed, the more chance it had to spread to other people.

  It was only a matter of time.

  But he missed her with every beat of his heart. He hadn’t felt that deep, dark pit in the center of his chest since he lost his mamere. He recognized it as grief. He was grieving Claire’s loss even though he was the one dying.

  Someone cleared their throat. He’d been so jumbled up inside his head he’d forgotten about the visitor. Or, more aptly, hadn’t cared about the visitor because he knew it wasn’t Claire.

  He glanced over, and about fell out of his chair to see Marcus standing in the middle of his room without protective gear. He scrambled to his feet. “What the…? Get out! You’ll get sick!”

  Marcus’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “You’re Deadpool, remember? Mutant healing abilities.”

  “I’m not dying?” Jean-Luc stood there in his hospital gown, ass hanging out, blinking in disbelief at his best friend. “F’true? This isn’t you committing suicide by virus?”

  Marcus’s smile faded. “I’m not going to kill myself. We’ve had this discussion.” He tossed a duffle bag and a pair of boots at Jean-Luc. “Get dressed. You’re virus free.”

  He caught the bag and stared down at it. The boots landed on the floor with a thunk. “But…how? I saw Ostermann’s notes. He re-infected me.”

  “That would be a good question for Claire when you see her. The doctors here are as stumped as you.”

  He took the bag over to his little closet of a bathroom. “I’m not going to see her. You said she’s gone.”

  “No, I said she’s not here in the hospital. I didn’t mean she left town. Did you really think she was going to give up on you that easily? She’s in love with you, dude.”

  He froze with his jeans halfway up his legs as his heart had a full-out fais do-do inside his chest. He swallowed hard and finished dressing.

  When he reemerged from the bathroom in jeans and a T-shirt, he found Marcus flipping through one of the Thai dictionaries he’d asked for yesterday. At the time, it had seemed silly to start learning a new language when he was about to die, but he’d been out of his mind with boredom. Now he had to wonder if the need to learn wasn’t his subconscious telling him he would be okay.

  “She’s not in love with me,” he said.

  “Yeah, sure. She doesn’t love you at all. That’s why she’s locked herself in a lab to recreate Akeso for you. She’s barely slept or eaten. Nothing we say will get her to leave that lab.” Marcus tossed the dictionary aside. “And can I just get this on the record? I get why you pushed her away the other day. You thought you were dying. But you’re not, so if you plan to go back to your old ways, then just stay away from her. You already hurt her once. If you go back to her now, only to hurt her again later, we’re going to have a problem. She doesn’t deserve to be played.”

  Ouch. The jab stung, but wasn’t undeserved. “I’ve never played any woman in my life. They all knew what they were getting with me.”

  “Except Claire.”

  “The difference is I knew what I was getting with her and I want it.”

  God, did he want it. And for some crazy reason, he’d gotten not only a second, but a third chance with her. He wasn’t about to waste it.

  He snapped up his boots from the floor. “Take me to her.”

  …

  He found Jesse and Lanie outside the lab peering in through an observation window. Both appeared more than a little haggard. He stepped up beside them and stared down into the lab at Claire. She’d fallen asleep at her desk, her hair a tangled mess, her cheek smushed against a notebook.

  “Hey, pal,” Jesse said and clasped his hand, pulled him in for a backslapping hug. “How you feelin’?”

  “Awesome, considering I should be dead right now. I’m told I’m infection free.”

  “You are. Looked at the blood tests myself. You’re a lucky bastard.”

  “Not luck.” He returned his attention to the window. “It was all her. How long has she been out?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “Did you tell her I’m healed?”

  The two shared a look and he swung around to gape at them. “You didn’t tell her?”

  Lanie set a calming hand on his arm. “We tried, but last time Marcus interrupted her, she threatened him with chemical castration. She said she’d only leave if she finished Akeso or you were actively dying. She hasn’t and you weren’t, so…”

  When Lanie trailed off with a shrug, Jesse tilted his head toward the window. “Knew she’d eventually exhaust herself. We planned to pull her out once she finally collapsed. Tuc has a hotel room waitin’ for her.”

  “I’ll take her there. Thanks for watching over her.”

  Lanie gave him a hug. “You be good to her, you hear me, Cajun?”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “Because we know you,” Jesse said.

  He winced. “Mais, yeah. I deserve that. This is different. She’s different. I’d sooner cut out my own heart than see her hurt.”

  Lanie grinned at him. “Good answer.” She took her husband by the hand and pulled him away.

  Jean-Luc watched them go, then found his way into the lab. Classical music flowed from hidden speakers, and Claire didn’t even twitch at the sound of the door opening.

  He crouched down beside her,
ignoring the pinch of pain in his ribs, and studied the bruised flesh under her eyes. She was way too pale. Pages and pages of notebook paper littered the desk and the floor. She was drooling on one of them and still had a pen in her hand. In her other hand, she gripped his gris-gris.

  His Claire. Smart, focused, and feisty as hell. He’d tried to push her away, and instead of letting him, she’d decided to work herself to exhaustion trying to save his sorry ass again.

  He loved her.

  He hadn’t known he was capable of the kind of love he felt for her in that instant. All-encompassing, unselfish, terrifying, and glorious all at once.

  He took the pen from her hand and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Ma belle, wake up. Let’s get you to a real bed, huh?”

  She shifted and let out a soft moan. “Jean-Luc? I’m trying to save you.” Her eyes opened, but remained blurry and unfocused. Her grip tightened on his gris-gris. “Am I too late? Are you here to say goodbye?”

  She must be tired if her logical mind was dreaming of ghosts. “No, cher.” He scooped her up in his arms, busted ribs be damned, and savored the rightness of it as he carried her out of the lab. “You already saved me.”

  In more ways than one.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  She wasn’t in the lab.

  Claire’s first reaction when she bolted awake to find herself in a soft, warm bed was anger. How dare they take her away from the only chance Jean-Luc had! She had to finish Akeso and test it on cells and she was running out of time and—

  Someone was coming into the room.

  She leaped to her feet, intent on ripping into Marcus or whoever—and stopped cold when she saw Jean-Luc carrying a tray of breakfast food.

  Wait.

  What?

  She looked around the room, expecting to see it shimmer and shift to somewhere else like places always did in dreams. Because she had to be dreaming. He wasn’t here. He wasn’t grinning at her with that adorable mischievous gleam in his eyes.

  She pinched her arm, and his smile faded as he set down the tray. “Don’t do that, cher. You’re not dreaming.”