“Dammit, Livia! I’m not a child.”
“Then stop acting like one.”
Before he could answer, the door chime sounded.
“Should I answer it?” she asked.
“I don’t give a damn what you do.”
Livia sighed at his hostile tone as he shifted slightly in the bed, then grimaced.
She went to the door and opened it to find a tall, attractive brunette barely dressed. The short red halter top was scooped low and the tight black leather skirt would have given Livia’s parents the vapors.
The woman removed her sunglasses so that Livia could see the red irises and white pupils that marked the woman as a full-blooded Andarion.
“You must be Livia,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Zarina.”
Livia cocked a brow at her.
“Adron’s sister,” she added. “Dad just told me about the marriage and I had to come meet you.”
Unsure what to make of his unconventional sister, Livia let her in.
“You’re really cute,” Zarina said as she stepped inside and dropped her bag on Adron’s couch. “But I wouldn’t have pegged you for his type.”
“Excuse me?”
“Adron always had a thing for long-legged blondes with the intelligence of a piece of paper. You look like you actually have both a brain and a soul.”
Livia arched a brow at her words. “Should I be offended?”
Zarina laughed. “Please don’t be. The only people I ever intentionally offend are my brothers. And speaking of, where’s Big Bad Angry One? Dad said he was actually up and walking around without his cane.”
Before Livia could answer, a loud crash sounded in the bedroom. She ran back to Adron with Zarina one step behind her.
As soon as they entered the room, she saw him leaning with one hand braced against the nightstand. Livia gasped at the sight—blood covered him, and every time he coughed, more blood came up.
“Oh, God,” Zarina gasped, running to a communicator.
Terrified, Livia went to her husband.
He opened his mouth to speak, but only coughed up more blood. His entire body shaking, he fell back against the bed, where he writhed in agony.
When she tried to touch him, he pushed her away.
“A med tech unit is on its way,” Zarina said the instant she rejoined them.
Livia locked gazes with Adron. She saw the torment and the shame in his eyes. He was embarrassed.
But for her life, she couldn’t imagine why.
“He needs his clothes,” she said to Zarina over his shoulder.
By the time they’d wiped the blood from him and dressed him, the med tech team had arrived.
“I need to call our parents,” Zarina said, leaving Livia to watch as the team worked on her husband.
They inserted a tube down Adron’s throat and gave him another injection while they started an IV. He just lay there and his calm acceptance of their actions told her he was well used to things like this.
Dear Lord, what had happened to him?
Could it be because of what they’d done? Could having sex with him kill him?
The thought horrified her.
From the air gurney as it passed her on the team’s way out, Adron gave her a tired, sheepish look, then turned away from her.
“C’mon,” Zarina said from the doorway. “I’ll give you a ride to the hospital.”
Livia followed her to a transport and got inside. “What happened to him?”
Zarina winced as if the memory was too painful to even contemplate. “Five years ago, Adron was the League Assassin who was assigned to terminate Kyr Omaindon.”
Livia knew the name well. Kyr’s bloodthirsty cruelty was the stuff of nightmares. He’d blazed a two-year trail of rape and slaughter through the Brimen sector.
Zarina raked a graceful hand through her hair. “When Adron entered Kyr’s home to execute him, Kyr grabbed one of his servants and locked himself inside his study. The woman was pregnant, and Adron blamed himself for letting her get taken.”
Livia remembered the famous standoff. There had been hours of media coverage. And it had ended when one of the League Assassins had allowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back, and then traded for the pregnant woman.
Now she knew the name and face of that assassin.
Worse, she knew his gentle touch.
Zarina drove through the crowded sectors. “Kyr decided to make an example of Adron. He wanted to ensure that the League thought twice about sending another assassin after him. So he tortured Adron for days, then carved him up like a roast. A week after Adron vanished, my brother Jayce found him barely alive inside a Dumpster. There was so little left of Adron that Jayce barely recognized him as a human being, never mind his own brother.”
Livia blinked away the tears in her eyes as she imagined what it must have been like for Jayce to find his brother in such a condition. “Why does Adron hate Jayce?”
“Because, according to League Code, when an assassin finds another assassin who has been permanently maimed or disfigured, he’s supposed to terminate him. The idea is to die with honor and dignity.”
Livia cleared her throat as she ached for her husband and his family. “Jayce couldn’t do it.”
“No, he couldn’t. The two of them were too close. Plus, Jayce would never have been able to face the rest of us if he had killed him, or let him die.”
Zarina sighed. “I wish you could have seen Adron back then. He was something else.” She smiled. “He was always rushing around at warp speed, joking, laughing. Now there are days when he can’t even leave his bed for the pain.”
Livia remembered catching a glimpse of that playful Adron last night. “What happened to Kyr?”
Zarina’s face tightened. “My father tore him to pieces.”
Livia had never condoned violence of any sort, but after seeing Adron and the constant pain he lived in, she understood his father’s reaction.
Now, she just wanted to make it better for him.
She just didn’t know how.
Chapter Three
ADRON pushed the oxygen mask off his face.
His doctor gave him a peeved glare. “Would you stop that, you need it.”
“I can’t breathe with it on.”
“You can barely breathe, period.” Theo put the oxygen mask back in place.
Adron narrowed his eyes at the man, but as usual, Theo didn’t care. Over the last five years, their battle of wills had become legendary in the hospital gossip mill.
Theo brushed a hand through his graying black hair while he scowled at him. “I can’t believe you’d even try to have sex in your condition. What were you thinking?”
Adron jerked the mask off. “I’m not a friggin’ eunuch.”
“No, you’re not,” Theo said, putting the mask back in place. “You’re a man whose internal organs are barely fused together. Their functionality is minimal at best, and any strain on them can kill you. How many times do I have to tell you that you can’t put any pressure on your abdomen?”
“Well, if I have to die, I’d rather go out with a good bang.”
“You’re not funny.”
His throat tight, Adron closed his eyes. An image of Livia drifted through his mind, and he cursed it.
Theo checked his IV. “If you’d wear your chest brace—”
“It’s hot and it chafes.”
“Like it or not, Adron, one misplaced fall and you could break and collapse every bone in your chest.”
Adron removed the mask again. “I don’t care. I’m not going to wear that monstrosity. It makes me look like a freak.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “One day, that stubbornness is going to get you killed.”
More roughly than before, Theo replaced the mask. “By the way, there’s a reason why I don’t give you medicine to completely numb your pain. You need to feel it to know the limitations of your damaged body. Tell your wife it was a nice thought, but in the future you better not let her help you. Not
unless you want to become my permanent guest here at Hotel Hell.”
Theo stopped at the door and turned back to face him. “And the next time you want to have sex, you better find some way to do it without putting any strain on your chest or abdomen.”
“HEY, big brother.”
Adron opened his eyes to see Zarina leaning into the room. He tried to muster a smile, but couldn’t.
“Theo the Bad just said it was okay to see you. How do you feel?”
Zarina took a hesitant step inside his room, and it was then he saw Livia behind her.
His wife had her long hair braided down her back. The blue pantsuit made her skin glow and those large, catlike eyes held so much tenderness in them that it made him ache.
Adron clenched his teeth as a wave of desire tore through him. He couldn’t stand to see her, knowing she belonged to him, and yet he could never again have her.
It was the cruelest blow of all.
“Get out,” he said, turning his head away from them.
“Adron?”
The sound of Livia’s gentle voice washed over him like a gentle caress and it tore through him like glycerin on glass.
She came forward and when he felt her touch on his arm . . .
“Get away from me!” he snarled, pushing her away. He glared at his sister as his monitors blared. “Take her to a lawyer and get us divorced. Now!”
Theo came running in with two nurses behind him. “Out!” he snapped at the women. “I told you not to upset him.”
Livia felt her tears swell at the sight of the doctor forcing Adron to lie down and the sound of Adron cursing them all.
Her throat tight, she looked up at Zarina. “What did I do?”
“It’s not you,” Zarina said, hugging her to her side as they left the room and headed down the hallway. “Adron is just blaming you for what Lia did.”
“Lia?”
“His first wife.”
Livia stumbled. “He was married before?”
She nodded. “Yes. And she was one serious bitch. Since she was the Wurish heiress, her father had negotiated a marriage between them when they were both twenty. Lia had only agreed because she wanted a trophy husband and as the youngest commissioned officer in League history and heir to my father’s empire, Adron was a choice candidate for her.
“But they never really got along. Three weeks after Adron had been found, my mother, father, and I were in his hospital room, trying to give him reasons to live. All of a sudden, Lia showed up with divorce papers. She handed them to him and told him that she was too young to be some guy’s nursemaid.”
Livia was aghast. “How could she do such a thing?”
“I have no idea, but if I live an eternity, I will never forget the look on Adron’s face. But then, I personally think it’s the best thing that could have happened to him. I just wish the ogress had had better timing.”
Zarina stopped and leveled a hard look on her. “So, are we going to a lawyer’s office?”
Livia bit her lip in indecision. Adron had been through so much that she wondered if he was still mentally sound. His physical scars she knew; it was the ones she couldn’t see that scared her.
She searched Zarina’s eyes for the truth. “Tell me, is he psychotic or abusive?”
“No. But he is angry and bitter. He was never the type of person to depend on anyone for anything. It humiliates him every time he has to ask for something.”
She could understand that. “Then, take me home.”
Zarina smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”
LIVIA spent as much time as she could learning about Adron while she waited for him to come home.
Zarina and Adron’s twin brothers, Taryn and Tiernan, were a fount of information. And that afternoon, they had provided her with a box full of disks for a holo-cube.
Sitting alone in Adron’s viewing room, she pulled out a handful of disks and put them in.
The first one was of Adron with a tall, dark-haired man. They appeared to be around the age of twenty. Adron’s long blond hair was loose, spilling over his shoulders as the two of them played a board game.
Goodness, but she barely recognized her handsome husband. His face intact, his eyes glowed like blue fire.
“C’mon, Devyn, move.”
“Leave me alone, Adron, I’m thinking.”
“Yeah, I can see the smoke coming out of your ears from the strain of it.”
Devyn smirked at him.
Before Devyn could do or say anything else, water poured down over the two of them.
Adron held his hands out. “What the hell?”
The men looked up to see a young, teenaged Zarina with a hose.
“Oh, Rina,” Adron said with a faked snarl. “You’re going to die.”
Dropping the hose, Zarina shrieked and ran, but Adron caught up to her quickly.
“Get her, Adron!” Livia recognized the voice as Tiernan’s. He must have been the one filming them. “Make her pay!”
Adron slung Zarina over his shoulder as he sprinted across the yard with her.
“Put me down, you overgrown bully.”
“You got it,” he said an instant before he flipped her into a pool.
Zarina came up sputtering. “Oh, that’s it! Taryn!”
Taryn came running. Four years younger than Adron, Taryn was all gangly limbs. His dark brown hair was cut short and his eyes glowed with mischief. He grabbed Adron by the waist and the two of them fell into the pool.
Adron broke the water’s surface, laughing.
Taryn grabbed him from behind and dunked him.
“No!” Adron’s mother, Kiara, shouted as she ran to the pool. Her eyes were wide with fright, and her beautiful face was stern. “No playing like that! One of you could get hurt.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Adron said.
Kiara shook her head, causing her long mahogany braid to spill over her shoulder. “No, it’s not. I couldn’t live if I lost one of you. Now, get out of there and stop playing around.”
Subdued, the three of them climbed out of the pool.
Subdued, that was, until Taryn snuck up behind Adron and pulled his shorts down.
Livia gaped at the sight of Adron completely exposed.
So, her husband had never worn underwear. She smiled at the knowledge.
Cursing, Adron jerked his pants up and ran after his brother.
“Adron!” Kiara shouted, but the laughter in her voice took the sternness out of her tone. “Don’t you hurt him.”
“I’m not going to hurt him, I’m going to kill him.”
“Mom!” Taryn shouted. He came running back around and put their short mother between them. “Help.”
“Adron,” she said sharply.
Adron paused as he glared at his brother. “It’s all right. You have to sleep sometime.”
Livia laughed at their loving play and as she watched more disks, she realized that Zarina had been right. Adron was a kind, fun-loving soul.
Somehow, she was going to find that man and return him to the world.
IT was two weeks, and three more surgeries, before Theo finally allowed Adron to leave the hospital. All he wanted to do was go home and be left alone. He didn’t want to see any more pity on his mother’s tear-streaked face. See the guilt in his father’s eyes.
He just wanted peace.
His brother Tiernan moved to help him from the transport. Adron leveled a scowl that made him shrink back.
“Jeez, you ought to bottle that look. I know armies that would pay a fortune to have something that toxic in their arsenal.”
Adron got out even though the strain of it made him sweat. “Why are you still here?”
“Dad wanted me to make sure you got home safely.”
“I’m home, now leave.”
“Why would I want to do that? I mean, damn, heaven forbid I should be around someone who actually likes me.”
Ignoring him, Adron made his way to the lifts and did his best not
to remember who had been with him the last time he’d crossed this lobby.
Livia.
Her name and face still haunted him. And in spite of himself, he wondered where she was. How she was doing.
“I don’t care.”
Tiernan stepped into the lift beside him. “What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Adron didn’t speak until he was back in his flat. He limped to the bar, and searched for something to drink. But there was nothing there. “Dammit, which one of you did this?” he snarled at Tiernan.
“I did it.”
He froze at the sound of Livia’s voice behind him. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here.”
“The hell you do.” He turned on his brother. “I want her out of here.”
Tiernan shrugged. “According to your own words, she’s your wife.”
“Tiernan,” he said in warning.
“Adron,” he shot back.
Livia came forward and, by all appearances, she didn’t look a bit shaken by his anger. “Thank you for bringing him home, Tiernan. I think I can handle it from here.”
Tiernan arched a doubtful brow. “I don’t know if I feel right leaving you at his mercy. He can let blood with that tongue.”
“I’m used to people insulting me.” She directed a meaningful stare at Adron. “As well as being unwanted. I promise you, there’s nothing Adron can say to make me cry.”
And in that moment, Adron felt low. He’d never wanted to hurt her.
Turning away, he headed for the bedroom.
Livia said good-bye to Tiernan, then followed after Adron. In spite of her brave words, she was terrified.
But then, she was used to living in fear, too. At least Adron wouldn’t beat her.
He was lying on the bed with his arm over his eyes.
“Are you hungry?”
“No.”
“Well, then—”
“I want to be alone.”
“It seems to me you’ve spent far too much time alone.”
“Dammit, why are you still here? Why didn’t you do what I told you to?”
She took a deep breath and counted for patience. “Because I have nowhere else to go. My father has disowned me.”
“If it’s a question of money—”
Man of My Dreams Page 4