He blinked against the bright sunshine that was harsh against eyes that weren't used to being in it. "So, where are we going?"
She hailed a transport. "I want to go to the park."
"Why?"
She leaned forward impishly. "Because, and I know this is a new concept for you, we might actually have fun. Can you imagine? You might even smile and the world could come to an end over it."
He touched her cheek and watched the way her eyes sparkled with life. "I've never allowed anyone to talk to me the way you do."
"That's what Zarina said last night. She also said she was amazed I was still breathing."
He laughed at her as the transport pulled up. It was true. As an assassin, he'd had a notoriously short fuse on his temper. But for some reason he tolerated her gentle teasing. She slid into the transport first, and he took a little longer to get inside. While he adjusted the cane, she typed the address into the monitor. Her smile warmed him as the car took off and she held his hand. Gods, her hand was so tiny compared to his. So frail. Yet she stood strong against him when no one else would. His temper didn't frighten her.
Nothing did. And that amazed him most.
Once they reached the park, he allowed Livia to lead him toward the large pond where children and adults were fishing, swimming, and skipping waves. He hadn't been here in at least a decade. But back in the day, he, Jayce, and Devyn had spent many an hour scoping out women and playing toss here. Livia paused next to a rental station. "Want to try a paddleboat?"
He scoffed at the mere idea. "I'm too old for a paddleboat."
"You're thirty-five, Adron. Not an ancient by any stretch of the imagination."
"I'm too old for a paddleboat," he reiterated with more venom than he intended. "And even if I weren'
t, I couldn't pedal it anyway." Which was why he was so angry. He didn't want another reminder of how crippled he was.
"I'll do it."
He curled his lip. "I'm not helpless."
She glared at him as the color rushed to her cheeks. "I know that. It's okay to let others help you from time to time, Adron. Why are you so afraid of it?"
He clenched his teeth and looked away.
She took his chin in her hand and turned his head back so that he met her questing gaze. "Answer me."
Rage clouded his vision as agony coiled inside him, and he saw his future with a clarity that sickened him. "You want to know what I'm afraid of? I'm afraid every morning when I wake up that this will be the day when I can no longer move for myself. I know it's coming. It's just a matter of time until I have no choice, except to have someone else clothe me, feed me. Change my diaper. And I can't stand it."
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"Then why don't you kill yourself? Why are you still here?"
Before he could stop himself, the truth poured out. "Because every time I think of doing that, I can hear my family praying over me while I was in the hospital. I hear my mother weeping, my father begging me not to die on them." He swallowed. "I could never intentionally hurt them that way. It would devastate them both, and while I'm a pathetic asshole, I'm not that selfish."
The love in her eyes scorched him. "You are the strongest man I've ever known."
"Weakest fool, you mean."
She shook her head and gave him a tender smile. "Come, husband. We're going to have fun even if it kills you." She stopped at the kiosk and rented a paddleboat, then led him to it. Reluctantly, he got inside and let her take them out to the center of the pond where he could feel the sun warming his pale skin. Gah, I must look ghastly. He'd lived inside so long that his skin had none of the tan it used to.
She looked up at the sky and smiled. "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?"
Adron leaned back and stared at the sky to see what about it made her so happy. The light blue was covered in soft, white clouds, and the warmth of the sun felt good on his skin. She was right, it was exquisite. "It's okay."
She huffed at him. "You're such a pessimist."
In spite of himself, Adron ran a hand down her bare arm that was exposed by her sleeveless tunic. He touched the faint scar on her shoulder and frowned. Most of her back and hips were covered with whip scars, and every time he saw them, he wanted the throat of whoever had hurt her. "Who beat you?"
A hint of sadness flashed on her face, but she quickly recovered as she dangled one hand in the water.
"My father."
"Why?"
She leaned forward and whispered as if imparting a great secret to him. "Brace yourself. I know you'
re going to have a hard time believing this, but I tend not to do what other people want me to."
Smiling at her dire tone, he laced his fingers through her hair. "I think I like that about you."
"So not what you said to me yesterday."
"Yesterday I was stupid, and I'll probably be stupid again later today and tomorrow . . . and probably many more times after that."
"Then it's a good thing I ignore you."
He laughed at himself--something he hadn't been able to do in a really long time. Which was another reason for him to be grateful to her.
Livia watched the way Adron leaned back on his elbows as he stared at her. His white shirt was pulled taut over the muscles of his stomach and chest. His broad shoulders were thrown back, his biceps flexed with the promise of leashed strength and power while the wind teased his white-blond queue. Goodness, he was gorgeous even with the scar on his cheek. How devastating could one man be?
And it wasn't just his looks. There was a regal air that clung to him. One that was at odds with the soldier he'd once been. She had a hard time reconciling those two parts of his past. "Tell me something .
. ." She paused her pedaling. "Why was a royal heir in the League?"
He scratched his chin before he answered. "I wasn't the heir at the time I enlisted."
The knowledge surprised her. "No?"
"No. My older sister was the heir." The pained expression on his face was profound and went deeper than the one he wore when his body hurt him.
"You have an older sister?"
He nodded. "My father's daughter from a relationship he had long before he met my mother."
"What happened to her?"
"She and my father fought over Thia's choice of fiance. In a fit of anger, she stormed out of the palace and vanished. All of us have been trying to find her for years, but we've had no word of her. We don't know if she married him, died, or whatever."
"I'm so sorry, Adron."
He didn't speak as he glanced away, but his grief reached out to her and made her sorry that she'd Page 35
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asked.
Now it all made sense to her. That was the real reason he hadn't killed himself even though he didn't really want to live. His family had already lost one child, and he'd seen their grief firsthand. Had felt it himself.
"You must miss her."
"All the time. She used to arm-wrestle me to the ground and kick my butt every time I went into her room."
She smiled at the teasing in his voice.
A tic started in his jaw. "She was the best confidant I had growing up. I could tell her anything and know it would never reach the ears of my parents."
She reached out and took his hand into hers. "Tell me something, Adron. Something you've never shared with anyone else. Not even Thia."
He stroked her fingers with his thumb and waited so long to respond that at first she thought he was refusing. Finally, he gave her a sheepish grin. "I'm the one who glued Zarina to the toilet seat when she was seven."
Livia burst out laughing. "I was serious."
"I am, too. I'd meant to get Jayce, but she made a mad dash for the room and ran into it before he did. Poor Taryn ended up taking the blame for it."
"And you never confessed?"
H
is expression was one of absolute horror. "If you'd ever seen my father truly angry, you'd know the answer to that. I was only thirteen, and Zarina was just a tiny kid who wouldn't go to the bathroom for months after that without someone testing the seat for her.
"My father was a giant to me back then. Not to mention the fact that you never knew when his assassin's training was going to kick in and override all paternal instincts--not that it ever did, but there was always that fear back in the day that he could mentally snap and break one of us in half. Given his wrath over it, there was no way in hell I was going to confess."
"So what happened to Taryn?"
"He was restricted from playing ball for the whole summer season."
Livia frowned. "That doesn't seem so bad a punishment. Why were you afraid to own up to it?"
"Because I knew my father would punish me twice as severely since I not only did it, but I let someone else pay for it. My father's a firm believer in justice." He squeezed her hand. "It was a cowardly thing, I know, and I spent the whole summer staying home with Taryn trying to make it up to him."
"Did he know you were the one who did it?"
He shook his head. "No. Like I said, only Thia and Devyn ever kept my confidences, and even then I didn't trust them with that one. It's always been my guilty secret."
And now it was hers, too.
It made her warm inside that he'd trusted her with it.
His grip tightened on her hand. "What about you? Who were you running from at the Golden Crona?"
Her face flamed as he brought back a memory she'd done her best to bury. "It was horrible. My father was going to marry me to Clypper Thoran."
He gaped incredulously. "The Giradonal Governor?"
"Yes."
Adron frowned as he stared at her. "Good Lord, he's what? A hundred and fifty?"
"Eighty-two."
He shuddered. "Your father was going to marry you to an eighty-two-year-old man?"
She nodded, grateful that he shared the same repugnance she'd had over the event. "He wanted a trade agreement with them, and Clypper wanted a virginal wife."
He let out a long, audible breath. "No wonder you didn't mind getting stuck with me. One way or another, you were bound to end up as some man's nursemaid."
She lost her temper at him then. "You know, I'm tired of your self-pity. Instead of thinking of all the things you no longer have, you should concentrate on what you do have."
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"And what is that?"
"A family who loves you. All of them. And though your body is damaged, at least your mind isn't."
"Yeah, well, being trapped in an invalid body happens to be my worst nightmare."
Livia glared at him. "I would rather be crippled than mindless. My worst fear is ending up as a vegetable, trapped in a whole, sound body. So from where I'm sitting, you have nothing to complain about."
His frown deepened. "Why would you fear something like that?"
"I saw my grandmother die that way. It was terrible. She lay comatose in a hospital bed, hooked to monitors and machines for almost a year before they finally let her die. Even though she'd told everyone that she didn't want to live with that indignity, that she wanted to be free to die. No one listened."
"Why did they do that?"
"Because they couldn't let her go." Her look intensified. "If your mind was gone, Adron, you couldn't be here with me now. You wouldn't be able to see the sky above us, hear the children laughing or anything else. You'd be trapped in cold, awful darkness with nothing."
Adron flinched as his mind conjured a perfect picture of the horror she described. "Okay." It was too gruesome even for him to contemplate. "You make a good a point." She'd obviously given this a lot of thought. "You're right, I am a self-pitying bastard. But I'll endeavor to be a little less so."
"Promise?"
"As long as you're with me, yes."
"Good, because I have no intention of leaving you."
Adron scowled at her choice of words. Not that he doubted her, it was just that fate had a way of slapping down all the best intentions, and a weird premonition went through his mind. It was one of her dying, and that was the only thing that could still frighten him. Page 37
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FIVE
Weeks went by as Adron tried to keep his word to her. Some days it was easier than others. And today it was particularly difficult.
"Come on, Adron," his therapist said as she increased the weight on his leg. "You can lift it."
Grinding his teeth against the pain, he hated the patronizing tone Sheena always used whenever he worked out. Like a mother coaxing a small child to eat his vegetables.
"That's it. You're doing fine. Good boy."
"Go to hell," he snarled.
"Adron!" Livia snapped at him as she came forward to stand beside him. "You behave."
Adron curled his lip. This was the first time he'd allowed her to come with him to his therapy in the hospital. And if she kept that tone up, it'd be the last.
Sheena smiled at Livia good-naturedly. "It's all right. He says that to me a lot. I've learned to ignore it."
Livia reached out and took his hand in hers. Adron's heart pounded at the softness of her touch. Gods, he'd gotten so used to her. Had become dependent on having her with him . . . and that terrified him more than anything else.
What would he do if he ever lost her?
Livia narrowed her eyes at him. "You play nice."
"Yes, ma'am." Holding her hand over his heart, he nodded. And then he lifted his leg even though it felt like it was shredding every muscle he had.
Sheena's smile widened. "See, I knew you could do it."
He ignored her.
Sheena moved to the next machine. "Okay, let's try some pulls now."
Adron let go of Livia and sat up slowly. But no sooner was he upright than he felt the familiar burning in his chest. Two seconds later, his nose started bleeding and he coughed up blood.
"Damn it," he snarled as Sheena grabbed a towel and handed it to him. He lay back down while Sheena called for Theo.
Without a single word, Livia brushed his hair back from his damp forehead. The tenderness of her touch and look scorched him. And it made him yearn even more for a way to love her as she deserved to be loved.
"Are you okay?"
He held the towel to his nose and mouth. "I just damaged another internal organ. Who knows which one. Since they're all pretty much soup, it could be . . ." His voice trailed off as Theo came in with a gurney and three orderlies.
Theo shook his head. "You know, Adron, if you want to spend the night with me, there are easier ways of going about it. You could just ask."
He wasn't amused by Theo's playfulness as the orderlies picked him up and placed him on the gurney.
"I want to go home."
"Maybe tomorrow." Theo put an oxygen mask on his face.
Adron pulled it off.
Livia put it back on.
Adron met her gaze and made no more attempts to remove it.
"I'll call your parents." Holding his hand, she walked beside him as the orderlies pushed him through the all-too-familiar hallways.
When they reached the scanning room, Adron reluctantly let go of her. Livia's heart was heavy as she watched the doors close behind him. How she wished she had her mother's healing powers. Her mother could make him whole again. So could you.
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He's in constant pain . . .
And that broke her heart, but not as much as it would break if he lived a whole life without her. Adron lay in bed, listening to the
monitors whirring and beeping. It was absolute misery to be stuck in this cold, sterile place.
Alone.
There was nothing he hated more than hospitals. Even worse, Livia had left him a little over an hour ago to run some errand she swore couldn't wait.
Disgusted, he watched his vitals flash on the screen. He'd watch the monitor, but there was nothing on. Gah, time moved so slowly when there was nothing to do. His father was in a meeting. His mother off with his sister.
No one knew where his brothers were, and here he stayed.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
That was easier said than done when there was nothing else to do. And for the last eight years, this had made up the majority of his life.
"Damn, what did you do to him?"
Adron scowled as he heard one of the twins' voices. He looked to the door to see both Taryn and Tiernan coming in with Livia. All of them had their arms full with bags and boxes.
"I didn't do anything." She set her bags down on the floor, then popped Taryn, whose hair was longer, playfully on the back of the head. "And you promised me you'd behave."
Tiernan laughed as he set his box on the chair next to the bed. "Like that'll happen."
Adron's frown deepened. "What are you people doing?"
His brothers pointed to Livia. "She did it," they said in unison.
"Did what?"
She responded by opening up the box in Tiernan's hands. "You two get this set up while I work on the other box."
Adron huffed as they ignored him, until he realized what they were doing. They were turning his hospital room into something that resembled a hotel.
Tiernan hung dark curtains while Taryn set up a reading light next to the bed. Livia handed him his reader.
Unable to speak past the lump in his throat over her thoughtfulness, he pulled her toward him so that he could kiss her.
"Ah, gah, people, please. We're in here with you. Do you mind? Could you not be so affectionate until we leave?"
"Yeah," Taryn agreed. "I have a shipment to make tonight and can't afford to be blind from my older brother groping his wife." He shuddered. "It reminds me of walking in on Jayce when he was a teenager, getting out of the shower. I'm still having violent flashbacks."
Tiernan snorted. "Please. That I could take. Try walking in on Thia on the can. I swear I tried to get Nero to erase my memories of that."
Taryn arched a brow. "Why didn't he?"
"He tried. Instead of erasing that, he undid three weeks of chemistry class. I damn near flunked over it."