In Other Worlds (12 page)

Grateful he'd found Livia.

God help him if anything should happen to her. She was the one thing he could never lose. The one thing that could truly destroy him.

His throat tight, he watched her as she climaxed in his arms. The pleasure on her face tore through him. And as he felt her body tighten around him, he surrendered himself to his own release.

Livia started to collapse against his chest, then barely caught herself before she hurt him. She smiled at him, but she saw the turmoil in his eyes, felt him go rigid over her action. It always hurt him when he realized the frailness of his body.

She would give anything to remove that look from him forever.

That was the question that haunted her every day. And what scared her most was that the answer was starting to become yes. She'd much rather he have his happiness than she hers.

“I love you,” she whispered.

As usual, he said nothing as he shifted away from her.

Livia sighed. She hadn't meant to hurt his feelings. But it was too late. He was closed off from her again.

SIX

By the time they dressed, it was nearly dinnertime.

“You want to go out to eat?”

Adron's question startled her. It was so unlike him to volunteer to leave. Normally she had to pull him out while he threatened and protested every step of the way.

She wanted to go eat, but he'd been doing really well with his pain today. He'd taken only half his normal dosage of medication. The last thing she wanted was to tax his strength and make him hurt again. And going out always made him tense. He didn't like the way people stared at his face or his cane.

But it was nice of him to offer.

“No, it's okay.”

He looked at her skeptically and used her words against her. “C'mon, you can't spend your life locked in this apartment. The fresh air will be good for you.”

“Are you sure you feel up to it?”

“Truthfully? I hate being stuck here all the time. I was never a homebody before.”

“Yeah, but I know how much you loathe being in public.”

He shrugged. “I've learned to like going out with you. People don't bother me as much as they used to. And I don't really see them when I'm with you anyway. I'd much rather look at you than anyone else.”

How could she say no to that?

“Okay.” She got up and put on her shoes while Adron got her coat and held it for her.

They didn't go far, just a few sectors over to a quaint restaurant she'd discovered with Zarina and his mother a few weeks ago.

Adron sat beside her with his arm draped over the back of her chair as they waited for their food. For some reason he liked to twist a lock of her hair around his forefinger. She wasn't even sure if he realized how much he did it . . . if he even knew he did it at all. But anytime she was near him, he played with her hair.

And it always warmed her.

“I don't believe it.”

Adron went rigid at the unfamiliar deep voice.

Livia turned her head to see a man who looked so incredibly similar to her husband that she knew he must be the elusive brother, Jayce—the only member of Adron's family she had yet to meet.

Jayce's green eyes were warm with friendship as he paused beside her chair. His long blond hair was braided down his back, and he wore a black League assassin's street uniform. Something so dark, it seemed to absorb light. Dark-red daggers were engraved down the sleeves, and each was topped by a crown that marked him as the most lethal of his kind. A command assassin of the first order.

But for his playful eyes, he would have been terrifying to meet. They, however, softened his features and made him appear almost human.

Smiling, he extended a gloved hand to her. “You must be Livia. It's great to finally meet you. My parents think the world of you.”

Before she could move or speak, Adron knocked his arm away. “You're not welcome here. Why don't you slink off into the hole you crawled out of?”

Jayce curled his lip. “Oh, that's real original and mature. Why don't you call me Mr. Stinky Pants while you're at it?”

“Fuck you.”

A tic worked in Jayce's jaw. To his credit, he kept his cool and took a deep breath before he spoke again. “Look, can't we just put the past behind us and be brothers again?”

Adron's response was so crude that it sent heat over her face.

Jayce went flush with his rage. “Fine, wallow in your self-pity, you disgusting asshole.”

He turned to leave.

“That's right,” Adron snarled, “turn your back on me, you coward. That's what you were always best at.”

Jayce whirled about and grabbed Adron out of his chair.

Livia gasped as she rose to her feet to stop them. “You need to let him go.”

Jayce ignored her. “Don't you ever call me a coward. You, of all men, know those are fighting words.”

But Adron didn't back down, and the hatred in his eyes was searing. “Why not? It's true, isn't it? You dare wear a League uniform, yet you betrayed your oath to them and you betrayed your oath to me. You are nothing but a self-righteous coward.”

After that, everything happened in a blur.

Jayce bellowed, then swung.

Adron ducked and caught Jayce a staggering blow against his jaw.

Trained and honed as an assassin, Jayce acted on autopilot as he returned the blow with one of his own. A fist straight into Adron's heart. It was so fierce it would have been debilitating on a healthy man.

On Adron . . .

Livia heard the horrendous sound of bones breaking. The force of the blow knocked Adron back into the table.

Before he hit the floor, Livia knew he was seriously injured.

“Oh, God, Adron,” Jayce gasped as he knelt beside him. “I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to. It was completely reflexive. Oh, God, I'm sorry.”

Adron couldn't answer.

Livia watched, horrified by the paleness of Adron's face as his breath rattled loosely in his chest. She'd never seen panic in Adron's eyes, but she saw it now, and that scared her most of all.

Jayce called for an MT unit, but it was too late. Adron's breathing was growing shallower by the heartbeat. He started coughing up blood.

Livia cupped his face in her hands.

Adron touched her arm and tried to memorize her features before he died. He should never have provoked Jayce. His brother had always had a hair trigger on his temper.

Just like Adron.

But now it was too late. Jayce had finally done the one thing he was supposed to have done when he found Adron lying in the Dumpster.

He'd killed him.

Adron reached up and placed a hand to Livia's soft, creamy cheek. His angel of mercy. At a time when he'd wanted to die, she alone had given him a reason to live.

He didn't want to leave her. Couldn't stand the thought of not having her with him.

But it wasn't meant to be.

Her face faded from his sight, and then everything went black.

“No!” Livia screamed as his hand fell from her face and he went limp in her arms. “Don't you dare leave me!”

But it was too late. His skin was already discoloring.

Jayce laid him on the floor and prepared to resuscitate him.

“Damn it!” The agonized cry tore through her as Jayce realized he couldn't give him CPR. Adron's body couldn't sustain it.

In that instant, Livia did the only thing she knew to do. She reached down deep inside her and summoned all the power she possessed. She didn't care what it cost her. She couldn't live without Adron. And if it meant her own life, so be it.

Almost instantly, her hands were hot. Hotter than they'd ever been before. She placed them against Adron's chest and willed her life force into him.

Jayce shielded his eyes as an unbelievably bright orange halo surrounded Adron's body.

Adron came awake with a jolt. At first, he thought he was dead. There was no pain anywhere in him.

His body felt strange. Different.

It felt whole.

Then he became aware of Jayce touching his face and of a strange weight on his chest.

“Adron?” Jayce gasped in disbelief.

Looking down, Adron realized the weight on his chest was Livia.

His heart pounding, he sat straight up with an agility he hadn't possessed in eight years.

And in that instant, he knew what she'd done. She'd healed him again.

As he pulled her into his arms, he saw his blood-covered hand and scowled at it in disbelief. The scars were completely gone from it.

Not even the scars on his knuckles remained. What had she done?

“Livia?” He held her against him.

She didn't answer. It was like she was . . .

Dead.

Adron tilted her head and saw the ghostly paleness of her face.

“Livia?” He tried again, shaking her gently.

She didn't respond.

Jayce tried to help, but Adron pushed him back. He didn't want anyone touching her. “Livia? Please talk to me. Please.”

The MTs came in, and he reluctantly released her to their care.

More terrified than he'd ever been before, he followed them out of the restaurant and to the lift that would take them to the hospital.

For the first time in years, Adron sat in the antiseptic waiting room while Theo tended Livia. He finally understood some of what his parents had felt while they waited for word of his multiple operations.

The fear and uncertainty tore him apart. And he and Livia had known each other only a short time.

How much worse must this have been for his parents?

“Adron?”

He looked up as his mother and father joined him. His mother's eyes brimmed with tears as she took his face in her hands and touched his undamaged cheek. “What happened to your scar?”

Jayce, who'd followed him to the hospital and had stayed with him, answered. “Livia cured him. I don't know how she did it, but one minute he was practically dead, and the next he was perfectly fine.”

His father frowned. “What did the doctor say about you?”

Adron pulled back from his mother's touch. “He wants to do tests on me later.” But Adron didn't give a damn about himself.

Livia was all that mattered.

His mother nodded. “Did you call her parents?”

Adron's chest tightened at the memory. “I tried. Her father told me she was no longer his concern and he didn't care what happened to her.”

Disgust contorted his mother's beautiful face. “How could he?”

Adron shrugged. He didn't really want to talk at the moment. Then again, Livia was the only person he liked talking to, period.

Please don't die
. . .

The pain of the thought of being alone again was all he could focus on. Everything else was insignificant.

His father smiled as he passed a glance from Adron to Jayce. “It's good to see the two of you in the same room without bloodshed.”

Adron exchanged a wary, shamed look with Jayce. This was all his fault. If he'd just left Jayce alone, none of this would have happened.

Jayce turned away.

His parents went to get something to drink.

Once they were alone, Jayce approached him. “I'm really sorry about all this.”

Adron glared at him. He was tired of Jayce's excuses. “If you'd killed me when you were supposed to, none of this would have happened.”

Jayce curled his lip as his eyes blared a cold, harsh rage. “Tell me honestly, could you have killed me if you'd found me lying half-dead and helpless?”