Man of My Dreams

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  “Okay!” he said, wanting this conversation to end. It was too gruesome even for him to contemplate. “You made a good point.” She’d obviously given this a lot of thought. “You’re right, I am a self-pitying bastard. But I will endeavor to be a little less so.”

  “Promise?”

  “As long as you’re with me, yes.”

  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. Like a mother coaxing a small child.

  “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 Livia to come with him to his therapy in the hospital. And if she kept that tone up, it would be the last.

  “It’s all right,” Sheena said. “He says that to me a lot.”

  Livia reached out and took his hand in hers. Adron’s heart pounded at the softness of her touch.

  God, he’d gotten so used to her. Had become dependent on her and that terrified him more than anything else.

  “Be nice,” she said.

  Holding her hand over his heart, he nodded. And then he lifted his leg.

  “See, I knew you could do it.”

  He ignored Sheena.

  “Okay, let’s try some pulls.”

  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.

  “Dammit,” he snarled as Sheena grabbed a towel.

  He lay back down while Sheena ran to get Theo.

  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 like she deserved to be loved.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “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.

  “You know, Adron,” Theo said as the orderlies picked him up and placed him on the gurney, “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. “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.

  “I’ll call your parents.” Holding his hand, she walked beside him as Theo pushed him through the 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.

  True, but if she did, she’d lose him forever.

  ADRON spent two days in the hospital before Theo let him go home.

  While he’d been in the hospital, Livia had stayed with him the entire time and though it was selfish of him, he loved it.

  As soon as they were back in his flat, they had gone to bed and hadn’t emerged except to attend to basic needs like food and drink.

  LIVIA came awake slowly. She blinked open her eyes to find herself lying in bed, wrapped in her husband’s arms.

  Adron was still asleep, but even so, he had a tight grip on her as if he was afraid she’d vanish.

  Smiling, she picked his hand up and placed a kiss over his scarred knuckles.

  Then she heard someone in the outer room. At first, she assumed it was the cleaning lady who came twice a week, until she heard Taryn call Adron’s name.

  “Hey, bud,” he said, throwing open the door, “I need—” Taryn took one look at them lying naked in the bed and turned around to give them his back.

  “Sorry, Livia,” he said. “I assumed by three o’clock in the afternoon the two of you would be up.”

  Adron rubbed his stubbled cheek against her shoulder as he came awake. “I need to learn to lock my door,” he said.

  She laughed.

  Taryn snorted. “I’m going to go out here and wait until you two get dressed.”

  Adron brushed his hand over her hair and she felt his erection against her hip. “Why don’t you keep walking until you get to the other side of the front door?”

  “Ha, ha,” Taryn said as he closed the door. “By the way, your wife has a great body.”

  Heat exploded across her face.

  Adron gave her a stern frown. “Say the word, and I’ll kill him for you.”

  She smiled. “It’s okay. If you did that, Tiernan would miss him.”

  Adron rolled over slowly and reached for his injector and medicine on the nightstand.

  Livia cringed as he gave himself a shot in the stomach. How she wished he didn’t have to do that every few hours. Unfortunately, he would have to do it for the rest of his life.

  His features strained, he left the bed and dressed.

  While he went to speak to his brother, she headed into the bathroom for a shower.

  She took her time, letting the hot water cascade over her, until she felt someone watching her. Turning around, she saw Adron leaning against the wall, staring straight at her.

  “You startled me,” she said while the hot water slid against her back.

  “Sorry, I was just wishing I could join you.”

  It amazed her how comfortable she’d become around him. Her nudity in front of him had long since ceased to bother her. As did his. In fact, she’d learned every dip and curve of his tawny flesh. Every scar.

  She glanced over to the tub a few feet away. “Want me to join you?”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  Livia turned the shower off, then ran them a tub full of water. Adron got in first, then pulled her in on top of him.

  “Careful!” she warned as a wave of panic went through her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You could never hurt me,” he said, then he claimed her lips with his.

  Livia moaned. Oh, but she would never get tired of his kiss. His touch.

  Pulling back, Adron stared at her in awe. Her lips were swollen from his kiss and her cheeks red from his whiskers. He ran his hand over her ravaged skin.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for his razor in the cubbyhole in the wall above his head.

  She sat beside him, watching him shave with a frown on her face. “Wouldn’t that be easier with a mirror?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then why don’t you use one?”

  He paused and looked away from her. “I don’t like looking in mirrors and I damn sure don’t want to do it first thing every morning.”

  She took the razor from his hand and, to his shock, she shaved the scarred side of his face. “You are incredibly handsome.”

  Adron stared at her doubtfully. “When I was younger, I was really vain about it. Zarina used to tease me that I looked at my reflection so much that one day the Tourah beast was going to come and steal my face from me.” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “I guess she was right. He did.”

  Livia rinsed the soap from his face. “You know, there is a bright side to all you suffered.”

  “And that is?”

  She hesitated as if gathering her thoughts. “Tell me truthfully, Adron. If Kyr hadn’t scarred you, would you have taken me home that night at the Golden Crona? Would you have even looked twice at me?”

  Adron opened his mouth to deny it, but he couldn’t. She was right. She was beautiful to him now, a vital part of his life, an
d yet he would never have looked twice at her before Kyr had crippled him.

  That thought cut him all the way to his soul.

  “I wish I could be whole for you,” he whispered. “I wish I could hold you and dance with you, take you in my arms and make love to you the way I want to.”

  “And I’m just grateful I have you at all. It’s not your body or face that I love, Adron. It’s your heart, your soul, and your mind.”

  He trembled at her words, then he pulled her to him and kissed her. She moved carefully into his lap.

  Adron nibbled her lips as he felt her sliding her hand over his shoulders, down his arms.

  She lifted her hips, then impaled herself on him. They moaned simultaneously.

  Bracing her hands on the edge of the tub, she rode him hard and fast, making him blind from the pleasure of her body surrounding his. And for the first time, he was grateful to Kyr. 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.

  Would you give your life?

  “I love you,” she said.

  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.

  BY the time they dressed, it was nearly dinnertime.

  “You want to go out to eat?”

  Adron’s question startled her. “No, it’s okay.”

  He looked at her skeptically. “C’mon, you can’t spend your life locked in this apartment.”

  “Are you sure you feel up to it?”

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

  They didn’t go far, just a few sectors over to a quaint restaurant.

  Adron sat beside her with his arm wrapped around her as they waited for their food.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Adron went rigid at the voice.

  Livia looked up to see a man who looked so incredibly similar to her husband that she knew he must be Jayce.

  Jayce’s green eyes were warm with friendship. He extended a hand to her. “You must be Livia.”

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

  “Oh, that’s real original. Look, can’t we just put it behind us?”

  Adron’s response was so crude that it sent heat over Livia’s face.

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

  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.

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

  “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.

  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 a med tech unit, but it was too late. Adron’s breathing was growing shallower. 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 goaded Jayce. His brother had always let his temper get the better of him. But now it was too late. Jayce had finally done the one thing he was supposed to have done when he found him lying in the Dumpster.

  He’d killed him.

  Adron reached up and placed a hand to Livia’s face. His angel of mercy. At a time when he had 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, then everything went black.

  “No!” Livia screamed as his hand fell from her face. “Don’t you dare leave me!”

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

  “Dammit!” 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 her hands against Adron’s chest and willed her life force into him.

  Jayce leaned away as an orange halo of healing 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 five years.

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

  As he pulled her to his chest, he saw his blood-covered hand. The scars were completely gone from it. Not even the scars on his knuckles remained.

  “Livia?” he asked, holding her against him.

  She didn’t answer. Adron tilted her head and saw the ghostly paleness of her face.

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

  She didn’t respond.

  The med techs came in and he released her to their care.

  More terrified than he had ever been before, he followed them out of the restaurant.

  FOR the first time, Adron was the one sitting 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 only known each other a short time.

  How much worse must this have been for his mother?

  “Adron?”

  He looked up as his mother and father joined him. Kiara took his face in her hands and stared at his cheek. “What happened to your scar?”

  “Livia cured him,” Jayce answered. “I don’t know how she did it, but one minute he was practical
ly dead and in the next, he was perfectly fine.”

  “What did the doctor say?” his father asked.

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

  Livia was all that mattered.

  “Did you call her parents?” his mother asked.

  His chest tightened at the memory. “I tried. Her father told me she was no longer his concern.”

  Kiara scowled. “How could he?”

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

  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.

  Jayce turned away.

  His parents went to get something to drink.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” Jayce said when they were alone.

  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?”

  “Rather than see you suffer, yes.”

  “Then you’re a better assassin than I am. Because I would never have been able to live with myself had I killed my own brother.”

  “Adron?”

  He looked up as Theo joined them.

  Theo hesitated in front of him. “This is weird, isn’t it? I’m not used to having discussions with you while you’re dressed and upright.”

  “You’re not amusing.”

  Theo looked apologetic. “Sorry, nervous humor.” He cleared his throat and a feeling of dread washed over Adron.

  Theo was avoiding something bad.

  “Well?” Adron prompted.

  “She’s firmly in a coma. Whatever she did, it caused a great deal of neurological damage to her. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s as if she burned up part of her brain.”