League - Fire And Ice Part 6

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 bracea""

"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 h.e.l.l."

Theo stopped at the door and turned back to face him. "And the next time you want to have s.e.x, 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, cat-like 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 gla.s.s.

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 b.i.t.c.h. 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 he'd been found, my mother, father and I were in his hospital room, trying to give him reasons to live. All of a sudden, she 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 his 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 his 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 h.e.l.l?"

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 who would pay a fortune to have something that toxic in their a.r.s.enal."

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, d.a.m.n, 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?"