to get moving again. She’d been monitoring his movements ever since Antonov’s super-yacht had blown up. The trail of destruction he’d left in his wake and his relentless drive to get home in time for his sister’s wedding had been truly spectacular. No sleep for the past fifty hours and he was beyond exhausted—his body was struggling to hold him upright.
The only thing keeping him upright was willpower.
This was a man who’d been streamed for command from the moment he’d taken his first special intelligence service entry exam. He’d excelled at every position they’d ever given him. And if you counted his time with Antonov as solo dark ops work, he’d excelled at that too. She’d been expecting a pretty face atop a fierce intellect—a will of iron and a predisposition towards making trouble.
She wasn’t disappointed.
‘Great walk,’ Jared murmured as he watched her walk away, all confidence and sway. And he still liked her ears.
‘Can you walk?’ Trig wasn’t going to be distracted.
‘I think so. I just can’t get up.’
Trig held out his arm and Jared grasped it—high near the elbow, a climber’s grip. Next minute he was standing, and gasping, trying not to pass out or throw up or both. Two harsh breaths after that Lena materialised beside him, swathed in wedding dress white, with her hand wrapped around his other upper arm to keep him balanced.
‘You’re heading up to the house?’ she wanted to know.
‘In a bit.’ There was the small matter of having to get there on his own two feet to consider first.
He could walk.
Couldn’t he?
‘Use the bed in the master bedroom.’
‘You mean your bed?’ Their wedding bed? Unlikely. ‘Yeah—no. Pretty dress. Maybe you should step back a bit.’
She didn’t, and he bit down hard on his nausea. Lena never had been inclined to do as she was told. She was a lot like him in that regard. Instead she stepped up into his space, put a hand to his cheek and studied him with worried eyes.
‘You look awful. Like you’ve been through hell to get here. Tell me you’re not going back?’
‘I can’t tell you that, Lena.’
She got that stubborn set about her jaw that boded well for no one.
‘Got some cleaning up to do,’ he offered gruffly. ‘Nothing too strenuous.’
‘Do you still have a job?’
‘Could be I’m not flavour of the month.’
Trig snorted.
‘What did the director say?’ asked Lena next.
‘That we’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘Did she tell you that there’s a doctor waiting up at the house to check you over? She called for one two minutes after she laid eyes on you.’
‘Women will fuss.’
‘Don’t you dare lay that line on me. Or on her, for that matter. If I’d walked into your wedding looking like you do you’d have dragged me to the hospital two minutes after I arrived.’
‘I’m going,’ he muttered. ‘Stop looking at me as if I’ll break.’
‘I had a year of people looking at me like that.’
‘I didn’t look at you like that,’ he protested faintly.
‘Yeah, because you weren’t here.’
‘I’m here now. Lena.’
It sounded like a plea. It was a plea. For mercy. For absolution. And she really needed to step away from him soon—before he ruined her dress.
‘I’m going. I’ll find a bed. Do whatever the good doctor says.’ He covered her hand with his own and leaned into her touch. A moment of weakness—a tell for those watching. And there were plenty watching this little exchange. ‘I’m going. I was just enjoying the party, that’s all.’
He took one breath and then another. Stepped forward.
And the world went black.
‘STUBBORN, ISN’T HE?’ Rowan said to the hovering bride, in an attempt to put her at ease, while a local doctor recently persuaded to make house calls ordered the groom and one of her agents to lay Jared West on his back on the bed.
The bedroom décor was a mix of rainbow meeting Venetian chic, and the unconscious Jared looked decidedly out of place in it—never mind his hastily cobbled together wedding attire. Once a wolf, always a wolf … no matter what clothes he wore.
‘You have no idea,’ Lena said glumly. ‘I should have let you escort him to hospital the minute he got here.’
Jared’s eyelids lifted mere millimetres—just long enough for him to glare at them momentarily before they lowered again.
‘What’s his name?’ asked the doctor.
‘Jared West,’ said Lena. ‘Pain in the arse extraordinaire.’
The doctor grabbed a small flashlight and bent towards the patient. ‘Jared? You with me?’
Jared grunted what might have been a yes.
‘I’m going to check your pupils for responsiveness to light. This won’t hurt.’
‘Not concussed. Concussion was three days ago. I’m over it,’ Jared mumbled, but he proceeded to co-operate.
‘Glad to hear it. Does that diagnosis come with a medical degree as well?’
‘Comes with experience.’
‘Is he always this argumentative?’ Rowan asked Lena from the end of the bed.
‘Yeah, that’s him. He prefers to call it persuasion.’
‘Got any bumps on the head?’ the doctor asked his newest patient.
‘Couple.’
Jared let the doctor examine them.
‘What about your neck? Any stiffness there? Movement okay?’
Jared had his eyes closed when he answered. ‘My neck’s okay. Shoulder’s wrecked.’
So much for the busted eardrums theory, thought Rowan with a sliver of relief. If Jared could answer the doc’s quiet questions without watching the older man’s lips, he wasn’t deaf.
‘You’re not deaf,’ she said, and was rewarded by the faintest curve of Jared’s lips. ‘There goes a week’s wages for at least half of my agents.’
‘Yeah, but the other half will be richer for it.’
‘What’s he like when he really smiles?’ Rowan asked.
Maybe it wasn’t an entirely appropriate question to voice, but it never hurt to be well informed and armed for the battles ahead.
‘I haven’t seen it for a while,’ Lena said. ‘But historically it tends to be pretty lethal. Nations fall. Angels weep. That sort of thing.’
‘Amen,’ Jared mumbled.
‘See, if he wasn’t all beat up I’d thump that arrogance out of him,’ offered Lena. ‘Because I love him.’
Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away before her brother could open his eyes and see them.
The