4
London, England.
Once they were out of range of the lab, Morgan put a hand out and stopped Jake in the corridor. "Are you sure you're OK with this mission?" she asked, acutely aware that not so long ago, Jake had been bitten by a nest of vipers in the hunt for the Gates of Hell. The poison had left him on the edge of death and she knew it had broken something in his mind too, a phobia of snakes re-awakened from his childhood in South Africa.
Jake looked down at her, the corkscrew scar above his left eye crinkling a little as he smiled. His brown eyes were warm and inviting, like the first chestnuts of autumn. Morgan trusted him implicitly, but she couldn't let his phobia jeopardize the mission or their lives.
"Something happened when I was in New York," he said quietly. "I haven't to
