DeliveredIntoHisHands (11 page)

There was the viper called distrust. It was
coiling around and around his brain, hissing warnings. It slithered over the one
named doubt that kept striking at him over and over again. The secretive one
wound its scaly body around his brain stem, trying to squeeze out rational
thought. Disillusionment writhed in there too, sending pangs of hurt to his
heart.

Then there was the deadliest viper of all—jealousy.
It raised its horny head and struck repeatedly.

He knew as surely as he followed the beam
of the phosphor that she was protecting Alyxdair Clay. They’d learned he was in
charge of the rebel forces and no matter how many men he sent out to find the
bastard, he was nowhere to be found.

“Because he’s here,” Garrick mumbled.

“Beg pardon, General?” Foster asked.

“He’s here,” Garrick stated. “Their leader.
He’s somewhere down here.”

They came to the end of the passageway but
it split into a right and left path. Both paths showed signs of travel. Sighing
heavily, he hung his head and put his free hand up to rub tight spirals at his
temple. He had a blinding headache that the musty air and claustrophobic feel
of the tunnel did not help.

His men were waiting for him to make a
choice of which way to go but his head hurt so badly he couldn’t think
straight. Instinct told him to take the left path and he stared to head that
way when he felt the icy numbness invading his being.

Rick?
Marc sent
to him.

Aye?

“You need to see this,” Marc said. “The
footprints disappear into a fucking wall but we can’t find any way to open it.”

“On my way,” Garrick replied.

* * * * *

The section of bedrock that was the
entrance into the shelter was almost open when Antonia heard the sound of
approaching footsteps. Whipping her head around, she saw the play of phosphor
light sending its green glow along the ceiling of the tunnel. Fear reached out
to clutch her heart with icy talons. She extinguished her own as fast as she
could. Blood pounding in her ears, she hurried inside the shelter and quickly
pushed the lever that would close the door.

“Come on, come on, come on!” she hissed.
The door wasn’t closing fast enough for her. When it finally slid into place,
she sagged against it—knowing full well her husband and his men were on the
other side.

Not that they could find the hidden lever
that would activate the door. There was no way they would know she had been
there.

* * * * *

“What do you think?” Marc asked.

Garrick continued to run his hands over the
rock but had yet to find anything that resembled a pressure point. “I think,”
he said—his vision beginning to blur from the agony ripping through his
skull—“that we’re wasting our time.”

“So what now?”

“Now we post guards here and the opening to
the tunnel. They come out, we have them. They enter the passageway, we have
them,” Garrick answered. He lowered his hands, put them on his hips, hung his
head and closed his eyes.

“Again?” Marc again. He reached out to put
a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Aye and it’s boring a hole through my
brain.”

“Get to bed. Let your wife take care of
you,” Marc told him. “I’ll see to things here.”

“Contact command and see if they can’t get
us a Scaan merc or two who’d be willing to make an obscene amount of money
working for us. Tell them if the treasury won’t cover it, I’ll use my own
money. I want to find Alyxdair Clay so badly my teeth ache.”

“That’s the migraine,” Marc said. “Go. Lie
down and—for the love of the goddess—curb your itch to throttle the missus
until you’re feeling better. Leave your talking to her until you can actually
think straight.”

“Aye,” Garrick agreed. He dragged his shirt
sleeve over his sweaty face, got a good whiff of the odor coming from his
armpits and winced. “You smell it too, don’t you?”

Marc nodded. “The moment I reached the
wall,” he replied.

“I wish I hadn’t made that vow.”

“So do I,” Marc said.

Trudging back through the passageways, it
was necessary for Garrick to stop twice to throw up. The pain in his head was
so excruciating every step he took was sheer torture but the retching doubled
the pressure inside his skull and tripled the agony. Lights played at the
periphery of his vision and the sick green glow of the phosphor light sent
bursts of fresh torment from temple to temple. Being photophobic—an intense
aversion to light—generally didn’t bother him. He had a cat’s night vision but
the tunnel was pitch black around him. Not even his natural ability to see in
the dark helped when all he could see was a sizzling haze of red-hot pain.
Combine that undulating crimson haze with the puke-green light from the
phosphor and the sickening smells coming from the tunnel itself, his trek back
into the keep was sheer hell. By the time he reached the curving staircase that
led to the second floor, he was drenched in sweat and dry heaving with every
fourth breath.

“General?” Barrison questioned as soon as
he saw Garrick staggering down the hall. “Sir, let me help you!” He rushed
forward, slipped an arm under Garrick’s shoulder to support him. “Another
headache, Sir?”

All Garrick could do was grunt his answer.
He was clenching his teeth so tightly together his fangs were cutting into the
soft tissue of his lower lip.

The moment Barrison opened the door,
Garrick knew his wife was in the room. Her perfume permeated the air and at
that moment she came out of the bathing chamber. She stopped rubbing a towel
through her wet hair when she saw him. She rushed forward, dropping the towel.

“What happened?” she asked. “Who hurt him?”

“No one, milady. He has one of his sick
headaches,” Barrison said.

Garrick was looking at her and watched
relief flow through her eyes.

“Bring him,” she ordered and hurried into
the bedchamber. When Barrison helped him into the room, she was throwing the
covers aside. “Get him undressed. I’ll get a cold cloth.”

“Aye, milady,” Barrison acknowledged.

Turning his head made the nausea return
full force but he needed to see her. She was in her pale-green robe that
covered her all the way from neck to ankles. It belted tightly around her
slender waist, accentuating the flare of her shapely hips. Barefoot, with her
long hair wet and hanging in thick strands down her back, all he wanted to do
was drag her beneath him.

As if he were able to do such a foolish
thing, he thought as Barrison eased him to the edge of the mattress then bent
to pull off his boots. He fumbled with the buttons of his uniform shirt but
every moment sent jagged shards of pain into his eyes.

“I’ll do that, Sir,” Barrison said, setting
the boots aside.

Antonia came back into the room with an ice
bucket and a couple of washcloths. She put them on the bedside table then went
to the vid-com.

“Who are you calling?” he managed to croak.

“The healer,” she said. “You need a shot.”

He would have nodded but he knew
goddess-be-damned well that would not be wise. Barrison was urging him to lie
down so he could pull off his pants. Taking a deep breath because he knew he
was going to pay dearly for the motion, he gingerly twisted, grateful Barrison
took hold of his ankles to swing his legs onto the bed. The young guard made
quick work of removing his commanding officer’s uniform pants, looking away
when he realized Garrick was naked beneath them.

“I’ll take it from here,” Antonia said.

“Aye, thank you, milady,” Barrison mumbled,
averting his red face. “I’ll be just outside if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Barrison,” she replied. “The
healer should be here shortly.”

“Hurt,” Garrick whispered.

“I know, love,” she replied and reached
into the ice bucket for a washcloth that was already soaking in the icy water.
She wrung it out, folded it in half then gently laid it across his forehead.

Forcing his eyes open, he looked up at her.
“Perfume.”

“I’m not wearing perfume,” she told him.

“At the wall,” he said.

He watched twin grooves form over her nose.
“What are…?”

“Your perfume,” he said. “At the wall.”

“Ricky, you need to—”

“You were there.” He licked his lips. “How
did you get past Barrison?”

There was the guilt, he thought. It turned
her face a lighter color and shadows were suddenly hovering in her pretty eyes.
And there goes the bottom lip between the teeth.

“Did you warn him?” he asked.

The healer took that moment to enter the
room. He nodded at Antonia then placed a vac-syringe on the bedside table.

“Answer me, Tonia,” Garrick said. He
flicked his eyes to the healer who was tearing open the foil packet of an
alcohol swab. “Did you warn him?”

“Turn your head, General,” the healer said
softly.

Garrick put up a hand to bat the healer’s
away. “Answer me. Did you warn him?”

She shook her head. “No, Garrick. I haven’t
seen anyone to warn them about anything.”

“Liar,” he said, his hand dropping to the
bed. He turned his face from her.

The healer quickly swabbed his neck then
administered the contents of the vac-syringe. Garrick flinched—as he always did
for the pain was fiery and spread rapidly through the vein in his neck.

“If this doesn’t help, let me know,” he
heard the healer tell Antonia.

“I will. Thank you Healer Frye.”

Garrick was already feeling the intense
effect of the drug. The pain was sloughing from his mind as a numbing curtain
of darkness began to descend around him. He had enough experience of the heavy
duty drug to know the healer had given him a high dosage that would put him out
for twelve hours or more.

In the periphery of his vision he saw his
wife turn to go.

“Stay!” he barked and though he had trouble
doing so, swiveled his face toward her. “You stay right here!” His words were
slurred and that pissed him off but she obeyed.

“I swear to you I didn’t see anyone,” she
said. “You have to believe me, Garrick.”

“I don’t have to believe anything,” he
mumbled.

She hesitated for a moment then unbelted
her robe, shrugged out of it then laid it on the footboard. She turned away.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“To get my nightgown.”

He struggled to keep his eyes open, to
remain conscious as she went to the armoire and took out her nightgown, slipped
into it. She dressed then started to put on her robe again.

“No,” he said, shaking his head and wishing
he hadn’t. “Come.” He could barely lift his hand. When she took it, he scooted
over in the bed—fighting the ever-spreading darkness reaching out to trip him
up—drawing her with him.

She sat down on the mattress but he
tightened his grip on her hand as much as he could and tugged.

“Lay your ass down, wench,” he ordered.

Antonia stretched out beside him, her wrist
manacled in his hand.

“You fucking stay,” he said.

“Aye, Garrick,” she said. He could hear the
contrition in her voice.

“Don’t you fucking move,” he ordered. He
wasn’t sure she understood what he’d said because the words were garbled.

“I will be right here when you wake,” she
said.

With his fingers clamped like a vice around
her wrist, he closed his eyes. “You better be.”

Antonia felt his body relax as the drug
took over but his hand remained snug around her wrist. She doubted she could
pry his fingers from her flesh so tight was his grip.

Angry, she thought. No. He was furious. The
rigidly controlled rage in his glare had been chilling to behold. There was no
way she would be able to sleep this night for she knew when the drug released
its hold on him there would be hell to pay.

She lay there staring at the ceiling,
reliving what had happened once she closed the stone portal behind her in the
shelter. She had not lied to her husband. The shelter had been empty though its
occupants hadn’t been gone all that long. All of the sleeping rooms had
belongings stored in them which meant at least a dozen men were making the
shelter their temporary home. On the long table were pages of paper she had no
intention of looking at for she feared they were plans to which she didn’t want
to be privy. After a quick circuit of the rooms, she went back to the stone
portal and engaged the lock that would prevent it from being opened from the
other side. Even if her husband’s men found the hidden lever, they could push
it until doomsday and the portal would not engage. That done, she went out
through the tunnel that led into the forest—hoping she could get to the secret
postern gate and back into the castle.

And of course it had to be raining when she
exited the tunnel. Sloshing through mud, arriving at the gate looking like a
drowned rat, she wasn’t surprised the guard there drew his sword. Once he
realized who she was, he had personally escorted her into the dungeon, handing
her over into the care of her father’s Sargent-at-Arms Dobryn Arbra.

“What were you thinking?” Arbra snarled.

“Don’t ask questions,” she’s said in her
most imperious voice. “And don’t tell anyone you’ve seen me.”

“Tonia…” he began—his tone one of a father,
for he’d been a second one to her all her life.

“No questions,” she asked. “Just let me
pass.”

Though he looked ready to give her a piece
of his mind, he clamped his lips together, bobbed his head curtly then watched
as she went to one of the numerous stone walls that would allow her entry into
the passageway.

Shivering, her boots coated with mud, her
hair a stringy mess, she hurried back to the quarters she shared with her
husband. Before entering, she’d stripped off her dirty clothes and left them in
a heap. Once inside, she’d gone straight to the bathing chamber. It would not
do for Garrick to return and find her already wet and smelling of the earth.