DeliveredIntoHisHands (12 page)

Now as she lay beside him with the guilt of
her betrayal spurring her like a brutal rider, she dreaded what she knew was
coming when he woke.

* * * * *

Garrick rarely dreamed and never had he
slipped into a dream state while under the control of the algés. The drug was
so potent it simply shut down his mind and all thought that might have entered
it. But apparently he was so angry, so hurt by his wife’s apparent betrayal,
his subconscious overrode the effects of the painkiller and allowed him to drop
into REM sleep.

Over and over again variations of the same
dream invaded his mind while he slept. Though the scenery changed—as did those
who inhabited the nightmares—the outcome was the same. He would come up out of
his dream state to find himself staked under the broiling sizzle of the Sun,
his flesh sloughing off in agonizing strips, his eyes blistering. Beside him
Antonia stood in the arms of Alyxdair Clay and they were laughing at his
torment. He would come awake with a scream of agony only to immediately drop
back down into another horrifying nightmare. The next dream might have the
baron joining in on the laughter. Or the baroness. Or his father’s wife. Or one
of a dozen men who would like to see him dead.

The last nightmare ended and he bolted
upright in his bed, his mouth open in a silent scream.

“Garrick?”

He whipped his head around to find his wife
lying beside him with her wrist clenched in his fist. He knew his eyes were
wild and that his fangs had dropped for she was looking at him with true fear
stamped on her beautiful face. His heart was pounding so brutally in his chest
he could hear the blood surging against his eardrums. Chest heaving, body
shuddering uncontrollably, he stared at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

It took him a moment to speak, to ground
himself, to get himself under control. He tightened his grip on her—grinding
the fragile bones of her wrists together—until he saw the pain registering in
her eyes.

“Not as sorry as you are going to be,” he
said, releasing her.

She brought her wrist up to rub it with her
other hand and when he saw the dark bruise shackling her flesh, a part of him
withered.

“I did not warn anyone, Garrick,” she told
him.

“Yet you went there to do so,” he snapped.
“That means you knew he was here!”

When she didn’t reply, didn’t ask who he
meant, his stare turned glacial, his eyes narrowing. “How could you betray me
like this?” he demanded.

“These are my people,” she said. “People I
have known all my life. People I care about. I didn’t want to see them hurt.”

“Hanged,” he corrected. “Had I caught him,
he would have hanged.”

“I did not know they were spying on you,”
she said. “I swear to you I did not.”

“He!” Garrick bellowed. “We are talking
about him, no others!”

“Garrick—”

“Where is he?” he asked, cutting her off.

“I don’t know.”

“You will show me where he was hiding,” he
said, plunging from the bed, mindless of his nakedness.

She shook her head.

“The hell you won’t!” he yelled.

“Beat me if you like but I will not lead
you there. I will not hand my people over—”

“Your fucking lover!” he all but screamed
at her. “You’ll not hand
him
over to me!”

Antonia’s eyes widened. She swung her legs
from the bed and stood, confronting him. “Are you hearing what you’re saying?
How dare you accuse me of adultery?”

“If the cock fits,” he ground out.

She slapped him. As hard as she could and
when he drew back his hand to return the favor, she lifted her chin. “Go
ahead,” she told him. “Do your worst. Go back on your vow.”

“You’d take a beating for him?” he asked,
his voice filled with shock.

“I’d give my life for him.”

A low growl came from his very depths. “And
would you give your life for me, wench?” he snarled.

“Aye, Garrick, I would,” she replied.

“Why?”

“Because you are my husband and I love
you.”

He went perfectly still then he snorted.
“How convenient for you to say that at this very moment when you’ve not done so
in all the months we’ve been married.”

“Believe what you will,” she said.

He stared at her for a long time, neither
of them speaking. She held his stony glower without blinking.

“You will not leave this room,” he said,
“until you show me how you left it unnoticed,” he stated.

“That I will not do,” she told him.

“Then best you get used to these four
walls, wench, because they will be the only things you will be seeing until you
do.” He pivoted, went to the vid-com, punching in Marc’s ID. As soon as his
2-I-C’s image appeared on the screen, Garrick ordered him to find three female
guards he would trust with his life to report to their general’s quarters.

Immediately Marc’s face blanched. “What’s
happened?”

“Just do it!” Garrick shouted and turned
off the vid-com.

“I am to be a prisoner then,” she said.

“Call it whatever you like,” he replied.
“I’ll remain here—watching your every move—until the guards arrive.”

“Do what you will,” she said and turned her
back on him. She left the bedchamber with him right behind her. When she took a
seat on the settee in the sitting room, snatched up her book, opened it and
began reading—ignoring him—he folded his arms, crossed one ankle over the other
then leaned against the door jamb with his gaze locked on her.

The guards arrived fifteen minutes later.

“Come!” he called out. The
women—Amazeen-looking warrioresses with steely eyes—entered, snapping to
attention with their right fists double over their hearts. He pushed away from
the wall. “That woman is not to leave this room nor your sight until further
notice.”

“Aye, Sir!” the women acknowledged in
unison.

“One of you will be with her even at the
toilet.”

He saw Antonia roll her eyes though she did
not look up.

“She is to be watched and should she
somehow get past you, all three of you will forfeit your lives as a result.”

“Oh, for the goddess’ sake,” Antonia
grumbled, still not looking up. “You are…”

“Are we clear?” he shouted over her words.

“Aye, Sir!”

That said, he turned on his heel and went
back into the bedchamber to dress. When he came back out, he walked over to his
wife and stood there glaring down at her. “And lest you think to drug their
food or drink, I will have all meals prepared by my people and no one will
enter this room save me.” He looked around at the guards. “Are we clear on
that?”

“Aye, Sir!”

“Good.” He waited for his wife to say
something. “Wench, are we clear?”

“Crystal,” she said through clenched teeth
then turned a page in her book as though dismissing him.

“And don’t think this discussion is ended,”
he added. Her shrug made him want to grab her and shake her but instead he
turned to the door. “Watch her.”

“Aye, Sir!”

As soon as the door closed behind him,
Antonia looked up then threw the book as hard as she could across the room. The
smirk on the faces of the three women guards did not go unnoticed. She gave
each one an angry glare then crossed her arms over her chest and growled.

On his way downstairs, Garrick began
feeling like a true cad. He knew had the situations been reversed, he would
have done exactly as Antonia had. He would have tried to warn, to save his
friends. He realized he shouldn’t fault her for that. He was, after all, an
invading force on her home world. It wasn’t so much his irritation at her that
she had gone behind his back to do what she did. What infuriated him was that
she knew the man he’d been searching for had been under his nose the entire
time.

“But you wouldn’t have told me that anyway,
would you, wench?” he mumbled as he left the last step.

“Is she all right?” Marc asked as soon as
Garrick entered the office.

“You mean did I beat her black and blue?
No, but I wanted to,” Garrick grumbled. It didn’t help to see relief flood
Marc’s normally stoic face. “She knew he was here.”

“Of course she did,” Marc agreed. “Did you
think otherwise once we discovered those passageways and smelled her perfume?”

Garrick plopped down in his chair. “I’ll be
bunking with you for a few days.”

“Oh, ho, it’s that way, is it?” Marc asked,
a smile breaking out. “She tossed your ass out of her bed?”

“It’s our bed and no, I’m taking myself out
of it,” Garrick stated.

“Aye, keep telling yourself that,” Marc
agreed. When Garrick shot him a narrow-eyed look and shrugged. “Maybe you’ll
grow to believe it.”

“Fuck you,” Garrick said then sat forward,
shoving aside papers.

“Goddess, I hope not,” Marc said. “I’ll
pray you get back in your own bed before you’re tempted to do that.”

“I want you to send for a company of men
and send them through those passageways. Find a way to get past that wall where
we found my lady-wife dawdling. She got in there, so can we.”

“You want me to seal off the peepholes?”

“Aye and lay traps in there. I want the
next spy that thinks to listen in on us to have a nasty surprise awaiting him.”

“I’ll see to it. Are you going out today or
are you going to stay close to make sure the missus doesn’t get into any
mischief?”

Garrick grunted. “Have my horse brought
’round. I want to find out if there are any hidden tunnels leading from the
castle. We know she was behind that barrier we couldn’t breech and we know she
didn’t come past us in the passageways. That means she got out onto the
grounds. I could smell wet leaves and mud when I entered the bedchamber. She
had taken a bath but the stink of what had been on her was still in the air.”

“It rained last eve,” Marc reminded him.
“There will most likely be footprints.”

“Aye and not only hers,” Garrick said. “We
may be able to discover where the rebels went after they left the security of
Blackthorn.”

Antonia had been cooped up in her room for
over a week. Though the women guarding her had proved to be friendly and
entertaining once they realized she wasn’t haughty or class-conscious, they
watched her like hawks. One went with her every time she left the room. They
took turns sleeping on a cot Oran brought in to them but two were always on
duty.

“Tell me about the general,” she said,
having bided her time in asking until the women were comfortable around her.

“What would you like to know, milady?” the
youngest, Karson, inquired.

“Well, I know his mother was a witch of
Bandar,” she replied. “And I know his father is King Larrion, a Panthera. He
has no brothers but what of sisters?”

“There are five,” Karson told her. “Alana,
Bridget, Catherine, Danica, Fiona and…” She looked at the tallest of the three
guards. “Who is the fifth?”

“Eiona,” Laura replied. “Fi’s twin.”

“Oh, aye. I keep forgetting about her.”

“She’s rather forgettable,” Laura replied.
“Such a mousy little thing.”

“What of girlfriends?” Antonia asked. “I’m
sure he wasn’t celibate. Was there a woman before me?”

“Lots of women!” Karson said.

“Be careful what you say,” Laura cautioned.
“He wouldn’t like you gossiping about him.”

“It’s not gossiping,” Antonia said. “I am
gathering information.” She aimed her attention solely on Karson—the talkative
one of the bunch. “Any woman in particular?”

Karson nodded. “Siobhan,” she said. “But he
was done with her before he left Modartha to come here.”

“He should have been done with her long
before that,” Nierie, the third woman said with a snort. “That bitch was bad
news for him, that’s for sure.”

“In what way?” Antonia asked.

“In every way,” Karson said. “She tried to
kill him a couple of times.”

Antonia arched her brows. “Do you know
why?”

“Why would any woman want to kill her man?”
Laura asked. “He pissed her off.”

“How?”

Laura shrugged. “You’d have to ask him,
milady, but don’t expect an answer. He’s pretty stiff-lipped about his personal
life and you should know him well enough by now to know he won’t appreciate you
asking us about him.”

“I know he’s a high-handed dictator,”
Antonia groused.

“He’s jealous,” Karson said. “That’s all.”
She looked at her fellow guards. “Am I right or am I right?”

The other two women nodded.

“Humpf,” Antonia responded.

“You know since time began women have been
using the jealousy of their menfolk to their advantage,” Nierie remarked.

“And they’ve caused irreparable damage in
the doing of it at times too,” Laura stated. “Wars have been started and good
men lost because some stupid woman tried to use jealousy to control her man.
Remember Queen Maob?”

“Aye, all too well,” Antonia said. “My
tutor drummed into my head all the reasons it had been a very bad idea to make
King Luther jealous of his brother Padraig.”

“One hundred years of war because of it,”
Laura reminded them.

“It’s not as though I’m trying to make
Ricky jealous,” Antonia said. “He’s doing that all on his own.”

“He’s not used to being in love,” Karson
said. “Love makes men do strange things.”

Antonia tucked her bottom lip between her
teeth. “You don’t think he’s using one of the servant girls to…you know…?”

“Slake his thirst?” Laura asked.

“Scratch his itch?” Nierie corrected.

“Comfort his cock?” Karson put in and all
four women laughed.

“No, milady,” Laura said. “Not the general.
He is a man of honor and he took his vows to you seriously. He’d not cheat on
his Joining.”

“Neither would I yet he all but accused me
of it with Alyxdair,” Antonia said. “Who is like a brother to me.”

“It doesn’t help that the man in question
is a thorn in the general’s side,” Laura told her.

“Or that he is responsible for the deaths
of hundreds of Modarthan soldiers,” Nierie added. “His life is forfeit when
he’s caught. You must know that, milady.”

Pain shifted through Antonia’s heart. “Aye,
I do know it and I wish it were otherwise but Alyx will do what he will do. If
I had my way no men would die and especially not the two I care most for in all
the world.”

“You have feelings for the general?” Karson
asked.

“Karson!” Laura hissed. “That is none of
your concern!”

“I don’t mind answering,” Antonia said.
“Aye, I have feelings for him. More’s the pity for me for I happen to love the
pigheaded bastard.”

“Why the pity?” Nierie asked.

“Because he thinks of me as his property
and treats me like a mutt who has peed on his carpet! And all I did was try to
warn my people that he knew they’d been spying on him and he locks me up!”

Standing outside the door to his quarters,
Garrick could hear his wife’s words as clearly as though he were in the room
with her. Those words cut him like a dull blade and he reminded himself that
eavesdroppers never heard anything good about themselves. He’d dismissed the
guards at the door and stood there with his palms pressed against the lintels,
eyes closed, and took in everything being said.

“She loves me,” he thought then wondered if
she’d just said that for the guards’ benefit.

He used the combined power of both his
Panthera and Vampire senses to slip unnoticed into her mind and found it full
of sorrow and regret and…

“Guilt,” he said aloud.

He opened his eyes and stared at the door
handle. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to reach for the handle,
open the door and send the guards packing. He wanted nothing more than to move
back into his quarters with his wife. He longed to hold her, kiss her, lie with
her in their bed and make slow, sizzling love to her.

But the warrior part of him reminded him
she had deceived him. She had gone to warn the rebels he was on to them and
that was treason. He didn’t think she realized just how dangerous a thing it
had been for her to do. She could be hanged for the offense. So far only six
people other than her knew of what she’d done. He knew Oran and Marc would
never speak of it. He certainly wouldn’t but he had to make sure the three
women guards didn’t either.

Lowering his hands, he took a deep breath
then rapped firmly on the door rather than simply opening it to walk in.

When the door opened, the guard stepped
aside quickly. “Good eve, General!” she said, alerting the others to his
presence.

“Wait for me in the hall,” he said then
made eye contact with the other two guards. “You as well. Speak to no one. Not
even amongst yourself.”

“Aye, Sir!” the women replied and hurried
past him.

“Close the door,” he told them.

Antonia got up from the chair beside the
blazing hearth. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt but was barefoot. The
sight of her hit him like a battering ram and he spiked a hand through his
hair.

“We need to talk,” he said, taking a seat
in the chair that flanked the other side of the fireplace.

She remained standing though she turned
toward him.

“For the love of the goddess, Tonia, sit,”
he said in a tired voice. He waited until she was perched on the edge of her
seat before motioning her to sit back. “I don’t have a rolled-up newspaper in
my hand, wench.”

Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“To smack you on the nose because you
pissed on my carpet,” he said.

“You were listening,” she accused.

“That’s what spies do,” he replied.

She had the grace to blush a moment before
she looked away from him.

“I’ve had men trying to get past that
rockwall for two days now. Other than packing it full of Z-18 to blast it open
and possibly bring the castle down around our ears they couldn’t find a way to
get in.”

“It is impossible to get in from the
passageways,” she said.

“Didn’t I just say that, wench?” he
queried. “They did, however, find the tunnel.”

Antonia blinked. “What tunnel?”

“The tunnel that begins in the hidden cave
and leads down to what I take to be a safe room,” he answered. “A safe room
that—I might add—has been sealed off so your rebel friends will no longer be
able to use it as their headquarters.”

He watched the color leach from her face.

“We arrested four men but unfortunately
Clay wasn’t among them.”

“What did you do with those men?” she
asked.

“They were hanged this morning.”

Her eyes slowly closed.

“We are at war, Antonia,” he said quietly.

“A war my people did not start,” she said,
chin quivering.

“I beg to differ but that is neither here
nor there.” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, fingers
threaded. “Let’s get something straight, milady. What you did in trying to warn
them was treason. You are my wife and it is only because you are my wife and I
love you more than life itself that you did not swing alongside the rebels. As
it is, I need to go out there and threaten those three women with all manner of
dire punishments if they so much as breathe a word of what you might have said
to them in this room.”

“What did I say that was so wrong?” she
asked, not having missed his declaration of love yet not ready to let on that
she had heard his admission.

“You let it slip that you warned the
rebels.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“I didn’t mean to,” she said. Fear lanced
through her and it showed in her eyes.

“I will handle it, Tonia, but for the love
of the goddess, be careful what you say and if you have questions about me, ask
me, not my soldiers.”

Chastened, she hung her head. “That was
wrong of me and I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

“I sincerely hope not,” he said.

“It won’t, Ricky. Don’t belabor the point,”
she said and winced at the tone of her voice.

He had sorely missed hearing her nickname
for him—a name no one had ever called him save her—and it pleased him she did
so now. It boded well for the reconciliation he hoped to have with her.

“Then let’s put what happened behind us and
move forward,” he said. “I am willing to forget it happened if you swear to me
you won’t do it again.”

“Fine.” She didn’t look up. “I won’t talk
out of turn again,” she mumbled.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,”
he said sternly.

“Aye, well, that’s all you’re gonna get,”
she said with a shrug. When he made no comment to that, she risked looking up
at him through her lashes.

“Do you want me to break my vow, wench?” he
asked. “Is that what this is about?”

“What what is about?”

“You being obstinate and deliberately
obtuse.”

“I am neither,” she said. “I simply won’t
swear to something I may not be able to uphold.”

He pursed his lips and when he spoke he
could hear the frustration in his own voice. “So if Alyxdair Clay were to sneak
into this keep and waylay you for information about me or my staff or our plans
you would tell him what he wants to know?”

“I did not say that,” she replied.

“What would you do if he should find a way
to come to you, wench?”

“I’d tell him to run like hell and I’d help
him do so,” she said. “I would not give him any information—not that I have any
to give him—but I would do everything within my power to keep him safe.”

“Because you love him,” he stated.

“Aye, I do. Like a brother!”

He held her stare for a long time then drew
in a long breath, exhaled and said, “I am your husband, Antonia Lenore Warwyck.
You swore on our Joining day to love, honor and obey me.”

“I did,” she told him. “I do.”

He shook his head. “Nay, wench. I am
beginning to realize the word obey isn’t in your dictionary but if it is the
last thing I do this side of the Veil, I will put it there.”

“How?” she questioned. “By browbeating me
into submission or do you intend to use your—”

He moved so fast she saw nothing but a
blur. One moment she was sitting in her chair and the next he had her over his
lap, one heavy arm slashed across her back to hold her there.

“Don’t you dare!” she had time to say
before his palm came down on her upturned rump.

The hit wasn’t hard. It didn’t hurt but she
yelped nevertheless. The second hit was a little harder and her squeal of
protest stilled his palm on her offended cheek.

“Say one more word other than, ‘aye,
Ricky’, and I swear you won’t be able to sit down for the rest of the eve!” he
warned. “Do you hear me, Tonia?”

She clamped her lips together.

“Tonia?” he queried and when no sound came
from her, he spanked her again, this time hard enough to sting.

“Aye, Ricky!” she shrieked.

He rubbed her ass gently. “Is that what you
wanted?”

“No!”

“I think it was.”

He was caressing her ass—even the cheek he
hadn’t spanked.

“Well, you think wrong!” she snapped.

“I think what you really need is the rod of
punishment, don’t you?”

She gasped but managed to say, “No.”

“No?” he echoed and slipped his hand
between her legs to cup her. “No, wench?” He stroked her firmly.

“No,” she said, her denial less steady.

“Are you sure you don’t need it?” He
increased the pressure of his stroke.

“Somewhat sure,” she agreed, wriggling on
his legs.

“But not completely sure,” he said.

“Not completely, no,” she replied.

“I think you need it,” he told her in a
near whisper. “I think you need it as badly as I need to apply it.”

She lifted her head, angled it up so she
could look at him. “If that lump in your britches is any indication of that
need I’d say you had every reason to do so, knave.”

He smiled. “You’ve been a bad girl.”

“A very bad girl,” she agreed.