DeliveredIntoHisHands (2 page)

“I prefer to stand.”

“That wasn’t an invitation. It was a
fucking order, bitch!” he bellowed.

“Don’t call me a bitch, Garrick,” she
warned.

“I’ll call you whatever the hell I feel
like calling you,” he sneered. “Slut, whore, adulteress.” His eyes narrowed. “Cunt.”

She gave him a look that should have turned
him to ash where he stood but when he started around the desk, she was quick to
take a seat, undoubtedly realizing she was pushing him to his limits.

“You were always a brutal bastard,” she
said, clutching her hands in her lap.

“I am what you made of me,” he replied.

They were silent for a long time while he
glared down at her from across the table. He had the urge to reach across the
distance and drag her to him. A part of him wanted to beat her black and blue
while another wanted something far more dangerous.

“You all but ruined me, Antonia,” he said
at last.

“I?” she asked, eyes widened.

“By the goddess you crippled me in ways I
hate to admit even now,” he said through clenched teeth. His fists were opening
and closing at his sides.

“And what of you, Garrick Warwyck? What of
you? You destroyed everything. Everything!” she said. Tears rolled down her
cheeks. “You took all that I held dear and turned it to rubble!”

“Aye, you always cared more for that great
pile of stones than you ever did for me,” he said, hurt making his headache
pound unmercifully.

“That keep was my home, Garrick. My home!
It had been in my family for centuries. With a careless wave of your bloody
hand you destroyed it.”

“And with it a rebel stronghold that
existed right under my nose.” He fisted his hands and pressed them to the
desktop, leaning toward her. “Imagine my surprise to learn my wife was helping
to direct my enemies from the very bedroom she shared nightly with me!”

She shook her head. “That is not true.”

“The hell it isn’t!” He threw each word at
her as though it were a rock. “You sheltered and fed and cared for them,
protected and directed them. You were their contact in the Danais Province.
Don’t you sit there and fucking deny it!”

“Then send me to my death and be done with
it!” she shouted. “Incinerate this faithless heart that wishes you had died
years ago in the wreckage of my ancestral home! Scatter what is left of me
there!”

“The debris at Castle Blackthorn was
removed years ago,” he said, his chin raised. “A new keep was built on the old
foundation. That keep has a very fine dungeon. Guess where you will be spending
eternity, my love.”

Her mouth dropped open. “A new keep?” she
whispered, shock turning her green eyes almost black.

“Warwyck Castle,” he said proudly.

“You built your keep on the backbone of my
family’s fortress?” she asked, astonishment making her face pale even more.

“I built the keep on my land,” he said. “It
was forfeited when your family were charged with treason. I bought it and I can
do anything with it that I like.” He knew his slow, taunting smile was hateful
for he could see it mirrored in her stricken eyes. “As I can do whatever I like
with my rebel wife.”

Tears falling down her cheeks, she stared
at him with growing horror then slumped in the chair, her shoulders sagging.
She hung her head—her limp hair covering her smudged cheeks. A hitching sob
left her throat and she put a quaking hand to her lips. The links of the
manacle clanked together.

“Your tears no longer affect me, Antonia,”
he said, straightening up, crossing his arms over his chest. “They mean nothing
to me.”

“They never did,” she said in a small,
defeated voice that cracked over the words.

He looked down at the top of her head and
had a rebellious desire to smooth his palm over it, to soothe her. It was all
he could do not to do just that.

“Let me die, Garrick,” she whispered.

“Never.”

She raised her tear-stained face to him,
pleading with her eyes. “If you ever cared anything at all for me, please just
let me die.”

“Give me Alyxdair Clay and I will allow you
to die.”

He watched her chest cease to move. Fear
ran rampant through her eyes though she did not blink. She was watching him as
though he were a ghoret poised to strike. When she did not speak—just continued
to stare at him—he nodded.

“I thought not,” he said bitterly. “I’ve
always known his life meant more to you than your own.”

“There was a time when your life meant more
to me than his,” she said.

He snorted. “Liar.”

“Believe what you will,” she said in a
tired voice.

“There might have been a time when you
pretended I meant more to you than him,” he accused. “But that time is long
gone.”

“With the razed timbers of Castle
Blackthorn,” she said softly.

“Like the love I once had for you,” he
said.

“Aye,” she agreed on a long exhalation of
weary breath. “That love is surely gone.”

He looked down at the Joining band on her
arm. “I’m surprised you didn’t have it lasered off.”

Tiredly, she lowered her gaze to the band.
“I wouldn’t have done that. I needed a remainder.”

“A reminder of what?”

Her smile was fleeing as she turned her
face from him. “Of just how much I hate you.”

The tent flap opened and Capt. Marcus
Zoltán—Garrick’s second-in-command and his best friend since childhood—rushed
in. He came up short as soon as he saw the profile of the woman sitting in the
chair.

“By Bastet, it can’t be!” he said. “Tonia?”
He looked down at her manacled wrists and winced.

“You’d better have a goddess-be-damned good
reason for intruding, Marcus,” Garrick snapped.

Marcus tore his gaze from Antonia to look
at Garrick. “Oran told me she’d been found but I couldn’t believe my ears. I
had to see her with my own eyes.”

“Now that you have, you may leave,” Garrick
told him. “And take the rebel whore with you.”

His 2-I-C shot him a surprised look. “Beg
pardon?”

“Take her with you as you go and leave her
with the healer. Tell him to clean up her ass. She stinks.”

Antonia gave Garrick a withering look but
remained silent.

Marc’s forehead creased. “But—”

“I gave you an order, Captain!” Garrick
shouted.

“What of the shackles?” Marc asked.

“They stay where they are.”

“Garrick, please,” he said. “This is
Tonia.”

“And that is precisely why the chains stay
where they are,” Garrick stated.

“You can’t—”

“Do not argue with me! Do what you are
told, mister!” Garrick bellowed. He clamped his mouth into a thin, straight
line, a muscle flexing savagely in his cheek.

“Aye, Sir!” Marc acknowledged with a harsh
look to his friend. He gently took Antonia’s arm and helped her up.

“When you’ve delivered her to the healer, I
want you back here. You and I need to have a little talk, Zoltán,” Garrick
said.

Antonia gave Marc a tremulous smile but he
dared not answer it. His commanding officer—who at that moment was not the
friend he’d known for over thirty years—was staring daggers at him. He escorted
her from the tent and away from the red-hot glower that made him shift his
shoulders.

“He’s not angry at you,” she said as he
shortened his steps to accommodate the shackles binding her legs.

“Aye, well, I’m angry at him,” Marcus said
around a stiff jaw.

“Don’t be, Marc. Not over me,” she said.

He looked down at her manacled wrists.
“That is just wrong, Tonia.”

“He believes he has his reasons and there
is a death warrant out for me,” she reminded him.

Marc stopped, whipping his head around to
stare at her in horror. “By the goddess, I’m not about to let them execute you
with the others!” he stated, his eyes pinpoints of fury.

“Neither is he,” she said on a long sigh.
“Trust me. My death is the last thing he wants.” She tried to smile but didn’t
seem to be able to. “He wants to punish me himself for as long as I draw
breath.”

* * * * *

Garrick had always had an open door—or in
the case when in the field—open tent policy. He did not generally require his
men to seek permission to enter. After all, he was the commander of the
greatest army in the Cairghrian Galaxy. Privacy was not an option. He had to be
accessible at all times to his trusted staff. Besides, only five men enjoyed
that distinction and only they were ever allowed inside the tent. If they came
visiting, there was a reason.

Marc returned half an hour later with his
shoulders squared and his jaw set, expecting to do verbal—if not actual
physical—battle with his old friend. To find Garrick lying on his back on the
cot with an arm flung over his eyes was not a good sign.

“Where is the algés?” he asked quietly.

“Desk,” Garrick mumbled.

Moving to the desk, Marc opened the only
drawer and took out the vac-syringe, a foil packet containing an alcohol swab,
and a vial of the heavy-duty med that was needed. With expert efficiency from
having performed the procedure hundreds of times, he quickly filled the
vac-syringe, returned the vial to the drawer and went over to the cot.

“Put your arm down,” he said, his voice
barely above a whisper for he knew the faintest sound was magnified a thousand
times in Garrick’s brain.

With a shuddery sigh, Garrick let his arm
fall above his head. Without being asked, he turned his head to give Marc
access to the pounding vein in his neck.

“When did this start or do I need to ask?”

“You don’t.”

Marc laid the vac-syringe on Garrick’s
chest then tore the foil packet open with his teeth. He swabbed his friend’s
neck. “Okay,” he said, picking up the vac-syringe. “Ready?”

“I’m never ready,” Garrick said and let out
a yelp when the needle drove into the column of his neck. “Fuck that burns like
fire!”

“You’re such a pussy,” Marc told him.

“Let me inject that shit in your vein and
see how you like it,” Garrick groused. “It spreads like fire through my fucking
brain.”

Almost instantly the med began to take
effect. Garrick put his arm over his eyes again to block out the light from the
lantern on his desk. “Did you get her settled?” he asked, his words already
slurring.

“I told the healer to let her take a shower
then give her something to eat. By the goddess, Rick, she looks half-starved,”
Marc replied.

“Clay doesn’t take very good care of his
whores, does he?”

Marc frowned. “Don’t do that,” he said.
“You know goddess-be-damned well she is not that.”

“She left me for him,” Garrick said. “What
does that say about her?”

“What now?” Marc asked, not wanting to get
into the specifics of what had happened at Castle Blackthorn all those years
before.

“She broke my heart,” Garrick said. “It’s
only fitting that I break hers.”

The hills overlooking Castle Blackthorn, twelve years
earlier

“Is he dead?”

Lady Antonia Blackthorn barely glanced at
her little sister. “I don’t know.”

A low groan and a ripple of agony undulated
down the warrior lying in front of Antonia.

“Get the canteen from the saddle,” Antonia
ordered.

Lady Ashlyn Blackthorn nodded. She pushed
up from her kneeling position beside her sister and hurried to her sister’s
horse. She grabbed the canteen and ran back, handing it to Antonia.

“Take my horse and ride back to the keep.
Tell Arbra to bring a cart. We need to get this man help if he is to survive.”

At the ripe old age of twelve—today being
her birthday—she would at last get to ride the Arabachian stallion that was her
older sister’s pride and joy. Running to the mount, she had trouble getting her
foot into the stirrup but Corbeau stood very still—his black coat gleaming in
the moonlight—as though the beast knew she was but a child. Grunting as she
threw her spindly leg over the mount, Ashlyn drummed her little heels into his
sides.

“And tell Arbra to bring the healer with
him!” Antonia shouted after her sister.

The man who lay so still was staked to the
ground with iron bands around his wrists and ankles. His bare arms, chest and
legs were burned horribly but the flesh was rejuvenating even as she watched.
Across his hips was a loincloth, which meant he was of the nobility. Whoever
had staked him in the sun would not have been as respectful of his modesty had
he been a peasant.

His face was turned away from her and she
had no desire to see it. If the flesh was as charred as the rest of him, the
memory would haunt her forever. When he groaned again, she looked away from the
loincloth to his chin. She saw him sweep his tongue slowly along his upper lip.

“You are safe now, milord,” she said and he
jumped.

With effort he began to turn his head.

“Water,” he pleaded.

She dared not touch him for fear she would
cause him more hurt.

And for another, more pressing reason.

Instead, she uncapped the canteen and held
it above his face, trying not to look at anything but the blistered lips. Yet
as she trickled the water into his open mouth, her gaze moved up to his eyes
and held.

They were the most beautiful blue eyes
she’d ever seen on a man or woman. Long, thick dark lashes framed them to
perfection. Though they were filled with horrible pain, they seemed to be
probing into her soul. Deep twin grooves angled downward from the sides of his
eyes—giving evidence this man smiled often and easily. As his throat worked
convulsively to swallow, those eyes flickered as if the very act of getting the
water down was agony. When he closed his lips, the water flowed over his mouth
and lips before she moved the canteen.

“Enough?” she asked.

“Aye,” he managed to say then those dark
lashes fluttered closed and he sank back into unconsciousness.

Kneeling there so closely beside him that
the skirt of her gown touched his burned side, she wondered who he was and what
he was doing on her world. He was not a Volakisian. She did not recognize the
tribal tattoos that were beginning to reappear on the undersides of his
forearms. Under one tat were words in a language she did not know. A niggling
suspicion in the back of her mind told her he was the Modarthan for whom her
father had been waiting.

As the blistered, ruined flesh of his face
regenerated, the image of a very striking man began to appear amid the hideous
carnage. When fully healed, she knew he would be one exceedingly handsome
warrior. Already the restoring skin on his rib cage was beginning to reveal
corded muscles that were striated across the abdominals. His physique would be
what her Serenian lady’s maid called “ripped”.

“Who are you?” she whispered, aching to
push back the lank brown hair that fell over the deep horizontal lines of his
forehead but the skin there wasn’t fully healed.

And she dared not put her hands to him
anyway.

She tore her attention from his face to his
wrists. The bones beneath the iron bands were clearly visible—the flesh melted
away. Until the magic-suppression armlets and anklets were gone from him, the
flesh there would not heal and it would be excruciating when the restraints
were removed.

Her knees finally giving out from being
pressed into the rocky ground, she dropped to her rump with her legs curled
beside her. She set down the canteen and folded her hands in her lap—lacing the
fingers together to keep from touching the warrior. She did not understand the
compelling desire to do such a thing. Outside her father and uncle, she’d never
laid hands to a male. It was forbidden until the one who was to be her
Life-mate entered her life. When that one appeared, she would be drawn,
compelled, to touch him, unable not to put her hands to him. That had been the
prophecy of the Chosen One for Antonia Blackthorn, firstborn daughter of the
Black Baron.

“Are you him?” she asked, her eyes moving
over the beautifully formed face that was now free of ravages. “Is that why I
have this yearning to touch you?” She lifted her right hand and started to do
just that. Her hand trembled violently the closer it came to his naked chest.
She swallowed, took a deep breath then…

In the distance she heard the jingle of
harnesses and knew her father’s Sargent-at-Arms Dobryn Arbra would soon come
riding in ahead of the wagon. The steady, pounding clop of racing hooves on the
road reached her ears as that thought flitted through her mind. She angled her
head toward the rolling hills over which he would ride and smiled when she saw
his large roan thundering over the crest.

She snatched her hand back, feeling as
though she escaped a horrible fate.

“Milady?”

The weak voice held a tinge of panic and
she snapped her head around, wanting to reassure him.

“It’s just my father’s man,” she said. “You
are safe, milord. Fear not.”

“F-father?” he questioned and his eyes
narrowed in unspeakable pain.

“Baron Demas Blackthorn,” she answered and
watched him slowly close his eyes. She could almost hear what she took to be a
sigh of relief her words brought to him. “Are you the one for whom he sent?”

He did not answer for he had fallen back
into unconsciousness, his lips parted to reveal his fangs.

Her eyes widened. “Vampire,” she whispered
and a tiny chill flitted through her. Her gaze went to his chest as it rose and
fell. She longed to put her palm against his heart.

A long sigh escaped her. “Aye,” she said.
“I believe you are that warrior,” she said.

Arbra’s horse came to a skidding stop about
five yards away. She watched as he swung a leg over the mount’s head and slid
to the ground, hitting it running as he rushed to her.

“What happened?” he asked in his gruff
Rysalian brogue.

“I believe this is the man Father has been
expecting,” she said, realizing she was blocking the man from Arbra’s view.

“Ash said he was dead,” Arbra stated.
“Staked in the Sun.”

“Aye, but he is alive and rejuvenating at a
good rate,” she replied.

Arbra hunkered down on the other side of
the warrior. His dark-brown eyes widened. “Merciful Alel, that’s not the man
your father sent for. That’s the king’s bastard son!”

Antonia gasped and scrambled to her feet,
putting distance between her and the man on the ground.

“Lord Garrick Warwyck?” she asked in a
voice a full octave higher than normal.

“Aye, the Crimson Lord, himself,” Arbra
agree. “The man they call the King’s Executioner. He’s a Panthera Vampire.”

“That’s worse yet! I wish I’d not come
across him,” she said, backing farther away.

“It’s a good thing you did, lass. One more Sunrise
and he would have been ash,” Arbra said.

“I want to touch him, Dobryn,” she said.
“It’s all I can do not to!”

Arbra slowly turned his head and looked up
at her, eyes wide. “Say again?” he asked in an ominous tone.

“I want to put my hands on him!” she said,
beginning to tremble. She clutched her hands in front of her—twisting them as
though she were striving to rid them of contamination.

“Nay,” Arbra said, shaking his great mane
of white hair. “That can’t be.”

“I almost did,” she said. Tears were
forming in her eyes. “Had I not heard you coming I would have.”

“Get your ass on my horse and get out of
here,” Arbra said. He returned his hawk-like gaze to the man on the ground. “Do
it now, Tonia!”

She needed no second command. Hiking up her
skirt, she ran as fast as she could and all but vaulted into the saddle, jerked
the mount’s head more viciously than she intended to turn it. She hissed her
apology to the animal as she spurred him into motion.

As his employer’s eldest daughter raced
toward Castle Blackthorn, Arbra stared at what he instinctively knew was going
to be prime trouble. Except for that portion of his body clamped beneath the
iron bands, the Crimson Lord’s flesh had completely regenerated. The heavy
muscles of his chest, the bulging muscles of his arms, and the sturdy girth of
his thighs bespoke the rigorous training through which the Modarthans had put
the warrior. The tribal tattoos that marked him for who and what he was brought
a groan from the Sargent-at-Arms’ thin lips.

“Sweet Merciful Alel. Why you?” he asked.
“Why the fuck you of all the warriors in the Megaverse?”

As though he’d heard the questions, the
warrior slowly opened his eyes. There was unspeakable agony registering there
but it was overridden by keen intelligence.

“My Life-mate?” he whispered.

“Aye,” Arbra said on a long sigh. “I fear
so, milord.”

“Pretty.”

“Aye, well, pretty is as pretty does and
you’re going to have your hands full with that one,” Arbra told him.

“Worth it,” the tortured man said and his
eyes crinkled a second or two before he was plunged back into darkness.

* * * * *

“The bastard son of King Larrion?” Baron
Demas Blackthorn shouted at the top of his lungs. “That is the man to whom she
is bonded?”

“Not yet,” Arbra said. “She did not touch
him. I sent her away as soon as she told me she wanted to put her hands on
him.”

“Argh!” Antonia’s father bellowed, pulling
his hair with both hands. “How could this have happened?”

“’Tis the goddess’ will, husband,” Lady
Maripose Blackthorn informed him. “Do not blame either your daughter or the
Crimson Lord for the pairing. ’Tis none of their doing. Sibylline, Herself,
made the match.”

“I will send her to Galrath!” the baron
stated.

“You’ll do no such thing,” his wife denied.
The thought of her lovely daughter consigned to the infamous convent on Serenia
sent shivers down her spine. “You will not interfere, Demas.” She turned her
exquisite porcelain features to Arbra. “And neither will you. It’s bad enough
you already have.” She shook her finger at him. “You’d best pray the goddess
does not take Her anger out on you for interfering, Dobryn Arbra!”

“She’s not my goddess,” Arbra said, his
chin in the air. “I worship Alel and there is no other god—”

“Shush!” Lady Maripose hissed at him. “Do
not tempt Her to prove to you that you are wrong!”

“I would listen to my Lady-wife if I were
you, Dorbryn,” the baron warned. He gave his wife a tender look. “Where is
Tonia now?”

“Hiding in her room with the covers drawn
over her head. Quaking and mumbling like a little coward,” Lady Maripose
answered with disgust. “You know how she fears cats.”

“An irrational terror,” her husband
grumbled. “Lord Garrick is Panthera, a respectable species.”

“He is also a Vampire,” Lady Maripose
pointed out. “That trumps Panthera.”

“Why would King Lorrian send his bastard
son in the place of the commander of the Modarthan army?” Lord Alyxdair Clay
asked from the hearth where he was standing with an arm braced on the great
oaken mantle. He was the commanding officer of the Volakisian guard.

“There can be only one reason,” the baron
said. “The Crimson Lord is now in charge of the Modarthan forces.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Lord Alyxdair said
with a sharp frown creasing his brow.

“Not for us it isn’t,” the baron mumbled.
“We dare not continue with our plan under the present circumstances.”

“For such smart men, the two of you have so
little foresight,” Lady Maripose said. She plumped the skirts of her gown
around her and shifted more comfortably in her chair.

“How so?” her husband inquired. He had long
known his Lady-wife was a much better strategist that he.

And much more coldblooded.

“This warrior is your daughter’s Chosen
whether we like it or not. There is nothing we can do about it,” she replied
with a look at the fingernails of her right hand. “He will be bound to her in
ways we can use to our advantage.”

The eyebrows of all three men shifted
upward.

Lady Maripose smiled. “Do you see where I
am going with this, Demas?”

“Indeed I do, love,” her husband agreed. He
lifted his head and looked toward the bedchambers where their guest had been
taken. The room was on the opposite side of the keep from his daughters’. “He
owes her his life.”

“Aye, he does,” Lady Maripose agreed.

“I don’t like this,” Lord Alyxdair said.
“Not one bit.”

“That is because you always hoped it would
be you who would be Tonia’s Chosen,” Lady Maripose said. “Did I not tell you
long ago that was not the case, Alyx?”

“Aye, milady, but I prayed you were wrong.
I had hoped she would grow into her need for me as her Life-mate.” The young
man ran a hand over his face. “She is my heart.”

“That is most unfortunate,” Lady Maripose
said with a sigh. “But neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.”