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 wit
h 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.
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 h
is 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.”
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