“Aye and not only hers,” Garrick said. “We may be able to discover where the rebels went after they left the security of Blackthorn.”
Chapter Eight
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 f
rom 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.
“I think we should do something about it, don’t you?”
“Mayhap.”
He squeezed her between the legs one last time then lifted his restraining arm from her back. “No mayhap about it, woman.”
* * * * *
Stretching languidly, Antonia turned to her side to await her husband’s return. She’d been punished with his rod—vigorously and often—in the last two hours. It wasn’t until he was about to punish her a third time that he remembered the women standing in the hall.
“Shit!” he hissed and jumped from the bed. “I forgot about those goddess-be-damned guards!” He started out of the bedchamber as naked as the day he’d been born.
“Your pants?” she offered, propping herself up on an elbow.
He skidded to a stop, looked down then groaned. Snatching up his pants, he struggled to put his foot into the leg.
She watched him stumbling around as he tried to put on his pants standing up and smiled. He looked so young, so endearing but the words coming out of his mouth turned the air around him blue.
“Hurry back,” she said as he finally got the pants on and was fumbling with the buttons. “I want you to teach me how to suck your cock.”
He snapped his head around to give her a shocked look and ran right into the wall, bouncing back like a ball. He hesitated, took a step back toward the bed.
“The guards?” she questioned, an eyebrow raised.
“Fuck!” he snarled and spun around.
“I intend to!” she called out and heard him run into something. He yelped and then there was a hopping sound.
When he came back, he was limping but there were was such heat, such intense need in his blue eyes they were like spotlights training on her. He came to stand by the bed, looking down at her hungrily.
She patted the bed. “Sit down, knave.”
“Sit?” he questioned in a tone that suggested he had no idea what the word meant.
“Aye,” she replied. “Sit.”
His brows drew together but he turned and sat down on the mattress. “It’s going to be hard to teach you with my pants on,” he told her.
“Patience, knave,” she said. She sat up, got to her knees then put her hands on his shoulders. The muscles there were as hard as stone. “You need to relax first.”
“Wench…”
“You need to relax first,” she repeated as she began to knead the tenseness from his shoulders. Fingers digging firmly into his flesh, she heard him moan. His head fell back and she leaned in to kiss the side of his face, the whiskers tickling her lips.
“I should punish you more often, wench,” he mumbled.
She smiled then pressed her mouth to his ear. “Then I’ll be bad more often so you can,” she whispered.
He shuddered as her warm breath invaded his ear and she felt the edge of the mattress dip where he was gripping it tightly with both hands.
“Relax,” she whispered, drawing the word out until it was a slow, sensuous hiss in his ear.
“I can’t, wench. My cock is so hard I could dent titanium with it.”
She sighed then scrambled from the bed to stand in front of him. When he started to reach for her, she shook her head. “Keep your hands to yourself and let me pleasure you.”
Once more he shivered and she saw his right leg begin to bounce, his bare toes levering it from the carpet.
Standing naked before him was making his cock flex against the front of his pants but it was also giving him something to stare at. His eyes were locked on her crotch. As she sank gracefully to the floor at his feet, those eyes leapt to her face. She put her palms on his thighs to push his legs farther apart and another moan came from deep within his throat. She moved closer then shifted her hands to the buttons of his fly, the top one of which was already undone.
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