DeliveredIntoHisHands

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “No!” Ashlyn said. She scrambled to her feet, being careful not to look at what was on the floor beside the bed.

  “Have one of the guards take you back to the keep and ask the other to wait for me,” Antonia said. “Have him draw a bucket of water from the well and bring it in.”

  Ashlyn didn’t reply. She couldn’t get out of the cabin fast enough.

  “Poor little thing,” Thyme said as she fumbled with the bodice of her gown. “I think we scared her half to death.” She bared her breast to the eager lips of her son who latched on greedily.

  “You didn’t have to ask him twice,” Antonia said with a grin.

  “Like father, like son,” Thyme replied. “Some men just never get over their need to be put to a woman’s breast.”

  Antonia felt heat invade her face. Not because Thyme’s coarse suggestion embarrassed but because Garrick had taken great delight in feeding upon her when they made love. She missed his touch.

  She missed him.

  “I’m sorry, milady,” Thyme said softly.

  “For what?”

  “For reminding you of your man,” the servant said. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  “They aren’t bad memories, Thyme,” Antonia told her. “They are sad memories.”

  An hour later one of the women from a nearby cabin came over to see the baby. She assured Antonia she would stay with Thyme until the servant’s sister-in-law came home from work at the keep. It was well after sunset and Antonia was grateful for the woman’s help. She didn’t like to be out too late.

  On the walk back to Castle Blackthorn, Antonia had a feeling she was being watched. A niggle of concern undulated down her spine but the guard with her was heavily armed. She cast surreptitious glances around her and even stopped at one point to look deliberately behind them.

  “Nothing for you to worry about,” the guard said. He was Modarthan—one of the men assigned by the Crimson Lord himself to watch over her.

  “Someone is trailing us,” she said.

  “Aye, milady, he is, but he means you no harm,” the guard replied.

  He’s just making sure you’re safe.”

  She looked up at him. “My husband?” she asked, holding her breath for the answer.

  “Best we get on to the keep, milady,” the man said.

  “Answer me, please,” she said. She reached out to put her hand on the guard’s arm and could have sworn she heard a low growl from the bushes.

  “Milady, please don’t do that,” the guard advised. “I like my head where it is.”

  “Mayhap I should reserve my touches for the man who wants them,” she said with a sniff.

  When there another low, menacing growl from the bushes, she tossed her head and started walking again.

  “The goddess save me from pigheaded, stubborn men,” she mumbled.

  * * * * *

  “Did we enjoy our little trip to Blackthorn?” Marc asked Garrick when his friend flung the tent flap aside and stomped in.

  “I wasn’t aware you accompanied me,” Garrick snarled.

  “Nay, but I had men on you the entire time,” Marc said. “There is a bounty on you, you know.”

  “Fuck the bounty,” Garrick said. “And fuck the man who put it on me.”

  Marc watched as Garrick stripped off his shirt and threw it aside.

  “By the goddess it is an inferno in here!” he complained.

  “Mayhap if you turned the power grid back on…” Marc began and when Garrick whipped around to send him a narrow-eyed glare, he held up his hands. “Just a thought.”

  “I am sick of this fucking war,” Garrick said. “I am past ready to leave this goddess forsaken backworld and go home!”

  “What of your lady-wife?” Marc inquired, lacing his fingers together and putting them behind his head as he tipped his chair back. “Will you be taking her with us when we return to Modartha?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Garrick grumbled.

  “Aye, hell, you have,” Marc accused. “Who are you trying to convince? Me or yourself?”

  “Fuck you,” Garrick snapped.

  “Not me, Rick. You need your wife for that and the longer you’re away from her, the farther away you are pushing her. You push her far enough, she might land in some other man’s arms.”

  “Arms that would wind up rammed down his throat and up his ass,” Garrick told him.

  “Charming image,” Marc said. “That’s one way to shake your own hands I guess.”

  Garrick sat down on his bunk and peeled off his boots. He flung them across the tent to land atop his shirt then flopped down on the thin mattress.

  “Did you see her while you were over Blackthorn way?” Marc asked. He didn’t think his friend was going to answer but then Garrick sighed heavily and ran a hand over his stubbled face.

  “Aye, I saw her. She was coming back from helping deliver a baby.”

  “She needs one of her own,” Marc suggested.

  “Leave off, Zoltán,” Garrick warned with a fierce scowl.

  Marc grunted. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Rick. You love the woman. Why the hell aren’t you with her?”

  “Because I am running a goddess-be-damned war, you fucking moron!” Garrick shouted at him.

  “Then bring her here.”

  “In the fucking field?” Garrick said, propping up on his elbows. “In the middle of the fighting? Have you lost what little mind you had?”

  “Neither our men or the rebels would let her come to harm,” Marc said.

  “Harm such as a stray mortar falling into my tent?” Garrick demanded.

  “Aye, well, there is that,” Marc replied. “Mayhap she is better off where she is but at least you should go talk to her, be with her. This is a mistake, brother. You are courting disaster the longer you keep away from her.”

  “My mistake to make,” Garrick said, lying down again. He flung an arm over his eyes.

  “Another headache?”

  “No,” Garrick said quietly. “Just fucking tiredness.”

  Marc dropped the front legs of his chair back to the ground. “Then try to rest,” he said and started for the door.

  “She looked tired too,” Garrick said. “And much too thin.”

  “With the blockade in place, food is hard to come by,” Marc reminded him. “I’m sure they’re not on the verge of starving at Blackthorn but they sure as hell aren’t eating as they are accustomed to doing it.”

  “They are housing rebels there,” Garrick said. “We shouldn’t make life easy for them.”

  “You don’t know it for a certainty. We haven’t been able to prove it,” Marc said. “And you’re punishing your lady-wife along with the inhabitants of Castle Blackthorn.”

  “She made her bed,” he said. “And it just means the baron is being careful. He’s also trading on the fact his son-in-law is the invading general. He believes I won’t arrest his ass as a rebel sympathizer.”

  “And you won’t,” Marc said.

  After his friend left him, Garrick lay with his eyes closed, arm over them, and felt every tired muscle, every aching bone in his body. It always hurt to shape shift but in order to outwit the bounty hunters, he’d used first his avian then his feline shapes to make the hundred-mile trip to Blackthorn—a trip he made two and three times a week to check up on his woman. Tonight was the first time she knew he was close to her and he couldn’t help but wonder if he had deliberately made it so she would.

  Goddess, how he missed her, he thought with a groan. His treacherous body throbbed with wanting her. His heart ached so badly he had trouble drawing breath at times. Every time they entered a town or village in the southern part of Volakis where gardenias were in late bloom, he felt a lump gathering in his throat. The scent nearly drove him mad. At night, his nightmares were filled with images of Antonia in the arms of his enemy, Clay’s mouth fastened to hers. Waking with sweat pouring down his face and chest, he would spend the interminable daylight hours drenched in he
artbreaking pain.

  He loved her. More than anything he’d ever known.

  But he didn’t trust her.

  “Did you not hear what she said to you that night?” Marc had asked a few weeks earlier.

  He hadn’t. He had been too enraged that she had stepped between him and Clay. Paralyzed with fear that she could have been killed. Hurt that she had chosen his enemy over him.

  “The woman said she didn’t want either of you to die,” Marc stated. “She was trying to save you as much as she was Clay.”

  In looking back on that night, Marc was right. Antonia had been looking at Clay when the blade of Garrick’s dagger struck her arm. Looking at Clay, preventing him from harming her husband.

  A loud groan came from Garrick’s chest.

  He had accused her of something she hadn’t done. Had left her because his pride had been wounded. Had stayed away from her all this time to punish her yet he was punishing himself, as well.

  * * * * *

  At first she thought the man who came rushing toward her was Alyx. He had the same build, the same color hair and he was wearing a rebel uniform. It was the wide smile, the laughing brown eyes that were nothing like Alyx’s that set her straight. She didn’t know this man and the fact that he was coming at her like a freight train made her take a step back.

  “Milady!” he said, laughter rife in the word. “Thank you! Thank you!”

  “Oh, hell’s bells. That’s Thyme’s husband, Henry,” Cherise said as she spun around. “I’m outta here!”

  Antonia glanced with irritation at her maid but Cherise was walking rapidly away. She sighed. No doubt the man sprinting across the main hall had known the dubious charms of Cherise Tucker as had so many men before him.

  “Milady, I love you!” Henry Belvoir proclaimed as he went to one knee before Antonia, grabbing her hand to bring to his lips. “I love you with all my heart!”

  Antonia didn’t know what to say. Before she could think of something, he shot to his feet, flung his arms around her and hugged her, lifting her feet from the floor.

  “You have made me the happiest man on Volakis!” he told her. “I love you!”

  “Henry,” she said with a squeak for he was squeezing her so tightly she felt oxygen deprived.

  Beyond his shoulder she saw Garrick suddenly appear, stepping from the shadows and into the light from the candelabras flanking the entrance to the main hall.

  “Henry, put me down!” she hissed urgently for the look on her husband’s face was miles beyond dangerous and rapidly approaching the realm of death.

  “I love you!” Henry said again and then did something that would cost him his life. He kissed her.

  A roar of rage shattered the quiet of the keep. In a blur of movement the Crimson Lord sped across the distance and grabbed the man holding his wife.

  “Garrick, no!” Antonia yelled. “It’s not what you think!”

  Garrick Warwyck was beyond thinking. He flung the rebel warrior all the way across the wide hall, then with jaw tightly clenched, hands balled into fists, went after him.

  “Garrick!” his wife yelled and ran to him, tried to grab his arm but he was insane with fury.

  He didn’t see her. Didn’t attempt to focus on her as he jerked his arm from her hold. When she tried to halt him again, he reacted without thinking and backhanded her, knocking her to the floor. She hit her head on the leg of a table as she went down but he paid no attention to the sound of the vase atop that table toppling to the floor and shattering.

  Antonia was stunned, seeing double. She struggled to get up but she put her palm down on the broken glass and it cut deep. Gasping, she jerked her hand away, whimpering with pain. It was the sound Henry Belvoir made that snapped her head around—vision blurring—as Garrick grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him from the floor. He spanned the side of the rebel’s neck with one strong hand—thumb jammed under Henry’s chin—and lifted him a good foot into the air.

  “Milord, please!” Henry pleaded, choking, his face leached of color, terrified eyes wide. “I meant no—”

  Through a haze of pain Antonia saw Garrick’s fangs descend. She opened her mouth to scream at him to stop but there was no time. He slammed those fangs into Henry’s neck as deep as they would go and with the man struggling against him, trying to kick him. As she watched in utter horror, her husband brought the flailing man’s body tight to his as though in a lover’s embrace and she knew Henry Belvoir’s life was forfeit. She also knew there was nothing she could do to stop the carnage. The sound of the Crimson Lord feeding on the hapless rebel, draining him of his life’s blood was overly loud in her ears. She felt faint, nauseous but it was the coup de grâce Garrick exacted upon the dead man that sent her into blackness—taking with her Henry Belvoir’s head rolling across the floor.

  Chapter Eleven

  He was sitting in a chair beside her bed when she came to. A single candle on the night stand cast his face in shadows. His left elbow rested on the chair arm, his middle and index fingers against his temple, his thumb under his chin. His other arm lay along the chair rest, his fingers curled loosely over the edge. He was staring intently at her from under the curtain of his long lashes and his face was devoid of expression though his eyes were mean, as cold as the arctic realms. Oddly he was not wearing the black uniform shirt she was accustomed to seeing him in but a white button-down, the arms of which were rolled to his elbows. The shirt hung free of a pair of jeans she’d never seen him wear, either. He was barefoot with one ankle crooked over his knee. His hair looked wet, slicked straight back from his forehead. The smell of soap and shampoo clung to the air.

  Instinct told her he had bathed the blood of Henry Belvoir from him and was sitting there dressed in borrowed clothing for he had taken all of his with him when he left her back in the winter.

  She was in her nightgown beneath the sheet and felt defenseless as he stared at her without blinking.

  “It wasn’t what you thought,” she said and could not stop her bottom lip from quivering.

  He didn’t reply, just kept looking at her with such intensity she felt naked under his stony gaze.

  “He was thanking me for—”

  “Shut up,” he ordered in a voice was soft but filled with tightly controlled rage.

  Beyond the door to their bedchamber she could hear commotion, loud voices. She wanted to ask him what was happening but there was such brutal anger lashing at her from his steady eyes she was afraid to do so.

  He continued to glare at her until there was a light knock at the door. He angled his head toward the door but kept his gaze riveted on her.

  “What?” he snapped.

  The door opened slowly as though the person behind it was afraid for his or her life. When the young man appeared—a Modarthan dressed in the uniform of a second lieutenant—he looked frightened of having intruded on his commanding officer.

  “What?” Garrick shouted and both the man at the door and Antonia jumped.

  “Begging your pardon, General, but the household has been evacuated as you ordered.”

  “Evacuated?” Antonia asked.

  “The baron and his woman? Their youngest?” Garrick queried, his eyes still locked on her.

  “In chains, Sir, and in the transport.”

  Antonia’s mouth dropped open. “You have arrested my parents and my sister?”

  “Take them on to Maechin,” Garrick ordered. “I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Aye, Sir!” the lieutenant acknowledged. He slapped his doubled right fist to his heart then closed the door behind him.

  “Maechin,” she whispered. “The Modartha stockade?”

  Garrick didn’t answer. He had turned his head toward her once again and she saw his nostrils flare as though he was breathing in something offensive.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen, Antonia,” he said, straightening in the chair, lacing his fingers together and resting them on his stomach. “I am about to issue the order to br
ing this wretched pile of stones to the ground. Every stick of furniture, every drapery, every painting, everything that remains will be put to the torch. There will not be one block, one timber, or one girder left standing when I am through.”

  “You can’t do that!” she said, horrified. “This is my home. You can’t destroy it!”

  “I can’t?” he asked in a light tone then his eyes narrowed. The tone became brutally sardonic. “Just watch me!”

  “Garrick, please…”

  “You have two choices. You can either stay here or run to safety with the other rats gathered below. It doesn’t matter one way or the other with me. Castle Blackthorn ends this night.”

  He pushed up from the chair and turned away from her.

  “Garrick, I’m begging you!” she pleaded with him, coming to her knees on the bed. “Please don’t do this!”

  He stopped, looked around and swept his eyes over her—expression as hard as steel—then turned away again, striding purposefully to the door.

  “Garrick!” she called after him.

  He opened the door and walked out as she yelled his name.

  From the hillside that overlooked Castle Blackthorn, Garrick sat on his stallion with his wrists crossed over the pommel and watched fire leaping from the windows of his wife’s ancestral home. Milling about in front and to the sides of the blazing inferno were those who had called the keep their home—some for generations. He could hear the crying, sobbing and the wails of despair rolling up the hillside but felt curiously numb to the servants’ plight. They were all rebels—down to the last stable boy—and the safe haven that had protected them was gone. He could not find it in his heart to feel sorry for them but he would see they had accommodations before morning. He owed that much to the woman who had broken his heart.

  In the pitch black of the night, the orange and red and yellow flames leapt to the heavens as sparks flitted on the smoky air like fireflies. A thick pall of gray smoke hung over the conflagration, billowing higher as each new section of the keep caved in. The roof was still standing but it was only a matter of time before the blazing timbers gave way and the keep was leveled.