DeliveredIntoHisHands

by Charlotte Boyett-Compo

  “Garrick, do it!” she pleaded, rubbing herself against him.

  Lust, the forceful desire to copulate with her male was riding her hard. It was an intense itch that could only be satisfied by the one who had bitten her. No other male would ever be able to mount her after the Changing. She would kill any who dared try.

  And it wasn’t just the vampire part of him that had entered her when he bit her. The Panthera hellion would have forced its own proteins into the mix. No one had ever been able to explain to him how that happened, what caused it, but he suspected the hellion did not like playing second fiddle to the vampire part of his being.

  “Easy, wench,” he said, trying to control her but finding it increasingly hard to do. She was thrusting her pelvis against his and every part of him was screaming for release. He took a deep breath then lifted her clear of the floor, carrying her squirming and moaning to his bunk, and came down hard atop her, releasing her hands at the last moment. Her arms latched like boa constrictors around his neck, pulling him to her like a drowning woman clutching a life preserver.

  One of the strange, unexplainable—but useful—powers of the Panthera was the ability to dematerialize clothing on command. He rarely used that power but at that moment he stripped them both naked so that his flesh and hers became a fusion of gyrating, undulating body-to-body dynamism. Her body temperature had soared so high she was glistening with sweat.

  Her legs came up to trap his waist—clamping around him fiercely as she locked her ankles—and she rubbed her wet cunt against his crotch. The scent of her readiness to mate did wicked things to his cock and he reached down to grab it so he could ram it into her as hard as they both wanted him to.

  It had been years since he had slid into the heated velvet warmth of his wife’s body. Months since he’d taken matters into his own hand. He had not lain with a woman since the last time he had made love to Antonia in their bed in Castle Blackthorn. All the pent-up years of wanting her, missing her, needing her was in the thrust that carried his cock deep into her slick sheath.

  “Garrick!” she screamed and clawed savagely at his back as she lifted and thrust her hips into the cradle of his.

  He jammed his hands beneath her ass and lifted her to him, pushing himself as deep as he could go, withdrawing then ramming into her hard enough to make the bunk vibrate beneath them. He could feel blood running down his back for she was savagely clawing him with each powerful thrust.

  The Changing was advancing faster than he could have anticipated. He almost feared giving her his blood and decided he should wait until their next mating before he did.

  That decision was taken from him as she lifted her head and sank her teeth into his jugular. She latched her lips on his flesh, began to suck hungrily. The fierceness of her swallowing stunned him but he didn’t have long to consider it. Bright, intense spirals of light exploded around him and the burning need in his cock intensified ten times over. The arousal was so powerful his entire body quaked with it. He dug his fingernails into her ass and slammed mindlessly into her, craving to satisfy the wild urge that was rocketing through him.

  Her cunt was slick with their combined juices and for some strange reason the barb on the end of his cock had risen. He could feel it dragging across that small, rough mound at the top of her vaginal wall and with every pass she shuddered, raking his back until it hurt, and moaned.

  Feeling her tongue lapping at the puncture wounds in his neck, swirling around them, he realized her canines had extended into fangs. Too soon, he thought. The Changing was occurring too quickly—far sooner than it should have—and he wondered if he had created a Life-mate he might not be able to control.

  Arching up to meet his every thrust, his wife released his neck and began whipping her head from side to side. Her face was gleaming with sweat and tendrils of hair were stuck to it. Her eyes were wild and they were now entirely red.

  She was in pain. He knew she was because he could feel it down to the marrow of his bones. It was a superheated agony that was tearing through her and changing organs as it flowed. Though she was more aroused than she would ever be again and was filled with mindless lust, he knew she hurt. It couldn’t be helped now but he was ashamed he had not ushered her into being One with the Blood as he had sworn he would.

  “Garrick!”

  Her scream was long and went on and on as her release rippled through her. So strong were the pulses around his cock—so tight and so powerful—it was actually painful. It felt as though his shaft was being squeezed with a vice. Her inner muscles were undulating around it, milking it, clasping it so forcefully he grunted with the discomfort.

  Then he came. Harder and longer and more powerfully than he ever had. He thought the top of his head would explode as dark-red streaks of light flashed through his brain. The pleasure that gripped him was too intense and he wasn’t sure his heart could stand the strain as jets of cum shot from him in thick bursts. He could barely draw breath for her legs were clenched so tightly around him. He had to break free of her. His very sanity depended on it.

  He pulled out—raking his barb across her swollen clit—and she screamed so loudly from the intense pleasure of it she nearly deafened him. Hovering over her, braced on trembling arms away from her writhing body as the last remnants of climax rocked her, he stared down at her with amazement. Had he thought her beautiful before? Now she was exquisitely so. His chest heaving, breath coming in harsh gasps, all he could do was hold himself there and take in the absolute glory that was his woman.

  She was staring back at him with passion-glazed eyes—her body glistening with sweat and moving sensuously upon the damp sheet—and all he wanted to do was plunge into her. His cock was actually getting hard again. When she swept her tongue across her upper lip and he caught the gleam of her fangs behind her lips, he dropped upon her, her arms going around him like vises.

  * * * * *

  Antonia woke to the sound of a large engine close by. She opened her eyes and was surprised to find herself locked tightly in Garrick’s arms. His face was turned toward her and he was looking at her, seeming to be gauging her reaction to the rumbling roar overhead.

  “The transport,” he said.

  She clenched her teeth. “I will not go,” she stated.

  “No,” he said. “You won’t.”

  “Let go of me,” she said.

  “Never.”

  She pushed against his chest. “I need to pee, vampire,” she snapped. “Let go of me.”

  He relaxed his hold just a fraction, tightened it almost as though he were warning her, and then removed his arms. He laced his hands behind his head. She got up from the bed, looked down at her nudity then cast her eyes about the room looking for her clothes.

  “I made them go poof,” he reminded her.

  “Then make them reappear!” she snarled. “Unless you want me to walk out of here in my birthday suit.”

  He did as she asked then watched her march over to the tent flap. He smiled, anticipating what he knew would happen.

  “I’m sorry, milady,” he heard the guard outside say. “I can’t let you pass.”

  “I have to pee!” she snapped.

  “There is a chamber pot in the general’s tent, milady,” the guard said calmly.

  A hiss of outrage, a curse that elevated his brow and she whipped back through the flap.

  “I have to pee!” she told him.

  “Chamber pot is under the bunk, wench,” he replied.

  “I will not pee in that pot with you lying there!” she stated.

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself but I’m not leaving.”

  Another curse and she stomped over to the bunk, crouched down to grab the porcelain receptacle. With her back to him, she hiked up the hem of her skirt and squatted over the pot.

  “I hate you,” she said.

  “No you don’t,” he replied and sat up. He stretched, yawned, scratched his chest then put his feet on the floor. His leg grazed her arm and she stiffened,
glancing up at him, which made him grin for his jutting cock was at eye level to her.

  “Oh for the love of the goddess!” she grumbled, looking away. “Get that thing away from me!”

  “Don’t get excited, wench. I too have to piss,” he informed her. “If you ever finish.”

  “I need some tissue,” she said through clenched teeth.

  “Sorry, don’t have any,” he told her.

  “What the hell do you wipe yourself with?” she demanded.

  “I don’t shit in that pot, wench,” he said. “I go to the latrine same as everyone else.”

  She growled then got to her feet. “I hate you!”

  He shrugged as she moved away then braced his legs apart, took himself in hand.

  “And please put some clothes on!” she ordered.

  “Woman, you’ve seen me naked many times. Surely the sight doesn’t offend you at this late date,” he muttered.

  “Rick?” Marc said from beyond the tent flap.

  “Come.” His uniform settled into place in the blink of an eye.

  Marc entered, glanced at Antonia then settled his gaze on Garrick. “Transport’s ready to begin loading. Captain wants to know how many other…” He looked at Antonia. “Others will be going with him.”

  “Just those on the roster,” Garrick said.

  “She’s on the roster,” Marc reminded him.

  “I’m not going,” Antonia said, chin raised. When Marc switched his attention from her to Garrick. She put her hands on her hips. “Tell him, vampire.”

  At that word, Marc’s eyebrows shot up. “Rick?” he questioned.

  “She’s not going.”

  “All righty then,” Marc said. “Anything you want me to tell the captain?”

  “No but there is something I need you to do,” Garrick said.

  “Name it.”

  “I want you to send a contingent of our best guards to Warwyck Castle. Send Oran along as my personal rep. Tell him to have the staff prepare the keep for my…” He turned his gaze to Antonia. “Our arrival.”

  Marc nodded. “Copy that,” he said.

  “Any word from the Volakis king?”

  “Not as yet,” Marc replied. “Although there was a pitched battle near Colton early this morn. Sixty rebels were killed.”

  Antonia closed her eyes and turned away.

  “Our losses?” Garrick asked, watching her.

  “I’m happy to say none,” Marc informed him.

  “Good. What word of Clay?”

  “I’ve heard nothing,” Marc replied.

  “I’m sure he knows by now that I have her,” Garrick said and saw her flinch. “My guess is he’ll try to get her back. I know I would.”

  Antonia opened her eyes and looked at him. He was giving her a look that dared her to contradict him. She tossed her head, went over to the bunk—the most comfortable place to sit—and plopped down.

  “And bring us some food,” Garrick said. “I don’t feel much like going to the mess tent.”

  Marc frowned. “Another headache?”

  “It’s coming,” Garrick replied.

  “Too much stress,” Marc suggested. He cast Antonia a quick glimpse then departed.

  Garrick went to his desk and sat down, shuffling the papers on his desk until he found what he sought. He picked up a pen. Neither spoke as he worked. Now and again he would put his fingertips to his right temple and massage tight little circles there.

  “Serves you right for what you did,” she said.

  He grunted in acknowledgement of her words.

  “I can’t go out in the Sun ever again, can I?” she asked quietly.

  “Not unless you want to burn.”

  “You swore you wouldn’t do this to me,” she said, a single bloody tear easing down her cheek.

  “That was then. This is now.”

  “It’s always been about you, hasn’t it, vampire?” she asked in a bitter voice.

  “Guess so,” he replied, not looking at her.

  “I could make your life a living hell.”

  He laughed and turned his head to look at her. “Like you haven’t already?” he inquired. “What more do you think you can do to me, wench?”

  “That was then,” she echoed. “This is now.”

  Tossing his pen to the desk, he leaned back in his chair to assess her. “So tell me what you’re going to do to me.”

  “Oh no,” she said. “It doesn’t work that way, vampire. What I’m going to do you won’t see coming.” She smirked at him. “You’ve given me powers I’m going to use to make you wish you’d never met me.”

  “Aye, well, that won’t ever happen, wench,” he said. “Had I never met you, I’d not be sitting here now.”

  “Sometimes I bitterly regret having taken Ashlyn out for a ride that night.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said softly, his words all but drowned out as the engine of the transport roared and the tent shook as the big ship took off.

  She lowered her head. “I was with the raiding party that freed the prisoners from Maechin. My hatred for you grew even stronger when I learned what you’d done to my family.”

  “They’re safe and that is all that should have mattered to you.”

  She looked up. “What?”

  “They are where they will remain,” he said. “In one of the many mansions I own.”

  “They aren’t dead?” she asked, her face suddenly pale.

  “Of course not. They are my family too, whether you—or they—like it. Though they are under constant guard, they are free to come and go as they please. The last I heard, they liked their new home well enough. That was where I would have sent you had you been on that transport.”

  “You should have told me days ago!” she snapped.

  “Wench, I should have done a lot of things,” he said with a sigh then closed his eyes, leaned his head back and put the heels of his palms to his forehead where blazing pain was throbbing. Nausea was pushing at the back of his throat.

  “I hope your head explodes,” she groused.

  “Get up and let me lie down,” he said.

  “No.”

  “Get up or I swear to the goddess I’ll puke in your lap.”

  Antonia cursed him but she flounced from the bunk and moved across the way, watched as he went to the bunk and lay down gingerly. The chamber pot was right beside the bed and from where she stood the stench of their combined piss was bad enough. It had to be overwhelming from his point of view. If he had to throw up, the smell as he leaned over to relieve himself in the pot would be an additional agony.

  She sighed. As much as she hated him, she knew the pain he suffered from the headaches and she couldn’t heap any more onto him. She went over, took up the pot and carried it to the entrance.

  “Here,” she told the guard. “Empty this and give it right back. He’s got a migraine.”

  “Aye, milady!” the guard snapped. He took the pot and hurried away.

  Leaving her unguarded. She looked about her. No one was glancing that way. The camp was going about its nightly business and the darkness beyond the nearest tent beckoned.

  “Don’t do it.”

  She looked around to find him staring at her.

  “I mean it, wench. Take one step out of this tent and I promise you, you will regret it.”

  “You’re in no condition to threaten me, vampire,” she said and before he could swing his legs from the bunk, she shot through the flap—moving faster than she ever had before.

  Faster than she knew she could.

  Well, she thought as she flashed into the darkness, the Changing was good for something!

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alyxdair Clay had never known fury such as that which he had experienced upon learning his woman had been captured and that the members of the party protecting her had been executed. She was once more in the hands of the man Alyx had vowed to kill if it was the last thing he ever did.

  “I have learned he will be takin
g her to his keep,” the spy told him. “He sent men ahead to prepare for them.”

  “He will be with her?”

  “Aye, Sir, he will,” the spy replied.

  “I want that bastard staked in the Sun so she can watch him fry to a fucking crisp!” Alyx shouted.

  “Sir, there is something you should know,” the spy said, twisting his hands.

  “It had best not be bad news!” Alyx warned. “I’ve had enough!” When the man didn’t continue, he snaked out a hand and grabbed the man’s shirt front. He shook him like a terrier does a rat. “Out with it! Just tell me and be done!”

  “The vampire put her through the Changing, Sir,” the spy whimpered. “He gave her his Mark.”

  Alyx released the man and stumbled back, his eyes wide with horror. “No,” he whispered, shaking his head. “Oh goddess, no.”

  “It was a punishment,” the spy lied. “For wanting you. For choosing you over him.”

  “Bastard,” Alyx said. He dropped to the ground and buried his face in his hands. “This can’t be happening.”

  “You will make him pay, General,” the spy said. “As sure as there will be a Sunrise in the morn, you will avenge your lady.”

  “Goddess-be-damned right I will,” Alyx said, his teeth clenched.

  “What are your orders, Sir?”

  Alyx drew his knees up and rested his wrists atop them. He stared across the river to the glowing firelight of the vampire’s encampment. “He believes his message to the king was delivered,” he said. “His terms reviewed.” His lips twisted. “As if the king would hand me over to that piece of shit Modarthan.”

  “Luckily for us the vampire’s messenger met with an accident on the way to the capitol,” the spy said with a grin. “So the king knows nothing of the so-called terms.”

  “Nor will he ever,” Alyx said. “When Warwyck is dead, the war will end and the barbarians will return to Modartha. I will be given the position of chancellor as the king promised and I will take my place at his side.”

  “What a glorious day that will be!” the spy stated.

  “To that end, I need to have Warwyck in my hands. This is what needs doing…”