DeliveredIntoHisHands Read Free Page B

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.”
     

Chapter Two
    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