DeliveredIntoHisHands Read Online Free PDF

husband asked.
    “Someone tried to murder the warrior. Do
you not think they will try again?”
    “Egad, I hope not,” the baron said.
“Leastways not at Castle Blackthorn. Not on my watch. The Modarthan king would
destroy us! He would bring the very stones of the keep down around our ears
should something happen to his son while he is in our care.”
    “Then we must see to keeping the warrior
safe,” she said.
    “Indeed,” her husband replied.
    * * * * *
    Waking to a brutal headache with which he
was all too familiar, Garrick slowly opened his eyes. For a moment he was
completely dumbfounded for he had no idea where he was or how he got there.
Above him was the canopy of an ornate bed and beneath him the softest mattress
upon which he’d ever lain. Fanning his palms across the sheet made him sigh for
the fabric was silk and cool to the touch.
    He eased himself up in the bed until his
back pressed against the headboard so he could survey the room. The draperies
were closed but a very faint strip of light showed at the top of the drapery
rod. It was daylight beyond and he shuddered. Sunlight was deadly to his kind.
He should be where no light at all showed at this time of day. Should someone
throw open the draperies he would be blinded.
    Or worse.
    He shuddered again as something pushed at
his aching mind but he couldn’t grasp it. Instead, he shifted his night-honed
eyesight about him.
    Nothing in the room was familiar to him.
The opulent surroundings belonged to a rich man—or woman—but he had no idea
who. Putting a shaking hand to his throbbing head, he realized he was naked
beneath the silken sheet.
    “Woman,” he said, thinking he had to be in
the bedroom of some woman whose body he’d conquered before the migraine came
calling.
    Or he was in a brothel. He had intimate
knowledge of such places but not one such as this if, indeed, that was what it
was. The room was luxurious, tasteful, and he felt completely out of place
there.
    Perhaps he was in the bedchamber of a very
influential courtesan. That made more sense but then he wondered what Lord he
might be forced to fight over the woman’s fickle affections.
    “Shit,” he muttered.
    He flung the sheet back and swung his feet
over the side of the bed. The room cantered away from him for a moment forcing
him to dig his fingers into the edge of the mattress to steady himself. Nausea
bubbled up his throat and he barely had time to grab the wastebasket beside the
nightstand before he puked.
    Retching violently, it barely registered
with him that someone had come into the room until he felt a cool hand on his
brow, anchoring his head as he relieved the sour bile.
    “Oh my goodness!” he heard. The voice
belonged to a woman—a young woman—and the tone held both wonder and shock.
    The hand on his forehead held him while she
put another hand to his back, stroking in a soothing manner as he continued to
heave. Minutes passed and then he sagged against her hold. She stepped closer
until his head was resting against her belly.
    “All done?” she asked.
    “Aye,” he managed to whisper.
    “Then lie back now.”
    For a reason he could not understand, he
didn’t want to lie back. He wanted to continue pressing his forehead to her
softness. She smelled of gardenias and though the scent should have made his
stomach roil, it did not. It soothed him in ways that completely perplexed him.
    “Go on,” she said sternly. “Lie back.”
    This was a bossy little lady’s maid and he
half smiled.
    Closing his eyes to the motion, for the
very act of pulling away from her sent horrific stabs of pain from temple to
temple, he allowed her to help him lie down. The coolness of the sheet as she
pulled it over him was soothing.
    “I’ll get a cold cloth,” she told him.
    He wanted to wedge one eye open to look at
her but it took too much effort. He was hurting so badly he thought the top of
his head would explode. When she came back and laid the washcloth across his
brow,