Hers to Claim (23 page)

When Adonia awoke, the sun stood high in the sky; a bedside tray bore a cold, congealed breakfast, and she was the lone occupant in Hel’s great bed.
He loves me.
The warm, golden joy of that thought licked lazily up her insides and curled around her heart like a purring cat. As Adonia sat up, the figure of her maid roused from a chair in the corner. Maddie laid aside the book she’d been reading and stretched.

“My lady, let me help you get dressed. Prince DeHelios said he would join you in the sickroom after you rose. You are to send word for him to Torre Bianca.”

This time as Adonia stood in front of her closet, a strange feeling accompanied her examination of each elegant article of clothing. What style of gown set off her mannish shape? What color flattered her? Her ignorance about such matters left her vulnerable. With a soft huff of embarrassed appeal, she turned to Maddie and held a rich gown of lilac shot through with golden thread and deep violet trim against her body.

“Will this one favor me? I…ah…I want to look
…” Adonia dropped her eyes to the floor. “I want him to…” Her shoulders fell. The arm holding the luxurious garment sagged. “I don’t know how to begin to do this
.
” She looked up when Maddie placed a warm hand on her forearm.

“You will look
like a delicate sylph in that dress, my lady. You will pull every male eye in the city—
especially
his. There is a lovely set of topaz and amethyst hair clips that will complement the gown and if I may suggest some light cosmetics? Your skin is so clear it needs very little…but perhaps a berry lip-stain and some enhancement of your beautiful eyes?”

Adonia put herself in Maddie’s capable hands and blessed the young woman for neither laughing
at her pathetic desire to look pretty—if such a thing were even possible—nor asking who “him” was. When she rose to leave a mere half hour later, she stopped and gave the young woman a hug. “Thank you. You have managed to transform a gawkish stick figure into something approaching a lady.”

Maddie returned her hug and drew back
, shaking her head. “You
are
a lady, mistress—and I transformed nothing. We merely gave you a proper setting.”

“Well…
ah...thank you.”

Maddie
nodded and grinned as Adonia walked through the door and turned down the hall toward the sickroom.
The sickroom
. For a brief moment, her nightmare returned and her steps faltered as fear of a second confrontation with the dark corruption threatened to unnerve her. Memories of the past night banished that fear, however, and replaced it with a steady serenity based on one miraculous thought.
Hel loves me
. So armored, Adonia calmly walked down the hall to join Sara.

She spent her time tending the everyday ailments among her patients as she waited for Hel.
Her results with the young laborer with a broken hand from a poorly aimed hammer blow reassured her of her competence. Withdrawing onto a level of metaphysical plane more shallow than that she’d achieved with her patient stricken with the fading, Adonia readily identified the broken bones in his hand. Using the power within the diaman crystals she’d placed around him, she entered his body as spiritual energy and then temporarily blocked the nerves that sent signals of pain to his brain. With a surge of thought, she pushed the bloodstream to rush healing nourishment to the area.

Using physical energy, she
straightened his fractured metatarsals and prompted his body’s cells to accelerate the healing process. When she had done all she could to speed his recovery, Adonia returned to herself. His face swam into her consciousness, and she was once again in Nyth Uchel’s sickroom with Sara hovering anxiously.

“I’ve set your bones but keep your hand still while Sara wraps it in a cast.
” Adonia glanced toward Sara and she nodded in understanding. “I’m afraid you won’t have use of it for about six weeks. Come see me in another two weeks and let me check on your healing. How does it feel?”

Her young patient flexed his hand cautiously and waggled his fingers.
“Her blessings on you, my lady.” The tow-headed young man nodded with a thankful expression. “It feels marvelous. Very little pain.”

“Good. You will tell me if that changes.” She directed a steady gaze toward the young man.

“Yes, my lady.”

Adonia smiled at her patient and then turned toward the doorway where Hel stood propped
in careless masculine splendor. His black hair hung down his back past his shoulders. She was glad he hadn’t cut it. He had continued to shave—though at this time of day a dark shadow covered his chiseled jaw. His elegant features never failed to start her heart racing.

The corners of her mouth tipped up shyly. She’d known he was there. She’d felt
his presence several minutes ago, but didn’t want to distract herself from her patient.

This man loves me, but what does that mean?

Words
of welcome died unborn. Thoughts crashed against her mind like waves in a stormy sea of uncertainty. She’d thought she had the confidence to accept that Hel could love her…but then those damn insecurities from her past washed ashore like so much jetsam and once more she fought doubt. Perhaps she should take her cue on how they would go on from him. If he chose to ignore the whispers exchanged in the night—so would she.

She ran
sweaty palms down her dress and then straightened and walked to him. His gray eyes told her with silent honesty how desirable he found her. Adonia blessed Maddie for her skills. She almost felt beautiful—almost. “Thank you for coming,” she murmured. “I’m sorry I took you from your search of Torre Bianca.”

“
A welcome interruption of what I am coming to believe an exercise in futility.” His knuckle stroked her cheek gently as his eyes considered her. “You’ve taken extra care with your appearance today, Beauty. I approve.”

Heat flooded her face and she examined her toes.
For some reason, she found it hard to catch her breath and her statement came out more breathy than she’d planned. “I would like to see what can be accomplished with two of our most sick. Like the woman yesterday, they suffer from the
fading
.”

“Nia.”

She shifted and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Umm, yes?” she whispered.

His arms
enveloped her and pulled her into him. “Look at me.”

Her head fell back
, and her eyes met his.

“I wasn’t
asleep. I heard you quite clearly.” His expression softened and his voice lowered to include only the two of them. “When you face the void, the brutal desolation…remember, you are the beloved of DeHelios. No power, natural or unnatural, can stand against us. Use that as your lodestar.”

“Oh!” Joy catapulted her onto her toes
, and she kissed him with all the passion and exultation in her heart. He returned her kiss and the firestorm of their joined heat wiped all thought from her mind—until he drew back with a low chuckle.

“I think w
e’ve scandalized the sickroom, Beauty. We should probably tend to business now.” His eyes held apology and humor. His whispered, “Later,” contained a promise.

Adonia dropped from her toes with a thud and cautiously
scanned the room from over her shoulder. Sara looked on, beaming approval, but those others who still maintained their mental faculties wore expressions that ranged from bemusement to shock to disapproval. Heat flushed her cheeks.

She surreptitiously dabbed at her mouth with the back of her sleeve. “Ah, yes, yes.”
Standing straight, she took one of Hel’s hands and led him to chairs placed next to a pair of pallets laid side-by-side. This time, as she mentally chanted the focusing mantras that would take her to the high aetheric plane necessary to delve deeply into her patients, Adonia felt a presence join her. As she slipped the final tether binding her spirit to her physical self, the aether around her shimmered luminous and golden. A star-bright sphere pulsed in Adonia’s awareness.

Daughter
of our blood, beloved of the light-bringer, we greet you.

“Who are you?”

Isolde, the first of the greatest. My most-beloved Agentio stands beside me.

“
I doubt my sanity. You are long dead.”

None who live through our
Great Mother die.

“
You shielded me from the worst of the horror. Thank you. How is it that I can speak to you?”

We are
linked through the ages by blood, daughter of my daughters. There used to be many but now, only you.

“Will you help me again?” Already Adonia could “see” black corruption pulsing in the bodies of the two men below her—not as formidable as that which had enveloped the woman of yesterday, but still frightening.

You have the ability to unite and draw upon vast powers, daughter. But the enemy now knows its opponent and its strength is building. We will hold back as much of the dark as we can.

Adonia reached out and placed a hand above the breastbone of each man and
, as before, frozen bleakness enveloped her. As it had done the day prior, the pulsating blackness sucked Adonia toward it as if it were a black hole absorbing all light. With a shrill cry of agony, she relived each hurtful moment of her life, every mean and spiteful word cast at her, every humiliation and physical pain. She wallowed in the helpless grief and sense of abandonment she’d felt at the death of her mother and father. She relived the horrendous evening she had parted from Klaran.

His
mouth pulled back in a sneer. “I am done with you.”

“What are you saying? You
love me. We’re to be married in two months.”

“
Mere words. I never cared. Your dried-up cunt served a purpose.” Disgust dripped from his lips. “Really, Adonia, look at yourself. You are a pathetic excuse for a woman.”

“I a
m a warrior, like you.”

“
You are unnatural. There is nothing feminine or soft about you. From your body to your soul, you are a hard creature. Why would I take such as you for a wife? No man will want you. No man will ever love you. You will be alone until you die.”
 

Alone. Never loved. Always alone.
It seemed she drowned in despair for an eternity. Somehow, the words spitting from between his lips were distortions—twisted untruths—not what he’d really said. She kept telling herself this memory was a lie. Klaran hadn’t used those words. He’d been hurtful but not…not like
that
.

A sliver of light pierced through her blindness. A shred of memory tugged at her consciousness.
Gray eyes held hers.
“…remember, you are the beloved of DeHelios.”

She clutched at that memory as a drowning man clings to a lifeline an
d clawed her way toward an ever-expanding brightness. With a ferocity she hadn’t known she possessed, Adonia smashed against the encroaching desolation, shattering the cancerous entity into motes of black pustulence. With a guttural scream from her soul—“I am not alone. I am the beloved of DeHelios! Love is the truth! Death is the lie!”—Adonia blazed, a ball of golden light, her radiance consuming the diseased particles in bursts of living flame.

As showers of burning spec
ks fell about her, Adonia sank back into her physical self. Again, she returned from the aetheric plane to find herself on Hel’s lap. Her eyelids fluttered open and she raised a limp hand to his face. He turned his face into her palm and kissed it.

“I am
loved. I am not alone,” she whispered, then lost consciousness.

~~~

The fine sheets and warm blankets of Hel’s bed were tucked up to her chin. Maddie sat bedside and read by the light of a diaman lamp. The soft golden radiance lit the chamber. Full dark had fallen.

“What time is it
, Maddie?”

The young woman looked up. Relief and gladness filled her features. “
You’re awake. Thank the Goddess. I was worried.” She glanced across the room at the timekeeper. “It is eight and one-half of the clock, ma’am. Can you eat something? Drink something? How do you feel?”

Adonia pushed up to a sitting position.
Her arms trembled, barely able to hold her. Someone had put her in a sleeping gown. Now that Maddie suggested food, her mouth watered at even the thought of another potato. “I’m fine. Something to eat, please! And Maddie…where is Prince DeHelios?”

Maddie
poured her an elegant tumbler of amber drink from a lavishly engraved decanter. “After he put you to bed, he stayed for some time but then left to continue his search of Torre Bianca. I assume Prince DeHelios is still at the tower. He issued orders you are to drink all of this.”

Adonia took the glass
and wrinkled her nose at its contents. “Orders?”

Maddie lifted her eyebrows and nodded once. “Orders.”

With a shudder at the smell, Adonia took a large gulp and after a tortured inhale sputtered in a coughing fit. “By the Mother…what
is
that?” She sipped cautiously, wincing each time the burning liquid passed her tongue.