Hers to Claim (8 page)

“Ramsey control
s me sexually.”

For long
moments, the loudest sound was the 
crunch, crunch
 as the horses cropped grass. Adonia studied the movement of the waterweeds streaming out in a straight line as the creek ripped past. “Yeah.” She straightened. “And you like it.”

Adonia turned to find Steffania still watching her.

Steffania nodded. “Yes. More than like it, I need it—and that puzzles you.”

“Yes.”

The redhead sighed. “The Blue Daggers consider me a ball-buster. As their commander, they fear and respect me, and that is how I want it.” Her voice softened. “There is also a part of me that yearns to be known in a different way—desired as a female who sexually completes a male—a feminine being who surrenders herself to serve him.”

“And that is what Lord Ramsey sees?”

“Oh, he sees the other, too, and we butt heads.” Laughter filled her eyes. “The miracle of Ram is he respects the warrior yet still sees the soft female. His dominant sexuality liberates that woman, and the more I abandon myself to him, the more he gives of himself to me. It’s a delicious contradiction. He is never more wholly mine than when I am under his total control, in complete service to him.”

“
In complete service…”
Adonia’s memory leapt to the night in the inn and the deep male murmur of command, the female moans that filtered through the shared wall. Her imagination supplied scenarios that brought a flush of heat to her lower regions. “And you don’t mind when he leaves you frustrated?”

“Oh, I mind, but
my reward with Ramsey is not orgasms but the knowledge I am his and I fulfill him. Besides, he knows what I need. He never leaves me wanting for long.”

“But…” Adonia let her voice die, her question unspoken.

Steffania shot her a quick look. “It’s like being a healer in a way. Do you do it for money?”

Adonia shook her head. “No. I would be a healer even if I were never paid.”

“Exactly. There is something in you that 
must
 heal people and the satisfaction from the service itself is your repayment.”

Adonia shrugged and nodded.
“Okay.” She had not looked at it that way.

“For me, it is the same, with one difference. In all the universes, there is only one person I trust enough to give my
true self to and that is my Lord Ramsey.” Steffania gave a soft chuckle. “Everyone else can go hang.”

Adonia listened, head down. There was only one person in all the universes for Lord
Ramsey, also. She had seen it in the palace courtyard when he refused to be parted from Steffania. Adonia desired what Steffania had—not Lord Ramsey—but someone who 
saw
 her and valued what only she had to give. She wanted that fiercely. A long moment stretched between them as the horses grazed. “Do you think Prince DeHelios wants that from a woman, too?”

“
I think DeHelios demands it. DeHelios and Ramsey are two blades tempered in the same forge.”

Adonia turned Steffania’s words over in her mind. Did part of her
want to serve Hel sexually? He was delicious to the eye. Why
was
she so interested in DeHelios? Compassion and desire for knowledge, certainly.
Well, that and a strong dose of self-preservation.

She had witnessed healers use
Her power to perform astonishing cures. She wanted the ability to do that with a driving passion that bordered on obsession. She had thought the rites required a certain genetic key bred into the noble houses. From her experience last night, that wasn’t always the case. Could she partner Hel in the more advanced rites? Or would her ordinary blood make the highborn prince discount her? Obviously, Mother Verdantia worked in ways beyond her understanding.

There was something else Adonia didn’t understand and the woman with the answer stood two feet away.

“Steffania, do you ever wonder why you are still here?”

The Blue Dagger looked toward her, her brow quirked. “I live here. Verdantia is now my home.”

Adonia closed her eyes and shook her head. “Two years ago, the battle on the Plains of Vergaza, when She channeled staggering power through Sophi and Eric. You were there that day.”

“Yes. We all discovered what
She meant by
the power of the two
.” Steffania chuckled. “Eric still glows—how he hates that.”

“You saw the
roiling golden cloud that erupted from Commander DeStroia and swept the battlefield bare of all who lived. Only those born of Verdantia remained standing.”

“Yes.” Steffania’s unfocused gaze seemed to see that day over two years ago. “Hard to forget that.” Steffania abruptly straightened. “Oh! I see what you are asking. I’m not Verdantian born. Why do I still live?”

“Yes.”

“Beats the hell out of me.” Steffania chuckled. “I’m just glad
She wanted to keep me around.”

“Perhaps all your years on Verdantia
has changed you, and our Mother considers you one of Her own.”

“
That would mean She has altered my genes, somehow.” Steffania’s face became thoughtful, then she shrugged. “I’ve seen too much crazy shit on this planet to doubt for one moment She could do it.”

~~~

Hel crooned and ran a calm hand down the sweat-streaked neck of the animal underneath him. “You’ve ruined him, DeKieran.” He urged his fretting, anxious horse across the creek and halted in front of Adonia. He leaned behind and undid the leather ties holding a dead
chital
across the rump of his lathered horse. The dead animal fell to the ground and Hel’s mount slid sideways, eyeing the body with a loud, rolling snort.

“It’
s the rider. Your hands are like stumps. I’ve seen bricks with more feeling.” Ramsey leaned back, released his kill, then swung his leg over the neck of his horse and jumped, landing on both feet. He handed a rein to Steffania. “Should have taken you, Vixen. You’re a better shot and don’t whine when you miss.” Ram dragged his kill toward the packhorse and didn’t see the baleful glance Hel threw at him.

Hel handed his reins to Adonia
, and she watched him as he dragged the second
chital
carcass toward the packhorse.

“
Your hunt was successful,” she said.

Hel looked up. “Yes.
I hated to spend the time but we need the food. Mount up. I want us out of this valley.”

S
omething aberrant lurked nearby. His horse’s behavior was a dead giveaway. The normally dependable animal had been easily spooked, snorting and blowing at insignificant nothings all morning—the flight of some autumn leaves or an off-colored rock on the trail. He had blamed it on DeKieran, but Hel knew better—and so did DeKieran.

“
Keep your eyes open.” Hel caught Steffania and Adonia’s gaze. “Something out there left enormous clawed footprints. Make certain your crossbows are to hand and your quiver flaps open.”

As they
mounted, Steffania asked, “How big?”

“
Think the size of a
fell
wolf.” The quiet warning in Ramsey’s voice alarmed more than a shout.

“Was it? A
fell
wolf?” Adonia asked Hel quietly.

He
l shook his head. He wished it had been. He knew how to kill a
fell
wolf. “No. I’ve never seen a track like it.”

This time
when they set out, Hel didn’t tie the packhorse to his mount’s tail. His horse was simply too fractious. Instead, he tied the lead line around the pack animal’s neck. The horse’s desire to stay with the others would keep him from straying.

As they climbed out of the valley,
Hel’s eyes tracked the horizon while his horse curveted and sidled beneath him. Nothing he did calmed the animal. That, more than anything, kept him alert. Something lurked, unseen, its smell enough to unsettle his horse.

In spite of
their vigilance, they were taken by surprise.

Ramsey’s hoarse shout
, “Hel! Behind you!” broke the quiet.

From waist-high grass, a
mammoth creature leapt at the trailing packhorse and took it down. The monster’s hind claws raked massive gouges in the horse’s underbelly, exposing viscera and bowels. A front claw laid the defenseless animal’s neck open from throat to shoulder while the creature’s slavering jaws closed on the doomed horse’s head and worried it back and forth. After that, all Hel could see was flailing legs and a mass of muddy gray fur. All he could hear were the screams of the dying horse and Ramsey shouting at Steffania to get back.

Before
Ram could maneuver for a shot, Adonia slid from her horse and launched a cascade of arrows, nocking and firing in a continuous flow of movement. The misshapen monstrosity rose up on its hind legs, towering over the downed horse and turned its blood-red eyes to Adonia. It sprang. Adonia continued to place arrow after arrow in the creature.

“No!
Nia!” Hel spurred his horse forward but the hysterical animal reared and refused to close.

With a shudder and a trailing snarl, the grotesque
hulk fell dead, its shoulders and face a quill of arrows sunk deep. A pale but composed Adonia stood and looked at the dead monstrosity splayed at her feet. “What is it?”

“Fine shooting, H
ealer.” After his clipped words, Hel dismounted. He’d had a gut-wrenching moment when the grotesque creature had sprung at Adonia. Everything had happened in a split second that lasted a lifetime, and his fear morphed to outrage. He suppressed it. “It started life as a dervish-devil or a wolvertine, but it mutated. I have never seen anything quite like this.”

They both looked down at the monster
. Hel could not cleanse from his mind the picture of a disemboweled woman lying dead near the moaning packhorse—
his
woman. He could
not
lose this bright star before he even had a chance with her. Adonia reached for the fletched end of one of her arrows and started to pull it free. While outwardly calm, her unsteady fingers betrayed her inner turmoil and distress.

His hand encircled her forearm
. “No. No, don’t. Leave them. They have the creature’s blood on them. This mutant is a result of the dark blight that plagues us. It would be dangerous to expose yourself to the contagion.”

Her face blanked
, and she looked at him dumbly but she made no further effort to retrieve her arrows.

“I have rarely seen such skill with the bow
. You stood as if aiming at straw targets, not facing oncoming death,” Hel said.

“
Pure reflex. For years I fought the Haarb as part of a
flight
of women archers under the command of Sophi DeStroia.” Adonia shrugged. “I just acted without thinking.”

“I
’ve seen that woman hit shots I thought impossible,” Steffania said. “She is not simply a skilled medica. Adonia is a deadly fighter.”

“Again, I learn an unexpec
ted thing to admire about you, Healer,” Hel murmured.

Ramsey knelt by the
head of the packhorse. “This poor fellow is done for.” With a quick slice of his blade, he put an end to its pain.

“
Come, we must help Ramsey,” Hel quietly commanded, holding Adonia’s gaze. “We need to shift the brite-weed and the two
chital
to the other horse. And keep your eyes open—all of you. That twisted creature may have friends.” Before he bent to the task of redistributing the items packed on the dead horse, his eyes scanned a full circle. As the black corruption invaded further and further down his mountain, the land that he had known and hunted on since birth had turned perilous and unfamiliar.
What else waits out there for us?

Hel rode beside Ramsey with the women trailing.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that something shadowed them, unseen, and he pulled up to allow the women to close. “We should not get too spread out.” After hours of riding in tense silence, his eyes hyper-vigilant, his ears straining for sounds, his voice sounded particularly loud.

Ramsey
spoke while his eyes continued to examine their surroundings. “Yes. I’ve glimpsed flashes of something in the undergrowth. We are not safe. We are being stalked.”

In silent testimony to Ramsey’s words,
Hel’s mount shifted uneasily beneath him. The animal’s ears flicked nervously back and forth, his head raised alertly, his nostrils testing the air. Hel ran a soothing hand down the animal’s neck and murmured words of calm. “Flesh eating mutants by day and soul-sucking wraiths by night.” Hel scrubbed his face. “Those wraiths—I wish our safety didn’t rest entirely on the healer. It’s a heavy burden for her to carry.”

“
My schooling with the High Enclave was—abbreviated—but I’m competent through third level. Give me the words to your rite and the stones. I’ll see what Steffania and I can do.”

Hel raised an eyebrow
, surprised Ramsey had volunteered. He knew the Haarb war and some scandal had cut short Ramsey’s formal education, but Ram’s disclosure of ignorance was rare. Those the High Enclave trained were usually too self-opinionated and overconfident to admit any lack of knowledge or aptitude. Hel shrugged. “Your skills are not really the issue. The Blue Dagger is not Verdantian born.”

Ramsey stared straight ahead
, his gaze intent on the horizon. “Steffania thinks our Mother might have altered her genetic structure. I understand the reasons for her thinking. I’m curious to see if she’s right.”

Curious, indeed.
Hel wasn’t in a position to refuse any help, no matter how tenuous the source. He shifted in the saddle, untied the sack holding the diaman crystals, and tossed them to Ramsey. “Repeat after me…”

They rode side-by-side
as Ramsey parroted back the words. “I don’t recognize the language,” said Ram.

“
No surprise. It’s ancient
Engalian
, the original language spoken over five hundred years ago by the first colonists to make planet-fall on Verdantia. By tradition, this language has always been used by House DeHelios to focus a man’s arousal and prolong the rite.” Hel shrugged. “At this basic level though, the words don’t have to be perfect.”

“
Yes, I could be reciting the recipe for…say…gamekeeper’s stew as long as I concentrate on moving the energies into the diaman crystals.” Ramsey shot him a sardonic glance.

Hel managed not to smile. “It’s a time-honored mantra
, DeKieran. DeHelios men have always used it in this rite.”
A recipe for gamekeeper’s stew.
Hel snorted inwardly.
If he only knew.
He slid a glance sideways and caught Ram eyeing him narrowly. Hel fought to present a face stripped of all emotion. “You and Steffania hang back. Find a place with some privacy. Adonia and I will ride this track for another thirty minutes and find a place to set camp.”

Hel
faced forward, expressionless, while Ramsey’s gaze searched his face. Apparently, he saw nothing to further his suspicions. The man grunted then surveyed the sky and position of the sun. “I’d guess at two hours before sundown.”

Hel nodded. “You have half that time. If your experiment doesn’t work…”

“Yes. You’ll need time with Adonia.”

“
Oh, and, Ram…guard yourself.”

The man
snorted. “I’m touched that you care, DeHelios.”

Hel scowled
, and Ramsey turned his horse and rode back to his wife. From the look on Steffania’s face, Hel didn’t foresee requiring anything from Adonia tonight other than some mutual pleasure. He swiveled in his saddle and called. “Adonia, come ride beside me.”

She moved up
to his side. “What’s happening?”

“Ramsey and Steffania
will attempt to energize the diaman crystals. For some reason, Steffania believes Mother Verdantia altered her genes. We will ride ahead a little way and establish camp.”

“
Oh.” Adonia’s voice faltered. “I put that idea in her head. It was the only explanation for the aftermath on the Plains of Vergaza.”

He looked at her sharply. “Explain.”

“The condensed version: on the Plains of Vergaza, six hundred of the Haarb sandwiched a small group of our people—Steffania and her Blue Daggers among them—between opposing forces. From a high cliff, miles away, I watched an enormous golden cloud rise hundreds of feet into the desert air and sweep across the battlefield. When it dissipated, only the Verdantians and the Daggers remained. Everything not of Verdantia had been absorbed into the cloud. The Blue Daggers have been on Verdantia for years, since the beginning of the Haarb wars, plenty of time for…” Adonia spread her hand out.

Hel thought about her words.
He lived magick. “It’s possible. I would never set limits on what She can do.”

“So you won’t need me for the rites, tonight?”

Was she happy or disappointed? It didn’t matter. He wanted her. He wanted far more from her than a rough coupling on the hard ground. If he couldn’t have her
properly
, he could still feel the satin slip of her skin under his fingers. He could still hear her breath quicken with arousal, feel the slick moisture that would welcome him into her. He could still ensure, when the time came for him to take her, she craved him. “DeKieran may not be successful.” He caught and held her velvet brown gaze. He saw the moment she realized his intent. “We’ll set up camp first.”

~~~

Adonia worked beside Hel establishing their camp, such as it was. He had chosen a small clearing by the trail and strung the high-line for the horses between two trees. Now they stripped their tethered animals of tack and supplies.

“Lay out the bedding over there.” Hel nodded at an open area a few steps away from the horses. “While you do that, I’m going to suspend these carcasses where wild animals can’t get to them. The
diaman crystals will repel the leeches, but they won’t deter a predator on four legs.”

While she lay out their bedding for the night,
the pit of her stomach roiled with nerves, as if two playful kits wrestled inside. She’d forgotten about this evening. The monster’s attack had driven everything but vigilance out of her head. Now, it was impossible to think of anything but Hel.

She’d thought her near-death
by mutant beast and the knowledge that some deviant life still stalked them had banished her libido to the darkest depths of the eternal abyss. Wrong. That beautiful man only had to look at her, his gray eyes hot with expectation and the previous night’s arousal roared back. The tight buds of her nipples rubbed her shirt as she arranged the bedding for the evening. Extraordinary how such a small portion of her anatomy could generate such titillation. She’d never paid much attention before, but then she’d never reacted to any man as she did to Hel.

Adonia
looked up from where she bent over arranging the blankets and then straightened. The man occupying all her thoughts stood watching her, legs spread, arms crossed on his chest. All thought fled and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Her heart joined the two kits jumping around her insides, and she found it hard to draw a steady breath. Her gaze interlocked with Hel’s.

He strode toward her and stopp
ed at the edge of the blankets. He carefully placed his heavy sword and fine throwing blade within reach, then his hands went to the fastenings on his clothing. He methodically undid them and slipped first his coat, his tunic and then his shirt off his upper torso. She stood frozen, mesmerized by the fluid interplay of honed biceps, triceps, deltoids and abdominals underneath blue-veined, porcelain skin. When his hands rested on his hips, Adonia jerked to life.

“Oh! Ah…guess you’d like me to join you. Ah, yeah, yeah.” Her fingers flew to her buttons and clips
, and she frantically worked to undo them with clumsy haste—until Hel’s huge hand settled over hers and stopped her.

“
I’m glad you enjoy the sight of me. I would do the same with you.”

“There is nothing to see. I’m man
nish—all muscle and bone. I—”

“Hush.”
He put a forefinger across her lips. “It is true you are more lean elegance than luscious curve, but there is no uncertainty in my mind you are a desirable woman.” He took her hand and placed it on the loose material between his legs. She could feel him grow and harden. “No confusion at all.”

He smiled at her
and plunged her emotions into a familiar state—chaos. This man—what he did to her! If chaos were a physical place, she’d qualify as a guide.

His big hands
went to her clothing and those buttons and fastenings that had eluded her slender, nerveless fingers seemed to open magickally for him. First, her coat dropped and then her tunic slid off. Hel stopped, leaving her in boots and loose trousers. His eyes wandered her face and shoulders. His fingers traced her collarbones from her sternum toward her shoulders. Her raisin-brown nipples puckered in the cold air, and she brought her arms across her chest, hugging herself. In truth, she felt her nudity more than the cold. He must have guessed.

He
l tucked a finger under her chin and raised her gaze to meet his. “None of that. Drop your arms.”

He
spanned her waist with his hands and examined her leisurely. “You are lovely, Adonia.” He leaned forward and nibbled warm kisses just below her ear. “Anyone who says differently is blind.”

She leaned in
to his kisses, no longer cold but still in chaos. She had never heard the words, “you are lovely,” with her name attached. “I have no breasts, no hips. My hands are hard with calluses. My nose hooks…”

“I forbid you to say anything
else disparaging about your appearance at risk of punishment.” He kissed a line up to the corner of her mouth and spoke against her skin. “Do you want to be punished?” He took her mouth with firm lips and an invading tongue before she could answer.

When he pulled back, the best she could manage was a breathless, “No.”

“Too bad,” he murmured, nibbling kisses against her neck. “Lie down.”

Too bad?
A shiver of unexpected anticipation surprised her. What did Hel consider punishment? Might she enjoy it? Should she risk disobedience?
No.
Adonia lay down on the blankets and looked up at him. He looked like a god from any angle. Why was he with her?
You are not ‘with’ him. You are a healer and a female partner for the rites,
not
a lover
, a voice in her brain supplied. Another part of her answered,
I don’t care. I will enjoy him for as long as this lasts
.

“Hand me your left foot.” He stretched out his hand and held her foot as
he pulled off her soft hide boot. “Right, please.” Off came the right. He knelt between her legs, unfastened her trousers and stripped her of those. She lay nude as an autumn breeze played across her bare skin and raised gooseflesh everywhere.

“
Superb, lithe grace…and you are cold.”

“A little.”

Hel moved the saddles so they formed an upright support and spread his coat over them. He sat splay-legged and motioned to her to sit between his legs. “Bring some blankets, too.”

She settled into the vee formed by his body.
At her shoulders, she felt the heat of his chest. The hard bulge of his arousal pressed into the small of her back. The rough pelt of the ice-bear cushioned her bare buttocks and the fine weave of his trousers rubbed at each thigh.

“Put your legs over my knees
.”

She obeyed. Th
e position spread her wide, and she was thankful when Hel swathed them in blankets. “You’re not removing your pants?”

He laughed softly. “Someone needs to keep
an eye open.”

“You
’re going to tease me again.” She started to rise.
What happened to, ‘I’ll enjoy this for as long as it lasts?”
her brain mocked. His arm locked her to him.

“Stop
. Put your legs back where they were and don’t move. Nothing has changed from an hour ago. DeKieran may not be successful.”

“Oh.”
She’d forgotten.
It must have been the kisses and the compliments. They didn’t feel like ritual.
Adonia let out a long breath and relaxed back into him.

“Put your arms behind your back and don’t move them.”

Adonia slipped her hands behind herself, almost sitting on them. With feathering, brushing touches, Hel’s fingers began to trace scrolls, and what she imagined to be arcane figures, on her bare skin. Despite her desire to control her arousal, his touches on the outside and inside of her thighs, on her intimate flesh, up her abdomen and around her breasts, ricocheted lances of sensation throughout her. It was as if his fingers contained some magickal spark, some magickal pulse. Wherever he left his tracery, nerves sprang to acute awareness. She lost all sense of time. His touch became her world.