Hel looked up. “Yes. I hated to spend the time but we need the food. Mount up. I want us out of this valley.”
Something 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.
Hel 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, Healer.” 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 unexpected 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?
Chapter Five
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 minute
s 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 stopped 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 mannish—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.
Hel 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 into 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.”<
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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. The 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.
A soft moan slipped from her lips when he rolled her nipples and then pinched hard. As before, she stiffened but lassitude recaptured her mere moments later as his delicate touch made her forget the momentary pain. Slipping easily in her moisture, his index finger lazily circled the little bud at the apex of her sex and then slid to ring the opening to her inner heat with a tickling promise of penetration. As if compelled by that faint touch, she couldn’t stop the circling of her hips.
Hers to Claim (Verdantia Book 4) Page 7