Hers to Claim (Verdantia Book 4)

by Patricia A. Knight

  “A mystic? How fascinating,” Adonia said.

  Ramsey snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up, Healer. ‘Mystic’ is simply a kind way to say the man is a lunatic—bat-shit crazy. We won’t understand one word out of five.”

  “Even lunatic ravings are preferable to listening to you, DeKieran,” Hel muttered and stalked out of the barn toward the house. Adonia ran to catch up to him.

  “We are expected?”

  Hel sighed. “Not to my knowledge. I decided only last night to seek him out.”

  “How did he know we were coming?”

  “I don’t know. He’s a mystic,” he snapped.

  She recognized ill-humor when she heard it and shut up.

  Adonia followed Hel as he ducked through the door to the snug cottage—and ran right into a bush of low-hanging, dried herbs. Sputtering, she pulled Hel’s hat off her head so she could see where she was going and brought dried vegetation raining down on her. A shriveled bush of some sort followed, and she caught it in her hands. From rafter to ceiling, herbs and shriveled creatures hung by cords—packed together, filling the open attic space. Adonia shuddered at the sightless, beady eyes staring at her, the twisted clawed feet reaching for her, and glanced toward the old man. He hunched over a steaming pot of something. It smelled heavenly. Honestly, at this point, she was hungry enough to gnaw on one of those dead things hanging from the roof.

  The door opened to admit Ramsey and Steffania. They stomped in and began peeling off wet garments that they threw over pegs by the door.

  Steffania looked at her and snorted. “You have green bits stuck all over you.”

  Adonia presented the shrub as if holding a bouquet.

  The aged seer rose from his stool by the steaming pot and shuffled to her. He cocked his head sideways and peered up. Through multiple folds of skin, and masses of wild gray hair, his milky, swamp-green eyes studied her face. “I’ll have the worm-wood back now, miss.” A withered hand extended from his voluminous hooded robe, and she handed him the end of the shrub. He took the proffered plant, but never ceased his intense scrutiny. Adonia shifted her half-frozen feet back and forth in her soggy boots and shoved her hands deep into her cold, clammy coat pockets. Was she supposed to say something?

  “You’ve the look of her, girl. The first one.” The old man tapped his pursed lips with a thick yellow fingernail and nodded to himself. “Could be. Could be.” With a, “Harrumph, careless idgit,” he tossed the dried herbs into a corner of the room and returned to his simmering pot.

  She looked toward Hel for help. He gave her an “I’m-as-clueless-as-you” shrug.

  “A’rken, you said you expected us?” Hel assisted Adonia in stripping out of her water-laden outerwear but studied the old mage as he did. Ramsey and Steffania had pulled chairs up to a rustic table and relaxed, watching their interchange.

  A’rken sniffed and cast Hel a withering glare. “She, the Senzienza, told me to prepare. ‘The white horse heralds the raven,’ She said.”

  Steffania frowned. “A white horse and raven? We ride bays and a black and we have no bird.”

  The mystic paused in his stirring and turned. “You, girl.” He pointed a gnarled finger bent by age at Adonia.

  “Sir?” She pointed at her chest. “Me?”

  “Your name?”

  “Adonia.”

  “Your surname,” he snapped.

  “Corvus…Adonia Corvus.”

  “Ha!” The old man threw a triumphant look at Steffania and stabbed his finger repeatedly at Adonia as if that explained everything. Steffania shrugged and shook her head.

  The old man grumbled something under his breath. Adonia couldn’t distinguish the words but the tone was unflattering. His clouded eyes, brimming with accusation, sought and held Ramsey’s gaze. “She said nothing about the gryphon and his off-world mate.”

  “We were bored. We decided we needed an outing,” Ramsey drawled.

  The old man erupted in a cackle of laughter. “An outing, ha! She summons all Her sons and daughters to war, gryphon. But this one,” his shaky finger again singled out Adonia, “this one is the key.”

  Adonia stood bewildered. The other three must have been equally perplexed for the only thing accompanying their exchange of glances was silence.

  The mystic jerked upright and muttered, “Food. We must have food.” He scuffled to the hearth and, using multiple folds of his robe, lifted the pot from its hanger and plunked it down in the middle of the table. “Bowls and spoons on the shelf.” He pointed. “There. Bread in the towel next to the spoons. Serve yourself.”

  “What do you suppose is in this soup?” Ramsey muttered as he picked up two bowls.

  Hel glanced at the distorted, desiccated remains of unidentifiable shapes suspended just inches above them. “I don’t really want to know.”

  Ramsey followed his glance. “Point taken.”

  All of them filled their bowls in pregnant silence. When they sat, Hel looked across the table at the mystic and voiced what was on the tip of Adonia’s tongue.

  “A’rken, Adonia is the key to what? And what’s this about being called to war?”

  The old man straightened and his gaze became unfocused, farseeing. “When Belarus mates with Cirrus in the northern sky. Stones…stones…written on the stones of the tower. Look to the wisdom of your forefathers. Blackness…death devours our Mother. Only the corvus can call them. The corvus is the key.”

  As all at the table sat aghast, expression faded from the mystic’s face. His head sank toward the table and landed with a wet plop in his soup. The bowl tipped and its contents crept in a languid spill across the table. His eyes stared at nothing.

  “Oh, Goddess!” Adonia leapt up and began to blot the spreading liquid with the towel used to wrap the bread.

  Hel slammed his spoon down. “Rouse him, Ramsey. He can’t nod off now!”

  Ramsey rolled his eyes and commented to the room at large, “I warned you. Not one word in five.” Ramsey jostled the old man, and then fisted a hank of the mystic’s tangled bangs, lifting his head and peering into the seer’s face. “He’s not going to rouse. I’d say he’s in a trance.” Ram released the old man’s hair. The ancient mystic’s head made a soft thunk when it hit the table.

  Adonia didn’t blame Hel for the string of invectives that spewed from his lips. She had a few of her own to add. Hel wasn’t the only one with questions. She cleaned A’rken up as best she could then sat back down as the words began to fly.

  “I figure Ramsey is the gryphon and I am his mate—not difficult as the gryphon is the symbol for House DeKieran. You are the white horse, DeHelios?” Steffania looked at Hel.

  “Yes. Our house symbol is a white stallion rampant.”

  “So, that makes Adonia the raven?” Steffania’s words trailed off in question.

  “In the ancient Engalian form, ‘corvus’ means raven,” Hel supplied.

  “I never knew corvus meant raven. Huh.” Adonia sat perplexed.

  Steffania snorted. “Good. I’m not the only one in the dark at this table.”

  “Well, assuming I am the raven, I don’t understand why I’m the key?” Adonia rubbed her head, trying to dispel the feeling that straw had replaced her brains. “From what A’rken said, this dark blight is killing Mother Verdantia. And what did he mean when I came in? ‘You’ve the look of her, girl. The first one.’ I don’t understand that at all. The first one, who?”

  Hel shook his head. “I don’t know. ‘When Belarus mates with Cirrus in the northern sky’ is an astrological arrangement of stars that occurs in late spring. That reference I understand. We have a few months to work this out, apparently.”

  “What about the ‘words written on the stones of the tower’?” Ramsey arched a brow and looked at Hel. “Do you understand that reference?”

  Hel scrubbed his face in frustration. “No. I’ve never seen any inscriptions on Torre Bianca.”

  Their exchange of one possible theory after another continued deep
into the night. All the while, the comatose body of A’rken remained slumped on the table. His eyes stared sightlessly. His lips garbled unintelligible words.

  Adonia’s frustration at the lack of tangible information grew apace with her fatigue until she simply folded her arms in front of her, laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore,” she mumbled. She heard Hel stand and then felt his arms lift her up and cradle her. Adonia wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled into his chest. She never opened her eyes. She simply didn’t care what he did with her.

  “There is a bed in the other room. I am taking it,” Hel stated. “We are safe with A’rken. He has some sort of unnatural protection. No need to keep a guard. Rest well. It will be the last time we are safe until we reach Nyth Uchel. We leave at mid-day.”

  “Should we do something about the old man?” Adonia registered Steffania’s voice, but lost track of any answer as words became incomprehensible sounds.

  The next thing she was aware of was lying on a bed, fully clothed while Hel removed her boots and socks and then pulled off her damp trousers. She heard his muttered, “This is wet, too,” and felt her tunic being lifted over her head. In only her half-shift and underpants, she shivered and curled into herself. He lay next to her then covered them both with a quantity of blankets. She turned and sought his warmth and he pulled her into him. His bare skin warmed her better than a hot fire. She tucked her frozen feet against his calves. Goddess the warmth! Wrapped in his embrace, warm, dry, fed, she knew no more.

  ~~~

  A gentle hand sliding under her shift roused her from sleep. No! I don’t want to wake up. I am warm and this bed is comfortable. She cracked open her eyes. In the dim light, she made out Hel’s intent gaze mere inches from her face. His hand cupped her breast and massaged while his thumb passed repeatedly over the tip of her left nipple. Her back arched involuntarily and she drew a sharp breath. His sober expression remained but his eyes flared with satisfaction at her response. Hel leaned forward and placed warm nibbles and lingering kisses behind her jaw, her ear and the side of her neck while his talented fingers tickled and tweaked her nipple into thrumming sensitivity. She lay as one dead, too relaxed and contented to move. As if borne by her bloodstream, bubbles of sensation flowed throughout her and popped with bursts of exquisite pleasure. A low moan of gratification escaped her parted lips. The stubble on his cheek scratched as he nuzzled into the space where her shoulder met her neck—even that felt good.

  The windowless room they occupied gave no clue as to the hour. “Mmm, must we rise?”

  At her whisper, Hel stopped nibbling. “No, it’s still early.” His low voice vibrated in her chest and his hot breath tickled her ear. He resumed his kisses. His hand left her breast to attack the buttons on the placket of her shift. In no more than an instant, he had them undone.

  How does he do that? His skill with fastenings is unnatural. Adonia was too sleep-drugged to move. Hel pulled her shift open and slid down to cover a nipple with his hot mouth while his hand resumed its previous play. She sank her fingers into his thick hair and grabbed.

  “Ah!” Adonia bit her lower lip to stifle her cry before it reached full strength.

  “Hush,” he murmured. “The others still sleep.”

  His tongue swept over her nipple. His lip-covered teeth gently rolled it and then he sucked with a low groan of enjoyment. His right hand continued its teasing of her other breast, and she arched greedily into the feeling. The fingers kneading his scalp became more frantic as sensation piled upon sensation. She blamed the days of teasing denial for the speed with which Hel aroused her.

  “Mmm,” she choked. “Good, good.”

  With a last strong pull, he came off her breast and captured her mouth. His lips seduced and inflamed with feather-light glances. As he slid half of his heavy body on top of her, Adonia could feel the hard press of his erection against her thigh. She opened her mouth to welcome him and his tongue met hers in an aggressive invasion. A warm cushion of mobile lips pressed against hers in a firm surge and retreat of light nips and sucks.

  His left arm swept behind her, and he cupped the back of her head in his broad hand while his right played a tickle of touch down her bare abdomen. Her skin shivered like a horse shaking off a fly. Wide-splayed fingers raked through the glossy black curls on her pubic mound. Four fingers curved over to play between her legs, then cupped her. He trapped her clit between two long fingers and began a gentle circling press. Had he moved down another inch, he would have found her ready for more than fingers.

  Goddess, this man knows his way around women. Adonia moaned into his mouth. Steffania called it when she said Verdantian noblemen trained for proficiency in sexual arousal. Adonia would gladly be his practice partner if he would let her come occasionally.

  The hand cupping her head twisted and trapped her hair, tugging her scalp just short of painful, anchoring her head to the bed, preventing any evasive movement. His kisses deepened. The hand working below her waist circled, stoking the fire burning in her inner core. The flesh between her legs grew fatter, and she could hear the liquid click as Hel worked her. The hand circling stopped for a brief moment, and two fingers ran down the center of her lower lips to the entrance of her pussy. The fingers cupped, capturing the lubrication her body produced and stroked up in a feathering circle. Meanwhile, the assault on her mouth never stopped.

  She groaned into Hel’s mouth and then arched into him as the fingering of her clit brought her closer and closer to that long-denied orgasm.

  Hel pulled away from her mouth just long enough to center himself between her legs. Both hands reached for her panties and made short work of pulling them off. He flipped her left leg over his hip, then returned to kisses that consumed her soul. The heavy weight of his thick shaft slid between her lower lips, slipping through her folds to her clit. He settled into place, bearing most of his weight on his elbows and began a circling motion with his narrow hips. His hands captured her wrists and hair. Adonia rocked her pelvis back and forth, trying to capture the head of his elusive organ with the entrance of her channel. She didn’t realize she did so until Hel’s weighty hand on her hip stopped her.

  His mouth left hers for a brief moment. “No.”

  His kisses resumed. The pelvis-to-pelvis massage continued. He stopped and threw his head back with a low curse. He reached down and took himself in hand, centered on her opening and pulsed gently, entering her in tiny increments before pulling away. Each pulse sent him further and further into her but never more than an inch or two with each thrust. The opening to her inner sheath convulsed around him as if lips on a mouth closing to retain a favored treat. She knew better than to try to deepen his penetration, no matter how she craved it. He would simply stop her. The tight pull on her hair allowed her head no movement, and she melted into the sensations assaulting her. She’d never had a lover who controlled her so completely. With another insight into parts of her she’d never known, Adonia realized that she reveled in the feeling.

  Hel surged into her and she whimpered at the painful stretch. He stilled, fully hilted. She felt overfull, stuffed beyond comfort, but the painful bite promised to morph into pleasure beyond her experience.

  Hel groaned as if in pain, and his tortured gaze found hers. “Do. I. Hurt. You?”

  “No.” Yes, he did hurt her, but she would say nothing that might make him stop. A sudden thought burst through her flaring arousal. “The crystals. We need the crystals.”

  His breathing labored, and he hung his head almost touching, forehead to forehead. “No crystals. This time—for you.” His breath hit her face in bursts as he spoke. He half groaned and half laughed. “And me.” Then his mouth descended on hers once more, preventing speech, preventing thought.

  He lay on her fully and propped his upper torso on his elbows. Again, his hands captured her wrists and held them over her head, catching her hair into his grasp. The hurtful stretch in her hot core morphed to impossible sensi
tivity. As he slid in and out slowly, Hel contracted his abdomen and rolled his hips, stroking her clit with his thick shaft each time he drove in and pulled out. Adonia had never felt anything approaching these sensations.

  “Your legs,” Hel grunted. “Around my waist.”

  She promptly obeyed and found the stimulation to her clit increased, as did the pace Hel set for his sliding penetration. She whimpered at the mounting pressure within.

  “Close?” Hel gasped.

  She managed a nod. Oh, Goddess, if he stops now...

  A low animal growl came from deep in his throat and his rhythmic breach of her lost cadence. The bed shook as he pounded into her. That was all it took. Her keens became a hoarse scream that echoed off the stone walls of the room as ecstasy detonated within her core. Her climax swept through her body in ever-expanding ripples. When she ran out of air, her cry died—but her mouth gaped in a silent scream for long moments. Her back arched into Hel. The impossible sensations stiffened her fingers into rigid spikes, straightened her legs and pointed her toes. She couldn’t say how much time elapsed before the ecstasy released her. Awareness returned when she sucked in a gasp of air and crumpled into the bedding.

  Hel collapsed on her, partially supporting himself. His forehead rested on hers. His hot gasps washed her face. He stayed there until his breathing became normal. Adonia felt the warm slide of fluid from her pussy and then the retreat of his cock. His hands unclasped their tight grip on her wrists and hair. He opened his eyes and smiled.

  “Good?”

  The relaxed glory of his features silenced her. He gazed at her with such emotion, such warmth, as if she was more to him than just a “healer.” She examined him with wonder. “I…I…I...” She stopped and shook her head. She lacked words. His smile stretched to a grin and pleased amusement shone from his eyes. Her smile turned brilliant and warm laughter rolled from her spontaneously. “Beyond good,” she whispered. Hel favored her with another smile and a kiss then rolled to his side and pulled her to him.

  “Go back to sleep, Nia. I’ll wake you when we need to rise.”