Hers to Claim (Verdantia Book 4)

by Patricia A. Knight

  Afterward…he spoke as if an afterward was assured when they both knew it wasn’t. Still … Adonia held his gaze for a long moment. She had so little she could give him. She’d never considered this within her power. “I am not Lady Athena. What if I desire to give you this gift?”

  Unreadable emotions ranged across his face. “That is a consideration for another day.” Hel leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in tender exploration. “Now … drink that cup, Beauty.”

  As Adonia did so, the sounds of conflict, the shouts and shrill cries of combat, filtered through the chamber’s windows and she sent up a prayer for those below.

  ~~~

  It began as he’d said. An inferno of arousal washed through her system, in unrelenting wave upon wave. Nude and bound spread-eagled to the dais in the Chambre Cristalle, Adonia realized that forevermore, her benchmark for torture would be the Great Rite and its cinnagin-driven extremes—when she could think at all—when the detonation of sexual craving moderated enough for rational thought. Klaran had branded her cold and unwomanly. She’d believed him. Cinnagin transformed her into an insatiable succubus, and she forgot she’d ever been anything else.

  “Remember, Beauty, stay with me.” Fire burned in Hel’s gray eyes as he knelt between her legs and scanned her body while she devoured his muscled elegance and prodigious cock. Then began hours of unremitting torment—or perhaps days—she couldn’t tell anymore. Awareness of her surrounds faded, and she forgot who and where she was. Her vision fogged. Why she was in this place and who shared the chamber with her drifted from her rational mind. She only felt.

  The very air across her body teased her in the most violent fashion. Her nipples contracted to stinging firmness and ached for any touch as her most private places swelled to the limits her aching flesh would allow and wept with her body’s dew. Uncontrollable undulations stretched her to the limits of her bonds as she craved contact to assuage the wildfire that consumed her.

  “Touch me. Goddess, please, a touch. Anyone…please.”

  A man’s broad shoulders spread her already straining thighs further apart as his tongue moved in a well-lubricated slide across her swollen intimate flesh. He paused and circled her clit with the tip of his tongue. The muscles in her buttocks trembled, straining to press into his caress, to deepen the stimulation that merely taunted her with completion.

  Her eyes found his, her neck corded with the strain to hold her head upright. For a moment, reality filtered through her mental daze. “Please, Hel…please…”

  He raised his head enough to meet her gaze, his chin glistening with her wetness, his full lips swollen and red. “Please, what, Beauty?” His snarl should have warned her.

  “I need you.”

  “You have me.”

  “Inside. I need you inside.”

  His eyes closed to mere slits and he slowly shook his head. That was when she began to hurl vitriolic curses at him. As time passed, her venomous curses turned to abject begging and then to mumbled incoherency as all conscious thought abandoned her, and she became a piece of needy, wanton flesh. In the background, almost obscured by her lust, the low bass rumble of sound and the increasing brilliance of the Chambre Cristalle filtered through her awareness.

  At last, Hel’s heavy weight lay on her. His hard length parted her swollen feminine lips and invaded. She grunted at the glorious satisfaction. He withdrew. She refused to breathe, all focus poised for the return of that singular sensation. Again, He probed, thrust and withdrew. A low growl built in her chest. “More,” she snarled with guttural ferocity. Viciously, his thick cock pierced her and held deep, hitting the end of her channel, and then began rhythmic, punishing thrusts that pushed her to the precipitous brink of orgasm. Beyond coherent speech, she snarled hysterically when his rhythm slowed.

  “Easy. Hold fast. The Chambre glows brilliant with our arousal. We are almost there.”

  She shook off the choked syllables of Hel’s voice and strained upward to force a more rapid penetration. He retreated. She fell into a seething, ravenous silence. The tempo again picked up and again she climbed to the heavens.

  “Nia, come. Come now!” Incapable of disobeying him, she exploded—ecstasy pulsing from her physical body in tsunami-like waves.

  When the mind-wiping pleasure released her, Adonia floated bodiless in what could only be a dream world set on a vast metaphysical plane. The universe spread out before her like a velvet cloud. Joy swamped her as she recognized others around her—Hel, Fleur, Sophi and Eric, Ari and Doral—all displayed as brilliant globes of golden light, swirling in the plush blackness. She didn’t question how she knew their individual identities—but she knew them. Just as she knew the vast, radiant intelligence was their Great Mother, Verdantia.

  Adonia frolicked with childlike innocence among the others but her joy dimmed and horror invaded when her awareness stretched outward. A dark void had gained terrible inroads in its invasion of Her. Black veins threaded the whole of their mother and patches of pustulent corruption dotted her once pristine brilliance. In places, the darkness swallowed Her radiance completely leaving gaping holes of nothingness.

  Welcome, my beloved daughter.

  An immeasurable sense of acceptance and love overwhelmed Adonia. There was no question in Adonia’s mind as to who spoke. Her. Their Great Mother. Verdantia.

  Bring them to you…all my bygone sons and daughters of the light…only you can call them forth.”

  “Great Mother? I don’t understand.”

  To save me, child, you must summon them. Soon.

  Adonia reached out to Her in panicked question, but she was thrown back into the Chambre Cristalle.

  Her body felt as if she’d turned for hours on a fiery spit, and her brain refused anything but the most fleeting coherence. She swam in and out of consciousness, trapped in a world of leaden flesh. Her spirit yearned for a return to the grace of the Mother. A dead weight kept her pressed full-length into the diaman-stone dais, and a blazing radiance pained her eyes. Adonia had no concept of how long she lay smashed into the brilliant surface before the weight stirred—a man. Her mind supplied a name—Hel. He lifted himself off with a groan and slid clumsily to his feet. She felt the stinging ties on her wrists loosen. Her struggles against her bonds had abraded her flesh leaving raw sores.

  “Nia? Tell me you are all right. Nia?” Vague sounds became words that echoed in her brain, and she fought to comprehend their meaning.

  As he freed her hands, he eased her upright on the dais, massaging her arms, and then pulling her into his body in a fierce embrace before attending to her feet. She could do nothing to assist him. She couldn’t respond at all. It was as if all strength and will had drained from her.

  ~~~

  Hel massaged and caressed Nia’s limp form, trying to rouse her. Shallow breaths parted her lips but otherwise Nia showed no life—no cognizant life. His greatest nightmare had become a reality that he rejected with ferocious adamance. It was too cruel. He choked on a garbled cry at the anguish that tore through him. “No! Goddess, no! Great Mother, you cannot allow this. I refuse to lose her.” His lips curled back in a snarl. “I reject this end for her. Do you hear me! This will not happen.”

  The force of the pain ripping him apart made it difficult to steady his trembling hands to touch her. “Nia…Beauty…talk to me. Please, talk to me. Your silence is destroying me.”

  Hel cradled her in his arms and sat them on a low bench arranged against one of the now radiantly brilliant walls and rocked back and forth in agony. “Sweetheart…please…say something.”

  ~~~

  The tortured despair in Hel’s voice spurred Adonia to gargantuan effort. She waded through the leaden sludge that comprised her conscious thought and attempted to organize her mouth and lips to produce a lucid sound. Her throat hurt as if at some point she had screamed herself hoarse, though she had no memory of doing so. She draped heavy arms around his neck and lifted her head to meet his intense gaze. “Fa-fi…fine.”


  He closed his eyes and when he opened them again, their gray depths displayed vast relief and the corners of his eyes were suspiciously wet. His body shuddered, and he choked out an incoherent sound of reprieve. “Thank you. Now can we try for more than a one-word answer?”

  “She spoke. She spoke,” Adonia croaked. “To me.”

  His face filled with understanding, and he pulled her into him, wrapping her more tightly in his embrace. “I understand. The first time you discover our Great Mother is real and aware of each of us, individually…it robs you of speech.”

  Adonia nodded dumbly. “Also what She told me.” Adonia squinted into the blazing light of the chamber and made a valiant attempt to master herself. “After the Great Rite, is it always this bright?”

  Hel grunted softly. “No. As I am coming to expect anytime I work a rite with you, something unusual has happened. But first, what did our Mother say?” Hel stood and gathered their robes from the glowing chamber floor. After donning his, he helped her to stand and slip into hers. “Steady.”

  Adonia shivered at his touch and felt the remorseless heat of lust flare anew. She needed a respite, some time to gather herself mentally and physically. She doubted she’d get it. Her legs threatened to give way, and once more she sank onto the bench. “Our Mother told me to summon Her bygone sons and daughters—soon. She told me only I could do so.” Adonia lifted her face to Hel’s. “I don’t understand.”

  Hel considered her words for a moment as he slid her bare feet into the slippers she’d worn to the chamber, then his brows rose. “It’s a reference to the script from the base of the tower, Nia. It must be.”

  “That says I will find them beneath my feet.” Adonia squinted down at the glowing floor and tapped the soles of her slippers against the stone as if testing its solidity. “The mighty asleep from ages gone.” She shook her head and sighed. “My brain refuses to make any sense of the words. The incomprehensible has followed the fantastical so relentlessly I feel as if I sleep-walk.”

  Hel sat beside her and took her hand. “Understandable. The demands on you have been unremitting. I’ve not taken very good care of you, Beauty. I…by the Goddess…if I had lost you...”

  She raised her eyes to his and placed a finger across his lips to stop his words. “Please, I am yours to use and glad of it. You were willing to sacrifice your city and your people for me.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t let you do that. I want a whole Nyth Uchel returned to you.” She saw a light enter his eyes that warmed her weary soul. With an inarticulate expression, he gathered her into a tight hug for many long moments.

  Hel broke the silence with an exhale of breath and released her. “Torre Bianca has a crypt where Nyth Uchel has buried four and a half centuries of kings and queens.” Adonia pulled back from him and Hel held her gaze steadily. “The mighty asleep from ages past? The crypt is quite literally beneath our feet. I’ll take you there after you have a chance to sleep and eat something.”

  “How long have we been here? In the Chambre Cristalle? I’m so befuddled.”

  Hel turned his attention to the nearest window. “I’m not clear on that myself,” he admitted. “A day and a half, perhaps? I may have rushed a few steps. I feared…” He frowned. “I feared for Ramsey and Steffania and all the others.” He stood and held out a hand to her. “Come. It is time to see what the Great Rite has accomplished...and if our friends still live.”

  As they descended in one of the mechanical lifts, the groundswell of noise filtering through the thick walls of Torre Bianca hinted that all was not as it had been—that and the scent and temperature of the air. Adonia smelled the green of spring and a warm zephyr flirted with her cheeks from the open door on ground level where a weary, sweat-stained Ramsey leaned, his arms wrapped around his equally disheveled wife. Intense joy pierced Adonia and a brilliant smile lit her face. An upwelling of emotion brought tears to her eyes. “You live. Thank the Goddess. And my maidservant, Maddie…and Sara?

  Ramsey held her gaze steadily and gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Adonia inhaled an unsteady breath at the sorrow that replaced her joy. She swiped at her eyes but the tears overflowed and ran steadily down her cheeks.

  Ramsey straightened. “Many died but their sacrifices were not in vain. Come, you should see the impossible magick you have wrought.”

  An incredulous sight met her eyes as they walked out the entry door into Torre Bianca’s courtyard. It was A’rken’s cottage revisited. Puddles of water stood everywhere and eaves dripped with melting snow. Green sprouts emerged from formerly barren flowerbeds and a warm breeze had replaced the bone-chilling cold. Even more astonishing, the very air shimmered with a silver luminosity, a reflection of the brilliance of Torre Bianca blazing like a white flame at their backs. Composed entirely of diaman stone, the tower’s whole structure radiated an interior light of the purest alabaster white. The atmosphere teemed with life and vigor silvered by Torre Bianca’s radiance.

  Among the splendor were signs of its cost—women and men with grief-stricken faces, children crying for mothers and fathers amid rows of motionless bodies neatly laid out, their faces discreetly covered.

  A mighty cheer had gone up from the ragged townsmen gathered in the spacious area when she and Hel emerged from the tower. Confusion reigned as everyone pressed in on them wanting to touch Adonia’s body, her clothes, her hair. Adonia didn’t want to push them away but it was overwhelming; the strength she’d summoned to make it this far on her own two legs drained out of her until she hung on Hel for support.

  Finally, Hel, Ramsey and Steffania, Bernard and a few other attendants, forced the crowd back with sharp commands to, “Let Magistra DeCorvus through. She is exhausted and needs rest.” In a blatant display of protective ferocity, Hel swooped her up in his arms and hustled her toward the castle as the townspeople fell back to allow her room to pass.

  Cradled in his strong arms, oblivion closed in again and she surrendered to complete exhaustion.

  Chapter Twenty

  As he restlessly prowled the sitting room adjoining his bedchamber, Hel’s gaze flicked from the impassive features of Ramsey to the curious face of Steffania and then to the concerned frown of Bernard. He’d tucked an unconscious Adonia into their bed and had called the three to join him. He’d explained what the Great Mother had told Nia during the Great Rite when the events of the last forty-eight hours hit with the force of a tidal wave. His normal self-discipline abruptly deserted him, and the acid discontent roiling within him erupted into screaming rage. “I cannot protect her, and the thought is driving me mad!”

  His feet caught on an ottoman and he stumbled. With a feral cry of frustration, he drew his sword and hacked violently at the footstool in his path. Fabric and feathers flew through the air and floated to the exotic carpet. Ramsey and Steffania exchanged glances of sympathetic concern, and Bernard hustled to a safe corner. When Hel’s innocent, unarmed victim collapsed to the floor, a mess of shattered wood and upholstery, he grunted in disgust and threw his blade to the opposite corner. “Someone take that away from me. I just ruined a 300-year-old antique. I’m not safe with a weapon at the moment.” Once again, he stalked the spacious room. “I cannot see a way to spare her. Worse, I must use her myself. Nia is critical to all Verdantia’s survival.”

  Ramsey grunted rudely. “Come spar with me. Unlike the hapless furniture, I’ll hit back.”

  Hel saw right through the man. Ramsey was handling him. He didn’t care. Perhaps physical exertion would excise some of the impotent inferno raging throughout his body. “In my present mood, I might kill you, DeKieran.”

  Ramsey chuckled at his snarled threat. “Accomplish what the wraiths and ghouls didn’t? You can try.”

  Hel stomped to where his great sword lay and picked it up. “The training circle behind the armory.”

  Ramsey grinned and opened his arm in a gesture. “After you.” He nodded at his wife. “Care to referee, Vixen?”

  Steffania demurred. “No, th
ank you. I promised to help Bernard inventory what remains in the armory.” She raised on her toes and kissed his mouth and murmured as she pulled away, her arms still draped on his shoulders, “Be nice to him, dominus. No cheating.”

  Ram blinked at her ingenuously while his hands massaged the globes of her ass, and he pulled her tightly into his groin with a low groan of desire. Hel couldn’t endure the intimate tableau. It reminded him too much of what he desperately wanted. “Any time you can bestir yourself, DeKieran.” He whirled and stomped out the door.

  ~~~

  Hours later and much the worse for wear—that gods-be-damned hell-spawn had cheated—Hel groaned as he sank into the tub of chest-deep hot water. The bath was already taking on a pinkish tinge from the fall-out of his bout with Ram. Multiple flesh wounds burned as the hot water penetrated his torn flesh, but the heat felt wonderful on his abused muscles. He submerged totally and gently washed the grime from his face, taking care not to press too hard on the left side of his jaw. DeKieran had dealt him a brain-rattling blow with the hilt of his sword that had ended their contest with both of them sprawled in the grit. Hel counted himself lucky he still had sight in that eye. But, he had given as good as he’d gotten and smiled at the thought. The information Ramsey had relayed about the state of Nyth Uchel and their immediate surrounds also cheered him.

  As the two of them lay on their backs in the gritty soil of the practice ring, gasping like speared carp, DeKieran had described the magickal effects their working of the Great Rite had accomplished.

  “There is the obvious. Torre Bianca blazes as the brightest star on the night’s horizon, and the severe cold that gripped Nyth Uchel has turned temperate. We seem to be entering a new spring. You and Lady DeCorvus have also purified the land surrounding this city—though I don’t know how far that purification extends. It seems the wraiths and the ghouls have been eliminated from the city or at least driven back.” Ram groaned, and Hel turned his head and studied the man. Ramsey lay loose-limbed, eyes closed, his sword flat in the gravel beside him.