Hers to Claim (12 page)

“
Nia, it’s time to rise.” Hel’s low voice accompanied soft kisses around her mouth. “As much as I’d like to stay here, we need to speak with A’rken—if he is lucid. I hear Ram and Steffania stirring. So, up with you.” His breath tickled her ear. His calloused hand ran up and down her flank, rousing her.

She didn’t know how long she
’d slept, but daylight shone under the door to their room.
Ramsey and Steffania.
She’d forgotten all about them. She wondered if they’d heard her in the night.
How could they not—and I told Steffania I didn’t scream.
The heat of mortification flushed her cheeks. She sighed.
I’ll live. So what if they know. It was worth it.
The heat in her cheeks increased.

Hel kicked the blankets off and crossed the room in a few steps. Adonia
took the opportunity to prop on an elbow and study his superlative ass. He picked up her discarded clothes and turned.
Oh!
She looked down immediately.

A low chuckle rumbled deep in his chest
. “I don’t mind you looking.”

When she raised her head, she got a face full of trousers
, socks and tunic and she collapsed back onto the bed, softly laughing under the pile of clothing. The most bizarre feeling tickled through her. She felt all girlie, womanly and feminine—adjectives she had never thought described her. What was it about this man? She didn’t know herself with him. She was beginning to wonder if she had
ever
really known herself.

In the brief time she’d lain on the bed, Hel had dressed.
Adonia sat up, holding her clothes to her chest. “My, ah, underpants?”

Hel
took a few steps and snagged her underwear from the corner of the room. The frayed, utilitarian garment, threadbare with age, dangled from his outstretched finger. He offered them back to her with a raised eyebrow.

“
Thank you.” She frowned, puzzled at his dubious expression. “What?”

Hel me
rely smiled and shook his head. Still puzzled but not wanting to pursue it, she stood and slipped into her worn garment, acutely aware that Hel’s eyes followed her every move. Her feminine parts ached and warm fluid slipped out of her, dampening the crotch of her underwear. There was nothing she wanted to do about it in front of Hel. Adonia pulled on her clothes and wrestled into her socks and boots.

“I don’t suppose you have a comb?”
she asked hopefully. Her hair would make a suitable nest for a small animal. She hadn’t combed it since yesterday morning.

Hel cocked his head
and examined her. “Sit on the side of the bed.” He sat beside her and picked up the matted clump of her hair in his hand. “Turn, please.” She faced the wall to her right. She felt the tugs as he teased the tangled mass into individual hanks and then methodically set about ridding them of the knots caused by wind, rain and tumultuous sex. He had not set himself an easy task.

She turned back to him with a protest. “I can do that.
You have other things more pressing. Please don’t…” Her voice trailed off at his growl.

“Nia,
let me take care of you. Turn around and be still. Nothing is more pressing for me at this moment than you.”

She turned around, silen
ced. She didn’t know where the tears came from. A First Arrow never cried. She caught the cuff of her tunic sleeve and pretended to wipe her nose. She didn’t want Hel to see her tears. He might ask why she cried and the answer, “
Because for many years no one has felt the need to care for me
,” was too painful to voice.

After thirty minutes of tugging, the comb
finally ran through easily.

“Do you want me to braid it?”

She turned to him. “You would braid my hair?”

A smile
played at the corners of his mouth. “I used to braid my daughter’s hair.” He straightened with mock affront. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m quite domestic.”

Q
uestions begging to be asked crowded into her brain like unruly puppies tumbling over themselves in haste.
What am I to you? Do you have a lover at Nyth Uchel? Why do you care about me? Do you want another wife? Do you want more children?
Instead, she answered his question.
“Yes, I would like my hair braided.” She smiled shyly. “Thank you.”

“
Then turn around so I can get it straight.”

When she and Hel walked out
of the bedroom, brilliant morning sunshine streamed in through the windows. Steffania and Ramsey sat at the trestle table, nursing steaming cups of kaffè.

“
Kaffè?” Ramsey held up a pitcher. “The bread is gone but there are some eggs.”

Hel grunted and set about scraping the contents of a pan into two bowls.

“How’s the mystic?” Adonia asked.

Steffania craned her neck in the direction of the mound of cloth occupying a corner of the room. “Still down.”

Adonia crossed the small room and bent down to examine A’rken. His long even breaths indicated he slept
, though his eyes darted left and right beneath his eyelids.

Steffania
drummed her fingers on the table and examined Adonia pensively. “Have either of you been outside?”

“No.” Adonia frowned. “Why?”

Steffania exchanged glances with Ramsey.

Ram took a casual swallow of kaffè and looked at Hel from over the rim of his cup. “You both might want to
, oh…,” Ram pursed his lips in thought, “…check on the horses.”

Hel’s eyebrows rose and Ramsey shrugged. “Just a thought.”

Hel stood and motioned to Adonia. “Let’s go check on the horses.”

Adonia followed Hel to the door and stood back as he opened it. He froze in the entrance, blocking her view.

“What is it?” she asked.

He stood to the side and let her
see.

Her mouth fell open i
n wonderment. Halting steps took her further outside, and she turned slowly, her eyes feeding her brain images that strained belief. Hel, Ramsey and Steffania straggled out behind her. Everywhere Adonia’s eyes gazed, it was the same. Yesterday they had arrived on a gray, sodden, autumn day of withered brown grass and skeleton trees. But if her eyes told her true, the area immediately around the cottage and halfway through the paddocks burst with a returning spring. Green buds burst with fresh leaves on the fruit trees. Small, white lilies-of-the-valley and purple hyacinth bloomed by the door. Emerald-green grass flourished in the paddocks.

She turned to Hel, spee
chless.

“And then there is this.” Ramsey upended the leather sack containing the
diaman
crystals onto the ground. All four raised their hands to shield their eyes from the blazing white light.

Squinting in the radiant blaze, Ram picked up the crystals and returned them to their sack.
He crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe of the open cottage, the leather bag clutched negligently in one hand. “What did the two of you get up to last night?”

Hel
looked at Adonia, allowing her to choose how to answer.

“We had sex,” she offered.
She looked down and fiddled with the hem of her tunic, running it through her thumb and forefinger. “Umm, rather…stellar…sex.”

“Ah.
” A crooked smile raised one side of Ramsey’s mouth. “Nice to know he’s good at something.”

“I thought you might have heard us.” She peeked up through her hair at Ram.
At his roguish smile, she dropped her eyes.

“I
’ve heard female screams for a variety of reasons,” Ramsey offered with a wicked laugh.

She couldn’t
begin
to address what Lord Ramsey implied. “You think all this…” Adonia motioned vaguely about her, “…is because I had
sex
with Hel last night?” She felt the flush of blood heat her cheeks. She’d never considered herself overly modest. Healers dealt with intimate matters daily but it seemed she was still capable of embarrassment when it was
her
intimate details revealed to the world.

Ram examined her as if he was seeing her for
the first time. “Who are you, Healer?”

Adonia
scratched her head, bewildered by his question. “You know who I am, sir—a woman of the Oshtesh.”

Ramsey slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Adonia turned to a solemn-faced Hel and held her arms out in confusion.

“
Whoever you are, you’re the furthest thing from common. This is evidence of it. I always wondered what was possible if I had a proper partner.” Hel scrubbed his face with both hands. Adonia thought he looked like a man under siege. Hel propped his hands on his hips and looked around. “We don’t have time for this discussion right now. We need to get something to eat, speak with A’rken—if that’s even possible—and be on our way.”

Steffania
stepped forward. “I’ll start preparing the horses.”

“Turn them into the paddocks.
A’rken will care for them. We proceed the rest of the way on foot.” At their surprised looks, Hel grimaced. “The going is too treacherous for horses. We can take a couple of the pack ponies, but that’s it.”

“Don’t your people believe in roads?” Ramsey
jibed.

Hel directed a look of immense irritation
toward Ram. “We have excellent roads made unusable by the blight. We’ll be traversing some rugged terrain on foot, so save your energy.”

Adonia put aside her curiosity with great difficulty and went to help Steffania.

~~~

Hel
trudged up another steep grade made slippery by loose scree and tried to stay out of the way of the pack pony lunging up behind him. Nia trailed him, then Steffania and Ramsey with a second pony. Hel picked at his discontent like a dog worries an open wound. He’d been unable to rouse A’rken, and Hel’s questions battered his brain with relentless antagonism. The mystic had been quite clear. Mother Verdantia faced a crisis the like of which they had never seen.
A’rken said She called all Her sons and daughters to war, but where and with whom? And however unlikely, it seemed Nia was at the heart of the answer to saving Her—which raised the next question.

Who was
Nia? Not some simple Oshtesh woman as she would have them believe. The miraculous events outside A’rken’s cottage indicated as much. His father had always told him that with the proper partner—Lady Athena had not been ‘proper’ in that sense—any prince or princess of House DeHelios wielded immense power. Nia had to be highborn and of a
particular
genetic line. There was simply no other explanation. 

As a
child, Hel had spent hours reciting genealogy until he spouted it in his sleep and dreamt of heraldic devices. He’d never considered the time well spent—until now. He knew Adonia didn’t feign ignorance. No
normal
person would carry in their head the five hundred years of “begat” and “born unto” that jam-packed his cranium. Perhaps his encyclopedic knowledge would give him a clue into Nia’s lineage. He would bet good money there was nothing average about her.

The going became easier for some time and presented a good opportunity to talk.
“Nia, come join me.” Hel watched as her head came up and she caught his eyes and nodded. He waited until she stood beside him before moving on.

“You
appear more comfortable today. I no longer worry you will shiver and shudder into separate pieces.”

She looked
disconcerted. “Yes. I’m deliciously warm. Thank you.”

He smiled at her as she shifted in her
mynx coat. He’d fought with her about wearing it. Adonia had wanted to pack the coat. She was “saving it for a special occasion.”

He’d put it on her with a stern admonition. “I refuse to see you
quaking with cold when you have a fine garment that will keep you warm. Since we are walking, I require that you wear it.” She’d subsided meekly and allowed him to fasten her into the fabulous coat. That had been hours ago and from her free, easy movements she didn’t feel the effects of the cold raw day. That alone, warmed him. Yesterday, he had suffered each of her stoically endured, body-shaking shudders as if they were his own, and it had eaten at his gut that he couldn’t help her, warm her, lavish care on her.

“Tell me about your parents. Who were they?”

She gave a deep sigh. “I knew this was coming. I’ll tell you as much as I know.”

It took Hel an hour of probing questions to discover the first clue.
“So your paternal great-great-grandfather was Alon Killion and his wife, Genevieve Brecht.” He shook his head like a dog worrying a bone. “Killion…Brecht…Killion…Brecht…by the Goddess, I know those names.” He racked his memory as they walked in silence. With a metallic screech, the mental doors to his encyclopedic repository of genealogy creaked open and he saw the exact passage in his mind’s eye. “Yes! Alon Exeter DeKillion and Genevieve Loir DeBrecht. They were in love and rebelled when the High Enclave decreed different partners for each. They disappeared without a trace despite an extensive search that went on for years.”