Hers to Claim (16 page)

Beams of sunlight lanced through tall, mullioned windows into Adonia’s eyes. Blinking, she roused slowly from a profound sleep. Only the top of her head and eyes peeked from the crisp, white, down-stuffed duvet. The rest of her lay cocooned in delicious warmth. A tentative knock sounded on her door. Perhaps it was not the sun that had awakened her.

“Healer? Healer, it is Maddie. Are you awake?”
The maid knocked again. “Ma’am?”

Adonia pushed the duvet back and struggled
with her long embroidered gown before giving up and sitting with the duvet pulled across her lap. The room was surprisingly warm. The heat from the brazier of diaman crystals had dispelled the cold efficiently.

“Come in, Maddie
,” she called.

Adonia
heard the door to the sitting room open and the tink of cutlery against ceramics. The young brunette walked into her bedroom carrying a silver tray with what looked like remnants of last night’s dinner. Steam escaped from a pot of some brewed liquid.

“Put the tray on that table, please, Maddie. I want to get up
and moving. I am neglecting my patients.” Adonia pushed the bedcovers away then wrestled her sheer nightgown down from where it had bunched in a roll at her waist. Lower body sufficiently covered, she padded barefoot to the table and looked down at the food. A lonely piece of unidentifiable meat sat beside a finger-sized potato on a translucent plate of pearl white.

“I’m sorry we don’t have better.
This can’t be what you’re used to.”

Amusement lit Adonia’s eyes
. “What I’m used to would surprise you. I grew up eating lizards and cactus.”

The young servant chuckled.
“Well, it’s not lizard…that much I know.”

“It will keep body and soul together
; that is all that’s important.” Adonia pulled her gown out of the way and sat to eat. “Thank you for the nightgown. I assume you put it on my bed. It was nice not to sleep in my clothes for a change. Thank you for turning my bed down also. I don’t think that’s ever been done for me.”

“You’re welcome.
I put more clothes in your closet last night while you were at dinner. I would be happy to help you chose a dress for today.”

Adonia chewed a piece of meat and swallowed. “I’d planned on wearing the clothes I arrived in.
” From where she sat, she could see her neatly folded tunic, shirt and trousers. “Thank you for washing and mending them.”

“You
’re welcome.”

“
I hear hesitation in your voice.”

“Prince DeHelios
seemed set on you wearing those dresses.” Maddie’s eyes swung to the closet. “I’m not certain, but I think he picked them out himself.”

Adonia
battled with the last of the dentally challenging meat then gulped a cup of what turned out to be herbal tea. “Where do they come from?”

“Most of them belonged to his brother’s wife. She was tall and slender like you, but the one you wore last night was a favorite of Hel’s mother.”

“Mmm.” Adonia considered the beautiful gowns for a moment and then sighed. “No. Those aren’t for the likes of me. I would live in fear of soiling them in the sick room. Besides,” her voice turned wry, “Prince DeHelios has more pressing concerns than what I’m wearing.”

“It seemed important to him
,” Maddie murmured.

Adonia gazed up at her with a slight shake of her head. “No dresses.”

“Then I will help you with your hair and take the tray back.”

~~~

“It’s wonderful to have such accomplished help in the sickroom. Thank you for all you have done to help me, Sara.” Adonia smiled at the matron. “The people of Nyth Uchel are lucky to have such a capable nurse.”

The older woman nodded with a genuine smile. “You are welcome, Healer
, but I gladly surrender the direction of the sick room to you. If we’re through here, I’ll start brewing more brite-weed tea.”

As Sara left the room,
Adonia’s gratitude to the woman welled to fill her heart. The morning had progressed into early afternoon as, one by one, Sara helped her evaluate the most critical patients and plan a treatment program for them. Sara had patiently explained what had been done—what worked and what didn’t work—for those afflicted with the
fading
.

Adonia had some ideas of her own about
magickal treatments she could try. A thrill of delight coursed through her at the thought and she blessed the days—days others had ridiculed her for—spent memorizing procedures she had never thought to practice. At last, an unlooked for answer to a hopeless prayer.
Adonia Corvus is going to work healing magick!
At least…she hoped so.

Unease
rode the shoulder of her anticipation. She’d require Hel’s assistance to empower the diaman crystals required in the magicks.
I must ask him for sex.
Her body warmed at the thought. Hel wouldn’t say no. He’d do anything to assist his people. She just didn’t know how to couch her request. It would be pure arrogance to simply demand—she cringed at the thought.
That will never happen.
And then there was her fear of the unknown.
I have book learning—not practical experience. At the end of the day, I have never done this.
Adonia redoubled her determination and straightened her shoulders. “I’ll just ask Hel straight out,” she muttered.

“Ask me what,
Healer?”

Her eyes flew open to meet the glowering eyes of Hel. Where
had he come from and why was he angry? He made an impatient sound. “Ask me what?”

She could only produce garbled
words.

“Fine. When you regain your voice, ask. Until then,
why are you dressed in rags? Didn’t Maddie show you the dresses? I’ll have words with that girl.”

Adonia
frowned at the vehemence in Hel’s voice. “No. She did tell me. Don’t blame—”

“
Ah. So my first question stands. Why are you dressed in rags?”

Defensive indignation straightened Adonia’s spine. “These are perfectly good clothes.” She winced inside as she stroked the
drab tunic with its mismatched buttons and frayed cuffs and hem. At its finest moment, she’d thought it an ugly, utilitarian garment.

“Do you dislike my choices?”

“No! It’s just…” Her voice faltered. “They are dresses for the highborn and I’m a…”

“Enough!
Healer, do you intend to defy me—flout my commands?”

D
efy him? How could he think such a thing?

“Nia.”
His growl demanded an answer.

“
I would never—”

“
Then, why did you disobey me? I specifically told you—twice. You are forbidden to disparage or demean yourself.”

“
I hardly think wearing—” As before with the hat, one moment she was one place and the next moment another. One moment she stood, and the next she flopped, head down, over Hel’s shoulder as he strode in ground-eating strides down the corridor to her rooms. “By the Mother! Will you let me finish a sentence?” They passed a wide-eyed Sara plastered to the wall as Hel forged by.

“
Prince DeHelios! Put me down!”

“Silence!
You will learn your value, Nia. You
will
learn not to belittle yourself.”

Hel strong-armed the
door to her sitting room and crossed in four strides. He stopped before an armless chair and dumped her on her feet before spinning to sit in the chair. He jerked her, facedown, across his left leg. In mere seconds, he had her tunic halfway up her torso, trapping her arms and hands over her head, baring her from the breasts down. One of his massive hands held her easily confined while his other stripped her pants down to bare her buttocks and upper thighs. His right leg trapped her bare ass against his left, effectively immobilizing her. It was only then it occurred to her to struggle.

“
What are you doing?” she cried into the cloth now muffling her head.

Swack!

His hand descended on her right
buttock cheek in a stinging slap.

“
Ow! Stop it! That hurts!”

Swack, swack, swack!

Rapid slaps hit each cheek, growing heavier
each time. Left, right, left. Brief explosions of pain jerked her in time to his spanks.

“Hel, stop! Please, stop!”
He must be able to hear her.

“You. Will. Not.”
S
wack!
“Denigrate.”
Swack!
“Yourself.”
Swack!

“
Ooohhh!” Adonia couldn’t control the writhing of her hips. Hel merely hooked her thighs and clamped down harder with his right leg.

“You. Will. Not!”
Swack!
“Say it, Nia. Say it.”

“Wha..?”

Swack! Swack! Swack!

Fire radia
ted down her buttocks with every slap of his open hand.

Swack! Swack! Swack!

“I won’t. I won’t!” she yelped into her tunic.

“You
won’t what?”

Swack
! Swack! Swack!

“Denigrate…denigrate…myself,” she sobbed.
Mortification jousted with the fire burning in her hind end. Mortification won the day, and her emotional turmoil buried the stinging pain. “Stop, Hel, please, stop.”

His hand gentled
, and his palm lay open on her right buttock cheek. The flesh underneath it burned. At his slightest movement, hot sensation streaked to a most unexpected place—her clit. To her chagrin, the little bud throbbed in time with the pulse of heat in her buttocks. The slickness she felt between her legs stunned and confused her. Hel slowly moved his hand in a light circle on her abused bottom. She moaned in accompaniment to the provocative touch. His fingers tickled at the seam of her inner thighs and the right leg that held her motionless loosened to allow her movement.

“Open your legs,” he commanded.

“Wh…”

Swack!

With a yelp, s
he spread them as far as the hobble of her trousers would allow.

His long fingers traced down the seam of her buttocks and delved between her widespread legs. “You’re wet,” he murmured
, and his index finger pressed into her slickness and spread it toward her pulsing clit with a swirling caress.

Oh…that fe
els good
. Soft passes over those nerves sent a different kind of heat coursing through her. She arched her back and opened her legs further. “Mmm, please.” She didn’t care what it revealed about her. The hand teasing her flesh disappeared. Goddess, what had she expected? She slumped across his knee in resignation.

The arm that had held her torso and shoulders trapped released her. “Kneel up.”

Hel pulled her tunic back to cover her breasts and abdomen, and she cast a wary glance toward him. The sensual heat in his eyes and the carnal gratification in his twisted grin caught her by surprise. “Now that we know what spanking does to you, sweet Nia, you can be sure I will do this more often.” His grin disappeared. “I warned you I would punish you. Now, go to that closet and select garments befitting your station.”

As she rose, Hel completed the baring of her lower body, stripping her underwear
and her trousers from her legs as she balanced on one foot and then the next.

“My underpant
s, please?” Adonia held out her hand then dropped it at the look on his face. “I need them,” she pleaded softly. “I only have two pair.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No
panties under your dresses and no trousers unless you are sitting a horse.”

She blinked.
Huh.

“Now do as I instructed. Pick a gown from the closet and put it on. I will wait.”
He sprawled like a great, indolent cat in the armless chair and examined her through lazy eyes.

At least he doesn’t seem
angry any more.
She gingerly pulled her tunic over her smarting derriere and padded into her bedroom, the womanly flesh between her legs almost as hot as her ass. A faltering smile played at the edges of her mouth.
I’m not certain I’d call that punishment
. She wondered what that said about her.

~~~

Hel watched Adonia gingerly cross the room to her closet, the hem of her threadbare top flirting with her cherry-red buttock cheeks. He adjusted his pants, loosening the fabric trapping his semi-engorged cock. These unplanned minutes with Nia had proved stimulating. His smile broadened—for each of them. A flare of satisfaction eclipsed the gnawing frustration and flash-fire anger that had plagued Hel all day.
Cathartic, but I shouldn’t have lost my temper with her. She is not the source of my aggravation. Sweet Nia. How little she knows of herself.
He relaxed further into the chair and closed his eyes. His day had started early and promised to finish late.