Hers to Claim (20 page)

Her brain fought
for comprehension. That
he
was some uber-powerful
magister
, she could believe—but
her
?

“
You said you wished to try some of the healing rites on those afflicted with the
fading
this morning. Do you still want my help?” Hel raised an eyebrow.

Adonia barely registered his question
. Her eyes left his face to stare sightlessly down the hall toward the sickroom as her mind labored for coherent thought.

H
el caught her attention with a murmured, “Nia?”

“
Umm?”

“
My time to attend you in the sickroom is limited. If you want my help, we need to start.” Hel opened his arm and indicated their direction.

Adonia
nodded and followed him mindlessly. She shook off her paralysis of thought when they entered the sickroom and Sara greeted her.
Finally, a place where I am comfortable...where I am confident of my skill, more or less.

“My lord, H
ealer, good morning. Maddie brought a number of diaman crystals for your use. Shall we begin with the rites or would you prefer to start with the more conventional treatments?”

“We will begin with the rites, Sara.” Adonia nodded briskly and moved to sit next to the woman she and Sara had agreed was most in need.

Hel rested his hand on her shoulder. “What do you require from me, Nia?”

The tempest of emotions swirling through her calmed as she ordered her thoughts.
“I know what is supposed to happen. I will open my mind to our Mother and using Her connection to all living things on our planet, I will direct my energy into my patient, locate their illness and repair their body. If I need more power, I draw from the diaman crystals.”

The slight smile never left Hel’s face and he nodded. “Yes, that is what I understand
, though I’ve never used the healing magicks with any great success. It’s not an aptitude I have.”

“
But you can help ground me on the meta-physical plane?”

Adonia sighed with relief
at the slight smile on his face.

“Yes. That I can do.”

She couldn’t help returning his smile and confidence flooded her. A gift from Hel through their
miku amar,
she thought. “Thank you,” escaped on a rush of breath. “It helps to know I am not alone in this.”

His forefinger traced her upper lip then fell to his side. “I will always be here for you, Nia.”
He pulled up a chair next to her and placed a large warm hand on her thigh.

She
pulled a deep breath into her lungs and released it at a measured rate, setting a rhythm she maintained, as thought by thought, she purged her mind of extraneous ideas. The words of mantras she’d memorized but had never thought to use marched forward in disciplined precision, as if soldiers arranged in lines of battle. Her sense of the present evaporated. At last, she severed the final tether to her physical self and floated, pure spirit, bathed in a luminous atmosphere of golden light. The possibility threatened that she could be lost on this plane. Her aetheric being cried out in panic and Hel was there, strong and steadfast, her anchor. Her panic subsided as she reaffirmed her purpose.
I am a High Enclave medica. I have dedicated my life to the healing arts and for once, I don’t need to stand on the sidelines reduced to herbal remedies.

T
he malaise suffocating the life from her patient below revealed itself graphically. Dark threads of corruption smothered three of the body’s seven centers of life. The woman’s throat, heart and navel appeared as pustulating balls of disease with spears of darkness spooling outward into her veins.

The
central darkness drew Adonia inexorably, and she laid the palms of her hands on the corruption obscuring her patient’s heart. A deluge of despair, desolation, hopelessness and anguish ravaged Adonia’s soul, eating all joy, hope, and health. The ravenous hunger consuming the woman beneath her opened its maw and engulfed Adonia in malevolent blackness.

Daughter
of our blood, hear us. Our foe is strong but you are stronger.

A pure golden sphere centered itself on
Adonia’s forehead and blazed a radiant message of love, compassion and courage into the spreading darkness. The face in the portrait seared through Adonia’s mind and for an instant, she knew with certainty Isolde DeCorvus spoke to her through centuries of time.

Daughter of
our blood, have courage. The Great Deceiver cannot abide the light of love. Armor yourself in its truth, and you cannot be overcome.

Warm memories flooded her.
The smiling face of her father appeared before her child-self. The memory of evenings spent wrapped in his loving arms halted the chill eroding her soul. Her mother’s kisses as she settled Adonia into bed and the laughter of her friends and companions as they practiced their archery, the wonderful sense of belonging and companionship, began to repulse the corrosive desolation enveloping her.

Look to
Her own for strength. Above all others, we will not abandon you to the darkness.

‘Look to Her own….’
Adonia’s metaphysical being reached for Hel. Immediately, his masculine presence of steadfast strength surrounded her. Courage filled her, and she confronted the black corruption boiling out of her patient. She hurled a challenge into the darkness. Hopeless emptiness swarmed in answer, and Adonia clutched fiercely to images of joy and love and light. She fired the emotions into the darkness as if arrows from her bow, but her weapons fell harmlessly against the black void that advanced to rend her very soul. She screamed her agony into the nothingness.

Stand behind
us, daughter of our blood.

For an eternal moment, a blazing sphere
of warm gold light shielded her from the ravening dark. Its warmth strengthened her, and armored in its light, she rose on trembling limbs and strode forward into the fearsome blackness.

She faced the
dark onslaught for countless eternities, certain any second she would fail under the relentless attack. For every rebuff she dealt the corruption, the darkness rebounded with redoubled ferocity. For time without end, she clung tenaciously to one speck of light—a beachhead shining through an ocean of despair. A lifetime passed before she felt a weakening in the furious assault, a withdrawal of the avaricious hunger.

Adonia
looked down to see that radiance shone through the fingers of her hands where they pressed to her patient’s chest. Satisfaction blended with an exhaustion of soul. Much more needed to be done before the fight to save this woman would be won—and the woman was but one of many in dire need. Adonia withdrew her battered spirit and, following the anchor Hel created for her, she settled back into her physical body.

The body she
re-entered no longer sat on a chair. Hel’s arms supported her and cradled her, childlike, on his lap. The
thu-thump
of his heart beat rhythmically into her ear where it rested on his chest. When had he picked her up? Had she collapsed? She had no knowledge of it. She opened her eyes. His concerned gaze softened to an emotion much warmer when she managed a weak smile.

“Thank you.
Your strength filled me when my need was great. I would have been lost without you.”

The corners of his mouth lifted
. “You’re welcome.” Hel’s eyes studied her face. “You are the answer to a prayer, Nia. Your strength amazes me.”

She shook her head slowly. “
I had…help.” For the moment, she felt compelled to keep the other presence to herself. It seemed too bizarre. Perhaps she had just imagined a long-dead queen strode into battle beside her.

Adonia
straightened by degrees, soaking in the comfort and safety Hel’s body offered. Long moments passed before she could put together the words she wanted to say. “We don’t fight normal disease. Our foe is a ravenous void. It seeks to engulf all life, and its strength is dreadful. Your conjecture was correct. We don’t fight for the bodily health of our people. We battle for their
anima
, their spiritual essence.” A shudder ran through her. “Cold. I’m so cold.”

S
he wrapped her arms around Hel’s shoulders and held him tightly, trying to thaw the ice piercing her soul with the warmth of his body. The nature of the horror she had come face-to-face with shattered her. She couldn’t prevent her soft keens and the steady roll of tears. “I think we battle for
Her
soul—for Verdantia.”

“
Yes. I suspected as much.” His broad hand caressed her back with soothing, repetitive strokes. “Don’t bear the horror alone, Nia. Speak to me.”

“I am
shaken on a profound level. I cannot bear to confront that abomination again, but I must. I am more terrified of the consequences if I don’t.”

“I know.”
The tips of his fingers raised her chin. His thumb wiped the tears from her cheeks and in his gray eyes she saw infinite weariness and recognition. He did know her fear. For years, Hel had faced this malevolence alone. She had confronted the darkness once and was ready to flee.

“I
’m such a coward.” She ducked her head back into his chest and tightened her hold.

He hummed a low disagreement.
His broad fingers ran through her scalp in a gentle massage. “You are one of the bravest people I know.”

She shook her head vigorously.

He sighed and then straightened. “You are particularly vulnerable to this enemy due to the astral plane on which it attacks. A good medica is hyper-sensitive on a psychic level, and you are an exceptional medica. I wish I could do this for you. I can’t…but know everything I am is at your service. Simply ask.”

H
is generosity of spirit unraveled her. How could she give this man anything but her utmost? Adonia compelled her trembling to stop and straightened in his hold. She forced a smile of pure bravado. “Then there is no force on this planet that can stop us.”

Adonia slid off Hel’s
thighs and stood on wobbly legs. A cascade of spent diaman crystal bounced to the floor. Hel must have put them in her lap. Another thing she hadn’t noticed. She had pulled the stored power from them as well. The rough surface of the gray crystal weighted her hands as she gathered the scattered hunks, and the meaning of the pattern of shadows on the floor registered. She had come to the sickroom with Hel that morning. From the light shining in through the western windows, afternoon advanced into evening. “I’ve been here for most of the day! I’d not realized the passage of time.”

“Yes.” Hel cast her a significant glance. “You waged a
fierce battle, Nia. I felt the repercussions of the onslaught on the aetheric level, but look at your patient.”

H
er patient’s skin had turned to a healthy pink. Gone was the sick yellow pallor. The woman drew easy, regular breaths. Adonia bent down to examine her further, and with the thrill of accomplishment, lifted her face to Hel. “She looks better.”

“
Better? I’m certain she will make a full recovery. I couldn’t have said that before.”

Adonia felt her cheeks pink with pleasure at the
approval in Hel’s direct gaze.

“
Do you have instructions for Sara before we go to Torre Bianca?”

“Torre Bianca?”

“Yes, your schooling in the lesser rites begins now. I know you are weary, but we must make use of every moment we have. I’ll try not to make it too onerous.”

Adonia recognized the implication in
Hel’s heavy-lidded gaze and crooked smile.
Sex.
Masculine admiration mixed with sexual arousal and impatience flooded her—Hel’s emotions. Distinguishing his feelings from her own was becoming easier. His emotions tasted masculine. The pink
miku amar
softened and purred in reaction, and Nia’s nipples hardened in response to the tease.

Adonia wished the little female had settled somewhere less titillating than directly between the petals of her labia.
While Hel looked on with barely suppressed hilarity, she’d tried that morning to coax the delicate creature into moving somewhere less intimate—with no success. She supposed the
miku amar
enjoyed the pheromones and other physical results of Adonia’s bodily arousal. It would explain the animal’s amorous behavior. One elongated tentacle nursed her clit ever so gently, and the cilia on the female’s underbelly provided a continuous minute tickle on the most sensitive of her flesh. Adonia could feel the lips of her sex swell and slick—the same condition in which she awoke this morning in Hel’s great bed. Adonia hoped the dear little creature had not endured the desolation of spirit that had devastated
her
for long hours today. Regardless, the female now thrummed happily in a warm nest between Adonia’s legs—a distraction she endeavored to ignore.

Adonia
motioned Sara over and conferred with the nurse for some time before turning to the commanding figure standing patiently at her side. “I’m ready.”