Read Online Hers to Claim by Patricia A. Knight - Free Book Online

Adonia swallowed her frustration-fed anger. She had agreed, after all.
    “I’ll let you come, Nia. But I decide when. Until then, I want you to burn.” Hel turned away from her and resumed dressing.
    If he wanted her to burn, he’d succeeded. The flesh between her legs throbbed and her inner thighs were moist with unappeased desire. She threw her clothing on. Buttons remained undone—ties, untied. She simply wanted coverage. She felt naked now, when she hadn’t a moment before. She still wondered if he found her common blood repellent, but she lacked the courage to ask. When she’d put everything on, Adonia pulled her hanging clothing tighter around her and strode off to the split in the rock.
    In all her years with Klaran, Adonia couldn’t remember a time of prolonged sexual frustration. But then, her drive had focused elsewhere. If she searched her memory, she vaguely recalled occasional complaints from Klaran about her lack of interest. She’d never been a sexual creature but then Klaran had never pulled her as this man did. Klaran had been…safe? DeHelios was anything but. What will I be at the end of this journey? Someone different, I suspect.



Chapter Four
    While Adonia jerked her clothes on, Hel gathered the radiant diaman crystals that lay discarded on the pelt and wrapped them in a scrap of cloth he’d brought for that purpose. When she had volunteered to serve as his partner, his immediate response had been frustration and anger. He’d tried to hide it but, from Nia’s obvious misery, he’d been unsuccessful. A sexual rite was not how he wanted to begin with her, and Adonia’s frustrated hurt gnawed on the raw discontent he hid. He snorted silently. He wanted to woo her. He wanted privacy, a bed and all the other trappings of comfort necessary to submerge both of them in prolonged erotic pleasure. If he’d had any option, he would have declined her offer to partner him tonight.
    For the first time in a decade, a woman sparked his intellectual and physical interest. She was a rarity in his world, a creature without artifice. There was no pretense or falseness in her. She was real. He couldn’t explain his physical attraction, but he’d felt its magnetic pull from the first time they’d locked eyes in the palace hall. In another world, in an earlier time, he would have won her to him with the attention a woman of her obvious high caliber deserved.
    Their first time together would have been in a warm room on a soft bed where time had no meaning—not on the rough, rocky ground in a rushed rite he’d performed mechanically, knowing their lives depended on the outcome. He would have seduced her into the erotic world his particular carnality demanded and reveled in the passionate response he knew he could draw from her. She would submit to him gladly. The Goddess had created her for it. The woman gloried in serving.
    Sadly, his world was not that world any longer. Brutal practicality stripped his relationships of any niceties and turned sex into another duty performed for those who looked to him for protection. He had done his best to make Adonia’s first time with him easy for her. He’d gone hours out of their way to find the thermal springs. It was the most he could offer her now. His present situation infuriated him. It was as if their Great Mother decreed he could have nothing for his own. He hurled the thought away on a silent snarl. I am going to keep this woman.
    “Adonia, stop.” The tall brunette had almost reached the split in the rock. At his barked order, she stopped and stood, head down, arms wrapped around her waist as if she held the pieces of herself together. The glorious, walnut brown fall of her hair hid her face. Hel strode toward her and held the radiant diaman crystals in front of her, cupping the cloth with two hands.
    “Look at th is, Nia. This is your doing. The four of us and our mounts will sleep protected tonight because of you .” Hel closed one hand around the neck