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

of the cloth and reached for her. “Adonia, look at me.” She tilted her head up and gradually brought her velvet brown eyes to meet his. “Nia…” He shook his head at the visible confusion and hurt in her eyes. Damnation, I hate beginning like this. He wanted to share with her his own desires and frustrations—but it was too soon. He would frighten her more. “A healer’s first duty is to save lives. You have done that. Hmm?”
    She took a shuddering breath then straightened. “Yes. I did.” She looked thoughtful for a moment, and if possible, more somber. “I’m a healer. I’ve performed my duty. Thank you for reminding me.”
    “ Yes…well, we’d better get back to the others. We must set our perimeter before dark falls.” She nodded readily enough, but somehow, Hel felt he’d taken another wrong step with her.
    Ramsey was tethering three of their horses to a high-line strung between two trees and looked over his shoulder at them when they emerged from the split in the rock face. A smile began then broadened into a white-toothed grin. Ram’s eyes lit with devilry. “Hel, you’d make a stunning woman. With that face, I’ll cheerfully top you.”
    Hel gestured obscenely in response, but silently thanked Ram for lightening the mood when Adonia gave a soft huff of amusement and threw him an I-told-you-so glance. Steffania walked up with the other three horses and handed them off to Ramsey. As Ramsey secured each animal to the line above, he threw a question at Hel. “What else do we need before nightfall?” His eyes scanned the horizon. “I’d guess at twenty minutes of daylight left.”
    Hel lifted the improvised cloth sack. “I’ll take three and you take three. We’ll arrange them in a circle around us. Walk off a radius of about forty paces from center. Use our bedrolls as center.”
    ~~~
    Adonia watched as Hel and Ramsey marched off their protective circle. Steffania came to stand beside her. “He’s very pretty, isn’t he? From the brilliance of those crystals, I’d guess there was no failure to rise to the occasion?”
    Adonia choked back a mortified laugh. “Ah, no…no failure.”
    “I told you. Was it what you thought it would be?”
    Adonia struggled for words while Steffania watched, a smile growing across her face. “It was nothing like I thought it would be.” Adonia flashed a look at Hel and Ramsey. She had a few more moments before the men joined them. Normally, she didn’t discuss intimate sexual details, but she was floundering and Steffania seemed a woman of the world. “Is it common not to, ah, consummate the rite?”
    Steffania’s eyebrows rose. “You didn’t have intercourse?”
    “Ah…no.”
    “Did you climax?”
    “He did. I didn’t.”
    “The radiance and color of the crystals indicates significant arousal. He could not have lacked skill.”
    “Ah…no. If he’d been any more skillful , I think I’d have perished from frustration.”
    “So you could have come?”
    Adonia raised and lowered her chin in one, slow nod.
    “He took you to the edge and left you teetering there?”
    Adonia nod ded—once.
    S teffania drew back and covered her mouth. Her eyes shown with sympathy and amusement. “You poor thing. You must be horny as hell. Ramsey does that to me all the time. It’s a bitch.”
    Steffania’s astonishing comment surprised a bark of laughter from Adonia, which she quickly suffocated behind a raised palm. “Yes. Yes, that describes it well. He told me not to touch myself—that part of me belonged to him. Is that normal?”
    Steffania leaned ov er and hugged her. “For men like Hel and Ramsey, yes. Come on. They want us to join them.” Steffania threw a significant glance at Adonia. “I’ll explain later.”
    Adonia was glad to see the four bedrolls aligned together—the men on the outside, the women in the center. She had zero experience with soul-wraiths. The desert of the Oshtesh was too bright and too hot for those monstrosities Hel