Hers To Choose (Verdantia Book 2)

by Patricia A. Knight

  Eric sat, wrapped a strong arm around the back of her chair and then leaned over to scan the large volume. Hyperaware, she detected faint waftings of the clean smell of his soap and the underlying masculine smell of the leather he wore. An image of nuzzling into his neck to taste his skin appeared in her mind. His deep voice vibrated down her spine into her core with caressing fingers of erotic fire. She shook herself mentally. Focus, Sophi.

  “We will begin with the Lesser Rite for Small Flame and continue down to the Lesser Rite for Fertile Fields. His finger indicated a number of titles. “We can skip the next several and go to the Lesser Rite for Bodily Healing.”

  Eric pulled back for a moment and looked at her. She could read apology in the soft green of his eyes. “I’ve not had a partner who wasn’t intimately acquainted with the effects of cinnagin. I forgot that you might not know. I’m sorry.”

  She reached out and gently touched his cheek and ignored the sparkling tingle that resulted. “I’m sorry I slapped you. Please, teach me these rituals.”

  * * *

  The hours passed as Eric’s deep voice recited verse after verse of the various rites. Sophi mimicked his phrasing and intonation, trying to ignore the swirling firestorm of sexual arousal that boiled in increasing ferocity beneath her skin. Part of it was the cinnagin. Part of it was simply proximity to Eric. She discarded any attempt to disguise her burgeoning sexual arousal. Eric stopped briefly and poured them both glasses of water.

  “Sophi, how are you doing?” he asked after examining her for several long moments. She stared into her cup, holding it tightly with two hands.

  “Mother Lyre makes a paste of pepper seeds. It is an acquired taste, insanely hot. Moments after I first tasted it, my mouth and lips felt as if I had eaten live coals. Hours later, my mouth still felt swollen and hot. My lips itched fair to drive me mad.” She took a small sip of water. “My lower lips, my inner sheath, my nipples—they feel as the lips of my mouth did that day.”

  Sophi held Eric with a steady gaze. “I am useless for more study. I cannot think past my body. I want more than life to drop this cup and put my hands between my legs for relief.”

  He rose immediately. “Can you make it to our chamber on your own? I’ll carry you, if not.”

  She shook her head. “You needn’t carry me. I’m not that far gone; and I’ll help you with those ‘rocks’.” She followed him to the table holding the diaman crystals.

  The weight of the cold stone pressed into her forearms as Eric placed crystal after crystal in her over-robe.

  “What are they doing?” The cold, gray pieces of rock cradled in her arms slowly tinged to deepest violet and then to dark blue, emitting a soft hum of sound. Bemusement filled Eric’s face. He shook his head slowly. Extending several fingers, he touched a small piece nestled in her arm. It began to turn a lighter blue.

  “The diaman crystal is absorbing our erotic energy. They will progress through the spectrum of visible color until finally they glow white, tinged with amber gold. That low hum you hear will become louder as the crystal renews. But I have never seen them react without a focusing mantra being said.”

  Sophi eyed him wryly. “Do you think all the recitation we did these hours past activated them?”

  Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a docenti. Shall we?” He cut his eyes at the open door and stairway to the second level. He paused to collect the rest of the crystals in a bag the innkeeper had left them.

  Entering Sophi’s chamber, Eric directed her to place the stones around the bed in a semi-circle. “Make sure they touch each other, Sophi.” His eyes stroked her as he walked to the door. “Take off your robes and get on the bed.” He disappeared with a smile.

  “I’m glad he didn’t say get comfortable. I don’t think that’s possible,” she muttered to herself as she slid out of the glorious over-robe and dress. She folded them carefully, placing the bejeweled belt on top. The bed dipped as she slowly sat to remove her soft leather footwear. Pleasure speared through her from the friction of her feminine folds against the soft bedding as she leaned over to grasp the boot heels, then straightened, pulling her legs from her boots. She shrugged off her under robes, and they fell to the floor in a slither. Spears of delight shot through her as the rougher weave passed across her erect nipples. She caught both tingling buds between her fingers and rolled them gently. Ah! Goddess! Lost in her moan of need, she didn’t hear Eric enter.

  “A man’s idea of heaven.” His low voice rumbled through her.

  Eyes half-lidded, she whispered, “Hurry, Eric,” then slunk onto the bed and watched as he checked the arrangement of the diaman crystals on the floor. He never took his eyes off her as he worked. She couldn’t seem to stop her hands from moving across her breasts, caressing her abdomen, wandering into her swollen, slick folds. Eyes closed, she fell back, enveloped by the softness of the bedding. A small animal cry broke the quiet crystalline hum in the room when her eager fingers found the apex of her folds and circled the pulsing bundle of nerves. Was that her? Did she make that needy sound? Her hips arched, her legs splayed as she passed her fingers around and around. More. More. More!

  “Sophi, you are killing me.” She scarcely recognized the guttural, choked rasp of his statement as Eric stripped his leathers rapidly, dropping them to the floor with no thought for neatness or care. The mattress dipped heavily. The weight of his nude body pressed her further into the soft bed. He cuffed her wrists in his hands and pulled her arms over her head, closing her hands around the headboard.

  “Keep your hands there, Sophi. I don’t want to tie you.”

  Her mewl of protest was lost when the wiry curls of Eric’s chest tickled her nipples. She couldn’t stifle her gasp of reaction to the heady pleasure that soft touch evoked. In me, get in me. With a quick shimmy and undulation, she splayed her legs and raised her hips to slip his cock between her slick folds. Ungh, good, good. The broad head stretched the flesh at the very entrance to her wet core. She lifted to push onto him. In, in. A strong hand slammed her hips back to the bed. Nooo! His hard length slipped away from her entrance.

  “None of that, you minx. I won’t last long inside you and we must prolong this.”

  “Please, Eric,” she gasped.

  “No, Sophi. I know it is hard, sweetling, but we must push you higher.”

  “Higher? How can I be higher than I am? Are you joking?” She opened her eyes to see his face inches away. She could read the answer on his face. “Eric, I will explode!”

  “I should never have given you that cinnagin. You are completely unschooled, undisciplined. It was a mistake to think you could control your arousal.”

  His use of the word ‘undisciplined’ struck a home blow to her pride. Her eyes narrowed and the beginnings of anger joined outrageous arousal. Her hands left the headboard and fisted in Eric’s hair, holding his face close to hers, nose to nose, forehead to forehead, eye to eye. “Do your worst, Commander. I’ll show you ‘disciplined’.” She returned her hands to the headboard. “You will break first, I swear it.”

  With a slight smile that only tipped a corner of his mouth, he responded, “Empty words, Flight Leader. Empty words.” His eyes held knowing satisfaction.

  That he had angered her on purpose crossed her mind but then all thought fled as her flesh assaulted her with erotic sensation. The devil that replaced Eric DeStroia pushed her to inhuman heights of arousal but she endured. Not silently, oh no, not silently. With every word out of her mouth, she intended to inflame and batter Eric’s control.

  “My belly is slick with the fluid dripping from your cock, Eric. Your arms tremble above me,” she whispered. “Can you get harder? I don’t think so.”

  At his whispered oath, Sophi arched her back and pressed her abdomen more firmly against his groin. “You feel like hot iron. I can feel your staff pulsing against me. It must ache being outside my warm, slick sheath.”

  “Shut up.”

  Sophi laughed, low and sultry. “I haven’t
had many men, Eric. I’m tight. Very, very tight. Almost virginal. I’ll grip you so strongly. Like a hot, tight sleeve, sliding up and down your aching cock. Slipping and sliding…”

  Eric groaned and pulled away from the kisses he was nuzzling into her neck. “Tight? How tight are you?” he challenged.

  “Losing your control, Eric?”

  He merely grunted.

  His strong hands gripped her hips as he rocked back on his knees and then slid her forcefully toward him. Spreading her left thigh to its limit with his knee, he pulled his stiff member away from his belly with a slight wince. Its broad head teased her entrance, sliding easily in her wetness.

  “Is this where you want me? Hmm?” Eric taunted in retaliation. “In your pretty pussy? So rosy and swollen, sweetheart. You must be desperate to have me inside you—all those throbbing nerves begging for attention.”

  A slow hiss escaped her mouth. “Yes. Yes, there.” Their eyes locked. Each challenging the other.

  Inexorable pressure stretched the flesh surrounding the entrance to her core. Slowly, so godsbedamned slowly, he pressed into her. Her flesh stretched, flexed, expanded yet again. A soft growl escaped her. He’s so big! His cock pressed against tissue that begged for touch. She sank mindlessly into the liquid slip of his hard member within her. More!

  “You can take me, little cat. Relax, sweetling. Relax. That’s it, just slowly. Just a little at a time,” Eric crooned. “A little more now. Yesss.” His head fell back and he exhaled forcefully.

  “Goddess take you, Eric! More!” Sophi surged her hips into him, driving his substantial size into her tight wetness.

  They both cried out at the swamping pleasure. He fell onto her, his weight and size pressed her into the bedding, halting her driving hips. She fought that resistance. She had to move! Her inner channel exploded in spiking sensation. The tool to assuage her need filled her, stretched her impossibly. Why did he not use it! Sophi bucked futilely under her intoxicating lover.

  “Move, by Her light, Eric, move!” Her hands clawed at his back. Her legs wrapped his slim waist, her heels hooking into his thighs for leverage.

  “Be still, woman,” he growled. “I set the pace—not you.”

  He grabbed her arms over her head and cuffed both wrists in one large hand.

  “You want more, do you?” Eric rumbled in her ear.

  His hips surged into her. Goddesss! She’d thought the first thrust had filled her completely. His second surge took him even deeper. Yes! Oh, Goddess, yes!

  She heard herself beg, “Please, yes, more, more.”

  With dark laughter, he began to slip his heavy cock through her engorged inner flesh. “Like this? Is this what you want?”

  “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. So good,” Sophi begged, beyond shame, desperate for the orgasm that coiled ever upwards through her inner depths. “Please, please, Eric!”

  His hard frame shuddered as he hilted in her. His deep groans, either from vast pleasure or the agony of pleasure withheld, vibrated in her ear. The part of her mind not obsessed with the explosion of sensations detonating within told her he fought for control.

  His deep voice chanted something in her ear. She didn’t want to listen. The pursuit of this stunning pleasure was all that mattered.

  “Sophi! Focus! Listen to me! Say the words, Sophi. Say them!” Eric shook her forcefully. She couldn’t drag her eyelids open. She just repeated what he had said. All her years of self-discipline, learned from the unrelenting desert, came into play as she ground out words that had become meaningless syllables. She had never done anything harder. As Eric worked her methodically through the Lesser Rites, a golden glow suffused the chamber. A melodious deep thrum vibrated the walls, echoing the sexual arousal inside her. A lifetime of erotic torture passed. Finally, Eric’s low rumble ceased its cadenced rhythm. He ceased demanding she repeat his words.

  “Now, Sophi. Let go now.” Eric’s grunted words penetrated her consciousness.

  “Yes!” she cried, surging up into his downward thrust. Comets and meteorites cascaded across her brain as sensation after sensation detonated in her body. Eric’s snarl of climax joined her scream of gratification.

  Then, silence. Bliss. Warmth. Blackness. She floated, bodiless in a night of brilliant stars, all stilled, all calm.

  “My daughter. Welcome.”

  Who? She didn’t ‘hear’ the words but the meaning penetrated her being, nonetheless. Her mind identified the intelligence as the Senzienza. Mother Verdantia? It must be She who spoke. Again, alien thought flooded Sophi’s conscious, obscuring all other perception.

  “The Power of the Two.”

  One of the stars hanging in the amorphous blackness glowed brighter and expanded, filling her vision. Gossamer threads of brilliant white streamed from it toward her, bridging the darkness, wrapping around her, binding her in radiant ribbons of living illumination—Eric. She could not articulate why she knew, nor could she justify her certainty. Urgency overwhelmed her then retreated. A message lingered behind.

  “Serve me.”

  Bodily feeling slowly filtered into her perception. Her corporal form, the thudding of her heart, the flush of sexual satiation—all served to drag her back down from that celestial communion into the leaden separation of worldly flesh and blood from soul and mind. Her eyes fluttered open. The room appeared unfocused. She sat up slowly, momentarily dizzy and confused.

  “By the Goddess.” Eric pushed up next to her. “I’ve had the most extraordinary experience. The Senzienza, Sophi. She spoke to me.”

  “What did She mean by, ‘The power of the two’?” Sophi watched confusion cross Eric’s face. “Maybe I should ask what you experienced?”

  “She spoke to you also?” His tentative response furthered her confusion.

  “Yes,” Sophi said. “She quite clearly addressed me as ‘daughter’ then surged through my brain with ‘the power of the two’ and ‘serve me’. Then you wrapped me in light. Well, perhaps not in that order.” Sophi shrugged. How do you explain the ineffable?

  Sophi watched Eric’s strong face take on the same expression as children upon their first sighting of Father Yule. “You remarkable woman.” He reached out and touched her face gently. “It has been hundreds of years since the Senzienza spoke to a woman. Did you know that? Not even our queen hears Her.”

  “Ah, no, no, not really. Well, I didn’t know it had been that long.”

  “You are extraordinary, Sophi.” Eric continued to look at her with wonder.

  Embarrassed by his scrutiny, her eyes wandered to the floor and the semi-circle of brilliantly radiant diaman crystal.

  “Do they always pulse in time to their vibration?”

  Eric shook himself and turned to look where she pointed. In silence, he leaned over to get a better look. With a grunt, he swung his legs over the bed and knelt, examining the diaman crystals. He picked up one of the smaller pieces and then closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

  “Astonishing. Beyond extraordinary.” His eyes met hers. “These pieces of ‘rock’ as you call them, throb with contained power. I can feel energy surging through my body when I hold them. I have performed these same Rites many times and I have never felt the potency explode from the diaman crystals like this. You remarkable, remarkable woman.”

  Uncomfortable to be praised so, she quietly reminded him. “I had a partner. Your expertise and focus enabled this as much as anything I did.” She held his gaze for a long moment. “Tell me what you experienced.”

  He rejoined her on the bed. He opened his arms in invitation. “Come here.” She nestled under his chin and wrapped an arm around his abdomen.

  “I floated in a sea of stars and became aware of a presence. I knew immediately it was Her, the Senzienza. I can’t tell you why I was so certain.”

  “Umm, yes,” Sophi murmured. “It was like that for me, also.”

  “I’m glad, at least you won’t think I’m crazy,” Eric said. “Her voice filled my brain with the s
ame message she gave you. ‘The Power of the Two’.”

  Eric’s laughter vibrated in his chest. “Now it gets really strange. The star that I’d become sprouted filaments that wove together with the filaments of another star…I think that was you? I more or less get lost after that. I regained consciousness on the bed beside you.” His arms tightened around her. “Surrounded by all these glowing ‘rocks’.”

  “What do you think ‘the power of the two’ means?” Sophi asked.

  Eric sighed. “You are uniquely powerful, Sophi. When joined with another, you create unprecedented energy. At least that is the first thought that comes to mind.”

  “I think the two of us are powerful. She said, ‘the power of the two’. You and me. Specifically, you,” she pegged him in the chest with a finger, “and me.”

  He just grunted in response.

  “We could test that theory by taking different partners.” Her eyes flashed to Eric, absorbing his tightly clenched jaw and fierce expression. “Or not.”

  “Yes—or not. I would kill him, whoever he was. You are mine.”

  Eric’s angry, possessive words should have outraged her. She had guarded her independence fiercely since coming to the Oshtesh. Instead, they warmed her. She could not want a more savagely competent protector. She could not imagine a more passionate lover, or one so welcomed. She pushed back and caught his eyes.

  “I belong to you?”

  “Yes,” he stated emphatically. “Until we get to Sylvan Mintoth, you are mine to defend. Mine to protect. Mine to hold. I don’t share, Sophi.”

  She nodded slowly. “Until we get to Sylvan Mintoth. I am yours.”

  * * *

  “They found her, Mistress.” The brutal commander of House Contradina’s guard bowed low, his cold eyes averted, as he addressed Allegra Contradina. The woman could have his services as long as she continued to pay well, but the twisted wreckage of her face soured his stomach.

  “Where iss sshe, Captain?”

  “In a small village a day’s ride from Silver Grove. Commander DeStroia and four cavalrymen from the garrison at Silver Grove escort her.”