... of Passion by Raiyana

---

Chapter 1

---

“You won’t break me!” he bellowed, struggling against the orcs who held him, knowing it was futile. Yet Gwindor was unwilling to submit – to be conquered – by the dark eyes before him.

His tormentor grinned. “Such spirit,” he crooned, “but I’ve given the likes of you far too much attention already, little one…”

Gwindor’s spine chilled.

What more can they do to me? Oh, Finduilas, help me.

But the spectre of his far-away love did not come to succour him.

It was almost a blessing; seeing her in this place would be worse than the sight of poor Gelmir torn apart.

“Put him with the rest of the thralls,” Gorthaur ordered with a bored wave of his hand at the guards on either side of him.

Gwindor slumped where he hung, giving up the struggle to stand on his own two legs – battered and at least one bone broken – at the news.

The torture of his flesh was over – well, his flesh would be tortured by the brutal work and the overseer’s whip, now, but Gorthaur’s delicate brand of cruel agony would find a new target – and the torture of his mind and spirit about to begin.

I’m sorry Finduilas... I promise to return, my love.

He would live to keep – and regret – that promise, though he did not know it as they dragged him from the hall, Gorthaur’s cruel laughter filling the space behind him.

 

“You like that one, do you, pet?” Thuringwethil’s Precious Master crooned, long fingers running down her leathery wing in a caress.

Thuringwethil smiled, leaning into his touch, and showed off her gleaming fangs. “Shall I drain him in the night, Master?” she asked – begged, really; she was getting hungry – looking after the proud elf. Handsome enough, she supposed, for an eruhín; their standards of beauty were odd to her – none of them even had wings.

“Not yet,” the Precious Master said, and Thuringwethil knew it was an order. 

She pouted. 

“I have plans for that one…”

“Plans, Master?” Looking at the splotches of blood dotting the floor where the elf had been thrown at first, Thuringwethil breathed in the sweet-sour scent of him, hunger making her whine a little at the smell of fear-tinged orchids.

“I know you wish for children of your own, my pet,” Master crooned, running his fingers through the stringy hair left on her head.

“But…?” Thuringwethil dared to ask, though she didn’t dare meet his eyes, remaining on her knees beside the throne.

“Hush, pet, not yet,” Master murmured, scratching behind her sensitive ear and making Thuringwethil purr in pleasure. “We will make you the perfect child, you and I,” he promised, humming the words into her ear, “hungry and swift, dark and fair; your new child will walk in the light, the Great One’s tool of deception, yes,” he sang, “and he will bring such despair to our enemies…”

Thuringwethil’s smile revealed her sharp fangs.

 

 

“You can’t make me!” he cried out, mind balking at the mere realisation of what they wanted to do to him now.

He’d rather be lost in the mines forever.

But the… woman… didn’t move, staying on her knees beside her master, looking like what had once been his darkest nightmares.

He didn’t have nightmares anymore.

He lived them.

And this was worse than anything else he had contemplated.

“You’re not slipping away now, are you, little plaything?” Gorthaur laughed, signalling the grunts who made quick work of tying him to the platform – bed, a treacherous voice in his mind whispered – no matter how much Gwindor fought.

“It won’t work,” he told him, turning his head to spit a wad of blood at the floor, wincing at the light the sight made appear in those impossibly black eyes.

The vampire licked her lips, her… Eru hep him, she had fangs, actual fangs…

 

Gwindor blinked himself awake some time later, dazed as he stared up into deep red eyes.

Laughter echoed in the chamber.

“Well that was fun, little one,” Gorthaur said, “don’t you think?”

Gwindor wanted to hide, make himself small and hide, weakly pulling at the manacles around his wrists.

“He’s tasty,” the vampire said, and Gwindor shuddered away from her tongue licking at a scratch on his naked chest.

All of him was naked.

And his head throbbed, his limbs as heavy as though they were made from metal and rock, disobeying his conscious command to flee from this bed and its horror.

Gwindor wept, knowing what they had done.

What they had taken from him.

The dream that had once seemed so close now gone beyond recall, leaving a wake of filthy despair in its wake.

And Gwindor wept for the loss, even after he stopped noticing the tears that tracked down his cheeks.

 

 

Making his body perform the duty Gorthaur had set for it was satisfyingly difficult, Gwindor thought; it drained him – he hadn’t seen himself in a long time, but he knew that he had grown frail and weak from it – but it did not seem as though Gorthaur could do it often, either, which gave him a dark sort of satisfaction.

He never stopped fighting, even while the evilness was inside him, marionetting his limbs into doing his bidding, the vampire’s smile wide and toothy above him when she scored his flesh, sipping his blood with delight.

And Gwindor thought of escape.

He no longer thought of his lovely Finduilas; she would be sullied by his thoughts, now, but he refused to die in these dark mines, a broken plaything cast aside by a cruel master.

He would die under stars, looking up at Varda’s glorious creations once more.

And perhaps he would forget the dark purpose of his captors in the Halls of Mandos.

 

 

The next time she came to him the vampire was dressed in flowing black robes that were still too like the fell hide she would cloak herself in to spy from the high ceilings. “If I could melt your heart, it would come easier,” she crooned. 

Gwindor kept silent, raising his pick once more to hack at the stone and imagining it was her face.

Her slim bony hands – fingers longer than fingers had a right to be, he thought – caressed his cheek, turning his face; she was stronger than he, by far, despite her seeming frailty.

“Do you not wish for that,” she whispered, in a tone that was probably meant to be seductive, “to give yourself to me – freely?”

“Never.”

“Aww,” Thuringwethil murmured, running her fingers down his chest, sharp nails just on this side of tearing through his flesh where his ratty clothes did not cover his skin. “But you’d enjoy it, darling,” she crooned, sharp fangs glimmering in the light when his heart sped in fear.

She had never come to him alone, before, and Gwindor had believed the intervention of Gorthaur necessary for her to subdue his own will in the matter, but perhaps it was not so?