Taming the Wildflower by Sulriel

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~ 65 First Age ~ ‘The Red-headed Stranger’

Don't cross him, don't boss him.
He's wild in his sorrow:
He's ridin' an' hidin his pain.
Don't fight him, don't spite him;
Just wait till tomorrow,
Maybe he'll ride on again.

                        Willie Nelson

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Rhavloth let her mare pick an easy way through the star-speckled dark along the rocky trail.  Night breezes caressed her with the over-green stench of the Fen of Serech; against that, the subtle hints of woodsmoke, warning her of a presence long before the flickering campfires came into view.

 

She stopped her mare in the deeper shadows to study the camp.  Noldor.  Her own people wouldn't have built the careful stone rings around the fires or even set up the elaborate tent city for a simple night's camp.  

 

The touch of watching eyes weighed on her – there, a guard in the shadows, and another one lurking farther back. 

 

Rhavloth slipped from her mare's back and met the guard's suspicious eyes with a properly regal gaze.  "I am Rhavloth of Doriath."  She glanced over his worn armor for an emblem, but his cloak covered it.  Not that it mattered; she was close enough to Fingolfin's lands.  "I carry a missive for your lord.  Is he in this camp?"

 

"He is."  The guard held out his hand for the pouch.  "I will see it delivered to him."

 

She raised one brow, the way she'd seen her uncle do as a warning that he'd been underestimated.  "The words of Elu Thingol will not be given into the hands of a border guard."  The guard didn't need to know that she'd been instructed to wait for a reply.  "You'll provide me an escort to your lord's fire."

 

His eyes flickered over her, pausing at her weaponless waist before he searched the darkness behind her.  Petty guardsmen, they were all alike, self-important and overly-cautious, it seemed, worrying at the wrong things – as if she would be a danger to his great lord.  .

 

"I'm quite harmless…"

 

He tensed at her smile.

 

"…and unaccompanied.  Your lord has nothing to fear from me."

 

His shoulders stiffened and he bade her follow.  After a quick word with his companion, he led Rhavloth through the camp.  Skirting clumps of loiterers, he led her toward a solitary fire set apart from the others.

 

Rhavloth slowed as she approached the fire.  She'd made a mistake.  This wasn't Fingolfin.  It wasn't any of the lords she knew. 

 

This one leaned up against a log, long legs stretched along the ground.  He watched her with the quiet, edgy gaze of a satiated predator.  As she neared, he rose, uncoiling to stand – she half stumbled a stride – taller than her king

 

His unbound hair, not even a single braid taming it, tangled, heavy and riotous around his face with tendrils teasing over his glittering eyes, to tumble down his back.  It gleamed in the dark, seeming to capture and hold the wavering dance of the coals rather than reflect the flickering tongues of his fire.

 

Heat rose in her cheeks when she realized she'd been staring, until her gaze touched his lips, curled up in a confident smirk, and snapped up to met his eyes

 

Bold!  Haughty!  Was he so used to being stared at?

 

The flush of embarrassment on her cheeks turned to the heat of anger.  Pride stiffened her back and kept her from looking away.  She swallowed the sensible nagging about being respectful echoing from a small corner of her mind and assumed the airs she'd seen her brother use in court.

 

His lips twitched, a subtle shift from arrogance to appreciation, and the corners of his eyes softened.

 

That look she knew, knew it well.  Amusement tickled in her belly that one of the so-called great lords of the Noldor looked at her in the same way as any of the younger sons that loitered about in Melian's gardens.

 

"Leave us." 

 

They spoke at the same time.  The guard startled and stiffened, turning offended eyes from the courier to his lord. 

 

Maedhros nodded and waved him away, taking the moment to temper his amusement at the impertinent chit's arrogance.  Arrogance?  Confidence or ignorance?  His amusement slid through curiosity into delight – only to be replaced with a growing smidge of respect.  She continued to study him with her silver-sparked eyes; as a dwarf would contemplate an unusual stone, with intrigue and a subtle hint of desire.  And without the flicker of fear, hesitance or doubt he was accustomed to commanding. 

 

These grey-elves, he had learned, were nothing if not refreshing.  She stood taller than most, balanced with a lean, easy grace.  Either from the court of these lands or from some wilder lands that knew no lords at all, he guessed.  Her height would compliment his, were she standing at his side.  Her dark hair was braided back.

 

She should wear it loose; it would soften the lines of her face.

 

A twinge of disgust and anger surged up, following the heavy twitch of interest stirring between his thighs.  What had he come to, in these dark woods, to even consider such a plain, dull little thing at his side?  The Calaquendi he'd choose to marry would be carefully chosen – strong enough to bear his sons, and strong enough to stand beside him … wherever his path led.

                                                                                           

"Have you made your decision yet?"

 

The teasing lilt in her voice tangled down between his legs; the promised threat in her narrowed eyes distorted the anger to curious delight.  He suppressed a chuckle, but allowed a slow smile.  "Decision?"

 

"What sauce you would have me served with?"

 

Sauce!  He clamped his jaw in response to the tingling on his tongue at the thought of licking fresh cream from between her pert breasts.  Only the memory of court, with its forced small-talk, intolerable and tedious, kept him from laughing out loud.

 

"You have heard such things about the Lords of the Noldor?"  He added a note of offended surprise to his tone.

 

Her smile twitched.  Whatever her lowered lids hid, she disguised it as sultry innocence when she looked back up at him.  "I've seen such things in the eyes of many of the lords of my people.  Although I have not yet found one to suit my tastes."  Her shrug dismissed him as one of them.

 

Maedhros fought to keep curiosity, intrigue and amusement in the fore of his mind.  His shaft swelled and strained at his leathers; anger loomed over all. 

 

So he looked at her in the same base way as the skulking Moriquendi who slavered at the sway of her hips as she left them – no doubt savoring the memory and using it to stroke themselves when they were alone in their dank caves?  Not to her taste?  Who was she to judge him and find him wanting?

 

Half a step put him close enough; he reached out with his hand and placed a single finger below the tip of her chin.  She sucked in a deep breath and braced her back.  Insufferable, indominantable Moriquendi pride.  It didn't allow her to step back in spite of her trembling.  Her eyes flashed danger and anger at his wide grin – wide enough to make his cheeks ache.  He couldn't remember the last time…

 

"I think dark spiced honey would compliment such a tender young Sindë."  Maedhros leaned in to her as he spoke.  She'd slept last night in a lush meadow and ridden easily though the day – the subtle hints of both wafted up to him.  She'd tucked flowers in her braids.  Although they'd been lost along the way, their scent lingered in her hair.  He'd thought her face stark when he'd first seen her, only moments ago, delicate and refined, he thought now.  The long, elegant line of her neck mesmerized him.  His lips seemed cold and swollen with want.  He leaned down to her –

 

She struck – almost fast enough, almost strong enough.

 

His hand snatched closed on her chin as her hand closed on his forearm that she would have shoved away.  Her lips hovered so close below his, parted – she was holding her breath.  Taste.  She'd spoken of taste.

 

Maedhros brushed the tip of his tongue over her lips.  Sweetness and warmth flooded him with a rush of heated desire.  He opened his eyes to meet her glare.  "Definitely, dark spiced honey." he murmured the words, his lips brushing against her cheek.  His own hand didn't respond to his thoughts for a moment, but finally released her.  Still she stood her ground.

 

"I have business with your Lord Fingolfin."  Her young voice trembled, rough with emotion. 

 

How young? Innocent?  Had she never experienced raw, surging lust?  He'd betrayed her teasing and repartee, carried it too far, and it pained him.  Never lick the courier.  He'd add it to the list how to behave in his uncle's court.

 

"I didn't come to your camp to banter or be misused, only to see if he camped here before I passed on to Barad Eithel."

 

She still trembled with his touch.  He still trembled.

 

"Fingolfin is not here."

 

She spun to leave.  Some part of him spun inside.

 

"Stay," Maedhros called out.  "Our paths run together and you will travel safely with us in the morning."

 

She turned back to him, her eyes dark and questioning.  But what question?  She seemed not to know fear, in the way of a pet who had never been hurt.  Until he called her bluff and pushed past it.  Yet she stopped and turned when he called; and faced him again.  No.  No, certainly not.  The soft young bucks and rowdies she'd known would never be to her taste.  He knew that much about her already.

 

"You will be safe here if you can say I am not to your taste."  His chest tightened at the hitch in her breath and her hesitation.  The last vestige of remorse fled at the flare that flashed up in her eyes.

 

"My taste?"  Her voice rose.  "It was not I who sampled what was not offered."

 

She took a step toward him, strong, menacing.

 

He was the one trembling now.  What a magnificent temper.  Had she always been pampered and never denied?  Could he bring her another step closer?

 

"Lady."  He presented her with a courtly bow and upon rising, extended his hand to her.  "My manners have been remiss in this rough camp.  Your desires will be met if you make them known to me."

 

She flushed at his words.  Had he said too much?  The tautness in her body and her quickening breath said he hadn't.

 

"Come but a step closer," he whispered purposefully.  "Try the taste of me."  His deepened tone lured her as a silk cloth wrapped around would offer warmth and support but not escape. 

 

Still – she hesitated before she stepped past his hand.  One step, and a half.  Close enough he felt the heat of her all along his body.  Slow, but sure, she reached up one hand to touch below his chin, where he had held her.

 

His body sang like a bowstring strung too tight.  He couldn't remember such delicious torment.  Her fingertips caressed the line of his cheek.  In response to her light touch, he rested his hand on the small of her back and leaned down for the soft brush of her lips.  Her tongue flickered at the corner of his lips, then she took his lower lips between her teeth – as if tasting a berry.

 

Maedhros snatched her hard to him.  His world exploded – her lips, her neck, the taste and the feel of her.  He staggered back to standing.  He'd had her halfway to the dirt before he caught himself.  He threaded his fingers up the nape of her neck and held her tight around her waist with his right arm.  Her hands slipped up around his neck to tangle in his hair, her thigh slipped up over his.  She melted into him with a soft cry, opening her lips to his tongue, pulling him in as her hips moved against his.

 

 Surrender, complete surrender.  She was his and – NO! – 

 

He shoved her back, she stumbled a step –

 

No, not his.  Not this.  He'd meant to allow her to amuse him, to use her as pleasant diversion, to teach her a lesson.  She should have laughed or cried or pulled back and tried to slap him.  He'd only meant to steal a kiss and be on his way.

 

-- brief panic showed in her eyes, confusion and loss.  Then outrage.

 

He caught her wrist before the flat of her hand struck him.

 

#

 

Maedhros stared out the window, over the courtyard and battlements to the far horizon, seeing nothing, but turned at the clink of a stopper being dropped back in the neck a finely worked bottle.

 

"I heard you met Rhavloth."  Fingon turned from the sideboard with two filled glasses. 

Maedhros pretended a quizzical expression.  He was sure he didn't know anyone by that name.  Fingon – the lout – laughed out loud. 

 

"'Your cousin,' she said to me, 'is quite rude.'"  Fingon held out one glass to Maedhros.  "She said it in that quaint, understated way she has, as if you'd been very bad and our High King needed to know so he could dress you down."

 

Maedhros took his glass.  The courier, Rhavloth, had come directly to Fingon to complain about him?  He sipped the wine, holding a swallow on his tongue as if he were judging the taste rather than stalling for time and pretending indifference. 

 

"Do you mean the courier?" 

 

Usually, Fingon had a way with words, but he missed the mark with quaint and understated – if, as he undoubtedly was, he was speaking of the bit of sass that strutted through his camp the night before.

 

"We met on the trail a day from here, but I didn't learn her name."  He frowned in a way Fingon should understand meant the conversation was ended.

 

But Fingon only grinned.  "I guessed," he sipped his wine, "from the tone of what she said, that you had learned much about her."

 

"I learned of her temper."  Maedhros leaned back against the window frame as he studied his glass.  Thoughts of her had continually interrupted his day.  ...only because she'd managed to stir him up and then run away.  She undoubtedly thought she'd gotten the best of him.  He just needed a moment to set the record straight.  But he shuddered to think of seeing her in the clear light of day; plain and dull, like any bedraggled wild thing dragged out of the woods.  Certainly her beauty had been a trick of the starlight and the tall flames of his fire. 

 

"Rhavloth."  Fitting.  "From Elwe's court?  She must be Sindar but…"  Maedhros looked up. 

 

Fingon seemed much too amused.  He cocked one brow waved his drink in exaggerated encouragement for Maedhros to continue.

 

"… she has an unusual air about her I could not place."

 

Fingon was waiting, Maedhros knew, to have each tidbit of information dragged out of him by an endless stream of questions.  Maedhros waited as well.  He'd prefer to toss his cousin from the tower and read his entrails.  He wasn't interested in political games and small talk today.  Not when every word refreshed the memory of the taste of her.  And his balls ached.  More than his balls.  He all but groaned with the memory of the sensation of her thigh wrapped up over his hip – how could he still feel the heat of her moving against him? 

 

"It may be," Fingon's grin had faded, "that you're drawn to the reflected light of Melian."  He hesitated again.  "She seems to be a favorite of that court.  You'd be wise to stay clear of her."

 

Favored by the court?  Maedhros looked up from his glass.  Suddenly Fingon didn't seem at all amused.  Was his own expression that dark?

 

"She's kin to Elwe," Fingon said. 

 

More evasion.  If Fingon didn't know the intricate details of Elwe's relations, Maedhros would eat an Orc with no salt.

 

"If you've caused her distress – "

 

"Distress!"  Maedhros stood and paced to the sideboard to refill his glass.  "Their precious little favorite has been over protected.  I did nothing she didn't invite."

 

Fingon twirled his glass's stem in his fingers as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

 

"A kiss."  As if it were any business of his cousin what he did in the dark in the woods. 

 

He wouldn't admit he had licked her first.  "Returned her kiss, if you must know."  After she had nibbled his lip and tugged the edges of it into her mouth.  He intended to fill her with more of himself than that, much more.  "And for that, I was informed that she would not be mounted like a mare in season but courted properly.  She implied I lacked the courage to face her king to ask for her hand."

 

He touched his glass to his lips before he realized it was already empty.  Again. 

 

Fingon pretended not to notice that he'd lowered the glass without drinking.  "As young as she is, I doubt she has been kissed before."  The worried look returned.  "Not the way you would have kissed her."

 

"She didn't say."  Maedhros shrugged.  "Whatever her age, she is full-grown and if, as she says, she will not be dallied with, then I judge she is of a mind to marry."

 

"She said only that your guards waylaid her and that you were rude."  Fingon spoke quietly.  "Nothing else."  That spot in his cheek just above his jaw line twitched.

 

Maedhros refilled his glass.  "She was waylaid as she came into my camp and – " He stopped short, even before he noticed the warning in Fingon's eyes, drained his glass and refilled it.  "And as for my rudeness, I will not compound it by speaking scandalously of a Lady of the House of Elwe."

 

"You don't intend to court her."  Understated, as always when he answered his own question by stating it in the form of the correct answer.

 

He shouldn't court her, Fingon meant; that he had no right to embroil her in their troubles.  The Oath.  The glass shattered in Maedhros' hand.  "No."  He stared at the glistening shards and bright splash of blood in his hand.  He wasn't free to make new vows.  "No…"  he wouldn't bring anyone else into the gristmill that was his life; he wouldn't balance anyone else on the glittering dark edge he tried to balance, "…of course not.  I'll marry one of our own people in time."

 

Fingon smoothly whisked a cloth from the sideboard and wrapped Maedhros' hand with a quick swipe before he knelt to pick up the shards.  "Just as well."

 

Just as well?

 

Fingon stood.  He started to speak again, but then didn't.

 

"Just as well?"  Maedhros asked.

 

Fingon shrugged.  And then he sighed, as if defeated.  "You know I'd be delighted for you to find someone to keep you warm."  He walked to the sideboard, stacked the shards on a cloth, selected a new glass and poured Maedhros another drink.  "But she's not going to be that."  He returned and exchanged the bloodied cloth for the fresh drink.  "She's close enough to Elwe, a granddaughter of his brother… You know Celeborn, she's his niece.  And the court keeps – "

 

" – so she's close enough to the court that it  would help cement relations."

 

Fingon drained his own glass before he spoke. "A marriage, Maitimo.  A marriage would help."

 

Weary anger rose up, clogging Maedhros' throat.  He didn't want a bond; he wouldn't take another chain to wrap himself in.  He only wanted a few hours diversion.  Was that too much too ask in these wild lands he now called home? He shook his head.  "She intrigued me, Fingon.  That's all."  She'd walked into his camp and yanked his leash.  "She sassed my guard and then put on airs when I offered to let her travel with us.  It's nothing to base a marriage on."

 

Fingon stared at him, unusually inscrutable.  "As I said," he repeated, "it's just as well."  Did he hesitate an instant too long?  "One of father's captain's usually escorts her when she's here; any one of them would be a good match for her."

 

#

 

Rhavloth had tried to keep a pleasant, interested expression, but suddenly realized her escort had stopped talking.  The expression on his face said he had asked her a question.  Why had she even bothered to accept his invitation to walk the gardens?  Only because she was insufferably bored.  How long could it take Fingolfin to pen a few lines and seal the pouch for her to carry back?   

 

Her escort's eyes widened for an instant and he stepped back.

 

"I'm afraid that won't be possible."  A delicious and unmistakable voice spoke from behind her.

 

Her world stopped spinning for an instant and restarted with a hazy jolt.  Just the sound of his voice made her dizzy.  The heat that flushed her cheeks came all the way up from her breasts.

 

"I offered you a taste of me," Maedhros whispered in her ear, "offered to fill your desires, and you left angry."   His breath brushed her ear lobe and cheek.  How could she feel it tingling between her thighs?

 

Where had her escort gone?  She suddenly couldn't even remember his name.

 

"You shoved me away," she murmured.  Immediately contrite, she mustn't murmur.  Her brother would never murmur when someone had wronged him.  She wouldn't either.  "Courage is when you persevere in spite of feeling weak and sick in your gut."  Oropher had repeated his lessons to her when she was still too young to go.

 

Maedhros placed his hand on her shoulder and she shuddered with the delicious, heated wave that swept her strength away.  

 

 Rhavloth regathered her strength, it took all she had, and stepped away.  When she turned, she was sure to mimic that insufferably arrogant expression her brother used when he meant to make her feel small and foolish. 

 

Maedhros' smile threatened to melt her resolve so she focused on his eyes.  A mistake. 

 

"I wish for you to dine with me tonight, and walk with me on the banks of the Siron." 

 

He seemed sincere.  She twitched her nose as if she smelled a day old hide.  "You still think I'll provide diversion for you."

 

He stepped close to her, too close, and bent his head down beside hers.  Close enough that her body prickled and burned with his heat.  He tickled his fingertips up her arm.  She swayed into him before she caught herself and she felt his smile brush her cheek.  "Would you prefer I call Fingolfin's captain back and leave you to your entertainment?"

 

Rhavloth pressed her palm, to the center of his chest.  She pushed him back and was rewarded by a flicker of doubt in his eyes.  His heart beat as fast as hers.  A shimmer of sweat beaded in the hairline at his temple.  She wasn't helpless against him.  "I've been lectured to practice restraint," she said.  "It is a lesson you need as well."

 

With a quick nod, he, stepped aside and offered her his arm, as a proper lord would a lady.  He made a small show of composing himself before he spoke again.  "Then, you will dine with me this evening, on the banks of the Siron, and we shall practice restraint."

 

The humor in his easy concession tickled her and she had to remember to keep her expression stern.  When she placed her palm on his arm, the glint in his eyes told her he thought she was his and she started to withdraw her touch but she saw such strength in the depth of him, it gave her pause.  He would test her, she had no doubt, but that same strength gave her confidence she'd be safe.  She closed her hand on his arm.

 

Rhavloth walked with Maedhros in Fingolfin's gardens, then outside the gates, along the edges of the wilderness and the green sparkling banks of the river.  She found him an easy companion – that he had humor without the silliness she found unappealing in the young lords of Thingol's court, and that he didn't seem to have a need to continually flex his strength or flaunt his knowledge in trying to impress her like the other lords of his people.

 

She asked about his missing hand, in a quiet moment, said that she'd heard Fingon had done that terrible thing to him.  A dark shadow twisted his face, but he shrugged it away and told her it was the truth, and how hard it had been to live after…

 

A great lurking sadness and anger swirled within him, it tugged deep inside her. Certainly there must be more to it than pain over the cost of his rescue – so she asked instead about Thorondor; if he remembered the flight, how glorious it must have been to fly, did they pass through a cloud, could he open his eyes against the force of the wind, were the great eagle's feathers soft…

 

When he turned to her, the look in his eyes caught the breath in her throat.  He held her gaze and touched her cheek.  She thought he meant to kiss her.  But he whispered something in the language of his people, and then the pain disappeared from his eyes.  "It was glorious," he said.  

 

He took her by the hand and led her along a meandering path to a grove.  She hesitated, it boasted a tumble of quilts and pillows, and a large hamper.  But she remembered not to murmur. 

 

"You're very sure of me."  She tried to tilt her head and look down her nose at him the way she'd seen Thingol do when someone had overstepped their bounds, but his smile said it didn't work to intimidate someone taller.

 

#

 

Maedhros realized he felt inebriated, but not.  He'd optimistically packed two bottles, but they had yet to finish the second.  That gentle, warm feeling was relaxed contentment.  He'd forgotten this pleasant sensation.  His erection had eased to comfortable anticipation, kept fresh by her smile, the sidelong glances when she thought he wasn't watching, and her soft voice and laughter.

 

She'd butchered his name in trying to differentiate between Maedhros and Maitimo.  Was this delightfully atrocious accent what Fingon considered quaint?  He'd laughed with her and made his own mistake – to touch his finger to her lips, soft, so soft and warm with a wet heat that the brush of her breath burned through him.  The flash of wanton desire in her eyes struck a bolt through to his core.  He knew want and desire and he knew that look, knew it too well.  She wanted him with her entire being.

 

Maedhros softened his smile and let the moment pass.  He moved his finger to hold up in front of her.  "Try again." 

 

"Your people have too many names, mother-names, brother-names…"

 

How long had it been since he'd considered pouting such a delightful trait?

 

"What would they call you in court if you hadn't handed away your crown?"

 

She'd been dismayed, earlier, to learn that his own sons wouldn't be taught they should reclaim the crown from their cousins and the question hit him harder than it should.  He shouldn't have ever had the crown; it only came to him through violence and death.  The loss of Finwë, and then Fëanor.  The dark thoughts of all that surrounded those deaths shredded at his mood with vicious and bloody claws – but her light, questioning touch on his cheek drove all that back to the past.

 

Her simple ambition and the sweet beauty of her innocence made him ache for what he and all his people had lost since the defilement of the Two Trees.  Certainly her people knew darkness and pain and death, but not of the sort his knew, not yet.  She didn't know of the deplorable depths he'd swam, or of the unendurable pain of betrayal he'd been part of.  He swallowed the bile that boiled up his throat at the thought of her learning.

 

"Nelyafinwë," he finally answered.  "In my youth, some called me Nelyo.  I would be pleased if you wish to call me that rather than my mother-name.”  She'd found it amusing Nerdanel had called him 'Pretty'.

 

"I would be pleased," she echoed.

 

Maedhros adjusted the pillow beneath his arm and leaned in as he traced the line of moon-shadow along her temple.  "Fingon accused you of youth," he said.  "But I told him you were grown and knew your own mind."

 

He couldn't read her expression in the shadow. 

 

"I'm not yet half a yen.  I was a young child at the first rising of the sun, I barely remember it."  Her words softened.  "My father urges me to marry, but … "

 

"Ah, yes."  Excitement surged and Maedhros tamped it down, most of it.  "The matter of taste."  He sat up and rummaged through the hamper.  "I brought a special gift for you."

 

She took the small pot he offered.  Her eyes widened when she opened it.  "Honey," she breathed.  "You brought honey for me."

 

Maedhros dipped his forefinger in the pot and strung a dollop to paint the hollow of her throat.  Her breaths quickened as slow streamers trickled down.  Her eyes locked on his with a depth of intensity that coiled through him, as though when they joined they would truly be one.  It seemed as though her heart pounded with his.

 

His entire being centered in his fingertip as he swirled it again in the spiced honey then trailed it to paint the bow of her lips; that simple touch more intimate than any he'd ever known.

 

Rhavloth closed her eyes.  Her lips parted and when the tip of her tongue touched his honeyed finger she breathed a sigh, a pleading groan – impossible to deny. 

 

He'd meant to go slowly with her, to tease her, to torment with his fingers and lips and tongue on her lips, and neck and breasts until she opened to him.  He had denied how she'd so completely surrendered to him at his fire, yet he'd been caught in her again.  He had meant to caress her soft belly and her thighs, as he suckled her breasts, until she cried out and arched up into his hand, begging him to fill her.

 

She reached for him and he met her, his lips on hers, licking and suckling the honey, pulling her lips between his, and her tongue – delving his tongue deep into her in promise of so much more.  Her hands wove up through his hair and held him to her demanding that more.  She followed his lead, open and trusting, throwing her head back as he devoured the honey from her chest; soft and willing as he rolled her beneath him; demanding, with her thigh pressed up between his legs.  He ground his swollen length into her like an animal as her teeth raked his cheek and his neck.  His hand tangled in the laces of her chemise.  When she nipped his ear lobe, he yanked, breaking the strings; he heard the fabric tear as if from a distance.

 

His world slowed and stopped, spinning as his hand tangled in her belt.  Her full breasts gleamed in the moonlight, glistening with sweat in the valley between them, more beautiful than any gems, large dark areolas, her nipples hard and swollen.  His mouth ached to taste them.

 

"Nelyo"

 

"Nelyo..."

 

She was calling him.

 

His gaze traveled up, her tangled hair, her swollen, ravished lips parted, panting; her wild eyes, wanton, trusting, lost in desire and confused.

 

He tried to speak.  When had his mind not worked?  Only once before.  This was different.  How different?  He didn't mean to hurt her.  He only intended what she wanted, to fill her with his hard pounding shaft so she'd scream his name until she was hoarse; and sleep, sex drenched and sweated, in his arms; and he'd have her again in the dawn.

 

"You…"  He had never stammered in his life, "… you cannot say you are unwilling."  Unwilling!  She had all but mounted him in her demands of his service.

 

Rhavloth shook her head, slowly, as if she were dizzy.  Her hand touched his where it rested in her belt.  Her mouth worked before she spoke.  "The blessings…"  She swallowed hard.  "Are your people above the law that you don't honor the blessings and vows that should be spoken?"

 

Her earnest pain and sincerity gouged out his heart.  She asked him to take a vow.  He patched the gaping hole in his chest like he had done for so many others … this wasn't a battlefield.  "Our people do."  He forced the words out.  "But I will not."

 

She clutched at her torn chemise, trying to cover herself.  "What have we done?" she whispered.  

 

 Nothing.  Yet.   

 

"I…"  She looked away.

 

He steeled whatever remained in the place that had been his heart.  "You have hidden in the gardens and been kissed and groped by foppish youths who have never known love and never known battle."

 

She blanched. 

 

Blood-tinged anger welled up, threatening all that remained of his mind at the thought of her with them.

 

Maedhros cleared his throat.  “I will escort you back to the fortress if that's your wish."  His voice sounded gruff and hoarse in his own ears, thick with want.  "But if you stay, know that I will not stop at the simple games some play."  He untangled his hand from hers.  "With my next touch, I will possess you completely.”

 

Dread and dark, empty fear clenched in his throat when she raised her gaze to meet his.  Hurt filled her eyes, but she held steady, strong and regal as any queen.  "I will not be toyed with and I will not be compromised.”  Her voice trembled and she steadied it.  “I know what is in your heart; yet you refuse the Vows with me?”  She stiffened her back and squared her shoulders.  

 

 That insufferable Sindarian pride. 

 

“You bring me here."  Her voice rose, dangerously.  "You hold me and touch me, intending to dishonor the Law?  Do not forget, Calaquendi," she sneered the term as an insult, "that my blood is no less than yours.  Your people deserted this land and now are back to beg for scraps of wilderness.  You are the usurpers here, the takers and the users.  I have not been groped in the shadows; I lower myself for no one, not for lords of my own court, certainly not for you."  She gasped a deep breath with her last word, stood and spun in one motion and disappeared into the woods.