a flame in the darkness by Arveldis

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a flame in the darkness

Andreth padded down the corridor leading to the guest quarters, taking care to step lightly and holding her cloak tightly closed over her night shift. It would be unseemly to be caught in such a state, and in this part of her father’s halls. She stopped before the last door at the end of the wing, and scarcely had she raised her hand to knock, when it swung open to admit her.

Aegnor stood before her, clad in only his night shirt. His unbound hair fell about his shoulders in an unruly mass, and he was as bright as a flame against the darkness of his chamber.

Andreth stepped in, shutting the door quietly behind her and locking it, and she withdrew the hood of her cloak. At once, he gathered her in his arms and kissed her. She melded to the long lines of his body, twisting her hands in his hair as he kissed her breathless. “I thought the feast would never end,” she whispered as they broke apart.

Resting his forehead against hers and brushing slow circles over her hips with his thumbs, he smiled fondly at her. “We are together now, melleth nín. I can ask for no more, and shall not.”

She tilted her head to kiss him again, deeper this time, and his fingers tightened on her hips. When, at length, he pulled away, she at once missed the warmth of his body pressed against hers, and her breath clung to her lungs, ragged.

“Let me stoke the fire and the braziers. Warm yourself beneath the covers, and I will join you when I am done.”

Andreth did as he said, drawing back the canopy that hung above the bed and discarding her cloak at the foot of his bed. She slipped beneath the fur coverlet and quilt, rubbing her feet together to warm them.

A few moments later, he joined her, drawing the canopy closed around them and slipping beside her under the covers. “Are you warm enough? I can fetch another coverlet,” he said. His brows were knitted with concern.

She smiled fondly at his fretting and reached out to brush his cheek. Ever aware of the differences between them and the greater tolerance of his body, Aegnor worried often about her comfort. “I am quite comfortable, although”—she shifted closer, slipping her foot between his calves—“I would be warmer still in your arms.”

He drew her to him until she was enveloped in the heat of his body. His hand roved the curves of her side—the narrow of her waist, the swell of her hip, the slope of her leg. “Like this?” he asked, his voice low.

“Perhaps.”

His hand travelled back up her side to caress her neck. He traced the line of her jaw with the pad of his thumb, lowering his mouth to hers. He covered her mouth in slow, warm kisses, and she opened her mouth to his. His teeth grazed her lower lip, alternately tugging and nipping. Andreth bit his lip sharply in return and tugged him atop her.

“What does my lady wish me to do?” He kissed a line of heat from the corner of her lip to her jaw, then to her earlobe, which he tugged with his teeth, and then continued to press hot kisses down her neck.

Her eyelids fluttered closed and she grasped blindly at the back of his neck. “Undo me,” she enjoined. Or perhaps she had entreated. She had no awareness of herself; her world had shrunk to the heat pooling in her neck, flaring at each press of his lips and light brush of his teeth.

“As my lady commands,” Aegnor murmured against her neck.

Heat sparked in her abdomen at his words, and her knees tightened around his hips.

He undid the laces at the neck of her shift and kissed her collarbones, palming her breasts through her shift as he did so. His knee between her legs had rucked up the bottom of her shift, and she shifted beneath him to draw it further up, wanting nothing between his hands and her skin.

Guessing what she wanted, he tugged her shift up and over her head, and she lay bare beneath him, desperate for his touch. She chased his mouth hungrily as his hands covered her again, kneading her skin until she felt as if she had been suspended in a state of falling, teetering on the precipice. He dropped his head to kiss her breasts, laving her skin with his tongue, then sucking gently on the swell of her breast, until the skin turned tender beneath his lips.

Gasping at the sensation, Andreth clutched his hair, her nails digging into his scalp. Groaning, he pressed his face into her chest.

Desire mounted between her legs, and she quickly undid the laces of his night shirt and drew it over his head. Wrapping her legs around his waist, she pulled him flush against her, feeling the wild tattoo of his heartbeat against her chest, as hers hammered in answer.

“Please,” she begged, curling her fingers tight in his hair. But he did not move to join her; instead, he reached between them and stroked between her legs with his knuckles, so slow that she shuddered. Then his thumb moved over her, and desire lanced through her at his touch, and her legs clenched in instinctive response. She felt like the string of a lute pulled too tight over its frame, and everything in her thrummed in impatient anticipation.

“Now, now,” she whispered, breathless, tugging on his hair to show him her need.

Aegnor joined her, and she threw her head back as pleasure lapped over her. His breath was hot and ragged against her neck as they moved together, and her nails scraped and scrabbled against his back. She was full—full of him, full of passion, full of love for the Elf who whispered words of love in his own tongue into her ear as his body rocked with hers. She gave herself to his flame, basking in his fire. She bit back a cry as pleasure spilled through her, sweet and sharp in its relief, and he covered her lips with his to silence the sound. He gripped her hips sharply as he finished, and she lay limp with contentment beneath him.

They stayed there, breathless, for several moments, bodies slick against each other, hearts racing together, skin still aflame. The light that forever clung to him seemed to her brighter and more brilliant, and his eyes glittered with an unearthly light, bright points in the darkness of the room. She lay beneath him, arrested, until he slid off of her and leaned against the pillows arranged behind them. She sought the warmth of his body immediately, moving so that she half-leaned against the pillows, with her head resting on his chest.

He drew his fingers through tangles of her damp, mussed hair, steady and gentle. “I believe it is you who undid me, melleth nín,” he murmured.

“Certainly not,” she said, still breathless. She wondered if her lungs would ever draw a full breath again. “I feel as though I have nary a bone nor breath left in my body.”

Aegnor chuckled and continued to comb through her hair as they reclined in the stillness, and the air around them began to cool, sending chills scuttling across her skin.

Leaning forward, he reached for her discarded cloak at the foot of the bed. “You will stay warmer if you are dry. May I?”

She nodded.

He began to dry her body with the cloak, his movements gentle and his hands as reverent as when they had coaxed her body to flaring, obliterating heat.

Andreth leaned into his touch, wishing his hands would never leave her, wishing this moment with him would never end.

“Have I said how beautiful, how wise, how utterly captivating you are?” He punctuated each phrase with a kiss pressed to the shell of her ear, the hollow behind her jaw, the back of her neck, even as he continued to dry her, then dipped between her legs to clean her.

The press of his fingers through the fabric, rubbing over her sensitive skin still aware of their previous moments, sent a frisson of desire spiking through her, satiated and spent though she was, and she curled her fingers in the sheets. “Do you seek to tempt me?” she murmured.

“Perhaps.”

“You are succeeding.”

Aegnor kissed her shoulder. “Good.”

“But I cannot stay.” She moved to collect her shift, but his hand caught hers and stopped her.

“Stay with me tonight,” he whispered. “The glimmer of morning is far off. I will wake you before dawn, so that you may return to your quarters unnoticed.”

She relinquished her shift and turned to face him. “You must wake me when the braziers have gone cold, for none shall be about at that time.”

“I will.”

She laid down next to him, her back pressed against the firm planes of his bare chest, and he drew the covers over them, encasing her in warmth. His fingers splayed against her stomach, lightly brushing back and forth over her skin.

“I have missed you so,” she whispered into the darkness.

His arm tightened around her waist. “As have I. But we shall have all the long months of the winter to spend together, melleth nín.” He pressed a kiss to the back of her neck and stroked her stomach until the darkness of the room and the warmth of his embrace stole her away to sleep.

Chapter End Notes

Translations (courtesy of Tara's Sidarin Phrasebook):

melleth nín: my love

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