16. The Heart of Me

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A/N: This chapter coincides with the To Live Again chapter with the same title. It is the events of Clara and Thranduil's union, so please expect some suggestive and romantic content.

Media - 'Don't let Go' - Bryan Adams ft Sara McLaughlin

Please enjoy....:)
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If I ever spoke of Bregeth's nature to anyone they would never believe me. I doubt even my Adar knew the depth of her indifference - her cruelty toward me - but sometimes he surprises me with how vigilant he is. Regardless, it is not something that any ellon would admit to - to being forced or pressured into bed with an elleth whom by all accounts was considered a jewel among her people. Mostly I felt ashamed over the whole sordid affair, but in times like these - when I recognise that a true beauty waited patiently for my attentions - then I would rather she thought me angry than pathetically hiding.

Nervously I picked at the skin of my thumb, scowling and tensing when I couldn't rip the irritating rag nail off - why was I so incompetent? If Aradan were here he would be perplexed at my dithering, he'd think me worse than an elleth - an elfling elleth!

What was wrong with me? Did I not want a bond with Clara? Did I not want to be mated to her before Eru? Was I going to let one terrible experience ruin my perspective forever, for I knew it would never be that way with Clara - she loved me and I her.

But my stomach churned and I wrestled the urge to wretch with nerves, or with fear, I couldn't always be sure? It was all such a confusing place in my mind. All the thoughts jumbled together noisily, along with all the old memories marring the new with a foreboding warning.

Would Clara be so calculative? Would she become greedy for power once she had me? Could I survive the humiliation of being snared again?

I scoff, loudly, the rational part of my mind interrupting those questions with an almost amused tenor. Clara was the farthest thing from Bregeth, and to even confuse the two of them was treason - my Clara was far too naive and kind to be that cold. I smiled despite myself, remembering the stolen moments we had shared. Her over eager and passionate attacks on my unprepared fea - not that I minded in the slightest for there was nothing more pleasurable. Her energy made me feel like a youth, a lovesick boy in her presence, and I didn't care. She didn't want the crown, she wanted me, and the thought made more than my heart rise.

Swallowing the dryness away from my throat I sank onto the cold stone floor of my library - sincerely hoping the unpleasantness would cool me down.  Failing that I was going to have to toss myself into one of Adar's freezing fountains, and I am certain that would raise some questioning eyebrows.

I smirked to myself but felt the grin waver...she wanted me?  Oh Valar help me I was not at all equipped for this!

My mind - as untimely and eternally useless as it was - decided to display, in perfect detail, every scar, oddity, and drastically unappealing patches of puckered flesh. There were terrible burn scars still healing, large patches of skin that did not match in tone and shape, and the scar at my pelvis was the most grotesquely unappealing.  It was no small miracle that I actually still retained the ability to reproduce...and that it wasn't a delightful mess like the rest of me...I was never so thankful for armour in my entire existence.  Even with all my attention focused on retaining the mask and the glamour to my outward self, there still some injuries that nothing only well positioned clothing could hide.

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