Feiron turns around quickly, weapons already drawn, but I block his aim. "No!" I shout. Feiron looks perplexed. "Move," he commands me, returning to the rank he thinks he still holds over me.
"No," I say again. "Put your sword down. He won't attack you." I look over my shoulder at Adar, finding his piercing gaze. "Do I have your word?" I ask him, already knowing he won't charge at Feiron.
"You have my word," Adar agrees.
Feiron looks from me to the uruk, and back to me, searching my eyes for answers.
"I'm with him," I say and back away from Feiron, moving towards my dark love. Adar embraces me from behind, putting a protective arm around my waist, burying his face in my hair for a split second, taking in my scent. "Missed you," he whispers so low, only I can hear.
I have to stop myself from purring, my insatiable hunger for him stirred awake.

Feiron looks utterly appalled. "No," he says. "You stink of orc, but I only thought you did so because you've been enslaved for too long, not because... Not because you've been disgracing yourself. You bring shame to your kind. I did not fight death to find you in our enemy's arms." Adar's arm tightens around me in response.
"Deep down I never felt like I belonged among you anyway. Your death might have sent me on an enraged journey, and that rage made me blind. Unseeing I stumbled onto a new path," I say, putting my hand on Adar's arm. "I don't expect you to understand. The heart wants what the heart wants," I state.
"But we were to be married! I love you, Malwen. I thought I'd lost you, but here you are," Feiron gesticulates with his hands, following the length of my body. "But seeing you with him... I'd rather have never found you. This is abhorrent."
"That was always the case with us; whatever you found not to your liking, was something you wanted to change about me. I tried so very hard to please you, to... To love you. And I do, but I was never in love with you. I wanted to, because you were a piece of the only home I've ever known, but I know now that home is where the heart is, and I found my place amongst unexpected beings."
"That's not a being, it's a monster, an orc!" Feiron's got a stern grip on his sword.
"Uruk," Adar and I correct him in unison.
"I thought I managed to get you to see reason, to crave warmth and light, to be like the rest of us," Feiron says. "But you reek of black blood and tainted souls."
"If that's my scent, I'm embracing it fully. War's not warm, no matter whose side you're fighting on. All death is cold and dark, and for some, very final. I know I can't reverse the deaths I've delivered, nor can Adar, but the uruks matter. You have no idea what they've been through." I look at Feiron's face, how it's coated with disbelief by my words.
"And what about us, what we've been through?" Feiron asks.
"We've been through a torrent of terror. We've been broken, but also mended in a way that saved us in the way we needed. Me my mind, and you your flesh. I needed to heal my fragmented mind, and you your torn body." I say.
"I cannot accept this," Feiron rages. "You will come with me and leave this twisted version of yourself behind. You've been shaped into a sinful shadow of who you once were."
"I am the shadow assassin," I state. "I am twisted and sinful, and I yearn for something you will never be able to give me. I wanted vengeance for losing you and our company, but I seek vengeance no more. I seek a darkness that will embrace me for who I am, and I know your light never will." I let myself be engulfed in Adar's tight hold on me, his body language underlining my words. His possessiveness makes my whole body throb with love and lust.
"If I leave now," Feiron starts saying, his eyes blank. "If we meet again, and I have a feeling we will, under even gloomier circumstances, I will not show you mercy. You've chosen your side, and if your heart truly lies with him," Feiron fumes saying the last part. "I will run it through."Adar lets out a sinister growl. "You do not threaten my merillë lúna. You might have survived Scara's attack, but you will not live to suffer mine."

Feiron stands still, irresolute written all over his face. I know him well enough when faced with a tough choice, and he does not run headstrong into chaos. He's not like me.
"Never in my long life did I think I would lose you twice," Feiron says.
"Never in my long life did I think I would let you go twice," I reply, indicating to Adar to loosen his hold. He reluctantly lets his arm fall from my waist, and I walk towards Feiron, his sword still raised high. All I want is to peer into him, one last time, to confirm what I already know. "We all leave here unscathed today," I say, aimed at both Feiron and Adar.
Feiron lowers his sword when I'm close. "Then what do you want?" Feiron asks when I'm standing right in front of him.
"To say goodbye," I say and stare into his eyes. They're the color of the sky back home, a special shade I've not seen elsewhere. Something familiar I will not know again, because before me stands a stranger. Our past parting presumed us both dead, and though we still live, we are dead to each other.
"Namárië," Feiron says, his voice hardly a whisper.
"Namárië," I nod.

---

I watch him slip away between the trees, feeling no remorse. In my many moments of dark despair I've been longing to see Feiron one last time, for him to return to me, to return the missing, broken piece of my spirit. But now that I've met him and learned that he is no longer dead, he could not repair what wasn't really broken. I've been holding the piece to mend myself all along. Retaliating towards one of my company's killers was meant as revenge, but then what? Would a death bring back a life? I knew when I faced off Scara that killing her wouldn't right anything. I was already cruel and crooked, and once I accepted that, I brought myself back from the void I've been falling into, and into Adar's arms.

"He lives," Adar says.
"He does," I reply.
"How?" The dark son wants to know.
"In the warg's frenzy for death and dominance, Feiron managed to crawl away. Some villagers found him and brought him to a healer," I explain.
"Hmmm," Adar growls. "It's time we pay the people of Tirharad a visit."
"You mean to attack?" I ask.
"It was always the plan," Adar says.
I turn around to fully look at him, prying my eyes from the place where Feiron disappeared to between the trees.
"I just learned that my betrothed is alive, and you want to kill those who saved him?" I glare at Adar. "I might not love him, but I do not wish to see him or anyone else suffer."
"They will be given a choice," Adar says. "The same as you."
"Only blood can bind," I mutter.
"Yes, my merillë lúna," Adar says.
"Dark rose," I whisper.
"Dark, beautiful, and lethal," Adar states. "You're a bewitching bloom among wicked weeds. You've cast a spell over me and my children, one I never want to be broken. Whatever dark deeds we've done to get where we're at, all the blood that's been spilled, to me it's a blessing. Among the fallen rose a fierce flower, and I picked you for my own. My love for you will never wither." Adar steps closer. "When you left me to track down Scara... When she returned and you didn't... I had to find you." Adar reaches for my face. "I knew you had to be here. Scara was uninjured, and she could only be so if you two hadn't met, or if you decided not to attack each other." He cups my face in his hands, staring into my eyes.
"Her death was yours to claim, but you showed her mercy." Adar kisses my brow.
"I saw reason," I say. "My quest for avengement ended today. I'm no longer haunted by what I outlived. I've faced my ghosts... His ghost. If you've not come, I might not have believed what stood before my eyes. He might have tried to love me, and I him, but love isn't about trying, it's about doing." I press my body against Adar's. "And you have done me the greatest gift; to let who I am claim her place beside you. I am with you, always and forever," I declare.
"Feiron might not agree with the scent that coats your soul, that you smell like me, my children, your family. You're mine, you hear, you were never his," Adar almost growls the last part, and the way he said mine, set my flesh on fire.
"I know, I've always known," I manage to utter before Adar crashes his lips against mine, laying claim to them like the earth claiming the sun. We're two cold souls craving warmth, and together we will burn.

I moan against his lips, throwing my arms around his neck. He deepens his kisses, his tongue dancing with mine. He's moving us towards the trees, my back hitting a trunk with a thud, wind knocked out of me. No, my uruk isn't tender. I don't want tender. I never did. This is who I am; a wild, wicked beast. So is he. It's our nature and we can't be tamed.

His fingers deftly undo my corset, his mouth trailing my neck. "When I found you with him," Adar growls. "I wanted to tear out his throat. The way he looked at you..." Adar pulls my shirt over my head, my corset and weapons already cluttering the ground around us. "He wanted you for himself, but he will never have you like I do."
"He never has," I moan. It's the truth. Feiron didn't feed my desires. He did not make me simmer with sin. Adar turns me into molten lava just by looking at me, and when his hand first trailed down my south, down in the tunnels... When his dirty hand sullied my soul for all eternity, when I should have remonstrated... I wanted it, he gave it, and I took it. Then, now, and forever.
"Take me," I plead, Adar's hands undoing my pants.
"I have every intention to," Adar rumbles, claiming my lips once more before he stops to remove his armor. His cuirass clatters to the ground, heavy chain mail following next. Soon he stands before me only in his dark shirt and pants. I tug him to me by the band of his trousers, the rough fabric of his shirt scraping against my skin, against my peaked nipples. I moan against his mouth, kissing him sultry. I want him to obliviate my mind, reset it to a state of beastly bliss. No more anger, no more lies, no more pretence. I am who I am, someone Feiron never really loved, and I know I never truly loved him, but this thing with Adar; this is so real I feel it in every inch of my being.

I don't care that we stand among blood and bones, death and decay, with Adar I feel so alive, it blinds the bothersome scene around us, the temporary truce and overhanging threat. The moments with Feiron already feel like a distant memory.

I pull Adar's shirt over his head, his muscular body and scarred, pale skin like rough, hewn stone. Every inch of him solid and sharp. I want him to slice me open and peer into my heart that beats only for him. I gasp against his mouth as his hand finds me soaked between the legs, his possessive growls consenting. He teases me silly, driving me wild with his touch while I'm trying to undo his pants. His cock springs free, and he turns me around, my pants around my legs. With one hand on my hips, he rams himself inside me, my wet folds parting to grant him access. I cry out, the sensation of being stretched to fit him always an elixir I crave. His thrusts are relentless. I'm forced against the bole, my skin rasping against the bark, but I don't care. All I care about is coming with Adar, loud, hard, and fierce. He grabs my other hip as well, leaning closer to kiss my neck, to bite it. I turn my head to kiss him, and he devours my mouth like a starved beast. I whimper with immoral want, my craving for Adar my inescapable undoing. He grunts behind me, his pace like a man chased. I can hardly stand, my legs about to give in, but I hold on for dear life as Adar fucks me, his nails digging into my flesh.

And then I come, soaked and screaming, letting the whole forest know I'm bound to this son of the dark. Adar comes too, his deep guttural roar ringing out, vibrating through me, around me, inside me, filling me with his seed. He leans his forehead against my shoulder, his hands caressing my curves. "You belong with me," Adar says. "I will forever strive to give you what you want. I might have a vicious vision I plan to see through, and when I do, it will surely fade if you're not there to witness it. All I do is for our future, for you, and my children."
"I know," I say, turning my head to give him a soft kiss. He pulls out of me, his load running warm down my legs. I turn around to face him, and he presses me against the bole again to ravage my mouth with his sultry kisses.

---

Dusk becomes night, and we lay on the ground looking up at the stars. We have not yet returned to the safety of our camp, but we both know we're the most dangerous predators in the woods.
I rest my head on Adar's arm, feeling warm and ever so loved in his strong embrace.
"Will you kill him if the circumstance requires it?" Adar asks.
Will I? I wonder. If I'm face to face with Feiron again, and only one of us is bound to walk away from the fight, will I end him? Drive my blade home and make sure he will not come to haunt me again?
"Only so we will not be parted," I say, turning my head to look into Adar's eyes. "He cannot take me from you. And if he goes after you, I will not even hesitate."