Chapter Text
The sunlight stabbed at her eyes the moment she stepped outside. She raised a trembling hand to shield her face, as though the autumn sky itself meant to burn her away. She was so much more sensitive to it lately. Blinking a few times to allow her eyes to adjust, she descended the slabbed steps and out towards the car park.
Once in the driver’s seat, she simply sat for a long while allowing her eyes to glaze over and stare into nothing. Her hands shook on the steering wheel. Galadriel hadn’t turned the key yet - she couldn’t.
Her pallor and hollowed eyes made her look more like a shell than a woman.
The doctors had given it a name. Words in Latin, descending like an omen.
The sound of a car horn shook her out of her trance – some dispute over the last free car parking space.
Galadriel swallowed slowly, as if this small act would remind her that she was still, in fact, alive, focussing on the sensation of the saliva disappearing down her throat.
Releasing a deep sigh, she turned the key over to start the engine and backed out of the parking space.
***
Once home, Galadriel stood in the kitchen for ten minutes, staring at the kettle she hadn’t switched on. Her fingers drummed against the counter with no rhythm, no purpose. Even her own pulse seemed reluctant, a sluggish beat in her veins. Numb to all.
The only thing she really felt anymore was the pain in her head, which was a dull ache at its best, and an intense searing at its worst.
She drifted listlessly up the stairs to her bedroom, not really sure as to why.
In the mirror, a stranger stared back. Dark rings shadowed her eyes, and she chewed her cheek as if testing the fragility of her own flesh. Anyone else might think she’d simply missed sleep - something a little makeup could disguise. But she knew better. She looked over her clothes next – practical, lazily chosen – a frumpy jumper and jean combination she threw on knowing there would be no occasion to dress up for. She stared at herself, the woman in her reflection there looked already half-dead - hollow eyes, skin leeched of colour.
Frustration brewed. Even if she felt like crap, she didn’t have to compound it by dressing like it. She tore the sweater over her head, as though peeling away the weakness she loathed.
Stomping over to her wardrobe, she flicked through the hangers until she found a strappy, black, backless mini-dress with a low cowl neckline down to her sternum.
Sliding into the black dress, she felt the fabric cling like a second skin, one that belonged to someone alive, someone vibrant.
She smoothed the front and sides down over her waist, turning from side to side and feeling generally satisfied she still looked pretty good despite everything going on.
She narrowed her eyes at her double as a thought began to form in her mind.
Her lips pursed, then broke into a reckless smile. ‘Fuck it,’ she whispered, and immediately began searching the bottom of the wardrobe for a pair of strappy heels. She slid her feet into them and fastened the buckles, binding her step to a rhythm of defiance.
She painted her lips red - the colour of sin, of blood. Last, her golden hair fell loose, a crown for the woman she refused to give up on just yet.
She took one final look at herself as a shadow fell. The last of the sun’s rays had set below the horizon, dulling the colours in the room, bolstering the grey tint through which she viewed the world.
So, she would go in search of anything that might brighten it, even if only for a few hours. Tonight, she would hunt for something worth feeling - even if it devoured her.
***
The club was dark, and loud – Halbrand could feel the music pulsating through his veins as he stood in the corner under the mezzanine, still as stone, scanning the crowd.
The air was thick with sweat, a heady cocktail of youth and desire that set his nose on fire as he watched the various pre-mating rituals unfold in front of him, successful or no.
He needed to find someone on their own, lonesome, and desperate for attention. They were the ones he could make do anything. So quick to trust, too eager to please. Very few could resist his charms, and fewer refused the power of his looks when he cocked his eyebrow and sent a curious smile their way.
Still his eyes roamed the room - the green beams of the laser-effects breaking across the array of faces as he selected his target.
There…
A red-headed slip of a thing retreating alone to a stool at a high table full of empty drinks, but no one came to join her. The look of rejection was plastered over her forlorn features. No doubt her friends were busy being clumsily grabbed at while the men about them bent to shout something lewd and altogether too loud in their ears as they fought against the music.
Halbrand sucked his teeth, and began moving toward the red-head.
Stalking out onto the dancefloor, he took no more than three steps before he stopped, feeling familiar eyes on his back.
He turned, and looked up to the balcony.
Her…
Daggers in his gaze. Then, a roll of his eyes, and a sigh of frustration, as he turned back around.
The girl was already gone.
But he’d lost his appetite anyway.
With her hanging around, he was happy to cut his losses and leave.
He began to pick his way through the crowd, heading towards the exit. He was taller than most, and he seethed when he could still feel her eyes burning a hole in the back of his head - so easily picked out among the throng.
Halbrand was almost at the door, when suddenly, he stiffened. He had caught the scent of something… different.
He should have left. He almost did. But - that scent. Pomegranate, jasmine, and beneath it all, something raw and aching, sharp as iron on his tongue. Sadness.
In amongst all these things there was something else pulling at him – something strange that he couldn’t place, but was drawn to with an urgency he’d never felt before, desperate to yield himself to its inescapable snare.
His eyes darted across the room - eager - abandoning the shadow on the balcony. Not caring anymore.
The dancing bodies parted momentarily. A shock of lustrous blonde waves caught his eye, before the image was obscured again by the shifting herd.
He pressed forward, shoving people aside in frustration. Quickening his step every time he caught a glimpse of gold.
Unlike the red-head, and for some reason he couldn’t put his finger on, he was anxious to make sure this one didn’t slip away.
Finally, he broke through the press of bodies, and there at the bar, she sat. Alone.
Her melancholy was a taste on the air, bittersweet, intoxicating. It wasn’t her beauty that pulled him, not really, though she was beautiful - it was the ache in her that resonated in his own hollow places, places he preferred not to acknowledge; calling him like a siren song. Before he knew it, he was already imagining what he would do to her tonight. How he planned to ease her troubles…
She sat on a stool, one elbow on the bar and fiddling with the cocktail stick in her drink as she looked about the room. Golden hair, red lips, a dress that invited all the wrong attention. Her eyes as blue as the tropics - the kind that begged for someone reckless enough to dive in and save her from her loneliness. Just for one night.
Slowly, deliberately, he walked up to the bar, careful to keep some distance between them. The entire time he watched her as he leant himself against it, only glancing away for a second as he ordered his drink.
Halbrand knew all too well, that it’s impossible not to notice when someone is looking at you. As though some sixth sense kicks in and you become aware of the eyes of the watcher on your skin. And she felt it now – the warm prickle of his stalwart gaze setting her hairs on end.
Her eyes flicked up to him. And while most would have quickly and coyly averted their gaze under the intensity of his stare, her eyes didn’t drop.
If anything, they sharpened, daring him. A sense of challenge replacing the gloom in her eyes. Would he have the courage to do more than just look?
He took a slow slip of his drink, grip tightening as he watched her from behind the rim. A low hum of amusement rose in his chest - she was no ordinary prey.
Halbrand had a rhythm, a pattern - lure, ensnare, consume. But when her eyes locked with his, steady and unyielding, something ignited. Hunger twisted into something keener, stranger.
She turned away then, but only to sip her own drink as she sent him an alluring sideways glance.
Halbrand’s lip curled, half-snarl, half-smile. That was everything he needed.
He set his glass down and took a step towards her.
But the moment he did so, she swivelled on her stool, coolly setting her heels to the ground and walking off without a second look.
Halbrand stood entranced but confused – unable to take his eyes off the way her hips swayed effortlessly from side-to-side, he equally couldn’t fathom how he’d managed to strike out so soon.
Heat flared in his chest - insult and desire, indistinguishable.
This never happened. Not to him. Not with all the worldly and otherworldly charms he liked to employ to get just what he wanted.
And he definitely wanted her.
She drew from him a hunger deeper than breath itself.
What was this pull he felt? This magnetism he struggled to make sense of?
The answer wasn’t important. All he needed to know, was that tonight, she would be his.
Lowering his head, he fixated on her from under his brow while his tongue glided over one of his canines. Testing it.
He moved to follow her, whether she wanted him to or not.
But with a flick of her hair she shot a glance at him over her shoulder, devilish, and enticing.
A voracious growl rumbled low in his throat, his lip curling in ravenous delight.
She wanted a chase, and he was more than happy to oblige.
He let her disappear into the shadows beneath the balcony before beginning his pursuit.
His eyes were keen in the dark, but his nose was keener. Her scent curled like a ribbon on the air, and he drew it into himself, pulling it ever tauter as he closed the distance.
The crowd thinned under the mezzanine’s thickening dark, broken only by shards of green laser. A flurry of them caught her hair, shining silver now in the dim.
She slowed. Checking he was he still following. One arm curled around a pillar, her head peeking from the other side. The tantalising look she gave him was clear - was he willing to play?
Of course, he was.
It was evident in the way he stalked from pillar to pillar now, always one behind her as she weaved in and out.
She looked back after rounding each one, reeling him in closer.
And he let her.
He delighted in losing sight of her every time he skirted a column, only to pick her out again in this scintillating game of cat and mouse.
Another pillar, another alluring look.
But as he passed by the latest one, he failed to spot her again. She was gone.
She was good - his mouse. He relished in how she didn’t make it easy.
No matter. Her scent was like a beacon guiding him home in a starless night.
That’s how he found her - in the darkest corner of the club - tucked as far under the gallery as she could be.
She had pressed herself against the back wall, watching him approach.
It wasn’t until he was inches away from her that he stopped, and he delighted in the way her fingers curled against the wall. Smirked at how she dragged a trembling breath past her lips - the anticipation setting her skin on fire.
He could feel the heat of it emanating off her – her body screaming with life so delectably.
Cupping her chin, Halbrand stepped in, meeting the wide pools of her eyes with a voracious stare.
Slowly, he raked his gaze down her body, sliding his other hand over her waist as he brought his focus back to her lips.
She trembled at his touch.
The bass of the music thrummed a synchronised rhythm through their bodies as though each were calling to the other.
It was too loud for words, so he simply raised an eyebrow and inclined his head in question.
Her answer was clear in the way she tipped her head back and parted her lips as she looked at him with lowered lids, languid with invitation.
Uncurling his fingers from her chin, he slipped them around the back of her neck, savouring in the way her skin pimpled in response despite the heat.
He urged his body against hers, pinning her to the wall, but she arched willingly into him, her hands clawing his shirt as if daring him to go further.
His lips lowered, grazing softly over hers for a moment. The corner of his mouth twitched with longing at the sensation of her breath.
Thinking about all the ways he was going to take her, he closed his eyes and pressed his mouth more firmly upon hers.
His kiss was slow, patient. He didn’t want to scare her off. But any misgivings in that regard were quickly quashed by the way she used both hands now at the back of his neck to pull him further in.
Their kisses became hungry - lips opening to allow their tongues to go in ravenous search of one another while hands roamed feverishly.
Halbrand took pleasure in stifling a moan from her as he rolled the hard press of his hips to her core.
Gliding his fingers up from her waist, he chanced at taking her breast in his hand.
It was bold. Impulsive.
But he figured she didn’t bring him to the most secluded place in the club to practice restraint.
When he squeezed she pulled her lips away, gasping a little, and releasing a strained sigh when he palmed at her again.
The sensation of her breath on his skin was intoxicating – he craved her all the more when she took his hand and guided it under the neckline of her dress, helping him push it aside to release her breast.
Oh, she was bold - this mouse.
Perhaps he needed to stop thinking of her like that. After all, she was chasing her desires as much as he. It was her that lured him to this spot, her that kept pushing for more. Perhaps she had been the cat all along… crafty kitten.
His lips descended on hers again, fierce and passionate, gripping the hair at the back of her neck while his thumb busied itself with her nipple.
More vibrations caught in her throat as he rolled his pelvis again, only this time his own voice groaned in response – the feel of her against the urgent swell of his manhood catching him off guard. He wasn’t expecting to be so awakened by her, and now every nerve thrummed with need.
Grateful she met his hunger with her own, he eagerly obliged when she turned her lips away from him and exposed her neck.
Planting a succession of wet, impatient kisses down her throat, he lingered at the place where her heart’s rhythm sang brightest – the temptation to nip at her flesh almost overtaking him.
His fangs ached, hovering just above her pulse.
But he stilled, forcing the hunger back and sucking a mark onto her skin instead.
He groaned harshly against her neck when she gasped at the way he branded her, seizing every ounce of restraint he had.
Careful. Softly. Not yet…
He swiftly continued his trail of kisses below her collar bone, seeking a suitable distraction in the plump, supple round of her breast - tantalising in its own right. He latched his mouth around her nipple, swirling his tongue over the sensitive peak while his hand strayed from her hair and slipped beneath the fabric of her dress to give similar attention to the other.
She arched her back against the wall while he stroked and caressed her, eliciting a dark grin from him, teeth pinching at her nipple as she ran her fingers through his hair.
His lips roamed towards the other breast, but stopped midway, mouth wide - hankering at her sternum - as a dark thought entered his mind.
He licked a deliberate strip up the valley of her chest, and when he came to meet her gaze, he settled his hands at her hips. He dug his fingers in, gripping at the fleshy curve of her, pulling ever so slightly at the fabric her dress.
The hem raised almost imperceptibly up her thighs.
He knew she felt it. The way he exposed a sliver more of her skin to the humid air.
Electricity crackled in the space between them, the unspoken question lingering with his touch. She gazed up at him - the heat within her eyes assured him she wanted it with a lustful need. In fact, it was what she had been hoping for.
He’d hunted countless women, but tonight, he realized with a thrill, that he was the one being lured; a trap he was all too happy to fall into.
No one would see. Too dark. Too secluded.
Holding her gaze, he began to gather up the fabric at her thighs.
Halbrand watched with sinful glee at the way her chest began to rise and fall more rigorously. Guessing this was not something she usually would allow given the way her skin prickled with a shy warmth now. But whether it was her sadness or simply a drunken sense of abandon, he thirsted after the way she stared back at him - eyes pleading with him to make her feel something.
And he was of a mood not to disappoint.
He ruched her dress just enough to expose the waistline of her black, lace underwear.
Curling a fingertip under the band at her hip, he skirted his finger across her supple curves until he reached the centre. All the while he kept his gaze on her, lids heavy, weighted with want.
He turned his hand over, palm now flat against her navel, fingertips poised just an inch below the line of the waistband.
Bringing his lips to hers, he hovered a hair’s breadth away, delighting in the way she trembled with anticipation, in the way she sucked the air in, nudging her lips to his as she did so.
“Do it.” It was barely a whisper, and utterly silenced by the din of the music. Halbrand felt it on his mouth more than he heard it. His prowling kitten’s fated first words.
Smiling against her mouth, he was glad to obey.
He sunk his hand deeper beneath the lace.
His mouth hungered after the sigh she breathed when he pressed his middle finger between her delectably wet, velvet folds; sliding effortlessly down the line of her and back up to find the delicate rosebud that so desperately required attention.
He felt her tilt her hips towards him, straining for more of his touch, urging him to please her.
And that’s just what he did – drawing slow, firm circles over the place her nerves were most sensitive, coaxing more sighs from her that he collected on his lips. He knew she must be mewling, but the noise of the club kept this from him. A shame. He would have liked to have heard what her moans sounded like.
He increased the pressure and the speed of his efforts, causing her to grab a fistful of his hair and wrap one of her legs around his waist. The leg still standing began to tremble, teetering on one precarious stiletto heel.
Her spine bowed against the wall, throat bared, lips parted on a breathless sound. Every shift of her hips pressed her closer, straining to chase her release.
It was then that he decided to slide his fingers to her entrance while his thumb took over at her bud, sinking one finger, then two, deep inside the warmth of her. She was so tight and already clenching around him that he didn’t think she could take a third. Not yet.
He latched his lips to her neck again as she craned it for him. He could feel the vibrations in her throat as she groaned at his touch, his fingers crooking and stroking the deepest part of her while his thumb worked with increasing vigour.
Every sensation was felt rather than heard and he knew her pleasure had crested in the way her body went taut, how she clenched even tighter around his fingers and the way the rumbles in her throat had become thin and reedy as her mouth fell open, gasping for air.
Her hands were clasped tight – one behind his head, still clutching his hair, while the other was wringing the shirt at his back.
Halbrand was rapt by it all.
Every tensed muscle, every strained breath.
The way her eyes snapped shut, brows knitting together and how her mouth ached to be filled. His free hand that had been palming her breast shot up to her jaw. Swirling his thumb over her open lips first, he then pushed it inside – her mouth closing around him instantly, sucking feverishly while she rode out the rest of her high.
When finally, she came down, her lids opened and she stared up at him with a wicked gleam as he pulled his thumb out slowly, smearing some of her lipstick as he circled the corner of her mouth.
He took his time withdrawing the fingers from inside her. Undeniably craving a taste of her, but he kept his actions measured, deliberate.
In control.
He wasn’t about to take what he really wanted – not yet – but he would enjoy the taste of her bliss. Taking his middle and forefinger, he sucked away what he had collected of her as he locked their gaze.
She tasted like honey, sweet as springtime fruit.
It only made him thirst for her more. Acutely aware of the way her pulse throbbed beneath the delicate skin of her neck.
But it seemed she wasn’t done either. She apparently had much more in mind by the way she squeezed the leg that was still around his waist. Pulling his hardened bulge flush against her and rolling her hips so that there was no mistaking what she wanted.
She didn’t hear it, but he let loose a deep growl from his throat, pressing forward to cage her in with his arms and thrusting against her centre. His eyes burning into hers.
She was insatiable.
And he found he couldn’t get enough of it, of her. It would usually be him taking the lead, controlling the situation, plucking at his victim’s strings in just the right way in order to make them melt for him. But she was firmly setting the pace, and he allowed himself to succumb to it.
He hungered for her. Didn’t even try to stop her from reaching down and unbuttoning the hem of his trousers. Instead he predatorially dragged his gaze down the line of her body while she hurriedly unzipped the rest of him.
With hooded lids, he let her pull down his boxers enough to release him, caring nothing for whether they were still alone in the darkest crevice of the club. And he guessed she didn’t either by the way she was insistently pumping her hand up and down the length of him now.
He was already stiff for her, but he grew even larger with every scintillating stroke and very soon he was lusting after more than the feel of her hand.
The unearthly pull he felt upon first catching her scent was now too strong to resist, and he had no intention of trying.
His hips pressed forward, a sharp need to be inside her clouding all other thoughts.
Reaching down, he pulled her underwear aside and stopped her hand from continuing its labours. Instead, he encouraged her to guide him through her slick, coating his tip in the wet mix of her previous bliss and the new nectars that were eagerly flowing forth, no doubt at the thought of him fucking her in this dark and grimey place.
She was too beautiful, too soft around the edges to make a habit of this – of fucking strangers in clubs without even speaking a word to each other. He could tell there was something desperate rather than practiced about all of it, but if this was new to her then she was certainly enjoying her first taste, judging by the way he so effortlessly pushed himself inside.
He was too greedy to be gentle. But she was so wet, it didn’t matter.
He felt her walls shift and mould themselves around him as he thrusted in up to the hilt, avidly smothered her mouth with his as though he might steal the very air from her lungs – her gasps stifled as he filled her.
There was nothing measured or controlled about any of it now as he dragged himself almost all the way out before forcing himself back in.
He did this again, and again.
Building up his rhythm.
Burying himself deep every time.
She was back to mewling again – his kitten. He could tell by the way her mouth sighed open, over and over, in tandem with his thrusts.
If they were able to hear each other, his own groans would have mingled with her own – she felt incredible.
She was tight, but she was taking him. All of him.
And he could tell she was enjoying it by the way she undulated her hips in time with him.
But he wanted more. To reach further. To feel the vibrations of her screams as he bottomed out as deep as he could go.
So, he lifted her other leg and wrapped it around his waist with the other, pinning her more forcibly against the wall. Redoubling his efforts now that he could sink into the very depths of her.
Taking his hand from her thigh, he slid it up to her throat, curling his fingers just enough so he could feel every tremor he was prying from her.
He clocked how her eyes widened at that, how her breath stalled. The slight shimmer of panic glinting against the dark.
But he simply tilted his head down and locked onto her from under his eyebrows with a sinful gaze, nodding just slightly in reassurance. “I want to hear you.”
She wouldn’t have heard. But it didn’t matter. She understood, answering with a shudder and leaning into his hand.
The fleeting fear in her features was gone, replaced now by a wilful need to succumb to her pleasure. To everything he was giving her.
It was clear to Halbrand that if she wanted to feel safe, she wouldn’t have led him under the balcony, wouldn’t have come here at all if she didn’t seek danger.
Risk was part of it – part of the carnality.
He gripped her throat a little tighter. Continuing to rut into her with relentless rigor. His palm capturing every bliss-filled tremor.
But he knew he could coax more from her.
Sliding his other hand between them, he slipped his fingers down the line of her – so beautifully exposed with her legs wrapped around him, he began to work at her bundle of nerves.
The vibrations in her throat changed, and he chased the feeling against his hand just as he chased down his own pleasure now, fucking her harder while he quickened his fingers.
He felt her clench, her throat straining in fits and starts as her orgasm broke.
His thrusts hastened, his rhythm quickly dissolving into something more sporadic as his own bliss crested – his manhood throbbing as he spilled himself inside her. Face burying itself in her neck while his groans settled.
It was good. It was really good. The way her cunt had drawn such pleasure from him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had felt like that.
Still, somehow, it wasn’t enough.
He knew what it would take – to feel sated.
He could do it here, if he wanted. The fact they had just fucked without anyone noticing was testament to how secluded they were. She wouldn’t be found for hours.
The sweat on her neck smelt of salt and perfume.
The urge to take her, now irresistible.
How was she doing this? Driving him so crazy?
The ache in his gums was unbearable now; his jaw flexed, fangs brushing the tender hollow of her throat. He could not hold back much longer. About to sink his teeth in.
But then-
He felt her hands on his face, guiding him away from the crook of her neck and drawing him up to look at her.
Her hands cupping his face as if he were something breakable, thumbs brushing along his cheekbones with an aching tenderness; a stark contrast to the tone of all they had just done. And for a moment, he was transfixed by the sorrow in her eyes – the grey of her irises reflecting the disposition of her soul as she leant in to kiss him. Her lips brushed his once, then lingered like a eulogy, soft and unhurried. When she pulled back, she didn’t smirk or beckon - she only sighed, eyes brimming with a sorrow so raw it silenced him.
A thank you hung in the space between them, unspoken, undeniable.
It was not the blood he suddenly hungered for, but the way her lips had lingered on his as if she were mourning something - him, herself, the night. The bite he had been moments from taking dissolved into a yearning far stranger, far more dangerous.
The fact that he could slip from her neck to her lips without piercing flesh shook him more than any hunger ever had.
Unable to fathom why, all thoughts of leaving her here - in the dark, in the filth – had suddenly become abhorrent to him. And as he slowly slid out of her, releasing her legs from his waist with more care than he knew he possessed, he gently caressed her face. His fingertips skimming the line of her cheekbone and down towards her lips. The way her eyes fluttered closed at his touch, the delicate sigh she released against his fingertips… it was spellbinding. He found himself entranced at her beauty, her essence… her fragility.
Bending his head, he slowly brought his lips close – hovering hesitantly over hers for a moment, until he returned her kiss with his own tender offering. This one moment vastly more intimate than anything that had gone before.
When they parted, they simply stayed a moment, searching each other’s gaze. Neither wanting to break away just yet.
Time seemed to stretch, and for Halbrand it was enough to recognise that while he was fixed within her orbit, the ache of loneliness he didn’t even know he suffered from, seemed lessened now somehow. And he thought, perhaps just fleetingly, he had caught a glimpse of something similar in the quaking of her eyes as she stared back at him.
A sudden realisation struck. He wanted her alone – truly alone. Rid of the possibility of being caught, where he could take his time doing everything they had just done all over again, and more.
This was new – this need to have her again. Usually he would discard his victims after one use, taking what he needed and leaving them for the maggots.
But not her.
Now he’d had a taste of her, he found himself only craving more.
His eyes flickered down to her mouth, already imagining what her lips would look like stretched around his cock. They looked so beautiful sighing for him as he fucked her, he wondered what else they would be good at.
Raising an eyebrow, he inclined his head in the direction of the exit, hoping she was also craving more from the night.
The vulnerability in her features seemed to disappear at that, replaced by a wicked half-smile as she fluttered her eyelids down and back up acceptingly.
He zipped himself up. And after quickly adjusting her dress and underwear, she took him by the hand, and he allowed her to lead him out from under the balcony, across the dancefloor to the exit and on into the street.
The entire time she was leading him, his eyes roamed the curves of her feminine form, and delighted in the way her gleaming hair swished over her shoulders every time she looked back to check he was still happy to follow.
He was more than happy. In matter of fact, he had already worked himself up so much over the idea of fucking her again that as soon as they were outside, he whirled her around and pinned her against the side of a parked car. His lips impatiently colliding with hers in a heated, chaotic kiss.
She gave as good as she got, and met his ardour with her own zeal – her tongue eagerly searching his while her hands gripped the back of his head.
Then it struck him. He broke their kiss just enough to get the words out.
“I don’t even know your name.”
It had never been of any consequence before – after all, what was the point of learning any of their names? But for reasons he couldn’t quite untangle, it wasn’t enough for her to be just another in a long line of nameless prey. He wanted to know who she was. She, who mesmerised him so.
“Does it matter?” She answered, breathily, pining for the feel of his lips once more.
This self-destructive streak in her was all too delicious, and if she wasn’t careful, his restraint might slip, unleashing all his destructive tendencies just to give her what she sought.
But despite himself, he needed to know.
“Yes.” He pulled away. And she moved to follow – eyes still closed and mouth searching for him. He caught her jaw with his hand, his long fingers almost smothering entirely one side of her face. Nothing forceful, but commanding her attention nonetheless.
Her eyes snapped open then, and now for the first time, and under the relative brightness of the streetlamps, he could see just how the cerulean of her eyes sparkled. Although, somewhere in the depths of them, he could tell she was coming apart.
“Who are you?” He repeated, barely above a whisper this time.
Her answer didn’t come straight away – a battle of opposing thoughts raged behind her gaze. But eventually, one side won out.
She took a deep breath before sighing out her name. “Galadriel.”
His grip on her face relaxed, trailing his fingertips softly down her cheek. “Well then…” He flicked his attention to a taxi just down the street, hailing it with an outstretched arm before swiftly returning his interest back to her.
With a raised eyebrow, he canted his head, questioning. “Where to, Galadriel?”