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Chapter Text

The horror unfolds slowly and then all at once. 

Before her eyes, the orcs turn on Adar. Galadriel shouldn’t be stunned. Shouldn’t be frozen by the brutality of it all, not after all her eyes have seen in the long years and bloody battles of the First Age. 

But if it wasn’t for her stillness she might not have felt him behind her. Might not have heard the quiet scrape of iron on stone, barely audible over the din as Sauron lifts Morgoth’s crown with all the grace of the Maiar. 

That monstrous crown shouldn’t even be here, but there it dangles, malevolent and brutal and beautiful in its own way dangling from Sauron’s pale, elegant fingers. She can’t help but be distracted by it, its presence here in Middle Earth when it was meant to have passed into legend and shadow as a collar around the traitor Morgoth’s neck. An eternal chain, not the turning of a lock set around a chest of memories she rather keep hidden away. 

The death of her grandfather. The stolen Silmarils. Defying the Valar. Leaving the Undying Lands. 

And for what? This? 

“Galadriel.” 

Her name rolls off his tongue, soft and deadly and just a hint of awe, as though the lord of deceit and lies hasn’t known he would find her here the entire time. And yet when their eyes meet, for just a second, it all falls away. The sickening sound of flesh tearing apart, the ring of metal on metal as the orcs clash swords and knives in their eagerness to bring down the creature they once called father, none of it matters when Sauron’s eyes lock on hers. 

Her true desires can’t hide from that stare. Curse him to the Void right along with his once-mentor, because no matter the name he’s taken or the face he’s worn, those eyes of his see her. See through the veneer of power and grace and the light the Valar couldn’t take from her. 

See to her dark and terrible desire for power. See her desires to be out from under the thumb of anyone but herself. The War of the Jewels ultimately cost her all four brothers, and still, Varda help her, Galadriel thirsts for a power both terrible and divine. 

And then Sauron tells the orcs to raze Eregion to the ground. 

Maybe it’s Varda answering her prayer, or maybe Galadriel’s hold on the light is stronger than she thought, but the connection severs at the reminder of the death and destruction Sauron will always stand at the center of. 

“All this was your design from the beginning.” 

His lips twist, something like a smirk. “Please, you think too much of me,” he drawls, almost as if he’s embarrassed she credits him with that kind of power. Another illusion. Another lie that he only continues by adding, “The road goes ever winding. Not even I see its paths.” 

And neither do you. 

He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t have to. 

Galadriel doesn’t need to see all the other roads or paths that stretch endlessly before her. Not when she can put steel in her hands and end this now. Sauron even does her the favor of dropping to his knees, his neck exposed. He isn’t Halbrand, the lost king, a man who saw her as no one else has ever quite managed. He’s a monster that will destroy Middle Earth if she doesn’t stop him. 

But it will never be that simple. 

Sauron blocks her strike easily with the cursed crown, holding her at bay from his knees with an ease that infuriates her. That’s what she tells herself, anyway, as his too-perceptive stare trails down her heaving chest and lands on the ring on her finger. She can ignore his demands, ignore the weight of the ring on her finger, but the silky softness of his lie that he doesn’t wish to harm her can’t be ignored. 

Especially not when he remains on his knees in front of her in a mockery of submission and murmurs, “It is even more beautiful than Celebrimbor led me to believe.” 

His eyes are on the ring, and he’s the furthest from Halbrand he possibly could be with his now-pale hair and serene beauty with its icy edge. Halbrand lacked the cold polish of this version of Sauron, who may be on his knees, but he’s still covered in armor. Armor decorated with serpents, a stylized rendering of his true nature stitched in vivid detail across his chest. 

Being on his knees before her doesn’t change that. Suddenly, Galadriel can’t even bear to look at him. 

Dropping her sword and backing away, she snaps, “Is it your wish to heal me?” Sarcasm and rage and frustration drip from every word. 

If he hears it, he ignores it. “I wish to heal…all Middle Earth,” he says with the same soft, mad note. The worst part is that some part of Sauron is still Halbrand, and when Galadriel looks into his eyes, she can see that he believes what he’s saying. Sauron believes that he’s the savior Middle Earth has been waiting for, the kind and benevolent ruler who will set all to rights. 

And for a moment, Galadriel’s heart stays her hand. They stare at each other, caught in the unforgiving tides of duty and fate and a cursed connection between them that she can’t shake rushing against each other. 

He is evil incarnate but he’s also a match for her power. A true equal. She felt it when they fought together, when he still wore the mask of Halbrand but couldn’t entirely hide the power lurking between. It drew her to him, even if she didn’t realize it until much later. And for that brief time they fought together, side by side, what a team they made. 

But they aren’t a team now. The moment passes, and then they’re unleashing themselves all over again. It shouldn’t feel good as his blade flashes in the full light. He might be toying with her, but he isn’t exactly holding back. If one of their blows connect, this will all be over. One wrong breath, one stumble, will decide if red or black blood paints the earth beneath their dancing feet. 

And yet even as she ducks and rolls, even as her shoulder begins to burn with the effort of swinging her sword over and over, she can’t deny that some horrible part of her is enjoying this. It’s a deadly dance now between them, one foot here, pivot, swing the sword, spin, but oh what a glory it is to dance with a partner who matches her in skill. 

Steel clashes again, and for just a second, she thinks she has him. But he’s too clever to be caught so easily, twisting gracefully and locking their blades together with the cursed crown. 

“Galadriel,” Sauron purrs, her name silk on his tongue as his eyes once again settle so intently on hers, “Surely you of all the elves understand that to find the light, we must first touch the darkness.” 

There’s a beat before he moves again. A beat where flashes of images overtake her thoughts. Varda can’t save her from the fact that Galadriel has thought far too often about touching his particular brand of darkness. Of having it touch back, not with the oily stain of evil but with the power and molten fire that couldn’t be extinguished even when Sauron attempted to smother it under the guise of Halbrand. 

And then Sauron presses his attack all over again, driving her back, back, back, until she’s pressed between him and the stone at her back. His blade is terribly close to her throat, and that should be her focus, but his left thigh is between hers. When he presses closer, a taunting smirk curling his brutal and beautiful mouth, the increased pressure at the apex of her thighs is unquestionably intentional. 

Galadriel sucks in a breath and gathers herself as best she can, struggling against his strength. With every move they make, every shift of their weight as they grapple for control, his thigh presses into her. Layers of clothes can’t hide the flex of muscle, the heat of him—or how good it feels to be pinned down by him like this. 

Some part of her likes being at his mercy. Likes the push of the darkness against her light. Likes that his power and hers may be opposite sides of a coin but it’s the same coin. 

“We are not alike,” she makes herself spit out. The desires of her body are not relevant here. Not with what’s at stake. “We never were. It was just another of your illusions.” 

She needs to believe that. Needs to believe that nothing of what she’s felt for him, her greatest enemy, is anything but a lie—and he knows it. 

“Not all of it,” he says with the softness of a lover. With that same absolute conviction that proves he believes his own words. 

It takes all her strength of mind and body to lash back out at him. Her kick lands, sending him tumbling down the ruins. This is her opportunity, Galadriel tells herself as she drops gracefully down at his side. This is her chance to run him through and end this. 

But when he rises, he’s no longer coldly beautiful Sauron, but Halbrand. Soft curls frame his face, his armor fits for a prince, for a moment, he could be Tulkas. Beautiful and noble, the most noble warrior of the Valar. A perfect match for Galadriel and her power and her light. Someone she could actually have without betraying the very core of her being. Without betraying her people, all the people of Middle Earth. 

She’s not stupid. She knows this is yet another manipulation, but she still can’t lift her sword. Not until he goes too far, all but whispering, “Fighting at your side, I felt, if I could just hold onto that feeling…” 

Those heartfelt words and heavy-lidded eyes are enough to remind her of her purpose. She swings with all her strength, but only connects with stone. 

Halbrand vanishes and her own face stares down at her. Sauron is too vain to match her perfectly, the mirror gazing back a perfectly polished version of herself, not a hair out of place, as he says with her voice, “They could no longer distinguish me from the evil I was fighting.” 

She knows he chose her face for those words for a reason. That he chose to make himself a living, breathing mirror so she would understand he’s still saying the same thing. Still insisting that beneath their separate allegiances to light and shadow, they remain the same. 

And so she fights herself, fully conscious that Sauron chose this path intentionally. That he’s seen into her mind, seen the battles she waged with herself over her desires for power and the pull of the light. That he’s making her cross blades with herself now in the ultimate mockery of the battle that has long raged in the privacy of her mind. 

Only for him to sharpen the blade by transforming into Celebrimbor, mockery spilling from the lips of the great elven lord she’s long respected and cherished. 

As she crashes into the ground below, Galadriel knows she’s brought this on herself. Knows that some part of her, even now, is holding back her power. Is revolting against the idea that her hand will be the one to end him, even as she crawls and drags herself through the dirt just for him to kick her sword away. 

No longer her cruel mirror or her beloved Celebrimbor, he’s reclaimed the icy cold visage he seems to prefer. Another mockery of her light, the shade of his hair a near perfect match for hers. 

“I know your mind,” he tells her simply, an obvious fact. “The door is still open.” 

Because you’ve left it open for me, his taunting eyes scream. Because you can’t bear the thought of keeping me out even though you know duty demands it. Because we’re the same, you and I, ruled by our own desires above all else.  

“The door is shut!” Galadriel snarls, a vow to herself as much as it is to him. She knows what must be done. To her greatest shame, it will break some part of her heart, but personal costs have no place in this battle. She can’t be selfish about this. There’s too much at stake, for her people, for Middle Earth. Sauron might see himself as a benevolent dictator, the one who will heal the fractures, but his specific brand of medicine is little more than cruelty and power wrapped in a deceptively pretty package. 

All of which couldn’t be more clear when he pins her once against, except this time, she has no escape. His eyes never leaving hers, Sauron pushes a spike of Morgoth’s crown into her chest. Pain explodes, the cursed iron so deeply entrenched in shadow that her inner light can only shriek and howl her rage at the invasion. 

And still, there’s a beauty in the horror. Sauron has been stabbed with this very blade. His blood and hers, now forever entwined in the tiniest crevices and cracks in the ancient iron. 

“I would have placed a crown upon your head. I’d never have rested until all Middle Earth had been brought to its knees to worship the light of its queen,” Sauron tells her in that same exquisitely soft voice. As though he regrets the pain he’s inflicting even as he shoves the cold iron in deeper. 

The worst part is, he means it. Somewhere in the twisted corner of his mind, in his own way, he means it. He wants her at his side, but Galadriel knows he would never make her a true queen. He may speak of worship, of her light, but it would always be on his terms. Just like the rings, she would be a pretty ornament he would ultimately control. Her light included. 

And despite that, despite knowing she wouldn’t be a dark and terrible queen but a prisoner in an obsidian cage, some tired part of her yearns for it. She’s so tired of the bloodshed and the fighting and the strategy and the lives she’s responsible for. How nice it could be to lay down her sword just once. Let someone else fight the hard fight. 

Maybe Galadriel wouldn’t mind being his pretty jewel without a thought in her head. 

But that’s not a fantasy she has the luxury of entertaining. 

“The free peoples of Middle Earth will always resist you,” she snarls. I will always resist you. 

He hears the unspoken addition, and maybe there is a heart buried in the ashes that were once his soul, because she swears there’s a flash of hurt in his expression right before he yanks the crown from her flesh in one brutal jerk of her hand. 

Galadriel collapses, too stunned by the pain radiating through her veins to stop him as he scoops up the pouch containing the Nine. “The rings are mine,” he says, patient as a general before a field of green recruits. 

He’s about to say more but before the words emerge, a horn bellows from the smoking ruins of Eregion—a horn that can only be of dwarvish make. 

It’s only the flash of an idea, there and gone so quickly that Galadriel has to force herself not to keep thinking about it. Despite her insistence that the door is shut, she can still feel Sauron in her thoughts, slinking through the darkest corners. Swift as lightning, she makes a choice, drawing him away from her plans by letting him see the shameful secret he wants most. 

Galadriel loved Halbrand. Loved him enough that despite knowing who he was the entire time, despite seeing him now as he is, unapologetically selfish and ruthless and responsible for the massacre of much beloved Eregion, despite the wound clawing at her light that he inflicted, despite knowing that he’s Sauron and represents everything she’s devoted her life to fighting against…some part of him is still Halbrand. 

And curse her, she still loves that part. 

With nothing but a yawning void of air at her back, Galadriel doesn’t allow herself to think about what she’s about to do. Sauron needs to think he’s won for this to work. She lets his whispers into her mind, moving all the while as though she’s under his spell. 

She holds the ring out to him, one of the only three not corrupted by his power, a ring that is Celebrimbor’s triumph and pure light, and lets Sauron think he’s won. 

“You wish to heal Middle Earth,” she sighs in a soft, dreamy voice. Her eyes hold his, pain lancing through her even as her course becomes set. If only he could have remained Halbrand. If only they could have had a future. 

Just before his fingers close around the ring, Galadriel snaps her fingers closed, a tight fist she draws back into her chest as she straightens her spine and snarls, “Heal yourself!” 

Her weight pitches back over all that nothing. For a breath she’s weightless, suspended in that fraction of a breath before the plummet begins, before time shifts to seconds that drag out longer than her fall to the ground below. 

And then Sauron’s fist is in her bodice, fabric tearing as he yanks her back. Back onto the hard stone of the cliff, Morgoth’s crown still rolling away from where he dropped it with an all-mighty clang. Dropped it to save her, to save his precious ring, to continue to lord his power over her, to—

Kiss her. 

A mouth so cruel shouldn’t be so soft. 

Galadriel jerks against his hold. This is madness. A kiss swallows her protest, then another kiss, and she’s not exactly kissing him back, but somehow her free hand is on his shoulder. Not pushing him away, but digging in, her ragged and dirt-caked nails still sharp enough to form dents in the thick green leather armor. 

His teeth nip her lower lip, a sharp sting swiftly followed by the caress of his tongue. Galadriel’s eyes slip closed, dark, forbidden pleasure stoking long-dormant embers low in her belly. Beneath her fingers, thick leather softens to well-worn linen, ever so slightly damp, and she knows before she opens her eyes what he’s done. 

Halbrand stares back at her. Her Halbrand, in a simple shirt and trousers, dark hair messy and curling and ever-so-slightly damp. Cheeks dark with stubble, no longer pristinely and coldly smooth. He breathes out her name, reverent longing in his voice, pooling in his eyes, his long lashes sweeping his cheeks as he blinks slowly down at her. 

This time, when his mouth crashes into hers, Galadriel doesn’t even consider calling on the Valar for aid. And not because they would be so appalled by her actions that the last thing they would do is help her. No, she doesn’t bother calling on the light because in this moment, she knows that there is no light powerful enough to stop her from letting the dark in. 

She kisses him back. She knows he’s not Halbrand, knows it’s Sauron in a pretty mask he crafted just for her, but he tastes like her sensory memories of Halbrand, smells like him, feels like him. Salt and smoke cloud her judgment, the press of his hard chest against her as their dance resumes. Not blade and fury this time, but desperation and need propelling them until Galadriel finds herself, for the third or fourth or fifth time, with hard stone at her back and Halbrand—Sauron—crowding her from the front. 

Still wearing Halbrand’s face, he drops his sword and plunges his hand into her hair. He doesn’t say a word at first, his jaw hard and his eyes fixed intently on hers. They stare at each other, panting from the fight, the adrenaline, the sheer want that shouldn’t exist between them and yet still rages on no matter how many times their blades have sliced into it. 

“Let me give you what you desire, Galadriel,” he murmurs low against her ear. His breath is hot as he slides his tongue up to the sensitive point, the grip in her hair too tight to allow her to pull away. “You can tell yourself the door is shut, but we both know it doesn’t matter. Not when it’s me on the other side.” 

The ring is still clenched in her fist. The hard edges and dull bite of the stone against her palm should be a reminder of all the reasons why flinging herself off the cliff is the smarter choice, but even the lady of light isn’t spared from a desire to see what it is to walk through the darkness unafraid. 

For once in her long life, Galadriel hears the call of duty—and ignores it. 

Chapter Text

“The tides of fate are flowing. Yours may be heading in or out.” 

It’s the first thing he said to her. Hidden in his Halbrand illusion then as he is now, and Galadriel can’t help thinking this is another of those knife’s edge moments. The decision she’s about to make will have ripples across the rest of her very long life. 

If she makes it off this cliff alive, anyway. 

Looks can be deceiving after all. That’s the second thing Sauron said to her that say in the sea, and the irony is far from lost on her now, in this moment, with her lips parting to admit her enemy’s tongue. Smoke and shadow fill her senses and fingers tighten in her hair, the pull of his strength a breath from pain. 

She shouldn’t enjoy it. Shouldn’t enjoy that he crowds her against the stone, every hard line of his body pressing into her. He wants to own her, to bind her light to his darkness and covet it purely for himself. It’s selfish and mad and everything she’s spent centuries fighting against, and yet as he nips at her with a growl rumbling in his chest, Galadriel can’t help the quickening of her heart. Can’t deny that she has longed for this. 

Would it be such a terrible thing to be his? To lay down her sword and let someone else go into battle for once? Would it be so awful to be his pretty plaything, blissfully living out her long life in luxurious illusions? Would there by peace in oblivion? He’s her greatest enemy but some part of him is Halbrand too. 

He’s also the greatest deceiver Middle Earth has ever known—and Galadriel isn’t the type to take refuge in a pretty lie. 

There’s a warm huff of breath on her skin followed by a low chuckle. It’s the only warning before everything shifts with a nauseating suddenness, the stone at her back no longer a crumbling ruin but cool and smooth. The echoes of battle vanish, replaced by hushed silence. Surrounded by polished stone and little else, their breaths turn loud and harsh. 

Galadriel’s eyes snap open to a candle-lit room with a cavernous ceiling that disappears into the shadows high above. There must be a hundred candles throughout the room, their flames flickering on an unseen draft with the scent of smoke and wax thick in the air. But her attention is devoured instantly by the rest of the space. It’s as if the entire room was carved around the various tree branches, bright green leaves resting against the high polish of black obsidian. It’s like nothing she’s ever seen before, but then again, it’s not real. 

It’s just another illusion. 

“Light and dark,” Halbrand murmurs against the shell of her ear. “We fit together, you and I. Bind yourself to me, Galadriel. Let me make you a queen.” 

Bind yourself to me. He’s throwing her words back at her again, silky whisper or not. She begged him to do just that, bind himself to her, over and over as the storm at sea raged against them. He saved her, then. It wasn’t the only time. 

She saved him, too. Her greatest enemy could have been wiped off the board, and yet, she’s the one who ensured he would live to continue his quest for dominion over all Middle Earth. She already has to live with that. She’ll have to live with this, too. Why not snatch a bit of selfish pleasure for herself to sit alongside the heavy mantle of guilt that will surely follow her the rest of her days? 

“This isn’t real,” Galadriel whispers into the beautiful temptation of a room. Her eyes narrow to slits as his lips move down, finding a sensitive spot on her throat. She can’t remember the last time she was touched like this, his hands and mouth roaming over her without pause—as if he knows she won’t stop him. He shifts, his left thigh between hers again, except this time, they’re not in the middle of a fight. This time, the pressure grinds into her with exacting precision that renders her unable to keep her eyes open. 

“It can be real,” her enemy whispers back right before he takes possession of her mouth. One hand drops to her hip in a bruising grip, his strength overpowering hers as he holds her in place, refuses to let her writhe against him the way her body demands as the relentless pressure between her thighs drives her to madness. “Let me give you peace, Galadriel.” 

Somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind, in the place where all reason and sense have fled to, she dimly remembers him telling her that peace would do her good. He believes his own words, believes he could give her everything her heart desires. 

The sad truth is that, after a fashion, he isn’t wrong. He spoke of peace even as he returned her dagger, knowing what it meant to her, knowing that she’s never felt herself without a blade. Knowing a terrible secret that she’s never once admitted aloud. 

It’s exhausting leashing herself. It’s exhausting being surrounded by so many others, constantly, who can never match her power. She was born in the Undying Lands, not Middle Earth. There is more power in one strand of her hair than some here possess in their entire lives. 

The only one who might actually understand the endless frustration of weaker fools endlessly trying to control her is the one currently wrapping his fingers around her wrists. She could fight it, but instead she lets him drag her hands high above her head, lets him press the backs of her hands into the wall and keep them there with the firm pressure of silent command and a long look. 

It’s the darkening of his eyes that makes Galadriel push back. It’s like pushing against a mountain, his low laugh scraping over her skin when, for one of the first times in her life, she finds herself outmatched. It forces her to remember the way he fought her earlier, which is to say that he mostly let her tire herself out without going on the offensive. 

At least, not until she told him there was nothing left between them. Then he came at her. Then he stabbed her—but not a mortal blow. 

The parallel has to be intentional. He’s too clever for it not to be. When her eyes flash to his, narrowed into a glare, and her lips part to demand he release her, his lips twist into a cruel grin. 

“Come now, Galadriel. We both know you like a fight.” Halbrand—Sauron—bends, rubbing his cheek against hers in a mockery of affection. Not smooth now, but rough with the careless stubble Halbrand favored. “There is violence in you. You enjoy it. I saw you that day in the square. Your little lesson.” Taunting her with a nip on her throat, the sting of his teeth lingers as he kisses his way back to her mouth. “You enjoyed toying with those men. You knew there was never any hope of them matching you in skill. Not with ten lifetimes of practice. There are few who can.” 

I can. It hangs unspoken between them as each movement he makes twists her body tighter and tighter. This is wrong. She shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be breathing in the salt and smoke of him, shouldn’t be eyeing the enormous and luxurious bed behind him draped in black velvet curtains.

“This isn’t real,” she makes herself say again, and for a second, the bedroom flickers. Storm clouds gather overhead, the distant rumble of war and death and destruction growing louder and louder until it’s suddenly cut off by silence once more as Halbrand tightens his grip on her wrists. 

“It’s as real as you choose to make it. Unleash yourself,” he commands. “I can take it.” His eyes lock on hers as he adds with a gleam of challenge, “I’m the only one who can.” 

Galadriel parts her lips to argue. Her words are swallowed in another kiss. She should be fighting this, should be pushing back and escaping this room, this illusion, this liar. He isn’t Halbrand, the long lost king of the Southlands. He isn’t the man who made her feel seen, who fought at her side, who spoke of healing and good. 

He isn’t a man at all. He’s the enemy that has destroyed her people. That murdered her brother. That speaks of love as if he thinks of it as anything other than a collar to snap around her throat. 

“Come now, Galadriel,” he whispers against her lips when he breaks the kiss but for a moment. “One cannot satisfy thirst by drinking seawater.” 

Between one breath and the next, Halbrand vanishes. Sauron returns, with his cold smile and pale hair and eyes that never once leave her face. His message is clear. Halbrand is seawater. He’s the one that got beyond her defenses, that she fell for, but Sauron was always there. Watching. Waiting. 

Halbrand could never be her equal. Halbrand was safe to love. A mere mortal that would fade from her long memory once he passed into the sands in time along with so many others—but he was never real. 

Sauron will endure. She can feel him already inside of her, his blood and hers mingled on the spike of Morgoth’s crown and now under her skin. It’s too late to ever truly be rid of him. 

Galadriel doesn’t fight him as he brings his mouth back to hers. Doesn’t protest when he guides her hands down from the wall, arranging them behind her back. The angle of her arms pushes her chest forward, the aching tips of her breasts rubbing against the armor he wears once more. 

Another of those odd shifts in time that lasts a fraction of a second. Galadriel’s clothes disappear. His remain. He couldn’t be more obvious about his desire to dominate her, control her, if he shouted it from the highest peak in Middle Earth. 

She likes it. She hates that she likes it, hates that she some part of her has never felt more alive than these moments she’s trapped at his mercy. Shame curdles in her belly and she forces herself to glare up at him, to fight his hold, but it’s half-hearted and they both know it. Her heart is pounding, and between her legs there’s slick heat. It’s wrong to want it, and it’s even more wrong to let it happen. This is Sauron. If anyone were to ever find out that she willingly parted her legs for him, then they’d—

“None of that. I’ve got you now. You have nothing more to worry about. Not as my queen.” Sauron kisses her again, a bruising, demanding kiss, and then lets go of her hands only to push her onto the bed. She’s shocked when he drops to his knees, wedges his shoulders between her thighs, and leans forward until his breath washes over the golden curls at the apex of her thighs. “Now for that peace.” 

The first lash of his tongue isn’t gentle. He uses his mouth on her like a weapon, demanding more and more and more. There is no peace, only sharp pleasure. Only the bite of his fingers on her hips and the scrape of his teeth in far more sensitive places. Her back arches without her permission, her hips rolling against him, chasing the pleasure of his touch that, impossibly, feels much, much too good. 

Her thoughts drift as her unfocused gaze stares into the yawning darkness above. Sauron may have hidden the battle burning Eregion to the ground from her sight, but he can’t stop the swirl of her own thoughts. Her delight at the pleasure he’s wringing from her body nor her shame at enjoying his touch. The horror of craving him even now, when his betrayal and lies and true machinations are revealed. 

I told you that I had done evil and you did not care. 

She didn’t. Not then. Not when he was Halbrand and she was falling for him. When she would have forgiven him just about anything—and some part of her still sees that man when she catches the unguarded awe of his expression. Halbrand looked at her like that. 

But he isn’t Halbrand, and it doesn’t matter how well he plays her body. She shouldn’t be here. And yet, every time she opens her mouth to tell him to stop, to escape this illusion and the shame of how much she doesn’t want it to end, the only thing that comes out is another gasp. Another moan. 

Galadriel hasn’t had much time for pleasure in her long life. Battle after battle, always some new disaster to address. A new evil. A new duty. Her lovers have been few and far between. Some better than others—but every last one of them treated her as something precious. Something delicate and fragile. 

Sauron’s touch is punishment. Barely leashed violence hums along beside the pleasure, pleasure he demands from her body the same way he’s always demanded the truth from her. 

Together, Galadriel. Together we will save this Middle Earth. No more war. No more pain. Just pleasure. 

“Get out of my head,” she pants, her hips arching off the mattress when one of his callused fingers slides into her. 

No. 

Images burst behind her eyelids. Sauron beneath her, the muscles in his chest and abs rhythmically tensing as she rocks above him. She can almost feel the ache of him inside her, but then the image melts into another. Her wrists locked in chains, and Sauron behind her, driving into her, his palms flat on the stone wall on either side of her head, chains rattling with each thrust. The vision shifts again. Galadriel holds a dagger to his throat, her hair unbound and falling around them as she leans over him, his eyes fixed on her and filled with desperation. A drop of black blood shimmers on the edge of the blade as he reaches for her. 

The flickering candlelight of the room returns. Sauron lifts his head from between her legs and stares up at her, his lips shining. She swallows the cry of protest. Tries—and fails—to ignore the heavy pound of her pulse and the clawing desperation to find her pleasure. 

“I see you,” he says, his voice a low rasp. “I see your dark desires, my love. I’ll give them to you. Every single one. Stand at my side. I’ll give you everything.” 

“Lies. Always lies,” she spits back, some vestige of sanity returning. She starts to scramble backwards on the mattress. He lets her. At least for a few seconds, but just when she’s starting to think she’ll escape him, escape this, escape herself, Sauron grabs her ankle and drags her back. 

With his hips pinning her in place, he leans forward, plants his hands on the mattress and lowers himself until his weight rests fully on her. “You forget I see your thoughts. You want this. You want me. You always have. You might hate it, but the only lie is that you aren’t here entirely by your own choice. Lie to yourself all you like, my lady.” He works one hand between them, toying with her while refusing to break eye contact. “Your body doesn’t lie.” 

“How dare you speak to me of lies,” Galadriel snaps, but her words are far too breathless to slice into him. And this time, he isn’t lying. 

The sharp angles of his face flicker in the shadows, cruelty rising in his darkening gaze. “Shut the door, then,” he taunts, rolling his hips into hers. “Block me. Run back to your supposed friends. Run back to your stifled power and subservience.” 

She raises one hand and slaps him, hard enough that red immediately blooms on his cheek and reopens the cut high on his cheekbone she delivered only minutes earlier. Her palm is still stinging when he laughs, shaking his head slowly. “There’s my queen.” 

“I’m not your anything.” 

Sauron’s lips curve into an icy smirk, his eyes nearly black. He doesn’t argue, doesn’t say a word. He simply shifts his weight, kneeling over her thighs to keep her pinned, and reaches for the laces of the leather armor covering his chest. 

Galadriel reaches for something else, her palm closing around the hilt of the dagger strapped to his hip. She yanks the blade free in one smooth movement and has it at his throat before either of them blink. He only presses into it, a drop of black blood sliding down his throat as the sharp edge parts his skin with ease. It’s frighteningly similar to the vision he planted in her mind, and worse, she likes it. 

“I could fuck you like this,” he says while holding her eyes with his. Intense, so intense, this thing between them. “Would you like that, my lady? Would you like to hold a blade to my throat while I make you scream with your pleasure?” 

Another drop of blood slides down his throat. It would be easy to cut deeply, to leave him bleeding out and make her escape. The perfect opening to end this. 

Her eyes dip lower, following the smears of black blood over his now bare chest and down, down, down to the waistband of his leathers. The laces strain, barely able to contain the growing bulge beneath. 

The dagger follows her path. Occasionally she presses harder, hard enough that blood blooms on his pale skin. He sucks in a breath at each slice but makes no move to stop her. Not even when the dagger dips into his waistband. 

Galadriel keeps the blade still, resting against the laces holding his trousers in place. Drive the blade in, she tells herself. It’s what he deserves. The pain will distract him. The illusion will drop. 

She slices through the laces one by one, her own breath hitching with his. Duty will be waiting. Duty is always waiting. Just this once, she deserves to be a little bit selfish. To take, take, take. To let her power rush out from the place deep inside her where she keeps it contained, always in a cage. 

Her eyes flash back to his. The room grows brighter, white light spilling out of her until she can see the glow of her body reflected in his wide eyes. Starlight pours off her, a light so blinding few can stand to look directly into it. 

Sauron grins, shadows erupting from him. They twist around her, narrow bands of darkness weaving between the light and he laughs. It’s a sound of pure delight undercut by a growl of primal satisfaction. 

His shadows encircle her arms, prickling with heat as though born of the same dark forge used to shape his terrible creations. Not her ring, of course, but the others. The means of his control, control he now wields against her as the shadows take on shape and texture until they’ve wound around her like lengths of rope. 

Sauron watches their progress with building heat. Watches her chest rise and fall with rapid breaths as shadows tug her arms behind her back and secure her wrists together. Watches shadows weave around her breasts, heat flaring to tease her nipples, and lower as they loop around her waist. 

Reaching behind her to take the dagger from her bound hands, he tosses it over his shoulder before rising to his feet and stripping off the remainder of his clothes. His body may well be just another illusion, but he’s given himself the build of a creature long used to the labors of the forge. Muscle ripples under smooth skin with each movement, his chest and biceps carved from the work, his waist narrow, his thighs powerful. Darkness oozes from his skin, draping over him in a mockery of her light. 

No, not mockery. The opposite side of a coin. Equal in power. 

He stands in front of her, making space for himself between her parted thighs where she sits on the edge of the mattress, the softness of velvet under her bare skin. A stray thought evades the haze of pleasure and anticipation—is this all happening in their minds? Or does he have her naked in the ruins, the battle of Eregion still raging nearby, where anyone could find them tangled together?—but then his long fingers wrap around her throat, his thumb pushing her jaw up until their eyes lock again. 

“You will be my queen,” he says softly, almost tenderly despite the blatant threat and the haze of obsession in his eyes. Galadriel’s heart aches when he looks at her like that. Why does it have to be him? Why is it that her enemy is the only one who has ever gazed upon on her as though he would like nothing more than to give her the entire world when she knows his gift to her would be sorrow and terror for Middle Earth? “You will rule at my side. You will bind me to the light.”

He believes it. He believes that he needs her, that he wants her, but his love is a force far too terrible to contemplate. A twisted, corrupted sort of love that would eradicate her light over time. Bring her into the shadows, fuel her worst impulses. 

But in that moment, Galadriel shoves the thought aside. She is the lady of light. She will never come this close to the dark again. She will learn her lesson well—but she isn’t quite ready for it to end just yet. 

“Show me.” 

His laughter scrapes against her skin as he sinks down on the edge of the mattress at her side. Only then does he reach for her, arranging her on his lap so that open air hovers behind her, her thighs wide over his hips. Between her legs, his cock is hot and hard, sliding against her slippery skin with bolts of pleasure that arc through her. With her hands bound, she’s forced to rely on only the strength of her thighs—and him—for balance. 

He’s in full control of her body, dragging her back and forth on his cock, coating himself in her. Her thoughts drift away, pleasure overtaking worry. What’s there to worry about when he has her in his arms? Her power is free, light dancing across their bodies, draping over the bedding and the walls, weaving into the branches stirring on an impossible breeze. 

“You’re mine,” Sauron growls, and in one swift movement, lifts her only to yank her back down, hard, impaled on his cock. Galadriel cries out, her back arching in a knee-jerk reaction to the sudden invasion. It’s wonderful and terrible, the fullness, the heat, the burning stretch as long-dormant muscles fight to accept him. 

She loves it. Loves that he isn’t gentle, loves, that he’s lifting and lowering her even as she’s still struggling to adjust to the flood of sensation. Everything is heightened by her bound hands, by the way he’s restrained her body even while he uses it, uses her, to chase his pleasure. 

Curse her, she loves him. The devastating words she can’t get out of her head not all of it not all of it rise in a chant, and maybe he’s in her head again, or maybe she’s doing this to herself. Maybe this is a torment she deserves for being so adeptly taken in by the enemy. 

She deserves far worse for the moans currently falling from her lips, for the clench of her thighs, the gasps of her breath, and the taste of him on her tongue. For closing her eyes and tipping back her head just to feel the strength of his hands ensuring she doesn’t fall. 

She’s already fallen. This is the lowest depth she can sink to. She will spend the rest of her long, long life atoning for this one moment. 

It will be worth it. 

Sauron’s hands slide to her hips and yank her down, their hips pressed together so tightly she can’t move. “The thoughts of others are no longer your concern,” he hisses, grinding her into him. “I alone matter now.” 

The thought starts to take root, her muscles relaxing into submission, but she yanks herself back. “I do not answer to you.” The shadows restraining her wrists vanish under a push of her power, but he only laughs, slow and dark, when her fingers wrap around his throat. 

“That’s it,” he whispers, still guiding her hips as he rolls his beneath her. “Don’t hold back now, my lady.” 

She throws her weight against his and they go tumbling back onto the bed. With better leverage, she tightens her hands around his throat and tilts her hips so every downstroke grinds into his pubic bone with sharp, bright flashes of pleasure. “I will kill you,” she vows, meaning every word of it. That will be her punishment in the end. Some part of her will always love him, and one day, she’s going to plunge a knife directly in her own heart when she ends him. 

Theirs is not the kind of love story with a happy ending. 

Beneath her, with her hands still manacled around his throat, Sauron only smiles smugly, like her threats are simply part of their games. It’s so infuriating that there’s another shimmer in the illusion, the pleasant scent of melting beeswax once again the acrid smoke of battle, the distant clang of metal on metal, the cacophony of men and elves and dwarves and orcs dying in the ruins and mud. 

Galadriel twists, frantically glancing behind her as she shifts her weight to spring to her feet, but then his hands are digging into her hips again. Her mind gives way to the demands of her body, the building ache low in her belly that only intensifies when he slides one hand between them. 

And just before she can tumble over into shattering release, he lifts her off his lap and all but tosses her onto the bed. His cock shimmers obscenely in the candlelight, leaving her mouth dry and her body aching. At least until he kneels over her and with deceptive softness commands her to lay on her stomach. 

It’s bad enough she’s on her back. What he’s asking for—demanding—is far more vulnerable. She’ll be helpless crushed beneath him, able to do little more than take what he gives. Trapped and unable to get free. 

As if she doesn’t know that he would stop the moment she told him to. Let her go, no, but this thing between them, what they’re doing in this bed, he isn’t taking anything she isn’t willing to give. 

And they both know it. 

Silence stretches between them. He waits, patient as a mountain, one of his brows slightly raised. After the first few seconds, he reaches for his own cock, stroking it lazily while she makes up her mind. He doesn’t repeat himself. 

He doesn’t have to. Galadriel rolls onto her stomach. 

The warmth of his chest is on her back almost immediately. Balanced on one arm, his other hand plunges into the ruins of her braid, uses his grip to turn her face toward his and kisses her. A deep, drugging kiss only enhanced by the weight of him pressing her down into the mattress, the tickle of velvet on her stiff nipples. 

She lets out a low moan when he breaks the kiss, digs her nails into the bedding, and starts to push onto her elbows. He doesn’t let her, one hand pressing firmly between her should blades while the other slides over the curve of her ass and between her thighs. Already slick from his mouth, the hard thrust of two of his fingers into her has her grinding down onto the bed, desperate for more. 

“You and I are made for each other. Your body knows it. Your mind will catch up in due time.” 

Galadriel is too lost in what he’s doing between her legs to do more than weakly shake her head in the pillows and gasp as she hurtles closer to an edge she knows she’s never seen before. Not like this.

It’s almost over. War is waiting for her. It can wait another few moments for her to have this experience. 

His weight shifts over her. His cock replaces his fingers in one heady slide, her thighs parted only enough to make room for him. In this position, she can’t escape the sensation of him, dragging inside her, pressing on top of her, breathing in harsh pants that fall over her shoulders and on her throat. 

He doesn’t want it to end, either. Not when he maintains a steady rhythm, slowly dragging himself out of her body only to slam back in, over and over. The gentleness and brutality get tangled up together in her thoughts. It’s only when she feels something damp on her hand that she realizes their fingers are wound tightly together, her grip so tight her nails have broken his skin. 

If he notices, he doesn’t mind. 

It could go on for seconds or minutes or hours. His hair tickles her back and shoulders when he leans over her, pressing hot, sloppy kisses to her throat and shoulders, his teeth occasionally nipping all her sensitive spots. Slowly, oh so slowly, he drives her pleasure higher and higher and higher, the increase in the pace of his hips snapping into hers building infinitesimally with each stroke. 

He flips her over one last time. Finds both of her hands with his, weaves their fingers together tightly, and presses down for leverage as he drives back into her. Their eyes lock. No more taunts. No more words at all. It’s a moment of pure emotion, the purest that has existed between them. When Sauron gazes down at her, there’s possession in his gaze, the covetousness of a dragon gazing upon his horde, but there’s also the tenderness and affection of Halbrand. 

He really does love her. Insomuch as his corrupted spirit is capable of loving anything. 

Galadriel reaches down into herself, into the deepest, most honest corners of her mind, and does what she must to lay the very last piece of her trap—she lets him see her love for him. Lets it pour into her light, until she’s glowing so brightly she might as well be the sun in the center of the darkly romantic illusion he’s created around them. 

And when the pleasure finally, finally takes her, she doesn’t bother holding back her scream. Even when he presses his mouth to hers, swallowing her cries. Even when there’s a sharp sting, his teeth sinking into her bottom lip and blood mingling on her tongue, she doesn’t hold back from letting him feel how very good it is for her. 

She wraps her arms around him, her body shivering and shaking and twitching with the fading waves of release. Later, she promises herself. Later she’ll deal with her wounds. The physical and the emotional. Now comes the hardest part. 

Her name is on his tongue when his hips finally still, pressed so tightly against her it’s as if their skin melds into one. He’s heavy now, too lost in his own pleasures to support his own weight. Heavy, gasping breaths slowly fade into soft nuzzles in her hair, all the fury and passion of their coupling slipping into drowsy affection. 

His heart beats against hers. Fragile skin is all that separates them. Just this once, Galadriel closes her eyes, sighs, and slides her fingers into his hair. Soft as silk, it glides over her skin, shimmering in the glow of the light still pouring off her body. 

One more kiss, she tells herself, guiding his mouth back to hers. Lulling him into contentment is her aim, but after the betrayal she just committed, she can’t lie to herself that it isn’t a little for her too. One final memory to carry through the loneliness of an eternity where the only creature who could ever be her equal is also one of the greatest evils to walk among them. 

He tastes of salt and smoke. Heartbreakingly familiar and devastatingly tender as his lips brush hers. “My queen,” he murmurs with the contentment of a lazy feline, thoroughly satisfied. If he were a man, this would be the moment he fell asleep and made this far more simple for her. 

If he were a man, there would be no need for what she’s about to do. 

But Sauron isn’t a man, and this was never going to be simple. 

Galadriel lets out a long breath disguised as a sigh and stretches slowly, mimicking his languid movements. His thumb has settled at her hip, lazily stroking her skin. He thinks he has her. He thinks he’s won, that she’s if not as content as he, then resigned to their shared destiny. His obsessive need for her is momentarily sated, and  no matter how much she’d like to linger for just a few moment minutes, it’s unlikely she’ll catch him off-guard a second time. 

So she wraps her fingers around the heavy iron candelabra next to the bed and smashes it into the back of his head before he can stop her. The blow would kill a mortal man. She’ll be lucky if it buys her ten minutes. 

He grunts, his eyes flashing toward hers and filled with the devastation of betrayal and the madness of a fury that could burn the whole of Middle Earth to ashes, but even Sauron is not truly invincible. His body crumples atop hers into dead weight. 

Their darkly romantic illusion shatters. Galadriel drops the blood-stained rock in her hand and glances around the crumbling ruins. They’re utterly filthy, tangled together in the dirt, blood streaked on their skin. Her clothes and his are scattered, draped over stone and branches alike. She lays utterly still for the space of another breath. Then, with a silent cry, she shoves his weight aside, snatches her clothes and her weapons, and runs at full speed down the path that leads back to Eregion. 

It isn’t long before a horrible sound rents the air apart and echoes off the mountains. The anguished cry of an animal mortally wounded, the tortured keening of one who has lost something precious, Sauron’s scream of rage and loss is the final death knell of what could have been. 

Galadriel doesn’t look back.