iii

Each night he found his way between her sheets, a serpent slithering in those small fissures of her soul. Hëdwig lay cold and unmoving. At night her life would try to pull out of her shell, and she sat there hoping that this time it would succeed. But then he'd fill those empty nooks and crannies within the thick darkness. He shone like a treacherous angel, golden and beautiful, and he still tasted of forgotten spring slowly mingling with winter. Like a habit, she would close her eyes and murmur a distant name, the one she'd kept in her heart.

Always, always his ire would come upon her like lava gushing from the erupting volcano. His touch lost the care as dug into yielding flesh. She opened her eyes to a raging storm, and simply moved her gaze to the ceiling. That chasm between them would fill and fill and fill, until his teeth bit into her, so close to the clavicle. He was almost a demon then, with her blood on his lips, and his eyes glowing menacingly. He forgave her nothing, of course.

Bones shaking, skin burning, Hëdwig faced the oncoming attack even as she felt a rip inside herself. A breach was all he needed to come back to that deceptively attentive lover. Fingers relaxed around her and proceeded to trace the smooth surface of abused skin. "Why do you continue calling me that?" his voice was a growl in her ear.

"It was not you I called," she answered, knowing fully well she'd bring back the wrath. She let him think it was not his touch she'd felt. Her mind was assaulted by his, a spear through her carefully erected walls, as he searched for traces of his former self, tearing through every memory of them. Hëdwig didn't care much for those. They'd been lies and to see them corrupted hurt her none.

"Let him go," Sauron urged. "Forget everything about him." Why it bothered him to have her think of memories she didn't know or care to know.

Her smile, a thin stretch of pale lips, was his reply. Cool arms wrapped around him, Hëdwig pulled herself up against Sauron, until her lips were near his ear. "You cannot take what is mine." And she fell back to the bed with his angry shove, barely aware that the babe had started crying. Hëdwig laughed at his rage and at her own misery.

iv

That very fine line between what he was and what he had become, when on her lips and in her thoughts drove him mad. She shouldn't have dared compare Mairon to Sauron, but she did. Every time she did, until his desire turned to ashes, and he craved destruction. He could crush her, grind her bones to powder or break her mind apart. But she was void even now, what good could it do to pull even more of her away.

Wails from the cradle distracted him. Sauron walked to the crib and picked that tiny remnant of affection up. Hëdwig shifted behind him, and he turned slowly. Her distrustful stare amused him. "I could kill him if I wanted to."

"Do you want to?" He placed the bundle in her arms, watching it latch onto her and suck greedily. Her devotion to the babe wasn't surprising, her heart had always been tender. Foolish woman, Sauron considered. And yet, he had no intention of letting her go. If that meant allowing her to keep the child, then Suron would do it. After all, the boy was as much his as he was hers.

"I sired him," Suron reminded her softly. "This we share." It had never been enough for him to have only a part, he wanted the whole; the whole world, the whole of Hëdwig. And he was patient, he would take her one piece at a time.

They had forever.