A.N Hello everyone, I hope we are all well. Whilst reading other SC fics I nearly forgot to update my own. As always I hope you enjoy and please R&R, it makes my day!

The heat of a glorious summer arrived and the previous eight weeks had brought Sandor Clegane into a new madness as the woman residing with him indulged her reciprocal desire for him. Sandor sought her out whenever she would let him and their life together took on a new kind of ease. This was no romantic love affair, he sensed she cared for him and he her but in this life, losing ones head for another was not within their options. Cohabitation and survival were the key, the fact they cared for each other and she did not sob and reject him when he fucked her were only advantages of the current time. That was what he told himself, for fear and disappointment came from expectation and acquirement.

In the past week Sandor had grown conscious of a change in Andrein, she had not bled for a while and that could mean only one thing. Their current lodgings were the best it had been since he bought her and he was thankful for this. Yet they did not speak of it, until finally early one morning he awoke and saw Andrein dressed and ready to venture out. He groaned as he rose, taking her silent bidding and he dressed himself, she was a much earlier riser than he but then she did not drink wine in the quantities he did. Her fingers laced the fastenings at the top of his tunic, lightly tickling his skin whenever they grazed his chest as she worked. He couldn't help it, he roughly pulled her to him, crashing his mouth to hers. His desire was often the most rampant in the morning, even if he wasn't an early riser yet when not needed by those who paid him he had her lie in bed with him until they both felt half starved. It was inevitable then that she would become with child.

Andrein pulled back at last, a practical expression on her face yet bore with a smile.

"Come." She said and he followed her in their usual direction towards the lake. When she turned down a different path he then believed she had pulled him from bed to hunt or forage yet they bypassed several abundant trees without a second glance.

"Andrein?" He said at last, stopping dead in his tracks, she turned and looked at him. "What is it that we have risen for?"

"Do you know of Mugwort?" She asked.

"No."

"I shall show you, we need to harvest some to brew a tea." Sandor looked at her, not certain of her meaning. His confusion seemed to provoke her in some way and a haughtiness of sorts came into her voice. "You do not take my meaning? I should have imagined a man of the pleasure houses would have heard of such things!"

Sandor didn't like the tone and he liked the meaning even less, he strode up to her, invading her space and she backed away from him but he only followed.

"You seem to know plenty yourself." He growled, her eyes looked hard at him for a moment but then seeing how her words had caused a rise in him she softened herself. Her hand touched his arm and she tried to smile. "You are with child?"

"You already knew that." She replied quietly, Sandor nodded still keeping himself close to her. "You know I cannot have it."

He wasn't sure whether the words whether painful or presumptuous to him at that moment but he soon flared again with anger and holding the tops of her shoulders in a firm yet painless grip he forced her to look him right in the eye.

"You take this decision yourself."

"I am your slave." She said calmly. "Slaves and whores make poor mothers, you would not like my time diverted from you for a mewling infant. I cannot spread my legs for you with a babe latched to my breast!" Sandor cursed aloud but he held no other reply at that time, Andrein realised she was angering him all the more and wanted him to understand. "You do not want a string of bastard children polluting the Clegane line."

Sandor released her but she did not move, her hand went to touch his face but he stepped back from her.

"This decision is mine." He bellowed, it made her start and that look of fear trickled into her face again. Sandor didn't like that she was afraid of him, but in this moment anger was all he had. "I bought you."

"You did." She acquiesced which only infuriated him all the more.

"This is some method to persuade me to marry you."

"No." She said flatly. "You are of the house Clegane, you could marry a lady if you chose."

Sandor laughed at her now, he couldn't help it and the bitterness held strong in his laugh. Andrein didn't like him laughing at her; it gave her far more pain than his anger.

"Seven hells you're still a stupid girl, I will never marry a lady. A pure woman would be terrified of me."

Now it was she who laughed, a laugh that like his held bitterness. Andrein walked past him and continued to laugh to herself, she moved over to a patch of weeds growing and she knelt down.

"I was." She answered at last and he watched as she began picking a plant or two from the ground, a plant he presumed to be Mugwort. His anger raged further, did she not listen?

"Put them down." He demanded, she did so but her eyes had a hard, defiant look. Andrein was angry now, that darkness was in her eyes, it was deeper and blacker than the colour of desire and right now it made his skin crawl.

"A bastard child from an unpure woman it is then." She replied, throwing the Mugwort into the distance. "Forgive me master I forgot myself a moment."

Something in him wanted to reach out to her and shake this ill feeling from them both, but he was not made that way. Bastards or no he was the last of his line, the Clegane blood would continue regardless of their birthright for what inheritance would he the hound give to them anyway? He loved the mother who carried his child but her defiance needed to be corrected. Sandor realised his words had labelled her an unpure woman in his eyes when in fact he knew none purer, that is why her presence about him and in his bed was so intoxicating. Forced as she was to this life she acted with grace and dignity to anything he asked, yet that dignity now tried to murder their child.

"Yes I am your master!" He retorted with strong will in his voice. "So no more of this, the child will be born. Do you understand?"

For a moment they looked at each other, Andrein rose and moved towards him.

"Of course."

She moved to walk past him but an impulse made him grip her arm and yank her back, it was rough and beneath him but that is who he was.

"Do not ever defy me again."

She nodded, the word master never passed her lips yet to this day neither had his name. As she walked back along the path they came he watched her, filled with love and pain at the sight of her. Sandor had no idea what he was dealing with; he was as hard as rock, prone to moments of softness and compassion but seemingly unable to live that way always. He had no desire to exalt his masterly status over her, in recent weeks that had blended into the background but now he wanted her to bare his children just as much as he wanted her about him or in his bed. Yet he could not deny his brutality, his roughness it was engrained in him like knots in a tree.

Later that evening he undressed her and led her to bed, his lips stinging with need to kiss along her skin, his body aching to merge with hers. Soon he was stretched over her, deep inside her moving in long, merciless strokes that had her back arching. Yet her hand moved to his face and he saw she looked at him with a hard expression for a moment. Still inside her he stilled and at last she breathed.

"This is your will now; you may come to regret your decision when your lack of gentleness is your stumbling block."

Her eyes closed then and they continued, Sandor was struck with the bitter, painful words but oh how he needed her, how she took over him. He moved in a way that had her splintering with pleasure beneath him, as though the more her words hurt him the more he would defy her with pleasure in return. Andrein slept on his chest her arm draped over him; despite her evident anger she was the good obliging slave always. Sandor was heart sick of her slavery, yet other than the master he could be nothing else.