AN – The long awaited, much anticipated. Thank you for everyone who reviewed during my hiatus, sharing their interest in the story and encouraging me to continue. Sorry for the super-long delay. Welcome to any new readers, welcome back to any old ones. Here's hoping I can keep the momentum going enough to finish this.

Chapter Eight

Of Kings and Queens

At first all Lothíriel could do was stumble after him, nearly jogging in an effort to keep up with his longer strides as he pulled her through the darkened, deserted halls of Meduseld.

"My lord?" she hissed after a moment. "My lord! Eomer! What are you doing?!"

"I will have a moment to speak to you alone, by Béma," she heard him growl, his stride not faltering, "if it is the last thing I do on this Middle-Earth."

Lothíriel was given no other chance to object. She was handily propelled through the passages, until they suddenly emerged out into the night air.

The winds whipped past, cool but not quite cold enough to be uncomfortable, her sapphire skirts fluttering restlessly against her legs. Eomer had brought them out of a small passageway practically hidden, and out into what seemed to be a secluded garden to one side of the Hall. It had fallen into some disrepair, a little overgrown and ill-managed for many years it seemed. Yet it must have once been a very cozy spot, with several trees that would make excellent shady retreats if pruned properly, little pathways made of cobbles and intricately carved wooden benches well-worn from weather and age.

Eomer pulled her a little farther into the small glade, then released her and turned back. His expression was tense in the moonlight, but determined.

"If you are against this marriage, I would have you speak plainly now before it is too late."

Lothíriel gaped, stunned. "What?"

"Do not act so surprised, princess," he bade somewhat harshly. "How else am I to have taken your drawing away, from me and everything else around you? Your cool words? Your staunch determination not to be anywhere near me unless absolutely necessary and in the company of no less than twenty others!" Lothíriel opened her mouth to defend herself but he continued heatedly, not giving her the chance. "I asked Faramir the day after we passed under the mountain if you could be happy here. If you were truly at ease with the thought of marrying me and becoming the next Queen of the Riddermark. And he told me that you were, but nothing you have said or done since then has convinced me. In fact it has done nothing but the exact opposite. And I will not watch another woman die of despair. I will not!"

She was more than taken aback by his sudden vehemence, but it was the shadow in his eyes, the hurt of an old but not nearly forgotten pain in them, that was her undoing.

"My cousin did not play you false, my lord," she insisted at some length, forcing the words past her own timidity. "I might be a little . . . uncertain about the future and what it will expect of me as a Queen. Aye, and mayhap even a little afraid," she revealed softly. "But I am not in danger of falling into life-threatening despair, as you put it. I am not against this marriage at all."

He looked exasperated now. "Then why do you avoid me at every turn?" Her cheeks heated a little, but she forced herself to continue.

"I only thought to act as a proper noblewoman of Gondor, my lord. My brother Elphir bade me to be very careful until we were wed," she revealed. "That I was to be under the close watch of the people of Rohan as well as King Elessar and Queen Arwen. He didn't want them getting the wrong impression of me, or for ill-favored gossip to form."

"Your brother would do well to mind his own business," Eomer snarled heatedly, suddenly looking furious. As intimidating a sight as it was, Lothíriel couldn't help a shy smile at its implications. "'King Elessar' does not care a wit for the gossipmongers," he continued firmly. "And neither do I. If I wish to see you before we are wed, what of it?"

Here Lothíriel sighed however and shook her head, wondering how she might put this as delicately as she could. "You might not care, my lord, but your people will. It . . . it would reflect badly upon me. On us both."

At that the fire in him died. He became uncertain, then sad. She frowned as he suddenly seemed to slump, his proud shoulders falling inward. He stepped over to a bench then and heaved himself down upon it, as if he had suddenly lost the will to stand.

"I know nothing of these matters," he muttered after a time, tone bitter and heavy with sadness. "I know nothing of courtly ways or noble affairs. I am a warrior's son, Lothíriel. I was not meant to be a King." His dark eyes turned tortured. "It should have been Theodred. He should have led our host to the Black Gate. He should have taken up my Uncle's seat in the Golden Hall. He should be the one you are to marry tomorrow. It is me only through unhappy chance."

Lothíriel hesitated for only a moment, then her own chin firmed with determination. She may not be brave or strong or courageous as Lady Eowyn, but no matter what strength flowed in her veins, she could not sit here and do nothing while a man such as this continue to think so low of himself. Not while she had breath left in her body. She crept forward and then after only a moment's pause she sat down next to him on the bench. He barely acknowledged her presence, merely continued to stare forlornly at the dirt below.

"You may be the son of a warrior," she started after a moment, her soft voice trembling with conviction, "but he was a great warrior. And your Uncle would not have named you his heir unless he thought you were worthy of the position."

Here she hesitated again, but only for a fraction of a moment before she firmed her resolve. She lifted her hand and set it instead atop his larger, darker one, where it rested on his knee. When he turned to look at her, for the first time in many days she did not look away. Instead she held his gaze, eyes earnest.

"Court intrigue and diplomatic knowledge can be taught, my lord, and easily learned. What cannot be learned or taught is love of the land you serve and pride in the people you rule. And I have seen that in you, sire. It is in everything you do, every action you take." Her fingers gripped his, almost unaware of what she was doing as she continued to let the words tumble from her lips. "You love Rohan, my lord. That is what is most important in the end. I truly believe that one day, very soon, you will be a great King of men. And no matter what my behavior has led you to believe these past few days, I . . . I do not regret that it is you I am to marry at all," she finished in a rush.

She swallowed a little in the heavy silence that followed, feeling her face start to burn. As Eomer continued to stare down at her, his expression unreadable, Lothíriel became aware of where her hand still rested. She hesitantly drew it back into her own lap, then bit her lip and glanced away. She let her eyes wander around her surroundings instead, in a desperate attempt to not appear so nervous and unsettled.

Apparently she didn't do so well.

"Brave words should not be followed by such timid trembling," he suddenly murmured. She tensed when his fingers suddenly took her by the chin, and gently forced her to turn back to him. He had moved closer, and the princess found with widened eyes that his face was now only mere inches from her own.

"I believe that one day, very soon, you will be a great Queen of the Mark," he whispered playfully, yet his dark eyes were very serious and very intent. He leaned a little closer, and Lothíriel couldn't seem to form a coherent thought or manage to breathe at all as he continued to speak in a husky growl, his moving lips nearly whispering across her own trembling ones. "And I do not regret that it is you I am to marry, either. Only . . . that I am to marry you tomorrow without knowing what your kisses taste like."

The heated look in his dark eyes left no doubt in her mind that the young King meant what he said.

Lothíriel knew then what it felt like for one's heart to stop. She was certain that hers missed at least three beats in her shock before it finally decided to start working again, now at double time and thundering against her ribs. She should probably protest. She was a princess after all, and princesses did not let men kiss them before they were married. Yet, she was almost married, after all, Lothíriel argued with her guilty conscience. And, Valar help her, she wanted him to kiss her. She suddenly wanted it so badly she could scarcely think. Yet there was only one tiny little problem.

Lothíriel felt her face heat with embarrassment. "I . . . I have never . . . I-I do not know how," she finally admitted in a shamed stammer. A brief moment of shock passed over his features before it was replaced by a look even more heated than before, this time tempered with a strange air of possessiveness.

"Well then, little princess," he murmured, one hand reaching up to cup her cheek, thumb skimming her jaw line before curling around to cup the back of her head, fingers burying in her pinned-up hair, "it shall be my deepest pleasure to teach you."

At once his own head canted slightly to the side and then Lothíriel jerked as those sinful lips teasingly rubbed against her own. A shock of sensation seemed to shoot through her at contact, and then began to thrum throughout her body as he continued to do so. Unbidden, a faint noise escaped her throat and passed her lips in the form of a breathy whimper. Her eyes slowly drifted shut of their own accord.

An innocent, Lothíriel had no idea what to expect or what to do. She had never before dreamed such sensations were even possible. And the princess only knew one thing, that she never wanted him to stop whatever it was he was doing to her now.

She could only sit there, frozen, as Eomer continued to rub fleeting kisses to her mouth, never lingering overly long as if he feared to frighten her. He pressed against her more firmly once, and drew her lower lip into his mouth for an instant, nipping dangerously before letting go. And then suddenly his tongue joined their play, flicking against her trembling lips as if testing her courage. Lothíriel gasped, more from the burst of tingling heat that erupted in the pit of her belly and beyond than from shock or fear that he'd done it.

Slowly however, her dazed wonder began to turn into acute frustration. All this teasing—and she suddenly realized that that's exactly what it was he was doing—was slowly driving her mad! Why wouldn't he just kiss her properly? Her vexation made itself known in another noise, this one a more throaty moan. She leaned her weight forward a little, her body eagerly begging for what she as of yet had no idea how to voice.

As if this had been the signal he'd been waiting for, Eomer suddenly pulled her even closer and then his mouth completely sealed over hers with a hoarse groan of his own. His tongue traced the trembling seam of her half-parted lips before plunging fully inside. Lothíriel stiffened a little with shock but the Horse-Lord gave her no chance to pull away, no chance to regain her senses even a little as his tongue mated with hers; rubbing, thrusting, tangling with her own. The princess was only half aware of the way her head fell back boneless into the cradle of his larger palms, or of the way her tiny hands clenched and clung to the powerful line of his broad shoulders. All she could comprehend was heat and fire and a strange sense of wanting that she neither understood nor comprehended. Her whole body actually felt weakened with the deep throb of need that lanced through her body.

When Eomer lifted up at last she could barely hold herself upright, and actually swayed a little toward him before she managed to regain control of herself.

Her eyes widened then as sense and decorum returned, her pale face flushed deep scarlet. Sweet merciful Valar . . . .

Eomer stared down into Lothíriel's face as she fought to recover her wits and her breath, his own thick and harsh in his ears. He watched her soft, passion-drugged expression slowly melt into an endearingly mortified blush—one that bloomed from the top of her hairline down beyond the high-neck of her gown—and knew that he was well and truly lost, then. That nagging whisper of suspicion that had been eating at him ever since the look she'd given him outside the Dimholt had just been proven with an iron-clad surety.

He would never be able to give her up now.

Eomer was no young, untried boy. He had had several women in his twenty-nine years. Though admittedly none of them had been anything more than a passing dalliance, taken here or there when there was any moment of peace, if only to break the monotony of the warring and battles that had surrounded him all his life. Yet out of all the other women that he had ever touched or kissed, none of them had ever made him feel as though he were drowning. As if all sense and reason were suddenly snatched away. Eomer found himself seized instead by something base and primitive, where nothing else mattered but her. The knowledge that no other man had ever—or would ever, if he had anything to say about it—touched her thus, that no other man had ever made those big blue-gray eyes of hers darken with need, that no other man had ever brought such a sweet blush to her high-curved cheeks, only seemed to make that dominant desire in him all the fiercer.

It awoke in him an almost desperate need to make her completely his, to mark her somehow so that she and everyone else would know that this woman belonged solely to him; him and no other. A need so strong that for a moment Eomer had trouble remembering just why he couldn't give into it yet. When he did, he nearly groaned aloud with frustration, shifting in vain to try and relieve some of the uncomfortable pressure in his groin. Suddenly tomorrow afternoon seemed an eternity away.

Reigning in his lust with some difficulty, Eomer finally decided to take pity on her acute mortification. He eased back, pulling his hands away from her face. Yet he was loathe to let her go completely, and found one of his hands slipping down to take possession of one of her smaller, paler ones almost of it's own will.

Then, "I trust that you enjoyed your first lesson," he found himself murmuring, unable to keep himself from teasing her just a little.

Lothíriel groaned miserably at that, using her free hand to cover her eyes, sighing a little and causing him to chuckle. Yet she surprised him then by nodding, even through her blushing embarrassment. It was his turn to swallow a little uncomfortably then, viciously willing this new sense of wildness in him—which seemed to center from the throbbing bit of hardened flesh between his legs—to behave. Instead Eomer dragged in a deep lungful of cool air, then fished for something—anything—else to try and focus on besides his future bride and the powerful effect she had on him.

"This was my grandmother's garden," he suddenly announced, somewhat randomly. She lowered her hand away from her face though, lifting up to him with that insatiable gleam of curiosity in her eyes that he was beginning to recognize. "My grandfather built it for her after they moved back to Edoras, from Gondor."

"The King of Rohan lived in Gondor?" she questioned, bemused, and he nodded.

"Aye, my great-grandfather Fengel was not a very well-liked man. A greedy glutton who craved wealth, and fought often with his Marshalls and his son. So my grandfather, Thengel, left Rohan as soon as he was old enough. He lived in Gondor instead—in the service of Turgel, the Steward of Gondor at the time. That is where he met my grandmother, Lady Morwen of Lossarnach. They had four children while they remained there, three girls and one boy; Eowine, Gléohild, Wídfara and Théoden. Yet when Fengel finally died, my grandfather was called back home to the Mark to become its King. Though he was reluctant to leave Gondor—as he had developed a fondness for the southern lands—he and his family did return, and he took up the King's Seat."

Eomer sighed, his eyes leaving her rapt face to gaze instead at the small little glade around them. It had been many years since anyone had really paid any attention to it. His uncle used to have it maintained out of respect and remembered love for his mother, yet when he fell ill no one else thought to do so, Then once the war had started in earnest, there simply wasn't any time to care about such things.

"My grandmother never really stopped grieving for the home she had left behind," he continued then, tone soft. "She missed the vast greenery and beautiful gardens of Lossarnach—missed the peace and tranquility she had known there. So my grandfather had this place made for her, to try and soothe that need."

"It is very lovely," Lothíriel murmured, tone almost reverent. "It was a very thoughtful gift indeed." She paused, then, "did it work?"

Eomer turned back to her, eyebrow lifted. "Did the garden soothe my grandmother's yearnings for home?" When Lothíriel nodded, a wicked half-grin twisted his features. "Well, it was said my mother Théodwyn's birth came exactly nine months after it was completed and revealed to her, so I would venture to say that it was."

That got him another blush, but a tentative smile of shared humor as well.

Eomer turned slightly as the faint sound of revelry suddenly hit his ears, then sighed again. He had monopolized Lothíriel quite long enough, he supposed. Tonight's feasting was meant more as a celebration for her, anyhow, since she wouldn't be free to enjoy much of it tomorrow night. That thought started an avalanche of others, until Eomer was forced to stand suddenly before he gave into temptation and kissed her again. If he kissed her again, there was no telling where it might lead to this time.

He suddenly began to realize there might be something behind all of these stodgy rules and traditions after all.

"Come, Lothí," he bade then, trying to clear the gruffness out of his voice with a clearing of his throat. "I have kept you hidden out here long enough. The others will begin to wonder where we have gotten off to."

Lothíriel gasped suddenly and stood so quickly that he realized she had completely forgotten about where she was and what was going on beyond this little glade. The thought made him smile for some reason, something in his chest warming over. He waited until she finished patting down her hair from where he'd run his fingers through it and smoothing away the wrinkles in her velvet skirts. Then the King deftly maneuvered one of her hands into the crook of his arm before leading her back into Meduseld proper. Lothíriel was so very tiny and seemingly fragile walking there at his side, her slim fingers fluttering restlessly in the juncture of his elbow, and yet—despite the vast differences in their height, despite their opposed colorings and dress, there just seemed to be something so . . . right about having her there. As if she truly belonged at his side, and that no one else would have ever done besides her.

Though neither of them realized it, as they walked together through the press in the Great Hall—too focused on appearing as though they had never left the gathering and that nothing at all was amiss—more than one person turned to admire the very handsome pairing that they made together. Lord Eomer—every inch of him tall, golden, masculine power—and Lady Lothíriel—delicate, dark, feminine grace—seemed made to fit together.

As the Rohirrim watched, their King bent down suddenly to murmur something in her ear, and their future Queen's porcelain pale skin suddenly blushed a vivid pink. Yet the warm, wide, playful smile that slowly spread across her face did wonders to alleviate the impression of the cold, spiritless woman that they had begun to fear her to be.

Surely no one who smiled like that could be so heartless? And so the proud, distrustful Rohirrim began to allow that this Princess of the Sea might not make such a bad Queen after all.