The song I used is The Hardest of Hearts by Florence and the Machine; and I did the song in this chapter a little differently, I thought the lyrics went so well with the story and the chapter that I wanted to use the whole song. So I variously put the lyrics to the song throughout the chapter, and I hope that it reads well.

Guest: thank you so much, that was so kind. I'm really glad you like it.

PS: I'm glad you think all the sex scenes have a purpose, cause I try to make them have one; like bringing out his tender side, or bringing her out of her shell. I would love to be able to just write a sex scene anytime for any reason, but I'll go and try to write one and I'm all like, uh I don't know where to start this seems really awkward. Plus I've never had sex, so it makes it a lot harder. However, I'm so glad you don't think the scenes in here are monotonus, cause I try to make them different and to use different words; but there's really only so many words to use for certain things.

XII. There is love in your body but you can't hold it in/It pours from your eyes and spills from your skin/Tenderest touch leaves the darkest of marks/And the kindest of kisses break the hardest of hearts

Days turned to weeks and weeks into months, the air did not bite so chillingly giving the promise of warmer days ahead, and animals returned from winter slumber giving the orcs more to eat. Azog spent most every night learning her body, knowing it more than he knew his own. He knew exactly what it took to please her, and he could please her in any way if he made her wet enough for him; he could even take her on her knees, many a time she had grabbed his wrist and told him "slower," until on his own he had learned to slow his pace. But he did not like her on her knees, he needed the feel of her legs around him and the enrapturment on her face as she came and seeing her breasts dance with every thrust, and he craved for the moments she pressed a kiss to his skin – her teeth nipping him, her tongue and lips sucking the base of his neck. He loved her mouth with her soft full lips, her warm wet tongue, and her sweet kisses. He came to enjoy, if not love, the feel of her mouth against his own; it set a fire beneath his skin that burned not only him but her as well. She did not kiss him often, only in the sparest of gentle moments when their hearts beat in tune as they lay breathing deeply and nude after they had laid together.

Once and only once she had moved from where she lay on his chest to hover over his face, and he stared at her with eyes he didn't know clearly shone with his adoration for her – it was seeing that, the warmth and care in his eyes, that had her bending to his mouth. Kisses were unknown to orcs, most had never even seen them; and though Azog was the first man she had kissed, she had seen many before. So where he had slowly begun kissing her back she moved her mouth over his; and she had coaxed his lips apart, and timidly she had run her tongue along his making him moan surprised. For several long moments he had let her stroke him with her tongue, his hands around her back squeezing her tightly. She gasped surprised when he shoved her away from him and hurried out of the tent, and she laid with tears burning in her eyes knowing he wouldn't come back until the next night; and when he did return he only laid beside her, and she didn't dare reach for him, nor did she ever kiss him like that again in fear he would leave her once more.

There is love in our bodies and it holds us together/But pulls us apart when we're holding each other/We all want something to hold in the night/We don't care if it hurts or we're holding too tight

It had scared him how apart of him she had become, as though his lungs could not breathe unless hers did, as though his heart could not beat unless hers beat with his. He could see she cared for him but he didn't trust it; she was a young woman who's home had been destroyed and she almost raped and killed, and then she was taken by an orc and forced to stay. He could not let himself believe she truly cared for him, or if she only thought she had to. But more than that, he could not believe that a young woman – a kind, and loving, and caring, and sweet, and beautiful young woman like her – could ever feel anything for someone as ugly and vulgar as himself. And with those thoughts striking him across the face every time he looked upon her, he could not lie with her; not when all he could think of was her forcing herself to care for him, not when his chest burned at the sight of her face or the feel of her on him or having her near, not when he tried so hard to convince himself that she didn't matter to him, and not when he knew that that was entirely untrue.

There is love in your body but you can't get it out/It gets stuck in your head, won't come out of your mouth/Sticks to your tongue and shows on your face/That the sweetest of words have the bitterest taste

It was a month of this, of him unable to be in her presence for more than a minute when all he could see was her hurt at his treatment of her and all his mind could think was her betraying him – and never did it cross his mind that why he distanced himself from her, refusing even to sleep at her side, was to protect the heart he hadn't known he'd even had let alone given to her. So he stayed away, sleeping with the other orcs and Daisy refusing to leave his side if she couldn't be at Calla's – a constant reminder of the way Calla loved – the thought of getting rid of her not even an unconscious thought.

Only one orc dared to suggest sharing her, if she displeased him; Azog hit the orc so hard it'd been flung in the air and landed feet away from him, landing with a loud thud, his neck broken from Azog's strike. None of the orcs dared think about the girl after that, seeing she was to remain Azog's only; wondering if perhaps Azog had taken her as a mate, something that was unheard of and becoming all too clear.

Darling heart, I loved you from the start/But you'll never know what a fool I've been/Darling heart, I loved you from the start/But that's no excuse for the state I'm in

With spring approaching they moved their camp, for trolls would begin to come out at nightfall again and other orcs would be leaving their own camps; and so they left the Ettenmoors, riding fast on their wargs. Calla sat in front of Azog on his dark warg, Daisy still too small for her to think of riding, though she ran quick and white next to them keeping pace with the older and larger warg. It was the first in a month she had felt him against her, that she felt his touch, and she found that it was a little easier to breathe. She leaned into his chest, resting her head on his arm, feeling more whole than she had in weeks simply from his touch. He felt her mouth press once against his arm and he sighed, having not realized his restlessness at night or the ache he felt during the day had been him missing her. No arm did he wrap around her, no kiss did he press against her head; those were commonalities of a man, but he was an orc.

My heart swells like a water at weight/Can't stop myself before it's too late

They rested at night, barely making a camp at all; only stopping to sleep for a few hours before they were up again. Azog sent Yazneg and several others forward without rest one night taking with them the young wargs, to make their camp by the river in the shadow of the Misty Mountains; this was normal, though Azog usually went ahead. But he remained with Calla, without a tent to hide her from the eyes of the others he did not trust even Daisy to keep Calla safe if anyone had it in their mind to take her. It was on the next day, when they were rode through their last leagues before they reached their camp, that a group of rangers came upon them. The orcs numbers were few, for over half of them had gone ahead, and so the rangers descended upon them like thieves in night under the sun and overtook them.

Azog turned at the sound of a squeal to see an orc being thrown from a warg with an arrow in its throat, and then as a man rode on horse and slit the orc's throat. With a growl he spurred his warg onward, feeling Calla grow tense as she listened to yells and horses and wargs and the shrieking of orcs. He would have stayed behind and fought, killed every single man who dared face him, but Calla held his arm and he couldn't leave her. He turned often to see if they were being pursued and smiled as a warg killed a man with its teeth, its rider standing and fighting the rangers who had lost their horses.

He growled when he felt the sharp pain of an arrow in his leg, which stuck not only in him but also his warg's leg, and Calla was thrown from his arms as the warg fell. He tried pushing the warg off him, his leg trapped underneath, but it did nothing but make the beast roar in pain as well as himself as he pulled on the arrow.

"Run," he ordered her when he saw her less than a foot from him, winded and battered but none the less unharmed, but she did not know that word. He reached for his mace, which lay just out of his reach, and he growled through clenched teeth as he stretched his leg and the arrow inside it pulled.

"Azog," Calla yelled and he looked up in time to move his head out of the way of a sword.

She hadn't seen the three men on horses until it was too late, and she backed away as one caught sight of her; even then she could see the clear shock in his eyes as he saw she was a woman. He drove his horse toward her and she made to scream Azog's name again but his hand clamped over his mouth and he pulled her onto his lap as he rode away.

Hold on to your heart/Cause I'm coming to take you

The man kept his arm firmly around her middle, locking her arms in place, and leaving her no way to escape from him. He had looked upon her with compassion, had seen the girl just barely a woman with an orc pack, had seen the beauty beneath her fear, and had taken it upon himself to rescue her from the endless pain of rape he knew she had endured.

"Please," she said looking up at him, tears in her eyes. "Leave me here and go, he won't come after you."

He looked down at her lovely face before looking back to the land before him. "I will not inflict that upon you," he swore to her. "On my life I promise you, milady, I won't let pain fall upon again."

"He will kill you," she told him and he laughed arrogantly, for he himself was but a young man; at least for one of the Dunedain.

"He is already dead," he told her. "Nothing more do you need to fear. If I have to stay with you for the rest of my life, I will keep you safe." And he would, though his heart filled his blood with fear each time it beat – and he turned warily behind him, the large orc having still been under the warg when he'd taken the girl, and it had screamed so violently it had made them both shiver, and to his horror he saw the pale orc and his black warg racing toward them and another ranger riding further behind unable to match their vicious speed.

"It is alright," he assured her, seeing she had spotted the orc as well. "I will take you from this horror, you will live free and happy, I will ensure it." He did not believe it, he had seen the warg too late and with its speed they would be overcome shortly. But he greatly wished he could save her, that he could save himself.

"Leave me," she begged again. "He will take me and you can live. Just leave me, please," she sobbed desperately.

"I will not leave you to this," he told her, holding her tighter as he kicked his horse faster. Though he had no choice in the matter, for just as he'd suspected moments later the warg's jaws closed around the horse's leg and they were thrown.

He kept his arms locked around her, taking most of the blow as they crashed onto the ground. In seconds the orc lept from his warg and made for them, and he grabbed his sword and planted himself in front of the girl. His sword was no match for the warg's large mace, and he cried out as the mace struck his arm sending the sword aside and his arm shattered, but he still stood determined ready to die for the young woman as the orc raised his weapon once more. It bellowed as the ranger that had been racing after them loosed an arrow, lodging in its pale shoulder and the mace lowered. He lunged forward, spearing his sword into the orc's other leg bring it to its knees. And still it did not stop fighting, and he could not understand why the creature fought so hard for her; it swung its mace behind him and struck the other ranger killing him from the force he hit the ground, his neck snapping back and then twisting.

The orc then turned to him, slowly getting to its feet as blood poured from both it's legs. A terrible coldness filled his heart and he looked down uncomprehending at the sword sticking out of his chest.

Azog panted in both weariness and pain as he looked at the blade impaling the man, and he watched him fall dead to the ground; Calla stood immobile, her eyes wide, and her hands formed as though they still held the sword. That was a moment of many things. Azog now knew undoubtedly Calla cared for him. That was the moment he loved her.

She had been strong through everything, even when she felt weak and afraid; she had survived her village's attack, had survived Azog trying to rape her, had survived continuously refusing him, survived an orc almost raping her, survived the first time Azog had pleasured her and her hatred of herself, survived the first time Azog had taken her and all the times after that, had survived coming to care for him in a way that made her hurt. But in that moment, for the first time since she laid eyes on Azog, after killing a man who had sworn so fervently to save her, she broke.

Hold on to your heart/Cause I'm coming to break you