This update is short. I was going to finish the story in two chapters, making the second one the same length as the first one, but I want to post this scene alone, to hear your opinions, my lovelies. So, let me know what you think in reviews.

The next morning, during the family meal, he watched Wrena. She was wan and clearly had spent a sleepless night. He invited her to his study, under some unconvincing excuse.

She entered and sat down in front of his desk. He saw how much her hands - folded on her lap - shook. Thorin had had a sleepless night as well; and his skin burnt; and his head swam.

He took a deep breath in, and spoke slowly, "Tell me the truth, Wrena. What is going on?" She kept her eyes lowered.

"Nothing is going on." Her words were but a whisper.

"I didn't know that in the years we'd spent together I'd shown myself an imbecile." She jerked at his venomous tone. "Are you having an affair with Lord Amri?"

At that she jerked her face up, and he saw panicked widened eyes.

"No, Thorin, I would never..."

"What then?" he asked, believing none of her words. "You are avoiding me. You escape our marital bed. You sleep in your study whenever opportunity presents itself. You don't... touch me." Previously, their desires had always been wonderfully reciprocal; either one of them would initial a touch, or a kiss; and another would gladly reach back. Thorin knew he was incompetent in deciphering and understanding emotions - but one needed to be blind and half-witted not to notice the changes in her behaviour behind the closed doors of their bedchambers.

She remained silent, her copper head lowered; and rage boiled in his veins.

"What had happened between the two of you?" he gritted through his teeth.

She took a shuddered breath, and tangled the fingers of her small strong hands. "We were friends when we were children. Nothing… Nothing ever happened between us."

"Wrena, I'm losing my patience." Thorin's fists clenched on the unpleasantly cold surface of his escritoire. "If I hear another word of your lies, the consequences will be dire."

Her throat bobbed in a distressed gesture.

"I was infatuated with him, when… when we were young. He didn't return my feelings. He married another." Her voice broke. "It matters not, not anymore..."

"And what is happening between the two of you now?"

"Nothing," she whispered again.

Thorin slammed his palm into the desk, jumping to his feet, and his words burst out in an enraged scream, "Stop lying to me!"

She winced away, and he saw her whole body quake. She didn't lift her eyes.

"Wrena, you're my wife! You gave the oath to be loyal and faithful. I will not stand any lies in my marriage!"

"I am faithful and loyal," she whispered.

"Then tell me the truth! Loyalty isn't just about never giving oneself to another in body and heart. It is about honesty!" he roared, and leaned ahead. "Are you being honest, Wrena?"

He felt his heart bang twice into his rib cage before she hid her face into her hands - and shook her head.

Pain slashed across his side, somewhere below the heart; and he just couldn't take a breath in.

She sobbed quietly, and then looked up at him. He saw wet eyes, and shaking lips. "The secret isn't mine, Thorin… Please… But I have never been unfaithful to you."

"Has your heart?" he asked; and tears ran down her pale cheeks.

"One can't choose, Thorin… It's sometimes beyond our control..." There was a begging note in her whimpers; and he narrowed his eyes at her. Something akin hatred was waking up in him. "I loved Amri, but it was nothing but an infatuation of a youngling..."

"And after we wed?"

"I gave my word!" she exclaimed; for an instant her voice grew firmer. "When you asked… When I accepted your proposal…" She pressed her hands to her chest, and gave him a pleading look. "Thorin, I agreed to belong to you, and to accept you - fully!"

"Then tell me what's going on," he barked at her. "Half the truth is just a lie."

"No, it's not." She exhaled through rounded lips, obviously gathering her thoughts. "Half the truth is exactly that - true. It's just incomplete."

Her sudden sophisms made him see red. He pushed the chair back, and rushed around the desk. He'd never in his life thought he could feel that much rage towards her, or any of his kin for that matter! For a second he even doubted whether he'd be able to hold back the violent urge flooding his body.

He pressed his hands into the armrests of her chair; and she shrank with a small fearful sound.

"Enough of this palaver! You're lying to me; and if you want to… be my wife, you will admit it this very moment!" Her face - just a palm length away from his - was almost hidden from him behind a wall of some nauseating mist. "Start talking! And no more fibbing! I don't believe for a second nothing is happening between you and that kâmnul!" Filth.

"Do you have no trust for me?" she asked, her face disbelieving. "Thorin, do you..."

"No! You lied to me once, you get no trust! You have his portrait in your study! You say you leave to Dale to marker, and he's seen leaving Erebor as well!" He was screaming in her face. She was shaking, her back pressed in the back of the chair. "Yes, you can laugh now! I'm spying on my own wife! That's what I get for marrying a woman who could have been my daughter! An old fool!"

He jerked back from the chair, and his hip slammed into the corner of the desk. Pain bloomed in the old wounds; and he spat a dirty swearing.

She was crying again, silently - some sort of astonishment written on her face.

"Get out," he hissed, and turned away from her. "Get out. You aren't my wife anymore. Sleep in your study as much as you want."

He felt suddenly sick; everything shook inside; and he leaned onto the desk, his hand splayed on it.

He heard her rise slowly; the skirts rustled; and the the door closed behind her.

To be continued...