Alright here is my update before I leave for Spring Break! I hope you enjoy it! A little more tension! Also the beginning of this chapter is M for Mature just a heads up!

Chapter Thirteen (Eomer)

"For the love of Bema and all things holy, Lothiriel, I know you are uncomfortable, but you are tossing and turning like a madwoman," I grumbled into my pillow. I had not been able to fall asleep due to my wife's jostling of the bed. She was nearing the beginning of the third part of her pregnancy and I knew that she suffered much more than she let on, trying to be the brave and stalwart Rohirric Queen she was supposed to be. We had spent many similar nights in such a fashion. I had more pillows brought to our bed to place between her legs and under her distended stomach and on particularly bad nights I would rub her back. Her small frame was almost not strong enough for the child she carried.

"Come here," I murmured, more gentle than before, offering to knead her sore muscles with my strong hands. As I reached to begin working on her lower back, she took my hand in hers.

"It is not that," she said quietly.

"What to do you mean?" I asked, confused.

She did not say a word but instead pulled my hand down below her swollen stomach. My fingers came into contact with the thatch of raven hair there and then quickly thereafter, the heat and wetness within.

I groaned, though I tried to stop it. "No, Lothiriel."

She sighed in frustration. "Please."

One of the side effects that I had initially relished of my wife's pregnancy was the strong desires she quickly began to feel toward me. In the early stages I had no problem acting on them, but as she grew larger, I feared that the child would be harmed.

"The healers said it is perfectly safe and natural."

Lothiriel was not lying of course. I had heard them myself, but there was something that nagged at me, in the back of my mind.

"You want to, I can feel it," she said. I could hear the smirk in her voice.

I had tried with all of my might to think of anything besides enjoying my wife's body, but it had not worked. I rose to the occasion and the tension was nearly too much to bear.

"I said no," I replied weakly to her back.

Lothiriel turned to face me and we both shifted to make room for her expanding girth between us.

"But do you mean it?" She asked. She stretched and met my lips with hers and her fingers first went into my long, tangled hair.

I moaned into her mouth as one of her hands ran down my chest and stomach to take me in her hand, applying gentle pressure. Of course, Lothiriel was not the only one to suffer from my self-imposed intimacy drought. I had been going mad, day after day in my study without letting myself touch her and enjoy her at night.

"It does not seem like you do," she murmured against my lips as one of my own hands slipped down, a thumb running over one of her peaked buds.

I growled at her. "You win." I pulled her gently from the bed and pulled a chair away from our small table in the corner, sitting myself on it first.

Lothiriel seemed to be uncomfortable standing before me naked in her current state, but the extra plumpness brought on by the pregnancy made her all the more appealing to me. She had been all skin and bones when we married, but now there were soft spots that I could touch. My arousal was nearly painful as I looked at her in the dying light of the fire that had been lit when we went to bed.

I took her hand and spun her so her back to was me. She straddled my lap and lowered herself onto my manhood, crying out as she did so. I could not suppress a similar noise from escaping my own throat. It had been a month and a half since I had felt her envelope me in such a way.

In the few short months we had been married before Lothiriel found out she was pregnant, I had always taken the lead when it came to our intimacy, but she seemed to be truly unable to control herself with the desires that came with her pregnancy.

I could see over her shoulder as she let one of her own hands stray to her most sensitive spot and even as she rocked her hips she worked herself up into a frenzy, moving faster and faster against me and her own fingers.

My own hands traveled to her breasts, which she had stopped letting me touch long before I quit touching her of my own volition. She complained that they were tender and heavy. I started gently at first, but that provoked whimpering of pleasure and so I kneaded them more forcefully.

Lothiriel's head fell back on my shoulder and her mouth was open. "Eomer," she moaned. Her breathing became heavy pants and I felt her body tense just before she tightened even more and clenched around my manhood. She cried out one final time before going limp in my arms.

Since I had not been able to move from my seated position in the chair I had not yet finished. "You made me get out of bed and do something I did not want to," I growled in her ear. She purred in apparent delight before I pushed her to her feet and drug her back to the bed, where I situated her on her hands and knees, belly hanging below her. I grasped her hips; one of the spots that was a little softer than it had been before and plunged deeply into her.

It had been so long that it took only a few more similar thrusts before I had spent myself inside my wife, sweat dotting my brow and chest.

She came back to bed after cleaning herself up and I pulled her back to my chest. "You are sated. Now sleep," I growled into her ear. I did not even receive a response before I heard her breathing even out and I knew she had heeded my words.

ooooOoooo

A week later, I was in my council chamber pacing back and forth in front of my advisors and Lothiriel who had begun to be just as valuable an asset, as the Queens of Rohan typically were, as the men I had known my whole life. She had taken charge of our public food stores and had been keeping us all informed of the amount of food we had for the impending winter. At that point, it was not looking good.

"My lords, there is simply not enough for all of Edoras to survive this winter, not to mention, I would imagine there would be those from the countryside who will come here seeking aid. I have had letters from the lords toward our borders that their harvests did not yield what they were hoping for and even the smaller towns may not have enough provisions to make it through the winter," Lothiriel said calmly as she passed a ledger around that had her calculations written on it.

I was the last one to take the ledger and I could feel all of their eyes on me. "We have time to try another harvest," I said, though I knew that was not the case.

Hama spoke first. "Your Grace, the fields will soon freeze over. I believe it would be a waste of seed if the entire crop were to freeze and perish."

"Nonsense," I retorted firmly. "Others have done this before and it has worked. I see no reason why it cannot work this time."

"It is unseasonably cold out already," another of the advisors piped up.

"But we have not yet seen a sign of snow or frost," I retorted. The advisors were grumbling amongst themselves, but Lothiriel remained quiet.

Finally, she spoke above the noise. "Perhaps you might write to Prince Imrahil." She used his formal title because we were in the council chambers. "I have it in good confidence that he has provisions he might spare."

The advisors were then looking at her and nodding their heads in agreement. I stared at her for a second. She wore a deep blue gown and a silver coronet around her forehead for the more casual setting of the chambers. Her pregnancy induced extra-thick hair was in a plait and wrapped around and around at the base of her neck. I did not notice any of that however. I did not see anything. My pride had blinded me. I could not, once again, call upon the aid of Imrahil, even though it was the exact reason for the alliance we had created. My people needed to stand on their own feet once more and even though I knew it was soon for that I resisted any mention of assistance. I wanted to be independent. I had grown to loath the state we were in. I was not a King for rebuilding. I was a King who wanted his Realm to thrive prematurely.

"Perhaps if the second harvest does not work. We will wait and see."

Lothiriel looked at me evenly, before bowing her head in acquiescence. She demurred quietly, or so I thought.

ooooOoooo

"Eomer, there is a wagon train just outside of Edoras," Hama said breathlessly one day a month later as he came hurrying into my study without knocking.

"A wagon train? What are you talking about?" I demanded, confused.

"It is from Dol Amroth. It bears provisions."

"I did not write to Imrahil," I said, dumbfounded.

The door to my study was still open from when Hama had entered and I heard the clacking of heels that could only mean one person in that particular wing.

My wife did not stop to talk to me, however. She went right on past the door, tying a fur lined cloak about her shoulders. I stormed out of my study after her as she was pulling the hood up.

"Lothiriel!" I shouted.

She did not even turn to look at me. She kept right on walking, pulling the hood over her head. She actually had the audacity to raise a hand and say, "Later," in response.

I came back into the study fuming, Hama remaining silent near the fire. I strode to the window and looked out as Lothiriel hurried down the steps of Meduseld to greet another cloaked figure. The wind blew his hood off and I saw that it was the youngest of the princes, Amrothos.

Lothiriel wrapped her arms around him as best she could in her condition and then he took her hands to survey her new form. They both laughed and then it seemed that they set to work.

I tried to work on things in my office the rest of the day, but I got very little done due to my constant brooding. Finally, as the sun was setting, Lothiriel poked her head into the study.

"Amrothos and I are dining privately tonight, would you care to join us?"

"And what pray tell is Amrothos doing in Rohan?" I asked the edge evident in my voice.

She rolled her eyes at me. "We can discuss it later if you so desire, but dinner is almost ready. Join us or do not it makes no difference to me," she said leaving the doorway.

I grumbled to Hama about not going to eat with the damned Dol Amrothians, but eventually I made my way to my private chambers to find Lothiriel and Amrothos already seated at our small table. They both stood when I arrived, Lothiriel with some difficulty. Her brother and I clasped forearms and then he helped her to sit back down.

"It is good to see you as always," I said a little stiffly to Amrothos. I tried to bite it back as I knew it was not his fault that he was here.

"It is good to be back in Rohan, though this cold does not agree with me." He gave a smile and filled his mug full of warmed cider. "My sister seems quite at home here though, I am happy to see."

I smiled at him. "She has become the epitome of a Rohirric Queen in only a few short months," I agreed.

"It is the truth. A Gondoran woman would be confined at this late stage of a pregnancy." Amrothos looked at his sister disapprovingly and I could tell the topic made him uncomfortable. Lothiriel had told me that being with child in Gondor was much different than in Rohan. Once a woman began to show under her dresses she was forced to remain inside until the birth in her homeland.

"The healers assure me she is in perfect health. No need to fear for her, though I do understand that it is very different."

The rest of the dinner passed strangely. I could not bring myself to acknowledge Lothiriel after her deception and so I spoke to Amrothos who at times tried to bring his sister into the conversation, though I refused time and time again.

Once Amrothos had retired, Lothiriel and I made our way into our bedchamber to retire for the night. She looked at me in the mirror of her vanity where she was uncoiling the bun at the nape of her neck.

"I have steeled myself, Your Grace. You can begin your reprimanding whenever you desire."

"Do you think this is funny, Lothiriel?" I demanded. "You make a joke out of me at every turn."

"I assure you that was not my intention. Perhaps you make it too easy though."

I fumed. Her tongue was quick, I knew. If I was not careful she would have my temper getting the best of me.

"You went behind my back and went against the order I gave in our council meeting! You make a mockery of me."

"Tell the advisors you changed your mind and wrote to my father, no one will know the difference."

"And I just failed to mention that to my council?" I paced about behind where she sat, unwinding her coronet as if nothing was the matter.

"Eomer, surely you saw the folly in trying to have another harvest before snowfall." She glanced at me in her mirror. "The ground was already too hard to plant."

Her rational words only made me angrier. "But those were my orders!"

"And they were a death sentence to your people!" She stood quicker than I would have thought possible in her condition. "Your pride will ruin you Eomer-King!" Her voice rose to match mine.

In my haze of rage I did not take notice that what she had done, she had done for my people. Though she had initially hated Rohan, she had grown to care for it and to be concerned for the wellbeing of our people.

"I rule here, Lothiriel, not you!" I strode closer to her and brought my fist down on her vanity, making her jars and vials quake and fall over.

"I understand that. But would you have rather I had not done what I did? Think what your people would say when their friends and family were starving to death! Think what your fellow rulers might have thought!"

I left then before she could make me angrier, angrier with myself than with her.

"You forget yourself, woman," I said before slamming our bedroom door and finding somewhere else to sleep for the night.

There you go! I hope you enjoyed it! I'll be gone for about 10 days, but hopefully I'll post shortly after that! Let me know what you thought, I love to hear from you all!

Happy reading,

Avonmora