Protect & Serve LotR-Lord of the Rings Fanfiction - Fan Fiction -WattyAwards2012

Chapter 10: Battle Called Love

I continued walking away even when I heard Legolas exit the tent behind me.

"Elaina!" he called, his voice bordering too dangerously close to command for my taste. 

My feet didn't falter as I held my hand up in the air in a one-finger gesture over my shoulder. I knew he wouldn't understand the gesture, and part of me realized it was probably a childish action, but that righteous anger now burning never knew any difference or any better.

A hand descended on my shoulder to pull me to a stop, but I shrugged out from under the weight of it and spun a quarter of a turn, shoving Legolas's hand away from my body.

"Don't touch me!" I hissed, pointing a finger accusingly at him.

When I started to walk away again, Legolas once more reached out to stop me.

But I'd regressed to my behavior from the days after I'd crawled out of North Korea. My need for controlling my life and all aspects of it had swelled disproportionally. And I didn't want anyone grabbing me to take that control back away from me.

As Legolas once more grabbed for my arm, I automatically pivoted again, blocking his hand with one upheld forearm and sailing my other fist at his head. He jerked back, but my knuckles still glanced off his turned jawline.

I stepped back, partially caught up in my anger, but also half horrified that I'd actually struck Legolas.

But moving like lightening, he stepped closer again, effectively blocking and deflecting the arm I'd thrown up trying to block him once more. And before I could react further, he pulled my body close to his, one hand splayed at my back as the other grasped my neck, tilting my head back as my arms got caught between our bodies.

I had just enough time to gasp before his lips crushed against mine in a bruising assault. Our touches and embraces to this point had always been soft and tender. But there was nothing soft or tender here. Just violence tempered with an underlying sense of desperation.

And it reached something inside of me that nothing else would have in that moment.

I reveled in that violent exchange.

The anger that still ran warm in my veins craved it.

So as I leaned back into him, kissing as punishingly and frantically as he had, I clutched at his chest and took his lower lip between my teeth, biting down until I tasted blood. But I didn't struggle to pull away yet.

Legolas jerked back and stared down at me, not releasing his hold on my back or neck, and seeming heedless to the blood trickling down his lip and onto his chin.

I expected surprise or an anger to match my own in his eyes—I wanted and needed his anger to cement and justify my own or perhaps for him to strike me back—but he only stared down at me with same desperation that had been in his bruising kiss.

 "I love you," were the surprising words he said.

But at the words, I again struggled to pull away, needing distance, and when his hold would not yield, I pulled my arms up further between us to push away at his chest.

His only reaction was a movement so swift I barely could track it, and suddenly my wrists were gathered in his hand and pulled tight against his chest. I knew I wasn't physically strong enough to overpower him, but I also knew the only way to struggle out of his grip could seriously hurt him.

"I love you," he repeated, almost seeming more desperate than before, and lowered his head to press another kiss to my lips, but I jerked my head to the side, his lips landing on my cheek instead.