Burn Again

Chapter Two

Dark blue eyes met his and burned into his soul.

He knew those eyes.

Better than he knew his own.

It was her eyes he'd been dreaming of for over three hundred years.

She looked back at her brother, not missing a beat in the conversation.

Thranduil hastened his steps and quickly left the healing rooms, where he stopped in the hallway and leaned back against the hard stone wall, heaving air into his lungs. His heart pounded like galloping hooves, and his head was spinning.

She'd only glanced at him in passing, and hadn't acknowledged him or given any indication that she knew who he was. But it had been enough to send shock waves through his entire body and soul. He'd removed his crown immediately on his return to the palace, shedding his armour in the process. Without prior knowledge of him, she probably had no idea that he was the King of the realm.

He purposefully slowed his breathing down in an attempt to regain some sort of control. Grinding his teeth together, he shoved himself away from the wall and marched towards his chambers. The guards at the entrance of the royal wing hastily stepped aside as he strode in their direction.

The doors to his chambers crashed closed behind him with a loud boom that echoed throughout the corridors. Storming over to the large glass doors, he threw them wide open and stepped out onto the balcony, where he closed his eyes and breathed in the cool night air.

His heart still pounded furiously in his chest, reminding him of the shock he'd just had. The headache that had been lingering threateningly over the last few hours came to the fore with vengeance, thumping hard at his temples.

This elleth was making him ill.

Several minutes lapsed before he turned and went back inside and grabbed the bottle of dark red wine that awaited him on his table. A few drops spilled as he hurriedly sploshed the liquid into a glass, but he didn't notice. He needed to escape from the feeling that his chest was being crushed; his soul being torn to shreds; his sanity being completely and utterly destroyed.

Who was she? And what was the meaning of the dreams he'd had for all those years? Why had she suddenly appeared as clear as day in his palace? What was her purpose?

His hand shook slightly as he set the glass back onto the table. Tilting his head back, he sighed; a long, deep sigh that spoke of decades of weariness and fatigue. Decades of being haunted and plagued by the same dream, over and over and over.

Relentless in the pursuit of dismantling his cool, calm demeanour.

For years he'd pondered the reasoning of the recurring image that came to him on a regular basis. He'd turned over every conceivable possibility in his mind, looked at it from every angle, dissected every possibility that had come to him.

Still he'd reached no conclusions.

But the eyes had never been far from his thoughts.

Deep, dark blue, they had a mysterious look to them. Tiny flecks resembling sparkling white gems lived in the depths, glittering as the eyes blinked. Long, thick dark eyelashes that framed the stunning orbs. The sense that those eyes could see into his very soul.

And the concrete knowledge that the owner would change his life, irrevocably, forever.

He knew that without a shadow of a doubt, but he was damned if he was going to allow it. He'd built a strong, impenetrable wall around himself, his thoughts and his emotions over the centuries. And that wall was not going to be demolished at any cost.