I write… I guess…?

Baelor has been standing at the foot of your bed for… much longer than he intended to. There's a tilt to his head, seventy-six degrees and counting, and a rise and fall to his chest that seems to be getting slightly faster with each passing exhale.

You do not see it. You are, as it is, asleep.

You're wearing his shirt. This is what has him still as stone, drawing his eyes over you in slow drags that he just can't seem to put an end to.

It's not an elaborate shirt. It's not even one of his best ones— the royal seamstresses have laden him with shirts of silk and fine woven cotton, embellished with hours of needlework or, in some horrifying cases, even beading. He has shirts of every color and shade, shirts of damask and velvet, shirts for summer and shirts for winter. Tunics from Dorne. Doublets from the Reach. Myrish robes. Qartheen samite vests.

You have chosen none of those. The one you have chosen is as simple a garment as he would choose on any given day, to wear against his skin beneath his doublet. White linen gauze, unembellished, unadorned. Its sleeves almost as billowing as its body, coming to plain rectangular cuffs. A simple collar, a sturdy yoke across the shoulders, double-stitched to keep it from unraveling. It is, in a word, efficient. Standard.

He knows, without having to ask you, that you chose to wear this shirt specifically because it is standard. Because it is one that he wears often. The cuffs have gone slightly soft with the wear, the neckline just a bit stretched along the bias. The felled seams are coming undone just a touch at the hem, a fact that he always sees but hasn't brought to the attention of his attendant, because it would mean a week of waiting to have it repaired. It is unfussy. But it is his.

And you are curled up in it like a kitten, asleep in his bed, your leg thrown over a pillow that you had moved toward his side of the bed in his absence. He has spent too long at his work, he knows. You spent too long waiting for him— long enough that you removed your nightgown and donned one of his shirts, and you fell asleep like that. Alone. In the bed you are meant to share with him.

Baelor feels a tightness in his chest that is ringed with fondness, an aching longing for you that hadn't stopped after your wedding, and doesn't seem like it will any time soon. He is too taken with you, too in love and consumed by it for that intrinsic sense of need for you to fade. It is a tender thing, tied around his heart in an intricate knot, with a tail that you hold the end of. You twirl it around your little finger and he buckles like a man who has never seen combat, who doesn't know what it is to stand his ground.

Baelor sighs as he undresses, but he keeps one eye on you all the while, as though you may disappear if he moves too far away. But you don't move. You don't even stir, when his belt hits the stone floor, or when his breeches follow. You are caught up in a world of dreams, unaware of what the sight of your sleeping form is doing to your husband, bringing him to the brink of something he has never quite been able to put a name to.

You do not stir when his hand presses into the mattress.

You do not stir when his weight dips the bedding and he moves slowly, purposefully, over you.

You do, however, stir just the smallest bit when his fingers dance over the curve of your hip through the fabric, feeling its drape over the soft plush of your skin. The meat of your ass, the swell of your thigh. Baelor feels, smoothing and caressing with a languid stroke that is not intended to rouse you, although he knows very well that it might and he does it anyway. Your fingers flex on the pillow that you clutch instead of him.

He finds himself, at that moment, inordinately envious of a pillow. A lump of fabric and feathers in your hands, between your thighs.

His hand grows bolder, a broad stroke over the small of your back, into the dip of your waist. You make a small noise in your throat, twitching the slightest bit as he passes over a particularly sensitive area.

"Shh, my sweet girl," Baelor whispers quietly, a lulling murmur in the darkness. Everything about you is soft— your skin, the fabric of his shirt as it lays over you, your hair, the expression on your face, the candle light on your sleeping body. It overwhelms him. It turns him into something that he's not normally, unless he is with you: a man. Not a Prince, and not the Hand of the King or heir to the throne. Not a warrior and not a subject of songs and poetry, myths and stories. With you, in this bed, he is simply a man in love with his wife, devoted beyond measure.

By the time his hand reaches your nape, your eyes are fluttering open the barest amount. Your face is still pressed slightly into the pillow, but you shift, a perking of your head as awareness returns to you. "Baelor?"

"It's me," he tells you, his voice low enough to not even constitute words.

"Mm. Waited for you," you mumble, confirming what he already knew.

His eyes crease at the corners, his smile overly tender. "I know. I'm here now."

Even as he says it, his hand is finding the hem of his shirt draped over your thigh, its frayed edge tickling against the smoothness of your skin. You hum quietly, dropping your eyelids against the feeling of his warm hand, burrowing between pillow and fabric and skin to find you, bare and wet and waiting for him.

"Oh," you sigh when his fingertip draws a slow circle around your clit.

"I know," he reassures you again, pressing a chaste, sweet kiss to the back of your neck. "I know, my love."

You turn your head further into the pillow beneath you, letting out a small whine at the feeling, your hips arching into his touch. He responds in kind, laying his weight flush to your back, his hand pinned between you and the pillow below.

"You're wearing my shirt," he remarks, his fingers finding your entrance and sliding in, stretching you open quick enough to make you keen softly. He gives you a few shallow strokes, feeling you grind back into the press of his cock against your tailbone. "My beautiful wife, wearing my clothes."

"W-Wanted to— to feel you— mm." Your voice is still slightly slurred with sleep, the heat of his body and the slowness of his movements doing nothing to rouse you more. You are still somewhere between awake and dreaming, pleasantly lulled, drowsy in your responses to him. Still, you moan at the curving of his fingers. "Wanted you… close to me…"

"Then let me be close," Baelor whispers, dragging the wilting fabric of his shirt up over your hips. He puffs a sigh through his nose, the ghost of it breezing against your neck. "What am I to do with you, hm?"

You make a pathetic noise when he moves your thighs apart to fit himself between them, his chest pressed to the curve of your spine, the thin fabric of his shirt separating you. He kisses you beneath the ear.

"You can sleep, darling," he tells you quietly, a whisper into your ear as his cock settles heavy between your thighs, the head sliding hotly against your cunt. Even though his voice is low, it booms through you like a thunderclap. "You need rest."

"I need you," you retort, but your own voice is far off, dipping towards the fogginess of sleep already.

Your eyes flutter shut, a gentle sigh of relief leaving you when he enters you slowly, stretching you open around him. Pressure on your back, pressure between your legs, pressure where his hand is pinned and lifting your hips from the front, angling them back towards him. Baelor's arm comes up to brace beside your head, and the scent of him surrounds you— the same scent that always drives you crazy, juniper and peppercorn, and something slightly like the salt of a raging sea.

You breathe in deep, exhale on a contented, fulfilled hum. Your entire world is Baelor, your mind and body consumed by him completely. His body spanning the length of you, bone to bone, naked skin to thin, ineffectual fabric.

You clench around him, and Baelor makes a noise as though you've punched him. So close to your ear, the headiness of it is echoed tenfold. Then he shifts his weight, dropping his hips ever-so-slightly, and then just grinds into you. His cock nestles into the deepest part of you and you groan, your mouth dropping open and face turning towards the breadth of his arm beside you.

"Baelor," you whimper, soft and broken, slurred from the recesses of sleep. Your hand finds his bicep, drawn taut from the muscle holding him up, keeping him from crushing you completely. Your fingers dig in, pull. A silent plea, a command that he follows like a dog on a leash.

Baelor fits his forearm under your head and lifts, letting you rest your chin there against the crook of his elbow, getting you into a loose headlock. Your hand wraps loosely around his upper arm, your body lax, letting him rut his hips shallowly into yours.

"My beautiful girl," he breathes into your ear, and you feel his teeth, bared with intent. His nose pressed to the shell, his beard scraping rough against your cheek. "My heart. My soul."

His arm tightens. Just a tad, but just enough. You mewl like a wounded animal, stretching your limbs so that he can move closer in, can fit his mouth to the curve of your throat, while he throbs somewhere deep in you that makes your head spin and your breath stick in your chest. His weight on you turns full, crushing, an all-over press that pins you flat to the bed, the pillow tucked beneath your stomach.

You are no longer asleep.

"Say it," he tells you, a primal rasp to his voice that wasn't there before. Low, smoky. A dragon. It's dragged from the pit of him, from some hell that lurks deep inside his body. His groan slinks down your spine and pools as raw energy right above where his cock hollows out and reaches the end of you. "Say that you're mine."

"M'yours," you murmur into his arm, breathing in the hot air that radiates from him. "Baelor. M-My heart. My soul—"

A guttural sound leaves you, your open mouth muffled by the bite you take of his bicep when he pulls his hips back and ruts into you hard, hard enough to shake the bed. Baelor's breath in your ear is shaky, stilted with the desperation of his movements, the purpose for which he collects himself.

"Gods above," he groans, his face turned into your neck just as yours is turned into his arm. With great effort, he loosens his hold on you. He presses an apologetic kiss to the curve of your shoulder. "I'm sorry. So sorry, my love."

You make a short noise, shake your head once. "Do it again."

Baelor does as you tell him. He pulls back slowly, letting his cock drag through your walls just before rushing back in with a jolt up the bed. Soft hair grinds against the plush of your ass, his mouth open and heaving with gasps against your shoulder, covered in the fabric of his shirt.

You can taste his need in the salt on his skin, beads of sweat forming in the crook of his elbow, fiery heat pressed flush to your back. "I need to— to wear your clothes more often."

"Yes." The word is hungry. It leaves no room for defiance. "You will."

The hand pinned between you and the pillow moves, snakes down to find your clit again. You are blinded with white light behind your eyelids, your breath gone still in your chest. Then, you pant like your air has no place to go, your hand tightening on his bicep, his arm tightening around your throat.

"Mm. There." The sound of his voice in your ear, while he fingers at your clit and his cock makes you so full that you can barely think, undoes you. Tremors take over your body, and you feel him smile as he continues to work at you. "That's what you get. I want you shaking."

"Baelor." You cum around him, with his full weight holding you down with nowhere to go. You are held hostage to it, to the slow, seductive movements of his hips, the lazy strokes of his finger against your clit.

"That's it. My good girl," Baelor purrs into your ear, and you sob as you clench around him. "My good, sweet, beautiful—"

He runs his tongue lightly across the nape of your neck and groans, ducking his head as he cums. His moans are muffled by his shirt on your back, his body curled over yours like fog. He presses his hips hard against yours, as though he can become a part of you if he gets close enough, deep enough.

"Oh, my love." His whisper falls upon your ears like a dream, like you may wake up and not remember it. But he's real, and he's there on top of you with his heart pounding against your back, and his fist in the fabric of his shirt, the one that started all of this.

He stays there for a breath, and then two. His hips are still flush to yours, but he's stopped moving, stopped the slow grind and the desperate, cloying attempt to get as far inside of you as he possibly could. He simply holds there, with his arm still around your throat, but not pressing in anymore. Just holding. Just cradling.

"I don't know if you noticed," Baelor says after a moment, his voice tremulous and padded by a wad of fabric between his teeth, at the nape of your neck. He releases it. "But I quite like it when you wear my clothes."

You huff a laugh, and press a kiss to the inside of his elbow. "If you do that every time, I may never get any sleep."

Baelor hums. "The chances are very slim, indeed."

Even so, you wear the same shirt the next night. And the one after that.

You don't get much sleep.

But Winterfell was different. He might be king, but no matter how many royal trumpets announced their arrival, or how many banners bearing the three-headed dragon flew above the castle, you were a Stark, and here that meant more than the crown he wore. You were one of their own, a daughter of Winterfell who they watched growing up from a solemn little girl running through these halls into a woman worthy of the direwolf sewn upon her cloak. Old servants still fussed over whether you had eaten enough. Grey-haired guards who had once carried you on their shoulders now straightened with unmistakable pride that their little wolf-maiden returned home.

Baelor found he could not begrudge them their affection. Indeed, he rather enjoyed watching it. There was something quietly beautiful in seeing the reserved young woman melt so easily among her own people. The careful queen disappeared, replaced by the daughter of the North. He had married a woman beloved by her people. How could he resent that? If anything, it only made him love you more.

The bed felt oddly incomplete without the familiar weight of you curling against his side, your cold feet seeking his warmth beneath the blankets. So he remained where he was, the book forgotten once again, content to wait for the sound of the door opening and the woman who, without intending to, had become the part of every evening he anticipated most.

As if on cue, the chamber door opened. Baelor looked up as you entered, closing the door behind you and already unfastening your cloak. "There you are," Baelor said. You looked up at him, and his mismatched eyes warmed as they met yours. You could not help but smile as you worked on the laces of your dress. "There I am."

"I had begun to suspect Winterfell had reclaimed you."

You rewarded him with a chuckle as you slipped out of your dress and reached for the nightgown a maid had left for you. "It tried." Once dressed, you moved to the vanity and took the pins out of your hair. "The kitchens insisted I eat. They baked honeyed cakes."

"Your favourites."

"And the kennelmaster wished to show me the latest litter."

"And you can never restrain yourself from petting the dogs."

"Then my old nurse caught sight of me in the corridor."

"A fatal mistake," he nodded gravely.

"It took nearly half an hour to escape. And then lord Cerwyn stopped me."

"Another quarter hour?"

"Near enough."

"I have reached a conclusion," Baelor said, crossing his arms.

"Oh?"

"I have a distinct impression I rank somewhere below the castle itself in your affections."

You turned towards him, hand paused mid-brushing your loose hair. "You sound jealous."

"I am."

"Of Winterfell?"

"It has monopolised my wife since we crossed the Neck."

At that, you couldn't suppress the bark of laughter that escaped you. "It is home."

"I know."

"The walls know my footsteps."

"They've been trying to keep you."

"Try as they might, a stubborn dragon is unwilling to release me."

"What a terrible fate."

"Oh, do not pity me. I might have been raised by wolves, but it is the dragon my heart chooses."

You felt Baelor's breath hitch. You tilted your head to the side, taking in the sight of your husband lounging on the bed. You felt the weariness around your eyes after the long day, felt the heaviness that slumped your shoulders. None of it dulled the tenderness with which you looked at him. Your love needed no grand declarations, only the reassurance that he was there.

He met your gaze with an identical one. You knew he spent the day meeting with various northern lords, listening to their concerns. They respected him, not simply because he was King, but because they found no vanity in him, no empty boasts. He listened before he answered, kept his word once it was given. He neither mistook silence for weakness, nor blunt honesty for insolence. They appreciated he did not shrink from the cold or long rides through snow, and that he trained with sword and lance alongside his own men rather than merely watching from the gallery. He would never truly be one of them. He was a dragon, raised beneath the southern sun, heir to a dynasty far removed from Old Kings of the North. And yet, the North had a way of judging deeds above birth. They might not call him their own, but they trusted him. And here, there were few honours greater.

You rose from your chair, and slowly made your way to the bed. Baelor's eyes did not leave you as you kneeled on the bed next to him. You reached for his crossed arms and pryed them apart, smiling when he offered no protest. You slipped your fingers in his, idly tracing the calluses across his palm. Baelor's gaze never left you. There was nothing guarded in it. No kingly reserve, no careful diplomacy, only unmistakable affection. He was looking at you as if you were the only thing in the room worth seeing, as though he had quite forgotten the book at his side, the dying fire, the snow beyond the windows, even the lateness of the hour. There was a softness to his expression that belonged to no one else; the corners of his mouth lifted into the faintest smile, the violet and brown of his eyes following your every movement with quiet admiration.

It was a look you had caught a hundred times before. A look that still made you wonder, after all these years, how a man so admired throughout the realm could gaze upon you with such open devotion. "What?" you asked.

He blinked, almost as though he had forgotten you could catch him staring. "You are beautiful."

You laughed softly, lowering your eyes. "I am in my nightgown."

"I see that."

"My hair is a mess."

"I disagree."

"I look exhausted."

"You do."

You looked up again, to which Baelor simply chuckled. "And yet," he said, smile widening, "I've never thought you lovelier."

Wanting to mask how your cheeks warmed, you pressed a soft kiss to Baelor's hands you still held. "You have always been a terrible judge," you murmured against his hands.

"No," he answered, leaning closer to you. He flipped your joined hands until his were cradling yours, and brought them to his lips to kiss, his gaze never leaving yours. "I have simply always been hopelessly in love with my wife."

He tugged you to lie under the blankets with him, and you obliged, allowing him to tuck you under his arm, your head resting over his beating heart. A few moments passed, Baelor idly caressing your arm you splayed over his chest. "I had forgotten how quiet it is here," you murmured to his skin.

"It suits you."

"Does it?"

"You stand differently, more relaxed. You breathe more easily. It makes you a Stark again."

"I never stopped being one."

"No," he chuckled, kissing the top of your head, "you merely remembered."

You snuggled closer to him. "Thank you for bringing me here."

"There was never any question."

"You have an entire kingdom to think about. Seven of them, actually."

"I have my wife to think about."

As Baelor drew the blankets a little higher around you, you nestled closer to him, warmed not only by the hearth and the furs atop the bed, but by the steady heat of the man who held you.

Winterfell had always been your home.

But it was in Baelor's arms where you truly belonged.

Dust motes danced in the stillness of the solar, swirling around stacks of parchment and heavy leather-bound ledgers. Baelor Targaryen sat in the high-backed chair, his broad shoulders filling the space.

He had spent the morning immersed in reports from the Reach and the Stormlands, his mind a disciplined machine of statecraft and duty.

Beside a stack of tax records lay a small, unassuming book bound in pale blue leather. It was not a ledger, nor was it a history of the Seven Kingdoms.

It was yours.

You had left it behind in your haste to attend the midday meal with the Queen, a lapse in caution that you would soon regret.

Baelor had no intention of invading your privacy. He respected you, loved you with a quiet, steady intensity, and viewed you as the sanctuary of his life. He had reached for a scroll, but his hand brushed the blue leather, and the book fell open.

His eyes scanned a page of looping, elegant script. He intended to close it immediately, to preserve the sanctity of your inner thoughts.

Then, his gaze snagged on a single sentence.

I crave the weight of him, not as a lover who asks permission, but as a master who claims his prize; I want him to bend me over the very desk where he writes his laws and fuck me until my legs fail and I cannot walk.

Baelor froze. The air in the room suddenly felt thick, heavy with a heat that had nothing to do with the afternoon sun. He stared at the words, reading them again, then a third time.

The image flashed through his mind, you, his sweet, soft-spoken wife, the woman who blushed when he kissed her neck in public, pinned against the wood, your breath hitching in a way that wasn't caused by gentleness.

He turned the page and then the next.

The diary was a map of your hidden hunger. You wrote of the way his broad chest made you feel small and fragile, and how that fragility sparked a desperate need to be overpowered.

You wrote of the silence between you in the bedroom, the polite, tender exchanges of pleasure that left you satisfied but longing for something more visceral.

You described the fantasy of his calloused hands gripping your hips, the sound of your own whimpers turning into screams, and the sight of him losing the legendary Targaryen composure to the raw, animal heat of desire.

Baelor felt a slow, pulsing throb begin in his groin. His trousers tightened, the fabric straining against the sudden hardness of his cock. He had always treated you with a reverence that bordered on the sacred.

He feared his own strength, the sheer physicality of his frame, and he had spent their marriage tempering his passion to ensure he never overwhelmed you. He had been the perfect husband; patient, kind, and careful.

He looked at the desk. He looked at the heavy oak surface, the inkwells, the scattered papers. He imagined you there. He imagined the sound of your skin slapping against the wood, the scent of your arousal mixing with the smell of old parchment.

A small, predatory smile touched his lips. He closed the book with a soft thud and set it exactly where he had found it, though he did not move from the chair.

He waited.

The sound of your footsteps echoed in the hallway, light and hurried. The heavy oak door creaked open, and you stepped inside, your silk gown of pale cream shimmering in the light. You stopped short when you saw him, your chest rising and falling in a quick rhythm.

“Baelor,” you breathed, your voice soft. “I realized I left my journal here. I hope you didn't...”

You trailed off, your eyes falling on the blue leather book. Baelor did not speak. He simply watched you, his mismatched eyes dark, the pupils dilated until the blue and brown of his irises was a thin, shimmering ring.

The intensity of his gaze pinned you to the spot. “Did you see it?” you asked, your voice trembling as you took another step into the room, eyes wide and lips parted.

Baelor stood up. He was a towering presence, his silhouette blocking out the sun. He moved toward you, not with his usual measured grace, but with a slow, deliberate prowl. Each step sounded like a heartbeat against the stone floor.

“I saw many things,” Baelor said. His voice had dropped an octave, vibrating with a low, gravelly resonance that sent a shiver racing down your spine. “I saw things my sweet, innocent wife had been hiding from me.”

“I... I didn't mean for you to read that,” you whispered. “It was just... fantasies.”

Baelor stopped inches from you. The heat radiating from his body was an oven, smelling of cedar, expensive ink, and masculine musk.

He reached out, his large hand wrapping around the nape of your neck. His grip wasn't painful, but it was firm, possessive, leaving no room for retreat. He tilted your head back, forcing you to look up into the storm of his expression.

“Fantasies,” he repeated, his thumb brushing over your jawline. “You wrote that you didn't want softness. You wrote that you wanted to be claimed.”

You swallowed hard, your throat dry. “Baelor...”

“Do you still want it?” he asked, his voice a low command. “Do you still want your husband to stop being gentle?”

You couldn't speak, but could only nod, a small, frantic movement. The admission broke the last shred of his restraint.

You backed away, your heels clicking against the floor, until the small of your back hit the edge of the mahogany desk. You gasped, your hands flying up to your chest. The panic in your eyes was there, but beneath it, a spark of electric anticipation ignited.

Baelor's hand shifted from your neck to your waist, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your hip. With one sudden, powerful motion, he gripped your shoulders, spun you around and shoved you forward.

You let out a sharp cry as your stomach hit the mahogany desk. The impact knocked the air from your lungs, and you found yourself sprawled across the wood, your chest pressed against the cool surface, your hips tilted upward.

The position was vulnerable, exposing and raw.

“Look at the desk,” Baelor commanded, his voice right at your ear. “Look at where you wanted this to happen.”

You looked, your vision blurring as you saw the inkwell wobble from the force of your landing. You felt his body press against your back, a wall of hard muscle and heat.

He didn't kiss you.

He didn't whisper sweet nothings, but instead, he reached down and gripped the hem of your cream silk gown.

The sound of fabric rending filled the room. He didn't slide the dress up; he tore it. The silk groaned and gave way, ripping from the waist down to your thighs.

The cool air of the solar hit your bare skin, making your nipples harden against the desk. You whimpered, a sound of pure, unadulterated want.

“You've been so quiet in our bed,” Baelor murmured, his breath hot against the shell of your ear. “So polite. I wondered why you always seemed to be holding something back.”

He reached around, his hand sliding between your thighs, he did not tease, he did not linger, but without warning, he had pushed aside your smallclothes and shoved two thick fingers deep into your heat, finding you already drenched.

The sound was a wet, visceral squelch that echoed in the quiet room. “You're soaking,” he noted, his voice devoid of its usual softness. “You've been thinking about this while I was reading reports. While I was playing the dutiful prince.”

He withdrew his fingers and you felt the sudden absence like a wound. You arched your back, your hips instinctively seeking him.

“Please,” you gasped. “Baelor, please.”

“Please what?” he asked, his hand moving to grip your hair, pulling your head back so you had to look at him over your shoulder. “Tell me exactly what you want, since you were so brave in your writing.”

“I want you to fuck me,” you sobbed, the shame melting into a fierce, burning desire. “I want you to take me. Hard. Don't be gentle. Please, don't be gentle.”

Baelor let out a low, guttural growl. He reached for his belt, the leather creaking as he unbuckled it with efficient, hurried movements. He shoved his breeches down, and you heard the heavy thud of his cock springing free.

You didn't have to see it to know the size of him; you could feel the heat radiating from the length of him as he pressed it against the crack of your ass.

He was massive, a thick, pulsing vein thrumming against your skin. He didn't use lubrication; he didn't need to. Your own arousal was a slick lubricant, coating your folds. Baelor gripped your hips, his fingers bruising your skin, and aligned the head of his cock with your opening.

He thrust.

The entry was a violent, singular motion. You screamed, a loud, echoing sound that would have shocked anyone outside the door, but in this room, it was the only music that mattered. He buried himself in you in one go, his cock stretching your walls to the absolute limit.

The sensation was overwhelming, a mixture of pressure and piercing pleasure that made your vision go white.

You felt the air being pushed out of your lungs as your chest slammed back down onto the desk. Baelor didn't give you time to adjust. He began to move, his thrusts deep and punishing.

Shlick. Squelch. Slap.

The sounds of their union were loud and vulgar. Each time he drove forward, his balls slapped hard against your perineum, a rhythmic, meaty thud that vibrated through your entire body. The friction was intense, the head of his cock rubbing against your cervix with every deep plunge.

“Is this what you wanted?” Baelor roared, his composure entirely gone. “Is this the weight you craved?”

“Yes!” you shrieked, your fingers clawing at the mahogany, leaving scratches in the expensive wood. “Yes, more! Harder!”

Baelor obliged as he shifted his grip, hooking his arms under your armpits and pulling your upper body slightly off the desk, angling your pelvis to take him even deeper.

The change in angle allowed him to hit a spot deep inside you that made your toes curl and your mind fracture.

The pace accelerated, for he was no longer a prince; he was a predator, a dragon claiming its hoard, his thrusts became frantic, overzealous, the force of his movement caused him to slip out almost entirely, the wet, sucking sound of his cock leaving your body echoing in the room, only for him to slam back in with a force that made the desk slide several inches across the stone floor.

“Gods, you're so tight,” Baelor groaned, his voice a ragged edge. “You're squeezing me... you're trying to drain me dry.”

You couldn't answer as you were lost in a sea of sensation. The feeling of the hard wood beneath you and the hard man behind you created a vice of pleasure. You could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead onto your back, the saltiness of it mixing with the scent of sex.

He began to grind his hips, his pubic bone smashing against your backside with every stroke. The friction on your clitoris, though indirect, was enough to send you spiraling. You felt the tension building in your lower belly, a coil of heat tightening until it was unbearable.

“I'm... I'm going to...” you gasped, your voice breaking.

“Not yet,” Baelor commanded, his voice a low snap. He reached around and gripped your clit between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it with a brutal, fast intensity.

The combination was too much. Your orgasm hit like a tidal wave, a series of violent spasms that gripped your internals, squeezing his cock in rhythmic waves. You wailed, your body shuddering, your head tossing from side to side as the pleasure ripped through you.

Baelor let out a choked sound, his own climax imminent. He stopped the grinding and went back to the deep, piston-like thrusts, each one more desperate than the last. He was panting, his breath coming in ragged gulps, his muscles corded and straining.

“Fuck, look at what you have done to me, my sweet girl, I intend to fill you to the brim with my seed and take you over and over again," he groaned, the words almost a plea.

With one final, devastating thrust, Baelor buried himself to the hilt. He stiffened, his entire body locking up as he erupted. You felt the hot, thick jets of his seed hitting your cervix, filling you to the brim.

He didn't pull away, he stayed pinned inside you, his chest heaving against your back, his heart drumming a frantic rhythm against your spine.

The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the sound of their synchronized, labored breathing. The room felt different, the air charged, the sanctity of the solar replaced by something primal and honest.

Slowly, Baelor began to relax. He didn't pull out immediately. He leaned down, pressing a tender, lingering kiss to the nape of your neck, his lips soft and warm. The contrast was jarring, the sudden return of the gentle husband after the storm of the master.

He slid out of you with a wet, lingering pop. You collapsed onto the desk, your limbs feeling like lead, your breath still coming in shallow hitches. You were shaking, a fine tremor running through your muscles.

Baelor stepped back and looked at you. Your dress was ruined, your hair a wild tangle, your skin flushed a deep rose. You looked broken, claimed, and utterly satisfied.

He reached down and picked up the blue leather diary. He didn't hand it back. Instead, he tucked it under his arm. “I think I'll keep this for a while,” Baelor said, his voice returning to its princely calm, though a hint of the gravel remained. “I find I have a sudden interest in your... literary pursuits.”

You rolled onto your side, looking up at him. You felt a strange mixture of vulnerability and empowerment. The secret was out, and instead of judgment, you had found a hunger that matched your own.

“You read the whole thing?” you whispered.

Baelor smiled, a slow, knowing expression. He reached down and offered you his hand, pulling you up from the desk with effortless strength and as you stood, you felt the warmth of his seed leaking from you, a sticky reminder of the last hour.

You tried to take a step toward him, but your knees buckled, your legs truly unable to support your weight.

Baelor caught you, sweeping you into his arms and holding you tight against his chest. He looked down at you, his eyes shimmering with an affection that was now laced with a new, dangerous understanding. “You said you wanted to be unable to walk,” he murmured, kissing your forehead. “I believe I have fulfilled the request.”

You leaned your head against his shoulder, closing your eyes. The Red Keep continued to hum with the business of the crown outside the door, but inside the solar, a new treaty had been signed.

“Will you do it again?” you asked, your voice barely a whisper.

Baelor began to carry you toward the bedroom, his stride confident and strong. “My sweet, innocent wife,” he said, his voice vibrating through your chest. “I intend to spend the rest of our lives exploring every single page of that book.”

As he laid you down on the silk sheets of your bed, the sunlight had shifted, leaving the solar in shadow. But in the bedroom, the fire was just beginning to burn. Baelor stripped away the remains of your gown, his eyes roaming over your body with a possessive hunger that made you ache all over again.

He didn't start with kisses. He started by pinning your wrists above your head with one hand, his weight pressing you into the mattress.

“Now,” he whispered, his lips brushing against yours. “Tell me what else you wrote. Tell me everything you've been craving while I was being a gentleman.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but he silenced you with a kiss, not a gentle one, but a deep, demanding exchange of saliva and heat.

His tongue pushed into your mouth, claiming your space, sucking on your tongue with a hunger that mirrored the act on the desk. You moaned into the kiss, your hips lifting instinctively, searching for the hardness you knew was waiting for you.

He broke the kiss, trailing his lips down to your throat, biting softly at the sensitive skin.

“I want to hear you say it,” he commanded.

“I want... I want you to take me however you want,” you gasped, your voice trembling. “I want to be yours, completely, no more politeness and no more hesitation.”

Baelor paused, his gaze locking onto yours. The love in his eyes was still there, but it was now intertwined with a raw, dominant energy that made you feel like the only woman in the world.

“As you wish,” he said.

He moved down your body, his hands exploring every curve, every fold, with a renewed sense of purpose. He spent a long time with his tongue, tasting you, swirling around your clit until you were sobbing and begging for him to fill the void.

He played you like an instrument, knowing exactly where to press, how to suck, and when to tease and when he finally entered you again, it wasn't with the violence of the desk, but with a slow, agonizing deliberation. He pushed inside inch by inch, watching your face as you stretched to accommodate him. He wanted to see the pleasure, the slight pain, and the utter surrender in your eyes.

The sex in the bed was different, longer, more intimate, but no less intense. He explored every position, bending you, twisting you, making sure you felt every single inch of him.

He was attentive to your needs, but he dictated the pace, the rhythm, and the depth, his cock dragging deliciously through every crevice within the warmth of your cunt. “Fucking take it,” Baelor groaned into your ear, “This is what you wanted, isn't it? I am but a husband fulfilling his sweet wife's desires, so do not fucking hide from me, as you've learnt what I am capable of when you hide from me.”

Your breath hitched, a broken sob of pleasure escaping your lips as Baelor’s words sank in. The threat wrapped in affection was a catalyst, sending a fresh surge of heat flooding your pussy.

You arched your back, pressing your chest hard against the sheets, offering yourself up to him completely. You didn't dare hide; the memory of his previous punishments, the way he broke your resolve until you were begging for mercy, was enough to keep you wide open and trembling.

Baelor didn't give you a moment to recover. He gripped your hips with bruising force, his fingers digging into your skin to anchor you as he shifted his angle.

He withdrew almost entirely, the head of his cock teasing the very entrance of your cunt, before slamming back inside with a wet, heavy thud that knocked the air from your lungs.

“Look at you,” he growled, his voice a low vibration against your skin. “Shaking for me. So desperate to be filled.”

He began to drive into you with a relentless, punishing rhythm. Each thrust was calculated, designed to hit that part of you that made your eyes cross together with brutal precision.

The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, a rhythmic percussion to your whimpers. He wasn't just fucking you, he was claiming every inch of your interior, stretching you wide and filling you to the absolute limit.

As he hammered into you, Baelor reached around, his large hand finding your clit and grinding against it with a firm, demanding pressure. The dual stimulation was overwhelming. You felt your walls pulsing, clamping down on his thick shaft in tight, involuntary spasms.

“That's it, squeeze me,” he hissed, his pace accelerating into a frenzied blur of friction and heat. “Take every fucking inch of it. Let me feel how much you need your husband.”

You were spiraling, the tension building in your lower belly until it became an unbearable ache.

You tried to push back against him, seeking more of that crushing depth, but he shifted his weight, pinning you flat and asserting total control over the movement.

He slowed down for a heartbeat, dragging his cock slowly, agonizingly, through the slick walls of your pussy, savoring the way you whimpered in frustration.

Then, he surged forward one last time, burying himself deep enough to touch your cervix. He held himself there, pulsing inside you, as he felt your orgasm shatter through you in violent waves.

“Baelor!” you screamed into the pillow, Baelor let out a guttural roar, his own release hitting him as he pumped load after load of hot cum deep into your womb, filling you to overflowing while he held you pinned, ensuring you felt every drop of his dominance.

Hours later, as the moon rose over the Blackwater Bay and cast a silvery glow over the Red Keep, you lay entwined in his arms. You were exhausted, your body humming with a lingering electricity, your skin smelling of salt and sex.

Baelor held you close, his chin resting on the top of your head. He was quiet, his breathing steady and calm. “Are you alright?” he asked softly.

You shifted, feeling the soreness in your hips and the pleasant ache in your core. You smiled, pressing a kiss to his chest. “I've never been better,” you replied.

He tightened his grip, a small, possessive gesture. “Good,” Baelor whispered. “Because I've been thinking about the chapter where you mentioned the gardens. I think it's time we started a new entry.”

You shivered, not from cold, but from the thrill of knowing that your husband, the perfect prince, had finally discovered the darkness you carried and that he loved it even more than he loved the light.

The Tower of the Hand had always been a place of law and order, but for the first time in its history, it had become a sanctuary for the beautifully undone.

“I am still keeping it.”

Every charming smile he threw your way was met with an arched, unimpressed brow. Every poetic compliment he rehearsed tasted like ash and shattered against your coldness. You didn’t swoon like the ladies at the tourney grounds, nor did you soften at his obvious attempts to woo you.

Instead, you looked at him as if you could see right through the nervous man underneath.

Your assessing gaze was currently fixed on him from the shade of the courtyard gallery. Down in the dirt, Gwayne was sweating through his padded doublet, trying his absolute best to look formidable as his sword clashed against his squire’s shield—because he knew you were watching.

He has to look good. Your wedding was in three weeks, so he was fighting to impress—determined to give you a show of how your betrothed was as dashing as the realm claimed him to be.

With theatrical flair, he executed an aggressive sequence before driving his squire back with a heavy strike, deftly sweeping the poor lad’s legs out from under him, and sending him sprawling into the dirt with a breathless thud.

Breathing heavily, Gwayne smoothly rested the point of his sword near the fallen boy’s chest in a classic pose of victory.

“You are just dead,” he declared with his signature grin, before turning to where you were.

You leaned against the stone balustrade, looking down at him with an expression of mild, patronizing amusement. He flashed you a hopeful, boyish grin that begged for even a shred of your approval.

And as if deciding to grace him with your presence, you descended down the stone stairs. Gwayne’s smile widened, and he met you halfway as you reached the bottom.

Ignoring the staring stableboys, he dipped his head and took your hand, placing a kiss on it.

“Princess,” he greeted, his dark blue eyes meeting yours with an excited crinkle.

“An impressive display, Ser Gwayne,” you replied, smoothly pulling your hand back from his grasp. He was giddy, about to thank you for the compliment, when—

“I must commend your passion. It takes a truly remarkable knight to exert such effort against a boy half his size who is actively paid to lose to him.”

Gwayne winced slightly, but the grin quickly returned to his face, refusing to let your sharp tongue deter him.

“A knight, no matter the age, must practice for all manner of foes. It shall be a good lesson for my squire to learn,” he countered softly. He had always been a naturally courteous man, but he had been practicing an extra measure of gentleness ever since the betrothal was announced, even when you remained frosty.

He hoped that you would recognize it—that you would see he was willing to bend his pride just for you.

However, you merely lifted your chin higher, your eyes flashing with a challenge.

“Is that so? My, what a chivalrous soul you are. I suppose I shall sleep soundly knowing you are defending the realm with your immense prowess and formidable army of squires.”

One thing he could never truly understand, though... he hadn’t asked for this match any more than you had, yet why did you look at him as you would a liar?

And it hurts because... he remembers how the more innocent, younger you, who had wiped blood from his face, hadn’t looked at him as you do now.

“We are to be married in no less than a moon,” he reminded you, still with a smile. “Tell me, Princess... what must a man do to earn a genuine compliment from his bride?”

You held his gaze for a beat, letting the silence stretch just long enough to watch the slight twitch in his jaw. Then, a devastatingly sweet smile graced your lips as you tilted your head.

“Compliments are but wind, my good ser. If we are to marry soon anyways, what use would flattering you with empty words do?”

Gwayne let out a defeated chuckle. “I shall just continue striving to become a man worthy of your hand, then.”

You had just insulted him and mocked his swordsmanship in the same breath, and yet, somehow, he still found himself tethered to you still.

What a fool he was.

He didn’t give up just like that, of course. Gifts was also Gwayne’s language of affection.

He had commissioned a seven-pointed star necklace for you in Oldtown, crafted from the finest silver and diamond. He had watched his late mother and sister find such profound comfort in it, and so he had believed it would make a fine gift for you.

Yet, now that he presented the gleaming jewelry to you, you were rendered silent.

“You do not like it,” he realized, a note of disappointment building through his usual confidence.

“It is exquisite. Truly,” you started, your voice gentle but lacking the reverence he had anticipated. “But... you must not expect me to wear it often.”

“Is it the design? If it offends your sensibilities, I can have it redone, or—”

“I assure you, I know your intentions are kind,” you looked at him, a certain sternness in your eyes. “It is just a matter of preference, is all. I treasure this necklace from my mother rather greatly, and wearing it is how I keep her close to me.”

The tragic death of Queen Aemma was not so easily forgotten, least of all when you resembled her so much. Gwayne’s smile faltered, the enthusiasm in his eyes dimming when his gaze found the sapphire necklace of Arryn falcon on your neck, a heirloom passed down.

He looked down at the silver star resting in the wooden box, suddenly finding it so plain, before forcing himself to meet your gaze again.

“I just want you to know that... you are in my thoughts, constantly,” he murmured, his gaze rising to meet yours again. “Whenever I see something I consider beautiful, I think of you. I want you to have it. You should know I have no underlying intentions other than that.”

You gave him an appreciative nod, pursing your lips together. “Your kind thoughts are much appreciated.”

So he had failed, again. Sigh.

What better way to impress your betrothed and prove to the entire realm that you were worthy of her hand than by claiming victory at the King’s nameday tourney?

Even you would at least bestow a real smile upon him. That was what Gwayne was after.

Or at least, it was until his gaze drifted to the edge of the battlement grounds where the knights were assembling. There, he saw you.

With Criston Cole.

The sight struck him. You, who usually looked at him with indifference, were attentive, your eyes bright in a way Gwayne had never managed to make them. Cole, in turn, had a reserved smile, his attention entirely locked onto you.

It could have been anyone but Criston—the Dornishman!—Cole. Why him?!

A sharp spike of resentment flared in his chest. He decided right then and there that this cannot stand, and marched towards you both.

“Good day, Ser Criston,” Gwayne greeted with a forced smile, his voice dripping with a courtly cheer that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Cole returned his greeting, and he turned to you then. “My betrothed, fancy to have found you here. You shouldn’t have to sully yourself with the dirt.”

“I was merely wishing Ser Criston luck in the lists.” As always, the corners of your lips curled into that faux smile whenever facing him. “The competition looks fierce today.”

What about him? You hadn’t thought of wishing him, your own groom, luck?

“Fierce for some, mayhaps,” Gwayne nodded, his smile sharpening as he took another step forward, deliberately cutting off Criston Cole’s line of sight to you. He reached out, his gauntleted hand gently but firmly taking yours.

“But I sure do not fear a crowd of knights of modest beginnings and second sons. And I have hoped that I might find you in the stands later, and you would bestow upon me your favor to assure me of my victory.”

He looked down at you, the forced arrogance in his eyes momentarily cracked. He wanted you to look at him the way you had just looked at Cole, really.

But cruel, relentless you never granted it so easily.

“Your romantic sensibilities are commendable, ser.” You let out a soft sigh, as if lamenting, “but victory is still guaranteed by skill and the favor of the Seven, and not merely from a scrap of silk.”

The rejection was subtle, but in the presence of Criston Cole, it felt like a public execution.

“It is said even a scrap of favor from one’s bride can turn the tide of many battles,” Gwayne replied, his voice dropping an octave as the last traces of courtly cheer evaporated. “Unless, of course, your favor has already been promised to someone else?”

His eyes flicked towards Cole, searching for a reason to draw steel before the tourney even began. And that Dornish wretch had the gall to look at him in the eyes and retorted:

“May the best knight win, ser.”

Your betrothed had become terribly displeased and you knew it. Your hollow smile deepened, you stepped forward and smoothly slid your hand into the crook of his arm.

“No, no. You are free to ask me for it later, of course, my dear.”

Gwayne knew better that the honeyed words held no real affection. Yet, like a moth drawn to a flame, he couldn’t help but fall for it each and every time.

You held his leash, and you knew exactly how far you could play with and stretch it. But as he looked at you, a quiet ache settled in his soul.

Is it truly so wrong of him to seek your heart? How much longer would he have to endure this torment, giving everything while his affections remained completely unreturned?

“From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.”

That was the first thing he told you when the betrothal was announced. In a den of vipers, Gwayne Hightower was entirely his own man.

He didn’t possess the calculating ambition of his father, who viewed every living soul as a piece in his game of thrones. Nor was he prudent like his sister, Queen Alicent, whose motto in life was duty and sacrifice.

You know that. You really knew that your chosen betrothed was everything but unkind. He was everything the songs promised a knight should be— genuine, posh, with a touch of arrogance that made him charming. He held you in high regard, and his attempts to make an impression on you were sweet.

Despite how you behaved around him, the truth was... it took everything in you not to fall for Ser Gwayne Hightower.

But he is still Otto’s son. You hated the Lord Hand with every fiber of your being—the man’s thirst for power had already forced your childhood companion Alicent into your father’s bed, turned your sister Rhaenyra into a scheming cynic, and your own betrothal to Gwayne was just another piece of his grand design.

However, watching the tourney unfold from the royal box, your thoughts swirled with guilt and anxiety. In the end, he hadn’t asked for your favor at all. Ironically, his sudden silence unsettled you far more than his persistence ever had.

Looking back on your interactions, the weight of your biting marks pressed heavily against your chest. You had rejected him so many times, using your faux smiles and sharp wit as shields. Every time you remembered the look of hurt that crossed his face before he masked it with a patient smile, a fresh wave of guilt washed over you.

Did he deserve to be punished just for pursuing you? Was it fair to make him pay for his father’s sins?

Down in the dirt, Gwayne rode beautifully, unseating two seasoned knights from the Reach and splitting lances with a Lannister to thunderous applause from the crowd. For a moment, watching his silver and green armor gleam in the sunlight, a spark of pride flared in your chest.

Then, Ser Criston Cole rode onto the field.

The tension between the two men was palpable even from the high stands. They charged— one lance shattered, then a second. By the third pass, it was clear it was a matter of pride.

And on the fourth pass, the collision was catastrophic.

With a terrifying crack that echoed across the grounds, Cole’s lance struck dead center. Gwayne was violently unseated, flung from his saddle to hit the earth with a sickening crash.

A collective gasp sucked the air from the stands. Through the rising dust, you saw your betrothed lying completely still. Cole’s lance hadn’t just broken— it had compromised his armor. His steel breastplate was shattered to pieces, the shards visibly lodged into his chest, dark blood already pooling through the fractures.

Your breath hitched, your hand flying to your mouth in horror.

Six years ago, a similar scene had paralyzed your heart the very same way. Blind to the rules of propriety, you bolted from the royal box. Pushing past lords and ladies, you sprinted down into the arena—desperate to reach him.

The maesters and several squires had already swarmed him, unbuckling the undamaged pieces of his armor with hurried hands. Gwayne was propped up against a wooden barrier, half-conscious, his head lolling to the side as his eyes struggled to hold focus.

“Will he be alright?” your voice cracked, almost shrill, the composed facade of a princess shattered as you hovered over the maesters working on him. “Tell me he will be alright.”

“The steel hasn’t pierced the heart, Princess, but we must move him to immediately to extract the shards,” one of them mumbled, wrapping a temporary cloth around the wound to stem the bleeding.

Gwayne let out a low, guttural groan at the pressure, his eyelids fluttering. Through the haze of pain, he recognized your voice. He knew you were there.

Driven by a sudden, overwhelming surge to comfort him, you dropped to your knees beside him. Your hands were trembling as you reached out, using the hem of your sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood that smeared his pale cheek.

But before your fingers could trace his jawline, Gwayne’s gauntleted hand came up. With a sudden burst of remaining strength, he swatted your hand away—

“Do not touch me,” he rasped.

The words were raw and bitter, dripping with an icy venom you had never heard from him before.

. . .

Gwayne refused to meet your gaze. He pressed his eyes shut, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone practically strained against his skin.

It wasn’t just the physical agony tearing him apart. It was the suffocating, absolute humiliation.

He had lost. He had been unseated and laid low in the dirt in front of the entire realm—and worse, in front of Criston Cole. He couldn’t bear to see the pity in your eyes. He couldn’t bear to look at the woman he loved and see confirmation that he was exactly what you always thought of him: unworthy.

“I’m— fine,” he choked out then. “So... go back to the Keep.”

It was funny how this was the same thing that had happened to him six years ago, during the Heir’s Tourney. He had been brutally unseated by Daemon Targaryen then, and just like now, you had come running to him, wiping the blood from his broken nose with your kerchief.

He fell in love with you then... and he has been in love with you ever since.

The girl holding his heart was a princess, and he had never dared to hope for more, never dreaming his conniving father would actually arrange your hand for him. He had thought it a blessing.

But his pursuit of you the past three moons had yielded nothing but a bitter truth— you despised him.

So he preferred to choke on the blinding pain, to let it consume him entirely, rather than suffer the indignity of your comfort.

You are in love with him.

You had spent weeks trying to resent the circumstances that led to your marriage with Otto Hightower’s son, reminding yourself over and over that he had fractured your family, sowing seeds of rebellion that would break once Alicent’s son came to age, and it would spell disaster upon you all—

But the wounded knight with broken nose six years ago had long since owned a part of your heart, and one week without Gwayne Hightower persistent on your heel, you had found yourself... sad.

“Mrawgh...”

“I’m not lonely,” you mumbled petulantly, brushing a hand against Grey Ghost’s silver scales as the dragon curled up, blinking his golden eyes shut to rest.

To occupy yourself, you spent the days with your dragon in the Dragonpit. Tending to Grey Ghost made the long hours pass faster— he was a recluse and not keen on flying often, but his quiet presence matched your somber mood.

Leaving him to his slumber, you walked away lost in your thoughts, entirely failing to notice how slippery the stone ledge had become.

Your foot caught on a heavy iron ring embedded in the floor. The world tilted as you stumbled backwards, losing your footing entirely. You braced for a painful impact against the stone floor, but a pair of strong arms wrapped securely around your waist, arresting your descent.

A sharp, ragged gasp left your savior’s lips. As you stabilized, you realized your hands had instinctively braced against his chest—pressing right over the bandages of the fresh wound.

“Steady there,” the redhead managed, a strained smile tight on his lips as he gently set you back on your feet. His green tunic made you realize who he was—

“Gwayne!” you breathed. Your hands hovered over him, trembling, almost terrified to touch him again. “Why are you—your wound! I didn’t mean to—”

“I am fine, truly,” he assured you, his voice softening as he offered a warm, comforting smile. “It is but a scratch, Princess. It takes more than a clumsy tumble from you to injure me.”

Just like a hundred times before, Gwayne Hightower sought you out. You could see the sheen of sweat on his forehead and how he looked pale still—

From today to the day we breathe our last, all that I am is yours.

“You are supposed to be resting!” Your voice rose despite yourself. “Why are you here?!”

This wasn’t what you wanted to tell him. You wanted to tell him a lot of other things! Like he was a fool, and that you would forbid him to enter the lists once you two were wed, that you couldn’t bear the thought of losing him—

His blue eyes crinkled with that familiar kindness as he reached out, softly tucking a stray strand of your loose hair behind your ear.

“If I wasn’t here, then you would take a fall.” His voice a soothing balm to your frayed nerves. “I can’t very well let my betrothed hurt herself before our big day, can I?”

This was the first time since King Viserys announced your betrothal three moons ago that you looked genuinely worried for him. It made something inside him burst with joy, even if it was tinged with a bitter aftertaste.

Gwayne’s thumb gently brushed across the back of your hand that was still pressed against his chest.

“Tell me... Is this the only way I could truly have your attention? Must I be grievously injured, a step away from Death’s door, for you to look at me like this?”

Your eyes widened by a fraction. Precious, precious girl. He chuckled softly, a teasing glint brightened his eyes.

Just this once, could he be allowed to be just a little bit cruel?

“Even if you keep looking at me with those beautiful eyes...” he whispered, his smile turning a little wistful, “...my heart might just run out, one of these days.”

He gave you one last, kind smile—a look of affection that no longer held expectations, or reeked of the politics that bound your families. Then, he gently gripped your hand, pulling it away from him before turning on his heel to leave you to your own devices.

When your fingers fell limp into the cold air, a stinging realization pierced through you like a dagger:

Is this how he feels? Is this what he endures every time I evade him? How has he survived it over and over?

As his warmth retreated into the shadows of the Dragonpit, something sharp tore deep inside your chest.

You didn’t want him to go. The walls you had spent weeks building to protect your heart against the Hightower name crumbled into dust. Your eyes burned with tears that blurred his retreating figure.

He was nearly out of the pit when you gathered your skirts, abandoning your pride, and ran after him.

“Ser Gwayne!”

Before he could turn back, you lunged, throwing your pride and your fears to the wind. You crashed into his back, your arms wrapping tightly around his waist, burying your face against his spine. He stiffened, almost flinching—

But then he heard you sob.

“Princess...?” he asked softly. His tone shifted, turning from startled confusion to a protective concern as he carefully turned around within your embrace. He reached up, gently tilting your chin up, only to find your cheeks flushed and wet with tears.

Realizing you were truly, genuinely weeping, Gwayne’s breath hitched in his throat.

He didn’t think. He didn’t let past rejections dictate him. He immediately wrapped his arms around you, pulling you close against his uninjured side.

“Shh, please do not weep,” he said in your ear, his own voice suddenly thick with emotion as he rocked you slightly. “Darling... please.”

Darling. Why did the word sound so devastatingly sweet in your ears? As you clung to him, you realized with absolute certainty that you wanted him to call you that for the rest of your days.

As he held you, feeling the warmth of your hands anchoring yourself to him, the pieces finally fell into place:

Has she... returned my feelings?

When your sobs finally quieted and your breathing turned calmer, you gently pulled back just enough to look up at him. Your eyes met his, and an ache settled in your chest.

He was such a beautiful man. Red hair, blue eyes, with ghost of dimples— still the very same wounded knight you had secretly harbored affections for with all those years ago.

Driven by a clear wave of clarity, you didn’t wait for him to speak. Reaching up, you stood on your toes and pulled him down by his collar—

—and pressed your lips to his.

Gwayne went rigid at your sudden boldness. But as your fingers tangled into his soft hair, any lingering shock vanished. With a low groan, he leaned into you, capturing your mouth in a kiss that felt like the bursting of a dam.

He drank in your sighs, his lips moving against yours with a desperate longing, as if he were trying to memorize the taste of you. He pulled you closer, his hands tilting your head back, anchoring you to him.

“You really are—” he growled against your mouth, his breath hot and ragged, “my utter undoing, Princess.”

Before the words could even fully register, you gasped as he gathered you up and hoisted you backwards, setting you down onto the broad stone railing.

Gwayne stepped between your thighs, pinning you to the ledge as his mouth descended on yours once more, even more ravenous than before. The kiss became a blur of lips, tongues, and breathless gasps—

His hands left your face to map the lines of your body, his palm sliding down the column of your throat to the curve of your shoulders. In his mind’s eye, he was already stripping away the heavy, suffocating layers of your gown, picturing the soft, aching swell of your breasts and the intoxicating dip of your waist.

In less than a week... as soon as you swear your oaths before the Seven, he would be graced by that sight.

Gwayne dragged his lips down from your mouth, leaving a trail of scorching kisses along your jawline before burying his face in the crook of your neck.

“Ser Gwayne—” your voice came hitched, and that what brought him back to reality.

He bit softly at the sensitive skin there, swallowing the fire that was about to consume him. When he finally pulled away to breathe, his lips lingered against yours.

“Well, you did kiss me first, Princess,” Gwayne murmured, his eyes twinkling, voice delightfully raspy as his arms settled loosely around your waist. “If I had known a broken rib would finally get you to kiss me, I would have marched up to Grey Ghost and asked him to toss me by the tail weeks ago.”

“Please don’t,” you giggled, circling your arms around his neck.

“Ah, but think of the romance— a dashing knight, battered and bruised, crawling back from the Dragonpit just to collapse into his bride’s arms.”

A breathless laugh escaped your lips, giving way to a very sweet, genuine smile. To Gwayne Hightower, this was the prettiest you had ever been, and his heart throbbed.

Oh, so she does, he realized, a quiet reverence settling into his soul. She does return my affections.

Gwayne leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, finally certain that his heart was safe in your hands.

“You might not know it,” he whispered, “but I have been in love with you for a very long time.”

You looked up at him, your eyes bright with unshed tears, and he met your gaze with a look of such devotion it stole the breath from your lungs.

“So let me say this once again. From before, now and until the day we breathe our last, all that I am... is yours.”

In that moment, you couldn’t have known that the realm would soon be plunged into a senseless civil war, pitting your sister against his in a dance of dragons and blood. You couldn’t have foreseen the ashes, the betrayals, or the heavy price the Hightower green and the Targaryen black would have to pay.

“Ser Gwayne?”

He didn’t miss the call. It simply felt irrelevant at this moment, too shallow and meaningless to attract his attention.

Backnoise, perhaps even an annoying one that disturbed Gwayne’s thoughts that were turning more anxious with every second. He didn’t react, focused on scanning the courtyard with his gaze. He furrowed his brows, then grimaced to eventually run a hand over his tired face.

It turned from expressing irritation and discomfort of the travel to a look of deep worry. He could feel his breath growing heavy, barely rhythmic when his eyes moved from one person to another.

Even though he knew and memorized every inch of your face he kept replaying it in his head as if it could help him through the search. The search that slowly started to wear signs of desperation. He suspected that it was caused by the turmoil in his mind that howled and roared ever since he witnessed the huge winged beast on the ground, lifeless.

The closeness of the dragons brought up worry in him and it wasn’t something he cared to be ashamed of.

While brushing through his own hair to stick it back and get rid of the disgusting, sweaty feeling, he thought about your eyes which had a spark in them whenever they found him in a crowd. It was something your husband never got used to fully and it always thrilled him. It was so special that it turned to the main thing he could focus on during the travel back to King’s Landing.

It was the first time in your short years of marriage when he had to march to a true battle.

He imagined how you’d smile with your whole face, a shine of relief washing over you. Your lips would curve gently at first, before he’d gather you in his arms and then the soft greet would turn into a heartwarming laugh. Your lips…

Gods, your lips.

And yet you weren’t here.

The second headman of the Hightower army and Gwayne’s right hand cleared his throat again. “My lord?” He asked louder.

“Ah, yes,” he muttered while breaking out of his trance of worry and madness. “You are dismissed, commander. You did well.”

It was said quieter than he used to speak, not hesitating but not very sure either. He found it hard to focus, only managing to nod at his companion before his gaze shifted to the people gathered around again. Gwayne swallowed a bitter taste on his tongue and straightened his back.

He was falling into unnecessary insanity, surely.

“The men did well too, my lord,” the commander remarked with pride.

Gwayne clasped a hand on his shoulder like the good leader he always tried to be.

“Naturally. We brought a slain dragon’s head with us, after all. You deserve to rest, my friend.”

He couldn’t care less right now if he was honest with himself. You often pointed out his arrogance but lucky for him he also lacked the audacity to mention out loud that the dragon, the victory, the king’s suffering… It all meant very little to him right now.

He spotted the queen with ease. Handing his horse to a stableboy he approached her with his hand clasped behind his back.

“Alicent,” he greeted, probably betraying his outraged frame of mind with the annoyed tone.

He bowed his head. It was respectful enough, he hoped. He had no strength for bending his back, his knees, for ostentatious gallantry and for calling his little sister ‘queen’...

“Brother. I’m happy to see you unharmed and–” she spoke after having a good look at him.

Gods, she really resembled their mother when her eyes travelled all over him like that. It made him clench his jaw and look away from her, searching for you again. He was turning pathetic in it, he feared.

“Where is my wife?” He asked, interrupting Alicent’s words. Silence settled between them for a moment. Either she was unused to such savage manners, let alone from Gwayne, or the question troubled her. “Sister?” He called again when he was left unanswered.

The queen shook her head.

“I haven't seen her,” she said simply. “She is… Well, she is a woman hard to find these days.”

She clearly didn’t grieve that you weren’t her. It could be Gwayne’s own sorrow about it that made him so angry at his sister’s calmness. He breathed in deeply before turning to her.

“You dislike my wife.” It was a statement, not a question, and also not an accusation. Just a fact he found disappointing.

“No. I worry, that's all. She is just–” she cut and blinked at her brother’s unfamiliar expression. The corners of her lips fell further down. “She is of a peculiar character that I failed to notice before,” she explained, almost diplomatically which earned a scoff from Gwayne.

“You dislike her,” he repeated sharply.

“Brother,” she said with firmness that could bring an unruly child to peace. “As I said, I worry. She reminds me of Helaena and that is… It isn’t a good sign,” she said with a sorry face as if she was informing him of his wife’s deathly illness.

“You don't speak about your daughter with much fondness either,” Gwayne pointed out, despite noticing what she tried to say. “Makes me wonder how much of what you see I should put faith in…”

He knew the rationality of your mind. Your wit, your skills and intuition. He would never agree to bring you to a castle so full of viciousness as The Red Keep if he thought you were too fragile to bear it.

“Ser Gwayne.” He heard the voice of Criston Cole behind him which made him realize his tone has risen a bit. More than he wanted. The knight wandered next to him, bowing in front of the queen. “Could that be the truth that your marriage is not as cheerful as you described it to be?” He mocked , certainly recalling Gwayne's lectures.

Malicious cunt. In one moment Gwayne regretted ever mentioning his wife in the presence of a man like him.

“Ser Criston–” Alicent almost choked on her breath while trying to scold the knight, but didn’t find the right words. She turned to Gwayne with a look that could be taken for understanding. “Brother, I see that you worry. You are excused and forgiven.”

“Forgiven for–” Gwayne tried to clarify. Clarify, he told that to himself. In truth he sought an opportunity to argue and release some of his anger.

“Take the queen’s mercy and leave, ser,” Cole said firmly.

It would be below his decency to stay.

Gods, even though you left home with him he wished to see Oldtown as soon as possible again… Suddenly he thought that it could be a mistake. Disturbing your peace so much… On the other hand, if he never offered you would force him anyway. Of that he was sure.

Three months on the road. Alicent always thought you’re heedless and daring. Childish even. What woman with common sense would take up a travel this hard by the side of her lord husband? It was beyond her comprehension no matter how much he tried to understand your reasons. She could appreciate your devotion for her brother, though, and because of that she would never refuse her hospitality to you. That didn’t mean deep sympathy, naturally, and the lack of it was mutual, too.

The queen was faced with her own envy as well when she witnessed you offering comfort to her grieving daughter. You visit in the capital settled on unsteady days full of fear and pain. You were glad that Helaena allowed you to wrap your arms around her gently, even if you had to live under the jealousy of her mother’s gaze.

You felt bad for the dowager queen too. She was too hasty, too expressive in her dislike towards her to make you show compassion. You were also far too well-mannered to show pity.

One way or another, you saw the shadows of vultures that circled over the queen. She wasn't the one with true predatory nature toward the weak perhaps, but you were sure she would gather a harvest of corpses around her anyway. Your only hope was that neither you nor your husband will be amongst them…

You were plagued with the future as much as the past. It was an alliance of both that caused the decision of staying away while the army returned. You should be there awaiting your husband, you knew it but there was this vicious whisper inside you…

Gods, you managed to settle your mind on the matter when you knew it was already too late.

Running through the corridors of the Keep you made a few servants turn after you passed but you no longer cared. You brushed your hair out of your face before leaving the cold walls, stepping into the yard and stumbling onto Gwayne almost immediately.

“Husband,” you mumbled out of breath, too stunned to react properly.

You offered your hand to him, going for a handshake that made him freeze for a moment. It must have been a joke, he thought, but you made no effort to change it. To fix it.

He wanted to move closer, cup your face, smell your hair, remind himself of what true home meant, and here you were offering him your hand to shake.

Gods, no. He was a respectful man, always, but he now almost snatched your hand, leaned down and placed a long kiss on the skin of your knuckles. Not a peck, nothing chaste about it.

You didn’t dare to move and couldn’t help but look at the people gathered around. No one seemed to mind, save for the queen and the man beside her. You turned away as fast as you met her eyes.

Your breath hitched when Gwayne straightened his back and looked you in the face. Your love, your husband that you begged the gods to see again. He looked tired, that you expected, but he was also annoyed. Perhaps it was a mistake and your longing for him led you in the dark; you should have been more patient, stay in your rooms…

“Wife,” Gwayne said with a nod of his head. Only then you noticed he still didn’t let go of your hand. “You look even more delightful than I remembered.”

“It’s only been a few days,” you noticed in a hushed voice.

He grimaced as if you painfully belittled his feelings. Misled by your childhood’s grim experience you thought that it was your voice itself that angered him further. That he was just proper as always, greeting you because he had to before he would drown the memory of the fight in something of his own choosing.

Gwayne wasn’t fond of drinking, he certainly didn’t look around for other women nor he gambled, but in that moment you were sure it wasn’t you from whom he wanted comfort.

You could live with it. Despite the pained look on his face he made the effort to not flaunt it, to not humiliate any of you publicly, so you could do the same. Play the restrained, good wife until he could walk away from you freely without attracting any attention.

“Was the march hard, lord husband?” You asked in the tone of a stranger who made simple conversation.

His eyebrows twitched up at the sound of the title. It was almost unfamiliar coming from you. You, who knew how his name felt on your tongue whispered, cried out, moaned and in laughter… ‘Lord husband’ felt like an insult when he knew how sweet his true name sounded.

“The memory of you made it more bearable,” he answered but the smile didn’t really get to his eyes.

“Oh.” How could you not love him? Even in annoyance and when he wanted to be alone he could play the role of an admirer. “Well, I won't bother you with questions about the battle itself. It must have been horrible.”

He nodded and threw the last look around the yard before offering you his arm. He didn’t understand what in the name of the seven hells was going on but he knew he hated it. Perhaps if you stepped away, stayed in the company of each other.

But you didn’t jump into his arms when you both left, as he wanted. You allowed him to hold your hand, but that was it.

“It is behind us now, dear wife,” he explained to your worried voice. At least it was genuine, that he didn’t doubt. “That is what matters.”

“And that you are unharmed.”

It was strange, made his head spin, that you muttered such careful, lovable words while walking so unsure behind his side. He didn’t fail to notice that you weren’t close enough. Whenever you two strolled together you always rested against him, moved more into him than it was necessary and he adored it. It felt right, having you in his arms. He loved calling himself your husband, your lover, but if he was ever stripped from that he would at least want to be named your protector and supported. That’s how he felt when you showed him so much trust with your actions.

And now your bodies barely even brushed.

Dark thoughts settled in his mind. Did he cause you any pain? Have you heard a vicious rumor about him? Did… Did someone hurt you when he was away?

He called your name quietly, but you spoke up before it could truly get to you.

“Do you wish to have the chambers all to yourself?” You asked, turning your head to look at him. “I can't stay in the garden to offer you some space.”

He matched your gaze slowly, as if he was in pain from his shallow injuries, but it was just the shock. The look on your face seemed small to him, like an intimidated dove, afraid not only of her companion but also her own voice.

You never acted like that.

“I wish for no space,” he declared immediately and couldn’t hold back from moving his free hand up to brush your cheek with his fingers. “You offer strange things, dearest. If it's not too much to ask for, I want my wife's presence right next to me. Caring for me, if she feels strong enough today.”

You nodded and leaned more into his touch.

Gods, so the worry truly blinded you. It was still your Gwayne, after all.

“Of course. I meant no offence,” you explained, partially hopeful he wouldn’t question your behaviour any further. Only if you knew how troubled he was by it.

“And you gave none,” he assured.

“Good. I would love to care for all of your injuries. It will surely calm my nerves, knowing you are in good health.”

But would it really?, he asked himself.

In his common sin of arrogance he lied to himself that he wasn’t easily offended. Yet now he had to admit in front of himself. It struck him painfully.

“You don't seem happy that I'm back,” he noticed eventually while walking. It was a difficult thing to say, as hard as seeing it.

You stopped in your tracks.

“How can you say that? Of course I am.”

He hummed, clearly having a thought about it before stepping in front of you. He took both your shaking hands in his and held them, while lowering his head to you. “Speak to me, wife.”

“B–but I do, don’t I?”

Despite the exhaustion, the dark marks under his eyes and how unruly his hair looked, the lenient smile he put on was honest. There was also a visible fair share of worry in him.

“Something's happened, hasn't it?”

You shook your head, struck by the fact that he turned even more pale. “Nothing, husband, no. You know I would never lie to–”

“Then why are you so afraid?” He asked firmly, never stopping to gently brush your hands.

“I just... I missed you greatly.”

“You did?”

The question rang in your ears for a while. Your husband wasn’t sure if you spoke truthfully about your feelings towards him. You didn’t know if falling into laughter or sobbing was more due in this situation.

Your hands moved, not not only laying in his but interlacing your fingers.

“Yes,” you repeated. “I lived in fear and I was surrounded by strangers, Gwayne. Only the idea of seeing you again kept me sane.”

“I missed you too…”

He almost gave in into leaning closer, bumping your nose with his and resting his forehead against your face. Eventually he held back, too disturbed by your behaviour to let it lay unsolved.

“And yet I'm welcomed with distance and restraint,” he said. “Why?”

“Distance? I–”

But he didn’t let you finish. He moved your hands up to his chest. You could feel his warm breath over your skin.

“Why didn’t you kiss your husband when you saw him? Why didn’t you bless him with your touch if you missed him so?”

He saw your conflicted expression and he couldn’t hold back anymore. Freeing his hands from yours, he moved them to your face. You held onto his wrists gently when he cupped your cheeks like that. Just the way you wanted and dreamed about.

The tears went freely, you no longer tried to stop them when his fingers were placed on your warm skin.

“You terrify me, wife,” Gwayne confessed in a whisper, brushing away some of your tears. “Is it because you try to hide something? If you've experienced any wrongdoing... Gods, I promise that whoever hurt you will pay. Even if I have to go through this whole castle.”

“N–No,” you muttered at once, irritated by how weak your voice sounded. “It’s not that.

He’s never seen you like this before.

“Then…”

“It's my father,” you snapped eventually, annoyed yet glad you got it out of your throat. It was choking you, suffocating for the well part of the day and you had enough.

It should have been enough a long time ago.

“Your father, dove? What about him?”

“He hated it when we waited for him after battles. My mother thought it to be proper and I never understood her stubbornness, but–” The words died on your tongue. You felt foolish, a child again. Gwayne didn’t let you turn your head away from him. “He pushed me and my sisters away when we tried to hug him, and only shared a feast with us to not attract whispers. I suppose all he wanted then was to have a cup of wine and a quiet corner for himself. He was embarrassed by the displays of emotions... I thought–”

“You thought I would push you away like he did,” he said slowly and with understanding.

It sounded stupid, you didn’t even realize how much. You sniffed and took a deep breath to calm yourself.

“Well, I knew you wouldn't but... I felt it somewhere deep under my skin,” you explained and dried the tears on your cheeks. “I couldn't. The shame I felt back then. The feeling like I did something wrong... I couldn't fight it.”

Your husband nodded, taking in the sight of you with pride, not at all unpleased by how shaken up you were. He wasn’t easily annoyed by such things, on the contrary to when he couldn’t understand the situation.

“I see,” he said. He was out of words for a moment when you took his hand from your cheek and placed a kiss on it, just like he did to you every day. “I would never do that to you, you have my word.”

“I know. I always knew it, I just…”

“It is alright, dear. Don’t put me through it again, though. I’m not sure I can take it,” he joked, but there was some true seriousness buried within it. “Can you promise me?”

You smiled at him. Oh, how he missed that. “I can.”

“Good.”

His arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you into him. There was no rush in Gwayne’s actions. He touched your hair, took his time in playing with it before brushing it behind. His lips found yours when his hand finally settled at the nape of your neck.

He kissed you like a man who was left without air ever since he saw you for the last time, and yet he still had the strength of his mind to not impose. To not appear desperate, starved, even if all he wanted was to devour every moment of your love that he was given. The thought of pulling back didn’t even cross your mind.

His lips weren’t as soft as usual. Drier from the harsh wind and sun as well as marked by a bruise and poorly cleaned dry blood. He lingered just over your mouth when he was forced to take a breath.

Gwayne pushed his forehead to yours, resting with his eyes closed as his hand still played with your skin and hair. It made you raise your hand as well, gently touching his face, tracing shallow wrinkles and searching for the familiar feeling of warmth caused by an injury.

“We shouldn’t stand here,” you whispered.

“Why, will you complain about the way I smell, or–”

“That’s not what I said,” you cut in and boldly draped your arm around his neck. Gwayne almost purred when you pressed your body against his. “I would never complain about my own husband’s smell, you know that.”

“Gods, you are right,” his voice broke a bit but there was no shame in him. Not in front of you. “You are right, we shouldn’t be standing here. I want you all for myself.”

“And that you shall have,” you promised with a bashful smile. “Just later. Allow me to have a proper look first.”

He hummed in displease when you stepped back to look at him. Only now he realized you were shying away from that before, silly girl…

“Don’t worry,” he spoke when he noticed how your eyes changed when you set them on a bloodied spot on his doublet, uncovered by the plate armor, “Alicent offered to send her maesters.”

It didn’t soothe your nerves and he was a fool if he imagined it would. You only grimaced and nodded in acknowledgment.

“What is it?” He asked, spotting the shift immediately.

“Her servants are…” You clasped your hands together in front of you and sent him an apologetic smile. “Well, the queen is very kind but I would prefer to tend to you myself, if that's not of much difference to you.”

But Gwayne shook his head with a small grin and showed you to keep strolling to your chambers.

“It is a crucial difference,” he said firmly. “I would prefer no other touch than my wife's. The wounds you dress yourself… they always seem to heal better.”

“Do they?” You asked, taking his hand in your again. “Then I suppose true care can do miracles. Thank the gods those are not necessary today. Well, at least not in flesh….”

“Strange times we live in,” he agreed, seeing that you were speaking of the realm’s position.

The realm’s and yours, as those who sat the closest amongst the family of the ruler, either it was Aegon or Aemond now – you weren’t sure.

“You and my sister,” Gwayne spoke up, “ didn’t find much common ground, I see.”

“We don’t hold love for each other, if that is what you ask about,” you admitted, making your husband chuckle.

“For that I had no hope. Still, I thought you might have some comfort in the presence of another… I believe I was very wrong.”

You tightened the grip on his hand.

“I don’t wish to offend you by speaking ill of your sister. She is the queen, after all and–”

“Wife,” he interrupted with fondness, as if to make you realize who’s side he was on. “When I first saw your sorrow today I feared it was her who had done something horrific to you. Now tell me all.”

So you did, even if there were no tragic tales or shaking plots to mention. Gwayne could be a great listener when he wanted and to you he was always.

He opened the door to your shared chamber when you reached it and let you pass. He could already feel his insides aching from how hard you made him laugh.

“So she goes, still not looking at me, now listen–” you cut to clear your throat.

Resting one arm on a nearby desk you clutched the other to the neck of your gown, the way the queen often did, and lowered your voice to match hers.

“I hear you are fond of politics, my lady… I said that local politics, yes, but not the capital one. That is... that is certainly too overwhelming for a woman like me.”

“Mm.” Gwayne sat on the bed without moving his eyes from you.

“And then: Well, I’m sure you are very grateful to my brother then, she says, for allowing you to be involved in it. Politics, she meant, even the local one.”

“Allowing?” Your husband questioned, still trying to fight the smile brought up by your little act.

“Yes! Her words exactly,” you squealed in emotion. “So I replied that if she knows you well, which I don’t doubt she does, then she knows you aren’t fond of all your duties. My husband, I went, is gravely bored by the matter of grains and wheat, let’s say, so to be a good wife I free him of this subject and tend to it myself. And then she gives me a look so dirty as if I just confessed I want to slay Ormund Hightower and take the title of lord paramount myself. Or murder one of her sons, whoever is king now, since I lost count in that…”

Gwayne thought for a while, then waved his hand. “I’m not sure, now that Aegon is… Well, the way he is.”

You quickly moved to his side and occupied the spot nearby. You lowered your voice almost to a sound of conspiracy. “He is not dead, though, is he? People whisper different things…”

“Not dead yet, at least,” he admitted indifferently. “That I can say.”

You frowned for a moment then shrugged.

“You see my point, anyway,” you continued.

“I do. And I know my sister well, I can imagine her killing you with her gaze.”

You nodded like he described it perfectly. “Even your father is less demanding and, gods, backward, than her.”

“He is. Yes, Alicent is…” he sighed while looking for a good word, then smiled and turned to face you. “She’s just Alicent.”

“She is.” It made you giggle. “Now let me prepare some water and clean cloths…”

He was rather properly cleaned up already but you wanted to have a look yourself and make sure he was unharmed. One of his squires came to help you take off his armor, then bowed to you and left.

“You’re staring, Gwayne…” you noticed while struggling with the laces of his green overshirt.

“I am.”

He really had no shame when it came to the things he felt for his wife.

You were already bent forward to see the strips and belts better, almost resting your head on Gwayne’s shoulder. He barely had to move to cup your lips with his and still he made sure to tug you closer, earning a half-swallowed whine from you. You would have fallen, your body collapsing into his, but he gracefully directed you to his lap, making you laugh at how cheeky he could be sometimes.

You didn’t break the kiss nonetheless, and moved against him with matching eagerness. He let out a deep, content sigh and it was the most beautiful sound you have heard in days.

Draping your arms around his neck and shoulders you allowed him to tug you even closer, his own arms caging you, wrapped around your middle. You picked at his lower lip earning a hoarse, pleased groan from your husband. It wasn’t hard and still you could feel the iron taste of blood on your tongue.

“Forgive me,” you said in worry, pulling away and spotting that the bruising opened again. “I’ve forgotten myself–”

But he didn’t care. He tugged you in for another kiss and only calmed down when you rested your chest and head against him. This is where he wished to be ever since they left the camp at Rook’s Rest. Here with your body in his arms.

“You know I found it harder to pray to the gods with every moment I spend away from you,” he confessed. You felt him shiver at the sensation of your breath over his neck. “I could only think about you.”

He moved one hand from your back to pick at  his necklace and raised it to his lip. Where his sister wore a sign of religious devotion, Gwayne wore his reminder of loyalty to you. It was poetic in a way, much more romantic than you would ever imagine him to be. Before Gwayne you thought nothing of gestures like that, thinking you would never find happiness with a man like that.

“Stop, husband,” you hushed, brushing the side of his face. Eventually he allowed you to take a wet cloth and slowly run it over his skin. “It is blasphemy.”

“It's you,” he argued. “You are worth every blasphemy.”

What could you possibly say to that? What could you do instead of placing a kiss on his face and making your touch even more gentle? It was bliss, even despite the blood that ran with water and stained your fingers. For a while you could forget about wars, kings and battles that were to come.

The worry laid deeply, though, and the everlasting grim of the Red Keep never made it better. Your husband always noticed it on your face.

“What is it that scares you, dearest? I can see it.”

A sigh left you. “The walls. They have ears and eyes around here. It makes me go mad, husband.”

Some more blood dripped from his lip when he smiled.

“Then I promise to make sure to get you out of here before you start collecting bugs like my niece,” he said jokingly.

“You mock me,” you pointed out sharply and tapped his chest with your finger. “And my worry. too, when it is very adequate.”

“No, love, not at all. I don’t mock you.”

He coughed into his sleeve and made an innocent face. At least he was in a good mood.

“I am only being rational, even if you view it as paranoia. Oh, and trust me, Helaena’s company sometimes feels like she is one of very few sane people around here.”

Gwayne chuckled. “It must be bad if you say it.”

“It is bad. That’s why I pray for the war to be finished. So you can take off your armor for good and we can go home.”

“Not so many innocent lives could be spared?” He suggested.

Frolics.

“That too, of course. And honestly, I never want to see a dragon again. Not close, not far, not at all,” you said with a grimace.

Gwayne sat more comfortably with you in his lap, resting his back on the wall. He closed his eyes for a moment like he was dreaming, and yet it was nothing pleasant.

“The dragons, love,” he mumbled. When he opened his eyes there was nothing but worry in them, like he could recall the fire and death in its every detail even now. “They… Gods, they are nightmares.”

You watched your husband with carefulness, and dried his skin. “Do you wish to speak of it? The battle?”

You saw the hesitation on his face. The way he was questioning if he should bother you or not. Like he was picking between being a husband or a friend and trustee. Choice you never wished him to make.

“Do not offend me,” you said softly, “with the idea that I have not enough courage to bear those things you were forced to face.”

He nodded, yet no word of the battle itself left him at once. He needed time, you knew. Whenever something happened you tended to spend long nights talking about it in bed and you didn’t doubt it would be similar this time.

“We brought the head of the fallen beast…” he said.

“So it's true,” you hummed in awe. “I heard the voices from town. People didn’t like it.”

“No, they didn’t,” he agreed. “Truth be told, I don’t like it either. It stinks.”

“Reeks of a dead dragon? Who would have thought,” you teased ironically, making him stick his fingers more into the flesh on your waist.

“The only advance this place has over Oldtown,” you spoke up again, “is that rumors seem to be more reliable. To those who know how to understand them they are almost always valid. I find that entertaining.”

“Yes? And what did you hear, love?”

“I heard that your cousin is on his way here. And he’s with Daeron, too,” you informed proudly of your discovery. “People already whisper about another dragon.”

But Gwayne’s face fell and he sighed like the weight of the world was just dropped on his shoulders. For a moment you thought that it came from worry about his young nephew, but you finally understood when he spoke up.

“Are we not allowed some time away from him?”

It was sharp, annoyed, and ‘him’ must have been none other than Ormund Hightower.

“You haven’t seen him in months, Gwayne. There are two of us who don’t miss him, but…”

“I see him enough at home,” he remarked then lowered his head to your shoulder. “I’lll have to keep an eye on him when he’s around you,” he muttered.

“What? Do you have no trust in me, husband?”

“Oh, I have all trust in you,” he promised, feeling something bitter even at the thought of his cousin laying his eyes on you. “I just don't want him bothering you.”

You waved it off. “It will be fine. There is no need for you to get angry.”

“Him or his men…” Gwayne kept going.

You rolled your eyes and quickly got off his lap to dry your own hands and pick up the bandages.

“At least we’ll see your nephew again.”

With that he could agree.

“Yes, at least. You're fond of the boy, aren't you?”

“Yes. He’s… “You merely shrugged. “He is different from his siblings, you know? Perhaps Helaena… Well, the future of house Targaryen, I think, lies in Daeron alone. It's good that he's not cruel like his kins…”

Gwayne nodded and moved to stand up, slowly growing restless about the absence of your warmth against him.

“In that you might be just right, my dear. But Ormund… I keep no love for my cousin now that I have you to protect,” he confessed.

“I don't need–”

“I know,” he interrupted quietly and leaned to kiss the uncovered skin on your shoulder. “I know but I would go mad if you didn't allow me to be protective and just a little bit overbearing.”

when I was writing more heavily on google docs, this is what my writing looked like:

so, now let me ask you this.

do you think, i'd be taking all this time writing/editing if I could just get ai to do it for me? you think i'd be putting up with passive aggressive anons demanding I finish HW if I could just magically have it be written by a goddamn ai? saying I post/write a lot when I already addressed how/why I'm able to post more than your average person (working from home, no kids, social life online etc).

saying it "sounds ai" my guy... you do realise the reason ai sounds like that is because it scrapped real people and their writing, right? it steals and mimics, that's the point. and non native (like myself) speakers and neurodivergent people tend to be the ones who suffer the most because they tend to have patterns/rhythm in their writing aka the thing that existed before ai hence why it stole it.

Yet tears were for holy men... and, folly though it sounded, Ormund Hightower was a husband before he was ever a penitent.

True or not, he still knelt at the altars of the Starry Sept whenever duty and time allowed. His prayers were measured and humble, his hands clasped just so, his voice carrying the proper weight of contrition. He lit candles to the Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone alike, made his offerings on holy days, and listened patiently whilst septons spoke of virtue, duty, and the burdens the gods laid upon noble men.

Yet for all his devotion, Ormund possessed another passion besides prayer : he had a nose for perfumes.

Not merely an appreciation, but a keen, almost indecent sense for them, the way a hound might scent blood in the dark.

He could name the oils in any lady's hair from three paces, pick apart the florals and the musks and the rare eastern extracts : the smokebark from Qohor, the jasmine of Myr, the crushed petals of the winter rose. And yours, he'd told you once on your wedding night, after he'd spent two hours just pressing his face to the hollow of your throat, breathing you in — yours was the only scent that ever made his cock ache.

In company, when you teased him for it — which part, my lord? which part of me smells sweetest? — he'd play the gallant. Your hair, he'd say, lifting a strand between his fingers, letting the candlelight catch it. Or your wrist. The ladies would coo, your sisters would blush, the old men would nod and call him a devoted husband and you a beloved wife.

But when the door closed.

When the servants had taken the wine cups and the rushes had been swept and the candles burned low in their holders, and you stood before the basin in nothing but your thin linen shift, washing the powder and the perfume of the Great Hall from your skin — then he would tell you the truth.

You asked again, and you always asked, in the intimate dark of your bedchamber when the fire had dwindled to embers and you could feel the weight of his gaze on your back like a hand. Which part, husband?

His mouth would find your neck, wet and hot, his tongue dragging salt and skin and the faint trace of rosewater you'd dabbed there.

Your cunt, he'd murmur against your pulse, teeth scraping. When I'm hungry. He'd pause, breathing you in. Your neck, when I want to leave a mark. Your tongue, when I want to taste how sinful you can be when the gods aren't watching.

He was a man obsessed with perfumes, your husband. But his favorite had always been yours, yes, that particular musk of you, the scent that lingered in the sheets when you'd risen, that clung to the pillows he'd press his face into while you were away at the sept or at market.

That night, he stood at the basin longer than usual.

He watched you through the rippled reflection in the water before he plunged his face in, scrubbing the day's dust and the Great Hall's smoke from his skin. The candlelight caught the water trickling down his bare chest, the dark hair that matted his sternum, the hard muscle of his shoulders. Your husband slept bare every night, had done since your wedding, claiming your linens were too soft for wool and that anyway, he liked the feel of your thighs against his skin.

But tonight he wasn't watching you wash. He was watching you pray.

You were on your knees at the foot of the bed, hands clasped before you, head bowed. The shift you wore was good linen, near translucent in the firelight, falling to your calves and hiding nothing. The outline of your body — the dip of your waist, the curve of your hips, the shape of your cunt pressed against your thighs — all of it visible, all of it offered.

Your lips moved in silent devotion. Seven blessings. Seven thanks. The prayer for a husband's safe return, the one for a fruitful womb, the one your mother had taught you for forgiving a man his sins.

He didn't deserve forgiveness tonight.

When you finished, you made the sign of the seven-pointed star and slipped beneath the furs, settling onto your side, back to him. You hummed — that soft, contented sound you made when the sheets were clean and the bed was warm and you could feel him climbing in behind you.

Goodnight, my lord, you murmured.

He pressed his chest to your back. Skin to linen. The heat of him, still damp from the basin, seeping through the thin fabric. His cock was already half-hard against the curve of your ass, and you didn't flinch.

Goodnight, my love.

His mouth found your neck. A kiss, soft at first, then wetter, slower, his teeth grazing the tendon that ran from your ear to your shoulder. His palm spread flat on your belly, fingers splayed, just resting.

You didn't move.

Instead you pushed back into him. A slow, deliberate arch of your spine, pushing your ass against his cock, your back bowing until your shoulders pressed his chest and your hips cradled him. Your eyes were still closed. A faint smirk touched your lips.

He groaned. The sound was rough, dragged from somewhere deep, and he bit your earlobe for it.

Minx.

His hand slipped, down from your belly, across the linen, gathering the hem of your shift and pulling it up your thighs. Slow. Deliberate. The fabric whispered against your skin, bunching around your hips, leaving you bare from the waist down.

His fingers found the thatch of dark hair between your legs. He touched it first — just touched, just felt the coarse curls against his calloused fingertips. Then he tugged. Gentle pulls, wrapping strands around his fingers, tugging just enough to make your hips shift, to make you press back against him harder.

Nothing, he breathed into your ear. No smallclothes. No shift beneath the shift. You came to bed bare for me.

You said nothing. Your hand reached back, found the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in the damp hair at his skull.

His fingers slid lower.

Through the hair, through the wet heat of you, parting the lips of your cunt with a slowness that bordered on cruel. He found your pearl — that tight, swollen nub hidden in its hood of flesh — and pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

You gasped. A real sound, torn from you, your hips bucking into his hand.

He pressed his mouth to your ear, and he laughed — a low, dark sound that vibrated through his chest into your back.

Oh, the gods would weep to see you now, wife. So pious at the sept. So proper at the feast. And here, in the dark, you spread your legs for a finger and a whisper.

His thumb worked your pearl in slow circles, wet with your slick, while his middle finger traced the length of your slit. Up and down. Teasing the entrance, pressing just barely at the rim of you, then dragging back up to circle your pearl again.

You were soaked. Puffy and swollen and dripping for him, your slick coating his fingers, your thighs trembling where they pressed together around his hand.

He kept whispering.

You think the septon knows? When he gives you the seven blessings and you lower your eyes so demurely — you think he knows your cunt is this wet? That you knelt at the altar this morning with your thighs pressed tight to keep my seed from running down your leg?

Two fingers. He pushed them into you without warning, without prelude, just the sudden, slick slide of them burying to the knuckle in your heat.

You cried out. Not loud — bitten off, swallowed, your hand clapping over your own mouth as his fingers curled inside you.

His other hand clamped over yours, pulling it away, lacing his fingers through yours and pressing your palm flat to the mattress.

No, he said. I want to hear you.

He fucked you with his fingers. There was no other word for it — the wet, obscene squash of his hand moving between your thighs, the rhythm of it, the way he curled his fingers to find that spot inside you that made your vision white at the edges. Your hips moved with him, pushing back to meet every thrust, your mouth open against the pillow, your moans muffled into the feathers.

That's it. That's my wife. His voice was wrecked, ragged. You take my fingers so well, love. What will you take next?

The sound of it filled the quiet room. The wet slap of his hand, the rhythm of his breathing, the broken sounds you made beneath him. He fucked you with three fingers now, stretching you open, his thumb pressing hard on your pearl while his teeth found your shoulder and bit down — just enough to mark, just enough to make you gasp.

You taste like honey and sin, he murmured against the bite mark. And I am the hungriest man in the Reach.

The squash of his wet hand. The stutter of your breath. The way you whispered his name, broken and desperate, as he pushed you closer and closer to that edge.

Come for me, he said. Let the whole of the Hightower know what a sinful little wife I have.

And in the dark of your bedchamber, with the prayers still warm on your lips and his fingers buried deep inside you, you did.

He was not finished.

The thought came to you through the haze, through the aftershocks still pulsing through your thighs, through the wet sound of your own breathing as you lay there, limp and shattered, your cunt still clenching around nothing. You thought perhaps he would roll off, would press a kiss to your shoulder and settle against your back, would whisper some sweet nothing and fall asleep with his nose pressed to your hair.

But Ormund Hightower was not a man who took one meal and called himself fed.

He pulled his fingers from you slow — dragging along your inner walls, making you shudder at the loss. You heard him bring them to his mouth. Heard the wet and sinful sound of him sucking them clean, the low groan he made tasting you on his own skin.

Then he grabbed your hip and turned you.

The world spun, furs and linen and candlelight, and then you were on your back, your husband looming over you, his face dark with hunger. His dirty blonde hair hung damp across his brow, eyes black in the firelight, and mouth wet with you.

He kissed you. Oh, how he kissed you.

Not the chaste peck of a husband taking leave. Not the gentle press of a man being tender. This was a claiming — his tongue sliding into your mouth, thick and insistent, and you tasted yourself on him. Salty and musk and the copper of your own arousal. He kissed you until you couldn't breathe, until your chest heaved and your hands came up to push at his shoulders, and only then did he break it, mouths still close, breath mingling.

You taste even better on my tongue, he said. But I want your warmth.

He took off your shift, and then descended.

His mouth trailed down your chin, your throat, the hollow between your collarbones. He paused at your breasts — took a nipple between his teeth, bit just enough to make you arch, soothed it with his tongue while his hand found the other and pinched. Then lower. Over the soft swell of your belly, the jut of your hipbone, the place where your thighs began.

He settled between them.

Your hands found his hair before he'd even reached his destination — fingers tangling in the thick, dark curls, gripping hard. You bucked your hips toward his mouth, desperate, needy, the overstimulation from before still singing in your nerves.

He pinned you.

His hands clamped down on your hips, hard enough to bruise, pressing you flat into the mattress. You could not move, could not grind against his face, could not evenchase the friction you craved. You were held open, held still, held.

Patience, he murmured against your inner thigh. I'll have you when I'm ready.

His breath was hot on your cunt. You felt it — the warm exhalation against your soaked, swollen flesh — and your whole body trembled. You were raw from his fingers, sensitive to the point of pain, every nerve ending standing at attention and begging.

He licked you.

A single, long stroke, from the base of your slit to the tip of your pearl, his tongue flat and broad and wet. You cried out. Your hips strained against his grip, but he held you fast, and he did it again. And again. Each stroke slower than the last, savoring, tasting, groaning against your flesh until you felt the vibration through your whole body.

Gods, he breathed into you. I could die here. I would die happy, with your cunt on my tongue.

He ate you like a starving man.

His mouth devoured you — lips sucking your pearl, tongue fucking into your hole, his nose pressing against your clit with every movement. He groaned against you, the sound muffled by your flesh, and the vibration sent sparks up your spine. He pulled you impossibly closer, his hands gripping your hips and dragging you harder against his face, and you let him. You gave him everything. Your hands fisted in his hair, holding him there, and you rode his mouth with what little freedom he allowed you.

Ormund — His name came out broken, keening.

He answered by pressing his thumb to your pearl — hard, rubbing tight circles while his tongue speared into you, fucking you open, drinking everything you gave him.

You were close again too soon. Too fast. The pleasure was almost pain, the overstimulation building like a fever, and you tried to push his head away. You couldn't. Your hands pulled at his curls but he didn't stop, didn't slow, his thumb pressing harder, his tongue deeper.

Please — please, husband, I cannot —

He did not stop.

Your orgasm crashed over you like a wave, like a wall falling, like the whole of the Hightower crumbling to dust. You screamed. You saw white — a blinding, total whiteness that blotted out the room, the candles, the man between your thighs. Your cunt clenched and spasmed, flooding his mouth, and he groaned against you and kept licking, kept sucking, drawing it out until you were sobbing, until you were pushing at his shoulders with what little strength you had left.

Only then did he lift his head.

His face was slick with you. His chin gleamed in the candlelight, his lips wet, his eyes dark and satisfied. He did not wipe his mouth. He simply looked at you broken and panting beneath him, your thighs trembling, your cunt still fluttering) and he smiled.

But he was not finished.

Ormund reached to the bedside table. His hand moved with practiced ease, finding a small vial of cut crystal, the kind that usually held perfumes and rare oils. He uncorked it with his teeth.

And while your cunt still wept with your peak, he gathered it.

His fingers slid into you again — gentle this time, coaxing, milking your orgasm as it ebbed. You watched through half-lidded eyes as he held the vial beneath you, watched as your own wetness trickled down his fingers and into the crystal. Drop by drop. The vial filled with your slick, pale and thick in the candlelight, and he watched it with the same reverence he gave the seven-pointed star.

When the vial was full, he corked it. Set it back on the bedside table. Returned his gaze to you.

You opened your mouth — to tease him, perhaps. To ask if he meant to wear your scent to court tomorrow, or if he planned to anoint himself before the septon. You were used to his strange ways with perfume, his collections of oils and essences, his obsession with the way things smelled.

But before the words could form, he took you.

His breeches disappeared, and with a single, swift motion — his hand on your hip, the blunt head of his cock pressing at your entrance, and then he was inside you. All of him. In one stroke, burying to the hilt, filling you completely.

Your breath left you in a rush. Your back arched off the bed. His name was a prayer, a curse, a sob.

He began to move.

No more talking, he growled, his forehead pressed to yours, his hips driving into you with desperate, hungry strokes. No more games. I want to feel you come on my cock. I want to feel you milk me dry.

So he fucked you.

Crude as it sound, there was no other word. He fucked you with the same hunger he'd eaten you with, with the same devotion he prayed with, with the same obsession he collected his perfumes. His hips slammed into yours, the wet sound of your bodies meeting filled the room, and you wrapped your legs around his waist and held on.

Come for me, he demanded. Again. Now.

And you did. Because you could not help it. Because he owned every part of you, because your body answered his before your mind could catch up, because the sight of him above you (sweating, desperate, beautiful) undid something deep in your chest.

You shattered around him.

He followed a heartbeat later, his groan low and guttural, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself into you. Hot and thick, filling you, marking you from the inside.

He collapsed on top of you, his full weight pressing you into the mattress, his face buried in your neck. He breathed you in, a long, shuddering inhale, and you felt his lips press a kiss to your pulse.

You smell like sin, he murmured against your skin. Like heaven and sin and everything I should not want.

His hand found the vial on the bedside table. He held it up to the candlelight, watching your slick catch the glow.

And I want to keep every drop.

He settled behind you like a man coming home.

The shift of the furs, the creak of the bedframe, the warmth of his chest pressing against your back. His arm slid beneath your head, making a pillow of his bicep, and he pulled the covers up over both of you — silk and the heavy quilt your mother had stitched for your wedding. He tucked it beneath your chin with a tenderness that seemed impossible from the man who'd just fucked you into the mattress.

His mouth found your neck. Small kisses, pecks really, soft as moth wings, trailing from your ear down to your shoulder. You felt him smile against your skin.

You were still catching your breath. Still floating in that warm, liquid haze that followed his claiming, your limbs heavy, your cunt sore and satisfied, the ghost of his cock and fingers still stretching you. You felt his softening length pressed against the curve of your ass, wet and spent, and you pushed back into him instinctively.

His hand found your breast. It always did. Every night, without fail, whether he'd taken you or not, his palm would cup your flesh, his thumb would find your nipple, and he would hold you like that until sleep took him. You'd come to expect it, to need it, the weight of his hand a comfort you couldn't name.

But his other hand did not go to your waist.

It slipped lower. Over the curve of your hip, across the soft skin of your belly, down through the coarse hair between your thighs. You were too tired to open your eyes, too spent to question, but you felt his fingers find your entrance — slick and swollen and still leaking his seed.

He pushed inside you.

Two fingers. Slow and gentle, a soft intrusion that made you sigh rather than gasp. He buried them to the knuckle, and then he stilled.

To keep your scent on me by morning, he murmured against your hair. So I can take you with me when I rise.

You hummed. A sound of agreement, or surrender, or simple exhaustion. Your hand found his where it cupped your breast, and you held him there, your fingers intertwined with his.

You were already gone. Already drifting into that deep, dreamless sleep that only a well-fucked wife could find. Your breathing evened, your body relaxed fully against his, your cunt clenching occasionally around his fingers in reflexive, dreaming pulses.

The Maiden herself might blush to hear such thoughts, and even the Stranger would raise an eyebrow, if the tales were true. Yet what were gods and their judgments beside the comfort and joy your husband brought you? Let the septons mutter of sin. Let them wag their fingers and speak of virtue. The Seven might forgive you...

Baelor

holy waters - @the-darklings

something about getting manhandled by Baelor… - @dearlizzies

A patient man and his sweet wife - @lostrealityr

the spare bride - @withpearlsandpetals

In the Shadows of the Red Keep - @sem-ra

sugardaddy!baelor targaryen - @boyloveisnteasy

The Portents Had It Wrong - @omyhoney

hopelessly devoted to you- @erwinsvow

Maekar

His Princess - @erebusbabylon

soothe the wrath and tame the fury - @/erwinsvow

HOW DID YOU GET SO MANY? - @ghostlybfgf

The Flirting Game - @/lostrealityr

MY HOT HUSBAND - @targlocket

recluse neighbour (series) - @cintoasted

incarnadine - @winterstellars

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON - @julez-5

Baelor & Maekar

HATE OR LOVE - @/julez-5 (and honestly all of their Baelor & Maekar x Reader work)

Of tainted beards and wet lips - @sweetwhisperingangel

love is (the death of duty) - @eowyns-fantasy [on AO3]

Aerion

forget me nots (series) - @blackfyrebitch

Drunk Words, Sober Thoughts - @celestialwyvern

SOFT SPOT - @/celestialwyvern

it will come back - @cherrysweets-world

THE CRUEL SAVIOR - @kittyminion

aerion targaryen returns defeated after the trial of the seven - @pinkdoeweirdo

things you do for love - @louloucake

testing your devotion - @/ghostlybfgf

Valarr

STEEL AND SILK - @lilyswritings

Modern Valarr Targaryen as your boyfriend headcanons !! - @daeronsmissingear

THE JEWEL OF THE REALM - @/dearlizzies

a line never crossed - @daiscript

untouched - @westerosey

To Have and To Hold - @sadesluvr

Charmed - @ofcrowsandravens

septa-in-training - @cloak-of-righteousness

Daeron

Cannibal (series) - @saeransangel

dream a little dream - @cherrysweets-world

drunken husband - @eu-nicola

blood bank - @halfformedthing

THREE IN THE MORNIN' - @redwinelewis

AN UNEXPECTED BRIDE - @sansaorgana

bathing with husband!daeron - @r0ttn

(drabble) - @oakleafing

Duncan

of!dunk - @spicyrose

touchstarved!dunk - @knightofcassiopeia

meet me in the woods - @cosmictheo

inner desires - @/louloucake

no use crying over spilled tea - @goldenhoneyedwine

She'll know me crazy, soothe me daily - @dustofstarss

M'LADY - @/targlocket

if yer done with it - @bunnyishh

Lyonel

What is it if not craving? - @/lostrealityr

The storm that bites (and everything to do with Lyonel x Lady Dondarrion) - @punk-in-docs

Storm kissed - lightning stung - @/punk-in-docs

STORMS AND DRAGONS - @iydiamartinx

Love me - @feral4youu

the stupid, the proud - @marsrambles

Delicate Indulgence - @pearlessance

Mediations - @escapic-mezzanine