cin (sin)

Ormund had been pleased. He spoke none of Lord Godric Ashford or the excitement in the solar. He simply conducted himself as he usually did at such feasts, discussing philosophy and politics with the visiting lords, occasionally asking for your thoughts and praising you to anyone who would listen– commending how wise his ward was, how faithfully you attended the sept. All the while, his hand remained on your thigh beneath the table, squeezing gently as his thumb moved back and forth over the silk. Just as he usually did. 

This should have pleased you. His touch always did. Tonight, though, your mind was muddled with flashes of memories. 

The conversation with Lord Ashford you were not meant to hear. Ormund’s rings cutting into your face as he gripped your chin. The cool sheets of his bed twisted in your fists. His hand at your waist, his voice low as he hushed you and told you to be still. 

The seventh day. 

Following Lady Hightower in the Citadel, your small hand tucked in hers. Playing in the gardens with the Hightower boys. The letter from your queen mother coldly explaining why you could not visit the Red Keep on your sixteenth nameday. The burning pressure. Entering. Stretching. Confessing. 

The seventh day.

Ser Joldwin Mormont and the ashes of his fur-trimmed cloak. Lying across Ormund’s bare chest afterward, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. His lips against yours, tasting faintly of wine. Watching one of your siblings’ dragons fly overhead, its giant shadow blackening the earth. 

The seventh day. 

Being held. The knowledge you were never truly wanted. 

The seventh day.

“You are fidgeting.”

Ormund’s voice broke whatever spell your thoughts had cast over you.

You lowered your head. “I am sorry, my lord.”

Ormund hummed. Beneath the table, his hand shifted higher on your thigh, pressing into the soft flesh through the silk of your gown. The feast carried on around you, laughter mingling with the chords of lyres and flutes as they echoed through the Great Hall. No one could see the way their host groped you in plain sight. “Are you thinking of tonight?” 

Yes, you were. And of so much more. “No, my lord.” 

“You appear sad.” He leaned closer, his mouth brushing the shell of your ear, and you shivered. “Have you a reason to be?”

You shook your head quickly. “None, my lord.”

“Good,” he murmured. “Then stop pouting so unbecomingly before our guests and smile.”

You obeyed, because you always did. You arranged your lips into something soft and pleasant, as he liked. Ormund grinned in return and squeezed your thigh once more, hard. “Much better, my dear.”

“Lord Hightower! I do hope we are not intruding, but I simply had to introduce myself properly to your esteemed ward.”

Ormund’s hand stilled upon you, though he had not yet removed it. 

A broad, heavyset man stood before the head table, clad in a fine orange doublet. The wine cup in his hand was filled to the brim, sloshing around as he gestured. Drink had reddened his round, bearded face, and a crooked grin seemed fixed upon it. Behind him stood a tall young man with dark curly hair, fine features, and bright brown eyes. Those eyes were fixed entirely upon you. Something in his look sent warmth rushing into your cheeks.

“Lord Ashford,” Ormund greeted tensely. As the man drew nearer, Ormund briefly brushed one finger beneath his nose, the faintest crease appearing between his brows. “I was under the impression that only your son would attend the harvest feast this season. It is a… surprise to see you here as well.” 

“And miss the finest wine in the Reach?” Lord Ashford chortled, lifting his cup so enthusiastically that a little spilled over the rim and onto the marble floor. Ormund’s eye twitched as he looked at the puddle. “Of course I had to come.”

Lord Robert Ashford. You knew of him, if not the man himself. He was said to be kind, if somewhat silly, with a particular weakness for feasts and fine drink, but there was not one wicked thing about him. Which meant the young man standing behind him must be…

“And this is my son, Godric,” Lord Ashford continued, stepping to the side with a proud flourish to the young man behind him. “Though I understand the two of you require little introduction. He spoke with you earlier about a certain…someone, did he not, Lord Hightower?”

Godric coughed. “Father–”

“Oh, the boy has heard such wonderful things about the princess,” Lord Ashford went on, tipsy enough he was either failing to notice his son’s embarrassment or actively choosing to ignore it. “Her grace, her devotion to the Seven, and of course I would be remiss not to mention her beauty. I fear he has scarcely spoken of anything else since the prospect of betrothal was–”

“Father, please,” Godric interrupted him, a flush creeping above the collar of his doublet. “I am certain the princess has no wish to hear you recite every private conversation we have shared.”

Lord Ashford chuckled and clapped a broad hand against his son’s shoulder. “There is no shame in admiring a fine young lady. Nor, surely, in allowing two young people the opportunity to become better acquainted.”

Ormund’s fingers pressed so deeply into your thigh that you were certain they would leave marks. You did not dare look at him, though you imagined his face had gone terrifyingly blank.

Oblivious to the storm gathering beside you, Godric bowed. “It is an honor to meet you properly, Princess.”

Remembering Ormund’s warning in the solar– and with his hand still gripping you beneath the table– you offered Godric only the smallest inclination of your head before lowering your eyes once more.

“The honor is mine, my lord,” you murmured.

Godric smiled. Ormund, however, did not. 

“Lord Ashford, I am not sure if your son made you aware of the extent of our earlier discussion,” Ormund moved the hand that was on your thigh to the back of your chair. “He made his intentions sufficiently clear. As did I with him.”

Lord Ashford’s crooked smile lowered. “Well, yes…Godric did tell me some of the conversation. But I had hoped that perhaps, upon further reflection–”

“There is nothing upon which to reflect.”

Silence quickly consumed the small gathering at the head table. Ormund smiled urbanely, one hand still gripping the back of your chair. You felt caged. 

“Your admiration for my ward is noted, Lord Ashford,” Ormund said coolly. “You are certainly not the first to admire her, and I doubt you will be the last. But this match will not be considered.”

Humiliation ravaged you like a wildfire. You fixed your gaze on the grain of the table, afraid that if you looked up, the Ashfords would see the tears stinging your eyes. You wished– prayed– that they would go away. 

Ormund sighed and leaned back in his chair. At last, he released your chair and reached for his cup, lifting it with an air of studied levity. “Now then, I would hate to keep you from the wine you traveled so far to enjoy, Lord Ashford.”

“I– well, of course, Lord Hightower,” Robert stammered, plainly attempting to smooth over the moment. He summoned an easy smile, though it came out strained, and bowed low. “Thank you again for your gracious hospitality.” 

Godric’s eyes shifted between you and Ormund before he followed suit. “Lord Hightower. Princess.”

And then, finally, they were gone.

You exhaled shakily, blinking back tears. Ormund had already retrieved the pomander from his breeches and lifted it beneath his nose, breathing deeply. 

“Lord Ashford reeks of cheap wine and horse shit,” he grimaced, keeping the pomander close. “You should thank the Seven that you will not be sent away to live among such people.”

You had smelled neither cheap wine nor horse shit when the Ashfords stood before you. You wanted to tell him so. You wanted to tell him it was cruel to speak of them with such contempt when they had done nothing more than ask for your hand. Instead, you lowered your head. “Yes, my lord.”

Ormund’s eyes narrowed as he studied you over the silver pomander. His gaze moved from the wet shine of your eyes to the stiffness of your pouted lips to your quivering chin. He knew you more than anyone had or would ever know. He could see right through you. You knew it. For a second, it looked as if he was about to say something. 

A steward suddenly appeared at his shoulder. 

“My lord, Lord Uffering requests a private word regarding the grain levies before tomorrow’s council.”

“Lord Uffering can wait,” Ormund replied swiftly, eyes never leaving you. 

The steward shifted uneasily, wringing his hands. “Yes, my lord, but, erm…Lord Orme has joined him in the western gallery…and now they are disputing with each other. Quite loudly, I may add.”

Ormund exhaled hard through his nose. “If you could use your eyes, you would see that I am currently occupied.”

“Yes, my lord. But the matter is drawing attention, and…”

Ormund’s fingers tightened around the pomander before he finally lowered it. “Fine.”

He turned back to you, regarding you with such intensity that the clamor of the feast seemed to ebb around you. “You will remain seated here until I return.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“I will not be long.” His hand settled briefly at the nape of your neck, thumb pressing into the divot beneath your ear. “When I come back, we will retire for the evening.”

Your stomach churned. The seventh day.

“Y-yes, my lord,” you whispered.

Ormund held your gaze for another moment, as though searching for the truth only he could uncover. Then he withdrew his hand and rose from the table. You watched him follow the steward toward the western gallery and disappear beneath the archway.

The moment he was out of sight, the stiffness in your bones left you. You slumped in your chair and looked across the crowded Great Hall. The feast continued all around you– lords and ladies mingling, eating, drinking, laughing without a care. Without any knowledge of what these walls truly held.

Why did Ormund restrain you so? Why did he keep you from everyone? Why did he refuse to do the one thing expected of him as your guardian? You were of age. You were a woman in every sense. Would it not serve his interests as your kin to arrange a marriage for you? His sons had gone, and he had been widowed for years. Would it not suit him to be rid of you at last, free to take another wife of his own?

The thought made bile turn in your throat the moment it formed.

Why?

Why did the idea of Ormund with a wife make something sick and vicious twist inside you? Why was any of this happening?

Why was he so cruel? Why did you want him to be?

You understood, at least, his refusal of Aemond. Ormund had told you often enough what such a match meant: brother wed to sister, blood folded endlessly back into itself. Targaryen wickedness in its truest form. He would not permit you to remember that such customs belonged to your heritage as well.

But what of the others? Ser Joldwin, all those years ago, broad and steady and strong. The Martell boy. Every lord and heir who had been dismissed for some fault Ormund alone had deemed unforgivable. Perhaps each of them had shortcomings, that might have been true. But Godric seemed precisely the sort of man Ormund should have wanted for you– young, courteous, well-born, heir to a respectable house.

So what did Ormund want? To keep you as his ward forever? To hold you in his bed one night, kiss your mouth, and tell you how good you were, only to admonish you hours later for whatever sin he had decided lived inside you?

The ceaseless shifting in reality left you dizzy.

“Princess?”

So lost were you in thought that you had not noticed Lord Godric Ashford return to the head table and lower himself into the empty seat beside you.

You startled, and he immediately raised both hands in apology. “Forgive me, Princess. I did not mean to frighten you. I only hoped for a moment to speak with you, if I may?”

Your eyes flitted from Godric to the archway through which Ormund had disappeared. At any moment, he might return and find you speaking to the very man he had forbidden you to entertain. He would punish you, surely. The thought made something low in your belly begin to warm like embers. “Lord Godric, I…I am not certain it is proper for us to be speaking without a chaperone.”

Godric hesitated, glanced out over the crowded Great Hall, then looked back at you with a small, playful smile. “Surely a chaperone of a hundred feast guests would suffice?” 

Ormund would not think so. You bit your lip. You knew precisely what he would have you do. Turn up your nose at Godric and tell him you obeyed your guardian in all things. Then scurry obediently to Ormund and confess what had happened, so he might find some reason to bring about the end of House Ashford. 

But you always did what Ormund wanted. When had you last considered what you wanted?

The answer should have been simple. Godric was young, kind, and handsome. He wished to marry you. Surely this was what any young woman would want: to be admired by a good man and offered a life beyond the walls that had confined her.

Did you want to speak with him? Perhaps.

Or perhaps you only believed you ought to want it.

“I promise you, my lady, I shall do nothing to scandalize your reputation– aside from perhaps subjecting you to a few poor jokes.” Godric placed a hand solemnly over his heart. “I swear it upon my life.”

You could not help but giggle. You could scarcely remember the last time someone had been so light with you. Years ago, perhaps. “I believe you, Lord Godric.”

“Now my father, on the other hand…” Godric glanced towards the table where Lord Robert was engaging in a loud and animated recounting of some story, wine cup spilling with every exaggerated hand movement. Godric sighed. “He seems to be on the precipice of a scandal every time he steps foot out of Ashford. I am certain you could guess that from his earlier…revelations…which I should apologize again for.”

“There is no need to apologize. Your father was very kind.”

“Ah, you are being lenient with him. He can be a fool, but he is also my father, so I suppose that makes me one as well,” Godric chuckled, and his grin widened when you laughed with him. 

For a few moments, the two of you sat together and watched as Lord Robert continued his tale. Then Godric’s expression softened. 

“Did…Lord Hightower tell you anything of our conversation earlier?”

Your smile faltered. You remembered every word, pressed against the boarded door in that forgotten corridor. But you could hardly admit you listened to a conversation never intended for your ears. Or that Ormund refused you any true explanation of what happened. 

You chose your words carefully. “He told me only that you had spoken with him.”

“I see.”

“I do hope he was not unkind to you.”

“No more than might be expected of a man guarding something very precious to him.”

The words flooded you with warmth. Your gaze dropped to your hands, pressed into the sky-blue silk of your gown. The one Ormund chose for you. 

Godric continued, voice genuine. “Lord Hightower seems very protective of you, Princess.”

“He has always been so. Ormund is like a…a father to me.” You felt bile briefly rise in your throat. You swallowed it. “He took me in when I was just a girl. Oldtown is all I have ever known.”

“There is much virtue in that, my lady. A guardian should be concerned for his ward’s safety and reputation. Truly, I would think poorly of him if he were not. But…” He hesitated, glancing toward the western gallery before leaning nearer, his face suddenly gone serious. “You are no longer a child, Princess. And marriage, as you know, is not some minor matter to be settled without your input. A guardian may offer counsel, certainly, but I do not believe any woman should be forced into a marriage she does not desire…or denied one she might.”

You blinked at him, stunned. Ormund spoke of unsuitable bloodlines, weak heirs, vulgar fathers, and men whose intentions he did not trust. He spoke endlessly of what he would permit and what he would prevent. Never once had he asked what you desired. The concept was as foreign to you as Dothraki. 

Godric cleared his throat after a few seconds of silence. “Forgive me. I do not mean to speak against Lord Hightower.”

“N-no, no,” you stammered quickly. “You have said nothing wrong.”

He nodded, though concern lingered in his eyes. “Then may I ask you something else?”

You should have refused. You should have told him it was time to retire. You should have found Ormund. Instead, you found yourself nodding.

“Are you…happy here?”

The question struck you like a slap to the face. 

Happy? 

You had never considered it. Happiness was not a concept widely spoken of in the Hightower. Maybe there were moments. As a child, playing with the Hightower boys in the gardens. When Lady Hightower would sing you lullabies to sleep. Ormund’s bed, warm beneath you in the darkness. His lips against your brow when you memorized all your scripture. 

Moments that were fleeting. But moments that stuck. 

Then you thought of locked doors. Of punishments. Of Ormund’s voice, loud and raging, his mood shifting at the drop of a pin. Of the seventh day. Of sin. 

“I…” Your fingers tightened together in your lap. Would you confess? “I am…content.”

Godric did not appear shocked. Nor did he demand an explanation. He merely regarded you with a quiet sadness that made you feel more exposed than Ormund’s scrutiny ever had.

“I hope you will not think me forward, Princess, but I meant what I told Lord Hightower,” he said. There was a sincerity to him more pure than anything you knew possible. “I have heard nothing but good things of you, and what little time I have spent in your company has only made me wish to know you better.”

Warmth rose into your cheeks. 

“I cannot pretend to know whether you might ever desire such a match,” he continued. “But if you were willing, I would still like the opportunity to…entertain the prospect. If that is what you wished, of course.” 

Surely you should wish that. Surely you ought not to be thinking of Ormund’s hand gripping your thigh beneath the table. Surely you ought not to wonder what it would feel like if Ormund were the one offering you such a choice.

If he were asking you to be his.

Before you could respond, the musicians reached the end of their song. A livelier tune began almost at once, the beat of the drums rising above the conversations as couples moved toward the center of the hall. Godric glanced toward them, then stood. 

“Now, this may embarrass me so thoroughly that you decide to be rid of me altogether, but I must ask regardless.” He turned back to you and held out his hand. “Would you dance with me, Princess?”

You looked once more towards the archway. Ormund would return any second now. He would see you, dancing with Godric in front of the entire feast. He would see you being held by another man. If he did not kill you, he would surely kill Godric. 

“Yes,” you whispered, heart beating violently against your ribcage. You placed your hand in Godric’s. “I would.” 

Godric led you into the center of the hall crowded with dancing bodies, one hand holding yours while the other hovered near your waist, as though he feared even the smallest impropriety might send you fleeing back to the head table. 

“You should know,” he spoke loudly over the music as he guided you into the first turn, “that I was once declared the finest dancer in Ashford.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well…I was seven,” he admitted. “And the only competition was my sister, who could not yet walk. And the judge was my mother.”

Your laughter rang through the hall as he spun you beneath his arm and guided you back into step.

You should have been happy. You were dancing with a handsome young man who had made his interest in you plain. Godric was courteous. He kept his hands precisely where they belonged and made no attempt to grope or possess you. He complimented your dancing, whispered jokes near your ear, knew every step, and led you well.

Yet all you did was look over his shoulder, searching for Ormund.

Your gaze swept over every face, every couple, every archway. He was nowhere to be seen. Something inside you deflated and the realization came with a flush of shame: perhaps you were doing all of this for him. You wanted him to see you. You wanted him to want you. 

When the final notes rang through the hall, Godric drew you gently to a stop. Around you, the other dancers bowed and separated, their laughter mingling with the applause.

“I must say, my lady,” Godric was still slightly breathless from the dance, his hand holding yours lightly, “I think we make quite a fine pair of dancers.”

You blushed and lifted your free hand to smooth a few stray hairs from your face. You were about to say something, what exactly you could not remember, when a familiar, low voice spoke directly behind you.

“Lord Godric.”

You turned. 

Ormund stood only a few paces away, the crowd having parted around him. Conversations nearby were already quieting. His eyes, blue and still as a frozen pond, were fixed upon your intertwined hands. His face was empty. Terrifyingly, completely empty.

With sudden, perfect clarity, you knew you had gotten what you wished for. And you knew you had made the worst mistake of your life.

“Lord Hightower,” Godric said, his voice turning cautious. He followed Ormund’s gaze and untangled his fingers from yours. “I was only telling the princess that she is an excellent dancer. Whatever lessons you must have arranged for her–”

“Do you make a habit,” Ormund uttered, his voice carrying loudly enough to silence those nearest you, “of disrespecting your hosts?”

Godric blinked and glanced at the confused faces gathering around you. “...My lord?”

“Do you take me for a fool?”

“I– of course not, Lord Hightower.” Godric gave a nervous, uncertain laugh. “We were only dancing.”

“Dancing? Only dancing?” With slow, imposing steps, Ormund advanced into the center of the hall, closer to you. “No, Lord Godric, I think not. I think what you have done is force yourself upon my ward after being expressly forbidden to do so.”

Panic overtook Godric’s expression. “Lord Hightower, I-I did no such thing–”

“But you did, did you not?” Ormund continued, his composure making every word more horrible to endure. “I made my refusal perfectly clear. You pretended to accept my authority, and then, the moment my back was turned, you disregarded my wishes. You disrespected my house. You disrespected her.”

You wanted to interject and defend Godric. You wanted to cower behind Ormund. You did neither.

“You took advantage of her,” Ormund declared, gesturing toward you as though you were evidence to be presented before the hall. “You knew the princess to be quiet and kind. You knew she was too gently raised to humiliate you with a refusal before half the Reach. And so you waited until I was absent and imposed upon her courtesy.”

Godric’s face reddened with the pressure of the entire Great Hall watching this encounter unfold. “The princess agreed to dance with me. She wanted to.”

Ormund’s eyes shifted to you and the hall seemed to contract. Something sharp flickered in his gaze as he tilted his head. 

“Did she now?” he asked, so softly it was barely a whisper. 

Godric turned to you, an obvious plea in his expression for you to absolve him of whatever crime Ormund had laid at his feet before the assembled houses of the Reach. You felt as though you had committed treason against the Crown itself. No– worse than that. As though you had sinned beneath the very eyes of the Seven.

Contrition flooded you so completely that you could scarcely bear Ormund’s gaze. Instead, you fixed your eyes down at the marble floor of the Great Hall– the same floor you had once raced across as a child. 

“Is it true?” He stepped closer until the polished leather of his shoes entered your lowered vision. “Did you wish to dance with him?”

Your voice trembled when you finally answered. “...yes.”

Tears blurred the marble beneath you. Still, you forced yourself to lift your head. Ormund’s face had gone flat once more.

He regarded you for what seemed like minutes, then gave a single, measured nod, as though you had confirmed something he had already known. “I see.”

Ormund’s gaze lingered upon you for another awful moment before he turned toward the watching hall, putting his hand on your arm. His grip was tight. “The princess is plainly unwell,” he announced, his voice once again smooth and measured. “I fear the excitement of the evening has overtaken her.”

A few sympathetic murmurs moved through the crowd. You were unwell, but not for whatever reason Ormund was claiming. You simply kept your eyes fixed above the crowd and willed yourself not to start crying. 

“Please,” Ormund continued, offering the gathered guests his courteous, practiced smile that did not reach his eyes, “return to your dancing. There is no reason our feast should be interrupted.”

Then he looked to Godric. “You may rejoin your father.”

Godric’s mouth parted as though he might object, but whatever he saw in Ormund’s face silenced him. He bowed stiffly instead. “Of course, Lord Hightower.”

Ormund moved his hand from your arm to the small of your back. “Come, my dear. I believe it is time to retire for the night.”

You allowed him to steer you through the parting crowd and out of the Great Hall. By the time the noise of the feast had faded behind you, you were sniveling like a pathetic child. Nothing remained but the sharp echo of Ormund’s footsteps and the hurried patter of your own as you struggled to match his long strides through the stone corridor.

Perhaps you should apologize. Perhaps you should explain yourself. If you could only make him understand, then perhaps he would–

Your head snapped backward.

A cry tore from your throat as Ormund seized a fistful of your hair and wrenched you toward him. You stumbled helplessly beneath his grip, dragged backward until your spine struck the stone wall.

“You fucking insolent slut,” he hissed. His fist tightened against your scalp, wrenching your head back until tears sprang anew to your eyes. “I cannot leave you out of my sight for a single minute before you whore yourself before a hall full of lords?”

He yanked again and the back of your head struck the stone with a dull crack. You clawed at his wrist, desperate to relieve the searing pull at your roots, but he twisted easily beyond your grasp.

“O-Ormund, I am– I did not–” you sobbed, reaching for him again.

His grip only tightened. You felt strands of hair pull and snap beneath his fingers.

“Please,” you cried. “It hurts–!”

“I have given everything to raise you. Everything.” Ormund spat the words, flecks of spittle striking your cheeks. “My house. My food. My protection. My own bed. All I have ever asked of you is obedience and respect.” He wrenched your head farther back. “And this is how I am repaid? You make a cuckold of me before half the Reach, shamelessly flaunting yourself for some boy?”

“It was only– we only danced–”

“You might as well have sucked his cock in the Great Hall.” His body crushed yours against the wall until you were flattened beneath his weight, the scabbard of his sword digging painfully into your hip. “Is that what you wanted to do? Hmm? You accomplished so much in the little while I was gone. Perhaps you did that as well.”

Your face flushed in shame as you gasped at his words. “No, Ormund! No–”

He leaned closer until his face hovered mere inches from yours, pure vitriol burning in his eyes. Ormund’s fist remained tangled in your hair, holding you helplessly in place. Then, suddenly, he froze. The fury in him shifted as he lowered his head, the bridge of his nose grazing your jaw. 

He breathed in. Ormund’s face twisted at once with disgust, as though he were suppressing the urge to gag. “You smell of him.”

A broken sob escaped you, your scalp still burning beneath his grip. There was no reasoning with him. Still, your heart twisted, and you tried. “I b-barely touched him, my lord. Please. You must believe me!”

The muscle in Ormund’s jaw flexed. Without warning, he wrenched you away from the wall and dragged you after him. His pace quickened as he marched you through the corridor, forcing you to stumble in order to keep from being pulled from your feet. Servants flattened themselves against the walls at the sight of him– the master of the Hightower hauling a princess of the realm by her hair while she sniveled and sobbed behind him. None dared intervene. They only lowered their eyes and stepped aside.

“You are an ungrateful, treacherous brat,” Ormund growled. “You may lie to me. You may lie before every lord in that hall. You may even kneel in the sept and lie beneath the faces of the Seven.” He shoved open the door to his bedchamber and pulled you inside. “But the Father sees what is hidden.”

The door slammed shut behind you. Ormund released your hair only to seize the back of your neck. Though the force of his grip kept your head fixed, your eyes shifted toward the bed, already knowing what would come next.

Instead, he steered you toward the adjoining bathing chamber and threw open the door. Heat and steam billowed from within. Servants still moved around the claw-footed tub, pouring steaming, scented water from brass ewers. At the sight of Ormund storming inside with you trapped beneath his hand, they startled and pressed themselves against the tiled walls. 

“The Father judges every falsehood,” Ormund continued, his mouth close to your ear. “Every wicked thought. Every secret desire.”

“I did not–”

“Do not lie to me again.” His fingers dug harder into your neck. “You may deny it until your tongue rots in your mouth, but your body has already betrayed you.”

Ormund lowered his face once more, breathing against your hair, your cheek, the bare skin above your collar. A shudder of revulsion passed through him. “His stink is everywhere.”

He dragged you toward the filled tub. “You will wash it off.”

One of the servants, an older woman with a weathered face, hesitantly stepped forward. “My lord, we were not expecting the princess until later. The water is still too hot–”

Ormund’s head snapped toward her, his gaze blazing. “Leave. At once.”

The servants did not argue. They bowed hurriedly, abandoned the remaining ewers, and fled from the chamber. You did not blame them. For who would want to defend you, who had so obviously sinned before your lord?

Ormund pushed you towards the tub. “Undress.”

You did not move. You could not. Perhaps Ormund had seen glimpses of you before, the shape of your body beneath the sheer nightgowns he often gifted you, the outline of your breasts when candlelight illuminated the fabric. But those moments belonged to the night, in the darkness, when you could tell yourself his eyes were closed or turned elsewhere. 

You had never stood naked before your guardian. 

Your hair hung tangled around your face, scalp still throbbing where he had pulled. Tears and snot wetted the cupid’s bow of your lip, and you were shaking so violently that your teeth had begun to chatter. You had been diminished to nothing. 

“M-my lord,” you whispered, turning towards Ormund. “I can call the women back, they will help me–”

“No.” Ormund stared at you with open contempt. “You will not. You were comfortable enough flaunting yourself for that boy. Now, you discover modesty?”

Your cheeks burned and you hung your head. “Please, my lord…”

Ormund stepped nearer, hands twitching at his side. “You behaved like a harlot in my hall. You may undress like one here.”

Humiliation rippled through you like a wave. You began to believe he was right. You had disobeyed Ormund. You had accepted Godric’s hand. Why? Because you wanted a reaction from Ormund. And now, you had one. 

Your fingers fumbled for the ribbons at the back of your gown. They would not obey you. Each time you caught one, it slipped from your trembling grasp. 

“You are moving too slowly.”

“I-I am trying…” you sputtered. “But my hands…they will not cease trembling…”

The faint rasp of metal leaving leather made you freeze. Ormund drew the small dagger he carried at his belt.

“My lord, please don’t–”

Ormund caught the back of your gown in one fist, and with one swift movement, he cut through the ribbons. The bodice split open with a series of sharp snaps, the ruined ties falling loose around you. Ormund dragged the blade downward, severing embroidery and silk without care until the gown sagged from your shoulders and exposed your breasts. You gasped and tried to catch the fabric, but Ormund had already sheathed the dagger. He seized the torn gown and wrenched it down over your hips, leaving you naked in a pool of shredded blue silk.

Feebly, you crossed your arms over yourself. Ormund was quicker. He grabbed you by the upper arm and hauled you toward the steaming tub, his chest rising and falling with each furious breath.

“In.”

You lifted one trembling foot over the rim. The instant your toes touched the water, scalding heat shot through you. You recoiled with a yelp. “Ormund, it is too hot–”

“Good.” His hands closed around your shoulders. “Perhaps it will burn his stink from you.”

He forced you down. You cried as the searing water engulfed your body. You tried to rise, but Ormund held you beneath the surface of the bath, his fingers biting into your shoulders. Before you could catch your breath, he had dropped to his knees beside the tub and seized a sponge from the tray. 

He caught your wrist and began scrubbing your arm. The rough sponge dragged over your skin again and again, leaving it flushed pink and burning. Ormund’s eyes were wild, his movements frantic. Beneath the fury, there was a panic, a desperation you had witnessed only a handful of times before. It terrified you. 

“Men bow to their lords,” he muttered, dragging the sponge from your wrist to your shoulder as though he meant to strip away the skin itself and uncover something clean beneath it.

You recognized the words at once. Scripture, recited in the sept while you knelt beside Lady Hightower. Now Ormund spoke them in the bathing chamber she had once shared with her husband– only she was dead and rotting somewhere in a crypt, and you were grown and naked beneath his hands. 

“Repeat it,” he hissed. “As I taught you.”

“M-men bow to their lords.”

“Lords bow to their kings.” The sponge moved across your collarbone, then up the side of your neck.

“Lords bow to their k-kings…”

“And kings and queens bow before the Seven Who Are One.” He scrubbed the tender skin beneath your jaw. The same place where, in the darkness of night, he so often buried his face. 

Your voice shook. “Kings and queens bow before the S-seven Who Are One...”

The sponge dragged down your other arm. “All sins may be forgiven.”

“All sins may be forgiven...”

Ormund seized your knee and yanked your leg toward him, scrubbing harshly over your calf. “But crimes must still be punished.”

You swallowed a sob. “But crimes must still be…punished.”

At last, the sponge slipped from his hand and struck the tiled floor with a wet slap. Your entire body was rubbed pink and raw from his touch. Ormund remained kneeling by the tub, chest heaving as though he had just come from hours in the training yard. The water had finally cooled in the tub around you, though your tears had never once ceased. 

Men bow to their lords. Kings and queens bow before the Seven Who Are One. Crimes must still be punished.

The words could not cease circling your mind. 

Crimes must still be punished. Crimes must still be punished. Crimes must still be punished.

Steam from the bath had loosened Ormund’s brown curls, leaving them wild around his face. The sleeves and front of his doublet were soaked through. His collar sat crooked. Strands of hair had fallen across his brow.

You had never seen him so disordered. Ormund was particular about every detail of his appearance. Now he looked just about as ruined as you felt.

He rose and reached into the tub. You flinched, but his hands closed around your waist and lifted you to your feet. Water streamed from your body, droplets tracing the curves of your breasts and the softness of your stomach before falling back into the bath. The cooler air tightened your skin, your nipples pebbling as you shivered beneath his hands.

Ormund held you there, naked and trembling before him. Then he bent toward you. His nose brushed the wet skin beneath your ear. He inhaled once before moving lower to breathe against your neck and shoulder. You scarcely dared move.

At last, the terrible tension in his body eased.

“Clean,” he murmured. His hands tightened possessively around your waist. “You are clean again.”

Seemingly satisfied with his work, Ormund stepped back and surveyed you. His gaze traveled from your wet hair to your breasts, then lower still, lingering over the glistening curls at the apex of your thighs. 

He drew a slow breath, steadying himself, before turning away to restore some measure of order to his appearance. He straightened his collar and smoothed a hand over his damp curls, though the soaked fabric of his doublet clung stubbornly to him. Then he reached into the tub and took your hand. “Out.”

Water streamed from your body and pooled across the tiles as you stepped over the rim. Ormund kept one hand around yours and the other at your waist. Then he retrieved the linen nightgown the servants had left folded over a nearby chair and tossed it toward you without looking. “Dress yourself.”

You clutched it against your chest, relieved merely to have something with which to cover yourself. “Y-yes, my lord.”

With shaking hands, you pulled it over your head. The fabric caught against your wet skin, clinging to your breasts and thighs despite your efforts to tug it loose.

When you had finished, Ormund turned back. For a moment, the two of you merely stared at one another. Then he lifted a hand and brushed a wet tendril of hair from your face, his touch impossibly gentle after the same hand had scrubbed your skin raw only moments before. “Do you understand why I do this for you?”

You nodded slowly.

“Then tell me.”

You swallowed. “To…purge me?”

“Yes.” He stepped nearer, cupping your cheek. “I have told you before, and I will continue to tell you. At your core, you are a wicked creature. However earnestly you may struggle against it, the sins of your forefathers live within you. That is why you disobey. Why you cannot always recognize the corruption in your own desires.”

Your breathing grew shallow at his words.

“It is my duty to purge it from you, to discipline what is wicked and preserve what may yet be made good.” Ormund’s hand settled more firmly against your cheek, holding your face toward his. He studied you expectantly. “Do you understand me?”

“I understand you, Ormund.”

“Good girl.” His hand fell away. He turned and left the bathing chamber without another word. You remained where you were for a moment, waiting until you trusted your legs not to collapse beneath you, then wobbled after him.

The bedchamber had grown dim behind the closed shutters, illuminated only by the wavering glow of candlelight and slivers of moonlight. Ormund stood beside the wardrobe, peeling the soaked doublet from his body and revealing the muscled planes of his back. Though he so often slept without a shirt, you turned away bashfully. 

When Ormund faced you again, you kept your gaze fixed upon the ornate rug beneath your bare feet.

“Right,” he said. He dragged a hand over his jaw and glanced from you to the bed. Then he inclined his head toward it. “On the bed, then. Ready yourself.”

Your heart seemed to stop. Your gaze snapped up to him, your brows drawing together. “M-my lord?”

He scoffed as though you were a fool for questioning him. “It is the seventh day. Surely you did not imagine yourself excused…particularly after tonight. I have all the more reason now to question your purity.”

Your mouth opened, then closed again. “B-but, my lord…the bath–”

“The bath did nothing but remove the taint of horse shit from you,” Ormund spat. He advanced upon you. “As I told you before, you managed a great deal in the few minutes I was gone. How am I to know you did not give yourself to Lord Ashford?”

The accusation was absurd. Ormund had been absent for perhaps ten minutes. The hall had been filled with half the Reach. Surely he could not truly believe that you had…

“I said, on the bed,” Ormund repeated, each word sharpened by warning. “Do not make me say it again.”

You hurried toward the bed and crawled onto it. You had done this so many times that the motions should have come as second nature. Yet each time, every part of you trembled with the same terrible mixture of dread and anticipation…and something hotter beneath them both that you could never bring yourself to name.

You shuffled backward until your head met the pillows, then lowered yourself flat against the mattress. Ormund remained at the foot of the bed, the pale skin of his bare chest almost luminous in the candlelight. He looked at your position with a scowl, then closed his hands around your ankles. With one sharp pull, he dragged you toward him until your ass rested at the very edge of the mattress.

He tapped the outsides of your quivering thighs. You parted them, allowing him to step between your legs.

Ormund looked down at you. Your breasts rose and fell beneath the damp nightgown, each breath shallow and unsteady. “You are nervous tonight.”

You began to shake your head, but he clicked his tongue. “Remember what I told you. Do not lie to me.”

Your throat tightened. “I-I am nervous, my lord.”

“Why?” The question was edged with mockery. Ormund reached down and caught the hem of your nightgown between his fingers. “This should hardly surprise you by now. Or…is there something you are trying to hide from me tonight?”

“No, my lord. I swear, I have nothing to hide–”

“We shall see.” He began to draw the nightgown upward. Higher and higher, until the cool air brushed over your calves and thighs, raising gooseflesh in its wake. Higher still, until the fabric gathered around your waist and your sex lay completely exposed beneath his gaze.

Ormund inhaled, and you could have sworn his breath trembled. His thumbs pressed against your puffy pussy lips, parting you beneath the candlelight. You were unbearably sensitive after the scalding bath, and the sudden touch of cool air on your exposed flesh drew a helpless whimper from your throat.

Ormund stilled. His hands remained firmly in place, holding you open as his narrowed eyes lifted to your face. “What was that?”

You swallowed. “N-nothing, my lord.”

“Nothing?” he repeated softly. “Have you learned nothing tonight?”

“I did not mean–”

“Your mouth lies,” Ormund murmured. “But your body confesses so readily.”

Humiliation burned through you. You turned your face toward the pillows, but his voice sharpened.

“Look at me.”

You obeyed. Ormund studied you with a feverish focus. Without speaking, he prodded your entrance with the tip of his middle finger. The sensation made you jolt. He steadied you with a hand pressed firmly upon your hip. “Stay still.”

You tried, desperately. You fixed your eyes upon his face and willed every muscle to quiet, though your breath came shallow and uneven. 

Ormund paused, the tip of his finger still pressing against your hole. “What shall I find tonight, hmm? That you have been faithful to the Seven above? Faithful to me? Or shall I find you have let Lord Ashford fuck this pretty little cunt?”

You squirmed beneath his gaze, feeling as though you had been scalded again by his brazen words. “N-no, my lord.”

Ormund hummed in response. Then, once again, he used his other thumb to spread your pussy lips open, his gaze transfixed on where his finger rested.

“Look at you…” His voice was hushed, contemplative. “I have barely touched you, and your pussy is already fluttering.”

You whined, horrifically embarrassed, but he shushed you before you could protest.

“You are thinking of that Ashford boy, aren’t you?”

You shook your head immediately, adamant. You could hardly remember Godric’s face now. 

Ormund tutted. “Words.”

“No! No, I am not.”

“Then why,” he asked, his gaze never leaving you, “is your cunt weeping?”

You had no answer, other than your body had answered before your mind.

“It is no matter,” Ormund sighed, thumb still holding you open. “You are a deceitful bitch who will learn her lesson regardless.”

Slowly, Ormund began to push his fingertip into you. A broken moan tore through you at the burning intrusion, though you had felt this so many times before. The walls of your pussy clenched around him, and you tried to will yourself to relax your muscles. Breathe, you commanded yourself. Obey. 

His hand stilled, the tip of his finger seated inside you. He did not look away. 

“If you are not wet for Lord Godric,” Ormund whispered, finally lifting his gaze to yours, “then who is it for?” 

For a moment, you were no longer in Ormund’s chambers. You remembered attending the sept with Lady Hightower, kneeling beside her before the bejeweled statue of the Father. You remembered her lessons, her gentle voice, the certainty with which she had spoken.

“You must always tell the truth,” she had taught you. “For the Father sees all.”

The words echoed now, impossible to ignore. You were compelled. You had to confess.

“You.”

Ormund groaned at the confession, his hand tightening at your waist. 

“Do you hear yourself, you harlot?” His voice rattled maniacally, the rings on his fingers pressing into the soft flesh of you. “Do you not hear the lewdness of your own words? Lusting after me, your own guardian?”

Shame flooded through you. You should have lowered your eyes. You should have taken back the confession. But there was something in his voice that told you he was not reprimanding you. Ormund wanted you to say it. He wanted you to confess.

Before you could even think of a response, Ormund’s mouth twisted. Then he spat.

A hot, wet glob landed directly on the swollen pearl at the top of your cunt, obscene and shocking enough that your whole body shuddered. The sensation was like nothing you had ever felt before. Vulgar in a way that made humiliation burn through you even as a moan slipped from your throat.

Ormund saw it, because just as the Father did, he saw everything. A wicked, knowing grin spread across his face.

“Theeere it is,” he murmured, voice low and rough with satisfaction. “Moaning like a bitch in heat. Acting like the whore you are.”

Your face burned and you turned back into the pillows, trying to stifle the whimpering sounds that were attempting to escape you. 

Ormund leaned closer, caging your body in with his, the tip of his finger still inserted into you. “You think I do not know you? I raised you. I made you.”

Your thighs twitched instinctively, as if you could push him away. For a moment, he withdrew slightly, as if it were finished. As if Ormund would simply wipe his hand on the handkerchief he always kept on him and declare the matter settled. It had always been that way before.

The ritual– the inspection that occurred every seventh day– always ended the same. Ormund would stop at the first knuckle, claiming only to feel enough to confirm that your maidenhead was still intact. Then he would withdraw, disappear into the bathing chamber for a few moments while you caught your breath alone on the bed, and return composed once more.

Afterward was the part you cherished most. Perhaps it was the only reason you endured the ritual at all. Ormund would take you into his arms. He would press his lips to your brow, your cheek, sometimes even your mouth, and tell you how good you had been. How faithful. How untouched. He would allow you to rest against him, your head upon his chest, while he kissed the top of your head and held you as though you were something precious.

And for a little while, you no longer felt like a ward. No longer like an unwanted addition to his household. For a little while, you felt like a wife would.

You felt wanted.

But this time, Ormund did none of that. Instead, he pushed forward. 

You gasped at the invasion, hands tightening around the sheets as his finger slid deeper than it ever had before. It was only one finger, and still you felt stretched open by it, your body struggling to make sense of the unfamiliar pressure. Pain mixed with pleasure, a strange concoction that was better than anything you had ever known. 

Ormund watched the reaction move across your face.

“She is so tight,” he whispered, almost in a trance as he looked down at where his finger disappeared inside you. “So untouched. So desperate for more.”

Your stomach twisted at his words. Of course you were untouched. You could not imagine ever being touched by anyone other than Ormund. 

“So obedient for your lord,” Ormund added, voice husky. “And still you asked me not to stop.” 

His thumb moved slowly, the pad of it pressing against your aching clit right above where his finger held you open. The sensation struck through you so sharply your thighs closed his hand, though he pried them back open with ease. 

Ormund’s thumb began to circle your clit, slow and deliberate, while his finger remained seated inside you. The two sensations seemed to pull against one another: the deep stretch of him, the slick pressure of his thumb, the unbearable intimacy of being watched while your body answered him so honestly.

“Do not be so quiet now, my sweet girl,” Ormund commanded you. “Not when your body is finally telling the truth.”

His finger began to move. Slowly at first, dragging almost to the tip before pressing back in. The stretch came easier now, slicker with your growing arousal. His thumb kept circling with maddening precision, steady enough that something began to gather low in your belly.

A coil. A warning. A want. It was overwhelming. It was maddening. It was completely and utterly terrifying. 

“Ormund…”

His finger curled slightly inside you, pressing against a soft place that made you see stars, and you cried out, back arching. 

“There we are,” Ormund breathed. “That is what you have been trying to tell me.”

“N-no,” you said, though the denial sounded weak even to your own ears.

Ormund leaned closer, mouth skimming your jaw. “You want this. You have wanted this every time I stopped.”

Your lips parted, but no answer came.

The coil inside you wound tighter and tighter, every pass of his thumb dragging you closer to some precipice you did not understand. Your thighs began to tremble. Your breath broke into small, helpless whimpers. Panic and pleasure tangled together until you could no longer tell which one made you shake.

“Ormund, please,” you gasped. “S-something…something is happening!”

“Is it?” His voice was calm, almost cruelly so, his eyes fixed on your face. Then, just as the feeling rose so sharply it frightened you, Ormund withdrew completely. His finger slipped out of you, and his thumb left your clit all at once.

The loss was immediate. You whined, hips lifting after him before you could stop yourself, your cunt clenching around nothing. 

Ormund stepped back from the bed, composed and distant, as though whatever had existed between you moments before had vanished entirely. He reached for the handkerchief he kept in his back pocket, and cleaned your glistening arousal off of his finger with a maddening calmness. 

You propped yourself up on your elbows, chest heaving. Sweat had beaded on your forehead from the intense pleasure that was there just moments before. When you spoke, your voice was small and confused. “...My lord?”

Ormund did not look at you. “I have confirmed what I needed to know. You are untouched. That has not changed. But you still disobeyed me.”

You stared at him, searching his face for some sign that he did not mean it. Some indication that this was a test, that Ormund would relent as he always did. That he would gather you in his arms, kiss your face, and fall asleep.

He did not. 

“You are not forgiven,” Ormund said matter-of-factly. Then came the words you never expected to hear. “You will return to your own chambers tonight.”

Your own chambers. You had not slept there in years. Not since before Lady Hightower had died. 

The feast, the bath, the feeling of something coiling in you as Ormund used his fingers upon you like an instrument– it all came crashing down at once. You were unsteady, disoriented. Lost. 

He was sending you away from the only place where you knew how to exist. The only place where you had ever felt wanted.

You scrambled from the bed, your feet landing unevenly against the rug. Before you could think better of it, you reached for his arm.

“My lord, please.” Your voice shook. “I-I cannot sleep there.”

Ormund did not move.

“Please,” you whispered. “I can only sleep here. I have only ever slept here.”

He refused to answer. He remained focused on the handkerchief, wiping the finger that had been inside you moments ago. 

“Please, Ormund. I-I love you.”

He always liked hearing that. You lifted yourself onto your toes and pressed a desperate, open-mouthed kiss to his cheek, waiting for the familiar response. Waiting for his hand to come to your face, for his voice to soften, for him to tell you that everything was all right.

Ormund did not.

Your heart seemed to collapse inside your chest. You could not understand how he could stand there so calmly when you felt as though you were breaking apart.

“I was so ungrateful,” you sobbed. “I was t-treasonous, my lord. I was wicked.” Your hands tightened around him. “I should have rebuked Lord Godric. I should have listened. I was an insolent fool.”

Not knowing what else to do, you sank to your knees before him, head bowed as though you were kneeling before the altar in the sept. The posture came instinctively from years beneath Ormund’s instruction, a familiar act of surrender and supplication.

“Please forgive me,” you whispered. “I will do anything you ask of me. Please.”

You remained there before him, the room silent save for your trembling breaths and quiet sobs. Your forehead stayed bowed, your hands clutching the fabric of his breeches as though letting go would mean losing him entirely. 

Finally, Ormund looked down upon you. “You hear yourself, do you not?” 

You lifted your swollen eyes toward him.

“You beg for forgiveness, but you do not yet understand what it is you are asking forgiveness for.” Ormund crouched until he was level with you, hands on your shoulders. “This is not about Godric or a dance or a foolish mistake. It is about what lies beneath it, the thing I have warned you of for years.”

You shivered beneath his touch, the words chilling you. 

“The dragon within you.”

It felt as though the entire world had narrowed to this room, to this moment, to you kneeling before him. As though every lesson in the sept, every warning, every correction had led you here. 

“I have spent years trying to protect you from the worst parts of yourself,” he continued. “And still, when temptation came, you reached for it. That is why an apology is not enough.”

Your breath caught in your throat.

“You must learn that your impulses do not rule you. Your desires, your pride, they do not rule you. Not even the dragon that plagues your soul.”

“What rules you is none of those.” Ormund leaned closer, his nose brushing yours. “It is me.”

With that, Ormund rose to his feet, though you remained kneeling. His hand went to the leather belt at his waist, the same belt from which his sword scabbard hung. Slowly, he unfastened it and set the scabbard aside on the chest near the bed. He turned to you and gestured for you to stand. 

You obeyed instantly, rising on shaky legs. 

“If you want forgiveness, you will listen to me,” Ormund said, undoing the belt until it came loose in his hand. “You will disrobe. You will set yourself upon the bed. And you will take the strokes of my belt in penance for your sins. Will you do that for your lord?”

You nodded. You would do anything he asked of you. Hands trembling, you reached for the hem of your nightgown and pulled it over your head. You were bare, naked as the day you were born. It felt different from the bath. This time, there was no steam to soften the room. This time, you could clearly see Ormund take all of you in: the line of your calves, the curve of your hips, the plane of your stomach, the weight of your breasts. His eyes moved over your body shamelessly, intense and hungry.

“Onto the bed,” he ordered. “Face away from me.”

You complied, turning from him and crawling onto the mattress. Before you could move too far, Ormund caught your calf in one hand, signaling for you to stop once you were on all fours near the edge of the bed. His touch lingered there for a moment, and then his hand slid upward, palm dragging from your calf to your thigh, then higher still, until it settled over the soft curve of your ass. His fingers squeezed once, firm and possessive, before dropping lower.

You heard the soft whisper of leather as Ormund folded the belt in his hand. You could not see his face from where you knelt, turned away from him, but you could feel his gaze moving over you. The back of your neck, your trembling spine. Your exposed cunt, surely glistening now with arousal though you could not understand why. And then your ass, presented bare and vulnerable to him, where he intended to mark you. 

“You will pray the Seven’s lesson as you were taught,” he said, though his voice had gone strained. 

A familiar molten heat, like what you felt just a few minutes earlier, had begun to unwind in your belly. You nodded, eyes on the bed below you. “Yes, my lord.”

Leather cracked across your skin. The sound came before you could even register the pain, sharp and booming like thunder. You cried out as a bright line of heat bloomed over your ass, fingers clutching uselessly at the sheets. 

“The Father,” Ormund breathed, voice low. “Tell me His vow.”

You remembered learning your lessons. It was Ormund who taught you when you were just a girl. Before you knew what you would become. What he would become. 

“I-I submit to all judgement,” you recited shakily. 

The belt came down again, landing just below the first one.

You jolted forward, a broken sound spilling from your mouth as the second stroke landed just below the first. Heat spread through you in terrible waves and your knees trembled, but Ormund’s free hand caught your hip to hold you up. 

“The Mother.”

“I seek mercy.”

The third stroke fell harder.

You sobbed again, and shame burned through you at the sound, but Ormund only stepped closer. You could feel him now, the heat of his body just behind yours, the roughness creeping into his breathing. 

“The Warrior.”

You pressed your forehead into the sheets, squeezing your eyes shut, willing yourself to submit. “I will have c-courage.”

The fourth stroke cracked across you, closer to your wet sex. The sound that came from you this time was not a sob, but a moan. You heard Ormund utter a low curse under his breath from behind you. 

“The Maiden, now, girl. You should know this one by heart.”

“I will guard my innocence.”

Next, the fifth stroke. You cried out, smothering your sounds in the sheet, but this time Ormund made no attempt to hide the rough, ruined exhale he made in response. 

You realized there, completely naked on his bed, the bed you had shared with him for years, that Ormund was enjoying this. 

“The Smith,” he ordered you. 

“I will be remade.”

The sixth stroke landed and pain sparked through you, body sagging slightly before Ormund caught you with his hand. His wide palm moved from your waist to the punished, red flesh of your ass. 

“Ormund,” you whispered, though you didn’t know what you wanted of him.

His breath shuddered. “The Crone.”

“I will s-seek wisdom.”

You could hear how close he was. Hear it in the uneven pull of air through his teeth, in the way his hands trembled against your skin.

“Now, the last,” he said.

Like a final judgement, the seventh stroke came down. Hard.

Your cry broke open, high and helpless, your body finally collapsing forward into the sheets as the hurt bloomed through you in a final, burning wave. Ormund followed you down at once, his body bowing over yours from behind.

“The Stranger,” he panted into your ear, bare chest pressed against your back. “Tell me His vow.”

“I will leave behind what I was.”

The belt slipped from his hand and hit the floor. You heard the unmistakable frantic tug of laces being loosened, the rustle of breeches as Ormund shoved them down with no patience at all. 

You did not understand what was happening at first. You only knew he was behind you, breathing hard, one hand gripping your hip so hard it bruised while the other was moving between your bodies with a frenzied desperation. 

Then you felt him. The hard length of his cock, pressed against the swollen skin of your ass. You gasped at the silky, heavy, throbbing sensation. Perhaps you had felt it before, but between sheets, between linen, pressed against your back in the dead of night. You did not know, or did not want to know, or even fully understand what it was. But you knew now. 

You heard movement, skin rubbing skin. Ormund’s fist worked himself in quick, uneven strokes, the leaking head of him pressed against the raw flesh. 

Ormund groaned low in his throat, the sound muffled against your shoulder as he bent over you.

“Do you feel that, Princess?” he rasped. His hips jerked forward, the stiff length of him dragging on your ass. The contact made him shudder violently against you. “Do you feel me on you? This is what you do to me. You have bewitched me, heart and flesh alike.”

Your face burned so hot you thought you might cry from the humiliation of it. Bent beneath him in the bed he once shared with his wife. Marked by him. Listening to the rough, wet sound of his hand moving over himself while his body trembled against yours. 

You turned your head instinctively, trying to look back. To see the reality of what was happening to your innocence. Ormund’s palm came down between your shoulders, forcing your face down into the sheets. 

“No,” he ordered, voice ragged. “Do not l-look at me. Stay down.”

You obeyed. A broken sound left him at that, like a laugh. 

“My good girl,” Ormund breathed. “My sweet, good girl.”

His hand moved faster. From behind, you could feel every frantic pull of his fist in the rhythm of his body: the way his hips twitched, the way his thighs pressed against the backs of yours, the way his hot breath puffed against your neck. Ormund dragged the head of himself lower, close enough that you could feel the swollen head of his cock brush your cunt. 

“Do you want it?” he asked. “Do you want your guardian to finally take you? Do you want me to give you my cock and fill you with my seed so everyone will know who you belong to?”

You did. You wanted it so badly. You wanted Ormund to fuck you, to finally take the virginity he treasured so much. 

“Do you want it, my darling girl?” Ormund repeated shakily, dragging his cock up and down your slick folds, the leaking head of it bumping against your swollen clit. “If I pushed in right now, would you open for me? Would you let me take what is rightfully mine?”

Your fingers twisted into the sheets. You did not even know what you were asking for. You only felt the compulsion of the Father move through you. “Yes, my lord! M-make me yours…”

Ormund groaned. But, to your dismay, he did not push himself into you. Instead, he drew himself back, dragging his cock against your skin as his fist resumed its desperate rhythm. 

His mouth found your shoulder, open and trembling. His teeth grazed you once, biting down lightly. 

“You are mine,” he said against your skin. “Whether I fuck you tonight or keep you untouched for the rest of your life, you are mine.” 

Ormund’s hips stuttered hard against you. “Tell me whose you are, Princess.”

“Y-yours…”

“Say it properly for your lord.”

“I am yours, Ormund!”

With a final, low groan, Ormund collapsed over you, body shaking. You felt something hot and wet spurt across the marks of your ass. His hand kept moving through the violent pulses, dragging every last wave out of himself while he panted your name into the back of your shoulder. 

Finally, the spasming of his cock subsided, and his weight softened over you. Ormund remained bowed over your body, trembling as he pressed his forehead between your shoulder blades. His lips moved slowly along your spine. His palm, sticky with release, spread tenderly over your waist, drawing you more firmly beneath him. 

“My precious girl,” he whispered, pressing another damp kiss to your back. “My beautiful, perfect princess. You did so well for me.” 

You could do nothing but lie there beneath him, overwhelmed and exhausted, your body aching everywhere he had touched you. 

Ormund wrapped both arms around you, rolling onto his side and bringing you with him. He gathered your naked body so tightly against his own it felt like he had never intended to let you go. His release remained warm upon your skin, trapped between you as he fitted himself along your back. One arm circled your waist and the other slipped beneath your head, drawing you into the shelter of his bare chest. Ormund kissed the hairs at the nape of your neck, then your shoulder, his mouth lingering over every place it touched.

“Come here,” he murmured. “My pretty little thing.”

Ormund turned you carefully within his arms until you faced him. His hand moved slowly through your hair, smoothing it back from your flushing, tear-streaked face as he pressed kisses across your cheeks. He did not seem to care that you were both disordered and sweaty, that his breeches remained tangled around his thighs, or that his seed still clung to your body.

Your eyes burned. “I-I thought you hated me… That you would send me away forever.”

“No.” Ormund cupped the back of your head, keeping you against him. “No, my love. Never that.”

A sob escaped, and you buried your face against him, clutching at him as though the Hightower itself were crumbling around you.

Ormund drew you fully atop him, arranging your body over his with practiced intimacy. Your cheek rested above his thumping heart. One of your legs slipped between his, your naked bodies fitting together beneath the rumpled sheets as naturally as though you had been made by the Seven for this. 

“You frightened yourself tonight,” he murmured, rocking you gently against him. “You forgot what I taught you. But you remember now, do you not?”

You nodded silently. Ormund tipped your face upward. His gaze moved over your swollen eyes and trembling mouth with such devotion it hurt. 

“I forgive you.”

Finally.

Finally, the words you had spent the entire night longing to hear. The words you had wanted since the moment you realized your Valyrian blood was something impure. 

The weight of it all overwhelmed you, his forgiveness, his naked body beneath yours, the certainty that he was not sending you from his bed. It all crashed over you at once, and your body shook with the force of your tears. Ormund gathered you closer, shushing softly as he kissed your forehead, your temple, your quivering lips.

“I love you,” he murmured. “I love you. Must I say it a thousand times? I love you.”

You pushed yourself further into him and sobbed harder. You believed Ormund. You always did. For he always told the truth.

“I-I am sorry for the wickedness in me, Ormund,” you stuttered, tears wetting his chest. “I should have been better for you.”

“Oh, my sweet girl.” His fingers combed gently through your hair, the same hair he so often praised for lacking the silver-gold of your blood. “You are not the first woman to struggle against the wretchedness within her.”

Ormund shifted beneath the covers, drawing you higher upon his chest until your face rested within the curve of his neck. His lips brushed your brow again and again as though he could not bear to stop kissing you.

“The Seven have blessed you, though,” he continued. “They did not leave you among your diseased kin who would encourage that fire. They did not leave you in the Red Keep. They did not leave you to dragons.”

You lifted your face from his chest. The candles had long since sputtered out, leaving only moonlight to illuminate the handsome angles of his face. The face you loved, the face you worshipped so dearly. Ormund cupped your cheek and brought your mouth to his.

The kiss was slow and delicate, nothing like the frenzy whose presence still marked your bodies: the angry welts left by his belt, his seed drying against your thighs. Ormund kissed you with the solemnity of a husband sealing a vow before the gods. When he pulled away, he did not allow even an inch of space to form between you.

“You were given to me,” he whispered against your mouth. “To raise. To correct when you wandered. And to cherish when you returned.”

A smile spread across Ormund’s face, full of such love and adoration that your soul ached with it. “And you will always return to me.”

Ormund took your hand in his and pressed it flat over the steady beating of his heart. Then he brought your fingers to his lips and kissed each tip one by one. “The Seven knew you needed something greater than blood or the Iron Throne. Greater even than dragons.”

Your eyes grew heavy as the last of your terror loosened beneath his attention. Ormund drew the covers more closely around your entwined bodies and tucked your head beneath his chin. “They knew you needed a home. A father.”

You nestled deeper into his chest, lulled by the heart beating beneath your ear. Sleep had nearly claimed you when his arms tightened around you.

When Ormund spoke again, his voice was so hushed that you thought perhaps you had dreamed it.

“They knew you needed me.”

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In all the years you had lived in Oldtown, never once had Ormund deviated from this morning ritual. You remember the first time you had seen it. You had been a small child then, prone to wandering from your own chambers in the middle of the night into this one, back when it had belonged to the late Lady Hightower as much as it did her husband. She had always been kind to you. Like a true mother, when your own was so far away. 

Whenever sleep would not come, or the young Hightower boys had filled your head with tales of monsters lurking beneath the floor, you would creep from your bed and patter barefoot down the stone passage. You would ease open the heavy, creaking door and stand silently at the foot of the canopied bed until Lady Hightower stirred. She would always lift the blankets for you. From his side of the bed, Ormund would grumble some half-hearted objection about indulgence and the necessity of teaching you independence, but Lady Hightower paid him little mind. She would draw you into the warmth between them and promise that no monster in Oldtown would dare pass through their chamber door.

Even after she died, you did not cease coming.

It hurt, at first. To lie in the bed where she had once held you, the space now empty without her. Ormund never objected to your staying. Though he remained stoic and stony throughout his own grief, perhaps there was comfort for him, too, in not being left to sleep alone. When you wept silently into her old pillow, he would smooth your hair back from your face and say nothing. 

The habit endured long after your tears had dried and the black mourning clothes had been packed away. Some nights, you would attempt an honest effort at remaining in your own chambers, only to find yourself once again padding down the candlelit passage towards his. 

Ormund never turned you away. Now it was his hand that lifted the blankets for you to crawl beneath. Now it was his arm that pulled you in, wrapped around your waist in the night, his face that pressed into your hair, his body whose warmth you sought beneath the covers. 

The servants of the Hightower knew that your own chambers were little more than a formality, so seldom occupied that dust gathered upon the bed. You slept in your cousin Ormund’s chambers, you bathed there, you dressed there. Nearly every trace of your daily life had migrated into his rooms, until there was little left in your own to suggest they had ever belonged to you. 

It was only natural. After Lady Hightower’s death, the keeping of the household had fallen into your hands. It was you who approved the servants’ schedules, arranged the seating at feasts, and received the wives and daughters of visiting noble houses. Some might have found it strange that Ormund’s ward should occupy so much of his late wife’s place while remaining neither wed nor formally mistress of his household. Stranger still, perhaps, that if anyone entered Lord Ormund’s chambers before the sunrise, they would find him curled around his ward– Queen Alicent’s youngest daughter– his body arranged in the shape a husband’s would make.

If they did find it strange, no one within Oldtown had the courage to remark upon it. 

“You’re awake.”

You propped yourself up on your elbows to watch as Ormund closed the prayer book and rose from the altar. 

“Yes,” you answered as he crossed the chamber to the washstand. He dipped his hands into the porcelain basin and brought the water to his face. “I heard you praying.”

Ormund hummed as he dried himself with the folded linen cloth laid fresh each morning beside the ewer. “It would serve you well to join me in morning prayer.”

You ducked your head. “Yes, my lord.”

“I think only of your soul. One burdened by the sins of your…Targaryen…forefathers should labor all the more harder to absolve herself of them.”

“Yes, my lord.”

You waited for him to chide you further, or launch into one of his soliloquies on how faithfulness did not sleep merely because the sun had yet to rise. Ormund did none of that. 

Instead, he made his way to the bed and lowered himself onto the edge beside you, his weight dipping the mattress. Ormund lifted one hand to cup your cheek and ran his thumb gently beneath your eye. You nuzzled into his touch without a thought. 

“We will have visitors from the Reach in the Hightower later today. In particular, Lord Godric Ashford will call upon me this morning in my solar,” he said, as casually as if he were discussing the day’s weather. 

Your brows rose. You knew that several noble houses from across the Reach were expected at the Hightower in the coming days for discussions of taxes, grain, and the season’s feasts. Hosting them was hardly unusual. Nor was it unusual for one of their unmarried sons to request a private audience with your guardian. “Lord Robert’s son?”

“Yes, unfortunately,” Ormund mused, seemingly more occupied with gently stroking his thumb back and forth over your cheekbone. “I assume he intends to ask for your hand in marriage.”

Your stomach twisted in a mixture of dread and excitement. Lowering your eyes, you worried at a stray thread in the coverlet. “Do you…do you think he might be suitable?”

The thumb on your cheek stopped. Ormund’s face tightened slightly, as though some rancid smell had entered the room. “That, my dear, remains to be seen.”

He stood from the bed, and you instantly missed the warmth of his touch. You watched him cross to the wardrobe and pull open the carved doors, retrieving his clothes for the day. 

“But you will still hear him, yes?” 

“That is what I have agreed to,” Ormund answered with obvious reluctance, stepping into his breeches. “And I suppose I must keep my word. I will hear his presentation, just as I have heard the others before him.”

He slipped his arms into the doublet, turning to you as he began buttoning it. “You will not concern yourself with the meeting. You were entrusted to me for good reason. Namely, my rectitude and discernment in such matters. You would not want to be betrothed to some ignorant oaf, would you?”

“No, my lord.”

“And you know that I have only your best interests at heart, including the question of what sort of man you should be given to. Correct?”

“Yes, my lord.”

Ormund smiled affectionately. “Good girl.”

Your heart squeezed at the praise. It had always been that way with Ormund, desperately seeking any type of reassurance that you were saved. That you were obedient. That you were wanted. That you were good. 

The sound of light footsteps and swishing skirts echoed under the chamber’s door. Your servants, no doubt, waiting to be beckoned in by the Lord Hightower to serve upon his ward. 

Ormund made his way back over to you, but this time stayed standing, looking down upon you. “You will attend the sept this morning. When Lord Ashford has finished his proposition, you will come to me in the solar. This evening, we will receive our guests for supper in the Great Hall.”

You bowed your head obediently, just as he taught you. “Yes, my lord.”

Ormund turned to the door as if he meant to call the servants in, and then paused. He slowly turned back to you, his blue eyes swimming with a feeling you had become quite familiar with. Determination, and something weightier under it. Something you had never been able to name, but knew intimately. 

“It is the seventh day,” he stated, his voice low. You knew that. You knew by now not to recognize the day by name, but by its count. “You will come straight to this chamber after supper. Bathe first.” 

Silently, you nodded. His face twisted in disapproval. “Your words, please.”

“Y-yes, my lord.”

He exhaled, a small measure of satisfaction returning to his face. “Good. Very good.” 

Ormund laid one hand over yours where it rested atop the coverlet, looking suddenly very serious. “And do tell your women never use to that horrid citrus oil on you again like they did last week. It taints you.”

“I will.” 

He squeezed your hand in appreciation, then straightened himself and turned towards the door. “You may enter.”

The door opened at once, like your women had been waiting. They filed into the chamber with lowered eyes, none appearing surprised to find you sitting in Lord Ormund’s bed. He did not bother to look at them, his gaze fixed on you as he spoke. 

“See that she is properly dressed to receive visitors.”

The girls spoke in unison, eyes still fixed on the ground. “Yes, Lord Hightower.”

Ormund nodded at you once. An unspoken acknowledgement passed between the two of you. The seventh day. What the night would hold. Then he departed, leaving the chamber door open behind him. 

Your women moved quickly and efficiently, drawing back the blankets and settling a robe over your shoulders as they began the familiar work of preparing you for the day. There was no time to dally. Before long, your hair had been pinned, your gown laced tightly in Hightower green, and your throat and wrists adorned with jewels Ormund had gifted you on namedays and holy days.

One of the girls uncorked the vial of citrus oil and reached for your neck. You grabbed her hand, stopping her. 

“Lord Ormund,” was all you had to say. 

She bowed her head in immediate understanding and exchanged it for another perfumed oil he had shipped from Lys for you. 

Soon, you looked as a proper Hightower woman ought to look. And by the next tolling of the bells, you had entered the sept of the Citadel.

The seven-walled chamber appeared much as it had when you first arrived in Oldtown– or, at least, as it had in your earliest memories once you had gone from a crawling babe to a waddling child. Damp clung to the stone floors. At the center stood an altar crowded with pools of hardened wax and burning candles, while bejeweled likenesses of the Seven watched from alcoves set into each wall. Your attendants lingered behind you like silent shadows as you moved through the sept, a veil drawn over your hair.

You walked as Ormund had always instructed you to walk: head bowed, hands clasped, each step quiet. The very picture of piety in a woman.

Stopping at the Maiden, you thought once more of the late Lady Hightower. You often served as her little companion to the sept on mornings like this, following closely behind as she knelt and prayed before each altar. You could feel the memory clearly: the whisper of her skirts against the stone, the warmth of her hand around your smaller one, the patient way she corrected your prayers when your childish tongue stumbled over the words. 

The truth was that you had no memories before ones such as these, ones of Oldtown. 

You were just a babe when your father, King Viserys, sent you south to be fostered among your Hightower kin. Ormund had always said that, for all the sins of your parents, they had at least possessed the wisdom to recognize Oldtown was where you belonged. 

The explanation for your immediate exile from King’s Landing had always been a convoluted one.

On some days, you had been sent away because court was dangerous. On others, because King’s Landing was steeped in pride and your father wished for you to be raised in the piety of your mother’s kin. Lady Hightower had longed for a daughter. Your health was fragile as a babe, Oldtown’s air was better for a delicate infant. Alicent had a difficult birth and needed time to rest. The reasons always shifted depending upon who offered them.

The clearest explanation, though it was the one that had always gone unspoken, was that you had simply not been wanted.

At first glance, there was nothing about you that suggested descent from Old Valyria. You possessed neither silver hair nor amethyst eyes. Beautiful, certainly, but not plainly Targaryen. You bore none of the unmistakable marks of your father’s house.

More importantly, you had no dragon.

Ormund refused to speak of that last matter. You did not know whether an egg had been placed in your cradle according to custom, whether it had failed to hatch, whether the hatchling had died, or whether no egg had ever been given to you at all. Whatever the circumstances, it seemed the Seven had determined that you were not to be a Targaryen, but a Hightower.

“A blessing,” Ormund often called it, standing behind you, watching intently as you brushed your hair in the evenings. “That your appearance was not marred by the stain of inbreeding. You should be grateful the gods favored you enough to preserve your beauty from such impurity.”

What he really meant was, “You should be grateful the gods gave you to me”. 

And you were. Your childhood in Oldtown had been a happy one. Ormund and Lady Hightower’s sons took to you as a true sister, including you in their games no matter how often you ran weeping to their mother after they shoved you into the mud. You received the finest education the Citadel’s maesters could provide and were thoroughly instructed in histories, languages, scripture, and the workings of court. Ormund instilled in you the virtues expected of a holy and pious woman. Lady Hightower taught you kindness. You wanted for nothing. You were cared for completely.

Being cared for, however, was not the same as being wanted.

One by one, the boys grew into men. They departed to serve in other courts, took wives, and established households of their own. You remained behind. After Lady Hightower’s death, the question of where you belonged began to trouble you even more. 

You searched everywhere for some reflection of yourself. In histories and poems. In portraits, tapestries, and family trees. You studied every face and name, hoping one might reveal why you had been born in the first place. 

Though Ormund preferred that you remain ignorant to the fact, you knew you were a Targaryen.

He contradicted himself often in that regard. He insisted that you were a Hightower whenever you longed for King’s Landing, yet invoked the sins of your Valyrian predecessors whenever you displeased him. As a child, the inconsistency had deeply confused you. Now, though, you knew better to question it. 

The histories did not speak of Targaryens as aliens deserving only shame. On the contrary, they praised them. Aegon the Conqueror had crossed the Narrow Sea and conquered Westeros, his lineage sitting upon the Iron Throne from then until the end of time. They had bound themselves to mighty beasts that would bow to no other riders. Why should you not wish to be one of them? Why should you be ashamed?

Perhaps that was why, during one of your rare visits to King’s Landing, you became determined to find some way of securing your place within your own bloodline. Ormund had permitted you, after much begging on your part and great reluctance on his, to attend the wedding of your brother Aegon to your sister Helaena. You had still been young enough to think yourself a girl, though womanhood waited only just around the corner, and through that haze of youth the wedding had seemed beautiful.

Now, of course, memory revealed what you had been too young to recognize then: the discomfort across Helaena’s face, the uninterested ambivalence with which Aegon accepted the ceremony, the celebration disguising a union neither seemed to really desire. But that morning, surrounded by jewels and music and flowers, by feasts and speeches proclaiming the strength of their union, you had understood only one thing.

If your appearance could not prove you a Targaryen, perhaps marriage could.

When you returned to Oldtown, full of courtly notions and girlish fancy, you announced to Ormund that you would marry your brother Aemond– who had scarcely looked your way throughout the entire visit. Ormund had been seated behind the desk in his solar, writing upon a sheet of parchment. At your declaration, the quill froze between his fingers.

With deliberate care, he set the quill aside and lifted his eyes to you with a dreadful stillness. “You will do no such thing.”

Your smile slowly faded. “But…Aegon married Helaena. That is what Targaryens do.”

Ormund rose suddenly from behind the desk, his chair scraping harshly across the stone floor. You remembered how the sound had frightened you.

“The Targaryens– your father’s family– are incestuous barbarians,” he had declared. “Their minds are so corrupted by generations of inbreeding that they no longer possess the sense to recognize depravity. Your mother whored herself to a Targaryen. I will not give you to your own brother. I will not allow you to repeat her sins and bring further shame upon the Hightower name.”

By then, he had crossed the solar and taken your chin firmly in his hand, his fingers dimpling the skin of your cheeks. You had begun to cry, though you could not tell whether it was from fear, shame, or the sudden loneliness of knowing you might never truly belong anywhere.

“But then I could live with Father and Mother,” you whispered, tears slipping down your cheeks. “I could go home.”

Ormund bent until his face was close to yours, his breath hot against your skin. His grip tightened beneath your chin. “This is your home.”

The memory faded as you reached for a candle from the basket beneath the Maiden’s altar. You held its wick to one of the burning flames and watched a bead of wax gather at the tip before slipping towards your fingers.

Aemond had been the first man Ormund refused you. He had not been the last.

Among Ormund’s duties as your guardian was the arrangement of your eventual betrothal. Ormund approached that responsibility as he approached all others: with severe discretion, particular judgment, and standards so high that no man alive seemed capable of meeting them.

There had never been a shortage of suitors. You were young, unmarried, and beautiful– and whatever Ormund might say of your father’s house, the hand of a Targaryen princess remained a prize few sensible men would dismiss. 

As you grew older, the procession became a lengthy one.

The first man to formally inquire after you had been Ser Joldwin Mormont. You remembered him quite clearly. He had been nearer Ormund’s age than your own, tall and broad as most Northmen seemed to be, with a rough face that was not altogether unpleasant. He was steady in temperament and remained remarkably calm beneath Ormund’s inquisitions. He had even brought you a gift: a beautiful velvet cloak trimmed in bear fur. You had thought he resembled the carved likenesses of the Warrior found in the sept. He would make a good husband, you had decided.

Ormund had not agreed.

He had no shortage of qualms. Men of the North were ignorant, uncivilized, and hardly better than an illiterate barbarian dragging around a club in Ormund’s opinion. Bear Island was remote, bitterly cold, and impoverished. Worst of all, the Mormonts possessed a peculiar habit of treating their women as though they were equals. 

It was not a place, he decided, where you belonged.

Ormund had declared Joldwin entirely unsuitable, and forced you to toss the beautiful cloak into the fireplace of the Great Hall. He said it smelt of bear shit.  

After that, the list of suitors started to blend together. 

There was a Martell, handsome enough to make you blush with warm brown eyes, who winked at you across the hall. Ormund reacted as though the man had attempted to bed you in the middle of the Hightower. The Dornish were lecherous and tried to “fuck anything that walked”, he told you. 

There was a young Rowan who stuttered frequently and spoke so softly that you had to lean closer to hear him. Ormund dismissed him as weak and unfit for a wife. 

A ruddy-cheeked and quite cheerful Redwyne heir sent you summerwine and a song composed in praise of your beauty. Ormund called him frivolous.

One man lived too far from Oldtown. Another lived so near that Ormund questioned whether he sought your hand only to gain influence within the city. One possessed too many ambitions. Another had none. One was too young to govern you properly, while another was so old that Ormund expressed outrage at the very notion of subjecting you to him.

There was always some defect. Too proud. Too timid. Too wealthy. Too poor. Too worldly. Too sheltered. Too handsome. Too plain. 

Ormund’s standards contradicted one another so thoroughly that, had all his preferences been gathered together, the perfect husband would have needed to be commanding without controlling you, gentle without indulging you, wealthy without greed, devout without presumption, and situated near enough that you might never truly leave the Hightower.

Such a man had yet to present himself.

Perhaps, you thought as you placed your candle down before the Maiden’s altar and bowed your head, Lord Godric Ashford would be different. Perhaps today would finally be the day Ormund found a suitable match for you. Perhaps today was the day you would understand what fate had intended for your life. Perhaps you would finally be chosen.

You set your candle upon the Maiden’s altar and prayed for love, for a fruitful marriage, and for a husband who chose you with a pure heart. You tried to imagine such a life with Godric, though you did not yet know his face. 

You hoped he was strong, like Ormund. Tall, like Ormund. Handsome, like Ormund. 

You hoped that he might be enough like Ormund to earn his approval. You hoped, without really understanding why, that he was like Ormund. 

By the time you returned to the Hightower, Lord Ashford had already been shown into Ormund’s solar and begun his proposition. 

Ormund had never permitted you to be present for such conversations, of course. Serious matters, he insisted, were to be muddled by girlish sentiment. Over the years, you had therefore found other ways to learn what decisions were being made about your future without you. Some time ago, you had discovered a narrow passage running behind the rear wall of Ormund’s solar– an old servants’ entrance, long forgotten, its doorway boarded over and concealed behind a heavy tapestry.

And so, upon returning to the Hightower, you dismissed your ladies with the excuse that you wished to pray alone in your chambers (surely the gods would forgive the lie, given the good reason for it). Once they had gone, you slipped behind the tapestry and crept down the cobwebbed corridor until you reached the boarded door. Pressing your ear to the weathered planks, you heard the low murmur of men’s voices.

“...and I would never seek to separate her from Oldtown, Lord Hightower,” an unfamiliar voice spoke. You leaned closer. It was firm but polite, young but not imprudent. Lord Godric Ashford. He sounded kind. “I understand the princess is quite close with you, and I would ensure she could visit the Hightower as often as she wished. Family is of the utmost importance to me.”

You heard Ormund’s chair squeak. You could imagine he had leaned back in it, hands clasped in front of him, assessing Lord Ashford as he did all things brought before his judgement. “That seems to me an indulgence. She would be your wife, would she not? You would not want her with you in Ashford?”

“Of course, my lord. But I would not be so cruel as to forbid her from visiting the man that raised her. My own mother was a Caswell, and she visited my grandsire at Bitterbridge at every turning of the season.”

“And if she wished to visit more often than you considered appropriate?”

There was a brief pause. “I would speak with her, as husband and wife should.”

“Hmm. And if speaking did not bring her around to your judgement?”

There was another lull, longer this time, before Lord Godric gave an uneasy chuckle. “Well, I would hope my wife did not need to be disciplined as a child would.”

“Hopes are not the same as reality,” Ormund replied easily. “Particularly where Targaryen blood is concerned. They are a willful and proud people. Very resistant to correction.” 

“I-I have heard no such things of the princess, my lord.”

“No? Then what have you heard of her?”

“Every account has described her as the very image of what a noblewoman ought to be: beautiful, gracious, and demure. I’ve been told she is quite pious, as well.”

A thoughtful silence settled over the solar. You wished desperately you could see Ormund’s face. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet. 

“She is.”

Your heart swelled and instinctively, you pressed yourself closer to the boards. You were a good girl. 

“But do not mistake her nurture for nature, Lord Godric. She did not arrive in Oldtown so.”

“My lord, I did not mean to suggest–”

“Every virtue you have heard praised in her was cultivated beneath my hand. Her modesty, her devotion. The weeds of Targaryen pride had to be pulled, one by one. A garden does not become handsome just because a flower has good intentions. It becomes handsome because a gardener has the discipline to attend to it every single day and cut away what ought not grow.”

Lord Godric hesitated in his answer. “And…you believe a husband must continue that work? Pull the weeds from her?”

“I believe,” Ormund answered slowly, “that any man who means to take her from me must be capable of preserving what I have made.”

What he had made. 

You drew a shaky breath, your fingernails pressing into the weathered boards.

Perhaps it was true. Ormund had spent years teaching you the faults of your father’s house. They were blasphemous, unnatural. Incestuous and violent. An abomination before the Seven. His lessons were so ingrained within you that even the faintest reminder of your Valyrian blood could fill you with shame.

You had not chosen that blood. You had not asked to be born into it. You had only ever wanted to be good. And if Targaryens were innately wicked, perhaps you truly did owe everything virtuous within you to Ormund.

As a child, you had often wondered what sort of creature you might have become without his guidance. If he were true, which he often was, you would be a terrible creature malformed by sin. The thought frightened you still. But another more terrible one followed suit: without his guidance, you would not have had him.

No arms around your waist in the night. No hand smoothing your hair. No voice telling you what was right, what was wrong, what was safe. A life without Ormund. You tried to imagine it and found only emptiness. Would such a life truly be worth living?

And yet…you wanted to be chosen.

Your own mother and father had decided they had no need of you in King’s Landing, though they kept their other children close. You had been sent to Oldtown, where you doubted Ormund and Lady Hightower had been given much choice in whether they would receive you. No one had ever truly chosen you.

That was what made the suitors difficult to dismiss. They came before Ormund willingly, they asked for your hand because they wanted you. You liked that more than you wished to admit. 

And though the thought of leaving Ormund filled your stomach with dread, it had become increasingly difficult not to resent him for refusing every man who tried to choose you.

“I believe I have heard all I need,” Ormund said suddenly, his voice decisive. Your heart faltered. You knew what that meant. 

“...My lord?” You could hear Godric shift closer to the desk. “I hope I have not caused offense of any sort. I only meant that, should the princess become my wife, I would do all within my power to–”

“I said I have heard enough.” Something heavy was placed on the desk with a thud. A wine cup, presumably.

You wanted desperately for Godric to protest. You wanted him to declare his love to you, though he had never once seen your face. You wanted him to insist that perhaps the choice of whom you married ought to belong, at least in part, to you. You wanted him to accuse Ormund of cruelty for denying you the right to a husband.

The last thought filled you with immediate shame. You whispered a hurried prayer under your breath to the Father, begging forgiveness for having judged the man who had only ever sought to protect you.

Godric did none of that. Instead, he simply uttered with cool restraint, “As you will, Lord Hightower.”

A chair scraped across the floor and heavy footsteps crossed the solar, followed by the opening and closing of its main door. You withdrew from the boarded door slowly, blinking as tears began to brim at your eyes.

Usually, disappointment was all you felt when another suitor was refused. A dull ache in your heart followed by the acceptance that Ormund must have seen some defect you had overlooked. He knew the nature of men and the dangers of the world in ways you did not.

This time felt…different.

Godric had spoken respectfully. He had promised not to sever you from Oldtown. He had regarded your devotion and gentleness, and when Ormund questioned whether he could govern you, Godric had not boasted of cruelty or correction. His only failure had been suggesting that you ought to be treated as a wife rather than a child.

By the time you emerged from behind the tapestry, Lord Ashford was gone. The corridor stood empty, save for the guard outside the solar, offering no glimpse of the man who had come to ask for your hand and been dismissed before you could even see his face.

Ormund had instructed you to come to him once the proposition concluded. Usually, you obeyed quickly. Now, though, you lingered outside the solar door with your hand raised to knock, struggling to understand the feelings swimming in your mind. Confusion, disappointment. And something dangerously close to anger.

You knocked anyways.

“You may enter,” Ormund called. 

You opened the door and stepped inside, carefully pulling it shut behind you. Ormund had moved from the desk to the window and stood peering down at the city below. The shutters had been opened. He turned at the sound of the door closing, looked you over once, and– apparently finding no objections with your appearance– gestured towards the carved chairs near his desk. 

“Sit.”

You did. 

Ormund remained beside the window and drew a long breath through his nose. His face tightened with mild disgust. “Lord Ashford seems, from his smell, to possess a great fondness for horses.”

You sniffed discreetly. There was nothing in the air besides parchment and the dried florals Ormund preferred to keep throughout his rooms. “Perhaps he rode in this morning.”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the men of Ashford prefer to sleep in stables.” Ormund reached into the pocket of his breeches and withdrew the ornate pomander he carried. He held it beneath his nose and inhaled deeply. Only once he appeared satisfied that every trace of Lord Ashford had been driven from his nostrils did he return it to his pocket. Then he turned to you, settling against the window ledge with his hands clasped before him. “You attended the sept this morning?”

You stared down at your hands, folded in your lap. “Yes, my lord.”

“And for whom did you light a candle for today?”

You chewed on your lower lip. “The Maiden.”

Ormund nodded in consideration, crossing his arms over his chest. “And why did you choose the Maiden today?”

“I…I wanted to pray for your meeting with Lord Ashford to go well.”

“You prayed for Lord Ashford?”

Your palms had begun to feel sweaty. “Y-yes, my lord.”

“You prayed to marry him?"

“...yes, my lord.”

The muscle under Ormund’s eye twitched. He pushed himself away from the window and approached you slowly. Rounding the corner of the desk, he stopped beside your chair. Then, tugging at the fabric of his breeches over his thighs, he lowered himself until he was kneeling at eye level with you. You kept your gaze fixed on your lap. 

“You wish to leave Oldtown so badly,” he said softly, so quietly it was barely a whisper, “that you would pray to marry a man who you have never met?”

“M-my lord, I did not–”

“Look at me.”

Trembling, you raised your gaze to meet his. Ormund’s face had gone still, though the blue of his eyes had turned icy. Your stomach lurched. 

“I have risked much to raise you,” Ormund began, leaning in closer to you. “I have shielded you from those at court who question why King Viserys cast his youngest daughter out of King’s Landing. I have protected you from men who would use your blood and name for their own advancement. I have purged you of the evils of Valyria and shaped you into a proper woman. And now, now you hate me enough that would you leave my bed for a stranger?”

Heat burned at your cheeks, hearing Ormund speak like that. Like your shared bed was something…you could not finish the thought. “No, Ormund, please, I don’t–”

“You hate me enough that you would question my judgement?” he pressed, voice lowering to a gravelly hum. “You believe you know better than I? That I am ignorant?”

Hot tears had begun to spill over, wetting your lashes and blurring your vision. “I don’t, my lord, I don’t know b-better than you, I only wanted–”

“Tell me, then.” Ormund seized your face in one hand, his rings digging into your cheeks as he forced your chin upward. “Tell me that you do not wish to leave me.”

“I-I do not wish to leave you, my lord,” you choked, sobbing fully now. 

“Tell me that no man could care for you as I have.”

“No man could c-care for me as you have!”

His hand tightened enough around your chin that your cheeks squished together. His face, though, had shifted, a diseased softness bleeding into it. “Now, you must tell me what you have forgotten to say.”

Shame and something hotter burned low in your gut. He always made you say the words like this. When you had no option but to force the truth out of you. 

“I…” your breath shuddered. “I love you.”

Ormund’s grip refused to loosen. “Again, please.”

The words caught in your throat, scraping like sand. “I love you, Ormund.”

Finally, his face eased, and so did his hold. 

“There,” he murmured, sickeningly tender as he wiped his thumb across your cheek, catching one of your stray tears. “Was that so difficult to say?”

You shook your head quickly. You did not trust your voice. 

Seemingly satisfied, Ormund rose from where he was crouched, dusting off his breeches. The matter was finished. He returned to his desk, lowering himself in his chair, no trace of the man who had just seconds ago demanded the sick truth of your devotion. You remained frozen, unable to move, cheeks wet and burning. You suddenly were conscious of how horrible you must look, swollen eyes and shaking hands. 

Ormund glanced up from his papers. “You will go and ready yourself for the evening’s feast now.”

Numb, you stared at him. He raised one brow in question. Ormund did not like to repeat himself. 

“Y-yes, my lord,” you stuttered. 

“Wear the blue silk. The one with the square neckline,” he dipped his quill into the ink, already moved on from the excitement and back to his usual self. He glanced up once more, eyes moving across your face. “And…have the women repair your face. It would be quite unbecoming to our guests to see you have upset yourself.”

You were thoroughly humiliated. “Yes, my lord.”

Legs shaking slightly, you rose and smoothed your skirts. 

“And, one more thing,” Ormund spoke, though he continued reading the parchment he held. “You will not speak with Lord Ashford this evening.”

You paused. Was this a trap? “Would it…would it not appear discourteous if I refused to–”

“The matter has already been decided, my girl. You have no need to encourage him further.”

“I…I understand.” You bowed, trying not to trip over your still unsteady feet, and then turned towards the door. You had just put your hand on the latch when Ormund spoke again.

“Have you forgotten something?”

You paused, and then looked back in the solar. Ormund had finally lifted his eyes from the parchment and was leaning back in his seat. He tapped one finger against his cheek. 

Your cheeks grew hotter, though you had done this hundreds of times before. Thousands, perhaps. You crossed the solar to where Ormund sat, his expression completely neutral. Heart beating in your throat, you bent carefully and pressed your lips briefly to his cheek. He caught your wrist before you could retreat.

“Once more, properly this time,” he commanded.

You swallowed and kissed him again, lingering this time until you felt the faint scrape of where he had shaved that morning and breathed in the familiar fragrance of his pomander.

Ormund released his grip on you, mouth curled in a smile. “Good girl. You may go now.”

You bowed, lower this time, and left the solar with the warm and humiliating feeling you had become accustomed to now living in the very place Ormund had hollowed out inside you over years and years. 

As you walked down the halls of Hightower, face lowered so any passerbys would not catch a glimpse of your reddened cheeks and puffy eyes, you wondered why you felt the way you did. 

Lord Ashford would be at the feast that evening, and though Ormund had forbidden you from speaking to him, you knew that you would search for him among the gathered faces. For what, you could not say. To prove something, perhaps. But what, exactly?

That Ormund was right? Or that he was wrong? 

And afterward…no matter the excitement from the day, you had not forgotten Ormund’s reminder that morning. 

“It is the seventh day.”

You dreaded the fact, but not for the ritual that awaited you, but rather the shameful fact it made you excited. 

It seemed this was to be a day of contradictions.

You wanted Lord Ashford to see you, and you hoped he never appeared so that you might obey Ormund without temptation. You wanted Ormund to loosen his hold upon you, and you wanted him to swear that he would never allow you to belong to anyone else.

How could both desires live in the same body? The same heart? You did not know.

You knew only that, by the end of the night, Ormund would decide which desire you were permitted to keep.

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He loved your cousin and treated Daeron as if he were born of his own blood. But though you were often found in the same trouble, Ormund's display of discipline was always a bit different when directed at you.

Not only a raised voice but a physical punishment, too.

A rough hand on the back of your neck. A lashing across your knuckles. Fingers curled tight around your jaw.

You'd let yourself believe that things would change when you became a woman grown. It is one thing to discipline a girl with the intent of guidance, but it is another thing to strike a lady.

The solution was to discipline in private.

Once, you'd gotten caught stealing wine from the kitchens in the dead of night. And when Ormund had been told of your transgression, he'd come to your bedchamber alone. Sat on the side of your mattress, fingers gentle as they stroked your cheek.

He shook you awake, and pretended at patience while you rubbed away the drunken stupor from your eyes.

And then he'd explain, "I am hard on you because I care. Because I see the potential beneath all your corruption. I understand it is not your fault you have such atrocity in your blood. I am only teaching you to overcome it. And you have much yet to learn, sweetling."

This is the first time Ormund takes you over his knee.

His palm lands sharp and hard across your bottom, five good times for each and every cup you'd stolen. He makes you count, and does not comment on the tears as they brim at the corners of your eyes.

The first time is the worst, because you hadn't expect it.

But by the tenth time it stops being a surprise and starts to become an expectation.

The routine is always the same. The sun will set, and he will slink into your chambers. Sometimes he doesn't even speak. He will simply stare down at you where you lay, head tilted, eyes dark, and you'll whisper apologies in the flickering candlelight.

He is meaner, you come to notice, when he is encumbered by duty. His strikes are harder and there are more of them. Sometimes he will spend hours in a day listening to petitions or dispersing soldiers or politicking with lords who come to him with future propositions.

On these nights, Ormund will groan low in his throat when you twist in his grasp, your legs flailing as you run from the impact of his tingling palm. But he will always wait for you to compose yourself, and then he'll lift his own leg over yours to bracket you in place, all before striking you again.

It is only after several months of this routine of discipline that you begin to wonder if it is less for your sake and more for his.

On one particular night, you're on strike eight out of ten, the number gritted through your teeth as you speak it aloud. Your breath comes fast and labored in your chest, lungs burning as you greedily drink up oxygen. Your muscles tire of pulling tight in anticipation only to melt in relief as the pain disperses across your skin.

It is later than usual, and you'd spent the day on horseback, and you're so exhausted that you fold your hands over one another and lay your head atop them. Face turned, you steal a glance up at Ormund to find his lips parted and his shoulders relaxed.

Posture far different than it had been when he'd closed your chamber door behind him.

You force your eyes to stay open as he hits you again, observing the look on his face.

Troublesome and argumentative woman you are, you're smart enough to recognize solace when you see it.

"Nine," you say, though it is more of a whisper than a fully spoken word.

Ormund notices.

His eyes find yours, gaze heavy and intense, as if he were seeing something inside of you that he could not put a name to if he tried.

This time, when his palm comes down against your cheek, it is hard enough that the sound echoes against the stone walls.

Your eyes squeeze shut and your ears ring and you can hear and feel and sense nothing but the heat of him beneath you and the pain he elicits. Breathing does not come easily. Each inhale is short and labored and choking.

"Count," Ormund says, the word low and demanding, the way he so often is.

You cannot catch your breath.

"Count, girl," he repeats. "Or we will begin again."

A spark of fear ignites in your chest, because you could not endure another ten lashes. Not like this, not knowing this is not even about the cruel words you'd spoken to your septa but rather for his own selfish respite.

"Ten!" The word is rushed. "Ten, ten, ten—!"

His hand smooths over your spine, as if to heal the ache he himself inflicted. "Very good," he whispers, shushing your cries. "You did so well."

The following morning, your flesh stings and bruises have already begun to form, but all you can think of is the way his praise had made your heart sing inside the cage of your ribs. The words echo in your mind, a mantra, a song, a poem.

The feeling is only because it is so rare to hear such things from his mouth, you tell yourself. It is not for desire. You could not desire a man like Ormund, could you? Who'd shaped you into the woman you are. Who saw such corruption in you and had spent the better half of your life trying to root it out.

But no matter how hard you try, you cannot shake the look you'd seen on his face. Like he'd enjoyed it.

And because you are stubborn and far too curious, you conduct an experiment to disprove your theory.

For weeks, you try very hard to be good. You go to your lessons without complaint, you listen to your septas, you pray to the seven and deny yourself excess in all forms.

You speak kindly. You cling tight to poise. You cast your eyes away when a man speaks to you and bow graciously instead of arguing or challenging a direction, no matter how stupid it may be.

You are perfect.

It is the longest you have gone without punishment in all your life.

But the stretch of time only lasts so long. And you wake late one night to find Ormund standing at your bedside, hovering.

Staring, with that same look he's leveled at you for years—not disgust, but something more complex. Something hotter. Searing.

You lift yourself up on an elbow and ask timidly, "Did I do something wrong?"

His jaw feathers as he clenches his teeth. "No."

Somehow, his answer is worse than if he had found a reason to punish you. Because this meant you were right, that his discipline was not only for you. It meant there was something else beneath it all.

It meant that this perverse craving in your chest that you have tried to fight off was not only yours. It was shared.

"If I've not done anything wrong, then what are you—?"

"Get up." He lifts his hand, motioning for you to remove yourself from the comfort of you linens, finally breaking the intensity of his stare.

And because you have been trained to heed his every beck and call, you do exactly as he says.

He sits at the edge of your bed, the way he always does. And you stand in front of him awaiting instruction, the way you always do.

Your heart feels suddenly too large, pushing against your bones.

He is supposed to say, kneel. He is supposed to say, over my knee. He is supposed to say, do you know what you've done?

Ormund does not.

Instead, he says, "Take off your gown."

You blink in surprise, unsure if perhaps this is a test. Maybe he's temping you, goading for a reason. Trying to get you to reveal yourself, to sacrifice your modesty so that he might prove you are just as wicked as he believes you to be.

"What?"

"Your gown," he says again, voice firmer now. "Take it off. Do not make me repeat myself."

You can hear the blood rushing in your ears and feel suddenly frozen. Afraid to move, afraid to say one thing when he truly means for you to do another, and—

Ormund stands suddenly and his hands are on you. Big and rough and mean, tearing the lace fabric over your chest so hard it leaves indents against your shoulder blades. Your nightclothes are thin and give so easily beneath his violence.

You do not stop him. You don't even try.

You don't want to.

Before you can fully process what's happening, you're standing completely bare before him, white fabric pooled at your feet. Your nipples harden beneath the night's cool air and your heart hammers in your ribcage.

He is not shameful in his assessment of you. His eyes are greedy and roaming, leaving no part of you untouched, starting at the curve of your throat and the the swell of your breasts, and eventually lower down to your navel and the space between your legs.

Ormund stares, and his lips part on a hollow sigh. His hand comes up to cup his jaw, squeezing hard, trying to rub the tension away.

You want so badly to hear the thoughts in his mind but know better than to ask.

Does he think you're beautiful? Does he like the shape of your body? Does he enjoy the softness of your skin, or the scent of honeysuckle oils at your pulse point? Are you womanly enough for him?

Does he want you? Does he think of you, the way you have him? Do you appear in his dreams, too?

He clears his throat, the sound masculine and powerful, startling you out of your reverie. And then he sits back down on the edge of your bed and says, "Kneel."

You do.

"Over my knee."

This instruction, too, you follow.

Warmth blooms low in your belly at the texture of his leather breeches against the top of your bare thighs.

He doesn't ask if you're aware of your transgressions, because there are none.

Ormund sets one hand on the small of your back, and the other comes to rest against the globe of your arse. His hands are calloused. Rough. Hardened from the weight of a sword.

And above all, they are…delightful. Delicious. "How—" you swallow thickly. "How many?"

His hands are gentle as they stroke your skin. Feather light and mistakenly devoted. Ormund leans forward, lips a breadth away from your ear as he answers, "As many as I'd like."

And then his hand comes down sharply, the sound of skin against skin a piercing echo.

A whine leaves you, and it takes a moment to gather yourself enough to choke out, "One."

He hits you again, and again, and again—and each time those delicate touches in between last just a bit longer. As if he is able to find peace in your punishment, granting him the gift of softness.

Everything feels hot. Your skin, your hands, the place between your legs. It throbs and aches and grows stickier by the minute.

You think he must see it. He must. Each strike has your spine arching, exposing you even more, the number more of a moan on your lips than a cry.

It is around number six that you begin to feel him harden beneath you.

The swell of his cock presses against your belly, right beside your navel. Growing larger with each loud echo.

He does not mention it, and neither do you. But your head feels fuzzy with the truth of it.

Ormund settles around strike fifteen. You are certain it will be painful to sit tomorrow, but you can't find yourself in it to care when he traces delicate patterns over your warmed flesh with the tips of his cool fingers.

The praise comes after some time, when your muscles relax in his hold, when you stop expecting one more strike to befall you.

"You always look so beautiful in the aftermath," he mutters. and you feel yourself smiling, despite your better impulses. "Pretty, obedient little girl."

His hands knead at your sore skin, squeezing the pillowy flesh and spreading you open. You look up to see him staring at your most intimate place, likely seeing the wetness that's gathered.

He then does one more thing you don't expect.

With only the pad of his thumb, Ormund slides his finger through your slit.

The touch is firm and so unforeseen that it sends a jolt straight to your heart. You let out a true cry this time, but not of pain.

Of pleasure.

You're so sensitive that your muscles clench at the contact, so lost in the feeling that you hardly hear the low groan that rumbles through his chest.

And then he's pushing you off of his lap onto your bed, and standing to his feet. He does not even spare you a parting glance over his shoulder as he says, "Enough for today."

You do not see him again for some time.

In fact, Ormund leaves Oldtown entirely the next morning and he takes Daeron with him. It is only from your septa's that you learn they've set on a quest to deliver goods to the Citadel.

Usually Ormund will mention as much to you over supper with your cousin, and you cannot help thinking the reason for his sudden and unannounced absence is due to what transpired between you the night before.

And to yourself only, you admit his absence has made you yearn for him.

You cannot quiet the thoughts in your mind each night, the longing for him, the hope that he will simply appear at your bedside with a heavy hand and that familiar stare.

But he never does, and left to your own devices with thoughts of his touch invading your every thought, it is not long before you try desperately to abate the need yourself.

In fact, you form a new routine of your own.

It starts as desperate rocking against nothing, but you learn rather quickly just how much better it feels with your linens wedged tight between your legs as you do.

The bulk of the fabric presses deliciously against your center, and each roll of your hips has your vision turning black around the edges. You can think only of Ormund—your mentor, your disciplinarian, the hand that shaped you.

You think of the force behind his strikes and of his low groans and of his sweet, sweet praise. You think of the darkness in his eyes and of his strong jaw and the way the muscles in his shoulders flex when he moves.

Even his gait makes your belly squeeze tight in desire—the surety in his steps, his confident posture and the way he towers over you. Always so big and hulking and intimidating.

Sleep only comes to you each night after you reach the peak of bliss. After a fog clouds your mind and your vision goes all starry.

You think if Ormund were to see the things you'd been up to in his absence, you don't believe fifteen strikes would be nearly enough.

He would tell you it is a sin to indulge lustful fantasies in this way. That your pleasure is reserved for your husband, meant to be given at his discretion.

But you've never been a perfect listener nor a rule follower. If there is anything in your life you are certain of, it is that.

You allow yourself to freely walk about the tower in his absence, too. The rookery and the kitchens, plucking fruit or cheese from nearby trays and sending ravens to your cousin Helaena in the Red Keep.

You visit the stables to pet the horses and even make friends with a bastard boy who'd recently come to Oldtown from Casterly Rock.

When Ormund does finally return, you're there to greet him in the great hall with a flicker of delight in your chest.

He looks the same as when he'd left. Strong, masculine, confident. His skin is maybe a bit more sun-kissed than before, and his normally polished leather boots are caked in mud.

Yet still, you cannot help but smile when you see him. You'd worn your most beautiful dress, a gown of emerald velvet and white lace, low cut with a jeweled bodice. He'd complimented you on it once, several moons ago, and it has been your favorite ever since.

When he comes to stand in front of you in greeting, you bow low. "My lord," you say. "I am grateful for your return."

His eyes stay glued to yours when you rise, his pert mouth turned up at the corners. "I am grateful to be back," he says, taking your hand in his and bringing your knuckles to his lips.

Ormund's kiss is chaste, but it feels anything but. The simple touch of his hand has your belly flipping and your face heating.

He does not linger long, though you wish he would. But there is much to tend to in the keep, things that have simply been awaiting his return.

The cooks prepare a feast that night. A massive spread for both Ormund and the knights that traveled with him.

Ormund sits at the head of the table and Daeron sits to his right. You are placed on the other side of your cousin, who spends most of the night recounting tales of the Citadel to you. Of the towering stacks of books and the tomes bigger than his head.

He tells you in a whispered tone just how old the Grand Maester truly looks. "Ancient," he explains. "With tufts of graying hair and eyes that no longer see."

You laugh and giggle together about it, indulging your childish whims that always manifest whenever you are near him.

Daeron tells you, too, about the ambush they'd suffered from raiders who's been lying in wait off the King's Road.

"Uncle Ormund nearly died from a stab wound," he whispers, and it makes your heart give a sudden lurch. "He fought bravely. Slashed the raider clean in two, if you'd believe it."

This makes you mirth fall. You have never considered his loss before this moment. Ormund has always been there, a steady presence in your life.

Just the thought of it—of losing him, it does not sit well in your gut. Though hated by him as you are, you could not imagine...you could not imagine.

Ormund does not speak to you, but you can feel his stare. Heavy and warm on the side of your face. You wonder silently if he'd missed you as you have him.

Had he been thinking of that night, too? Of how it had felt to be bared before him? Of the heat you saw in his gaze?

Had he thought of you with a blade pressed to his belly? Had it truly gotten that close?

Ormund makes a toast to his men near the end of supper. To their valiant efforts that contributed greatly to the trade and to their protection.

Your maidens ready you for bed that night and spend a little longer scrubbing you clean at your request. They dress you in white silk and by the time they leave, the fire in the hearth has dwindled to cinders. The excitement in your chest is a roaring flame, however.

But, Ormund does not come to you.

You toss and turn restlessly, hoping to hear the creak of your chamber door or footsteps on the stone just outside.

Yet, there is nothing. The night is still, as it has been for the last several weeks.

You lie there with a longing in your chest, an ache between your legs, and your head filled with a thousand questions.

The setting sun has long since given way to the moon by the time you leave your bed.

Ormund's chambers are on the other side of the Hightower, but you are more and more certain with every step you take.

Ser Roy of Oldtown stands guard outside his door, the way he does most nights. He bows low when he sees you, eyes cast away from the too thin fabric of your gown. "My lady."

"I wish to speak to him," you say, trying to muster the strength to keep your voice from wavering.

"He did request not to be disturbed lest there was an emergency," the knight tells you.

"I don't care," is your simple response, because it is true. "Please, ser, step aside so that I might—"

Ormund's door opens, the heavy weight of it daunting.

He looks at you and stares. Hard and knowing.

Your breath gives way at the precision attention, all the jumbled thoughts in your mind untangling like a pulled thread before promptly vanishing. There is…something new behind his ire for you. Something you might call intrigue, if you didn't know any better.

Ormund does not take his eyes off of you as he speaks. "Find something to busy yourself, Ser Roy," he says, eyes searching your face now, flickering from your nose to your cheeks and then to your mouth. "And do not come back," he adds to the knight.

Roy nods stiffly and doesn't argue. He, too, knows better.

The clang of his armor disappears down the corridor, and before long it is just you and the man who haunts your insides. Heart and head alike.

He smiles down at you. A true smile. Small, but real, and it weathers your resolve in an instant. Because it's a kindness he does not give freely or often, but he is here now, giving it to you—who you'd thought he'd hated.

But this doesn't feel like hatred to you in the slightest.

It's heavier. Sharper. Sweeter.

In the end, it is you who breaks the spell, pushing past him and into his chambers. You recall all your cousin had said about the journey to the Citadel. How blades had been drawn and blood had been spilled and the thought of it makes your eyes sting.

Ormund closes the chamber door behind you, but you face away from him. Staring into the crackling flames in the hearth, trying and failing to fight the tears that brim in your eyes. "Daeron told me there was an…altercation on the King's Road," you say. "He speaks tales of blood and death. Is this true?"

His heavy footfalls sound in your ears. Ormund nears you, yet you still do not turn to look at him. "It is," he answers simply. "These are dark times, as you well know. Darker yet to come."

The idea of it—of war, of famine, of the rot and loss that he speaks of, it makes you terrified. You've seen men die before, in jousts or tourneys, even on the way here to Oldtown. But thinking of Ormund in the middle of it all?

Finally, you turn to face him. He is closer than you'd expected. Only a single step away, focus narrowing as he sees the tears in your eyes. "You could have died."

"But I did not." His head tilts curiously. "Where do you place your ire?"

"In you!" You should not yell. You know this, and yet the venom in your mouth refuses to be washed out. "It is from someone else that I'd had to learn you'd been attacked on the way to the Citadel. From another I'd learned you'd taken a wound that very nearly could have put you in the grave. And even those details I'd had to overhear from one of your men when it should have come from you!"

He watches it unfold; your rage surfacing, all masks of poise absent. He does not stop you or speak a warning into existence, he only watches with curiosity on his face and something far more intense alongside it.

"I have longed for your return for weeks! You leave without a word and take my cousin with you, leaving me to sit all alone and wonder if perhaps I'd done something wrong or worse—disappointed you!" Your tears fall freely down your cheeks now, but you are far past the point of sparing yourself any embarrassment.

Ormund raises his hand to your face, cradling your head in his palm. His thumb strokes gently across your cheek, swiping your tears away. "Is it for me that you weep, sweetling?"

Yes, you want to say. Yes, of course it is. He is everything to you and has always been. "Do you have any idea how I would have mourned you?"

His eyes soften, and it soothes something inside of you to see it. Ormund leans forward slowly, carefully so as not to frighten you.

And you stand there, frozen in the gentle hold of his hands, as he licks the tears from your cheeks. His tongue is warm and soothing against your ruddy skin, and it feel so intimate that it makes you shiver.

He then kisses your eyelids. The left first, followed by the right. "I cannot promise to tell you of each of my wounds," he says, voice softer than it's ever been before. "But I can promise to warn you before I leave the tower again. I thought you'd be glad to be rid of me after all I've done, in truth."

"Glad?" The thought does not register in your mind. "I could never be glad of your absence. I confess, I…I hate it."

"Is that right?" Ormund takes a step back, and you see him inhale a shaking breath as he does. "More than you hate me?"

You wish you could deny the words, but you cannot. You've hated him all your life—the man who'd always looked at you as if your very blood was wrong, who'd never hesitated to raise a hand to you, who'd been cruel and rigid. The man who denied you the softness you've always craved unless you'd earned it.

You do hate him.

But yes, you hate his absence more.

"There is another matter," he says, not giving you time to answer his question.

Perhaps because he did not care to hear the answer, or perhaps because he could not bear it.

"I am told you'd been quite disruptive while I was away," Ormund says. "That you'd stolen and spoken with a sharp tongue. All things I could forgive, considering the worst of your misdeeds."

Your brows furrow. "And what was the worst?"

"I have told you a hundred times to stay away from the stables," he explains. "So, imagine how unexpected it was to hear that you'd been spending far too much time with a boy who works in the very same stables I've warned you against."

Your stomach twists at the sharp tone of his voice. A stark contrast to the way he'd spoken to you only moments ago. "He does magic tricks," you say. "We were not being inappropriate."

"Magic," he spits. "Is that what you'd sell your virtue for? Your maidenhood? Worth nothing but a few tricks?"

"What? No! I—!"

"It does not matter if you truly did it," Ormund interrupts. "All that matters is the way it might seem to the passing eye. A whisper in one ear turns to truth in the mouth of another."

"But I didn't do anything! There was another, in the stables," you argue. "An old woman mucking out the stalls. Ask her, she can attest we were simply brushing the mares and—!"

"He did not touch you?"

"No, my lord. On the seven above, I swear it."

You see something rigid relax in him as you say the words aloud. His posture softens, his hands unfurl. Ormund wets his lips and says, "There is still the matter of precedent. I told you not to do something, and you went ahead and did it anyway. On this much we can agree, yes?"

"Yes," you echo.

He nods thoughtfully, steps closer to his four poster bed, and says, "Come."

You do not know quite why, exactly, you feel your heart slow as he says it. The word is rehearsed and familiar and puts you at ease in all the places you've felt wound tight for weeks now. You stand in front of him and await further instruction, and Ormund does not hesitate to give it.

"Remove your dress."

That spark of excitement returns. You obey wordlessly, unlacing the fabric just enough to pull the silk over your shoulders. It falls down your body like water and pools at your feet.

And then, finally, he says, "Kneel."

You do.

Ormund does not sit on the edge of his bed for several moments. He simply exists in the space you've created, drinking up the power he holds over you. He's still fully clothed, wearing a black tunic and leather breaches, towering over your naked body that awaits his instruction.

When he does finally sit, he speaks a word you have not practiced before but it invokes something primal in you all the same.

"Crawl."

You do.

Ormund's chest heaves as you keep your eyes firmly on his, closing the space on all fours. And when you're close enough that you're right between his spread knees, you lay your cheek against the inside of his thigh.

He squeezes his eyes closed, whispering under his breath, so quiet you'd have missed the curse on the tip of his tongue had you not been paying attention.

His throat bobs as he swallows and exhales slowly. When his eyes find you again, there is something akin to wonder in them. "Over my knee."

You assume the practiced position and find yourself slick between your legs before he's even touched you. But you know he sees it, too, when he squeezes your flesh and spreads you open wide enough to feel to cool air touch your cunt.

"Ten," he says lowly. "Because I can see now that you were only acting out in response to my lack of thought for your isolation."

Ormund does not give a warning. He never does. He simply raises his hand and brings it down sharply against the swell of your cheek. The impact is painful and soothing all at the same time, and though your breathing stutters you feel your chest loosening.

You count each and every one in perfect succession, skin growing raised and warm to the touch. You cannot be sure if his hand comes down harder each time or if perhaps you've just grown more and more sensitive.

By the sixth strike, you're throbbing. Your hips move of their own accord, desperate for something to be wedged between them. Your toes curl and your feet cross at the ankles, thighs squeezed together as you try to abate the need.

By the eighth strike, you can feel Ormund's cock pressing against your belly, hard as stone. You cannot bear to look at him, not like this. Because you think you might lose all sense of self if you do, might kneel and beg for him to touch you. To violate you.

"Nine," you hiss, fingers curling in his sheets. You can feel everything, everywhere, all at once. Not just his hand and the way he hits you but his other, pressed firmly to the small of your back to keep you in place. You can feel the leather beneath you and his breath as it fans across your spine. You can feel the cool air that drifts in through the open window pane and the warm lick of the fire across the room.

You can feel your blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, the holiness in your body.

"One more," Ormund says. "Breathe, girl."

You obey, sucking in a slow breath of air and letting it fill your belly.

He strikes you on the exhale, and this time his hand stays against your tingling skin.

"Ten," you whimper. It feels as though your bones melt in his hold. The tension in your muscles dissipates, fading to nothing.

Just one touch would be enough. The pressure has become a mountain inside of you and it's on the verge of collapse.

"Are you…enjoying this?"

You cannot lie. Not to him. "Yes," you answer breathlessly.

He hums, a sound at the back of his throat that you're not sure is because he's pleased with you or because he's appalled. You half expect him to strike your backside again.

He does not.

Instead, his hands drift slowly down the back of your thighs. And as his thumbs move, they slide through your slick and your spine arches back of its own volition.

"Oh—" You grit your teeth, trying to hold back the moan that threatens. But it feels so good, better than anything else.

He lifts one hand, and you expect it to hurt when he touches you again. Ormund instead curls his fingers inwards, spreads your knees, and strokes his knuckles through your syrupy folds.

This time there is no chance at holding back your sound of pleasure. It rips through you, deep and heady, goosebumps spreading across your skin.

"So sensitive," he muses, more to himself than words spoken to you. "You've always been such a sensitive girl."

You press yourself backwards, chasing the sensation of his hand. He gently strokes you again, soft enough you'd convince yourself it's a touch of love if you believed he were capable of such a thing.

His knuckles graze over your clit and what was once warmth in your belly now spreads like wildfire beneath your skin.

"Please," you whimper. "More, please. I'll be good, I'll be—I'll be so good, I promise."

"Of course you will be," he says. "You're my perfect girl."

The word clangs around in your emptied mind. Perfect.

Perfect, perfect, perfect—

Ormund smooths his hand over your cunt, the pressure and roughness of his touch dizzying. He then presses his thumb directly to your clit and you feel all the blood in your body rush to your center. "Do you know what you're asking of me?"

"Yes," you answer truthfully. "I want it to be you. I need it to be. No one else…" You swallow.

"Speak, sweetling," he encourages.

"No one else makes me feel like this," you admit, turning your head to look up at him.

And what you see is catastrophic to your aching heart. Because you've known Ormund all your life, but you've never seen him look like that.

Despaired, hopeless, a slave to the thoughts that plague him. There is such longing in his eyes that it makes your stomach flip. But beneath it all there is understanding—like he relates far too well to your words to ever deny them.

"I could ask for your hand," he mutters. "Though your mother will likely deny me for my allegiance to my cousin and my house."

"So take me." The words come unbidden, a treason in their own right. "Steal me away. Hold me captive, a prisoner of a war not yet waged."

Something dark and searing flares behind his eyes when you speak.

"I am yours," you admit, and you think it may just be the truest thing you have ever said. "The way I have always been."

Ormund growls low, a frustrated sound at the bottom of his chest. He leans forward and presses his forehead to the space between your shoulder blades. "You are, aren't you."

Not a question.

He sighs, breathing in the scent of your skin deep into his lungs to soothe himself.

You are unsure of what comes next, once the truth of your feelings for him has been laid out in the open.

It feels raw. Like your chest has been cut and your ribcage cracked so he might see your very insides.

What happens next is a kiss upon your shoulder.

Gentle. Devoted. Faithful.

There is a deep crease between his brows, and you can feel evidence of hesitation in his hands.

"You are troubled," you observe aloud. "Is it because of me?"

He winces as if you'd struck him. As if the words were far more painful than anything he's ever done to you. Ormund's jaw feathers, and he breathes in deeply before saying, "Of course not. You have never…"

He shakes his head, swallows, and tries again.

"Understand this; my feelings for you do not come from a righteous place. I should feed you, guide you, protect you, and do nothing else. You should not be here now. I should not want this. Or—or you."

"But you…do?" It sounds mousy as you ask it, said with an unsure tongue.

"I do," he admits in a hoarse whisper.

There is pain in his eyes as he says it. As if this feeling has been sitting in the depths of him for some time, and only now does he allow himself to succumb to it.

You move. You are uncertain and cautious as you do, but you will strength into your limbs anyway. Climbing into his lap, straddling his hips, winding your hands around his shoulders and tugging gently at the hair at his nape. "You don't have to take," you say, so close now you're breathing in his air. "Not if I give."

His stare is heavy and dark. Full of more longing and lust than you have ever seen exist in a man before.

You close the distance. Ormund freezes, unmoving as you press your lips to his experimentally. He tastes of smoke and cedar, of steel and blood, of safety and familiarity.

He tastes of home.

When you pull back, his chest heaves and his hands curl into the sheets. The thought crosses your mind that he is angry with you—furious, even.

But Ormund does not shout or raise a hand to strike you.

He grabs you by the back of the neck and crushes his mouth to yours. Less experimental and less nervous than you were.

Ormund kisses you like he's starving.

His lips move against yours, soft and wanting. And when his tongue slips between them, he moans into your mouth as he tastes the inside of it.

It is a battle of a different kind. He bites and sucks and licks, and you try to meet his fervor. You are just as desperate, but Ormund is untamed. A feral dog let off its leash.

Your center throbs and you whimper, rolling your hips on top of him to abate the feeling. He is still fully dressed while you sit naked in his bruising grip, and you suddenly want nothing more than to feel his bare skin beneath your fingertips.

When you tug at the buttons of his tunic, Ormund's hands find yours to assist your clumsy movements. He is much faster than you are, and tugs the garment over his head the moment he is able.

There, along the left side of his abdomen, is a jagged wound.

You pause to press your fingers tenderly to the angry, red skin. His muscles are strong and hard beneath your touch. Though the stitches are removed now and the wound is mostly healed, he still winces at the pressure of your fingertips.

Without thinking, you lean forward and press a soft kiss to the scarred skin.

Ormund melts beneath your affection. And then he brackets his arms around your waist and turns you both, laying you flat against the mattress. He kneels between your legs, seeming so large and intimidating from the new angle.

His hands find your face, feeling your skin. They move slowly over your bones, down your neck, over the swell of your breasts, your navel, your hips. As if he were trying to memorize this particular moment by sight and touch alone.

"I have thought of this more times than I could ever say," Ormund tells you. He settles low, hovering over your body, pressing his mouth to the hollow of your throat.

His lips follows the same path as his hands, peppering wet kisses over your skin and leaving goosebumps in his wake.

"Your taste, you scent, your sweetness—I have dreamt of it," he continues. His tongue circles your navel once before moving further down. And when he kisses your pubic bone, Ormund pauses. Looks up at you through dark lashes, his stare soft but still no less intense. "Is this where you ache, sweetling?"

The words feel filthy and depraved and so delicious that you whine. "Yes," you tell him, squirming. "Will you kiss me there?"

A malevolent smirk forms on his pretty mouth. "More," he answers.

And with no warning at all, Ormund licks a stripe through your heat, tongue flat and soft and so very wet.

It sends you reeling. The sensation, the sensitivity—him. "Oh, gods, I—"

He does it again, this time licking back down as well. Ormund moans low and the vibration of the sound spreads through you mercilessly. Again, and again, and again, his tongue laves through your apex. You feel yourself clench, muscles pulled taut.

Your spine bends off the mattress and your hands come to his head, fingers twisting in his soft curls, pulling his mouth impossibly closer.

When he takes your clit between his lips and sucks gently, your vision blurs. Everything else in the world fades to nothing, every sensation muted apart from the pleasure his warm mouth brings.

Ormund is relentless. He doesn't stop, even when you're writhing and gasping for air. His face flushes and you can feel his stare on you even when you can no longer keep your eyes open.

It's far better than linens between your legs, far more intense. It doesn't take long before you become a trembling mess, legs shaking around his head, heels digging into his spine as you scramble to find some sort of purchase.

And then it happens—a searing pleasure, ripping through you mercilessly. Light flashes behind your eyes and your spine arches and your fingers tighten in his hair.

He licks and sucks you through it, making those sweet, rumbling groans all the while, as if this is more for his pleasure than yours.

The bliss is blinding and fizzles out slowly, leaving remnants of euphoria behind. Only then does he settle, tongue slowing as it slides through your wet heat with less pressure now.

When he finally pulls his mouth away, his cheeks are flushed and his lips are glossy with your arousal. "Better," Ormund whispers. "Far better than I ever could have dreamed."

You can hardly react to his praise, too lost in the feeling he'd given you. "I did not know it could be like that," you admit, breathless. "That it could be so…"

"Perfect," he finishes for you. And you think, yes. He is perfect.

Maybe not in everything, but for you.

Ormund crawls over you until you are face to face once more. He is heavy on top of you, muscles thick and smothering in the best way. His length presses against your hip, so hard now you can feel the pulse of it.

He kisses your mouth but this time it's slower. Softer. The taste of you lingers on his tongue, sweet and intoxicating.

His hands cradle your face far gentler than another ever has. It is dizzying, the way he can bring such pain and still grant such ease.

You wriggle your arm beneath his abdomen, reaching for the metal of his belt buckle.

Ormund groans, but you feel the way his lips turn up just slightly against yours. "Greedy girl," you says, pulling away to nuzzle your cheek with the tip of his nose. "I have warned you against overindulgence endlessly."

He speaks true, but you have never listened to his warnings. Have always bent the rules until they break, have retained a sharp tongue and a love for all that might destroy you.

Including him, you suppose.

"Will you deny me, then?"

"No." Ormund shakes his head. "Never in all my life."

It eases something in you to hear the response. To know this is a sin you share, a mirrored reflection of one another.

He leans backwards, just enough to unbuckle his breeches and remove them. His cock is larger than you'd anticipated. Thick and veiny and flushed at the tip, hanging heavy between his legs and decorated with a thatch of dark, coarse hair at the base.

Ormund kneels in front of you, staring hard, watching you take all of him in for the first time.

He's beautiful, you think. Strong and powerful and profound. Your mouth waters at the sight of him, your brain going fuzzy again, carnal impulses beginning to take hold.

"I can be gentle," he says. "If that is what you need."

But it's not gentle you want. You want him—with all his sharpness, with all his anger. The totality of it; his heart, his soul, his body. If it hurts, you think it is meant to. "What I need," you whisper, "is you."

He watches you for a moment, eyes searching your face, trying to find hesitance that doesn't exist. And then he nods, leans forward to kiss your temple, and says, "You will tell me if it becomes too much."

You swear to him that you will.

Ormund takes his cock in his hand and slides the head of it through your center, coating his length in your wetness. Each stroke of him over your clit has you sighing, hips canting towards the sensation.

He lines himself up at your entrance, and your attention is so focused on his movements between your legs that it startles you when he uses the other to grab your face.

Ormund's fingers curl tightly around your jaw, forcing your head back, forcing you to look at him. "Eyes here," he says, voice firm.

And then, gently, he begins to push in.

The stretch of him burns, but it is not terrible. It simply aches, and you whimper a distorted version of his name but he does not stop. He keeps going until he's fully seated inside of you, so deep you swear you can feel him in your belly.

All the while, he keeps his big hand around your jaw, squeezing so tightly it momentarily distracts from the throbbing of your cunt.

Ormund touches his forehead to yours, breathing in your air. He says, "You are so fucking perfect."

And it makes you moan.

He starts to move, slowly at first. Pulling out of you tenderly just to slide right back in. A few strokes, encouraging your endurance. Sweet and soft and loving.

"Feels so—so full," you say, whimpers falling from your lips.

Ormund pulls out again, nearly all the way this time. He still forces you to look at him, and you can see the desperation enter his eyes mere moments before he slams his cock in deep.

There is nothing soft about it. Nothing sweet.

Your vision goes blurry and the air vanishes from your lungs as if it'd never existed there in the first place. The force of it aches so deliciously you feel pressure begin to form behind your eyes. "Oh god—!"

He does it again, pulling out almost completely before slamming back into you. "My perfect girl," he mutters against your lips. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes." Your hands find his shoulders, fingernails digging into the thick muscle .

"Do you wish for me to stop?"

That familiar warmth spreads someplace deeper than before. Not just your belly but in your womb. "No, please don't—don't stop."

Ormund turns your head just enough to press his own against the side of your cheek. He inhales the scent of your skin and a low growl reverberates in his chest.

Finally, blessedly, he picks up the pace. Hips grinding hard against yours, finding a rhythm that feels somehow both satisfying and violent. He breathes shallowly against your cheek, pressing kisses to your jaw that feel so tender in comparison to the way he fucks you.

And when he reaches between your bodies with his free hand to find you clit, you think you might die. It's too much, too sensitive. Your toes curl and your spine arches, pressing your breasts against his chest. The only word you seem to have held onto in your bliss is, "Please. Please, please—oh god, please."

"You beg so prettily," he says. "Almost like you were made for it. Made to kneel before me. Made to be mine."

The possessiveness in his tone alone has you teetering on the precipice of release. You'd given yourself freely to him, willingly—but Ormund still manages to take. Your innocence, your purity, your heart.

You're falling. Bliss blinds you, thighs trembling, nerve endings coiled and white-hot. His name falls from your mouth and Ormund kisses you hard to swallow up the sound.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "There you go, sweetling. Give it to me. My perfect girl."

He doesn't stop, even when tremors rock through your body. He keeps fucking his cock into you without remorse, fingers moving over your clit in tight circles, ratcheting your pleasure higher and higher until you feel like you might burst with it.

The pace of his hips falters, and then he's groaning low against the curve of your neck and laying wet, open-mouthed kisses against your pulse. With his cock buried inside of you, he fills you with his release, painting your insides all sticky and white.

Ormund gives a couple of slow thrusts, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath, before gently pulling out of you and rolling to his side.

It is not you who reaches for comfort first.

His arm wraps around your waist, hauling you across the mattress and into his warm embrace.

You nestle beneath his arm, head resting against his shoulder. He is so large and the heat of his skin is so comforting. Familiar in some ways, despite this being the first time you've ever been so close.

That same warmth that emanates from him seeps through your bones and touches your fast-beating heart. A delighted giggle escapes you, and you can feel Ormund's mouth turn up into a smile against your forehead.

He tilts your chin up so you're facing him. "What is it that you find so amusing?"

You shake your head. "Nothing, just...I am—I am happy."

His smile softens into something heavier, but no less pleased. You don't believe you've ever seen him look this way. So vulnerable. Benevolent, even.

Silence settles for some time. And you would be content to stay here, skin tingling in the aftermath of bliss, safe in his arms. But there is something weighing on him, and you can feel it in the stiffness of his hands that stroke gently over your hip.

When you can stand his distance no longer, you ask, "Is there something wrong?"

He doesn't answer right away, which frays the edges of your comfort. But then he says delicately, "I have something for you. A gift."

"A gift?" You prop yourself up on an elbow. "From the Citadel?"

"No," Ormund answers. "I'd had it made for you some time before my journey. But I—it is not a…kindness, exactly. More a token of my own grotesque worship of you."

Your brows furrow in confusion. "What is it?"

Ormund untangles himself from the sheets, unkempt and messy now below you. He crosses the chamber to his wardrobe and pulls open a drawer.

It is hard to see from so far away, but you watch as he takes something hesitantly in his hand before returning to the bedside.

"I…I sometimes believe that I have been shackled to you by the gods themselves," he begins. "Fated to bend my own morals in response to my longing for you. I am but a wolf coiled around a lamb and there will never be anything else, not for me."

You don't understand. It makes a million questions form in your mind, none easily answered.

Ormund swallows thickly. "I am a slave to your affection," he says. It makes your chest pull tight. "I do not deserve your softness but I will never turn it away so long as you continue to give it."

He extends his hand in front of you, opening his palm to display the prettiest necklace you've ever seen. Made of glittering emerald stones and a silken black ribbon.

You reach out to touch it on instinct, and Ormund lets you take it from him. But as you do, witnessing the lack of length, realization dawns on you. "This heralds a collar," you say.

Ormund nods slowly. "I only wished for you to be…possessed by me, the way I have been possessed by you."

A response does not come easily.

There is a part of you that knows this is not the way of things. A man should love his lady. Should be kind and respectful. He should certainly not place a collar around her neck as if she is owned property or a family pet.

But there is…something else, too. A part of you where desire sparks at the thought of being so wholly his, of surrendering to whatever fate may befall you so long as it is done by his own hand. There is peace in it. And certainty.

"I'd told myself to get rid of it a thousand times, but there has always been a hope within me that perhaps one day you might return my wretched affections," he says. "It is yours. But if you are to wear it, you must do so willingly."

The decision feels heavy. Weighted.

But you do not need long to decide.

You hand the necklace back to Ormund, who takes it hesitantly from your grasp.

And then you turn, facing away from him but looking over your shoulder to ask, "Will you tie it for me?"

He smiles, and there is something deeply fragile in it. Almost boyish, as if this is the first time in all his life he has ever felt truly loved by another.

Ormund kisses the back of your neck and sets the ribbon in place around your throat.

And when he ties it, he pulls the ribbon tight.

It is quite the thing to never truly know one's father.

There was a time, you believe, when your wide eyes knew him, the white hair and the violet eyes. Days when you were a babe and the comfort of a voice you heard in the womb carried, and you felt a familiarity to him, a warmth when he held you.

But these are all assumptions you make.

You’ve never truly known Viserys Targaryen. You know the stories told to you by your governess, and on the odd occasion your grandsire tended to you in the years he resided in Oldtown, you heard of his greatness from him too.

Even sitting here, under the dim candlelight of the tavern, listening to the sweet melody the bard strums on his lute, you try to paint a picture of him.

Generous. Oh, kind.

These words have been shared by many, and even as the man sings them, as if speaking them into existence, you can’t picture the man he sings of. The man who sired you. The man that sent you away when you couldn’t even crawl out of your own cradle.

A man you only saw twice when you were brought back to King’s Landing. A man that only left the confinement of his chambers once in the three years you’d been at court. Only on the return of his eldest daughter, only to protect her claim to the Iron Throne. A man you barely recognised, grey strings of hair coming out in patches on his head, blackened teeth and a face eaten by disease. He looked like a man already dead, clinging to the last grips of life, decaying before everyone’s eyes.

For a second, you tried to picture him younger, you as a babe in his arms and your tiny hand wrapped around one of his fingers. Even then, sitting across from you, the picture could not come to mind. The mere mutter of the word father brings a different image, a man with short mahogany hair, loose curls and deep blue eyes. A statue cloaked in green, a sharp jawline and lips pressed together in a thin line.

Ormund Hightower, a man you haven’t seen for five long years, is the man you’ve pictured for as long as you can remember. The shape of him, standing over you, so vivid in your mind you’re sure you could picture him sitting across from you now.

You wonder how he’s changed.

Have the grey strands taken root in his hair? Have the lines on his face drawn deeper over time? Would he look at you the same? Would he remember the girl that clung to his leg as a child, or the teenager that revelled in his approval of curt nods and brief words? Would he see the woman you have grown into?

You never thought you’d see him again; the night before you left him, he told you so. You’ve thought about it often, the fat tears stinging your eyes and falling across your cheek. The sobs you desperately tried to fight back as you gritted your teeth, ones that broke through your chest and left you quivering as you threw yourself at him behind the closed doors of his studies.

Unbecoming of a woman, you knew that, especially one that was well versed in your faith. You thought he might disapprove of the way you acted, shake his head and tell you so. Yet he didn’t; he let your hands find his shoulders, nails dig into the tunic, piercing into the skin underneath with no complaint. His arms wrapped around you, one hand placed firmly at your back, rubbing soothing circles into the small of your back.

We always knew this day was coming; he reminded you before pulling you away, placing his hands on your cheeks to hold you from him. This is your duty, where mine is here.

You wish you had told him how you wanted to say— wish that in that moment you begged him to let you reside here if just for a few more years. But you have always been destined to return to court, to marry into a noble family and draw new alliances for your family.

Yet in your five years away from home, away from the only family you’ve ever really known, a marriage never came to fruition. Offers came, many were discussed, and one proposal sat over your head for a year, but then came the death of the King, Viserys, and the placement of your eldest brother on the Iron Throne, and House of Arynn decidedly didn’t want to align themselves with usurpers. You’d never say it out loud, but you’d been happy, even if it was only prolonging the inevitable.

Wars bring bountiful amounts of marriages. But wars also bring death, and while you always knew that, you’d never been privy to the sight of it. Not until over a fortnight ago, when you’d been yanked from your bed in the night, forced to leave the confines of the Redkeep with one trusted guardsman with you.

Blood paved your way through the streets of King’s Landing, the Goldcloaks turning on the King’s Guard, shoving their swords deep into their backs. Even at the dead of the night, and on the brink of winter, it had been awfully hot, sweat beading on your head, and at every glance in a different direction you could see why: the glow of a fire bright from above, around almost every corner. The streets of flea-bottom had been a battle to get through, and if it hadn’t been for Ser Ronard protecting you with his very life, it may have been your body bleeding out on the cobblestones.

You dread what they could have done to you. Stripped you, beaten you, and molested your dead body.

They are animals, Ormund’s voice rang in your head and even now as you remember, you feel the ghost of his fingers as they brush your hair behind your ear. Nothing like our common folk.

Don’t they even deserve the mercy of the Gods? You’d asked him.

That is for the Gods to decide.

Ser Ronard clears his throat from beside you, pushing the bowl of stew towards you.

“Eat,” he commands.

You don’t look up, shaking your head.

“My Lord will have my head on a stick if I bring you to him thin as bones,” he grunts out, fingers reaching out for your chin but you flinch out of reach. He points to the bowl once more. “Eat.”

Your hand reaches out for the spoon, stirring the slodge in the bowl. It doesn’t smell right but the last few days you’ve managed to stomach worse just to fill the pit in your stomach.

“It’s not so—” Ser Ronnard twists his head to the window, eyes pinching as if to concentrate.

You don’t hear it at first but the hooves trotting against the ground come quickly. Fast and many.

“Up.” Ser Ronnard is yanking you up by your elbow before you can think, pulling you towards him and charging through the tables towards the back of the tavern.

But the way becomes easily blocked, the townspeople turning against you within an instant, and then you feel it, the hood of your cloak being torn down and your thick locks being lifted for all to see.

“It’s her,” someone points, shouting from beside you. “They are after her.”

These rats are fast but Ser Ronnard is faster, unsheathing his sword within a moment, the sliding of metal being heard like a ringing in your ears and then a slice, the man’s hand falls from your head and onto the wooden floorboard.

“Go.” He tells you, shoving you away and placing his body between you and them.

Them. Vermin. Traitors to the crown. Supporters of Rhaenyra the cruel.

The thoughts are all you can think as you run into the open night, ducking out of the way of light from torches and taking for the trees.

Days and nights spent dressed in beaten-down cloaks and hopping between one town to the other just to keep yourself hidden could all be for nothing. Rhaenyra’s men had been at every town, every tavern, every nook and cranny you had come across. You’d been glad for your dark rouge hair, the thickness of it making it easy to hide the tuft of silver. Easier to blend in with the common people, the rats that swarm these towns.

They support her. You’re not safe with any of them. Ormund had taught you that, had reminded you of the enemy in his many letters. She who shares your blood and your father’s face is not to be trusted.

There’s an evilness in your eldest sister, and your uncle, a taint in the blood. It runs in you as well, but lucky for you, Ormund has been there to protect you from it.

But he’s not here now. He’s nowhere to be seen in the dead of the night as you hide between the bushes. Nowhere to be heard as Rhaenyra’s men surround you and whistle for you to come out. Nowhere to be felt as one of them drags you by your ankle to get you out.

All you feel is the damp ground underneath you, mud taking its root under the your fingernails as you desperately try to scramble away and the man’s hands as they fight against your kicking legs.

He had been right, they’re all savages, every single last one of them. All awful beasts that do not care for the likeness of your blood, not the ones that bow to the false Queen Rhaenyra.

“You wretched—” You try to scream, but his foot catches your ankle, throwing you over onto your front without so much as a struggle.

You kick back, and with your nails digging into the soil you try to crawl forward. But he doesn’t let you, and you feel your feeble attempt be stopped as you feel his hands now on your back.

He’s on top of you, weight pressing you down into muck and you hear it, the tearing of your clothes from behind you, loud as he fumbles with his trousers to release himself.

“No,” you plead, tears lodged at the back of your throat. Your hand falls out in front again, dragging your heavy body slightly before you’re pulled back again. “No, please.”

Savages. Worse than you could have ever imagined.

He groans, not out of pleasure and for a second you’re not sure why, as he becomes still behind you. But then you feel it, blood dripping onto your back, and the weight of him being pulled off before his lifeless body is dropped by your side.

“Up.”

The voice doesn’t quite register; it takes a second before it is piercing through the ringing in your ear, and even then your body can’t quite familiarise itself with it. But your body recognises those hands pulling you up, and the feel of the wide shoulders as they encase you. You don’t relax; you can’t, but your arms fall around him, gripping him with a tightness that borders on suffocating.

“I’m here,” his voice soothes you, lips caressing the shell of your ear, his warmth breath against your skin making you shiver. “I’ve got you, my love.”

In your years growing up in Oldtown, you rarely went a fortnight without seeing Ormund. As the years passed and you grew older, he became a prominent figure in your life. The man raised you, alongside your uncle Gwayne, so it’s no surprise the man was always present in your day-to-day life.

But since your arrival at Tumbleton, Ormund has not visited you once.

You hear him, though- the echoes of his voice travelling through the empty halls, and his footsteps in the dead of the night when he paces outside your room. You know the stress he’s under; while you may never quite understand the strategies of war, you can understand the position he’s in. Daeron only holds a small dragon, barely grown, and you yourself have never bonded with a dragon. His final hope resides in your brother, but since his abrupt departure in King’s Landing, you don’t know where he resides or where he will go next.

Ormund and his men are alone.

It’s something you come to make clarity with as the maids tend to you in the bath. This luxury is not promised; tomorrow it could be taken from underneath you.

You hiss when one of the maids’ hands drags the cloth against your bruised hip, twisting your head to look at her. Plain clothes and face, no striking features that remind you of the maids back home. She could be a traitor, you think. A pretender.

You snatch the cloth from her hands but your hand stops for a second, eyes flickering between the other maids that surround you.

You go to bark but swallow, cowering like a beaten dog. “I can tend to myself,” you tell them in a meek voice.

“Of course, my princess.” They all mutter, bowing before clearing out of the room at once.

They stop before the door, bowing once again before scuttering out.

Ormund.

You notice him, dressed in dark green breeches and a pale white tunic, so thin you can see the defined muscles of his chest, all the way to the dark trail of hairs that travel down—

You twist your head away, eyes closing as shame takes over your body.

“My Lord, I—”

“Did he touch you?” Ormund questions, and when you turn around, he’s stood over you.

“My Lord—” you shake your head, shifting forward in the water as if bracing to get out. “I—I don’t—”

“ —Did he touch you?” Ormund’s hands are clenched by his side, fists drawn so tight that they are white. He bends down, falling to his knees and hands coming to grab onto the wooden tub. “That—“ he clenches his jaw, and spits out the next words through gritted teeth. “Did that beast touch you?”

“He didn’t—“ your words get lodged into your throat and you can feel the sob stuck in the back of your throat, clawing to make its way out as you bite it down. “I swear it.”

His eyes darken, the blue irises almost fading to black as you look at them. It brings you back.

Memories of the man before you making you bow before the Maiden for forgiveness, to the Mother for mercy on your own soul.

It’s not your fault, he’d tell you, but you need to pray for mercy to not end up like your savage ancestors.

You’d weep, knees digging into the stone floor of the sept, his hand pressed against your shoulder to keep you down.

The words try to break free from your throat now, to explain but tears flood your vision and panic takes over. He didn’t touch me, I swear it, you wish to scream but your voice makes no sound.

“Keep still.”

You do exactly that as his eyes keep you transfixed to the spot, his cold gaze not allowing you to move an inch as his hand reaches underneath the water. You feel it, his soft hand against your knee, slow at first as they part your legs before making their way up between your thighs.

Like a good girl, you take it, biting on the inside of your cheek and keeping your cries to sniffles. His fingertips feel larger than they look, running along your inner thigh as they make their way up and up—

You gasp, and his hand stop against you, cupping your mound with his palm against the top and fingers reaching against your hole. Even with how much you want to, you keep your legs open, fighting against the urge to close your thighs against his hand.

“This is where he would have touched you,” he tells you, through a heavy breath. His finger reaches down and the tip aligns itself with your hole as he continues, “This is where that savage would have taken—“ His eyes fall close, and he lets out a strangled breath, a moment, before the tip of his finger breaches your hole, forcing it open.

You try to keep still but your hips fall back, hands bracing against the sides of the tub as if to escape. But his hand comes against your shoulder, pressing firmly down to hold you in place.

“I need to be sure.” His finger deepens then moves side to side while you hiss and cry at the feel.

“It hurts,” you whimper, scrunching your eyes closed. “Please, he didn’t—“

His finger pulls back, sliding out of your walls as he hushes you, “It’s okay.”

It doesn’t feel okay. His hand rests against your thigh once more, and you can’t help but squeeze your thighs together, trying to force him out.

“You did good.”

—And yet you’re trembling in the warm water, unable to open your wet eyes. Your hands grip onto the edge of the tub still, not sure whether to jump out or to force yourself back under the water.

“Look at me,” he commands, and you feel his wet fingers grip your chin.

You do.

“You did so good.” He smiles, a small proud grin as he wipes the tears that fall against your cheek. “You understand why I had to do that?”

You nod. Unlike your ancestors, you will not be ruined by your own savage tendencies.

“I missed you,” he whispers, face inches from yours, breath fanning against your face.

So close you could kiss him.

Your body goes rigid at the thought.

It’s your blood, you remind yourself, you can control it.

“Didn’t you miss me?” His eyebrows draw together, and his lips twist into a frown.

“Yes,” you let out on a choked sob. “I missed you. I missed home.”

“And home is?” He asks, voice soft and melodic.

“Home is Oldtown. Home is with you,” you tell him.

His hand shifts, cupping your cheek and his forehead falls to rest against yours. He’s close, so close, you hear him as he inhales deeply, breathing in your scent. “That’s my girl.”

A fortnight has passed and still no word from Aemond, and no sight of Aegon.

Disappointments, you hear Ormund scream from the other side of the hall. Idiots, all of them.

You’re not making it any better, not that you can help it. But for the last few nights you’d fallen with a strange fever, sweats pulling you from your sleep and your body burning for no reason at all. Sometimes you have an appetite, and other times none at all. None of the maesters can be sure of the reasoning for it, prescribing you tea at every hour and hoping it will pass. The tea does nothing, and another brew sits cold on your bedside.

They’ve pleaded with Ormund to keep his distance. Told him they don’t want whatever ailment has taken over you to pass to him. Not in the midst of a war. Not when your lives are on the line.

Yet he visits often, not trusting the maids that tend to your bedside or the maesters that have been appointed by his own deceased father. Not to look after you.

Ormund sits now, slouched against his wooden chair, legs spread wide with you perched by his feet, a cushion underneath you for comfort. Rage radiates off him; you can feel it in the way his thighs tighten underneath your head, and you try your best to stop from moving around. But you are restless, mind fogged and skin littered with bumps across your body. You can’t help it, lulling your head to the side to look up at him again.

He sighs, a large breath through his nose and his thighs tighten once again.

“I thought you were trying to sleep?”

You look up at him through wet lashes, fluttering as if to keep them open. You want to sleep, your mind clouded with a tiredness you’ve never felt before but your body is restless and you shift against him to find some sort of comfort.

“Hmm?”

You whine, head rolling around again till your forehead is pressed against the inside of his thigh. “I can’t.”

“I should ask the maesters to brew some tea.” One of his hands falls to the back of your head, fingers combing through the strands, and the feel of the tips of his fingers scratching against your scalp causes you to shiver.

“No more tea,” you mumble against his breeches.

“You barely drank the last.”

You hear a scuffle on the other side of the room, maids following his command you imagine.

You lift your head again, and it takes a second for your vision to clear and for you to fully see him.

“Please,” You whine, but he doesn’t listen— he doesn’t look down.

You want his attention— no, you need his attention. You need him to look down at you, to acknowledge your pleads.

Your hands drag themselves up from his knees, fingers running along his thick muscles before wrapping around the tops of his thighs. His muscles tighten, harder than before and he finally looks down at you, nostrils flared and jaw clenched.

“Amused?”

Your hands slide down, releasing your grip and you lean back slightly, dropping your head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what took over me. I—”

His face relaxes and his head lulls back as he takes another languid breath. “You can’t help it.”

You hum, tilting your head to the side.

“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

You jump at the sound of the maid placing the tea pot down beside you, eyes falling to her as she pours a cup.

Ormund takes it from her, placing it out in front of you.

“Drink,” he commands, and the second you hesitate he presses the cup to your lips. “Drink.” The firm tone of his voice willing you to his command.

The heat of the tea is bearable, but still a tad too hot as it floods your mouth with its bitter taste. You imagine this is what dirt tastes like, but there's a hint of citrus that helps you swallow it down. You don’t want it, but he pours it into your mouth anyway, eyes glued to yours, eyebrows pinched together, telling you without words to obey him. You do, willing as much liquid as you can down before it comes too much, hot liquid burning your skin as it spills from the confines of your mouth.

He takes the cup away when you start to cough, pushing the cup back into the maid’s hand before giving her a curt nod to leave.

You try to push off him, giving yourself space as you choke on the last bits of liquid that have become trapped in your throat, but his hands come around your arms, keeping you locked in place.

“Breathe.”

You try, letting out a shaky breath, willing the tickle in your throat to dissipate. Eventually it does and you blink back the tears that have swarmed your waterline.

“Good girl,” he whispers, hands pulling you towards him. “Come.”

“I shouldn’t,” you tell him, but your body betrays you, crawling upwards until your head is resting against his shoulder and your legs are perched over his. “The maesters—” the words become muffled as you bury your head in the crevice of his neck. “ —you’ll get sick.”

“That’s my burden to bear.” His voice is soft, and his hand gentle as it falls against your thigh. “You are my burden.”

“Yes,” you answer him, not out of your own volition but a certain pull deep inside of you that speaks to him— that heeds his call.

His hand moves, trailing up your thigh and back down again, the material of your cotton gown following his slow movements. You hum, unbeknownst to you and another sound follows, a low rumble from the back of your throat you can’t place, but you know isn’t right.

“I’m sorry— I—” the next noise is louder, a desperate whimper and you feel a wave of heat flush over your body, dampening your skin.

Everything feels strange so suddenly. The material of your gown feels uncomfortable, almost scratching your skin every time you shift about. His hand— You’ve become deeply aware of Ormund’s hand pressed against you, heavier than before and almost soothing as it glides up the back of your thigh.

You want more, that you’re sure of, but you’re not sure of yourself or the words to ask for it.

What is it you want? These clothes off your body. His hand higher. His hand against your bare skin. Your thighs clamp together at that thought and you feel slick oozing from you as you rub your legs together.

He grasps the back of your hair, detaching you from his neck and forcing you to look up at him. His brows furrow together, but his expression is kinder than before. But it changes, eyes hardening and his muscles becoming stiff underneath you as his eyes trail down your body. Your chest rising and falling, your nipples pebbled underneath your gown, the way the material becomes almost transparent from your wet skin.

A part of you grasps, his darkened gaze and the way his mouth parts as you try to steady your rapid breathing.

Sinful girl, he must think, poisoned by your own blood.

“It’s exactly as I thought,” he states, eyes dragging themselves back up to your face.

“It’s my blood, isn’t it?” Just like your sister. Your elder brothers. Your ancestors. Ormund had been right all along. “Am I going to die?”

He pauses, his hand on your lower thigh tugs your skirts up, allowing the chill of the night air to touch your skin. It feels good, a sort of relief, but only temporary.

Your body freezes when the material reaches higher, lifting over your ankles, shins and then towards the middle of your thighs.

“I think I know a way to help you.” He swallows, and you watch as the bulge in his throat protrudes. “But—” his hand falls against your sweat-covered skin and you let out a small gasp, your skin burning under his touch. “—you need to understand.”

“Please,” you let out between a broken cry. “Please. Please. Please.” You repeat until the words jumble together.

The tip of his fingers slides beneath the material of your gown, and your hand darts out towards it. To stop it, or to push it away, you’re not entirely sure.

The air has shifted; you sense it completely now as you look up at Ormund. The man that raised you, that took care of you as his own, is touching you— his fingers drifting up to a place the septas taught you was for only your husband.

“Your blood craves its own,” he tells you, and you can’t quite understand what he speaks of “But if I’m right—” he bites down on his words, the tips of his fingers hovering up your thighs and over your stomach. “If I’m right, I can help you.”

How? You think to question him but the word doesn’t reach your lips. “Please,” is all you have him, the single word taking over your senses and your mind.

“Your blood…” his eyes widen, and his brows raise as he speaks. “…it wants its own.”

Your mind reels and his teachings ring in your head.

Incestuous savages.

It makes sense. Your body’s call for kin. Your brother and your sister married. Your elder sister and uncle. Even your father married his cousin.

Blood magic and curses, your ancestors have forsaken you.

Your eyes flutter up at him, tears flooding your vision at the thoughts. You can feel it, that very affliction that runs through your veins. Your senses are heightened and your body is burning for a touch of another.

“I may not have Targaryen blood,” he whispers, and his hand drops, landing on your breast, fingers splayed over it. “But you and I share the same blood. I think it could work.”

Your body freezes, his eyes falling to his finger as it moves flicking over your hardened nipple.

The man who raised you. A man you see is more akin to you than your own father, own mother, own brothers and sisters.

“You’re married,” you grit out through clenched teeth. Like that would make it any worse.

His hand shifts from your hair, wrapping around your neck before pulling you dangerously close. You could kiss him, or he could kiss you. As if sensing your thoughts his grip tightens and you find yourself wheezing for breath.

“Or—“ you gasp, hand reaching for his.

He looks down at you, lips frowning and jaw clenching once again into an almost pained expression. “I’d do this for you. Forsake my honour, for you.”

Fat tears slide down your cheeks in sheer horror but your body reacts in a different way, thighs clenching when his finger flicks over your nipple again.

“I could save you.”

He’s right. Every part of you reacts to him like some bitch in heat, craving his touch. Even if your teachings from the seven tell you different. They don’t understand this, they couldn’t possibly grasp the idea of this. Neither could you. It’s only here seeing the way your body trembles and bucks into his touch do you see how right he is.

You don’t want to die.

“Please save me,” you ask him only loud enough for him to hear.

“My girl.”

The words travel through you and you can’t help but shiver against him.

You close your eyes, bracing for the impact of his lips against yours at any moment but it doesn’t come. Only when your eyes open, do you feel his nose against your throat, inhaling your scent like he’s gasping for it.

His lips come after, grazing against your neck, just under your chin where his hand doesn’t cover and then upwards till they finally meet your lips.

It’s not at all how you expect it —but then again you never had much time to imagine much —he’s tender at first, his lips caressing yours, taking his time as he moves against your mouth. Open-mouthed pecks to the corner of your lips, and then your bottom lip until his lips meld into yours and you forget to breathe.

He pulls away, his hand sliding from your throat and his thumb finding your bottom lip, pulling it apart from the top.

“Let me help you.”

He dives forward this time, not so kind as his lips find yours for a second time. Your lips move, not with his but almost against him, intending to push him away. It doesn’t work and your lips part as you feel his teeth nipping at your skin— to speak, only for his tongue to shove against yours, forcing your words into a whine.

What would you have said anyway? No, don’t do this. A part of you still screams, your hand falling against his own as he gropes your breast. But then your thighs shift and you find yourself melting into his body.

Wouldn’t it be easier to forget. Wouldn’t it be safer to let him take care of you?

Ormund’s arm comes underneath you, hoisting you up and himself with you, never once allowing his lips to leave your own. It feels good— dangerously good as his saliva drips into your mouth and his tongue slides against yours. Is this how your ancestors felt the first time they lay with their own blood?

Your back hits silk sheets and cushions as Ormund places you down, breaking apart from you. You lift yourself, hazy eyes searching to find him, only to freeze when you see him undressing himself at the end of your bed.

You fall backwards, letting your eyes fall closed for a moment.

Better to not look. Better not to think.

You feel the weight of the bed dip by your feet, and your body moves on autopilot, heels digging in to push yourself further up the sheets. You’re stopped though, one hand finding your ankle yanking you right back down.

He tuts, and you feel the weight of him over you, crawling till he’s hovering directly above you. His hand lifts your skirt, throwing the material up until it’s bunched around your waist.

“Do you think I want to do this?” He questions, and you feel his breath against your face. “Hmm?”

You shake your head.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” his voice stern as his forehead presses against your own. “Look at me.”

Your eyes open to a blackened gaze peering down at yours.

“Do you think I want to do this?”

“No,” you answer, tears clawing at the back of your throat. “You don’t want to do this.”

“I’m doing this to help you,” he whispers, lips pressing against yours again. “I’m doing this to save you.”

He lowers himself against you, and you realise how bare he is as you feel his harness against your inner thigh. You’re not sure how you pictured it, but the length of it against your thigh brings fear to your mind.

“Let’s get this off.”

You feel the gown being torn from your skin, and you find yourself lifting your body off the bed for him to pull it off your shoulders.

You don’t even have time to think before you’re being shoved down, lips finding your own and thighs being pried open. His body falls between your legs, hips pressing down against yours and you feel him there. Hard, thick and leaking.

But you also feel yourself. Slick covered thighs that fall around his hips and a drenched cunt that oozes with the feel of him sliding against it.

He was right, he’s always right.

Your hips buck up to him, and you can’t help the way your body reacts, your hole clenching around nothing as the tip of him catches your entrance. Your body wants this, it’s leaking all over him and when he pulls away, you let out a pathetic whimper.

“Hush,” he whispers against you, breaking his lips away from your own. “You’ll get what you desire.”

Then you feel it, his tip sliding against your folds with precision, slowly and then even slower over your sensitive nub. Your body reacts literally, mouth falling open into a whine or a moan, you’re not certain you can separate the two but it makes him smile. You feel it, lips widening against your cheek and it leaves you confused, opening your eyes to be sure it’s true.

Your lips fall open to speak, to question him but the words die on your tongue as he lines himself up against you before sliding in with one full thrust.

His lips fall open on yours, a sigh escaping him while a cry escapes you.

It hurts. Your walls feel like they’ve been forced open and the wetness does nothing to prepare you for him. Tears kiss your cheeks and your teeth grind against each other, forcing the sobs down.

He moves, dragging his dick out your walls before he’s shoving himself in.

“It hurts,” you let out through a choked sob, your whole body freezing underneath him. Your hands find his shoulders, pushing him back but his torso is like a stone wall that won’t let up —except from his hips that roll as he slowly slides in and out of you.

“Shhh.” His lips press into your cheek, then the corner of your parted lips. “It’ll feel better soon. I swear it.”

—So, you try to keep quiet, sucking in harsh breaths and letting out shaky sobs that have your body frozen against him. It hurts, and you feel like your walls are being torn open from the inside and he keeps going.

In. Out.

In and then out.

Your breathing steadies and your chest begins to settle. The pain is still there, but it’s faded and when his cock drags against your walls, you feel yourself tighten around him.

“See,” you hear his voice in your ear, and his lips follow, settling below and kissing the delicate skin there.

“It feels—”

“I know,” he replies, his voice different— grittier. “Told you didn’t I?” —and you hear it again, caught in a groan, coming from the back of his throat. “Making you feel better?”

You nod, a sick moan spilling from your lips is the only answer you can give. Slick is pouring out of you again, and you forget that it was ever painful to begin with and you also realise when he speaks once again, it does something to you, nipples becoming oddly more sensitive and cunt squeezing him.

It does something to him too, you feel it in the way he changes his pace, and his hands fall down to your hips to keep you glued to the bed. He’s only doing this for your own good, you remind yourself but the way his thrusts become faster has you thinking differently.

“Please,” you plead with him, legs falling around his hips, hooking behind them. “My Lord, plea—”

“Sire,” he snaps, teeth pressing against your skin. “Please, sire.”

His hand comes around your throat, and he presses his forehead against yours, lips parting.

“Please, what?”

“Please—” your words get caught as he delivers a nasty thrust against you.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Please, sire.”

You let the words out between a gasp, before he’s shoving your thighs down further, his cock reaching a point so deep inside you that you swear you can feel him in your stomach.

“Please,” you beg between strangled sobs. “Please, sire. Please. Please…”

“My good girl.”

Your walls tighten and you’re sure if your body could have its way it’d keep him there, his shaft stuck inside you, every ridge and vein imprinted into your very walls. You should feel ashamed at the thoughts, and maybe when you recover from your sickness you will, but right now all you want is to break underneath him.

—And some part of you does, a tension in your stomach snapping and a body-numbing feeling taking over you. Blood rushes to your head, and your vision becomes cloudy as you look up at him. You think you’re saying something, lips open and tongue moving. Maybe not even words, maybe a string of sounds that blur into one.

Then relief.

A relief washing over you that you haven't felt in days, all while his cock continues to rut into you with a vigour that borders on cruel.

It’s him giving you this relief, his cock spilling inside of you, letting out steady ropes of his seed until you’re full of him. It feels good and your restless body relaxes underneath him, taking everything he has to offer you. Every bit of him until your moans turn to gentle sighs and there’s nothing left for him to give.

“You feel better, don’t you.”

He doesn’t ask, he states it like he already knows like he can read the expression on your face. You wonder what you look like right now, hair tangled and face covered in a mix of dried tears and sweat.

You nod, and your eyes close for a second.

“Yes,” you answer him. “Better.”

And you think that’s it, the end of it.

But as the seconds pass you become acutely aware of how he’s still buried inside of you and how hips, even though they turned into an almost slow drag, haven't stopped moving for even a moment.

“We should keep going then,” he says, and his weight becomes heavier, more relaxed as it falls on top of you, trapping you completely underneath him. “Keep going till you’re cured.”

You open your mouth to speak, to protest—

“ —Till we are certain.” His hips shove into yours, rougher than before and you feel his seed drip out your walls and over his cock. “We want to be certain, don’t we?”

Your lips close, words you were about to say becoming a distant memory as you nod in agreement.

Because Ormund is right. He’s always right and your walls leaking out all over him proves it.

Better to be certain, then to wake up craving more.

tags: @sincerelybambii