mango

and then the clothes you’ve just saved from this “monster” go missing again a measly day later. this time, they’re better hidden. in fact, they’re so well hidden that you still haven’t found them. 

this leads you to the second time that you notice something is up with your werewolf-shifting boyfriend; dean brings you on a hunt. and you know at this point that something has to be up because dean never brings you on hunts and that is simply because you’re not a hunter. 

it all goes wrong. you’re hunting something– a monster with a name you can’t pronounce and lore you can’t remember– and inevitably you end up hiding yourself away in some evergreen and leaving the guys to deal with it. it’s fine. it’s cool. you’re not dead, thank god, but when there’s a rustle from behind you and then a very noticeable presence that you can feel looming over you.. well. you wish you had tried to take a swing at the monster. 

but, even without turning around, you know the presence is none other than dean. except that it isn’t really dean because he’s not acting like dean. he’s quick, holding you firmly to his warm body as he breathing becomes unsteady and his pulse is like a hummingbird, all loud and fast, in your ears. you’re pretty sure you can feel his dick, hard and straining against his jeans, firm against your ass. no wonder your face heats up.

“just– just stay,” he pleads, his voice all strained like he’s in pain. you blink, staring into the darkness ahead of the both of you, tensing a little when you feel his sharp canines on your bare neck. “‘m needin’ you– fuck–” you want to turn around, to face the blood and the gore that’s probably pouring from his body right now, but you don’t. you can’t. dean’s holding onto you so tightly that you can’t move. you can only ask in short questions and a stern tone that he lets you go and does his job. 

he doesn’t let you go. 

so when you finally get him to back off, he sulks away from you for good. you only see him again when you all regroup (well, sam finds you cowered by the side of the impala– who knows how you made your way back, but you did) and he’s in wolf form. and then he refuses to revert from wolf form. 

it’s an awkward drive home. 

(safe to say that castiel was not impressed with having to sit with wolf-dean in the back. and that was only because sam feared that he would try to do.. unsavoury things to you in wolf form).

so, as soon as you can, you decide to confront dean. mainly because his behaviour isn’t just affecting you, but also everyone else at this point. and mainly because you’re not sure if this is a problem that warrants a trip to the hospital or not. 

you’re in your room. the room that you and dean share, together, with the king-size bed that takes up most of the space and your belongings basically everywhere. except for most of your clothes as they’re still missing. but nevertheless, it’s your guys’ space. 

and yet, it’s unnerving– how much space you’ve invaded, become a permanent part of the bunker, and then extended your invasion to the winchesters’ (and cas’) lives. how you’ve invaded dean’s space, and yet, he welcomes it with open arms and an open heart. that’s the unnerving part; how easy it was for him to let you in like that, like you’re the only person in the world who understands him like.. the way he is. that you’re the only person who can love him, just some broken, insane fool who is in love with a werewolf–

the door opens and dean enters. 

“‘m fine, sweetheart,” is what he says, like he can read your mind and know what you were going to ask, before you even have a chance to open your mouth. and you want to believe him, but his words come out like they’re frayed at the edges, all wearing away and old. it’s obvious in his tone and facial expression that he’s tired, that something is bothering him. gnawing away at his insides. and he won’t say anything until it’s too late because that’s just who dean is. “it’s nothin’.”

“oh, it’s nothing?” you echo. “well, i’m no genius, but i don’t think it can be ‘nothing’ when you’re suddenly bringing me on a hunt and then holding me like i might slip away and die if you let me go.”

he’s standing in the doorway still, one hand clenching and unclenching at his side like a spasm, and the other tight on the doorknob. as if he’s debating whether he should make a run or not. but he doesn’t and, whilst huffing and sighing a little, he begrudgingly makes his way into the room.

“what.”

you frown lightly at him. “oh, nothing. just that my boyfriend is acting like i was going to drop dead from a situation he put me in, and right now i’d prefer it if he could give me a proper answer than just some huffing and puffing.”

“‘m not– fucking–” dean stutters, ignoring you as he heads straight for the bed and practically throws himself onto it when he sits down. he’s clearly agitated. “it’s fuckin’ stupid, sweeheart, you don’t need to worry about it. it’s nothin–”

“if you tell me that ‘it’s nothing’ once more, winchester, i swear..” you trail off, crossing your arms over your chest and turning to face him. he’s got his head in his hands. even like this, he’s absolutely massive. “baby, you can talk to me, you know that.” you go over to him and get down onto your knees, hand on his thigh. he feels too warm. maybe you do need to get him to a hospital. 

there’s a pause of silence before dean finally gives you an answer.

“heat,” is all he says.

you almost do a double-take. “uh, what?” your question comes out all excited and breathy, instead of confused like you really are.

“it’s my– shit, this is so stupid– but the werewolf thing makes me go into.. a rut. like a fuckin’ animal,” dean explains, his head still in his hands. but, as if he can sense your confusion (and maybe slight intrigue– just maybe), he finally pulls himself away and looks up at you. he’s got that stupid grin on his face– the one he uses when he’s trying to be nonchalant, but really is (usually) trying to get into your panties– but you can see through it. deep down, whatever this “heat” thing is, it’s tearing him apart. “and– and usually there’s a spell, somethin’ rowena does to mask it all f’me. and f’you. but she’s, well, she’s fuck-knows where right now, and i’m sure as shit not havin’ sammy take a go at attemptin’ it..”

as dean explains.. this to you, you’re trying to take as much of it in as you can, but keep getting lost in the details. like living in the margins of a book and losing out on the important plots of it because nobody thinks to include you in them. then again, you can’t blame him; you know how hard it was for him to bring this up to you in the first place, so you know that he’s only doing this as there’s no other option. and you know that dean would never had wanted to keep you out of the loop on this– well, for as long as he could. and you also know that dean loves you and cares for you. he just keeps his secrets, no matter if they’re perverted or embarrassing, close to him because he thinks that he’s protecting you. this might as well be anything but.

and, sure, you’ve had pets before; cats and dogs (oh, and a series of pet fish that all died because you might’ve forgotten to feed them once or twice), so you’re familiar with the whole reproductive system and the thing– this.. heat– because your family would always forget to neuter them until a few “accidents” came along. you subconsciously shiver– just thinking about it, the heat, makes your stomach tense up and your brain go all fuzzy. but, wait– does that mean that’s going to fuck you until–

“be real nice if you could say somethin’,” dean’s voice, all hard and sharp, snaps through your thoughts, decimating them. you shake your head slightly, and then look up at him. and, if for good measure to attune for his sudden edge, he adds (tackily) on the end, “sweetheart.”

“oh, um– sorry. just.. it’s a lot to process.” you feel your face growing warm. “uh– what did you do, y’know, before to deal with..?”

“before? well, before i just used to tear through the bars and fuck whatever chick i could get my hands on. but then rowena started usin’ that spell on me, and now– now there’s you.” dean tears his eyes away from you for a second, and then comes back to you. your throat feels tight as you notice how his eyes seem so dark, so heightened with something hungry, primal, and all because of an itch he can’t scratch like he used to. because there’s you now. “i just– ‘m not puttin’ you in that position, sweetheart. ‘m just gonna have to do my best to–“ dean takes a deep breath in. “control myself.”

“iwanttohelp.”

once more, there’s a pause of silence before dean finally gives you an answer. but this time, 

“what?”

“i..” you start, taking his face into yours as he pulls you into his lap. you almost want to moan at how hard he is right now. “want to help you.”

“..no.”

you pout. “why not?”

“i– y’really need an explanation on that? no offense, sweetheart, but you cry when i accidentally bite you during sex, and you haven’t exactly got, uh, stamina.” to which your pout only gets sadder. “don’t even give me the face, ‘cause it ain’t gonna work on me tonight. ‘m not havin’ you get hurt ‘cause i can’t control myself.”

you turn your face away, choose to stare at the vacant spot where your favourite pair of jeans once was hanging out of the drawer that doesn’t shut right. they’re still gone, still somewhere in the bunker, and now you know why. 

dean clearly senses your discomfort for his discomfort, and he takes your face into his warm hands. they’re so much warmer than they should be– a blessing, really, considering how damn cold the bunker always is– and you feel yourself melt into his tenderness. 

“this is really stupid,” you mutter, your speech slightly muffled from how he holds you face, squishing your cheeks slightly. “even for you, winchester.”

“im gonna get through without your help.” dean states it like it’s something to be proud of. it’s really not. “you’ve just gotta sit back and watch, sweetheart. be that good girl you are f’me. you’re gonna see that i don’t need your sweet pussy wrapped around me–“

dean cuts himself off, grimacing. you free yourself from his large hands and look down to see his very obvious (very painful, you imagine) boner. 

you sigh. “it’s a bad idea, you know that.. right?”

it might be a bad idea. who knows. live and let learn– or so the saying goes. but you know dean and willpower doesn’t really exist in his vocabulary when it comes to things such as sex. 

but anyway. that night, he holds you so tightly as you sleep that you can already feel the heat practically radiating off of him. 

..this is a bad idea. 

when you awake, there’s a wolf in your bed. 

okay, cool. it’s not like you haven’t woken up to dean having shifted in the night– usually due to a nightmare– but knowing what you learnt last night, you can’t deny the slight pang of guilt in your stomach. to know that he’s already in so much that he’s decided to shift, just so he doesn’t have to deal with the discomfort of it as a human. 

he’s already whining, you realise, all soft and needy. but when you go to reach a hand out to him, stroke his soft fur, he raises his head. he’s glowering, even as a wolf, and low growl emits from his throat. you hesitate. he begrudgingly accepts the head pats. 

even with the early hours of the morning, you can not only feel the literal heat of his rut, but also the scent. whilst it’s not that strong, it’s still strong enough to permeate all your senses. it’s all rich and heavy; enough to basically taste in your mouth. you have to leave him curled up and whining on the bed because it’s too much for you.

time passes, and it’s just past six in the evening when dean finally finds you– alone– in the kitchen. he’s back to looking more like dean; less fur, more scowl. seriously. he looks as if someone took a hit at baby, or you, really. 

“you good?” you ask him. however, he doesn’t respond– just keeps on scowling, practically storming over to you and lifting you up and onto the counter. “i– dean–”

“it’s not me, it’s you,” he interjects, and you almost laugh at how ridiculous that sounds coming from him, like this is a bad break-up and not his werewolf hormones going haywire. you’re about to tell him as such, but he’s already prying open your legs and ripping your panties down. it was an unfortunate time to not be wearing anything under your oversized hoodie. “jus’ gotta do– do this and i’ll be all good, sweetheart.”

it’s another bad idea. 

though, you don’t complain. you can’t complain, actually, not when dean’s got his head buried between your thighs and eating you out like a starved man. the plate you were going to use falls off of the counter from how aggressive he’s being, and you’re grasping onto whatever you can get your hands on for dear life– his hair, the edge of the counter. in fact, you’re tugging and pulling at his hair, almost in tears from how fucking good he is at this, whimpering when he growls and groans. 

you’re a mess by the time you cum (well, for the third time, that is), your arms are so weak as you try to keep yourself up. and it’s then that you resolve to pushing dean’s head away, unable to take anymore. but he stays between your thighs, looking up at you. 

“was it good?” he asks, tone so gritty that it’s like wet sand, his words getting clumped together in your brain (along with all the other perverted things he says to you). “was it good?”

you don’t have the energy to give him an answer, so you nod silently, panting. this seems to be an acceptable answer. 

as dean steps back to grab your panties from.. wherever he threw them to (it was into the sink, making them wetter than they already were), you can see a small, dark stain on the front of his sweats. you bite your lip, knowing exactly what it is. and it takes a lot in you to not tell him to just fuck you, right here and right now, just to alleviate some of his pain. even if it’s just a little bit. 

“dean– no– dean, i swear to god– give it– dean!”

you know you’re dealing more than you can handle on the fourth day, when dean has shifted again as has got you in a tug-of-war for your last bra. you know he’s taking it to wherever he’s stored your other clothes (and also where he goes during the day, it seems, considering you’ve not seen him at all for the past 36 hours or so), but this is your last one. if he won’t give the others back until his rut is over, you can live with that. it’s just that you need this one.

he’s pushing his paws into the plush bedding, teeth clamped tight around one of the cups. he’s biting just as much as you’re pulling. and at this rate, one of you needs to let go before there are any casualties. 

(and by casualties, those are your last– and best– bra being torn or ripped to shreds).

dean snarls, his teeth bared and wet with saliva as he jerks his head to the side. you gasp as you almost lose your footing, your socks sliding against the bare floor. your knees meet the edge of the bed, and you use this as a barrier of sorts to keep yourself upright as you pull once more. harder. harsher. anything to save your damn bra. 

however, it’s a losing fight- for you. in the end, dean makes a pained noise, and you quickly drop the strap you’ve been grasping onto, rushing to him. it’s all a ruse, of course; abusing your own sensitivities towards him in his current state, just so he could take your bra away from you. if he were human right now, you’d scold him (and in turn, he’d probably throw you into the bed, say something like “yeah, but you always look better without ‘em? sweetheart.. without anything,” and then fuck you silly). 

but watching as he settles onto the sheets with the bra between his big paws, carefully sniffing it like it’s an explosive, your irritation melts away. you can’t even remember why you were upset in the first place. 

(but you will remember. dean decides, once the rut is over, that it must become his duty to remind you of this tug-of-war he forced you into, and that more should happen in the future).

sensing something in the open doorway, you practically jump when you turn around and find cas standing there. but before you can say anything, dean’s already off the bed and stalking towards him, growling.

castiel blinks at the wolf-form of his best friend, and then looks back at you. “i don’t think it’s wise to be playing with dean when he is like this. he is highly.. suggestive.”

“great advice, cas,” you reply, smiling awkwardly as dean’s growling gets louder and louder. you bite back a sigh, knowing that this is all just animal intuition– with dean’s protective instincts currently heightened and clearly telling him that castiel is a threat to you. “and you–” you look sharply down at wolf-dean, who just stares up at you like he’s done nothing wrong. “stop that. cas is your friend.”

dean takes no notice of this.

you look back at castiel. “uh– anything else you needed?”

castiel shifts on the spot. “sam and i.. we found your missing belongings.” and you must have a very elated expression or something, because castiel is suddenly talking again before you can ask where they all are. “it’s just that they’ve been.. used.” to which he blanches at dean, who has gone back to being interested in your bra. “we think it’s something for the two of you to discuss.”

this time, you do sigh. “thanks, cas,” you tell him, nodding slightly as he turns and leaves the room. part of you wants to laugh– half because despite how long you’ve known castiel, he still treats you like a stranger, and half because your stuff is now no longer missing. it’s just used. you can already guess what that means.

suddenly, dean’s back at your side, whining again and pawing at your thigh. you look down at him, look down at those needy, forlorn eyes. smiling weakly, you stroke his head. he leans into your touch. 

but you know what you have to do. 

“dean, i need you to take me to my stuff.” and when he doesn’t comply– opting to yelp at you instead, like you stood on his tail or something– you continue, with a stern voice, “dean, seriously. i know this week is really hard for you, but i need my clothes. and i can’t wear yours because i know what that does to you– that definitely won’t help you, considering you won’t let me do anything.”

begrudgingly, wolf-dean gets up and starts walking to the door. he doesn’t look back once. silently, you follow him throughout the bunker to the dungeon– of all fucking places. of course, it’s the one place that dean has banned you from entering. ever.

“clever bastard,” you mutter. even as a wolf, you can tell dean’s got that shit-eating grin plastered across his face.

he stands close-by to you as you collect your stuff from the various corners of the cold room that he’s strategically placed it all; the coldest and darkest areas of the room, as if even the thought of getting caught (again) with your stuff is the biggest sin of them all. as if he needed to keep this a secret, one big enough that he’d spend all week in the dungeon, keeping himself warm and safe with your clothes. 

however, as you gather everything in your arms, you wrinkle your nose. there’s an odd scent, you notice, and you can’t work out where it’s coming from. it’s not the stale stench of blood, sinew and death that lingers in here– as well as the imagined.. situations that sam and dean have probably been a part of when in here– and it’s not the scent of the bitter coldness that permeates your bones. 

though cold doesn’t really have a scent, it does here. it’s like the blood and sinew; all stale and thick, like coagulated blood that you can’t cough up. getting trapped in your throat and travelling down, down into your body and festering there. 

suddenly, you want to get out of here. 

but then, as you head for the door with dean whimpering– as if he can sense your sudden disturbance– and close on your heels, you realise what that scent is. 

because you’re holding that scent. and you wince. your clothes all smell of dean and.. cum.

you’re going to have to heavily sanitise all of your clothes before wearing them again. especially your bras and panties.

you know this idea of dean’s is really bad when you find yourself in his lap on day five, swallowing your moans and allowing vocal protests to become perverted thoughts as his hands roam your body.

this has been the worst day so far. he hasn’t left you alone, not even for a second. and, sure, you could just focus on the fact that this is the first day all week that he hasn’t shifted, but the cons are outweighing the pros– big time. 

he’s been glued to your side all day, never letting you out of his sight. his hands have either been on your body in some way, or simply holding your hand. his eyes have been persistently on you every second of every minute, watching you like a hawk in case you make a run for it or something. and any time you can have alone (dean had the courtesy to allow you to get dressed privately), he’s been right outside the door. so, yeah, it was a surprise you were allowed to go to the bathroom on your own. 

but aside from that, you know that this is the worst day, because dean refuses to go on a hunt with sam and castiel. he’s never done that, not even when you had the flu that time and he was treating you like you were going to die right then and there. 

you’re pulled from your wandering, rather obtrusive, thoughts, when dean’s mouth is suddenly on your chest, his tongue hot on your right breast. you’ve been so lost in your own head that you never noticed how roughly he yanked your top off of you, how hastily he undid your bra, never once fumbling. everything he does– just like hunting– is clean, precise. a lost art.

“dean, please–” you gasp, pushing your chest harder against his mouth when his teeth sink into your flesh. for someone so agitated, he’s surprisingly gentle. firm. however, there’s also some resistant in the action, hesitancy as if he’s afraid to hurt you. and you can tell this is the case when he keeps his teeth in your skin, breathing so hard that you swear he might start to hyperventilate. though his hands still roam your body, it’s nothing but unsettling. “dean?”

like something coming undone in his brain, he suddenly releases your breast from his mouth, looking right at you. his eyes are all blown-out, heady, as he goes in to attack your mouth again. “gotta have you,” he groans against your lips, teeth nipping them. “gotta have you– can’t do it– need you so bad, sweetheart–”

“i know, i know,” you reply, managing to pull him away from you long enough to take his face into your hands. he’s so warm, warmer than he’s been all week, and panting like a wild dog. “i know you need me, dean, but you said–”

“mm, no– fuck what i said. don’t care anymore.” he shakes his head, trying to break away from you and make-out with you again, but you don’t let him. “sweetheart, please, you don’t get it–”

“thought you didn’t need help,” is your interjection. but it leaves your mouth in a tone that leaks uncertainty; doubt spreading into each syllable like you can’t quite believe him. because you don’t. you haven’t believed him this entire week.

“i– fuck it. ‘m asking you– please– i need you to do somethin’ f’me, just this once,” dean begs. like, actually begs. if you weren’t in his lap, you wouldn’t be shocked if he got down on his knees and begged. “or else i’m gonna do somethin’ we both regret.”

you bite your lip. you want to help, obviously, but you don’t know how. you’re not exactly wanting to have sex with him– it feels like you’re taking advantage of him, and, if truth be told, having sex with someone so.. monstrous comes with its own pain; you can’t imagine how he’ll be when he’s in rut– but it’s blatantly clear that he needs some form of sexual relief. lord knows his hands have probably done most of the heavy lifting this week.

and so, you start undoing his jeans and belt (keeping the latter close to you), he’s already so hard beneath his underwear that you’re starting to think that a measly blowjob won’t do much. but, if he won’t fuck you– and you won’t hesitantly let him fuck you– then this will have to do. for now.

you settle yourself on the hard flooring of the bedroom, trying to keep your breathing steady as he partially rips his underwear off to free his cock. and, inevitably, you lose your composure when you see it. sure, you’ve seen his cock a thousand times before, but not like this. it’s thick and veiny, the fat tip already leaking the base has also swelled, but you don’t even want to ask what that’s about right now. though, from years of reading vulgar fanfiction about monsters and whatnot, you’re pretty sure it’s what all internet writers call the knot. you feel ashamed at how wet you get from it. 

and you swear it’s bigger. way bigger than usual.

“uh– hands,” you manage to tell him, to which he tilts his head to the side in confusion. “i know what you’re like when i suck you off. i’m not risking anything when you’re like.. this.”

dean’s taught you before how to tie a knot– a good one, that is. as a ‘just in case’ sort of thing, like if you were to find yourself up against a pack of vampires and you took them all out. you know, the typical things. 

but this time, it’s anything but typical. 

you take his belt from beside him, tightening it around his wrists to keep him restrained. he’s always so touchy-feely when you give him head– maybe a little more brutish than needed– and you’ve never complained about it, but you’re still getting used to this side of him. if dean doesn’t want your help, then this is your shitty alternative. and precaution.

by the time you’re taking his cock into your mouth, he’s bucking his hips forward eagerly, restrained hands inching towards your hair. he’s clearly waiting for the second he feels your tongue on him to haphazardly grab you, keep you on his cock until he’s satisfied.

it’s almost instant that you realise you’re right; he is bigger. he basically takes up all the space in your mouth, and that’s before you can relax your throat and take him all the way. you assume he’s about halfway in, maybe, and you can tell you’re going to struggle with this. persevering, you try to focus on dean’s rather erratic, heavy breathing. 

but he’s already pushing your head further and further forward into his lap, the fat tip of his cock pressing up against the back of your throat. you gag, try to pull back out of reflex, but dean keeps you there. even with his hands restrained, he still finds a way to keep your mouth on his cock. 

“fuck, sweetheart– gonna fuckin’ kill a man, know that?” dean grunts, hands entangled in your hair and dragging your head back and forth over his cock. you try to give him some smart-ass reply, but it comes out all garbled and muffled around him. “shh, don’t– fuck– don’t fuckin’ talk. just keep doin’ what you’re doin’ f’me, okay? be a good girl now, that’s it..”

and so, you do. you be the good girl that dean wants you to be.

you work his cock, eventually managing to get all of him into your mouth. it feels like he’s everywhere in your mouth, as you attempt to swallow around the sheer girth of it all, moaning a little when you feel him pulse on your tongue. you’re also so close to him that your nose is practically nestled in his pubes, and you can’t help but breathe him in. he’s all intoxicating and musky, the slight hint of salt-laced sweat and cum that ends up clinging to your lips like a perverse aftertaste. 

all in all, it’s uncomfortable, more than enough to get you to gag here and there, but you’re determined to make this work. you’re determined to please dean– fuck anything else.

but it’s when your teeth accidentally graze against the knot that he cums. dean grabs your hair so tightly that you whimper around him, tears pricking in your eyes (though, that may just be pent-up, well, agony from this monstrous blow-job), but your noise is drowned out entirely by his groan. in fact, it’s more of a growl than a groan; all animalistic and feral, its urgency infectious and the pay-off delicious. said pay-off is cum, naturally.

you have to pull yourself away from his fat cock a little bit in order to swallow his cum, growing hot and heavy as you feel it go down your throat and settle in your stomach. however, some of it drips from the corners of your mouth and collects with the spit and saliva that’s made a mess on your bare tits. oh– and you’re pretty sure dean’s talking to you (or at you), but you’re stuck in some trance right now, that cum that’s settled in you feeling like poison, all bitter and painful. 

it’s all to do with the fact that he’s still as hard as he was before. you’ve done fuck-all, it seems.

you try not to give into the shame that comes with failure, but you can’t help it. defeated, you rest your cheek against dean’s thigh, hoping he won’t see the pathetic tears that definitely begin to slowly, silently, fall from your eyes.

“fuckin’ sight for sore eyes, sweetheart,” dean tells you, still with his hands in your hair. but now, he’s stroking your hair tenderly, fingers kind against your scalp after he abused it. it’s nice, and yet, it’s wrong. this should be the other way around; you should be comforting and caring for him. and when you start to cry harder, mumbling something incoherent about disappointing him and not helping him, dean’s tone gets so soft as he (again) comforts you. “oh, my poor girl. my sweet baby. shall we get you cleaned up, yeah? want me to run you a bath?”

you’d be a fool to say no to that.

it’s day six when dean really cracks. like, really cracks.

maybe it was you waking up with your body curled tight into his because the bunker was really cold and he’s really hot at the moment; and you just wanted to stay warm, not thinking that he’d most definitely get a boner from the intimacy. or maybe it was sam talking about his date with eileen last night, and castiel getting way too personal with his questions that were so heavily sexual in nature, leading to dean managing to crack his favourite mug in his hands because he’s been so pent-up. 

or maybe he’s at the point where he really can’t do this anymore, and he’s gone to find rowena himself for this spell, because you don’t see him for the rest of the day.

but you do find him in the afternoon in the bedroom, face buried in your pillow with your panties (coincidentally, the ones you put in the laundry just last night) next to him on the bed. they’re clearly wet. they reek of heat and cum. 

at first, you linger in the doorway. you feel like you’ve walked in on something you shouldn’t be a part of. and then, once you slowly, surely, begin to get over it, you make your way over to the bed. hesitantly, of course, because you’re yet to know why dean is lying face-down. like he’s been murdered by your panties or something.  

however, you must make a false step– perhaps too much noise, despite only having socks on– as dean suddenly snaps his head up. he’s immediately glaring at you, for disturbing whatever.. this is, hand making a move to grab your panties but apprehensively hovering above them. he’s challenging you to take them, to prove that he’s not as strong as you think he is. 

you don’t care about any of that. about any of dean’s weird, slightly toxic beliefs about what a man should be– much less a werewolf– or about what type of man you need. you just want him to be okay. and torturing himself like this isn’t helpful, nor healthy. 

for the first time all week, there’s an underlying feeling of fear that suddenly runs through you. like cold water pumped directly into your veins, you go frozen in place as dean continues to glare at you. his demeanour has changed drastically. all week, he’s been trying to maintain some dignity, to look as unbothered (and slightly– a lot pathetic) in your presence. but it’s all been an act. always has. 

and now, he’s sitting up. his hands are planted firmly on the sheets, his eyes dark as he stares at you like a predator staring down its prey. you think you’ve read about this before– animals trying to show dominance by maintaining serious eye contact like this, but you don’t have the strength, nor the dominance in you, to do it. 

you blink uncomfortably. “dean,” you start. his name practically flops from your mouth; all sense of willpower gone, and replaced with such a tone of weakness that it’s like paper all crumpled and frayed. “please, let me help you.”

dean doesn’t say anything. instead, he gets up from the bed, and you realise that he’s naked. well, not naked-naked, but his cock is out, all angry, and red, and swollen with the need to fuck something, to fuck you, and your pulse beneath your skin is going absolutely insane right now. you fear your heart might burst from your chest and run away.

still, you avert your eyes as soon as you notice that he’s bare– a mistake you’ll later regret, but right now, you’re not sure what else you’re meant to do. it’s like this is some fairy tale you read as a kid, and the unsuspecting, slightly naïve heroine is about to get consumed by the big, bad wolf. and shielding yourself from the fact that is cock is out and he looks ready to kill you will be enough to save you. 

as he makes his way over to you, the strong scent of his heat overpowers everything else. you can’t smell the faint scent of booze that always follows him around, or the scent of that bodywash you bought him for his birthday that he uses everyday. all of it, it’s his heat. thick and permeating, so strong that it’s making your cunt ache for him. 

“how bad have you been wantin’ it, hm? ‘cause from where i’m standin’, sweetheart, you’ve not been much of a good girl whilst i’m here, fuckin’ suffering my ass off f’you.” you have no idea what he’s talking about. not really. but he’s standing over you now, backing you into the dresser. “‘s that what you’ve been waitin’ for all week? waitin’ f’me to snap and fuck you senseless? is that it, huh? want the big, bad wolf to ruin that sweet pussy of yours?”

you feel your face burn. “i– dean, baby, i don’t– what are you talking about–”

“c’mon, now.. don’t play stupid,” he interjects. “you know exactly what you’ve been doini without me..” carefully and methodically, he’s reaching behind you, pulling something out from the back of the top drawer. you want to die right then and there when you see what it is.

it’s your dildo. fresh batteries and all.

“been sortin’ yourself out, have you?” dean’s so close to you right now that you can feel his hard cock up against your thigh. “see, ‘m thinkin’ we should play a little game– just you and me. i wanna know what you’ve been doin’ this week ‘cause i wouldn’t fuck you.”

you bite your tongue. you swallow your words– the ones that would come out dripping with neediness and pathetic composure– silently taking the toy with shaking hands. it’s big. of course not as big as dean, and just thick enough to keep you satiated. for a little while, anyway.

dean gives you two commands. “strip; get on the bed.”

needlessly, you oblige. 

you wait there, with legs spread and a mouth full of blood, as dean situates himself between your legs. he’s got the toy in one hand, the other teasing your clit. “jus’ warmin’ you up,” he mutters, face unreadable. you nod, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “gonna make sure she’s nice and stretched out f’me ‘fore i do anythin’ to her, got it?”

again, you nod. or try to nod, but don’t. and that’s because he’s suddenly pushing the toy into you, burying it as deep as he possibly can. you cry out at the unexpectedness, clenching tightly around it, doing your best to do what dean wanted– for you to be good– but already find yourself struggling.

and this must show in how you look to him, because he’s using his free hand to force your legs to stay apart, almost to a painful extent. “jesus, sweetheart. barely got the thing in you and you’re cryin’. don’t know how you’re gonna take me if you’re whimperin’ like this already.”

you choke out between little sobs, “no, i can– i can do it. please, dean, i can do it–” but you cut yourself off as he pushes the dildo back into you, purposefully angling it so it hits one of your sweet spots. you swear– if you weren’t holding back right now, you’d cum just from that alone. but you don’t. you’re eager to ride this out. 

dean keeps fucking the toy into you, alternating between rubbing rough circles on your clit and pumping himself. the sight of him doing that, along with the perverse knowledge of knowing what he’s been doing to your panties and clothes all week, brings you to the brink of orgasm. watching him do it feels wrong, dirty and sinful, and yet you can’t stop. he grunts your name every now and then, letting it fall from his lips in broken, strained syllables, before going back to circling your clit, pre-cum on his fingers; the toy still goes in and out of you, the squelching audible, just a bit over dean’s groaning. but before you can go falling off said orgasm brink, he’s taking the toy out of you entirely.

and he’s getting on top of you. 

dean’s eyes have narrowed, his mouth slightly ajar and canines looking sharp and wet. one of his large hands has both of your wrists pinned above your head as he presses himself up against your dripping cunt. you breathe in. you’re waiting for the moment that you feel it, feel the slight burn of him pushing in, burying himself right up to your cervix because he loves being so close to you. though, that was the old excuse. you’re not sure what he’ll say now, what bullshit excuse he’ll give you for practically rearranging your insides. 

he’s holding tightly onto your hip as he shoves himself in, his eyes piercing into yours like caught prey– like he needs you to know that because you didn’t listen to him, that you weren’t a good girl, that you didn’t do what he wanted this week, this is your execution. 

and you only call it that, an execution, because you’re not sure what else this is. or if you’ll even live. 

“been a fuckin’ mess f’you all week, sweetheart.” dean lets out a strained, dark laugh as he begins to pull back, before slamming himself deep into you again. you can’t help but to cry out loudly, pulling against the way he holds your wrists and arching your back off of the bed. your breathing goes from still to frantic. “all. fuckin’. week. and you– you have fun without me?”

as he pulls back again, you decided to get a few (incoherent) words in. “but– dean– you didn’t want my help–”

“maybe i didn’t. maybe i did,” he snarls, thrusting into you again, just as hard and deep as before, groaning when you involuntarily clench around him. with him in place, you can feel how violently he pulses against your walls, feel the fat knot bump up against your entrance. if it hurts to take him now, you’re not sure how that will feel in you. “fuck– jus’ so good at follwin’ my orders, aren’t you? like a good little soldier, and all f’me–” he cuts himself off as he licks a fat stripe up the centre of your throat, and across one side of your jawline. he’s still fucking into you as he continues to shame you– all for following his orders– and every now and then his knot gets dangerously close to slipping into your gaping hole. “god, you’re even good when you’re under me like this, not able to go anywhere. ‘s that what you want, baby, wanna stay under me for good, takin’ my orders like a good girl?”

you nod pathetically, not actually taking in anything he’s saying. you pick up on certain words and phrases– how he wants you “under me for good,” and how you’re a “good girl”– but aside from that, you’re too busy, too cockdrunk to focus on anything except the way he fills your tight cunt, the fat tip of his cock kissing up against your cervix. 

you cry out again when his nails dig into the soft skin of your wrists, even though your arms feel slightly numb from lack of blood pressure. there’s the heavy scent of blood in the air, creating a putrid concoction of his heat, salt-laced sweat and your arousal. it’s disgusting, so intrusive that you swear with each gasp you take that you can taste it, drink it in like strong perfume, and you’re sure that you’re getting high off of it. you crave it. 

“jus’ so fuckin’ good f’me, baby,” dean mutters, just as delirious as you are, as he continues to reorganise your guts, with his mouth occasionally meeting yours, but staying close to the wet flesh of your neck. you wince when his teeth catch against the sensitive area, like it’s a game he can play, seeing what it takes for him to “slip”, maybe sink in and take a bite. “fuck– jus’ wanna see what you look like with my teeth drippin’ with your blood.” and when you whimper under him, lose your protest to that idea in between a wanton moan and his animalistic growl, he takes it as encouragement. “shall i do it, sweetheart? yeah? oh, baby, you don’t gotta cry– ‘s jus’ gonna hurt for a sec–”

and then, he does it.

dean’s teeth are in your neck. there’s a second where all there is, is white-hot pain; the type that you’re pretty sure makes people pass out, the type that makes you let out a short-lived scream as you basically convulse under him. but he doesn’t let go. doesn’t pull back. keeps filling your gaping hole with his throbbing cock, teeth practically searing your flesh. the occasional lick he gives you does extremely little to soothe you. 

when he finally does pull away from your neck, dean’s pupils are blown, his teeth stained. milky white turned sanguine. he’s so pretty like this that it makes you nauseous. “gonna fuckin’ put so many pups in you, sweetheart,” dean pants, occasionally growling when his knot manages to slip into you, but then slips right back out again. “fuck– gonna keep you full and happy, and all you’re ever gonna want is me.” and with one final, brutal thrust, the knot is in you. he’s still pushing into you, but they’re more short and careful pushes, because he knows if he does too much now that the knot won’t stay. 

and you? you just whimper and cry under him, maybe utter some unintelligible syllables every now and again, pathetically soak up dean’s condescending love when he licks you, places half-assed kisses to your bruised lips. it’s uncomfortable, you notice immediately, the knot in you; it’s just stuck at your entrance, gaping you, and yet, it’s the thing that send you over the brink and into an all-consuming orgasm. you’re surprised that you survive it. 

you writhe under dean as you attempt to surpass the sheer overwhelm that it takes on your body, suddenly feeling so aware of everything around you; the heady scent in the air around you that is so thick that it chokes you, the vulgar sound of your gaping hole squelching as he continues to shallowly fuck into you, the dull ache in your neck. it’s like an out-of-body experience. 

but then you come crashing back down onto earth, into your body, as dean’s thrusting abruptly stops, his hips stuttering, as he cums deep in you. your sore, bruising walls flutter and spasm around him as he does so, pushed to the limit from his sheer aggressiveness. he’s also got his teeth in your shoulder when it happens, and the strained growl he lets out reverberates against your skin, the vibrations going straight to your core. his fat cock pulses in you. his knot stays inside of you. you’d really like him to stay here, with the two of you like this, forever. 

dean eventually lets go of your shoulder, pressing his face into your sweat-slicked skin. he places kitten-like kisses over all the places he’s accidentally hurt you. he holds you hand, tight, as there’s another flood of cum pumped from his cock deep into your hole. 

after a short, slightly unnerving period of silence, dean pulls entirely away from you; though, he’s still buried in you, his knot refusing to let go of your cunt. he sighs sadly as he gently runs his thumb over the wound on your neck. you turn your face away, ashamed, and then feeling even more ashamed when you hear him let out a slight whimper. “oh, ‘m so sorry, baby. y’know i’d never mean to hurt you like this. oh, my poor girl.”

you silently lean into his caresses, allow him to hold you and mutter sweet praises into your hair as you tremble every now and then. your sex with him has never been this– violent. part of you wants it to happen again– and, if literature has taught you anything– it will– and part of you doesn’t. but it’s also dean. you love him too much.

you love him like it’s stockholm syndrome. 

you’re wincing once more when dean’s forcefully taking himself out of your wrecked hole, and then wincing, again, as warm cum seeps from you, slowly dripping onto the sticky sheets under you. but before you can get too embarrassed, or get up and clean yourself, dean’s repositioning himself, his fingers ghosting over your cunt.

and then, pushing into you.

“dean, what’re you–”

“jus’ makin’ sure it goes where it needs to,” dean replies, shoving two, three fingers into you. and then you’re feeling something that’s way too big– almost fist-like– to be his fingers, and you start to whine and clench around it. “hey, hey. ‘m takin’ care of you, sweetheart. don’t fight it now. jus’ makin’ sure it does its job.”

you don’t argue back. you’re too tired. you simply lie there, allow dean to push his fingers (and his fist, as you come to find out at a much later time) deep into you, making sure his cum stays firmly inside of you. you’re still clamping around him, just not as tight as before, your muscles too aching and sore to put in more than half the effort. and besides, each time you do, dean lets out a little hiss.

and before long, dean’s back on top of you, pushing your legs open again. “‘m sorry, sweetheart. ain’t over yet,” he apologises, but you don’t think he’s that sorry– not with how his tone is too eager, his words like electric; all excited and energised. “gotta keep doin’ this, doin’ you, ‘til i’m done.”

almost instantly, he returns to fucking you. dean’s licking you all over, biting and clawing you in various places. knotting you over, and over, and over again.

by morning, you’re nothing short of sore. you’re also feeling full, your cunt and libido definitely satiated from how many times dean fucked and filled you. you’re not sure of the exact times he did so, but you know it was enough to keep him happy and docile. clearly you were a good girl; he’s still at your side, still human. it’s all you can really ask for at this point.

there’s just today; the last day of his rut. it’s clear that whatever dean said at the start of the week, you being a good girl and not helping him because he didn’t want to hurt you, is long forgotten. abandoned just as quickly as the time sam tried to make him go vegan (or stop drinking). you want to take a shower before dean wakes, get you trapped under him, or on top of him, with his knot firmly inside you.

You laugh into his mouth, your hands moving up to his shoulders, feeling the way he shifts under your touch. One hand drags down, feeling the muscles on his back tense up on every slow thrust.

He scatters kisses across your face, lips on your cheeks and nose, across to your ear as he nips at the lobe. He speaks quietly, breath caught, "I missed this-"

He pushes deep, your body arching for him, legs wrapping around his waist. He keeps himself steady, despite how clearly he wants to speed up, making sure you feel every inch of him filling you. He builds a careful rhythm, keeping himself inside you just long enough that you feel used to it before he pulls out again, long strokes, trying not to rush.

"You look-" Your words are cut off as he pushes in again, lifting your body off the mattress slightly, winding any thought out of you.

He kisses your temple, speaking against your skin, "Yeah?"

You smile, catching your breath as you speak quietly, "Look so pretty, Dean."

He kisses you again, voice soft, "Says you-" he speeds up, only slightly, "-prettiest sight I'll ever see-"

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“It’s too hot,” he says.

“Don’t stop.”

You rock your hips back, desperate to make him move again.

“Please, Bruce. It feels too fuckin' good.”

He refuses to let the metal burn you, but he does not pull out. One arm wraps around your waist while the other hooks beneath your thigh, and he lifts and turns you without slipping free, pinning your back to the cooler driver’s door. Your legs lock around his waist as he supports your weight, letting him drive up into you and reach even deeper than before.

A small bulge moves low in your stomach. Bruce covers it with his palm and pushes into you again, watching it rise against his hand.

“You feel me here?” he asks.

You can only nod before he resumes, his eyes fixed on the bulge shifting beneath his palm.

“Touch yourself.”

You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.

Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.

That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).

You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.

You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.

“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.

“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.

“I was,” Gwayne nods.

“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”

He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed. 

The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.

Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve. 

“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”

“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.” 

“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”

You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.

“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.

Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”

“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”

“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.

“It feels less and less so these days.”

“They’re only frightened—”

“I’m frightened,” you remind him.

The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud. 

He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”

“No Hightowers?” you add.

“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”

You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”

“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”

“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”

“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”

“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”

“They won’t.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”

“So do most men—”

“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”

Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.

“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”

“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.

A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”

“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”

“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”

Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.

But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.

And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.

ii. OATHS & ASHES

The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself. 

It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”

Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.

Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.

You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask. 

The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.

Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.

“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.

“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.

Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.

“Well, I was going to, of course.”

“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood. 

“…Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”

“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”

“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”

“The king has given orders—”

“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”

Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”

“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”

“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”

“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”

Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you. 

His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.

“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”

“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”

“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”

“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…” 

You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.

“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.

The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.

The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.

“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely. 

“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”

“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”

The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”

Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”

Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”

Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.

“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.

“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”

Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.

He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.

This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.

It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.

The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.

“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there. 

He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.

He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”

You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you. 

“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.

Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.

His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.

Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.

Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”

You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.

 Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.

His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.

“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”

“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.

Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”

“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.

“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.

Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”

iii. CROWNS & CAGES

You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.

Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”

You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.

Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.

You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.

“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”

Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.

“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”

“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”

“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”

“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”

Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”

“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”

“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”

The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle. 

Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.

A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.

Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned. 

A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.

Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map. 

“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone. 

“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”

Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”

“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace. 

His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.

“I expected someone… older.”

His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”

“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”

“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”

You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”

“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”

You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.

Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”

“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”

“For… What purpose?” he laughs.

You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all. 

You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.

“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”

Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude. 

It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.

Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.

The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.

It had been four days since then. 

And you haven’t eaten once in protest.

It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?

On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.

He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it.  The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.

There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow. 

Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless. 

Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.

“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”

Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.

“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”

His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”

You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”

“Eat.”

You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”

“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”

You respond with only a glare.

Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”

You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.

“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.” 

Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.

He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.

“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides.  “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”

“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”

“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”

“When?” you spit.

“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”

A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”

His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?” 

His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.

“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches. 

A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth. 

“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”

Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.

“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”

Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”

“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”

Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.

iv. SILK & SWORDS

You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.

Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.

Your days, however, remained painfully empty.

Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.

The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.

Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.

“Is that a love letter—?”

The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.

It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.

“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”

“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.

You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.

His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.

Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”

“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”

“Please, don’t—”

His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.

The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.

His head turns slightly under the blow.

Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.

The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.

“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.

You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.

“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”

“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”

The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.

Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.

You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.

Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.

“My lady…”

You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.

Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.

Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.

Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.

“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”

Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.

v. SANCTUARY & SIN

The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.

For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm. 

Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.

Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.” 

His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.

“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.” 

It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.

Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.

You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.

But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.

Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.

“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."

You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.  

You haven’t left his bed since.

The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.

No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor. 

You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.

You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.

“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders. 

“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.

The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”

“I learned everything from you, did I not?”

When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.

Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”

“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.

“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”

“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”

You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.

His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.

“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.

“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”

You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”

“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."

“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.

“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.

He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you. 

One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.

It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.

You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.

“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.

“Ought what?”

“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”

You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”

Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction. 

“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”

You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”

He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”

You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.

He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.

Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.

Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss. 

“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.

You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.

“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”

Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”

Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.

Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.

Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.

“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.

“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.

“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”

A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.

“There it is…” he praises.

“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”

The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you. 

His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.

It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins. 

Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.

You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.

He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth. 

He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”

Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”

Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”

“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.

Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”

The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.

“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”

Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit. 

Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.

Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you. 

The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass. 

He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you. 

You aren’t far behind.

He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.

“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”

Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one. 

The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.

“My lord?”

The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.

“My lord—”

“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”

The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”

You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.

Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”

“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”

Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”

After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”

you cross your arms a little tighter over your chest as the wind picks up and the chill in the air prickles at your skin. running up the pathway to his doorstep, you’re practically screaming at yourself to not do this, reminding yourself that it’s not too late to turn around and go home. 

this isn’t worth it, you tell yourself. you’re throwing yourself at his mercy just so you can get laid, and you’re still going to end up in your own bed a few hours from now remembering how heartstricken you are because you’re nothing more than a good time to him. 

he’s a piece of shit and you know it. your heart shouldn’t jump in your chest solely at the sound of his name. the butterflies shouldn’t start fluttering in your stomach every time he tells you to come over. you’re better than this, which is why you should turn around right now and go home. 

and yet, as you stand there waiting to knock, you can’t resist the temptation. forget your longing heart, forget how badly you want something real with him; you’re here for one reason only. 

live now, think later. 

you practically bang down the door in your exasperation. why do you continue to do this yourself? why have you not learned how to say no to him? how have you not fallen out of love with him even if only because of his self-obsession? 

you hate the way you convince yourself that deep down, he’s a good man. he means well, that he does care about you. objectively, you know that it’s true.

but you can’t see anything objectively when it comes to him. 

the shit-eating grin on his face when he sees you standing on his porch reminds you of both exactly why you’re here and exactly why you shouldn't be here. 

you’re here because he’s the best sex you’ve ever had, and you can never will yourself to say no to spending the night with him. 

you shouldn’t be here because he’s a prick who knows that you can’t stop yourself, and the fact that you continue to show up time after time is just another boost to his already far too massive ego. 

“knew you’d come running when I called, sweetheart,” he laments. the smirk on his face only grows as he looks you up and down where you stand in his doorway, taking in the sight of you in the little black dress you’re wearing. “looking like a fuckin’ hooker, too.” 

anger rises in your chest, red-hot and broiling. you wish the comment was enough to send you away, to slap you back into reality. 

of course it isn’t. 

“fuck off,” you bite back at him, the chill continuing to bite at your skin. “are you going to let me in or not?”

he lets out a small chuckle as he tilts his head back up to your face, and even as he does so, he’s still looking down at you. the fact that he’s so damn tall never fails to make you both so angry and so turned on, and your body warms as he stares deep into your eyes with a look that makes you wonder if he can hear every thought in your head. 

“dunno. like seeing you out in the cold, your nipples poking through–”

he’s a pig, you tell yourself, and yet you shove past him to let yourself inside the house. making your way straight to his kitchen, you find your most frequented cabinet, the door that you know you’ll find the liquor behind. you know his place like the back of your hand by this point, which you know should most certainly not be the case. 

you shouldn’t be drawn to him. he’s terrible, he’s a womanizer, he…

“you drink as much as a hooker, too.” 

you’re madly in love with him, just like every other woman that’s ever laid her eyes on him. he’s tall, effortlessly handsome, and built with muscles like a Greek god. 

although unlike those other women, you actually get to have a taste of him. you get to know what he feels like on top of you, what it’s like to be in his bed, have his fingers on you, inside of you. and yet it still doesn’t mean you can call him yours any more than they can. 

you ignore his comment, proceeding to take a swig from the first bottle you manage to grab. 

tequila. you’ve never taken him for a tequila kind of guy, but–

it’s your drink of choice, and it’s a brand new bottle. 

no, no, no. this is not something to be read into. he is not a considerate person, and he did not buy a bottle of liquor just for you. 

as you stare at the wall, bottle still in hand, you feel the burn of the liquid going down your throat. the pattering of his feet against the floor fills your ears as he makes his way behind you, pressing himself up against you until you’re stuck between him and the edge of the counter where it digs into your stomach. 

you wish you hated him. you wish your disdain for him was stronger than the soul-crushing love you hold for him. 

your head drops to your shoulder as he leans in closer, his nose brushing up against the skin of your neck and his face burying itself in your hair. you can hear the sound of him sharply inhaling the scent of your perfume as his hips roughly pin you in place against the solid granite. 

“Ben,” you whine before turning your head in the opposite direction, bringing the bottle to your lips once more and taking one last drink before setting it back down onto the countertop. 

“found my little gift for you, did you?” he murmurs, one hand coming to drag your hair away from your flesh before beginning to suck a hickey into your skin. 

the fact that he’s deliberately breaking your rule to not leave any marks completely evades you as your mind is overtaken with thoughts about how he just openly admitted that he bought the bottle for you. 

“fuck off,” you respond softly, unable to come up with a real response, your voice lacking the confidence you wish to portray as you speak. except your heart is beating too fast in your chest as you let yourself read into the comment, let yourself believe that the gesture was made with heartfelt intention. 

it does not mean anything. he does not care about you. 

he inches closer to you, if even possible, his body heat seeping into your skin and blurring the lines of where you end and he begins. his hands trace up the back of your legs, underneath the hem of your dress where it sits just below the curve of your ass. as he drags the fabric higher and higher, exposing more of your skin for him to caress, his fingers make their way between your thighs up until he reaches the lace that sits skimpily on your skin. 

“feisty,” he taunts in response to your stupid little remark, the retort sending another burst of anger through you that only serves to make you that much more desperate for his touch. he continues his work on your neck, biting and sucking more bruises as you begin whining with the realization that they’re his marks. that for now, you can delude yourself and let yourself truly feel like you’re his, if only for a moment. his fingers between your legs pinch and grab at your flesh as he taunts you, causing you to jolt and hiss with each motion he makes. 

you can’t help the way your mind begins to go cloudy, your eyes growing hazy. you’re entirely unable to peel them back open as his touch consumes the entirety of your conscious mind. 

“oh, Ben,” you can’t help but whimper as he begins rubbing your cunt over the dainty lace that barely covers anything. 

except he knows you so well, far too well by now, that he can tell when your mind begins to shut down. he knows that the alcohol doesn’t do a damn thing, that you’re drunk on nothing but the small, torturous pleasures he’s giving you. 

“yeah, that’s how we like her,” he mocks of you as one of his feet kicks the inside of your own, forcing your legs to part as he eases you forward, bending you over the beautiful granite countertop. he takes your wrists and softly folds them across each other before resting them against your lower back as your chest meets the surface in front of you, the cold feeling shocking your system as your cheek comes to rest against it. “look at you. so easy, just like a little whore, aren’t ya?”

“I’m not,” you try to bite back, but your words come out as nothing more than a jumble of sounds as his fingers begin to gently rub your clit over the lace of your panties. as much as you fight it, you know how you look right now: stupid and pathetic as you bend over and spread your legs for him without hesitating. 

your entire figure heats up as his other hand finds its way to your hip and gently shoves your dress out of the way before placing his palm, so warm and so large, against your skin to hold you in place. his other hand doesn’t let up on his ministrations on your clit, the sensations dizzying. 

biting your lip proves ineffective as you attempt to contain the weak noises that escape from your throat, every single little moan and breath you let out is just music to his ears, goading him on even further. 

with your dress displaced and bunched up around your waist, the lace hidden underneath becomes visible to his gaze. the deep green of the undergarment catches his attention. 

“never seen this before,” he mutters. his free hand begins tracing over the lines of the fabric, his mind whirring and beginning to draw his own conclusions. “you buy this just for me?” 

you could scoff at the audacity of his words, his egotistical nature revealing itself once more with the question he’s just posed to you. 

“absolutely not–” you protest, except once again, he cuts you off before you can finish speaking. effectively shutting you up as he harshly shoves the lace to the side and pushes two fingers inside you, so wet and ready already. 

no matter how irritating he is, how much of a fucking prick he is, you continue to bow down to his mercy every time.

“keep lying to me, see where that gets you,” he threatens, poking and prodding around inside you like it’s a punishment, yet another humiliation he inflicts to coerce you into obeying and telling him the truth. 

of course you’re lying. you can’t admit that to him so easily, though. 

another breathless mewl falls from your lips as he plays with your cunt like you’re just a toy for him, testing to see what reactions he can pull from you. you hate to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much of an effect he has on you, how easily he can pull you apart without even trying. 

this would be so much easier for you, you think, if his touch meant nothing to you. if you had no attachment, if you were only here to get off without the thought of anything more in your head. if you could turn off your feelings for only a night. 

life doesn’t work like that. 

his free hand moves to grip your bicep and gently pulls you back into a standing position in front of him, encouraging you to lean your weight against him. his hand adjusts to wrap itself around your chin, forcing your jaw to part before withdrawing his fingers from between your legs and bringing them to your mouth. 

he looks on with lust in his gaze as he stares down at the sight of your lips wrapping themselves around his fingers coated in your arousal. you don’t fight, don’t hesitate to do exactly as he pleases, because you know you always will. you’ll always give into him without question, happily. 

“look at me,” he murmurs into your ear, and your eyes open slowly, darting to look at him in your peripheral. yet again, he laughs, and the fluttering in your belly only increases tenfold at his acknowledgement of your debasement. “you look real pretty like this.” 

if only his compliments were genuine. 

“you gonna lie to me again?” he inquires, to which you softly shake your head no, not once breaking eye contact as you do. the smirk on his face only widens with your admission. when his fingers finally fall from where they rest against your tongue, your breathing heaves as you finally confess. 

“fuck, yeah. I did. I bought it for you,” you tell him between deep inhales, revealing the truth and pleasing him. 

“that’s what I thought,” he grumbles as though exasperated. he soon diverts his gaze from yours to watch as his hands glide down your torso until they reach the bunched-up fabric of your dress. he tugs the dress up and over your head with ease, fully revealing the dainty green set you’re wearing underneath. 

he turns you around to face him, caging you in as his hands come to rest on the edge of the cold granite on either side of your figure. he leans in close enough that you can smell the faint scent of his shampoo on his hair as he looks you up and down, taking in the vision of your figure in front of him. you notice the way his pupils dilate, the way his jaw clenches before his eyeline meets yours once more. 

there’s a look in his gaze unlike any you’ve ever seen before, and you don’t know what to make of it. it’s as though the confidence on his face somehow falters as he glares into your soul through your eyes. you catch how his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows roughly before speaking again. 

“you let anyone else touch you like this?” he asks, and you refuse to let him see the way the words are like a punch in the gut. you can’t let him in; you have to hold your act together as you respond. 

“I don’t belong to you, Ben,” you say, keeping your voice steady and maintaining eye contact. 

he’s not pleased with your answer, which is obvious in the way he huffs, his gaze dropping to your lips before returning to meet yours once more. 

“that’s not an answer, and you know it.” 

this is nothing more than his ego talking, his desperate need to be better than anyone and everyone showing itself in his line of questioning. he could care less about actually having you; he just can’t stand the thought of anyone else having you. 

because he’s a selfish, egomaniacal supe with an incessant craving for approval. 

that’s how you fit into his life: you’re just another thing for him to have whenever he feels like it, whenever he needs the ego boost. he calls you in his lowest moments not because he wants you, but because he needs you. 

you, meaning nothing but a means of validating himself. you, meaning a tool for him to use to fix the cracks in his facade. you, meaning a stepping stone that exists only to support him until he finds the next best thing, the next girl he sets his sights on. 

the next girl he calls beautiful, the next girl he fucks–

to his surprise, you suddenly turn away from him and reach for the bottle of liquor on the counter behind you. as you lift it to your lips to take another drink, he stops you, reaching out to grab your wrist and holding your arm in place mid-air. 

“what the fuck?” you hiss, but he doesn’t give you an answer, simply ripping the bottle from your hand and laying a quick slap on your ass. 

“you’re really starting to piss me off,” he snarls, turning you to face him once more, the look of anger on his face apparent. he brings one hand to your hip, his grip tight and bruising as his other hand comes to wrap itself around your neck, a reminder of your place. “I know you don’t think you’re running the show here, darlin’.”

he stares you down for another moment, his eyes glancing back and forth between yours for a couple seconds, scanning for something that you’re not quite sure of. he’s breathing quickly but steadily, and the look on his face is almost… apprehensive? 

you never know what he’s thinking, and you’ve learned at this point that you’re better off not knowing. you’ll only end up getting hurt even worse. 

you’re taken completely off-guard when he suddenly moves so swiftly that you can’t keep up as his hand drops from your neck, bringing it to your other hip and hoisting you up and over his shoulder. 

“Ben,” you shriek, to which he lands another smack on your ass as he carries you down the hall and to his bedroom. “I swear to god, if you drop me–”

“not gonna happen,” he assures you with a confidence you wish you were able to mirror. 

you wish this didn’t make you feel so giddy, being reminded of all the things about him that get you hot and bothered. how strong and sure of himself he is, even if he is overconfident as hell. 

you wish you didn’t have fun with him. you wish that he was boring, or that he was bad in bed, or anything just so you could snap out of your daze and realize how stupid you are for loving him so wholeheartedly. 

a few seconds later, you find yourself being tossed onto the soft sheets on his bed as he follows, climbing on top of you and smiling down at you.

“oh, I’d never drop you, sweetheart. can’t have anything bad happening to my favorite hooker, now can I?” he teases, both of his hands running up and down your sides with a gentleness you wouldn’t know he was capable of if you didn’t know him so well by now. 

you shouldn’t know him. you really wish you didn’t. 

a smile breaks out across your face as he grins so authentically back at you, his hair hanging down in front of his forehead, and you take the opportunity to admire how absolutely beautiful he is. you hate how much you love the way he looks at you, how goddamn fucking pretty he is up close like this. 

“I’m not a hooker,” you reiterate, still smiling like an idiot as your eyes trail over each and every perfect feature on his face. just by looking at him he makes your heart melt. 

“whoring yourself out just for me, then, huh?” 

you roll your eyes and try to wipe the smile from your face, try to ignore the way he looks at you like you’re the only girl in the world. 

it’s not real. you have to know it’s not, you have to remind yourself it’s fake.

“I told you, I don’t belong to you,” you repeat, the smile on your face finally fading as the reality of the situation comes back to you. 

his grin drops with yours. 

“thought I told you to stop lying to me,” he says, his voice deepening. 

and just like that, the bubble is broken. he sits back and brings his hands to your waist, barely having to put any strength into the motion as he quickly turns you over onto your stomach, your cheek being pressed into the pillow. his hand comes down on your ass a few more times, just enough to jolt you as he continues. “you’ve been lying to me all night. don’t think you deserve for me to fuck you,” he threatens. 

the sound of that pisses you off beyond belief, anger and some form of deep-rooted insecurity broiling in your chest. 

you’re not good for him. you’re not good enough for him. you could never be enough for him. 

how could you ever be worthy of him? you’re not even a supe, why the hell would he deign to even look at you? 

you don’t even manage to get a word in as you watch him reach for the bedside drawer, every cell in your body too focused on the feeling of where his hand makes contact with your flesh repeatedly, the sting keeping you on edge. 

he adjusts his positioning behind you, his knees bracketing yours and pressing your thighs together as you hear the sound of him unbuckling his belt. 

“come on, admit it, sweetheart,” he goads, gently caressing your skin to ease the sting from his previous treatment. “just say the words and I’ll give you what you want.” 

you wish you could give him what he wants. you wish you could unapologetically declare how he owns every part of you, how your heart and soul want nothing more than to be his. you wish you could tell him the truth and he wouldn’t mock you for it, that reality didn’t bleed into every night you spend with him. 

you can’t say anything at all. your voice will inevitably crack, or you’ll accidentally say something that’s going to cut the night short and get you thrown out of his life for good. 

“have it your way,” he murmurs, and then you feel the warmth of his fingers spreading warm liquid over the backs of your thighs. 

and that’s when it clicks in your head. 

“you’re not serious,” you protest, moving to press your weight onto your hands to push yourself away from the bed. he’s not having any of it, immediately forcing you back down into position. 

“you say the words and I’ll fuck you proper,” he iterates. once again, you don’t respond, and he leans in, his nose brushing against your ear from behind. “alright. have it your way.”

and then you feel it, the sensation of him pressing himself in between your slicked-up thighs. 

you can’t help but let out a small whine of complaint as he ruts his hips against you, shoving deeper into the space between your legs. the sounds of his groans in your ear fill your head and overwhelm any rational thought other than, 

“Ben, I swear to god, just fuck me,” you whine stupidly, so desperately as you try to grind down against him, try to shift and find the right angle to rub his dick right where you need it, higher, closer–

you’re no match for his strength, pinning you to the bed and forcing you to lay there and take it.

“I am fucking you,” he retorts with another movement, yet another grunt passing his lips and making your cunt clench again, still feeling so fucking empty. “you know how to get what you want.”

you hate him. you really, truly do, and you should tell him to get the fuck off of you so you can get up and walk out right now. you came here to get fucked, not to get tormented relentlessly. 

except you know that those two things are a package deal with him. you knew what you were getting yourself into. 

you love it. you love him. 

even as you keep your mouth shut, refusing to give in to what he’s asking, you continue to try and squirm underneath him as though it’ll do you any favors. except he has far more patience and self-restraint in bed than in any other aspect of his life. 

“stop fuckin’ moving and suck it up,” he orders, and once again, his rough tone does nothing but worsen the desperation and pure horniness you feel right now. the noises you make in response are downright disgusting, pathetic whimpers you have no control over.

“Ben, please?” you whisper after a few moments of his horrendously cruel treatment. you hate being forced to beg him for anything, your desperation and pleas only serving to inflate his ego even further with the acknowledgement that you need something only he can give you. 

but it might just work in this case.

“no. we’re not doing that. you want me to split you open? you gotta say the words, darlin’,” he says, all while forcing one of his hands between where your abdomen rests on the sheets, snaking further and further down. “maybe I can help convince you, huh?” 

his hand finally forces its way down to find the lace resting against your cunt, the fabric surely more than soaked by now. his fingers barely graze you and you’re already choking up, trying to jut your hips up against his hand to find more friction, to get him to actually touch you. 

except his other hand holds you still so you can only accept whatever minute, sparse touches he chooses to give you. 

“I hate you,” you whisper, your mind clouding over once more as the need for him consumes you. 

“aww, I bet you do,” he taunts back, his breathing growing heavier and his movements quicker and more sporadic. “come on, sweetheart.”

you’re devolving into a mess underneath him as the torment makes you grow dizzy. you don’t want to give in, you can’t admit the truth, you…

his voice is far too soft as he tells you, “just tell me that you’re mine and I’ll give you the world.”

you let out a loud, emotional cry at the sound of that, of the thought of him actually caring sending you into a spiral. in the same moment, you feel his hips force themselves between the flesh of your thighs once more before letting go, the warmth of his release coating your soft skin. 

you will yourself to calm down as he quits touching you entirely, his breathing slowing down in your ear as he comes back to himself after his release. he keeps his hold around you tight as he rolls onto his side on the bed, taking you with him and not letting you stray away. 

his hand on your lower abdomen dips further down, finding the mess he’s left on your skin and scooping up some of his release before forcing his fingers between your lips. you don’t even think about it before you begin sucking them clean, doing whatever he wants, always. 

his other arm around you pulls you in closer as he mutters, “you’re real fuckin’ stubborn.”

you know what you’re doing. you know that you’re an idiot for always ending up back in his bed, for always trying to catch his attention in some new way, like the flashy set you’re wearing that you bought with him in mind. 

of course you’re his. 

but he’s not yours. 

“thought I’d get you to break,” he continues, withdrawing his fingers from your mouth and drawing them back down to your legs, dipping his fingers into the mess of his release once more before fucking it into your weeping hole without warning. “guess I’ll just have to force it out of you.”

as your eyes shut once more, his mouth finds your neck, the feeling of his arms encompassing your figure comforting you. his warmth seeping into your skin seemingly breaks down the emotional walls in your head once and for all as the sudden closeness blindsides you. 

“you win,” you whisper into the air in front of you, your hands gripping tightly onto his forearm where it rests against your abdomen as you struggle to form any coherent words while he touches you. “I’m yours.” 

you expect him to laugh, to taunt you and say something that will make you regret ever speaking up and giving into what he wanted. 

he doesn’t. 

“no one else gets to touch what’s mine, you hear me?” he hisses in your ear, his hand between your legs working quicker against you. the response shocks you, regardless of the fact that his possessive streak is a mile wide, because he doesn’t do this. he doesn’t speak with such intention, or speak in a way that might even imply commitment. 

“Ben–”

“would you just listen to me, for once?” he grits, his free hand making its way to your face, grabbing you by the jaw and turning your head to the side to face him. “you’re fucking mine.” 

oh. 

oh.

you begin to stutter, Ben never relenting on his movements between your legs, continuing to drive you closer and closer to the edge far too quickly. “you… you mean–”

“you’re real fuckin’ dense, darlin’,” he continues. “now promise me that you’re never letting anyone else fuck this pretty pussy ever again, hmm?”

the words can't be real. you wish they were, you want them to be…

for some reason, you believe him.

“Ben, I’m gonna come,” you whine, his words driving you higher and higher. 

“not until you do as I say, you’re not,” he threatens. your grip on his arm tightens and your nails surely dig deeper into his skin as you do, every hesitation and preconceived notion about the state of your relationship with him beginning to crumble. 

you know him. he loves to taunt and torment, but this? 

he wouldn’t joke about this. 

“I promise, Ben. never again, fuck, I promise,” you whimper, barely able to get the words out. your whole body is shaking, every inch of you on edge as you await the drop of your impending release. 

“that’s right, sweetheart. go on. let go f’me.” 

as you finally let go, with him wrapped around you and holding you closer than you think you’ve ever been, you know for fact that this is the best orgasm he’s ever given you. you don’t hold back as you cry out into the room as it wracks through you, the sound of him talking you through it going in one ear and out the other, but nevertheless registering in your head that he’s there.

that he cares.

and as your breathing heaves and the blood rushing in your ears finally calms itself, you hear his next words loud and clear. 

“guess your hooker days are over now, huh?” 

and fuck, you can’t stop yourself from bursting out giggling. 

he’s a fucking menace. 

but god, you love him. 

✦ masterlist ✦