Nothing To See Here

“My moneys on Daeron.” You say placing your book down on the bedside table, cuddling into your husband’s side when he finally joins you, kissing your head as he does so. “I also wouldn’t be shocked if he brings Aegon with him.”

“I don’t even want to think about it.” He says resting his hand on your waist as you lay half on him. “We’ve only just gotten Aerion back to sleeping in his bed again I don’t want to go through the same with Aegon.”

“If Aegon goes through a faze of only sleeping in a dog bed while wearing a dragon costume 24/7, I will blame you.” You say tiredly dreading the thought of having to argue with another child about why they can’t sleep in the dragon pit.

“That’s fair.” Maekar says excepting his second son does have some… quirks. Kissing your head once more. “It’s late get some sleep.”

-

“Mother? Aegon is scared.” Daeron says lightly shaking your shoulder waking you up. “He doesn’t like the weather.”

“Aegon is scared? Really?” Maekar asks opening one eye to see him eldest son with tears in his eyes holding a sleeping Aegon.

“That’s not good sweetheart, why don’t you both join us.” You say already expecting this as you role over so you can hug your sons instead of your husband. “It’s perfectly normal to not like storms.” You say letting Daeron rest his head on you as baby Aegon now 11 moons old got placed on Maekar’s chest. “Even the bravest of knights can get scared some times.”

“That makes Aegon feel a bit better.” Daeron says calming slightly happy in your arms.

“Get some sleep sweetheart.” You tell him kissing the top of his head. “We’ve got you.”

-

“Kepus? Why do storms happen?” Aemon now four and still as inquisitive asks hitting his father’s arm wanting his attention. Not caring the man in question was sleeping.

“Ask your mother.” Maekar says half asleep, lifting the boy into bed with you all Aegon now sleeping in between you both. Daeron still in your arms, snoring away.

“Mother why do storms happen?” Aemon asks lightly tapping your shoulder. Now also in the middle of the bed with Aegon, Maekar having to move closer to the edge of the bed.

“I don’t know darling, why don’t we find out in the morning?” You say half asleep not wanting to deal with the causes of weather when you’re trying to sleep.

-

“Fuck.” Maekar lets out when a child dressed in a dragon costume lands on him. “Aerion what the fuck are you doing?”

“Brightflame doesn’t like the weather.” The weird child says moving off his father to go to the bottom of the bed making his father move his feet, as the boy crawls in circles pretending to breathe fire, before curling up in a ball. “Brightflame will protect the family.”

“Get some sleep little dragon.” Maekar say too tired to deal with Aerion’s shit, as he tries to fit in the bed.

After finally getting back to sleep he’s woken not long after as he catches himself just before he can fall out of bed. The children having moved in their sleep somehow taking up even more space. You’re completely oblivious to your husbands misfortune as your closer to the middle of the bed sleeping on your back, Daeron one side cuddled up into you as Aemon is the other side, Aegon sleeping like a starfish foot digging into Maekar’s side as Aerion is sleeping the same way just at the bottom of the bed kicking Maekar’s legs every so often.

Deciding he won’t be getting any sleep in bed with you all he decides to move to the sofa for the rest of the night, grateful for the amount of blankets you own.

-

What he didn’t expect when he woke in the morning was Aerion to be sleeping on his chest head resting on Maekar’s heart as the boy snored away looking so soft in his sleep. Reminding Maekar of when his son was a toddler, and got given his first dragon costume from Baelor. He loved that stupid thing, the tantrum he threw when he outgrew it was… dramatic to say the least.

“How did you sleep?” You ask whispering slipping out of the bed without waking any of the sleeping children before seeing Aerion sleeping on his father. “When did he join?”

“I got kicked out of bed by Aegon and this little dragon here.” He replies giving you a soft smile before looking back at his son. “This little shit jumped on me before saying brightflame would protect us from the storm, at some point he must of followed me to the sofa.”

“I love you.” You whisper kissing your husband softly before brushing some of Areion’s hair out his face before looking back at Maekar. “What do you think of having a cozy day today?”

Sweetling told herself this was relief.

She lay on her narrow pallet in the little chamber she shared with two other serving women, listening to rain skitter against the shutters and Bessa snore softly from the far bed. The air smelled of damp wool, lavender soap, and the onion broth someone had eaten too quickly before sleep. Her hands rested folded atop her blanket like a corpse’s.

The ribbon lay beneath her pillow.

She had hidden it there after supper. Then taken it out. Then hidden it in her sleeve. Then in the small pocket of her spare apron. Then beneath the pillow again, because apparently she had become the sort of girl who could not be trusted with cloth.

It had not come because he had not sent it.

Good, she thought.

Then: coward.

Then, horrified at herself: ungrateful fool.

He was doing what he had promised. He was letting her choose. He was not pressing. Not summoning. Not sending a seal that would force Alicent’s hand and hers together. Not making a spectacle of restraint so that she might praise him for it.

He was behaving honorably.

Sweetling turned onto her side and stared at the dark.

Honor, she decided, was extremely inconvenient.

Bessa snorted in her sleep and rolled over.

From the pallet nearest the door, an older maid muttered something about goats.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

Aemond’s mouth waited there.

She opened them.

“No,” she whispered into the dark.

Bessa snored.

Sweetling slid one hand beneath the pillow and closed her fingers around the ribbon.

It was cool at first. Then warmed quickly.

A choice.

That was the trouble. Choices were heavier than commands. A command could be obeyed while one kept some little injured place within blameless. A choice belonged to the chooser. It could not be set down later at a prince’s feet, or a queen’s, or a gods’. If she went to him, she would be going because she wished to. Not because of duty and not because of fear. But because she wanted the danger badly enough to name it.

Sweetling lay very still for a second more, then she sat up.

The room remained dark. Bessa breathed on. The older maid muttered again. Rain kept its counsel.

Sweetling slipped from bed and drew on her plain robe over her shift. Her feet found cold stone, and she stood for a moment with the ribbon clutched in one hand and her own heartbeat making war in her throat. Before, she told herself. Decide before you leave the room. She looked at the door. 

“I choose,” she whispered.

No one heard.

That was just as well.

Sweetling tucked the ribbon into her sleeve and stepped into the corridor.

She did not go to Prince Aemond’s chambers.

Not yet.

First, she went to the linen room, because even foolishness required order. She lit one small lamp. She took up a basket and placed within it two clean cloths, a needle case, black thread, a pot of salve, and one of the prince’s shirts with a loose tie she had deliberately not finished after supper because some new, sly part of her had apparently learned strategy from dragons.

Then she stood in the warm little pool of lamplight and waited.

A corridor away, footsteps passed.

A guard coughed.

The castle breathed.

Sweetling took the ribbon from her sleeve and laid it atop the folded shirt.

Not sent by him. Sent by her. A warning—a question—a confession in cloth. She lifted the basket. By the time she reached the turn before his apartments, her courage had become a thin, bright thing, liable to snap. The guard outside Aemond’s door straightened when Sweetling stopped before him.

“The prince did not summon you,” he said.

“No.”

His eyes dropped to the basket. Then to her face.

She hated him for seeing the heat there.

“I bring mending,” she said.

“At this hour?”

“Yes.”

The guard’s mouth twitched.

Sweetling lifted her chin by a fraction. “You may announce me, or you may explain to Prince Aemond on the morrow why you turned away his handmaid with his linen unfinished.”

The guard stared. Then, very wisely, he knocked.

Aemond’s voice came from within. “What?”

The guard opened the door only enough to speak through. “My prince. Your handmaid.”

Silence.

Sweetling’s grip tightened on the basket.

Then Aemond said, “Send her in.”

The guard stepped aside, and Sweetling crossed the threshold.

Aemond stood by the desk, one hand braced on its edge, a letter open beneath his palm. His hair was loose. He wore no outer tunic, only a dark shirt unlaced at the throat and black breeches tucked into boots he had not bothered to remove. Candlelight made him sharper. Lonelier.

His eye went first to her face.

Then to the basket. Then to the ribbon lying on top. The whole room seemed to still. Sweetling shut the door behind her. Aemond did not move.

“You were not summoned,” he said.

“No.”

“You were told the risk.”

“Yes.”

His gaze pinned her. “And yet.”

Sweetling crossed the room on legs that felt much too mortal for what she asked of them. She set the basket on his desk, careful not to disturb the letter beneath his hand. Then she picked up the ribbon and held it out.

Aemond looked at it.

He did not take it.

“You send my own warning back to me?” he asked.

Her pulse beat everywhere. “No.”

“What, then?”

Sweetling swallowed.

Her mouth had gone dry. Of course it had. All her grand courage had carried her to the edge of speech and then abandoned her there like a faithless knight.

Aemond waited.

He could be patient when cruelty would have been easier. She wished he would stop proving that. It made everything worse.

“I choose the risk,” she said. “Again. I shall continue to choose the risk, again and again.” 

Aemond’s face changed, enough that she noticed it. He came around the desk slowly, knuckles dragging across the wood. “Do not say that because you think I wish to hear it.”

“You do wish to hear it.”

His mouth tightened.

Sweetling held the ribbon between them. “But that is not why I said it.”

He stopped before her. “Why, then?”

Because I wanted to know whether you would let me come to you.

Because I wanted you to know I could.

Because all day I have been praying for gentleness and thinking of your hands.

Because I am frightened, and I came anyway.

She said, “Because I wanted to.”

Aemond closed his eye. Only for a moment. When he opened it, the hunger there had gone quiet. He took the ribbon from her hand and set it on the desk. 

“Then we begin again,” he said, and then he kissed her as if he had been starving in silence.

There was no sweetness at first, no shy fumbling courtship such as girls whispered about over laundry tubs when the older women had gone. Sweetness came later in songs, polished clean by singers who had never stood in a prince’s chamber after midnight with a ribbon hidden in their sleeve and the door shut soft behind them. This was hunger made careful. This was a hand at her waist that could have bruised, and did not. This was his mouth taking hers with such deliberate restraint that Sweetling understood, with a sudden bright terror, that gentleness was not the opposite of danger. Sometimes it was danger held by the throat.

She had stepped into his hand, and he had taken that as an answer enough to begin, but not an answer enough to forget. 

Even as he kissed her, even as his fingers tightened through the plain wool of her robe and drew her nearer until her basket pressed awkwardly against the edge of the desk, he kept a measured space between their bodies, no more than a breath, no less than a warning. Sweetling felt that space more keenly than she would have felt his weight. It invited. It asked. It made her choose again with every inch.

Her hands found his sleeves. Black cloth, warm beneath her palms. He wore no rings tonight, no jeweled ornament, nothing but the severe fastening at his cuffs and the leather belt at his waist. Somehow, that plainness made him worse. Less prince, more man. Less court, more body. Aemond Targaryen with his hair unbound and falling against her cheek, with his breath catching when she did not pull away, with his mouth hot and exacting and already learning the shape of hers.

He broke the kiss before she did.

Sweetling had not known she was clinging until his mouth was gone, and her fingers tightened as if to call it back.

Aemond looked down at her hands, then up at her face.

“You came here,” he said.

Her lips felt swollen. “Yes.”

“Not summoned.”

“No.”

“With that.” His gaze flicked to the ribbon lying on the desk where he had set it, dark against pale parchment. “And with mending.”

She remembered the basket then. The shirt inside. The needle case. The little coward’s excuse she had carried with her so she could pretend to herself that she had not crossed half the sleeping Keep because she wanted to be kissed again.

Her cheeks heated.

Aemond saw, of course. His eye sharpened with that cool, unbearable pleasure he took in every honest betrayal of her face.

“Were you going to mend my shirt?” he asked.

“If it needed mending.”

“It does not.”

“I thought it might.”

“You lie poorly after being kissed.”

Sweetling lowered her gaze, but he caught her chin before it could fall too far. His fingers were firm beneath it, not painful, merely refusing her escape.

“No,” he said. “You do not get to hide from the answer and enjoy the question.”

That made her breath catch, which was answer enough to darken his gaze.

Aemond bent, not to kiss her mouth this time, but the corner of it. Then beneath it. Then the place where her jaw softened toward her throat. The kisses were not hurried; he put them down one by one, as if each had a use and he meant to discover it. Sweetling stood very still under them, eyes half-lidded, fingers gathering black cloth at his sides. When his mouth found the pulse beneath her ear, her breath escaped her in a small sound she could not call back.

He stopped.

Not withdrew. Stopped.

His mouth remained against her skin. She felt the stillness of him before she understood it: the sudden lock of his shoulders, the halt of his breath, the hand at her waist gone fixed, as if he had taken himself by force and held.

Sweetling opened her eyes.

“Aemond?”

He lifted his head just enough to look at her. The candlelight made a blade of his cheek, a shadow of his scar, a dark pool of his remaining eye. His mouth was parted. Not much. Enough.

“Say it again,” he said.

She swallowed. “Aemond.”

The hand at her waist flexed once.

“Again.”

“Aemond.”

He kissed her then with something rougher in him, though still not careless. It was not the controlled lesson of the sept, nor the restrained answer at the threshold. It was hotter, deeper, his tongue pressing into her mouth as if patience had thinned and the taste of her had become an argument against every rule he had set himself. Sweetling answered without meaning to. Her mouth opened for him. Her hands slid from his sleeves to his shoulders, and when she rose onto her toes, chasing him, Aemond made a low sound against her lips.

That sound ruined more of her than any touch had.

It was not princely. Not composed. Not measured. A breath of want, caught too late.

Sweetling pressed closer.

This time, he let her.

The space between them disappeared. Her body met his through wool and linen and black cloth, softness against hard line, trembling against restraint. He was warm. Warmer than she expected. She had thought dragons might feel like fire, but he felt like a man who had trained until heat lived in his blood and then stood too long alone with it. His chest rose hard against hers. His belt brushed her stomach. One of his thighs came between the folds of her robe, not forcing, only there, and the pressure of it made her fingers dig into his shoulders.

Aemond broke the kiss with a quiet curse in High Valyrian.

She did not know the word, but she understood its shape.

“Sweetling,” he said, and it was nearly a warning.

“Yes?”

His mouth twitched, though there was no amusement in it now. “Do not answer me so sweetly when you know what you do.”

“I do not know.”

That was true enough to make him still.

Her face burned as she forced herself to meet his eye. “Not as much as you think.”

Aemond looked at her for a long moment, and the hunger in him changed again. It did not lessen. Gods, no. It deepened, became heavier, more dangerous because it had found tenderness and did not know whether to devour it or kneel before it.

“You came to my chamber at night,” he said.

“I did.”

“You brought my ribbon back.”

“Yes.”

“You told me you chose the risk.”

“Yes.”

“And still you would have me believe you innocent?”

“No,” she whispered. “Only not practiced.”

His hand rose to her face. The backs of his fingers touched her cheek, then turned, knuckles brushing down the side of her throat. The path was slow enough that she felt every place before and after it, each inch of skin waiting its turn. He reached the tie of her robe and stopped.

“Then we will practice honesty first.”

Her pulse beat hard against his hand. “Honesty?”

“If you want my mouth,” Aemond said, voice low, “you will say so. If you want my hands, you will say so. If you want me to stop, you will say that too. Not with frightened eyes. Not with silence. With words.”

Sweetling’s throat tightened. A fine thing, words. Useful things, in theory. She had spent a life learning which words to swallow, which to soften, which to bury entirely. The Red Keep had taught her that speech was dangerous, that a handmaid survived by becoming a shadow with hands. And now here was the prince, the most dangerous man in the room, demanding that she stand in the candlelight and name what she wanted of him.

It felt obscene before she had even spoken.

Aemond’s thumb brushed the knot of her robe. “Do you want my mouth again?”

Her lips parted. No sound came.

His gaze did not leave hers.

“Sweetling.”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Where?”

The word went through her like a spark dropped into dry rushes. Her hands tightened where they rested against him. She could have said on my mouth. That was safe. True. Already known. But his thumb was still at her throat, and his body was still against hers, and the want in her had become a creature with claws.

“My neck,” she whispered.

Aemond’s eye darkened.

He did not smile. That would have been easier to bear. Instead, he inclined his head as if she had answered correctly in some private lesson and bent to her throat.

The first kiss was soft enough to make her ache.

Then his lips parted.

The wet heat of his mouth closed over the place she had offered, and Sweetling’s head tipped back before she could stop it. He kissed her throat, then sucked lightly, enough to pull a gasp from her, enough to make her fingers slide up into his hair without asking. He allowed it. More than allowed it; she felt his breath change when her fingers tightened in the pale strands. Aemond’s hand came up behind her neck, supporting, guiding, holding her exactly where he wanted her while his mouth moved down to the hollow above her collarbone.

Her robe had loosened. She did not know whether by his hand or hers. The cord hung slack, the wool gaping enough that cold air touched the thin shift beneath. Aemond’s mouth paused at the edge of exposed skin.

“Hands?” he asked.

It took her a moment to understand.

Then the understanding nearly undid her.

He was asking.

Again.

Not because he did not want. She could feel the want in him, against her, hard and unmistakable. Not because he was gentle by nature, as his mother had said, he was not cruel by nature, both women speaking as if nature were a thing that mattered once power entered the room. He asked because he had chosen to make himself ask, and the effort of it showed in the set of his jaw.

Sweetling’s fingers trembled in his hair.

“Yes,” she said. “Your hands.”

“Where?”

Her shame rose up hot and useless.

Aemond lifted his head. “You came all this way to become shy?”

That should have angered her. It did, a little. Enough to give her spine back.

“My waist,” she said.

His hands went there at once, fitting over her through the robe, large and warm and sure. A simple touch. Almost proper, if one were blind and charitable. But there was nothing proper in the way he drew her closer, nothing courtly in the way his thumbs moved inward, finding the curve beneath her ribs, measuring the smallness of her against the span of his hands. Sweetling’s breath shook. Aemond watched it happen, then bent and kissed her again, as if her reaction had pleased him past patience.

The kiss turned hungry quickly.

This time, when he backed her toward the desk, she went with him. Parchment crinkled beneath the basket. A letter slid to the floor, and neither of them looked at it. Aemond’s hands remained at her waist until the edge of the desk met the backs of her thighs, then one hand shifted, palm pressing flat beside her hip as he leaned over her. The other slid up, not to her breast, not yet, but to the open edge of her robe.

“May I?”

The words were quiet. Roughened.

Sweetling’s heart knocked once, hard.

“Yes.”

Aemond drew the robe open.

Only that.

Only wool parting from wool, the plain garment falling wider over the desk behind her, leaving her in the thin shift she had worn beneath. Yet Sweetling felt more naked in that moment than if he had stripped her bare. Candlelight passed through the linen where it pulled over her breasts and waist. She saw his gaze move over her, not greedily, not at first, but with terrible concentration, as if he meant to remember the sight correctly.

Then greed came.

She saw it enter him.

His eye lifted to hers, almost accusing. “You wear this beneath your robe?”

“It is only a shift.”

“It is nearly nothing.”

“It is what I sleep in.”

Aemond’s gaze dropped again. “I know.”

The answer was too quick, too dark. Sweetling’s breath caught.

He had imagined it, then.

The thought of him alone in this chamber, severe and composed before others, imagining her in thin linen and undone braids, sent a shameful little heat through her belly. Aemond saw that too. His mouth parted faintly.

“What is that look?” he asked.

She shook her head.

His hand caught her jaw, not hard, but with enough command to halt the lie before it formed. “Words.”

“You thought of me,” she said, barely audible.

The pad of his thumb touched the corner of her mouth. “Often.”

No embroidery. No denial. Often.

Sweetling felt the room tilt.

“And how did my prince think of me?” she asked before she could lose her courage.

Aemond went utterly still.

For one heartbeat, she thought she had gone too far. Then his thumb moved over her lower lip, dragging it down a fraction, and his eye fixed on the small parting of her mouth with such heat that her knees would have weakened had the desk not been behind her.

“Do not ask questions you are not prepared to have answered.”

“I am trying to learn.”

His gaze snapped back to hers.

Ah, that pleased him.

It was there and gone, a spark beneath black water.

Aemond lowered his mouth to her ear. “I thought of you on your knees.”

Her breath stopped.

“Not like that,” he murmured, and now there was a trace of cruelty in his softness, not enough to wound, enough to make her feel the blade. “Not yet. I thought of you kneeling to mend a cuff. Kneeling to gather fallen parchment. Kneeling because servants kneel when told, and every fool in this castle thinks obedience is the same as surrender.”

His hand slid from her jaw to her throat, thumb resting just beneath her chin.

“I thought of how often you lower your eyes when you wish to look. How carefully you hold your tongue when you wish to answer. How still you make yourself when fear passes through you, as if stillness makes you safe.” His mouth brushed her ear. “And then I thought of making you less still.”

Sweetling’s hand closed around his sleeve.

Aemond kissed the side of her neck. “There. That was the thought.”

“You are cruel,” she whispered.

His mouth paused.

“Sometimes.”

The honesty of it chilled and warmed her both.

“Are you cruel now?” she asked.

“No.”

“Then what are you?”

His answer came against her skin.

“Hungry.”

His hand moved at last to her breast.

Over the shift first, palm settling with firm, almost reverent pressure. Sweetling gasped. Her body arched before she could command it otherwise, and Aemond caught the movement with his mouth at her throat, sucking once, harder than before. The ache that answered between her thighs shocked her into silence. She had known wanting in little ways, in flushed cheeks and restless nights, in the memory of kisses that made her press her knees together beneath blankets.

This was different. This was want with teeth.

Aemond’s thumb found the shape of her nipple through the linen.

Sweetling made a sound she had never heard from herself.

His hand stilled.

“Pain?”

“No.”

“Fear?”

She swallowed. “Some.”

His eye lifted. “Enough to stop?”

“No.”

The word came fast. Too fast. She blushed, and his mouth curved against her skin.

“And want?” he asked.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

His thumb moved again, slow over the stiffened peak.

“Yes.”

Aemond kissed her with a groan caught low in his throat. The sound was almost angry. His hand closed more fully over her breast, kneading through the linen, testing, learning. He was careful at first, maddeningly so, until she arched into his palm and his control slipped enough for his fingers to tighten. The sharper pressure sent heat racing through her. She clutched at him and heard herself whisper his name.

That did something to him.

His mouth dragged from hers to her jaw, then down. He bent, and for one dizzying moment, Sweetling did not understand what he meant to do until his lips closed over her breast through the shift.

She cried out softly.

The linen dampened under his mouth. Heat, pressure, the scrape of teeth barely there. Aemond sucked her through the thin fabric, one hand braced at her back to keep her from slipping off the desk, the other holding her breast to his mouth. Sweetling’s fingers twisted in his hair. Her head fell back. The chamber blurred to candlelight and rain and the obscene wet warmth of his mouth pulling at her like he meant to draw the soul out through her skin.

Aemond lifted his head only far enough to look at her.

Her hand remained tangled in his hair, fingers gone tense where they had caught and held him to her. The linen clung wetly to the shape of her, transparent where his mouth had worked it, and beneath the damp cloth her nipple stood hard and dark against the fabric. Sweetling’s eyes were unfocused, her lips parted, her fingers still twisted deep in his hair as though she had forgotten she could let go.

He looked at her hand first.

Then at her mouth.

He had had his mouth between her legs the night before. 

“Sweetling,” he said, and her name came low, roughened against the edge of his restraint.

She swallowed. “Aemond.”

He had already made her cry out into the storm. He had already learned how she broke and how she trembled after, how quickly shame rose behind pleasure and how fiercely she tried to gather herself back into modesty once it was done. This was not the first opening of some forbidden gate. That gate had already yielded to him, and gods help them both, she had walked through it willingly. Tonight felt different because of that. Less discovery, more return. 

Less accident . . . more answer.

“You pull harder when you forget to be ashamed,” he said.

Sweetling’s blush came at once, warm and furious, spreading from throat to cheek. “I did not mean—”

He bent again, but not to her breast this time. His mouth found the other through the thin linen, slow and possessive, and Sweetling’s head tipped back with a little helpless sound she tried too late to bite down. 

Aemond’s hand slid behind her, broad palm braced against the small of her back to hold her where he wanted her. He did not rush—that, somehow, was worse. He sucked her through the fabric with lingering attention, dragged his tongue over the stiffened peak until her nails scraped lightly at his scalp, then caught her gently with his teeth and made her gasp his name again.

“There,” he murmured against her. “That one.”

“What?”

“The sound.” His mouth moved to the damp edge of her shift, pushing it aside with the bridge of his nose rather than his hands, as though he meant to keep the act slow enough for her to stop him if she wished. “You make it when you forget to be ashamed.”

Her face burned hot. “I do not.”

Aemond lifted his head.

The look he gave her was flatly disbelieving, and somehow that almost made her laugh. Almost. It died before it could become sound, smothered by the heat in his gaze.

“You are a poor liar after I’ve had my mouth on you,” he said.

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep proving it.”

His hand slid from her waist to her thigh, gathering the thin shift upward by inches. He did not duck his head between her legs as he had the night before. He did not lower himself to his knees and feast until she came apart over his tongue, though the memory of it moved between them like a third presence in the room. She felt it in the way his eye darkened when her knees parted around him, in the way his mouth, still wet from her breast, curved with private knowledge.

“Do you expect my mouth to be there again?” he asked.

The wickedness of it stole the breath from her.

Sweetling’s gaze flew to his. “Aemond.”

“Is that yes or rebuke?”

“It is—” She swallowed, dignity in ruins. “It is your name.”

His expression sharpened, pleased despite himself. “So it is.”

His thumb traced the inside of her knee. Not higher. Not yet. The restraint of it was cruel because it was deliberate, because she could see how easily he might have moved differently and chose not to. He watched the place where his hand rested against her bare skin, then looked back at her face.

“I remember how you tasted,” he said quietly.

Sweetling closed her eyes.

“No,” he said.

They opened at once.

“There. That is better.” His thumb slid higher, slow as sin. “You do not get to hide from what you already gave me.”

“I gave?” she whispered.

His eye lifted. “Did you not?”

The question struck softer than a command and deeper than a kiss. The night before, he had asked. Again and again, in that severe way of his, as if words could make a wall strong enough to keep both of them from ruin. He had made her say what she wanted, made her answer fear and want separately, made her understand that surrender and permission were not the same thing.

Sweetling’s throat tightened. “I did.”

Aemond’s hand stilled on her thigh. 

His eye searched her face. He brought her hand back to his jaw and held it there, as if the touch were something he had decided to endure and wanted more of in the same breath. 

So she touched him.

Only that. 

Only her fingers against his cheek, the slight rasp of new-shaved skin beneath her fingertips, the hard set of his mouth easing by a fraction he would have denied if she named it. He looked almost angry with the tenderness of it. Sweetling understood. Tenderness was not safe for either of them. It stripped more cleanly than desire. Desire could be called weakness, appetite, sin; tenderness asked what a person might become if they were held and not used.

Aemond turned his face enough to press his mouth to her palm.

Her heart clenched.

Then his teeth closed lightly against the tender heel of her hand. The softness vanished into heat. For a breath, the hunger in him changed shape. It did not lessen. It became more dangerous, more focused, as though the truth had given him something to hold and something to break himself against.

He kissed her then, not gently, not at first. His mouth took hers with the heat he had left on her breast, and Sweetling tasted rain, candle smoke, and the faint salt of his skin. She opened for him because she wanted to, because she had learned the shape of his kiss and wanted it deeper. His tongue slid against hers; his hand tightened at her thigh; her body, traitorous and honest, rolled toward him.

Aemond groaned.

It was low. Almost swallowed. But she heard it, and hearing it made her bold.

Her hands left his hair and lowered her hand to the front of his tunic, fingers brushing the dark cloth where the fastenings sat. “Last night, you stopped.”

“Yes.”

“You did not let me touch you long.”

Aemond’s jaw flexed.

“You said it would be another night.”

“I did.”

“And is this another night?”

The room seemed to still.

Rain whispered at the shutters. The candlelight bent in the draft. Beneath her fingers, his breath went shallow and controlled, each rise of his chest too measured to be natural. Sweetling’s own courage faltered beneath the weight of his stare, but she did not take the question back. It had cost too much to ask.

Aemond leaned closer, one hand braced beside her hip on the desk. “Do you know what you are asking?”

“No,” she said, because he had taught her better than lying. “Not wholly.”

His eye darkened with something more dangerous than desire.

“Then ask what you mean,” he said.

Sweetling swallowed.

Her hand slid lower, not to his belt yet, only to the place where his tunic ended, and the leather began. She could feel the heat of him even through the cloth. Feel how still he had made himself. The control in him was frightening. The wanting beneath it more so.

“I want to touch you,” she said.

Aemond’s mouth parted slightly.

For one breath, nothing happened. Then he closed his eye, just once, as if gathering the words inside him before they could come out as a command rather than an answer.

“When you touched me last night,” he said, “you did it because I guided you.”

“Yes.”

“If you touch me tonight, it will be because you choose to.”

“I know.”

“No.” His eye opened. “You know the words. That is not the same.”

Sweetling’s temper sparked, small and bright beneath the heat in her face. “Then teach me the difference, if you are so determined to lecture me half-naked on your desk.”

Silence.

Then Aemond laughed.

It was quiet, low, gone almost as soon as it came, but it was real. The sound caught Sweetling so wholly off guard that her own mouth softened into an answering smile before she could stop it. Aemond looked at that smile as if it were the most inconvenient thing in Westeros.

“You will be the death of someone,” he said.

“Hopefully not me.”

His amusement faded, but not into coldness. “No. Not you.”

The promise was too grim to be sweet. Still, it settled warm somewhere beneath her ribs.

He took her hand, the same hand that had hovered uncertainly at his belt, and placed it flat over the leather buckle. Sweetling stared at her fingers there.

Aemond did not help this time.

The difference was immediate. Last night, he had guided her through the first shock of it, taken her wrist, and shown her the shape, movement, and pressure that pleased him. Tonight, he made her reach for knowledge herself. It was cruel in the way honesty could be cruel. It was also exactly what she had asked for.

Her fingers worked the buckle loose. Slowly. Too slowly, perhaps, because Aemond’s breath grew rougher above her. The leather came free, then the ties beneath. Her hands trembled once at the threshold of it, and Aemond’s gaze snapped to her face.

“Stop there if you wish.”

The words made her look up.

He meant it. Again, curse him; he meant it. His pride hated the offer. His body hated it more . . . yet he gave it.

Sweetling shook her head.

His eye narrowed.

She remembered. “I do not wish to stop.”

“Good.”

The word sounded almost pained.

She drew him free with less surprise than last night but no less awe. The sight of his cock still stole the sense from her for a moment—the hard, flushed length of him, heavy in her palm, hot against her skin. He was pale in thickness and a bit darker at the tip, a soft pink that nearly matched her lips. Aemond watched her face so intently she felt the flush spread from her cheeks down her throat to where her shift hung loose and damp from his mouth.

“You are warm,” she said foolishly.

His mouth twitched. “Was I meant to be stone?”

“No,” she whispered. “Only you seem it sometimes.”

“That is because stone is rarely asked what it wants.”

The words came too quietly. Too bare.

Sweetling looked up.

Aemond seemed to regret them at once. His face hardened, the prince returning like armor drawn over skin, but she had heard the man beneath. She had felt his heart. She leaned forward and kissed the place beneath her palm.

Aemond’s breath caught.

Not much.

Enough.

His hand moved to the back of her neck with dangerous speed, not hurting her, but holding her there as if the kiss had struck somewhere he did not know how to defend. Sweetling pressed another to his chest, then another, her mouth warm against him through the open tunic. She did not know what she was doing. Not truly. But she knew what he had done to her: the deliberate learning of her body, the way he had followed every breath and tremor until she could no longer pretend she was not being known. Perhaps this was the same. Perhaps it could be.

Aemond’s fingers tightened in her hair.

“Sweetling.”

She looked up at him from beneath her lashes, mouth still close to his skin.

The sight seemed to undo something in him.

He bent and kissed her, hard enough that she had to brace one hand behind herself on the desk. His other hand returned to her breast, but no longer content with damp linen. He tugged at the neckline of her shift until the fabric slipped low, baring her properly to candlelight.

Sweetling sucked in a breath and almost covered herself.

Aemond caught both her wrists in one hand.

“No.”

The word was firm, but not angry. A command, yes, but one that waited on her face. His gaze moved down to her bare breasts, and this time there was nothing between his mouth and her. Nothing to soften the sight of his hunger. Nothing to save her from the way he looked at her, as if the court, the crown, the gods, the rain, all of it had become less real than the small, trembling lift of her chest.

“You are lovely,” he said.

It sounded almost resentful.

Sweetling’s eyes stung. “You say it as though it displeases you.”

“It does.”

That surprised a laugh out of her, breathless and shy. “Why?”

“Because I have enough trouble.”

Then his mouth closed over her bare breast.

The laugh broke apart into a moan.

Aemond’s hand released her wrists so he could grip her waist, holding her steady as his tongue circled the stiffened peak. The first touch was wet and hot and direct enough that her spine arched. He sucked slowly, then harder, drawing at her until pleasure pulled tight from her breast to the deep ache between her thighs. His teeth scraped with just enough edge to make her gasp his name, and when she did, he answered with a low sound against her skin that she felt more than heard.

He did not rush.

That was the cruelty of him—the devotion of him. He gave the same attention to her breasts that he had given to the rest of her the previous night, as if no part of her body deserved to be passed over simply because he had already learned another. He tasted one nipple until it was swollen and wet from his mouth, then crossed to the other with maddening patience, his hand kneading what his lips had left behind. Sweetling’s shift sat bunched beneath her breasts, her robe open around her, her thighs parted around the hard line of his body. She had never felt so exposed. She had never felt so held.

Her hands went to his shoulders.

This time, she did not ask.

Aemond’s mouth curved against her breast.

“Good,” he murmured.

The praise—if praise it was—settled low and hot inside her. She hated how badly she liked it; hated worse that he knew.

His hand slid beneath her shift again, over her hip, across the soft lower curve of her belly. Sweetling’s breath quickened before he reached where she wanted him. Aemond paused.

“Already?” he asked.

“You are being cruel.”

“I have barely touched you.”

“You know what you are doing.”

That pleased him.

Gods help her, it pleased him.

His fingers slipped beneath the edge of her smallclothes and found her wet.

They both went still.

Aemond shut his eye for one brief moment, as if some disciplined part of him needed darkness to survive the discovery. Sweetling watched his face while his fingers rested against her, not moving yet, only feeling the slick heat she could not hide. The night before, she might have died of shame beneath such attention. Tonight, shame still burned, but it no longer stood alone.

She wanted him to know.

That was the terrible part.

Aemond opened his eye. “You are not frightened of this now.”

“I am frightened.”

“Not of my hand.”

Her lips parted.

No answer came.

He was right.

The fear lived elsewhere now: in the door; in the whispers; in the queen’s quiet gaze, Rylene’s warnings, and Jeyne’s mean little smile.

Not here. Not exactly. Not with his hand between her thighs and his mouth still warm from her breast.

“No,” she admitted.

His expression shifted. Hunger, satisfaction, and something like wonder made darker by pride.

“No,” he repeated.

His fingers moved.

Sweetling bowed forward with a broken breath, forehead nearly touching his shoulder.

He stroked her slowly at first, parting her with the kind of care that made the intimacy worse. He knew her now. He knew what made her hips lift, knew where to press, knew that circling too softly made her impatient and circling too firmly made her clutch at him with both hands. He knew because he had learned it from her body the night before, and now he used that knowledge without the clumsiness of first discovery.

She made room for him.

That, too, he noticed.

His mouth brushed her temple. “There she is.”

The words were soft, almost fond, and filthy for all that.

Sweetling turned her face into his shoulder. “Do not say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“As though you have been looking for her.”

His fingers slowed.

For a moment, only rain spoke.

Then Aemond said, “I have.”

The answer entered her more deeply than his touch.

She lifted her head. His face was close, too close for either of them to pretend. His eye moved over her features as if searching for the line between what she could bear and what he wanted to take. His fingers were still under her smallclothes, slick against her, but his attention had gone to her mouth.

“I thought of you today,” he said.

Sweetling’s breath caught. “When?”

His mouth curved faintly. “Often.”

“Doing what?”

The question came before shame could stop it.

Aemond’s eye darkened.

“You ask dangerous questions after midnight.”

“You answer them better after midnight.”

That earned her a look sharp enough to cut silk.

Then he kissed her, and while he kissed her, his fingers slid lower, one pressing slowly inside. Sweetling gasped into his mouth. Not surprise, not the way she had the night before. Recognition. Her body clenched around him as if welcoming a known trespass. Aemond felt it and groaned softly, his composure slipping again, just enough for her to feel powerful and endangered all at once.

He moved his finger inside her with slow, deep strokes, his thumb working above in the rhythm he had discovered before. Sweetling’s hands found his open tunic, pushing it wider, needing skin beneath her palms. He let her. More than let her. He shifted closer, giving her access to the hard plane of his chest, the lean cut of muscle beneath pale skin, the heat of him. She touched him clumsily, greedily, while his hand ruined her. His breath thickened when her nails dragged lightly over his ribs.

“You like that,” she whispered.

Aemond’s eye flashed to hers.

The answering pride in her own voice seemed to surprise them both.

His fingers withdrew almost fully, then pressed back in with a second alongside the first.

Sweetling’s pride vanished into a moan.

Aemond’s mouth found her breast again, sucking hard as his fingers worked inside her, and the room turned molten. Desk beneath her. Maps crushed under her palms. Rain at the windows. His hair against her skin. His hand was between her thighs. His mouth at her breast. Her own hands learning the shape of him with growing desperation. She was not new to pleasure now, but knowing did not make it smaller. Knowing made it worse because she could feel where he was leading her, and she still went willingly.

Her hips began to move with his hand.

Aemond lifted his head.

He watched.

The look on his face made her burn hotter than the touch itself. Not because he seemed amused. He did not. Not because he seemed gentle. He did not. He looked fiercely attentive, almost reverent in the most dangerous way, as if her pleasure were a thing he had summoned and now meant to master without breaking.

“Do not stop,” she whispered.

His jaw tightened. “I had not planned to.”

A laugh almost escaped her, but his thumb pressed more firmly and it became a whimper instead.

Aemond kissed her mouth, her jaw, the side of her throat. “That is it. Let me feel it.”

The words were too much. His voice was too close. Sweetling clutched at him, body tightening around his fingers, pleasure coiling low and bright. She knew the edge now, and knew the terrible swelling rush before it. Her thighs shook around his hand.

“Aemond.”

“I know.”

He did not take her maidenhead. He did not push toward what he had promised would not be tonight. Instead, he made the denial into another kind of torment. He touched her where she was already swollen and slick, pressed and circled and stroked until she shook against him, all while he thrust into her hand with harsh, controlled movements that grew less controlled each time she moaned. His mouth returned to her breasts, dragging the shift lower now, baring one to the candlelight so he could close his lips over her skin without linen between them.

Sweetling cried out.

Aemond’s free hand rose at once to cover her mouth, but his lips did not leave her breast. The double claim of it—his hand silencing her, his mouth drawing pleasure from her, his body straining into her touch—sent her nearly senseless. She tasted salt and skin against his palm. Her eyes stung, not with pain, not with sorrow, but with the intensity of being held in so many ways at once.

“Quiet,” he murmured against her breast.

She nodded, though both of them knew obedience would soon fail her.

His fingers moved faster.

Pleasure climbed in her again, familiar now and no less frightening for it. She knew the crest. Knew the bright, impossible edge of it. Last night he had pulled her over it with his mouth. Tonight he brought her there with one hand while the rest of him trembled for what he had not yet allowed himself to claim.

Sweetling’s hand moved desperately around him. She wanted to give him that same loss. Wanted to see his control break and know she had done it. Wanted, with a sudden fierceness that startled her, to be the reason Aemond Targaryen forgot himself.

His breath caught against her skin.

“Sweetling.”

The warning in her name made her pulse leap.

She tightened her grip as he had shown her last night, twisting on the upward stroke, thumb brushing the place that made his hips jerk harder into her hand.

Aemond groaned.

It was not loud. The storm outside might have swallowed it. But she felt it in his chest, in his mouth at her breast, in the sudden rough pressure of his hand between her thighs. That sound undid her. Pleasure broke hard and sudden, wringing a muffled cry as her body tightened beneath his fingers. Aemond kissed the sound from her mouth, then dragged his lips back down to the breast he had dampened earlier, taking it again through the linen while his hand worked between her thighs. Sweetling nearly lost her grip on him. 

His teeth grazed her, his tongue soothed the same place, and pleasure folded in on itself—his mouth at her breast, his fingers below, his hard length in her hand, all of it too much to keep separate.

Her release took him with it.

His head bowed against her shoulder. His hips drove once, twice into her hand, control shattering in tight, restrained pulses as he spilled over her fingers with a sound bitten nearly in half by pride. Sweetling held him through it, dazed and shaking, her cheek pressed to his hair, her own pleasure still moving through her in faint aftershocks.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Rain tapped at the window.

The candle guttered.

Parchment lay crushed beneath them, maps of kingdoms ruined by the weight of a handmaid’s hip and a prince’s poor restraint.

Aemond removed his hand from her mouth slowly.

Sweetling drew a breath that trembled on the way in.

He did not lift his head at once. That was the strangest part. He remained bowed against her, mouth near the bare curve of her breast, hair falling over her loosened robe, breathing as if the world required effort. Sweetling’s clean hand rose, hesitated, then settled on the back of his head.

He went still.

She stroked his hair once.

“Aemond?”

“Do not,” he said.

Her hand froze. “Do not what?”

His voice came low against her skin. “Make it gentle yet.”

The words hurt in a place she could not name.

Not because he rejected gentleness. Because he recognized it and feared what shape it might demand of him.

Sweetling resumed stroking his hair anyway.

Aemond said nothing.

After a moment, his hand closed around her wrist—not pulling her away, only holding her there.

Afterward, Aemond cleaned her fingers himself.

Sweetling protested at once, because there were limits to what a girl could survive with her dignity intact, and apparently having a prince kneel between her knees to tend to the evidence of his pleasure was very near one of them.

“I can do it,” she said, mortified.

“I know.”

He did not give her the cloth.

She sat on the edge of his desk with her shift pulled properly into place and her robe tied loosely enough to be a lie. Her hair was half fallen from its braid. Her mouth felt swollen again, though less from being taken by surprise than from being kissed too thoroughly for too long. Her knees still trembled whenever she shifted. Aemond stood before her with a damp cloth in hand, his own clothing restored with irritating efficiency, though his hair and breathing had betrayed him enough that she did not feel entirely conquered.

He took her hand.

The warm cloth passed over her palm, between her fingers, along each knuckle with the same grim care he gave wounds and weapons. He did not make a spectacle of it. That made it more intimate, not less. Sweetling watched his face as he worked. His expression was severe, almost distant, but the set of his mouth had softened in ways he likely did not know. Or knew and hated.

“You are thinking,” he said.

“I am often thinking.”

“Not always wisely.”

She almost smiled. “No.”

His gaze lifted to hers. “What?”

The question was too direct. She looked at their hands instead.

“Last night,” she said carefully, “afterward, I thought I would feel ruined.”

Aemond’s hand stilled around hers.

Sweetling felt the room tighten.

“And did you?” he asked.

“I felt frightened. And ashamed. And pleased.” She swallowed. “The pleased part frightened me most.”

His thumb moved once over her cleaned palm. “And now?”

She should have lied. Not because he would fail to catch it, but because honesty had begun to feel like undressing more thoroughly than desire had managed.

“Now I feel foolish,” she said.

Aemond’s face hardened.

Sweetling shook her head before he could speak. “Not because of you. Because I thought knowing what your mouth could do would make me less helpless to it.”

The corner of his mouth shifted.

Ah. There was that flicker of wickedness. He tried to hide it and failed poorly enough that, despite herself, Sweetling laughed under her breath.

Aemond’s eye narrowed. “You find your helplessness amusing?”

“I find your pride amusing.”

“My pride?”

“You look pleased enough to start a war over it.”

“I have started no wars over your thighs.”

“Yet.”

The word escaped before she understood how bold it was.

Aemond went still.

Sweetling’s laughter vanished.

For half a heartbeat, she thought she had ruined the ease between them. Then his gaze dropped to her mouth, slow and dark, and she realized the danger was not anger.

“No,” he said softly. “Not yet.”

The heat that went through her was immediate and devastating.

He finished cleaning her hand, then set the cloth aside with more force than necessary. That, too, pleased her. Aemond Targaryen, undone by a handmaid saying one foolish word. She would have liked to keep that knowledge folded somewhere secret, pressed between the pages of herself like a stolen flower.

His hand came to her chin, tipping her face up.

“You grow bold after midnight,” he said.

“You told me you disliked half-courage.”

“I did.”

“I am trying to be obedient.”

His mouth curved.

“Liar.”

This time, the word was almost fond.

Sweetling did not know what to do with almost fond. Fondness seemed far more dangerous than lust. Lust had at least been named in warnings. Fondness came quietly, wearing no heraldry, and set itself beside a girl before she realized there was room for it.

Aemond seemed to sense the same danger, for he stepped back and turned toward the basin.

“You will return by the west stair,” he said. “Not the lower passage.”

Sweetling gathered the edges of her robe, pulling herself back into order piece by piece. “You said that last night.”

“And you remembered?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She slid from the desk, and her knees nearly betrayed her. Aemond caught her elbow at once.

They both looked down at his hand.

It should not have mattered after everything else. Yet this touch was different. Public enough in shape to be innocent, private enough in timing to undo her.

“I can walk,” she said.

“I did not ask whether you could.”

“No. You merely grabbed me.”

“I kept you from falling.”

“I was not falling.”

“You were considering it.”

That startled another laugh from her, softer this time. He watched it in the way he watched things he meant to understand and disliked needing. His hand remained at her elbow.

“Aemond,” she said.

The name altered the room again.

He released her slowly.

Sweetling reached for the basket she had brought, only to find that it had been knocked half beneath the desk. The shirt inside remained unmended. The needle case had spilled open, black thread looping over the floor like some little shadow-snake. She stared at it.

Aemond followed her gaze.

“The mending,” she said.

His mouth twitched. “Yes. That grave purpose for which you came.”

“I did come with mending.”

“You came with an excuse.”

She bent quickly to gather the thread, because if she looked at him her face would show too much. “It was still mending.”

“You mended nothing.”

“That is not true.” She tucked the needle case into the basket with unnecessary care. “Your patience was in tatters.”

Aemond stared at her.

Then, impossibly, he laughed again. This one lasted even less than the first, but it warmed her all the same. It made him look almost startled at himself afterward, as if she had somehow stolen the sound from him rather than earned it.

Sweetling straightened with the basket in hand, her smile small and traitorous.

“Do not look so pleased,” he said.

“I am not.”

“You are.”

He sent her away with one final kiss. 

The corridor beyond was cold enough to make her shiver. She walked as he had told her, west stair, Maegor’s tapestry, eyes lowered but not blind. No one stopped her. No one saw enough to matter. Beneath her sleeve, the ribbon brushed her pulse with every step.

By the time she reached her narrow bed, the castle had gone quiet in the strange way living beasts went quiet before dawn. She undressed without lighting a candle and slid beneath her blanket with shaking legs and a mouth still warm from his.

Bessa snored softly from the far pallet. The older maid near the door muttered in sleep. Sweetling lay on her back and stared into the dark. She had crossed into his chamber as a handmaid with a basket; she had returned as something else. Not beloved, maybe, and not safe. Not ruined, though the court would name her so if it knew. 

Not wife, not whore, not lady, not lamb.

His, if she gave it. Hers, if she chose it.

Between those two truths, sleep came for her at last, dark and deep and full of dragons.

Maekar had made that clear. You knew before the wedding that he had not sought you out. You’d just been conveniently there when the topic of him taking a second wife came up. It was all rather flattering, the Queen herself suggested you to Maekar. She’d seen you knelt down in the gardens helping his children catch little red lady bugs and worms. His mother had convinced him of the value a maternal figure might bring to his household…that additional stability from another an adult could temper issues before they began.

You’d been so excited, foolishly so, but he was a prince it made sense that you were flattered and thrilled by it all. You’d even found yourself remarking on his serious but striking apperence, on the deep tome of his voice…you’d told your lady maids, with flushed cheeks, that you were looking forward to your wedding night.

You hadn’t been looking forward to the bedding ceremony…being grabbed at by random men and touched. Though when he deny the event at the end of the feast you had known something was off right away. He had not asked you of your feelings in the matter so it did not come across like he was doing you some great kindness by avoiding it.

He denied it for himself. You found that out the moment you entered his chambers and he handed you a cup of wine. He did not sit with you on the edge of the bed…did not even look up when you got down to your chemise and chewed your lip eagerly waiting for him to make some sort of advance. You knew what happened in a marriage bed but not enough of the specifics to initiate anything yourself. He stay in the chair by the fireplace that entire night. Not moving as he told you he had taken your hand for his children, so they could have another person looking after them, he told you he wanted no more children, did not need companionship and had no desire to bed you.

Maekar was many things but he was not a liar. All those things he had made painfully clear to you on the wedding night had remained true. You were not here for him, just them.

“Look mother! There’s a red feather!” Rhae exclaimed. She and Aegon had each slipped and called you that. It always made you feel quite important but you were truthfully worried about Maekar hearing it. What would he think? Had you been to involved with them? Should you correct them?

Slowly you let go of Aegon’s arm after giving him one more warning look and then you followed Rhae towards the tree that had a vibrant feather laid on one of the branches. You were mid lifting her up so she could try and grab it when you heard a piercing shriek.

It was so loud, in an otherwise quiet woods, that every bird suddenly flew up out of the trees just as started as you were.

Rhae looked around, gripping onto your shoulders. “What was that?” She whispered her legs winding around your midsection as you began to move in the direction of the sound.

“Daella?!” You called. It sounded like her shout.

When there was no answer to your call you began to run in the direction of the sound. Dropping Rhae down the moment you saw the pond.

Gods, oh gods. You were here to look after them.

Before your eyes Maekars oldest daughter was grasping at the edge of broken ice, her upper body was above the water but everything below her hips was submerged. The air infront of you was clouded white from how quickly you were breathing, your lungs burning a bit from brining in so much of the cold air.

“help!” She cried and you instantly started out onto the pond. It wasn’t nearly cold enough here for the ice to get so thick that it could safely support a person. You should have been watching them better.

“Rhae, go back to the hall, tell the first person you come across about this.” She urged the child and heard her little feet pad against the frozen ground back up to the keep.

You bent down, basically crawling out to her, knowing you needed to distribute your weight so the ice would give out under you as well.

“I’ve got you, just-“ you grabbed her wrists trying to pull her towards you. “Can you kick your legs?” Her skirts were waterlogged and that made them very heavy.

“Come on Daella!” You grunted as you got closer and grabbed her under the arms hoisting her up over the jagged edge of of the hole and she landed right over you. Both of you panting, Rhaella shaking and her teeth chattering loudly.

“Breathe, I’ve got you.” You were holding the back of her head, squeezing her against you as your adrenaline came down. “I’ve got you.” You kissed her head and started to try and sit you both up.

“Egg…” she whimpered. Her teeth were rattling so much it was hard for her to speak. “Egg fell in.” She eventually got out and you scurried out from under her quickly looking at the hole and freezing water.

“Go to the bank!” You directed her sternly and knelt over the edge gasping as you reached your arms down into the water feeling for him. The fact that there was no thrashing around made you uneasy. Had he sunk down to the bottom? Did he breathe in the water?

You took in the largest breath you possibly could and willed yourself right down into the water. The air was pushed out of your lungs almost Instantly from the shock but you attempted to keep moving as much as you could.

It would destroy this family…another loss. Especially rambunctious but loving egg!

Your long dark hair swirled around your face in the water making it hard to see but your foot bumped Into something and you grabbed at it. The only warmth, as mild as it was, in the blinding cold. The pond was not that deep, and so on your tip toes your hands could breach the surface. You shoved Aegon on and somehow dragged your own self up onto the ice.

“no…no wake up.” You started to shake at the little boy a bit and when you saw his hands and lips were purple you found the strength to lift him up into your arms. His feet dragged as you carried him through the woods but it was the most you could manage. Daella shaking, terrified and dazed from it all held to your stiff heavy skirts as you went. He had to get inside, needed to be warmed and see the maester. He was coughing into your chest now, water heaving from his lungs.

You were one of sorts yourself from being submerged and althought you heard shouting you did not actually see anybody coming your way. Not until suddenly Aegon was being lifted off of you and Daella was snatched up as well.

“get her inside!” Maekar, who had been informed after the first guard had been alerted to the issue at the pond, managed to barrel ahead of any other person heading down toward the forests edge. At the time all that was known was that Daella had been on the pond and the ice cream as broken. That was more than enough to put him in this state. The knight would get there, but not as quickly as he would.

The prince was sprinting up the pathway to the keep and you started right after him before any guard reached you to assist. Aegon looked limp in his father’s arms and you were so terrified that you just continued through the hall after the three of them despite maids urging you to stop.

“get off of me!” You warned pushing their hands away and successfully getting into the maesters work room. Aegon was already stripped and being covered in blankets and warmed stone and you saw Rhaella shaking in one of her septa’s arms as she was brought away to be changed and looked over. She seemed, scared and if that was all than she was quite lucky because her brother had still not opened his eyes.

“I told them to stay away from the pond-“ you began trying to squeeze your way closer to the bed the little prince was laid out it. “H-he was coughing when I pulled him out, there was water in-in his lungs.” You managed to shared with the maester, dark eyes wild and frantic as you spoke.

“Get her out of this bloody gown” Maekar directed the comment towards a young women stood near the door, clearly unsure what she should be doing in the mist of this chaos. “now!” He barked snapping his hand against the side table to jostle the maid from her stagnant position. He had pulled his hand off of its spot on his sons head, he’d been stroking the light silver hair back since getting him into this bed.

“I’m quite a-a-alright.” You told the maid quickly, teeth were clattering so much that it took you so long to get that sentence out that the use of ‘alright’ was quite unbelievable.

Maekar could feel the chill that was emanating off your body behind him and suddenly he turned at once, wide shoulders clearing his way as he grabbed the soaked fabric around your waist and backed you up towards the bathing chambers.

“m’lord-Aegon needs you.” You start but are quickly turned around. You supposed it made sense that he could move you and your heavy waterlogged dress so easily, his strength during the rebellion had resulted in songs after all!

“Fucks sake”

You gasp when his fingers sink between the little spaces in the lacing down your back and he pulls the fabric and strings apart. All the grommets would be torn, it was completly wrecked. it was also handing down at your feet now, some relief did come from no longer being squeezed in by such cold fabric.

“He needs you to still be breathing when he wakes…” Maekar muttered out grabbing your chemise and tearing that fabric as if it was nothing more than a single piece of parchment.

He wasn’t wrong, staying dressed like this would have you catching your death. Had you been less panicked you would have likely attempted to get some of the layers off of you down by the pond but the adrenaline had not allowed for proper thinking.

“Your grace,” the maester called from the other room. There was alot of coughing and voices of people telling Aegon to lay back down. You shivered in front of him, back still turned away and your arms had wrapped around yourself half for warmth and half for shielding. You’d never been undressed with him present.

Your eyes facing forward was a gift to the prince because it gave him a moment to take in the sounds of life that were obvious in the other room. His son was alive. He wasn’t losing somebody else, he had not failed again. His chest deflated a bit as his eyes closed and he took in the coughing. They opened again when the maester called once more and he pressed his hands down against your shoulders.

The touch warmed you so much you whimpered a bit, his palms did not retract at the noise right away but when he heard your teeth begin to clatter together again he gave you a squeeze before letting go.

“Get in the bath.” He demanded, there was not alternative option that could even be thought of in your mind when you heard his tone. Instantly the maid came towards with warmed buckets of water and began filling the soaking tub that you had obediently stepped into.

He closed the door on his way out and as the warmth engulfed you your eyes began to close, the feeling of being okay mixed with the combination of your adrenaline crashing left you utterly exhausted.

The next thing you felt was a rumbling against your cheek. Which made you groan and shift about some.

“Give me that,” Maekar sighed pulling the blanket from the maids hands, his forhead had not relaxed for one second since the knight had entered his study two hours prior and told him what his youngest had been shouting as she came up towards the stables.

You leaned towards the sound and your arms, which finally felt less stiff, wrapped around your husbands neck as he lifted you from the now room tempature bath. The towel was draped over you but he was holding you to his chest so you were getting him quite wet.

“Have broth be brought to my chambers.” He directed and carried you from the maesters quarters through the keep. You hadn’t fully smarted to the concept that your husband, you husband who had not even kissed you on the lips when you married was holding you…letting you nuzzled your face against his warm neck. He knew you were seeking more heat.

Gradually, when he set you down in his bed, tucking the towel around the front of you now, you realized Maekar had been the one taking you from the bath. He did not like how red your cheeks still were of that your fingers were still slightly blue.

He’d had a conversation with Daella, an interrogation was more correct of a name for it thought because Maekar demanded to know exactly what had happened. How this, possibly deadly, mess came to be. He’d waited until she was in her thickest dress, wrapped in a fur and being given her favorite tea before he started but he had not given her any time to rest, he needed to know it all as soon as possible. He did not like having to use his imagination to fill in the blanks.

You grabbed the ends of the towel and pulled the fabric around you tighter brining your feet up as well so your knees were tucked into your chest. You’d never been in his chambers. It felt odd…almost intimate.

“you jumped into the water?” He was laying a dark fur across a chair near the fireplace.

“is he alright?” You finally spoke, voice a bit horse from all the shouting earlier.

“Do Starks believe they cannot freeze?” He glanced over his shoulder at you.

“no more than Targaryen think they cannot burn.” You exhale and straighten your shoulders. “Is Aegon well?” You insist to know. Surely he would not be speaking to you if the boy was dead, right?

Maekar shoulders raised a bit, like he had chuckled at your attempt to demand something from him but the sound did not quite reach your ears.

“he is already telling stories of fish frozen in place in the water.” He informed you, finally looking back at you and seeing the relief flood through you.

You smiled, a bright real thing and you chuckled a bit. He was as such a clown of a little boy, it was charming to you even if it came with some wreckless behavior.

“I think he was the only frozen thing in that pond.” You remark shaking your head a bit.

“I think my son is alive because you went down in that water to save him.”

The comment stopped your giggling instantly. It was serious and honest and…this was more sensitive than you had ever known him be. The intensity of his eyes on you, the shock witnessing his forehead ease, it made your skin tingle and every hair on your rise.

“you could have died attempting to rescue them from something that I know they have been warned about.”

You swallowed looking down gripping a bit tighter to the damp towel and you took a moment to figure out what it was that you should say…what you wanted to say.

“I love them Maekar, I could not just watch it happen.” You looked back up to him finding that he had made his way from in front of the fire back to the bedside, that he had taken his cloak off and had as currently undoing the laces that kept his tunic on.

“Thank you.”

You blinked, he’d not thanked you for anything in the 7 moons that had come to pass since you wed. It was obvious that he was not the type to lean to flattery in conversation. That did not bother you, not as much it might some other lady, it wasn’t as if people in the north were exceptionally warm.

Actually when you thought about it they were quite kind, deeply loyal and unmistakably dedicated to people…if they deserved it. If they had good reason to value the person infront of them.

Maekar was not much different. He did. Or bother with unwarranted flattery. You could appreciate that.

“You can go see them later, once you’re warm enough.” He assured you when it seemed like your attention drifted to the door.

“I will dress, I’m warm enough.” You made to stand but his hand was back on your shoulder again, stopping you in your tracks.

“I will deem when you are warm enough wife.”

His jaw tightening gave away that your surpised reaction to the title made him feel bad. Had he truly never used the term once? Was denying you any affection for his first wife’s sake or was it just him being cruel. He’d always told himself he was distance out of respect for Dyanna’s memory. What would she thinking about the women caring for her children never being thanked? Never being welcomed as she should have been into their family?

You watched his light eyes water and stayed still and silent. She must have been very kind…very beautiful. You had heard from the staff of the hall how deeply he had loved her, how he laughed with her.

When he cleared his throat and looked back down at you there was some new found understand of himself in his eyes. He’d hated you, simply because he resented that the longer you were around the more he noticed how attractive you were and worse…that he felt genuinely drawn to your personality. But What favor was he doing Dyanna, or his family by becoming more cold and bitter simply because he wanted to deny anything that brought him joy while she was not beside him?

When your shoulders shook twice, the shiver impossible to suppress Maekar came back to the moment. Back to you.

He motioned for you to stand up and finally undid the last tie that kept his chest covered.

“Clothes and a blanket would do.” You assured him, but your eyes were looking at the expanse of his chest..the pink skin there that you knew would be so warm.

“Body heat is best, I thought you’d know that. What did they teach you in Winterfell woman?” He raised a brow while you got up on your feet. Once you were up he touched your side, grunting at the damp towel that was wrapped there and he pulled it away, quickly pulling you in front of the fire. He sat down first in the chair and then looked to his lap. When you hesitated he sighed. The exasperation that you were used to seeing from him flaring up.

“you are my wife, it is not indecent to sit down.” He rolled his eyes a bit and his hand touched your bare back urging you down to his lap. Pulling the fur that had been warming in front of the flame over you at once. He felt your freezing fingers nervously grabbing at the fur, brushing against his stomach in the process. Quickly Maekar gathered them in one hand and brought them up to his neck cupping them there in that hot region.

You kept your eyes on him, waiting for his feeling for change, for him to suddenly decide again being so close to you. Especially in this state of undress. When he lifted your fingers up to his mouth and cupped them against his lips so he could blow warm air onto the icy digits you realized belatedly that he was not likely to push you away. You relaxed some as that understanding sunk into your mind, and you allowed yourself to sink back against him. Back naturally bent instead of all rigid to keep your figure away from his.

“your warm.” You breath out eyes closing as your cheek rested against one side of hai chest.

“Aye” he grunted in agreement. He would not of been sat beneath you if he wasn’t, he of found something warmer.

He could feel your legs curl up a bit so that your knees pressed to his side. He quickly brought a hand under the fur and wrapped it across your back and around your waist. Hand rubbing over your side pushing the chill off of you.

You savored the heat he offered and eventually you pulled your hands from his palm and held his shoulders rubbing slightly as you gained feeling back. It let him have use of his other hand to rub down the length of your leg and give your feet a few squeezes to ensure blood was flowing there as well.

His hand settled at your hip rubbing the join firmly as he looked down at you. His breathing had gotten a bit deeper, his nostrils flared some when he exhaled and you found that despite your mind telling you to look away from him your eyes were trapped on his. Your hands slowly sliding down from his muscular shoulders to his chest under the blanket and you trailed your fingertips over his pectoral muscles. Straightening some of the hair there as you went.

“I thought of this, before today.” He gripped you hip a bit harder and you pushed yourself instinctually against him more, chest to chest. He could feel how hard and cold your nipples were as they dragged across his chest. He knew how to warm those. It made his mouth salivate a bit.

“of what m’lord?” You blinked once before he slumped his head and down sought out your lips with his. Somehow that part of you was pink and warm and now he craved more contact there. Quickly raising his hand to hold your jaw up towards him so he could devour you in a kiss.

Your lips were clumsy and deeply unsure of what they should be doing but when he felt your soft tongue suddenly slip against his he groaned. You wanted him. He’d been to blind on the wedding night by his own mourning and guilt to notice that that nerves you were showing were those of uncertainty…and excitement. Not anxiety and disinterest. He felt even more guilty for his coldness now knowing that you would of been open to advances over that past many moons.

He groaned when you sat up some more to try and reach his mouth better, you’d been putting quite a bit of weight right over his lap…right over the growing bulge he had and now that that contact was lifted he could suddenly feel that aching need!

You moaned at his calloused hands drifting to your back, warm and thick fingers trailing against either side of your spine and you straighten up a bit which let the fur slip off of your shoulders, letting him see you better. The way her looked you up and down made you feel warmer than the bloody bath did.

When Maekar’s eyes raised back, finally, to meet your own after cataloging every inch of you he smiled, small, but it was unmistakably affection.

You lurched forward and kissed at the corner of his mouth where his lips at tilted up and you grinned the moment his hands found your bottom, callouses from his hilt feeling rough against that delicate pale skin.

You let your head fall back between your shoulders when his beard tickled your neck and his lips pressed pecks until he reached your collar bone and began to lay wet hungry kisses there. Your hand dropped from his chest and shoulder and one hand kept you stead in this position by holding his firm stomach, the other found its way to his breeches. Looking briefly up at him for assurance.

He groaned, deep and throat rattling and it was so assuring to you that you sunk your hand right down into the cloth and felt for him. He was hard and pulsing and extraordinarily erect so your fingers simply needed to fan out to feel him.

“it’s so hard…” you breath out, the earnestness of your surprise had his head spinning and pratically all of his blood rushing down to his cock.

“I am old, but not so old that my prick remains soft.” He lectured and you giggled a bit at the feeling of his hand squeezing your bum as a warning. Acknowledging your innocence, that he had denied you the understanding of how husband and wives function was to much for him to address internally at the moment so he’d decided to pretend you had been taunting him. That was easier for him!

“harder-“ he grunted hand sliding up your side looking for the handhold he wanted while your small fist wrapped around his shaft. “You can grip me tighter than that.” He breathed out nodding as you instantly corrected. “Good, that’s a good girl.” His four fingers settled wrapping against your ribs and his thumb splayed out under your breast lifting it up slightly and he puffed his chest out some to feel your hard nipple slide over his scarred skin.

“like this?” You looked at him bitting your lip as you squeezed much harder at his pulsing length and brought your hand up and down. Your fingers glided easily, he was producing plenty of lubricant himself. when his eyes closed while trying to reign in a moan and you leaned forward kissing the tension away. He held it in lines at the top of his noses bridge.

“I don’t deserve you.” He lowered his head when you kissed his forhead and his mouth dragged against the tops of your chest. It seemed like he was finding the perfect spot before settling in but when he did you gasped at the feeling of his tongue streching out to graze over one of your nipples.

“no…” you breathed out nodding a bit as you stroked him faster. “You don’t.” Your voice was breathy from how nice his mouth felt on your skin. How his nose nuzzled into the soft meat of your tits and he consumed as much of you as he could fit between his lips.

“Easy.” He warned you while his hand let go of your arse and he slipped his hand under your thigh finding your spot instantly because that part of you was radiating heat. You were wet as well, enough that he could feel that the raven black hair on your cunny was slicked into a mess.

When your hand faltered in its motion and your breath hitched at the suddenly presence of his fingertip dipping between you, breaching into your body, Maekar felt the shiver. Unsure if it was genuine chill or nerves he kissed your jaw and lifted you up with him as he got off the chair and then was over you on the fur rug infront of the fire.

“it’ll hurt-won’t it?” He could feel you tensing, feel your core squeezing at just the first bit of his finger entering. It was the princes turn to kiss you worry away, to stroke your cheek and hush you.

“it will hardly be worse than a frozen pond.” It was the truth, he wouldn’t offer you lies, and for that you were glad.

You breathed slowly, to calm yourself and soaked in the feeling of his hand on your hip, his weight leaned strategically against you, how he panted into your neck while slowly working two fingers into your core.

“Ahh!” You gasped at how filling they felt, at how odd…and electrifying it was to be able to feel him moving within you.

“Seven save me-“ he grunted kissing your lips and rubbing soothing with his thumb against your pearl. You realized quickly when an inner warmth began to bloom in your belly, that you would benefit greatly from his experience. He knew how to please a women. You suppose a man did not end up with as many children as he had without his wife wanting him in her bed!

He recognized the expression right away, the parting of your lips…the scrunching of your brows and how the column of your neck hallowed out a bit from how you tensed.

Your climax rolled through you before he could even comment on it. One moment you were getting stiff and tense under him, your knees rising up to push against into his sides and then next you were panting and as soft as dough under him.

Maekar pulled his soaked fingers from you and nodded at your whinny breathing. For a moment when you had clearly reached your release he considered ending it there. Letting you simply enjoy what had just happened. Though that whimpered strained noise you man when his hand was removed from you had the last good sense in him dissolving. You wanted more of him, wanted to feel him there between your legs.

“while you’re still calmed,” he pushed your hair back and then planted his bent elbow beside your head “I’ll- fuck me” he groaned his hand pulling his straining cock free from his breeches and instantly it slapped down against your swollen lips.

“please…” you mewd hands splayed out over your stomach where you had felt the intensity just moments ago.

Between your soft begs and the fact that he her not felt a women, in this way, for years Maekar could not resist a moment more. His eyes closed as he fed himself into your fluttering core. Pratically growling at how the warm squishy sensation of you hugged his prick so deliciously. His hand was fisted at your side, helping to keep him hovered above you some so he would not be fully engulfed by your sweet pussy.

“Oh gods” your teeth were clenched and your fingers dug in a bit to your stomach as it felt like his length began to displace things within you. He seemed large, it felt quite giant to you. Maekar’s hand suddenly went back to your hair the moment he saw your eyes fly shut and felt a warmth flood within you.

“That’s?” He picked up on the unease in your tone and saw how a little tear squeezed its way out of your shut eye. His hips stopped pushing ahead instantly. Actually he pulled out of you an inch or so. Glancing down to see the ring of blood around his shaft.

“it’s just blood…same as a cut.” He assured you, fingers flowing through your raven hair trying to bring you comfort. He wasn’t an overly affectionate or gentle man, and from what he saw you northern women did not want coddling. It made it easier for him to give you some small comforting remarks, ease that worry because this had been the first time he ever sense anxiety within you.

You breathed a bit slowly as the hand he had at your side rubbed under your clenched fingers to ease the tension in your lower belly. You opened you eyes now looking up at him, he was sweating some…the end sod his hair glued to his temple and the stern line between his brows was back. That worry was there for you, his concern and attention was on you in this moment, not the papers in his study, or a mess bis children created.

“it doesn’t really hurt.” You finally told him, it hadn’t ever really hurt, it was just pressure and a feeling you hadn’t anticipated.

“such a strong women.” He murmured. The affectionate tilt to his voice was not covered up at all by some put on huffing and puffing that you imagine he had not actually meant to say it outloud.

You looked down to see half of his cock was out of you and his body was being held up away from you. You wanted all of him-not just half!

“you are meant to be keeping me warm m’prince” Shivering for good measure before wrapping your feet up over him trying to weigh his back down so he would sink down against you.

He grinned some, hand shifting from your stomach to the small of your back and lifting you up towards him a bit more.

“Very well, wife.”

Finally Maekar pushed into you completely, in the manner that had started to haunt his mind over the past few moons when you were near him. He’d begun to have distasteful daydreams of pinning you to the break of fast table in his solar, stoping you on your walk to to rookery and pressing himself to you u til your back was flush against the stone wall. All of these imaginary scenarios ended the same.

His cock pressed fully into you. Tip twitching against your cervix and his stones slapping against you as he rocked in and out of you.

His mind has let him conjure up details about these various situation and still not one had come close to capturing how wonderful you felt beneath him, how dizzying the feeling of his cock engulfed fully within you left him!

“mmmm fucking hells” you swore when he continually bottomed out within you. The cursing made him kiss your jaw. He liked that you had a mouth on you, that you weren’t some sensitive flustered lady. Perhaps this pairing had been made with more thought, on his parents part, than just political strengthening?

“I can finish in my hand-“ your eyes searched for his instantly when he said that. “If you wish me too” he added after seeing the wave of worry in your eyes.

“n-no, I need-please keep going Maekar.” If not for a babe than at least for the orgasm that was building up in you so heavily that the tops of your ears felt heated.

Maekar kissed you, for a moment on the lips and then he pressed one to your temple, hand brushing down your hair and keeping your body pressed down towards his pelvis so your body took each thrust he gave, instead of getting bumped back and forth against the rug.

He felt how your hands squeezed at his sides, they were trembling a bit so he knew you were quite close to another peak. Finally you felt him start to lose his restraint, his weight was heavier over you, his hips rutting more than fully thrusting in and out. But you enjoyed that motion because it provide lovely contact for your clit against his pelvis. It had you moaning quite loudly-your eyes closing because you needed to focus on the intense wave building within you.

“ugh-“ he came with a low grunt, so deep that it came out muddled by vibrations and you gasped. Feeling him come appart, feeling his warm seed squish within you, it made you see stars.

Both of you were breathing heavily though your youth allowed you to revived before him.

“I must admit…I do feel quite warm now.”

“Return to rest, wife.” You hear your husband mutter, voice different and deeper, and you could not help but smile. After years of hoping and praying to each god, they finally answered your prayers and wishes– they finally gave you Aemond. 

You hummed as you nestled yourself closer to him, your soft cheek resting against his toned chest, and you could not help but place a small, chaste kiss upon his skin. You hear your husband hum as he tangles his fingers in your dark brown locks. 

For a moment, there was silence. A deep, serene silence that you had sought for your entire life. You could never explain why or how, but even as a child, you felt this sense of unrest and emptiness that always seemed to loom over your happiness. 

For years, it frustrated you as you could not express why you felt such ugly emotions. It was not until the fateful and dreadful night in Driftmark that you realized why. Your family was being torn apart, and you and your brothers were the reason why. It was not until that night that you realized how truly different you and your brothers were from the rest of your family. In the dim light of your supposed grandsire’s keep, the difference between silver and bronze gleamed brightly. 

It was the night that solidified your family’s animosity against one another. It was the night when you swore to yourself that you would lay your life to find the anecdote for your family’s hate. Now, here you were, lying beside the person you thought would be the cure. 

When your husband’s eye was taken, it sealed your family’s fate. You spent restless nights in Dragonstone, wrapped in guilt and fear, even if your hands did not carve his scar. You spent your days writing to him. Sending scroll after scroll of apologies that meant nothing when it came from the wrong lips. You did not know why you did such things; all you knew was that you did not wish to leave things as they were.

And over time, your efforts bore fruit. When you and your kin returned to Kingslanding for the purpose of a trial over Driftmark, you met Aemond again. You were reunited with the boy who lost his eye at your brother’s hands. You were reunited with the prince who had left your apologies unanswered. You were reunited with the man you were to marry. 

Your fears dissipated when a connection formed between you, from stolen glances across the halls to lingering touches under the table, and even secret kisses underneath the scarlet leaves. When your husband announced his intent to court you, the royal house was in an uproar. Neither side was thrilled about the match– if anything, they had done much to ensure that a marriage between you did not commence. 

They tried to pawn both of you off on other houses. With Aemond being presented a Baratheon bride, and you were given a Northern Warden as your groom. Obviously, neither match worked out; however, it came from great personal expense. You exposed yourself to scandal and laid down your virtue just in hopes that you could be with Aemond. 

“Are you certain?” Aemond murmured against your skin, his head resting against the crook of your neck, and you could feel each breath he took and each movement his lips made. You swallowed thickly, looking down on the earth below. The two of you high in the clouds and mounted on his dragon– his strong arms around your waist, and his hands itching to inch downwards to your heated core. 

He sat behind you, your back resting against his solid chest, and you could feel his wanting and needing length. You nodded through fear and apprehension. You were not thinking clearly; all you wanted was him. “Make me yours.” 

You hear him make a sound that was close to a growl, but was soft like a whine when you said the words. His thin, punishing lips latched quickly to the side of your neck, sucking and soothing the sensitive spot. A wanton moan escaped your lips as his fingers found your womanhood and his hand reached for your neck. 

“You’ve been mine for a long time.” You tightly shut your eyes as your stomach fluttered the moment his dragon dipped past a cloud, and as his finger found your dripping core. Your hand instinctively gripped Aemond’s thigh, your heart beating erratically in your chest as Vhagar flew closer to the sun and flew you closer to your peak. 

He claimed your maidenhead in the heavens, and when you returned on land, Aemond proudly announced that you were to be his wife, leaving your kin mortified as they saw your blood-stained gown. It was only fortunate that they no longer plotted to separate the two of you. 

You stared at your husband as you two lay in bed. His eye peacefully closed while the other stared back at you with a sapphire gleam. You sighed, unable to help yourself as you cupped his cheek and traced the raised bump of his scar, your delicate touch making him hum. 

“Do you love me?” You could not help but whisper. It was a question meant to stay in the confines of your mind, yet it hung in the early morning air. You watched as Aemond slowly peeled his eye open. A soft, adoring look in his unique lilac eye that could have been an answer enough. “I married you, had I not? I went against all their orders and my duties… of course I do.” 

You gave a small smile as he placed a gentle kiss upon the tip of your nose. His lips trailing down to your lips, and you let out a delighted moan as he rested his weight atop you. He was warm and solid, his skin rough yet tender, and you wrapped your bare legs around his frame in hopes that you could feel more of him. 

You bit your lip as you felt the head of his length brushing against your sensitive heat. Aemond smirked and placed an open-mouthed kiss against your neck as you gasped when he burrowed himself deep inside your cunt. “Does this prove my love, little wife?” He hummed, and you arched your back as he brushed against the spot that had you a whimpering mess that almost fell atop a dragon before. 

You felt the inclination to nod– to moan out a yes, but a wicked, loathesome thought crossed your mind. The pleasure your husband, your Aemond, presented you with was borne out of practice. You tensed in his arms at the thought of him bedding whores, you felt your throat tighten, and tears threatened to spill as you tallied up the others he had lain with. He was your first, yet you could not claim the same. 

Aemond had his eye closed in pleasure, and you took that opportunity to flip yourself on your stomach, his thrust abruptly ceasing as he opened his eye and searched for your gaze. You burrowed your face on the plush mattress, hiding your tears as you raised your behind for his hips to meet. 

“My perfect wife.” You hear him groan against your ear, his fingers brushing away your brown locks so he could place chaste kisses upon your back. You battled with your tears and pleasure as you loathed yourself for letting melancholy find you even when tucked in your marital bed. 

You wished that it was the last instance; however, your head was filled with poison, and your heart was filled with doubt. No matter what you did, sadness crept its way into our being, and it only worsened with each day after you sealed your marriage. 

You breathed in a deep breath as you sat with your husband in your solarium. The afterglow of the sun bathed the room in an amber glow, and your eyes stared off into the rising moon. Aemond’s fingers mindlessly drew circles upon your thigh, where his appendage found its rightful place. 

Aemond relaxed in his chair, but he was quick to tense as he heard you hiss and he vividly saw blood dripping from your fingers. The embroidery hoop you held fell onto the ground the moment your blood landed against your light pink dress, the silk quickly soaking up the stain. 

Before you could even move, you watched through sudden tears as your husband took hold of your hand and raised your pricked finger to his lips, sucking away your lifeblood and momentarily masking the pain you felt as his tongue soothed your wound. 

“Ought to be careful, wife. You know how I do not like seeing you hurt.” Aemond hummed as he brushed away your tears with his thumb. You gave him a small smile as you nestled your cheek into his palm. His cold, calloused touch is more than welcome against your heated cheeks. 

You took a deep breath and watched as your husband dipped down and picked up the embroidery hoop by your feet, his hand never leaving yours as he did so. You heard him hum as he raised it closer to his eye, a small smile on his lips. Your gaze traveled to the figures you embroidered, a smaller version of the two of you that you wished to place on one of the pillows in your bedchambers. 

“My, the gods were kind as they bestowed me with such a gifted wife.” He said softly and placed a kiss on your once-wounded finger before returning his hand to rest on your thigh once more. 

A deep breath left your lips as you stared at the small image you stitched, wondering hard why you could not simply stitch shut the constant sadness and fear that seeped through your bloodstream. 

Some days, your sadness was far too much for you to contain, and even your husband took notice. He tried his best to learn the cause of your sadness, but how could he know when you yourself did not know why? 

“Have any of the courtiers upset you?” He asked softly, his hand rubbing soothing circles on your back. You buried your face into your pillow and endured the twisting you felt in your stomach that never disappeared. You felt entirely retched to subject Aemond to your sudden fits of sadness.

“Was it my mother? Had she said something out of turn?” Your husband asked further, and you harshly bit your lip to prevent a sob. You wanted to push him away. To shut yourself in your chambers and let the inevitable sadness that plagues you pass. 

When you gave no answer, you hear Aemond sigh. You thought he’d leave, that he’d leave you alone, but he only settled himself by your side and lay with you until the tears ceased and night came. You hear his light snores and move to observe him peacefully resting after enduring your wretchedness. You nestled yourself into his chest again, letting him wrap his arms around your frame and letting the even beat of his heart lull you to sleep. Silently praying that the constant anguish you felt would fade. 

The gods ignored your prayers. If anything, it only worsened from that night on. The threat of impending war loomed over the land and your marriage. Tensions were running high. Sides that were formed long ago began to solidify the moment they announced your grandsire’s death. 

You saw it yourself how the seeds of hate had bloomed and flourished, and now both sides reaped the consequences. You felt foolish as you had thought that a marriage between your feuding families would at least beseech them to act rationally. You had foolishly thought that a marriage with Aemond– a Targaryen prince– a pawn for his grandsire’s ambition, would somehow heal the divide that carved through your family like a blade. Instead, it only deepened the wound.

“This is only momentary– their heads will cool, and we shall live in peace. Fret not, my wife.” You hear Aemond murmur against your skin as he holds you in his arms. How you wished for his words to be true, but the doubt that consumed you now manifested before your eyes. 

Tears spilled from your eyes. You knew Aemond loved you. He showed you that he loved you every day, even as war threatened your union. But you reeled in pain as you realized that even his love for you would never be enough. 

Your head kept spinning at the possibility that one day he’ll turn on you– that he’ll leave you because even if you were his wife, you're still a bastard. Even his devotion could not mend– could not stitch up the frayed truth of your birth. It no longer mattered how his love felt anymore. Your family’s hate and mistakes had festered so deeply that even your marriage– your love would never be the cure.