He should be dead.

The last thing he remembered with any coherence was the sky, a sky choked with smoke and screaming. Beneath that memory lay only fractured images that swam behind his closed eyelids, fragments of chaos that refused to assemble into anything whole.

Vermax.

The name pierced through the darkness like a blade. His dragon. His beautiful, loyal Vermax, who had hatched from an egg placed in his cradle when he was nothing more than a squalling babe with a tuft of dark hair that already marked him as different from his silver-haired mother. Vermax had shrieked as the grappling hooks tore into his wings, as the Triarchy ships surrounded them, as the sea rose up to swallow them both.

Jace’s chest seized, he remembered the impact. He remembered the bone-shattering crash as Vermax slammed into the churning waters of the Gullet, and he remembered the dragon’s terrified, agonized roar. That sound had carried more than pain. It had carried something that felt like betrayal, as if Vermax could not understand why the sky had abandoned them. The cold of the sea had been absolute, salt water flooding his mouth, his throat, his lungs.

He had surfaced somehow. He had gasped and choked and reached for something, a piece of wreckage or a shattered mast, though the memory refused to sharpen. The waves had tossed him like a child’s toy. Through the spray and the smoke, the first bolt had taken him in the shoulder. The second had buried itself in his side, just beneath the ribs. The third was a blank space in his memory, a sensation his mind had simply refused to record.

What remained was the feeling that followed. A slow, spreading numbness. The way his limbs had stopped obeying him. The way the sky had tilted and spun, grey and gold and red bleeding together like watercolors on parchment. His last conscious thought had not been of his mother, nor of his brothers, nor of duty or the Iron Throne or the war that was tearing the realm apart. It had been of Vermax.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

—

He woke to the glow of candlelight, the light came from dozens of candles, the air smelled of salt and something else, something green and living. Herbs, perhaps, or flowers. It was an earthy smell, a growing smell, utterly unlike the smoke and blood and terror that had filled his nostrils before the darkness took him.

Jace tried to move, and his body screamed in protest. Every muscle, every joint, every inch of skin felt like an open wound packed with burning coals. Pain lanced through his shoulder, his side, his ribs. He sucked in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, and even that small motion sent fire racing down his spine.

“You shouldn’t move.”

The voice was soft and female, carrying an accent he had never heard before. The vowels were rounder than he was used to, the cadence lilting and unfamiliar, Jace turned his head slowly, every vertebra in his neck protesting, and saw you.

You were kneeling beside the bed, on a cushion of deep blue silk, and you were looking at him with an expression of such open relief that Jace forgot, for a moment, how to breathe.

You were beautiful in a way that had nothing to do with the powdered faces and elaborate hairstyles of court ladies. You wore no jewelry, no rings, no gems at your throat. Your dress, if it could even be called that, was unlike anything he had ever seen, layers of fabric in pale ivory and soft gold that had been draped rather than tailored. The cut left your arms bare, and the neckline was wide and flowing. It was clothing from a warmer world entirely, bearing no resemblance to the heavy velvets and structured bodices of Westeros.

“You’re awake,” you said, and your smile was like dawn breaking over still water. “I was beginning to fear you wouldn’t open your eyes again.”

Jace opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a dry, rasping croak. His throat felt as though it had been scoured raw.

You reached for a clay cup beside you, glazed deep blue, and lifted it to his lips with a careful hand. “Drink. Slowly. You’ve been without water for a long time.”

The water was cool and impossibly clean. It slid down his throat like mercy. He drank until you pulled the cup gently away, your expression soft but firm.

“I said slowly. Your body has been through a great ordeal.” Jace sagged back against the furs, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Even drinking had exhausted him. He could feel the heat radiating from his own skin, a fever burning beneath the surface. “Where…” His voice was barely a whisper, cracked and ruined. “Where am I?”

You set the cup aside. “My home. I found you on the shore.”

He tried to form another question, but his thoughts were slipping away from him like water through fingers. The shore. The battle. The arrows.

“Your body was full of arrows,” you said quietly, as if you had followed the path of his scattered thoughts. “You looked dead. I do not know how you survived.” A pause. “But I am glad you did.”

Jace stared at you, his vision blurring and sharpening in turns. The candles made halos around your silhouette. The cave walls curved around you both like cupped hands. He lay in a bed of soft furs with clean linen bandages wrapped around his chest and shoulder. The space around him was strange, a blend of cave stone and polished wood and silk cushions.

He tried to focus on you again, on your strange dress and your unfamiliar accent and the way you looked at him without the calculating gaze of a courtier. Your expression held only simple, unguarded relief.

“You…” he started, but the words crumbled before he could shape them. He was so tired. The heat in his blood was growing worse, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool air of the cave.

“Shh.” You leaned closer and pressed a cool cloth to his brow. Your touch was impossibly gentle. “You have a fever. The arrows were laced with something, I think. A poison, or something like it. It will take time to burn it out.”

Jace’s eyes fluttered. The cool cloth was a mercy, and your hand was steady against his skin.

“Where is this island?” he managed, the question barely a whisper. “How far from the battle…”

You shook your head, a small and quiet movement. “This is my island. That is all that matters now. You are here, and you are safe.” Your hand brushed the dark, sweat-soaked curls back from his forehead. “You are my guest. I will take care of you.”

He should have questioned you. He should have demanded to know where he was, who you were, how any of this was possible. He was a prince, raised on suspicion, trained to trust no one. But the fever was burning through him, and you were so calm, so steady, and your hands were so gentle, and he was so gods-damned tired.

“Rest,” you murmured. “You are not strong enough to stay awake. But you will be. In time.”

Jace’s eyes closed against his will. The darkness pulled at him, soft and warm. The last thing he felt was the cool cloth on his forehead and the gentle weight of your hand smoothing his hair back from his face.

“Sleep, Jace,” you whispered.

—

The days blurred together like watercolors left in the rain, Jace measured time by the changing quality of light that filtered through the cave's entrance, a distant glow that brightened and dimmed in a rhythm he slowly came to recognize. Morning, afternoon, evening, night. The cycle repeated itself over and over. He could not see the sky from his bed, only the rough stone ceiling and the flickering candles and, whenever he turned his head, the soft silhouette of you moving through the chamber.

You were always there, that was the first thing he truly understood once the fever broke and his mind began to piece itself back together. You were always there. When he woke gasping from nightmares of Vermax screaming, the arrows striking, the water closing over his head, you were beside him with your cool hand on his forehead and your voice murmuring words he could not quite catch but that soothed him anyway. When the pain in his wounds flared hot and unbearable, you were there with the medicine, spooning bitter liquid past his cracked lips and following it with cool water to wash away the taste. When the fever spiked and he thrashed in the furs, soaked in sweat and half-delirious, you were there with cloths dipped in cold water, pressing them to his chest, his neck, his brow.

He did not know how you slept. He did not know when you ate. He only knew that every time he opened his eyes, you were somewhere nearby, kneeling beside his bed or mixing herbs at the stone table or simply sitting on your silk cushion with your hands folded in your lap, watching the candles burn.

“You don’t have to stay,” he rasped one night, though it might have been day for all he could tell the difference. His voice was still weak and still cracked, but it no longer hurt to speak. “You must have other things to do.”

You looked up from the bowl you were mixing, and your lips curved into that soft, patient smile he was beginning to recognize. “I have nothing more important than keeping you alive, Jace. That is a full-time occupation, it seems.”

He wanted to argue, but exhaustion pulled him back under before he could form the words, the fever broke on what might have been the fifth day, or the sixth, or the seventh. He had lost count.

He woke drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead and the furs kicked to the foot of the bed, but his head was clear. For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this cave, his thoughts were not swimming in a haze of heat and pain. He could feel the wounds in his shoulder and side, still tender and still healing, but they no longer burned with the sharp, insistent fire of infection.

He was alive. He was going to stay alive, and that meant he had to get back.

His mother. His brothers. The war. Every day he spent lying in this bed was another day the Blacks fought without him, another day his family believed him dead, another day the Greens advanced their stolen throne. He had to get stronger. He had to return to Westeros.

“Your thoughts are very loud.” Jace turned his head. You were sitting on your cushion beside the bed, a piece of fabric in your hands and a needle moving in small, precise stitches. He had no idea how long you had been there. He had not even noticed you.

“My thoughts?” he repeated, his voice hoarse but steadier than before.

“You are frowning at the ceiling as though it has offended you.” You did not look up from your sewing, but there was a hint of amusement in your voice. “I assume you are planning your escape.”

Jace blinked. “I was not planning an escape. I was only thinking about how to leave.”

“That is the same thing.”

“It is absolutely not the same thing.” Now you did look up, one eyebrow raised, and Jace felt his face warm. He had walked directly into that.

“You want to go back,” you said, and your voice was quieter now, the teasing edge softened into something more serious. “It is natural. You have people waiting for you. A family. A war, perhaps, judging by the state of you when I found you.” You returned your attention to your stitching. “I understand.”

He was quiet for a moment, watching your hands move. The fabric you were working on was pale blue, the stitches neat and even. You were making him more bandages, he realized.

“Yes,” he admitted finally. “I have to go back. My family needs me. They probably think I am dead.”

“Then we will work to make you strong enough to leave.” You bit off the thread with your teeth, smooth and practiced. “But you cannot rush it. The wounds are healing well, but if you push too hard, too fast, you will undo all my hard work. And I have worked very hard, Jace.”

There was something almost stern in your tone, and despite himself, he felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward. “I would not dream of undoing your hard work.”

“Good.” You set the sewing aside and rose to your feet, your gossamer skirts rustling softly against the stone floor. “You have been lying in that bed for days. I think it is time you tried to sit up properly. Do you think you can manage it?”

Jace took a breath. His shoulder throbbed. His side ached. But the fever was gone, and his head was clear, and he was so gods-damned tired of lying flat on his back.

“Yes,” he said. “I think I can.” It was harder than he had expected.

His muscles had atrophied during the days of fever and stillness. His arms shook when he pushed himself up, and the wound in his side pulled sharply, and by the time he was sitting upright against the carved headboard, he was breathing hard and sweating again. But he was sitting. He was upright. He was looking at the cave from a new angle, and it was strange and wonderful and disorienting all at once.

“There,” you said, and you were smiling now, truly smiling, something brighter than the gentle curve of lips he had grown used to. “That was not so terrible, was it?”

“Terrible,” Jace managed, still catching his breath. “Absolutely terrible.”

“But you did it.”

He looked at you, at the way the candlelight caught the strange color of your eyes, and he found himself almost smiling back. “I did it.”

—

The days that followed fell into a pattern, you would help him sit up in the mornings, propping him against the headboard with pillows and furs. You would change his bandages, your fingers quick and efficient, your touch never lingering longer than necessary but never cold or impersonal either. You would bring him food, strange fruits he had never tasted before, sweet and tangy, and a porridge made from some grain he did not recognize, and fresh water that tasted cleaner than anything he had ever drunk in his life.

And you would talk about small things, the weather on the island, the herbs you used in your medicines, the fish you caught in the tidal pools below the cliffs. You had a dry, quiet sense of humor that surprised him, and a way of tilting your head when you were thinking that he found himself watching for.

In return, he told you things about himself. He was still a prince, still trained in caution, and so he held back the details that mattered most. But he told you about Dragonstone, about the volcanic rock and the sea winds and the dragons that wheeled in the sky. He told you about his brothers, careful to speak of them in the present tense even though Luke was-even though Luke had become something he could not yet say aloud.

He told you other things instead. That he missed the sea. That he had never been good at dancing. That his mother had taught him to read when he was four years old, and he had been so proud that he had carried the book around for a week straight, showing it to anyone who would look.

You laughed at that, a real laugh, bright and surprised, as if you had not expected him to say something so ordinary. “A week?”

“I was very proud of myself.”

“I can imagine. A little prince with his book, demanding that everyone admire his genius.”

“I did not demand. I simply made strong suggestions.”

“That is the same thing.”

“It is absolutely not the same thing, and I will not have my diplomatic skills insulted.”

You laughed again, and Jace realized with a jolt of surprise that he liked making you laugh. It was a good sound, your laugh, unstudied and unguarded, the sound of someone who spent too much time alone and had forgotten to be self-conscious about joy.

You were his only companion. His caretaker. His only visitor.

He had not seen another person even once in all the days he had been lying in this bed. No one came to the cave. No one called your name from outside. No one brought supplies or messages or news. It was only you, always you, appearing and disappearing through the winding passages of the cave system with the quiet confidence of someone who knew every stone by heart.

He had not asked about other people. It felt rude, somehow, when you were taking care of him and feeding him and changing his bandages and sitting beside him through the long, fevered nights. To ask about the absence of others would have sounded like an accusation, as though your company were insufficient, as though he had grown bored of you.

So he did not ask, but the question sat in the back of his mind, growing heavier with each passing day.

—

The day he walked for the first time was the day everything began to shift.

It was morning, the pale silver light filtering through the distant cave entrance, and you had just finished changing his bandages. The wounds were healing well, the flesh knitting together into angry red scars that would fade to white in time. You told him he would have a collection of them, a constellation across his shoulder and ribs. He said he would wear them with pride. You called him ridiculous.

“Today,” you announced, rising to your feet and brushing off your skirts, “you are going to walk.”

Jace looked up at you. “Walk.”

“Yes. Walk. Put one foot in front of the other. I assume you knew how to do it before you arrived here.”

“I knew how to walk.”

“Then today you will remember.”

It was harder than sitting up. It was harder than anything he had done since waking in this cave. His legs felt as though they belonged to someone else, weak and unsteady, the muscles wasted from days of lying still. You had to help him, your arm around his back and his arm across your shoulders, bearing some of his weight even though he tried very hard not to let you. You were smaller than him and slighter, and he was terrified of crushing you.

“You will not crush me,” you said, as if reading his thoughts. “I am stronger than I look. Stop trying to hold yourself up with pride alone and lean on me.”

He leaned on you, by the time he had taken five steps across the chamber, his legs were shaking and sweat was dripping down his face. But he had walked. Five steps. Then ten. Then, a few days later, he crossed the entire chamber without help, his hand braced against the wall and his breath coming hard and fast.

And the day after that, you smiled at him and said, “I think it is time you saw the sun.”

The cave system was a maze, Jace knew, that your home was larger than the single chamber where he had been lying. He had seen you disappear down passages and emerge from different directions, had caught glimpses of other rooms, a kitchen carved into the rock, a storage chamber lined with jars and barrels, a space where water trickled down the wall into a natural basin. But he had not grasped the full scale of it until you led him through it yourself.

The passages twisted and turned, branching off into side tunnels and dead ends. Some were narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Others opened into wide chambers with high ceilings, lit by candles placed in alcoves and by thin shafts of daylight that pierced down through cracks in the rock. The walls were rough in some places and smooth in others, worn down by time and water and the patient labor of whoever had carved this place.

“Did you build all this?” Jace asked, his voice echoing strangely in the stone corridors. He was walking slowly, one hand on the wall for balance, but he was walking.

You glanced back at him. “The caves were here long before me. I only furnished them.”

“You furnished them very well,” he muttered, stepping around a carved wooden chest that would not have looked out of place in a merchant’s manse.

“I had time.”

That was all you said, as if it explained everything. As if it explained anything at all.

The light grew brighter as you walked, the grey-silver of filtered daylight giving way to a warm golden glow. Jace could smell the outside now, salt air and flowers and something green and growing. His heart beat faster. He had been underground for so long that he had almost forgotten what the sky looked like.

Then you stepped through the cave entrance, and he followed you, and the world opened up around him.

It was beautiful, there was no other word for it, no word that could possibly capture what Jace saw as he stood at the mouth of the cave, blinking in the sudden brightness, his eyes struggling to adjust after so many days of candlelight and shadow.

The island spread out before him like something from a dream, the cliffs where the cave was carved dropped down to a shoreline of white sand that gleamed in the morning sun. Beyond the beach, the water was the most extraordinary shade of blue he had ever seen, turquoise at the shore, deepening to sapphire further out, clear and calm and glittering with reflected light. The sky was vast and cloudless, a pale, soft blue that seemed to go on forever.

But it was the island itself that stole his breath, flowers grew everywhere, wild, sprawling, abundant blooms that cascaded down the cliffs and carpeted the meadows in explosions of color. He saw flowers in shades he had never encountered before, deep violet, vivid orange, a blue so pale it was almost silver. Trees heavy with fruit he did not recognize bent over natural pathways, their branches laden with something golden and round, something dark and pear-shaped, something that resembled a pomegranate but was the color of honey.

The air was warm and sweet, thick with the scent of blossoms and salt and damp earth. Birds sang somewhere in the distance, strange, melodic calls that were not quite like any birdsong he knew. A waterfall tumbled down the cliff face to his left, a thin silver ribbon that caught the light and threw rainbows into the air.

Jace stood there, swaying slightly on his still-weak legs, and he could not speak.

“I know,” you said quietly, standing beside him. “It is a great deal, after so long underground.”

“I have never seen anything like this.”

“It is home.” Your voice was matter of fact, but there was something softer underneath it, something almost sad. “Come. There is a place to sit not far from here. You should not stand for too long yet.”

He let you lead him to a flat outcropping of rock cushioned with moss and ferns, and he sat down heavily, still staring out at the impossible landscape. The flowers swayed in the breeze. The waterfall sang its endless song. The sea glittered and danced.

And there was no one here, the realization crept up on him slowly, settling over his shoulders like a cold cloak. He looked out at the island, the meadows, the fruit trees, the white sand beach, the cliffs, and he saw no houses and no fishing boats pulled up on the shore. He saw no paths worn by the tread of many feet and no smoke rising from chimneys. He heard no voices calling in the distance. He saw no sign of human life at all.

Only the flowers. The birds. The waterfall. The sea.

And you.

—

He did not say anything at first, you helped him walk a little further each day, down to the edge of the meadow where the strange golden fruit grew on low, sprawling trees, up to a ridge that overlooked the eastern shore where the water was even bluer and the sky even wider. You showed him the tidal pools, teeming with tiny creatures he had never seen, brightly colored shells that moved on dozens of legs, star-shaped animals that clung to the rocks, fish that darted and flashed like living jewels.

And everywhere you went, you were the only person, he saw no footprints but yours, he saw no structures but the cave. The only signs of cultivation were a small vegetable garden tucked into a sheltered hollow behind the cliffs, neat rows of plants he recognized, mostly herbs and some kind of root vegetable, and further back, half-hidden by a grove of flowering trees, a low stone wall enclosing a patch of churned earth.

He heard the pigs before he saw them, a grunting, snuffling chorus rose and fell, punctuated by the occasional indignant squeal. Jace followed the sound, moving carefully along a narrow path between two rock formations, and emerged into a clearing where at least two dozen pigs were milling about in a large stone enclosure. They were fat and healthy, their coats glossy, their ears flopping. Piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt while larger sows dozed in the shade of the trees.

And you were in the middle of them, you were scattering something from a woven basket, scraps of fruit rinds and vegetable peels and some kind of grain, and the pigs crowded around you like old friends. You were speaking to them in a low, affectionate murmur, and your hands moved among them with the ease of long familiarity.

You looked up and saw him standing at the edge of the enclosure. Your expression shifted, just slightly. Something guarded, something wary, flickered behind your eyes before you smoothed it away.

“You found my pigs,” you said, Jace leaned against the stone wall, catching his breath. The walk had been longer than he had realized, and his side was aching. “You have a lot of pigs.”

“They keep me company.” You tossed another handful of scraps into the enclosure, and a particularly large sow shouldered her way forward to claim it. “And they are useful. The meat, the fat, the leather. Nothing goes to waste.”

He watched you for a moment. The pigs jostled around your legs, grunting and snuffling, and you moved among them without the slightest hesitation, like a shepherdess, like someone who had been doing this for years.

“Where are the other people?” he asked.

Your hands stilled on the basket. You did not look up.

“What other people?”

“The villagers. The farmers. Whoever else lives here.” Jace gestured vaguely at the enclosure, at the pigs, at the island beyond. “You said this was your island. But someone has to help you with all of this.”

He trailed off. You were looking at him now, and your expression was strange, as though you had been expecting this question and dreading it in equal measure.

“There are no other people, Jace,” you said quietly.

He stared at you. “What do you mean, there are no other people?”

“I mean it is only me.” You set the basket down on the stone wall. Your hands, now empty, folded together in front of you. “There is no village. There are no farmers. There are no fishermen or shepherds or traders. There is only me, and the pigs, and the birds, and the fish in the sea. That is all.”

The words refused to make sense. Jace shook his head, a short, sharp movement. “That cannot be right. You cannot live here alone. How do you survive? How do you get supplies? There has to be someone else, a trader who comes by ship, a neighboring island, something.”

“There is no one else.” Your voice was calm and steady, but there was something raw underneath it now. “No ships come here. No traders. No neighbors. The island is hidden. It does not appear on any map. No one knows it exists.”

“That is impossible.”

“It is simply true.”

Jace pushed himself off the stone wall, ignoring the protest of his healing wounds. His heart was beating too fast. His thoughts were spinning. “How did you get here, then? How do you live? You cannot simply be alone on an island forever.”

“I did not say I chose it.”

The words stopped him cold, you were still standing in the middle of the pig enclosure, surrounded by grunting, oblivious animals. Your strange dress fluttered in the breeze, the pale fabric catching the sunlight. Your face was composed, but your eyes were dark with something old and heavy and carefully buried.

“My brother sent me here,” you said. “As punishment.”

Jace opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “Punishment for what?”

“For disobeying him.” Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings. “I did something he could not forgive. And instead of killing me, he sent me here. He had the means to do it, the ships, the men, the knowledge of this place. He left me with supplies and seeds and animals and told me I would never leave.”

“You have been here ever since,” Jace said slowly.

“I have been here ever since.”

“How long?”

You looked away, out over the blue water, and for a moment you were utterly still. “A long time.”

Jace’s mind was racing, scrambling to fit the pieces together. A brother with enough power to exile someone to a hidden island. Ships and men and the means to keep the place secret. A lord powerful enough to make his sister disappear without anyone asking questions.

“Who is your brother?” he asked.

Your jaw tightened. “A lord. That is all you need to know.”

“A lord of what? Where? What house?”

“It does not matter.” Your voice sharpened, just slightly, the first hint of steel he had ever heard from you. “What matters is that he is powerful enough to do this. Powerful enough that if I try to leave, if I find a way off this island and set foot on the mainland, I will be found and I will be brought back, and the consequences will be worse than exile.”

Jace stared at you, you were alone. Completely, utterly alone. You had been alone for what might have been months or years or decades. You had built a life in a cave, furnished it with silk and polished wood, grown a garden and raised pigs and taught yourself to heal. And no one had come for you. No one had visited. No one had even known you were here.

Until a dying dragon prince washed up on your shore.

“I am sorry,” he said, and the words felt pathetically inadequate. “I did not know.”

“How could you have known?” You picked up the basket again, your movements brisk and practical, as if you were eager to change the subject. “You were unconscious when you arrived. It is not as if I introduced myself and gave you a tour. Welcome to my prison, please enjoy the flowers.”

“It is not a prison.” You looked at him, and your smile was tired and sad and strangely kind. “It is a very beautiful prison. But it is a prison nonetheless.” You turned and walked away, the basket tucked under your arm, the pigs trailing after you like a strange, grunting entourage. Jace watched you go, your bare shoulders and your flowing dress and the way you moved through the meadow as if you had memorized every inch of it.

And he understood, suddenly, why you had never hesitated to save him. Why you had sat beside his bed for days on end. Why you had laughed at his stupid jokes and argued with him about the proper way to brew medicinal tea.

You were lonely.

Jace stood at the edge of the pig enclosure, the sun warm on his face and the sea glittering in the distance, and he thought about his mother and his brothers and the war and the throne.

He had to go back. He had to, but as he watched you disappear into the grove of flowering trees, your figure growing smaller and smaller against the impossible beauty of the island, he realized that leaving might be harder than he had thought.

—

In the days following your revelation—it is just me, there is no one else—Jace threw himself into the work of recovery with a ferocity that surprised even him. He woke early, before the light through the cave entrance had shifted from silver to gold, and he pushed his body harder than was probably wise. He walked the island's paths until his legs stopped shaking. He climbed the low cliffs until his arms stopped burning. He ate everything you put in front of him, slept when you told him to sleep, and bit back every complaint when you made him drink your bitter medicines.

"Someone is motivated," you remarked one morning, watching him pace the length of the chamber. He had been doing laps—back and forth, back and forth—testing the strength of his newly healed legs. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to pink, then to white, and the pain was a distant memory now, only flaring when he moved too quickly or twisted the wrong way.

"I have to get home," he said, not breaking stride. "My mother needs me. My brothers need me. Every day I spend here is another day they think I'm dead."

You nodded, your expression unreadable. "Then we had better build you a boat."

The boat took shape slowly, you showed him a grove of trees on the eastern side of the island, tall and straight, their wood pale and close-grained, ideal for shipbuilding. You had an axe, kept sharp and well-oiled in one of the storage chambers, and you handed it to him without ceremony.

"I will help where I can," you said, "but I am not a shipwright. You will have to figure out most of it yourself."

Jace had never built a boat before. He had sailed on dozens of them but knowing how to sail and knowing how to build were two very different things. He felled the first tree through trial and error, the axe handle blistering his palms, the sweat dripping into his eyes. By the time the trunk crashed to the ground, he was exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure.

"Not bad," you said from where you sat on a nearby rock, a pile of mending in your lap. You had been watching him work for the better part of an hour, offering no advice but plenty of company. "For a prince who has never done a day's labor in his life."

"I've done labor."

"Name one example."

He opened his mouth and swung the axe into the fallen trunk with more force than necessary. "I trained with swords. That's labor."

"Swords are not labor. Swords are play for princes."

"Then what do you call this?" He gestured at the tree, the axe, his blistered hands.

You smiled, that slow, warm smile that was becoming as familiar to him as the sunrise. "I call it a good start."

The days passed, Jace shaped the wood as best he could, stripping branches and hewing planks with tools you provided from the depths of the cave. Some of them were strange—shaped for hands slightly different from his own, their handles worn smooth by use that was not his. He didn't ask where they came from. He was learning that there were questions you would answer and questions you would not, and the line between them was invisible until he crossed it.

But you were always there, always nearby.

He had grown accustomed to the rhythm of your presence, the rustle of your strange, flowing dresses, the soft pad of your bare feet on stone, the quiet humming you did when you worked. You brought him water when the sun grew hot. You checked his scars every evening, your fingers against his skin, pronouncing him healed and healing well. You sat with him while he ate, and you talked about nothing and everything, and your laugh was the brightest sound on an island full of bright sounds.

"I should be further along by now," he said one evening, staring at the skeleton of the boat with frustration. The hull was taking shape, but slowly—too slowly. At this rate, it would be months before it was seaworthy.

"You are one person building a boat by hand," you pointed out. You were sitting cross-legged on a flat rock, sorting through a basket of herbs. The setting sun caught the planes of your face, the curve of your bare shoulders, the way your dress draped across your lap in soft folds. "I think you are allowed to take your time."

"I don't have time." He ran a hand through his hair—longer now, curling past his ears, in desperate need of a trim. "My mother—she needs me. The war—"

He stopped.

The war.

What war?

The thought slipped through his mind like water through fingers, there and gone before he could catch it. There was a war. Of course there was a war. He was fighting in it. Or he had been fighting in it. That was why he had been in the Gullet, why Vermax had—

Vermax.

His chest tightened. He remembered the dragon's scream. He remembered the water closing over his head. He remembered the arrows.

But what was the war about?

"The war," he repeated, more quietly now. "I have to get back to the war."

You looked up from your herbs, and your expression was gentle. Unreadable. "You will. When the boat is ready, you will."

"Right." He nodded, the motion jerky. "Right. The boat."

He picked up the axe and got back to work.

—

One afternoon you were down by the shore, sitting in the shade of a flowering tree while Jace worked on the boat's hull. "Brothers," he said, sanding down a rough edge of wood. "Three of them. Well—two full brothers. Two half-brothers. That's four. No, wait." He frowned. "Joffrey and... and the little ones. Aegon and..."

He stopped, the name wouldn't come.

"Viserys," you said quietly.

"Viserys. Right. Viserys." He shook his head, laughing at himself. "I don't know why I couldn't remember that. He's the youngest. Named after my grandfather."

You said nothing. You only watched him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and your fingers were very still on the mending in your lap.

"And Luke," Jace continued, the name coming easier now. "Lucerys. He's the second one. He's..."

Dead.

The word surfaced from somewhere deep, cold and sharp as a blade. But it didn't hurt the way it should have. It was distant. Muffled. Like a scream heard through a closed door.

"He's what?" you asked.

Jace blinked. "He's... he's at Dragonstone. With our mother. Waiting for me to come home."

You nodded slowly. "I am sure he misses you."

"He probably thinks I'm dead." Jace turned back to the boat, running his hand along the smooth wood. "I have to get back soon. Before he does something stupid. He's always doing stupid things, Luke. He's impulsive. Reckless. He doesn't think before he acts."

Luke is dead. Luke was torn apart by Vhagar above Storm's End. You weren't there. You didn't protect him.

But the voice was fading. Growing quieter. Harder to hear over the sound of the waves and the breeze and your soft, steady breathing.

—

The boat took longer than it should have, some days Jace worked on it from sunrise to sunset, his hands raw and calloused, his back aching, his mind fixed on the singular goal of getting home. But other days—more and more days, as the weeks wore on—he found himself... distracted.

The waterfall, for one thing.

It tumbled down the cliff face on the western side of the island, a silver ribbon that caught the sunlight and scattered it into rainbows. The pool at its base was deep and clear and shockingly cold, fed by some underground spring that kept it cool even in the heat of the afternoon. Jace had discovered it on one of his exploratory walks, and he had been drawn back to it again and again.

You came with him sometimes. You would sit on the rocks at the edge of the pool, your feet dangling in the water, your dress hiked up to your knees. You would tilt your face toward the sun and close your eyes, and Jace would find himself watching you instead of the waterfall.

"Are you going to swim or are you going to stare?" you asked one day, not opening your eyes.

"I wasn't staring."

"You were staring."

"I was... appreciating the scenery."

You opened one eye. "The scenery."

"The waterfall," he said, gesturing vaguely. "It's very nice."

You laughed—that bright, unguarded laugh that he had come to love—and he felt something warm bloom in his chest. Something that had nothing to do with the sun.

"Come on, then," you said, and before he could react, you slid off the rock and into the water with a splash that sent droplets arcing through the air like diamonds.

Jace stared at you. You surfaced a moment later, your hair plastered to your head, your dress clinging to your skin, the wet fabric rendered nearly transparent. The water lapped at your collarbones, and you were laughing again, and you looked—

You looked beautiful.

He had known you were beautiful from the moment he opened his eyes in the candlelit cave. But there was something different about you now. Something that had shifted, the curves of your face seemed softer. The color of your eyes seemed deeper. The way you moved—the way you laughed—the way you looked at him—it all seemed more vivid. More precious.

"Are you coming in or not?" you called, treading water in the center of the pool.

Jace pulled his shirt over his head and dove in after you, the water was cold and clean and wonderful. They splashed each other like children, chasing each other around the pool, ducking under the waterfall and emerging gasping and laughing. Jace couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like this—freely, openly, without the weight of duty pressing down on his shoulders.

Your dress clung to you like a second skin, the wet fabric outlining every curve of your body. Jace tried very hard not to notice. He failed. "You're staring again," you said, but your voice was different now. Quieter. Almost shy.

"Sorry." He wasn't sorry.

—

"I was betrothed," he said one evening.

You were sitting on the rocks overlooking the western sea, watching the sun sink toward the horizon in a blaze of orange and pink. Jace sat beside you, close enough that he could feel the warmth of your arm near his. The boat sat half-finished on the beach below, forgotten for the day.

"Was?" you asked.

"Am. I am betrothed." He frowned. "I think. We were supposed to marry before... before I left."

"Before the battle."

"Before the battle, yes." He stared out at the sunset, trying to conjure her face. His betrothed. She was a Targaryen, he was sure of that. Silver hair. Purple eyes. A dragon. But her name—her name wouldn't come. "She's my cousin, I think. Or my step-sister. Both, actually. It's complicated."

"What is her name?"

Jace opened his mouth. The name wasn't there.

"I can't remember," he said, and the admission felt strange. Not frightening—it should have been frightening—but strange. Like discovering a pocket in a familiar coat that he had never noticed before. "I know her face. She's... she's fierce. Brave. She has a dragon. A small one, I think. Or maybe it's large. I can't..."

He trailed off.

You were quiet for a moment. Then, very softly: "Do you love her?"

"Love?" He considered the question. "I don't know. She's family. She's duty. She's... she's what I'm supposed to do, but i care for her, a lot."

"That is not the same as love."

"No," he agreed. "It's not."

He didn't say anything else. Neither did you. But your arm was warm against his, and the sunset was beautiful, and when he finally walked you back to the cave, his hand found the small of your back without thinking, and you leaned into the touch instead of pulling away.

—

He forgot about the betrothed entirely by morning.

—

The days grew warmer. Or perhaps they didn't—perhaps it was only that Jace had stopped paying attention to the passage of time. The boat sat on the beach, half-finished, and he told himself he would work on it tomorrow. Tomorrow came and went, and he spent it with you instead—walking the island paths, gathering fruit from the strange golden trees, sitting by the waterfall and talking about nothing.

What are you doing? a voice whispered in the back of his mind. You have to go home. Your mother needs you.

But what did his mother need him for? There was something—something important—something about a throne, a war, a betrayal. But the details were foggy now, blurred like ink left out in the rain.

He remembered her face. Her silver hair. Her voice saying his name, but the rest was slipping away, piece by piece, day by day, and the more he forgot, the more he noticed you.

The way you moved through the meadow, your skirts brushing the wildflowers. The way you hummed when you cooked, some melody he had never heard before but that felt familiar anyway. The way you looked at him sometimes, quick glances from beneath your lashes, as if you were checking to make sure he was still there. Still real. Still alive.

The way your hand felt in his when he helped you over a rocky patch of ground.

The way your laugh echoed off the cliffs and came back to them multiplied, a chorus of joy.

The way your eyes caught the light of the setting sun and held it, like they were made of something more than flesh.

He loved you.

He loved the sound of your voice and the curve of your smile and the gentle patience with which you had nursed him back from the edge of death. He loved your dry humor and your quiet strength and the way you never pressed him for answers he didn't have. He loved the life you had built here, alone on an island that should not exist, and he loved that you had let him into it.

He loved you.

And the more he loved you, the less he remembered.

—

The morning was hot and still, Jace had woken early, as he always did now, but instead of reaching for the axe or walking down to the beach where the half-finished boat sat waiting, he had gone straight to the waterfall.

The pool was cool and clear, fed by the endless rush of water that tumbled down the cliff face in a silver curtain. He shed his clothes on the rocks, just the loose linen breeches you had sewn for him from fabric found somewhere in the depths of the cave, and dove in without hesitation. The cold shock of the water stole his breath and cleared his head, chasing away the last cobwebs of sleep.

He floated on his back, staring up at the pale blue sky, watching the birds wheel overhead. His dark hair fanned out in the water around him. The scars on his shoulder and side had faded to thin white lines, barely visible now. He was stronger than he had ever been, his muscles hardened by weeks of manual labor, his skin tanned golden by the sun.

He should have been thinking about the boat, about going home, about his mother and his brothers and the war.

He was thinking about you. Your laugh, your smile, the way your eyes caught the light. The way your hand felt in his. The way you looked at him sometimes, soft and searching, with something unspoken hovering just behind your lips. He had kissed you before, small kisses, brief and chaste, a press of his lips to your forehead when you fell asleep beside him, a brush of his mouth against your knuckles when you handed him a cup of water. But he had not kissed you properly. He had not kissed you the way he wanted to, the way he had been imagining for weeks, the way that left no doubt about what he felt.

He was thinking about that when he heard your footsteps on the rocks above. "You started without me."

Jace turned in the water, treading easily, and looked up at you. You were standing at the edge of the pool, barefoot on the smooth stone, wearing your dress of pale purple gossamer that drifted around your ankles in the faint breeze. The sun caught the planes of your face and the curve of your neck and the dip of your collarbones, and the sight of you struck him silent for a moment.

"Someone has to," he called back, forcing his voice into something approaching normal. "You sleep too late."

"I was gathering herbs. Some of us have work to do."

"Swimming is work. It builds character."

You laughed, that bright, warm sound that he had come to treasure more than anything else on this island. "Is that what you are doing? Building character?"

"Come in and find out."

You hesitated for just a moment. Your eyes met his across the water, and something flickered in your expression, something tentative and questioning, as if you were making a decision and waiting to see if he would notice.

Then you reached up and untied the clasps at your shoulders.

The dress fell and Jace stopped breathing.

You stood above him in nothing but the sunlight, bare to the sky and the water and his gaze. The curves of your body were soft and smooth, your skin glowing in the morning light. Your breasts were full and round and tight in the open air. Your waist dipped inward in a graceful curve before flaring out to the swell of your hips.

You were the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"Are you coming in or not?" he asked, his voice rougher than he intended.

You smiled, then you dove into the water in one clean, graceful arc, slicing through the surface with barely a splash.

You surfaced inches from him, the water lapped at your collarbones, but beneath the surface he could see the pale shape of your body, distorted by the ripples, impossibly close. Droplets clung to your lashes. Your hair floated around you like ink spilled in water. Your lips were parted and slightly wet, and you were looking at him with those shifting sea-glass eyes, and Jace forgot how to think.

"The water is nice," you said, and your voice was teasing and light, but there was a tremor underneath it.

"Nice," he repeated. He could not stop staring at your mouth.

"Very refreshing."

"I had not noticed."

"No?"

"No."

His hand found your waist beneath the water. Your skin was cool and slick and impossibly soft. You did not pull away. You drifted closer, your bare legs brushing against his, and the contact sent a jolt through him like lightning striking water. He could feel the heat of your core through the cool water, a promise of the warmth waiting for him, and his cock stirred against the confines of his breeches.

"Jace," you whispered.

That was all. Just his name, but the way you said it, breathless and aching and full of want, broke something open inside him.

He kissed you, his mouth strong against yours. His hand tightened on your waist, pulling you flush against him. His other hand came up to cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair. You made a small, desperate sound against his lips and kissed him back just as fiercely, your arms winding around his neck, your bare breasts pressing against the hard plane of his chest.

You were bare beneath his hands, there was nothing between his palms and your skin but water. He could feel every curve of you against the hard muscle of his own. His thumbs traced the ridges of your middle, and you shivered, and he swallowed the sound you made. His hands slid lower, cupping the full curve of your arse, kneading the firm flesh, pulling your hips against his so you could feel the rigid length of him pressing against your belly through the wet linen of his breeches.

"Jace," you gasped against his mouth. "Jace, I—"

"Tell me to stop." His voice was wrecked, barely recognizable. "Tell me to stop and I will stop."

"Do not stop." Your fingers dug into his shoulders, nails biting into his sun-warmed skin. "Please do not stop."

He kissed you again, deeper this time, slower. His tongue traced the seam of your lips, and you opened for him with a shuddering breath. The taste of you, sweet and clean and faintly herbal from the medicines you were always brewing, flooded his senses. He explored your mouth thoroughly, learning the texture of your tongue, the ridge of your teeth, the softness of your inner cheeks. You moaned into his mouth and sucked on his tongue, and the sensation went straight to his groin. He could feel your heart pounding against his chest, or perhaps that was his own heart, hammering so hard he thought it might crack his ribs.

Your legs wrapped around his waist beneath the water. The movement was instinctive and natural, and it brought your hips flush against his, the heat of your sex pressing against the hard ridge of his cock through his breeches. He groaned against your mouth, low and rough, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs. You were so warm. Even in the cool water, the core of you radiated a heat that he could feel through the fabric separating them.

He walked you backward through the pool, still kissing you, still holding you, until your back met the smooth stone of the cliff wall. The waterfall rushed beside them, a curtain of silver sound. He kissed the hollow of your throat, feeling your pulse flutter against his lips. He traced the delicate line of your collarbone with his tongue, tasting the clean, mineral tang of the spring water on your skin. He let his mouth drift lower, over the swell of your breast, and when his lips closed around one tight, pebbled nipple, you gasped and arched against him, your fingers fisting in his hair.

He lavished attention on your breasts, suckling first one and then the other, his tongue circling the tight buds, his teeth grazing them with just enough pressure to make you moan. Your breasts were perfect in his hands, full and soft, fitting his palms as though they had been made for him. He kneaded them gently, thumbs brushing over the wet peaks, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your head had fallen back against the stone, your lips parted, your eyes squeezed shut. The sight of you like this, bare and wanting and completely surrendered to his mouth, made his cock throb painfully against his breeches.

"I have wanted this," he breathed against your skin, his voice ragged. "Gods, I have wanted this for so long."

"Then do not wait any longer."

He lifted his head and looked at you. Your eyes were dark with want, your lips swollen from his kisses, your chest rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. The water lapped at your breasts, revealing and hiding, and he could feel every inch of you pressed against him, every curve, every soft place, every point of contact where your body met his.

"Are you sure?" he asked. He needed to hear it. He needed to know.

In answer, you cupped his face in your hands and pulled him down to you. "I have never been more sure of anything in my life."

He kissed you again, soft and sweet this time, a promise and a question all at once. Then his hand slid down your body beneath the water, tracing the curve of your waist, the swell of your hip, the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Your legs tightened around his waist, and he felt you tremble against him. His fingers found the heat of you, warm and slick even in the cool water, and he traced the folds of your sex with a feather-light touch. You gasped and bucked against his hand. He explored you slowly, learning the shape of you, the soft outer lips, the slick inner petals, the hard pearl of your pleasure at the apex. When he circled that sensitive nub with his thumb, you cried out, a sound half-lost in the rush of the waterfall. He swallowed it with his mouth, kissing you through it, his touch gentle and searching and patient. He slid one finger inside you, feeling the tight, wet heat of your body grip him, and you moaned against his lips. He added a second finger, stretching you gently, his thumb still circling your sensitive peak, and you writhed against his hand, your inner walls clenching around his fingers.

"Please," you whispered, the word broken and beautiful. "Please, Jace. I need you inside me."

He withdrew his fingers, and you made a small sound of protest that he silenced with a kiss. He reached down and freed himself from his breeches, his cock springing out, hard and thick and aching. The head was dark with need, a bead of moisture already forming at the tip. You glanced down through the clear water and your eyes widened at the sight of him, long and rigid, curving slightly upward toward his belly.

"You are so beautiful," he murmured, positioning himself at your entrance. He rubbed the head of his cock against your slick folds, coating himself in your wetness, teasing you both with the promise of what was to come. "I want to watch your face when I enter you. I want to see what I do to you."

Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels pressing into the small of his back. "Then do it. I want to feel you."

He pushed into you slowly, so slowly, inch by agonizing inch. The water made everything liquid and easy, but he wanted to savor this, the way your eyes fluttered closed, the way your mouth fell open, the way your body welcomed him. You were so tight and so warm and so perfect around him. He could feel every ridge and fold of your inner walls as they gripped him and fluttered and stretched to accommodate his size. Your heat enveloped him, searing even through the cool water, and he had to stop and breathe when he was fully sheathed, his forehead pressed to yours, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding back.

"Look at me," he murmured. "Please. Look at me."

Your eyes opened. They were dark and shining, full of something that looked very much like love. "You feel incredible," you breathed. "I am so full."

He began to move, he withdrew almost completely, feeling the drag of your body against every inch of his length, and then pushed back in with a slow, deep thrust that made you both gasp. The sensation was overwhelming, the tight clutch of your body, the heat, the way your inner muscles rippled around him. He set a steady rhythm, each stroke deliberate and full, sliding into you to the hilt and then pulling back until only the head remained inside you. The water splashed gently around them, ripples spreading outward in concentric circles with every movement. Your legs tightened around his waist, your heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper with every thrust. Your hands slid down his spine, tracing the ridges of muscle that flexed with every movement. You were making soft, breathless sounds, gasps and moans and fragments of his name, and he caught each one with his mouth, kissing you, drinking you down like wine.

"You feel incredible," he groaned against your lips. "So tight. So perfect. I could stay inside you forever."

"So do you," you gasped, your words barely coherent, slurred with pleasure. "Harder, Jace. Please."

He did not need to be asked twice. His pace quickened, his hips slamming against yours with increasing force. The sound of their coupling echoed off the cliff walls, wet and rhythmic, the slap of skin against skin beneath the water. Your breasts bounced with every thrust, and he watched them, mesmerized by the way they moved, the way the water lapped at the peaks. He bent his head and captured one nipple in his mouth again, sucking hard, grazing it with his teeth, and you cried out sharply, your inner walls clenching around him.

He shifted his angle slightly, tilting his hips, and on the next thrust you cried out sharply, your head falling back against the stone, your whole body arching against his. He had found the right spot, that sensitive place deep inside you, and he drove into it again and again, watching your face contort with pleasure. Your brow furrowed and your lips parted and your eyes lost focus, and you were babbling now, a stream of broken words, his name and pleas for more and incoherent praise.

"There," you gasped. "Right there. Do not stop. Please do not stop."

He did not stop. He could not have stopped if the world was ending. There was nothing but you, your body, your voice, your hands on his skin. He felt your inner walls begin to flutter around him, the first warning signs of your approaching climax, and he moved his hand between your bodies, finding the slick, sensitive pearl of you beneath the water. He pressed his thumb against it in tight, circling strokes, matching the rhythm of his thrusts.

"That is it," he murmured against your ear, his voice low and rough. "Let go. I want to feel you come apart around me."

Your climax took you by surprise. He felt it building, the way your breath quickened, the way your nails bit into his shoulders, the way your body tightened around him until he could barely move. And then you shattered, crying out his name, your head thrown back, your whole body arching and shuddering against his. He felt the rhythmic pulsing of your release gripping his cock, your inner walls milking him in waves, and he watched your face contort with pleasure, your mouth open, your eyes squeezed shut, your cheeks flushed dark. The sight of you, bare and beautiful and completely undone, was enough to push him over the edge. He drove into you one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and let go. His release surged through him in hot, pulsing waves, spilling deep inside you, and he groaned your name against the curve of your neck, his body shaking with the force of his climax.

For a long moment, neither of you moved, your breathing slowed, your chest rising and falling against his. Your fingers traced lazy patterns on the back of his neck. He remained inside you, still half-hard, reluctant to separate from the warmth of your body. He could feel his seed and your slickness mingled together, warm and wet around him, and the sensation was so intimate, so perfect, that he never wanted to move again.

"Jace," you whispered, and your voice was hoarse and sweet and utterly content.

He lifted his head and looked at you. Your cheeks were flushed. Your lips were red and swollen. Your hair was a wild tangle around your shoulders. Your eyes were soft and hazy with satisfaction. You had never looked more beautiful.

"I love you," he said.

The words came out before he could stop them, before he even realized he was thinking them. But once they were spoken, he knew they were true. He loved you. He loved you so completely and so absolutely that he could barely remember what his life had been before you. You were everything. You were the sun and the sea and the stars. You were the only thing that mattered.

Your eyes widened. "I love you too," you said. "I have loved you since the moment you opened your eyes."

He kissed you again, softly this time, tenderly, a kiss that tasted of water and salt and promises. And then he held you, your body still wrapped around his, the waterfall cool against his back, the sun warm on his face.

They did not leave the pool for a long time. When they finally climbed out, their skin pruned and their limbs heavy with satisfaction, they did not bother to dress. Jace carried you to a patch of soft grass beneath the flowering trees, and he laid you down among the fallen petals, pink and white and gold. He knelt between your spread thighs and looked down at you, at your bare body glistening with water droplets, at the place where his seed was already beginning to leak from your swollen folds, and he felt himself harden again at the sight.

He made love to you again, slower this time, sweeter. He kissed his way down your body, his mouth tracing the hollow of your throat, the swell of your breasts, the plane of your stomach. He paused to dip his tongue into your navel, making you squirm, and then continued lower, pressing kisses to your hip bones, the sensitive crease where your thighs met your body. When he reached the junction of your thighs, he settled between them and looked up at you. Your scent was intoxicating, musky and sweet and mixed with the salt of his own release. He could see the evidence of their earlier coupling, the glistening slickness that coated your folds, and the sight made him groan with want.

He tasted you properly for the first time. His tongue parted your folds, tracing a slow path from your entrance to the peak of your pleasure. The taste of you combined with the taste of him was earthy and raw and utterly intoxicating. You cried out and fisted your hands in the grass, your hips rising to meet his mouth. He took his time, learning what you liked, alternating between broad, flat strokes of his tongue and focused, circling attention to your sensitive peak. He slid two fingers inside you as he sucked on that tight bundle of nerves, curling them forward to press against that sensitive spot on your inner wall, and you came apart against his mouth, your thighs trembling around his head, your voice breaking on his name, your body gushing wetness that he lapped up eagerly.

After that, they walked back to the cave hand in hand, bare and unashamed, their clothes forgotten on the rocks by the waterfall. The sun had climbed higher in the sky, and the island was alive with birdsong and the scent of flowers. Jace kept his hand on the small of your back as you walked, unable to stop touching you, his thumb tracing small circles against your skin.

When you reached the bedchamber, the bed where he had first woken, the furs soft and the candles flickering on the walls, he took you again. This time you pushed him down onto his back and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. You looked down at him and you reached between your bodies to guide him to your entrance. He watched his cock disappear inside you, inch by inch, watched the way your folds stretched to accommodate him, and the sight was almost enough to make him spend right there. You sank down until he was fully seated inside you, and you both moaned at the sensation.

You began to move, rolling your hips in a slow, sinuous rhythm. He watched you move above him, your breasts swaying with each roll of your hips, your stomach flexing, your head thrown back in pleasure. He reached up and cupped your breasts, rolling the tight peaks between his fingers, and you gasped and increased your pace. Your thighs flexed as you rose and fell, taking him deeper with every stroke. He guided you with his hands on your waist, helping you find a rhythm that made you both moan, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh of your hips.

"Look at you," he breathed, his voice full of wonder. "You are so beautiful riding my cock."

You leaned forward, bracing your hands on his chest, and the new angle made you gasp. He thrust up into you from below, meeting your movements, and the wet sound of your bodies joining filled the chamber. Your inner walls were fluttering around him again, your breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He moved one hand to where your bodies were joined and pressed his thumb against your sensitive peak, circling it in time with your movements. You cried out and shattered above him, your body clenching around him, your back arching. The sight of you, lost in pleasure, pushed him over the edge. He thrust up into you one final time and spilled his seed deep inside you, groaning your name, his hands gripping your hips hard enough to leave marks.

You collapsed against his chest, spent and trembling, and he wrapped his arms around you and held you close, still buried inside you. Your breath was warm against his neck. Your heart hammered against his chest. He could feel the thrum of your pulse where your bodies were still joined, and he never wanted to let you go.

You fell asleep like that, joined together, your body draped over his, and when you woke an hour later, the candles had burned lower and the light through the cave entrance had shifted to the gold of late afternoon. You stirred against him, and he felt himself harden again inside you, still buried in your warmth. You smiled sleepily and began to move your hips in a slow, lazy rhythm, and he rolled you onto your back and made love to you again, gentle and tender, whispering your name like a prayer.

After that day, they could not keep their hands off each other, it was as if a dam had broken. Every moment they were together, they were touching. His hand on the small of your back, your fingers tangled in his hair, his lips on your shoulder, your thigh pressed against his beneath the dinner table. The boat sat forgotten on the beach, the wood beginning to weather and grey in the salt air. The days blurred into a haze of sun and water and skin.

He took you in the meadow, surrounded by wildflowers, the grass tickling your bare skin as he moved inside you, your legs wrapped around his waist and your fingers digging into his back. The sun was warm on his shoulders and the scent of blossoms was thick in the air. He rolled onto his back, pulling you on top of him without breaking their connection, and you rode him among the flowers, your head thrown back, your breasts bouncing with every movement, the bright petals clinging to your damp skin.

You pulled him into the storage chamber one afternoon and pressed him against the cool stone wall. You sank to your knees before him on the worn stone floor, looking up at him and you freed him from his breeches with practiced hands. He was already hard, his cock springing out, the tip glistening. You wrapped your hand around the base of him, feeling the weight and heat of him in your palm, and then you leaned forward and took him into your mouth.

He groaned and buried his fingers in your hair as your lips closed around him. You took him slowly, deliberately, your tongue tracing the ridge on the underside of his shaft, your cheeks hollowing as you sucked. You worked him with your mouth and your hand in tandem, your head bobbing in a steady rhythm, your tongue swirling around the sensitive head on every upstroke. He watched you move, mesmerized, watching his cock disappear between your lips again and again, feeling the wet heat of your mouth, the gentle scrape of your teeth. When you took him deeper, relaxing your throat to accommodate his length, he groaned your name and tightened his grip on your hair.

You pulled back, your lips slick and swollen, a strand of saliva connecting you to his tip. You looked up at him and smiled, a slow, wicked smile, and then you took him deep again, hollowing your cheeks, increasing your pace. Your hand cupped him gently, rolling him in your palm, and the dual sensation pushed him closer and closer to the edge. When he could not hold back any longer, he warned you, his voice ragged, but you only took him deeper, and he spilled into your mouth with a ragged cry of your name. You swallowed everything he gave you, your throat working around him, and you did not pull away until he was spent and trembling.

You looked up at him, your lips slick and swollen, a tiny bead of his release at the corner of your mouth that you caught with your tongue. The sight of you, kneeling before him, having taken everything he had to give, made his spent cock twitch with interest. He pulled you to your feet and kissed you deeply, tasting himself on your tongue, and then he spun you around and bent you over the stone table where you mixed your medicines.

He bunched your skirts around your waist, baring you to his gaze. Your folds were already slick and glistening, your arousal dripping down your inner thighs. He ran his hand over the curve of your backside, kneading the firm flesh, and then he positioned himself at your entrance. He entered you from behind in one smooth thrust, burying himself to the hilt, and you gasped and clutched at the worn stone surface. He set a hard, fast rhythm, one hand gripping your hip hard enough to leave fingerprints and the other braced on the table beside yours. The sound of his hips slamming against your backside filled the small chamber, wet and rhythmic, punctuated by your breathless gasps and his low groans.

"Is this what you wanted when you got on your knees for me?" he asked, his voice rough. "Did you want me to bend you over and fuck you until you screamed?"

"Yes," you gasped, pushing back against him. "Yes, I wanted this. I wanted you."

He reached around and found your sensitive peak with his fingers, rubbing tight circles in time with his thrusts. The angle was perfect, driving him deep, hitting that spot inside you with every stroke. Your gasps turned to cries, your cries turned to screams, and when you came, your body clenching around him so tightly that he could barely move, he followed a heartbeat later, groaning your name into the curve of your shoulder, spilling himself deep inside you.

He stayed inside you until he softened, his forehead resting against your shoulder blade, both of you breathing hard. Then he pulled out gently and turned you around, and he kissed you softly, tenderly, his hands cupping your face.

Every night, they fell asleep tangled together in his bed, their bed now, and every morning they woke the same way. Sometimes he would wake first and simply watch you sleep, the soft rise and fall of your chest, the way your lips curved into a faint smile as if you were dreaming of him. Sometimes you would wake first and trace the lines of his scars with your fingertips, until he stirred and rolled on top of you and the day began the way all their days began now, with your legs around his waist and your soft cries filling the candlelit chamber.

He could not get enough of you. He could not get enough of your taste or your scent or the sounds you made when you came apart in his arms. He could not get enough of the way your eyes fluttered closed when he kissed your neck, or the way your back arched when he ran his hands down your sides, or the way you whispered his name in the darkness, over and over, like an incantation. He learned every inch of your body, every sensitive spot, every place that made you gasp and every place that made you moan. He learned the rhythm you liked, slow and deep when you were tender, fast and hard when you were hungry. He learned how to read your body well enough to know which one you needed before you had to ask. He learned that you liked it when he talked to you while he moved inside you, telling you how beautiful you were, how much he loved you, how he wanted to stay buried in your warmth forever.

And every time he was inside you, every time you came apart in his arms, every time he lost himself in the heat and the pleasure and the overwhelming, consuming love he felt for you, something else slipped away.

In many ways, you were. You were his world now. You were everything.

And he was forgetting that there had ever been anything else.

—

The ship appeared on the horizon like a ghost from a life Jace had almost forgotten, he was down by the shore, skipping stones across the glass-flat water while you gathered shells further down the beach.

Then he saw it, a dark shape cut against the glare of the sun. At first he thought it was a cloud, or a trick of the light, or one of the strange birds that sometimes wheeled overhead. But the shape grew larger and sharper and resolved itself into masts and sails and a hull cutting through the water.

Jace's hand froze mid-throw. The stone dropped from his fingers and plunked into the shallows.

"Jace?" Your voice came from further down the beach, laced with concern. "What is it?"

"A ship."

The word felt strange in his mouth, foreign. He had not seen a ship in how long? Months? Years? He could not remember. Time had stopped meaning anything on this island.

He squinted against the sun, his heart beating faster. The ship was large, a warship by the look of it, three masts and a reinforced hull. As it drew closer, he could make out the banner snapping from the mainmast.

A seahorse. Silver on sea-green.

Velaryon.

The name hit him like a wave. His grandfather's house. His mother's allies. His family. The memories surged up from wherever they had been hiding, Dragonstone, Driftmark, the fleet, Lord Corlys, the war.

The war. He was fighting a war. His mother needed him. He had to go home.

"They are here for me," he breathed, and then he was running down the beach, waving his arms over his head, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Here! I am here!"

The soldiers came ashore in a longboat, six of them, their armor gleaming in the sun, the Velaryon seahorse embossed on their breastplates. They were grizzled men, seasoned fighters, and when they saw Jace standing on the beach, their faces broke into expressions of shock and relief and barely contained joy.

"Prince Jacaerys," the lead soldier breathed, dropping to one knee in the sand. "We thought you were dead. The Queen, your mother, she sent ships to every corner of the Narrow Sea. She never gave up hope."

Jace pulled the man to his feet, his hands shaking. "My mother. Is she well? Is the war still—"

"The war continues, my prince. The queen has taken Kings Landing. She will be overjoyed to see you. Everyone believed you had perished at the Gullet."

The Gullet. The arrows. Vermax screaming. The water closing over his head.

Jace shoved the memories aside. "I am alive," he said, and he was laughing now, giddy with relief and adrenaline. "I am alive, and I am coming home."

He turned to find you, you were standing a few paces back, your hands clasped in front of you, watching the soldiers with an expression he could not read. Your strange dress fluttered in the sea breeze, and your eyes were dark and unreadable.

"This is Y/N," Jace said, pulling you forward. You came reluctantly, your bare feet dragging in the sand. "She saved my life. She pulled me from the water and nursed me back to health. I would not be alive without her."

The lead soldier bowed to you, respectful. "The Queen will want to thank you personally, my lady. You have done the realm a great service."

You said nothing. You only nodded, a small, stiff movement.

Jace pulled you aside while the soldiers began unloading supplies from the longboat. His hands were still shaking. His heart was pounding. He felt more alive than he had in weeks, or months, or however long it had been.

"You are coming with me," he said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I know what you told me about your brother and the exile. But I am a prince, and my mother is the Queen. Whatever power your brother holds, it is nothing compared to the Iron Throne. We can protect you."

Your eyes widened. "Jace..."

"I mean it." He took your hands in his, squeezing tight. "You saved my life. You have been alone here for so long, and I am not going to leave you behind. Come with me to Westeros. I will keep you safe. I swear it."

For a long moment, you only looked at him. Your sea-glass eyes searched his face, looking for something he did not recognize. It might have been doubt or hesitation or some reason to refuse, then you smiled.

"Yes," you said. "I will come with you."

Jace pulled you into his arms and held you tight, his face buried in your hair, breathing in the scent of you, salt and flowers and home. "We leave at dawn," he murmured. "Tomorrow, we leave at dawn."

That night, you cooked a feast, the soldiers were camped on the beach, their tents pitched in a neat row above the tide line. They had offered to share their rations, but you had insisted, telling them in that quiet, gracious way of yours that they were guests on your island and that you would feed them.

Jace helped you carry platters of food down to the beach. There was roasted pork, crackling and golden, seasoned with herbs from your garden. There were strange fruits sliced and arranged in intricate patterns. There was fresh bread baked in the stone oven at the back of the cave, still warm and fragrant. And there was wine, more wine than Jace had ever seen in the cave, deep red wine in clay amphorae, rich and dark and potent.

"Where did you get all this?" he asked, watching you fill cup after cup for the soldiers.

You smiled, your hands steady on the amphora. "I have been saving it. For a special occasion."

The feast was a joyous affair. The soldiers laughed and sang and told Jace stories of the war, battles won and lost, allies gained and betrayed, the endless, grinding struggle for the Iron Throne. He listened with half an ear, nodding in the right places, but his attention kept drifting to you.

You moved among the soldiers like a ghost, refilling cups, offering plates of food, your smile never wavering. The men thanked you with drunken enthusiasm, their faces flushed with wine and gratitude. Jace felt a swell of pride watching you, his savior, his love, soon to be his companion in Westeros, where he would shower you with every luxury you had been denied on this lonely island.

"To the Prince!" one of the soldiers bellowed, raising his cup. "To Prince Jacaerys, returned from the dead!"

"To the Prince!" the others roared.

Jace raised his own cup and drank deep. The wine was stronger than he expected, and it went to his head almost immediately. The stars above seemed to blur and swirl. The fire on the beach danced and flickered. Your hand found his under the table, and he squeezed it tight.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow, we go home

—

He woke to sunlight and the sound of birdsong, his head pounded. His mouth was dry and sour with the aftertaste of wine. He groaned and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, trying to drive back the ache that throbbed behind them. How much had he drunk? He remembered the feast. He remembered the soldiers laughing, the wine flowing, your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered the fire on the beach and the stars wheeling overhead and the giddy, overwhelming relief of knowing that he was finally, finally going home.

The soldiers, Jace sat up so fast that the furs tangled around his legs and nearly sent him sprawling. The soldiers. The ship. They were leaving at dawn. He had to get up. He had to get dressed. He had to—

He stumbled out of the bed and through the winding passages of the cave, his bare feet slapping against the cold stone. The light grew brighter as he ran, golden and warm, and then he burst through the cave entrance and stopped dead at the edge of the cliff.

The beach was empty, his eyes swept the shoreline, back and forth, back and forth, searching for the tents and the longboat and the supply crates. He looked for the ship, the great Velaryon warship with its three masts and its silver seahorse banner, riding at anchor in the bay.

There was nothing there, the white sand stretched out below him, pristine and unmarked. The sea glittered in the morning sun, calm and blue and utterly empty all the way to the horizon. No ship. No sails. No sign that anyone had ever been here at all.

"What..." Jace's voice came out hoarse, cracked. He turned and ran down the path to the beach, his legs still unsteady, his heart pounding against his ribs. He reached the sand and walked through the place where the camp had been, his eyes scanning the ground for any trace of the soldiers. A footprint. A scrap of cloth. A ring of stones where the fire had burned. A spilled cup. Anything.

The sand was smooth and unblemished. The tide had come in during the night and erased whatever marks might have been left behind.

"Jace?" Your voice drifted down from the cliff above, calm and curious. "What are you doing?"

He looked up. You were standing at the mouth of the cave, barefoot, wrapped in one of your flowing dresses, your hair loose around your shoulders. The morning light caught the soft curves of your face and made your eyes gleam.

"The soldiers," Jace called up to you. "The ship. Where are they?"

You tilted your head, your brow furrowing slightly. "What soldiers?"

The question hit him like a physical blow. He stood there on the empty beach, staring up at you, waiting for you to laugh or smile or tell him it was a joke. You only looked back at him with mild, patient confusion.

"The soldiers," he repeated, his voice rising. "The Velaryon soldiers. Six of them. They came yesterday in a warship. They landed on the beach. We had a feast. You served them roast pork and wine. They were going to take us home this morning."

Your expression did not change. That small, puzzled frown remained, as though he were speaking a language you did not quite recognize.

"Jace," you said gently, "I think you must have dreamed it."

"I did not dream it." He was breathing hard now, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "They were here. They said my mother sent them. You spoke to them. You—"

He stopped, you were walking down the path to the beach now, your bare feet moving sure and steady over the rocks. When you reached the sand, you came to stand beside him, and your hand rose to rest against his cheek.

"You had a great deal of wine last night," you said, your voice soft and soothing. "More than I have ever seen you drink. Sometimes wine can make dreams feel very real."

Jace shook his head, pulling away from your touch. "It was not a dream. They were here. They were real."

"Then where are they now?" You gestured at the empty beach, the empty sea, the empty horizon. "Where is the ship? Where are the footprints? Where is the fire? If six men camped on this beach last night, where is the evidence of it?"

The sand was smooth. The sea was empty. There was no smoke rising from the ashes of a campfire. There were no tent pegs driven into the earth. There was no ship, no longboat, no sign that anyone but the two of you had ever set foot on this island.

"I do not know," he said, and his voice sounded thin and uncertain even to his own ears. "I do not understand."

You stepped closer, and your hand found his cheek again, and this time he did not pull away. Your palm was cool against his flushed skin.

"You have been through so much," you murmured. "Your body is still healing. Your mind is still healing. Dreams and memories and wishes can all blur together. But you are here with me, and you are safe. That is what matters."

Jace stared down at the sand. His head was pounding. His thoughts were tangled, slipping over each other like stones in a landslide. He remembered the feast so clearly, the taste of the roast pork, the sound of the soldiers' laughter, the weight of your hand in his. He remembered the banner snapping in the wind, silver seahorse on sea-green. He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, the shock and relief on his weathered face.

But the beach was empty.

"Perhaps you are right," he said slowly, and the words felt like surrender. "Perhaps I dreamed it."

You smiled, and your smile was warm and gentle and full of something that might have been relief. "Come back inside. I will make you something to eat. You will feel better once you have eaten."

He let you lead him back up the path and into the cave. He let you sit him down at the stone table. He let you place a plate of fruit and fresh bread in front of him, and he ate without tasting it, his mind still chasing the fragments of the dream that had felt so real.

That was what you had called it. A dream. And perhaps you were right. Perhaps the longing for home had grown so strong that his mind had conjured a rescue where none existed. Perhaps the wine had done the rest, weaving the longing into something that felt like memory.

Perhaps.

He did not think about it for the rest of the day, it was not until late afternoon that he noticed the pigs, he was walking past the enclosure without any particular destination in mind, his feet carrying him along the familiar path, when he stopped and frowned.

The pigs had always been numerous, he had never bothered to count them exactly, but now, looking at the enclosure, he could see that there were more than there had been the day before. Many more.

The sows jostled and grunted. The piglets tumbled over each other in the dirt. They were fat, healthy animals with glossy coats and floppy ears, rooting in the churned earth of the enclosure, there were at least twice as many pigs as there had been the day before.

Jace stood at the stone wall and stared at them. The pigs stared back, their small dark eyes unblinking, he stood there for a long time.

—

Days later, Jace found the hole by accident, though later he would wonder whether anything on this island ever happened by accident at all. He had been exploring, something he did more and more often now, wandering the island's paths and cliffs and hidden coves as if searching for something he could not name. He had walked further than usual that afternoon, following a thin stream that wound through a cleft in the cliffs, its water cold and clear and tasting faintly of minerals when he cupped his hands to drink. The stream led him deeper into the interior than he had ever gone before, past stands of flowering trees whose blossoms released a sweet, drowsy perfume, past moss-covered boulders that loomed overhead like the shoulders of buried giants and that was when he saw it.

A dark opening in the rock face, half-hidden by a curtain of flowering vines that spilled down from the cliff above in cascades of white and purple. The vines were thick and tangled, but they did not quite conceal the gap behind them. An opening wide enough for a man to walk through without ducking his head.

He should not have gone in. He knew that, even as his feet carried him forward, even as his hands reached out to push the vines aside. A voice in the back of his mind, the voice that had once belonged to a prince trained in caution and suspicion, whispered that he should turn around and walk back to the sunlit meadow and forget he had ever seen this place. But that voice had grown very quiet in the months he had spent on this island, and something else had grown louder.

The darkness swallowed him whole. He stood motionless for a long moment, waiting for his eyes to adjust, one hand pressed flat against the cool stone of the wall. The passage sloped downward, the floor worn smooth by the passage of time or water or the tread of feet. He could not see more than a few feet ahead, but he could feel the space around him opening up, widening into something larger than a simple tunnel. The air was dry and still, the silence so complete that he could hear his own heartbeat thudding in his ears.

He walked deeper, the passage twisted once, then twice, then opened abruptly into a chamber so vast that Jace's footsteps echoed back to him from walls he could not see. Thin shafts of daylight pierced down through cracks in the ceiling high above, illuminating the space in pale, dusty columns that fell across the floor like the bars of a cage made of light and in those columns of light, Jace saw them.

Armor.

Dozens of sets, perhaps hundreds, arranged against the walls and stacked in corners and laid out on stone slabs that rose from the floor like altars. Breastplates and greaves and gauntlets and helms, their surfaces catching the thin light and throwing it back in dull gleams. Some were polished and gleaming, as if they had been cleaned and oiled with meticulous care. Others were rusted and crumbling, their edges flaking away into red-brown dust, their shapes barely recognizable beneath the corrosion of years or decades or centuries. Swords and axes and spears and maces, their blades dull with age and disuse, their hilts wrapped in leather that had rotted away to nothing.

And clothes, stacks and stacks of clothes, tunics and breeches and cloaks and boots and belts and gloves. They were piled against the walls in drifts that rose nearly to the ceiling, some of them neatly folded as if awaiting a return that would never come, others tossed carelessly into corners in tangled heaps of faded fabric. Some were new, the dyes still bright, the wool still soft, the linen still crisp and clean. Others were ancient and moth-eaten, their threads crumbling at the slightest touch, their colors bleached to ghostly echoes of what they had once been.

Jace stood in the center of the chamber and turned in a slow circle, his breath caught in his throat, his heart hammering against his ribs like a fist beating against a locked door. The scale of it was incomprehensible. There were so many. Too many. More than one person could ever need. More than a dozen people could ever need. More than a hundred people could ever need. This was not a collection. This was a graveyard for the belongings of the dead.

His eyes caught on a breastplate near his feet, and the world tilted sideways, it was newer than the others. Its metal still held a faint gleam beneath a thin layer of dust, and its leather straps were still supple, and on its chest, embossed in silver that caught the light like a blade, was the seahorse of House Velaryon.

He remembered the lead soldier kneeling in the sand, his weathered face breaking into shock and relief. He remembered the feast on the beach, the crackling fire, the roast pork and the wine and your hand in his beneath the table. He remembered waking to find the beach empty and the sea bare and you standing at the mouth of the cave with your head tilted and your brow furrowed, asking him what soldiers he meant, telling him it was only a dream, only a dream, nothing more than a dream.

The soldiers who had never been here. The soldiers he had only imagined. Their armor was lying at his feet.

He stumbled backward. His heel caught on a gauntlet and sent it skittering across the stone floor with a sound like a startled crab. The noise echoed through the chamber and died away into silence, and Jace stood there with his hands shaking and his mind blank with a terror so absolute that it felt almost like calm. He could not think. He could not breathe. He could not make sense of what he was seeing, and some part of him understood with terrible clarity that making sense of it would destroy everything he had built on this island. Every moment of peace. Every hour of love. Every whispered word in the darkness. All of it balanced on the edge of this pit, and if he looked down, if he truly looked, he would fall.

"What are you doing here?"

He spun around so fast that his boots skidded on the stone floor, his heart slammed against his ribs, once, twice, a frantic drumbeat of pure animal terror.. "Nothing. I was only looking, I wanted to understand—"

"You were only looking." You stepped out of the shadows and into the thin light that filtered down from the cracks in the ceiling, and the expression on your face made his stomach drop. The gentle warmth he had come to love was gone. The softness was gone. Your jaw was tight, the muscles corded beneath your skin, and your hands were clenched into fists at your sides, and your eyes were fixed on him with a glittering intensity that pinned him in place like a butterfly on a board. "At what, precisely? At the belongings of dead men? At the evidence of my sins? At the proof that I am not the gentle, lonely woman you thought you loved?"

Your hands unclenched and clenched again, the fingers curling and uncurling in a rhythm that seemed almost involuntary, as though you were strangling something invisible.

"I asked you a question, Jace." Your voice dropped, soft and dangerous. "What are you doing here?"

He should have been afraid. He was afraid. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and his heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, and every instinct he possessed was screaming at him to run. But something else rose up inside him too, some scrap of the prince he used to be, some stubborn remnant of the boy who had faced down enemies on the battlefield and never flinched. He straightened his spine and met your eyes and refused to look away.

"Why are they here?" he asked, gesturing at the armor that surrounded them. "All of these. Dozens of sets. Hundreds, maybe. The soldiers who came for me, their armor is here. The same breastplate, the same sigil. It wasn't a dream was it? What happened to them?"

You stared at him. A muscle in your jaw twitched.

"It does not matter."

"It matters to me."

"It does not matter, Jace." Your voice was rising now, cracking at the edges, splintering into something raw and desperate. "It should not matter, Jace. Those men are gone. Let them stay gone. Let the past stay buried. We were happy. We were so happy. Why could you not leave well enough alone?"

"Because I need to know the truth."

"The truth will not make you happy. The truth will not keep you warm at night. The truth will not hold you when you wake from nightmares and tell you that everything is going to be all right."

"The truth is the truth. I deserve to know it."

You laughed, it was sharp and bitter and jagged, the laugh of someone who had been hurt too many times to believe in fairness anymore. "You sound just like them. Every single one of them. They all wanted the truth. They all thought they deserved to know. And do you know what happened when they found it?"

Jace did not answer. He did not need to answer. The armors answered for him.

"What happened to the soldiers?" he asked instead. His voice was very quiet. "The ones who came for me. The ones whose armor is lying at my feet. What did you do to them?"

Your face crumpled, the coldness shattered and the fury crumbled and underneath it was something far older and far more terrifying, a grief so immense it had calcified into rage over centuries of solitude. The tears that spilled down your cheeks were real, hot and sudden and utterly convincing.

"Why do you want to leave me?" you screamed, the sound echoed off the stone walls and came back multiplied, a chorus of accusations that battered him from every direction. Your voice was raw and ragged, shredded at the edges, and the pain in it was so enormous that Jace felt his own heart clench in response. The anger that had been building in him, the righteous fury at being lied to, began to waver. How could he be angry at someone who was in so much pain? How could he accuse someone who was so clearly suffering?

"Why do you want to leave me?" you cried again, and your voice broke on the last word. "Why do they always leave? Every single one of them, they wash up on my shore and I save them and I nurse them back to health and I give them everything I have, everything I am, and they tell me they love me, they look me in the eyes and they swear they love me, and I believe them every time, every single time I believe them because I am so desperate to be loved by someone, anyone, and then they remember. They always remember. And they always leave. They always want to go home. Why am I never enough? Why am I never enough for anyone?"

The question hung in the air, raw and bleeding. Your chest was heaving. Your hands were shaking. You looked at him with those burning eyes, and Jace felt his resolve crumbling, you were not a monster, you were wounded, a woman who had been abandoned and betrayed so many times that she had forgotten how to trust. How could he blame you for what you had done?

"I love you," he said, and his voice was shaking but he meant it with every fiber of his being. "I love you. I do. I love you more than I have ever loved anyone."

"Then why do you want to leave me?" Your voice was small now, wounded, the fury draining away to reveal the vulnerability beneath. "If you love me, why isn't that enough? Why do you need to go back? Why can't you just stay here with me? Why do you need a mother and brothers and a war and a throne? Why can you not just stay here and be mine?"

"Because I have a family." He was pleading now, hating himself for the pain he was causing you. "Because I have a mother who needs me and brothers who are waiting for me. Because there is a war, a war I was fighting, a war I was supposed to win. Because I have a duty."

"A duty." You laughed, but it was a broken sound, a laugh that was really a sob. "Duty. Honor. Family. I have heard all of this before. Every single one of them said the same thing. They had to go back. They had responsibilities. They had people who needed them. And what about me? What about what I need? I needed them. I loved them. And they left me anyway. They all left me. Just like you will leave me."

"I don't want to leave you," Jace said, and the words felt inadequate, pathetic. "I want to go home, yes. I want to see my mother. I want to protect her from the enemies who would see her dead and her throne stolen. But I want to take you with me. I want you to meet her. I want to marry you properly, before the whole court, with a septon and a cloak and vows spoken in the light of the Seven. I want to make you my queen. When I sit the Iron Throne, you will sit beside me."

He reached for you, desperate to comfort you, to wipe the tears from your cheeks. You did not pull away, but you did not lean into his touch either.

"I do not care what you did to these men," he said, his voice low and fierce. "I do not care what you have done. I love you. I love you more than I have ever loved anything in my life. I just want you to come with me. Please. Come with me."

For a long moment, you were silent, then you shook your head. Slowly. Miserably. With the exhausted certainty of someone who had heard these same promises too many times to count.

"It is not true," you whispered. "They always say this. When my brother sends them here, they always tell me they love me. They always promise they will stay. They look at me with those earnest eyes and they swear they are different from the others, and I believe them. I always believe them. Because I want to believe. Because I want so desperately for it to be true. And then they remember who they were before, and everything changes."

You pulled your hands out of his grip and wrapped your arms around yourself, your shoulders hunching inward as though you were trying to make yourself smaller, harder to hurt. Jace felt a surge of protectiveness so strong it almost knocked the breath out of him. He wanted to hold you. He wanted to shield you from everything that had ever hurt you.

"They remember their old lives," you continued, your voice barely above a whisper, "and they tell me they will save me. They tell me they will break the curse and take me away from here and marry me in a real sept with real vows. They promise me everything I have ever wanted. And for a little while I let myself hope. I let myself believe that this time will be different. This time the love will be real."

Your voice caught on the last word, splintering into something that was almost a sob. Jace felt tears prick at the corners of his own eyes. Gods, how could anyone have done this to you? How could anyone have been so cruel?

"But they never mean it," you said. "They are only saying what they think I want to hear. They are only trying to placate me, to buy themselves time, to find a way to escape. And when they try to break the curse and they fail, when they realize their love is not strong enough, when they understand that they do not really love me at all, they run. They try to leave. And I—"

You stopped. Your hands were trembling violently now, the fingers twisting together in front of you.

"What do you do?" Jace asked, though he already knew the answer. He knew it, and it horrified him, and yet somehow he could not bring himself to judge you for it. You had been hurt. You had been betrayed. You had been left alone for so long that you had forgotten what it felt like to be held. How could anyone expect you to react with grace when another man tried to abandon you?

"I do not let them leave." Your voice was barely a whisper, so quiet he had to lean closer to hear it. "They do not get to leave. They do not get to go back to their families and forget about me while I rot here alone. They stay. They stay here with me. Forever."

"The pigs," Jace said.

"They are happier as pigs," Your voice took on a defensive edge, almost childlike in its insistence. "They do not remember their old lives. They do not feel the disappointment. They do not want to leave. They are content. They have food and shelter and each other. I take care of them. I take better care of them than anyone ever took care of me." Your eyes searched his face, looking for understanding, looking for absolution. "They are better off this way. I gave them peace. I gave them a life without pain. Do you know what my brother gave me? Do you know what it feels like to be left here, alone, for centuries, with nothing but the sound of the waves and the crying of the gulls and the knowledge that no one is ever coming for you?"

Jace's throat was dry. "Why did you not do it to me?"

"Because I thought you were different." Your voice was small now, so small it was almost swallowed by the shadows of the cave. "Because when I looked at you, when I held you through the fevers and listened to you talk about your home and your family, I thought—I hoped—that you might really love me." A tear slid down your cheek, and you did not wipe it away. "I thought you would stay."

The guilt hit Jace like a physical blow. You had hoped. You had let yourself hope, despite everything, despite centuries of betrayal and abandonment, and he was about to become just another name on the long list of people who had disappointed you. He was about to leave you, just like all the others. He was about to prove that your hope had been misplaced, that love was a lie, that no one would ever truly choose you.

"I am sorry," he said, and he meant it with every part of himself. "I am so sorry. I do not want to leave you. I want to stay. I want both things. I want to go home, but I want you to come with me. Can I not have both things?"

"No one ever wants both things." You pulled your hands away, and your expression was hardening again, the vulnerability sealing itself back behind walls of old resentment. "They want to leave. They always want to leave. As soon as they remember their old lives, they want to leave. And when they realize they cannot break the curse, they run. They all run. And I have to stop them because if I do not stop them they will leave me alone again, and I cannot be alone again, Jace, I cannot, I would rather die than be alone again—"

"What curse?" Jace cut through your spiraling words, his voice urgent. "You said they could not break the curse. What curse?"

"It does not matter," you said. Your voice was empty now, drained of all the fury and grief that had filled it moments before. "You are going to leave me too. You are going to try to break the curse, and you are going to fail, because no one has ever succeeded, and then you are going to run. Just like all the others."

"Tell me what the curse is. Please. Let me help you."

You stared at him for a long, long moment. The candles flickered in their alcoves, their flames guttering in a draft he could not feel. The armor gleamed dully in the shadows, the relics of a hundred men who had stood where he was standing now and made the same promises he was making. Somewhere far away, muffled by stone and distance, the pigs grunted in their enclosure. The men who had failed. The men whose love had not been strong enough.

"My brother exiled me here," you said finally. Your voice was flat now, reciting facts rather than feelings, as though you had told this story so many times that the words had lost all meaning. "Centuries ago. So long ago that the world I came from does not exist anymore, and when I disobeyed him, when I refused to do what he asked of me, he put a curse on this island as punishment. I cannot leave. No ship will carry me. No boat will bear my weight. If I try to swim, the sea itself will rise up and drag me back to shore. I am bound here, bound to this rock, until the curse is broken or the world ends."

"How do I break it?"

You looked at him, and your eyes were ancient and exhausted and utterly without hope. Jace felt his heart twist. You had been disappointed so many times. You did not believe he could do it.

"There is a cave," you said. "Behind the waterfall on the western cliff. There is a statue inside, a statue of me carved from black stone, wrapped in chains. I cannot enter the cave. It is spelled against me." Your hand rose unconsciously to your neck, as if feeling for the links of a collar that was not there. "If the statue is broken, the curse will be lifted. The chains will fall. I will be free."

"Then I will break it."

"It is not that simple." Your voice was quiet now, almost gentle, and there was something in it that felt like a warning, a kindness, an attempt to protect him from the disappointment you were certain was coming. "Only a man who knows my true nature can destroy the statue. Only a man who has seen what I am, what I have done, every monstrous thing I have committed in my long and miserable existence, and still loves me truly. Not charmed. Not tricked. Not fogged by the magic of this island. Real love. Clear-eyed love. Love that looks at the worst of me and does not flinch." You paused. "If his love is false, if it is only gratitude or loneliness or the lingering effects of my enchantments, the statue will not break. It will not even crack. And I will know. I will know that his love was a lie."

"I am not them," he said.

"You are. You are exactly like them."

"No." He stepped forward and took your face in his hands, his thumbs brushing the tears from your cheeks. "I am not them. I am going to break the curse. I am going to set you free. I am going to take you away from this island and give you the life you deserve. I swear it."

"You cannot promise that."

"I can. I am." He pressed his forehead against yours. "I love you. I know what you are. I know what you have done. And I love you anyway. I love you not despite the worst of you but because of it. Because the worst of you was born from pain, and I want to heal that pain. I want to be the one who finally proves to you that love is real. That you are worthy of it. That you have always been worthy of it."

You let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. "You are a fool, Jacaerys Velaryon."

"Take me to the cave behind the waterfall," he said. "Let me prove it."

"Alright," you whispered, as if you had expected him to ask. "I will take you. But do not say I did not warn you."

You turned and walked out of the cave, and Jace followed you, his heart pounding and his mind clear and his love for you burning in his chest like a flame that no wind could extinguish. He was going to save you. He was going to be the one. He was going to prove that love was stronger than any curse, stronger than any magic, stronger than centuries of solitude and betrayal.

He had to be the one. The alternative was unthinkable.

—

The walk was silent, you led him along the familiar path, the meadow with its strange flowers swaying in the breeze, the grove of fruit trees with their golden bounty hanging heavy from the branches, the rocky outcropping that overlooked the western shore where the sea stretched out blue and endless and utterly indifferent to what was about to happen. The waterfall was roaring louder than usual, or perhaps it only seemed that way. Perhaps it was the blood pounding in his ears. Perhaps it was the weight of what he was about to do pressing down on him like a physical thing, a stone laid across his chest that made every breath feel shallow and insufficient.

You stopped at the edge of the pool, where the water churned white with the endless cascade. Your face was pale. Your hands were shaking at your sides, the fingers twisting together in that nervous gesture he had come to recognize, the one that always made him want to pull you into his arms and promise you that everything would be alright.

"There," you said, pointing, Jace squinted through the spray. Behind the curtain of falling water, barely visible through the silver torrent, was a dark opening in the rock face. A cave mouth, smaller than the one you lived in, half-hidden by the cascade. It looked like something that did not want to be found.

"I cannot enter," you said, and your voice was quiet, almost reverent. "The spell prevents me. The moment I step through the water, I am pushed back. It burns." You wrapped your arms around yourself, your fingers digging into the flesh of your upper arms. The gesture was meant to look vulnerable, meant to make him feel protective. It worked. "You have to go alone."

Jace nodded. He had expected this. Of course he had expected this. The hero always had to face the trial alone. That was how these stories went.

"I will come back," he said.

You did not answer. Your eyes were fixed on the waterfall, dark and terrified, and your lower lip trembled just slightly, just enough for him to notice.

"Hey." He touched your chin, turning your face toward him. Your skin was cold beneath his fingers. "I will come back. I promise."

"Everyone promises." Your voice was barely a whisper, and there was something in it that snagged at his heart like a fishhook. "Everyone who has ever stood on this shore has promised to come back."

"I am not everyone."

He kissed your lips and for just a moment he felt something move beneath the surface. A flicker. A pulse. Something that was not quite human. Then the moment passed, and you were just you again, fragile and frightened and looking at him with those sea-glass eyes that held all the sadness in the world.

He turned away before he could lose his nerve. He dove into the pool, and the water closed over his head like a fist.

The cold was shocking. It was more than cold. It was the absence of warmth, the absence of life, a cold that sank into his bones and wrapped around his heart and squeezed. He surfaced gasping, his breath torn from his lungs in a ragged gasp, and swam toward the waterfall with strong, desperate strokes. The roar grew louder as he approached, a wall of sound that pressed against his eardrums until he could hear nothing else. The spray blinded him, stinging his eyes, filling his mouth with the taste of minerals and stone. The current tried to push him back, tried to shove him away from the cave entrance as if the water itself did not want him to pass.

But he kept swimming. He had promised. He had promised he would come back, he reached the rock face and pulled himself up onto a narrow ledge, slick with moss and running water, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the wet stone. The cave entrance yawned before him, dark and silent and somehow hungry, as if the darkness itself was waiting for him to step inside. He looked back once. You were still standing at the edge of the pool, a pale figure in a pale dress, your hands pressed to your mouth. You looked like a ghost. You looked like a memory of someone who had died a long time ago.

Then he turned and walked into the darkness.

—

The cave was small, smaller than he had expected. The passage was short, barely twenty paces, the walls rough and wet beneath his trailing fingers, the floor sloping downward into the heart of the rock. The roar of the waterfall faded behind him, muffled by the stone, until the only sound was the drip of water and the soft scuff of his bare feet on the rock and the steady, insistent pounding of his own heart.

The passage opened into a round chamber no larger than your bedchamber back in the main cave. The walls were smooth and wet, glistening with moisture, catching the light and throwing it back in a thousand tiny reflections. The only illumination came from somewhere above, a thin shaft of daylight that pierced through a crack in the rock and fell in a single golden beam onto the center of the chamber. It was like something out of a sept, that beam of light. It was like the light that fell on an altar, or a tomb, or a place where something sacred had been buried and forgotten.

And in the center of the chamber was the statue.

It was you, smooth and luminous, carved with such skill that it seemed almost alive. The surface of the stone had been polished to a soft gleam, catching the golden light and holding it, and the details were so fine that Jace could see the individual strands of hair. The statue knelt on a stone pedestal, its head bowed in an attitude of submission or prayer, its face frozen in an expression of such profound sorrow that Jace felt his chest tighten just looking at it. The eyes were closed. The lips were slightly parted, as if caught in the middle of a sigh. The shoulders were hunched forward, the spine curved, every line of the body speaking of exhaustion and despair and the weight of an eternity spent alone.

And the hands, the statue's hands were raised in front of its chest, palms facing each other, fingers slightly curled as if holding something invisible. And around those marble wrists, coiled so tightly they seemed to be part of the stone itself, were two snakes.

No. Not snakes. Bracelets. Golden bracelets, each one shaped like a serpent eating its own tail. But the serpents were not connected to each other. They were separate, independent, each one locked around a single wrist, each one devouring itself in an endless cycle of consumption and renewal. Their golden eyes gleamed in the shaft of daylight, bright and watchful and aware. Their scales were so finely detailed that Jace could count every one, each scale overlapping the next in perfect, reptilian precision. Their jaws were clamped tight around their own tails, and their bodies were wound around the marble wrists in coils that looked tight enough to bruise.

They were not chains. Not exactly. They were something worse. They were a trap that could not be escaped because there was nothing to break. The snakes held her wrists, and her wrists held the snakes, and neither could let go, and the whole thing was a perfect, closed loop of imprisonment that had no beginning and no end.

Jace stood in the darkness at the edge of the chamber, staring at the statue. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his throat, in his temples, in the tips of his fingers. His hands were slick with water and sweat. The marble figure knelt in its beam of light, motionless and patient, and the golden snakes watched him with their glittering eyes, and the silence was so complete that he could hear the blood rushing through his own veins.

He bent down and picked up a rock from the floor of the cave. It was heavy, sharp-edged, big enough to do damage. He turned it over in his hands, testing its weight, feeling the rough edges bite into his palm. Break the statue. Break the curse. Simple. You had told him what to do. You had told him it was simple.

He took a step toward the pedestal.

"Are you quite certain about this?"

Jace froze, the voice was male. Low and smooth and echoing, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. It bounced off the wet stone walls, slid through the darkness, coiled around him like smoke, like water, like something that had been waiting in the shadows for a very long time. It was not a human voice. It was too resonant for that, too layered, as if many voices were speaking at once in perfect, dissonant harmony.

"Who is there?" Jace demanded. His voice sounded too loud in the silence, too harsh, too frightened. He hated how frightened he sounded.

No answer. Just the dripping of water. The distant, muffled roar of the falls.

"You should think very carefully before you do something you will regret for the rest of your life. Which, I should warn you, may not be very long."

Jace spun around, the rock raised like a weapon. The chamber was empty. The passage behind him was empty. The shadows pressed against the walls, still and silent and utterly unoccupied.

"I said who is there?"

"A friend." The voice was almost gentle now, almost kind. It was the voice of a father speaking to a wayward son, a mentor guiding a confused student. "Someone who does not want to see you make a mistake you cannot undo. Someone who has watched this same scene play out more times than I can count, and who is very, very tired of seeing young men throw their lives away."

Jace's grip tightened on the rock. The edges cut into his palm, grounding him. "Show yourself."

"I cannot. I am not really here. I am just a voice in the dark. A warning. A kindness, if you will let me be." The voice paused, and when it spoke again, it was softer. Sadder. "I am the only person on this island who is actually trying to help you, Jacaerys."

"Don't listen to it," Jace muttered to himself. He turned back toward the statue. "It's just another part of the curse. It's trying to stop you. She said there would be things trying to stop you."

"Is that what she told you?" The voice sounded amused now, deeply and darkly amused. "That the curse is the villain? That she is the victim? How very convenient for her. How very convenient that she has a story that makes her the helpless damsel and everyone else the monster. She tells that story very well. She has had centuries of practice."

Jace ignored it. He stepped closer to the pedestal. The marble woman knelt in her beam of light, motionless and sorrowful. The golden snakes glinted.

"She is very beautiful, isn't she?" the voice continued, and now it was almost conversational, almost casual, as if they were two old friends discussing the weather. "Of course she is. She's had centuries to perfect the act. The dresses. The smiles. The way she looks at you like you are the only man in the world, like you are the answer to every prayer she has ever whispered into the darkness. It is all very convincing. It is meant to be. She has been refining it for longer than your entire bloodline has existed."

"You do not know anything about her."

"I know everything about her." The voice was sharper now, the amusement draining away to reveal something harder underneath. "I know what she is. I know what she has done. I know how many men have stood exactly where you are standing now, holding a rock just like that one, thinking they were going to be the one. The special one. The one whose love was strong enough." A pause, heavy with meaning. "Do you know how many of them succeeded?"

Jace did not answer.

"None. Not one. In all the centuries she has been trapped on this island, not a single man has broken that statue. Do you know why? Because it cannot be broken. It is a trap. It is the bait, and you are the fish, and you are swimming toward it with your mouth wide open."

"You are lying." Jace's voice was shaking now. He hated that it was shaking. "You are just another part of the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."

"I am trying to stop you from destroying yourself." The voice was closer now, seeming to come from just behind his left shoulder. He spun around, but there was nothing there. Only shadows. Only the dripping of water. "Let me ask you something, Jacaerys. Can you remember your mother's name?"

He opened his mouth but nothing came out, the name was gone. It had been there a moment ago, he was sure of it. He could see her face, silver hair and sad eyes, could feel the shape of her in his memory. But the name, the name would not come.

"Your brothers," the voice continued, relentless and calm. "How many brothers do you have? What are their names?"

"I have brothers. I know I have brothers." His voice sounded desperate, even to his own ears. "Luke-Lucerys. And the others. The little ones."

"You are reciting words. You are not remembering. She has taken them from you, piece by piece, day by day. She has been stealing your memories since the moment you arrived. The food she feeds you. The wine she pours you. The herbs she puts in your medicine. They do not just heal your wounds. They erase you. They hollow you out. They make room for her."

Jace's mind was blank. Empty. There was nothing there but fog, thick and white and impenetrable, where his memories should have been.

"She has taken them from you," the voice said, and now it was almost gentle again, almost pitying. "Piece by piece. Day by day. Every moment you spend in her presence, she is stealing more of who you are. Your family. Your home. Your past. Your very self. And you call that love? You think that is what love looks like?"

"She saved my life."

"She kept you alive because she needed you. There is a difference. She needs a man to break the curse. She always needs a man to break the curse. That is how it works. That is how it has always worked. She lures them in with her beauty and her vulnerability and her sad, sad story, and she makes them love her, and then she sends them here to die. Because no one can break the curse. No one. The statue does not break. It has never broken. And when the man fails, when he realizes his love is not strong enough, she has her excuse. She was right all along. No one really loves her. So she turns them into pigs and waits for the next shipwreck, the next castaway, the next fool who will believe her lies."

He kept going "You think that is love?" The voice laughed, a soft and pitying laugh. "You think a woman who erases your past and steals your future and traps you on an island where you can never leave loves you? You think any of this is real?"

"I love her." Jace's voice cracked. "I know I love her. That is real. Whatever else she has done, my love for her is real."

"Oh, it feels real. I am sure it does. But do you know why it feels real?" The voice paused, letting the question hang in the darkness. "Because she makes it feel real. That is what she does. That is what the magic does. It wraps around your mind and makes you think you are feeling something true. But it is not true, Jacaerys. It is a trick. A trap. You have been ensnared since the moment you opened your eyes in that candlelit room and saw her kneeling beside your bed like a worried bride."

Jace's arm was lowering. The rock felt heavier now, so heavy he could barely hold it. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

"She told me you would say things like this," he said, but his voice was weak. Uncertain. "She told me the curse would try to stop me. She warned me there would be voices."

"The curse is not stopping you. I am not the curse. I am the only thing standing between you and an eternity of rooting in the dirt with all the other men who believed her lies." The voice was right next to his ear now, so close he could feel the cold breath of it against his skin. "Do you want to know the real story, Jacaerys? Do you want to know who she really is?"

He did not answer. He did not want to know. He wanted to cover his ears and run back through the waterfall and hold you in his arms and forget this voice had ever spoken to him. But his feet would not move. His body would not obey him.

"She is not a victim," the voice whispered. "She is not a lonely woman trapped by a cruel brother. That is a story she invented centuries ago because it makes men feel protective. It makes them feel noble. It makes them want to save her. The truth is much simpler, and much uglier. She is a goddess, a thing that was worshipped before your ancestors crawled out of the mud. And she was imprisoned here not as punishment, but as containment. Because she is dangerous. Because she feeds on devotion the way a spider feeds on flies."

"You are lying."

"Am I? If you break that statue," the voice said, "she will be free. And the moment she is free, she will have no more use for you. Her love for you, such as it is, will vanish. It is not real love, Jacaerys. It is bait. It is a lure. It is the promise of everything you have ever wanted, dangled in front of you to make you do what she needs. And once you have done it, once you have served your purpose, she will discard you like all the others."

"Stop." Jace's voice cracked on the word.

"That is the part she did not tell you, is it not? She did not tell you that her love is conditional. She did not tell you that it lasts only as long as she is trapped. The moment she is free, the magic breaks both ways. The chains fall from her wrists, and her love for you falls with them."

"You are lying." Jace's voice was a raw whisper, barely audible over the distant roar of the waterfall. "You are the curse. You are trying to stop me from freeing her."

"She told every man before you the exact same story. Word for word. The cruel brother. The lonely exile. The curse that can only be broken by true love. She told it to the knight in rusted armor whose bones are rotting in that cave. She told it to the merchant captain whose shield is propped against the wall. And you are just the latest audience."

"Stop."

"She does not love you. She cannot love you. She is not capable of love. She is capable of hunger, and she calls it love because that is what makes men stay. But it is not love. It has never been love. It is just need. Just appetite. Just the endless, grinding loneliness of a creature that consumes everything it touches and is still never full."

Jace opened his eyes. The statue knelt in its beam of light. The golden snakes watched him with their glittering, knowing eyes. The marble face was frozen in its expression of eternal sorrow.

What if the voice was right?

What if none of it was real?

What if he broke the statue, and your love disappeared, and he spent the rest of his life chasing a ghost?

What if he was just the next fool in line?

"Go back," the voice whispered. "Go back to the beach. Build your boat. Leave this place while you still can. While you still remember enough of yourself to want to leave. She will try to stop you. She will cry and plead and tell you she loves you. But it will be a lie. It has always been a lie. Go back, Jacaerys. Go home. Save yourself."

—

You had been waiting for hours. You stood at the edge of the pool, your bare feet sinking into the damp sand, your eyes fixed on the curtain of falling water. The roar of the waterfall filled your ears until you could hear nothing else, but you were listening for something beneath the roar. A shout. A crash. The sound of stone breaking. The sound of a man drowning.

Anything. Please, anything.

Jace surfaced at the edge of the pool, gasping, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, his skin slick with water and gleaming in the sunlight. He pulled himself onto the sand, his chest heaving, his arms trembling with exhaustion, and for a moment he just knelt there on his hands and knees, catching his breath, water streaming from his body in rivulets. You just stared at him, searching his face for some sign of what had happened, some clue in the set of his jaw or the light in his eyes. Was the curse broken? Had he succeeded? Had he been the one, the only one, the man whose love was finally strong enough?

"I did it," he said, and his voice was warm and triumphant and full of a joy you had never heard from him before. "I broke the curse."

You stumbled forward, your legs barely supporting you, your hands reaching for him before your mind had fully registered what he had said. "You—you did? It is broken? I am free?"

"You are free." He rose to his feet, still smiling, and opened his arms to you. "You are free, Y/N. We can leave. Together. Just like I promised."

A sob tore from your throat, raw and jagged and utterly involuntary. You threw yourself into his arms, your body shaking, tears streaming down your face in hot, messy rivulets. He caught you and held you tight, his hands warm on your back, his lips pressing kisses to your hair, your temple, your cheek, his voice murmuring reassurances that you could barely hear over the pounding of your own heart.

"I love you," you gasped, the words tumbling out between sobs, unstoppable, irrepressible. "I love you, I love you, I love you—"

"I love you too." His voice was soft. Tender. Everything you had ever wanted to hear. "I told you I would save you. I told you I was different. I told you I was not like the others."

He kissed you, it was a deep kiss, a passionate kiss, the kind of kiss that spoke of relief and joy and a future finally within reach. You melted into him, your body pressing against his, your hands sliding up his chest, his shoulders, his neck, tangling in his wet hair. The waterfall roared behind you, but it sounded different now, less like a threat and more like applause. The sun was warm on your skin, warmer than it had ever been. You were free. You were finally, impossibly free. After centuries of solitude, centuries of hoping and losing and hoping again, someone had finally loved you enough.

You did not notice anything until you felt the cold metal snap shut against your skin, you tore away from him, stumbling backward, your hand flying to your wrist. Something was there. Something heavy and cold and horribly, sickeningly familiar. You looked down, and the world stopped.

A golden snake. Coiled around your forearm, its tail clamped in its own jaws, its scales gleaming in the sunlight with a wet, organic sheen. Its eyes were bright and watchful and alive. It was warm against your skin, warm like something that had a heartbeat, warm like something that was feeding.

Identical to the ones in the cave. Identical to the ones that had bound the statue for centuries, the statue that was supposed to be destroyed, the statue that he had told you he had broken.

But the statue was not destroyed. You knew that now with a cold, creeping certainty. He had not broken it. He had done something else. Something worse.

"What—" Your voice came out strangled, barely a whisper, the words catching in your throat like bones. "What is this?"

Jace was still standing by the water's edge. His smile was gone. His face had changed, shifted into something you did not recognize. The warmth in his eyes had drained away, replaced by something flat and cold and terribly, terribly calm. He looked at you the way a scholar might look at a pinned insect, curious and detached and utterly without feeling.

He raised his own arm.

The matching snake was coiled around his wrist. Twin to yours. Identical in every detail, from the curve of the scales to the glint of the golden eyes. Linked by nothing visible. Linked all the same. You could feel it, the connection between them, an invisible chain that stretched from your wrist to his and bound you together tighter than any iron ever could.

"I could not break the curse," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The voice of a man who had made a decision and was at peace with it. "The statue would not break. I struck it with the rock, and the rock shattered. I struck it with my fists, and my knuckles bled. I threw myself against it, and it did not even crack." He paused, his dark eyes fixed on yours, unblinking. "The voice, your brother, he told me the truth. He told me what you really are. He told me what you have done. He told me what you would do to me the moment you were free."

"No." You shook your head, backing away from him. Your wrist was burning where the snake touched your skin, a cold fire that spread up your arm and into your chest. "No, Jace, whatever he told you, it is a lie. It is always a lie. He is trying to trap you, he is trying to turn you against me—"

"Is it a lie?" He tilted his head, regarding you with that terrible calm. "He told me the curse made me love you. He told me you have been feeding on my devotion since the moment I opened my eyes. He told me you would leave me the instant you were free."

"That is not true!" You were screaming now, your voice raw and cracking. "I love you! I have never loved anyone the way I love you! You have to believe me!"

"Then why can I not remember my mother's name?" His voice cracked on the word mother, just slightly, and beneath the coldness you saw something flicker. Something wounded. Something that still hurt. "Why can I not remember my brothers' faces? Why did I wake up this morning and realize that I could not recall the sound of my father's voice, or the color of my brother's eyes, or the name of the dragon I rode into battle? You took everything from me. Everything I was. Everything I loved. You hollowed me out and filled me with yourself, and you expected me to believe it was love?"

"I did not mean to!" You were sobbing now, the tears hot and bitter on your cheeks. "I did not want to take your memories, i loved you so much i did not want you to leave me."

"You loved being loved." His voice was flat. Final. "There is a difference."

You stared at him. Your chest was heaving. Your wrist was throbbing, the golden snake pulsing against your skin like a second heartbeat. You could feel it now, the thing that bound you together. It was not just a chain. It was a tether. A leash.

"The statue forced you to have a physical body," Jace said, and his voice had shifted again, becoming almost conversational. Almost pleasant. "You are not mortal. You are not human something that was bound to this island and trapped in the stone. The chains kept you here. The statue kept you solid. Touchable. Real." He paused. "Without the statue, you would have no body. You would be nothing but mist and memory. Is that not what your brother wanted? To keep you contained? To keep you in a form that could touch and taste and take?"

You did not answer. You could not answer. Your throat had closed around the words.

"I could not break the curse," Jace said, and he took a step toward you, his bare feet silent on the sand. "I could not destroy the statue. But I could transfer it. I could take the chains off the stone and put them onto something else. Something living. Something that could carry them." He raised his arm again, showing you the snake coiled around his wrist, and his smile returned. It was not a kind smile. "You are not bound to the island anymore. You are bound to me."

The world tilted. The roar of the waterfall seemed to fade, replaced by a high, thin ringing in your ears. The sun was too bright. The sand was too soft. The golden snake was too warm against your skin.

"You—" Your voice would not work. "You did not—"

"I did." He was still calm. Still cold. Still looking at you with those eyes that used to be so full of love. "The voice told me it was the only way. The only way to make sure you could not leave me. The only way to make sure your love was real. The only way to be certain that when I woke up tomorrow, you would still be there, and the day after that, and the day after that."

"You trapped me."

He laughed. It was a soft laugh, a quiet laugh, but there was nothing warm in it. "I freed you. You can leave the island now. The chains that bound you to this rock are gone. You can walk onto a ship and sail away and see the world again. Is that not what you wanted? Is that not what you have been begging me for since the moment we met?"

"You bound me to you!"

"And you bound me to you first." His voice sharpened, the calm cracking for just a moment to reveal the fury underneath. "You made me love you. You made me forget my own mother's name. You drugged my food and whispered in my ear and wrapped yourself around my mind so tightly I could not tell where you ended and I began. You trapped me on this island long before I ever trapped you. The only difference is that my chains were made of kisses and lies, and yours are made of gold."

"I loved you!" The words tore from your throat, raw and ragged. "I loved you! Everything I did, I did because I loved you!"

"You made me forget my mother's name," he said again, and his voice was quieter now, almost sad. "Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what you took from me? She is out there somewhere, fighting a war, grieving a son she believes is dead, and I cannot remember her name. I cannot remember her face. I know I love her. I know I owe her everything. But when I try to picture her, there is nothing there. Just fog. Just you."

You opened your mouth, but no words came. What could you possibly say? What defense could you offer that would not sound hollow and selfish and monstrous?

"You stole my memories and drugged my food and lied to me for months," Jace continued, and now he was walking toward you, closing the distance between you with slow, deliberate steps. "You let me believe I was going home. You let me build a boat I was never going to finish. You let me dream of a future that did not exist. And when I found out the truth, when I confronted you in that cave full of dead men's armor, what did you do? Did you apologize? Did you offer to help me leave? No. You cried. You made yourself the victim. You told me how lonely you were, how sad you were, how much you had suffered. You made me comfort you. You made me feel guilty for discovering your lies."

He stopped in front of you, close enough that you could feel the heat of his body, close enough that you could see the pulse beating in his throat. "And I did feel guilty," he said. "I felt so guilty that I almost forgot what you had done. I almost let myself believe that you were the victim. That I was the one who had wronged you by wanting to go home. That is how good you are at this. That is how deep your hooks go."

"Please." Your voice was barely a whisper now. "Please, Jace, I am sorry. I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I only wanted to be loved. I only wanted—"

"I know what you wanted." He reached up and touched your face, his fingers gentle against your tear-streaked cheek. The gesture was almost tender. Almost loving. It made your skin crawl. "You wanted someone to stay. You wanted someone to choose you. And now someone has. I have chosen you. I have chosen you over my family, over my throne, over my memories, over everything I ever was. I have given up my entire life to be with you. Are you not happy? Is this not what you wanted?"

"You have made me your prisoner."

"I have made you my equal." His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, wiping away a tear. "We are connected now. Bound together. What happens to one of us happens to the other. If you leave, I will feel it. If you try to run, I will know. And if you try to hurt me—" He shrugged. "The snakes will not let you. They protect what they hold. That is what the voice told me."

"The voice. He told you to do this?"

"He gave me a choice. Break the statue, free you, and watch you leave me the moment we set foot on the mainland. Or bind you to me, keep you close, and never wonder again whether your love was real." His smile returned, and it was the saddest smile you had ever seen. "It was not a difficult choice. I love you. I cannot lose you. So I made sure I would never have to."

You stared at him. The man you loved. The man who had just destroyed you. The man who had looked at your chains and decided to put them on himself rather than break them, because he could not bear the thought of you walking free.

"This is not love," you whispered. "This is possession."

"Is there a difference?" He tilted his head, his dark eyes glittering. "You tell me. You have been doing this for centuries. You tell me where love ends and possession begins. You tell me whether what you felt for me was really love, or just the desperate hunger of a lonely creature who needed someone, anyone, to fill the void. You tell me whether I am any different from you, or whether I am just the first man who was willing to sink to your level."

You opened your mouth. Closed it. The words would not come.

"Exactly," Jace said. "You cannot tell me. Because you do not know either. Because you have been confusing love and hunger for so long that you cannot tell them apart anymore. And now I am the same. You have made me the same." He leaned closer, his lips brushing your ear. "We are equals now. Partners. Two monsters bound together for eternity. Is that not romantic? Is that not what you always wanted? Someone who would never leave you, never abandon you, never choose anything over you?"

"You are insane," you breathed.

"I am what you made me." He pulled back and looked into your eyes, and his expression was unreadable. "You wanted me to stay. I am staying. You wanted me to love you. I love you. You wanted me to be different from the others. I am different. I am the one who did not run. I am the one who looked at the chains and chose to wear them. I am the one who gave up everything to be with you." He cupped your face in both hands, gentle and terrible and utterly inescapable. "Why are you not happy? If you really loved me, you would be happy. This is what you wanted. This is what you have been asking for since the moment we met. Someone who would stay. Someone who would choose you. Someone who would never leave."

He kissed your forehead, and his lips were warm, and the golden snake pulsed against your wrist like a second heart.

"I am going to build us a boat," he said. "A real one this time. One that can carry us both back to Westeros. And you are going to meet my mother, and I am going to take back my throne, and you are going to be my queen. Just like I promised. Just like we planned. The only difference is that now I know you will not leave me. Now I know your love is real. Because it has to be. Because you have no choice." He pulled back and smiled, and his smile was beautiful and broken and utterly terrifying. "You are free now, Y/N. Free from the island. Free from your brother's curse. Free from the statue and the chains and the centuries of solitude. You can go anywhere you want. You can do anything you want. The whole world is open to you." He took your hand, the one with the golden snake coiled around the wrist, and pressed it to his chest, over his heart. "As long as you never leave my side."

You looked down at the snake. At his hand holding yours. At the invisible chain that stretched between you, unbreakable and eternal.

"You are a monster," you whispered.

you stared at the message, your heart hammering against your ribs. your apartment, your sanctuary, suddenly felt like a glass box, and he was standing right outside, able to see everything.

you scrambled off your bed and crept to the window, peeking through the blinds. down below, under the flickering streetlamp, stood his figure.

even from this distance, even with the distortion of the glass, you knew it was him. he was just standing there, hands shoved in his pockets, looking up at the building with an unnerving stillness.

panic, cold and sharp, lanced through you. how? how did he find you? you were always so careful. you never used your real name, never showed the outside of your building, never gave away any identifying details. but he'd used your name in the message. a name you couldn't even remember sharing. a cold dread settled in your stomach.

your phone buzzed again, the sound making you jump.

aeri0n_t: i know you're in there. please just talk to me.

you didn't answer. you couldn't. you just stood there, frozen, watching him as he pulled out his phone and typed. a moment later, a new message appeared.

aeri0n_t: i'm coming up.

no. no, no, no. you backed away from the window, your mind racing. you could lock the door and hide in the bathroom. you could-

the knock echoed through your apartment, loud and insistent.

you held your breath, praying he'd think you weren't home, that he'd just leave.

"i know you're in there," his voice called through the door, muffled but clear. it was deeper than it was through your speakers, rougher around the edges with an emotion you couldn't quite place. maybe frustration? desperation?

"i can see your light is on. please, just open the door sweetheart."

you stayed silent, your back pressed against the wall, your entire body trembling.

"please," he said again, his voice softer now, almost pleading. "i'm not going to hurt you. i just...i need to know you're okay. you ignored me for four days. i was worried."

his words should have been reassuring, but they weren't. he was worried…he was so worried he'd tracked you down and was now standing at your door, demanding entry. this wasn't the sweet, reverent "silver dragon" from your chat room.

another knock, harder this time. "open the door, or i swear to god, i'll wake up every single person on this floor until someone lets me in."

the thought of causing a scene, of your neighbors seeing him, of them finding out what you did for a living, was more horrifying than facing him yourself. with a shaking hand, you reached for the deadbolt and turned it. the chain was still on, a flimsy last line of defense. you peered through the crack.

he was even more striking in person. with the lean, athletic build you'd only seen in glimpses on screen. his hair was a shock of silver-white, messy and sticking up slightly, he was dressed in dark, expensive-looking clothes, but they were rumpled, as if he'd been wearing them for days. and his face…his face was a storm of emotion. anger, yes, but also a deep, unsettling distress that made him look younger, more vulnerable, and infinitely more dangerous.

"oh fuck," he breathed, his eyes finding yours in the narrow opening. relief washed over his features, quickly replaced by a simmering fury. "why didn't you answer me?"

you swallowed hard, your throat dry. "aerion... you can't be here. how did you find me?"

he didn't answer. instead, he simply put his shoulder to the door. the chain snapped with a loud crack, and he was inside your apartment, pushing past you before you could even react. he kicked the door shut behind him, the sound of it clicking into place echoing like a gunshot in the sudden silence.

he stood in the middle of your living room, his gaze sweeping over your space—over the soft glow of your ring light, the scattered lingerie, the laptop still open on your bed. his jaw was tight, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. he looked like a caged predator.

"four days," he said, his voice low and dangerously quiet. he turned his full attention to you, and you took an involuntary step back. "you ignored me for four fucking days. with no fucking explanation. i thought something happened to you…"

"you shouldn't have come here," you whispered, wrapping your arms around yourself, a pathetic attempt at a barrier. "you're scaring me."

his expression softened for a fraction of a second, a flicker of guilt in his eyes. he took a step toward you, and you flinched. he stopped, his hands coming up in a gesture of surrender.

"i'm not going to hurt you," he said, his voice gentler now, but the intensity was still there, burning beneath the surface. "i just...i needed to see you."

he closed the remaining distance between you, his movements slow and deliberate. he didn't touch you, not at first. he just stood there, so close you could feel the warmth radiating from his body, could smell the faint, clean scent of his cologne mixed with something else, something metallic and sharp, like ozone before a storm.

"why were you ignoring me?" he asked again, his voice barely a whisper. he reached out, his fingers gently tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. his touch was surprisingly soft, but it made your heart pound with fear. "was it something i said? something i did?"

"this... this isn't a good time," you stammered, your mind racing for an excuse, any excuse. "i was... i'm in the middle of something."

he glanced over at your laptop, then back at you, a knowing, almost bitter smile playing on his lips. "a show? were you about to go live for them? for the faceless masses who tip you in tokens and don't give a shit about you?"

he stepped even closer, his body now even closer against yours. his face was inches from yours, his eyes searching yours, desperate and demanding. "i gave you a shit ton of tokens. i gave you my name. i thought...i thought we had something."

"we don't have anything," you said, your voice trembling but firm. "this is my job. you're a client. that's all."

"don't say that," he growled, “i'm not just some client. i'm the one who tells you you're beautiful when everyone else is just telling you to spread your legs. i'm the one who respects you!"

"respect?" you laughed, a harsh, humorless sound. "you tracked me down, aerion. you broke into my apartment. that's not respect. that's borderline obsession."

"it's not obsession," he insisted, his voice rising with frustration. "it's... it's devotion. i care about you. i've never cared this much about anyone…it hurts."

you were trapped. trapped between his body and the wall, trapped by his desperation and your own fear. you could feel the hard lines of his body against yours, could feel the frantic beating of his heart against your chest.

"you're not scared now, are you?" he murmured, his hand tracing the line of your jaw.

you nodded, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement of your head. it was the truth. you were terrified. but the nod, in his eyes, was a betrayal.

his face changed. the desperate, pleading boy vanished, replaced by something cold and hard. "oh," he said, his voice dangerously soft. "you're scared. you want something to be afraid of?"

a bitter laugh escaped his lips. "fine. you want to treat me like a client? then i'll fucking behave like one."

before you could even process his words, one arm wrapped around your waist, lifting you effortlessly as if you weighed nothing. you gasped, your hands flying to his shoulders, trying to push him away, but it was like shoving against a statue. with a grunt, he hoisted you over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

the world tilted, your hair hanging down in a curtain as you stared at your apartment floor. "no! put me down!" you screamed, your voice raw with panic.

you thrashed wildly, kicking your legs, pounding your fists against his back, but he was immovable. it was like hitting brick. his grip on you was like iron, pinning you in place. he stopped beside your bed, and with a careless shove, he dumped you onto the mattress. you bounced, the air knocked from your lungs, scrambling to get away, but he was on you in an instant, one hand pressing down on the center of your chest, holding you flat.

"stay fucking still," he commanded, his voice a low growl.

you didn't stop. you couldn't. you bucked and twisted, trying to squirm out from under his weight, your screams muffled by the room. he just watched you, a look of detached annoyance on his face, as if you were nothing more than a fly buzzing around his head. with his free hand, he reached over and adjusted your laptop.

"no, no, no," you sobbed, realizing what he was doing. he angled the screen, tilting the camera until it pointed directly at the bed, at you, trapped and struggling beneath him. the little green light was on. it was still live. your audience, your faceless masses, were watching everything.

"there," he said, a sickeningly satisfied smile on his face. "now everyone can see."

he shifted his weight, grabbing your chin in a punishing grip, forcing your head to turn toward the camera. you whimpered, tears streaming down your cheeks, blurring the view of the little green light. you squeezed your eyes shut, you wouldn't look. you wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

"open your eyes," he commanded. "look at the camera.”

you blinked them open slightly as his grip on your chin tightened, and with his other hand, he brought two fingers up to your tightly sealed lips. "open up," he ordered.

you shook your head, a muffled whimper escaping your throat.

smack.

the sharp, stinging crack of his hand against your cheek was so unexpected it made you gasp. it wasn't hard enough to truly hurt, but the shock, the humiliation, was something that shot red hot through you.

"i said, open up," he repeated, his voice utterly devoid of warmth. "or the next one will be a lot harder."

defeated, your body trembling with a mixture of fear and a strange, unwelcome thrill, you slowly parted your lips. he didn't hesitate, pushing his two fingers into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue. the taste of his skin was salty, clean.

"get them nice and wet," he instructed, his eyes locked on yours through the camera video. "show them how good you are at following orders, sweetheart."

you hesitated, your mind screaming at you to bite down, to do anything. but the look in his eyes, the promise of pain, held you captive. you closed your lips around his fingers, your tongue moving tentatively, coating them with your saliva.

"that's it," he murmured, a flicker of that old approval in his voice, twisted now into something darker. "such a good girl when you want to be. you know how to use that mouth, don't you? it's all you're good for, really. talking to them, taking their money...and now, taking my fingers."

he began to slowly pump his fingers in and out of your mouth, fucking your mouth with his hand. "suck," he commanded, his voice a husky whisper. "show everyone how much you like it."

the degradation burned through you, but a sick part of you, the part that craved his attention, obeyed. you hollowed your cheeks, sucking on his fingers as he'd instructed, your eyes locked on his.

just then, a sound pierced the tense silence, a cheerful, electronic chime from your laptop.

ding!

unknown443: [tip: 100 tokens]

another chime followed, then another, a cascade of notifications lighting up the screen from other usernames.

aerion smiled, a cruel, triumphant curve of his lips. he pulled his fingers from your mouth with a wet, obscene pop. a string of saliva connected your bottom lip to his fingertips before breaking. the sound, the sight, was utterly humiliating, and a fresh wave of heat washed over your face.

"good girl," he purred, the praise a poison dart. he shifted his weight, the hand that had been pinning you down moving to your waist. with a rough tug, he yanked you further down the bed, positioning you exactly how he wanted, your body pliant under his strength. his free hand trailed down your stomach, his fingers hooking into the delicate lace of your panties.

"let's see what we have here," he murmured, more to the camera than to you. "let's see if the rest of you is as obedient as your mouth."

you squeezed your eyes shut, bracing yourself, but you couldn't stop the helpless whimper that escaped your lips as he pushed the fabric aside. his fingers found your folds, and you froze. you expected pain, expected roughness. but his touch was exploratory, almost clinical, for a split second. then he stilled.

you felt him tense above you. you dared to open your eyes, and the look on his face was one of pure, unadulterated triumph. a slow, predatory smile spread across his lips.

"well, well," he breathed, his voice thick with smug satisfaction. he looked from your face to the laptop, making sure the camera had a perfect view. "she's fucking soaked."

he slid one long finger through your slick folds, and you cried out, a strangled sound of shame and unwilling arousal. it was true. despite your terror, despite your disgust, your body had betrayed you.

"you can scream all you want," he said, his voice a low, taunting rumble. he pushed that single finger inside you, sinking it knuckle-deep with a slow, deliberate thrust. "but your body doesn't lie. it wants this. it wants me."

your back arched off the bed, a desperate, involuntary reaction to the invasion. you thrashed your head from side to side, but it was useless. he was too strong, his hold too absolute. he began to move his finger, pumping it in and out of you.

"so fucking tight," he groaned, his eyes closing for a moment as if savoring the sensation. then he opened them, his gaze burning into yours. "and so fucking wet. all this for me? or for them?"

he added a second finger, stretching you, filling you. the sensation was overwhelming, a mixture of pleasure and pain that short-circuited your brain. your screams turned to ragged, panting sobs.

"answer me, baby" he demanded, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing it in a tight, cruel circle. "who is this for?"

"you!" you sobbed, the word torn from you. "it's for you!"

"yeah that's what i thought," he suddenly withdrew his fingers, leaving you feeling achingly empty. he brought his hand up to his face, his eyes never leaving yours as he looked at his glistening fingers. then, holding your gaze, he slowly, deliberately, licked them clean.

a guttural sound of pure satisfaction rumbled in his chest. "fucking delicious," he breathed. he leaned down, his face inches from yours, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that you knew the camera's microphone would pick up perfectly. "i think i'm going to start by eating your pretty little pussy."

he didn't wait for a response. he pushed himself up and leaned over you to your laptop. you flinched away, but he wasn't interested in you right now. his long fingers tapped at the keyboard, and you heard the soft whir of the camera's motor as he adjusted its position. he angled it down, capturing the entire length of your body on the rumpled bedsheets.

he returned his attention to you, his eyes dark with intent. he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of your panties, the only barrier left between you and complete exposure. with one sharp, decisive tug, he ripped them. the delicate lace gave way with a tear, and he tossed the ruined fabric aside as if it were nothing.

"much better," he said, his gaze raking over your naked cunt.

he shifted down the bed, his body a heavy, commanding presence. he settled between your legs, his shoulders pushing your thighs apart, forcing them wide. there was no escape. you were completely open, completely vulnerable to him. you could feel his warm breath on your most sensitive flesh, and you squeezed your eyes shut, your entire body tensing in anticipation.

then his mouth was on you.

it wasn't gentle. it wasn't exploratory. it was a hungry, possessive assault. he licked a long, wet stripe up your slit, stealing a choked gasp tore from your throat.

he didn't stop. he sealed his lips over your clit and sucked, hard, sending a jolt of white-hot pleasure-pain through you. your hips bucked involuntarily, but his hands came up to grip your thighs, holding you down, pinning you in place.

he ate you out with a messy, single-minded intensity. it was all wet sounds and desperate lapping, his tongue delving into your entrance, his teeth scraping lightly against your folds. he was devouring you, and the sounds he made were obscene, slurping and groaning as if he were a starving man and you were his feast.

"look at her," he panted, pulling back for just a second, his chin glistening with your wetness. he wasn't looking at you. he was looking at your pussy, his expression one of pure adoration. "she's so pretty. so fucking pretty."

he dove back in, his tongue swirling around your clit in tight, relentless circles. your hands flew to his hair, your fingers tangling in the silver strands, but whether you meant to push him away or pull him closer, you couldn't say.

"she behaves so well," he murmured against your flesh, the vibrations of his words sending shivers through you. "she never ignores me. not like you do."

he punctuated his words with a sharp thrust of his tongue, fucking you with it, and you cried out, your back arching off the bed.

"no," he continued, his voice a dark, worshipful chant. "she always gets so wet for her owner, huh? she knows who she belongs to, even if you don't."

he increased his pace, his mouth working you with a ferocity that bordered on violence. one of his hands left your thigh, and you felt two fingers slide easily inside you, curling upward to find that spot that made your vision blur. he pumped his fingers in time with his tongue, a perfect, devastating rhythm.

"that's it," he groaned, his voice muffled by your flesh. "give it to me. give me what's mine."

the coil in your stomach tightened to an impossible degree. the pleasure was overwhelming, humiliating, undeniable. you could feel the audience watching, could hear the distant chime of more tips, but it all faded into the background. there was only the weight of his body holding you down, the relentless movement of his tongue and fingers, and his voice, claiming you, body and soul.

the coil inside you snapped. a blinding, pulsing wave of pleasure ripped through you, so intense it was almost painful. your body went rigid, a choked cry tearing from your throat as your orgasm crashed over you. your thighs trembled, your pussy clamping down around his fingers as wave after wave of release washed through you.

he didn't stop. if anything, he intensified his efforts, his tongue flicking mercilessly against your oversensitive clit as he worked you through every last spasm. he drank you in, his groans of satisfaction vibrating against your flesh as he lapped up every drop of your release, not letting a single bit go to waste.

when you finally collapsed back against the sheets, boneless and gasping, he slowly pulled away. he didn't wipe his mouth. he just leaned back over you, his face hovering inches above yours, his chin and lips slick and shining with your cum. the scent of your own arousal filled the air between you, musky and intimate.

"taste yourself, baby" he commanded, his voice a low growl. "taste what you gave me."

he didn't wait for an answer. he crushed his mouth to yours, a messy, possessive kiss. you could feel the sticky wetness of your own release on his lips, taste yourself on his tongue as he forced it into your mouth. it was a humiliating, intimate act, and the camera captured it all. through the haze of your own pleasure, you were acutely aware of the hard, thick length of his cock straining against the fabric of his pants, pressing insistently against your thigh.

he finally pulled back, his chest heaving, his indigo eyes burning into yours. "have you ever taken a dildo?" he asked, his voice rough, conversational, as if he were asking about the weather.

your mind, still foggy from your orgasm, struggled to process the question. you shook your head, a small, hesitant movement.

a slow, predatory smile spread across his face. "no? just your fingers?"

you nodded again,

"good," he breathed, the word a puff of air against your lips. "then i get to be your first."

he pushed himself up, kneeling between your legs. his eyes never left yours as his hands went to his belt. the metallic clink of the buckle was loud in the quiet room. he undid his pants, pushing them down just enough to free himself.

and there it was.

his cock sprang free, hard and heavy. it was just as perfect as it had been on the laptop screen, but seeing it in person, feeling the heat radiating from it, was something else entirely. long and thick, with a satisfying heft, the skin was pale against his dark clothes, but the head was a flushed, angry pink, already beading with precum. prominent veins mapped a path up the shaft, and it jutted out from his body, a testament to his undeniable arousal.

he wrapped a hand around it, giving it a slow, deliberate stroke. "this is what you do to me," he said, his voice thick with lust. "this is what ignoring me for four days did."

he leaned down again, his face so close his features blurred. his free hand came up to grip your jaw, his thumb pressing on your chin, forcing your mouth open. "open up," he whispered, his voice a dark, intimate command.

you obeyed, your body too overwhelmed, too wrecked to fight back. he hovered over you, his gaze locked on your open mouth, and then he spat. a warm, wet string of his saliva landed on your tongue. it was a primal, claiming act, and a fresh wave of humiliation washed over you.

before you could react, his mouth was on yours again. this kiss was different, deeper, more possessive. he swirled his tongue with yours, mixing his spit with yours, a messy, intimate exchange that left you breathless and dizzy.

when he finally pulled away, a string of saliva connected your lips. his eyes were dark, pupils blown wide with lust. "my turn," he said, his voice rough and gravelly.

he held his hand out, palm up, in front of your face. "spit."

you hesitated for only a second before obeying, spitting into his waiting palm. he gave a low, appreciative hum. he brought his hand to his cock, using the combined slickness of your saliva and his to coat his length. he pumped himself slowly, his fist gliding over the rigid shaft, the wet sounds filling the room. he watched you the entire time, his eyes burning with an intensity that made your stomach clench.

"that's better," he groaned, giving himself one last, tight squeeze.

then, without warning, his hands were on you again. he grabbed your hips, his grip bruising, and with a rough, effortless movement, he flipped you over. you landed on your stomach with a soft "oomph," the air knocked from your lungs. he was on you instantly, his weight settling over you, his knees pushing your legs apart.

you felt the hot, heavy length of his cock press against the curve of your ass. he shifted, dragging it down until the swollen, flushed head was nestled right against your entrance. you were still so wet, so open from your orgasm and his earlier assault.

he didn't push in. not yet. he just held himself there, the tip of his cock teasing your slick folds. he moved his hips in a slow, maddening circle, using your wetness to coat himself, getting the head of his cock "super wet" as he'd intended. the friction was delicious, torturous. you could feel every contour of him, every vein, as he slid against you, teasing your clit with every pass.

"feel that baby?" he breathed in your ear, his voice a low, possessive rumble. "this is what you've been waiting for..."

"...this is what you were made for."

and then he pushed in.

there was no gentleness, no slow acclimatization. he drove into you in one long, brutal stroke, burying himself to the hilt. the stretch was immense, a burning, overwhelming fullness that stole your breath. a sharp, guttural cry was torn from your lips, muffled by the sheets beneath your cheek. he was bigger than anything you'd ever taken, bigger than you'd imagined, and he filled you completely.

he didn't give you time to adjust. he set a punishing rhythm from the very beginning, pulling out almost all the way before slamming back in, his hips slapping against your ass with a loud, wet smack.

the camera, positioned perfectly, captured everything: the glistening sheen of your combined wetness coating his thick shaft as it pistoned in and out of you, the way your flesh clung to him on every retreat, the slick drip of your arousal running down your inner thighs to soak the sheets.

your face was smushed into the bedding, your mouth open in a silent scream as moans were forced from your body with every powerful thrust. you felt like an animal, a bitch in heat, being taken and used, and the shame of it was mixed with a dark, thrilling pleasure you couldn't deny.

"that's it," he grunted, his voice a low, rhythmic pant. "take it. take all of it. take all of this fuckin’ cock…you're so fuckin’ tight, baby."

he brought his hand down on your ass in a sharp, stinging slap. the sound echoed in the room, followed by your yelp. "such a good girl for me. taking my big cock so good..."

his hand fisted in your hair, pulling your head back slightly, forcing your arch deeper. he panted, his words punctuated by the relentless slap of his skin against yours. "remember our first private show? you said you didn't know how you'd ever take all of me." he laughed, a dark, triumphant sound. "look at you now. taking every inch."

he slowed his pace for a moment, grinding into you, his cock pressing deep, making you whimper. "it makes me wonder, though..." he murmured, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper he knew the mic would pick up. "if this pretty little pussy is this tight... i wonder how that cute, tight asshole would feel."

panic, cold and sharp, lanced through the haze of pleasure. he was looking at the camera, a speculative smirk on his face. "what do you think, chat? should i find out?"

"no!" you screamed, the word tearing from your throat. "no! please!"

you started to thrash weakly beneath him, trying to squirm away, but his grip on your hip was like iron. your pathetic struggles only seemed to amuse him.

he laughed, a deep, cruel rumble that vibrated through his chest and into yours. "shhh shh calm down, honey" he soothed, his tone mockingly gentle. "don't worry. this time, i'll just enjoy the cunny i came for."

he released your hair and grabbed your hips with both hands, his grip bruising. he resumed his brutal pace, fucking you harder, deeper, chasing his own release. your protests died in your throat, replaced by the mindless, desperate moans of a body completely overwhelmed.

one of his hands left your hip, snaking around your body to find your clit. he began to rub it in tight, fast circles, his touch knowing, exact. the additional stimulation was electric, shooting through you like a lightning bolt.

your body, already pushed to its limit, spasmed in response. the sounds of your slick wetness grew louder, a filthy, rhythmic squelching that mingled with the slap of his skin against yours and the distant, cheerful chime of tips flooding in.

"that's my girl," he grunted, his rhythm never faltering.

he leaned down, his chest pressing against your back, his lips brushing against your ear. "this is the last time you'll ever go live for them," he panted, his voice a low, possessive growl. "you understand? after tonight, i promise to take goood care of you.”

your mind, a haze of pleasure and pain, could barely process his words. you just wanted it to stop but you wanted it to never end. you nodded dumbly against the sheets.

a low chuckle rumbled in his chest. "yeah, you do," he praised, his voice thick with satisfaction. "fuck, you're so pretty when you get cock dumb…"

that was it. the coil inside you snapped again, harder this time. your vision went white, your body convulsing as a powerful orgasm tore through you.

a long, broken moan was ripped from your throat, your pussy clamping down around his thick cock like a vise. you could feel your release gush out of you, soaking the sheets beneath you, a final, humiliating surrender.

he groaned as your walls clenched around him, his pace faltering for a moment as he savored the feeling. he rode out your orgasm, his strokes slowing as you trembled and whimpered beneath him.

he leaned back up, his hand still resting possessively on your ass, and looked directly at the camera, a triumphant smirk on his face. he gave your ass a light pat.

"and that's cum number two," he announced to the live audience, his voice clear and full of arrogant pride. he watched the comments fly by, the tips pouring in. "how many do you think we should go for, huh?" he asked, his tone casual, as if he were taking requests.

Kat went missing the night after you. He doesn’t know where either of you are. But you’re together, and that would comfort him if he wasn’t so terrified by the agonising, inhuman screeching he’d heard in the background of your last message. How could you pretend everything was okay when he could hear that it wasn’t? He could still feel your last words echoing through the marrow of the apartment, seeping and staining the last evidence that you’d been here. 

The mugs on the counter, the coffee you never finished drinking, your clothes left scattered on the bathroom floor. It was all here; in this liminal space between where you’d once existed and the absence you’d left behind. 

Bobby gets to his feet; he grabs his keys and walks out the door. He doesn’t have a real plan in place. He’s been walking in a fog ever since the morning he’d realized you were missing. When you failed to come back from your night shift and the hours dragged on too long for you to just be out running errands. 

He’d been forced to wait the full forty-eight hours before he filed the missing persons report. And then he’d had to file one for Kat, too. It wasn’t enough that you were gone; now your best friend was gone with you. 

The police looked at him first. Poked holes in his alibi and watched him with mistrusting eyes. It didn’t take long for the accusations to melt away and turn into something more pitying. They’d asked about your relationship with Kat. How close the two of you were? Had you seemed unhappy before you left?

As if you’d run away with her. Like you couldn’t stand being with him a moment longer in your cramped apartment and listless life, he’d almost believed them, until he got that message. Until he’d heard the fear, the screaming, his name on your tongue. It was soft in the way you used to say it, but that softness was ruined by the jagged edge of your own panic as you rushed out one last message to him. 

Bobby didn’t know what his plan was until he found himself standing in front of Clark’s store. The last place he could honestly say you were. The lights flicker behind the glass doors, so dim they might as well not be on, but it catches his attention. 

He knows the police picked this place apart with a fine-toothed comb. When they couldn’t point the blame to Bobby, they’d turned to Clark instead. And then they couldn’t find him, either. It all circles and drains back to this one shitty, dying furniture store. 

Bobby swipes away the police tape and pushes at the door. It shouldn’t be unlocked, but it falls open nonetheless. The lights brighten as he steps inside and chills break out along his skin. It feels like there are eyes in the corner of the room, watching him as he slowly makes his way through. 

With each step closer to the back of the store, the lights burn brighter, the hum of the fluorescents buzzing incessantly at his back. He struggles to shrug off the feeling. Rather, he chases it, follows it until he’s standing at the top of the basement stairs. 

There are muddy footprints on the stairs, from where the police investigated or from you… He doesn’t know. But he’s going to find out. 

He rushes down the stairs, and it feels like there’s a touch on his back. Something just there, just out of sight, guiding him down the same path you’d taken the night you went missing. It leads him down to where you used to do inventory. 

Sometimes you’d invite him to keep you company. You had that night, but he just… decided not to. He was tired and didn’t want to spend the night at Clark’s stupid fucking furniture store. And now you’re gone. 

He finds himself standing in front of a wall. Just a wall. Nothing special, nothing important, nothing… Except the perfect square outlined in blue tape. The size and relative space a door would take up. Bobby’s head tilts, brows furrowing as he observes it. Something about the way the light of the basement catches it: it almost seems to shimmer, to shift right before his eyes into something that is… definitely not a wall. 

Bobby reaches out, expecting to find nothing but solid cement beneath his hands. And then… he’s falling through. 

“Don’t fucking move,” you hiss, trembling as you take Kat’s hand in your own. You’re tucked into one of the holes in the wall with Kat. It’s one of the few places the thing seems to look over. 

It calls your name again, in his voice. Kat’s wide eyes shoot to you. “Are you sure it’s not–”

“It’s just another trick,” you choke out, tears burning across your cheeks as you peer out into the hallway. You see his back, the cutoff denim shorts, cropped tee, messy blonde hair. But the spine protrudes too much at the neck. The arms are too long. His gait is stilted like he’s still getting used to his body. 

He’d almost gotten you when you’d first gotten here. And then Kat. He doesn’t care which one of you he gets; he just wants someone new. Someone else to consume. 

You’d found his lair a few– days? Has it been days? Or months?

It doesn’t matter. Time has no meaning here. 

The point is, you found his lair. Found the skeletons and shredded clothes of pets he’s taken and devoured. The bodies of wanderers he’s found himself enchanted by and then bored with. Now, he’s taken Bobby from your memories, made a clone of him, and wears the skin suit like that’ll be enough to convince you it's the man you love. 

The fluorescent lights flicker before they burst. Kat lets out a sharp gasp, clapping her hand over her mouth. You shoot her a crazed look, eyes rimmed red from too many nights without sleep. 

“There you are,” you screech as a skeletal hand reaches inside the hole. The skin it wears stretched taut around the arm until you hear it begin to rip. It claps its hand around Kat, dragging her. You scramble forward, reaching desperately for something to grab hold of. 

But she’s screaming, being dragged from safety into the dark. You crawl out after her and find some of the lights beginning to turn back on. Like emergency backups, they barely make anything visible, but you can see enough. 

You can see the face of your lover, crooked and painted on wrong, back bowed, and form largely monstrous as he holds Kat in his hand. His jaw opens inhumanly wide, and there’s nothing you can do but watch as his sharp teeth clamp around her neck. Blood spurts out from his maw as he rips her head clean from her body. 

“Wake up!” Hands wrap too tight around your shoulders, shaking you until your eyes are shooting open and you're surging up with a gasp. Kat kneels beside you, head tilted and hair messy as she regards you warily. 

“Are you okay?” she asks, hands trembling as she hovers over you. Her eyes are bloodshot, head constantly on a swivel, too afraid to take her gaze off the shadows. 

You shake your head, wipe sweat from your brow, and force yourself to forget the nightmare. It’s another warning from it. Another threat of what will happen if you continue to deny it. “I’m fine. We need to get out of here, though.”

Kat frowns as you stand, wiping your sweaty palms off on your jeans. “But the door–”

“I know, Kat!” You hiss, glaring down at her. “Just… trust me, okay? We can’t stay here, right now.” It’s not safe. Not with those hungry eyes watching you from the dark alcoves. 

“Where should we go, then? Nowhere is safe,” she snaps back at you, getting to her feet. It’s hard, maintaining your composure down here. Those fluorescents flicker; there’s a constant, droning buzz that settles in the back of your skull that never lets you completely relax. It’s a never-ending reminder that you don’t belong here. You’re an outlier in a place where everything wants a taste of you. 

 Nerves have been fraying ever since your first encounter with it. Him. That thing that lurks in the liminal space between one breath and the next. For you, he wears Bobby’s face. But for Kat, he had worn your face. Had beckoned her from the basement and down here with you, using your voice. 

It’s hard to rebuild that trust when yours had been the first face she’d seen. And your face had nearly ripped hers off. 

“Party rooms,” you tell her, taking her hand in your own. “It’s risky, but it's the closest place.” Kat shudders, but she follows you without protest. You can’t blame her; you don’t like the party rooms. You don’t like the children’s birthday decorations. Or those fleshy monstrosities that look like hazmats chemically bonded to human skin. Their drawn-on, twisted smiles make your stomach churn. But it’s easy enough to manage if you stay quiet and hidden. 

His presence is weaker there, anyway. He seems more powerful, more potent, on this first level. With its yellow walls, musty smell, and never-ending flickering lights. That is his domain. And he can find you anywhere, but you’re not going to make it easier for him. 

Kat’s grip is tight around yours, fingers lacing together as you walk side-by-side. It had been Clark who had dragged you down here, tricked you into thinking this was something grand. Something miraculous. 

It was miraculous in the most twisted sense of the word. That a different pocket of reality full of eldritch horrors and a labyrinth of never-ending rooms could exist beside a furniture store was miraculous. But he had been crazed, talked to you about staying down here forever. 

He had tried to drag you into this hell with him, and when you’d refused, he’d attacked. Knocked you out and left you stranded without a way back to the door. When you’d found Kat, after she’d come looking for you, you’d both learned how important it was not to let go of one another. How easy it would be for an entity to rip you apart. 

Having an actual human beside you is the only reason you’re still sane; you’re sure of it. 

“This way,” you mutter, leading her down the hall and to the third door on the right. It’s concerning, but you’ve been here long enough to start learning some of the curves to this place. Kat opens the door, but it’s not confetti walls and stiff carpet you’re greeted by. There are no balloons or party decorations. 

This…

This is a poorly reassembled copy of Clark’s store. The store you’ve worked the past year. It’s the display floor, the couches and tables arranged almost exactly how it had been when you’d left. 

“What the fuck?” Kat mutters, stepping into the room, leaving you no choice but to follow. 

“This isn’t right,” you whisper, turning slowly. You haven’t found this room yet. You shouldn’t have found it. This should have been the party rooms. “Is he changing things?”

“Clark?” Kat’s hand rips from your grasp and you whip around. She’s running from you, toward one of the couches. Frowning, you follow behind her. Then you see it, the back of Clark’s head, the collar of the purple shirt he’d been wearing when he’d disappeared and left you for dead. 

Kat rushes toward him, and you try to stop her, but she’s already leaning on the armrest of the chair. “Clark–” she swallows, eyes widening with horror and whatever she sees. She doesn’t have time to scream as two gnarled hands shoot out, wrapping tight around her throat. 

Bobby falls to the floor, nose slamming to musty carpet. He lets out a low groan, slowly crawling to his hands and knees. He looks up and around, eyes widening as he takes in his surroundings. This is all wrong. 

This can’t be real. 

Walls with fraying and stained wallpaper stand freely in the large room he’s in. There’s tape that goes down a few of the hallways. Fluorescents flicker above him. He can’t make out much more beyond that. There’s a shadowed abyss beyond the walls that swallows whatever light tries to breach it. 

He stands on unsteady legs, breath shortening as he tries to take everything in. He looks over his shoulder and sees nothing but a wall. There’s no marker for where he’d fallen through. Frowning, he walks forward and presses his hand to the surface. But it doesn’t sink or give way, not this time. 

The doorway he’d used to get through has sealed. 

With no other choice, he turns back around, trying to tamp down his rising panic. It’s hard, though, when all he can think about is you. He doesn’t even know if you’re here or if he just got himself trapped in some hellish purgatory with no way out. 

Maybe this isn’t even real. 

Maybe he’s at home, on the couch, tripping on something. You’ll walk through and roll your eyes at him, make him take a cold shower while you cook dinner. It’s all just been one bad acid trip. 

There’s a scream somewhere in the distance. Bobby jumps back, heart racing as his back falls against the wall. It’s not human– not right. This is something else. Just like the noise he’d heard in the last message you’d left him. 

Something runs past in the dark, a flash of color that has his heart leaping to his throat. Beneath the buzz of the lights, beneath his blood rushing, he hears what sounds like his name. Whispered in your voice, panic edging your tone as you call out to him. 

Something runs past again, and Bobby surges forward. He calls out your name. “Bobby!” He hears in return: you’re screaming now. Bobby runs forth without a second thought, shouting your name as he follows the figure in the shadows. 

“Bobby, this way!” You scream; something lurks beneath your voice. A low growl that doesn’t sound right. But he doesn’t have time to think about that as he follows after you. 

He finally sees it, a flash of your hair, the tilt of your face over your shoulder as you race ahead of him. Bobby screams your name, trying to catch your attention as you race through the darkness. He’s not paying attention, doesn’t notice as the walls begin to close in. You turn a corner, and he follows… barreling right into a wall. 

His head bounces off it as he drops to the floor. 

There’s low laughter, familiar and distant all at once. A cold touch against his arm and he jerks up, eyes shooting wide. You jerk back, surprise painting your face as you hold up your hands. 

Bobby scrambles to his feet, glancing around with a sick sort of shock. He’s back home. Back at the apartment. You’re still kneeling on the ground, in your favorite pair of pajamas with brows raised. You look relaxed, comfortable, more at peace than he’s seen you in weeks. 

“Hit your head too hard?” You tease, getting to your feet. You brush past him, cold touch lingering on his arm as you turn back toward the food you’d been cooking. Bobby’s still standing there, still just staring. 

Everything looks right. The sun is setting in the background, golden light filtering through the living room. The radio is on, soft music playing that you’re humming along to. This is his apartment. His home. You… you’re just like you always are. Cooking on the weekend because you don’t feel like eating his shitty attempts at cooking right now. 

But this doesn’t make sense. He had just been in that– that–

Where had he been?

His head is fuzzy. You said he’d hit it. Did he? He doesn’t remember. 

He knows that he’d been doing something. But what? What had been so important that he’d been chasing you, calling out your name? Just to end up right back where he started. Did he start here?

“Bobby,” you call, finally giving him your full attention. Your head tilts in concern, but your jaw tips too far, chin slants strangely as you watch him. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

Had he been looking for you?

He looks over at you, and there’s relief, but he doesn’t know why. He reaches for you, and you fall into his arms easily. It should feel good, familiar like it always does. Your softness pressed up against him, head tucked into his neck. But your arms are too tight, the bones press against him in a way that bruises. 

“I don’t–” he can’t finish the thought. It slips through his hands like water, dribbles down to the floor. His eyes drop, lingering on the stove, on the “food” you’re cooking. It’s just a white hunk of something in the pan, melting down like butter. It bubbles and creates the nauseating smell of burnt flesh. 

“No,” he shakes his head and looks down at you again. Your hair is ragged, different than he remembers. You smell not right. “No,” he shoves back, and you stumble. Or the thing wearing your face does. 

Your eyes narrow, the color being swallowed by a void of darkness as you scoff. But it’s not your voice anymore; it’s something darker, older. “Almost,” you mutter, clicking your tongue in annoyance. 

He hears it now… the sound the music was trying to cover. Your voice, your real voice, screaming. But it’s not his name you’re screaming; it’s Kat’s. “Kat! Watch out!” over and over, echoing until it’s all he can hear. 

Beside him, the thing wearing your face begins to let out a long croaking noise. Your mouth drops open inhumanly wide, and he stumbles back a step, watching as your shoulders bow. Your spine snaps in two as you contort in ways no human should. Your form grows taller until the skin begins to rip at the edges. 

Bobby turns, running before it can sink its hungry teeth into him. He runs through the apartment door and finds himself back in the room with the yellow walls and winding paths. It’s welcome compared to what he’d just seen. 

He follows the sound of your voice until he’s worried it was just another trick of this place. Then, he comes upon a hallway filled with doors. Decaying doors with stains, steel doors with rusted locks, all kinds. And behind the one on his right, you’re the loudest. 

He barrels through and finds himself standing on the display floor of Clark’s store. It’s not quite right; something about this place feeds into that off feeling he’s had since he dropped into this hell. 

But there you are, waving around a floor lamp like a weapon as you beat on something that’s crawling over Kat. You let out another scream, cocking the lamp back and hitting it as hard as you can. 

The body goes flying off, and he realizes you’d been beating another failed copy of someone. Clark, he thinks. You drop the lamp and reach for Kat’s hand, tugging her into you. Bobby hesitates at the door. Is this you? Is he dreaming? Is it just another trick?

Kat sees him first; her eyes go wide, lips parting in silent shock. You frown, turning to follow her gaze. He waits for it, the recognition, the relief, the way you say his name when you’re happiest to see him. 

But it doesn’t come. Instead, your stare hardens as you stumble back from him. “I told you not to use that face!”

He shakes his head, holding his hands out hopelessly. “Baby,” he breathes out. “It’s me. I swear it’s me,” he’ll get on his knees and beg if that's what it takes for you to believe him. You stalk forward, ripping your arm from Kat’s grip. He almost smiles, but then you’re reaching out, hands wrapping tight around his throat as you slam him into the wall. 

“Fuck you,” you hiss, tears lining your eyes. “You’re not him, don’t call me that!” Your teeth are bared, like a wild animal lashing out. He wants to stop you, to fight back. But he doesn’t want to risk hurting you. He tries pleading with you again, swearing it’s him, not some entity wearing his face. 

But your thumbs are digging into the hollow of his throat, and his eyes are rolling back as you let him fall to the floor. 

You stand over that thing's body, brows drawing in as you stare down at it. It should have disappeared, sunk through the floor, and started hunting you once more. You shouldn’t have gotten close enough to choke it before it snatched you up. 

Kat comes up behind you and takes your hand tentatively in her own. “He’s not getting up,” she whispers, just as confused as you. 

You glance over at her before kneeling. Reaching out, you press your fingers to the pulse point of its neck. There should be nothing. No pulse, no warmth, nothing to give away life. But it’s there, faint after your attack, a heart beating beneath flesh that’s been warmed by real, pumping blood. 

“Fuck,” you gasp, tears lining your eyes as you stare down at the body of your boyfriend. “I think he’s real.”

Kat frowns, dropping beside you. She reaches out, same as you, and sees for herself. Her hands come up to her mouth, gasping as she looks over at you. “Oh, my god. Did you kill Bobby?”

“No!” you hiss, whipping around to glare at her. “I can feel his damn pulse. I just… knocked him out. Shit.”

This place doesn’t give you time to linger or rest. Not once since you’ve gotten here have you been able to catch your breath. Even now, just behind you, you can hear creaking. A body pulling itself back together. Flesh reknitting from where you’d busted it open with the heavy end of a lamp. 

“We need to get him up, help me.” Kat doesn’t waste time; she throws one of Bobby’s arms over her shoulder while you grab the other. Neither of you spare the entity wearing Clark’s face a second look. You can’t. They only get more horrifying when they come back. You can’t afford to let terror freeze you. 

You drag him back through the door you’d come from and slam it shut behind you. Clark’s copy slams against the door, pounds his fists, and lets out inhuman, croaking noises that make your entire body shudder. 

You’re back within the yellow walls. And nothing about this place is safe. But, at the very least, you’re more comfortable here. Because here, you know what lurks in the shadows; you know what to expect. 

“Over here,” you tell Kat, nodding toward one of the larger holes that have been beaten into the wall. You don’t know who put it there. If it was someone else who got trapped here like you. Or those people who you occasionally see in hazmat suits. But these little alcoves in the wall are one of the few places the entity seems to pass by. 

You crawl in first, grabbing Bobby’s wrist as you help Kat drag him in. You pull him up into your chest, folding his legs so there’s room for her to squeeze in on the other end. “What do we do now?” she asks, voice trembling as she wraps her arms around her legs. 

You shake your head and glance down at your boyfriend. Tears line your eyes as you squeeze him, his arms, his hands. Feel the warmth that you’ve missed for so long. Your head falls forward, tears leaking into his t-shirt as you wrap your arms tighter around him. 

“Please be real,” you whisper, and the lights flicker in response. 

The lights are out now, just a dim humming that it can’t completely extinguish. It’s passed by your wall three times now, calling out your name, wearing Bobby’s face. Bobby stirs in your arms, and Kat’s eyes shoot up in alarm. 

You curl around him tighter and see his lashes flutter as he begins to wake up. Quickly, you clamp your hand around his mouth. He seizes in your grip, panic beginning to take over. “It’s me, it’s me,” you whisper. “Don’t say anything, Bobby, please. It’s right there.”

Kat’s across from him, frantically shaking her head as she keeps her own hands wrapped around her mouth. She can’t trust herself not to make a noise either. The thing outside the wall goes still, and you duck down, watching as it turns on too long legs. 

Bobby goes lax in your grip, head tilting up to get a better look at you. His eyes widen as he takes you in. The sharper angles of your face, the deep circles beneath your eyes that almost make you look corpse-like. 

You’re not perfect, not a flawless uncanny representation of yourself. He turns in your grip, arms thrown around your waist as he buries his face in your neck. You cradle the back of his head, forehead pressed to his shoulder as the thing walks past you once more. 

The lights flicker back on, and its form disappears before you can blink. “Okay,” Kat mutters, motioning outside with her head. You nod, and she begins to crawl out. Her head swivels around, checking your surroundings, before she turns around and waves you forward. 

“Come on,” you nudge Bobby. “We gotta go.” He slinks back, but his grip doesn’t leave you. He holds onto your hand as you both crawl out from the wall. The second you’re standing, he jerks you forward, dragging you into his arms. 

He lets out a shuddering breath against your hair, shoulders shaking as he holds you. Kat cares little for the reunion. Her hand finds yours on instinct, too afraid to let go for so long. 

“I thought– I didn’t think I’d see you again,” he whispers, pulling back. His hands go to your face, cupping your cheeks as he looks you over. “You’re here,” he can’t quite seem to believe it. 

You reach up and take his wrist in your hold. “What the hell were you thinking coming in here?” you scoff with a wet laugh, tears spilling down your cheeks. It’s him, it’s really him. He’s alive and here and warm and…

This fucking idiot never should have followed you. 

He should have been safe, mourned you and Kat, and moved on. But you can’t find it in yourself to scold him. The lights flicker and Kat gasps, hand tightening around your own. You don’t have time for a reunion, either. That thing will be circling back soon. 

“We need to leave,” you tell him, lacing your fingers through his. Bobby trails behind you and Kat, gaze roaming across the vastness of the strange backrooms. 

“Where are we?” 

You suck in a shaky breath, coming to a stop at a dead-end. For however long you’ve been here, you’ve been looking for the door that brought you here. At every turn, you’ve been kept at bay by something you can’t see. 

“I don’t know,” Kat answers.

“Clark brought me here,” you tell him, turning to face them both. “He called it the backrooms. Said he wanted to stay here. I haven’t seen him since he left me.”

Bobby’s face screws up, “Left you?”

The lights begin flickering behind him, popping off in the distance one by one. Something creeps ever closer in the darkness. Not the thing that wears your face. This is something different. Something new that follows behind you with thudding footsteps that shake the floor. 

“We have to move,” you hiss, tugging their arms. “Now!” you shout, dragging them both behind you. 

There’s no time to find a hole to crawl into. No time to do anything but race through the endless darkness and yellow halls, hoping for something new. Another door. Another path. Anything to put space between you and the footsteps following slowly behind you. 

“Watch it!” Kat shouts, tugging you back before you slip into a shadowed abyss. Before you is a sharp dip in the floor. It slides down into nothing but darkness. You haven’t seen this before. Haven’t found it while you explored. 

The footsteps stop suddenly behind you, and you whip around. Bobby tugs on your hand, and you frown. He lets out a yelp as something grabs him in the darkness. His fingers slip through yours as he’s dragged to the floor. 

“Bobby!” He screams your name as his legs descend into the darkness. You throw yourself onto your stomach, desperately grasping at his flailing hands. You manage to grab one of his arms as Kat drops, hands grappling at the collar of his shirt. 

“Come on,” you grunt, glancing over your shoulder and watching as a form splits from the darkness. You tug on Bobby, not giving up until he’s dragged from the darkness and lying beside you. Your eyes drift over him, down to his ankles, and you see angry red welts going up his legs. 

Kat moves to help him to stand just as that touch snatches up your leg. Their eyes widen as they turn toward you. But you don’t even get to scream before you're dragged down.

There are no fluorescents down here. Just the dull buzzing that usually comes along with them. You lay curled up in the shadows, knees tucked to your chest as you weep. You want to be strong. You want to face the monsters in the dark with some form of bravery. But you’re a coward. You always have been. 

It’s easy to pretend, when you have someone to pretend for. When you have Kat or Bobby beside you to take care of. You can live in a world where you have to be the strong one. 

But in this dark hole, with wide eyes staring at you from the shadows, you’re not strong enough for anything except crying. 

You can hear them, above you, screaming your name. Feet beating against the floor as they search for you. 

“They won’t find you,” that voice – his voice – whispers in your ear. The creature that wears Bobby’s skin and wants you trapped here with it. 

“Leave me alone,” you cry. It chuckles, inhuman and unnatural as its form curls around you. Hands, too many hands, grapple at your body, tug on your clothes. Testing your mortal form as it keeps you locked away here in the dark. 

“Why should I? I finally have you right where I want you.” You’re ripped from your spot, forced to your feet as you’re pinned to the wall. There’s a little light– just enough for you to see the twisted visage of your lover’s face on the wrong body. 

Fingers that are too long drag along your skin. Like a snake’s tongue learning the air around it, the environment, through taste and touch, he licks at your skin tentatively. His nose pushes up against your neck, taking in a deep inhale of your scent. 

You can’t help but whimper, eyes clenched shut as his body contorts around your own. His lips trail up your skin, rough tongue scraping at your flesh as he goes. It reminds you of a cat’s, too barbed and too demanding to be human. 

His face hovers over your own, skin warping like a stone that’s just been tossed into a puddle. You can’t stare into those black eyes too long. Did he even know his mask had begun to slip?

“If you stay here,” it’s Bobby’s voice, but something is lurking beneath it. Something very old, something lonely and unused to the company of mortals. “I’ll let them go.”

Your heart races, eyes shooting up to the voids where irises should be. “You’re lying.”

He shakes his head, lips curling into a too-long smirk. “I don’t need to,” he whispers, jagged finger tilting your chin up toward him. 

He doesn’t need to because you’re desperate. Because you’ve been running through the seven layers of hell and now you’re stuck in an endless, looping purgatory faced with all your worst fears. You’ve been here so long that you’re losing parts of yourself, and these rooms are filling in the holes left behind. 

You can’t let that happen to Bobby. 

Slowly, you nod, his face goes slack, as if he hadn’t actually thought you would accept. His eyes narrow, head tilting at an inhuman angle, and you just nod again. “If you swear you’ll let them leave.”

“A deal struck,” he whispers, and that ancient voice reminds you of mythological tales of fairies. Of eldritch horrors that trapped humans in bargains and deals they hadn’t realized the enormity of. 

His head dips, lips slotting hesitantly over your own. He doesn’t understand this mortal shape. He knows that he craves this; the taste and touch of you. But he doesn’t understand how to retrieve it. He’s pilfered through your memories, stolen your favorites and replicated them poorly. 

Now, he can’t even give you this. 

There’s a violent tremble in your hands as you reach up to grasp his shoulder. You almost push him away when the distinct lack of his taste fills your mouth, when his rough tongue scrapes against your own. You have to remind yourself who this is for. 

This face that it wears is the man you’re trying to save. The one you love enough to sacrifice yourself for. 

Your heart races, breath stalling as you feel his tongue begin to explore the wet caverns of your mouth. Two hands settle around your waist, but there’s still a touch pushing up your chin. You can’t open your eyes. If you do, you’ll see too many arms, too many eyes and teeth. 

You clench your eyes tightly shut, chest heaving as that tongue steadily expands. It strokes against your own as he pushes you further up the wall, thigh slotting between your own. Rough barbs tickle the back of your throat before probing deeper. It wants to explore every inch of you, map out the workings of your frail, human body through touch. 

Your stomach seizes with panic; tears slip from your eyes as your nails dig into shoulders that are too broad and bony. Pleasure spikes in your core against your will. Another hand, dragging up and up until it’s wrapping around your throat and feeling your pulse beneath cold flesh. 

Wrong. Wrong. WRONG–

Something inside you– your hindbrain– pieces of yourself from the eons where humans were the prey and these creatures were worshiped– Whatever it is, it screams at you that this is inhumane and heartless.

 It will hurt you. It will split you open and lap your blood up from the floor like a starved mutt. 

In the distance, you hear him, screaming as something thunders just behind him. He’s not screaming for himself, though. It’s you, your name that he’s calling out. 

Through sheer force of will, you make your eyes open. Make yourself look at the twisted visage and poor attempt at humanity. And just beyond its shoulders, you see it, a light. Like a flashlight, desperately searching through the darkness for you. 

Your teeth clamp down around the tongue. Thick, viscous blood pools in your mouth and the thing backs up with a hiss. The tongue slithers from your throat, dragging along the flesh of your mouth until you’re gagging, gasping for breath as you slump to the floor. 

“We had a deal,” it hisses. 

Bobby screams your name in the distance, and you spit out the blood pooling in your mouth. It splatters black against the carpet. “Deal’s off,” you hiss, ducking under its too many arms and running toward his voice. 

“Bobby!” You scream, and you hear it roar behind you. Anger and misery that’s too complicated to formulate into something your human ears can understand echo throughout the entire level. You follow that waving beam of light until you’re crashing into your boyfriend. 

“Bobby,” you gasp out, trying not to sob. There’s no time; that monster is still behind you both. 

His arm wraps around you, his other hand stuck in Kat’s vice grip. And just behind him, the flashlight– it belongs to a group of people in hazmat suits. “This way,” one of them orders. And then they’re all running, barely giving you time to follow. 

You chase after them, hold tight to Bobby, and force yourself not to turn around. Not to face the hunger and lust of something that wants to chew through you until it hits marrow, until it's licking at your soul and consuming you entirely. 

The people in the suits weave through the narrow passageways with ease, following black tape on the floor. Your eyes try to follow the path, but you only feel yourself grow dizzy with panic. “Hurry!” they shout, the booming footsteps growing closer behind you all. 

They come to a stop near what looks like a research post. Cameras, computers, all sorts of technical equipment stacked haphazardly on desks that have been abandoned. Beside it, there’s a shimmer on the wall, the type that Clark had first dragged you through. 

They run through, and Kat doesn’t hesitate to follow, dragging Bobby and you behind her. There’s a loud screech, a sting down your back as you fall through. Bobby trips on Kat and you both hurtle to the floor. 

You land on his chest, the air rushing from you as pain screams down your back. “Ah,” you croak, reaching behind you. Your hands come back bloody. 

“Shit, it got you,” one of the researchers hiss. You look up and realize you’re in what looks like a warehouse. More people in hazmats, more equipment you don’t understand. “I’ll go get a medic,” they tell you before rushing off. 

Bobby still sits below you. His eyes rake over your face before he’s tugging you into his chest, arms wrapping around you, uncaring for the blood that stains them. You wind yourself around him like a serpent, grip damn near choking as you grasp onto these last strands of reality. 

“You found me,” you whisper, too afraid to start crying again. 

“Always,” he swears, burying his face in your neck. 

Something clicks in your head. Something you haven’t had time to think of while you’re running for your life. “Bobby…” you pull back, catching Kat’s eyes over his shoulder. She’s still shaken, still catching her breath. “How did you know how to find me?”

His brows furrow as he shakes his head. “You called me.”

Your heart stops, chills raise along your skin, and you would swear you could feel eyes from the wall behind you. “No, I didn't.”

the scent of old paper and expensive sandalwood clung to the air of valarr’s study. it was a room that mirrored him: pristine, organized, and suffocatingly composed. you sat across from him at the heavy mahogany desk, the glare of the desk lamp bouncing off the pages of a textbook that felt like it was written in a dead language. to the rest of the campus, you were the darling—the girl with the permanent, sunny smile and the helpful hand, the one who never missed a beat in social grace. but here, under the steady, judging gaze of your sweet boyfriend valarr targaryen, that mask was slipping.

you weren't stupid. you were just bored, and the effort of actually caring about the curriculum felt like a chore you weren't paid for.

"the third paragraph outlines the economic collapse of the era," valarr said, his voice a smooth, effortless.he didn't look up from his own notes, his posture perfect, the sleeves of his white button-down rolled up to reveal forearms that were far too distracting for a tutoring session. "i believe i asked you to summarize the primary catalyst. you've been staring at the same page for ten minutes."

you let out a long, dramatic groan, leaning back in the chair until it creaked precariously.

"this is torture," you whined, tossing your pen onto the desk. "why is it so long?why are there so many dates? val, please, just tell me the answer so we can stop."

valarr finally looked up. his eyes were cool, shimmering with a hint of amusement that didn't reach a smile. he was the golden boy, the pride of his father baelor’s connections, the man who had volunteered to save your GPA not out of pity, but because he viewed your laziness as a challenge to be conquered. and cause he loved you

"because knowing the answer isn't the same as understanding the process," he replied calmly. "and because you are currently failing, which is a tragedy for someone with your intellect. focus."

you glared at him, your chest tightening with a mixture of irritation and an ache you refused to acknowledge. you loved it when he was like this—composed, untouchable, acting as if your tantrums were nothing more than a mild breeze. it made you want to tear that composure apart.

slowly, you shifted in your seat. you kicked off your shoe, the soft skin of your foot meeting the fabric of his charcoal trousers. you didn't start bold; you just let your toes brush against his ankle, a tentative, teasing ghost of a touch.

valarr didn't flinch. he didn't even pause his breathing.

you emboldened yourself, sliding your foot upward, tracing the line of his calf, feeling the hard muscle beneath the fabric. you pushed further, your toes seeking the heat of his inner thigh, moving slowly, deliberately. you watched his face for a crack—a twitch of the lip, a widening of the pupils, anything.

suddenly, his hand shot out.

his fingers clamped around your ankle with a grip like iron. the suddenness of it made you gasp, your breath hitching in your throat. he didn't squeeze hard enough to hurt, but the possessiveness of the hold was electric. he didn't look at you; he simply guided your leg back down to the floor and released you.

"the catalyst, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "unless you'd prefer i report to your professors that you're spending our sessions practicing your footwork." you felt a flush creep up your neck. the rejection should have stung, but the way he called you 'sweetheart'—that low, commanding tone—sent a jolt of heat straight to your core.you weren't finished.

"my chair is uncomfortable," you declared, standing up abruptly.

before he could respond, you rounded the desk. you didn't ask. you simply stepped between his legs and lowered yourself onto his lap, sitting sideways. you felt the immediate, firm pressure of his thighs beneath you and the heat radiating through his clothes. you leaned back against his chest, settling your weight comfortably, your hip brushing against the growing hardness in his trousers. valarr stiffened for a fraction of a second, but he didn't push you off. he didn't even stop holding the textbook. he simply shifted his arm to keep the book open in front of your face.

"if the chair was the problem, i'm glad we've resolved it," he said, though his breath was slightly heavier now. "now. the catalyst. try again." you let out a soft, feline hum, tilting your head back to look at him. from this angle, his jawline looked like it had been carved from marble. you reached up, your fingers tracing the line of his collar, playing with the top button of his shirt.

"i can't think when you're being so mean to me," you whispered, shifting your hips. you ground yourself against him, a slow roll that made you feel the exact shape of his cock through the layers of fabric.

valarr’s hand left the book. be didn't grab you; he simply rested his palm on your waist, his thumb digging slightly into the soft flesh of your hip. "you aren't being bullied," he noted, his voice steady despite the friction. "you're being tutored. there is a difference."

"i hate you," you lied, leaning in to press a lingering, wet kiss to the corner of his mouth. you didn't stop there. you trailed your lips down to his jaw, then to the sensitive skin just below his ear. you nipped at his lobe, feeling him shudder beneath you. you could smell him—the sharp scent of leather,cedar and the cologne he always wore. you moved your mouth to his neck, sucking a small, bruising mark into the skin, your tongue darting out to taste the salt of his skin.

"valarr..." you breathed against his pulse point.

"love," he commanded.

you paused. you didn't want to give in. you wanted him to beg. you wanted the golden boy to break. you shifted again, rubbing yourself against him, feeling the dampness of your panties soaking through to his lap.

"hmm?" the composure finally snapped, though not in the way you expected. he didn't lose control; he took it.

one hand slid from your waist to your upper thigh, his fingers digging in with a sudden, bruising intensity. his other hand moved to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair. he didn't pull hard, but he exerted enough pressure to force your head back, making you look him directly in the eyes.

his gaze was no longer cool. it was predatory.

"you think this is a game," he whispered, his face inches from yours. "you think you can just distract me with a few rubs and some kisses and I'll forget that you're failing this course."

"maybe i don't care about the course," you whimpered, your voice trembling.

"i care," he countered. "i care about your education. and i care about the fact that you've spent the last hour trying to see how far you can push me."

he shifted his hand from your thigh, sliding it upward.his palm brushed against the hem of your skirt, the fabric sliding up as he pushed his hand underneath. you let out a sharp moan as his fingers found the lace of your panties. he didn't go inside yet; he just pressed his palm firmly against your slit, rubbing in a slow, circular motion.

you were drenched.the friction of his palm against the thin lace sent sparks through your nerves, and you arched your back, pressing yourself harder into his hand.

"are you really that needy?" valarr asked, his voice returning to that terrifyingly calm, analytical tone. "can't even focus for one hour without needing to rub yourself on me? i thought you were my smart girl. i didn't realize you were this desperate."

"i'm not..." you gasped, but a loud, wet squelch sounded as he pressed harder, the moisture of your arousal lubricating the fabric. "i'm not desperate."

"your body says otherwise," he murmured.

he hooked two fingers under the elastic of your panties, tugging them ruthlessly to the side. the sudden exposure to the air made you shiver, and then his fingers were there—bare skin on bare skin. he didn't enter you immediately. instead, he used his middle finger to trace the length of your outer lips, dragging it slowly from your perineum up to your clit.

you cried out, your hands gripping his shoulders, your nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. "so wet," he observed, his voice a velvet caress. "it's almost embarrassing, isn't it? all this noise, all this bratty behavior, and you're practically dripping for me."

he pushed one finger inside you. he sensation was overwhelming. be entered slowly, testing the tightness of your walls, feeling the way you clamped around him. you let out a broken sob, your head falling back against his shoulder. "now," valarr whispered, his finger beginning to move in a steady, agonizingly slow rhythm. "since you're so fond of distractions, let's make a deal. for every question you answer correctly from the last chapter, I'll give you exactly ten seconds of what you want. if you get it wrong… i stop."

"please," you whimpered, "just... please, val."

"answer the question, sweetheart."

he began to move faster. the sound of it filled the quiet room—the slicking, wet noise of his finger sliding in and out of your drenched heat. you felt the air being pushed out of you in short, jagged gasps. he found your g-spot, hooking his finger upward, and you nearly blacked out from the intensity of the pleasure.

"the primary catalyst for the collapse" he demanded, his voice firm, commanding.

"the... the devaluation of the currency!" you screamed, the words tumbling out of your mouth as you chased the peak

"correct," he murmured.

he accelerated. his finger became a blur of motion, hammering into you, the friction creating a heat that felt like it was consuming you from the inside out. your right hand was locked onto his shoulder, your left hand reaching down to grip his wrist, not to stop him, but to pull him deeper. you were hovering on the edge, the tension in your lower belly coiling like a spring, your clit throbbing with every thrust

"and the secondary factor?" he asked, his voice a low hum against your cheek

"the... the war in the south!" you wailed, your hips bucking wildly. "the war in the south! oh god, valarr, please, i'm close, i'm so close—"

"one more," he whispered, his finger sliding deeper, hitting your cervix with a blunt force that made you gasp. "who was the presiding monarch during the transition?"

"i... i don't... i don't remember!" you sobbed, your body shaking, your muscles tightening in anticipation of the release. "i don't remember! just let me cum! please, please, val—!"

you were right there. the peak was a shimmering wall just inches away, and you could feel it crashing down on you. your breath was a series of broken hitches, your vision blurring.and then, in one swift, clinical motion, he pulled his fingers out. the sudden emptiness was violent. you froze, your body still vibrating, the orgasm denied at the very last millisecond.you let out a sound that was half-scream, half-sob, your chest heaving as you stared at him with wide, betrayed eyes.

valarr didn't look bothered. he slowly brought his fingers to his lips, licking the cream of your arousal from his skin with a deliberate swipe of his tongue. he watched you do it, his eyes hooded and dark.

he leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to your cheek, the contrast to his previous ruthlessness making your head spin. he gently turned your face toward him, forcing you to look at him. your lips were parted, a pout of pure frustration and longing on your face, your eyes shimmering with unshed tears of desperation.

"maybe now you're going to learn to listen, sweet girl," he said, his voice returning to that composed, golden-boy perfection.

he didn't help you up. he simply tapped your thigh with his hand, a silent command.

"stand up. go back to your chair."

you didn't move for a second, the ache between your legs pulsing with a heavy, throbbing need. you felt ruined, empty, and more attracted to him than you had ever been in your life. slowly, you slid off his lap. as you stood, you felt the cold air hit your damp skin, and the uncomfortable, heavy wetness of your panties clung to you, a constant, dripping reminder of your failure.

you walked back to your chair, your legs feeling like jelly. you sat down, the mahogany desk once again separating you from him.

valarr leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs and picking up his pen as if nothing had happened. he looked at you—really looked at you—and a small smile played on his lips.

"now," he said softly, pointing to the next page of the textbook. "let's start from the beginning. and this time, i suggest you pay very close attention."

𖥔 ݁ ˖ masterlist

aerion targaryen had not wanted a martell bride, that was the simple truth of it.

when the match had first been proposed, he had regarded it as what it was, another arrangement crafted by older, wiser people who believed they knew what was best for the realm.

best for him.

he remembered standing beside a window overlooking blackwater bay when the news had been delivered. "a princess of dorne?" he had said flatly.

his father had given him a look. "a beautiful princess of dorne."

"i do not particularly care." and at the time, he had meant it, or at least he had thought he did.

then he met you and, unfortunately for aerion, everything became much more difficult, because you were beautiful, not merely beautiful in the way courtiers described ladies to secure favor, you were genuinely, devastatingly beautiful.

you were kind.

gods, he hated how much he liked that. your confidence, your sweetness, your fire…

the trouble began when they were forced to spend time together, before marriage there had been dinners, walks, appearances and conversations neither of you could reasonably escape.

at first aerion had expected them to be tedious, instead he discovered that you were clever. you challenged him, argued with him and even laughed at him. the first time you laughed directly at one of his dramatic declarations, he had stared at you in complete disbelief. "how dare you laugh."

"because you sound absurd!!”

aerion's jaw tightened at your insolence, but something in him stirred at the sight of your unapologetic smile. no one- no one- dared speak to a targaryen so, let alone laugh at their pronouncements.

"you find me absurd?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.

"i find your declaration that 'all lesser houses should bow before the might of dragons' rather theatrical for a supper conversation," you replied, taking a sip of wine. "especially when the only dragon present is the one carved into your knife handle."

he stared at you, speechless for a moment. the courtiers nearby had gone silent, their eyes darting between you both like spectators at a tourney.

"you walk a dangerous line, princess," aerion finally managed, though he couldn't keep the faint hint of amusement from his voice.

“and i must admit, your family's reputation precedes you." you said with a shrug.

a flicker of his old arrogance returned. "as it should."

"as it should," you agreed, much to his surprise. "but reputations are often exaggerated. i prefer to judge people by their actions rather than their bloodlines."

"and what have my actions told you so far?"

"that you enjoy being admired," you said thoughtfully. "that you're accustomed to getting what you want. and that beneath all that targaryen pride, there's a man who doesn't particularly enjoy being laughed at."

he leaned forward, "and what else have you discovered?"

"that you're lonely," you said simply.

his immediate instinct was to deny it, to push back with some cutting remark about dornish impertinence, but the truth of your statement left him momentarily defenseless. "i have a family," he said finally. "a dynasty."

"a family is not the same as companionship," you replied, your voice softer now. "a dynasty is a burden. a companion is a choice."

the evening ended with an unspoken understanding between you. as you parted ways, aerion found himself watching you retreat, the sway of your dark hair against your vibrant silks, the confidence in your stride. he had come to this marriage expecting to endure it, to fulfill his duty and nothing more.

now, for the first time, he wondered if duty might not be such a burden after all.

then came marriage and forced proximity finished what attraction had started because now you were everywhere.

at breakfast.

at supper.

reading by the window.

laughing with your ladies.

sleeping beside him….

the chambers that had once belonged solely to aerion suddenly felt empty whenever you left them. you had somehow become part of every routine, and months later, the transformation was complete. aerion adored you. there was no point denying it anymore, the servants knew, everyone with eyes knew, he followed you around the red keep whenever possible.

if you entered a room, somehow aerion appeared shortly afterward, if you mentioned liking something once, it mysteriously arrived days later.

flowers. spices. books. rare dornish wines.

anything.

everything.

the greatest shock, however, was how gentle he became with you…true, aerion targaryen would never be soft, but he was gentle. his hand always found the small of your back, he noticed when you were tired, when you were cold, when court became too much. it was as though he had developed an awareness of you that bordered on obsession.

yours and his first major argument had been simmering for days. you wanted to visit your family in dorne for the harvest festival- a reasonable request, in your estimation. aerion, however, saw it differently.

"you are my wife," he'd stated, his voice dangerously quiet. "your place is here. with me."

"and i am your wife, not your prisoner," you'd retorted, "i have not seen my siblings in nearly a year. my mother sent a raven specifically requesting my presence."

that night in your chambers, the tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. you stood by the hearth, arms crossed, while he paced before you like a caged dragon.

"it is not safe," he insisted. "the roads are perilous this time of year. and i do not trust dornish hospitality toward a targaryen princess."

"my family would never harm me," you said, exasperated. "this is not about safety. this is about control."

he stopped pacing and faced you, his eyes blazing. "i have given you everything- books, wines, silks from across the narrow sea. is that not enough? must you always test the limits of my generosity?"

"generosity?" you laughed without humor. "you give me trinkets while denying me the one thing i truly want- a connection to my home, my family. these gifts are chains, aerion. beautiful, expensive chains."

“you will not go and that is final.”

the finality in his tone was absolute, a royal command that brooked no argument. he stood before you, not as the gentle man who brought you rare wines, but as the targaryen prince who expected obedience.

for a long moment, you said nothing. you simply looked at him.

"very well, husband," you said, your voice dangerously soft. you turned away from him and walked to the window, gazing out at the darkened gardens of the red keep. "as you have commanded me."

a flicker of triumph crossed his face, quickly replaced by confusion. this was too easy. he had expected tears, pleading, another sharp retort. he had not expected this quiet, hollow acceptance.

"good," he said, his voice gruff. "it is for your own protection."

you didn't turn around. "of course. everything is for my own good. i am a fragile thing, after all. a targaryen princess who must be kept in a gilded cage, lest i break."

the sarcasm in your tone was a subtle poison. he took a step toward you. "that is not what i meant."

"isn't it?" you finally turned, your face a mask of serene indifference that was more cutting than any glare could have been. "you do not trust me. you do not trust my family. you do not trust my judgment. you only trust your own will."

you walked past him toward the adjoining dressing chamber.

"where are you going?" he demanded, his voice tight.

"to bed," you replied without looking back. "alone. i find i am not in the mood for company tonight."

you disappeared behind the screen, leaving him standing alone in the grand chamber. the silence that fell was heavier than any shouted words.

he stood there for a long time, the silence in the chambers growing heavier with each passing moment. the victory felt sour, hollow. he had won the argument, but in doing so, he had lost something far more valuable. the rooms, once filled with your vibrant presence, now felt cavernous and cold. the fire crackled, but it offered no warmth.

an hour passed.

the moon climbed higher in the sky, casting silver shadows across the rugs. he could not sleep. he could not think. all he could do was feel the vast, empty space you had left beside him. he was a dragon prince, heir to a dynasty, and he was being tormented by the absence of his wife.

finally, with a low growl of frustration, he pushed himself away from the chair and strode toward the dressing chamber. he didn't bother to knock. he threw the door open with enough force to make it slam against the stone wall.

you were curled up on your side in the smaller, simpler bed, facing away from the door. the room was dark, save for a single candle burning low on a table. you didn't startle at the intrusion. you didn't even move. you had been expecting him.

"get up," his voice was a low command, rough with exhaustion and anger.

you remained still, your breathing even. "i am comfortable here."

"i did not ask for your comfort. i gave you an order," he said, taking a menacing step into the room. "you will not sleep in here like a scorned servant. you are my wife. you will sleep in my bed."

slowly, you rolled over to face him. your face was illuminated by the flickering candlelight, serene and utterly devoid of the passion he so often provoked in you. "i am obeying your command, husband. you commanded i not go to dorne. you commanded i stay here. i am staying here. is this not what you wanted?"

his jaw tightened. "you know what i meant. do not play these games with me."

"i am not playing a game," you said, your voice quiet but clear. "you made it clear that my will, my desires, my home- they mean nothing. you have decided what is best for me. so i have decided what is best for me tonight. and that is to sleep alone."

the calmness of your response was infuriating he had not expected this quiet, unassailable wall of indifference. it was a rejection far more profound than any shouted insult could ever be.

he crossed the room in three long strides and grabbed your arm, his grip firm but not bruising. "i will not be made a fool in my own home. you will come with me now."

you allowed him to pull you to a sitting position, your body pliant, but your eyes remained locked on his, filled with a chilling resolve. "drag me if you must, husband," you said softly. "force me back to the bed you wish to share. but know this. you can command my body to be there, but you cannot command my heart to follow."

his grip on your arm loosened. he looked down at you, at the woman he adored, who was now looking at him with the weary resignation of a prisoner.

he stood there, torn between the urge to throw you over his shoulder and carry you back to bed or leave you be.

"it was not my intent to make you angry with me." he muttered, his voice rougher than usual.

it was a pathetic attempt at an apology. he wasn't truly sorry about the slight, just sorry that you were upset, and you knew it.

"i am not in the mood for your excuses, aerion," you replied.

the thought of sleeping apart- of a night without your warmth, your scent, your skin pressed against his- was unbearable.

"please," he breathed, reaching out to gently take your hand. he pressed his lips to your knuckles, kissing them with a reverence that made his usual arrogance seem distant.

the targaryen pride that usually demanded submission from others suddenly bent its spine for you. he released your hand and dropped to his knees on the cold stone floor of the chambers, the silence of the castle amplifying the sound.

he reached for the hem of your sleeping gown, his hands shaking slightly as he worked the silk upward, exposing your legs to the golden glow of the firelight. aerion didn't waste a moment, he pressed his lips to the inside of your knee, his mouth hot and eager against your skin.

he worked his way down slowly, kissing his way along your calf, his tongue darting out to trace the path, his breathing growing heavier. he reached your ankle and gently kissed your bare foot.

"lay back, my darling," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, losing the boyish panic for a more settled, desperate need.

you obeyed, sinking into the softness of the bed, the sheets cool against your heated skin. "you are not to make love to me tonight," you reminded him, your voice breathless as he settled between your spread thighs.

he froze, his mouth hovering just above your skin, his breath warm against your inner thigh. the command was a stone wall thrown up in the middle of his desperate supplication. for a moment, the arrogant prince warred with the pleading man. he had come here to conquer this silence, to erase the distance with the one language he knew you both spoke fluently. to be denied it now, when he was on his knees, was a humiliation he hadn't anticipated.

he lifted his head, his eyes locking with yours in the dim light. they were dark with a mixture of frustration and a raw, aching need. "you would punish me so?" he asked, his voice a low rumble. "you would have me worship you and then be denied?"

"i would have you understand," you replied, your voice steady despite the tremor in your limbs. "you cannot buy my forgiveness with pleasure. you cannot command my affection with your hands or your mouth. you denied me my will. tonight, you will be denied yours."

he stared at you, and you saw the moment he understood. this was not just about sleeping arrangements. this was about power, about respect, about the very foundation of the strange, fierce love you had built. he had tried to wield his authority like a sword, and you had just turned it back on him, showing him its edge.

slowly, deliberately, he lowered his head again.

for a long moment, he remained perfectly still, his forehead pressed against your thigh, his breath warm and ragged against your skin. then, slowly, as if testing the boundaries of his new submission, he turned his head. his lips, soft and reverent, brushed against your inner thigh, a question asked without words.

when you did not pull away, he grew bolder. his kisses became open-mouthed, his tongue tracing lazy circles against your skin, tasting the salt of you. he was worshiping, just as he had promised, but with a new, desperate humility. his hands, which had been clenched at his sides, came up to rest on your hips, his thumbs stroking the soft skin there, a silent plea for permission.

"let me," he breathed against your skin, his voice thick with a need that went far beyond the physical. "let me show you."

you remained silent, your body still, but you did not stop him. that was all the encouragement he needed. he shifted, settling more comfortably between your thighs, his shoulders pushing them wider. the firelight gilded the white-silver of his hair as he lowered his head, and then his mouth was on you.

there was nothing hesitant about it.

it was a hungry and desperate.

aerion targaryen, the proud prince, was a man starved, and you were his feast. his tongue flattened against your folds, a broad, firm stroke that made your back arch off the bed. a soft gasp escaped your lips, a sound you couldn't contain. he heard it, and a low groan rumbled in his chest, the sound vibrating against your most sensitive flesh.

"gods, you taste like honeyed syrup," he slurred, his words muffled against your cunt. he was messy, unrefined, his usual aristocratic grace completely abandoned. he ate you like a man dying of thirst, his tongue delving inside you, fucking you with it before moving up to circle your clit with a devastating precision.

he wrapped his lips around the sensitive bundle of nerves and sucked, hard. your hands flew to his hair, your fingers tangling in the strands, holding him to you. he took it as encouragement, his enthusiasm redoubling. he alternated between sucking and flicking his tongue rapidly against you, one of his hands moving from your hip to slide two fingers inside you.

"is this for me?" he growled, pumping his fingers in and out of your slick heat, his mouth never ceasing its assault. "this sweet, perfect cunt? all for me, my love?"

you could only whimper in response, your hips rocking against his face, chasing the pleasure he was so expertly giving.

he was a mess, his face slick with your arousal, his chin dripping. he looked up at you, his eyes dark with lust and adoration, and the sight of him- your proud husband on his knees, his face buried in your cunt, worshiping you with his entire being- sent a bolt of pure ecstasy through you.

"that's it, my darling," he coaxed, his voice a husky whisper. "let me taste you. give me your forgiveness, pretty girl."

he curled his fingers inside you, finding that spot that made your vision white out, and sealed his mouth over your clit, sucking with a relentless, rhythmic pressure.

“please? please?…” he continued to beg, his voice sounding whinier and whinier. "sleep with me in bed, come back to me..."

the tension that had been coiling in your belly snapped, and your orgasm crashed over you in a blinding wave. you cried out his name, your body convulsing, your thighs clamping around his head as you came.

he stayed with you through it all, his tongue lapping gently, his fingers stilling inside you as you shuddered through the aftershocks. when you finally went limp against the sheets, he gently withdrew his fingers and placed one last, lingering kiss on your swollen, sensitive flesh.

he crawled up your body, not to lie beside you, but to hover over you, his arms braced on either side of your head. he didn't try to kiss your lips. instead, he buried his face in the crook of your neck, his body trembling slightly. he was still hard, a testament to his own desire, but he made no move to seek his own release.

"i am asking for forgiveness" he whispered, his voice raw and hoarse, “i am regretful, my love.” it was different from his earlier attempt. this was not an excuse. it was a true apology of a sort, stripped of all pride, offered in the aftermath of his complete surrender. "not for making you angry. for taking your will."

he lifted his head, his face still glistening with your essence, his dark eyes searching yours. "i will spend the rest of my nights proving my respect to you, if you will let me."

aerion looked at you as though you had hung the stars over king's landing with your own hands and perhaps, in his mind, you had.

Summerhall appears like a fortress carved from ivory amongst velvet green hills. Large windows glisten and reflect the midday sun, and the gardens tended around are thick and lush. Even the air is cooler out here, fresher than what traps stagnant in the alleys of your home slum. You can’t quite believe what you’re looking at as you clamber from the carriage with a timber-like stiffness in your bones. You clutch your satchel of medicinal supplies, a small trunk of your belongings at your feet.

Ahead of you, Aerion dismounts his horse with a flourish of his black cape. It billows around him like wings, and as he settles, his palfrey guided away by a servant, he spares a look in your direction. The corner of his lips quirk, something near a smile, as he appraises your expression of wonder, your eyes glittering as you stare up at the grand royal residence. Your fingers clutch nervously at your satchel, and there’s a subtle dip in your brow that tells Aerion all he needs to know.

But you’ll be fine here. You have him, after all.

He takes a few steps in your direction before he stops. He freezes, boots crushing gravel. There’s an obvious flex in his jaw as he watches a member of the kingsguard—oh, it’s Roland fucking Crakehall, Aerion immediately thinks—approach you with kind eyes and a disarming smile. Roland says something that snaps you out of your little trance, and you bow your head, saying something in return that makes the smile on Roland’s face split even wider.

Aerion watches you look up at Roland, and the nervous fidgeting of your fingers against the smooth leather of your satchel suddenly stops.

There’s a tick in his chest. A small, dull tug at the bottom of his heart and it sets off in a structured rhythm as he watches you and Roland interact. It has the nerves along his spine standing up, prickling with a heat he’s never felt before, venomous in its leeching through his diaphragm and up into his brain. He can taste it now—jealousy—and it’s sour on his pointed tongue, dripping from his teeth as his lip curls itself into a grimace.

He kicks himself from the gravel and approaches with meaningful strides. He feels the eyes of servants on him, hears the way they skitter out of his way like vermin. They drop their heads and lower their voices, and the tension that hangs treacle-thick in the air makes him feel great. It makes him feel alive.

He calls your name, and your eyes find his immediately. A rumble passes briefly through his aching chest, a proud purr as you respond so obediently to him. He snaps his fingers at a nearby servant then, gesturing to the wooden trunk at your feet. The servant nods, and immediately moves to pluck it from the ground and hurry towards the castle.

You frown. “Aerion, I am perfectly capable of—”

Roland speaks at the same time. “I was already offering—”

Aerion waves a hand, cutting both you and Roland off as though he had shouted at you. The silence is painful in the cool air, and you find yourself clutching your satchel firmly to your chest as the prince draws nearer.

“I will take my witch to her chambers,” Aerion says, and seizes you firmly by the elbow.

You do not dwell on the tightness of his fingers at your sleeve, nor do you dwell on his use of my witch. Instead, you offer Roland an apologetic smile as the prince all but drags you across the threshold, busy servants making quick work of throwing themselves out of his way.

You look around, possibly for someone to help. Not that you had belief anyone could save you from this situation, but maybe someone could at least offer you sympathy. But Prince Maekar was nowhere to be seen; neither were any of the other Targaryen siblings. Although, you think you catch a fleeting glimpse of dirty blond hair disappearing towards the kitchens, but that’s all it was: fleeting.

Aerion hauls you up a wide flight of steps, your footfall muffled by thick carpet. You shoot a glance downward as you ascend, in the general direction of the hall which would lead you, you’re sure of it, to the servants’ quarters. You were technically a servant.

“Your grace,” you begin as he hails you down a long corridor, grip still unrelenting on your arm. “Should I not take residence with the other servants? Surely—”

“You are not sleeping alongside the help.”

You scowl at his tone. “Well, I am the help, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs, pulling you around a corner. There’s another long hall that stretches, lit up by sunshine and hues of green where light passes through stained glass. It’s also empty, and you yelp when Aerion spins around and slams you roughly against the wall. You drop your satchel on instinct, the bag falling to your feet with a clattering of glass bottles—thankfully, not glass breaking—as your hands shoot up. Your palms rest flat to his chest as he presses close to you, one of his hands still on your arm, the other caging you in, propped up against the wall by your head.

“You are not the help,” Aerion begins, voice low. His eyes flit across your face, violet irises bright. “You are my help. You help me. And because you help me—you’re here for me—you will take residence where I tell you, yes?”

Your hands tighten against the red velvet of his gambeson. “I don’t think—”

“Yes?” Aerion repeats, the fingers on your arm clamping down. There’s a bite of blunt nails through the material of your sleeve too, and you draw in a calming breath as you try not to melt beneath the heat of his violet stare.

“Yes, your grace,” you whisper, dropping your head.

Aerion huffs, the hand on the wall shooting across to seize your jaw. You blow out an exasperated sigh through your nose as he forces you to look at him. The pads of his fingers are soft against the bone of your jaw, but his grip is tight. Unyielding.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you,” he says, cocking his head. He raises his eyebrows, imploring, waiting for you to speak again. “Speak up.”

“Yes, your grace,” you echo, louder this time. Your voice carries in a murmur down the hall, and you grimace hearing yourself bounce from the ornate walls.

But it pleases the prince, for he breaks out into a vulpine smile and pats your cheek firmly before stepping back. You release a tense breath, collecting your satchel from the ground as Aerion resumes his hold on your arm and leads you down the hall.

After a moment, he gestures to a door with a torch mounted to the wall nearby.

“These are my chambers,” he tells you, then leads you further down the hall. You pass by several more doors before the hall’s end greets you, where a door sits beneath a large Targaryen banner. He opens the door with a heavy hand. “And these are yours.”

The room is… not small. It’s grand and spacious, with the largest bed you’ve ever seen taking up a considerable amount of space to the right. Tall, latticed windows allow bright light to stream in, resembling ghostly fingers reaching for the Myrish carpet that covers the floor. There’s an empty hearth, plush chairs, and a writing desk nearby too. The desk is bare, and you approach it tentatively, placing your satchel down. As you take off your travelling cloak, draping it across the desk, you notice that your trunk of belongings already sits at the foot of the bed.

“This is excessive…” you find yourself muttering, turning and leaning back against the solid wooden desk.

Aerion looks at you from the doorway. “This is what you get.”

You grip the edge of the desk, looking around. “It’s not that I’m unappreciative, but—”

“Then thank me,” Aerion interrupts, stepping forward. He closes the door. “Say thank you.”

You look at him as he slowly crosses the room. You utter softly, “Thank you.”

“Thank you what?” Aerion stands before you now, trapping you against the desk. 

You can feel the heat radiating from his body; the blemishless shine of his pale skin. He leans in close and you can feel his breath ghost across you, tainted with mulberries and hazel. 

“Thank you, your grace,” you reply, challenging his gaze.

He grunts, a rough sound from the back of his throat, as he grabs your wrist. You let him steal your hand away from the desk, and you let him press your palm flat to the front of his trousers as he leans in closer. You smell ash and lavender wax soap across his skin. You bite your lip, ignoring the sudden wash of heat through your core, as he gently ruts his hips against your palm. There’s a shift beneath the fabric, and your lips part.

“Say it properly,” Aerion hisses, still looking at you. He runs your open palm against the front of his trousers, and you feel his cock give another jerk beneath the material. 

His hand is warm around your wrist, and you wonder if he can feel the thundering of your pulse beneath his thumb.

“Thank you, Aerion,” you whisper, and the lilt in your voice has his hips rolling deeper into your touch. “For the room.”

“Thank me for bringing you here,” he says quickly. He gently moves your hand up and down, and you can feel a tent pitching beneath your palm. “Tell me how lucky you are to be here with me.”

You frown, turning your head, his eye contact too intense. It’s cloying, overwhelming, molten heat that sticks to you the longer you look. You shake your head slightly, muttering, “Aerion—”

The prince’s other hand snaps up and grabs you harshly by the nape of your neck. He forces you to look at him, his other hand continuing to drag your palm across the bulge in his trousers. He looks at you, waiting.

“Say it.” It’s firm and venomous in its delivery.

The heat inside you doesn’t vanish. It swirls deeper, fills you broadly, and your free hand grips the edge of the desk in an effort to stop yourself from trembling.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” you say quietly, and you notice something flash in the violet of his eyes. You continue, “I am… I’m very lucky to be here.”

“With me,” Aerion utters, hand squeezing the back of your neck.

“With you,” you add, a little breathless.

Silence stretches. The distant rustling of leaves seeps in through the windows behind you, and the rush of blood in your ears is loud enough to bring you some sort of comfort. Aerion stares at you, blinking slowly, pupils tracing the lines of your face as he continues to gently move your hand against his covered cock. He’s so close that you can see the tiniest little scar just above his lip—a well-healed blemish you’ve never noticed before.

His eyes find your mouth.

You press your palm harder against the length of him, and he lets out a strained groan, before tipping forward. With his hand still on your nape, he cranes your head slightly so he can bury his face into the crook of your neck. He inhales deeply, the sensation causing a shiver to rocket down your spine. His pelvis presses closer then, trapping your hand between his hips and yours. He groans into your shoulder, mouth against bare skin where the neckline of your dress exposes you.

You feel his teeth sink into your skin: not enough to break, but enough to have you squirming beneath him. You feel him chuckle, then pull away. A string of saliva stretches from the little indents at your shoulder, to his lips, but it snaps when he levels his face with yours. His tongue darts out and swipes across his bottom lip.

There’s a wordless message passed between you. 

Your fingers find the clasp of his trousers and you surprise yourself by undoing it one-handed. Aerion seems impressed too: he smiles and shoves his hips forward, rutting against you. You find the ties at his waist next, pulling at the knots as he lets a low groan slip from his mouth. Heat is sticky and stagnant in your stomach, sitting heavy in your core as you undo the ties of his trousers, exposing the linen of his breeches.

He helps you, shoving his trousers down his thighs as you untie his breeches. You need another hand for this, fingers moving deftly, eyes directly down. But you can feel him looking at you still, waiting for you. As you yank the ties of his breeches open, he leans in and presses his lips to the curve of your jaw—a brief moment of intimacy before his mouth opens and he licks like a dog across your pulse.

“Aerion,” you breathe out, tipping your head in an attempt to flee his tongue.

He just chuckles, pulling away and peering down at where you finally push his breeches down. His cock, blushing warm and hard, hangs free. You shift to take it with reaching fingers, but he slaps your hand away. You jerk back, then forward when the gap between you increases, and suddenly he’s guiding you onto your knees by the hand on the back of your neck.

He fists himself as he settles you in front of him, your head parallel to the desk behind you. You peer up at him, hands resting against his thighs, and he peers down at you. There’s a mirror in your expressions: a silent need as you squeeze your thighs together and he grips, white-knuckled, around the base of his cock.

“Say thank you,” the prince whispers, dragging his cock along your cheek. He’s drooling out against your skin, leaving glistening lines in its wake as he smears himself across your lips. He’s warm and solid, skin soft and blushing and pliable as he rolls the shaft across your other cheek too. He grins, bringing the tip to your lips. “Say thank you, sweet girl. Thank me for this cock.”

“Thank you,” you manage to say, gripping the bunched material of his trousers.

Aerion grins, lilting, “Oh, you’re welcome, little witch.”

He bullies his cock between your lips then, and you part them with a grunt. Still grinning, fox-like and stretched across his pride, Aerion pushes his cock deeper into your mouth, feeling over the bumps of your tongue as you lower your jaw to take him deeper. An airy moan leaves him as he grips your neck and feeds his cock down your throat, pressing your face into his pelvis. You close your eyes, screwing them shut as you withhold a gag. 

He pulls out, then shoves back in. You manage to open your eyes, tears wet in your lashline as you look up at him. He’s already looking down at you, the smile still there but a lot smaller as he fucks his cock into the heat of your mouth.

“You’re here, in this room,” Aerion begins suddenly, vowels extended through a poorly hidden whine. “For me. You will come to my chambers when you are called upon, no matter the time. You will serve no one else but me.”

You want to argue. You’re a healer of the people. If someone else needed your assistance, it would go against all you believed in to disregard them.

But, of course, you can’t argue. Not just because you’re dealing with Aerion Targaryen, whose wrath sets ablaze like a dragon’s fire, but because you’re choking around the width of his cock, words beat back down your throat.

Instead, you moan around him. The vibrations tremble thick and fast through his cock, and he lets out a hoarse moan.

“For me,” he whispers, looking up and speaking it directly into the ceiling.

There’s a loud knock on the door and your heart drops into your stomach. Your hands squeeze his thighs tightly as he pulls you firmly against his hips, holding you there as he struggles to even his breathing. Aerion waits, and you swallow around his cock, saliva building uncomfortably in your mouth. His fingers tighten around the nape of your neck, a warning, as another loud knock rocks through the chambers.

“What?” Aerion calls, curt and obviously angry.

“Apologies, your grace.” Roland Crakehall. Aerion could murder him. Through the door, the kingsguard continues politely, “I’m looking for the lady.”

“Why?”

“Ser Donnel requests her presence in the main hall,” Roland replies, his voice slightly muffled through the thick wood. “Immediately.”

Aerion looks down at you, and you give him a pointed look. He shakes his head, and you take a gamble: gently scraping your teeth along the sensitive skin of his length. The prince sucks in a quick breath, and you manage to pull yourself from his cock, coughing lightly. Aerion is seething as you fend off his hold and get to your feet, hurrying towards the door whilst wiping your sleeve across your mouth.

You pull open the door and smile at Roland. “Hello.”

“Oh.” Roland bows his head politely. He addresses you by name. “I apologise if I’m interrupting something.”

You shake your head, smoothing your hands down your skirts. “Not at all. Shall… I come with you now?”

Roland nods. “Please. And bring your supplies.”

You nod, quickly rushing across the room to snatch your satchel from the desk. Aerion, hard cock stuffed back in his trousers, reaches a hand out, the tips of his fingers just brushing your arm before you breeze past him. 

He grunts, messily tying a knot in the laces of his breeches, shifting towards you with ire flashing in his violet eyes. “Now, wait—”

“Lead the way,” you say to Roland when you reach the doorway once more, ignoring the Targaryen prince looming. 

You quickly step out into the corridor and slam the door shut behind you. Roland can’t help himself: he lets out a small laugh as he begins leading you down the hall.

“I’m not sure if he wants to murder me or you,” the knight says plainly, thick with humour. His eyes sparkle as he looks at you, matching the gleam of his polished white armour. “You’re as brave as they say.”

You ignore his first comment with a playful roll of your eyes. Instead, you cock your head. “They?”

“Those who work for the household,” Roland tells you. “Word travels fast, and the woods witch Aerion Targaryen has taken a liking to makes for good conversation.”

“Great,” you mumble sarcastically.

Roland reassures you with a polite smile. “Don’t fret. You are well liked amongst the ranks, and Ser Donnel speaks very highly of you.”

That puts you slightly at ease as you traipse the sun-soaked corridors of Summerhall.

—✿—

As the sun sets, Aerion realises he hasn’t seen you since Roland whisked you away. You had vanished; seemingly slipped into the shadows, or danced off with the wind. He scoured the brightly lit halls, shoving open doors and tearing curtains from their hooks with dramatic flourishes as he peered out windows. You weren’t anywhere, it seemed, and there was a pit forming in the base of his stomach: a heavy stone, almost unbearable in its weight.

Having done three laps of the royal residence, Aerion huffs to a stop near the entrance to the servants quarters: the only place he hasn’t checked. He curses himself for being so ignorant as he stares down the dark, narrow hall that winds itself deep into the castle’s interior.

“Your grace.”

Aerion turns, finding Ser Donnel approaching. The kingsguard rests a hand casually on the pommel of his sword, which sits snug at his hip. He looks at Aerion with slightly narrowed eyes, a flat smile, and the look of a disappointed father.

“She’s in there, isn’t she?” Aerion questions, although it’s less a query because he knows. The shadows of the narrow passageway are thick, and he’d be a fool not to have noticed the way you looked at them when you had first arrived.

Donnel shrugs. “And what if she was? Do you intend to fetch her?”

“Yes,” Aerion replies quickly.

Ser Donnel lets out a mirthless laugh. It’s quick and sharp, and Aerion’s jaw twitches in response. The knight shakes his head too.

“Leave her be, just for the evening,” Donnel says firmly.

Aerion narrows his eyes at the kingsguard, the white of the armour appearing grey beneath the evening shadows and the flickering of mounted torches nearby.

“You sent her there,” Aerion mutters, recalling his little witch’s sudden—and unwelcome—departure from him earlier that day. “What did you say to her?”

Aerion grips the handle of his dagger, which rests comfortably at his side, sheathed in black leather. Donnel notices the movement and shakes his head, breathing out a chuckle. He nods towards the passageway, the air around him shifting.

“A few of the cooks suffered burns preparing supper,” Donnel tells the prince.

“We have maesters for a reason,” Aerion growls out.

Donnel gives him a pointed look. “Yes… we do.”

Aerion huffs, lip curling as he grips the black leather of his dagger. “Do not patronise me, Ser Donnel. She is mine. She is not here to serve anyone else.”

Donnel takes a step towards the prince, armour clanking. He drops his voice, speaking low, “You have already taken her from her shop, and her livelihood, and her people: the least you can do is let her help others while she is here.”

Aerion seethes. “How dare you speak—?”

“You do not need her help at this moment, your grace,” Donnel interrupts. “Please let her be.”

Aerion passes a challenging look to the kingsguard. Never in his life has anyone dared speak to him in such a manner, except possibly his mother or father. Ser Donnel matches Aerion’s glare with a calm look of his own, and Aerion realises that this knight really does care for you. He’s protecting you.

You don’t need protection from Aerion. You’re his.

Aerion spins on his heel and proceeds down the passageway. The firm, metallic footsteps of Ser Donnel behind him only spur him on, and he ducks down the narrow hall like a serpent shifting through stones. He breaks through a doorway and finds you sitting amongst a group of servants, your satchel open and resting in your lap. Beside you, a young woman admires a glistening cream-coloured salve—obviously your work—spread across her forearm, obscuring an angry burn. You hold a small bottle between your fingers.

“This is a natural disinfectant. It’s good for cleaning wounds, on both humans and animals…” You trail off, eyes lifting to find Aerion in the doorway. You swallow thickly, slowly placing the bottle back into your satchel as the servants notice his presence.

They scarper like rats, Aerion thinks, as he watches the group disperse in a flurry of limbs. Many scramble past him, disappearing down the hall, whilst others vanish through another narrow entrance across the room. They leave you alone, perched on the edge of a rickety wooden bed, the straw mattress threadbare and thinning beneath you.

“You grace,” you begin, getting to your feet and hefting your satchel over your shoulder.

“You’ve been hiding from me,” Aerion says.

You shake your head. “No, I’ve been helping—”

“You’re not here to help them,” Aerion spits, crossing the room now. “You’re here to help me, yes? You’re here for me.”

You look past Aerion as he draws within a few feet of you, and the prince turns to see Ser Donnel in the doorway. Your hands shoot out, finding the plush warmth of Aerion’s doublet, but your eyes are still on the kingsguard across the room.

Donnel frowns. “M’lady?”

“I’m alright, Ser Donnel,” you tell him gently, fingers balled in the prince’s shirt. It’s half to keep you grounded as you breathe, smelling cedar and smoke in Aerion’s clothes, and half to keep him in check, for you have a feeling he may lunge at someone. You nod at the knight. “I’m fine.”

Donnel looks between you and Aerion. “Are—?”

“She said she’s fine, did she not?” Aerion spits over his shoulder. “Now, be a good knight and fuck off.”

Ser Donnel, despite the worry flashing across his gently aging features, turns and slips down the hall and out of sight. Aerion was still his prince after all, and he knows better than anyone that the prince is… temperamental.

Aerion turns to you now, his hands finding the satchel on your shoulder. He carefully removes it, wordlessly, eyes near black in the darkness of the room. A small candle, dripping wax mounting at its base, illuminates part of the room, but the shadows here are consuming. They cling to your body as Aerion’s hands find your hips, rubbing up and down your sides, fingers ghosting across the top of your skirts.

You breathe out carefully, fingers loosening in his doublet. You rub circles across his chest, soothing. You pet him like a cat, fingers bending and circling. And he responds like a cat, eyes closing as a purr-like rumble stirs from deep in his chest. You feel the vibrations as he slowly moves you until the back of your calves hit the low bed.

“Aerion,” you whisper, and you mean for it to sound stern, but it’s breathless. 

Wood and ash, a smouldering hearth, is what you swims in the air around you as he leans over you, head dipping and finding the bend of your neck and shoulder. But there’s a sweetness in the white flicks of his hair as it brushes against the side of your face, his mouth drawing over your skin. Cedar and blackberry wine, sugared with the smell of sweat.

He says your name in response, muffled as his teeth skim over your skin. He bites again, a firm imprint of teeth, before he sucks hard. It lodges a whimper in your throat, head leaning to the side as your hands grip at his doublet once more. His own hands dip low as he hunches against you, guiding you down, down, down until you’re sitting on the narrow bed. You squeak out, aware that this isn’t your bed and this isn’t your chambers and Ser Donnel is only just down the passage—

“Too sweet for your own good, aren’t you?” Aerion mumbles against your neck as his hands bundle up the material of your skirts. He brings them up to your hips, exposing the clean linen of your smallclothes. He ignores the muffled whimper you let out, your lips pressed in a tight line. He tuts, “Such a good little helper. They just love you, don’t they?”

“Aerion,” you breathe out again, your hands finding his shoulders now. 

You feel the working of the muscle and joints as his arms shift to take hold of your smallclothes. His arm is thick and warm between the press of your thighs, but you don’t try to close them—in fact, you part them, shuddering as he pulls the linen away and exposes your slick cunt to the shadows of the quarters. His other hand finds the back of your neck as he picks himself out of your shoulder, lips shining with spit. He angles your head so he can trace the lines of your face with his swollen pupils.

“You enjoy spending time down here?” Aerion whispers as two fingers run down your slit, spreading you apart. He groans at the wet heat and the little moan you try to catch between your teeth. “With the servants and the maids?”

His fingers languidly shift, drawing your folds apart until they press to your hole. He wastes no time either: running a couple of circles around you, he dips his fingers inside you, slowly pulling you apart knuckle by knuckle.

“Yes,” you say around an exhale.

“More than with me?” His fingers crook inwards and your head tips back involuntarily, a hushed moan slipping from tongue to shadow. Aerion cradles the back of your neck, watching you carefully as you slowly settle your head to meet his gaze. You give a subtle shake of your head, and Aerion smiles. “No?”

“No,” you whisper, then bite down on your bottom lip, eyes closing. His fingers press against that perfect spot, your cunt clenching around the digits as something rolls in your tummy, a rope of tension stringing across the front of your womb.

Aerion rucks his fingers in and out of you. The silence of the room is filled with the slick plap-plap-plap of his fingers inside you as his movements pick up. You writhe, whimpering softly, and your fingers grip his shoulder tightly, pulling him to you. He obliges you, chest nearly against yours as he rests his mouth against your forehead. His lips press to the soft skin, not quite a kiss, as he pants against you, eyes fluttering as he feels the hot clutch of your cunt around his fingers. So wet and warm and wanting.

“Does being down here make you happy?” He asks, words breathed out against your warm skin.

You whimper.

“Answer me,” Aerion whispers, but it’s not harsh. It’s pushed out on an exhale and it’s surprisingly gentle. Smothered by shadow, carried away on a light summer breeze.

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out. “Yes, my prince.”

He crooks his fingers as he ruts them in and out. There’s slick dribbling slowly across his bottom knuckles, and there’s small sounds working out of your throat like the mewls from a kitten. His mind swims, cock half-hard and twitching in his breeches, sweat tacky on his forehead as his arm and fingers work.

“Okay,” he begins, pulling his fingers from you. He angles back, and you groan at the empty feeling that braces against you like a chill. Your orgasm recedes and you let out a breathy whine, fingers tugging at his doublet. He shushes you, the hand on your nape pulling you back and laying you on the mattress. “Okay, sweet girl, you can help them.”

You open your eyes properly. “Really?”

“But you will always help me first,” he says, and you’re already nodding. He doesn’t want to share, but he’s doing this for you. He takes his fingers, wet with you, and presses the pads to your lips. “You will help them when I say you can. Not—” he shoves his fingers into your mouth. “—when Ser Donnel says, yes?”

You hum around his fingers, tongue wrapping. He smiles, pleased, pulling them out. He pats your cheek before he shrinks back, parting your thighs. Hefting your hips, the prince bends and settles his face directly against your core. The abruptness of it has you keening, and the moan that leaves you is frighteningly loud. Aerion chuckles to himself as his mouth parts against your pussy, tongue splitting up between your folds, laving over your clit. You mewl, hand shooting down out of instinct to fist his hair. He groans in response as his fingers find your hole again, pushing in with an audible shlick.

“Oh, fuck, Aerion, wait—” You cut your whispered plea off with a moan as his fingers curl. Perfect, precise. It makes your hips grind down, twitching against his face as he licks across you simultaneously. The sounds that leave you, draped in shadow and hushed between the desperate clenching of your teeth, spur him on. You whine, that rope of tension in your lower belly pulling taut. “Aerion, my prince, please.”

Aerion’s other hand is tight on your thigh, dimpling flesh as he keeps it hooked around his shoulder. His head moves, eyes unwavering in their stare over the mound of your belly, the bunched fabric of your dress, the valley of your breasts, and onto your face. You’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen: eyes fighting to stay open, teeth sunken into your lip. You writhe beneath him, and you’re just so warm. Your cunt, wet and hot; your thighs soft and warm against his ears.

His tongue follows your sounds. The high-pitched mewls you try to hide when he licks over the puffy bud of your clit, or the low keen he feels rumble through you when he spreads your folds apart. Deft fingers push and pull, in and out, until he can see the way your body begins to tighten and tremble. He knows you by now.

The rope inside you frays and you arch off the thinning mattress. You press yourself deeper into his touch as your release snaps through you, fingers tightening in his hair as you cry out his name. It’s loud, and the little candle nearby flickers as the sound bounces off the stone walls. The shadows do nothing to muffle it as you shake, thighs tightening around his head as your pussy clenches around his fingers. The prince groans into you as you whisper his name, his cock painfully hard in his breeches.

Slowly, and with a pained grunt, he pulls himself from between your legs, wiping his mouth against the inside of your thigh. You make a noise of complaint, but he shushes you as he rights himself.

“Should’ve known this pretty pussy’d taste of the heavens,” Aerion whispers, more to himself than you.

You hum in response, reaching down and grabbing your smallclothes where they gather messily near your knees. Aerion shifts back and watches, palm resting over his pelvis, as you pull your undergarments back into place. You sit up, then stand on shaky legs, allowing your skirts to fall back into place. The prince sits on the edge of the low bed, not saying anything. He simply watches you.

“Come now,” you whisper, holding your hand out.

Something lurches in his chest. He takes your hand and gets to his feet. And then he follows you from the quarters, his hand fitting so perfectly into yours, and he doesn’t even bat an eye when they pass by Ser Donnel waiting at the entrance, ever the good knight.

—✿—

Three days later, you open your satchel in search of a small scrap of gauze. Rhae, having toppled from her pony, sits on the stone bench beside you with a small cut on the palm of her hand. Tears wet in her eyes, she watches you as you carefully rifle through your supplies. Butterflies breeze overhead, birdsong filling the garden as the sun shines warmly against your back. In your satchel, you find your roll of bandage, but what you don’t find is your pouch of moon tea. Where it usually sits, amongst your vials and bottles, is empty. You frown to yourself, pulling the bandages out anyway and setting to work.

“Thank you,” she mutters, watching you with glossy violet eyes as you wrap a small scrap of the linen around her hand.

Not long after, you send her on her way. You peer into your satchel then and confirm that yep, you’re moon tea is gone. You look up and around, annoyed. Aerion lounges across the garden, head tipped back with serene bliss stretched across his face, skin glistening like tallow. As if sensing your eyes on him, the prince, without even looking in your direction, simply crooks a beckoning finger.

You huff, but oblige, padding across the soft grass until you reach where he lays.

“Have you seen my moon tea?” You ask him. There’s a nagging in the back of your head. You know exactly where your moon tea has gone.

“Your what?” Aerion opens one eye.

“You know exactly what, your grace.”

Aerion scoffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Fine,” you say. “I’ll fetch some more.”

“Fine,” Aerion replies casually, closing his eyes again.

—✿—

That night, he has your face pressed into the pillows of his bed. They smell of him, of a settled dragon, as you suck in short gasps as he splits you apart on his cock. He kneels behind you, mattress dipping beneath his weight as he locks his fingers around the plush of your hips, pulling you back to meet his thrusts. His movements are deep and heavy, the thick reach of his cock nudging towards the base of your cervix as you arch your back for him. You grip the silken sheets either side of you, panting, legs trembling.

You come with his name muffled against feathers, a sob breaking free of your throat as you turn your head to moan through it. Your pussy sucks him in tightly, fluttering with the rapid beating of your heart as you release for the third time since he’d dragged you to his chambers.

The prince groans in response, hips slapping against your arse as he ruts into you, chasing his own high. “Fuck, yeah, ah shit.”

He angles deeper, pushing you further into the mattress, your knees threatening to buckle. A deep-seated moan, thick as stone, fills the room as he pitches forward. Pleasure sits hot in his lower belly, itching at the base of his spine.

“Here it comes, sweet girl,” he grunts behind you, one hand leaving your hip to smooth up the dip of your back. “Take it all—take your dragon’s seed like a good little—”

Aerion knocks forward as he comes, all but flattening himself into you as he falls apart. His jaw hinges around a moan of your name as he spills, cock pumping thick and hot inside you, right up against the plug of your womb. You don’t have the energy to respond with anything else but a loud exhale that snags the end of a whine as it passes through your lips. Aerion’s hips roll himself through it as he empties completely, and even when the movements of his hips still and he’s sticking to you completely unmoving, he doesn’t pull out. The thick of his cock plugs you full as he hovers behind you, hands roaming, kneading, squeezing as he settles back within himself.

And you fall asleep like this: with him stuffed inside you, your back pressed to his sweat-slick chest. Slumber finds you easily, although you wake hours later with a dull ache between your thighs and the soft length of him resting against the cleft of your arse. 

Gingerly, you pick yourself out of bed, careful not to stir the sleeping royal, wrap yourself in your cloak, and vanish out the door. You’ve gotten quite good at leaving unannounced.

In your chambers, you find your satchel.

You pause. The fresh moon tea you had picked up that afternoon was gone. You can’t help but roll your eyes, exhaling an exasperated sigh through your nose as you opt for one of your homemade remedies instead, plucking the small vial from its place in your bag.

You know exactly what Aerion is trying to do, and for the most part, it makes you fume. As you uncork your own vial, you stew in your anger: he’s trying to get you pregnant; he’s trying to tie you to him, a tether of flesh and blood. You down the bitter liquid in a few deep gulps and your face scrunches in disgust. It tastes, for lack of better words, fucking disgusting. Sour with fermented tansy, bitter with concentrated mugwort. The moon tea at least tastes a bit better than this.

However, there is a part inside you that grows hot. You place the empty vial back into your satchel, licking the aniseed from your bottom gums. Aerion wants you. His need grows teeth: long, sharp fangs that sink deeper and deeper into your flesh. He doesn’t want to let you go—he can’t let you go. And the thought, as you close your satchel and bundle your cloak tight around your naked body, sits heavy in the front of your mind.

A sticky heat prickles beneath your skin, the feeling of being in the sun for too long. You hurry out of your chambers and back into Aerion’s, taking your cloak off and slipping back into his bed.

So, he’s hiding your moon tea from you. He wants you with child.

You smile at his sleeping form, noticing the way his white eyelashes rest against his cheekbones. You can let him play this game for as long as he wants. He won’t win.

—✿—

Two days on, Aerion leaves his father’s solar and makes for your chambers. A carnal need claws against the hooked bone of his ribs. He needs you.

He pushes open the door of your chambers without so much as a knock, expecting to find you at the desk, or perhaps lounging by one of the grand windows with a book in hand. However, the hearth is cold and the room is empty. 

He frowns to himself and heads down the long hall.

He checks the servants’ quarters, startling those who huddle within. They spook, staring at him as more phantom than man as his eyes settle on women who are not you.

“Where is she?” He hisses, and one of the younger women—the woman you had treated for burns, he remembers—raises a shaky hand and points behind her, gesturing in the direction of the gardens. 

Aerion nods curtly and departs.

The sun greats him warmly, as does the sound of your laughter, and he physically feels his heart leap in his chest. His need for you has reached his teeth now, and his jaw works as he grinds his molars, gnawing on the desire to sink the points into your flesh. Your thighs, preferably, or the fat of your arse. Although your shoulder works just as well when he’s stuffed to the hilt inside you.

The thought has his cock jerking in his breeches.

Across the garden, you stand amongst blooming carnations, pink petals soft as silk. You rub the tips of your fingers against one—one that Ser Roland fucking Crakehall had plucked and handed to you. The knight hovers by your side, a pleased smile on your face as you speak to him, rolling the delicate flower between your hands. Aerion can’t make out what you’re saying as you gesture to the blooms around you, but Roland is paying close attention: his eyes never stray, his smile never falters, and he nods along as you ramble.

The need inside Aerion sheathes like cat’s claws.

Anger remains. Why can he never seem to keep you for himself? You’re his.

“I know that look,” Ser Donnel says around a tired chuckle, appearing at the prince’s side. He looks down at Aerion, then over at you and Roland. “You must let her have some freedom, your grace.”

“I do,” he spits a bit too quickly. “I’ve let her treat the servants.”

“You have,” Donnel replies, clearing his throat after. “Which was very gracious of you, your grace, but she is a young woman who deserves more freedom than you give her.”

Aerion scoffs, eying the knight suspiciously. “Since when have you ever spoken to me so openly, Ser Donnel? I could have your tongue for that.”

Donnel gives the prince a pointed look.

Aerion shakes his head. “She has freedom. I give her freedom.”

Donnel grunts, unconvinced.

Aerion looks back over to you. You’re bending, plucking another carnation from a nearby shrub, and the curve of your arse beneath your skirts is on full display. Roland ducks his head, preserving some kind of decency between the two of you. When you right yourself, you turn and accidentally bump into the knight, who reaches his hands out to steady you, fingers on your upper arms.

Aerion’s jaw twitches.

“Your grace…” Donnel warns, low and father-like, and it reminds Aerion, for a split second, of the day he first met you: the day when Ser Donnel had been taking too long in a healer’s shop. A healer the knight insisted was the best in all of King’s Landing.

Aerion ignores the knight though. Lightning quick, he reaches down and plucks Donnel’s knife from his side, ripping it from its sheath in one smooth movement. Before the kingsguard can even react, the prince slices the blade across his own forearm, ivory giving way to crimson. Blood ribbons over his skin as he hands the knife to a gaping Ser Donnel.

Aerion calls your name, approaching with one hand pressed to the finger-length wound on his inner forearm. You lift your eyes, smiling as the prince approaches, but it quickly vanishes when he presents you his arm.

“Oh!” You jump away from Roland and immediately take Aerion’s arm in your hands, the carnation you had been holding fluttering to the ground. Your touch is warm, soft. Caring. “Aerion,” you breathe, shaking your head. “What’ve you done to yourself?”

“I need your help,” he tells you, ignoring your question. He lifts his gaze and gives Roland a firm look. Roland shifts uncomfortably, before ultimately looking away.

You’re nodding before he even finishes his short sentence. “Okay, okay, come on.”

You take gentle hold of his wrist and guide him away. He spares a look at Ser Roland, and then another at Ser Donnel. Both read much the same: Aerion Targaryen gets what he wants.

Back in the sanctuary of your chambers, he sits on the edge of your bed. Clean, white sunlight fills the room and a pleasant coolness sweeps in from where one of the large windows sits open a crack.

You bandage his wound silently. And he watches you the entire time. You sit beside him, fingers wrapping, and he watches you with violet eyes glossy and nearly unblinking. There’s a heat in his gaze like the brush of a candle flame. You can feel it against the skin of your face, and you wonder then if the silence in the room is amplifying the hammering of your heart against your sternum.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you tell him finally. The silence is too heavy.

“I’ll look at you however I want,” he replies simply. 

He cocks his head, dipping slightly to speak. He’s imploring, begging you to look at him, but you resist as you fasten the scrap of bandage into place. A beat passes, and he speaks again. He speaks your name, and it’s soft. Too soft for Aerion Targaryen. Too soft for a dragon’s tongue and teeth.

You relent, looking at him as you place your spool of bandage aside. Your hands fold together in your lap. It’s there again, the silence. His eyes dart across your face, feature to feature, and you see his pupils expanding the longer he looks at you.

“You’re such a pretty girl,” the prince whispers, and the hand of his non-injured arm finds your cheek. The backs of his knuckles trace across your skin, up over your cheekbone; a sweep of a raven’s wing, no scales or spines. You can smell the ash, the fire and the cedar and the blackberry wine, but you don’t see a dragon. He breathes out slowly, hand flipping so he can run the pads of his fingers down the side of your neck. “My pretty girl…”

“Aerion, don’t…” You whisper, watching the point of his tongue find the corner of his mouth. 

He doesn’t register your words as his hand finds and cups the base of your neck. “Gods, you always take such good care of me, don’t you? My sweet girl, so smart…”

You wait for a mock, a jibe, a force of his hand against your thundering pulse. But it doesn’t come, and the anxious weight in your chest quickly trades places with the needy weight in your stomach.

“What would I do without you?” He asks, hand travelling from your neck and over your jaw. His thumb presses to your lips. Words evade you. You let him press the tip of his thumb against the corner of your mouth. He continues, voice low, “What would you do without me?”

His hand shifts then, cupping your jaw and bringing your face forward. He carefully presses his lips to yours, the motion tender. And his lips are soft against yours. Years of care within castle walls; years of healthy food and drink at banquets; years of being coddled by the powers of coin and gemstones. A prince of the realm.

But his movements begin hard. He holds your jaw tightly now, coaxing your mouth apart as his lips move, and he groans against you when you obey. Your eyes flutter closed and your hands, once on your lap, shift to his chest and shoulders. Aerion makes another deep sound before he angles further inwards and his tongue graces between the split of your lips. You oblige him once more: parting with an airy whine and allowing the point of his tongue to slip over your teeth. Your tongues meet as you try and push back, need growing white-hot. You fist his doublet, pulling him tighter against you as his free hand sets on your hip.

You move like you’ve both been practising. Aerion pulls you up, the both of you standing. He breaks the kiss with a pained whine and spins you around so quickly you almost lose your footing.

“My prince,” you whisper as his mouth finds the side of your neck as his fingers—quick and experienced—begin unlacing the threads of your gown. You arch your neck into his touch, feeling the pinch of teeth. “Aerion.”

In seconds, you feel your bodice loosen around your chest and torso, and you help him by slipping out of the sleeves and kicking off your shoes. The dress pools at your ankles, and you kick it away as the prince spins you again and slams his mouth back to yours. This one is harsher, faster. He’s licking over your teeth like he’s committing your taste to memory, and you can’t help but whine as he kisses you again and again and again.

You tug at his doublet, and he gets the message. Parting from you, silence stretches thick as he throws the garment over his head. His tunic follows as your hands find the laces of his breeches. You easily pull the knots apart, and he discards himself of his boots. You lift your head and slam your mouth back to his, and he groans in surprise, one hand cupping your cheek, the other helping you in pulling the ties of his breeches apart.

Your movements are hurried, and when you get his breeches open, you break the kiss and try to drop to your knees—but he stops you. With his hand on your face, he urges you back to him and kisses you. You whine, pulling out of the kiss, and now you’re both panting.

“Aerion,” you breathe, but he’s not listening.

He grabs the material of your chemise. “Arms up.”

You listen, and he pulls the garment off your body. It flutters away and the prince lets out a long-winded moan that sets your core alight. You can’t help but squeeze your thighs together as he looks you up and down, eyes glazing over.

“My pretty girl,” he utters, dipping to kiss you again. Your tongues meet, passing ash and berries and sugar, as he guides you onto your bed.

You move as though you’d done it all before. You shuffle back and he chases you, mouths barely leaving, barely pausing in their movements. When he gets you flat on your back, Aerion pulls away and his hands immediately find your tits. Kneading, rolling your hardening nipples beneath his thumbs. Then, they travel, skimming over your sternum, your ribs, and down your tummy.

“Here she is,” the prince coos as he parts your thighs. One of his hands massages the pliable flesh there, the other grips the base of his cock. He’s hard, tip a bruising red and leaking from the slit, pearling and rolling down the vein on the underside. Your throat works around a moan as you watch him, his eyes on the slit of your pussy. “My prettiest girls.”

You moan. “Aerion.”

“Don’t start,” Aerion mutters as he pushes the head of his cock against you. You moan again, embarrassment crawling up your neck as you feel how wet you are—you feel the cool slick webbing between your folds as he parts you, the movement too slow, too gentle. Aerion chuckles as you squirm. “Oh, she’s wet. M’gonna slip right in, aren’t I?”

This is the Aerion you’ve come to know.

He chastises you as he drags the head of his cock up and down your slit, coating himself because, as much as you burn from the inside–out, he’s right. You’re soaked, cunt clenching around nothing as you lay back completely bare for him. For him.

“Gods above, she’d be worth more than a few gold dragons, wouldn’t she?” The prince whispers, almost in disbelief, as he slowly pushes the leaking tip of his cock inwards. You suck in a breath—no stretch of his fingers, no circle of your clit—as your cunt parts around him. He groans, “But—oh, fuck—b-but I’m the only dragon you need.”

If he wasn’t spearing you on the thick of his cock, pushing in and splitting you apart with a lithe string of moans falling from his soft lips, then you would’ve rolled your eyes. You would say something to quell his ego, but you can’t. You simply moan, a desperate and loud sound that rattles through your skull, and arch. He leans over you as he rolls his hips, bottoming out with a moan of your name.

Then, he bends. His mouth is on yours like he can’t get enough. And, in all honesty, neither can you. Your hands find the back of his head, threading through white strands and tugging as your teeth clash and your tongues meet. Aerion grunts, hoisting your thigh up around his hips as he pitches forward, then shrinks back. You gasp out of the kiss when he notches the head of his cock just inside you.

And doesn’t move.

Sunlight spills across your joined bodies. Your nails scrape along his scalp causing goosebumps to appear along his arms. He pants like a worked hound, eyes on your face as he feels your pussy fluttering around his tip. Begging for it.

“You’re perfect,” Aerion whispers suddenly. It tastes like I love you on his tongue, but he knows that’s impossible. You’re perfect because you’re here. With him. Doing as he says. Aerion Targaryen doesn’t love. He continues, “You’re perfect and you’re mine.”

He doesn’t have the patience in waiting for your response. He thrusts back in with a curl of his spine. It’s rough and hard and it knocks the wind from your lungs. The sound that leaves you is distressed: a broken mewl as a bruising ache festers low in your stomach. But as the prince moves in and out, setting a rhythm that rocks you into the mattress, the pain subsides and is instead replaced by that simmering heat you’ve become all too familiar with.

“Oh, g-gods,” falls from your mouth as you take both hands and seize him by the shoulders. “Aerion, my prince, oh—”

You press little indents into his shoulders as you rock beneath him; the angle he’s made of you, with a hand on your thigh, driving him deep towards the plug of your cervix. He pries you apart so effortlessly with both his words and the length of his cock.

“That’s it, just like that,” Aerion grunts as he fucks you. Sweat glistens high on his forehead and there’s a light blush over his cheekbones as he drives you into the mattress. The fingers on your thigh squeeze, dimpling the flesh as he groans. “Taking your prince’s cock like an absolute dream, little witch.”

Heat moves through your body like steaming water. It coils tight in the pit of your stomach, sitting heavy behind your navel as he hits that perfect spot inside you over and over. You grip him with tightening fingers, pussy clenching around the thick of him. Your thigh on his hip presses inward, driving him closer to you as his pelvis meets yours.

The mattress groans slightly beneath you as you both rock. Dappled sunlight blurs through your lashes as you look up at him, whining when he dips his head again to kiss you. You take it with kiss-bitten lips, opening for him while he grunts. The wet grip of your cunt around him is silken soft, and it draws his thoughts away as his mouth moves messily against yours. You snake a hand to the nape of his neck and hold him to you as his hips roll deeper.

“Aerion,” you mutter against his mouth. You’re not kissing anymore. It’s an open press of lips as you both grunt and mewl and take what you need.

“Say it like you mean it,” he mutters back, the tip of his tongue flicking serpent-like over your parted lips. He pulls back slightly so he can shift his spine and push his hips further against you. “Say my name when you come, sweet girl, c’mon.”

Blood replaced by a golden-hot ichor, you tip your head back as you tremble. Your release builds hot in your veins and you’re right there, bathed in sunlight, as you’re taken apart from the inside–out by a prince of the realm. Your fingers scrape down his front as you arch off the bed, moaning—airy and wanton and loud—as you come.

“Aerion—!” The syllables are rich and honey-sweet in the warm summer air of your chambers. Your entire body trembles, limbs tightening as it takes hold: a gold-fingered grasp around your diaphragm as your moans turn to whines.

Aerion groans, smiling to himself as your cunt clenches tight around the width of him. Muscles pull taut, fluttering with your beating heart, and it gushes too—he can feel it, hot and slick as he rolls his hips, a thin white ring around the base of his cock. The clutch of your pussy around him, and the little whines you taper off with, some battling around whispers of his name, have the tension in his belly and spine contracting. 

He screws his eyes shut, muttering to himself, “Oh, sweet girl, my sweetest girl…”

He thinks of spilling inside you. He thinks of filling you with his seed and watching you grow round with his child. His poor little woods witch, pregnant with a bastard child but oh, how he’d look after you. You’d never leave his side. You’d be spoiled beyond reason.

“F-Fuck, oh fuck,” he curses at the thought, cock jerking inside you. You whine, fizzling down from your release, fingers tracing lazy circles across his chest. He opens his eyes at the sound, gazing down at you. He coos, “Oh, don’t cry yet, little witch, your prince is here. Your dragon’s right—fucking—here—”

You choke on a moan. You hadn’t noticed a tear slip from the corner of your eye.

He speaks around heavy, rolling thrusts, cock knocking up deep until you feel his body shudder beneath your touch. He groans, thick and leonine from the back of his throat, as his head dips down one last time.

The prince kisses you as he spills right up against your cervix. A low utter of your name passes from his mouth to yours as he licks over your tongue, his cock jumping inside you as he comes. Thick, hot ropes pulling deep from his being, and the weight of his orgasm has him collapsing half on top of you as he continues to spill. The pressure on your belly and the angle at which your legs part around his body makes you gasp, then whimper, but the prince licks the sound before it touches sunlight.

Aerion picks himself out of the kiss, sitting back on his haunches. You pant, hands gripping the sheets now as he slowly pulls his cock from you. He watches himself drool out of you. The feeling makes you squirm.

“Uh-uh, don’t be like that,” Aerion whispers, one hand coming to rest on your lower belly. He presses down firmly, and the throaty whimper that leaves you is completely involuntary. His other hand collects his seed from the curve of your arse, using two fingers to stuff it back into your cunt. You whine, and Aerion shushes you again. “Fussy girl. Can’t let it go to waste, can we?”

You bite your lip and stare up at the ceiling as Aerion curls his fingers into you. Your legs still bracket his hips and you can feel the ash-licked warmth radiating from his pale skin.

His fingers stretch you, curling and splitting against the silken walls of your cunt. They reach deep too, and after a moment of holding back your whimpers, you feel a prickling heat reappear beneath the press of his hand. Your legs shake before you can say anything, and the heat builds and builds as you attempt to lift yourself onto your elbows.

“A–Aerion, wait, wait—” You stutter out, then fall back onto the mattress as another orgasm rockets through you. It’s sharper, hits you in the base of your lungs and forces sounds from you you barely recognise as your own.

He watches you come undone again with a satisfied smile on his face, his softening cock giving a feeble twitch against his thigh. Your pussy squeezes around the thick push of his fingers, and he strokes you through it, pushing his cum right up towards your womb. The hand on your tummy gives you a gentle pat when you quit your shaking, and he carefully pulls his fingers from you, watching the way your slick and his seed webs between the digits.

You watch, vision blurred by your back-to-back orgasms and the early afternoon sunlight, as his tongue unfurls from between his kiss-bruised lips. He licks his fingers clean in a few curling movements, and you feel something jump in your belly, a flip beneath the press of his hand.

“My prettiest girls,” the prince whispers, wiping his wet fingers on your inner thigh before giving your pussy a quick pat—the sudden pressure making you jolt against the mattress—and manoeuvring himself beneath the sheets. 

He helps you with him, and after a moment of silence, you’re both tucked beneath the silks of your bed. You don’t say anything as he pulls you to him, tucking your body against his. But you do look at him as he rests against the pillows with his eyes closed. You admire the way little orbs of sunlight dance across the bare skin of his chest, shoulders and neck. You can’t help yourself: you reach up and trace the dappled light with your fingers, trekking up the side of his neck until you reach the curve of his jaw. His pulse jumps out to meet you.

He opens his eyes and peers at you sideways. “Something you want?”

You hum a no, then say, “You’re so pretty.”

Aerion rolls his eyes, but you don’t miss the tiny twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Silence beats through the room like a racing heart.

Then, “Aerion?”

“Hm?”

“You cut yourself on purpose, didn’t you?”

The prince opens his eyes again and shifts his head to look at you. His eyes dart across your face as if searching for any disappointment or anger. But he finds none.

“Maybe,” he replies after a moment.

You sigh. “You’re impossible.”

“Ser Roland was too close to you.”

“We were talking about flowers.”

Aerion huffed. “You can talk about flowers with me.”

You give him a sceptical look, fingers tracing the sunlight on his shoulder now. “Do you even know anything about flowers?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then what kind of—?”

“They’re carnations,” he interrupts. He looks away from you. You pause, hand over his heart. He continues quietly, clearing his throat. “My… my mother had them planted.”

You pout. “Oh, Aerion…”

“So, yes, I know flowers, or whatever the fuck you’re interested in,” Aerion hisses, reaching an arm around and taking your jaw between firm, still slightly sticky, fingers. He leans down and presses a kiss to your lips before pulling back before you could plead for more. “And so the next time you want to talk about flowers with someone…” He looks away, almost embarrassed. His cheeks are pink. “You can talk to me.”

These words taste like I love you as well, and it makes him grit his teeth.

It’s not said possessively. He holds your jaw tenderly, and his words match his hold. He actually means it: it’s sincere and honest, and he’s bearing his heart to you and hoping you don’t tear it apart.

“I’d love that,” you respond, your hand finding his and guiding it away from your jaw. You kiss his knuckles as he closes his eyes again.

I love you is written all over that too.

———

they kissed and everybody cheered

tags 🌿

well, now that you hear it out loud, it probably sounded better in your head. anyways...

you stroll towards the desk with languid steps and sit down on rafe's chair, small hands reaching hesitantly to open the laptop. you turn it on and the screen light illuminates your pretty face right away. you swear your fingers are shaking a little bit as you open up the browser and type 'porn videos' on the search bar.

somehow, you feel like you are doing something wrong, and you can't seem to shake the guilt away. either way, you don't back out. you click the enter button and, after just a few seconds, a million search results pop up. honestly, you don't know where to start, so you click on the first one, which redirects you to a website called pornhub.

the home page is full of videos, the first thing to catch your attention being the obscene thumbnails of each one of them. your cheeks flush a deep shade of red. you read some of the titles as you bite your lip nervously, realising most of them contain the word 'stepsister' in them, and you wonder if that is the only content posted on this page.

how innocent of you not to know that the website is making recommendations based on your stepbro's most searched tag.

before things escalate further, you spot rafe's airpods max sitting there on the desk and decide to grab them, connecting them to the laptop and putting them on —this way you can make sure no one overhears anything. after that, you spend a few more minutes scrolling through the page, during which you discover that there's a ton of categories to choose from.

how are you supposed to know which one to pick?

you are so invested in your little research, headphones canceling the noise, that you don't hear neither rafe opening the front door nor him walking up the stairs and, surely, don't notice him standing behind you until he speaks. and it's too late by then.

"the fuck are you doing, sweetheart?" he blurts, complete and utterly shocked to see his naive stepsister fuckin' watching pornhub.

well shit, maybe you aren't as innocent as he thought you were.

you jolt instantly, jumping out of your seat as you feel all the colour draining from your cheeks. no way rafe just caught you in the act. this can't be real. despite how bad you want to run away, you are left with no other choice but to turn around and face him, wishing the earth would swallow you up.

"i– this is not what it looks like, i swear i can explain," you stutter nervously, taking of the airpods with trembling hands. from here on, the anxious rambling begins, "i wasn't doing anything... this guy– well, i... i uhm– i got a date, 'kay? with this guy from class and– listen, i know this is silly, but..."

"jesus christ, baby, slow down, 'kay?" he stops you, his heart nearly melting from how cute you look, so shy and flustered. he almost feels bad for interrupting whatever the hell you were doing here.

the colour has returned to your cheeks, and you are all flushed now, from head to toe. your face feels like it's on fire; you have never been this embarrassed before.

"could you please start over?" he asks, hoping to hear a coherent explanation to why you are in his room, in the middle of the night, and watching porn on his laptop.

you take a deep breath, fidgeting with the hem of your top. you are so deeply ashamed that you don't seem to remember that you are wearing nothing but a flimsy white singlet and a tiny pair of matching panties. rafe's very aware of that fact, though, hungry eyes trailing all over your beautiful body.

"i've got a date with a guy from class," you start explaining, white teeth nibling occasionally on your plump bottom lip, "but i've never dated anyone, ya' know? i've no experience, and i don't want him to think i'm pathetic if we..."

"fuck?" he finishes your sentence, a roguish grin spreading across his handsome face.

if possible, your blush deepens even more at the vulgarity while you mutter a quiet 'yeah' in response.

honestly, he is a bit jealous of that guy. not only you are willing to let him fuck you, but you are also trying to learn how to do it properly so he has a good time doing it. yeez, what a shame for him he is going to kill him as soon as he finds out who he is; there's no chance rafe's letting you near any other man but him.

"i thought, uhm, maybe watching that would help..." you add coyly, his silence making you more nervous.

it is cute how you try to avoid saying words like 'fuck' or 'porn', like it is a crime to pronounce them or something.

"you know what? let's watch it together," he proposes.

there's a mischievous glint in his eyes that doesn't go unnoticed. you swear your cheeks might just explode at any second, and you can't help the pathetic stutter that comes out when you talk. "uhm, i don't think that'd be appropriate," you refuse, shaking your head.

"why not? you want help, and i can help you here, sweetheart," he answers, his voice surprisingly soft and gentle —unlike rafe, "that's what big brothers are for, aren't they?"

he takes a few steps in his direction until he is standing right beside you. then, he grabs the laptop in his large hands as he flashes you a wicked smirk, his curtain bangs falling messily on his forehead. you gulp, having him so close makes you feel a certain way; you cannot deny that.

"you, uhm, being my stepbrother is exactly why not," you stammer as you tilt your head back to look at him, his height towering over you.

"bullshit," he retorts, huffing. "you trust me?"

your first mistake is, probably, trusting rafe cameron. "yeah, i do, but..."

"that's why 'm perfect for the job, baby," he interrupts you. his words are clearly intended to manipulate you, but you are way too innocent to notice it, "i'm probably the guy you feel most comfortable with, aren't i? i can give ya' all the advice you need."

to be fair, he isn't wrong about that. you don't have any male friends, and you are honestly too embarrassed to ask your girlfriends for help on this department, not wanting them to think less of you. plus, rafe is a guy; he knows better what guys like, right?

"wouldn't it be kinda... weird ?" you ask, clearly hesistant.

"weird?" he repeats. "no, 'course not."

only a few more sweet, reassuring words is all it takes for him to gently coax you into watching his favourite pornos with him. his cock starts to harden in his pants just at the thought of having you like that. when you finally accept, he swears he's on cloud nine.

god, he's been wanting you for months now; he can't believe this is happening.

"c'mere, baby," he eagerly instructs you, getting on his bed.

he sits with his back resting on the headboard and pats the spot between his legs to invite you to sit there. he places the laptop next to him, the pornhub website still open on it. you move slowly towards him, cheeks slightly flushed from the embarrassment as you settle on the mattress in between his parted thighs, your back pressed to his hard chest.

he wraps one strong arm securely around your waist, his hand coming to rest gently on your tummy. with his other hand, he reaches for the laptop sitting beside him, carefully bringing it closer so the two of you can see the screen properly.

your heart is beating so fast in your chest that he can probably hear it, too. the way he is touching you is not making it easier for you to stay calm, either, his fingers tenderly tracing patterns on your belly over the thin fabric of your shirt while he scrolls through the page.

he seems to sense your discomfort and chuckles low in his throat, his warm breath tickling your ear. "relax, sis," he whispers teasingly, his voice laced with amusement. "i'm not gonna make you watch anything that'll traumatize you."

"it's just– this is a bad idea," you babble, fidgeting nervously when he finally clicks on a video and a pretty young woman appears on screen.

the actress is beautiful; she has a gorgeous body and face. her lips are full and pink, and she has these big, expressive eyes that appear to gleam. and you don't realize it, but she looks exactly like you.

the scene starts playing; in it, the girl is watching some movie with a guy that, apparently, is her roommate —at least that's what the title says.

"shhh..." he hushes you softly, his voice barely audible over the sounds emanating from his laptop's speakers. "just watch. don't overthink it."

"okay," you answer between gritted teeth.

your pretty eyes are fixed on the laptop while you try not to cringe at how bad the script and acting are, which is nearly impossible, to be honest. despite that, you keep watching in silence as the video plays, growing more flustered as the clock ticks.

you didn't know mouths could be used for that... interesting.

as opposed to you, rafe's pretty chill behind you, like he's unbothered by this whole situation —he's actually hard as fuck inside his pants, the thing is you haven't noticed. you wonder how he can act so unfazed, since you keep pushing your thighs together to try and soothe the throbbing sensation building in between them while you take in the lewd actions occurring on screen.

you weren't expecting your body to have this reaction, and now you don't know what to do to make it stop.

rafe soon becomes aware of the way you keep letting out soft sighs and squirming in his arms, plush ass rubbing against his cock every time you do it. it's a miracle he is still holding back, though he doesn't know how much time he will be able to.

he's not even paying attention to the video anymore, his entire focus put on you. he finally ventures to lean in, his hot breath grazing the shell of your ear as he whispers, "you know, i could do that to you..." his hand slowly slides to your plush thigh and he gives it a gentle squeeze.

his movements are measured and controlled not to scare you, but your breath hitches in your chest at his actions either way, body tensing up in his grasp. your brain is telling you to push him away, but the insistent throb in your sex doesn't like that idea, not one bit.

"you– you could?" you utter quietly, not taking your eyes away from the laptop.

rafe notices the uncertainty in your voice, but the way you haven't pushed him away yet emboldens him to continue, his large hand gradually sliding north.

"yeah, baby," he murmurs huskily against your ear, fingertips brushing along your inner thigh. "i could put my fingers inside you, just like he's doing to her..."

his words make you blush heavily as a little gasp is released from your pouty lips. "would it feel good?" you ask naively.

your eyes are transfixed in the sight of the guy on the screen pushing his fingers inside the girl's pussy. god, she seems like she's enjoying it so much... and you desperately want to feel like that too. you can't even bring yourself to care that it's your stepbrother offering to show you.

rafe's fingers creep higher and higher until they're barely brushing against your cotton panties. "yeah," he growls huskily against your ear, "it'd feel real good, sweetheart. i promise..."

you shudder, a sweet little mewl escaping your throat involuntarily. you can't help but blush at your own reaction, slightly embarrassed by it. you tear your eyes away from the screen, head falling back against his chest as you look up at him.

"it's throbbing, rafe..." you whine, self-control slipping from your hands. "can you make it better?"

rafe's fingers finally make contact with your wet underwear, pressing against your clit through the fabric. he rubs gentle circles around your sensitive nub, his other hand curling around your supple thigh to spread your legs wider.

"oh, baby, you're soaked through your panties..." he pants out.

your body literally melts into his touch like butter, perfectly shaped brows knitting together in a frown of pleasure. the girl in the video moans, and you do too, both sounds echoing in the silence of his room.

taking your moan as an invitation, rafe carefully hooks his fingers in the gusset of your panties to push them aside, exposing your sopping cunt to the cool air of his bedroom. then, he traces your wet slit slowly, leisurely, as if savoring the velvety feel of your skin.

"such a pretty little pussy..." he praises, eyes hungrily taking in the pink expanse of flesh.

you squirm and let out a soft whimper, biting your lip right after to avoid keep making noises; the last thing you want is to wake up your parents or wheezie. rafe notices your struggle and swiftly reaches up to cover your mouth with his free hand, muffling your sweet moans.

he gathers some of the wetness dripping out of your cunt before trailing his fingers all the way up to your clit, rubbing it gently. your eyes roll back, hips bucking up against his hand instinctively. the way your swollen bud throbs beneath his fingertips is going to make you mad. he begins to touch your clit in fast, tight circles, his other hand still holding your mouth shut to keep you quiet.

he leans in to whisper against your ear, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine, "if you make a sound, i'll stop, got it?"

you nod obediently in response, making your best effort to comply; you don't want him to stop doing this, never. as a reward, rafe slides a thick finger down your slit and presses it against your clenched entry, steadily applying pressure until your tight muscles finally give in and allow his digit ingress.

"so fuckin' tight," he groans under his breath at the feeling of your narrow pussy engulfing his finger.

withdrawing his finger almost all the way out, he teases your entrance with the tip, making you tremble with anticipation before pushing it back in to the knuckle, his palm cupping your mound as he starts to thrust in a smooth, lazy rhythm. you swallow a whiny cry while your eyelids flutter shut, pretty face scrunched in a blissful expression.

rafe works his finger in and out of your slick pussy slowly, marveling at how your velvety walls flutter around the digit. he curls it inward, searching for that special spot that's guaranteed to drive you wild.

after a few experimental pokes, rafe's fingertip finally brushes over your g-spot, eliciting a muffled moan from under his palm. he smiles wickedly against your skin, and you shudder in his grasp, pleasure waves running through your body.

"that's it, sweetheart... feel good?" he croons softly, fingering you nice and deep.

you can't bring yourself to reply, the sensation of his large digit fucking your pussy, added to the constant rubbing of his palm against your puffy clit has your mind feeling all fuzzy. your body language is the only answer he needs, though.

rafe leans in to tenderly nip at your neck, his hot mouth latching onto your slender throat as he keeps pumping his finger steadily in and out of your dripping cunt. he knows you're close when he feels your inner muscles starting to clench erratically around his digit.

"rafe," you moan onto his palm as you feel this new, strange sensation building in your tummy, pussy tingling so nicely.

heaven help him. hearing you, his stepsister, moan his name like that makes rafe's hard dick throb almost painfully against his zipper.

and then it happens. the coil in your belly suddenly snaps and you have to bite onto your lip harshly to keep yourself from screaming as you cum for the very first time, on your stepbrother's hand. rafe continues to pump his finger in and out of your spasming cunt as you ride out your climax, wanting to prolong your pleasure.

when you finally come down from your high, you're all shaky and flustered in his arms, panting heavily to try and catch your breath. he has a satisfied smirk on his lips while he slowly withdraws his slick digit from your quivering hole to bring it up to his mouth and lick it clean, savoring your taste.

"did so well for me, baby," he coos as he uncovers your mouth, gently turning your head to the side to press a kiss to your swollen, red lips.

you return it sloppily, eyes fluttering shut in the process, and you sigh contently against his mouth. he can't help but rock his hips against your ass, rubbing his hard on against you.

"did i make you feel good?" he asks between little kisses, his breathing growing uneven. you nod in response. "yeah? then it's just fair you make me feel good too, sweetheart... wanna do that f'me?"

"yes," you whisper against his lips without even thinking, feeling him smirk into the kiss.

"such a good girl," he praises.

at some point, the porn video playing on his laptop ended, so he simply closes it up and tosses it away, the device landing somewhere on his king size bed. then, he turns you both around, until you are laying on the mattress and he is on top of you.

he is quick to undo his pants and yank them down, just enough to free his raging hard on, which bounces against his abs. let me tell you this, he's big, the tip pink and fat, already leaking precum.

suddenly, realization hits you. this is your stepbrother for god's sake, are you really gonna let him fuck you?

he notices how your body tenses up, one hand reaching to stroke your plush thigh reassuringly while the other wraps around his shaft, giving it a slow pump.

"hey, baby, relax..." he whispers gently, "i'll put just the tip in, yeah? there's nothing wrong with that."

you hesitate. his strong arms slide beneath your legs to tug you closer. then his cock brushes your pussy and you whimper. how are you supposed to say 'no' ?

it's just the tip.

"mhmm, 'kay" you end up agreeing with a little nod.

rafe flashes you a lopsided smirk, his hand gripping his cock again while the free one yanks your panties aside once more. keeping eye contact, he slowly glides the fat head of his dick up and down your drenched slit, coating it thoroughly in your arousal. you shudder as his tip eventually meets your puffy clit, the gentle rubbing sending shivers down your spine.

"rafe," you whimper.

rafe's eyelids droop, a low hum of pleasure escaping his throat as he continues to slowly drag the reddened head up and down your chubby pussy lips with squelching sounds. his breathing grows heavier the longer he teasingly rolls it against your slick folds, reveling in your breathy whimpers. he feels like he's about to burst already, pre-cum steadily leaking from the tip and onto your flesh.

he can't fucking take this anymore.

with a slow, gentle thrust, he sinks his cock into your warm, slippery pussy, just the head breaching your entrance before he pauses, savoring the initial penetration. his eyes lock onto yours, his pupils blown wide with lust.

"jesus, fuck." he grunts.

your cunt starts fluttering around him. he has barely slided the first two inches in, as he promised, but he's so thick that even that feels like a tight fit. you let out a moan, which mingles with a strained groan from rafe as your velvety walls clench tightly around his swollen cockhead.

"gonna– might just nut already, shit" rafe mutters through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to just drive forward and hilt himself deep. "so goddamn tight."

your hips buck unconsciously against his, making him slip in just a tad further —which nearly makes him lose all his self-control. somehow, he manages to keep his shit together, hips rocking slowly to thrust in and out of you while his veiny hand strokes the rest of his shaft.

you're totally enthralled by the sight, liquid heat pooling in your belly while you watch him use your body for his pleasure. he looks so good, you can't believe he's real. your chest fills with pride at the knowledge that you're making this greek god feel good.

this is the fastest rafe has ever cum, the movement of his hips becoming jerky and sloppy after a few minutes as he spills his sperm inside you. he's panting heavily, sweat beading on his brow while his fist squeezes the base of his cock tightly.

you're left wanting more when he slowly pulls out, pussy stretched out and leaking white spurts of cum. he gazes down at you with a smirk, lightly tapping the head of his dick against your swollen clit, which has you writhing beneath him.

"so fuckin' gorgeous stuffed full of my cum," he whispers, his cock smearing the sticky substance all over your slit. you mewl in response. "hmm, 'm sorry for making such a mess on your pretty pussy, sweetheart, lemme clean it up, yeah?"

you blush in response when he leans forward, throwing your creamy thighs over his broad shoulders, to put his mouth onto your sex. you almost cry at the heavenly feeling, his playful tongue delving between your folds to lap up his own release. he cleans you up thoroughly, only to mess you up again right after, his spit soaking your cunt as he makes you cum again.

after tonight, you are cancelling that date, that's for sure.