julie.g

********************************************

Your father often told you stories of his friendship with the Targaryen prince.

Prince Maekar, the extra spare, the fourth son of King Daeron II, the prince who would most likely never inherit the throne.

Because of his birth circumstances, Prince Maekar was not required to remain in the Red Keep the way his older brothers were. He was given free reign on where to receive education, and entertainment. He often wandered outside of King’s Landing during summers.

The Prince became especially fond of Duskendale.

Your father, Robert Darklyn II, was born the same year as Prince Maekar. More so, he was born the same month, as well as the exact same week. During Maekar’s summer trips to Duskerdale, your father was placed along with him as his companion. Their friendship grew stronger every year.

“A brother through everything but blood,” is how your father described him.

During your childhood, Maekar continued to visit House Darklyn each summer. You would see him often, though you did not speak to him. Your mother was very diligent in keeping you and your siblings away.

“He is a prince,” she would say to you, “He has no time for entertaining an unruly child such as yourself.” Your mother would say these things with a laugh, but you did not think they were a joke. She did find you unruly. Out of all your siblings, you were the one scolded the most often.

“Sometimes, it is better to listen than to speak,” she would tell you, over and over. But it is a lesson you were slow to learn.

Maekar brought his sons to visit Duskendale very few times. Around the age of eleven, your mother tried to merge the families together in the dining hall for their visit. But your father decided your siblings were too disruptive, so you did not communicate with the princes any further.

When Maekar’s wife, Lady Dyanna, began declining in health, he requested your father’s presence at the castle, desperate for the company of the only man he knew he could trust. He spent several months as a guest at the Red Keep. You and the rest of your family would visit him for two days at a time every three weeks.

You did not care to keep royal company. Your mother let you wander outside if you had a guard with you, saying it was easier to keep you out of trouble if you were out of the castle.

As a girl, you enjoyed fishing. Most afternoons in Duskendale you spent near the water. During your trips to the Red Keep, you found yourself often seeking out the lakeside.

“It is not good for a girl your age to still be interested in these activities,” your mother would tsk. “It is high time you began learning embroidery.”

But sitting by the lakeside kept you quiet and out of the way, so when the family visited the Red Keep, they would allow you to do so.

Most days, however, you didn’t even try catching fish. You just wanted to linger by the water instead of by the royals. They made you wary. Especially the boys.

You did not like Maekar’s son.

Daeron Targaryen was the eldest of all the children. He made you feel unwell when he was around. His eyes tended to...linger. Though, he was quick in his looks, and part of you would always convince yourself you imagined it.

Until once, during a feast held to celebrate the birth of Rhae Targaryen, Daeron sought you out in a way that could not be ignored.

You had been standing behind your family’s table when he found you. You had neither seen, nor heard him. It felt like he had appeared out of nowhere.

“You are the only one of your family members to not be dancing.”

His voice started you, causing your shoulders to flinch. He laughed at it.

You smelt alcohol on him. He was only five and ten, four years your senior, yet he smelled like an old drunkard.

“I am not good at dancing,” you said to him, hoping that would send him off.

“Perhaps you should give it a try with me.”

You felt put under pressure. You were shy to answer, “Thank you, Prince Daeron, but perhaps another time.”

You felt wary when he didn’t make any move to leave.

“I insist.”

Your stomach dropped.

…Could he do that? Could he insist?

“I feel unfit for dancing at the moment,” you say, slow and unsure. “But thank you.” You shuffle back a step.

His hand falls on your shoulder, “I will help you.”

You pull yourself from his touch. “I must repeat my refusal, Prince Daeron.” You step back again. “Perhaps one of my sisters-”

His hand reaches out and latches onto you. A sharp gasp leaves your lips.

“Allow me just until the end of this song.” He pulled on you. “Try it with me.”

You panic, trying to push his hand off, “Wait-”

He yanks you, his drunkenness causing him to use more strength then he intended, making you stumble forward. “You will have fun, I promise.” A laugh. “I’m sure you will enjoy it.”

You try to pull away, but it only results in another yank. This time, you stumble so hard you almost fall. “Prince Daeron!”

“They are playing music from Darklyn, haven’t you noticed-?”

“Let go of her this instant,” a voice spits.

You are quickly released.

A hand darts out and grabs Daeron from the back of his collar, tearing him away from you.

“Dismiss yourself from the hall,” came the swift and stern voice of Prince Maekar, whose fist shook his son by the back of the shirt. “Take yourself to your chambers. Now.”

“Father, I was only hoping for a bit of fun-”

“Remove yourself immediately before you embarrass me any further.”

“No one is even looking this way-”

“Which I am lucky for. I would hate for more whispers of my drunken son being overly abrasive to our guests. Go wallow over dreams in your private chambers.”

Daeron ripped himself from his father’s hold. His face was tinted red from embarrassment. His eyes fell to you, then back to Prince Maekar.

“Worry not, father. I am done here anyway. Your guests are very...” His eyes fell on you coldly. “…unentertaining. I will take my leave.”

Daeron exits the hall. As he does, you feel he is too close. You take a step to the side, barely missing a brush of his shoulder.

“Lady (Y/N).” Prince Maekar’s voice is still stern. “Go find your mother. Do not loiter alone.”

“I did not mean to loiter, Prince Maekar,” you are quick to say. “My-My father said to remain at our table, so that is where I have stayed.”

He exhaled loudly, like he was annoyed. You were not sure if the annoyance was at you, or his son. “Regardless, it is time to find your mother.”

Your eyes fell to the floor. You give an obedient nod. “Yes, Prince Maekar.”

You hurry to find your mother, but you feel too embarrassed to explain what happened.

At the end of the night, Maekar called a meeting with your parents and explained things himself.

After that day, you were kept at home with your young siblings when your family went to the Red Keep during the summer.

********************************************

There is a specific sound your husband makes when he is displeased with something his father has told him.

It is a low grunt, mixed with a scoff.

You hear this noise at breakfast the next morning, as food is being served around the table, and wine is already overflowing for the men.

“Daeron has been spotted,” Prince Maekar announces to the family.

Aerion was audibly disappointed.

Valarr frowns, leaning forward. “Spotted where?”

“At a tavern. It was a brief sighting from a guard. They claim the moment Daeron saw them, he took off, and they were unable to catch him.”

Baelor asks, “What of Aegon?”

“No sight of him yet.”

Aerion let out a low hum, bringing his third cup of wine up to his lips. “Perhaps Daeron killed the little rat and that is why he’s hiding.”

It is hard, but you manage to control your face from physically reacting to his words.

Maekar glares. “You will hold your tongue from making any further comments.”

“Apologies father, I am only trying to soften the blow for when Aegon’s body is found.”

You have never seen someone rile up another person the way Aerion riles up his father.

Or, perhaps you have. Perhaps this is what it looks like when people say you push Aerion to the point of striking you.

The maids whisper of your ‘uncontrollably tongue’. Just this morning, when Aerion ordered them into the tent to apply your makeup and hide any lingering bruising, you heard them gossip about you beneath their breath. “She enjoys his rage,” you heard one say. “She does not care who pays for it.”

You hate them, you realized just today. You hate the serving girls. They pull your hair too hard when braiding, they yank the brush too hard when brushing, they pull your corset too tight because they are angry with you.

They take their anger out on you, yet they do not dare harm a single hair on Aerion’s head.

Aerion, the one who sliced one of their faces open. He is not punished for it, you are punished for it, even though you have remained merciful to them. You do not make sounds when they hurt you, because you know Aerion would react badly to it. You let them mistreat you without complaint, because you know he would strike them if you made a complaint. You have protected them, yet they still lie about you, spreading rumors that you are as sadistic as your husband.

Even here, in the breakfast hall, you notice the way the cupbearer refuses to meet your eye as she pours more water into your glass, yet she smiles at the Princes when she fills theirs. You wonder what lies Madam Pricher has fed her.

“The entire kingdom holds its breath for the safe return of Aegon,” Valarr says to his uncle. “I am sure if anyone finds him to be in trouble, they will give him shelter and food.”

“Yes, because Ashford is so respectful towards royalty,” Aerion hums. He holds his glass to be filled. Another cup of wine. His fourth. You become nervous. It is his fifth glass that brings out his more horrible behaviors. “The same animals that stormed the arena.”

Valarr eyed his cousin. “Hm. If only it were Prince Aerion who went missing, they would have stormed the streets in celebration.”

A small chuckles leaves Baelar. You quickly bite the inside of your lip. You glance at Aerion for his reaction, only to see he is again staring directly at you, his eyes casing your face. You wonder what would have happened if you had smiled. You recall his earlier threats of whippings, and pulling nails off. You recall the way he held your hand to a desk, and tried to cut your finger off. Your body turns cold, and you turn your eyes to your lap.

“I will not joke about the health of my sons,” Maekar grunts. “The guard who let Daeron out of his grasp has already been reprimanded. I have all others on high alert looking for them. They’re believed to both be in the city.”

You risk looking at Aerion’s cup. He is halfway though with the wine. You realize you may have less than an hour before his mood turns drunk and violent.

“(Y/N),” Maekar calls out.

Your eyes snap his way, startled by being spoken to.

“You have been wandering the city. Have you heard any whispers about the boys?”

You cannot help but look to Aerion, as he has specifically told you not to say a word during meals.

“She has heard nothing.”

“I did not ask you,” Maekar quipped.

“Have you heard anything?” Aerion tests you. “Speak if you have.”

You imagine answering him, and being punished with a breakfast plate being smashed over your head. You keeps your mouth shut.

“There,” your husband says. “She has heard nothing.”

Valarr scoffs. “Has anyone checked to see whether or not Lady (Y/N) still had her tongue? Or has he cut it out already-?”

Baelar makes a small tsking sound, and Valarr quiets.

Aerion straightens in his seat, his eyes narrowing the slightest on Valarr. “My cousin worries for you, (Y/N),” he tells you loudly. “Aren’t you lucky, to have the future king so concerned for your wellbeing?”

You try to take yourself out of your body. You clasp your hands together, and you try to think of how nice the day is outside. How the wind keeps it from being too hot. How the flowers are all in bloom-

“Show him there is nothing to worry about,” Aerion commands you. “Stick out your tongue for him to see.”

Your face flushes hot, eyes widening at the request.

“Go on,” Aerion says again. “Put his concern to rest.”

Surely, this was only a jest. Your husband would not make you stick your tongue out like some trained animal in front of his family?

Baelar sighs. “Aerion-”

“Valarr is worried, uncle, let us relieve him.” His hand falls to your knee, and he gives it a warning squeeze. “Stick your tongue out. Now.”

Everyone stares at you, even the servants.

Humiliation makes your hands shake. His hold tightens on your knee. Slowly, you part your lips.

“I did not say open your mouth,” Aerion says. “I told you to stick your tongue out. If not, he’ll accuse me of planting a false one.”

“That is enough,” Valarr tells him.

Aerion brings his hand higher to your thigh, and you feel a pinch on your leg.

There is no getting out of this. And you suppose in the grand scheme of things, this is mundane in terms of things Aerion could demand of you to do.

So you obey him. You stick your tongue out, keeping your eyes on the wall to try to suppress some of the humiliation.

You shut your mouth quickly when Aerion begins to laugh. “Satisfied, Valarr?”

You do not look at him, but his voice is softer now. “I did not ask for that.”

Aerion pushes out his chair. There is still laughter in his voice. “Come, (Y/N). We are done here.”

You rise from your seat as fast as you can. You follow after him, face still hot with embarrassment.

When you exit the dining hall, you see Madam Pricher and Ser Thenty standing near the exit. They follow behind you and Aerion as you leave.

Your husband walks with a new strut. He chuckles. “How utterly bashful he became. He should know better by now than to make comments about things that belong to me.”

As a woman, you should have not been offended anymore by being told you ‘belonged’ to someone. Yet, it still irked you. To belong to a man was one thing, to belong to this man was your greatest shame.

A sigh leaves his lips. “At least he decided to hold his outburst until after I was done eating. It’d be a shame if he continued day after day ruining our meals.”

He ruined the meal?

Of course.

Valarr Targaryen. The future king. He was the one who ruined the meal.

You walk under a shaded archway of the castle. You are relieved to be in the cold shadow of the building. You risk wiping the sweat off your brow. Aerion remains walking with a fast pace, and he is hard to keep up with.

When you round a corner, Aerion grabs you and pulls you to a stop.

You quickly shift around, looking for any of the Ashford guards. Aerion has ledged you in a spot that has none. Madam Pricher and Ser Thenty still trail along, but they linger further back as they notice Aerion has stopped.

Your whole body tenses as Aerion brings his hand up to cup your face.

What does he want? What the fuck does he want from you?

“You know that’s what he wanted, don’t you? He wanted to see you open your mouth on command, and that’s why I gave him what he wanted.”

You swallow. You give a quick, obedient nod.

“No,” he drawls beneath his breath. “You don’t see it the way I do. You think of him as the good son. The courageous heir to the throne.” His hand moves to grip your jaw. “He is not as innocent as he pretends. Best believe the only reason he thinks of your tongue is to picture it running up and down his cock-”

You rip yourself from his grip, disgust on your features.

Ha laughs again. “Don’t be so naive to think it false.”

You physically bite your tongue so hard it hurts.

He is quiet, as if waiting for you to say something. When you do not, he presses further. “Unless you know it to be true? And perhaps you find enjoyment in it?”

You grip your skirts in fists, and you glare at him. He waits again. But you know better now. You do not speak.

But is he unrelenting. As if he wants you to speak. Because he wants to correct you.

“It seems my whorish wife gets excited at the thought of other men stroking their cocks to the thought of her.” He notices the way you flinch at the brazen words. He worsens his behavior. “Next dinner, I should give them something to really look at. I should just order you to pull up your skirts and show them your cunt-”

You shove his chest away from you, disgust drenching you.

He breaks out with laughter. His laugh, which you hate most out of anything in the world, is what finally makes you snap.

“How dare you speak to me with such crudity?” you spit at him, unable to handle the seething rage you feel.

“Crudity.” The word amuses him. “My, my, how sensitive you are for someone that enjoys whipping naked women.”

You turn away from him sharply. “Ser Thenty, I wish to be escorted to my tent-”

Aerion grips your upper arm and yanks you back to him. He is still amused. “Settle, woman.”

“You are barbaric,” you spit at him.

A laugh. “Barbaric?”

“I am your wife,” you whisper in a hiss, trying to rip your arm from him. He does not let go.

“I am aware.”

Your rage seeps through your words. “Yet you debase me so openly.” Your fists open and close on the fabric of your skirt. “Is it not bad enough to have me humiliated in front of so many spectators in the city, you must do so in front of the royal family?”

“I forgot how much my cousin’s opinion mattered to you.”

Aerion is jealous of his cousin, you remind yourself.

So you taunt him with the things he envies.

“The opinion of the future king will always matter over yours-”

Aerion hits you so hard that you fly back against the stone wall, barely catching your balance on it. Pain hinders you as you clutch your cheek.

“That is your only warning,” Aerion says to you.

Your hair falls in front of your face. You let it stay so that you do not have to see him anymore.

You make a quick attempt to get to Ser Thenty and Madam Pricher, who stand at the end of the small courtyard, watching. You manage to stumble only a few steps towards him before Aerion’s finger grip around your arm.

“Barbaric,” he repeats. “You find your own husband barbaric. Do you know how barbarians behave?”

“Let me go,” you say, your voice feeling raw as you hold back the tears forming in your eyes from the stinging slap.

“I will show you what it means to be debased so publically,” he tells you. “So that next time you will be more appreciative of the husband you have.”

He yanks you towards the willow tree.

“Stop it,” you whisper. You try to pull back, grounding your feet in the dirt. “Aerion-”

He flings your body towards the tree.

Your blood freezes as you watch his hands fall to his belt, and he unfastens the buckle.

No.

No.

He did not mean to do that here.

He would not abuse your body here. In someone else’s home. In someone else’s courtyard.

He was more than barbaric. He was a barbaric, hateful, spoiled, evil bastard.

You take a quick step back as his belt is dropped to the ground, and he begins to unbottom his britches.

“Behind the tree,” he orders you.

You do not move.

“Or not,” he says. “Who am I to care if we have more onlookers?”

“This is the Ashford’s castle-”

“It all belongs to the Targaryens.”

Your hands are shaking again, and your eyes dart to a single guard you see up ahead. “They-They will not forget this disrespect if word of it reaches them.”

You could picture the gossip now. The uncontrollable Targaryen son fucked his wife publically in an Ashford courtyard.

His whorish wife, they would call you.

Your eyes sting as you imagine what else they will say. You look back at the guard. Will he watch?

“They will survive.”

“It will reach your father,” you tell him, flinching as he steps closer.

His voice remains uncaring as he unbuckles his top coat, carelessly letting the jacket fall to the ground. “Gods, whatever will I do if my father hears?”

This could not happen. Not out in the open. Not in such a beautiful place. “No, Aerion, this-this is unacceptable-”

“I know. It’s barbaric, isn’t it?” he taunted with another short laugh.

You are desperate as you call, “Ser Thenty!”

“They will wait behind the gate of the courtyard.” Aerion shoos them away. “Go. A husband requires privacy with his wife. You will wait beyond the gate.”

They obeyed. They both stepped on the other side of the stone wall as if you were not begging for help.

“Behind the tree. Now.”

“Okay,” you whisper, taking a cautious step back. “Okay. Okay.”

He nears you. You wait for him to come closer, and the moment he steps behind the tree with you, you dart out the small opening behind it. You force your feet against the ground and try to run to Ser Thenty.

Aerion snatches you fast, gripping your hair and yanking you back behind the treetrunm.

He is laughing still like he is having the time of his life. “How pitifully slow you are.” With a firm shove, you tumble to the ground. Aerion kneels over you. “The more noise you make, the more of an audience we will have-”

“Get off of me!” you scream at him.

You writhe on the ground, using all your strength to try to get out from under him. He pins your hands down with ease, and amusement covers his expression. “You can either give me your body, (Y/N), or I will take it. And believe me, I would have much fun in taking it.”

It was all just a game to him.

Your torture was a game to this horrid excuse of a man.

Fire burns in your veins. You spit in his face.

You hear half a laugh before you feel the blow to your face.

You shut your eyes tightly, the slap causing your head to spin.

Aerion’s hand moves down your legs, which you writhe and kick with all your might. He grabs your skirt and lifts it to your waist.

Aerion frees himself from his trousers, and with abruptness, and no thought to your dryness, he shoves himself into you.

The pain of the harsh intrusion causes you to cry out.

Your brain tries to shut itself down. Your mind tries to leave this place.

Your husband makes a low groan, his hands tightening on your dress, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck.

You should be protected. That is what Prince Baelor promised you. He said you would have a knight that protects you.

But Ser Thenty is useless.

You have no idea as to why he is not serving his purpose, so you flood your mind with ideas as to how to make him.

You can do nothing but scream. So you scream.

You open your mouth and scream as loud as you possibly, possibly can.

It works in the smallest of ways. It catches Aerion off guard, making him pull his face back. He reaches out and grabs a broken tree branch, snapping off the top, and shoving it against your lips to force you quiet.

An idea sparks immediately. Your hands flies out to feel the ground beside you. You find a different branch, smaller, but enough to grip onto.

You recall exactly where you stabbed Aerion nights prior. So you grab the small stick, and you jam it in the exact same spot.

“Ah!” Your husband hunches back. “You fucking whore-!”

You rip the stick from your mouth, and slam the pointed end against his face. You hit his cheekbone, and you see the blood as you shove him back from you.

Flipping over, you try to crawl out from under him. He grabs you, yanking you back to him. You reach for something new, and you find grab a rock this time. You turn and slam it against his forehead. You hope it kills him.

But he only hisses in pain, his hand finding your throat, squeezing it so hard you see stars. He lifts you up by the throat, and slams you back to the ground.

Your hand flies out again feeling for anything you can teach. Your luck reappears as you feel a large, fallen branch. It is almost too heavy to lift with one hand, but you are able. You bring it up and slam it against his face. Once. Twice. Three times.

He screams louder.

One hand still pins down your shoulder, so to get it off of you, you turn your head and bite his arm as hard as you can.

Aerion rips his hand away, and you force yourself out from under him. You snatch the large branch off the ground, and you slam it down to his body. Then again, and again.

You hear him laugh. A long, elated laugh. “I am going skin you alive, you stupid whore-”

You slam the branch down against his head. You scream as you do so.

Aerion catches your wrist, yanking you down and knocking you off your feet. It does not make you stop. You grab his hand, and bite his wrist once more, as hard as you can. When he rips it away, you raise the branch as high as you could and bring it down on his head.

You want him dead. You hit him again. You want him dead. And again. You want him dead and gone and burning in hell-

“Lady (Y/N)!”

The scream was so loud that your whole body jolts, your heart sinking to your stomach.

“Get off of him now!”

You flinch so violently the tree branch drops from your hands. You fly to your feet and whip around.

Ser Donnel of Duskendale stands with a face red with anger. “Get away from him, you stupid girl!”

Your body quivers as you grip onto your dress, patting yourself down and making sure you are not exposed. “Ser-Ser Donnel-”

“Step away from the Prince!”

You take fast steps away from your husband.

Aerion had been right, your screaming had eventually drawn a crowd. There are more than a dozen guards near the entrance of the courtyard now, Ser Donnel’s harsh command the only thing keeping them from entering.

Your body stays tense with panic, but a different kind now. You are no longer fearing for your safety, you are fearing your punishment.

They are going to punish you for this. Oh god, they were going to hurt you for this. You wanted to burst into tears.

“H-He was-” You gulped. “He was-”

“Quiet, woman!” Ser Donnel hollers at you. He kneels in front of your husband. “Prince Aerion, do you require a maester?”

A lazy smile formed on his face. “Not as much as I require my dagger. Hand it to me so that I am able to slice that bitch’s throat open.”

“Ser Donnel,” you choke, “I was only defending myself-”

“For fuck’s sake,” he snaps at you. “I just witnessed you beating the royal prince with a tree branch. Have you any fucking idea what this will cause for you?” He grabs hold of your husband. “Allow me to assist, my prince.”

He raises Aerion into his feet. Your husband sways, before resting an arm against the tree trunk, leaning over, and puking out red wine. Ser Donnel wrinkles his nose in disgust.

“He forced me behind the tree,” you try to say rapidly. “He-Ser Donnel-He was forcing himself on me, and-” You choke on your own panic. “He would not stop, I did not know what else to do.”

There is a flicker of sympathy in his eyes. You see his anger subside the smallest amount, but his voice stays stern. “Yet it is you who will face punishment for this.”

You fall apart, breaking down right then and there.

“Quiet,” the knight orders you.

Aerion wipes his mouth, but stays resting on the tree with his eyes shut, wincing as he places a hand over his torn stitches. “Shove a fistful of dirt in her mouth to silence her.”

You wish you had the speed to grab Ser Donnel’s sword and kill Aerion with it.

Tears stream down your face. “Please, do not tell his father,” you beg the knight.

Ser Donnel places a hand on your jaw, turning your head back and forth. “Prince Aerion caused these markings?”

You did not know what your face looked like, but you assumed the slap to the face, hitting the ground, and having branches shoved into your mouth did some visible damage.

You shake from your crying. “I beg of you. I beg of you, do not tell Prince Maekar.”

“Prince Aerion, what was the cause of this?”

“My wife is excited by bloodshed-”

“He is lying!” you say to Ser Donnel. “He is a bastardly liar-!”

Ser Donnel hisses, “Hold your tongue!”

You had been trying.

All day, you had been trying your absolute hardest to hold your tongue. You stuck out your tongue on command, in front of the soon to be king.

You tried to hold your tongue but Aerion wouldn’t let you.

He escalated and escalated and escalated and you wish you had the strength to have driven that stick into his skull.

“I must take you to Prince Baelor and Prince Maekar at once.”

A sob escapes your throat. “No-”

“You have been warned about this,” Ser Donnel spits beneath his breath. “What did you think would happen?”

“He will not understand,” you cry.

“You will put yourself at Prince Maekar’s feet, and you will beg for his forgiveness.” Ser Donnell snaps. He gestures for the guards to move forward. “And if he is merciful, perhaps you can save yourself from the same fate you saw after your incident with Prince Daeron.”

The incident with Prince Daeron. Your body still shudders at the memory from your maiden years.

“No,” you say again. “Please. Aerion-” You suddenly grasp onto your husband’s hand. “Aerion, do not let your father hear about this.”

Aerion drags his hand over his mouth, and he catches a drop of blood that comes from a cut just above his mouth. “And why should I defend the whore who so viciously attacked me?”

“Please,” you cry again. “I am sorry. I will never dare do something like that again. Aerion-Aerion, I-” You search your mind for anything you think might trigger some form of sympathy.

You recall how calm Aerion was in his armor tent, how tender his words became when you massaged him.

So you force yourself forward, clinging to him, burying your face in his chest. “I beg for you to forgive me.”

You dare not look at his face. You keep your face against his chest, gripping his shirt like he is your hero rather than your tormentor.

“Do not let him force me inside, my prince. Please, I am sorry.”

There is a moment where you hear nothing, and you can only imagine Aerion is exchanging words with Ser Donnell through looks alone.

“Lady (Y/N) is my lawful property,” Aerion eventually speaks. “What she does is no business of my father.”

“Prince Aerion,” Ser Donnel urges. “I must warn you, he may hear about this through gossip either way. There are guards witnessing this, and they will tell tall tales if no disciple is given to her.”

“The disciple comes from me, not my father. She is mine, not his.”

You can feel Ser Donnel’s agitation. Yet he holds back any further comment besides, “Very well.”

“Come, (Y/N),” Aerion commands, pulling you away. “Let us return to our tent.”

You cannot bear to meet Ser Donnel’s eye. Aerion holds your upper arm, and he leads you out of the courtyard.

As you pass the entryway, your blood freezes as you see Ser Thenty and Madam Pricher waiting exactly on the other side of the archway.

Standing there.

As if nothing was happening.

As if they had not so clearly heard you screaming.

They begin to follow after you, as if nothing had happened.

*******************************************

You do not return to the Red Keep until the death of Lady Dyanna.

Your entire family makes the journey as soon as your father hears the news.

Never in your life had you seen a grown man weep until the day you arrive at the castle, and Prince Maekar greets you father with tears still in his eyes.

The Prince loved his wife. And your father loved your mother. You were raised with this belief-that husbands and wives loved each other. It was a kind thought in the cruel world.

“You will be on your best, most respectful behavior,” your mother told you all before the funeral. “The Targaryens are grieving. They should be met with empathy and compassion only. Does everyone understand?”

Your siblings were obedient. You tried to be too.

Yet, when your siblings were sent out to begin their walk to the funeral cathedral, you were the one held behind.

“It is very important to your father that you remain silent today,” your mother tells you with both hands on your shoulders. “Can you do this for him?”

“I do not speak out of turn,” you tell her.

“Yes, but...a proper girl must bite her tongue even when insulted. Do you understand?”

You did not. Yet, you replied, “Yes, mother.”

“Be respectful to the princes. Even Prince Daeron-”

“Prince Daeron is the one without respect-”

“(Y/N),” she criticized. “He lost his mother. The only words you should speak are condolences.”

“…Yes, mother.”

She gave a heavy sigh. “Go and behave. I believe in you.”

The funeral was a somber event. The princes lined the front of the building as people drawled on about the will and plan of the gods.

When it was time to leave, you followed after your siblings to the front of the building. “We will offer our sorrows,” your father tells you.

You walk along with your siblings, each of them offering condolences to the princes as they passed.

Maekar’s children are there, even the babies held by wet nurses. You divert your eyes as you pass the sons, as to not make eye contact with Daeron.

You stand next to your father as he passes his friend. “She was a beautiful, kind mother, Maekar. The kingdom will miss her.”

You do not know how it tumbles from your mouth, yet it does. Maekar stands so tall, so noble like. You are so young, you are not smart or well versed in how a kingdom works.

Stupidly, you try to console him by saying, “She would have been a well loved Queen-”

Your father’s hand clamps down on your shoulder, silencing you. “Forgive her,” he says quickly. “She is ignorant to titles.”

“All is well,” Maekar dismays. “She...would have done wonders as a queen.”

You are pulled away, and your father hisses, “What were you thinking? Maekar is a fourth son, he will never take the throne, his wife would have never been queen.”

“That is not certain-”

“Go to your mother,” he demands. “You will stay by her side for the entirety of the feast.”

“Why is there a feast?” you ask him. “You said the castle is in mourning-”

“Enough. Go with Ser Donnel,” your father commands you.

Ser Donnel, one of the guards from your home in Duskendale, was now a knight of the Red Keep. He was still loyal to House Darklyn and was the escort to your father during his visits.

“Little Lady (Y/N),” Ser Donnel greets you with a short laugh. “Your father has already warned me to keep my eye out for you.”

“Take her to the feast. Ensure she does not linger with any company,” your father commands him.

You are sent away with a knight like you are a criminal at risk of escape.

******************************************

What fucking use is he?

What use is that pathetic, empty-headed, cowardly, bastard of a knight.

There is rage in your eyes as you stare at Ser Thenty from across the room.

The feast was lively tonight. The first week of jousting had officially ended, and there was a city wide celebration thrown.

Aerion forced you along for it, despite your body aching from the earlier incident.

“You had been right not to involve my father,” Aerion had told you when the two of you got back to the tent. “He would have punished you publically. I will not.”

Aerion had settled on a…martial punishment.

It was brutal, but it was bearable. And you were grateful that he did not break any of your fingers as he so often threatened to.

You got off easier then you would have had Prince Maekar gotten involved.

“You were lucky for Ser Donnel arriving,” your husband told you. “I would have walked you back to the tent stripped naked had you hit me one more time.”

No, he wouldn’t have. That was something you were learning.

Aerion could not stand the thought of someone else seeing you naked. Your body belonged to him, and he wanted it to be only for him.

He would even force Ser Thenty to face the wall when he had his way with you.

Ser Thenty, who did nothing.

He was tasked to protect you, yet he would stand by and listen to you scream.

He would have allowed Aerion to continue to rape you right there in the courtyard. He heard you screaming and crying and begging for help, yet him and Madam Pricher stood by as if nothing happened.

You were wrong. Ser Thenty was not a good knight.

He was as evil as every other man.

You hated Ser Thenty.

You hated Madam Pricher.

You hated your husband.

You hated everyone at this feast.

Everyone was dancing and laughing like it was the time of their lives, and you were practically chained to your chair and living on the mercy of a tyrant.

You had nothing to look forward to. Nothing to keep you at peace.

Just...nothing.

Depression hits you with a numbness. You did not think, you only stared ahead, no thoughts in your mind. You sat empty headed and hoped you would die in the upcoming year.

You were numb to the point that when a cupbearer filled your cup with wine, you drank it.

And you kept drinking. You kept your cup to your lips, because it kept your husband from speaking to you.

Until Aerion suddenly snaps at you, “Slow down. You will be sick tonight if you continue that quickly. And I will not have patience with a sick woman.” He takes another chug of his own wine bottle, then wipes his face with his sleeve like an uncivilized child. “Pull yourself together or everyone will think low of you.”

Your insides twist. “They already think low of me for being your wife.”

“They would think low of you for being anyone’s wife, you do a horrible job at it.”

You stare blankly at the dancers that perform in the middle of the room. Aerion seems quite taken with them, yet part of you wonders if he only watches the women because he knows it get under your skin.

Aerion’s family sits far away from you two. You understand why. You take a moment to finally get a good look at Valarr, as you have never been able to before.

He is handsome, and perhaps that is why Aerion is so worried about you speaking to him.

Though, in another life, you would have found Aerion as the most handsome man in the world. But his attractiveness was ruined when he first opened his mouth.

Your eyes dart to Ser Thenty as he circles the room, before coming to Madam Pricher, who rests against the wall behind you.

“I will return in a moment, Madam Pricher,” you hear him tell her.

“Very well. Be swift.”

You glance behind you, and you see him leaving the feast hall.

Your anger blooms once more, spiking your heart rate.

“I feel as if I will vomit,” you tell Aerion.

“Hm.”

“I must step outside for air.”

“Convenient timing,” you hear him say, a hint of irritation in his tone. But your husband is angry about everything, always, so you do not care.

The room spins when you rise to your feet. You hold yourself still for a moment to make it stop.

You walk swiftly after Ser Thenty. He goes outside. In suspected privacy, he begins to lower his pants to urinate against the tree.

“Ser Thenty!”

He flinches, and quickly tucks himself away and recomposes himself. “Lady (Y/N), where is your chaperone?”

Anger bites in your voice, frustration deleting all your hesitation. “Is it not supposed to be you?” you accuse. “Were you not the one Prince Baelor charged with maintaining my safety?”

“What?” Ser Thenty fastens his pants as quickly as he can. “You should not be out here. Return to the feast inside.”

“What purpose do you have?” you drawl, the wine draining you of all common sense you had about decency. “What is the point of you following my husband and I if he is able to do whatever he pleases? Strike me whenever he pleases? Rape me whenever he pleases-”

“Lady (Y/N),” he cuts off sharply. “We are not meant to converse alone.”

“And you are not meant to witness my torture, you are meant to prevent it!”

“I apologize,” Ser Thenty tells you. “But there is little for me to do. Aerion is a Prince of the seven kingdoms. No matter my orders, I am forbidden from harming him.”

“So I was right in my doubt of you? You cannot do anything because you are a small, cowardly man?”

His tone loses patience. “You must return inside. We cannot be caught out here without a chaperone.”

You did not care for a chaperone. The wine gripped your heart and rid you of your common sense.

Your hand shoots out and you grab Ser Thenty, gripping his arm with a tight squeeze. “Are you not ashamed of yourself for this-?”

He shoves you, hard. So hard you stumble, your anger faltering as your mind reminds you this is a man capable of harming you.

“Do not touch me,” he snaps at you. “You know what your husband will do if he sees such a thing.”

“Of course I know what he will do! You are the one who ignores his actions-!”

“You are alive, Lady (Y/N). You are alive, without any broken bones. I am completing my duty.”

“You are a liar as much as a coward!” you scream. “You sat and did nothing as I called to you!”

“I would have went to you immediately if you were in actual distress, my Lady.”

Your heart spikes with blood curdling anger. “You walked away as my husband raped me!”

“He is your Lord husband,” Ser Thenty tells you. “A man cannot rape a woman that belongs to him.”

And there it was.

There was the answer right there, all along.

You do not get protection from a knight like a man would.

Because you are a woman, meaning you belong to someone.

Why would an object be valued over their owner?

Tears sting your eyes at the frustration of this life.

“You are a craven bastard!” you cry. “And I hope you are tortured in the pits of Hell for all you have allowed to be done to me!”

Heads are turning from the guards outside. More eyes have fallen on you too.

Ser Thenty appears flustered now, less bold under the attention.

“I am going back to the feast,” he tells you. “You should try to sober yourself. You are likely to upset your husband this night.”

You suddenly bend down, pick up a rock, and throw it at the coward.

Ser Thenty ducks it, his eyes widening.

You hear the insult he whispers. “Unrestful cunt.”

He leaves you alone with only the guards that pose along the tent.

You do not want to return inside. Inside is Hell. Outside is Hell. Everything is Hell.

So instead, you drop yourself on the ground with your back against the tree.

You hide your face, and you break down.

*******************************************

You pick at the food on your plate boredly as you watch the nobles dance their way around the hall. “Has a fourth son of a king ever become king himself?” you ask.

Ser Donnel stands beside your chair. He gives a nod as his eyes scan the room for trouble. “Aye. A few times in history. Though, is it not too common.”

“Could Prince Maekar be king one day?”

“It is possible. Though, not too likely.” He glances at you with curiosity. “For what reason do you ask?”

You lean back in your chair. “My father is angry that I told Prince Maekar his wife would’ve been a good Queen-”

“He told you not to speak,” came your sister’s voice from beside you. “You always have such stupid things to say-”

“Be silent,” you snap at her. “I am talking to my knight.”

“Your knight?”

You ignore her and say to Ser Donnel, “It would have been possible for Lady Dyanna to have been queen one day. And if she had been, she would have been well loved. What I said was not incorrect, why must I always be punished for speaking?”

“Because you don’t speak properly,” your sister tells you. “Mother says that is why they will have to arrange your marriage. You will never be courted because you are loud.”

“You will never be courted because you are nosy-”

“Girls, settle,” Ser Donnel chides. “We must keep respect on a day like this.”

“How is any of this respectful?” you ask. “People are drinking and laughing. They are meant to be crying.”

Your sister huffs. “You are still so very loud with your opinions-”

“Enough of you.” You push yourself to your feet. “I will be retiring for the night.”

“Your father requests you remain here until the feast is over,” Ser Donnel tells you.

You lean back in your chair with a heavy sigh.

“Prince Daeron is dancing,” your sister comments.

You say, “Prince Daeron is drunk-”

“(Y/N),” Ser Donnel chides again.

“He is stumbling,” you say. “He has stepped on his partner’s feet several times. She looks as if she is in pain from him. Should you not put a stop to it, Ser Donnel?”

“His mother has passed. Let him grieve how he needs to.”

A frown forms. You watch Prince Daeron, unimpressed.

Finally, the song ends and the girl he danced with rips herself from his grip and flees off the dance floor.

He is not able to find another partner by the time the next dance starts. So he returns to his table and slumps down in a chair beside his brother, Prince Aerion.

Prince Aerion is different then the others. There is a glare on his face as his eyes take in the events of the room. You wonder if he finds it all disrespectful as well.

His eyes continue to cross the room. Then, without warning, his eyes dart to you.

Heat rushes to your face and you quickly look away. You wonder if he noticed you staring. You risk a glance back, and see Prince Daeron whispering something to him. Both of them look at you. You quickly stare at the table, and try to convince yourself you did not see them.

But then the horrid unthinkable happens. You hear him.

Coming from your left, you hear his voice. “Lady (Y/N).”

Your head turns. Prince Daeron stands there, drunk as always, a smile too wide for his mother’s funeral feast.

“I was hoping to have that dance with you now.”

You look at Ser Donnel first, and it is clear this has caught even the knight off guard.

“Prince Daeron,” you slowly begin, “I am…still not well at dancing-”

“I do not mind.” He holds a hand out. “Shall we?”

His eyes are glazed over from drunkenness. You risk glancing at his shoes, which look heavy, and you imagine them stepping on your feet.

“I am very sorry, Prince Daeron, but my father has ordered me to stay seated-”

“Dance with the prince,” your sister urges you. Her voice drops to a whisper. “It is his mother’s funeral. Why are you being so cruel?”

You are jolted as Daeron puts a hand on your chair, pulling it out. “Exactly. It is my mother’s funeral. You would not reject me for a dance at this time, would you?”

“I-” Before a word gets out, he grabs your arm, and pulls you up out of your chair.

“Prince Daeron,” Ser Donnel speaks, “You appear unsteady.”

“I am perfectly alright.”

“I think it would be best if you took a break.”

“Your concern is noted.” Daeron’s hand remains on your arm. His head jerks towards the dancing. “Shall we?”

You do not know what to do.

So you try to think of what your father would advise. He would surely tell you to be respectful, and not to embarrass him.

Placing your hesitation to the side, you agree, “Perhaps you can accompany me for…one dance.”

As you are taken to the dance floor, you feel a sweeping nausea that you must suppress.

Daeron is an awful dancer. He refuses to use any proper dance moves, and he refuses to let you do any either. Instead, he pulls you into him. Your body hits his with a startled gasp, and his hands fall to your waist. He sways with you, though his swaying feels more like stumbling.

Your closeness is inappropriate. Your eyes dart around, fearing your father will see it.

At least those around you look sympathetic rather than judgmental. They know you do not want this dance.

“I have not seen you in so long,” Daeron says to you.

You turn your head as you speak, the alcohol on his breath almost too strong to bear. “My father prefers traveling on his own when he visits the Red Keep.”

“No,” he mumbles. A short shake of his head. “I have not…seen you. I saw you so often before. It’s as if you are…hiding from me now.”

You do not understand him, and you do not want to.

Moments pass without anything said.

“I am very sorry about your mother,” you tell him, because you do not know what else to say. “I cannot imagine your grief right now. I will pray that you are able to get through it.”

“Yes, my mother.” A light smile. “She would have made a very good queen.”

Your shoulders slouch, and you think he is mocking you.

Until he says, “One night, I saw my father on the throne with the King’s crown on his head. He did not believe me.”

It confuses you. “You…saw him?”

“Dreamt of him.”

You do not know what to reply to that, so you say nothing.

A larger smile rises to his lips. “You know, my brother-” He pauses, and laughs. He does not continue.

The music comes to an end. You try to take a step back from him. He does not let you.

“Once more,” he says.

It would embarrass your father if anyone saw you argue with Daeron, so you stayed where you were, and allowed him one more dance.

“You are ten and three now?” he asks you.

“Yes. Ten and three.”

“Have you become a woman yet?”

The question startles you. Your face flushes hot. “P-Pardon?”

“Have you bled yet? And entered womanhood?”

Yes. You began bleeding almost a full year prior to this. But it was not his place to know. You refuse to meet his eye. “No.”

“You would not lie to your Prince, would you?”

You glance around the room to try to see if your father is watching. “We mustn’t speak of such things.” Your voice wavers with your desperation to get away from him.

“Why not?”

You feel choked with embarrassment. “It-It is improper.”

Your eyes search for Ser Donnel.

“And what of maidenhood?” he asks. “Are you still a maiden? Or have the men in Duskendale already seen to that?”

You try to rip yourself from his hold. He holds you tight.

“That is an abhorrent, s-sinful thing to ask,” you tell him. “Let me go at-at once.”

“It is a simple question.”

He grips tightens on your waist so hard it makes you shout a panicked, “Ser Donnel!”

Heads begin to turn your way.

Daeron keeps a tight hold on you. “You needn’t be embarrassed. It is only a question-”

“Let go of me,” you try again, but with no resolve. You feel hot and unable to breathe.

He pulls you against him harder. “Take it as a compliment that your beauty has stirred such scandal among royal princes.”

“Please, let me go,” you have resorted to begging. “I do not wish to dance any longer.”

“He speaks as if he already owns you, can you believe that?” He lets out a humorless laugh. “Yet he mocks me for my behavior. He mocks me as if I do not have the power to ruin what he wants.”

His drunken ramblings mean nothing to you. “Please, my prince, my mother will worry if she-”

Daeron leans down, and he places his lips against yours.

A hard, painful, brute of a kiss. His face slams so hard against yours that the inside of your lip is cut from your own tooth.

You are struck with panic. Instinctively, you stomp your foot down onto his, you shove his chest away, and you slap him in the face as hard as you can.

The hall falls hauntingly quiet. The band has stopped playing, all conversations cease in an instant.

You have struck the King’s grandson, and everyone has seen it.

********************************************

“What has happened, Lady (Y/N), are you hurt?”

It is Ser Donnel that approaches you.

He has heard your cries from his post at the front of the feast, and he recognized them. Hearing you crying so often in your childhood, the tears ring as familiar as your voice.

You hide your face from him.

“Lady (Y/N), please, tell me. Has someone hurt you?”

“You know who hurts me,” you whisper.

“Do you require a maester?”

The words cause you to cry harder. “I require a divorce!”

“Lady-”

“I require a jousting accident that makes me a widow!”

“You should not say these things aloud,” Ser Donnel tells you.

“I do not care who hears!” you weep. You place your face in your hands and cry harder. “I wish for a window to jump out of and end my misery!”

A somber sigh leaves the knight. His hand falls on your shoulder. “The days will get easier, my lady.”

“No, they will not!” Your tears stream down your chin. “They get worse every day that passes! My husband ripped me from my home and forced me into marriage! Then he threw me into solitude for months! Now he has decided to use every waking minute to break my soul!”

You are so swept up in your emotions that for the first time in your life, you have no room to be embarrassed. You are a horrible wreck of a crying woman and you do not care.

“I am doing nothing but awaiting my death!” you scream with hot tears leaving your eyes. “I hate that evil man! I hate him! I-I-!” You cut yourself off by choking on your own son. You bury your face further in your hands. “I wish to never see his face again!”

Ser Donnel is silent. You cry beside him as if he was a confidant. You did know if he was, if anyone was, but you appreciated that he did not force you back to Aerion.

“I will write to your father,” he eventually tells you. “I will have a letter sent this very night, letting him know that there is…concern to be raised about your treatment. I will request his immediate visit to the Red Keep. He is sure to get there by the time we return from the tourney.”

“Aerion will have me dead by then,” you sob. “He will have sliced my throat and thrown my body to the wolves-”

“He will do no such thing, Lady (Y/N).”

“You have no idea what he is capable of.” You choke on your own tears. “He wants me dead, Ser Donnel. He wants to rip me to pieces and burn me to ashes.”

“He does not.”

“He despises me.” Your words are muffled. “And he wants every person to know it.”

“Have I not told you what he wants from you?” Ser Donnel asks. “He wants an obedient woman-”

“He does not!” You finally pull your hands from your face. “He riles me! You do not believe me, but he does! He wishes for me to speak out of turn because he wants to punish me in the most despicable ways!”

“Aerion was most insistent on your wedding. He would not go through such great lengths only to have you die by his hand.”

His words cause a stir in your body. They begin to sober you. “…What great lengths?” you whisper.

Ser Donnel seems to hesitate, as if unsure if he is spilling a secret.

“Aerion claims I was chosen by him,” you say. “But-My mother said it was his father who insisted on such a marriage between houses.”

“Prince Maekar, nor your father, would have ever wanted the houses bridged through Aerion.”

“What?” You do not understand, and the confusion makes your head ache even more. “Why-Why then was the marriage permitted?” Why were you given to that monster?

Ser Donnel glances towards the knights at the entry way. He lowers his voice. “…It was not permitted. Not by Prince Maekar, not by your father. Aerion went to his grandfather, the King, for permission.”

Your blood runs cold. “…The king?”

Ser Donnel seems uncomfortable now. “I fear I have said more than I should have.”

He stands, and you quickly reach out to grab his arm. “No. No, don’t go. Why did he go to the King-?”

“I have no authority to answer such questions,” he tells you.

“My life is on the line, Ser Donnel-”

“It is not,” he insists sternly. “Lady (Y/N), if your husband meant to kill you, do you think he would have spared you from facing his father after your violent actions against him this morning?”

“My violent actions were justified-”

“I have no doubt they were. He has always been a cruel boy, and I’m sure he wants you scared, but he does not want you dead. You will live through this. But be better about it.”

“What am I to do?” you ask him with a pitiful cry in your tone. “What will make him stop?”

“Perhaps obedience is not all he wants,” Ser Donnel tells you. “He is a jealous man, as I am sure you’re aware. He wants a good wife, but perhaps most of all a wife who knows she is his. Let yourself belong to him.”

Belong to him. Belong to Aerion. Is that not death itself?

Another long sigh from Ser Donnel. “I am sorry about this marriage, (Y/N). I warned your father about this. I told him that your sisters were the ones who were wifely, that you were the more troublesome. He had said himself that you were not meant for any marriage, with any man, especially not a man that is so…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “But it is done now. And I will ensure your father is made aware of your mistreatment.”

You stare at him, his words falling heavy on you. “…My father said I was not meant for marriage?”

He looked at you as if he pitied you. He probably did. “Do not lament over such things. Come, step inside. It is time to return to your husband before he notices your absence.”

*******************************************

Your mother holds you against her, pleading, “I will send her home immediately, my Prince. You will never see her here again.”

The hall is quiet, sounded by only harsh whispers that have spread through the room like fire.

“I apologize for her, she will be punished-”

Prince Maekar silences her. “Do not speak.”

Your body trembles, and your mother holds you tighter.

Maekar talks only to your father. “Your daughter has struck my son.”

“She will be punished for this greatly.”

“Mama,” you whisper, “He forced a kiss upon me-”

“Do not speak!” Your father shouts at you, his anger louder than Prince Maekar’s.

You hide your face in your mother’s dress.

Maekar’s voice is so cold it gives you shivers. “Your daughter has struck my son on the day of his mother’s funeral.”

Another man steps up to speak. You do not know, nor recognize him. “Perhaps this should be settled privately.”

“Perhaps not,” Maekar spits. “It was done publically.”

“She is a child, brother, and your son is not known for being gentle with girls.”

“The consequences of a woman striking a royal are stated clearly in the law book.”

Murmurs break out in the dining hall.

You’re confused by the voices jumping around. You keep your eyes shut tightly.

“Seven whippings.”

You hug your mother tighter. “I am sorry-”

“Shh,” she shushes.

“Please, my prince,” you hear your father say. “She is a stupid girl, but she is not a traitor to the crown. Give her a chance to correct this.”

There is more whispering done by your father and the prince, but you are too far to hear it.

Finally, Maekar announces, “A compromise has been made. She has the chance to bend the knee to Daeron. Here. Now. Bend the knee and ask for forgiveness.”

“(Y/N),” your mother whispers, pulling you away from her. “(Y/N), go to your father.”

You look around to see the crowded room stares directly at you. You walk to your father with shaky steps. Your eyes clouded with tears.

“Kneel down before Prince Daeron,” your father tells you. “Apologize for your sins and beg him for forgiveness.”

Your lips quiver. “Kneel?”

“Kneel.”

You finally lay eyes on Daeron again. He is slumped along a chair, but rises to his feet with a look of smugness. “Beg for forgiveness,” he says, “And maybe I will give it to you.”

The amount of people watching you makes you feel sick.

Your eyes return to your father. “...He was improper to me-”

“Kneel and apologize,” your father stresses through gritted teeth. “I will not ask again.”

Taking hold of your shoulder, he forcibly turns you and forces you towards Daeron.

“Kneel,” you are instructed again.

You stare at Daeron.

And suddenly, the worry you feel-you fear you feel-is replaced by nothing but complete and utter outrage.

How dare he?

How dare he rip you from your seat, force you against his body, ask about your womanhood, and force a kiss on you?

This drunken, perverted bastard disgraced you.

And you were meant to apologize to this fool?

You would not.

To apologize would mean to say you were wrong. He was wrong. He deserved more than a slap, and you will not claim you are sorry for it.

You whip back around to your father. “I will not bend the knee to him.”

Prince Maekar’s eyes grow wide with anger.

Your father spits, “Get on your knees-”

“He spoke of the most abhorrent things,” you announce. “He asked about my bleeding, and my maidenhood, and he forced a kiss upon me-”

“(Y/N)!”

“He forced his hands on me, and I will not apologize for defending myself against him!” you cried to your father. “He does not deserve any apology! I do!”

Maekar snaps at your father, “She will kneel, or she will be whipped.”

You speak before your father does, “Then I will be whipped!”

And so it was.

Maekar grants his friend the sole favor of allowing your father to whip you himself.

So right there, in the middle of the feast hall, in front of nearly every noble in the realm, you are bent over a table and whipped seven times.

*******************************************

Ser Donnel coaxes you to your feet. He leads you inside, ushering a nearby servant to wipe your eyes and fix your powdered face.

The servant returns you to your seat beside your captor.

“You were gone for a long time,” Aerion comments. His eyes are on the entertainment, but all his attention seems focused on you. “Where did you go?”

“I was only getting fresh air.”

“With whom?”

“Myself. And two guards.”

“Which guards?”

“I do not know the names. I did not speak to them.”

“You were out for so long without speaking?”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” He snaps a finger in the air. “Madam Pricher.”

You feel a coldness as she steps forward. “Yes, Prince Aerion.”

“Who was my wife outside with?”

“I only needed a moment alone-“

“She followed Ser Thenty out, Prince Aerion.”

His eyes finally settled on you. “Did she now?”

The urge to begin weeping fell upon you again.

“Ser Thenty,” he all but snapped. “What business was so important you had to discuss it with my wife?”

The knight’s eyes dashed between the two of you. “She followed me outside, my prince. I did not ask for it. I corrected her immediately and excused myself, reminding her there should never be a time we are alone without a chaperone.”

Aerion’s hand moves towards you. You flinch, even though he merely places a gentle hand on your wrist. “You so often forget the rules I have placed for you.” His thumb brushes your skin. “What was so urgent that you needed to run after him like a whore left unpaid?”

You stared at the table in front of you, wishing you could sink into the floor.

“Answer me or I’ll beat it out of him.”

The threat of harm caused Ser Thenty to quickly say, “She felt I was not doing my job properly. I disregarded her and returned inside immediately.”

Disregarded.

That is exactly how you felt.

And it made you feel so cold.

But the chills truly hit your body when Ser Thenty added, without prompting, “Ser Donnel is the one she was out there with.”

Your heart skips a beat, your head snapping in his direction to stare at him with widened eyes.

“There were other guards nearby, but they were sitting out of range of being heard,” he continued. “I do not know what they conversed about.”

You stare up at Ser Thenty with eyes of horrific betrayal.

He has thrown you to the wolves to save himself.

You watch as your husband’s eyes darken. You try to quickly tell him, “He was only consoling my distraught mood-” You hiss in pain as Aerion’s hand snakes up the back of your head, tugging tightly on your hair.

His thumb brushes the back of your ear, his fingernail pushing deep against the skin. “And what secrets were being whispered into my wife’s ear by dear Ser Donnel?”

“There were no secrets-” You flinch, your mouth shutting as you feel the sliver of something sharp on your skin.

Your husband’s dinner knife. It is in his hand, pressed against the back of your ear. Your hands fly to push him arm away. “Aerion-”

“Place your hands on the table. If you cause a scene, you will not like the outcome you find.”

Your hands are trembling now, yet you force them flat against the table. You look around, desperate for someone to have noticed already, but it seems nobody has.

“Shall I take an ear?” Aerion taunts you. “To punish you for continuously not listening?”

You shut your eyes tightly. “Nothing was done, the-the guards can vouch for me,” you quickly spudder out.

He gives a short, unconvinced, “Hm.”

Your whole body flinches as you feel the sting of a small cut against the back of your ear. Your hand flies out instinctively to try to push him away, “Aerion-”

“Hands flat on the table.”

You force yourself to do so. But he presses harder. Your eyes sting with tears from the sharp pain.

Aerion leans forward, his face painstakingly calm. He brings his lips to your ear. “Was I not the one who saved you from Ser Donnel’s wrath just this morning?” he asks you. His voice mimics being emotionless, yet...something was there. You could hear something in that tone, whether it was jealousy or hatred, you did not know. “He would have ripped you from my hands and delivered you to my father to be whipped.”

You try, once, to get out of the situation. “Ser Thenty, he is hurting me-”

He presses the knife harder. A sharp cry leaves your lips. It turns a few heads of those sitting beside you. Your hand flies up to cover your mouth. The small batch of blood you felt now becomes a trickle down your neck.

“You think he wants to spare you from this?” Aerion scoffs. “Do you think Ser Thenty does not see what a disrespectful cunt you are?”

“I am sorry.” You do not know what else to say.

You feel defeated by this world.

There is no more fight left in your body, it is just...pain. It is always pain, and it will always be this way.

The tears in your eyes begin to spill over.

“I am sorry. Please, forgive me.”

That is all you do anymore. Beg for forgiveness.

Your stomach churns with how sick you are of all of this.

“I-I did not call on Ser Donnel.” You try to keep your voice quiet and even. “He saw me in distress, because I was weeping. That is all. We spoke of my father. I-” The blood trickles down to your shoulder. “I would never call on him.”

His hold on you barely loosens. “You will repeat every word that was said when we return to the tent.”

“I will. I will repeat every word.” You are desperate for relief of this pain, so your hand moves to his thigh, and you clutch the material of his trousers. “I am sorry, husband, I did not mean to disrespect you, I-I know better. Forgive me.”

He is quiet a moment, but he finally pulls his hand away, the knife leaving with it. You shudder a long breath of relief.

He places a napkin in your hand, and pushes it against your ear. “Pull yourself together. The tears make you look so ugly.”

You hope you bleed out and die.

The edge of Aerion’s knife is coated in your blood, and it has dripped down to his wrist. He brings the knife to his mouth. You feel sick as you watch him draw the knife along his tongue, ingesting the crimson red until it is gone.

“Go clean yourself off,” he tells you. “The tears and blood will be gone when you return.”

You swallow. “Yes, Prince Aerion.”

You push out the chair quickly.

When you turn around, you see those two bastards just staring at you.

Ser Thenty and Madam Pricher watch you like nothing has happened. As if they were not your protectors that have been carelessly witnessing your torture.

A rage builds in your soul and you are unable to swallow it down.

You have been held hostage by your husband, living only by his mercy. And this pitiful excuse of a knight seems to think you deserve it? That it is your role of wife, that being beaten without complaint is you staying in your place?

Perhaps Ser Thenty would see his sins for what they were if he were the one forced to survive Aerion’s rage.

He threw you to the wolves. Did he not deserve for the same to be done to him?

“Ser Thenty,” you announce. There is an expression of guilt on his face. But you have seen enough guilt. That will not save him now. “You have failed me.”

His shoulders slouch. You hear the slightest chuckle from Aerion.

You wish to wipe that smile off your husband’s face with violence. But you have no violence that will harm him.

So you aim to harm that pathetic heart of his.

You steady your breath, your hand still holding the napkin to your ear.

“But you are my favorite knight,” you say. “So I forgive you.”

Ser Thenty’s eyebrows knit together in a frown. You can see your husband’s head turn to stare directly at you now.

With Aerion’s eyes on you, you take a step toward Ser Thenty, you raise yourself higher, and you place a kiss on his cheek.

The squealing of Aerion’s chair is so instant and loud it makes you flinch away.

Then you flee. You take off out of the dining hall, walking quickly down the hall as the door shut behind you.

Suddenly, there is screaming. More than one person screaming.

You heard Madam Pricher’s voice. “Prince Aerion! Prince Aerion, please-”

There is commotion so loud that all you make out is more screaming. Then the door slams open again, and billowing footsteps follow as guests storm out of the hall.

People are leaving-no, evacuating.

You walk fast, but there are people running now. They hit your shoulders as the crowd begins passing you.

One hand still covers your ear with a napkin. As the screaming grows louder, you raise your other hand, and you cover both ears.

********************************************

Empty beer bottles littered the coffee table, pill bottles were scattered across the kitchen counter, and the air was thick with the stale scent of smoke and alcohol.

You sat on the edge of the couch, your legs pulled up to your chest, a fresh bandage was wrapped tightly around your forearm. You stared blankly at the wall infront of you, eyes blank, mind numb. The familiar sting of the razor blade had provided temporary relief, but now the emptiness was creeping back in on you.

Mingi suddenly stormed into the living room shaking you out of your bubble, his jaw was clenched. He slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing through the apartment like a gunshot.

"Where the fuck were you last night?" he shouted.

You flinched, but didn’t look at him.

"Out," you mumbled, voice barely audible.

"Out?" Mingi laughed, a bitter, mocking sound. "You mean fucking some random guy again? Is that it?" He took a step closer, his tall frame looming over you, his knuckles bruised and bloody from another rage rant.

"You’re a fucking mess, y/n. Look at you." He gestured to your bandaged arm. "Pathetic."

You bit your lip, tears stinging your eyes, but refused to let him see you cry. Mingi’s words were always like knives, but you’d turned used to it by now. You’ve heard those words before, from him, from San, from Yunho. They were a trio of dominance and degradation, their words cutting deeper than any blade.

”You’re not looking that great either.” You shot back at him, a big mistake but before he could respond with a whole sentence the front door slammed again announced San’s arrival.

”You fucking who-!”

San stumbled in, a bottle of beer in one hand, a pill bottle in the other.

"The fuck r you screaming for?" he slurred, his eyes scanning the room. When he spotted you on the couch, a smirk spread across his face. "Oh, look, the little cutter’s back. Did you miss us, princess?"

You clenched your fists, nails digging into your palms. You absolutely hated the way they talked to you, the way they treated you like you were nothing but a toy for their amusement. But you stayed. You always stayed.

”I swear she’s gonna kill herself one day, that wouldn’t be a big surprise.” Mingi groaned, giving you an angry look.

San walked over to you. He grabbed the blade from you and observed it close. He pressed it against his wrist, dragging it slightly across the flesh. Both you and Mingi stared at him.

San gave the blade back to you and took a sip of his beer, smirking at you.

”I can understand why she does it, I love it.” He said before walking to his room.

Mingi continued where he left off, walking over to you staring you down. He grabbed your wrist, his grip tight enough to bruise. “You think this is a fucking game? You’re a mess, y/n. A goddamn liability.”

You winced but didn’t pull away, your body was numb to his touch.

“Let go,” you whispered, though you knew it was futile. Mingi laughed, a bitter sound that scraped against your nerves.

“Let go? You’re the one holding on to this bullshit. Look at you. Pathetic.” He shoved your wrist down, forcing you to drop the blade. It clattered to the floor, a small, insignificant sound in the vast emptiness of the room.

A loud bang echoed through the wall behind the couch, startling you.

”Shut up out there!!”

Yunho appeared in the doorway, his pupils dilated, his hair stuck to his forehead.

”Did we disturb your little masturbation time?” Mingi smirked. ”You’re still bricked up man.” He chuckled pointing at Yunhos boner poking out under his sweats.

”Seriously I need to fuck, I’m going crazy.” Yunho groaned palming his cock.

"Maybe it’s time we put her to work, she’s got a pretty face, and instead of letting her go out fucking other men she could make herself more useful here with us.” Mingi teased.

”Leave me alone.” You said, rolling your eyes.

"Or what?" Mingi sneered, his thumb brushed against your jawline. "You’ll cut yourself again? Go ahead. Maybe this time you’ll do it right."

Yunho laughed, leaning against the wall.

You knew what they referred to. They’d used you before with their hands, their mouths, their cocks. You’d let them, because it was easier than fighting back. Because somewhere deep down, you craved the attention, the touch, even if it was rough, even if it was cruel.

”Hey San get out here!” Mingi yelled.

San came out from his room, no beer bottle in his hand but it was now covered in blood. He’d got the hang of cutting, he glared at you three and headed to the kitchen to get some bandaids.

”Ey man, r you up for some fucking?” Mingi asked, his voice purring.

San smirked, turning around. Completely forgetting about his wounded arm.

“Triple penetration, huh?” he said, his voice a dangerous whisper. “Sounds like a plan.”

Mingi grabbed your wounded arm and grabbed your jaw.

”Are you gonna let us use your pussy?” he purred, his breath was hot against your skin. “Don’t answer that, ha. We’ll do it anyway.”

Yunho wasted no time, unbuckling his pants and freeing his thick, throbbing cock. He grabbed you by your shoulders and pushed your back against his chest, his rock hard dick poked you. He then grabbed your breasts, squeezing them roughly.

“Such a tight little body.” he growled, his voice thick with lust. “Bet your pussy’s just as tight.”

San moved to stand in front of you, his eyes roamed your body with a hunger you couldn’t ignore. He unzipped his pants with his bloody hand, letting his cock out as well which also already was glistening with precum.

“Drop down.” he commanded, looking at your with his drunk feline eyes.

You swallowed looking into his eyes. You just stood there like a statue. Yunho pushed you down, the old wooden floor bruised your knees badly in the process.

San grabbed your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

“Suck it.” He said, pushing his cock toward your lips.

You opened your mouth, your tongue flicking out to taste him before your lips wrapped around his thick shaft. San groaned, his hands tangling in your hair as he began to thrust gently, his hips rolling into your mouth.

”Let’s put her on the couch.” Yunho said giving San a look.

San pulled out of you mouth and lifted you onto the couch. Yunho pushed you down so you were standing on all fours. San placed himself on the side, infront of your face pushing his cock into your mouth again.

Yunho placed himself behind you, he reached down spreading your legs apart, lifting your skirt. His cock jumped as he slowly slid down your panties, exposing your small pink pussy.

“Such a pretty little pussy.” he murmured, his fingers tracing your lips before he pushed two fingers inside, testing your tightness.

You gasped around San’s cock, the sensation getting overwhelming. Yunho smirked, pulling his fingers out and lining his cock up with your entrance.

“Ready for me, slut?” he asked, his voice dripping with filth.

Before you could respond, he thrusted forward, bottoming out deep. You moaned, the sound muffled by San’s cock in your mouth.

Mingi unbuckled his own pants and pulled his cock out. He moved to stand beside San, watching you suck him off, your lips and tongue working around his friend feverishly.

“Such a good little whore” Mingi chuckled. He reached down, gripping his cock and began to stroke himself, his eyes never leaving your face.

Yunho’s thrusts grew harder, his hands gripped your hips as he pounded into you, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Fuck, you’re so tight. Just how I like it.” he groaned, his voice hoarse with need. “Gonna fill you up with my cum.”

San pulled his cock from your mouth, saliva running down your chin. His hand took a hard grip around your jaw as he leaned down.

“You suck my cock so damn well, you pussy.” he murmured, a sly smirk appeared on his face as he watched you drunkenly. Your eyes fluttered as you licked your lips, the taste of San’s precum tingled on your tongue.

Mingi stepped closer, cock in his hand. “Ready for more, slut?” he asked, his deep notes rumbled through your body.

Yunho stopped his thrusts and dragged you down with him so you were on top of him. He pulled out his wet cock from your gushy pussy to make room for Mingi.

You just followed their lead, let them do whatever they wanted with you. That’s just how things worked around this dusty place, at least you didn’t have to hurt yourself anymore.

Mingi smirked as he hovered over your small frame, his fat veiny cock rested on your cunt just waiting to destroy the insides of your gummy walls.

”Now be a good girl, or else..” he threatened, giving your thigh a hard slap.

Mingi pushed up your legs, trapping you in a mating press. Yunho repositioned his dick, pushing his tip against your ass. Without any lube it could be difficult but that bastards dick was so hard and wet he slid in with ease. A long moan escaped him as he bottomed out.

You tried for dear life to be quiet, you were so vulnerable under their control.

Mingi pinched your clit making your hips jolt upward, earning another groan from Yunho. Mingi let out a mean scoff before spitting a huge amount of saliva on your entrance, rubbing it around your swollen lips.

His bruised arms grabbed your thighs as he thrusted forward, his cock slowly entering your hole stretching you open. You gasped, your nails digging into Mingi’s back as you adjusted to the fullness. He loved when you did that, drawing blood on his back creating more scars to his body.

The room was filled with the sounds of bodies colliding, the wet slapping of skin, ragged breaths and filthy whispers.

Yunho’s thrusts became frantic, his hips snapping into yours as he neared his edge. “Gonna cum in her ass.” he growled, his voice breaking.

San, who stood by stroking himself leaned down, his lips brushing your ear.

“Good girl.” he whispered.

He stepped closer to your head, putting his cock to your lips. San smeared his precum all over your cheeks and lips, teasing you.

”Open wide, I’m not done with your filthy mouth yet.”

You did as he said, you once again took his cock into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the tip and deep throated him until you choked and gagged on it.

Your body trembled, your orgasm was building as the three men pushed you to the brink.

Mingi’s thrusts grew harder, his grip on your thighs bruising as he pounded into your wet pussy.

“That’s it, take it all.” he snarled. “You’re ours, you hear me? Ours.” His eyes turned black and his moves got harsher. He got mean.

As a lightning from the sky, your orgasm exploded, your body were shaking as you cried out, your voice drowned out by having your mouth full of Sans cock.

Yunho came first, his cock pulsing as he filled your ass with his warm cum. Mingi followed, his thrusts stopped as he emptied himself into your cunt, his toned sweaty abs flexed with every pulse of his cock.

San pulled out, leaving you breathless gasping for air. He watches with satisfaction how strings of saliva connected the two of you.

”Open your mouth.” He said, stroking himself.

With a final stroke he came, he painted your tongue and cheeks white with his thick milk.

When Yunho and Mingi pulled out, you collapsed onto the couch, your body was shaking and your mind rushing.

Yunho went straight back to his room to watch more porn, Mingi and San stayed with you for a while. They loved to see you miserable and weak.

”I’m going out to get more beer. Mingi do you still have those morphine pills?” San asked as he put on his hoodie.

”No I’m out but you could get some more for me too.”

You finally got the strength to sit back up, you pulled down your skirt again and searched for your panties.

”Searching for these?” Mingi teased holding them up in his hand.

”Please can I get them back.. I wanna go out.” You begged.

He tossed them at you and scoffed.

”So this wasn’t enough for you, huh? You wanna go out to find some random guy who can fuck your stupid cunt like the dumb whore you are!” Mingi shouted. ”Just to come crawling back here and end up cutting yourself, you miserable bitch!”

The tears streamed down your face, like they usually did while talking to Mingi. So high on sex that he can’t cope anymore without the numbness from pills, alcohol or self harm. They were just as broken as you.

You quickly grabbed your phone and headed out the door on wobbly legs, you felt how the cum ran down your inner thighs.

”I swear if San doesn’t come back soon.. FUCK!!!” Mingi yelled, he bruised his knuckles punching yet another hole in the wall to his room.

”That’s life at the asylum…” you thought as you closed the door behind you.

you’d been working on a paint job for a pretty well known racers car for a couple days now. you think the guys name was jeno? you worked at a car shop but you didn’t keep up with that type of stuff. you hadn’t actually met him, but you were the one who’s been doing all the paint work for him. a new shiny coat on his expensive car for his show. you’d kill to have a car like this, it was nice as fuck.

you heard the door open and you realized it was probably him. you forgot that you hadn’t called to let him know that it’d be another day as the car needed some more time to dry. you fully prepare yourself for him to be a little angry, but you could’ve never prepared yourself for what he’d do instead of throwing a few snarky remarks at you. he walks up to your counter and eyes you up and down with an almost confused look on his face before he looks back at his car and turns back around to face you.

“i’m here to pick that up. should be under the name jeno.”

you cough before biting the inside of your cheek preparing for an outburst of some sort.

“sorry sir, it should be fully dried by tomorrow. it’s still a bit tacky.”

you swear he gave you a dirty look, but whatever, it was better than him screaming at you. you couldn’t speed up how fast a car could dry. if you could, you would, it’d make your job a lot easier.

“are you the one working on my car?”

“uhm, yes?”

he scoffs before looking back over at his car once again. he mumbled a “no fucking way…” under his breath and you just rolled your eyes before turning around to reach something hanging on the wall behind the counter.

“so then you wouldn’t know if it’s done or not.”

you still for a second and laugh slightly under your breath before you turn back to face him. what the hell was he talking about?

“sir, i worked on it, therefore i know that it’s done…even if i hadn’t painted your car, which i did, it’s pretty obvious to anybody that your car isn’t done. you can go touch it if you want, it’s still sticky to the touch.”

you hadn’t meant for it to come out with such attitude, but he was literally doing the same thing to you. you knew he was a racer or some shit but that doesn’t mean you should just bow down to him.

“i hope you’re not expecting a tip.”

seriously? he probably makes thousands a month and he can’t spare you a fucking tip? look at that nice ass paint job you just did. a gorgeous bright red, and it’d look even better when it was completely dry and shiny. you just ignore his comment and move over to him at the register.

“cash or card?”

he just slams the cash on the table without making a sound and you go to count it before he opens his mouth for yet another snarky remark.

“you really think i didn’t give you enough? you think i don’t got enough money, huh?”

you have to hold back from giving him a dirty look which was insanely hard by the way, and you’re sure you gave him some sort of look anyways because he made sure to give you a nasty look right after you had felt your eyebrows scrunch together at him.

“i have to count, sir. it’s got nothing to do with my personal beliefs. despite you not tipping..”

he slams his hand on the counter and you knew he had heard you.

“so, what? you’re just some greedy bitch who’s tryna empty out my pockets?”

you would have just told him to take the car and go but it’d literally be done by tomorrow and he already gave you the cash and you knew with his status that it’d be made into some huge deal. you put the money into the register and step back before placing your hands against your hips.

“excuse me? you can leave. you can pick up your car tomorrow since you already paid. unless you’ve got anymore questions, you can see yourself out.”

he looks down at the counter for a second before you see his fingers start to grip against the glass.

“i’ve got a few questions actually, ma’am.”

he takes a step towards the entrance of the counter.

“how long you been working here?”

he doesn’t give you a chance to answer before he take another step towards the opening to enter behind the counter.

“you’re a woman, what makes you think you have any business working here?”

he’s standing right at the opening to the counter now and you open your mouth but a small sound only gets the chance to slip out before he cuts you off again.

“you want a tip so bad, right?”

he’s takes his last step and is now fully behind the counter, standing right in front of you and staring you down intensely. you take a small step back and he quickly grabs your shoulder, his finger nails digging deeply into it.

“so why don’t i fucking give you one.”

he immediately turns you over by your shoulder and presses you against his back, wrapping a hand around your waist so you couldn’t get away from him. the place was empty, you were meant to close up tonight. you didn’t know what the hell he wanted. he literally just paid you the exact cash you needed, no way it was a robbery. you curse at him to let you go but he pulls you from behind the counter and over towards his car. he feels you up on the way there, forcing a hand into your pants and attempting to finger you, and that’s when you realized what he wanted and what was going to happen.

finally, you let out at least five screams before he slams a hand over your mouth. you were standing in front of the hood of his car now and you could feel his boner poking you right in the ass.

he continued to shove his fingers into you mercilessly and pulling out every few seconds to add a weak attempt at providing your clit attention. you stomp on his foot and he lets out a pained sound and a “you fucking bitch” before he pulls his hand out of your pants and shoves you onto the still tacky sticky hood of his car. you put your hands onto the side of the hood to push yourself up but he quickly presses his hand against your back to hold you down. you try to swing your arms back at him, hoping to hit something, but it does nothing, obviously. his other hand is still tight on your face and it’s threatening to slide up and cover your nose.

“what’s up with you uptight bitches, huh? thought you wanted a tip? i’d say fucking with a racer is a pretty big tip, right?”

he pushes your pants down along with your panties before you hear a belt from behind you and your pathetic squirms below him get more intense and reckless.

“you wanna be a bitch, right? i’ll treat you like a bitch then.”

and right then, he pushes his dick right in you. no easing, no stopping, he just goes right into you and immediately starts thrusting. you start to whine underneath him and you move your feet up from the floor hoping to hit him, but he just steals your idea and kicks you right in the back of your calf, hard. you immediately scream into his palm and feel like you’re sinking deeper into his car. you just lie there for a little, breathing heavy and you move your eyes up slowly and through his windshield you’re able get a slight look at the situation. you felt disgusting. you could see the sweat sticking to his face, his bangs bouncing with every relentless movement. and from how much you were sticking to the car, your body barely even moved from all the thrusts he was making. all you heard was the slight creakiness and bouncing of the car and his grunts and shitty moans. you hated him.

“you feel how big this tip is slut? wanna complain like a stripper not gettin’ enough money.”

he leans down into your ear and his thrusts suddenly quicken like a machine.

“maybe this’ll teach you not to take men’s jobs. what’s a woman like you even doing in an area like this?”

you whine against the palm of his hand and you just shake your head no. not at anything he said in particular, but just the whole situation. you try to mumble a few ‘stops’ underneath his palm, and you know that he hears them. you know he understands you don’t want this, but why the fuck would he care? was this really all because you were working at a job predominantly done by men…? seriously? when you feel yourself squeeze around him and hear him laugh, you feel absolutely disgusted with yourself and your body. your pussy was getting wetter and wetter, finally making noises everytime that his balls slapped against it. you get frustrated and you start sobbing angrily into his palm, stomping like a child against the floor. you would kick him again, but you knew the next time he kicked you right back, it’d be ten times worse than the first time. and so what if you managed to kick him off of you anyway? you wouldn’t get that far. he was ten times bigger than you and with your pants halfway down your legs, you’d trip over your own feet before you could even get one step in. the only thing you could do was wait until he was finished.

when you feel his fingernails squeeze into your back and feel something leak down your legs, you know exactly what it is and just pray that that’s enough and that this is all over. and when you hear the fabric of his pants brush against his legs and his belt clasp, your hopes have been fulfilled. or at least that’s what you thought. he didn’t release the palm that was on your mouth, only having moved his hand off of your back, now giving you more room to squirm. but he doesn’t let you get up. he moves the palm from your mouth to your head, pressing your cheek into the car and you can only yell so much in a position like that.

“get off of me! take your car and just go!”

you hear him scoff from behind you and you feel him circle his fingers on your clit before sliding them alllll the way down your slit until finally pushing them into your embarrassingly wet hole.

“you’d think after all that you’d get rid of that bitchy fukin’ attitude.”

he continues to finger you but once you feel him push a third finger in, you have to stop a moan from slipping. you try to move your hands up the car to create as much distance as you could between you and him. it became painful to do so as the paint had started to dry to your hands, but you continued anyways. but it wasn’t doing anything though, his fingers only follow you.

“we’re gonna stay here until you stop your bitching.”

and that’s when he slips a fourth finger in and you can feel yourself clench, and this time your body doesn’t let go, holding onto his fingers for dear life and he lets out a sick laugh. the moment you can tell that you’re about to cum all over his fingers, you try to push yourself up the car even more, becoming desperate, but it only encourages him to play with your clit as well now and he pushes your face harder against the car.

“i’m sorry—i’m sorry! okay? you can have the car for free—please!”

he scoffs and ignores your whining and continues to thrust his fingers into you. you became desperate, okay? what more could you do besides beg him to stop? he didn’t like your attitude? okay then, maybe your begging for mercy would detour him! but that’s not what he wanted. he wanted to strip you of any confidence and pride that you once had. he wanted to absolutely humiliate you. and when he saw you finish all over his fingers, he knew that had had. he immediately pulls his fingers out and he slaps your ass while laughing before moving back and you can hear him fumbling with something. you quickly push yourself up off of his car and it feels as if the skin is about to be ripped off of your face, but luckily, none comes off. when you finally free your face from the car hood, you’re met with a sight that would forever be engraved in your mind. your face print was totally embedded into his car. your hand prints littered it as well, and although your work top prevented a perfect outline, your chest was imprinted on there as well.

you quickly pull up your pants and go to move back but he quickly walks up beside you and throws an arm into your shoulder before looking down at you.

“it looks good doesn’t it?”

you just stare at it in disgust and he throws his shoulder off of you before taking a step back, grabbing his wallet and reaching in it before throwing a couple sorry ass twenty dollar bills at you like you were some stripper and a white strip of paper that lands on the car. you pick it up and realize it was a ticket to one of his shitty racing shows.

“you’re lucky i’m giving you one for free, front row too. better see you there, i want you to see my awesome new car design in action.”

he points to the prints on his car and you snap your head up to him, face wet with tears and painted with concern. you didn’t want to keep that shit on his car. so what if people didn’t know that the face print was yours? that’s humiliating as fuck! he squats down to your level as if you were a child and throws a hand onto your arm, squeezing it threateningly.

“if those prints aren’t still there by the time i pick it up tomorrow, i can assure you that you’ll see me again.”

he straightens his knees again, menacingly looking down at you before slowly removing his hand from your arm, dragging out every second before his hand finally drops and he simply just walks away. you just stand there stunned, money surrounding you and his car staring you dead in your face.

you turn to your side to get one last look at it. what were you supposed to tell your boss about what the hell that was? you can see yourself once again in the reflection of the windshield, your face has red paint all on its side and your hair is sticking up in a million different places, bits of paint stuck in it as well. a million showers would never be able to wash away what happened tonight, and a crummy hundred dollar tip didn’t make up for it either.

209 A.C Flea Bottom

The first thing you ever remembered was your brother’s hands.

Not your mother’s face, that was gone, worn away like a coin passed through too many fingers. You could summon the shape of her if you concentrated: the blurred watermark of a jawline, the suggestion of a mouth that laughed like a cracked bell, the smell of cheap wine and cheaper perfume that clung to her hair long after she stopped breathing. But her face? No. That belonged to the dark now, along with everything else from before.

But the hands, those you remembered. Dunk’s hands. Too large for a boy of eight, the knuckles already crosshatched with scars from street fights and kitchen fires, but impossibly gentle as they lifted you from the straw mattress where your mother lay cold and still. You had been five years old. You had not understood death, only that Mother would not wake. It was Dunk who wrapped you in a blanket thin enough to see through. Dunk who carried you out into the grey morning, your face pressed to his neck so you would not see the body being hauled away. Dunk who said, in a voice that splintered because he was barely more than a child himself, “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

And he had, you slept in doorways at first, curled together like kittens against the cold that seeped up through the cobblestones. Dunk learned quickly which bakers threw out day old bread and which watchmen could be bribed with a sad eyed look. He found work at an inn in Flea Bottom and the innkeeper’s wife let you sleep in the stables so long as Dunk scrubbed the floors and hauled the kegs and made himself useful in a dozen small ways. You would sit in the corner while he worked, your knees drawn up to your chin, watching him. Watching the boy melt away, season by season, into something that looked more like a man. He grew taller and broader and harder, his shoulders widening, his voice dropping. He was three years older than you, but sometimes he felt like thirty. He had never been a child. Neither of you had.

But you had each other. And that was enough. It had to be.

Every night, after his labors were done, Dunk would come to you in the stables. He would reek of sweat and sour ale, and he would lower himself onto the hay beside you with a groan that belonged to a man three times his age. And then he would tell you stories he’d gathered like dropped coins from travelers and old soldiers and the septon who sometimes came to beg a bowl of soup. Stories of knights who never faltered, dragons who spoke in riddles, castles of white stone that caught the sunrise like mirrors. Maidens so beautiful that kingdoms burned for a single glance.

You were twelve when the men began to notice you. It happened on an ordinary night, with an ordinary drunk who’d had too much ale and too little sense. You were carrying a tray of empty cups back to the kitchen, your arms aching with the weight, when a hand came out of nowhere and closed on your backside. You froze, no understanding of what the sudden heat crawling up your neck meant or why your body had locked itself rigid as a board. The man laughed and then Dunk was there.

One moment the drunk was leering at you, his hand still on your body, and the next he was on the floor with blood fountaining from his nose and Dunk standing over him like a thunderhead. He threw the man out into the mud, and when he came back inside his hands were trembling with a rage so profound it seemed to warp the air around him. “Stay close to me,” he said, and it was not a request. His voice was quiet, too quiet, the kind of quiet that lives on the far side of fury. “Always. Do you understand? Always.”

You understood. From that day forward, you were never more than arm’s reach from your brother. When he walked to the market, you walked beside him, your fingers sometimes hooked into the rope that acted like a belt, when the crowds pressed too close. The men still looked, by fourteen, you had grown into the kind of beauty that stilled conversations mid sentence, your mother’s eyes and your unknown father’s soft mouth arranged on a face that seemed to belong in a ballad rather than a Flea Bottom inn, but they looked from a distance. Dunk saw to that.

You were inseparable. Joined at the hip, the innkeeper’s wife liked to say, shaking her head with a fondness that bordered on bewilderment. “Never seen the like. That boy would tear the world apart for his little sister.”

You were sixteen when everything ended. The festival came in the spring, an eruption of color and noise that spilled from the gates of the Red Keep and flooded through the city like a tide. Mummers on stilts, jugglers with flaming torches, singers with harps slung across their backs, knights in armor that caught the sun and threw it back in a thousand glittering shards. Dunk had been given the night off—a rarity—and he had taken your hand with a grin you hadn’t seen since you were children hiding from the rain under a stolen tarp. “Come on,” he said, and his eyes were bright in a way that made your chest ache.

You laughed and followed. The crowd was too thick. The torches made everything swim, light and shadow bleeding together until faces became masks and masks became faces. Dunk kept his hand clamped around your arm for the first hour, his grip unwavering, but then a knot of drunkards staggered between you and in the space of a single heartbeat, you lost him.

“Dunk?”

You rose onto your toes, straining above the heads of the crowd. You saw him turn, saw his mouth open to call back to you, saw the sudden alarm flash across his features, and then the surge of bodies carried you sideways, a riptide of flesh and noise, and you stumbled into an alley to escape the crush.

That was when they took you. There were three of them. You never saw their faces clearly, only hands. Rough and quick and impossibly strong, one clamping over your mouth, another banding around your waist and lifting you clean off the ground. You tried to scream. You bit down on the palm pressed against your lips, tasted blood and salt and felt the man curse and shift his grip, but there was no time. A sack came down over your head, coarse and stinking of something you did not want to name, and the world went dark and muffled and small.

The last thing you heard was the festival. The music, the laughter, the endless churn of celebration. It went on without you, as if you had never been there at all.

Dunk searched for three days. He did not sleep. He did not eat. He tore through Flea Bottom like a storm given flesh, overturning carts and kicking down doors, bellowing your name until his voice shredded into something barely human. He went to the City Watch, and they laughed, a girl from the slums, what did he expect? He went to the sept, and the septon only clasped his hands and murmured prayers that tasted like ash. He went to every inn, every brothel, every lightless corner of the city where a girl might be hidden or sold or worse, and he found nothing. Nothing. Nothing and nothing again.

On the fourth day, a woman came to him, she found him in the alley where you had vanished, sitting against the wall with his head in his hands, and she knelt beside him.

“You’re the one,” she said. Not a question. “Looking for the girl with the H/C hair. The pretty one.”

Dunk’s head came up so fast his neck cracked. “Where is she?”

The woman shook her head. Slowly. Deliberately. A gesture that held everything he did not want to know. “They found her in the water this morning, lad. Some men…” She paused, and something that might have been pity flickered across her ruined face. “They took her. And when they were done—” Her hands made a twisting motion, a brutal pantomime that needed no translation. “The women who found her said she was hardly recognizable. They’ve already burned the body. Too much damage, they said. You don’t want to see that. Trust me. You’re better off remembering her the way she was.”

Dunk did not speak. He simply sat there, staring at the woman’s face, and something inside him cracked straight down the middle and bled dry.

“Who?” His voice did not sound like his voice. “Who did it?”

“No one knows. Drunkards, maybe. Travelers passing through. They’re long gone now.” The woman rose, joints creaking, and looked down at him with something that was not quite pity and not quite indifference. “I’m sorry, lad. Truly.”

She left him there. And Dunk stayed. He stayed in that alley as the sun bled out and the moon rose pale and indifferent and the city settled into its night noises around him. His little sister was dead. He had promised—promised—to protect her, and she was dead. And the world, which had never been kind to either of them, now seemed to hold no color.

—

213 A.C Ashford

The gardens of Ashford Castle were not as grand as the ones in Summerhall but they were still beautiful. You had been here for less than a fortnight, arrived as part of Prince Maekar's retinue for the tourney celebrating Lord Ashford's daughter's nameday, and already the place had worked its way under your skin. The roses were in full bloom, cascading over stone walls in waves of crimson and gold and softest pink. The hedges were trimmed into the shapes of birds and beasts.

The little girl was running through the grass ahead of you, her silver gold hair streaming behind her like a banner caught in a high wind, her bare feet slapping against the earth with the unselfconscious joy of someone who had never known hunger or fear or the back of a stranger's hand. She was two years old, small for her age but fierce, so fiercely alive that it stopped your breath sometimes, with violet eyes that missed nothing and a laugh that could fill an entire hall and still demand more room.

"Rhaenyra," you called, and you tried to sound stern, you really did, but the smile kept breaking through no matter how firmly you set your jaw. "Come back here before you trip and ruin that dress."

"Won't," the child announced, with the absolute conviction of someone who had never been wrong about anything in her life, and kept running.

You sighed, gathered your skirts in both hands, and gave chase. The dress you wore was finer than anything you had owned before Aerion had claimed you, a gift he had given you specifically for this journey. Pale blue silk that whispered when you moved, with silver embroidery at the sleeves and neckline. He had wanted you to look presentable at Ashford. You suspected, though you had not said it aloud, that he also wanted to show you off. To remind his family, and perhaps himself, what he possessed.

You were twenty years old now, no longer the trembling girl who had been thrown into a black carriage while a brothel burned behind her, no longer the hollow eyed creature who had learned to disappear inside her own body while men did what they pleased. The past months and years had reshaped you, smoothed some of the sharp edges and hardened others.

But there was something new in you now, something forged in the long nights of learning to survive Aerion Targaryen and the longer days of learning to love your daughter. You knew how to bend without breaking. And you knew, with a certainty that lived in your bones like marrow, that you would kill any living soul who tried to harm your child.

Rhaenyra had tripped over an exposed root and was sitting in the grass, more affronted than injured, examining a smudge of dirt on her palm with the grave concentration of a maester confronted with an ancient and inscrutable text. You scooped her up before the tears could organize themselves, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head, breathing in the smell of sunshine and crushed grass and something warm and sweet that was just her.

"Told you," you murmured into her hair. "You fell."

"Didn't cry," Rhaenyra pointed out. This was technically true, and there was a note of such fierce pride in her small voice that your heart performed an odd, painful little flip in your chest.

"No," you agreed, pulling back to look at her solemn face. "You didn't. You're a brave little dragon, aren't you?"

The child beamed. She adored being called a dragon. It was one of the few gifts Aerion had given her that did not make your stomach twist into complicated knots. This inheritance of fire and blood and the unshakeable conviction that she was meant for something magnificent.

You carried her back toward the castle, her small arms wrapped tightly around your neck, her voice a ceaseless ribbon of chatter about the butterfly she had almost caught and the bird that had flown directly over her head and the flower she had picked that was pink, Mama, pink and pretty and can I keep it forever please please please. You made the appropriate sounds of wonder and encouragement, your eyes scanning the courtyard as you crossed it, your body perpetually aware of who was watching.

The servants of Ashford avoided your gaze, much as the ones at Summerhall did. They had learned, over the course of the tourney's first days, to treat you with a careful neutrality. Not quite respect, not quite disdain, something suspended in the ambiguous space between. They knew what you were. Prince Aerion's paramour. The woman he had brought with him from Summerhall, installed in a guest chamber near his own, paraded through the grounds like a provocative piece of art he wanted everyone to see whether they wished to or not. They did not speak to you unless absolutely necessary, did not meet your eyes, did not acknowledge the child in your arms except to incline their heads stiffly and step aside.

Ashford Castle was a crowded place during the tourney. Lord Ashford's daughter Gwin had turned thirteen, and to honor her nameday, her father had declared a tourney that would last five days. Knights and lords from across the Reach and beyond had gathered to compete, their banners snapping in the spring breeze, their pavilions spreading across the fields like a crop of colorful mushrooms.

Prince Maekar's entire family had come with his children. You saw them sometimes, in the corridors or the courtyards or the great hall at supper, but you never spoke to them. You were not permitted. Prince Maekar had made that blisteringly clear from the very beginning, his voice cold with a disgust he did not bother to disguise.

"The woman stays in her chambers," he had told Aerion when he first met you. "I will not have her parading about in front of the children. She is a whore, Aerion. A whore and you will not embarrass this family."

Aerion had not argued. He rarely argued with his father directly. But he had kept you anyway, had dressed you in silk and silver, had installed you in a room that connected to his own. And now you were here, carrying your daughter back toward the keep while the roses nodded in the breeze and the distant sounds of the tourney grounds drifted over the walls like distant thunder. You had not been permitted to attend the jousts. Not since the yesterday.

You closed your eyes for a moment against the memory. It had been horrible. Aerion's tilt against Ser Humfrey. You had been watching from the stands, Rhaenyra on your lap, your heart in your throat the way it always was when he rode. He was a skilled jouster, your prince, but he rode with a recklessness that bordered on suicidal, and sometimes you thought he would not be satisfied until he left someone broken in the dirt.

This time, he had aimed too low. Deliberately, you were almost certain, though you would never say so aloud. His lance had struck Ser Humfrey's horse in the neck, a brutal, illegal blow that sent the animal crashing to the ground with a scream that would haunt your nightmares for weeks. Ser Humfrey had been thrown, his leg twisted at an angle that made your stomach lurch, and the horse had thrashed in the dirt with blood pumping from its throat.

The crowd had broken through the barriers. Prince Baelor Breakspear himself had risen from his seat, his face a mask of disgust, and you had seen the way he looked at Aerion. The way everyone looked at Aerion. Like he was something monstrous. Something broken beyond repair.

Aerion had found you afterward, still flushed with adrenaline, his eyes too bright. He had forbidden you from attending any more of the jousts.

"It's not safe," he had said, his grip on your arm just shy of bruising. "The crowds are unpredictable. The horses are dangerous. You and Rhaenyra will stay in the castle or the gardens. I don't want you anywhere near the lists."

You had not argued. You rarely argued with him about things that mattered. But you had seen the truth behind his words, the truth he would never admit. He did not want you to see him lose. He did not want you to see the way the other knights looked at him after what he had done.

So you had stayed away. You had walked in the gardens, and played with Rhaenyra, and smiled your careful smile whenever Aerion returned to your chambers in the evenings, bruised and bristling and desperate for the praise only you could give him.

"Up," Rhaenyra demanded as you approached the castle's side entrance. "Up high, Mama. I want to see."

You lifted her higher, settling her higher on your hip with the practiced ease of two years of motherhood, and she gazed around the corridor with the same wide eyed wonder she brought to everything. You loved her so much it scared you sometimes. Loved her with a ferocity that made the love you had felt for your own mother, dim and distant and blurred at the edges, seem like a candle held up against the sun.

"You spoil her."

The voice came from behind you, and you did not startle. Months with Aerion had taught you the particular cadence of his footsteps, the faint jingle of the sword he wore even at peace, the way the air in a room seemed to tighten and grow watchful when he entered. You turned, shifting Rhaenyra to your other hip with a fluidity that had become second nature, and offered him the smile you had perfected over your time together.

It was not a false smile. That was the strange thing, the thing that still surprised you when you stopped to examine it. It was not false at all. There was calculation in it, yes. There was calculation in everything you did, a habit you could not have broken if you tried. But there was warmth there too. The warmth of a woman looking at a man she had somehow, against all odds and reason, come to care for.

Love. The word still felt strange in your mouth, like a garment that did not quite fit. Aerion was not kind. He was not gentle. He was not good, in any sense that your brother Dunk would have recognized. But he was yours, in his possessive, consuming, infuriating way, and you were his, and somewhere in the crucible of the past years, that mutual belonging had transmuted into something that looked, from certain angles, remarkably like love.

He was not a tall man, standing at five and a half feet, and you knew it rankled at him. Knew that every inch he lacked compared to the warriors he trained with was a splinter under his skin. But what he lacked in height he more than compensated for in presence. The way his boots struck the stone floors, deliberate and commanding. The sharp, hawkish beauty of his face, all angles and shadows. The particular weight of his attention when it landed on you, heavy as a hand on your shoulder.

"My dragon," you said, and the word was warm, intimate, a private jest between you that no one else would recognize. "She wanted to explore the gardens. You know how she loves the roses."

He stepped closer, and Rhaenyra immediately lunged toward him, her small arms outstretched, her face alight with the uncomplicated adoration of a child who had never been given a reason to fear her father. "Papa! Papa, I found a flower!"

She had dropped the flower somewhere in the garden, of course. You had seen it fall, a little pink bruise against the green grass, left behind in her headlong rush toward the next thing and the next and the next. But Aerion did not know that, and you suspected he would not have cared if he did. He took the girl from your arms with an ease that still surprised you, settling her against his chest as naturally as if he had been doing it all his life.

Aerion, who was never gentle with anyone. Aerion, whose hands had left bruises on your body in the early days. Aerion, who had aimed his lance at a horse's throat and watched it die without flinching.

But Rhaenyra had never seen that side of him. Rhaenyra saw only the father who bounced her on his knee and called her his little dragon and looked at her as if she were the single good thing he had managed to produce in a life full of sharp edges and bad decisions. And you saw both versions of him, the monster and the man, and you had learned to hold them both in your mind at once, to love the whole complicated, contradictory mess of him.

"A flower," Aerion repeated, bouncing Rhaenyra gently against his chest. "What color?"

"Pink!"

"Pink," he said, with the solemnity of a man receiving a sacred revelation. "Pink is an excellent color. You have impeccable taste."

Rhaenyra giggled, burying her face in the curve of his neck, and Aerion's eyes met yours over the top of her head. There was something in his gaze. A flicker of warmth, a flicker of something that might have been gratitude. It made your heart clench in that way you had long since stopped trying to explain away.

I love him, you thought, and the thought did not feel like a lie. It felt like the truth, strange and inconvenient and slightly terrifying though it was. Gods help me, I truly do.

You knew what people would say if they could hear your thoughts. How can you love him? After what he did to that horse? After what he did to you? After what he is? And they would not be wrong to ask. The early days had been brutal; there was no use pretending otherwise. He had hurt you, in ways that still surfaced in your dreams on bad nights. He had fucked you without asking, had demanded without giving, had treated your body like territory to be conquered and your compliance like tribute to be extracted.

But then something had shifted. Slowly, incrementally, in the way of seasons changing. He had begun to see you. The woman who praised him when no one else would. The woman who listened to his fears and his rages and his strange, tangled dreams of dragonfire and destiny. The woman who had given him a daughter and held his hand through the disappointment and taught him, patient as a stone worn smooth by water, how to be something other than cruel.

And you had seen him, the man underneath, the one who craved praise because he had never received it, the one who lashed out because he had never learned another way to ask for what he needed. You had seen him, and against all wisdom, against all self preservation, you had loved him.

He still hurt you, sometimes. When his black moods descended and his hands grew rough and the words that came out of his mouth were designed to wound. But those moments were rarer now, spaced further and further apart, and after each one he would come to you with his arms full of gifts. Dresses of silk and velvet, jewels that glittered in their velvet nests, books with leather bindings and gold leaf on the pages that you devoured in the quiet hours when he was training and Rhaenyra was napping. He would hold you afterward, his face pressed into your hair, his arms wrapped around you like a cage he was afraid you might slip through.

"You understand me," he would whisper, and his voice would crack on the words in a way that made your heart splinter. "You're the only one who does. The only one who ever has. Don't leave me. Promise me you won't leave."

And you, holding him in the dark, would stroke his short silver hair and murmur the words he needed to hear. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'm yours."

You meant them, too. That was the strangest part. After everything, you meant them.

Where would I even go? you thought, watching him bounce your daughter in his arms in this borrowed garden in a borrowed castle, surrounded by roses that belonged to someone else.

You looked at Rhaenyra, at the small, fierce face that was so clearly her father's, and you thought about the day she had been born.

It had been the longest day of your life.

The labor had lasted nearly eighteen hours. You had screamed until your voice gave out entirely, had bitten straight through the leather strap the midwife had given you, had prayed to gods you had not believed in since childhood to make it stop, please make it stop, I can't do this, I'm going to die, please let me die. Aerion had paced outside the door like a caged animal, his boots wearing a groove in the stone, demanding updates every few minutes and threatening bodily harm to the maester whenever the news was not to his liking.

"Is it a boy?" he had shouted through the door, over and over, his voice fraying at the edges. "Tell me it's a boy. It has to be a boy. I'm going to name him Maegor. A strong name. A dragon's name. Tell me!"

You had heard him, even through the wall of agony that had swallowed the world, and you had felt a cold dread settle into the pit of your stomach like a stone dropped into deep water. Maegor. He wanted to name his son after Maegor the Cruel. You had prayed then, harder than you had ever prayed in your life, with what remained of your shredded voice and your failing strength. Not a boy. Please, not a boy. Whatever else you give me, don't give me a boy who will carry that name.

The gods, for once in their capricious existence, had listened.

When the baby had finally emerged, slick and furious and impossibly, breathtakingly alive, the maester had looked between her tiny legs and pronounced, with the careful neutrality of a man who knew exactly how dangerous this moment was: "A girl, my prince. A healthy girl."

The silence that followed had been more terrifying than any scream.

Aerion had burst into the room, his face pale as milk, his short hair standing up in wild disarray from running his hands through it for eighteen hours. He had stared at the child in the maester's arms. At the tuft of silver gold hair plastered to her scalp, at the violet eyes that were already open and glaring at the world with an indignation that seemed profoundly personal. His expression had twisted into something ugly.

"A girl," he had said, and his voice was flat. Hollow. A room with all the furniture removed. "I waited nine moons. Nine moons. For a girl."

He had not touched you. He had not touched the baby. He had simply turned on his heel and walked out of the room, and you had heard his boots ring down the corridor, and then the distant slam of a door, and then nothing.

The next three days had been the darkest of your new life. Aerion did not come to your room. He did not send for you. He did not acknowledge the existence of the child at all. He ate his meals with his family, trained in the yard with a brutality that left his sparring partners bloodied and bewildered, and refused to speak to anyone who so much as mentioned the baby's existence. The girl, the servants called her in whispers, because she had no name yet, and a child without a name was a ghost.

You lay in your bed, your body slowly knitting itself back together, your breasts aching with milk, and you held your daughter against your chest and wondered if this was the end. If Aerion would cast you both out, send you back to the streets of King's Landing with nothing but the clothes on your back and a bastard child in your arms. You made plans in the dark hours. Foolish, desperate plans, the kind of plans that only seemed reasonable at three in the morning when you were alone and terrified and your stitches still pulled every time you moved. You would run. You would find Dunk if he was still alive, throw yourself at his feet, beg him to take you back even though you were ruined and used and nothing like the sister he had lost. You would find work, honest work, kitchen work, anything, and you would raise your daughter to be strong and fierce and free, and she would never, ever know what it felt like to be owned.

But on the fourth day, the door had opened.

Aerion stood in the frame, and you barely recognized him. His eyes were ringed with shadows so dark they looked like bruises, his short hair a disheveled mess, his fine clothes rumpled and stained as if he had been sleeping in them, or not sleeping at all. He had been wrestling with something, you realized. Himself, his pride, his expectations, his disappointment. And from the look of him, he had lost.

"Let me see her," he said. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw, as if he had been shouting or weeping or both. "Let me see my daughter."

You did not trust yourself to speak. You simply lifted the baby from your chest. She was awake, her violet eyes tracking the movement with that unnerving intensity newborns sometimes had. And you held her out toward him.

Aerion approached slowly, cautiously, like a man approaching a wounded animal that might bite. He looked down at the small, wrinkled face, at the silver gold fuzz on her head, at the tiny fists that clenched and unclenched in the air as if she were already fighting battles only she could see. And something in his expression shifted. Not softened. Aerion did not soften, not in any way you had ever witnessed. But cracked. A fissure in the ice, unexpected and profound.

"She looks like me," he said. It was not a question.

"Yes," you whispered, your voice still ruined from screaming. "She's a true dragon, my prince. Just like her father."

He reached out one finger, just one, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly, and touched the baby's cheek. Rhaenyra turned her head toward the contact, her tiny mouth opening and closing in that instinctive rooting reflex.

"Rhaenyra," he said. "I'll call her Rhaenyra."

You knew the name, of course. Everyone in Westeros knew the name. The princess who had been called Maegor with teats, who had fought a war that tore the realm in half and refused to surrender even when the odds were hopeless. It was a name soaked in controversy, in blood, in the stubborn refusal to be anything other than what she was. It was a cruel name to give an infant daughter, in some ways. A challenge. A provocation. A reminder that girls could be as dangerous as boys, if they were bold enough.

But it was not Maegor. It was not the name of the Cruel. And on that fourth day, with your daughter finally named and Aerion's hand resting awkwardly, almost shyly, on your shoulder, you had decided to be grateful for small mercies.

"Rhaenyra," you repeated, trying the name on your tongue. It tasted like strength. Like fire. Like survival. "My little dragon."

And now, two years later, watching that same daughter tug impatiently at Aerion's doublet while he laughed, that hope had only grown. Rhaenyra was fierce and stubborn and clever and alive, so vibrantly alive, and you would make certain she stayed that way. You would die before you let that happen. You would kill before you let that happen. And the truth of that, the absolute crystalline certainty of it, was the most liberating thing you had ever felt.

"Y/N."

Aerion's voice pulled you back from the precipice of memory. He was watching you over Rhaenyra's silver gold head, his expression hovering somewhere between amusement and irritation.

"You're brooding again," he said. "You get that look on your face when you're thinking too hard. I've told you. I don't like it."

You let your expression shift, the distant look replaced by something warmer, more present. But you did not apologize; you had learned, over your time together, that apologizing for your thoughts only made him more suspicious. Instead, you reached out and straightened the collar of his doublet, letting your fingers brush the skin of his throat, a gesture of casual intimacy that you knew he craved even if he would never admit it.

"I was thinking about how happy she looks," you said, and it was the truth, or a version of it. "You make her happy, Aerion. You know that, don't you?"

He grunted, but you caught the flicker of satisfaction that crossed his features before he could suppress it. Praise. He could never get enough of it, had been starved for it his entire life, and you had learned to feed him with the same regularity you fed your daughter. All this time, and he still turned toward your words like a flower toward the sun, drinking in every affirmation, every acknowledgment, every whispered you are magnificent, you are powerful, you are loved.

"She's a dragon," Aerion said, adjusting Rhaenyra on his hip with practiced ease. "Dragons don't get sad. They incinerate the things that upset them."

"Papa," Rhaenyra said, with the sudden, intense solemnity that only a two-year-old can muster, "I want to incinerate something."

Aerion threw back his head and laughed. A real laugh, full throated and genuine, the kind of laugh that transformed his sharp features into something almost boyish, almost approachable. "That's my girl," he said, and pressed a kiss to her forehead with an uncharacteristic tenderness. "That's my little dragon. We'll find you something to burn later."

You watched them, this strange, fierce man and this strange, fierce child, and your heart performed that complicated maneuver it had been practicing for years, folding affection and exasperation and hope and fear all into one impossible shape.

This is real, you told yourself. Whatever else is happening, whatever else they say about us, this is real. He is my Aerion, and she is my daughter, and this is my life, and it is real.

Aerion shifted Rhaenyra to his other arm and extended his free hand toward you. His earlier tension seemed to have eased, replaced by something almost eager, a restless energy that crackled just beneath his skin.

"There's a play tonight," he said. "Some puppeteers have set up in the village. I've heard it's about a dragon." His mouth curved into that sharp, knowing smile you had come to recognize. "I thought we might go after supper. You and me and the little dragon here. She should see something worthy of her name."

Rhaenyra's head came up at the word dragon, her violet eyes bright. "A dragon play, Papa?"

"A dragon play," Aerion confirmed, tweaking her nose. "With fire and scales and everything a proper dragon ought to have. Would you like that?"

Rhaenyra's shriek of delight was answer enough. She bounced in his arms, clapping her small hands together, already launching into a stream of questions about whether the dragon would be big or small, whether it would breathe real fire, whether she could meet it afterward and be its friend.

You smiled, and this time there was no calculation in it at all. Aerion was trying. In his own strange, possessive way, he was trying. He had brought you to Ashford to wound his cousin, yes. He had paraded you in front of his family like a trophy, yes. But he was also here, in this sunlit corridor, planning an evening at a play with his paramour and his bastard daughter, and there was something in his face that you had learned to recognize as hope.

"That sounds wonderful," you said, and meant it. "Rhaenyra will be talking about it for weeks."

"She'll be talking about it regardless," Aerion said dryly. "The child never stops talking. She gets that from you."

"From me?" You pressed a hand to your chest in mock offense. "I am the very soul of silence, my prince."

Aerion snorted. It was an undignified sound, entirely at odds with the sharp, cruel prince the rest of the world knew. "You are a terrible liar, Y/N. You always have been."

But he was smiling when he said it, and when he offered you his arm, you took it without hesitation. Rhaenyra was still chattering about dragons, her small voice filling the corridor with improbable questions and even more improbable declarations. Aerion answered her with patience, with warmth, with the particular tenderness he reserved for her alone.

And you walked beside them through the halls of Ashford Castle, your hand on Aerion's arm, your daughter's laughter echoing off the stones, and for this moment, this single bright moment, you let yourself believe that everything would be all right.

—

The screaming started before you understood what was happening.

One moment there had been music, the thin reedy piping of a flute and the thump of a hand drum, and Rhaenyra had been bouncing on your hip with her small hands clapping together in delight. The painted dragon had been swaying above the stage on its strings, its wings catching the torchlight, its jaws opening and closing in roar while the puppeteer below made a rumbling growl deep in her throat to give it voice. Rhaenyra had laughed. You could still hear the echo of that laugh, bright and silver and utterly without fear.

Then Aerion and the white cloaks moved, and the world splintered. The first tent pole went down with a sound like a thunderclap. Silk billowed inward, red and gold and orange, catching the torchlight and becoming flame even as it fell. People were screaming. People were running. A woman stumbled into you from behind and you curled around Rhaenyra on pure instinct, your spine curving, your arms locking, your body becoming a shell with your daughter at its center. Someone's elbow drove into your ribs and you felt something grind and shift and send a bright white bolt of pain up your side.

"Mama," Rhaenyra whimpered, and her voice was small, so terribly small, the voice of a child who did not understand why the world had turned cruel between one heartbeat and the next. "Mama, I want to go. I want to go home."

"Shh," you breathed into her hair, though your own voice was shaking so badly the word hardly had a shape. "Shh, my love, my dragon, Mama's here. Mama's got you. Close your eyes, sweetling. Close your eyes and it will be over soon."

She buried her face in the curve of your throat. You could feel her tears, hot and wet, soaking through the silk of your gown. You could feel her heart beating against your chest, a frantic bird trapped in a cage of bone. You could feel every tremor that ran through her small body, and each one was a knife slipped between your ribs.

The guard Aerion had assigned to you stood at your back like a statue carved from ice. Ser Harrold, his name was, you had begged him to escort you from the pavilion the moment the violence began. You had turned to him with Rhaenyra clutched against your chest and pleaded with him to let you leave, to let you take your daughter somewhere safe, somewhere the screaming did not reach.

He had looked at you with eyes that held no more warmth than a winter pond. "Prince's orders," he had said, and the words fell from his mouth like stones dropped into still water. "You stay until he says otherwise."

"But she's frightened," you had said, and you had hated the tremor in your voice, hated the way it made you sound weak when you needed to be strong. "She's two years old, Ser Harrold. She doesn't understand what's happening. Please."

"Prince's orders," he had repeated, and he had not looked at you again.

On the stage, Aerion had the puppeteer by the wrist. She was young. That was the detail that lodged itself in your memory like a splinter, the detail that would come back to you in the dark hours of the night for years afterward. She was young, perhaps your age. Her mouth was open in a scream that you could not hear over the roaring of the crowd, and her free hand was beating uselessly against Aerion's chest, against his arm, against the unyielding iron of his grip.

She had made a dragon out of paint and wood and string. She had painted scales on its wings with her own hands, had worked its jaws with her own fingers, had given it a voice that made children laugh and grown men cheer. She had made the terrible, fatal mistake of letting her dragon be killed in the story she told. The knight had slain it with his sword and the audience had gasped and clapped and cheered the hero's victory.

Aerion had not cheered. Aerion had stared with a face like a thunderhead, and then the Kingsguard had begun to move, and now he was on the stage with the puppeteer's wrist in his hand and her dragon lying forgotten at his feet.

He started with her fingers. The first one broke with a sound like a dry branch snapping underfoot in the depths of winter. It was surprisingly quiet, that sound, almost delicate, almost polite. The puppeteer's index finger bent backward at an angle that made your stomach contract violently, and she screamed, a high thin shriek that cut through the chaos of the pavilion like a blade through silk.

Rhaenyra flinched in your arms. "Mama," she whimpered, "why is the lady screaming? Is she hurt? Mama, I want to go."

"Close your eyes, sweetling," you whispered again, and your voice was breaking now, splintering into pieces you could not put back together. "Close your eyes and think of something nice. Think of the roses in the garden. Think of the pink flower you picked. Think of anything but this."

The second finger broke wetter than the first. A muffled, grinding crack that seemed to echo in the hollow of your chest. The puppeteer's legs gave out beneath her, but Aerion held her up by her ruined hand,ìand his face, his beautiful face that you had kissed and praised and learned to love, was alight with something that went beyond cruelty into a territory you had no name for.

Pleasure. A bright, burning pleasure that lit him from within like a lantern lights a room. His violet eyes were wide and shining, his lips parted slightly around his bloodied teeth, his breath coming in short sharp bursts that were almost sexual in their rhythm. He was enjoying this. He was enjoying this in a way he had never enjoyed a single moment of the years you had spent together, and the realization crashed into you like a wave into rocks, cold and brutal and undeniable.

You love him, you had thought earlier in the gardens. No, you hate him. That was the horror of it, the horror that would never leave you no matter how many years passed. You loved him, you loved the father of your child, you loved the man who had burned down a brothel for you. You loved him, and he was standing on a stage in a village called Ashford, breaking a girl's fingers one by one because her puppet show had insulted his pride.

The third finger made a sound like a walnut being crushed in a vise.

"Please," you heard yourself saying, and you did not know if you were speaking to Aerion or to Ser Harrold or to the gods who had never listened to a single prayer you had ever sent their way. "Please, someone stop him. Someone make him stop."

Ser Harrold's hand closed around your upper arm, immobilizing you. He was wearing gauntlets, the leather stiff and unyielding against your skin. "Hold still," he said, and his voice was the voice of a man who had learned long ago that obedience was safer than conscience.

The puppeteer's fourth finger snapped.

Then the giant came out of the crowd. His hair was dirty blonde, cut short against his skull in a way that suggested practicality rather than fashion, and it was matted with sweat and dust and something that might have been blood. His face was a shadowed blur in the torchlight, his features obscured by the angle and the distance and the chaos, but his size. Gods above and below, his size.

He was enormous. Seven feet of bone and muscle and righteous fury, with shoulders broad enough to block out the firelight behind him and hands the size of dinner plates curled into fists at his sides. He did not slow. He did not hesitate. He cleared the edge of the stage in a single stride, and then he was on Aerion, and his fist was connecting with the prince's face with a sound like a hammer striking an anvil.

Aerion staggered backward. His grip on the puppeteer's wrist broke, and she crumpled to the stage in a heap of brown wool and ruined hands, sobbing. Blood flew from Aerion's mouth in a dark arc that caught the torchlight and glittered like rubies scattered across the stage. He hit the wooden planking hard, his head snapping back against the boards, and for one impossible, crystalline moment, the entire pavilion went silent.

Then the Kingsguard moved. They came from every direction at once, white cloaks streaming behind them like wings, white enameled armor flashing in the firelight. Six of them. Seven. More, perhaps. They swarmed the big man the way wolves swarm a bear, throwing themselves onto his back and his arms and his legs, trying to drag him down by sheer weight of numbers. He fought them. Gods, he fought them. You saw one Kingsguard reel backward with blood pouring from the visor of his helm. You saw another take an elbow to the throat and go down choking, clawing at his gorget. You saw the big man's fists rise and fall and rise again with the relentless rhythm of a blacksmith's hammer, each blow carrying the weight of a righteous anger that no amount of white armor could withstand.

But there were too many. There were always too many. They dragged at his legs and his arms and his neck, six white cloaked knights and then seven and then eight, and still he nearly threw them off, still he nearly got free, still he nearly made it back to his feet with his massive hands reaching for Aerion again. Then one of the Kingsguard drove the pommel of his sword into the back of the big man's skull, and his knees buckled. Another kicked his legs out from under him. Another twisted his arm behind his back at an angle that made the joint scream in protest even from where you stood watching.

They forced him to his knees on the stage. One of them, a tall man with a captain's bars on his white cloak, grabbed a fistful of that dirty blonde hair and yanked his head back, forcing his face up into the torchlight.

Aerion rose to his feet. He moved slowly, carefully, the way a man moves when he is holding onto his composure by the thinnest of threads. His lip was split open, a gash that ran from the corner of his mouth nearly to his chin. Blood sheeted down his jaw and dripped onto the white silk of his collar, staining it crimson. He probed at his teeth with his tongue, grimaced, and spat a wad of blood and saliva onto the stage. Something small and white and hard skittered across the wooden boards.

“Why did you throw your life away for this whore” Aerion said.

"You've loosened one of my teeth,"

The pavilion had gone very quiet. The screaming had stopped, or perhaps it had simply receded to a distance where it could no longer reach you. The only sounds were the crackle of the torches, the soft sobbing of the puppeteer still huddled on the stage, and the ragged, labored breathing of the big man as he knelt in the grip of the Kingsguard. Aerion's voice was soft, almost conversational, the voice of a man discussing the weather over a cup of wine. It was more terrifying than any scream could have been.

"So," Aerion continued, prodding at his mouth again with his thumb and forefinger, examining the blood that came away, "we'll start by breaking out all of yours."

"No." The word came out of your mouth before you could stop it, a reflex as automatic as breathing, as instinctive as flinching from an open flame. "Aerion, no."

He did not look at you. He was not capable of hearing you, not in this state, not with the blood of a puppet show on his hands and the taste of his own tooth in his mouth. He was looking at the big man the way a child looks at an insect he has caught in a jar. Curious. Utterly without pity.

One of the Kingsguard, the captain with his hand still fisted in the big man's hair, forced his head down toward the stage. Another moved to stand on either side of him, gripping his shoulders, pinning him in place. A third stepped forward, removing his gauntlets one finger at a time, flexing his bare hands with the deliberate precision of a man preparing to perform a task that required both strength and care.

"Hold him still," Aerion said. "I want to watch."

Rhaenyra was sobbing in earnest now, her small body shaking with the force of her terror. She did not understand what was happening. She understood only that her father was on the stage and there was blood on his face and the safe bright world of the puppet show had collapsed into screaming and white cloaks and a big man on his knees who was about to be hurt in a way she had no language for.

"Mama," she wept, "Mama, I want Papa to stop, make Papa stop, please make him stop."

"I can't," you whispered into her hair, and the admission was a wound that would never fully heal. "I can't, sweetling. Mama can't make him stop. Close your eyes. Close your eyes and don't look."

The Kingsguard with the bare hands stepped forward. He was flexing his fingers, working the joints loose, his movements unhurried and methodical. The captain still had the big man's head forced down at the angle required for what was about to happen. The other guards braced themselves, digging their heels into the wooden stage, preparing for the struggle they knew would come.

The big man lifted his head against the pressure of the captain's grip. It was a monumental effort; you could see the muscles of his neck straining, the veins standing out like cords, the sweat cutting tracks through the blood and dirt on his face. He lifted his head, and the torchlight fell full upon his features for the first time.

You saw his face.

Time did not slow. It did not fade. It stopped. It stopped completely, absolutely, as if some vast and terrible hand had reached down from the heavens and seized the mechanism of the world itself and held it motionless. The torches froze mid-flicker. The screaming faded to a hum that existed somewhere beyond the boundaries of hearing. The blood in your veins turned to ice and then to fire and then to something that had no name at all.

You knew that face. You knew the hands. The enormous hands that had lifted you from your mother's deathbed, that had carried you through the cold morning while the other whores watched with pity and disgust, that had wrapped you in a threadbare blanket and held you against his chest while he promised you in a cracking boy's voice that he would always, always have you.

Dunk. He was alive. He was on his knees on a stage in a village called Ashford with a Kingsguard's hand in his hair and another Kingsguard's bare knuckles preparing to break his teeth out of his skull one by one, and he was alive.

"Dunk."

You did not recognize your own voice. It did not sound like a voice at all. It sounded like something that had been torn out of you by the roots, something that had been buried so deep and so long that pulling it free left a bleeding hollow in the center of your chest.

"Dunk."

Louder this time. Louder, and it cracked on the second syllable, cracked like your mother's laugh had cracked, like a bell that had been rung too hard and too long and had nothing left inside it but splinters.

"DUNK."

Time restarted itself with a violence that made your vision swim. The torches flared back to life. The screaming returned, a wave of sound that crashed over you and through you and left you gasping. The Kingsguard hesitated, their hands pausing on their prisoner, their white helms turning toward you with the synchronized precision of hunting dogs catching a scent.

Dunk turned his head. The captain still had his fist twisted in his hair, still had his neck bent at that brutal angle, but Dunk turned his head against that grip with the slow, inexorable force of a continent shifting, and he looked at you.

His eyes found yours across the chaos of the ruined tent. You saw the recognition hit him. Saw it travel through his body like a physical blow, a shock wave that started in his eyes and rippled outward through his shoulders, his chest, his hands. His face went slack with it, the tension draining out of his jaw and his brow, replaced by something that was too raw and too vast to be called surprise. It was disbelief. It was hope, the kind of hope that had been dead for so long its resurrection was indistinguishable from agony. It was joy and grief and guilt and love, all of them crashing together in the space of a single heartbeat.

His mouth moved. Formed the shape of your name. You could not hear it over the screaming, over the roaring of your own blood in your ears, but you saw it, saw the way his lips shaped the syllables he had not spoken in years, the name he had called across a hundred alleys and a hundred dark streets while he searched for you, the name he had whispered to himself in the long nights when he believed you were dead and gone and never coming back.

He surged against the guards holding him. Not fighting to escape now. Fighting to get to you. His massive shoulders bunched and heaved, nearly throwing off the two Kingsguard who were gripping his arms. A third lunged in to reinforce them, his white cloak tangling around his legs in his haste. Dunk did not seem to notice. He did not seem to feel the hands dragging at him or the knees pressing into his back or the captain's fist still grinding into his scalp. He was looking at you and only at you, and he was trying to reach you, trying to cross the impossible distance between the stage and the place where you stood with Rhaenyra in your arms.

You surged forward to meet him. You did not think about it. You did not calculate the odds or weigh the consequences. Your body moved before your mind could catch up, driven by an instinct older than thought, older than fear, older than anything you had learned in the years since they took you from the festival. Your brother was here. Your brother was alive.

Ser Harrold's arm locked around your waist like an iron bar. "Hold still," he snarled, and he was no longer calm now, no longer indifferent. He was struggling to hold you, struggling to keep his grip on a woman who had spent years learning to be still and silent and obedient and had finally, in this single shattering moment, forgotten how.

"Let me go!" The words tore out of your throat with a force that made your vision white out at the edges. Rhaenyra was screaming in your arms, her small fists beating against your shoulders, her voice a thin high wail that you could barely hear over the roaring in your ears. "Let me go, that's my brother, that's my brother, let me GO!"

"Aerion!" You were screaming his name now, the name of the man you loved, the name of the monster on the stage, the name of the only person in this pavilion who had the power to make the nightmare stop. "Aerion, please, please, you have to stop, he's my brother,please, Aerion, PLEASE!"

Aerion turned to look at you.

His face was still smeared with blood, his lip still split and swollen, his violet eyes still bright with the pleasure of the violence he had been orchestrating. But something flickered in their depths when he saw your face, when he registered the raw, unvarnished desperation in your voice. Confusion first. Then irritation, a flicker of the familiar petulance that crossed his features whenever something did not go the way he had planned. And then something else, something that chilled you more than any cruelty could have done.

Something calculating.

"What," he said, and his voice was a blade drawn slowly across a whetstone, "the fuck are you doing? What is she screaming about?"

You could barely form the words. Your throat was raw, your chest heaving, your arms trembling with the effort of holding Rhaenyra while Ser Harrold's grip threatened to crack your ribs. But you forced them out, forced them past the sobs that were building in your chest, forced them into the space between you and the man who held your brother's life in his bloodstained hands.

"He's my brother. He's my brother, Aerion." Your voice cracked on his name, splintered into something that was half a plea and half a prayer. "The brother I told you about. Dunk. The one I thought was dead. The one who raised me. Please. Please don't hurt him. I'll do anything. I'll give you anything. Just please, Aerion, please don't hurt my brother."

Something moved in Aerion's face. A muscle in his jaw jumped. His eyes narrowed, the bright pleasure of the violence draining out of them, replaced by something harder and colder and infinitely more dangerous. He looked at you, and he looked at Dunk, and he looked back at you, and you could see him putting the pieces together. The brother you had wept for in the dark hours of the night, the brother whose name you had whispered in your sleep, the brother Aerion had forbidden you from ever mentioning again.

The brother who was now on his knees in front of him, bloodied and defiant, the man who had dared to strike a prince of the blood, and his expression closed like a door slamming shut in a winter gale.

"Take her back to her chamber," Aerion said. He was not looking at you anymore. He was looking at Dunk, and his voice was utterly without warmth, utterly without the history that stretched between you, utterly without anything that might have been mistaken for mercy. "Lock the door. No one goes in or out until I give the order."

"No." The word was barely a whisper. Ser Harrold was already dragging you backward, his arm still locked around your waist, his heels digging into the trampled grass of the pavilion floor. "Aerion, no, please, you can't do this."

"Take the child to the nursery," Aerion continued, as if you had not spoken, as if your voice did not exist, as if you were already gone. "She does not need to see any more of this. Make sure she stays there."

"No!" The scream that tore out of you was not a sound. It was a living thing, a creature with claws and teeth and a heart full of desperation, and it ripped its way out of your throat and into the torchlit air of the pavilion with a force that made the nearest Kingsguard flinch. "You can't separate us! She's my daughter! She's MY daughter!"

Rhaenyra was shrieking now, a high thin sound that rose above the chaos like a needle sliding into flesh. Her arms were wrapped around your neck so tightly that you could feel her small fingernails digging crescents into your skin, and her legs were locked around your waist, and her face was buried in the curve of your shoulder, and she was screaming, screaming, screaming. "Mama, Mama, don't let them take me, Mama, please, I want to stay with you, Mama, MAMA!"

Ser Harrold was dragging you backward. Another guard, a man in the pale grey of Prince Maekar's household, was trying to untangle Rhaenyra from your arms. His hands were gentle, gentler than you had expected, but that gentleness made it worse somehow, made it more real, made it a kindness that was not a kindness at all. He was murmuring something to Rhaenyra, some meaningless reassurance that neither you nor she could hear over the screaming, and his fingers were prying at her small grip one digit at a time.

"Don't," you sobbed. "Don't take her. Please. Please don't take my daughter."

But your arms were being pulled backward, and your strength was failing, and Rhaenyra's grip was slipping. You felt her fingers lose their hold on your dress. Felt the warmth of her body pulled away from yours. Felt the cold air rush in to fill the space where she had been, and that cold was worse than any physical pain, worse than the bruises blooming on your arm where Ser Harrold held you, worse than the raw burning in your throat from screaming, worse than anything you had endured in the brothel or the alley or the long dark nights when you believed your brother was dead.

"RHAENYRA!"

She was being carried away, still reaching for you over the guard's shoulder, her silver-gold hair bright as a candle flame in the torchlight, her violet eyes wide and streaming with tears. "Mama! I want my mama! Give me back my mama!"

You fought. You fought the way Dunk had fought, with every ounce of strength in your body, with your teeth and your nails and your fury. You twisted in Ser Harrold's grip and raked your nails across his face, felt the skin of his cheek tear beneath your fingers, felt the hot wet rush of his blood against your palm. He cursed and tightened his hold, and something in your side gave way with a sharp bright spike of agony, but you did not stop. You could not stop. Your daughter was being taken from you, your brother was on his knees with a prince's boot on his neck, and the world was ending, and you could not stop.

And then, cutting through the chaos like a blade through silk, a young voice rang out across the pavilion.

"No! Don't touch him!"

Everyone froze. The Kingsguard with his bare hands paused mid-motion, his knuckles inches from Dunk's clenched jaw. The captain's grip on Dunk's hair loosened slightly in surprise. Even Aerion turned, his bloodied mouth twisting into an expression of annoyed bewilderment.

The boy who stepped forward from the chaos of the crowd was small, skinny, with a shaved head that gleamed in the torchlight like a polished stone. He could not have been more than nine or ten years old, and he moved with the absolute, unshakeable confidence of someone who had never been told that the world did not bend to his will. He was bald and his clothes were the roughspun of a stable boy, dirty and sweat-stained, but he wore them like a prince wearing borrowed silks.

Dunk's voice was a ragged gasp, desperate and afraid in a way it had not been when the Kingsguard were beating him. "You stupid boy! Hold your tongue or they'll hurt you."

The boy did not slow. He did not even glance at Dunk. His eyes were fixed on Aerion, and there was something in them that made the prince's expression flicker with the first hint of uncertainty you had seen all night.

"No, they won't," the boy said, and his voice was calm, steady, the voice of someone stating a fact as immutable as the rising of the sun. "If they do, they'll answer to my father."

He stepped past the Kingsguard as if they were not there, as if the white cloaks and the white armor and the drawn swords were no more substantial than morning mist. He stopped directly in front of Aerion, this small bald boy in dirty clothes, and he lifted his chin and looked the prince full in the face.

"Let go of him," the boy commanded. "Wate, Yorkel, do as I say."

And the Kingsguard obeyed.

The captain released Dunk's hair. The other guards stepped back, their hands falling away from his arms and shoulders, their white helms inclining slightly in gestures of deference that stopped your heart in your chest. They knew this boy. They knew him, and they obeyed him, and that could only mean one thing.

Aerion stared at the boy. His violet eyes narrowed, studying the shaved head, the dirty clothes, the small defiant face that was upturned to his own. And then, slowly, recognition dawned across his bloodied features like a sluggish sunrise. It was followed immediately by annoyance, a deep and profound irritation that seemed to cut through even the pleasure he had been taking in the violence moments before.

"You impudent little rat," Aerion said. His voice dripped with contempt, but beneath it lurked something else, something that sounded almost like wariness. "What's happened to your hair?"

The boy did not flinch. He did not blink. He looked at Aerion with the steady, unblinking gaze of someone who had spent his entire life watching and learning and understanding things that others missed, and when he spoke, his voice carried the unmistakable weight of royal blood.

"I cut it off, brother," he said. "I didn't want to look like you."

Brother. The word landed in the center of the pavilion like a stone dropped into still water. Brother. This boy, this small bald boy in stable clothes, was Aerion's brother. Which meant he was Prince Aegon Targaryen, the youngest of Prince Maekar's sons, the one you had glimpsed occasionally in the corridors of Summerhall, the one who had looked at you like you were a puzzle he was trying to solve.

And he had just intervened to save your brother's life. The revelation halted the attack instantly. The Kingsguard could not carry out Aerion's orders now. Not against a man who was connected, through his squire, to the royal family. Not against a man who was protected by a prince of the blood, however young and however bald and however inexplicably dressed in the roughspun of a stable hand. The captain stepped back further, his white cloak settling around him like folded wings, and the other guards followed suit, leaving Dunk kneeling alone on the stage.

Aerion's face was a study in frustration. The pleasure had drained out of him entirely now, replaced by a seething, impotent fury that he could not express without defying his own brother, his own blood, in front of half a dozen witnesses. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. The blood from his split lip still dripped down his chin, and his violet eyes were dark with a rage that had no outlet.

But he was a prince, and he knew the rules, and striking a man who was connected to the royal family was a crime that even he could not simply burn his way out of.

"Take him to the cells," Aerion said finally, and his voice was flat and cold and utterly drained of the pleasure that had animated it before. "He struck a prince of the blood. That crime remains regardless of whose squire the little rat has chosen to become. He will await trial and judgment, and lock her in her chamber."

Ser Harrold hauled you backward through the ruins of the pavilion. Your legs gave out beneath you, and he dragged you the rest of the way, your heels scraping furrows in the trampled grass, your head lolling against his shoulder, your voice reduced to a raw and wordless keening that did not stop. You passed overturned benches. You passed torn silk and scattered cushions and a child's abandoned shoe.

The last thing you saw before the tent flap closed behind you was Aerion. He was still standing on the stage, his red tunic splattered with blood, his face a mask of cold, distant contemplation. He was not looking at you. He was looking at the place where Dunk had disappeared, and there was something in his expression that you had never seen before. Something that went beyond jealousy, beyond possessiveness, beyond the casual cruelty of a man who had never been denied anything.

He looked like a dragon counting its hoard, and finding a single coin out of place.

—

The door slammed shut behind you with a finality that echoed through your bones.

You had screamed until your voice gave out. You had beaten your fists against the iron banded oak until your knuckles split and bled, leaving dark smears on the wood that looked like accusations. You had thrown yourself at the door again and again, your shoulder bruising, your strength ebbing, until finally your legs had given way beneath you and you had slid to the cold stone floor with your back against the unforgiving wood and your face buried in your bleeding hands.

Rhaenyra was gone. Dunk was gone. Everyone you had ever loved had been ripped away from you in the space of a single night, and you were locked in a borrowed chamber in a borrowed castle with nothing but the silence and the dark and the terrible, circling thoughts that would not let you rest.

You pressed your forehead against your knees and tried to breathe.The hours crawled past like wounded animals dragging themselves toward death. You did not move from your place against the door. You did not lie down on the bed, though it was soft and wide and covered in Ashford's finest linens. You did not drink the water that had been left on the side table, though your throat was raw and burning from screaming. You simply sat, curled into yourself, and waited.

For Aerion. For news. For something, anything, that would tell you what was going to happen next. You thought about the look on Dunk's face when he recognized you. The shock. The joy. The desperate, agonized love. What must he have thought? What must he have assumed about you, about your life, about the choices that had led you to this place?

The shame of it burned in your chest like swallowed fire.

You did not know how long you sat there. It might have been hours. It might have been minutes. Time had lost all meaning in the darkness of the chamber, with the candles unlit and the fire unbuilt and the only light coming from the pale sliver of moon that crept through the narrow window high in the wall. But eventually, eventually, you heard the sound you had been dreading and hoping for in equal measure.

Footsteps in the corridor. Boots on stone, deliberate and unhurried, the particular cadence of a man who knew that the world would wait for him. The jingle of a sword at the hip. The faint, almost imperceptible sound of a key turning in a lock.

The door swung inward, and Aerion Targaryen stepped into the room.

He had cleaned the blood from his face since you last saw him. His lip was still swollen. His silver gold hair had been combed back from his face, still damp from washing. He had changed his clothes; replaced by a simple black doublet that made his pale skin look almost luminous in the moonlight. He looked almost calm. Almost controlled. But his violet eyes were too bright, too sharp, the eyes of a man who was holding onto his composure by the thinnest of threads.

He closed the door behind him. You heard the lock click into place.

"My dragon," you said, and your voice came out as a croak, raw and broken from screaming. You tried to rise to your feet, but your legs would not hold you, so you remained on the floor, your back against the wall, your hands still stained with your own blood. "Aerion, please. Please tell me what's happening. My brother. Where is my brother? Is he all right? What are they going to do to him?"

The change that came over Aerion's face was instantaneous and terrifying. The careful mask of composure cracked like ice hit by a hammer. His jaw tightened. His eyes narrowed. His hands, which had been relaxed at his sides, curled slowly into fists.

"I come to you," he said, and his voice was a blade being drawn from its sheath, slow and deliberate and full of promise, "after being attacked in front of half the nobility of the Reach. My lip is split open. My tooth is loose in my skull. My dignity has been trampled by some hedge knight with dirt under his fingernails and hay in his hair. And the first words out of your mouth are not 'Are you all right, my prince?' Not 'Let me tend your wounds, my love.' Not a single word of comfort or concern for me, the man who saved you from a brothel, the father of your child, the prince who has kept you fed and clothed and protected for years."

He took a step toward you. Then another. His shadow fell across you like a shroud, blocking out the pale moonlight, plunging you into darkness.

"Your first words," he said, and his voice was rising now, climbing toward a register you had learned to fear, "are about him. A stranger. A man who struck me. A man who loosened my tooth and spilled my blood in front of the Kingsguard. That is who you ask about. That is who you care about. Not me. Not your prince. Not the father of your child. Him."

"He's not a stranger," you said, and your voice was barely a whisper. You knew you should stop. You knew you should placate him, soothe him, tell him everything he wanted to hear. That was what you had done for years, what you had become so skilled at doing. But you could not. Not tonight. Not with Dunk's face still burned into your memory like a brand. "He's my brother, Aerion. He's my brother. He raised me. He protected me, and you have him locked in a cell like a criminal. Please. Please, just tell me he's all right. Just tell me you haven't hurt him."

Aerion stared at you for a long moment. The torch from the corridor outside cast his shadow long and dark across the floor, stretching toward you like a grasping hand. His breathing was audible in the silence, harsh and uneven, the breathing of a man who was losing a battle with his own rage.

"You love him," he said finally. The words were flat, toneless, utterly without inflection. "This brother of yours. This hedge knight with his dirty hands and his dirty hair. You love him more than you love me."

"That's not true," you said, and it was the truth and it was a lie and it was everything in between. "I love you, Aerion. You know I love you. But he's my brother. He's my blood. I thought he was dead. I mourned him for years. And now he's here, and he's alive, and I just want to know that he's safe. That's all. I just want to know that he's safe. Please."

"Safe." Aerion repeated the word as if it were a foreign language, a concept he had heard described but never experienced. "Safe. You want to know if the man who struck me is safe. You want to know if the man who humiliated me in front of my family and my father is safe."

He laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. It was the sound of something breaking.

"You're mine," he said, and his voice cracked on the word, splintering into something that was half rage and half desperation. "You have been mine since the night I bought you. I paid fifty gold dragons for you. I burned down a brothel for you. I gave you a home, a place in my household, a daughter who bears my name. I have given you everything. Everything. And you stand there, bleeding on my floor, asking about another man."

"I'm not standing," you whispered, and you did not know why that was the detail you chose to focus on. He crossed the distance between you in three swift strides. His hand closed around your arm, hauling you upright with a strength that would leave bruises, and you cried out as the blood rushed back to your legs and the pain in your side flared white hot.

"You are mine," he said again, and his face was inches from yours, his violet eyes blazing with a fire you had seen directed at others but never, never at you. Not like this. Not with this intensity. Not with this complete and absolute absence of restraint. "Say it. Say you're mine."

"I'm yours," you gasped. His grip on your arm was agony, his fingers digging into the bruises Ser Harrold had left, and tears were streaming down your face. "Aerion, please, you're hurting me."

"Good." He shook you, once, hard enough that your head snapped back and hit the stone wall behind you. Stars burst across your vision. "Good. Maybe if I hurt you enough, you'll remember who you belong to. Maybe if I hurt you enough, you'll stop asking about other men. Maybe if I hurt you enough, you'll finally understand that the only way you leave me is in a shroud."

"My brother," you sobbed. "He's my brother. Not another man. My brother. Please, Aerion, please try to understand."

"I understand perfectly." His free hand came up to grip your chin, forcing your face toward his, forcing you to look into his eyes. "I understand that you have spent years telling me you loved me while you dreamed of someone else. I understand that the moment he appeared, you forgot everything I have done for you. I understand that you are a whore I pulled from a brothel, and no matter how many silk dresses I put on you, no matter how much of myself I pour into you, you will never, ever stop being what you are."

The words hit you like physical blows. Each one was a fist to the gut, a slap to the face, a knife slipped between your ribs. You had known, intellectually, that this was how he saw you. You had always known. But hearing it spoken aloud, hearing it thrown at you like an accusation, like a crime you had committed against him simply by existing, was something else entirely.

"Aerion," you whispered, and your voice was so small, so broken, that you barely recognized it as your own. "I have never been unfaithful to you. I have never looked at another man. I have never wanted anyone but you. He is my brother. My brother. Why can't you understand that?"

"Because I don't care!" He screamed the words directly into your face, his spittle flecking your cheeks, his breath hot and sour with wine and blood. "I don't care who he is! I don't care if he's your brother or your father or your long lost lover! The moment you chose him over me, the moment you screamed his name instead of mine, the moment you fought my guards and clawed Ser Harrold's face to try to reach him, you made your choice! And now you will live with it!"

His hand released your chin and came across your face with a crack that seemed to echo off the stone walls.

The backhand caught you across the cheekbone, hard enough to snap your head to the side, hard enough to send a spray of blood from your already split lip, hard enough that your legs gave out beneath you entirely. You fell. You did not fall gracefully, did not fall the way women fell in the songs Dunk used to tell you, floating down like petals on a breeze. You fell like a sack of grain, heavy and graceless, your hip striking the stone floor with a jolt of pain that made you gasp, your palms scraping raw against the cold flagstones, your already injured side screaming in protest as you landed.

You lay there for a moment, stunned. The taste of blood filled your mouth, copper and salt and something that might have been despair. The world swam in and out of focus. The moonlight from the window seemed very far away, a distant silver promise of a world that existed somewhere beyond this room, beyond this night, beyond the man who was standing over you with his chest heaving and his eyes blazing.

Then he was on top of you. His weight pressed you into the cold stone floor, heavy and immovable, the weight of a man who had trained with sword and shield and lance, the weight of a prince who had never been denied anything in his life. His knees pinned your thighs. One hand caught both of your wrists and forced them above your head, pressing them into the stone with a grip that made your fingers go numb. His other hand was at your throat, not squeezing, not yet, just resting there, a reminder, a threat, a promise.

"You're my whore," he said, and his voice was a growl, low and guttural and utterly without the cultured refinement he wore like armor in the daylight. "Mine. You have been mine since the night I bought you, and you will be mine until the day you die. Do you understand? Do you understand what that means?"

"Get off me," you gasped. Your voice was barely audible, strangled by the hand at your throat and the weight on your chest. "Aerion, please, get off me, I can't breathe."

"It means," he continued, as if you had not spoken, as if your words were less than nothing, as if your voice did not exist in any way that mattered, "that I own you. Your body. Your heart. Your soul. Every breath you take, you take because I allow it. Every night you sleep in a warm bed, you sleep there because I permit it. Every moment you spend with our daughter, you spend because I have chosen to let you. And the only way you leave me, the only way you ever leave me, is if you are dead. Do you understand? Dead."

He was tearing at your dress as he spoke, the silk that he had given you, the dress he had chosen, the dress you had worn to the puppet show, the dress Rhaenyra's tears had soaked through. You heard the fabric rip, felt the cold air on your skin, and you found what remained of your strength and pushed against him. Your hands were still pinned above your head, but you bucked your hips, twisted your body, tried to throw him off the way Dunk had thrown off the Kingsguard.

It was useless. It was always useless. He was stronger than you, heavier than you, and he had the advantage of gravity and rage and years of training in violence that you had never received. He pressed you back down against the stone, and his hand left your throat to grip your jaw, forcing your face toward his, forcing you to look into his eyes.

"Say it," he demanded. "Say you're mine. Say you belong to me. Say that no one else matters. Not your brother. Not anyone. Say it."

You did not say it. You could not say it. The words were locked in your throat, trapped behind the tears and the blood and the terrible, crushing weight of what was happening to you.

You tried to squeeze your legs shut, but his knee drove between them, forcing them wide. He was hard and the sight of his cock made your stomach turn.

"Look at it," he hissed, grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking your head forward. "Look at what you made me do. This is your fault. If you had just obeyed—"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. He pressed the head of his cock against your entrance, already sore and swollen from the first time, and you whimpered, a high, broken sound that seemed to please him. He held there, just barely breaching you, letting you feel the pressure, the promise of invasion.

"Please," you whispered, your voice cracked and raw. "Please, Aerion, please don't—"

He thrust.

The sound you made was not a scream. It was something worse, a choked, guttural sob that tore from your throat as he buried himself inside you in one brutal push. The angle was wrong, too deep, too dry despite the precum already coating your thighs. You felt every ridge and vein of his cock as it forced its way deeper, splitting you open, claiming space that did not want him.

He paused, buried to the hilt, and let out a low groan that was almost human. Almost tender. Then he began to move.

Not fast. Not yet. He fucked you slowly, deliberately, with a cruelty that made every inch of the motion deliberate. He pulled almost all the way out, then slid back in with excruciating leisure, watching your face contort with each stroke. His eyes were locked on yours, challenging you to look away.

You did. You turned your head, pressing your cheek against the cold stone, staring at a crack in the floor until your vision blurred. But he would not allow that. He grabbed your jaw, forced your face back to his.

"Watch," he commanded. "Watch me take what is mine."

His pace increased. The slow, torturous rhythm gave way to a sharp, punishing fucking that drove the air from your lungs with every slam of his hips. The wet slap of skin against skin echoed off the walls, mingling with your ragged breaths and his grunts. He leaned down, his chest pressing against yours, and bit your shoulder, not a kiss, a bite, hard enough to break skin. You cried out, and he licked the blood, humming in satisfaction.

"That's it," he whispered against your ear, his breath hot and uneven. "Make sound for me. Let the whole castle hear how much you hate it. Let them know who you belong to."

He drove deeper, harder, angling his hips to hit that spot inside you that made your back arch despite yourself. A spark of unwanted pleasure shot through your pelvis, and you bit your lip so hard you tasted copper. He noticed. Of course he noticed. He slowed down, grinding against that same spot, watching your body betray you as your hips began to rock in counterpoint to his thrusts.

"There she is," he breathed, almost reverent. "There's the whore underneath. You can't hide her from me. She wants this. She needs this."

"No," you gasped, but your body said yes, clenching around him, drawing him deeper. Hot shame flooded through you, hotter than the pain, as your cunt began to slick with something that was not blood. He felt it too, he groaned, his rhythm faltering, his grip on your hips tightening.

"I'm going to fill you," he snarled, his composure cracking. "I'm going to pour every drop of my seed into this worthless hole until you're pregnant with my heir, a son this time, and then I'll do it again. And again. And—"

He came without warning, a guttural roar tearing from his throat as he shoved himself as deep as he could go, his hips stuttering, his cock pulsing inside you. You felt the hot flood of his cum, felt it spill out around him, felt it mix with the blood and your own unwanted wetness. He collapsed on top of you, his full weight pressing you into the stone, his breath hot and ragged against your neck.

For a long moment, neither of you moved. Then he shifted, pulling out with a wet sound that made you flinch, and rolled onto his back beside you. The moonlight had moved, illuminating his face now haunted gleam in his violet eyes that looked almost like regret.

But you knew better. You knew he would do it again. And again. And again. Because in his world, you were already dead. You just hadn't stopped breathing yet.

He did not speak. Neither did you. You lay on the cold stone floor with your torn dress twisted around your body and your wrists still aching from his grip and your thighs slick with the evidence of what he had done, and you stared at the ceiling, and you thought of nothing at all.

After a long time Aerion rose to his feet. He straightened his clothes with mechanical precision, adjusting his doublet, smoothing his hair back from his face. He did not look at you. He did not offer you a hand to help you up. He did not speak a single word of apology or comfort or explanation.

"Your brother will stand trial," he said, and his voice was the voice of a stranger, flat and cold and utterly devoid of the passion that had consumed him moments before. "For striking a prince of the blood. The sentence will be severe. How severe depends entirely on you."

He paused at the door, his hand on the latch, his back to you.

"If you try to see him again," he said, "if you try to contact him, if you so much as speak his name in my presence, I will have him executed. Do you understand? His life is in your hands. Remember that."

The remainder of the night passed in darkness. You did not move from the floor. You could not move from the floor. The torn silk of your dress had dried stiff and crusted against your skin, and you had not bothered to cover yourself. There was no one to see. There was no one to care. The moonlight crawled across the stone floor inch by inch, and you watched it the way a corpse might watch the shifting of its own shroud, with a detachment that went beyond despair into something vast and empty and still.

Morning came grey and cold through the narrow window. The sky outside was the color of old iron, heavy with clouds that had not yet decided whether to rain. You heard the castle waking around you. Footsteps in the corridor. The distant clang of the blacksmith's hammer. Servants calling to one another in voices too muffled to understand. The tourney, you remembered dimly. The tourney was still happening. Lord Ashford's daughter still needed her champion. The world was still turning, indifferent to the ruin of your life.

Someone brought food. You heard the door unlock, heard the tray scrape against the stone as it was pushed inside, heard the door lock again. You did not get up to look at it. The smell of bread and broth turned your stomach. You had not eaten since the puppet show, since before the puppet show, since the garden when Rhaenyra had found the pink flower and you had believed, foolishly and desperately, that everything would be all right.

The morning wore on. The light shifted. The clouds outside the window thickened and darkened and began to spit a thin, miserable drizzle that streaked the glass like tears.

And then, sometime in the afternoon, you heard the commotion.

It started as a distant murmur, a disturbance somewhere in the lower levels of the castle that grew louder and more urgent as it climbed toward your door. Shouts. Running footsteps. The clash of something metallic hitting stone. You lifted your head from the floor for the first time in hours, your neck aching, your vision swimming. Something was happening. Something was wrong.

The door crashed open. It was not Aerion who entered first but a maester, an old man in grey robes with a heavy chain around his neck and blood on his sleeves up to the elbows. Behind him came two guards, household men in the pale grey of Prince Maekar's service, carrying between them a litter on which lay a figure you recognized only by the silver gold of his hair.

Aerion. He was unconscious. His face was nearly unrecognizable. His lip had been split anew, a fresh gash that ran up toward his cheekbone. One of his eyes was swollen shut, the skin around it purple and black and glistening with some kind of salve. His chest was bare beneath a makeshift bandage that wrapped around his ribs, and the bandage was soaked through with blood, bright red and seeping, the color of life escaping. His right arm lay at an angle that was not natural, and his breathing was shallow and labored and made a wet, rattling sound that turned your stomach even as it ignited something else in your chest. Something you did not want to name. Something you did not want to feel.

You scrambled backward on the floor until your shoulder blades hit the wall. Your torn dress bunched around your knees. Your hands came up in front of you, a defensive gesture that was pure instinct, the instinct of a woman who had spent the night being broken and had no more pieces left to give.

"What," you said, and your voice came out as a croak, barely recognizable. "What happened? What is this?"

The maester did not look at you. He was directing the guards to lay the litter on the bed, his hands already reaching for the blood soaked bandages, already issuing orders about hot water and clean linen and milk of the poppy. But one of the guards, a young man whose face was pale and shocked and streaked with someone else's blood, paused long enough to answer.

"Trial of the Seven," he said, and the words meant nothing to you. "The prince demanded it. Against the hedge knight."

"Trial of the Seven?" The phrase was foreign, nonsensical, a collection of syllables that refused to resolve into meaning. "What are you talking about? What trial? What hedge knight?"

The maester looked up from his work at last. "The hedge knight," he said, and his voice was clipped and efficient, the voice of a man who did not have time for explanations. "Ser Duncan the Tall. The hedge knight demanded a trial by combat. The prince escalated it to a Trial of the Seven. Fourteen knights in the lists. The hedge knight's side won, but the prince was wounded. Gravely wounded. We have done what we can for the immediate injuries, but when he regained consciousness briefly, he insisted, quite forcefully, that he be brought to you. He said he wanted you to be his primary caretaker."

The words washed over you in a tide of incomprehensible information. Trial of the Seven. Fourteen knights. The hedge knight's side won. Dunk's side. Dunk had won. Your brother had won. Your brother was alive and he had won his trial and he was free, he must be free, because if the hedge knight's side had won the trial then the gods had judged him innocent.

But Aerion was on your bed with his ribs crushed and his arm broken and his face beaten into something barely human, and he had asked for you. Even after what he had done to you on this very floor. Even after the things he had said, the things he had called you, the violence he had visited upon your body. He had regained consciousness long enough to demand that you, and no one else, be the one to care for him.

You stared at the maester. The maester stared back at you, and something in his expression softened, just slightly, at whatever he saw in your face. Perhaps it was the bruises on your wrists. Perhaps it was the torn dress. Perhaps it was the way you sat huddled against the wall like a wounded animal that had learned to expect only more pain.

"I have done what I can for the immediate wounds," the maester said again, more slowly this time. "The prince will live, though his recovery will be long and painful. But he needs constant care. Someone to change his bandages, to administer his medicine, to watch for fever. He asked for you. Given his condition and his royal status, we are not inclined to refuse him."

You looked at the figure on the bed. The man who had raped you on the stone floor less than a day ago. The father of your daughter. The monster you loved. The prince who had promised to execute your brother if you so much as spoke his name. He lay unconscious and broken, his breath rattling in his chest, and you were being told that you would be his caretaker. That you would sit by his bedside and change his bandages and mop his brow and listen to him breathe.

The absurd cruelty of it was almost beautiful, in its way. A kind of poetry written in blood and bruises and the particular viciousness of men who believed they owned the women they had purchased.

"Leave us," you said, and your voice did not sound like your own. It sounded like the voice of someone much older, someone who had survived worse things than this and would survive worse things still. "I will care for him."

The maester hesitated. "My lady, there are instructions I must give you regarding the dressing of his wounds. The risk of infection is significant, and the milk of the poppy must be administered precisely. Too much will stop his breathing. Too little and the pain will be excruciating. Do you understand?"

"I understand," you said, though you understood nothing. You understood only that your brother was alive and free, and the man who had destroyed you was lying broken on your bed, and you were supposed to heal him. You were supposed to sit beside him and tend his wounds and keep him alive so that he could continue to own you, continue to threaten you, continue to hold your brother's life in his hands like a coin he might spend on a whim.

The maester gave you his instructions. You listened with half an ear, nodding in the appropriate places, filing the information away in a part of your mind that was still functioning, still capable of processing data and making decisions. Change the bandages every four hours. Watch for red streaks radiating from the wounds. Administer the milk of the poppy in doses measured by the small copper cup on the bedside table. If he wakes, give him water. If he develops a fever, send for the maester immediately.

And then they were gone, the maester and the guards, and the door was closed, and you were alone with him.

You stood in the center of the room for a long time, staring at the bed. At the rise and fall of his chest beneath the bloodied bandages. At the hand that lay limp and pale against the silk sheets, the hand that had struck you across the face, the hand that had pinned your wrists above your head, the hand that had held your chin and forced you to look into his eyes while he destroyed you.

You could let him die.

The thought came to you fully formed, as if it had been waiting in the back of your mind all along, biding its time. You could let him die. The maester had left you with the milk of the poppy and precise instructions about dosage. You could administer too much, or too little. You could neglect to change his bandages and let the infection take hold. You could hold a pillow over his face while he slept and press down until the ragged breathing stopped forever. There was no one else in the room. There were no guards at your door, not anymore. You could end this. You could end him. You could free yourself and your daughter and your brother with a single act of will.

You looked at the copper cup on the bedside table. You looked at the pillow beneath his head. You looked at your own hands, still bruised, still crusted with your own blood, still capable of doing what needed to be done.

And then you crossed the room, and you sat down in the chair beside his bed, and you began to prepare the first dose of milk of the poppy with hands that did not tremble at all.

If you let him die now, his father would investigate. There would be questions. There had been a maester here, and guards, and they had seen you alone with him. If Aerion died under your care, the blame would fall on you. You would be executed, or worse. And Rhaenyra would have no mother at all.

Not yet. But the knowledge was there now, a small cold seed planted in the dark soil of your heart. Not yet. But someday, perhaps. Someday, if the opportunity presented itself, if the circumstances aligned, if you could be certain of escaping the consequences. Someday, you might be free of him.

—

The days that followed blurred together like watercolors left in the rain. You were not permitted to leave the room. Aerion made that clear the first time you asked, your voice carefully neutral, your eyes on the floor. He had been awake for perhaps an hour, propped up on pillows that you had arranged behind his back with your own hands, his broken arm splinted and bound, his ribs wrapped tight in fresh linen. His face was still a ruin of purple and black and sickly yellow green, his lip still split, his eye still swollen half-shut. But his voice had lost none of its edge.

"Leave?" He had laughed, a humorless sound that turned into a wince as his ribs protested. "Why would you need to leave? Everything you require is here. Food will be brought. Water for washing. Fresh bandages from the maester. You have no reason to go anywhere."

"Aerion, please. I only want to see Rhaenyra. Just for an hour. Just to hold her and know she's all right. She must be so frightened. She's only two years old. She doesn't understand why her mother disappeared."

His expression had darkened, a cloud passing over the sun. "The child is fine. She is being cared for by the nurses. She does not need you hovering over her like a hen with one chick. What she needs is a father who is not an invalid, and what I need is a caretaker who does not spend every waking moment asking to leave."

"Aerion..."

"Enough." The word was a door slamming shut. "You will stay here. You will tend to my wounds. You will keep me company. You will not leave this room unless I give you permission. Is that understood?"

So you stayed. You woke when he woke, which was often, his sleep broken by pain and fever and the strange, feverish dreams that made him thrash and cry out in the darkness. You changed his bandages with the careful precision the maester had taught you, peeling back the old linen, examining the wounds for signs of infection, applying the salves and poultices with gentle fingers. You fed him broth when he could eat, spooning it into his ruined mouth one careful measure at a time. You helped him with the bedpan when he needed it, a humiliation that made his jaw tighten and his eyes go cold, as if his body's weakness were a personal insult you had somehow engineered.

You did all of this in silence, for the most part. He did not want conversation. He did not want to be soothed or coddled or reassured. The man who had craved praise like a drug, who had turned toward your words like a flower toward the sun, was gone. In his place was a creature of pure, distilled bitterness, a man whose humiliation had curdled inside him until it became something toxic.

He had lost. That was the core of it, the wound beneath the wounds. He had been beaten by a hedge knight in front of half the nobility of the Reach, and then he had demanded a Trial of the Seven, the most sacred and dramatic form of combat the gods permitted, and he had lost that too. His side had lost. The gods themselves had declared against him, had declared in favor of the dirt-smeared giant who had loosened his tooth and spilled his blood and stolen his dignity. Aerion Targaryen, the prince who had burned a man alive for making a joke, the prince who had broken a puppeteer's fingers for telling the wrong story, the prince who believed with every fiber of his being that he was a dragon in human form, had been brought low by a nameless hedge knight with hay in his hair and dirt under his nails.

And you, who had witnessed the beginning of that humiliation, had become the vessel into which he poured all his bile.

"I should have you hanged for being related to that oaf." His hand shot out and closed around your wrist, hard enough to make you freeze. "Why would a brother fight like that? Why would a brother look at a sister like that? Tell me the truth. Was he your lover before he was your brother? Did you share a bed in the slums of Flea Bottom, before I found you?"

The accusation was so vile, so utterly, grotesquely wrong, that for a moment you could not speak at all. You could only stare at him, at his swollen face and his blazing eyes and the jealousy that was consuming him from the inside out like a fire that would not be quenched.

"He is my brother," you said, and your voice was quiet and steady and utterly without the rage that was boiling in your chest. "My brother. My blood.Nothing more. Nothing less. I have never lain with him. I have never wanted to. The very thought is disgusting to me, and it should be disgusting to you too."

Aerion held your gaze for a long moment. Then he released your wrist and turned his face away.

"Finish the bandage," he said, and said nothing more for the rest of the day.

Sometimes, rarely, they brought Rhaenyra to see you. It was never for long. Ten minutes, fifteen, never more than half an hour. A servant would bring her to the door, and she would run across the room on her unsteady two year old legs, bewildered relief of a child who did not understand why her mother had vanished from her life. You would scoop her up and hold her against your chest and breathe in the smell of her, that particular sweetness of soap and milk and sunshine that you had missed like a severed limb.

"Mama," she would say, her small hands patting your face, your hair, your shoulders, as if reassuring herself you were real. "Mama, where did you go? I looked for you. I cried and cried but you didn't come."

"Mama was taking care of your father," you would say, and your voice would be steady even though your heart was breaking. "Your father is very sick, sweetling. He needs Mama's help. But Mama loves you. Mama thinks about you every moment. Do you understand? Every single moment."

She would nod, her small face solemn, and then she would launch into a breathless account of everything she had done since she saw you last. The bird she had seen on the windowsill. The game the nurses had taught her. The dreams she had dreamed. You drank in every word like water in a desert, memorizing the cadence of her voice, the animation of her expressions, the way her tiny hands moved when she was telling a particularly exciting part.

And then Aerion would stir in the bed behind you, and the servant would step forward, and Rhaenyra would be lifted from your arms.

"No," you would say, every time, reaching for her even as the servant pulled her away. "Please, just a few more minutes. Just a little longer. She's only just arrived."

"Prince's orders," the servant would say, and the door would close, and you would be alone with him again.

The nights were the worst.

During the day, Aerion was mostly manageable. Irritable, demanding, prone to dark silences and darker accusations, but manageable. You could distract yourself with the work of caring for him, the constant rhythm of bandages and medicine and meals. You could count the hours until the next time Rhaenyra might be brought to you. You could lose yourself in the small, finite tasks that kept your hands busy and your mind from wandering to places it should not go.

But at night, when the candles burned low and the fire died to embers and the only sound was the soft, labored rhythm of his breathing, the monster in him stirred.

It started on the fourth night. You had been dozing in the chair beside his bed, your neck cricked at an awkward angle, your body aching for the comfort of a proper mattress. You were dreaming of the garden, of Rhaenyra's laughter, of pink flowers crushed beneath bare feet. And then a hand closed around your forearm, and you were jolted awake with a gasp.

Aerion was looking at you from the bed. His eyes were fever bright in the near darkness, and his hand was hot and dry against your skin. The blanket had slipped down to his waist, and you could see the bandages around his ribs, the splint on his arm, the bruises that spread across his torso like storm clouds. But you could also see, in the shadows beneath the blanket, the unmistakable evidence of his arousal.

"Come here," he said. His voice was hoarse, rough with pain and desire in equal measure. "I need you."

"Aerion," you said carefully, "you're injured. The maester said you need to rest. You could reopen your wounds. You could..."

"I don't care what the maester said." His grip on your arm tightened. "I've been lying in this bed for four days. I've lost everything. My pride. The hedge knight walks free, and I am trapped in this room like a cripple. The least you can do," and his voice hardened on the words, "is give me this."

"You're not well. Please, just wait until you're stronger. I promise, when you're healed..."

"When I am healed, I will take what I want anyway." He pulled you closer, and you could smell the sourness of his breath, the stale sweat of his unwashed body, the cloying sweetness of the milk of the poppy that still lingered on his tongue. "But I want it now. I have spent four days flat on my back like a turtle overturned, watching you flutter around me with your careful hands and your careful voice and your careful eyes that never quite meet mine. I know what you think of me. I know what you think when you look at me. You think I'm a monster. You think I got what I deserved."

"No," you whispered, but it was a lie and you both knew it.

"Yes," he said. "You do. And I don't care. You can hate me all you like, in the privacy of your own mind. But you are mine.Now. Come. Here."

He could not be rough with you, not in his condition. His broken arm lay useless at his side, and his bandaged ribs prevented any sudden movement. But he did not need to be rough to make you feel the weight of your captivity. He directed you with his voice, that voice you had once praised and soothed and loved, telling you where to touch him, how to move, what he wanted from you. He could not take you the way he had on the stone floor, could not pin you down and force himself inside you while you sobbed and pushed at his chest. But he could make you take him in your mouth while he lay back against the pillows with his eyes half closed and his hand tangled in your hair. He could make you straddle him carefully, carefully, moving with the slow precision his injuries demanded, while his one good hand gripped your hip hard enough to bruise.

"That's it," he murmured, his voice thick with pleasure and pain and the strange, twisted satisfaction of ownership. "That's my good girl. My sweet girl. You know what I need. You always know what I need."

"Now you should rest." He was already drifting, the exertion combined with the milk of the poppy pulling him back toward unconsciousness.

"You're the only one," he mumbled, his voice slurring with sleep. "The only one who stays. The only one who doesn't leave. Don't leave me. Promise you won't leave."

You did not promise. You dried your hands on a cloth and returned to the chair beside his bed, and you watched him sleep, and you thought about the copper cup of milk of the poppy on the bedside table, and you thought about what it would be like to be free.

—

The servant came for you on the seventh day. You were sitting in the chair beside Aerion's bed, your hands idle in your lap for the first time in what felt like years. He was sleeping deeply, the milk of the poppy dragging him down into a place where even his dreams could not reach him.

The door opened without a knock. You turned, expecting another servant with a tray of food, another maester with fresh bandages, another summons from the nurses saying Rhaenyra was crying for you and would not be soothed. But the woman who stood in the doorway was not a servant you recognized.

"Prince Maekar requests your presence," she said. Her voice was flat, neutral, the voice of a woman delivering a message she did not fully understand. "You are to come with me immediately."

You stared at her. Prince Maekar. The man who had called you a whore to your face, who had forbidden you from speaking to his children, who had looked at you for years with an expression of cold, unwavering contempt. He had never once spoken to you directly, had never acknowledged your existence except as a problem to be managed. And now he was summoning you?

"Prince Maekar," you repeated, and your voice came out uncertain, almost afraid. "Why would Prince Maekar want to see me?"

The servant's expression did not change. "I was not told, my lady. Only that you are to come at once. Prince Aerion is sleeping. He will not miss you. Please, follow me."

You looked back at the bed. Aerion's chest rose and fell in the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep. His good hand was curled loosely on the pillow beside his face, his fingers twitching slightly as he dreamed. If you left and he woke to find you gone, there would be consequences. There were always consequences. But the servant was watching you with her sharp grey eyes, and something in her manner told you that this was not a request. This was an order, delivered with the full authority of the man who ruled Summerhall.

You rose from the chair. Your legs were unsteady beneath you, your body still aching from the nights of sleeping in chairs and on pallets, from the strain of lifting and turning and tending a man who outweighed you by half.

The castle was quiet at this hour. The afternoon light slanted through the narrow windows, casting long shadows across the stone floors. You had not been outside Aerion's room in seven days. The world seemed larger than you remembered. Brighter. More dangerous.

The servant led you through corridors you did not recognize, up a flight of stairs, down another corridor, until you stood before a heavy oak door banded with iron. She knocked twice, a sharp, deliberate rap that echoed in the silence.

"The woman is here, my prince," she said.

A voice from within, muffled by the door, said something you could not make out. The servant pushed the door open and gestured for you to enter.

You stepped inside. The room was small, sparsely furnished. A table. A few chairs. A narrow window that looked out over the castle's eastern wall. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers, casting the room in shadow and flickering orange light. And standing near the window, one hand braced against the wall for support, a thick piece of wood tucked under his other arm to hold him upright, was your brother.

Dunk.

You stopped in the doorway as if you had walked into a wall. Your heart seized in your chest. Your breath caught in your throat. Your hands flew to your mouth, pressing against your lips as if to hold in the sound that was trying to escape, a sound that was half sob and half scream and half something that had no name at all.

He looked terrible. His face was a mess of bruises, purple and black and yellow-green, one eye swollen nearly shut, a gash across his cheekbone held closed with clumsy stitches. His lip was split in two places. His left arm was wrapped in a sling, and the piece of wood under his right arm was a crutch, crude and hastily made, the kind a maester might fashion for a patient who refused to stay in bed. He was leaning heavily on it, his massive frame listing to one side, his shoulders hunched with exhaustion and pain. He looked like a man who had been through a war and had only barely survived.

"Y/N," he said, and his voice was exactly the same as it had been when he was eight years old and lifting you from your mother's deathbed. Cracked. Hoarse. Full of a desperate, aching tenderness that made your chest splinter into a thousand pieces.

One moment you were standing in the doorway with your hands pressed to your mouth, and the next you were in his arms, your face buried in his chest, your shoulders shaking with sobs you had been holding back for years. His good arm wrapped around you, pulling you against him, and you felt the crutch fall away, felt him stagger and brace himself against the wall so he would not fall. He was so big. He had always been so big. Even broken and bruised and barely able to stand, he surrounded you, enveloped you, made you feel for the first time in longer than you could remember that you were safe.

"I've got you," he said into your hair, and his voice was breaking, splintering, cracking into pieces that sounded like your mother's laugh and your father's name and every promise he had ever made you. "I've got you. I've always got you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I looked for you. I looked everywhere. They told me you were dead. They told me they found your body in the river. They said you were burned beyond recognition. I believed them. Gods forgive me, I believed them."

"I didn't know," you sobbed into his chest. Your fingers were twisted in his tunic, gripping the rough wool as if he might disappear if you let go. "I didn't know they told you that. I thought you were still looking. I thought you would find me. I waited for you. Every night, I waited for you. I never stopped believing you would come."

"I'm sorry, i believed them. I believed you were dead, and something inside me died with you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, little sister. I should have kept looking. I should have known. I should have..."

"Stop." You pulled back just enough to look up at his face, at the tears that were cutting tracks through the blood and the bruises. "Stop apologizing. You searched for me. You believed what they told you. Any man would have believed it. I don't blame you. I have never blamed you. I only ever wanted you to know I was alive. I tried to send word. I tried so many times. But Aerion..."

You stopped. The name hung in the air between you like a curse. Dunk's expression darkened. His good arm tightened around your shoulders. "Aerion," he repeated, and the word came out like a growl. "What happened to you, Y/N? Where have you been all these years? How did you end up here, with him?"

You pulled away from him gently. Your legs were shaking. You found a chair and sank into it, and Dunk lowered himself awkwardly onto the edge of the table, his injured leg stretched out in front of him, his crutch clattering to the floor. He did not take his eyes off you. He watched you the way he had watched you when you were children, with that fierce, protective intensity that had once been the only thing standing between you and the darkness of the world.

"They sold me," you said, and your voice was quiet and hollow and did not sound like your own. "The men who took me. They sold me to a brothel on the Street of Silk. A high end place, for lords and merchants. The madam... she was cruel. She said I was special. She said I would make them very rich."

Dunk's hands tightened on your shoulders. His face had gone very pale beneath the bruises, and his jaw was clenched so hard you could see the muscle jumping beneath the skin.

"And then," you continued, "Aerion came, he bought me and never left me"

And then you told him about Rhaenyra.

"Her name is Rhaenyra," you said, and your voice softened on the name, the way it always did. "She's two years old. She looks like her father. But she's kind. She's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She's the only good thing that has come out of any of this. And she's the reason I can't leave."

Dunk was silent for a long moment. His face was unreadable, a mask of bruises and exhaustion and something that might have been grief. When he spoke, his voice was low and rough.

"I'll take you away," he said. "Both of you. You and the little girl. I'll find a way. I have friends now. A prince and a lord. We can protect you. We can hide you somewhere Aerion will never find you."

You shook your head. The tears were streaming down your face again, hot and silent, dripping off your chin and onto your hands. "You don't understand. He would never let me go. He would hunt me down like a dog. He would burn cities to the ground to find me. He told me... the night after the puppet show, when he came to my room, he told me the only way I would ever leave him was in a shroud. He meant it, Dunk. I have seen what he does to people who defy him. I have seen him cut a servant's hand for spilling wine on him. I have seen him laugh while a man burned alive. If I tried to run, if I took Rhaenyra and disappeared, he would never stop looking. And when he found me, and he would find me, he would kill me. He would take my daughter and he would kill me, and Rhaenyra would grow up without a mother, raised by a monster who would teach her that cruelty is strength and kindness is weakness and love is just another word for ownership."

"He would have to go through me first," Dunk said, and his voice was hard, the voice of a man who had faced seven knights in single combat and emerged victorious. "I lost you once. I believed you were dead for years. I mourned you, Y/N. I sat in that alley and I let the darkness take me because there was no light left in the world. And then I found you again, alive, here, in this place, with that man. I am not going to lose you again. I don't care if he is a prince. I don't care if he has a hundred Kingsguard. I will find a way to get you out of here. I will find a way to keep you safe. I swear it. I swear it on our mother's grave. I swear it on everything I am."

"Dunk." You reached out and took his enormous hand in both of yours. His knuckles were swollen and bruised, the skin split and scabbed over. The hands that had lifted you from the mattress where your mother had stopped breathing. The hands that had carried you into the cold morning while the other whores watched with pity. The hands that had promised you silk and lemon cakes and a world where no one would hurt you. "I want to believe you. I want to believe there is a way out of this. But you have to understand what you're risking. He will kill you. He will kill you without hesitation, without a trial, without anything but the cold satisfaction of removing an obstacle. And if you die, if you die trying to save me, I will have nothing left. Nothing. Do you understand? You are my brother. You are the only family I have in this world besides my daughter. I cannot lose you again."

He squeezed your hands. His grip was gentle, impossibly gentle for a man who had killed knights and broken bones and fought his way through horrors you could only imagine. "You won't lose me," he said. "I promise you, little sister. You won't lose me."

—

You ran. Egg had barely finished speaking before you were out the door and flying down the corridor, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your teeth, your lungs burning with every breath. You did not care if anyone saw you. You did not care if there were questions. All you cared about was getting back to Aerion's room before he woke, before he realized you were gone, before the fragile illusion of your obedience shattered into a thousand irreparable pieces.

You reached the door to Aerion's chamber and paused, pressing your palm flat against the wood, forcing yourself to breathe. You could not go in looking like a woman who had just run across half the castle. You could not go in looking like a woman who had been crying in her brother's arms. You smoothed your hair with trembling hands. You wiped the tears from your cheeks. You arranged your face into the careful mask you had worn for years, and you pushed open the door.

Aerion was still asleep. He had not moved since you left. His breathing was slow and steady, his bruised face relaxed in the depths of his drugged slumber. The milk of the poppy still held him in its grip. The bandages on his ribs were unrumpled. His splinted arm lay exactly where you had arranged it. He had not woken. He had not called for you. He had not noticed your absence at all.

You closed the door behind you and leaned against it, your legs threatening to give way beneath you. You had made it. You had made it, and he did not know, and you were safe. For now. For this moment. For as long as you could keep the mask from slipping.

You returned to the chair beside his bed and sat down, and you waited.

Days passed. Aerion healed. Slowly at first, then with the stubborn, grinding determination of a man who refused to be seen as weak for a moment longer than absolutely necessary. The bruises faded from black to purple to yellow-green. The swelling around his eye went down until he could open it fully again. The split lip closed, leaving a thin white scar that tugged at the corner of his mouth when he spoke. The ribs were slower to mend, the maester said, and he would need to be careful for weeks yet, but the splint came off his arm and he began to flex his fingers, to test the range of motion, to push against the limits of his own body the way he pushed against everything else in his life.

By the end of the second week, he could walk with a stick. You were the one who helped him take his first steps. His arm draped over your shoulders, his weight pressing down on you until your knees buckled, his breath harsh and labored against your ear. You walked him across the room and back again, step by agonizing step, your body bearing the burden of his in a way that felt like a metaphor for everything your life had become.

"Good," he said through gritted teeth when he finally lowered himself back onto the bed. “That's good. I'll be out of this room by the end of the week.”

"My father is sending me away," he had said, and his voice was flat, toneless, drained of its usual fire. "Lys. A city of whores and perfumed merchants. He calls it self reflection. A chance to contemplate my actions and return a better man. But we both know what it really is. Exile. He cannot bear to look at me. He blames me for Baelor's death, even though it was his own blow that killed him. He blames me for everything."

You had not known what to say, so you had said nothing. That was safest. That had always been safest.

"You and the girl will come with me, of course, Lys is said to be beautiful. Warm. The sea is the color of sapphires, and the women walk around in silks so fine you can see their skin through the fabric. You will like it there."

You would not like it anywhere he was. But you had smiled, because that was what you did, and you had told him that Lys sounded lovely, and you had turned away to prepare his next dose of medicine so he would not see the despair in your eyes.

After that, things shifted slightly. Perhaps Aerion felt guilty for uprooting you. Perhaps he was simply trying to secure your loyalty before the journey. Whatever the reason, he began to allow you to visit Rhaenyra in the nursery. Not for long, not unsupervised, but every day. Every single day, you were permitted to leave his chamber for an hour and go to your daughter.

It was the only thing that kept you sane. You would sit in the nursery with Rhaenyra on your lap, her small body warm and solid and alive against your chest, and you would listen to her chatter about the games she had played and the songs she had learned and the dreams she had dreamed. You would brush her hair and sing to her in the soft voice you used for no one else. You would tell her that you loved her, that you would always love her, that there was nothing in the world she could do that would make you stop loving her. And you would try very hard not to think about the fact that in a few weeks, a few months at most, you would be on a ship to Lys, and the only world Rhaenyra had ever known would disappear behind her forever.

It was on one of these days, when you returned from the nursery with Rhaenyra's laughter still echoing in your ears, that everything fell apart.

You pushed open the door to Aerion's chamber and stopped dead in the doorway. There were two guards in the room. Between them, kneeling on the stone floor, was the servant. The one who had come to you days ago. The one who had said Prince Maekar requests your presence. The one who had led you through the corridors to the room where Dunk was waiting.

She was barely recognizable. Her face was a swollen mass of bruises, her lips split in three places, her nose broken and crusted with dried blood. One of her eyes was swollen completely shut, and the other stared at the floor with the glassy, unfocused gaze of someone who had retreated so far inside herself that she might never find her way back out. Her dress was torn, stained dark with blood and sweat and things you did not want to name. Her hands, folded limply in her lap, were missing three fingernails.

You knew, in that moment, that you were going to die.

Aerion was standing by the window, leaning on his stick, his back to you. He did not turn when you entered. He simply stood there, silhouetted against the grey afternoon light, his shoulders rigid, his free hand clenched into a fist at his side.

"Close the door," he said. His voice was calm. Too calm. The calm of a sea that had gone flat and glassy in the moment before a tidal wave.

You closed the door. Your hands were shaking so badly you could barely grip the latch.

"Aerion," you said, and your voice came out as a whisper, thin and reedy and full of the terror you could not hide. "What is this? What happened to her?"

Now he turned. His face was the face you had seen on the stage of the puppet show, cold and cruel and utterly without mercy. His violet eyes were dark with a rage that had been simmering for days, waiting for this moment, and his mouth was a thin hard line that made the scar at the corner of his lip stand out white against his skin.

"Is it true?" he asked. His voice was still calm. Still quiet. Still terrible. "Did you betray me? Did you see that treasonous bastard of your brother?"

Your heart stopped. Your blood turned to ice. The world narrowed to the space between you and him, the fire in the hearth, the broken woman on the floor.

"Aerion, please, let me explain..."

"Did you see him?" He did not shout. He did not raise his voice at all. But each word was a hammer blow, driving the breath from your lungs, the strength from your legs. "This woman, this servant, has told me everything. How she came to you while I was sleeping. How she led you through the castle. How my father, my own father, arranged for you to meet your brother in secret behind my back. Is it true? Answer me. Is it true?"

Your mind raced, scrambling for a lie, a deflection, anything that might save you. But the servant was kneeling on the floor with her fingernails torn out and her face beaten to pulp, and you knew that whatever you said, whatever excuse you offered, he had already made up his mind.

"It was not my choice," you said, and your voice cracked on the words. "The servant came and said your father wanted to see me. I did not know it was a trick. I did not know Dunk would be there. I went because I was afraid to refuse. Please, Aerion, you have to believe me. I did not seek him out. I would never..."

"Liar." He spat the word like a curse. "You have been lying to me since the moment you saw his face in the pavilion. You have been lying to me while you changed my bandages and brought my medicine and performed your little duties like the devoted whore you pretend to be. All this time, you have been dreaming of him. Planning with him. Scheming behind my back. Did you think I would not find out? Did you think I would not have you watched? Did you think I was stupid?"

"No, I never..."

"Be silent." He took a step toward you, and the stick thumped against the stone floor like a death sentence. "I have listened to your lies for years. I have listened to you whisper that you loved me while your eyes were always looking somewhere else. I have listened to you promise that you were mine while your heart belonged to another. I am done listening. Now you will listen to me."

He gestured to one of the guards. The man stepped forward, his face still grim and impassive. You barely had time to register the movement before his gauntleted hand cracked across your face.

The blow sent you sprawling to the floor. Your head hit the stone with a crack that made stars burst across your vision. The taste of blood filled your mouth. Your ears rang with a high, thin whine that drowned out everything else. You tried to push yourself up, but your arms would not hold you, and you collapsed back onto the cold stone, gasping.

"Take her away," Aerion said, and for a moment you thought he meant you. But the guard was already hauling the servant to her feet, dragging her toward the door, her head lolling on her broken neck. The other guard followed, and then the door closed, and you were alone with the dragon.

Aerion stood over you. The stick thumped against the floor as he took another step closer. You could see his boots from where you lay, the fine black leather, the silver buckles shaped like dragon wings.

"Let me tell you what happens now," he said, and his voice was soft, almost gentle, the voice of a man explaining something to a child. "You are going to Lys with me. You are going to share my bed and warm my sheets and perform your duties as you have always done. You are going to smile and praise me and tell me that I am magnificent. You are going to be exactly what you have always been. My whore. My property. My thing."

He lowered himself slowly, painfully, until he was crouching beside you. His hand came down and gripped your chin, forcing your face up toward his. His fingers were cold and hard and utterly without tenderness.

"If you ever see your brother again," he said, "if you ever speak to him, if you ever so much as learn his whereabouts and fail to tell me, I will not kill you. No. Killing you would be a mercy, and I am not feeling merciful. What I will do is make you pray for death. Every single day, you will pray for it, and it will not come. Do you understand?"

You tried to speak. No words came out. Only a thin, animal whimper that you barely recognized as your own.

"And Rhaenyra," he continued, and your blood turned to ice water. "If you betray me again, if you give me even the slightest reason to doubt your loyalty, I will take her from you. Not just for a few days. Not just to the nursery. I will sell her. Do you understand? I will sell her to a brothel the moment she has her first bleeding. She will spend her life on her back with strange men between her legs, just like her mother before her. Just like the whore who whelped her. That is what happens to the daughters of traitors. That is what happens to the children of women who forget who they belong to."

"No." The word tore out of you, a desperate, animal sound. "Aerion, no, please, she's your daughter, she's your blood, you can't..."

"I can do whatever I want." His voice was flat. Final. The voice of a god passing judgment. "She is mine. You are mine. Everything you have, everything you are, exists because I allow it. Your life is a privilege. Your motherhood is a privilege. Your identity as a mother, as a daughter, as anything other than what I tell you to be, is a privilege. And privileges can be revoked."

He rose to his feet with a grimace of pain, leaning heavily on his stick. He looked down at you, crumpled on the floor at his feet, and his expression was utterly without pity.

"Your only duty is to me," he said. "You are not a mother. You are not a sister. You are not a person with a past or a family or a soul. You are my whore. That is all you have ever been. That is all you will ever be. Everything else, every moment you have spent with Rhaenyra, every breath you have taken as a free woman, has been a gift. A gift that I gave you. A gift that I can take away."

He turned to the guard who remained. The man had been standing motionless by the door, his face a mask of professional indifference. He had watched the whole thing without flinching. You wondered, distantly, how many women he had seen broken on the orders of the men who paid him.

"Incapacitate her," Aerion said. "I want her unable to walk. Not permanently. I still need her to be able to perform her duties. But I want her to remember, every time she takes a step, what happens when she forgets who she belongs to."

The guard stepped forward. You saw him coming, saw the purpose in his eyes, and you tried to scramble backward on the floor, your heels slipping against the stone, your hands clawing for purchase. It did not matter. He was on you in three strides, his hands closing around your ankle, and you heard yourself screaming, heard Aerion's voice saying something you could not understand, and then there was a sound like a branch breaking in deep winter, and your leg exploded into white-hot agony.

The world went away for a while. When it came back, you were still on the floor. The guard was gone. Aerion was still standing over you, leaning on his stick, watching you with an expression that was almost curious. As if your pain were an experiment he had conducted and he was evaluating the results.

"The maester will come to set the ankle," he said. "You will tell him you fell down the stairs. You will not mention the guard. You will not mention this conversation. You will not mention your brother or your disobedience. You will smile, and you will thank me for my concern, and you will continue to perform your duties. Is that understood?"

You could not speak. The pain was too much. Your leg was a column of fire, and every heartbeat sent a fresh wave of agony through your body. But you managed to nod, a tiny, jerky motion of your head, and that seemed to satisfy him.

"Good," he said. "I am glad we understand each other."

He limped to the door, his stick thumping against the stone with every step. He did not look back at you as he left. He did not offer you a hand to help you up. He simply opened the door and disappeared into the corridor, and you were alone.

Dunk had promised. Dunk had sworn on your mother's grave, on everything he was. And Dunk had never broken a promise to you. Not once. Not ever.

You held onto that ember as the darkness closed in. You held onto it as the pain in your ankle pulsed and throbbed and dragged you toward unconsciousness. You held onto it as the door opened and the maester's voice exclaimed in shock and you heard yourself saying, over and over, the lie Aerion had given you. Fell down the stairs. Fell down the stairs. Fell down the stairs.

And when the maester's hands began to work on your ankle, when the world went white with pain and then mercifully black with oblivion, you held onto it still.

The first thing you registered was warmth. A slow, honey thick warmth that had nothing to do with the pale sunlight trying to bleed through the cheap blinds. This heat was specific, localized, and moving. It was a mouth. Soft, barely there pressure planting a lazy trail up the knobs of your spine.

You kept your eyes closed, breathing in the scent of stale weed, faded cologne, and something that was just clean skin and sleep. Bobby. A hum vibrated in the back of your throat, a sound caught between a sigh and a moan, as his lips traced a path to the space between your shoulder blades. His warm hand splayed possessively over the dip of your waist beneath the rumpled sheet. The only thing you wore was the memory of the night before, a pleasant, heavy ache in your limbs and the faint impression of his teeth on your lower lip. You were both naked, tangled up in each other and a mess of charcoal grey cotton.

You felt the mattress shift, the lean, solid weight of him pressing a little closer, and then his lips were on your shoulder. It was a wake up call you’d become dangerously accustomed to.

Finally, you stirred, a sleepy sigh escaping you as you shifted onto your back. The sheet slipped, and the cool air of the room was a shock against your skin. You blinked your eyes open, and he was right there, propped on one elbow, looking down at you. The weak morning light caught the angles of his face, that highly defined, angular facial structure that was too sharp to be just pretty.

“Morning,” he murmured, his voice a low, sleep roughened rasp. His nose brushed against yours as he leaned in. His hair was a tousled mess, falling forward onto his forehead.

“Morning,” you whispered back, your voice still thick with sleep. You didn't fight it when he closed the distance. The kiss was slow, deep, a lazy exploration that tasted of sleep and the last, faint ghost of mint. His full lips were soft, patient, a perfect counterpoint to the hard, sharp lines of the rest of him. When he finally pulled back, just a fraction of an inch, his eyes were still closed, his lashes dark gold crescents against his cheekbones. "Was starting to think you were going to sleep all day."

"Tempting," you murmured, already feeling the pull of the real world, the mental checklist of assignments and shifts waiting for you. “I’m so tired,” you hummed, the words a barely audible vibration against his jaw. You didn’t want to think, didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to do anything but dissolve back into the sleepy, satiated haze. You turned in his arms, presenting your back to him again, and grabbed his arm, a silent, demanding gesture. He understood immediately, wrapping it tightly around you, his hand coming to rest on your stomach. He let out a short, soft laugh, a puff of air against your hair. "Okay, okay. Message received." pulled you flush against his chest, tucking his knees behind yours. You were encased in him, a small spoon in a shell of sharp bones and lean muscle. You closed your eyes, letting the steady thump of his heart against your spine lull you. This, you told yourself. This was the part you liked. The quiet after, where he was just a warm, solid presence, and all the complications of your lives were held outside the door.

For a while, there was only the sound of your breathing and the distant, irritated chirp of a bird outside the window. His thumb traced idle, meaningless patterns on the soft skin of your belly, a gentle, almost hypnotic motion.

“So,” he said, his voice a quiet rumble that vibrated through you, “how’s that project been going? The big one. The one that’s been making you bite everyone’s head off.”

You groaned, the sound muffled by the pillow. “Good, I guess. It’s just… stressing me out. Feels like it’s taking over my entire life.” You didn't mention that your increasingly frequent escapes with him were the only thing keeping you from a full blown meltdown.

"That sucks, baby," he murmured, and the word 'baby' sent a tiny, treacherous thrill right through your middle. His hand, the one that wasn't pinned under you, moved. “Well,” he murmured, and you felt him smile against your hair, a slow, knowing curve. “That’s why I’m here, right?” His hand slid from your stomach, fingers trailing a light, teasing path down to your thigh. He gave the bare flesh a gentle, reassuring squeeze. “Stress relief.”

You snorted softly, a sound somewhere between amusement and deflection. You didn't take the bait, just continued to trace idle patterns on the back of the hand you were holding. He ran his palm in a slow, soothing the curve of your thigh, his thumb tracing a lazy, circular caress on your skin. The touch was meant to be comforting, but it was also a test, a quiet probing to see if the mood of the night before could be rekindled.

“You know,” he continued, his tone shifting, becoming a touch more casual, the way someone does when they’re trying to mask something that actually matters to them, “we could go out this weekend, y’know. A change of scenery. I could take you out to dinner. Someplace that’s not a drive-thru or your kitchen.”

And there it was, the other game. The one he kept trying to play, and you kept refusing to learn the rules to. The bubble of sleepy contentment popped. You forced your eyes open, staring at the slice of light on the wall. Your body, which a moment ago had been liquid and pliant, began to tense.

“Dinner?” you repeated, as if he’d suggested a trip to the moon.

“Yeah, dinner. It’s a thing people do. They eat food, at a table, and they, like, talk.” His voice was still light, but you could feel the new tension in the arm wrapped around you.

This was the point where you always started to pull away. You shifted, gently disentangling yourself from his grip. This time, he didn’t fight it, his arm falling slack as you sat up, keeping the sheet clutched to your chest. You swung your legs over the side of the bed, your back to him. The floor was a warzone of discarded clothes, your jeans tangled with his black t-shirt, a lone sneaker by the door.

“I… uh, I’m pretty busy this weekend, actually,” you said, your voice coming out a little too flippant as you began to reach for your things. “College stuff. You know how it is.”

“Right. College stuff.” His tone had changed completely. The teasing warmth was gone, replaced by a flat, clipped edge. You heard him sit up behind you, the rustle of sheets. “You’re always busy with ‘college stuff.’ Except, apparently, when you’re not too busy to hit me up at eleven o’clock at night.”

You flinched, the accusation hitting its mark with sniper like precision. You grabbed your underwear from the floor and started to pull them on under the sheet, the movements jerky and hurried. “That’s different.”

“Is it?” You could feel his gaze on your bare back, and you imagined those striking blue eyes had lost all their post sex softness, sharpening into that intense, unblinking focus. “What’s so bad about going on a date with me, Y/N? Huh? You always do this. Every single time I try to… to just be with you outside of a bedroom, there’s an excuse. An essay, a shift, you’re tired, you’re just about to wash your hair. It’s a greatest hits album of brush-offs.”

You stood up, pulling on your jeans with sharp, angry tugs. “Because I just don’t want to date, Bobby! That’s not what this is.” You zipped them up, the sound final and loud in the suddenly quiet room.

You could feel the question coming before he even spoke it, a deadly, fragile silence that expanded to fill the entire apartment.

His voice, when it came, was quiet. Dangerously quiet. “You don’t want to date anyone? Or you don’t want to date me?”

You finally turned to face him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, the sheet pooling around his hips, leaving his torso bare. The morning light carved his body out of light and shadow, accentuating the lean, defined muscle. He was a work of art, all sharp angles and fair skin. The look on his face was one of pure, frustrated hurt, his strong jaw set, his full lips pressed into a thin line. The intense brow was furrowed, and his eyes, they were fixed on you with a vulnerability that was almost too painful to witness.

“Come on, Bobby. Don’t act like this,” you said, your voice softening despite yourself. You hated this part. You hated feeling like the villain. “Let’s not act like, before this arrangement of ours, you didn’t have a different girlfriend almost every other week. You were the king of no strings attached. The whole reason this works is because we’re on the same page.”

“It’s not the same,” he said, his voice rising, cracking with an intensity that froze you in place. He stood up, not caring that he was naked, and took a step toward you. His hands were clenched into loose fists at his sides. “Those other girls? They weren’t… it was just something to do, a way to pass the time. You’re different. You’re so different, Y/N, and you know that. You’re smart, and you’re funny, and when you’re not biting my head off for trying to be nice to you i can't stay away from you. You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.” He was right in front of you now, close enough that you could smell his skin, see the small, pleading furrow between his brows. “Just give me a chance. One real chance. That’s all I’m asking for.”

His plea hung in the air, raw and honest. It would be so easy. So terrifyingly easy. You could just say yes. You could let him take you to dinner, let him hold your hand on a street not littered with your own clothes. You could let your carefully constructed walls down for a guy who was always a little bit high, a guy you’d written off as a fun, temporary distraction, but you knew the look in his eyes. You’d seen it before on other faces, right before everything went to hell. The look that preceded “I love you” and was inevitably followed by “Who were you with?” It was a trap, a beautiful trap.

You were done picking up your things. You had your bag slung over your shoulder, your keys clutched in your hand. You had an armor of busyness and cynicism, and you put it on now like a shield. You reached up, placing your hands gently on either side of his face. His skin was warm, the stubble rough against your palms. You felt the tension in his jaw muscles as he looked at you, waiting.

“Bobby,” you said, your voice soft but final. You looked into those crystal blue eyes, a color so vivid it seemed manufactured. “I like what we have. It’s easy. It’s fun. Let’s not overcomplicate it.”

You saw the light in his eyes die a little, the hope crumbling into a resigned, weary disappointment. He knew this script. You’d made him rehearse it a dozen times.

“I’ll see you,” you whispered, and then you pressed a soft, chaste kiss to his lips. It was a full stop kiss, a seal on the conversation, a goodbye for now. You didn't let it last pulling your hands away before he could respond, before his full lips could part and say something that would completely undo you.

___

Time didn't work here, that was one of the first things you'd learned, one of the many cruel rules of this place, you'd been navigating by the sickly, jaundiced light that hummed from the fluorescent panels on the ceiling, a constant, maddening buzz that had burrowed into your skull and made a home there. You slept when your body collapsed, woke when the adrenaline spiked, and walked. You just kept walking. Endless, repeating rooms of damp, yellowed carpet and wallpaper the color of old bruises.

You'd gotten good at hiding, at holding your breath. At pressing yourself into the corners where the buzzing fluorescent hum was loudest, hoping it would mask the sound of your hammering heart. Some of them looked almost like people, if you didn't look too closely. A woman in a stained dress who turned and had three noses clustered on her face like a grotesque flower. A tall, lanky man shape with four perfectly blue eyes, blinking out of sync, who had passed within feet of your hiding spot, his head swiveling on a neck that was too long, too smooth. You'd stared at the damp carpet and not breathed, not thought, not existed until the sound of its dragging footsteps faded. Other things were worse because they were utterly alien. Scuttling, skittering shapes glimpsed at the end of long corridors. The sound of something large and wet breathing in a room you decided not to enter. The screaming. Sometimes, in the deep distance, you heard screams that were unmistakably, horrifyingly human, and they always, always sounded like him.

Bobby. His name was a wound you kept touching, a raw nerve you couldn't stop probing with your tongue. Every time your exhausted mind drifted, you heard it again. The sound he'd made when that thing had seized him. His scream had echoed down the endless corridors, a sound of pure, primal terror that had shattered into wet, choked gurgling. Begging. He had been begging for help. The sound of your name, torn from his throat, you cried every time you thought about him. At first, it had been violent, gut wrenching sobs that left you curled on the damp carpet, gasping for air that tasted of mildew and old dust. Now, the tears came silently, a hot, steady leak from your eyes that you'd wipe away with a grimy hand as you kept walking. You replayed the last morning in the real world on a constant, torturous loop. The warmth of his bare chest against your back. The desperate plea in his voice. You're different, Y/N. The way you'd placed your hands on his sharp, beautiful face and kissed him goodbye like he was a problem to be managed instead of a person who was trying, so earnestly, to love you. The guilt was a physical thing, a sharp, acidic lump in your throat that you couldn't swallow down. You'd give anything, anything, to take back that morning. To say yes to the damn dinner. To tell him he mattered. Because he did. He had. And now he was just a fading scream and a trail of blood.

On this day—was it a day? the lights never changed, the buzz never stopped—you were moving with a purpose born of pure, desperate stubbornness. You were trying to find the wall. The spot where you'd all come through. If you could just find it again, if it was still there, maybe you could get out. Maybe you could find help. Maybe you could wake up from this.

You were in a long, wide corridor you didn't recognize, lined with doors that were just painted onto the walls, fake promises. The carpet squelched slightly under your worn sneakers. And then you heard it. Footsteps. Fast, erratic, a stuttering, uneven rhythm. Not the dragging shamble of the entities. Something running, human.

Your body reacted before your brain did. You dove behind a protruding wall, pressing your back against the cold, slightly damp surface. Your heart, that traitorous organ, slammed against your ribs like it was trying to escape your chest. You clamped a hand over your own mouth, stifling the ragged gasp of your breathing, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, peered around the corner and the world stopped.

It was Bobby.

He was there, maybe thirty feet away, moving fast down the corridor with a limping, frantic gait. His crop top was torn, a long, jagged gash across the front, and the sleeve had been ripped off completely, used as a makeshift bandage wrapped tightly around his forearm. The white fabric was stained a dark, rusted crimson. There was blood on him. Dark smears on his exposed torso, a streak of it across his sharp jawline, matted into his hair. He looked battered, hollowed out, his already sharp features now gaunt, the high cheekbones cutting even more severely against his fair skin. But he was moving. He was on his feet. He was alive.

Tears were spilling down your cheeks before you even made the conscious decision to move. A choked sob, a mangled version of his name, tore from your throat. "Bobby...?" It wasn't a yell. It was barely a whisper, ragged and raw, the fear of alerting the entities overriding the sheer, overwhelming shock of seeing him. You were already running, your legs moving before you could think, propelled by a relief so profound it felt like being unmade and remade in the span of a single heartbeat.

He stopped dead. His head snapped toward you, and you saw his whole body go rigid, coiled like a wounded animal that had just heard a twig snap. His blue eyes, those intense, focused eyes you'd memorized a thousand times over, found you. For a long, suspended moment, he just stared. His full lips parted slightly. His brow, furrowed in something that looked less like recognition and more like... confusion.

Then you crashed into him. Your arms wrapped around his neck, your body slamming into his with a force that made him stumble back a step, his bad leg buckling slightly. He was solid. He was real. He was warm. The feel of him, the scent of sweat and blood undid you completely. You sobbed against the bare skin of his shoulder, your fingers digging into the fabric of his torn shirt, clinging to him like he was the only solid thing in a world that had dissolved into nightmare.

"Oh my god, oh my god, Bobby," you were babbling, the words tumbling out between heaving, ugly sobs that shook your entire body. "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead. I heard you scream, I saw the blood, and I ran, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry." The apology kept spilling out, a dam finally breaking. "I thought about you every second. Everything I said that morning, it was all bullshit, I was just scared, I was so scared of how much I—" You cut yourself off with another sob, pressing your face into the curve of his neck. "I'm so happy to see you. I'm so happy you're alive. I'm never leaving you again. Never."

His arms, after a long, suspended beat, came up and wrapped around you. It was hesitant at first, almost mechanical. Then his grip tightened, his hands fisting in the dirty fabric of your shirt at your back. He held you so tightly it was almost painful, his body trembling against yours. You could feel the frantic, rabbit fast beat of his heart against your chest.

"Can't believe you're real," he mumbled, his voice a hoarse, strange rasp, scraped raw. It was so different from the low, teasing murmur you remembered. It sounded like he'd been screaming. Or maybe just not talking at all. "Can't believe... you're... no."

You pulled back just enough to see his face, to touch him, to prove to yourself that this was actually happening. You cupped his face in your hands, your thumbs tracing the sharp, prominent ridges of his cheekbones, smearing through the grime and dried blood. His skin was clammy, a cold sweat sheen on his forehead, but it was his skin. His eyes. God, his eyes, that beautiful, piercing light blue, they were darting back and forth, scanning your face like he was reading a document he'd been trained to distrust. There was a wildness in them, a fractured, feverish light that hadn't been there before.

"I'm real, Bobby. I'm here. I'm right here," you whispered, your voice cracking with the force of your emotion. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving you ever again. I swear. I swear on my life."

You leaned in and kissed him. It was a desperate, tear salted kiss, a frantic press of lips meant to communicate everything you'd been too scared to say in the real world. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need you. I think I— You poured every ounce of your relief, your guilt, your desperate, terrified hope into that kiss, your hands sliding from his cheeks into his matted hair, and he kissed you back.

At first. His lips, dry and cracked, moved against yours with a kind of stunned, automatic response. His hands on your back tightened. Then his grip shifted. His fingers slipped under the hem of your shirt, finding the bare skin of your waist. They pressed in, hard. Not the familiar, possessive squeeze of a lover. Something else. Something searching. Palpating. Like he was trying to feel the bones underneath, the muscles, the solid architecture of a human body. Verifying.

"Can't believe it," he mumbled against your lips, the words vibrating with a strange, unhinged intensity. "You're real. You feel... you feel real. But you're not. You can't be."

"Bobby," you gasped, pulling back slightly, your hands moving to his shoulders. A flicker of unease, cold and sharp, cut through the overwhelming relief. His hands were still under your shirt, his fingers digging into the flesh of your waist with a bruising pressure. "Bobby, stop. Hey. Look at me. It's me. It's Y/N."

"Y/N," he repeated, but the way he said it, it wasn't a name. It was a word he was testing, tasting for poison. He shook his head, a jerky, birdlike motion. "No. No, I've seen you. I've seen you so many times. You're never real. You're one of them. You're another trick."

"What? No. Bobby, no." Your voice was rising, the unease curdling into genuine fear. Not fear of him—no, it was fear for him. You could see it now, the full, horrifying picture. The wild, unfocused dart of his pupils. The way his jaw was clenched so tight a muscle jumped in his cheek. The tremors wracking his lean frame. He hadn't just been injured. He'd been alone. Alone in this nightmare, hunted, terrified, his mind slowly grinding itself down against the endless, buzzing silence. "It's really me. I'm not a trick. I'm not one of those things."

"That's what the last one said," he hissed, his voice dropping to a ragged, paranoid whisper. His hands on your waist tightened, his fingers pressing so hard into your skin you knew there would be bruises. "The one with my mom's voice. The one that had Kat's face. They all say they're real. They all feel real, for a second, and then—" He broke off, a shudder running through him. His striking blue eyes, those eyes you'd spent so many mornings waking up to, were fixed on you with a desperate, shattered intensity. "Prove it. Prove you're real."

"How?" you whispered, your own tears still streaming, mingling with the grime on your cheeks. "Bobby, how? I don't know how to prove it. I'm just me. I'm the me who thinks about that morning every single second I'm in this place and wishes I could take it all back." Your voice broke, a sob hiccuping through the words. "Please. Please believe me. I'll say yes. To the dinner. To everything. I'll say yes, I promise, just please—"

Something flickered in his eyes. A crack in the paranoid wall. His brow furrowed, and for just a moment, he looked like Bobby again. The Bobby who'd kissed you awake. The Bobby who'd asked, with his heart in his throat, for one real chance. His lips parted. His hands on your waist loosened, just slightly.

"Y/N?" It was a question this time. A real one. Tentative.

"Yes," you sobbed, reaching up to touch his face again. "Yes. It's me. I'm here."

But the moment shattered as quickly as it had formed. His eyes darted to something over your shoulder, a flickering light, a shadow that wasn't there and the walls slammed back down. His face twisted, the paranoia surging back with a vengeance. "No. No, you're doing it again. You're all doing it again. Making me believe. Making me—" His voice cracked, a sound of pure, anguished terror. "You're not taking me again. You're not!"

His hands seized you. Before you could react, before you could even draw breath to scream, he moved with a desperate, wiry strength you didn't know he had. His arm locked around your neck, not in an attack, but in a panicked, desperate restraint. The crook of his elbow pressed against your throat, his other hand clamping down on the back of your head, holding you in place.

"Bobby—" you choked out, your hands flying up to claw at his arm. The pressure was immediate, terrifying. Your airway constricted, a high, thin wheeze the only sound you could make. You kicked, thrashed, tried to twist in his grip, but he held on with the unyielding strength of pure, animal terror.

"Stop moving," he snarled, his voice ragged in your ear. "Stop it. Stop pretending. Stop being her. I won't let you. I won't let you trick me again."

Spots were blooming in your vision, dark flowers unfurling at the edges of the sickly yellow light. Your struggles were weakening, your limbs growing heavy and uncoordinated.

—

The first thing you registered was the buzzing. That damned, eternal fluorescent hum, drilling into your skull, pulling you up from the black depths of unconsciousness. The second thing was the pain. A dull, throbbing ache in your throat, a raw tenderness that flared every time you swallowed. The third thing was that you couldn't move.

Your eyes flew open, and panic, cold and immediate, flooded your veins. You were lying on a bed. A real bed, with a thin, stained mattress and a metal frame that creaked when you shifted. It was pushed against a wall covered in that same sickly, yellowed wallpaper, and the room around you was small, almost claustrophobic, lit by a single, naked bulb dangling from a wire in the ceiling. But you couldn't move. Your wrists were bound to the metal headboard above your head with strips of torn fabric, your ankles similarly tied to the foot of the bed. The restraints were tight, digging into your skin, but they weren't painful.

You thrashed, a surge of animal terror overriding the pain in your throat. "Help—" The word came out as a broken croak, your voice shredded. "Help!"

"There's no one to help."

The voice came from your left. You turned your head so fast a sharp pain lanced down your neck and there he was. Bobby. He was sitting in a wooden chair pulled up to the side of the bed, just a few feet away. He'd changed his clothes somehow—or found new ones. A plain grey t-shirt, a little too big, hanging off his lean frame. The bandage on his arm had been replaced with fresher fabric. He'd washed the blood off his face, he was just sitting there. Watching you. His eyes were fixed on your face with an unnerving, unblinking focus. They were red rimmed. Exhausted and utterly, terrifyingly calm.

"Bobby," you breathed, the relief and the fear tangling into a sickening knot in your stomach. "Bobby, it's me. It's Y/N. Please. Please let me go."

He didn't move. Didn't blink. His full lips, chapped and pale, were set in a flat, unreadable line. He tilted his head slightly, like a dog hearing a strange noise. The motion was too fluid, too detached. It wasn't him. It wasn't the Bobby you knew.

"You look like her," he said quietly, almost to himself. His voice was a hoarse, ragged thing, stripped of all its old, teasing warmth. "You sound like her, too. The last one sounded like her. But it wasn't. It tried to... it got close. Got too close before I knew."

"Bobby, please, I'm not a trick," you said, your voice cracking. You tugged uselessly at the restraints, the fabric burning your wrists. "It's really me. I swear to you. I swear on anything. I'm real. I'm Y/N."

He leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees. His eyes never left your face. "Are you real?" he murmured. "Like her?"

He turned his head, looking toward the corner of the room. Your eyes followed his gaze, and your blood turned to ice. There was a figure standing in the corner. A woman. It was you. It had your face. Your hair. Your body, dressed in the same grimy clothes you were wearing. But it was wrong. The face was doubled, two versions of your features laid over each other at a slight, sickening offset. Four eyes blinked out of sync, wet and staring. Two mouths, one slightly above the other, hung open in a slack, vacant expression. Two noses, a confused jumble of cartilage and flesh. It just stood there, perfectly still, its arms limp at its sides, staring at nothing. Staring at you.

A scream clawed its way up your throat, but all that came out was a strangled, wheezing gasp. You jerked against your restraints, your heart slamming against your ribs so hard you thought it might crack bone.

"I met her two days ago," Bobby said, his voice still that low, detached monotone. He was looking at the thing in the corner with a kind of weary familiarity, like it was a stray cat he'd decided to tolerate. "She found me. I thought... I thought it was you. At first. She doesn't talk. Doesn't do much of anything, really. Just stands there. Watches." He turned back to you, and his expression flickered, a crack in the calm mask. Something desperate and broken swam beneath the surface. "She's kept me some company."

"Bobby," you whispered, your voice trembling, tears spilling down your cheeks. You forced yourself to look away from the monstrosity in the corner, to focus on him. "Bobby, look at me. Please. Look at me. That thing... that's not me. That's a monster. I'm me. I'm the real one. Please. You have to believe me."

Something shifted in his face. A muscle in his jaw jumped. His brow, that strong, defined brow, furrowed deeply. For a moment, just a moment, he looked like Bobby again. Confused. Hurting. Lost.

"Why did you reject me?"

The question came out of nowhere, quiet and raw, and it hit you harder than any blow.

"Bobby..."

"No." He stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor with a harsh screech. He began to pace, a short, agitated track back and forth at the foot of the bed. His hands came up, raking through his hair, pulling at the light brown strands. "No, you don't get to just—you don't get to say my name like that and make it all—" He broke off, a frustrated, guttural sound tearing from his throat. He wheeled on you, and the calm mask was gone entirely, replaced by a raw, bleeding anguish. "Why did you reject me? Every time. Every single time. I was right there. I was right there, Y/N, and you just... you kept pushing me away like I was nothing."

"I didn't—I didn't think—"

"Exactly!" The word exploded out of him, and you flinched. "You didn't think! You didn't think about me. You didn't think about what I wanted. You just decided. You decided I wasn't serious. You decided I was just some—some stoner, some fling, some guy who wasn't good enough to be seen with you in public."

"That's not true," you sobbed, the tears flowing freely now. "That's not—I was scared, Bobby. I was scared that if we got together, I'd end up like the other girls. Just another week. Just another face. I didn't think you were serious about me. I thought I was just... I thought I was just convenient."

He stopped pacing. He stood at the foot of the bed, his chest heaving, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The thing in the corner didn't move. It just kept watching with its four unblinking eyes.

"You're lying," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, trembling whisper. "You always lie. You lied that morning. You lied every time you said it was just casual. You lied every time you said you didn't feel anything. It's your fault." His voice cracked, splintering into something jagged and broken. "It's all your fault. You're the reason I'm here."

"That's not true," you pleaded, pulling uselessly at the restraints. "Bobby, that's not true. I kept telling you not to go. I told you it wasn't safe. I told you to stay away—"

"I did everything for you!" he shouted, and the sound echoed off the close, yellow walls. The entity in the corner twitched, its doubled mouth opening and closing soundlessly. Bobby didn't notice. His eyes were wet now, tears tracking down his cheeks. "Everything. You think I wanted to work at that stupid furniture store? You think I wanted to follow Clarke around with a camera filming his bullshit? I did it for you. I did it so I could be near you. Because you wouldn't let me near you any other way. You wouldn't give me a chance. You refused. Every time. And I just... I kept trying. Like an idiot. Like a pathetic, desperate idiot."

The guilt was a physical weight on your chest, crushing the air from your lungs. "Bobby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I was wrong. I was so wrong, okay? I should have said yes. I should have given you a chance. I wanted to. God, I wanted to. I was just—I was a coward. I was terrified of getting hurt, so I hurt you instead. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

He stared at you, his face a wreck of conflicting emotions. Rage. Grief. Exhaustion and underneath it all, a desperate, flickering hope that he was desperately, furiously trying to smother, he moved closer, his body casting a shadow over you as he stood beside the bed. His hand came up, trembling violently, and touched your face. His fingers were cold, rough with grime and dried blood. But the touch was gentle. So gentle. His thumb traced the curve of your cheekbone, the same way you'd traced his a thousand times before. A shiver ran through you, your breath catching in your throat.

"You're so soft," he murmured, almost to himself. His voice had changed again, the raw anguish smoothing into something quieter. Darker. Possessive. "You've always been so soft. I used to think about it all the time. The way your skin felt under my hands. The way you'd sigh when I touched you. I thought about it every time you left."

"Bobby..." you whispered, your heart hammering against your ribs. This wasn't relief. This wasn't the reunion you'd imagined. His hand slid from your cheek down to your jaw, his fingers tracing the line of it with a slow, reverent pressure. He was looking at you the way someone looks at a painting they've stared at for too long, searching for flaws, for proof of forgery. His thumb brushed across your lower lip, and you felt the slight tremor in his touch, the barely contained violence of his desperation.

"I held her," he said, his voice still that low, detached murmur. He didn't look at the thing in the corner. He didn't need to. "Your copy. The first time I found her, I thought... I thought it was you. I held her. I talked to her. I told her everything. Everything I never got to say to you." His jaw tightened, the muscle jumping beneath his fair skin. "But it wasn't the same. She didn't feel right. She didn't smell right. She didn't... she just stood there. Empty. Like holding a doll. Like holding a corpse."

"Bobby, please, you're scaring me," you breathed, the tears still streaming down your cheeks, soaking into the dirty mattress beneath your head.

He didn't seem to hear you. His hand moved from your face, trailing down the side of your neck, his fingers light, almost exploratory. You flinched, a fresh wave of fear coursing through you. He paused, his eyes flicking up to meet yours. That intense, focused gaze was back, but it was wrong. It was the focus of a man who had been broken and rebuilt himself around a single, obsessive point.

"I kept thinking of you," he continued, his voice dropping to a ragged whisper. "The whole time. When I was running. When I was hiding. When that thing had me and I thought I was going to die. I thought of you. Your face. Your voice. The way you'd wrap your arms around me and pull me closer in the morning, like you didn't want me to know you needed it. The way you'd always leave anyway."

His hand reached your bound wrists, his fingers curling around the fabric restraints. He didn't loosen them. He just held them, his thumb pressing against the frantic flutter of your pulse.

"I won't let you leave me this time," he said, and his voice hardened, the broken anguish giving way to something resolute. Something unhinged. "You always leave. You always find an excuse. An essay. A shift. You're tired. You're busy. You don't want to date. You don't want me. But you're not leaving this time. You can't. There's nowhere to go. There's no door. There's no morning. There's just... this. Just us."

"Bobby, I'm not going to leave," you said, your voice cracking with desperation. "I told you. I'm not going anywhere. I want to stay with you. I want to be with you. That's what I was trying to say before. I was wrong. I was so wrong. Please. Please just untie me and we can—we can figure this out together. We can find a way out. Together."

He stared at you for a long, suspended moment. His face was a ruin of warring emotions, hope and suspicion, longing and terror, love and something darker, something that had grown in the dark, empty spaces of his fractured mind. Then he smiled. It was a small, sad, terrible smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"You say that now," he whispered. "But you'll change your mind. You always do. As soon as you're free, you'll run. You'll find a reason. You'll find an excuse. You'll leave me alone again. Alone with her." He jerked his head toward the corner, toward the silent, watching thing with your doubled face. "And she's not you. She'll never be you. But I won't let you go. Not this time. Not ever again."

He leaned down, his face inches from yours. His breath, warm and slightly stale, ghosted across your lips. His hand tightened on your bound wrists, his knuckles white.

"I did everything for you," he said again, the words a mantra, a wound he couldn't stop pressing. "And you're going to stay. You're going to stay right here. With me. Until you prove it. Until I know. Until I'm sure."

"Until you're sure of what?" you whispered, your voice barely audible.

His full lips brushed against your forehead, a mockery of a kiss. It was cold. Possessive. Nothing like the lazy, teasing kisses he used to plant along your spine in the morning.

Aerion and you hadn't had sex yet, even a month in—he wasn't used to this at all. Most "relationships" for aerion had started sexually from the first date, maybe even the first meeting. You had kissed— that wasn't enough for him. But you had made out in his jesko absolut, a drool filled, opened mouth kiss. It never got past that point though, no hand in the back pocket of your jeans, no hickeys, essentially no touching below the chin. Aerion was getting frustrated at this point, usually he would be balls deep in your cunt by this point, hell not even anal.

Usually girls like you would have an excuse; maybe you were a virgin, maybe you wanted to wait for marriage. In that case he would've convinced you to use the backdoor, in a god honoring way, duh! it wouldn't displease god! You had given none of those reasons, just said you weren't ready. It was fine, aerion believed himself to be a patient man, he did for the first three weeks.

As week four had started, aerion had grown restless. Why had you not let him fuck you yet, he'd bought you expensive gifts, had doted on you, taken you to expensive dinner dates. He gave you everything that you should've needed. He even opened doors for you, which was a big deal for him at least. So why had you still not given him. No, he had to be patient, today was your anniversary dinner, you would most definitely give him what he was owed.

It was a nice restaurant, with a menu of foods that were to your preference rather than his. He'd gotten you a gift, something you would most definitely like, a piece of jewelry made just for you. It had went smoothly, you had smiled so obviously pleased with the gift you'd received, a chaste kiss to his cheek to thank him. You hadn't noticed the way his eye had twitched when that was all you had done. He had offered you a ride home, jaw tight as he opened the door for you. He shouldn't have he thought to himself, you had done nothing to warrant what he was doing really. Yet, he was ever the gentleman in his mind.

"Do you want to come inside? Only if you wan-." you had said to aerion so confidently he'd believed you had practiced it before coming to dinner with him.

You had never seen aerion smile this bright before, him immediately cutting you off with a hurried yes and stepping to where you were in the doorframe. You had the door half open before he let himself in, expecting you to close the door yourself. When you finally locked the door you had found aerion already walking around taking in his surroundings. This was a big step in your relationship, aerion had never been this in your space before. He was practically in your being, your house. It was like looking right into you, everything you liked, how you liked it.

"Do you want a cup of water? Or, I have some juice if you'd prefer that", at that aerion had turned around, still bearing a sickeningly sweet smile on his face.

"Don't worry about that, cute place though" he said while walking over to your couch, sitting down, patting the space next to him.

You had put your things down and joined him, such a pretty smile donning your face. Aerion liked where your place, he rarely gave compliments of that nature but you hadn't minded. It was nature you had learned in the previous weeks. "Everyone calls you pretty, it wouldn't be special" he'd say after you asked. He still called other women pretty, complimented their body right in front of you; he even praised them. It bothered you at first but you had learned to push it to the back of your mind. You were the one he kissed, the one he took out on dates, the one he had let into his car.

"Than-" before you could even get the words out he had interrupted you the second time this night. Except this time aerions lips were onto yours, him turning to kiss you. Leaning his whole weight onto you, hands going right to your cheeks. He had a bruising grip on your face as your hands go to his shoulders to get him off you, push him off. This time, you can see the way his jaw clenches when he backs up a little from your push.

"What are you doin-" once more aerion interrupts you for the third time this night.

"What is your issue?" he says, sitting up and wiping his lips with the back of his hand like hes offended at whatever was on his lips.

He faces you now, he looks visibly upset a frown wearing his thin lips. His eyebrows curving in on themselves. You sit there with a dumbfounded look on your face and it irritates him further. Before you can say anything he has a hand reaching out, and you see it go past in your peripheral vision and disappear. You feel the sharp tug at your scalp almost immediately. And he drags you by the scalp right before his own face.

"There has to be something that's wrong with you so why don't you try explaining to me, maybe we can fix it together " your scalp burns, his grip is surely on the verge of pulling some hair out if it hasn't already. You don't get whats gotten into him all of the sudden. Why did he kiss you so randomly, sure he would never ask before kissing you usually but it was never that harsh, that forceful. You try to lean back, get away from him.

"Let me go, what the hell are you doing" hands come up to take aerions hands away but hes too frustrated. His grip just tightens harder on your scalp and before you can even process it your forehead is hurting.

Your ears are ringing and you see nothing for a few seconds, you're blinking hard trying to recover your vision clearly, its blurry for a second and your forehead feels warm. You can feel something trickling down your face. Aerion lets you recover for a second before hes tugging at your sore scalp again, bringing you right up to him once more.

His eyes dart to your wooden coffee table you had just bought not even a week ago and yours follow. The dark wood has a hint of liquid on the surface, its obvious to you now whats dripping down your face. Your scalp is sore, your head is pounding and you're bleeding. Still aerion won't let go, tears are welling up in your eyes now and aerions frown is still there. He looks the closest you can imagine a spoiled child's expression is when not given the toy that was desired for Christmas.

"Wheres the bedroom?", he says like everything's normal, the same tone he had at dinner. You don't respond, you don't know what to do. Everything was happening too quick, too fast and too sudden for you. What had you done for aerion to do this to you. You don't want to tell him, somewhere in the back of your mind you knew what would happen next so you stayed quiet.

"Its either the bedroom or the floor" aerion says matter-of-factly, he can see the panic in your eyes your mind is trying to figure out what to say. Anything to help your case but you know as well as he does that its pointless. And yet you still don't answer, hes visibly irritated at this point.

The second time your head hits the wood you know what is happening, the impact stings just as bad as the first time, hurts even worse.

"C'mon tell me already", aerion rolls his eyes when you start sobbing. This time you do listen though right before he can slam your head into the wooden table again you point to the direction.

Aerion lets your hair go, and you realize just how tight his grip was. It had taken out some hairs and you could still feel it. You watch him walk to your bedroom, the doors open— you usually leave it open for yourself.

"Cute bedroom too, wow" you hear faintly. You sit there, bleeding and bruised; you look a mess and you know it. Minutes pass by and aerion steps out your bedroom again, he has a frown on his face again. Maybe he wanted you to follow him but you cant seem to get your legs to work.

He strides slowly to you, his hands coming into your vision again and you flinch— that earns you a tight slap that's definitely leaving a mark. He has his grip in your hair again but this time he's lifting you up. That earns a yelp from you, aerion just ignores you continues to lift you up and once you are almost on your feet he lets go completely, you hit the floor with a thud and he lets you sit up yourself before gripping your hair and dragging your screaming self; who wont stop hitting his arm despite knowing its useless.

You really are troublesome he thinks. If he wasn't more of a determined man he would have left a long time ago, but no he lets you get your fight out as he throws you on your own bed. This time the slap lands on the other side of your face. You look such a mess but you're pretty like this. He's trying to get your shirt off you, you should thank him really, hes trying to make this easy for you. Less humiliating really.

Somehow someway you land a hit on him, and its on his face. Everything stops for a few seconds, you even stop fighting back and aerion looks at you like you just killed the new puppy his father got him for his birthday. The punch that lands on your nose feels like its broken it, you know you're bleeding from there immediately, the pain that follows is unbearable and aerion doesn't stop at one. No, he lands a few just for good measure. You're wailing at this point, everything hurts, just so incredibly bad.

"Shut up", aerion says going to remove your shirt with ease now that you've finally given up, it really did take you too long to. He didn't want to break your pretty nose, or bloody up your pretty face. You really just had left him no choice and you had to go hit him as well. Your shirt is tossed aside your head on the bed, aerion marveling at your almost bare torso.

"I don't get it. You doll yourself up, wear the prettiest clothes, and you don't want to be fucked? You're lying. ", his hands go to grip both of your tits in his hands, giving a kiss to either one.

He can hear your weak "no"'s but it just doesn't add up in his mind. He doesn't bother to undo your bra just pushes it down to see your tits fully. He moves on to take the rest of your clothes off, as well as his. He wants to be comfortable after all.

You don't want to look at him, any of him. You can hear him take his clothes off, you know whats coming next. You don't want to see it, you feel like throwing up when he touches your legs, and you try to close them. That earns you a pinch and slap to your left thigh, the next time he opens them you don't try to close them. Aerion's already aligning his cock with the entrance of you cunt, you can feel it. You realize he hasn't even tried to prep you, and then you feel already worse (somehow) than you have been feeling.

It hurts, hurts so so much and aerion is pushing it in immediately. You hear a groan coming from him, facing away from him you let out more tears. Your nose is bleeding and you can taste it now, the way the liquid trickles down slowly into your mouth but you can't seem to care. It's all tuned out, your body rocks and you let it, aerion is saying things but you can't seem to hear them. You try to make your mind wander anywhere else— trying to imagine some soothing place but it hurts too much, your head hurts too much.

It seems like an eternity before your body has stopped moving and you feel it, the disgusting sticky feeling of something pooling inside of you. You know hes cum inside, why wouldn't he, there's nothing to stop him from doing it. Aerion flops his sweaty, gross body on top of yours and your hands finally work— they push him off of you and he rolls to the side and lets out a sigh.

It was a small giggle really, not even much of a laugh. Just a small giggle against the goblet you had to your lips. It was egg who had teased aerion about the joke, not even you. But the minute you felt your big brothers stare right at you, you knew you’d messed up. Really nothings worse than when aerions silent, and he’d not even said a word as dinner progressed.

But you felt it, you knew then that it really was just planning. Him planning how he’d correct the behavior you had displayed. “You are my future wife, sister, you must behave with grace” he’d told you when you made a mistake last time. It wasn’t even a big deal you’d thought, you weren’t even betrothed. Aerion seemed to think differently.

Aerion had always known you would be married to him. He'd acted like you were betrothed the moment you were born, so why should he not act like you aren't something thats already his. Really it was simple, just listen to him, do what he tells you to and keep him happy. Three simple things you had to do, but for some reason you always fell short everytime. Aerion was already having a bad day, some servant not spilling something on him and now this wretched family dinner father insisted on.

When egg had said that hideous joke, aerion assumed no one would entertain it. But you, you just had to give a reaction, and you found it amusing of all things. So when aerion does find you in your chambers later, door always left open for him (bribed maids really) and you sleeping so peacefully. Like you had comitted no wrong, really.

Aerion scoffs, really sleeping like you did nothing wrong. All cozy, little snores escaping you. He stalks up right to your bed-side, getting on slowly. He doesn’t want to wake you, not yet. Silent and slow that’s just how aerion movies, well currently. He pulls down the blankets off of you slowly, you’re in a sheer nightshift. Why would even need to wear this he thinks, it hides nothing really.

Aerion lifts it up from the bottom slightly, of course he thinks. You’re naked underneath why would you not be. He’s careful not to wake you yet, moving as silently as he can; he’s not even speaking, you do not stir in your sleep. You being a deep sleeper has its advantages for once it seems.

He takes a hold of your ankles and bends them till the heel is touching your ass. Your cunt is so enticing, but it’s not what he’s here for. Really you had no reason to giggle at that joke, if you were not of his own blood he would’ve labeled you a traitor. But you are his blood, his.

Aerion adjusts you once more so you’re on your back at this point. Still not awake. He ignores your pretty cunt entirely focusing on something else today. Something that’s unsullied, untouched; supposedly unusable. He’s found a use for it alright.

He’s hurriedly taking his clothes off, just tossing them behind him. They’re probably off the bed, should be. Yet you do not wake. Aerion has a close lipped smile as he lines himself up with your hole, leaning down on you. Hands to either sides of you, not touching yet. No, you’d wake immediately. And there he is. Almost on top of you, breath fanning so close to your face, his cock lined up to a place where it should never enter.

And as he leans his full weight on you, one of his hands going down to force his cock inside your impossibly tight, un-prepped asshole. It hurts, he can feel it, it’s like you’re trying to squeeze his dick to death. “Fuck”, he allows himself to speak finally.

The immediate response he gets from you, waking up, stupidly about to scream. He would allow that to happen, he really would but he doesn’t feel like doing so today.

“Shut the fuck up”, he says through gritted teeth, the hand that was just busy coming up to cover your mouth.

You’re terrified, he can see it in your eyes. Wide, tears pouring out of them. But aerion doesn’t let up he never would, thrusts deeper, to where he bottom outs with much resistance from you. But aerions always been adamant. And he feels it, something warm, flowing down his cock. He glances, it is dark but he can so obviously guess what it is.

“You’re bleeding”, he says like it’s a normal thing. Like he isn’t tearing you in half, that your asshole isn’t definitely ripped.

This time you can see the toothy grin he has on his face. And you can’t do anything you try, smacking him, trying to push him off. You can’t scream his hand makes sure of it. Your tears flow freely.

It started so softly. A blind date. “And he’s really handsome,” she cooed through the phone as you walked toward the restaurant, the evening light golden and harmless. “Okay, I’ll be the judge of that. I’m hanging up now.” You laughed. You remember laughing. You hung up and walked inside, greeted the host, gave the name. She led you to the table, and there he was. Already waiting.

Soobin stood. He opened his arms for a hug, and you accepted because that’s what polite girls do, isn’t it? That’s what sweet girls do. “Wow,” he said, his voice a low and silken thing. “You’re so pretty.” You laughed again. “You’re not too bad yourself.” And for one hour, one small stupid, hour you believed this was just a nice night.

But here’s the thing about nice nights. They end.

The bill came. He reached for it. You stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Hey, let’s split it.” A flicker. Just a flicker. His eyebrow twitched. “What kind of man would I be,” he said, slower now, “if I let you pay the bill?” The sweetness in his voice cracked like thin ice. 

“It’s only fair,” you said, trying to smile, trying to ease whatever this was back into something normal. “No,” he said. “I got it.” But you didn’t back down because you are stubborn, because you are proud, because you didn’t know yet what happens to women who don’t back down. “No,” you said again. “We could split it.”

And then he repeated it. Louder. “No. I got it.”

The tables around you went quiet. You felt their eyes like small, hot coins on your skin. You laughed and now, with his hands on your hips and your head turned sideways into the pillow so he won’t see you cry, you understand that laugh was the moment he knew he’d see you again. Whether you wanted to or not.

He paid. You left. “This was nice,” you lied. You could already taste the lie going sour on your tongue. “Let’s do it again,” he said. And then, because he hadn’t yet shown you his teeth, “Wanna hit up a bar?”

You were already on your phone, scrolling for an Uber, heart rabbiting in your chest. “That sounds fun,” you said and you hate yourself for that, don’t you? For the smile you painted on. For the way you couldn’t just say no. “But I have work tomorrow.” His smile dropped. Not faded. Dropped. Like a mask slipping. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

Your Uber pulled up. “This is my ride,” you whispered. He smiled again and leaned in. A hug. A kiss. You didn’t wait to find out which. You dodged. Stepped back. “See you later,” you said, and you got in the car, and you waved through the window like nothing was wrong. You watched him shrink in the side mirror. He didn’t wave back. You told yourself, That’s the first and last time. You’ll never see him again.

But you were wrong. You were so wrong.

Because now his forehead is pressed against yours, and his breath is warm and wet on your lips, and his fingers are wrapped around your throat not squeezing, not yet, just resting there like a promise. And he is whispering something. The same thing. Over and over.

“What kind of man would I be if I let you go?”

You didn't tell your friend what happened. You just said you two didn't click. She understood. Didn't press. And you..God, you tried so hard to move on from that date. Erase him. The way his eyebrow twitched. The way his voice dropped. The way he looked at you when you dodged his kiss. You told yourself it was nothing. Just a bad night. Just a man with a bruised ego. You almost believed it. Almost.

You're behind the counter at the convenience store. It's late. The lights hum their sickly song. The air smells of stale coffee and bleach. You're stacking cigarettes, thinking about nothing, your feet hurt, your shift ends in an hour, maybe you'll watch something stupid on your phone when you get home. Normal things. Safe things.

Then the doorbell rings. That cheerful little chime you've heard a thousand times. You look up to greet the customer. And your body goes dead. Soobin.

He's standing in the doorway. The night behind him is black and wet-looking. He doesn't look surprised to see you. Not even a little. That's the first thing your brain registers the absence of surprise. He knew. Somehow, he knew you'd be here. He found out where you work. 

But you don't run. You don't scream. You just stand there like a rabbit under a slow-moving car, because that's what happens, isn't it? Your body forgets how to obey you. Your blood turns to cold syrup.

He walks through the store aisles.. His fingertips skim the shelves like he's playing a piano made of cheap packaged goods. He doesn't look at you again. Not yet. He wants you to watch him. He wants you to feel every second of this. You hear his shoes on the floor. Hear him pick up a candy bar. Put it back. Pick up something else. He's taking his time. He's enjoying this. Your hands are shaking. You hide them behind the counter.

Finally, he comes to the register. A few items in his hands. Nothing you remember. Nothing that matters. He sets them down and you scan them. The sound is obscene in the quiet.

He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. You tell yourself, Just cash him out. Just get him out.

He pays. Card. No small talk. No how've you been. No fancy seeing you here. Just that smile.  He takes his bag. He leaves. The doorbell sings again and the glass door swings shut behind him. You stand there in the silence. Your heart is a fist pounding against your ribs. You tell yourself it's over. He's gone. He didn't do anything. He just bought some things. That's not a crime.

But your hands won't stop shaking. And outside, through the glass, you see him. He's standing by his car. Not leaving. Not yet. Just standing there. Looking at the store. Looking at you through the window. And he's still smiling. That same smile from the restaurant. The one that dropped so fast. He raises his hand. He waves. Then he climbs into his car and drives off like nothing ever happened. 

You tried your hardest to forget that fucking moment. But forgetting isn't the same as erasing, is it? The memory lives inside your skin now, a splinter you can't dig out. The way he waved. The way he smiled. The way he just stood there by his car, watching you through the glass like you were something he'd already decided to keep.

Your shift ended. A blur of counting change and wiping counters and pretending your hands weren't still shaking. You cleaned up. Cleared the register. Turned the lights off one by one each one plunging the store into deeper darkness until you were standing alone in the red glow of the exit sign. You exited. Locked the doors. The sound of metal sealing shut. Then you started walking home.

It's 1 a.m. The streets are dead. You're on high alert. Not just because of him. You tell yourself it's not just because of him. But your neck prickles anyway. Your eyes keep darting to parked cars, to alley mouths, to the dark windows of shops you passed a hundred times before. You walk faster. You make it to your building. The lobby is empty. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. You walk to the elevator and "Not in service."

A sign. Taped to the doors. Crinkled, like it was put there in a hurry. Or maybe that's just what you tell yourself. "What the fuck?" you mutter, and your voice sounds small and strange in the open space.

The staircase. Of course. You turn toward it, push the heavy door open, and start climbing. Four floors. That's nothing. You're grateful it's just the fourth floor. You climb. One flight. Two. Your footsteps slap the concrete. Your breath is loud in your own ears. Three. You're on the last flight when you hear it.

Something behind you. You stop. Your hand freezes on the railing. The stairwell goes silent, no footsteps, no breathing, nothing but the distant hum of the building settling. You look behind you. Nothing. Empty stairs. Pale walls. A flickering light. You tell yourself it was nothing. You keep climbing. There it is again.

Closer this time. A soft scuff. A whisper of movement. You whip around, heart slamming against your ribs, and nothing. No one stands on the stairs below you. No shadow detaches from the walls. You are alone in a concrete box with a flickering light and a heartbeat that won't stop screaming.

You quicken your steps. You don't look back. You just climb, climb, climb, your thighs burning, your keys already in your hand, because if you can just reach your door, if you can just get inside, you'll be safe. You'll lock the door. You'll turn on every light. You'll be safe.

Fourth floor. The hallway. Your door. You see it, number 4B, the little scratch on the paint, the welcome mat you bought on sale. Your fingers shake as you ruffle through your bag. Keys. Where are your keys? You find them. Fumble. Drop them. Pick them up. Slide the right one into the keyhole. Turn. Open.

You step inside. Your sanctuary. Your home. You reach for the door to swing it shut, to throw the deadbolt, to finally breathe, a hand stops it. Palm flat against the wood. Fingers curling over the edge. The door shoves open again, and Soobin's face comes into view. That face. Those eyes. That fucking smile.

You scream. His hand covers your mouth before the sound can finish leaving your throat. His palm is warm. Too warm. He pushes you backward stumbling, grabbing for anything and you crash into your own hallway as he steps inside and closes the door behind him.

The deadbolt turns. Not by your hand. By his.

He presses you against the wall. His body is hard and warm and wrong. His hand is still over your mouth. His face is inches from yours. His eyes are dark and soft and gentle in a way that makes you want to throw up. "Shh," he whispers. Like he's soothing a child. Like he's calming a frightened animal. "Shh, shh, shh."

You try to bite his hand. You try to knee him. You try to move. But he's stronger. He's always been stronger. And he's smiling that same smile from the restaurant. From the store. From the car. The smile that says, I told you I'd see you again.

"Take me to your bedroom."

Soobin doesn't ask. He never asked, did he? Not once. Not at the restaurant when he reached for the bill. Not at the store when he watched you through the glass. He orders. You try to swing at him.

His hand tightens on your mouth and he grabs a fistful of your hair, yanks your head forward, and slams it back against the wall. White light explodes behind your eyes. Your ears ring. Something warm trickles down your scalp.

"Don't make me say that shit again."

Okay. Okay. Okay. Your hands rise in surrender. Your voice is a broken whisper behind his palm. You'll do anything. You'll say anything. You just want him to stop hurting you. He lets you breathe just long enough to walk.

You show him to your bedroom. Your safe space. Your soft sheets and the cheap fairy lights you hung up because you wanted your life to feel pretty. He shoves you onto the bed and you bounce once, twice, and instinct takes over, you scramble, claw at the blankets, try to make a run for it. You don't get anywhere.

His hand closes around your ankle and yanks. You're on your back again. The air leaves your lungs. And then he's there, settling between your thighs like he belongs there, like he's done this a thousand times before. Maybe he has. Maybe there are other women. Other apartments. Other walls stained with their tears.

He pushes your skirt up. Bunches it around your waist. His fingers hook into the waistband of your underwear, cheap cotton, the kind you bought in a three-pack, you never thought anyone would see them like this and your knees come up, a reflex, a pathetic little attempt to hide.

He sits up on his knees. Pushes your thighs down with one hand. And then he slaps you across the face. Crack. Your head snaps to the side. Your cheek blooms hot, then numb. Tears spill over before you can stop them. "Don't fucking try to hide from me."

His finger is in your face. Pointing. Accusing. Like you did something wrong. Like you asked for this. You stop moving. You stop fighting. You just lie there, shaking, as he makes his way back to your underwear and pulls them down your legs in one slow, deliberate drag. The fabric slides over your hips, your thighs, your knees. He brings them to his face. He smells them.

His eyes flutter closed. His lips part. He inhales like you're something sacred, something he's been starving for. And then he folds them carefully and puts them in his pocket. Your underwear. In his pocket. Like a trophy. 

He lowers his face between your legs. You feel his nose first pressed against your clit, nuzzling, breathing you in. And then his tongue. Wet and warm and cruel in how good it feels. He fucks you with it, slow and deep, curling inside you like he's tasting something he plans to remember forever. But his eyes stay on you. Dark. Unblinking. Watching.

Every time you try to look away, every time your gaze drifts to the ceiling, to the window, anywhere but him he pulls off. His hand grabs your chin. Forces your face back down. "Eyes on me." Then he goes back. 

He places his thumb on your clit. Circles it. Slow at first, then faster, matching the rhythm of his tongue inside you. You hate this. You hate this. But your body is a traitor. Your hips twitch. Your thighs tremble. A sound escapes your throat not a sob, not a moan, something in between. He hums against you. Pleased. 

"You taste so fucking good."

You cry. Silent tears sliding down your cheek into your hair. And then God help you, you feel it. That familiar coiling. That heat builds low in your belly. Your body doesn't care that you're afraid. Your body doesn't care that you didn't choose this. He feels it too. He feels everything. "Am I doing a good job?" 

What?

The question is so wrong, so out of place, that for a second your brain stops working. Why would he ask that? Why would he care? You don't answer. You can't. But he doesn't seem to need an answer. He just smiles against your skin, you feel the curve of his mouth and his thumb presses harder.

 "Are you gonna come?"

His voice is soft now. Almost sweet. The same voice he used at the restaurant when he said you're so pretty. The same voice your friend heard when she said he's really sweet. "Come on my face, baby."

Your knee cramps. Your back arches. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream as it crashes over you wave after wave, your body convulsing, pleasure and terror tangled so tightly you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. He stays right there. Mouth on you. Tongue gentle now, lapping, drinking you in.

He pulls off slowly. A string of spit and your own mess stretches from his lips to your skin. His face is wet. Shining. His lips are swollen and red. He sits up on his knees. Looks down at you. "Fuck," he breathes. 

"You're so much more pretty when you are fucked out."

He's admiring you. That's the worst part. His head tilted. His eyes are soft. Like you're art. Like he painted you himself. And all you can do is lie there, exposed from the waist down, tears drying on your face, your thighs still shaking. All you can do is cry.

He reaches out. Wipes a tear from your cheek with his thumb. Brings it to his mouth. Tastes it. "Don't cry, baby," he whispers. "We're just getting started."

He reaches down to your chest and unbuttons the cute shirt you put on this morning not knowing this is how you were going to end up. He throws the shirt open. Pushes your bra down, making your boobs pop out. And then his hands are on them. Kneading them. His fingers pinch your nipples, twisting until they're hard and aching, and your face twists in pain.

He makes a fake aww sound. "Is your nipples sore, baby? Let me help you."

His mouth is on you. Licking around your nipple, slow and wet, while his hand works the other. He sucks gently at first, then harder, drawing your nipple deep into his mouth, and his tongue circles the tip like he's tasting candy. He keeps at it while looking at you. Why the fuck does he keep looking at you? His eyes never leave your face. He watches every flinch. Every tear. Every time your breath catches.

He moves to the other nipple. Gives it the same treatment, biting just hard enough to make you gasp. He pulls off with a wet pop and smiles at the way your nipple glistens.

He pulls away. His eyes trail down your body, your neck, your chest, your stomach, the wet mess between your legs and then his mouth is on yours. His tongue explores your mouth, sliding against yours, and you taste yourself on his lips. Sweet and salt and you. You bite his tongue.

He just laughs. Keeps kissing you like nothing happened. Like you're two lovers in a movie. He pulls away, his hand holding your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin.

He sits back on his knees. Unbuttons his jeans. Unzips them. And he pulls himself out slowly, like he loves watching the way your face reacts to his movement. He's hard. Thick. The tip is red and wet, and he looks at it, then at you, and smiles.

He spits into his hand. Wraps his fingers around himself and strokes once, twice, three times. His head falls back just a little.

"Shit," he says. "Fuck, I can't wait to be inside you. I've been thinking about this since our date" He strokes himself faster, and his eyes find yours again. "You owe me this, pretty. You owe me."

He makes his way back between your thighs. His knees spread you wider, wider than before, until you feel the stretch in your hips. He uses one hand to grab your thigh and bend it to your chest, folding you almost in half, making you feel more exposed, more nasty than you thought possible. He uses his other hand to guide himself into you.

The tip presses against your entrance. Wet. Hot. He pushes just the head in, and his whole body shudders. "Oh god," he whimpers. His eyes close for just a second. "Oh fuck."

He looks at you as he pushes deeper. Your eyes close due to the stretch, the burn, the fullness, the way he splits you open inch by inch. "Eyes open," he says, and you obey because you're too afraid not to. "I wanna see your face when I fill you up." He pushes all the way in. Your mouth falls open. A sound comes out, half gasp, half sob and he groans, long and loud, his hips pressed flush against yours.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," spills out of his mouth. "Shit, baby. Your pussy is so fucking tight. You're squeezing me like a fucking glove. Oh shit."

He starts moving. Slow at first. Long, deep strokes that pull almost all the way out before slamming back in. You feel him everywhere, inside you, around you, your walls stretching to accommodate him. He's so deep. Too deep.

He leans forward. Places a kiss on your lips soft, almost tender. His tongue slips into your mouth again as his hips start slamming into you harder. The bed creaks. The headboard hits the wall. Your insides are on fire, and you feel him hitting your cervix with every thrust. He pulls back from the kiss. Look down at where your bodies connect. His eyes are dark, hungry, obsessed.

"Fuck," he laughs. "Is that your cervix? Is that where I'm hitting, baby? Do you feel that? You feel how deep I am?" He thrusts harder on purpose, making you cry out. "Yeah. That's it. That's your fucking cervix. I'm gonna bruise it. I'm gonna make sure you feel me for days."

He slows down. Starts moving in deep, rolling strokes like he's trying to memorize every curve inside you. His eyes drop to where you're connected, watching himself slide in and out of you, your wetness coating him.

"Ah, fuck. Look at that." He laughs again, soft and breathless. "Look at my cock inside you, baby. Look how pretty you look wrapped around me."

He speeds up again. Fucks you harder. The headboard slams against the wall…thump, thump, thump and his hands grip your hips, fingers digging into your soft flesh hard enough to bruise. You turn your face to the wall, trying to black out what's happening, tears running down your face.

But he won't grant you that small mercy.

He grabs your neck. Forces you to face him. He's a blurry figure through your tears, but you can still see his smile. His hand leaves your hip and wraps around your throat not squeezing yet, just resting there, feeling your pulse hammer against his palm.

"Fuck," he moans. "You get so much tighter when I choke you. Shit, baby. You like that, don't you? You like when I take your breath away." He squeezes. Just enough. Your vision spots. Your mouth opens but no sound comes out. And you feel him twitch inside you…that telltale pulse, that swelling, and you know what's coming.

"I'm gonna come," he gasps. "Fuck, I'm gonna come. I'm gonna fill this pretty little pussy up, baby. You want that? You want me to pump you full?" He slams into you one last time deep, so deep and his body goes rigid. His head falls back. His mouth opens in a silent groan. And you feel it. Hot. Spilling. Rope after rope inside you, filling you up, leaking out around him even as he stays buried to the hilt.

He stays there for a moment. His forehead drops to yours. His eyes are closed. His breath is hot on your lips. He's still inside you, softening now, but he doesn't pull out. Not yet. Then he places a kiss on your cheek. Soft. Gentle. Like he loves you.

He looks down at where you're connected. Pulls out slowly. You feel everything, the drag, the emptiness, the way his come immediately starts leaking out of you and onto the sheets. He looks at you. Your tear-stained face. Your bruised neck. Your naked body, still shaking, still spread open for him.

"Fuck, love," he whispers. His thumb traces your lower lip. "You looked so fucking beautiful. Every second of it. The way you cried. The way you came on my face. The way you squeezed my cock when I choked you." He smiles, horrible. "Wanna know something? You're mine now."

He leans down. Kisses your forehead.

And somewhere in the building, a door opens and closes. Footsteps in the hallway. People living their normal lives, not knowing that three doors down, something irreparable just happened. You lie there. Staring at the ceiling. Feeling him drip out of you.

Soobin stretches out beside you like he belongs there. Like this is the beginning of something. For you, maybe it is.

It started so softly. A blind date. “And he’s really handsome,” she cooed through the phone as you walked toward the restaurant, the evening light golden and harmless. “Okay, I’ll be the judge of that. I’m hanging up now.” You laughed. You remember laughing. You hung up and walked inside, greeted the host, gave the name. She led you to the table, and there he was. Already waiting.

Soobin stood. He opened his arms for a hug, and you accepted because that’s what polite girls do, isn’t it? That’s what sweet girls do. “Wow,” he said, his voice a low and silken thing. “You’re so pretty.” You laughed again. “You’re not too bad yourself.” And for one hour, one small stupid, hour you believed this was just a nice night.

But here’s the thing about nice nights. They end.

The bill came. He reached for it. You stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “Hey, let’s split it.” A flicker. Just a flicker. His eyebrow twitched. “What kind of man would I be,” he said, slower now, “if I let you pay the bill?” The sweetness in his voice cracked like thin ice. 

“It’s only fair,” you said, trying to smile, trying to ease whatever this was back into something normal. “No,” he said. “I got it.” But you didn’t back down because you are stubborn, because you are proud, because you didn’t know yet what happens to women who don’t back down. “No,” you said again. “We could split it.”

And then he repeated it. Louder. “No. I got it.”

The tables around you went quiet. You felt their eyes like small, hot coins on your skin. You laughed and now, with his hands on your hips and your head turned sideways into the pillow so he won’t see you cry, you understand that laugh was the moment he knew he’d see you again. Whether you wanted to or not.

He paid. You left. “This was nice,” you lied. You could already taste the lie going sour on your tongue. “Let’s do it again,” he said. And then, because he hadn’t yet shown you his teeth, “Wanna hit up a bar?”

You were already on your phone, scrolling for an Uber, heart rabbiting in your chest. “That sounds fun,” you said and you hate yourself for that, don’t you? For the smile you painted on. For the way you couldn’t just say no. “But I have work tomorrow.” His smile dropped. Not faded. Dropped. Like a mask slipping. “Oh,” he said. “I see.”

Your Uber pulled up. “This is my ride,” you whispered. He smiled again and leaned in. A hug. A kiss. You didn’t wait to find out which. You dodged. Stepped back. “See you later,” you said, and you got in the car, and you waved through the window like nothing was wrong. You watched him shrink in the side mirror. He didn’t wave back. You told yourself, That’s the first and last time. You’ll never see him again.

But you were wrong. You were so wrong.

Because now his forehead is pressed against yours, and his breath is warm and wet on your lips, and his fingers are wrapped around your throat not squeezing, not yet, just resting there like a promise. And he is whispering something. The same thing. Over and over.

“What kind of man would I be if I let you go?”

You didn't tell your friend what happened. You just said you two didn't click. She understood. Didn't press. And you..God, you tried so hard to move on from that date. Erase him. The way his eyebrow twitched. The way his voice dropped. The way he looked at you when you dodged his kiss. You told yourself it was nothing. Just a bad night. Just a man with a bruised ego. You almost believed it. Almost.

You're behind the counter at the convenience store. It's late. The lights hum their sickly song. The air smells of stale coffee and bleach. You're stacking cigarettes, thinking about nothing, your feet hurt, your shift ends in an hour, maybe you'll watch something stupid on your phone when you get home. Normal things. Safe things.

Then the doorbell rings. That cheerful little chime you've heard a thousand times. You look up to greet the customer. And your body goes dead. Soobin.

He's standing in the doorway. The night behind him is black and wet-looking. He doesn't look surprised to see you. Not even a little. That's the first thing your brain registers the absence of surprise. He knew. Somehow, he knew you'd be here. He found out where you work. 

But you don't run. You don't scream. You just stand there like a rabbit under a slow-moving car, because that's what happens, isn't it? Your body forgets how to obey you. Your blood turns to cold syrup.

He walks through the store aisles.. His fingertips skim the shelves like he's playing a piano made of cheap packaged goods. He doesn't look at you again. Not yet. He wants you to watch him. He wants you to feel every second of this. You hear his shoes on the floor. Hear him pick up a candy bar. Put it back. Pick up something else. He's taking his time. He's enjoying this. Your hands are shaking. You hide them behind the counter.

Finally, he comes to the register. A few items in his hands. Nothing you remember. Nothing that matters. He sets them down and you scan them. The sound is obscene in the quiet.

He doesn't say anything. Neither do you. You tell yourself, Just cash him out. Just get him out.

He pays. Card. No small talk. No how've you been. No fancy seeing you here. Just that smile.  He takes his bag. He leaves. The doorbell sings again and the glass door swings shut behind him. You stand there in the silence. Your heart is a fist pounding against your ribs. You tell yourself it's over. He's gone. He didn't do anything. He just bought some things. That's not a crime.

But your hands won't stop shaking. And outside, through the glass, you see him. He's standing by his car. Not leaving. Not yet. Just standing there. Looking at the store. Looking at you through the window. And he's still smiling. That same smile from the restaurant. The one that dropped so fast. He raises his hand. He waves. Then he climbs into his car and drives off like nothing ever happened. 

You tried your hardest to forget that fucking moment. But forgetting isn't the same as erasing, is it? The memory lives inside your skin now, a splinter you can't dig out. The way he waved. The way he smiled. The way he just stood there by his car, watching you through the glass like you were something he'd already decided to keep.

Your shift ended. A blur of counting change and wiping counters and pretending your hands weren't still shaking. You cleaned up. Cleared the register. Turned the lights off one by one each one plunging the store into deeper darkness until you were standing alone in the red glow of the exit sign. You exited. Locked the doors. The sound of metal sealing shut. Then you started walking home.

It's 1 a.m. The streets are dead. You're on high alert. Not just because of him. You tell yourself it's not just because of him. But your neck prickles anyway. Your eyes keep darting to parked cars, to alley mouths, to the dark windows of shops you passed a hundred times before. You walk faster. You make it to your building. The lobby is empty. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead. You walk to the elevator and "Not in service."

A sign. Taped to the doors. Crinkled, like it was put there in a hurry. Or maybe that's just what you tell yourself. "What the fuck?" you mutter, and your voice sounds small and strange in the open space.

The staircase. Of course. You turn toward it, push the heavy door open, and start climbing. Four floors. That's nothing. You're grateful it's just the fourth floor. You climb. One flight. Two. Your footsteps slap the concrete. Your breath is loud in your own ears. Three. You're on the last flight when you hear it.

Something behind you. You stop. Your hand freezes on the railing. The stairwell goes silent, no footsteps, no breathing, nothing but the distant hum of the building settling. You look behind you. Nothing. Empty stairs. Pale walls. A flickering light. You tell yourself it was nothing. You keep climbing. There it is again.

Closer this time. A soft scuff. A whisper of movement. You whip around, heart slamming against your ribs, and nothing. No one stands on the stairs below you. No shadow detaches from the walls. You are alone in a concrete box with a flickering light and a heartbeat that won't stop screaming.

You quicken your steps. You don't look back. You just climb, climb, climb, your thighs burning, your keys already in your hand, because if you can just reach your door, if you can just get inside, you'll be safe. You'll lock the door. You'll turn on every light. You'll be safe.

Fourth floor. The hallway. Your door. You see it, number 4B, the little scratch on the paint, the welcome mat you bought on sale. Your fingers shake as you ruffle through your bag. Keys. Where are your keys? You find them. Fumble. Drop them. Pick them up. Slide the right one into the keyhole. Turn. Open.

You step inside. Your sanctuary. Your home. You reach for the door to swing it shut, to throw the deadbolt, to finally breathe, a hand stops it. Palm flat against the wood. Fingers curling over the edge. The door shoves open again, and Soobin's face comes into view. That face. Those eyes. That fucking smile.

You scream. His hand covers your mouth before the sound can finish leaving your throat. His palm is warm. Too warm. He pushes you backward stumbling, grabbing for anything and you crash into your own hallway as he steps inside and closes the door behind him.

The deadbolt turns. Not by your hand. By his.

He presses you against the wall. His body is hard and warm and wrong. His hand is still over your mouth. His face is inches from yours. His eyes are dark and soft and gentle in a way that makes you want to throw up. "Shh," he whispers. Like he's soothing a child. Like he's calming a frightened animal. "Shh, shh, shh."

You try to bite his hand. You try to knee him. You try to move. But he's stronger. He's always been stronger. And he's smiling that same smile from the restaurant. From the store. From the car. The smile that says, I told you I'd see you again.

"Take me to your bedroom."

Soobin doesn't ask. He never asked, did he? Not once. Not at the restaurant when he reached for the bill. Not at the store when he watched you through the glass. He orders. You try to swing at him.

His hand tightens on your mouth and he grabs a fistful of your hair, yanks your head forward, and slams it back against the wall. White light explodes behind your eyes. Your ears ring. Something warm trickles down your scalp.

"Don't make me say that shit again."

Okay. Okay. Okay. Your hands rise in surrender. Your voice is a broken whisper behind his palm. You'll do anything. You'll say anything. You just want him to stop hurting you. He lets you breathe just long enough to walk.

You show him to your bedroom. Your safe space. Your soft sheets and the cheap fairy lights you hung up because you wanted your life to feel pretty. He shoves you onto the bed and you bounce once, twice, and instinct takes over, you scramble, claw at the blankets, try to make a run for it. You don't get anywhere.

His hand closes around your ankle and yanks. You're on your back again. The air leaves your lungs. And then he's there, settling between your thighs like he belongs there, like he's done this a thousand times before. Maybe he has. Maybe there are other women. Other apartments. Other walls stained with their tears.

He pushes your skirt up. Bunches it around your waist. His fingers hook into the waistband of your underwear, cheap cotton, the kind you bought in a three-pack, you never thought anyone would see them like this and your knees come up, a reflex, a pathetic little attempt to hide.

He sits up on his knees. Pushes your thighs down with one hand. And then he slaps you across the face. Crack. Your head snaps to the side. Your cheek blooms hot, then numb. Tears spill over before you can stop them. "Don't fucking try to hide from me."

His finger is in your face. Pointing. Accusing. Like you did something wrong. Like you asked for this. You stop moving. You stop fighting. You just lie there, shaking, as he makes his way back to your underwear and pulls them down your legs in one slow, deliberate drag. The fabric slides over your hips, your thighs, your knees. He brings them to his face. He smells them.

His eyes flutter closed. His lips part. He inhales like you're something sacred, something he's been starving for. And then he folds them carefully and puts them in his pocket. Your underwear. In his pocket. Like a trophy. 

He lowers his face between your legs. You feel his nose first pressed against your clit, nuzzling, breathing you in. And then his tongue. Wet and warm and cruel in how good it feels. He fucks you with it, slow and deep, curling inside you like he's tasting something he plans to remember forever. But his eyes stay on you. Dark. Unblinking. Watching.

Every time you try to look away, every time your gaze drifts to the ceiling, to the window, anywhere but him he pulls off. His hand grabs your chin. Forces your face back down. "Eyes on me." Then he goes back. 

He places his thumb on your clit. Circles it. Slow at first, then faster, matching the rhythm of his tongue inside you. You hate this. You hate this. But your body is a traitor. Your hips twitch. Your thighs tremble. A sound escapes your throat not a sob, not a moan, something in between. He hums against you. Pleased. 

"You taste so fucking good."

You cry. Silent tears sliding down your cheek into your hair. And then God help you, you feel it. That familiar coiling. That heat builds low in your belly. Your body doesn't care that you're afraid. Your body doesn't care that you didn't choose this. He feels it too. He feels everything. "Am I doing a good job?" 

What?

The question is so wrong, so out of place, that for a second your brain stops working. Why would he ask that? Why would he care? You don't answer. You can't. But he doesn't seem to need an answer. He just smiles against your skin, you feel the curve of his mouth and his thumb presses harder.

 "Are you gonna come?"

His voice is soft now. Almost sweet. The same voice he used at the restaurant when he said you're so pretty. The same voice your friend heard when she said he's really sweet. "Come on my face, baby."

Your knee cramps. Your back arches. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream as it crashes over you wave after wave, your body convulsing, pleasure and terror tangled so tightly you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. He stays right there. Mouth on you. Tongue gentle now, lapping, drinking you in.

He pulls off slowly. A string of spit and your own mess stretches from his lips to your skin. His face is wet. Shining. His lips are swollen and red. He sits up on his knees. Looks down at you. "Fuck," he breathes. 

"You're so much more pretty when you are fucked out."

He's admiring you. That's the worst part. His head tilted. His eyes are soft. Like you're art. Like he painted you himself. And all you can do is lie there, exposed from the waist down, tears drying on your face, your thighs still shaking. All you can do is cry.

He reaches out. Wipes a tear from your cheek with his thumb. Brings it to his mouth. Tastes it. "Don't cry, baby," he whispers. "We're just getting started."

He reaches down to your chest and unbuttons the cute shirt you put on this morning not knowing this is how you were going to end up. He throws the shirt open. Pushes your bra down, making your boobs pop out. And then his hands are on them. Kneading them. His fingers pinch your nipples, twisting until they're hard and aching, and your face twists in pain.

He makes a fake aww sound. "Is your nipples sore, baby? Let me help you."

His mouth is on you. Licking around your nipple, slow and wet, while his hand works the other. He sucks gently at first, then harder, drawing your nipple deep into his mouth, and his tongue circles the tip like he's tasting candy. He keeps at it while looking at you. Why the fuck does he keep looking at you? His eyes never leave your face. He watches every flinch. Every tear. Every time your breath catches.

He moves to the other nipple. Gives it the same treatment, biting just hard enough to make you gasp. He pulls off with a wet pop and smiles at the way your nipple glistens.

He pulls away. His eyes trail down your body, your neck, your chest, your stomach, the wet mess between your legs and then his mouth is on yours. His tongue explores your mouth, sliding against yours, and you taste yourself on his lips. Sweet and salt and you. You bite his tongue.

He just laughs. Keeps kissing you like nothing happened. Like you're two lovers in a movie. He pulls away, his hand holding your cheek, his thumb stroking your skin.

He sits back on his knees. Unbuttons his jeans. Unzips them. And he pulls himself out slowly, like he loves watching the way your face reacts to his movement. He's hard. Thick. The tip is red and wet, and he looks at it, then at you, and smiles.

He spits into his hand. Wraps his fingers around himself and strokes once, twice, three times. His head falls back just a little.

"Shit," he says. "Fuck, I can't wait to be inside you. I've been thinking about this since our date" He strokes himself faster, and his eyes find yours again. "You owe me this, pretty. You owe me."

He makes his way back between your thighs. His knees spread you wider, wider than before, until you feel the stretch in your hips. He uses one hand to grab your thigh and bend it to your chest, folding you almost in half, making you feel more exposed, more nasty than you thought possible. He uses his other hand to guide himself into you.

The tip presses against your entrance. Wet. Hot. He pushes just the head in, and his whole body shudders. "Oh god," he whimpers. His eyes close for just a second. "Oh fuck."

He looks at you as he pushes deeper. Your eyes close due to the stretch, the burn, the fullness, the way he splits you open inch by inch. "Eyes open," he says, and you obey because you're too afraid not to. "I wanna see your face when I fill you up." He pushes all the way in. Your mouth falls open. A sound comes out, half gasp, half sob and he groans, long and loud, his hips pressed flush against yours.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," spills out of his mouth. "Shit, baby. Your pussy is so fucking tight. You're squeezing me like a fucking glove. Oh shit."

He starts moving. Slow at first. Long, deep strokes that pull almost all the way out before slamming back in. You feel him everywhere, inside you, around you, your walls stretching to accommodate him. He's so deep. Too deep.

He leans forward. Places a kiss on your lips soft, almost tender. His tongue slips into your mouth again as his hips start slamming into you harder. The bed creaks. The headboard hits the wall. Your insides are on fire, and you feel him hitting your cervix with every thrust. He pulls back from the kiss. Look down at where your bodies connect. His eyes are dark, hungry, obsessed.

"Fuck," he laughs. "Is that your cervix? Is that where I'm hitting, baby? Do you feel that? You feel how deep I am?" He thrusts harder on purpose, making you cry out. "Yeah. That's it. That's your fucking cervix. I'm gonna bruise it. I'm gonna make sure you feel me for days."

He slows down. Starts moving in deep, rolling strokes like he's trying to memorize every curve inside you. His eyes drop to where you're connected, watching himself slide in and out of you, your wetness coating him.

"Ah, fuck. Look at that." He laughs again, soft and breathless. "Look at my cock inside you, baby. Look how pretty you look wrapped around me."

He speeds up again. Fucks you harder. The headboard slams against the wall…thump, thump, thump and his hands grip your hips, fingers digging into your soft flesh hard enough to bruise. You turn your face to the wall, trying to black out what's happening, tears running down your face.

But he won't grant you that small mercy.

He grabs your neck. Forces you to face him. He's a blurry figure through your tears, but you can still see his smile. His hand leaves your hip and wraps around your throat not squeezing yet, just resting there, feeling your pulse hammer against his palm.

"Fuck," he moans. "You get so much tighter when I choke you. Shit, baby. You like that, don't you? You like when I take your breath away." He squeezes. Just enough. Your vision spots. Your mouth opens but no sound comes out. And you feel him twitch inside you…that telltale pulse, that swelling, and you know what's coming.

"I'm gonna come," he gasps. "Fuck, I'm gonna come. I'm gonna fill this pretty little pussy up, baby. You want that? You want me to pump you full?" He slams into you one last time deep, so deep and his body goes rigid. His head falls back. His mouth opens in a silent groan. And you feel it. Hot. Spilling. Rope after rope inside you, filling you up, leaking out around him even as he stays buried to the hilt.

He stays there for a moment. His forehead drops to yours. His eyes are closed. His breath is hot on your lips. He's still inside you, softening now, but he doesn't pull out. Not yet. Then he places a kiss on your cheek. Soft. Gentle. Like he loves you.

He looks down at where you're connected. Pulls out slowly. You feel everything, the drag, the emptiness, the way his come immediately starts leaking out of you and onto the sheets. He looks at you. Your tear-stained face. Your bruised neck. Your naked body, still shaking, still spread open for him.

"Fuck, love," he whispers. His thumb traces your lower lip. "You looked so fucking beautiful. Every second of it. The way you cried. The way you came on my face. The way you squeezed my cock when I choked you." He smiles, horrible. "Wanna know something? You're mine now."

He leans down. Kisses your forehead.

And somewhere in the building, a door opens and closes. Footsteps in the hallway. People living their normal lives, not knowing that three doors down, something irreparable just happened. You lie there. Staring at the ceiling. Feeling him drip out of you.

Soobin stretches out beside you like he belongs there. Like this is the beginning of something. For you, maybe it is.

~~~

The death of your husband came as a surprise. He had been young, healthy and active. Every day he would train with his men in the training yard or go for a ride with the horses. He ate healthily and the Maesters always congratulated him on his strength and his body. Still, the Stranger came for everybody, and it seemed your husband’s time had been early.

The sickness had spread throughout the lands, and it took both peasants and noble alike. You had noticed that when you wept beside your lord husband’s bed, praying to the Mother for safety and his strength to return. She had non to give. When he passed into the strangers’ arms, you felt as if he took a piece of you with him.

Your marriage, like so many others between nobles, had been arranged by your father and you had little hope of a happy one. Yet, when you meet Lord Willys Tyrell, the son to the lord of Highgarden, he had smiled at you sweetly and taken your hand to place a kiss on it. You knew then you were a lost cause, and the love both shared grew between you quickly. It had been a happy marriage by all accounts, and the life in Highgarden had suited you so much you almost regretted your decision to leave. Almost.

The depression and sadness that tugged at your heart had been consuming you whole for the better part of the moon, and only a few things had been able to cheer you up. Your father-in-law, as well as your brother-in-law had tried their best, but they too were buried in their grief. You hadn’t been blessed with a child with your husband either, so that left little more to comfort yourself with. So, when the letter arrived from your old friend, an offer for a visit and some comfort, you had jumped at the opportunity for something to cheer you up.

It was an odd friendship; you had to admit. Prince Aerion wasn’t known for his kindness, nor for his big circle of friends. Yet, you had the honour few had of calling yourself his friend. A friendship that started when you were just children, and one that held strong throughout your teenage years, up until your marriage. You can still remember the little child you met in the gardens of the Red Keep, when you too were a child. The prince was a few years older and intimidating already then. Still, it hadn’t stopped either of you.

The fresh air of the countryside was slowly being replaced by the stench of the city as you knew it. The carriage was swaying lightly back and forth, and you rested your back against the cushions, embroidered with roses. The Tyrells had been kind enough to loan you both their own carriage and their guards for the journey, stating that you are still family even if your husband wasn’t still alive. You had been utterly thankful, even more so after they promised you would be welcome back even after the visit.

As you pass through the gates of the city, slowly moving up the dwindling streets of Kings Landing, you suddenly find it hard to sit still. Both because of the constant shaking of the cart that came with the uneven road, but also due to the excitement. You hadn’t seen Aerion since the wedding, and even before that it had been less and less since your betrothal to Willys. You had grown distant the closer you got to your betrothed, something you mourned. So now, with the grief of losing your husband, the happiness of reuniting with an old friend grew bigger.

By the time the carriage had rolled up to the red keep, you were basically jumping in your seat. You could see the giant castle towering ahead, and as the carriage finally rolled to a stop, you could see the familiar figure with white hair and red clothing standing at the top of the stairs. As the door opened, you gratefully took the hand of the knight outside and finally emerged from the cramped space.

After three weeks on the road, it was a blessing to finally arrive at something other than an inn or odd keep. You stretched your legs as you looked around. Nothing has changed since last time, the Red Keep still glistening in the sun, the servants running around, and once more you turn your gaze back towards the stairs and a smile graces your features. After weeks of mourning and waiting, the familiar face of a friend seemed to lift your spirits immensely. Forgetting all about protocol and respect, you take off in a quick walk up the stairs, delighted in the fact Aerion was heading down. You meet halfway and before you can regret it you throw your arms around his neck, embracing him. It is indecent of you, hugging a prince without so much as a bow or word of respect, yet the way he is hugging you back, arms wrapped around your waist and pulling you closer to him, makes you forget everything.

“I have missed you, little bird”

His voice is uncharacteristically soft, a smile on his face hidden away in your neck. For just a brief second his arms tighten around you before he slowly loosens them, leaning back to get a good look at you.

“The road must have exhausted you”

You smile at him, the first genuine smile you had worn for weeks. It felt strange upon your face, as if you had forgotten the motion.

“I have missed you too, my prince. The road did not agree with me, and I already dread the return to Highgarden”

Something in his expression shift when you mention Highgarden. You can’t exactly say what it is, but it is as if he grew colder at the words. Still, it does not last long before he is smiling again, releasing you from the hug to offer you an arm instead.  

“Let’s not speak of journeys now, little bird, you only just arrived. Let’s get you inside, I am sure you are eager to wash the road off you”

You nod thankfully, taking his arm and together you descend the steps upward and into the familiar corridors.

~~~

You were grateful for the bath, truly. The servants had prepared it, so it was still steaming when you got to it, and the tub was large enough for you to lie back and rest. The warm water soothed your muscles, and the soft sound of servants moving around you lulled you into a sense of rest. Though, after a while a strange feeling prickled your neck. You sent the servants away, insisting you wanted to be alone for a few minutes. Yet, as they scurried to leave the chambers and you were all alone, the feeling did not go away. The strange feeling of being watched.

You shift uncomfortably, the warm water somehow losing its comfort the longer this strange feeling persists. Despite how softly you try to move, scrubbing the dirt and sweat of you, you can’t seem to enjoy it anymore. You can swear you hear movement around you, someone’s shallow breathing that isn’t yours. The fatigue from the road and newfound warm safety must be sending you into madness. Mayhap a good night’s sleep will fix it.

As the sun slowly lowers into the sky, you rise from the tub to begin to dress. You had promised Aerion to have dinner with him and tell him of the journey. A smile comes into your face as you think of it.  Yes, everything would be fine.

¨¨¨¨

The Red Keep is certainly different from Highgarden in many aspects. The schedule, the food, the traditions. The people were the biggest difference, you supposed. Aside from Aerion you didn’t know anyone else that well. Sure, you had met his family and knew them, but it is not like you could ask the heir apparent or Maekar to lunch. Besides, you could not for the life of you rid yourself of the feeling of being watched.

Everywhere you went, whenever you were alone or just simply walking around you constantly felt watched, like someone was following you. It was unnerving to say the least. You tried to blame the nerves from being in a new place and the grief still gently lingering causing you to hallucinate. It didn’t help that you felt mostly alone all the time.

The ladies at court whom you had known before your wedding had also mostly been married or moved away. A whole new set of ladies roamed the court, but none of them felt right to spend time with. Lady Kiera had been most sweet with you and invited you several times to dine with her and her ladies, which you had gladly accepted. Yet even then you didn’t know them and they oft spoke of things you had no clue of, and despite how nice it was you felt left out. That only left Aerion to spend time with.

It was nice, of course. He had been most helpful with your grief and to fill your days with entertainment. One day he took you horse-riding, the other he brought you to a market. He spoke to you, danced with you at feasts and even fixed forth a music-teacher when you expressed interest in learning the lute. He was the perfect friend, really.

And yet, you had started to long for Highgarden once more. While you still mourned your sweet husband, the wound had begun to slowly heal, and the constant movement and flimsy of the Red Keep were beginning to garner on your nerves. After almost a full moon away you were ready to return to safety and calmness.

Aerion did not agree.

“What do you mean, go home?”

His voice was genuinely confused as he looked at you, brows furrowed. He took a sip of his wine and didn’t wait further for an explanation.

“Your father is in Dorne on business for the crown and your sisters are married. What do you have to return to apart from an empty keep?”

You shook your head, also taking a sip of the wine. The day was clear and hot, with a gentle breeze brushing your skirts. The part of the garden where you were seated was mostly empty, the people around having left as soon as you arrived. Aerion had explained it was because this part of the garden was private for the royal family, but you had an odd feeling that wasn’t the full truth.

“No, I meant home to Highgarden. I still have my sweet father-in-law and brothers there, and I miss it all”

Aerion froze at your words, his gaze temporarily freezing on his wine. For a second he didn’t move at all, before his gaze snapped to you, and the calm look he had before was gone. It took him a long time to say something; he just looked at you with that gaze you couldn’t place.

“What do you mean, ‘Home’?” His voice was cold, and his brows furrowed. It finally seemed to click in your mind that he was angry, and almost without meaning to you lean backwards in your seat to get away from him. “Highgarden certainly isn’t your home, especially not more than here”

Now it’s your time to be confused, your eyebrows furrowed as you tilt your head to the side. Still, you lean away from him, this change in attitude worrying you. Aerion had always been a difficult person, you knew that, but you had always managed to make him see eye to eye. For some reason, this conversation didn’t seem to head that way.

“What do you mean? Highgarden is my home, it’s where my husband lived and…”

“Your husband is dead.”

As soon as the words left his mouth you freeze, gazed locked onto him. He didn’t seem remorseful in the slightest, he seemed still as annoyed and angry. He put his wine down to lean closer to you, his gaze narrowing as if to challenge you to say something.

“Wha… what did you just say?” Your voice was thick with disbelief, and the closer he leaned the further away you tried to get. “Highgarden is my home! And… and my husband he- how could you say that?”

Tears were kissing your eyes, the glass of wine and nice weather forgotten. Aerion didn’t seem to mind it, his gaze still firmly locked onto you. He even seemed calmer now, his hands intertwining in front of him as he too tilted his head, matching your movement. As if he was mocking you.

“I didn’t say any lie” He stated, as a matter of fact. “Your husband is dead, and so from that fact alone Highgarden isn’t your home anymore”

“My father-in-law has gracefully accepted to keep me housed there! He has even asked that I return so I won’t feel alone!”

“He has accepted your presence back as a guest, same as I have” The calm tone of his voice infuriates you more, and slowly the fear is forgotten in turn for anger. “That means that the red keep, or mayhap even Summerhall is just as much your home as Highgarden”

At that you stand up, fully shocked and done with his words. He had never spoken like this before, and it was starting to bother you more than the loneliness. Sure, you weren’t ignorant to the rumours regarding him. He was known to be a spoiled prince, crude and rude to everyone he meets. It wasn’t unknown that people were reluctant to accept his presence. But he had never been like that with you! Somehow it felt even worse, that someone you trusted were treating you this way.

You turned your back on him, and with hurried steps began to leave the garden. You can hear him stand up behind you, beginning to follow you but you refuse to turn or acknowledge him. Not even as he comes closer or begins to speak.

“Little bird, where are you going?” He is almost laughing now, his anger replaced by humour.  “I didn’t mean to be cruel, but I was…”

You don’t let him finish, instead turning around so fast he almost collides with you.

“Well, you were!” You basically screeched at him, trying your best not to punch him in the face. “You were cruel and I have no intention of staying here when you don’t seem to have my best interest at heart anymore.”

With that, you walk away and don’t bother to try and listen to what he says. You can hear his footsteps, but they slowly fade as you enter the public gardens once more. You walk so fast you almost fall into a sprint, desperate to get to your chambers so you can finally break down.

~~~

You had ordered for the carriage to be prepared for return that very same day. As soon as you returned to your chambers, you had broken down, the grief of everything hitting you at once. It didn’t last long, and at the first pause with tears you called upon the steward to send words. You were told you could leave in two days’ time, and you were thinking it couldn’t be soon enough.

You assumed words had gotten to Aerion was well, because only an hour after you had been given the news, he had showed up and almost banged your door down, yelling and screaming. You had refused. The guards had dragged him away, and he had returned an hour later with apologies and begged to speak. When that didn’t work, he tried something else.

Almost the whole rest of the day had passed like that. He came with apologies, flowers, treats and at one point, you thought you heard him beg. Still, nothing could get you out of your mood. You were truly angry at him, and it was too soon to forgive. Only when night fell and the guards grew tired, that he finally left you alone, albeit reluctantly. You tried to sleep, you really did, but it was hard. The grief had returned 10-fold, and you still felt fucking watched. It took you to the early hours of the morning to finally fall asleep.

When you awoke, it was almost a surprise it wasn’t to the sound of the door being banged down. When you sent the servants to fetch breakfast (determent to have it in your room so you wouldn’t risk facing him again), the sweet girl informed you that he would be away for the better part of the day. His father had some urgent business that needed care, and Aerion was supposed to follow and learn. Joy spread through you at her words, having forgotten about how much he complained about it.

You ate breakfast in peace, read some and even helped the maids pack some of your belongings. Soon, when the room became to suffocating, you decided leaving to go for a stroll in the gardens wouldn’t hurt. After all, Aerion wasn’t here to bother you and you had started to miss the beautiful flowers and trees in Highgarden. Not that the gardens here could compare, but they were a comfort non the least.

The sun was just as warm today as yesterday, heating up your skin and making all the water glitter gently. The kind breeze was missing and leaving it to feel on the verge of suffocating, but you didn’t mind, you never did. For the first time since you came, you felt almost completely at peace, despite being alone. The feeling of being watched had vanished, and due to the heat, you were enjoying a very desert garden. At least, it was desert until a figure suddenly appear from behind a bush, causing you to jump.

“Prince Valarr!”

You quickly fell into a curtesy, bowing your head. You had met the prince on numerous occasions and knew him to be a kind. Still, whenever you had the moment to speak with him, Aerion had always been with you, and Aerion did not like his cousin. You had never been able to have a longer conversation, to your disappointment.

Valarr chuckled as he watched you, shaking his head.

“Please, my lady, there is no need for such formalities. I believe we know each other well enough”

He reached out a hand to help you up; one you graciously accepted. He was wearing his usual Targaryen clothing, the red and black mixed together, his hair perfect. Truly, a proper prince in every aspect.

“I thought I was alone in the garden. The sun seems to be a bit to strong for most today”

You smile at his words, shaking your head.

“I thought the same” you laugh. “I never minded the warmth, and I have been inside for far too long today”

Valarr nods at that, looking around the garden as if he was watching for something.

“Yes, its been a while since I’ve seen you… and its been even longer since I’ve seen you without my cousin”

At the mention of Aerion you frown, looking down. He was right, of course. You yourself couldn’t remember the last time you were without him, and that made you sad. The one friend you had in this place, turned out to be something other than you thought, and now you felt like a jester alone. No one on your side, a joke to others. You couldn’t well say that to the prince, though.

“Yes… yes, Aerion and I- Prince Aerion and I have spent a lot of time together but we… well I guess I started to miss home and he didn’t fully agree with me”

You try to smile at Valarr, but he can see through you without much trying. Still, he nods politely.

“Yes, I hear you had a… disagreement. Would you like to walk with me, My lady? To clear your head, maybe”

You are surprised by the request, but you wouldn’t dare refuse a prince. When you think about it, you don’t want to refuse him. You like the idea of getting to know the other prince for a while, to talk to some who wasn’t rude. Walking side by side, you traverse the gardens, speaking of different things. The flowers, how Lady Kiera is holding up, how much you miss Highgarden. You find your mood deeply improving with his company. When you reach the end of the garden, you are laughing and smiling again.

Valarr turns to you as the garden ends, something troubling finding its way into his previously carefree and calm grace. His eyes flitter around the garden before they settle on you again, his eyebrows furrowing.

“How has Aerion been treating you these days?” He asks, his head gently tilted to the side.

His words confuse you, and you find yourself trying to avoid his gaze, his different coloured eyes borrowing into you. You can’t place his gaze, and that worries you. Is it pity, worry or maybe even indifference?

“I… Well, of course. He is my friend, and he has been greatly cheering me up these last days”

Valarr nods, before he looks around again.

“Of course, I know you two are close… But when I heard of the disagreement, I just wanted to make sure”

“Well, that is very sweet of you” You are beginning to become uncomfortable with his new concerns, not sure how to handle this situation. No one had ever been worried about you like this, and you aren’t sure if Valarr is worried about you, or about Aerion. “But I can assure you, I am perfectly fine. I’m returning to Highgarden tomorrow and while the prince may be wroth with me, I am sure some time apart might heal our wounds”

The son to the Heir Apparent doesn’t seem to agree, his expression still troubled as he looks at you. He seems to be trying to figure out what to say, how to phrase everything right. It makes you nervous, as if there is some great secret you aren’t fully let in on. Finally, he rests his gaze on yours as he decides, a hesitant smile finding its way onto his face.

“Well, I am glad to hear you are okay, My lady. Still… just be careful. Aerion is a Targaryen prince, and while I am sure you are fully aware of the fact, I would still recommend to… just look out for something that might be odd. Would you promise me that?”

His words leave you feeling confused, like someone took your brain and shook it around. His words felt displaced in the warm garden, the fuzzy feeling that had filled you now suddenly gone. It was as if the sun had been clouded, the surroundings changed. Aerion wouldn’t… you don’t know what Valarr is getting at, but still, you force a smile.

“Of course, your grace… I’ll be careful, but I’m sure Aerion hasn’t mean anything by what he did, right?”

Valarr just nods, that hesitant smile still lingering.

“Yes… yes, of course”

~~~

The carriage was leaving early tomorrow. Soon, you would be away, to dream of basking in the beautiful gardens of Highgarden, play games with your brothers in law and have dinner with your father-in-law. Those are the facts that keep repeating to yourself as you dress. Just one more evening of this bloody keep, then you would be home. Just one more evening of pretending.

Aerion had invited you to dinner, and as much as you had wanted to send the poor servant back with an insult, you had forced yourself to calm down. You couldn’t stay mad forever, and he was your friend after all. He had apologised and did seem genuinely remorseful. Everyone makes mistakes, right?

Contrary to what you thought, he had insisted the dinner was served in his chambers instead of the dining hall.

“To make things more comfortable” he had said with a smile as he let you in.

And he was right, you supposed. He had started with another apology, of how he hadn’t meant it like that and despite how you had promised yourself to stay wroth, your heart had softened at his words. He was your friend, and despite everything you forgave him. Dinner had been a pleasant affair, the food good and it felt wonderful to have a proper conversation again. It felt right.

“Oh, by the seven above, it’s not like Aegon is that bad!”

“You are lying to both me and yourself now. Aegon is a demon, sent to torment us…”

“He is a child!”

Aerion simply laughed, taking a sip of wine from his goblet. You had moved from the table to sit by the fire, drinking wine and talking. The fire in the hearth was dying, the embers softly lighting the room. It smelled softly of fire, smoke and something else far more homely. Something that made you fuzzy, and awfully tired.

“I fear I should retire, Aerion. I’m tired, and have a long journey ahead of me tomorrow”

You try to be soft with your words, but Aerion frowns all the same. You can’t help but to do the same, almost melancholy at the thought of already ending the evening, despite your previous disagreement. Still, you had to rest up for the morrow.

“Are you sure you can’t stay for just one more goblet of wine? I do adore your company”

He lifts his goblet in gesture and smiles as if that should convince you. He keeps it frozen in place as you shake your head and place your own goblet on the table.

“I’m sorry, I would love to, really, but it is late and…”

“Of course” He cuts you off, placing his own goblet beside your own upon the table. “You must get your rest”

His voice is distant as his eyes moves about your face, drinking you in. A fact that has you slightly squirming in your seat, the words of Prince Valarr suddenly appearing in your mind, against your will. Just be careful. You felt something prickle up your spine as Aerion’s eyes start to look more and more reptile like. Something like a predator.

You clear your throat, preparing to make your exit when he interrupts you again.

“Do you remember when we first meet?”

You frown in confusion at his question, before you chuckle it away, waving your hand in front of you.

“Yes, of course I do… how could I not?”

Aerion lets out a laugh, leaning back in his chair.

“You were so small, I remember. Wearing that pink dress, not even the colour of your house. How you stood out in that garden, and how you stood out even more when you spoke to me”

You liked this part of him far better, the calm and present one, laughing about old memories. It reminded you of before.

“Well, I wasn’t that small” you muse “You were just slightly older, thus being taller. And you were holding a cat, how could I not speak to you”

“Yes, it was Aegon’s cat, I remember. You got so excited when you saw it, thought of it as so sweet”

“Well, it was sweet! I have always adored cats and thought…”

“I was going to throw it down the well, you know”

…

The silence is so loud, you could hear a pin drop. Everything in the room seemed to still, and you completely forgot what you were going to say. Your face was frozen in that awkward smile you had just before Aerion opened his mouth. He didn’t seem phased, just observing your reaction.

“Wha…” Your voice is lower now, and you find it hard to force out the words. “That is not funny, Aerion. Do not jest so”

He lets out a laugh, short and more like a bark.

“I am not jesting” he says, and with horrible clarity you realise he is telling the truth. “Aegon had done something, I can’t even remember what, and I was going to take his stupid cat and throw it down the well. But then, you showed up. Oh, and how you laughed at the kitten, rushing right at me to practically rip it from my arms”

It is with horrifying pain you realise you do not know the man in front of you. This is the man everyone warned you of, who Valarr spoke of in the garden. A man who is dangerous, a vain and cruel prince. A man who is looking at you with such humour and entertainment.

You open your mouth to say something, but nothing comes up, and you’re not even sure Aerion cared enough to listen.

“I was going to punish you for the insolence and then throw the cat away… but you opened your mouth and thanked me. You thanked me and giggled in that sweet voice of yours, as if I had hung the stars and the moon for you, for something that wasn’t even for you. The cat wasn’t for you, and yet I found it fit in your arms. That’s when I decided I loved you”

It felt as if someone had dropped a bucket of ice-water all over you. It felt cold and rude, completely unfamiliar and awful. Goosebumps moved across your skin, and it was as if the air had been sucked out. Everything was closing in around you, until only Aerion and his terrible smile remained.

“I… I do not understand of what you speak…”

“I thought you loved me too, you know” He interrupts again, his voice now colder. “Not straight away, of course, we were still children. But as we grew and you still looked at me with such adoration and kindness, I thought we were on the same level. We were meant to be one. And then you had to ruin it all, and wed a fucking Tyrell”

His voice had grown colder the longer he spoke, and the hatred that filled it with his last words had you standing up from your seat, desperately backing away from him. He followed immediately, standing to his full hight, his face now a mask of cold indifference. A look of which he had never given you.

“Aerion, you are scaring me…”

Your voice is a mere whisper, a dreadful plea in the desperation of a prey. A prey pleading to a predator that has no intention of letting go. A rose begging a dragon for mercy.

“That is not my intention” he says, and you know he means it. No, he sees his twisted words as a declaration of love. “But I need you to see what you have so clearly denied. You are mine”

You decide you have heard enough, and in a panic, you turn to run to the door. You barley make is a step before a hand twist in the fabric of your dress, flipping you around to face him. A frightful smile is all over him, and he pulls you closer.

“I tried speaking with your father” he continues to speak, ignoring how your hands fly up to push at his chest, hit his arms, fighting to be free. “To ask to marry you, and he said no. He said you loved this Tyrell and I told him he was full of shit. You loved me, I know you did”

He is so close now you can feel his breath on your lips, and you fear for when he will try to come even closer. Fear for what next will come.

“And he was right. You actually preferred this… man”

If it wasn’t for the fact you were desperately fighting to get out of his grasp, trying to keep from tears, you might have noticed he seemed sad about it. A soft melancholy, like it truly hurt him that you didn’t feel the same. You might have felt bad for him, if it wasn’t for the fact he was holding you so hard you were sure you were going to bruise.

“You were married off and left me alone…and then I thought you were returning after his death to confess your love to me. To tell me how wrong you were and that it was me who you loved all along. Yet you never did…” His voice has grown hard again, a sneer on his face before he continued and it melted away. “…but never mind that now. He is gone, and you are mine”

Something in his eyes sparkled, and it put such an awful thought into your head. An awful, terrible, painful thought, that caused the air to be pulled from your lungs, like a corset being pulled to tightly. You tried to banish it to the furthers corners of your mind, to focus on the equally horrifying situation at hand, but you couldn’t. You couldn’t.

“Did… Did you kill my Willys?”

Aerion’s eyes did not lose their sparkle but instead seemed to burn brighter. Burn with such fierce power you became even more afraid of the answer he was about to give.

“No” he says, at last, but the words that follow does not calm your racing heart. “But I would have, if I had gotten the chance. Afterall, you disappeared so quickly after your wedding, and I would have loved to get to know your husband a bit more. Accidents happen on hunting trips all the time”

Those are the words that finally makes the goblet tip over in your poor mind. Those words, coming from a man whom you only 5 minutes earlier saw as your best friend and confidant. The tears well over, and before you know it you are sobbing and your legs give out underneath you. Aerion is quick to catch you, bringing you closer as he gently, fake and horrible and so softly, hush you, comforts you.

“It’s alright, my love. Its alright, you are exactly where you are meant to be”

 A hand bracing on the back of your neck, forcing you closer. You realise to late what he is planning, and your plea is stuck in your throat as he places his lips over yours in a kiss. Its soft, like a lover’s kiss, and even when you resume your fighting to push at his chest, he remains close, lips moving over yours. It’s only when he tries to part your lips, pushing closer you snap, and bite down. Hard.

He flies back with a hiss, bringing a hand up to his lip to check. Its bleeding, and he stares at his fingers in disbelief before snapping his gaze up to yours again. He doesn’t seem to back off the way you thought and instead he laughs. He seemed amused at your panic. Suddenly, before you can react, his lips are back on yours, this time far harsher and bruising, causing you to let out a yelp. You slap at his chest, scratch at his face, but he only pushes closer. When one of his hands wander a bit to low, you lift your knee up and with a sick sort of satisfaction, you hit him right in the groin. That has him flying back, and you are suddenly free. You waste no time, your feet finding its footing fast and you rush towards the door, towards your freedom.

If you could only get through the door, you could run all the way back to your chambers. You would hide and pretend none of this happened. Tomorrow, you would board the carriage and go home to safety, happiness and family and…

Hands tangle themselves in your hair and pulls you back so hard you scream. It burns at the roots, and you are sure a few strands pop loose as you fly back into Aerion’s chest. As his other hand comes up to circle your waist, you feel his breath on your ear.

“Where are you going? We’ve only just started”

“Aerion please, I can’t…”

“Hush with you now, I’m here, I’ll take care of you”

He pulls you backwards, towards the bed, and no matter how you beg and plead he doesn’t relent. The weight of your failed escape, the fate that awaited you caused you to fight even harder, but that only made him angry. He seems to lose his patience more and more, and finally he grabs your neck so firmly you feel his nails dig into the sides.

“Shut up for once, would you? There is no need to be an ungrateful bitch. I am a prince; this is an honour”

He pushes you down face first onto the soft mattress, and quickly follow with his weight, forcing you down further. You cry out once more, but there is not much you can do to fight here, arms stuck and panic causing your body to shake something terribly. You try to close your legs, but he quickly pushes his knees between yours, forcing you to keep them open.

And that is how he takes you.

Face down on your stomach, a hand on your neck holding you down and his hands sneaking up your skirts. You feel like a whore.

When you feel the tip of him at your dry entrance, you make one last attempt at fighting. You throw you elbow back, felling it hitting him square in the chest. He groans and the hold on your neck loosen so you take the opportunity to throw your head back, hoping to hit him. You miss, and instead you feel his other hand sneaking around your throat.

“Calm the fuck down, would you? I was going to be nice”

With that, he forces your head down again. Hopelessness fills your body as the tears soak the sheets, your hands grabbing the bedding hard in your fists. When he pushes in, it burns like crazy. With one, deep stroke he sheets himself inside you all once, and you can’t help the cry that escapes you.

Its not like you were a virgin. You and your husband had been intimate more times than you could count, but that had been different. That had been loving, slow and sweet. This was anything but that. Aerion pace was fast, his hips slamming into yours from behind. The grip on your neck was tight, and everything burned.

“Now you are mine. Completely and utterly mine, like you should have been from the beginning”

The tears run faster as he speaks in your ear, so close his breath fan over the side of your face. Your knuckles are white from holding on so tight, and you wish everything was over. You wish you never came to dinner, that you were on the carriage back home.

“I am going to fill you up, get you pregnant with my child”

His words cause a whole new wave of terror to wash over you, something cold and terrifying.

“No, no wait- “

“Let’s see your father refuse me then. A widow, pregnant with a prince’s child. No one else will want you, and everything will be as it should have been from the start”

“Aerion, please- “

“I don’t care if someone else had you first. I don’t care how many times he had you. You are mine, and you’ll see it too”

You can feel his hips slowly loose rhythm, and you know he is close. Somehow, you think he enjoys your tears. You are glad you can’t see his face, the betrayal burning hard in your chest as you weep. His hips stutters, before he buries himself as deep as he can get, his hips flush with yours as he finishes.

He collapses on top of you with a deep groan, his weight forcing the last air in your lungs to escape. He is warm, and you feel as if you are burning up.  Everything hurt, and you can feel his seed drip out around his softening cock. Everything is still, his deep and calm breathing contrasting your short sobs in the otherwise quiet room.

Your thoughts slowly return to the morrow; on the carriage you had ordered. On your return home. It is as if Aerion can hear your thought, because he nuzzles closer and kisses your cheek.

“I will speak to them tomorrow. You will not return to Highgarden. You’ll stay here, with me, until we wed. Then I’ll take you to Summerhall”

A whine leaves your throat at the thought of it, at how everything could have gone so wrong and that you were completely blind to everything. You should have listened to Valarr. You know there is no use in fighting, in arguing, but you can’t stop yourself.

“Please” your voice is nothing but a soft whine. “I want to go home, Aerion”

He answers with a mean chuckle, lifting his hand to stroke your cheek.

“Don’t be silly, little bird. You are home. I am your home now”

By the time you arrive, the sky has softened into a pale gold, the kind that makes everything feel possible again. The countryside stretches wide and empty, fields rolling like open palms, the air smelling faintly of damp earth and something sweet you can’t quite name. It feels safe in a way that almost startles you.

The man who meets you at the station introduces himself as Mr. Lee. He smiles too much, but you tell yourself it’s just friendliness, the kind you forgot existed. His handshake lingers, but only for a second too long. You notice it but dismissed it.

The drive to the house is longer than you expected. Roads narrow into winding veins through dense woods, the trees pressing close, as if they’re leaning in to listen. You try to follow the turns, but soon it becomes impossible. Everything looks the same, green and shadow and silence.

“It’s easy to get lost out here,” he says lightly, glancing at you. “But don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.” You smile, because that’s what you do.

The house is smaller than you imagined but neat. The windows are spotless, the curtains freshly pressed. Someone has left flowers on the table white, tightly arranged, scent faint but persistent. There’s something about the stillness inside, the way the air feels untouched, like it’s been waiting.

“It’s all yours,” Mr. Lee says, watching you as you step inside. Not looking at the house. Looking at you. You thank him. Again. Too many times.

That night, you unpack slowly, trying to fill the quiet with movement. Every sound feels amplified by the creak of floorboards, the soft click of drawers, your own breathing. You tell yourself it’s just because you’re not used to the silence yet.

You tell yourself this is the start of something good.

A better school. Better funding. Polished hallways and bright futures. You stand outside Yoonseul High and let yourself feel it for a moment, the clean lines of the building, the quiet prestige humming beneath its glass and steel. This is the kind of place people envy. The kind of place that fixes things.

You smooth down your sleeves before stepping inside, rehearsing the version of yourself you want them to see composed, capable, unshakeable. Hopeful.

By 7:00 a.m., the corridors are empty. Your footsteps echo faintly as you find your classroom. It smells untouched, like fresh paint and expensive polish. Everything is pristine. Controlled. Perfect. You like that.

You step inside and place your bag down, exhaling slowly as you turn to the board. Your name looks strange written out so large, so permanent. You say it under your breath, testing your introduction, shaping your tone. Friendly, but firm. Warm, but not soft.

You don’t hear the door open. You don’t hear the footsteps. Just the voice.

“That was so cute.”

It slips into the room like something that’s always been there. You flinch. The chalk snaps between your fingers. When you turn, he’s already inside leaning slightly, as if he belongs in every space he enters.

You glance at your watch instinctively. 7:15. The bell doesn’t ring until 8. Your stomach tightens, but you force a polite smile. “Oh hi. I didn’t think..” He steps closer before you can finish.  “Hi,” he says, extending his hand. “I’m the class president. Lee Chanyoung. But you can call me Anton.”

His voice is smooth. You hesitate for half a second too long, then place your hand in his. “I’m your new homeroom teacher,’ you say with a smile. His grip closes around yours. Firm. Too firm. You try to ignore it. Try to match his smile, but something about the way he’s looking at you feels… wrong. Not inappropriate. Not obvious. Just wrong in a way you can’t name yet.

You start to pull your hand back. He doesn’t let go. There’s a beat a small, suspended moment where your brain tries to catch up with what your body already knows. You laugh, light and nervous, tugging a little more. “Okay..” Still nothing.

His thumb shifts slightly against your skin. Not enough to be called anything. Just enough to make your skin crawls. You look at him then and he’s smiling, it unsettles you.

“I see you’ve already met my son.” The voice cuts clean through the moment. Your hand is released instantly. You step back without meaning to, your fingers tingling as if something has been left behind in them. Mr. Lee stands in the doorway, composed, immaculate. His presence fills the room in a way that feels heavier than it should.

“He’s a good kid,” he adds, with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You nod quickly. “Yes, he…he seems very… polite.” Anton says nothing. You can feel him still looking at you, even as you turn toward his father. Mr. Lee gestures for you to follow him.

“The school can be a bit confusing at first,” he says. “I’ll show you around.” You’re grateful for the movement, for the excuse to leave the room, but as you step into the hallway, you feel it. That subtle awareness. Like something is watching you.

The tour is thorough. 

Teachers’ room. Bathrooms. Offices. Doors that require key cards. Doors that don’t. Mr. Lee speaks with quiet authority, explaining things you’ll forget immediately, his tone calm, controlled. Reassuring.

When the tour ends, you thank him, your voice steady enough to pass. “Of course,” he says. “We take care of our staff here.” The words linger longer than they should. As you walk back toward your classroom, the halls remain quiet, but it no longer feels peaceful.

By 7:55 a.m., the school is alive in a way that feels almost reassuring. Voices echo down the hall, lockers click shut, shoes tap in hurried rhythms. It’s busy enough to quiet the unease still clinging to you from earlier. Busy enough to make you feel safe.

Students begin to filter into your classroom, filling the space with movement and noise. You greet them, steady now, your smile practiced but convincing. You write your name again on the board, clearer this time, stronger. You introduce yourself, your voice finding a rhythm that feels like control.

You move through the seats, learning names, repeating them, attaching them to faces. Some meet your gaze. Some don’t. Some look at you a little too long.

Anton doesn’t need to introduce himself again. He stares. That same stillness about him, that same quiet certainty. You avoid lingering. You don’t give him anything to hold onto.

The hours pass fast. By the time the final bell rings, the day has folded itself neatly into something manageable, something almost ordinary. You let yourself believe it the morning was just nerves, just adjustment. The classroom empties. Chairs scrape, laughter fades, footsteps dissolve into the distance until it’s just you again. You exhale, shoulders dropping, the silence settling in.

You begin packing up, methodical, focused on leaving. Papers stacked, pens gathered, your bag pulled closer. Then it slips. The bag falls from your desk, hitting the floor with a dull, abrupt sound that feels too loud in the empty room. You mutter under your breath and bend down to pick it up.

And that’s when it happens. A shift in the air behind you. Before your mind can catch up, your body reacts your muscles tightening, your breath stalling. There’s a presence there, unmistakable now, pressing into your space like it belongs.

Something brushes against you from behind, slow enough to register, deliberate enough to freeze you where you are. It lingers just a second too long, just enough to make your stomach drop, just enough to make your skin crawl as if something invasive has slipped beneath it. You’ve never stood up so fast in your life. The world tilts for a second as you turn and there he is. Anton. Standing directly behind you. Like he’d always been there.

His expression doesn’t change. No apology. No embarrassment. Just that same calm, unreadable gaze, fixed on you like you’re something he’s trying to understand… or something he already does. Your throat tightens.

“What are you doing?” you manage, your voice sharper than before, but not as strong as you want it to be. “Waiting for you,” he says simply. Like that explains everything. You glance at the door. Closed. You didn’t hear it. Didn’t hear him. Didn’t hear anything at all.

A cold realization creeps in, slow and suffocating…he never left the room. You take a step back, creating space, but it doesn’t feel like enough. It doesn’t feel like it matters. “You need to leave,” you say, more firmly now, clinging to the words like it can protect you. Then, that faint, almost amused smile. “No I don’t.”

Your heart stutters. The silence stretches between you, thick, pressing, wrong. You reach for your bag again, your movements tighter now, controlled, every instinct screaming at you to leave, to get out, to put distance between you and whatever this is.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you say, already moving, already turning toward the door. “Of course,” he replies. Your hand grips the handle, colder than it should be. You pull the door open and step into the hallway, the noise distant now, muted.

You don’t look back and as you walk away, something settles deep in your chest. 

A couple of weeks pass before you begin to understand how this place really works, and when it finally comes, it isn’t quiet. It isn’t subtle. It announces itself in sound. Something hard striking something softer. Again. And again. A dull, sick rhythm that crawls down the corridor and finds you and by the time you see it, it’s already happening.

Anton stands over a boy on the ground. He curls inward, absorbing it, like he knows resistance only makes it last longer. For a second, you freeze. Because this isn’t a misunderstanding. This isn’t roughhousing or just plain stupidity.

This is something else. You move before you can think better of it. “Hey stop!” Your voice cuts through the hallway. You reach him, grabbing his arm, pulling him back. He lets you. Too easily. That’s what unsettles you.

“What are you doing?” you demand, breath tight, pulse already racing. The boy on the floor doesn’t look at you. Not once. Anton does. And he laughs. Not loud. Not wild. Just… amused. Like you’ve said something funny.

“What are you going to do?” he asks, stepping closer. You don’t step back. Every instinct tells you to, but something stubborn, something still clinging to the idea of authority, keeps you in place. You hold his gaze, even as something cold coils low in your stomach.

“Stop it. Now.”

Your voice is steadier than you feel. For a moment, it looks like he might say more. His expression shifts, just slightly like he’s considering you in a new way, recalibrating. The bell rings. The moment gone. He exhales a quiet laugh, shaking his head. “Saved by the fucking bell.”

And just like that, it’s over. He turns, walking away like nothing happened, a few others falling into steps behind him without hesitation. Without question.

You’re left standing there, the echo of it still vibrating in your chest. You bend down quickly, reaching for the boy. “Are you okay? Let me—” He jerks away from you. Hard. “Don’t touch me.” The words hit sharper than you expect. You pull your hand back instinctively, staring at him.

“What?” His eyes flick up to yours then, and there’s something in them, something almost furious. “You just made it a hundred times worse for me.” The words land heavy. Before you can respond, he’s already pushing himself up, ignoring you completely as he walks away, shoulders stiff, movements strained but determined. You stay where you are. Kneeling. Useless. The hallway is empty now, like nothing ever happened. But it did.

You try to report it. Of course you do. You find Mrs. Baek in the staff room later, your hands colder than they should be, your words already forming before you reach her. “It’s about Anton—” She cuts you off instantly. Just a quiet, sharp “No.”

It stops you mid-breath. She glances around, checking the room like someone might be listening even when no one’s there. Then she leans closer, her voice dropping. “Unless you want to get fired,” she says, each word measured, “don’t even try to report him.”

Your stomach tightens. “What do you mean?” you ask, but it comes out smaller than you intend. Her expression doesn’t soften. “Others have,” she says. “They don’t work here anymore.” There’s something final in the way she says it. Not a warning. Not advice. A fact. She straightens, stepping away from you like the conversation never happened. Like you never spoke at all.

By the end of the week, everything looks the same. That’s what unsettles you most. Your coworkers still smile. They still greet you warmly, still ask how you’re settling in. The students still laugh, still answer questions, still play their parts perfectly.

Everything is normal. Except now you can see it. The gaps. The silences. The way conversations stop just a second too early when certain names come up. The way no one ever says Anton’s name unless they have to. The way he moves through the halls untouchable.

And the worse is the way he looks at you now. Not the same as before. Not just curious. Something deeper. Something that lingers. Like he’s waiting. Like he knows something you don’t. Or maybe like he knows exactly how this ends for you.

You’ve just pulled into your parking spot, the engine ticking as it cools, one foot already on the ground when it cuts through everything. A yelp. Not the usual low hum of a school morning, no chatter spilling across the lot, no easy laughter.

Then a crack follows.

You hear it before you see anything, before you even have time to turn, and something in you tightens, goes cold, because your body already knows this isn’t something you can ignore, or explain away, or walk past like it didn’t happen.

You follow it. Of course you do. Around the side of the building, where the cameras don’t quite reach, where the walls feel closer, the air thinner you find them. Anton’s fist connects with another student’s face. Once. Twice.

A third time that lands with a sickening finality, and the boy’s nose gives way under it. Blood spills instantly, bright and fast, too much, too sudden. It runs over his lips, his chin, dripping onto the concrete like something being poured out. For a second, you stop.

Not because you want to. Because something inside you hesitates, some instinct whispering that stepping in doesn’t end this. It changes it. Then you run towards them anyway.

“Stop!”

You grab him, your hand closing at his collar, your other pushing hard enough to break his rhythm. He stumbles back, off-balance, hitting the ground with more surprise than pain. It takes him a moment to process what’s happened. That you touched him. That you interrupted him.

You don’t wait. You turn to the student, crouching, your voice urgent. “Are you okay? Can you..” But he’s already moving. Not toward you. Away. He scrambles to his feet, blood still pouring, eyes wide but not with relief. With fear. “Wait!” you call after him.

He doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even look back. And that’s when your breath catches. Your hair jerks violently backward. A sharp, blinding pull that snaps your head up, your spine following, your breath catching somewhere between shock and pain. Fingers tangled deep, unrelenting, dragging you into position like something being arranged.

You gasp, your hands instinctively reaching up, but he’s already there. Behind you. Your neck strains as he forces your head back, your line of sight tilting until all you can see is him. Anton. His face inches from yours, his grip tight. His expression has shifted now, no softness, no amusement. Something irritated.

“It was cute,” he says, voice low, almost thoughtful. “But now it’s getting on my fucking nerves.” The words land slowly, each one deliberate. Like you’ve crossed into something that belongs to him. You don’t think. You react.

Your elbow drives back into his chest with everything you have. It connects to something solid enough to make him loosen his grip, just enough for you to tear yourself free. You stumble forward, spinning to face him, your pulse roaring in your ears.

“Don’t touch me,” you snap, your voice shaking despite you forcing it steady. “Put your hands on me or another student again and I’ll report you.”

For a second. Nothing. Then he laughs. Not a nervous one, it was entertained. “I’d like to see you try,” he says. There’s something in the way he says it that sinks deep, heavy, like a weight pressing into your chest.

“Don’t forget,” he continues, stepping closer again “my dad is the fucking dean.” The words feel like a door closing. “I could get your fucking smart ass fired.” You hold your ground. Barely. Because now you understand something you didn’t fully grasp before this isn’t bluff. This isn’t arrogance.

This is a system that bends around him.

He brushes past you, his shoulder knocking into yours hard enough to unbalance you, deliberate enough that you feel it long after he’s gone. You turn, watching him walk away, his pace unhurried, like there’s nothing in this world that can touch him. No consequences. No fear. Just control.

The space he leaves behind feels wrong. Disturbed. Like something’s been taken out of it and something else left in its place. You stand there, your scalp still aching, your breath uneven, your hands trembling despite how hard you try to steady them.

“Fucking asshole,” you mutter under your breath, the words small, thin, disappearing into the empty air around you.

Your hand felt heavy knocking on the dean’s office door “Come in.” His voice had sounded warm from the other side. It doesn’t feel warm now. “Ah,” Mr. Lee says as you step fully inside. “There you are.”

The office smells faintly of polish and something older underneath, something stale that doesn’t belong in a place this pristine.

He smiles like this is expected. Like you were always going to end up here, sitting across from him, the door at your back, the handle just out of your line of sight. “Good evening,” you manage. “Sit,” he says.

You do.

Because that’s what you’ve been doing since you arrived following instructions, trusting structure, believing there’s something solid beneath all of this. The chair feels too low. Or maybe he’s just sitting too high. It’s hard to tell.

You fold your hands together in your lap to stop them from moving. Your mind runs through the words you practiced, the careful phrasing, the professionalism, the facts. But now that you’re here. They don’t come out right.

“I just… wanted to talk about Anton.” There’s a pause. Mr. Lee leans forward slightly, his expression attentive, almost concerned. It’s convincing. “Oh?” he says. “Is something wrong?” For a second, you almost believe he doesn’t know.

“It’s just that I’ve noticed him… bullying some of his classmates.” The word hangs there. Ugly. Heavy. And he laughs. Softly. Briefly. Like you’ve misunderstood something simple.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call that bullying,” he says, leaning back now, relaxed again. “Just a couple of students having a disagreement. Nothing too bad.” Your stomach drops. “No, sir,” you say quickly, the words pushing out before you can stop them. “He was..”

“You’re new here.” It cuts through you cleanly. You stop speaking. Because something in the way he said it tells you that finishing that sentence would be a mistake. “This is normal,” he continues, his tone even, almost bored now. “You should stay out of it. Let them work it out among themselves.” Normal. The word echoes, wrong in your ears, like something distorted. “But sir”

“Listen.”

This time it’s sharper. Not raised, but heavier. It lands with weight. He leans forward again, and now you see it, what was hidden beneath the politeness, beneath the professionalism. “Unless you don’t want to work here again,” he says quietly, “I suggest you stay out of it.”

Your chest tightens. “There are… dynamics at this school you don’t yet understand.” Each word is chosen carefully. “And it would be wise not to involve yourself in matters that don’t concern you.” But it does concern you. That’s what sits, choking, just beneath your tongue.

You open your mouth and close it again. Because suddenly, you understand something you didn’t before. This isn’t a report. This isn’t a conversation. This is a warning. You sit there, staring at him, the silence stretching too long, your thoughts scrambling for something to hold onto.

There’s nothing. No support. No authority. Nothing. Just him. Watching you. “Okay,” you hear yourself say. Your voice doesn’t sound like yours. “Sir.” His smile returns. Like a switch being flipped. “Good,” he says lightly. “Enjoy your weekend.” Weekend.

The word feels absurd now. Meaningless. You stand too quickly, the chair scraping softly behind you. The sound makes you flinch, and you hate that it does. You turn toward the door, your fingers closing around the handle. 

The hallway outside feels colder, wider. You walk faster than you mean to, your footsteps uneven, your mind replaying everything, every word, every look. By the time you reach your car, your hands are shaking. You sit inside, staring straight ahead, the engine still off, the silence pressing in around you.

And it hits you. Slow. Heavy. You can’t report him because the person you were supposed to go to, The person who was supposed to stop this is part of it. Your grip tightens on the steering wheel.

You thought this place was structured. Safe but now it feels like something else entirely. And as you sit there, alone in the fading light, one thought settles in, quiet and suffocating, you didn’t just fail to report him. You just told the wrong person everything.

The clock on your nightstand reads 9pm when the smash comes from your living room, like something heavy and alive just shattered against your floorboards. You stop dead. 

Your feet hit the cold carpet before your brain catches up. Heart slamming against your ribs. Breath shallow. You creep toward your bedroom door because what else can you do? There’s no back exit from this room, just that thin slab of painted wood between you and whatever is breathing on the other side. You press your ear to the grain. Listening. Nothing.

Then the door explodes inward.

The impact lifts you off your feet. One second you’re standing, the next you’re airborne, then you’re skidding across the floor on your side, your temple cracking against the hardwood with a sound, you feel more than hear. The world tilts. Spins. Warmth trickles down the side of your face, into your hair, pooling in the hollow of your ear. Blood. You know it’s blood because you taste metal at the back of your throat.

A hand closes around your ankle.

You’re being dragged backward like a carcass being pulled from a road. He flips you onto your back with one rough shove, and the ceiling light blooms above you like a white, staring eye.

Anton.

His face swims into focus. That sharp jaw. Those pale, empty eyes that never quite looked at you like you were human. He’s smiling.

“Get off me,” you snarl, and you mean it. Your hand connects with his face a backhand that snaps his head to the side. Then your foot finds his stomach, and you feel something give beneath your heel. He flies backward, hits the bedroom door frame with a grunt, and you’re up. Moving. Jumping over his crumpled body like a hurdle. You make it three steps into the hallway before the kick comes.

His boot connects with your shin; the bone-deep pain is instant, nauseating and your body folds sideways into the wall. Plaster cracks under your shoulder. You try to push off, to run, but his hands are in your hair now, fistfuls of it, and he uses your own skull as a hammer against the wall. Once. Twice. Your vision fractures.

Then he’s dragging you again this time by the hair, your heels scraping uselessly against the floorboards, through the hallway, into the living room. He doesn’t stop. He throws you. You clear the coffee table like a rag doll and land in a heap on the other side, ribs screaming, lungs empty. “Fuck,” you gasp. The word barely makes a sound.

“You just had to mind your fucking business.” His voice is eerily calm. Conversational, almost. He walks toward you slowly, like he has all night. You try to crawl. Your arms are shaking. He grabs a fistful of your hair again not to drag this time, but to lift. He hauls you up until you’re kneeling, then standing on your toes, your scalp screaming, your neck bent at a brutal angle. His other hand cracks across your face. Your lip splits open.

Then his fingers close around your chin. He tilts your face toward his, and his eyes roam over you like he’s reading a menu. There’s nothing behind those eyes. No anger. No hate. Just the flat, curious hunger. “But no,” he whispers, thumb pressing into your bruised cheek. “You had to tattletale to my dad.”

“Please stop.” Your voice comes out tiny. A child’s voice. The voice of a woman who has just realized that no one is coming. “Please.” He tilts his head. His mouth curls. “Please,” he mimics, high and sweet and mocking. Then he laughs, his head thrown back, throat exposed, a raw, jagged sound that bounces off your walls like shattered glass.

When he looks at you again, the smile is gone. “Fucking headache,” he says, like he’s disappointed in you. Like you’ve ruined his evening. And then he kicks you again. This time, you hear your ribs crack before you feel them. The pain comes a second later a white-hot flood that fills your chest, your throat, your mouth. You curl inward, hands clutching at nothing, gasping for air that won’t come.

He crouches beside you. His breath smells like coffee and something rotten. “Don’t worry,” he says softly, and his hand comes down to stroke your hair with grotesque tenderness. “We’re just getting started.”

The clock is still ticking somewhere. You can hear it between the wet sounds, between your own ragged breaths, between the thud of your heart trying to punch its way out of your chest. You feel his finger first. Tracing your side. Light. Almost teasing. The pad of his fingertip drags along your ribs, slow, deliberate, and something inside you snaps. 

Your leg draws back. Your foot connects with his face.

There's a crunch and then blood. Not yours this time. His. It gushes from his nose in a dark cascade, flooding down over his lips, his chin, dripping onto the floor in hot, fat splatters. He reels back, hands flying to his face, and for one brief, glorious second, you think you've won. He looks at his palms. Red. Glossy. His own blood. And then his face changes.

It doesn't twist with rage. Doesn't contort with pain. It goes dark like someone snuffed out a light behind his eyes. The shadows in the corners of the room seem to crawl toward him, pooling under his skin, sucking the last traces of humanity from his features. He's not a man anymore. He's something else. He reaches for you.

You're flipped onto your stomach before you can breathe. Your cheek smashes against the floor. Your nightshirt rides up, you feel the cold air on your lower back, then your underwear being yanked down, past your hips, past your thighs, snagging at your knees.

"No," you gasp. "No, no, no!"

But his weight drops onto you. All of it. His chest against your spine, his hips against yours, and then the push, the brutal, invasive, splitting push and you scream. A raw, guttural sound that tears out of your throat like something dying. Because you are dying. Something inside you is tearing. You can feel it, the wrongness, the stretch, the way your body is trying to reject him but can't, can't, can't because he's too heavy and too strong.

"Fuck, you're tight." His lips brush against your ear. His blood drips onto your neck. "Loosen up a bit." Loosen up. As if your body belongs to him. As if your pain is an inconvenience. "Get the fuck off me!" You scream it so loud your throat shreds. You try to buck, to throw him, to do anything but his arm is around your neck now, forearm pressing into your windpipe, and your voice cuts out like a snapped wire.

You can't breathe.

You try to claw at his arm, but your hands are pinned beneath you, trapped by your own weight and his. Your fingers scrabble uselessly against the floor. Your vision spots. Your lungs burn.

"This is what you deserve," he whispers, and you feel his smile against your neck. He's moaning now, low guttural, almost lazy like he's enjoying a cigarette. "To be fucked like a dirty fucking whore." He laughs. The sound vibrates through your back, through your ribs, through the place where he's splitting you open.

And then he rises up. Just slightly. Just enough for his weight to lift off your spine and you lunge. Desperate. Frenzied. You almost make it. But his hands catch yours. Slam them down. Pin them at the small of your back with one palm, and you're immobilized again, face-down, helpless, as he drives into you harder now, faster, chasing something you will never understand.

"I'm gonna cum."

You shake your head. No. No no no no no. The word dies in your throat.

"I don't fucking care, bitch."

He laughs again and then his hips stutter, and you feel it. That hot, flooding realization. The way your body becomes a vessel for something you never consented to. The way every muscle in you goes slack, not in relief but in surrender. In defeat.

The fight leaves you like a ghost abandoning a body. He pulls out. You feel every inch of it, the wreckage he leaves behind. A wet sound. A cold rush. "Fuck," he breathes, almost satisfied. Almost bored now.

You lie there. Your nightshirt still bunched around your ribs. Your underwear around your knees. Your face pressed into the floor where a smear of your own blood has dried. He stands. Zips his jeans. Wipes his nose with the back of his hand.

"Try to report this one," he says, and his voice is light. Pleasant, even. Like he's reminding you of a trivial task. The front door clicks shut. You don't move. The clock ticks. And in the silence, you realize the worst part isn't what he did. The worst part is the tiny, whispering voice in the back of your head that sounds just like him.

No one will believe you.

No one is coming.

You let this happen.

You lie there until the shadows shift, until the blood on your neck dries stiff and cracking, until the only thing left in the room is the smell of him and the sound of your own breathing, shallow, broken, and utterly alone.

This tiny, relieved smile, like you'd just passed a test you didn't study for. And Eunseok looked at that smile, and he felt something click into place inside his chest. Something that had been loose his whole life, finally, finally tight.

He learned your routine in one week. It wasn't hard. You're a creature of habit, which he loves about you. You go to class, you go to the library, you go to the café on 8th and Maple. The one where he works. The one where he makes your drink before you even order it because he knows oat milk latte, extra shot, one pump vanilla. You always look surprised when he hands it to you, like you can't believe someone remembered. 

He tells himself he's only following you to make sure you're safe. That's reasonable. That's what anyone would do. The world is full of bad people, and you're so soft, so trusting, walking around with your headphones in and your head in the clouds. Someone has to watch out for you. Someone has to be there.

Today was like any other, at first. You wrapped up your last class of the week, and he watched you pack your bag, watched you tuck your hair behind your ear, watched you take your time the way you always do. But then you didn't. You looked at your phone, and your face changed this little flicker of something, excitement maybe and suddenly you were shoving your books in your bag and heading for the door. 

He had to push past three people to get out, knocked someone's coffee out of their hand, didn't care. He caught up to you half a block later, kept his distance, followed you home. You rushed inside like you had somewhere to be, and he stood across the street and watched your window until the light came on. second floor, second from the left. He smiled. You were home. You were safe.

He was already turning to leave for his shift when your door opened again.

And there you were. Different. You'd changed into a dress, something dark blue, something that showed your shoulders, and you'd put on makeup, and your hair was down and shiny, and you looked like a dream. You looked like someone he didn't know. You looked like someone going somewhere he couldn't follow.

But he followed. Of course he followed.

You walked to the nice part of town, the part with the valet parking and the restaurants that don't have menus in the window. You went into one of them, all candlelight and white tablecloths, and he stood outside and watched you through the glass. He watched you walk to a table in the corner. He watched you smile at someone sitting there. A guy. Dark hair, nice jacket, the kind of face that probably never had to try.

He thought, okay. A friend. You're meeting a friend. That's fine. You're allowed to have friends. And then you leaned down and kissed him. Not on the cheek. On the mouth. A real kiss, the kind that means something, the kind that means everything.

Eunseok doesn't remember walking away. He just knows that suddenly he's on the other side of the street, and his hands are shaking, and there's this noise in his head, this high, thin whine, like a tea kettle about to scream. Because that guy in there, with his hand on your waist, with his mouth on yours and he doesn't know you.

 He doesn't know that you bite your lip when you're thinking. He doesn't know that you trace shapes on tabletops when you're bored. He doesn't know that you leave your blinds open at night, just a crack, and that sometimes Eunseok stands on the fire escape and watches you read, watches you fall asleep, watches you turn over and mumble things in your sleep. He doesn't know any of that.

That guy is a stranger. And you kissed him like he wasn't.

Eunseok stands on the street corner, and he watches the restaurant, and he waits. He'll wait all night. He'll wait forever if he has to. Because eventually you'll come out, and you'll walk home, and you'll be alone again. And he'll be there. He'll always be there.

You don't know it yet, but you're his. You've been his since that Tuesday at 11:47. You just forgot to tell that guy. He'll help you remember.

Eunseok had a plan. A good one. He was going to meet you, finally meet you, in a way that felt natural. Like fate. Maybe you'd drop your books at the café, and he'd be there to pick them up. Maybe you'd order your usual and he'd say something funny about the weather, something charming, and you'd laugh that pretty laugh, and he'd say, hey, I get off in an hour, if you want to hang out. And you'd say yes. Of course you'd say yes. Because you're supposed to be together. That's the whole point.

But then this stranger had to ruin everything.

Eunseok stood outside the restaurant, hands in his pockets, and watched you through the window. Watched you smile. Watched you eat. Watched you laugh at something that guy said, some stupid joke probably, and your head tipped back and your shoulders shook and Eunseok wanted to be the one making you do that. He wanted to be sitting across from you, watching your eyes crinkle, watching you forget the rest of the world exists.

Hours passed. He didn't move. 

Finally they stood up. Paid. Left. And there you were, standing outside under the streetlight, looking up at the sky like a little kid. You pointed at something a star, a planet, who cares and that guy smiled at you like he had any right to look at you that way. You checked your phone, said something, and then you both turned and started walking.

Down the street. Toward your building. Holding hands.

Eunseok followed. Of course he followed. He stayed behind a parked car across the street. His heart hammering. You didn't notice him. You were too busy looking at that guy, smiling at that guy, your fingers tangled with his like they belonged there. Like they'd always belonged there.

And Eunseok looked at that guy's neck. Looked at the curve of it, the way it moved when he laughed. He thought about how easy it would be. How fast. One second, two seconds, and that guy would never touch you again.

You reached your building. You stopped at the door. And you smiled at him at that stranger, that nobody like you were in love. Like you were actually in love with him. And Eunseok felt something boil over inside him, something hot and ugly and red.

You kissed him. Not a long kiss, but long enough. Long enough to mean something. And then you said something, words Eunseok couldn't hear, and you walked up to your door. You turned around at the last second, and you blew a kiss. A flying kiss. The stranger pretended to catch it and you laughed. That pretty sound. The one that belongs to Eunseok. The one he hears in his sleep. And then you went inside.

The door closed. The guy stood there for a minute, smiling like an idiot, then turned and walked away. Eunseok watched him go. Watched his back get smaller and smaller. And he thought about how easy it would be. How fast. Next time.

He stayed there, behind the car, and looked up at your window. The light came on. second floor, second from the left. He saw your shadow move across the curtain. He imagined you taking off your dress, washing your face, climbing into bed. He imagined you thinking about that guy, smiling about that guy, falling asleep with that guy's name in your head. He waited until your light went out. And then he waited some more.

Eunseok waited until the street was empty. Until the cars stopped passing, until the windows across the way went dark, until the world felt like it belonged to just him and you. Then he crossed the street.

Your door. He'd imagined touching this door a thousand times. Running his hands over the wood, pressing his ear against it, wondering what sounds lived on the other side. And now here he was. Here he actually was.

His hand traced the wood. Slow. Reverent. Like touching something holy. He smiled, because this was happening, this was really happening, and then he bent down. The mat. The ugly little mat with the flowers on it, the one you never remember to straighten. He'd watched you lift it so many times, watched you crouch down and feel around for the key you always forgot, and he'd thought, someday. Someday I'll be the one reaching under that mat.

Today was someday.

The key glinted in the streetlight. Small. Ordinary. Everything. He picked it up, and his fingers closed around it, and he felt the warmth of it, the warmth of your hands on it, and he almost couldn't breathe. He put it in the lock. Turned. Heard the click. And then he was inside.

Your home. Your actual home. The air was different in here softer, warmer, and there was a smell, that sweet smell, the one that clings to your clothes and your hair and the back of your neck. He stood in the dark hallway and just breathed it in. Let it fill his lungs. Let it become part of him.

He gave himself a little tour. Why not? It's his home too, eventually. He walked through the archway into the living room. Cozy. That's the word. You made it cozy, with the soft blankets and the candles you never burn and the books stacked on the floor because you don't have enough shelves. He sat on your couch. Your couch. He could feel the dent where you sit, the way the cushion gives a little more on one side. He closed his eyes and imagined you there, curled up, reading, maybe wearing those soft socks with the patterns on them. And then he opened his eyes and saw the picture.

On the center table. Right there, like you wanted him to see it. You and that guy. That stranger. Your faces pressed together, smiling, happy, like you belonged to each other. Like you'd always belonged to each other. Eunseok picked up the frame. Held it in both hands. Looked at your face first, your pretty, pretty face and then looked at the guys. That stupid smile. That stupid jacket. That stupid hand on your shoulder like he had any right.

He ripped open the back of the frame. The little metal tabs cut his thumb, but he didn't feel it. He pulled the picture out and tore it right down the middle. Your half. Guys half. He dropped his part on the floor, let it fall like trash, because that's what it was. And the other half, your half, your beautiful half he folded carefully and slid into his pocket. Right over his heart. Then he stood up. There was more. There was always more.

He made his way up the stairs, slow, savoring. His hand traced the railing, and he imagined your hand doing the same thing every day. Your palm on this wood. Your fingers curling around it. He wondered if you ran up when you were excited or trudged up when you were tired. He wondered everything. The top of the stairs. A hallway. Two doors. One open the bathroom, he could see the edge of the shower curtain. One closed. Your bedroom.

He put his hand on the knob. Cold metal. Perfect. And he thought about how easy it would be. How fast. One twist, and he could be inside. He could lie on your bed. He could put his face in your pillow. He could wait for you to come home, and when you walked in, when you saw him there, you'd understand. You'd finally understand that this is where you belong. With him. Together. He didn't open the door. Not yet.

But his hand stayed on the knob. And he smiled. Because he could. That's the thing. He could do it whenever he wants. Tonight. Tomorrow. Any night.

Eunseok pushed the door open, and there you were. There you actually were.

In all your glory. Sleeping. Pretty. So pretty it made his chest hurt. The light from the window spilled a little light across your bed, just enough to see, just enough to drink you in. You were on your side, the sheet pooled at your waist, and your top half..god, your top half was covered by this little tank top, something small and soft, with a tiny bow right in the center. Right between your breasts. The swell of them moved with your breathing, slow and steady, like waves. Like you were dreaming something nice. Something peaceful.

Your skin. He'd imagined your skin a thousand times. Imagined what it would feel like, what it would taste like, whether you'd be warm or cool to the touch. And now here you were. Here he was. He sat down on the edge of your bed and the mattress dipped, just a little.

He reached out. He couldn't help it. His fingers found your neck, that soft curve where your pulse lived, and he traced it. Light. Gentle. Like you were made of glass. Like you were made for him.

He was so caught up…so lost in the feel of you, the warmth of you, the impossible reality of finally touching you that he didn't notice at first. Didn't notice that your breathing changed. Didn't notice that your eyes were open. And then he looked up. And you were looking at him.

Wide eyes. Huge eyes. The kind of eyes that see a stranger in their bedroom in the middle of the night. The kind of eyes that don't understand yet. "Hey babe," he said, and his voice came out soft, gentle, the way you talk to something frightened. "I missed you." You blinked. Your mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"Who are you?"

The words hit him like a slap. Who are you. Like he was nobody. Like he was nothing. Like you didn't know that he's the one who makes your coffee every morning, the one who watches you walk home every night, the one who's been loving you since that Tuesday at 11:47.

"It's me," he said, and he tried to smile, tried to make it okay. "It's Eunseok." You pushed his hand away. Actually pushed it. Like he was garbage. Like he was the stranger. "Get out." Your voice was small but sharp. "Get out now, and I won't call the police." Police. The word hung in the air between you, ugly and wrong. Police. Like this was a crime. Like love was a crime.

Eunseok tilted his head. Frowned. You were confused, that was all. Still sleepy. Still not understanding. "Calm down, love," he said, and he reached for your face again, wanting to smooth the fear away, wanting to make you see. "You're probably still sleepy. Just—"

You slapped his hand. Actually slapped it. The sound cracked through the room, sharp and disrespectful. And Eunseok felt something shift. Something go hot and tight in his chest.

He reached for you again to grab you, to hold you, to make you understand and your fist connected with his nose. A punch. You punched him. Pain exploded across his face, hot and wet, and his head snapped back and he let go, hands flying to his nose, blood dripping through his fingers.

And when he looked at you again, everything was red.

He grabbed you by the hair. Handful of it, yanking, and you screamed, the kind that should wake the neighbors but he didn't care. He pulled you off the bed, dragged you across the floor, and you landed hard, the impact punching the air out of you. He stood over you, breathing hard, blood still dripping, and he heard himself yelling but the words didn't matter. What mattered was that you did this. You made it ugly. You made it violent. This could've been sweet. This could've been beautiful. But you had to be such a noisy bitch.

You scrambled up. Ran for the door. Fast, faster than he expected, but not fast enough. He caught you, grabbed you, slammed you into the wall. Your body hit hard, and he was on you, pressing against you, trapping you there with his weight and his heat and his anger. And then you stopped moving.

You went still. Completely still. And he knew why. Because you could feel him. Pressing into you from behind. Hard and ready and so desperate for you it hurt.

"You feel what you do to me?" he murmured, and his voice was soft again now, almost wondering. His nose nestled into your hair, breathing in. Roses. Sweet roses. Your shampoo. He'd smelled it a hundred times from across the café, but this…this was different. This was everywhere. This was everything.

"Eunseok… please get off me." Your voice was shaking. Begging. You turned your neck, trying to look at him, trying to reach him with your eyes. He smiled. "No, love." The words came out whiny. Needy. The way a child asks for something they want more than anything in the world.

"I need you. I need this." His hand slid around your body, down your stomach, lower, lower, until he found you. And when he did when he felt how wet you were, how ready he smiled against your hair. "And it seems you want this too."

You tried to squirm away, but he was faster. His hand grabbed the hem of your shorts, yanked them down, and they fell to the floor with your underwear, pooling around your ankles. His hand came back, found you again, and his fingers started moving. Circles. Slow at first. Teasing. Exploring. Your breath hitched. You couldn't help it. He heard it, felt it, and he smiled.

The other hand wrapped around your waist, pressing you harder into the wall, holding you steady while his fingers worked. Circles, then deeper, then a finger pushing inside. Slow. So slow. He wanted you to feel every second of it. Every inch. You groaned. Tried to hide it. Failed.

"Please," you whispered. "Please stop." But you were tight around him, and when he felt you clench, he sped up. Faster. Harder. Matching the rhythm of his own breathing, his own need. "You gonna come, love?" he whispered against your ear. "This pussy gonna come?"

You didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Your body was betraying you, arching into his hand, chasing something you didn't want to want. And when you came..when you finally shattered against his fingers, body lurching forward, a sound escaping your throat that wasn't quite a scream, he smiled. He pulled out slowly. Let you feel the emptiness. And then he tapped your clit. Lightly. Once. Twice. Three times.

You flinched with every tap. Every flinch made him laugh. "See?" he murmured, pressing a kiss to your hair. "I knew you'd understand eventually. I knew you'd feel it too."

He pulled back and turned you around to just enough to look at you. To see your face. Your tears. Your fear. And he smiled, soft and sweet, like this was exactly what he'd always wanted. “Fuck” he said looking at you.

He pushed you into the wall. Not hard, not mean, just firm. The way you push someone when you need them to understand something important. The wall shook a little but you didn't notice. You never notice anything. That's okay. He notices enough for both of you.

He kissed you like a hungry man. Like a man who'd been starving his whole life and finally, finally got to eat. His mouth on yours, taking, taking, because you'd been holding out on him and he deserved this. He deserved you.

His free hand, the one not gripping your waist, not holding you in place that hand went to his pants. Unbuttoned. Unzipped. Pulled himself out because he needed you to feel him, needed you to know what you did to him. He stroked himself while he kissed down your neck, slow, savoring, and then he found that spot, that perfect spot right below your ear, and he sucked. Hard. He was going to leave a mark. A big one. The kind that takes days to fade. The kind that makes people look and wonder and know. Know that you belong to someone. Know that you belong to him.

He grabbed your legs and you yelped, that little sound, that perfect little surprised sound and your hands flew to his neck, holding on, and your legs wrapped around his waist like they were made to be there. Like they'd always been waiting for this moment. He used one hand to reach under you, position himself, line up, and then he pushed in. The sound you made. God. The sound you made.

He smiled. He couldn't help it. Because you felt like home. You felt like everything. He started fucking into you, hard and fast and desperate, because he'd waited so long and he couldn't wait anymore. "Oh god," he said. "Fuck….Lord…" His voice came out whiny, high, like he was the one being taken apart. "Shit…Fuck….Oh god." He pressed his face into your neck, breathed you in. "God, baby, you feel so good. You feel so fucking good."

He lifted you a little, adjusted his grip, held you by the underside of your thighs so he could look at you. Really look at you. And there you were. Your face, that beautiful face, completely wrecked. Mouth open, little breaths puffing out, eyes half-closed, gone. You were gone. You were his.

He smiled again and walked to the bed. Dropped both of you down, never pulling out, never stopping, just kept moving inside you because he couldn't not. Because stopping would be like stopping breathing.

Your hands let go of his neck, fell above your head, and he looked at you. Your body on his bed..your bed, laid out like a offering. Pornographic. Perfect. He was close. So close. But he wanted to hold out. He wanted to make this last. "Baby," he chanted. "Baby, baby, baby." "Eunseok," you whispered. "Eunseok." Soft. Like a prayer. He loved the way his name sounded in your mouth. Loved it.

"You close, baby?" he asked, and his voice was sweet, so sweet, like he was asking if you wanted more cream in your coffee. "You about to come on my cock, huh, baby? You gonna do that for me?" He reached down and found your clit. Red. Puffy. He started rubbing, slow circles at first, then faster, because he knew what you needed even if you didn't. Your hand came up, tried to push him away. "Too much," you begged. "Too much, too sensitive—"

But Eunseok didn't care. He grabbed your wrist, pinned it down, used his other hand to keep rubbing. He pushed into you harder, faster, set a rhythm that left no room for argument. His thumb worked your clit at a ridiculous speed, merciless, because mercy was for people who didn't understand what this was.

"Too sensitive," you begged again, and your voice broke, and it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. "Come on this cock, baby," he said, and he knew that didn't make sense, but nothing made sense anymore except you. "It's yours. It's always been yours. So make it yours. Come. Come for me, baby."

"Shit," he gasped. "I'm cumming. I'm—" And he did. He came inside you hard, painted your walls, filled you up, and some spilled out, leaked onto the sheets, and he kept moving, kept going, because you weren't there yet, you weren't..

And then you were. Seconds later. Your body spasming around him, pulling him deeper, and he felt every pulse, every clench, every tiny movement you made. He stayed inside you after. Didn't want to leave. Didn't want to ever leave.

When he finally pulled out, he laid next to you. Your fucked-out body, limp and spent and perfect. He turned to look at you. Smiled. Reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, the way he'd imagined doing a thousand times.

At the beginning, it was nothing. Harmless. Innocent, even. He brushed past you in the hallway, too close but not close enough to call out. A hand on your waist to maneuver around you in the copy room, just a little too familiar but still, you told yourself, maybe that’s just how people are here. Then it got... weird.

You’d just landed a massive client, one the team had been chasing for months. There was a celebration, naturally. Drinks after work. A cozy bar with loud music and coworkers packed into a sticky leather booth.

He sat across from you. Too many beers in, his tie loose, his eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on you like you were the only one in the room. At first, the questions were fine. He asked about your family. Your pets. Your weekend plans.  Then his voice dropped, soft but sharp enough to slice through the music. “So, how’s your sex life?”

You laughed. Reflex, not amusement. You glanced around the table for someone to back you up. But no one did. They just kept sipping their drinks, scrolling their phones, as if he’d asked about the weather. The silence stretched, and you could feel the peer pressure pressing in, trapping you. If you pushed back, you’d be the one who "couldn’t take a joke." The one who "made it weird." So you lied. Smiled like it didn’t bother you. “It’s great.” 

His head tilted, and something cold flickered behind his eyes. “Oh? I wouldn’t have guessed that.” The way he said it, made you feel icky. After that, the air felt wrong. The room felt smaller. The music, distant. You stood, grabbing your bag with a shaky laugh. “I’m heading out. See you guys Monday.”

You could feel his gaze drilling into your back as you slipped out of the bar. On the walk home, the streetlights buzzed and the night air felt too tight around you. The city, usually familiar, suddenly seemed like a maze you couldn’t quite escape. That was weird, you told yourself. Just weird.

But your skin prickled the whole way home.

“Hey, can you come to my office?”

You heard your name snap from somewhere behind you, sharp and clipped. You’d barely set your coffee on your desk before you were already moving toward Jay’s office, heart ticking a little faster for reasons you couldn’t explain. “Good morning,” you offered as you stepped inside.

“Close the door.” He didn’t even look up. His eyes stayed pinned to the stack of papers in front of him, his pen tapping in a slow, deliberate rhythm. “Sure,” you murmured, easing the door shut with a soft click. Without preamble, he handed you a document. 

“What are these?” You took it, skimming the bold header. It was the contract you’d finalized late last night, the one you’d sent over right before you left. “Oh, this is the Mr. Kim contract,” you said, handing it back. His eyes finally lifted, peering at you over the top of his glasses. “Did you proofread it before sending it to me?”

You straightened under his stare. “I did, sir.” His mouth twitched, not quite a smile, not quite a sneer. “Clearly, you didn’t. There are typos. Lots of them. You’re lucky I caught it before it went into the database.” He slid the contract into a folder with slow, deliberate movements and shoved it back into your hands. “Fix this. I want it back by the end of the day.”

“Yes, sir.” You left the office feeling smaller than when you’d entered. And from that day forward, it was as if something shifted. Jay made you feel less like a colleague and more like his personal assistant. No it was less than that. Like you were a fly he was tolerating until he could find the right moment to swat you away.

He dismissed your ideas in meetings with a wave of his hand. He talked over you, corrected you mid sentence, made a spectacle of pointing out even the smallest errors. And when he found one, he didn’t whisper about it in private. No he called you out in front of the entire office, his voice loud, his words sharp, carving you down to size in real time. 

So you adapted. You started triple-checking your work. Then quadruple-checking. Every email, every decimal, every line. You combed through them like your job depended on it because now, it did.

And that’s when you knew something was wrong. The next day, he made a scene over a report you’d scoured the night before. You’d reviewed it meticulously, certain it was flawless. But somehow, he found an error. A glaring one.

You couldn’t understand it. You’d checked it. You knew you had. And yet he stood there, brandishing the page like evidence, his voice cutting through the office like a blade. It didn’t make sense. Unless…. someone else was tampering with your work. Unless he was. 

It scared you. Not just the humiliation. Not just the constant belittling or the sting of his words in front of the entire office. No but what terrified you was that you couldn’t figure out why. Why would Jay do this? Why you? There was no reason. You combed through every interaction, every possible slight, but you found nothing. No trigger. No explanation.

It made it worse, not knowing. After months of verbal abuse, of being treated like shit, you came to the only conclusion that made sense. You couldn’t fight it. You couldn’t fix it. So you quit. You didn’t hand your resignation to Jay. You went over his head, straight to his boss.

“So sad to see you go,” Mr. Lee said as he scribbled his signature at the bottom of your resignation letter. He barely glanced at it, like this happened all the time. “If you need a recommendation, I’d be happy to write one for an employee like you.” Your chest eased, just a little. “Thank you, Mr. Lee.” He smiled. “You’re welcome.” You walked out of his office feeling lighter, like you’d finally cracked a window in a suffocating room. You were free. Until you saw Jay.

He stood in his office doorway, staring at you. His expression unreadable. You dropped your gaze, ducking your head, and slipped past him to your desk. One more day. Just one more day. And then you’d never have to see him again.

You buried yourself in your work, the clock spinning faster than you realized. By the time you looked up, it was nearly 8 p.m. “Shit,” you muttered, stretching back in your chair until your spine cracked in protest. You hit save, deciding to finish the rest in the morning. Computer off. Desk lamp off. Jacket on. Bag over your shoulder. You moved on autopilot, too tired to think, your focus already on tomorrow, the final day.

The elevator pinged as you pressed the button. You stepped inside, thumb hovering over the ‘Close Door’ button, eager to leave. The doors began to slide shut. Then a hand shot between them. You flinched, a sharp inhale snagging in your throat.

You let out a weak laugh as the doors reopened. Just the nerves. The laugh died in your chest when you saw him. Jay. He stepped into the elevator, nodding at you once, silent. You didn’t say a word. You just stared at the glowing floor numbers, silently begging the elevator to close faster.

The doors slid shut. The descent began. And you were trapped. Alone. With him.

“I heard you quit.” Jay’s voice fractured the silence, low and flat, echoing off the metal walls of the elevator. Your eyes shot wide, but you kept them forward, pinned to the glowing floor numbers. You didn’t trust yourself to look at him. “Yeah,” you said, quick, almost too quick. “Why?” He asked.

“I got a new job.” The lie slipped out, smooth and practiced. You didn’t even know where you’d go after this, but anything was better than staying here. “You did?” His surprise didn’t sound faked. “Yeah,” you repeated, sharper this time, hoping the conversation would die there.

And for a moment, it did. The elevator hummed softly as the floors ticked down. Almost to the parking garage. Almost out. Then— A jolt. The elevator shuddered violently, pitching you to the side as the lights blinked out. Total darkness. You caught your breath, heart hammering. Seconds later, the emergency lights flickered on, washing the space in pale yellow.

“Damn it,” Jay muttered, slamming his palm against the panel. “What—what just happened?” You tried to keep your voice steady, but the crack in it gave you away. “Looks like it’s stuck.” He jabbed at the buttons, but nothing happened. No movement. No sound. You stepped forward, pressing the call button, but it buzzed weakly, then died.

Jay sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. “And we’re the only ones left in the building.” You swallowed. The weight of that landed hard in your chest. “So…it’ll be a while before someone comes to fix it?” He nodded, almost too calm. “Yeah. Could be hours.”

You stared at the elevator doors, cold creeping up your spine, wishing more than anything that they’d just open. Wishing you weren’t trapped. Wishing you weren’t trapped with him.

You stared down at your phone, pretending to doom scroll, desperate to distract yourself from the crushing silence. From him. From this boxed-in nightmare. The glow of the screen steadied your breathing. Made you feel less trapped. “So…” Jay’s voice cut through the stillness. “Are you gonna tell me the real reason you’re leaving?” Your fingers froze mid-scroll. You didn’t look up. “What do you mean?” you asked, playing dumb, your voice stiff around the edges.

“I mean—” You finally looked at him, and that was your mistake. He was already moving toward you. He didn’t stop until he was inches away. One hand came up, pressing flat against the wall beside your head, boxing you in. He leaned in, his face so close you could feel the heat of his breath.

His eyes locked on yours, steady. “I know you didn’t get a new job.” Your throat tightened. “How would you know that?” you managed, forcing the words out. His mouth quirked, like he was enjoying this. “You have this tell when you lie. Your nose scrunches up, just a little.” Your stomach flipped. “What?!”

Your voice cracked, too loud in the small metal box, but Jay didn’t flinch. He just kept looking at you like he could see straight through your skin. Like he’d been watching you much more closely than you ever realized.

“Jay, can you back up?” you said, your voice strained, trying to wedge space between you. “Why?” His lips curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Do I make you nervous?” His face dipped closer, his breath hot against your lips. Too close, way too close. Without thinking, you shoved him hard in the chest.

He stumbled back a step but instead of getting angry, he laughed. It echoed through the metal box like it had nowhere else to go. “I always knew you were a stupid little bitch,” he spat, the venom in his voice hitting harder than his usual taunts. Jay had called you stupid before. Had called you incompetent. Had called you worthless. But he’d never called you a bitch. Never crossed that line.

“God, Jay. You’re such a miserable jerk,” you snapped, spinning away from him, trying to put distance between his words and your skin. “Someone should teach you some fucking manners.” If he wanted a fight, fine. You’d give him one. “No,” you hissed, turning back to him. “Someone should slap the fuck out of your dumbass.”

You barely finished the sentence before his hand was around your throat. It happened so fast you didn’t have time to process it one second you were talking, the next your back slammed into the cold elevator wall with a bone-rattling bang.

Your toes barely scraped the floor. His grip was iron, crushing, your nails clawing at his wrist as your eyes went wide, panic detonating in your chest. “Jay—” you choked out, but the man in front of you didn’t look like Jay anymore.

His face was tight, cold, unfamiliar. It wasn't the same person who used to taunt you in the hall, who used to lean over your desk with a smirk. His eyes were empty. Unrecognizable.

Your nails dug into his skin, clawing hard, desperate to pry him off you. His grip didn’t loosen. If anything, it tightened, his thumb pressing hard enough to send lightning bolts of pressure shooting through your skull.

Your heartbeat thundered in your ears, drowning out the sputtering hum of the trapped elevator. Your legs kicked out, searching for ground, for balance, for anything. You scraped the toe of your shoe against his shin, a useless attempt to knock him off, but he didn’t flinch.

“Jay—” your voice came out broken, barely a whisper. “Let me go—” His stare was ice. Unblinking. Like he wasn’t even hearing you. Or maybe he was. Maybe that was the point. You swung your bag at him, a desperate move. It smacked against his ribs, and something flickered in his expression not pain, but annoyance.

“Shut up,” he muttered, pressing you harder into the wall. “You think you can just walk away? You think you can just leave?” His other hand came up, grabbing your chin, forcing your face toward his. “Say it again,” he hissed. “Say you’re leaving.”

Your throat burned under his crushing grip. Your vision blurred at the edges, a creeping darkness trying to pull you under. But you weren’t going out like this. You twisted, wrenching your arm free enough to drive your elbow into his side, sharp and hard. He grunted, and you felt his grip falter just enough for you to yank your head forward and slam it into his.

The crack of bone against bone echoed in the small metal box. Jay stumbled back, cursing, one hand clutching his forehead. You gasped, clutching your throat, gulping air like you were drowning.

Your body burned but adrenaline shoved you forward. You rammed your shoulder into him, sending him crashing into the opposite wall. “Don’t. Touch. Me.” Your voice shredded through the silence, raw and shaking, but you meant every word.

Jay wiped a smear of blood from his eyebrow, his breathing ragged, but his smile came back twisted. “Feisty,” he muttered, his gaze still pinned to you. “This is gonna be fun.”

You launched yourself at him again, swinging wildly, your fists catching his shoulder, his ribs, his arm anywhere you could reach. You were fast, but he was faster. Stronger. Jay caught your wrist mid-swing and twisted hard. You screamed, pain flashing white-hot up your arm. Before you could wrench free, he yanked you forward, spinning you so your back slammed against his chest.

His arm snaked across your collarbone, locking you in place, his forearm pressing tight just under your throat. His other hand pinned your arm behind your back in a brutal hold. You thrashed, kicked, shoved your weight backward, but it only tightened his grip, his body solid against yours. Your breathing came in ragged gasps, his breath hot and steady against your ear.

“Calm down,” he growled, his lips brushing your skin. “You’re not going anywhere.” Your heart hammered so hard it felt like it would punch through your ribcage. You dug your nails into his arm, twisting, clawing, but he didn’t even flinch.

“Stop fighting me,” he whispered, his voice calm now, almost gentle but the steel in his grip betrayed the lie. “You made this so much harder than it had to be.” You threw your head back, trying to catch him in the face, but he jerked his head just out of reach. “Still fighting?” His grip tightened across your chest, cutting off your air just enough to make your head spin. “You can’t win this fight babe.”

You let out a strangled gasp, your free hand slamming against the elevator wall, searching blindly for anything emergency buttons, loose panels, anything. “You know what your problem is?” he whispered, his voice a soft pulse against your ear. “You thought you could just leave me.”

His hand slid from your pinned wrist up to your face, his fingers pressing against your jaw, forcing your head to the side, forcing you to look at the dark reflection in the elevator’s metal wall. “Look at us,” he breathed. “Just look.” Your own wide, panicked eyes stared back at you. His face hovered over your shoulder, his smile sharp and dangerous.

His palm pressed over your lips, firm and suffocating, his fingers curling around your cheek. That was his mistake. You bit down. Hard. Your teeth sank into the soft flesh between his thumb and index finger, tearing through skin until you tasted metal the blood blooming hot and bitter on your tongue.

Jay roared, jerking his hand back, but you didn’t let go until he ripped it free. “You little—” Before you could twist away, his other arm banded across your chest, yanking you backward. His palm slammed against the back of your head, and he drove you forward hard into the elevator wall.

Your forehead cracked against the cold steel with a dull, sickening thud. The impact rattled your vision, white sparks flashing behind your eyes. Your knees buckled, but his grip didn’t let you fall. “Fucking bitch,” he snarled, his breath seething against your ear, his free hand shaking with rage as he cradled his bleeding palm. “You just don’t learn, do you?”

Your pulse screamed in your ears. Your head throbbed, the sharp ache spreading down your spine, but somewhere beneath the panic, beneath the dizziness, the fight still burned. Your nails dug into his arm again, scrabbling for leverage, for space, for something you could use to shift this back in your favor.

You tried pushing back at him, but he was so strong. He held you there. “Stop fighting, baby,” he murmured against your ear, voice low and edged with warning. “You’re only making it harder for yourself.” You shoved against him one more time, desperation clawing its way up your throat until you heard him groan.

That’s when you realized. Something hard was pressing against your lower back. Your lungs forgot how to work. Your body went rigid. That’s when you realized why he was doing all of this. “Jay, please…” your voice broke. “L-Let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I-I’ll quit. I’ll pretend none of this happened.”

His laugh was sharp, guttural, and anything but kind.  “The reason this is happening,” he whispered, his nose buried in your hair, “is because you tried to leave me.” The instinct to retreat fired through you. “I can’t let that happen,” he said, voice flat and final. “Hands on the wall.”

“Jay, please…” “I said—hands. On. The. Wall.” His hand wrapped around your wrist, and with one violent jerk, he slammed them against the cold steel. “If you want this to hurt more than it has to,” he breathed against your neck, “go ahead. Keep fighting but if you want to be a good girl…” his grip tightened, “then listen.”

Right now, that was the only choice you had.

You could feel his hands sliding up your legs, slow and deliberate. The cold metal of the elevator behind you was nothing compared to the chill crawling up your spine. You regretted wearing a skirt today.

Tears slid down your cheeks, silent and hot. He didn’t try to be gentle not even for a second. His fingers curled into the fabric of your skirt and shoved it up roughly, exposing you to the stale, flickering light above. Then came the sharp tug. He yanked your panties down in one swift, brutal motion.

“Step out of them,” he said, voice low and unwavering. Your eyes dropped. You stepped out of the crumpled fabric, your legs trembling. He picked them up, turning them over once in his hand like they were something delicate.

You didn’t want to know what he was going to do with them. 

Jay's eyes flicked from your trembling legs to the panties in his hand. He let out a dark, humorless laugh before stuffing the fabric into his back pocket. “You really shouldn’t have worn something so easy to tear off, baby,” he said, stepping closer. “It’s like you wanted me to ruin you.”

His hand came up rough, practiced fingers threading through your hair. And then he yanked you head back. You gasped, your neck bending back as he forced your gaze up.

“Look at you,” Jay growled, his grip unrelenting. “You don’t get to cry and act like a scared little bitch.” He shoved you hard against the elevator wall. The metal was cold, the corners biting into your chest, but you barely noticed through the adrenaline flooding your veins.

You opened your mouth to speak to beg but he silenced you with his arm wrapped around your throat, pressing just enough to steal control. “Quiet,” he snapped. “You’ve already said too much tonight.” You whimpered, but he didn’t care. His arm left your neck only to push your skirt higher, exposing everything every trembling inch of skin you wished you could hide.

Then you felt him. Hot, thick and hard against the inside of your thigh. “You feel that?” he hissed into your ear. “That’s what happens when you try to leave me.” He didn’t wait for a response. He didn’t need one. His hand dropped between your legs, rough fingers sliding against your folds just long enough to feel how wet you already were.

Jay chuckled. “Filthy little slut. You like being treated like this, don’t you?” You shook your head, but your body betrayed you. “Liar,” he growled. “Fucking liar.” Then he grabbed your hips, and with one thrust, he slammed into you.

You cried out, nails scraping uselessly at the wall. He didn’t slow down. Not for a second. “God, this tight little cunt was made for me,” he groaned against your ear. “Say it. Say it belongs to Daddy.” You tried to speak, but he pulled your hair back so sharply that all you could do was scream.

“Say it!”

“Yours—Daddy—yours!”

“Damn right it is,” he snarled. “You’re mine now. Every inch of you.”

He drove into you again and again, brutal and relentless. His grip on your hair never loosened. His hips pounded into you with vicious rhythm, every slap of skin echoing in the silent metal box like a punishment. “You’ll never leave me,” he growled. “No one’s going to save you. You’re Daddy’s now.”

The elevator groans, a metallic whine of protest, as he fucks you harder, fingers digging into your hips hard enough to bruise. The walls are too close, the air too thick, and the flickering overhead light casts jagged shadows across his face sharp enough to cut. You whimper, nails scraping against the stainless steel in front of you, but there’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to run. His breath is hot against the back of your neck, mocking, as your body betrays you, trembling toward a climax you don’t want but can’t stop.

"That’s it," he murmurs, voice low, almost amused. "Let go." You choke back a sob as it hits you, wave after wave of unwanted pleasure, your knees buckling. But before you can even catch your breath, his grip tightens, yanking you back into the present. "Oh, kitten," he purrs, lips brushing your ear. "You didn’t really think it was gonna stop there, did you?" A cruel laugh, dark as the elevator shaft beneath you. "You still haven’t made me cum."

Your stomach drops. The realization hits like a punch. "Believe me," he continues, fingers tracing the back of your thighs, "you are not leaving this elevator until you’ve made me cum like the good little slut I know you are."

A beat of silence. The hum of dead machinery. The drip of sweat down your spine. "Turn around." Your body moves before your mind can refuse. "Face me." The command is a blade pressed to your throat. You obey. "Lemme lift your legs up." His hands are already on you, hoisting you like you weigh nothing, pressing you against the cold metal. "Wrap your legs around me."

A hesitation just a fraction of a second and his voice drops, dangerous. "I said wrap your legs around me." You do. His hand digs into the soft flesh of your thighs, fingers pressing hard enough to leave bruises. His mouth moves against your skin, whispering filth, promises, threats words that slither into your ears and coil tight in your stomach. You turn your face away, refusing to look, refusing to see what he’s doing to you.

"Now look at me." The slap cracks sharp in the confined space. Your head snaps to the side, the sting blooming hot. "Open your eyes." Another slap. Your vision blurs. "I said fucking look at me.” You listen.

"Good girl." His voice gentles, a velvet stroke over raw nerves. "Oh, look at you, kitten. So beautiful and bruised. All marked up from my hands." His thumb traces the ache along your jaw. "You know I love you, don’t you?”

A kiss, slow and possessive. Your lips taste like salt, like tears. "Even when you make me angry," he murmurs, "even when you make me hurt you... I still want you." The elevator groans around you, a mechanical sigh, but you don’t notice. All you feel is him the relentless drag of his body against yours, the way he steals your breath and replaces it with his.

"Fuck, you feel so good." His groan is low, rough, vibrating through your bones. Your fingers scrabble against the cold metal wall. There’s nowhere to go. "You’re mine now, kitten." His teeth graze your throat. "Don’t you ever fucking forget it. Your smiles, your cries ah—they all belong to me."

The elevator lurches. A flicker of light. He doesn’t stop. "I’m not letting you go." A promise or a threat. "Ever."

His grip bites into your thighs, pulling you hard against him as his hips stutter. You feel it the tremble in his thighs, the ragged break in his breathing. He’s close.

“Jay, don’t—” Your voice cracks, the panic sharp. Jay doesn’t stop. His fingers dig in harder, a low laugh slipping against your ear, velvet-wrapped malice. “Not inside me. Please.” He leans in, lips grazing your throat. “Think you’d make a great mom,” he breathes, dark, sticky, dangerous. “Let’s make it happen.”

The words freeze you. Ice creeps under your skin. “No.” You twist, you fight, the panic swelling in your chest. You shove at his arms, but his grip tightens, unrelenting. His hand fists in your hair, pulling your head back until your throat is bare. The elevator groans under the slam of your back against the wall. 

“None of that now,” he whispers, his voice a blade dragged across skin. “I told you. I’m gonna put a baby in you.” His hips jerk against you, desperate, claiming. “Then you’ll never get rid of me.”

“Jay, please—” Your breath shatters. You’re trembling, from fear and the spiraling chaos of it all. “Want to quit? Too late, sweetheart.” His teeth scrape your neck, a violent tenderness.  His groan breaks loose, hot and breathless. “Fuck—I’m gonna cum.”

“Jay—noo—” Your scream bounces off the elevator walls. His hips stutter, and you feel it. A claim that leaves something inside you that you can’t shake loose.

The elevator doors open with a soft hum swallowed by the silence. Jay kisses your throat, slow, almost tender now, his whisper sliding like a noose around your neck. “Now you can never leave me.”

You don’t speak, you don’t move. There’s nothing left inside you.

He didn’t take it well—not at all. The calls kept coming. At first, it was pleading. Sweet, pathetic apologies dripped in fakeness. But they didn’t stay sweet for long. They turned sharp and accusing. His voice would swing from soft regret to explosive rage in a single breath. As if the breakup wasn’t real. Like you were throwing a tantrum.

Now your phone buzzes at strange hours—2:17 a.m., 4:03, 5:12 always from unknown numbers. No voice, no noise just silence. You’ve started checking your locks more than once. Then again. Then again. You keep the blinds shut even when the sun is out, because the idea of light feels unsafe now. Too visible. Because Jungwon doesn’t lose. And he doesn't listen when you say no. He doesn’t rage. He doesn't scream. He waits. He smiles. Control isn’t something he wants. It’s something he assumes he already has. You don’t know it now, but you’ll soon realize that leaving him was the worst mistake you could’ve made. 

“Girl, relax—he’s not here,” she says, not even looking at you. Her voice is flat, tired, like you’re annoying her with your nonsense. “Stop being so paranoid. I heard he’s got a new girlfriend or something, so… he’s over you.”

You blink at her, fork halfway to your mouth. She's probably right. Everyone keeps saying the same thing, and you’re starting to feel like the one who is being crazy. But the incidents around the house was telling you otherwise like the window in your bedroom was open yesterday morning. Just a crack. You remember closing it. You always do. You even double checked it after brushing your teeth. But there it was, gaping like a mouth in the wall, letting the cold in.

Then there was the necklace. You found it in the laundry room. You haven’t worn it in weeks. You’d swear you left it on your dresser. “You don’t think that’s weird?” you ask, quieter than you meant to. “That my stuff keeps moving around?” Kailey shrugs. “You probably just forgot. You’ve been super stressed lately. Your brain’s probably just... I don’t know. Filling in blanks.” Her smile is small, pitying. It makes you feel like a child so you nod, even though your stomach twists. Because how do you argue with someone who makes your fear sound like fiction?

Everyone you’ve talked to says the same thing. You’re imagining it. You’re spiraling. Maybe talk to someone. No one listens to what you’re actually saying. They just want you to stop talking. And the more you try to explain, the more ridiculous you sound. Like some clingy ex who can’t move on. Like you’re obsessed with someone who isn't even thinking about you. 

 You smile. You laugh when Kailey makes a joke about “getting you a security system and a therapist.” Maybe they’re right. Maybe your memory is just playing tricks on you. Maybe the cold air, the lost things, the tapping you heard last night…maybe it’s all just in your head. But if that’s true… why does it still feel like someone’s watching you? 

“Okay, call me when you get home, alright?” Kailey says, pulling you into a quick hug. “And don’t worry about Jungwon. You’re fine. Seriously. He wasn’t good for you, and breaking up with him was the smartest thing you’ve done.” She squeezes your arm before turning away, heading toward her car without waiting for a reply. The door slams, the engine hums to life, and just like that, she’s gone—leaving you alone on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. You stand there for a moment, watching her taillights fade into the distance. The street feels too quiet now, like someone turned the volume down on the world. “I hope you’re right,” you murmur, mostly to yourself, then turn and begin the walk toward home. 

The sidewalk stretches ahead of you, slick from earlier rain. Your shoes tap softly against the pavement, a steady rhythm you try to focus on. Left foot, right foot. Just a walk home. Just like every other night. But now Kailey's voice is gone, and without it, the air feels too thin. A streetlight flickers as you pass underneath it, buzzing once like it’s annoyed by your presence. You glance up out of habit. It dies for a moment, then flares back to life, casting your shadow behind you. You wrap your arms tighter around yourself, shoulders hunching as you turn down your street. The houses here are dark, windows glowing faintly blue with TV light or not at all. You tell yourself it’s just late. People are asleep inside. 

But your stomach won’t stop tightening. That pressure behind your ribs again—like something’s watching you. Like something’s a few steps too close. You stop walking to listen. Behind you… nothing. No footsteps. No breathing. Just wind rustling the trees and the faint hum of traffic blocks away. You glance over your shoulder. Empty street. You hate how fast your heart is beating. You keep walking. Faster now. You don’t want to look again. If no one’s there, you’ll feel stupid. If someone is—No, don't go there. You stop again, one foot hesitating mid-step. You turn slowly and look behind you. Still no one there. But the streetlight—It’s off now. Completely dark.

Your breath catches in your throat. Your limbs tense before you can even think. And then—You run.

You don’t think about how it looks. You don’t care. You take off, shoes slapping the pavement, your bag bouncing hard against your hip. You just run.

Your house comes into view—porch light glowing weakly like it’s trying, but not enough. You fumble for your keys as you hit the steps. You nearly drop them. Your fingers are shaking too much and the sweat making it difficult to hold them. You glance behind you. Nothing. Still. But you don’t believe it. You shove the key in, not it. Try again. Shit not it. Curse under your breath. You keep looking over your shoulder like you're expecting to see someone step out of the dark. Click. The key finally turns. You throw the door open, stumble inside, and slam it shut behind you. You turn the lock. The deadbolt and the chain. Then you press your back to the door, eyes closed, chest heaving. 

You stay with your back pressed to the door, listening for something—anything. Maybe the wind. Maybe footsteps that were never there. Maybe it was just your heart that was punching the inside of your ribs. The house is quiet. Too quiet. Then you heard a thud. A soft, unmistakable sound, like something falling. Not from the kitchen or the living room. It was from your bedroom.

Your body goes cold. You strain your ears, willing for the sound to be nothing. A book slipping off your bed. Something you left too close to the edge. Just gravity. Just the house settling. But you know what you heard. You know exactly where it came from.

Your room. Down the hall. Door slightly open—just as you left it.

You step forward. Slowly. Like your feet don’t belong to you anymore. Your fingers brush against the wall as you move, needing the feel of something solid. You pause at your door. Another noise—a shift. The creak of the mattress springs.

You don’t want to look. Every nerve screams at you not to. But you push the door open anyway. And there he is.

Jungwon.

Sitting on your bed like he never left. He’s leaned back against your pillows, one arm stretched casually along the headboard, the other resting on his knee. Legs spread comfortably, like he owns the room. Like you’re the intruder. “Well,” he says, voice smooth, almost lazy, “you made it farther than I expected. Honestly, I thought you'd fold after the second time you found the window open.” His gaze skims over you—your posture, your silence, your fear.

“You really thought locking doors and whispering to Kailey would make a difference?” he asks, tilting his head slightly. “Cute.” Then he exhales, almost like a yawn, and shifts his weight to the side of your bed. “But playtime’s over now.” He looks you straight in the eye, the smile gone. “Time to come back to me. This little game was fun... but I’m getting bored.”

He pats the bed beside him—slow, twice.

“Don’t make me chase you again.”

You looked at him like he’d just sprouted horns. “Jungwon… what the fuck is wrong with you?” Your voice cracks from the force of it. Your hands are shaking. You don’t care.

“Get the hell out of my house!” you scream, louder this time. But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t even blink.

“Babe,” Jungwon said, his voice calm and patronizing, like he was scolding a child. “Stop yelling. It’s embarrassing.” 

“We broke up!” you scream, voice shredded with fury. “Get that through your thick fucking skull and get the fuck out of my house!” You reach into your bag, fingers brushing your phone, eyes locked on him like you're defusing a bomb. Your heart racing. But you glance down—just for a second. And that’s all it takes.

His hand is on your throat.

“Now why would you do that, huh, babe?” he breathes, his face inches from yours, his breath hot on your face. “I missed you. And I know you missed me.”

His fingers tighten. You choke, your nails clawing at his wrist. Your vision flickers.

“Stop struggling and just accept it, babe. I’m here now. We’re done playing—”

You swing your knee up, fast, hard, straight into his groin.

He makes a sound—half-growl, half-scream—and doubles over, crashing to the floor.

You stumble back, gasping, clutching your throat, then bolt down the hall. You don’t look behind you. You know what’s coming. You hit the living room. The space feels too small—too many corners, too many shadows, and nowhere to hide. Your feet pound the floor as you race toward the kitchen, lungs burning.

But then—His hand. It misses you by less than an inch. 

You throw yourself into the kitchen and lunge for the drawer. The knife. The drawer sticks. You yank. Too slow. His hand grabs your hair—hard—and you feel your head jerk back, your scalp screaming as he slams you forward. Your temple hits the counter edge with a sickening crack. The world wavers. You dropped to the floor.

He’s pacing now, breathing hard, muttering. Mindless. Mechanical. Like a record skipping on loop.

“You were made for me,” he hisses, voice barely above a whisper but trembling with rage. “Don’t you get it? You don’t exist without me. I built you.

He slams the drawer shut with his foot—BANG—and the sound explodes through the kitchen. You flinch instinctively, shoulder curling inward. He laughs under his breath.

“No one else will touch you. Not after this. You think someone’s gonna want you after I’m done with you?” He gestures to you like you were trash. “They’ll see right through you, babe.”

He steps over your legs like they’re part of the floor, starts pacing in front of the fridge, cracking his knuckles, dragging his hand through his hair, muttering. His eyes are wild—glassy and glowing with something sick.

“You keep pretending you’re scared. But you’re not. Not really,” he says, smiling now, voice dipping into something slower, darker. “You like it when I get like this. You made those sounds for me, remember? The begging, the whimpering... the way you said my name when you couldn’t take it anymore.”

He crouches suddenly, right in front of you, and grabs your jaw—tight, fingers pressing into your cheeks.

“You remember that, don’t you?”

You try to pull away. He doesn’t let go.

“I own you. Every noise you make, every breath you take—that’s mine. You don’t get to run anymore. You had your little tantrum. Now?” His voice softens like silk. He stands again, towering above you, breath heaving, arms loose at his sides like he doesn’t know whether to touch you or kill you.

“Now you don't get to leave.”

“Please… just stop,” you whispered, voice raw, tears streaking your cheeks as your back pressed against the cold wooden kitchen counter. “You’ve had your fun.”

Jungwon didn’t flinch. He only tilted his head, eyes drinking in your trembling frame like it was art he couldn’t look away from.

“God,” he murmured, stepping closer, his voice low and dark with something you couldn’t name. “You’re so damn pretty when you cry.”

You turned your face away, breath hitching.

Jungwon's hand shot out, fingers tangling harshly in your hair. He fisted it tight, yanking your head back to force you to meet his intense gaze. The sudden, painful grip made you gasp, tears flying from your eyes as he wrenched you off your feet. Your knees scraped against the hardwood floor, sending jolts of stinging pain up your legs, but he showed no mercy.

"You don’t get to turn away from me," he growled, voice dripping with venom. 

Jungwon slammed you down onto the cold, unforgiving surface of the kitchen counter, the breath whooshing out of your lungs at the impact. Before you could catch your breath, he had you by the hair again, bending you over the edge of the counter roughly. You felt the chill of the granite against your skin as he forced you to arch your back. "Look at you," Jungwon snarled in your ear, his voice a low, feral rumble. "What a sweet, trembling mess you are. You can't deny how much you fucking love this, can you? How much you've missed having me inside you, ruining you?"

He punctuated his words by grinding his hard, clothed erection against the curve of your ass. You could feel every thick inch of him, a whimper escaped your throat, equal parts fear and shameful, traitorous arousal.

"This is what you do to me," Jungwon growled, giving your ass a sharp smack. "This is the effect you have on me, you fucking tease. I've been thinking about this pussy, about burying myself in you."

He tore the delicate fabric of your panties without hesitation, the rip sharp in the silence. The ruined lace discarded, leaving you bare and shivering as the cold air kissed your exposed skin. His touch followed—fingers finding your slick heat, dragging through your folds with a rough, unrelenting rhythm that stole the breath from your lungs. 

"You don't get to say shit," he hissed, "You don't get to deny me anymore. I'm going to take what's mine, over and over again until you're dripping with my cum."

You heard the frantic tug of his zipper, the hiss of fabric shoved down in haste—he was struggling, almost clumsy in his desperation. He couldn’t wait. The need to be inside you was written in every rushed movement, every uneven breath. Your mind was fogged, flooded with heat, and the sound of him losing control just made it worse. 

Jungwon's hips surged forward, burying his thick cock deep inside your core in one brutal thrust. A scream tore from your throat at the sudden, intense intrusion, your walls clenching desperately around his invading length. He didn't give you any time to adjust, immediately setting a hard, punishing pace as he bent over you from behind.

His breath was hot and ragged against your ear, each exhale sending shivers down your spine. You could feel the thundering of his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his chest pressed against your back as he loomed over you. He was everywhere, surrounding you, consuming you completely.

"Fuck," Jungwon grunted, his voice strained with lust and dark satisfaction. “You can hate me all you want. Doesn’t change how perfectly I fit in you.”

One hand gripped your hip hard enough to bruise, holding you in place as he rutted into you. The other snaked up to wrap around your throat, squeezing just enough to make your pulse jump and race. Your vision swam, head spinning as he fucked you with brutal intensity, the obscene sound of skin slapping against skin echoing through the kitchen.

“Beg all you want. I know exactly what you need.” Jungwon growled, punctuating his words with a sharp thrust. “By the time I’m done with you, there won’t be nothing left.” 

His fingers tightened around your throat as he leaned in closer, his lips brushing the shell of your ear.  “You’re going to carry a reminder of me, one way or another.”

A surge of pure panic shot through you at Jungwon's dark promise. Your heart raced, pounding wildly against your ribs as his fingers tightened around your throat, restricting your airflow. You tried to shake your head.

"No," you gasped out, voice barely a whisper. "Please, Jungwon, don't. Pull out, please..."

But even as the words left your lips, you knew it was futile. Jungwon was beyond reason, beyond caring about your pleas and fears. He was driven by a singular, obsessive desire to claim and conquer.

Ignoring your desperate entreaty, he was fucking into you with brutal, animalistic intensity. The kitchen filled with the vulgar sounds of your coupling - the slap of skin on skin, your strangled cries, his grunts and growls of pleasure.

"Fuck, I can feel it," Jungwon snarled, his voice tight with impending release. “You feel that? The way you pull me in like you were made for this? Like your body already knows it belongs to me.” 

He punctuated his words with a harsh thrust, burying himself to the hilt inside you. You felt his cock jerk and pulse, growing even harder, impossibly bigger. Your eyes widened in terror and a sickening mix of reluctant arousal.

"Please," you whimpered, tears streaming down your face. "Please, don't cum inside me. I don't want to..."

But your pleas fell on deaf ears. With a guttural roar, Jungwon slammed into you one last time, grinding his pelvis against your ass as his cock erupted. You could feel the hot, thick spurts of his release painting your insides, flooding your unprotected womb with his cum.

"Take it," he commanded harshly, holding you in place as he emptied himself inside you. "Take every last drop.”

You shuddered and sobbed as you felt his cum filling you up, your body instinctively clenching and milking his pulsing cock. The sheer depravity of it, the utter lack of control, sent a confusing surge of dark pleasure through you.

As Jungwon finally pulled out, you could feel his release leaking out of you, dripping down your thighs.

You couldn’t move so you remained bent over the kitchen counter, chest heaving as you struggled to catch your breath. Tears streamed down your face, dripping onto the cold granite surface below. Your body ached, used and abused in the most intimate way possible. The sticky evidence of his release trickled down your thighs, a sickening reminder of your defilement.

Behind you, Jungwon was already fixing his pants, tucking his spent cock away and smoothing down his shirt. He acted as if he hadn't just violated you, just taken something from you that you hadn't willingly given. As if this was an everyday occurrence, a simple transaction.

"Shut up," he barked harshly, silencing your muffled sobs and whimpers. “Did you really think someone would come running if you cried loud enough?”

You flinched at the biting words, then he was bending over you again, looming large and menacing. His hand came up, cupping the back of your head almost gently. For a moment, you thought he might caress you, soothe you. But then his fingers tightened, gripping your hair almost painfully as he wrenched your head to the side to force you to meet his gaze.

"You'll never be clean again," Jungwon whispered, his voice a low, dark rumble. "Not after this. Not after me."

His eyes bored into yours, gleaming with a manic, possessive light. Before you could look away, his mouth was on you, his lips brushing against your forehead in a mockery of a tender kiss. A promise of something far darker.

the realization made anton’s mind finally wander to places it didn’t allow itself before. there was only one thing you could teach him. one thing you would really useful for. his parents paid you generously, much more than you deserved for pointless lessons.

so why couldn’t he get his moneys worth? what else were they paying you for anyway?

you weren’t happy about the idea, only making anton feel annoyed. you were in no position to complain, to push at him and claw at his nicely pressed shirt, to squirm and reach for whatever was around you. to your dismay, it wasn’t much work for anton, leaving you shocked and crying pathetically when he twisted your wrists. it made him think of the time you raised your eyebrows when his mother mentioned that he was working hard at the gym. of course you would question it. there was no way some boy like anton could be anything less than that. a boy.

despite that, the experience was unfortunately euphoric. he couldn’t get enough. the feeling of being sucked into your tight, hot walls making the air leave his lungs. the way you milked him dry by the end of the night, leaving him shuddering and lightheaded.

it made sense that one time just wasn’t enough.

you had still come back, not a minute late to your scheduled meeting. but you avoided his stare, mumbling instructions as you took out a pen. anton didn’t do as told, instead letting his hand slither up your skirt, watching the way your eyes widened in alarm.

your eyes flashed as you shook your head, lightly pressing your hand on his. anton would have been impressed if it wasn’t you, the scratchy texture of your fingertips were just like his after years and years of meticulous practice.

he wasted no time, bulge swelling as soon as the resistance began, craving swimming downwards. you were smart enough to know what he wanted, but not smart enough to just let it be. you struggled against him again, causing anton’s eyes to roll.