julie.g

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.

sohee has been so frat boy coded in my mind lately just need him to grab meeeee mm so im being lazy but going to a party in ur first year at uni or maybe its not your first year but its your first party n u dont have a lot of experience with boys >.<

he looks like just the sweetest thing when he comes up from behind you and throws an arm around your shoulders, pulling out all the stops, ‘what’s a pretty thing like you doing at a party like this?’, ‘the guys will be all over you like wolves, you should stick with me… i’ll keep you safe’ even though it’s the furthest thing from the truth🤭

i was going to say that he would drug u to make you more compliant but.. i think in this scenario, he would like the challenge bc he’s been working out sm more lately, he wants to push himself to see if he can bend you to his whims, literally, as a test of his own strength

he’d get hard just from how easy it is for him to push you down face first on the bed. whose bed? he doesn’t know, but look at you, such a weak little bitch, it’s pathetic really, why don’t you try to put up a fight? thinking about him taunting you and holding your head down with his palm, muffling your cries and telling you, ‘you don’t want this? leave then.’ but he won’t let you get up.

he’d play with you like you’re a poor little ant and he’s some kid with a magnifying glass, letting go of you just to grab you by your arms and pin you down again on the bed, reminding you that you can scream as loud as you want, no one will hear you over the music and even if they did, they wouldn’t care.

the words of his friends replay in his head. he wants to forget about them, ignore how brutal they sounded, how it made him question everything about you. he can’t help but wonder if eunseok wasn’t right, if the reason why you refuse to let him touch you is because you’re sleeping with someone else. 

as he sees you so close to that guy with this pretty smile on your face he loves so much, the accusation of your infidelity only echoes louder in his head. he remembers wonbin’s mocking grin, agreeing with eunseok and adding salt to the wound by painting the horrible picture of you having sex with another man in anton’s head. 

he told them to go fuck themselves before storming off and leaving eunseok’s apartment. he walked back home thinking his friends were just assholes, and it’s not so far from the thruth, but maybe they figured out what anton couldn’t. 

he stays hidden until the guy leaves and he waits for you to get inside. when he pushes the door to your apartment open, you’re sitting at the dining table, slipping your shoes off, that same smile you offered to that stranger on your lips as you greet him. 

anton only hums, quickly removing his jacket and getting his sneakers off as well. he’s silent, looking a little grumpy, glancing everywhere but at you. he walks into the kitchen that’s open to the dining table and you rise up from your seat, a frown on your face.

“you came back early,” you say, your voice soft as always, making it harder for anton to believe you could do such things to him. “it didn’t go well with the boys?” you ask and it bugs him how you read him so well. 

he shrugs, “it’s whatever.” 

“i’m sorry,” you pout, looking at anton with big eyes.

then the room falls silent. 

his eyes land on you and you just look so sweet and small, like touching you would break you. you’re his, you’re his girlfriend. he can’t bring himself to imagine you with anyone else but him, can’t accept the idea of your virginity belonging to someone who isn’t him. 

he closes the gap between you two and kisses you, his mouth immediately taking control of yours. you’re taken aback and stumble backwards, but he keeps you from falling, hands tightly gripping your hips. this kiss is nothing like the ones he usually gives you. it’s not a quick, soft peck on the lips, it’s the opposite—there’s teeth and tongues, groans and moans, grabby hands fumbling with your clothes. 

anton wants to prove that eunseok and wonbin are wrong—tonight, you will let your boyfriend touch you, you will let him take you because you’re not fucking someone else behind his back. 

his hands roam over your body with a lot of impatience, hungrily moving his mouth over yours and leaving no time for you to breathe. he has to catch up on all the times you refused him before, he needs you to give yourself up to him, needs to know you want him, too. 

but just as he thinks you’re finally ready, you push him back and back away from him.

“anton,” you call his name breathily, your chest heaving up and down rapidly. you lightly shake your head and he understands you’re rejecting him again. 

he decides to ignore you—maybe you need just a bit more convincing. anton pulls you back against him, leaning down and connecting his lips to your neck, kissing and biting. he feels your hands pushing his chest, he hears your noises of disapproval and he doesn’t stop, but then you use more force than expected, pushing anton off of you.

“what the fuck?” he says, sounding harsh and offended. 

“anton, i’m sorry, but i’m not-”

you try to explain yourself to him, but your voice is only background noises to him. all that’s playing in his head right now are his friends’ words again.

‘gotta hit her, put her in her place’, wonbin had said. ‘when a bitch acts up, that’s all it takes to make her listen’, eunseok chimed in. 

as anton looks at you, wet and shiny eyes on him, begging him to calm down, he simply goes mad. he lifts up his hand and your whole expression changes, fear passing through your eyes and for some twisted reason, it pleases him. 

he backhands you across the face and your head flies to the side, mouth opening in shock, but you have no time to recover until he puts his hand around your neck, forcing you to look into his eyes. 

“you fucking listen to me for once,” he spits out, an amount of anger you’ve never thought him capable to hold driving his actions. “i’m tired of you treating me like i’m a goddamn fool, denying me basic fucking needs just because you wanna act a prude.” his words come out like venom, like a punishment, hitting as hard as the slap he gave you. 

you’re crying now, tears after tears falling on your cheeks, dipping down to your neck and pilling over anton’s fingers. he doesn’t care, though. it doesn’t compare to the constant rejection you made him go through, the humiliation he felt because of that, his friends’ mocking laughs directed at him. 

and so he puts you in your place. 

panties stuffed in your mouth so you can’t tell him what to do anymore, so you can’t cry and tell him no again. legs thrown over his shoulders, cunt swallowing his cock for the first time, pounding you into the mattress, no care for your nails digging into his back or muffled screams of his name. he doesn’t care like you never cared about his feelings. 

“you let that guy fuck you, don’t you?” he grunts into your ear, his hand belonging around your throat, threatening to tighten at any moment. anton’s hips are relentless, using you like you’re just a hole, and that’s how he wants you to feel. dirty, soiled… well-fucked. “why else would you always reject me, huh? you’re just a fucking whore. great at pretending, i’ll give you that,” he scoffs. 

Aside from the few truckers that became regulars at the diner you worked at, you didn’t really pay attention to them. 

The truck stop your diner resides in is just off the route-thirty-two, a long road that sat in between two states, Dorne and the Stormlands. Your diner sits on the edge of Dorne, everything a dollar more expensive than it is in the stormlands. Half the truckers complain, and half don’t even bother stopping and keep moving on to the stormlands where they can get things cheap. 

The stop is popular, but its position between two states usually means it’s a quick one. It doesn’t stop those late night drivers stopping, venturing into the truck yard where you’ve seen plenty of girls your age and older, dressed in practically nothing as they step up towards the window to show the men what they’re offering. 

Your eyes look out now from your car window, a girl that must only be a year older than you, smudged mascara running down her cheeks, and denim shorts riding up her ass, as she steps down from the truck. You see the wad of dollars shoved into her pocket and she’s quick to push them in further, stumbling away until she sees another trucker parking up a few spots over and then she brushes herself off and walks straight on over. 

Fifty dollars you heard a man boast one day at your diner. “Fifty fucking dollars for the whole fucking night.” 

The other man beside him laughed at that, both smiling ear to ear at their shared amusement over the ordeal. 

It made you feel sick and it took you everything not to hurl as you made your way over to them. 

It’s not exactly like these men were all ugly, some of them turn out to be surprisingly good looking. No, it’s the way they leer at you, eyes widening at the sight of you approaching them in your uniform, licking their lips as the grease dribbles down their chins. 

Some of them aren’t all that bad, and strangely you have a few that you feel comfortable interacting with. They’re kind, more fatherly types but even you know not to let yourself be alone with any of them. 

You make a habit of it actually. 

Your manager booked out the parking spots right next to the diner to make sure nothing bad would occur, he didn’t want any of the girls walking to the diner alone at any point in the day. In the odd case there’s too many people on shift, he makes sure that he himself walks the girl from her car to the door of the diner and all the way back after her shifts are finished. 

Unfortunately for you, he isn’t working tonight. He’s been sick for two days already, leaving the diner short of a manager. With the assistant being a complete nut job that hates being out on the restaurant floor, it’s left you to pick up the slack with your year of knowledge.

It also means you’ve had to pick up pretty much all the extra shifts, however starting late usually means it’s pretty quiet. 

Tonight you’re taken off guard. 

Strangely the parking lot is packed when you pull in, cars already in front of you trying to find a spot. Your eyes peer out the window and even in the dark you can make out the line of trucks parked up. It’s odd for this spot to be this busy, especially this late at night and you can only wonder how busy the diner is going to be. 

Only when you make it to the diner, you find your usual spot taken, a few unfamiliar cars parked in the staff reserved bays. You furrow your brows, stopping as you look around for a free space, impossibly hard even with the diner lights. 

You pick up your phone, calling the first person you know is on shift before venturing around further. The phone rings for a while before going to voicemail. You try another, and then your assistant manager before he finally picks up. 

“Where are you? You were supposed to start ten minutes ago,” his sharp tone came out the speaker. 

“Pretty hard to find a space,” you bark back, throwing your head back with a sigh. “What the fuck is going on?” 

“Fucking storm in the junction stop before us, brought a load of transmission towers down and made people have to turn back to come here.” 

“No, shit.” 

“Yeah,” he chuckled slightly, only to be cut off by another voice in the background. “I’ll get to you in just a second. — look I need you on the restaurant floor asap. It’s chaos in here.” 

“I’ll try my best.”

“Yeah, just get in here okay.” His words drown out as a sharp set of lights come out from behind you. Some asshole with his full beams on blinding you before beeping. 

“Yeah okay, asshole,” you shout out the window but the beeps don’t stop. 

“Everything okay?” 

“In the restaurant asap, got it,” is all you say before hanging up, turning back out your window to scream again before pulling away. 

There might have been a closer spot, but the spot you manage to find is at least a ten minute walk from diner. Darkness sits over the car park as you venture out of your car, grabbing your bag from the back seat before locking your car. 

There’s still cars driving around trying to find spaces bringing you slight comfort, however you’re not sure how you’re exactly going to manage crossing the threshold that is the truck spot. 

You could go around it, although that would be ten minutes longer. The thought does seem pleasing but as your phone buzzes in your pocket, you know that just isn’t a possibility you can take right now. You got a can of pepper spray for moments like this anyway and your hand dives into find it, clutching it so you’ll be able to snatch it out at the last moment. 

You step out between the trucks, the ones with the lights off, praying that the drivers will be asleep or too busy to even notice you. It’s silent for the most part, and you don’t know if it should bring you comfort or scare you. 

By the third car you hear a strangled moan, a woman’s voice coming from the window to your right. 

“Yes, daddy.” 

Your stomach clenches as a breathless grunt follows, the noise more animalistic than human. You should move, but the sound of skin slapping against each other as you halting in your movements and it’s not till you hear other footsteps do you finally will yourself to get away. 

Your eyes peer around the truck, trying to find the source of the steps before looking behind you. Nothing. It could have been a fox, or some woman stumbling out from one truck as she made her way to the other. You hear it again and when you bring your flashlight up, you see nothing there, only your light disturbing some other trucker as he stands by the window. 

“Stop perving, creep,” he shouts, not even seeing you clearly. 

You’re quick to put away, not wanting to draw anymore attention to yourself. You see the diner through the trucks anyway, the familiar flitter of the trashy neon lights. It’s two more rows away and you pick up the pace as you make your way over. 

You hear the footsteps again, you can’t tell if they’re closer or further but they’re there. Then a breath faint, but you feel it against the back of your neck. 

You twist around, snatching the can of pepper spray out your bag and spraying. 

The liquid hits the truck but mostly falls onto the floor. Nothing. 

You turn back, one hand falls around your mouth and the other knocks the pepper spray clear out your hand. With your phone in your bag, you don’t see who’s in front of you, only getting a glimpse of pale hair before being twisted around. 

You kick back at him, elbows slamming backwards even, one lands and the man grunts before letting you go. 

You forget to scream in your panic and end up running in the direction you came. You make it a few metres before a hand snatches you back by your hair, making you yelp out before his hand comes to firmly plant itself around your mouth again. 

“Don’t scream,” he warns with a sharp tone, arm coming around your body and pulling you flush against him. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself.” 

You listen. You don’t know exactly why, possibly because it’s futile anyway. You might get a few attention from some of the truckers but you’re sure they’re known to hear plenty of crazy noises anyway. Besides with his brute strength dragging you down the path between two trucks, barely struggling as you kick your shoes into the gravel beneath you, the thought of setting him off further while he held you like this isn’t in your best interest. 

You still try to fight though, landing another blow of your elbow into his hard rib cage. He takes it, chuckling softly like he expected it and doesn’t even seem to flinch away. 

No use. You kicking back or grounding your feet into the gravel doesn’t work. Your arms flying backwards or your fingers clawing at his arms to get him off, does nothing. 

He’s not even that big behind you, not some overly tall built man that would easily over power you. He’s lean, and hard behind you, some sort of resilience that’s clearly able to take a few blows without being phased by it. 

About a metre away you notice a truck door open, no lights on but you’re sure there’s got someone in it. You push back with everything you have left in you, slamming your feet into the side of the truck and pushing him back into the truck behind him, his head hitting the metal with a slight thud. 

“Fucking bitch,” he mutters, dropping you again. 

You go to reach the door, fingers grasping at the door. “Please, help me,” you beg, tears spilling from your eyes. Only when you reach it, no one’s inside and your head is slammed into the metal door. 

You don’t fall into a lump on the floor like you imagine, two hands haul you up into the door, sliding your body over the seats before his body follows.

You’re an idiot, you think. An idiot that managed to use your one moment to escape to reach out for your captor’s door. 

... and here he is, pushing you further into the truck. 

Your head hurts like a bitch, and when you reach back around to touch it, you feel the wet patch where it’s bleeding. You blink furiously, vision slightly fuzzy even in the darkness only to be met with him peering over you. 

The low light of the moon pours in and you see him finally. He’s not at all what you expected. 

Icy white locks of hair, a sharp jaw line and eyes so blown out they look almost black. If he didn’t stare at you with that wide creepy smile, flashing his teeth like some predator, you might actually find him handsome. 

You don’t. Or at least you tell yourself that. 

You’re at least glad he’s not one of those grease covered men you see at the diners, barely showering after a twelve hour ride. He’s clean, or at least he smells it, his aftershave burning your nostrils. His pale skin is slightly bruised in places, just under his chin and to the side of his face— you’ll be sure to add to those marks later— but he’s still clean. 

“Hit your head pretty bad, doll,” he sneers, amusement laced in his tone as he leans away from you. 

You hear the door close with a click, the lock a few seconds later and as you roll your head to the side meeting the darkness of the car park, you realise there isn’t anyone that can save you. 

Fear sets in finally, the adrenaline fading away and you feel the tears already sliding down your cheeks. You don’t move, whether it’s because of the injury you’ve suffered or the fear that paralyses your body, you’re unsure. 

“Could have made this a lot easier if you just set out your price, instead of screaming like that,” he says, almost tired, turning back to you. 

“What?” The question falls from your lips before you can catch it. 

He stares at you, narrowed eyes and brows pinched together like he’s the one that should be confused. “Should have told me how much it would have cost me and you wouldn’t have ended up with such a nasty bruise on that pretty head of yours.” 

It clicks then and you crawl backwards against the seats as you tell him, “I think you got me mistaken. I’m not one of those girls.” 

“Sure, sweetheart.” He chuckles again, like he doesn’t believe you, crawling back over and you go to place the distance between you. 

You fall back between the seats, landing on what seems to be some sort of makeshift bed and you realise he’s caught you, like a fly in a spiderweb there was no chance in your escape. 

You cry harder, lips trembling when he pulls his t-shirt off tossing it behind him. 

“Please, I was just trying to get to work. Please don’t do this,” you manage to get through sobs, placing your arms between you. 

“Seen you in this truck spot a few times, much prettier than the girls that pass through here,” he admits, shoving you down onto the mattress with one harsh thrust. “Sure there’s tons of worse looking men you’ve given yourself out to around here, what’s so wrong with me?” 

Everything, you want to scream but you don’t. You lie there, watching him as his fingers fiddle with his jeans, unbuttoning them before you hear the sharp sound of the zipper coming undone. He kicks them off, leaving him in just his boxers before he crawls on top of you. 

“You’re trembling,” he whispers, the back of his hand stroking your cheek. 

You can’t stop shaking, can’t stop the tears from falling from your eyes when he reaches for you. 

“Put up a good fight.” He brushes your hair behind your ear, thumb sliding across your damp cheeks before he smiles again, flashing his teeth. “I’ll give you double what you’re worth, if you play nice.” 

“I-I–” you swallow, barely able to get your words out. “I don’t want your money.” 

“No?” 

“Please, I was just trying to get to work.” 

“I’m sure that fella can wait,” he snickers, leaning closer till his breath is hot against your face. “Besides I’m willing to pay for you all night, how does that sound?” 

He’s good on his promise. 

You half expected him to throw you out after the first time he cums in your hand, cackling at the way you grimace at the sight of it. He doesn’t though, dragging you with his hand fisted into your hair and pulling you over to your kneeling over him. 

“Lick it,” he commands, shoving your head down before you can refuse. 

Your lips press up against the reddened tip and your refusal only seems to make him angrier, which leads to him being eagerly more turned on. He slaps you when you don’t listen and you’re certain it will leave a nasty red mark against your cheek. He does it again when your mouth doesn’t instantly open and you quickly open it, crying harder before sticking out your tongue. 

His cock twitches at your tears and your stomach twists into knots before you lick your tongue against it, the remnants of his sticky cum being the first thing to hit your mouth. 

“Swallow.” His voice is low and steady, fingers pressing into your jaw as he lifts your face to look up at him. 

You do it, letting him watch as you let the salty liquid slide down your tongue. 

“Back down, pretty girl.” 

Only when you go back down your tongue licks out on to his lower abs, unable to find him in the darkness. 

He laughs then, slapping his dick across your face without warning and you realise that even after cumming once he hasn’t at all softened. He’s harder than before, you think and you only wince when he forces your hand back around it. 

“Please, I—” you try to plead, only for the man to use your open mouth to his advantage, shoving you down on his cock. 

“Good girl,” he tells you, like this was your choice. Like you had any other. “Bet you’re the best in the business around here.” 

You mumble around him, incoherent to his ears as you tell him he’s got it all wrong, you don’t do that. 

“What was that, sweetheart?” 

You don’t answer, you’re sure it’s rhetorical anyway. You swirl your tongue around him, taking him as deep into your mouth as you can. It’s best to get this over with as quickly as you can. 

He groans when you hollow your cheeks out, lets his head fall back against the wall but never once does he take his eyes from you. He watches, brushing loose strands of your hair from your wet face and cupping your cheeks in a gentle manner. If it hadn’t been for the situation, you might have found the act soothing. It only lasts a little while anyway, until his fingers get tangled into your hair and he’s all but shoving you down on his cock. 

“Fucking slut,” he grunts out, using your mouth as his personal cock sleeve. “Going to make me cum again, huh?” 

You feel him twitch as you gag around him, the tip of him hitting the back of your throat repeatedly. You can’t breathe and even though your hands shove at his thighs for some reprieve you can tell he doesn’t care. Not one bit, fucking into your mouth with a vigour that has you choking for air around him, thinking that this possibly might be how you die. 

He lets up for a second, yanking you off his cock where you gasp for breath. It doesn’t last all that long, before your spit covered mouth is being shoved right back down there. 

He’s still looking at you, and in the pale light you notice the strange violet colour to his eyes. He keeps his eyes glued to you, mouth opening to let out breathy moans as he abuses your mouth. 

It happens fast when he comes, a spill of profanities falling from his lip and he holds you down as his cum spills to the back of your throat, holds you down so his tip is lodged in the back of your throat and your nose is pressed against his lower stomach. 

The moment you get off from him he’s throwing you back down, climbing on top of you and pressing his lips to your drool covered mouth. You pull away, wheezing for oxygen at that point, wiping at the edges of your mouth and trying to push him away once again. 

In your panic for air you scratch at him, nails digging into his cheek and drawing blood. You don’t even realise till he’s chuckling on top of you, licking at the blood with his long tongue. 

Everything happens so fast after that. 

Your jeans are dragged off your body, your t-shirt too, your underwear torn into shreds before he plants himself between you. You kick at him, punch at him and scream, the fight in you coming back but it does nothing and as the tip of his dick lines itself up with your entrance, you wish you never tried in the first place. 

He gets off on it. His smile widening every time you fight back or you realise your struggle is worthless. Every time you cry, or you scratch at him. The sicko enjoys it, his cock twitches against you and you’re it just makes him more turned on. 

He enters inside of you with one harsh thrust, not even bothering to prep you. His cock bottoms out with no warning, splitting you open and making you cry out against him. 

It doesn’t just sting, it feels like he’s bruising your insides with his hardened length. 

“You’re so tight, doll,” he remarks, pressing himself deeper until you can feel his balls against your ass cheek. He pulls out slowly, till that’s all that is left is the tip. He spits on it, watches it fall onto his length with a lick of his lips and a low laugh before he inserts himself again. It still hurts and you tense at, body becoming rigid. “You need to loosen up, doll. Don’t you want to at least enjoy this?” 

No, you want to say. But you know he’s mocking you and you don’t give him the satisfaction of your confession, only twisting your head away hoping he won’t see you cry. 

“Relax,” he coos, caging his body around you. 

He goes slow but hard, delivering nasty thrusts that feel like he’s deliberately trying to bruise your insides. You can tell he enjoys it, biting down on grunts that slip from his mouth, they time with your winces, falling in some sick sort of unison that fills the front of the truck. 

He cums fast, spilling into you with no warning and noise that sounds inhumane and some sort of relief takes over you, realising this will be over. 

You stop sobbing for a second, and behind the front seat of the truck all you can hear is your sniffles and his harsh breathing. You try not to focus on it, relief flooding your body and making you relax underneath him. 

It’s over, you think. Until you realise it’s not. 

His dick still hard inside of you, not softening one bit and when he pulls out from you, he leaves an inch of him still sheathed inside. 

A moan breaks from your throat when he slams back inside of you, getting caught up in your own stupidity that this might be done with, not only has your body relaxed but your pussy has too. You become a bit more rigid when you realise it will continue, biting back sobs once again when you feel him slowly slip himself in and out of you. 

“Relax,” he whispers, the sound vibrating through his chest and going straight through you. “Relax for me.” 

You do, not because you want to— No, it’s because what follows isn’t the same brutality he just fucked into you, it’s almost gentle and sweet, thrusts that allow your walls to stretch around his length. You grow wet with every thrust and even though you can’t stop crying, you feel a slight pleasurable feeling where his dick is slipping in and out of your hole. 

“That’s better,” he praises you, kissing your damp cheek. “Isn’t it, doll?” 

And you can’t deny that it really is. 

Your walls stretch to accommodate him, even involuntarily clench when he pushes in deeper and it makes you feel sick. 

“Please stop,” you meekly beg, disgust growing inside of you. You can’t enjoy it, can’t even fathom the idea of liking this horrid act and yet between each sob, you’re moaning breathlessly underneath him, enjoying the way his thick length fills you up.

When he cums inside of you again, you cum with him, pussy clenching around his throbbing cock like you want him to spill inside of you. He does, his cum spilling out your abused hole and around his cock, unable to contain it anymore. 

He doesn't pull away from you, he throws you round, positioning you on all fours with your ass in the air and slipping back into your needy hole as it clenches around the first inch of his dick. He doesn’t pull away until the sun is finally settling in the air and peaks of it coming through the window. 

Even then he’s still attached to you, holding you on top of him as he bounces you onto his dick. You’re both a sticky mess, cum oozing out of your hole and onto his dick. Your pussy flutters around him one final time, and he spills the last of all he has inside of you, holding you down against him with his hand digging into your hips. 

He lets you go after that, lets you change back into your tarnished clothes and you wonder what you’ll like to others when you step out the truck door. 

A hand around your wrist stops you, and you turn back to notice him shoving a wad full of cash into your hand. 

“For your services,” he says, before lying back, finding his phone like he couldn't wait for you to go. 

You don’t go to your car and you don’t listen to the whistles of the truck drivers around you as you walk out of the lot. 

You step into the diner, brushing past your manager without even so much of a greeting as you rush for the toilet. You barely make it to the bowl before you begin to throw up. 

You hear your name, but you can barely lift yourself. One of the girls steps into the cubicle, kneeling beside you and when you turn to her, she gasps and you can only imagine how messed up you look right now. Mascara smudged across your reddened cheeks, teeth marks all up and down your neck. Your hair is matted in places and you’re sure your eyes are red with the way they burn to stay open. 

She calls your name again and you sob, falling into her arms. 

You don’t know who steps into the toilet next, only hearing her snap about getting the cops as you cry harder into her. 

“You don’t have to be back at work already, you know?” Daeron, your manager says. 

He looks at you with a softness that you hate and when he realises, he tries to make a joke, knowing how uncomfortable his sympathy makes you. 

“Know you want that position of assistant manager badly,” He chuckles, half-heartedly. 

“I’m fine, really. Feels better working to take my mind off things.” 

He looks at you, uncertainty in his eyes. 

“Really,” you assure him, with an assertive tone. 

He nods, not arguing back and placing his hands up. “Whatever is best for you.” 

You’re being somewhat honest. Being cradled up at home has left you wallowing in your own feelings, shame and misery. 

They tried finding him, the cops that is but when all that was left to go off was what you saw in the dark of the night, you gave up and dropped the case all together. No cameras, no marks on any of the cars. The swab test you took came up with nothing. 

You wish you’d taken the registration number of the truck but all you had to go on was his icy blonde locks and his strange eyes that almost looked purple. Even the cops found your description strange, not hearing a trucker that sounded anything like him. With the amount that comes in and out this stop at every hour, you’re sure he’d be impossible to find. 

“I’m fine, really.” You repeat the words you’ve said a thousand times in the last few weeks, picking yourself up and walking back onto the restaurant floor. 

Daeron is quick to follow you, giving you a bump with his shoulders as he grabs your attention again. “How about a nice and easy customer to start off with?” 

“Daeron, really—” you go to say, placing your hand out to stop him. 

“It’s my brother. I want you to meet him,” he says, motioning you over with his head. 

You follow, somewhat reluctantly to a table in the corner. 

There’s a few of them sitting in the corner, younger men dressed in those loose jeans and wearing baseball caps. You can smell them for a mile away, oil residue in their clothes and the beaten down look giving them away. Truckers. 

The one sitting right in the corner has his face covered by a menu, not even paying attention to the conversation of the other men. 

“Aerion, there’s someone I want you to meet,” Daeron calls over. 

“Oh yeah.” 

You know that voice, and your body tenses, gluing itself to the spot. 

The menu slips away and a predatory grin smiles back at you. His eyes are purple after all. 

“What’s your name doll?”

taglist: @happysparklingshadows @iamachrollolover @allysscapes @aemondssapphire @lalala828282 @sunkissedsandyshores @chunkpiboli @thaddeusthebee @Jtrstp @Shellshore1 @briefwinnapersona @fairly-feral  @Imeow33

a/n: did you like what i did at the end there? I want him to call me doll I can’t lie.

please comment and reblog if you like my post, i like to hear what you think.

You were desperate for a distraction from the present.

You looked up at your husband, bleary eyes honed in on his silver streak of hair as your chest heaved up and down with embarrassment. Trying to not fidget, trying to both ground yourself and hide yourself by gathering the silky sheets beneath you into your shaking fists, trying to not remember the court gossip that's plagued you for weeks. Harsh, true gossip that the Small Council has brought up to Prince Baelor, and then to Valarr, again, and again, and again.

But those very rumors led you to this arrangement anyways.

Producing the next heir was your one real duty. That had been made more than clear before your betrothal was official.

And you were failing at it.

But tonight would be different. Tonight would end in answered prayers. It had to.

Valarr was the one who had come up this solution after countless hours spent in the sept. Neither of you accused or blamed the other, and there certainly hadn't been a lack of trying. Siring and claiming a royal bastard was obviously out of the question, so that left you with only one other feasible option...

Aerion had been quick to agree to Valarr's proposition. He was hotblooded and raring for the chance to outdo his cousin in such an important way, even if it stayed a dark secret between the four of you forever.

His brother Daeron took no convincing either. He'd simply nodded his head and gone back to his goblet of wine.

That had surprised Valarr. Perhaps this is good for Daeron, too, he'd said. He'd never seen Daeron so readily agree to take on any other kind of royal duty in the past.

Your mind roamed back into the present; the surreal fever dream that was closing in. More than anything, you wished you could pull the blankets up over you and just disappear.

"Gods, you're beautiful as ever," Valarr breathed into your neck, cock twitching as he pumped his seed inside you. He panted as be pulled himself out with a deliberate drag to ensure it didn't spill out of you too soon. He leaned down and kissed your cheek softly, dismissing the way your breath hitched when you glanced over at his cousins, who were both stroking themselves beneath their breeches to your naked body.

Their matching pairs of violet eyes had committed each and every curve of your flesh to memory when they watched Valarr fuck you. Both brothers had taken note of the touches you'd best responded to; which ones left you clearly aching for more, which ones left you dripping obscenely in a daze.

"My little flower," Valarr smiled down at you in admiration. "You're well prepared for this. You needn't fear anything that happens here in this room. I'll be with you the entire time. Besides, we prayed upon tonight in the sept together. Remember?"

He laced on his deep black breeches and slipped back onto the bed behind you. You remained ill at ease despite his kind words, or maybe because of them. He'd just fucked you and filled you right in front of his cousins, yet hadn't lost any of his ever perfect composure.

"You'll take them so easily."

He gently pulled you closer, resting your head in his lap. Your back flat, your knees shaking as you held them closed. Valarr smoothed down your errant strands of hair before taking your quivering hands into his own, giving them little squeezes of reassurance before he took hold of your wrists.

Your marriage had taken place over half a year ago now. It had been a typical, quiet, almost somber ceremony within the Great Sept. Nervewracking. The real celebration-- the laughter, feasting, dancing, drinking-- followed at the Red Keep. Enjoyable.

The night's end brought forth your consummation, and it had been nervewracking, but enjoyable, too. An exciting blur of duty and festivity.

Valarr told you this was the same.

Could the gods really forgive such indecency when it was done for the good of the entire realm, as Valarr said too?

You had always been devout. You didn't want to question the will of the gods or the marital decisions made by your prince husband. Since birth, you had been raised for humility, for grace, and most of all, for obedience.

Yet even with your husband's tender encouragement, it still took every ounce of courage you could muster to will your legs apart again. You found yourself staring up at the bed's velvety canopy as your knees fell open. It was a black, heavy fabric that sucked in the room's light, embroidered with fiery swirls of glittering red and gold thread that became the three-headed Targaryen dragon. You slept under this canopy every single night, but now it could swallow you whole if you stared at it for too long.

You screwed your eyes shut, afraid. You couldn't name the emotion welling up inside you. Sick, waiting, wanting? You swallowed thickly. This was all just a strange dream that you'd wake from in the morning.

Someone reached out for you. His hand wasn't as soft as Valarr's. It was rough and calloused, the culmination of years of reckless spars as opposed to Valarr's more careful training sessions. Aerion roughly gripped one of your hips with one hand as he pulled his breeches down and stroked himself to complete hardness with the other.

"Don't be so rough with her," Valarr warned from beside you. Candlelight flickered across his boyish features. "Or you may not find yourself fit for her, or anyone else, ever again."

Aerion let out the groan of a fellow spoiled prince, but acquiesced, easing the pressure on your hip. Valarr thumbed over your wrists in a calming manner as he murmured more sweet praises. Something about your beauty, something about your devotion to the gods and to your husband. You couldn't focus on his exact words, just like you couldn't help but shiver as you felt the tip of Aerion's cock pulse against your warm heat.

"You're such a dutiful wife. Such a beautiful girl. This is permitted by the gods, I'm certain of it. The septons say we should always love and support our brothers-- that extends to cousins, too."

The two shared a furtive glance, and you were upended in an instant.

Valarr leaned down and kissed you, his fingers tightening around your wrists. As his tongue slipped between your gasping lips, Aerion shoved himself inside you in one harsh movement.

You flinched and pulled your knees together in a belated, useless attempt at modesty. Aerion only pushed himself in further, hissing with cruel pleasure. His feral eyes sized you up and down as he worked on splitting you open with short, shallow thrusts. He made no effort to hide the amusement he took from your squirming and writhing as you cried out into Valarr's mouth.

Both of Aerion's hands were on you now as he slammed into you, each thrust drawing needier moans from your throat than the last. He grunted as his nails dug into your hips and thighs.

"So fucking tight. I knew I'd eventually claim you," he huffed inbetween thrusts, a light sheen of sweat forming over his brow. "Knew from day one in that fucking sept that our beloved Valarr wouldn't be enough for you on his own, one way or another. Right, Daeron?"

Daeron did not give an answer as he watched his brother fuck their cousin's wife in the name of the gods.

But Valarr rolled his mismatched eyes in annoyance as he finally broke your shared kiss, leaving you gasping for breath and for his comfort. You were still pinned in place by his strong hands. "You know that isn't what this is about, Aerion."

Aerion only groaned in response, quickening his pace as you dared to look up into his eyes. He stared back at you-- an intrigued, untamed creature. Your back arched. His unending gaze had ignited something inside you.

Your husband's still warm seed began to drip out with every buck of his cousin's hips. You winced, feeling almost impaled by his length even as you took pleasure from it. He grinned when he looked down and saw the creamy evidence of your arousal coating his cock.

"That's right. Just keep taking me."

What he had wanted to say was just keep taking me like a common whore, and I'll fuck you until you can't think of anyone else but me, but Aerion held his tongue out of respect for his dear cousin.

He was closer to the edge now, silver white brows furrowed together as he licked his lips. He released his grip as Daeron awkwardly stumbled forward onto the bed. Hesitantly, Valarr let go of your wrists, allowing Daeron to swap places with him behind you.

Your head pressed up against Daeron's chest, and he pulled you closer, settling you inbetween his long legs. Daeron was so often gone in his cups and slumped in half over a table-- you'd forgotten his true stature. The lean muscle underneath his loose red and black tunic provided you with some stability as his brother continued to chase his own satisfaction inside you.

A whine escaped your lips when you felt Daeron's hard cock throb against you, his anticipation obvious. One of his hands crept along your soft stomach, just barely grazing your skin, and then moved lower, resting between your wide open thighs.

Two of his fingers traced slow, gentle circles around your sensitive clit. His other hand moved to cover your mouth, muffling your moans that had grown a touch too loud for proper discretion. Valarr nodded at him in silent approval-- he knew well enough how loud you could get with just one lover, let alone three.

"You really are so beautiful..." Daeron whispered into your ear as he continued rubbing your clit back and forth. Slow and gentle, but unceasing.

You bucked your hips up in reply, tears pricking the corners of your eyes as you suddenly came, and that sent Aerion over his own unexpected edge.

Daeron didn't relent. He kept at your clit, even when you screamed against the palm of his hand from the overstimulation.

Aerion managed one last forceful slam of his hips before flooding you. He laughed when he felt you squeeze down around him in your ecstasy. Laughed harder as he pulled out and noticed that Daeron had to keep you quiet.

Valarr's eyes stayed fixed upon you. He embraced everything about you, wholly and reverently. The sound of your breathing through flared nostrils, the sight of your rosy red blush reaching your ears, the way your cunt glistened and dripped for more-- proof of your devotion to tonight's sacred task. His heart swelled with pride. He reached out and caressed your cheek as you choked back an overstimulated sob, knowing the night wasn't yet finished.

He spoke slowly. His earlier kindness had been replaced with something else. Something more inevitable, more resolute. Like his father, Valarr was resolute in all things.

"When we were wed, you made a vow to the gods and to the entire realm, not to me alone. This is your duty as much as mine."

The reality of the situation hit you again, and you couldn't stop from breathing faster and harder around Daeron's hand. It had gone from almost soothing to very suffocating within a second.

Daeron dropped his hand from your mouth immediately and pushed you back towards his cousin in a small panic. You gasped for breath as Valarr helped you steady yourself again.

Everything was even more overwhelming than before. Valarr hushed your whines and wiped away your tears as he asked you to lie down as you had before. You whimpered before the three of them as an all too familiar feeling overtook you.

I'm a disappointment.

"My love, haven't I already taught you those thoughts of yours are false? How could you ever disappoint any of us? Especially your own husband?"

You hiccuped as you held back another flood of tears. You didn't have it in you to think up an argument, let alone voice one in front of an audience. You wanted to believe him. You did believe him.

"Don't you trust your own husband? There, there..."

Valarr's hands were on your shoulders as he pushed you back down. You placed your head back into his lap like a good wife, and he ran his fingers through your hair as if he were simply calming you from a bad dream.

Aerion was intrigued, and for once, said nothing, content to watch how Valarr's tactical words played out against your mixed emotions.

"I'm here, little flower," Valarr crooned, and you could feel his cock was half-hard again, though he brought no attention to it. "My sweet, sweet wife. I'm always here for you, as you are for me."

He stroked your hair. Aerion's seed had mixed with Valarr's and started to spill down onto the sheets. The sight brought Aerion out of his contemplations.

"Look at her," Aerion said as he stepped aside for Daeron. He yawned and lounged on the bed beside you and Valarr, propping himself up on his elbows as he stared at the sticky white mess between your lower lips. "Not sure there's enough room left in her for your seed too, brother. Though I suppose trying is the point. Gods know she wants more, doesn't she?"

Valarr looked down at you expectantly, his hands stilling. You forced yourself to nod in agreement.

He resumed stroking your hair.

Aerion's vulgarity never fazed Daeron. He was used to his brother's arrogance and penchant for shocking, and he didn't mind going last anyways. He had known tonight would take place many, many moons ago-- before you had even wed his cousin.

He'd kept it to himself, gulping down the nights in solitude, telling himself he didn't crave you, that these were drunkard dreams and not dragon dreams.

Valarr held your hands in another sickening sweet act of repeat devotion as Daeron lined himself up with your sore, slick entrance. He rubbed his precum leaking tip up and down and between your folds, gathering what wetness remained.

Inch by inch, he pushed himself in. He was agonizingly slow and cautious about it, the complete opposite of his brother's intentional cruelty, yet somehow all the more intense. He was only barely thicker than Aerion and Valarr, but the difference was still painful even after being stretched and fucked by the two of them. You couldn't hold back a yelp as he finally managed to fit himself inside you.

"Shhhh, shhh, just give yourself over, sweetling..." said Valarr, or you thought it was Valarr, but the words sounded muddled and far away.

Daeron buried his head into the crook of your neck, hiding his face in your hair. "I have a confession of my own. I dreamed of you. I dreamed of this night," his whispers were almost inaudible as he began to take you. He sounded uneasy with himself in a different way than you were used to. "I should have told you."

You didn't know how to react. You fell limp, and he tugged you closer, dragging you away from Valarr's lap. Your arms were above you now, Valarr's hands still clasping your own as he stared both brothers down with a sudden surge of possessiveness.

Daeron slowed again, frustration in his tired groans as he tried to find the right angle for you. "I need you to enjoy this..." he trailed off, his words still forbidden whispers into your neck, meant only for you to hear. "Please."

You tried to spread your legs wider to better accommodate his girth, and-- tentatively-- you ran your calves along his sides in mutual reassurance. He exhaled in relief as he continued rocking into you.

The difference between the brothers astounded you. Aerion had been rough, raw, the all consuming fire inside of him barely contained by Valarr's presense. Daeron, on the other hand, was almost uncomfortably intimate in his slow movements and slurred words.

Aerion didn't waste the open opportunity to toy with you again. He stretched forward and tweaked both of your nipples at the same time as Daeron eased in and out of your soaked cunt. You cried out as they stiffened between his fingers, your walls spasming around Daeron's cock as Aerion savored your reaction.

"How precious she is," Aerion mused half-sarcastically before his pupils waltzed from Valarr, to Daeron, and then back to you with newfound excitement. "She's precious... I understand now. She's one of those little flowers, isn't she, Valarr?" He gave a playful, stinging smack to one of your tits. "The kind that can flourish and thrive off sweet words alone."

He leaned in closer to you, his lips to your ear, mirroring his brother. "What a good little princess."

"My brother is right," Daeron moaned into your other ear without shame, sneaking a kiss below it, still breathing in the lavender scent of your hair as he fucked you. "You are--" he struggled to finish his words, his cock sliding in deeper with each thought-- "a good, sweet, gorgeous princess for us."

Something inside you began to crumble away. A foundation cracking, a pillar falling. Some of the tension inside your mind and body drifted away.

Daeron's rhythm no longer felt so uncomfortable. You moaned into it, legs bringing him closer. The seed spilling out of you worked as a welcome balm for your earlier soreness. You turned your head as far as you could to peer up at Valarr.

"My sweet wife, my precious little flower..."

Valarr repeated his prayers of love and duty as you moaned louder, more urgently-- your next peak was coming on faster than any of them had expected. The princes' combined praise had gotten into your head and sunk deep into your core. It stayed there like a weight inside you.

Valarr suddenly let go of your hands and reached down, pinching your nipples just as Aerion had, pleased at the moans he'd elicited from you.

Aerion teased you for enjoying yourself so unabashedly and took the moment as another chance at competition between Valarr and himself. He rubbed your swollen pink clit without mercy. Your legs shook harder as he prodded and rolled it inbetween his fingertips. He was so much rougher compared to Daeron, nothing but selfish desire to see you pushed to your limit.

Daeron finally pulled his head away from your neck. His hands hooked under your knees, lifting your lower half upward, and in the newfound angle his cock plunged even deeper into you.

"So close, so close, so close," he whimpered, lost in the pleasure. "I'll give you as much as you need from me."

You couldn't take it anymore. Every sensation burned anew as your orgasm sent fire throughout your entire body. Valarr held your hands again as soon as he saw your eyes begin to roll back. Your cunt tightened and pulsed around Daeron's cock as you came undone a final time.

Daeron mumbled incoherent words of gratitude as he pressed fully inside you, bottoming out with labored breaths while he emptied himself and filled you completely.

You lied there between the three of them, totally spent, the helpless princess shoved in front of the three-headed dragon. Ragged gasps the only noise in the night's stillness.

The silence of the room was broken with one last prideful chuckle from Aerion. The mess gushing out of you had genuinely impressed him.

He smirked, intending no malice, but causing irritation anyways. "Should have made her beg for it."

Daeron interjected on your behalf before Valarr could even raise an eyebrow. "She doesn't have to beg for anything."

"Next time then."

Daeron unsheathed himself from you, his sandy locks of hair loose and wild even after he ran his hand through them. He apologized when he struggled to redress himself as fast as Valarr demanded.

The silver haired prince looked his brother up and down before shaking his head in amusement.

Aerion swung the wide oak doors open. The two princes disappeared into the darkness of the hall, their footsteps fading as the doors creaked back shut.

Valarr showered you with more kisses and reassurances after his cousins took their leave. He smoothed his wide palms just below your stomach and massaged there, taking care to not press down too hard or too fast.

"You did so well," he murmured, mismatched eyes brimming with adoration. He gave another kiss to your forehead.

He softly kneaded your wrists and hands next-- he had left them bruised and was already cursing himself for his carelessness. He'd meant to worship you, not defile you. He swore to himself to be better next time.

"My beautiful, sweet wife. My love, my light, my everything."

Your legs had gone numb as the princes' seed leaked out between your thighs.

Valarr hummed with satisfaction as he pressed more kisses to your wrists and lips. You laughed and cried and kissed him back.

Then your thoughts fell blissfully still as you closed your eyes and listened to the wisdom of your prince.

"The gods will bless us. It just has to take, my love. We'll keep at this until it does."

author's note: i spent WAY TOO LONG ON THIS soooo i hope you had fun reading it! 🫶🏻

You were in your chambers sewing a cloak for your brother, two of your ladies were gossiping while eating lemon cakes " do you know prince aerion?" Jeyne asked, "isn't he the second son of prince maekar " alys replied "right but he has quite the temper!" Jeyne exclaimed "do you know how many servants lost their hands and feet for making him annoyed, how many whores lost their lives for not pleasing him"

your movements faltered at the information , " it would be a great misfortune for whoever marries him" You didn't realize how invested you were in the conversation when the needle pricked your hand and you winched as blood dripping out of it "my lady!" alys exclaimed as she examined your hand, blood still dripping from it she called out the maids to bandage your bleeding finger .

But your attention was on your embroidery it was the sigil of house arryn, the blue bird was now covered with your blood .

It was nighttime now , you were in your chambers looking outside your window when suddenly a hand reached out behind you.

You gasped "ssh it's me" it was your brother rodick, he sat beside but your heart was still beating fastly.

"a raven has come from the royal family" he revealed his face now grim "they want to visit to discuss your marriage to prince aerion" you almost fainted from hearing the news but your brother held you .

You were nuzzled in his arms, his hand gently stroking your hair "I can't marry him!" "brother please! I can't marry him" you sobbed into his arm the image of that day still flashing before your eyes, the rumour ringing in your ears about the prince.

Rodick shused you " I will never do anything to hurt you " he whispered against your hair, even if it was for a short moment you found solace in your brothers arm .

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Today was the day where the royal family arrived in vale, prince baelor was in the front with prince maekar and the devil prince aerion was behind them .

Your brother was greeting them alongside your mother, you could see the entire scene through the curtain covered windows of your chamber .

Prince baelor and maekar were talking with you brother, your eyes were roaming around when you locked eyes with aerion, his lips now giving you the creepy smile.

You quickly pulled the curtains as you stood there your breath now unsteady .

"you must know the intent behind this visit lord arryn" prince baelor asked his fingers now toying with his rings, your brother looked over at both prince maekar and aerion.

" house arryn is very honoured to have the royal princes in vale but-" "but what lord arryn" aerion interrupted your brother his head tilted.

"I am afraid I can't give my sister's hand to prince aerion" your brother let out as he looked at aerion "she is my only sister and this might be a selfish reason but I want her near me " "I want her to choose her own groom, I want her to chase her own Happiness" aerion chuckled at those words.

"I understand your concern lord arryn, but this is a great opportunity for house Targaryen and house arryn to reunite again " prince baelor tried to argue.

"my lord arryn" aerions voice cut through the conversation "are you refusing the orders of the royal family".

Your brother was clenching his teeth "that was never my intent, your grace" he let out "but that is what you are basically doing, you are refusing a marriage proposal from the royal family"aerion countered.

This was when your brother realised he has no choice but to give you to aerion or everyone including you would suffer from house Targaryens wrath.

If this was any other prince he might have agreed but this was prince aerion the prince who thought himself a dragon , who had a reputation for harming servants, whore or anyone who angered him.

You were a sweet and gentle lady, it would be impossible for you to handle his anger, he feared that you might even kill yourself within a month of the marriage.

You were in your room when a maid entered "my lady , your brother has asked for you to get ready" you looked up from your bed "but why?" You asked "lord arryn is hosting a banquet for the royal family" you rolled your eyes at the news and got up to get ready.

You were wearing a soft blue gown with the sigil of house arryn embroidered on it, your hair put in a braid, a viel covering it with a circlet on top of it , the circlet had pearls dangling from the sides .

You entered the banquet with your mother, the prince's gazes were now on you, but one particular one was haunting you .

You went and bowed respectfully "lady arryn" prince baelor called out "your grace " you got up your gaze still lowered, "please come sit " he asked,you looked up and saw the only seat which was left was now was next to aerion .

Even if you didn't want to, you no choice but to obey the prince .

You sat beside the prince aerion who had his gaze still fixed on you, the banquet hall was lively only you were not.

An arm reached out and pinched your thigh you winched and saw it was aerion's hand on your thigh, you tried to move your thigh but he held it tightly his fingers now slowly hiking up your dress.

You tried to push his hand away as his got under your dress but it was all in vain and when he stopped you let out a breath of relief but his hand was still lingering there .

"ladies and gentlemen, we have an important announcement to announce" your attention was now on your brother "my dear sister is getting betrothed to prince aerion of house Targaryen" your heart almost lept out your mouth, your eyes now widening.

the people below were hesitant for a minute but soon started clapping and cheering.

Your brother met your eyes with his eyes filled with heart aches, tears were almost spilling from your eyes "don't be so gloomy" aerion whispered in your ears "I like it better when you were confident" you jerked your head, his lips almost grazing yours as you looked up trying not to cry .

The banquet went on but you excused yourself saying you were not feeling well and needed to rest, your brother put a hand on your shoulders, but you shook it off and started running towards your room .

You were undressed, wearing nothing but a chemise, your hair still in a braid walking around the room thinking of a way to get out of this marriage.

When You heard your door open thinking it was your brother you walked towards the door but to your surprise and disdain it was prince aerion now your bethrothed.

"your grace " you bowed almost wanting to slap his pretty face, to your shock he walked inside scanning your chamber " I don't think this is a appropriate time to be visiting me your grace " he chuckled "really " his voice dripping with mockery .

He closed the door and walked towards you until he was right infront of you "because I think this is the perfect Time" he whispered in you ear , as his hand found your neck not chocking you but threaning you .

He lowered his head his lips touching your, his tongue licking your lips "no! We shouldn't be doing this" you let out as you yanked his hands away and tried to run to your door.

Footsteps could be heard behind you as you tried opening it, a hand reached out and held your waist his body pressed against yours "no one is coming to save you " he let out his voice cold as he lifted you by your waist and pushed onto your bed .

You were laying there with your chemise exposing your plush thighs , you tried to cover them but his hand stopped you " don't you even dare " you knew you could do nothing right now.

You felt him on top of you , his chest pressed against yours your heart beating faster his thighs was over your , your arms caged as he whispered "that day you protected a lowly servant who insulted me " " now you must pay by being tormented by me for the rest of your life " his tounge licking your ear.

Fear consumed you and tears spilled out uncontrollably, his mouth was now on your cheeks, they were savouring the salty flavour of your tears caused by him .

Prince Valarr’s fingers twine with yours under the table as you behold the Bravoosi dancers’ performance. They are dotting bright costumes and makeshift dragon masks, twirling and leaping while juggling daggers several feet in the air that somehow always land back in their hands.

The wondrous feat mesmerizes you. It ought to be sorcery, you conclude, which coaxes a tender chuckle from the prince when you suggest it to him.

“It is a dance,” he explains.

“A dance aiming to kill. How…peculiar.”

Yet the spectacle holds a beauty that cannot be dismissed. Ancient. Ethereal.

It is your first time attending a name day feast. One in the honor of King Daeron at that.

You had assumed you were to stay in the Maidenvault, where Valarr often bids you to remain when you are apart. It was a delightful surprise when he appeared in your bedchamber earlier today, with a splendid red dress for you to wear at the feast and a bright grin etched on his boyish features.

It requires great effort to maintain poise, feign disinterest like the other guests. But today is your first time seeing the Great Hall. Sizzling curiosity compels you to steal secret glances at the dragon skulls mounted on the walls, the vermillion dragon of the Targaryen house bleeding on black tapestries, the noble ladies draped in expensive Myrish lace and silk brocade, their unblemished necks sparkling with gold and expensive stones.

You wager one such dress could pay the yearly earnings of any of the girls back at the pleasure house. Perhaps even two.

While you share the same hall as those ladies from renowned houses, the chasm between you and them is as wide as the Shivering Sea. Instead of the accident of good birth and breeding, the gods saw fit to bestow you with a room in an orphanage and a childhood in a pleasure house.

“I long to slip away from this tedious pageantry so I may feast on you instead of these dull treats,” Valarr coos along your earshell, his grip on your hand loosening to engage on a dangerous journey below the hem of your dress and up your thigh. His mismatched irises are ablaze with mischief.

Tingles bloom across your skin below his daring touch.

A smile creeps upon your lips…One that vanishes as Lord Baelor’s gaze draws yours across the long table. He does not approve. He never has. Yet it was him who brought Valarr to you in the pillow house you used to reside in. You were untouched, a flower whose petals had yet to be plucked. The price of your maidenhead was steep but in Valarr’s eyes it had made you even more precious and invaluable. A name day gift befitting a Targaryen prince. A rare pearl as Prince Baelor put it that day. But courtesans, however comely, well dressed and poised, are meant to be a fleeting distraction. An ephemeral infatuation mayhaps.

Not a year-long…entanglement. And entangled to Prince Valarr you have become. His pleasure, his contentment, his fulfillment...they are the delicate thread upon which your life in the Red Keep hinges, a thread that could snap any day your gentle prince’s eyes wander. As men’s eyes tend to do. Your body is his temple, one he’d worship at the altar of every night if he could. But men are fickle with their faith.

Still, appearances matter, however thin the veil of pretense between you and the prince. Hence you nudge his fingers away with practiced gentleness.

“Not here. Your father is watching,” you whisper.

A war wages on your prince’s taut features. Between his unwavering sense of duty and his boundless devotion to you.

He brings your hand to his lips.

“My Lord Father may watch as he likes. It matters not, jorrāeliarzys.”

It does matter. You know from the way Valarr dodges his father’s scrutiny when you are near. His heart may be yours, but his allegiance is to his family first, his father, the throne. That truth remains embedded inside you like a dagger. One no feverish promise may dislodge.

You suck in a nervous breath.

“Valarr, I hear he has found a worthy match-”

“I will not hear of it.” His thumb traces your cheek, his touch reverent. “What need have I of some maiden I do not know when I have you?”

A fond smile tugs your lips.

“You are reckless.”

“No, I am in love,” he states, holding your eyes.

Eternity cradles this moment as the seconds stretch, seemingly infinite. Words clog your throat. While he calls you ‘beloved’ often, whether in Valyrian or the common tongue, that word has never left his lips before. That daunting, thrilling word. Love. To utter it here, at his grandsire’s feast, with so many eyes upon him, robs the very breath in your lungs.

Before you can craft an answer, a deep voice disrupts the storm of your thoughts.

“May I have this dance, my lady?”

You lift your head, your eyes growing wide. You get lost in a deep violet sea.

“Cousin,” Valarr greets. His stiff tone does not elude you.

“Do not fret, cousin. I simply wish to borrow your…guest for one dance.”

A pale hand remains outstretched before you. Cropped silver locks. Sharp, angular features. You had seen him from afar through your arched window in the Maidenvault. Even at a distance, he reeked an arrogance that was singular even for a Targaryen. An innate dislike for the silver-haired prince sparked within you at that moment.

“Prince Aerion Brightflame.” Word has reached your ears of Prince Valaar’s infamous cousin. His cruel, volatile nature is no secret. A dragon made flesh, or so the princeling believes himself to be. “It is an honor, my lord.”

You bow your head, your genteel manner belying your true feelings. You take the blond’s hand and Valarr’s hand squeezes around your fingers under the table, reluctant to yield.

Heart in your throat, your focus shifts between Valaar and Prince Aerion.

He gives a belated reply.

“You may have one dance,” Valarr relents, an animosity that startles you bleeding through his voice.

Though you cannot be sure in the dim candlelight, you catch a glimpse of mirth swaying in Prince Aerion’s violet gaze.

The blonde escorts you amidst the nobles, the merry hymn of the fiddle and harps marking their steps. His grip on your waist is firm as he takes the lead. You follow him with ease, having practiced the steps since you were young. The pillowhouse taught you everything. How to smile, how to laugh, how to dance, how to recite poetry and how to…please royalty.  

Aerion’s scrutiny never strays, a hot brand on your skin. Every inch of you is unpeeled by the prince’s violet gaze. Your motions, your attire, your very expression. You feel assessed though you’re uncertain for what purpose.

“I must say, it is more than I expected from my cousin’s whore.”

The abrupt words ignite flames in your cheeks.

“I’m not a whore,” you retort, despising how the crude word sinks under your flesh.

He spins you and when you face him again, he is closer. Close enough for his warm breath to flow over your cheek.

“You are no lady either.”

Indignation burns in your gut.

“From the tales I hear of you, my lord, I doubt you’d know the difference.”

His jaw clenches, his grip on your hand growing painful. You grind your teeth, holding his stare.

“Quite the mouth you have on you, wench.” His tone lowers, his tongue darting out briefly. “I wager it has many uses.”

You glare at the prince, your lips parting to respond. But before you can retaliate, Prince Valarr’s familiar timbre ripples at your back.

“I believe that dance has lasted long enough, cousin.”

Relief floods your chest.

Valarr tugs your hand, nudging you to his side. Aerion still holds your other hand in his steely grip. A tense, quiet skirmish ensues between the two princes, with you in the middle.

After a while, the silver-haired prince slackens his grip.

Valarr gives a curt nod to his cousin and stomps away, his fingers clasping yours. Your cheeks burn. The sizzling attention of the nobles in attendance needles your back. Tongues will wag. Prince Baelor will not be content. Neither will their grandsire King Daeron you presume.

Valarr takes hasty, long strides towards Maegor’s Holdfast, the furious thumping of his boots echoing against the stone walls. You attempt not to trip over your own feet as you’re forced to follow his brisk pace.

When he reaches his bedchambers, he drags you inside, slamming the door shut. Before you can open your mouth to speak, Valarr cradles your face, his lips colliding with yours. He devours your mouth, holding you as if afraid you might disappear. The ardent kiss is hardly more than a clash of teeth and tongue, his desperate longing coating the air. You moan, tugging on his doublet.

Once he’s had his fill of you, Valarr rests his forehead against yours. His rushed breaths mingle with yours.

Your focus bounces between his lilac eye and his brown one, finding the same bright embers of fury. The eyes of a dragon, you muse. He has seldom looked so very Targaryen.

He takes a deep breath.

“He aims to provoke me. Aerion has made a game of taunting me since we were boys.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, his hands pulling yours until you stand between his legs.

“He resents me for being second in line to the throne. He believes me…unworthy.” His jaw tenses.

“You are not unworthy,” you say, your tone firm.

His palms settle on your hips. The ire carved on his boyish features melts as his fingers trace an idle path along your sides.

You place your hand on his shoulder, stroking the snowy streak on the back of his head with your other.

The tension woven in his frame loosens further.

“Your father is heir and the seven kingdoms are better for it,” you say. Nibbling your lip, you weigh your words before uttering, “Your cousin is far too… impetuous, my prince.”

A soft smile lights his features.

“You are too kind.”

Kind, you ponder. Speaking ill of a prince is tantamount to treason. Even in the safety of Valarr’s arms, you cannot forget your station. Although at times you ache to do so. To shatter the shackles of rank and birth and allow that sense of certainty, of safety engulf you.

But the truth remains. Valarr is a prince, an heir. You’re a mere courtesan.

A heavy sigh escapes his lips.

“By the gods, I longed for peace the entire evening.” He presses his head against your belly, his eyes fluttering shut. “You are my peace.”

Warmth fills your chest. He basks in your touch, his arms clutching your waist. The quiet respite lingers. Valarr’s soft breaths flow through the silk of your dress. You stroke his brown strands, the tender silence comforting you both.

And if a glimpse of violet eyes invades your thoughts, you are swift to quell the pesky memory.

His poise now restored, the prince rises.

“I have a gift for you.”

You tilt your head sideways.

“A gift, my prince?”

A glint of excitement dances in his eyes.

“Turn around.”

You do as he commands, joining your hands in front of you. You face the full length gilded mirror. There’s a rustling noise at your back. Valarr’s warm breath tickles the nape of your neck as cool metal and stone kisses your skin. Amazed, your fingers trace the necklace he clasped around your neck. The gold and rubies match your dress, sparkling in the moonlight spilling inside the room.

You admire the sight of you and Valarr in the tall mirror.

For a brief moment, you conjure a chimeric fantasy. One where you are more than a girl from a pleasure house. One where you and the prince are bound by more than a clandestine affair.

You let the fantasy recess in a hidden corner of your heart. A place where you’ll find it if one day you need to dream again.

“How pretty,” you chime. “You spoil me, my lord. You shouldn’t-”

“Nonsense. I recall you pointing it to me at the market square.”

Heat creeps up your cheeks. The prince is overly generous. Mayhaps you had hoped for a new necklace, but not so soon.

“Thank you, your grace. I shall cherish it.”

His brows furrow.

“Valarr. You know I don’t want titles or rank to cast a shadow over us.” His knuckles sweep down your arm. “It will soon mark a year since I brought you to the Keep. You needn’t be so formal.”

“Forgive me…Valarr.” A knot loosens in your chest. He smiles at you in the mirror.

“You need not ask for forgiveness either. Nothing you do could ever sway my devotion.”

He kisses your shoulder and your gut sinks, the weight of your lies sitting heavy.

The aching truth is that one day Valarr will marry.

You’ve heard the maids whisper about it in the kitchens, some girl from Tyrosh his father wishes to arrange a match with. Or worse, another maiden will draw his eye.

Someone younger, prettier.

Each moon turn will paint deeper lines on your face.

He might even dismiss you on a mere whim.

As fond as you are of Valarr, you can never trust his tenuous promises. It’s why the fact that every piece of jewelry, every pearl, every gift he bestowed upon you has been kept in a safe in preparation for your inevitable departure from the Red Keep…is a secret you cradle close to your chest. The prince would be displeased.

It is mere precaution, for the day his favor will wane, his devotion waver. You do not wish to leave him. But you must keep your wits about you. You have witnessed countless girls at the pillow house fall for noblemen’s grand promises of a better life. Their hopes are always crushed. You cannot be so foolish.

There is enough in that safe to buy you safe passage across the Narrow Sea. Enough to buy your eventual freedom.

Valarr strokes the column of your throat.

“Henceforward, you are forbidden to say ‘your grace’...” His voice shifts into a low rasp. “Lest I bend you over my knee and remind you of my true name, again and again…”

Blood rushes to your lower parts.

“You are wicked, my prince, to say such filthy things with such a sweet face.”

His smile turns devious in the mirror.

“Remove your dress,” Valarr mumbles near your ear.

You oblige, squirming out of the red silk until it falls into a heap on the floor. His mismatched gaze darkens as he soaks your bare form in the mirror.

As you reach for the clasp of the necklace, he nudges your hands down.

“No. Keep it on. I want to remember you this way.”

“Which way, my prince?”

His hold on your hips tightens.

“Utterly and undeniably mine.”

His fingers make a slow journey along your navel, lingering on your exposed flesh. He scatters soft kisses along your throat, his other hand grasping your chest. He teases your breast and your peak pebbles beneath his touch. Your pulse quickens under his palm.

His chest presses against your back, the hand on your stomach traveling lower. He finds the swollen nub above your center. His deft fingers trace slow circles over the sensitive part, sending warm tingles down your legs.

Your eyes flutter, the sensation growing in your lower body. You arch your body, seeking more friction. But his fingers retreat before you can reach your pinnacle, pushing, teasing, but denying you release.

He is enthralled by the sight of your body's response to his touch in the mirror, every shift of your expression, every slight shiver.

He buries one finger inside your cunt. Your thighs clench, a muffled gasp leaving your lips.

“You are torturing me, my prince,” you mumble between jagged breaths.

“Yet we have just begun, beloved.”

He punctuates his words by sinking a second finger, pumping inside you at a maddening pace. Your back arches, your head falling back against his shoulder. His familiar scent and solid presence at your back fogs your senses. You lose yourself in the feeling, your hips undulating to meet his languid thrusts.

He grazes that special spot inside you, the one that makes your knees wobble and obscures your sight. Your breaths grow more laborious. You clench around him.

He plays with your nipple, his fingers continuing to drag in and out of you. You tense, feeble fingers grasping at his arm.

You are close. So close. Your chest heaves, the tide of pleasure mounting in your belly.

Then his fingers retreat, leaving you in sheer agony. Feverish. Breathless.

Valarr tuts his disapproval. “Not yet.”

He smiles at your little pout in the mirror, making a smug display of licking your essence off his fingers. A treacherous thrill shoots up your spine.

He seizes your hips, leading you to the edge of the bed. You plop down on the plush linens, peering up at him.

“Must you control everything, my prince?”

He parts your legs, plummeting to his knees between your thighs. A prince, kneeling before a courtesan. Before you. It is a singular sight. One you cannot help but relish.

“When it comes to you, jorrāeliarzys, I fear I must,” he says, his eyes ensnaring yours.

Without warning, he dives between your thighs. Your chest seizes. The prince’s wicked tongue explores you with abandon.

Your head tosses back, your fingers gripping onto his silky locks.

Once again, he gives and he takes, driving you to the brink of madness. You float along the delightful waves as long as he allows before he withdraws.

“You are cruel, your grace.”

He peels off his doublet and chainmail, baring his smooth, muscular chest. As he tugs on his belt and rises, pressing you down on the bed, he murmurs, “Valarr. ‘You are cruel, Valarr.’ Say it.”

He tugs down his breeches, discards his belt. His long, veiny length is freed, glistening at the tip. Your contemplation of the prince in all his glory is abridged when he sheathes himself inside you. A feeble moan climbs up your throat.

“You are…” He enters you to the hilt. “cruel..” His head falls against your chest. “…Valarr.”

Your cunt tightens around his cock and the prince unleashes a throaty whine.

He moves inside you, each thrust slow and deep. Desperation bleeds in the way his hands cling to you.

And as he claims you for the rest of the night, he makes sure his name spills from your lips every time you come apart.

The next few days are spent in near solitude. Per Prince Valarr’s request, you dwell in your chambers in the Maidenvault throughout the day. Meanwhile King Daeron’s name day celebrations continue. Knees tucked against your chest, you sit at your window. You watch dawn shift into evenfall, bright orange skies fade into purple hues. Day in and day out. You get a glimpse of the ladies draped in their best silks pour through the gates, the knights heading to the tourney. You hear the music, ballads and laughter from the Great Hall every night.

Around you, the Red Keep doesn’t just exist. It lives and breathes, while you’re withering away in your room.

You keep busy, of course. There is a vast library in the Maidenvault. Most of the books and parchments on the shelves were curated by Princess Elaena Targaryen herself during her imprisonment. Although your body is confined within these walls, your mind is free to wander. To imagine yourself far away, in the golden sands of Dorne or amidst the snowy mountains in the North. Each story offers an escape, albeit fleeting, from the Keep.

You also embroider, enterprising to stitch rose patterns on your worn dresses out of sheer boredom. You prick your fingertips so many times that you renounce the task altogether.

At night, Prince Valarr summons you. It somewhat eases the forlorn thoughts but you are restless.

You used to roam the King’s Landing as you pleased a few moons ago. It seems lifetimes away now.

By the eighth sunrise, the isolation grows maddening. Sombre thoughts creep inside your head, nightmares conquer your nights. Frustrated, you toss your blanket aside and get dressed with haste. You take a deep breath, settling on a decision. You will make a small journey to the kitchens today. It should do no harm, you surmise. You will grab some bread and cheese, make small talk with the maids and return to your room right away. It will be quick, unnoticed. The prince never has to know.

Still, guilt wrenches your bowels as you scurry through the halls, your gaze darting behind you as if the prince might appear from a dark corner. You fiddle with your ruby necklace, taking a long breath as you approach the kitchens.

But a commotion from inside the room halts your hasty stride. A frown wrinkles your brow. You shudder at the sound of broken dishes and irate shouts. Your breath hangs still in your lungs, your back flattening against the wall.

“You impertinent halfwit! Are you trying to poison me?”

“N-No, my lord. I swear. We made it as you requested.”

Careful to remain hidden, you steal a glance inside the kitchen.

Your heart leaps. Prince Aerion Brightflame.

The silver-haired prince looms over one of the cooks. The man is crouched on the floor, shivering. There are shattered pieces of a dish amidst what seemed to be a stew of some kind, spilled across the stone floor. Your mouth waters at the scent but it’s clear the prince holds a different opinion.

He kicks the cook in the stomach, causing the poor man to cough and crumple to the floor.

Your stomach lurches.

Putting your hand over your mouth, you recede further across the wall to remain unseen.

“Eat it then, since you’re so proud of it,” you hear Aerion bark. A wave of cold travels up your spine.

“My prince, I…there are broken shards on the floor,” the man stammers.

Another kicking sound reaches your ears. You freeze, your pulse quickening.

“I said eat it!”

“Y-Yes, my lord…”

Unshed tears fill your eyes. You decide you have heard enough and make a discreet exit, your steps quiet as you walk away from the kitchens.

Still aching for fresh air, you head to the gardens. At least there you will have peace. You will be far away from monstrous princes and unfortunate cooks.

You find a stone bench under a weirwood tree. As you sit, you realize your hands are shaking. You clasp them together in your lap, willing the tremors to cease. You focus on the birdsong in trees, the blue sky, the blinding sun, the blushing leaves and bone-white bark. You breathe the warm air, thankful for this respite, however ephemeral. Soon, you will be compelled to return to the Maidenvault. So you relish this moment while it lasts.

Yet, in spite of your efforts, your thoughts stray. Towards the poor cook…and the vicious prince. How could one be so wicked? Heartless?

You wonder if it was wrong to flee, if there is anything you could have done. No. You are as powerless as this man was. Mayhaps even more. It’s a sour realization. How justice and decency means little to one with a title. How vows of knighthood may be discarded if one’s rank is high enough. They are dragons and we are ants, waiting to be crushed under their feet.

“Hm, pretty necklace. A gift from my besotted cousin, I presume?”

The warm finger on your nape and eerily familiar voice have you bolting upright.

You spin, your heart bouncing to your throat.

The object of your dire musings stands before you, his violet stare pinned to your frame. You suck a deep breath, stiffen your spine.

You give a hasty, clumsy bow.

“Prince Aerion, my lord. Apologies. I-I did not hear you.” Your attempt to quell the quiver in your voice is for naught. A lump forms in your throat. You did not hear him somehow, too absorbed you were in your thoughts.

You give another bow and try to sidestep him.

“I shall leave you be. Good day, my lord.”

His imperious timbre impedes your escape.

“Have I done something to offend you?”

Ice scatters in your veins. You shake your head swiftly.

“N-No, my lord. Of course not.”

“Then stay. Sit with me awhile.”

He takes an idle seat on the bench.

“I believe I should…”

“Do not be silly, wench,” he says, impatience dripping in his tone. “Are you dismissing an order from your prince?”

As you hesitate, he clicks his tongue in rising annoyance.

“Dragons aren’t patient creatures.” He pats the empty space beside him. “Sit.”

You yield, tremulous steps leading you to the bench.

He leans back on the bench, his relaxed posture a clear contrast to the taut way you sit.

A few moments of heavy, uncomfortable silence fly by before he speaks.

“You were watching earlier weren’t you…” Your heart skips a beat. “when I was punishing that insolent dimwit?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, nudge a placid smile on your lips.

“I know not what you speak of, my prince.”

The weight of his violet gaze is as rocks on a thin thread. One in imminent state of snapping.

He hums, as if musing aloud, “You’re a clever one, aren't you?” He sniffs, his tone turning derisive. “I mean…as clever as a woman can be.”

You don’t flinch. You’ve heard worse insults hurled at the girls at the pillow house, worse insults whispered behind your back.

“You have my cousin eating every word out of your deceitful mouth like a starved bird.”

This creates a crack in the armor you’ve built around yourself.

Your eyes narrow.

“I’m not deceiving him.”

He sizes you up and scoffs, “You are a whore. Lies and deceit are your trade.”

Your chest flares, indignation mounting within you.

“I really must return to my chambers, my lord.”

“Your chambers…or my cousin’s?” he taunts.

You rise, your motions stilted and hasty.

“Good evening, my lord.”

But Aerion’s hand latches around your wrist. He gets to his feet without hurry, his proximity unnerving you.

“What is your fee?”

Your pulse soars. You blink, thinking perhaps you heard wrong. Surely the wind distorted his words.

The silver-haired princeling sighs, as if you were a dimwit he was losing patience for.

“Your wage, your price…how much?” he asks, his tone dismissive. “Fifty golden dragons? A hundred?”

You gape at him.

Aerion rolls his eyes, “Just give me your fee and I will meet it, wench.”

It takes you a while to retrieve your ability to speak.

“My fee…for what, my lord?”

His fingers dig into your wrist.

“To bury myself in your sweet cunny, of course.” Flames swallow your face. “You must be more than a pretty face for my sanctimonious cousin to act like such a lovestruck fool.”

Your hammering heart sings an uproar in your ears.

There is no thought, no intent, no plan. It is raw anger that causes your hand to fly right into Prince Aerion’s cheek. The harsh slap echoes across the garden.

Time stands still, the prince’s eyes widening.

His utter shock grants you precious seconds.

You gather your dress and race out of the gardens, losing a shoe in your haste. The icy stones burn the sole of your bare foot.

Your thoughts race. You struck a prince.

Your hurried escape is half a run, half a hobble across the Red Keep’s halls. You must return to the Maidenvault. It was a mistake to ever leave it. You were safe.

Your lungs are on fire but fear drives your feet forward.

When your head is slammed into a nearby wall, you cry out. The pain rings inside your head, blurring your vision.

Prince   Aerion’s haughty voice pierces through the haze.

“You impudent little harlot! How dare you lay a hand on me?”

His hand circles your throat, squeezing hard enough to crush your windpipe.

He bends close to your face, sneering, “You have fire, I concede, but fire cannot burn a dragon.”

The silk of your dress is bunched upwards. A palm creeps up your thigh. Panic seizes your chest and you reach for his face. He snatches your wrists before you can strike him again, shoving you against the wall. A groan of pain leaves your lips.

“Must you be so difficult?” he hisses.

Warm fingers slip under your dress. Dread wrenches your insides, your heart threatening to burst inside your chest.

Cruel digits bury inside your dry walls. A cry of pain tears from your throat. Tears collect in your eyes. You tug at your wrists, struggling to free yourself, desperation clawing at your chest.

His hot breath tickles your throat. His musky scent coats your senses as he presses his body against yours, trapping you against the wall.

“Please,” you say, loathing how pathetic you sound.

His crude exploration tears more broken wails from you.

He grunts. “You are so tight…like a maiden. Are you sure my cousin has properly bedded you?”

As you brace yourself for more discomfort, the weight of the prince vanishes. Air rushes back to your lunges all at once. You pat your bruised throat, staggering to your feet.

Your glassy eyes swing upwards.

Dazed, you soak the scene before you.

Valarr holding Prince Aerion by the collar of his doublet, rage twisting his boyish features. This is an uncanny sight. The prince is usually so even-tempered.

“How dare you touch her?” he roars.

Disbelief paints the silver-haired prince’s features.

“You would fight your own blood, cousin…over some whore?”

Valarr’s gaze narrows.

“She’s not a whore.”

Silence stretches between the two princes.

Aerion tilts his head, studying Valarr like a riddle he pained to solve.

“By the gods, you genuinely think you love her. Astounding.”

Valarr’s jaw ticks. He gives Aerion a harsh shove, causing the blond prince to stumble backwards.

“Leave her be, cousin. I shall not repeat myself.”

Leaving his slack-jawed cousin behind, the prince grabs your hand and leads you away. You are numb, your hand quivering in his.

Your heart hasn’t settled yet, fear still clutching you tight.

The haze engulfing you is so thick that you are startled to realize you are in the prince’s chambers, and not the Maidenvault, when you return to yourself.

Valarr bids you to sit on his bed. He seems to assess you for injuries. You flinch when his fingers graze the bruise on your neck.

His brows furrow.

“Are you well?” His voice is soft again, the ire he displayed earlier dulled.

You hug your frame. “I…do not know.”

A deep sigh ripples from his throat.

“Apologies for this…unpleasantness. It brings me shame that Aerion and I are kin.”

You cloister yourself in silence for a while. Thoughts storm in your head, each angrier and louder than the other. Words scald your tongue but you keep your lips sealed.

After some time, Prince Valarr unleashes a long exhale.

“Speak, I beseech you.”

“Is that all, my prince?”

Befuddlement creases his brow.

“All?”

You nibble on your lip, gulping your tears.

“Prince Aerion hurt me, tried to…” The word snags in your throat. “Is there to be no justice?”

His frown deepens.

“I am sorry that he touched you. It will never happen again.”

He attempts to cradle your cheek but you recoil, turning your head. Valarr’s jaw clenches but he doesn’t touch you again.

He retreats and lets out a frustrated groan.

“I have done all that I could.”

“Allow me to doubt that, my prince.”

Shadows flicker in his mismatched gaze.

He sinks to his knees in front of you.

“The Targaryens of Summerhall leave in a few days when my grandsire’s name day celebrations end. Remain in my chambers until then.”

“So I am to hide?”

He reaches for your hands, his fingers firm on yours. You tense at his touch but he doesn’t let go.

“Only for a few days, beloved. You shall be safe here.”

“I do not feel safe.”

His face shifts, as if the mere idea that you wouldn’t be safe besides him was ludicrous.

“You will in a few days. I swear it,” he says. He pauses before announcing, “I will call for a maester.”

“I have no need of a maester,” you retort.

The last thing you wish at the moment is to be poked and prodded by a man again.

“I insist upon it, my love. You are hurt.”

You open your mouth and close it, resigned as you note his resolute expression. Your objections mean nothing to the prince. His mind is made.

Valarr gets to his feet, stomps out of the room, locking it behind him.

You lie on your side, willing yourself to stop shaking. You stare at your tremulous hand. Stop shaking, hand. You focus on this single task, clenching and unclenching your quivering fingers. Hoping it will chase the violet gaze creeping at the edge of your thoughts.

A maester indeed comes. He examines you and gives you an ointment for your bruise. During the entire ordeal, you don’t utter a word. Not even when the maester asks about the cause of the injury and Valarr gives a blatant lie.

When evenfall comes, you curl on your side of the prince’s large bed.

“Please, just allow me to hold you,” he pleads behind you.

You shrink when his palm grazes your waist.

“I do not wish to be held.”

He sighs and retreats.

“As you wish then.”

His tossing and turning is impossible to ignore besides you, making it clear your stubbornness is robbing him of sleep. The prince’s frustration clogs the room, rousing a trickle of guilt in your chest.

You shift closer to him.

“You may hold me,” you relent.

The prince studies your face in the dark, his brows colliding.

“I fear that I'm forcing my will upon you.”

You ache to scream that he is, but smile instead.

“I want you to hold me, Valarr.” You reach for his hand, place it against your bosom. “Please.”

He doesn't hesitate to tug you into his embrace, nestling your back against his chest. The prince’s body sags, his breaths growing calm and steady. The air shrinks in your lungs. Your stomach tightens.

For the first time, the prince’s arms around you are like shackles.

As Valarr instructed, you stay in his chambers for the next few days. The first two nights, the prince simply holds you, allowing you space to recover. Though you are stiff at first, you grow to relax in his arms. On the third night, he makes his urges clear, his urgent need pressing against your rear.

“Valarr, I do not-”

He plants tender kisses in the crook of your neck. Your skin tingles beneath his lips but it’s less pleasant than usual. You curl over the linen sheets. His arms drape around your waist, his soft brown strands brushing against your neck.

“Please, I crave you.” Desperation and longing bleed through his voice. “I miss you.”

You hesitate, your insides knotting. The thought of being touched so soon after Aerion’s impropriety stirs your discomfort.

But the prince is unrelenting.

“Do you not miss me?” he asks, hurt tinging his soft inflection.

“I do. Of course I do.”

Valarr’s face brightens at your response.

The rest is a blur. The prince’s soft lips on your skin. His familiar hands gliding over your curves. His hips slamming into yours as you cry out against his shoulder.

He cradles you like he always does, whispering gentle promises of love and devotion. He isn’t careless or rough. He is slow, careful, handling you as if afraid you’ll shatter in his arms.

Yet you cannot dismiss that peculiar ache in your chest as you writhe beneath him.

The Targaryens of Summerhall’s departure the next day is a relief. Air returns to your lungs as you watch Prince Aerion, his father and his brothers cross the gates astride their horses. You lean your cheek against the window, the tension of the last few days leaking out of you. Finally. You may return to your own chambers. As soon as the gates shut, you are on your feet, ready to head back to the Maidenvault.

A bare-chested Valaar wraps his arms around you from behind. He kisses your shoulder.

“Must you leave so soon?”

“It is the morning. I must bathe and dress, my prince.”

His lips tug upwards against your skin.

“We can bathe together,” he says. His tone turns husky, “As for dressing, perhaps that can wait…”

Another trail of soft kisses is left on your neck.

“My prince,” you mumble, your skin tingling beneath his lips.

Words wither in your throat. The truth is you crave the isolation you ran from before, a few precious moments to yourself. Moments where you are not touched, held or craved. The prince’s eagerness to touch you hasn’t wavered in the last few days.

“Stay, I beg of you,” Valarr whispers into your hair.

“Is this an order, your grace?”

The moment the words spill from your mouth, you realize your mistake. The prince scowls, his hold loosening.

“It need not be one,” he says tonelessly.

You fiddle with your hands.

“I merely wish to go back to my chambers.”

Valarr cups your cheek, his voice sweet as honey.

“Is anything the matter, beloved?”

As you cloak yourself in silence, the prince heaves a deep sigh.

“You are wroth with me still.”

Your gaze strays, your fingernails digging into your palm.

He takes your hands in his.

“May you forgive me one day?”

“There is nothing to forgive.” Though the words echo false as they roll off your tongue.

His thumbs sweep over your cheeks, his expression mellowing.

“I have been excessively demanding.” He lets go of your face. “Apologies. I just ache for your presence, day and night.” His forehead creases. “The burden of my name, my father’s expectations…all of it vanishes when I’m with you.”

Warmth spreads in your chest.

You give a feeble smile. “I am simply in need of rest, my prince.”

Concern paints his features.

“Of course. You may have all the rest you require, jorrāeliarzys.”

Your eyes widen. “Truly?”

He chuckles, stroking your hair.

“Truly. You have been my comfort and my peace for so long.” He pauses, soaking your features. “It is the least you deserve.”

He drops a chivalrous kiss on the back of your hand.

“I will not call on you until you are fully rested.”

A knot loosens in your chest.

“Thank you, your grace.”

“Valarr,” he gently corrects.

You smile and bow. “Valarr,” you repeat.

There is a lightness to your steps as you head back to the Maidenvault. You grab a book from the shelves and settle on the window that has become your refuge. You pat the dust off the cover, lean against the window. You sink into the yellowed pages, basking in the first respite you have enjoyed in days. After countless hours, your eyes sting. Your gaze strays beyond the window. Stars are dotting the darkening hues of the sky. You rise and put the book on your night table. You light the torches on the walls and the room warms with a dim glow. Gulping a lungful of air, you kneel on the stone floor near your bed. You lift two stones, revealing your hiding space, You inspect the inside of the chest with all the jewelry you own. All the prince’s gifts. An errant, mad thought lurks inside your head. Mayhaps it is enough now. Enough to flee far from here. It could buy you the fare across the Narrow Sea, passage to the Free Cities, Lys, Dorne….wherever you wish.

For a few minutes, you dare to entertain it. A life outside the Red Keep. Away from Prince Valarr. Your heart wrenches. No. You slam the small chest shut and lock it. You place the stones back into place, return to your bed.

The prince is fond of you. He loves you. And, you believe, mayhaps you love him as well.

You claw at your chest. But this ache that bloomed since Prince Aerion…

You shudder as a sea of purple drowns your thoughts.

Will it ever fade?

You shake your head, tugging the blanket over yourself. You must cease these endless musings. You are hovering right over the brink of madness. You are safe now. Prince Valarr said so himself. The Targaryens of Summerhall are gone. It’s just you and your prince. And once you are rested and your mind cleansed, you will be back in his arms.

So you close your eyes and allow sleep to engulf you.

For the first time in days, you find a modicum of peace.

Your thoughts fall silent. Your heart settles. The tension woven through your body loosens.

For some time, your rest is sound and undisturbed.

Some hours later, a tingling in your lower body impedes your sleep. You groan and stir, groggily kicking your legs but you find your movements restrained.

The trail of warm tingles continues over your legs, spreading outwards. You tug but are once more shackled to the bed.

Confused, your eyes quake open. Your heart stumbles inside your chest.

The sight of silver hair and purple eyes crowd your sight. The blanket has been discarded, your night shift lifted, and Prince Aerion’s long fingers are hooked around your knees.

Horror twists your insides as you watch him kiss and bite his way up your legs, scattering marks on your skin. You open your mouth to scream.

But Prince Aerion is swifter.

The icy kiss of a sharp blade on your neck ensnares your voice. Your throat bobs and you feel the metal pierce your skin slightly. Unspilled tears swim in your eyes.

The silver-haired prince shushes you. He places one finger over his lips while his other hand holds the dagger to your throat. The knowledge that with one flick of his wrist the prince could end your life has your heart racing.

“Quiet. Why ruin our fun when it’s just begun?” he whispers.

He drags the tip of his knife down your neck, his violet gaze glued to the motion of your throat. A sadistic joy sways in his eyes when the tip of his weapon lands on your pulse.

Your breath freezes in your lungs.

“Please,” you croak.

He lets the blade travel along your collarbone, right over your breast, where your heart threatens to burst out of your chest. With a shallow pressure, he nicks you. You whine as blood pearls over your skin. A small crimson stain forms on your night shift. The prince’s pupils inflate at the sight.

Aerion lifts your chin with his dagger.

“Please what?” he asks, his tone imperious.

“P-Please, d-don’t kill me,” you say, your chest heaving rapidly.

He tilts his head, tracing the hollow of your cheek with his knife.

“I will consider it…if you do not bore me.” He sighs. “Starting with this wretched sniveling. Cease it.”

It’s a relief when he lowers his knife. Wiping your eyes, you force yourself to suppress your tears.

“Now…” He grips the top of your night shift, pulling until the fabric rips. The tattered pieces hang on your arms, baring your chest. Aerion’s leering gaze sweeps over you, his scrutiny heating your skin. He sneers, “No wonder my cousin keeps you to himself.”

Your breath hitches as he palms one of your breasts. He pinches your nipple between his thumb and forefinger, tearing a whimper from you. Your cheeks heat as your peak hardens.

“Well, he will have to learn to share.”

His lips then collide with yours. The silver-haired prince swallows your moans, his teeth grazing your lip, his tongue tangling with yours. The press of his lips on yours is greedy, feverish. He rips more of the flimsy fabric of your shift, exposing more of you to his hungry gaze.

He reaches for an object besides the bed. You squint, struggling to see in the darkness. Your eyes widen when you catch the glint of a flask. The prince takes a large gulp, wiping the crimson trail on his chin. To your shock, he then holds it to your lips.

“Drink,” he orders.

When you hesitate, his patience snaps. He presses the rim against your lips, forcing you to swallow the wine. You cough as you struggle to swallow the alcohol. It’s a mess. A lot of it drips down your chin and chest.

Lust flares in Aerion’s eyes. He bends over your chest, licking the stray wine and sucking on your skin. Goosebumps bloom in the trail of his wicked tongue. He hums in pleasure and the sound goes straight to your core.

Aerion forces more wine down your throat, kissing you and licking the remnants coating your chin. Your head spins, the wine starting to wear on your senses.

He bunches your torn night shift around your hips, parting your thighs.

The room blurs around you.

A haze settles over your mind.

Faintly, you feel the bulge in Aerion’s pants. He rubs himself against you, his teeth grazing your neck. His weight is heavy between your legs, pushing you down against the soft bed.

You claw feebly at his face and he grips your wrists, clasping them above your head. Your bones are crushed in his steely grip. You squirm beneath him and his teeth pierce your neck. You cry out, tears rushing to your eyes. You catch a glimpse of the crimson staining his teeth. Your blood. A chill travels up your spine.

Aerion’s tongue darts out to lick the blood on his lip.

“You will learn to bow to your dragon,” he says. His warm breath ghosts over your ear. “To obey. To serve. To worship.”

A cool sensation creeps between your legs. The sensation drags across your inner thigh. You shiver. As it lands at the apex of your thighs, prodding your wet entrance, you whimper. It’s uncomfortable, foreign. You steal a glance downwards and your stomach clenches with dread as you realize what the prince is doing. He draws torturous circles with the handle of his dagger over your wet cunt. Shameful moans climb up your throat, treacherous tides of pleasure swelling in your belly.

A crooked smirk blooms on Aerion’s lips. You have never seen him smile before. It chills your blood. He gathers your arousal with the knife’s handle, rubbing your swollen tangle of nerves until you cry out over the linen sheets, the sensations hitting their peak. You collapse on the sheets, you face hot with an embarrassment you've never felt before. You pant, warmth prickling your skin.

When Aerion withdraws the knife, he makes a show of licking your essence off the handle, his violet gaze never straying from yours.

He unleashes a raspy moan. “Only a filthy whore would get this wet from a knife.” He sinks his finger inside your dripping cunt, tearing a ragged whimper from your throat. His finger drags along your walls and your legs tremble. He bends over you, his breath melding with yours.

You whine as he keeps dragging his finger inside you, adding a second one and stretching you even more. Your back arches on the sheets.

His taunting voice pours inside your ears. “And that is what you are. A filthy whore made for a prince’s cock. A perfect offering for a dragon.”

Your vision darkens as Aerion keeps thrusting his fingers inside you. He releases your wrists, his hand drifting to your chest. He pinches your pebbled nipple, drags his teeth down your neck. It’s clear the prince wishes to leave no part of you unmarked, unclaimed.

He twists his wrist while still inside you. You quiver around him.

His expression is smug as you shatter on his fingers. Self-loathing flares inside you.

The silver-haired prince yanks the pitiful remainder of your shift off your panting frame, tossing it on the floor. He shifts between your legs, pulling his breeches down.

As the head of his cock prods at your slick entrance, you wrestle your drunken fog. You poke at his face with desperation, nails scraping against his cheek. The prince wrenches your wrist off his face in a painful angle. Pain shoots up your arm and it falls limp.

“What a stubborn little thing you are,” he scoffs. He grabs a fistful of your hair and jerks your head back. Your scalp sears with agony. “So pretty yet so defiant.”

Aerion slams his cock inside you to the hilt. Your body jolts, the pain knocking the breath from your lungs.

He grunts as he begins to move, your hair still in his fist. His hips meet yours in a frantic rhythm. Beads of sweat pearl along his brow. The places inside you he touches make you spasm around him. Broken whimpers leave your throat.

“By the gods, you are tight,” he rasps. He pushes you further into the bed, his chest pressing against yours. Your eyes roll back. Your fingers dig into the linen sheets. A strangled moan climbs up his chest.

As your head lolls to the side, Aerion takes firm grasp of your jaw. His gaze dives into yours as each thrust turns more slow and pointed.

“Keep your eyes on me.” His hoarse timbre is imperious. You glare at him with hatred.

He hums, tracing your bottom lip with his thumb.

“I shall make you an obedient little whore, just as you ought to be.”

In the morning, sunlight sears your eyelids, stirring you awake. You sit up, clutching the sheet to your bare frame. You catch a glimpse of the bruises and bite marks Aerion left on your body. A shudder ripples through your frame.

Your eyes dart to the rumpled sheets nearby. Relief floods you. At least you are alone. As you inspect the room, you note there is no sign of the silver-haired prince. You rise from the bed, a feat on its own with how sore you are.

You peer at the window that used to be your refuge, your shelter amidst any storm. You doubt there is any place in the Red Keep where you’ll ever feel safe again. Even your window.

The brightness of the sky seems to mock you. For a few minutes, you are numb, unmoving. Then you keel over the edge of the bed, sobbing. For some time, you let yourself weep. How easily the prince shattered that illusion of safety you harbored.

The salty trails on your cheeks soak the sheets. Your despair clogs the room. When the crying subsides, you make a decision. You study the inside of the Maidenvault. The lavish canopy bed, the shelves brimming with books, the carved wardrobe. At times you have been happy here, other times you have been sad…but you were never free.

You wonder if you could be beyond these walls. If you could have a life that didn’t teeter on the blade-thin edge of a prince’s fickle moods.

You rush to your wardrobe. You rummage through the clothes until you find the plainest dress and cloak you own. Once you are dressed, you walk to the stones concealing your chest. You collect all the jewelry and stones and place them inside secret pockets sewn into your clothes. You asked a septa to help you do it some time after moving into the Keep.

Your heart wrenches.

Perhaps, somewhere deep within your soul, you always knew this day would come.

You pull the hood over your head and stroll to the stretch of wall besides the bookshelves. You pat the cool stones until you find what you are searching for. A small indent in the wall about a foot from the floor. You hook your fingers inside the indent and push. Hope flares inside you when the wall shifts with a quiet thud, revealing a pitch black path behind it.

A while ago, you found the passage Daena the Defiant used to sneak out of the Keep when she and her sisters were imprisoned. It was pure luck. One day you dropped a book near the wall… and there was that strange part of the wall, slightly darker than the rest. You never dared venture through it however. It felt forbidden. It felt like betrayal. But the secret passageway lingered in your mind since the day you discovered it. Your pulse hammers in your ears as you wade through the narrow tunnel, pushing away the cobwebs in your way.

Guilt gnaws at you. A stubborn piece of you wishes to turn back, tell Prince Valarr everything.

But then what? Princes are above the law. Any matter that would tarnish the Targaryen name would be swiftly quelled. Would he protect you from his own kin? After the way he handled Aerion’s first misdeed, your faith falters. What weight does the word of a courtesan carry in this world, particularly against a prince? You wrestle another surge of tears, blinking them back. You knew you’d have to leave the prince’s side one day. But you nurtured the naive hope that you'd have more time.

I shall make you an obedient little whore, just as you ought to be.

You shiver. Based on Aerion’s ominous promise, last night was just the beginning of his torment.

Time is scarce now. All you can do is run.

So you keep weaving your way through the darkness, hoping light awaits you at the end of the long tunnel.

Your feet ache. Your legs beg for mercy. You lean against the dusty wall, thoughts racing. What if you are caught by a kingsguard, noticed by a servant? Would you be mistaken for a spy, tossed into the dungeons? Certainly there can be no good intention behind someone skulking through the Red Keep in a frayed cloak. You stifle the fearsome musings.

It is too late to turn back now.

After what seems like an eternity, a dot of light peeks at the end of the tunnel. You wipe the sweat off your forehead, smiling. Victory pulses through your blood.

Your steps quicken. Your heart bursts with joy.

Finally, you reach the light.

…And your smile dies.

“My prince?”

Valarr and Aerion turn to you simultaneously, as if interrupted amidst a lively conversation.

Your gaze widens as you realize you are in Prince Valarr’s chambers. You want to deny it but, as this room is uniquely familiar to you, you cannot. There is no escape from the horrifying truth. Your knees tremble. You’re on the cusp of collapse. Sheer will alone is what keeps you upright.

The tunnel leads to…Prince Valarr’s room? How is that possible?

The prince’s voice seems far away, distorted by the blood rushing to your head.

You only hear the tail head of his sentence.

“...despite what my cousin said. I refused to think you would ever betray me.”

You blink, startled as you come back to yourself.

“I don’t understand…”

Valarr stalks towards you. The gaze he sweeps over you turns your blood to ice. He has never looked so furious. Even after Aerion touched you in the garden.

“I had this passage sealed after moving you into the Keep.” He unleashes a dry chuckle. “I did it to keep you safe and I thought…” He trails off, flames dancing in his violet eye. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now.”

A scream threatens to unfurl from your throat. So your flimsy chance at escape never existed? The prince built your gilded cage all too well. He clipped your wings before you could fly away.

You approach him and put your hand over his arm.

“My prince, I simply wished to roam the village,” you stammer, clinging to the desperate lie. “It has been so long since I breathed fresh air.”

Valarr wrenches your hand off his arm, squeezing your wrist. You whimper, your bones grinding together in his unforgiving grip.

“Do you think me a fool?” he roars.

“My prince-”

“Silence,” he hisses, sounding more dragon than human.

You lips quiver.

He stares at your cloak for an unnerving stretch of time. He then rips it open, causing all the jewelry to clatter across the stone floor. Your chest seizes. Time seems to stretch into a thousand years. Valarr tilts his head, his gaze pinned to the floor. He stares at the stones with chilling impassiveness.

The prince’s jaw clenches.

“Aerion was right.”

Tears swell in your eyes, blurring your vision.

“My prince, it is not-” Your voice peters into a sob.

Aerion strolls to Valarr, his expression smug.

“Do you see now, cousin? A whore should be treated as such,” he whispers in the brown-haired prince’s ear.

The hand around your wrist twists, tearing a cry of pain from your throat.

“You intended to leave me,” he accuses.

“No, I…Valarr, please…”

“It's ‘Your Grace’,” he snaps, his tone like a whip. Your eyes go wide. You feel as if you were struck. In fact, you might have preferred it. Especially when Prince Valarr looks at you like he would a stranger. No. Like an enemy. His grip on your wrist slackens. You clutch your broken wrist against your chest.

“You used me. You lied to me. You pretended.”

Your cheeks come ablaze.

“Your Grace…Perhaps I have lied, but so did you.” His expression turns murderous. You shudder but continue, “You swore to protect me and you didn’t.”

The last shred of restraint dwelling in the prince seems to shrivel.

His hand clamps around your throat, his eyes glazing over with unshed tears.

“How dare you? I gave you everything.” He shakes you and you claw at his fingers, gasping for air. “Despite your low birth, your station…I loved you.” His voice shatters in the end.

A brief smirk hovers on Aerion’s lips before fading.

He hums, clasping Valarr’s shoulder.

“I believe you should teach her a lesson. We…should teach her a lesson about disobedience, cousin.”

You can practically see the gears turning in Prince Valarr's head, the moment your sweet prince becomes someone else entirely. Someone you do not know. Seeds of madness bloom in his eyes. His face goes taut.

He lets go of your neck and you sputter, sucking air back into your lungs.

Valarr's fingers creep under your chin, angling it upwards.

There’s a cruelty etched in his mismatched gaze now. One that matches Aerion’s. Dread settles deep in your bones.

He strokes your cheek. A perversion of his former tenderness.

Prince Valarr sighs.

“Perhaps, I have been far too lenient with you. I thought it a kindness but evidently not.” Goosebumps erupt at the base of your spine, spreading outwards.

His thumb sweeps over your cheek.

“I shall remind you of your station.”

The prince’s hand squeezes around his jaw, his face hardening.

With just one word, Prince Valarr shatters any flimsy hope for mercy you may have held.

he stood up then, his height suddenly feeling like a physical weight in the room. he didn't even let you finish. he walked toward you, his footsteps slow and deliberate, until he had you backed up against the front door.

"a study group?" he mocked, a mean, dry chuckle leaving his throat. he leaned in close, his hands landing on the wood on either side of your head, trapping you. "is that what we’re calling it now? because i saw the way he was looking at you in the lobby. i saw the way you smiled back."

"anton, you’re being crazy, he’s just a classmate—"

"don't call me crazy," he hissed, his eyes dark and blown out with a look you'd never seen before. he grabbed your chin, forcing you to look up at him. his fingers were cold and firm, digging into your skin just enough to hurt. "you think because i'm quiet that i don't notice? you think i'm just going to sit here while you let other guys think they have a chance with what's mine?"

your breath hitched, your hands coming up to his chest to try and push him back, but he didn't budge. he felt like a wall of solid ice.

"i'm your boyfriend, remember?" he whispered, his face inches from yours. "i'm the one who takes care of you. and this is how you treat me? coming home smelling like someone else’s cigarettes and acting like i’m the problem?"

"i'm sorry, just let me go—"

"no," he groaned, his grip on your jaw tightening. "i don't think so. i think you need to be reminded who you actually belong to. since you seem to have such a short memory lately."

he didn't even give you a chance to argue. he grabbed your wrists, his large hand easily encircling both of them, and dragged you toward the bedroom. your heels skidded on the floor as you tried to resist, but he was manhandling you with a scary, effortless strength.

"anton, stop, you're hurting me—"

"good," he muttered, throwing you onto the bed so hard you bounced. he didn't even give you a second to sit up before he was over you, his heavy frame pinning you down. "maybe if it hurts a little, you'll actually listen to me for once."

he looked down at you, that "shy boy" mask completely shattered, replaced by something cold and predatory.

"you're not leaving this room until i'm satisfied that you won't even think about another man for the rest of the semester. do you understand me?"

he leaned down, biting into the sensitive skin of your neck, his teeth grazing against your pulse point while he held your hands pinned above your head.

"say it," he demanded, his voice deep and vibrating against your skin. "tell me who you belong to."

you shook your head, the movement frantic against the pillows, but it only seemed to feed into his cold, quiet rage. anton didn't say another word; he just reached down and hooked his fingers into the waistband of your jeans, tugging them down along with your lacy panties in one rough, impatient motion. he didn't care about being careful with the fabric, tossing them onto the floor like they meant nothing.

the air hit your skin, making you shiver, but he was already moving back up. he held his hand in front of your face, his long fingers hovering near your lips.

"suck on them," he commanded, his voice flat and devoid of its usual sweetness.

you pressed your lips thin, turning your head away in a desperate attempt to refuse. you'd never seen him like this—this wasn't the boy who bought you flowers; this was someone who wanted to own you.

"i said, suck on them," he hissed. when you didn't move, he lost his patience. his large hand clamped over your face, his thumb and forefinger squeezing your cheeks so hard it forced your mouth open. he shoved his fingers inside, deep enough to make you gag, his eyes watching yours with a terrifying, blank intensity.

"you're so stubborn," he muttered around the sound of your muffled whines. "acting like you don't want this after you spent all night smiling at him."

he pulled his fingers out, slick with your saliva, and moved back down. he didn't check if you were ready; he didn't care. he looked down at your entrance, his expression mocking as he leaned over. he spat directly onto you, the warmth of it a sharp contrast to the cool air, and then used his wet fingers to spread it around with a blunt, messy stroke.

"look at you," he groaned, his voice dropping into a dark, guttural register. "you're shaking so much. is it because you're scared, or because you know you deserve this?"

he didn't wait for an answer. he gripped your wrists again, pinning them so hard against the headboard that the wood creaked. he positioned himself, his heavy frame forcing your legs wide, and pushed inside you in one slow, punishing thrust.

a choked-out cry left your lips, your back arching off the mattress as you tried to pull away from the sudden, overwhelming fullness.

"stay still," he commanded, leaning all his weight into you to keep you pinned. "you're not going anywhere. you're going to stay right here and let me remind you exactly who you belong to."

he started to move, his pace heavy and relentless. he wasn't being gentle, and he wasn't being the anton you knew. hot tears spilling down your cheeks

he didn't slow down for a second. your sobbing only seemed to make him more frantic, his quiet, bottled-up rage finally spilling over. he reached out and gripped your hips so hard his knuckles turned white, his large fingers digging into your skin until he was certain they would leave dark, purple bruises behind.

you let out a high-pitched, broken moan as he hit your g-spot with every single blunt, heavy thrust. the sensation was too much, and you tried to scramble away, your hands slipping on the sheets.

"anton— please— it hurts—" you wailed, your voice cracking.

he didn't coo at you this time. he just leaned in and captured your mouth in a bruising, messy kiss, stifling your plea. when you tried to pull your head back, his hand came up and delivered a stinging slap across your cheek. the sound was sharp in the quiet room, and your head snapped to the side, your skin burning.

"i told you to stay still" he hissed, his voice sounding completely unrecognizable.

he didn't let up. he kept his grip on your hips and slammed into you even harder, hitting that same sensitive spot over and over until your internal muscles started to seize up. you were peaking against your will, your body coiling tight around him while you sobbed into the pillow.

"look at you" he groaned, his eyes blown out and dark as he watched you break. "shaking and crying while you take every bit of me."

as he felt you climax, his own composure finally shattered. he let out a low, guttural sound, his pace becoming frantic as he delivered a few final, devastatingly deep thrusts. he pushed himself all the way in, pinning you flat against the mattress with his entire body weight as he finally filled you up.

he stayed there, buried deep, his chest heaving against yours while he filled you up, making sure you felt every drop. his hands moved to the back of your neck, his teeth sinking into the sensitive skin of your shoulder to leave a deep, red mark.

"you're all mine now" he whispered, his voice vibrating against your ear while he held you there, shivering and spent. "everyone's going to see. everyone's going to know who you went home to."