Lois

It happened first on an unremarkable Tuesday night, in the good old university library which over the course of the semester, become something like a second home for the both of you, a place with its own smells and sounds and rituals that you had grown fond of despite yourselves.

You had claimed the same corner table for weeks running, tucked between the reference section and a window that overlooked the quad, and by nine in the evening it had become your personal hell, littered with open books and crumpled printouts and the graveyard silence of students who had long since lost the will to care about anything beyond finishing their assignments. Your brain felt fried, thoroughly by hours of wading through dense research papers that seemed engineered to say almost nothing across an impressive number of pages, using five words where one would do and then footnoting even those.

Jace sat across from you, tipped back in his chair at an angle that defied several laws of physics and possibly a few laws of decency, looking for all the world like a man who had transcended mortal academic suffering entirely and ascended to some higher, more peaceful plane of existence purely to escape citations and the crushing weight of a professor who clearly hated joy.

You had been together long enough, by this point, that these study sessions had developed their own rhythm. He always brought too much coffee and drank none of it. You always claimed you would only stay an hour and then stayed four. He hummed under his breath when he was thinking, some tuneless melody that had become so familiar you barely registered it anymore, and you tapped your pen against the table when you were frustrated, a habit he had once described, with far too much affection for how annoying it apparently was.

Tonight the war drum had been going for the better part of twenty minutes.

You let out a long, silent scream into your own palms, the one that never quite makes it past your throat but somehow still manages to communicate the full depth of your suffering, before reaching blindly for another book on the pile. His hand caught your wrist before you got there. He didn't even open his eyes.

"Jace, we need to get this bullshit done and completed," you groaned, your voice muffled slightly by exhaustion and the general indignity of academic labor.

"I literally cannot do another thing anymore, please, my love," he said, and there was something so genuinely pitiful in his voice that under any other circumstance you might have laughed outright.

Instead you swatted his hand away, determined, only for him to move faster than you, snatching the book off the table and lifting it high above his head, well beyond your reach, grinning at you like this was the single greatest triumph. You hissed out a quiet hey, and leaned across the table, one hand braced against his shoulder for balance as you stretched up on your toes to steal it back from him, your fingers just barely brushing the spine of the book before his arm shifted and pulled it further out of reach, laughing at your obvious frustration.

That was the exact moment it happened. A spark, faint but utterly unmistakable, crackled beneath your palm where it rested against his shoulder, sharp and strange that it felt almost electric, except that it seemed to originate somewhere far deeper than skin, somewhere closer to bone. For one disorienting instant, the world tilted sideways, and it felt as though you were watching the entire scene unfold from just outside your own body, a spectator standing a half step behind yourself, close enough to see everything and yet unable to touch any of it. Then the fluorescent lights of the library seemed to bend and dissolve entirely into nothing.

You were standing somewhere else.

The air changed first. The familiar smell of printer paper and old carpet gave way to something older and heavier, dust and parchment and the scent of burning wax that clings to a room lit only by candlelight.

Beneath your feet, the cold, forgiving surface of the flooring had become uneven, ancient stone, worn smooth in places by the passage of countless feet over countless years. Rows of towering bookshelves rose up around you on all sides, disappearing into shadow high above where the candlelight couldn’t quite reach, and the walls themselves, what little of them you could glimpse between the shelves, had been carved with the unmistakable shapes of dragons, wings spread wide, captured mid-flight in stone.

Dragonstone. You knew it instantly, without needing to be told, the knowledge simply arriving fully formed, already familiar, already yours.

At the great oak table in the center of the room sat Jacaerys, though it took you a moment longer than it should have to recognize him properly, because everything about him felt fundamentally different. This was not the boy who wore soft hoodies and complained bitterly about citation formats and fell asleep with his mouth slightly open during long lectures.

This Jacaerys wore a black doublet embroidered with dark crimson thread that caught the candlelight whenever he shifted, beneath a long surcoat fastened at the shoulder with a silver clasp shaped like a dragon in flight, the sleeves stitched with a subtle, almost invisible pattern of overlapping scales that you only noticed because you were staring so hard, trying to memorize every detail before it disappeared. A heavy cloak lined in deep red had been abandoned carelessly over the back of his chair. His sword belt still hung low at his hip, the leather worn soft and dark with years of use, as though he had only just returned from some council meeting and hadn’t yet found the will, or the energy, to remove it properly.

He looked, more than anything else, exhausted. One elbow rested heavily on the table, his temple pressed into the palm of his hand, and an open book lay forgotten in front of him, the pages untouched, clearly having gone unread for some time. His jaw was set tight enough to ache, the muscle there flexing occasionally, betraying whatever thoughts churned beneath the surface.

A soft laugh drifted up from somewhere inside your own throat, though the thought behind it didn't entirely feel like your own, more like a memory of a feeling than the feeling itself.

"There you are, my lord husband," you heard yourself say.

He didn't look up. You crossed the room quietly, your steps somehow both unfamiliar and known to your own feet, as if your body remembered this room even if your mind didn't, circling behind his chair before slipping your arms around his shoulders from behind. You pressed your cheek briefly against his curls, breathing in the scent of candle smoke and something faintly like leather and salt air, the smell of a man who spent time both indoors and out, before placing a gentle kiss into his hair and resting your chin lightly atop his head.

For a long moment neither of you spoke, the silence comfortable in it’s own way. His only answer, at first, was to turn his head just enough to press the softest kiss against your forearm where it lay crossed over his chest. An apology, and a greeting, and an acknowledgment that he knew you were there, all folded together into that single small, wordless gesture.

You smiled despite yourself, recognizing immediately this way of his sulking, something you apparently knew well even in this unfamiliar life.

"You've hidden yourself away again," you murmured against his hair.

"Hm."

"You promised me you would not spend another evening buried beneath books."

"I remember."

"And yet here you are."

He sighed, a sound far heavier and older than it had any right to be from someone his age, whatever his age was in this life, whatever burdens had been placed on shoulders too young to properly carry them. "I had hoped that if I surrounded myself with enough of them, perhaps the answers would simply reveal themselves without me having to ask the questions aloud."

Your smile faded at that. You moved around the side of his chair and knelt in front of him instead, taking both of his hands into yours, and found that his fingers had gone cold from sitting still too long, from being wrapped around nothing but worry for however long he'd been sitting here in the dark.

"What troubles you?"

Silence lingered between you before he finally spoke, his voice quieter than before, stripped of whatever performance he might have put on for anyone else.

"My mother intends to allow common men and women to claim dragons."

"So I gathered," you said carefully. "The whole keep has been humming with it for days."

"They are dragonseeds," he said, and something in his voice had gone strange, too calm, too carefully controlled, the flatness of a person working very hard to keep something enormous contained behind their teeth.

“Bastards. Fishermen. Blacksmiths. Stable boys, some of them, if the rumors are to be believed.” He finally lifted his eyes to meet yours, and they had become something like storm clouds, dark and roiling.

“If anyone may ride dragons, then what makes me special? What claim do I have that any bastard blacksmith’s son might not also make, given a dragon and enough luck?”

Your heart broke a little at the crack in his voice on that last word, the way it wavered just slightly before he steadied it again.

"What makes you think dragons are what make you special?" you asked gently.

"They are symbols."

"They are."

"They are proof. Proof of blood, proof of right, proof that the gods themselves favor House Targaryen above all others."

"They are that too."

"If any man can ride one," he said, and laughed, though the sound held no real humor in it at all, only bitterness dressed up as amusement, "then perhaps anyone may wear my name as well. Perhaps a stable boy on a dragon is no different from a prince on one, in the eyes of the smallfolk who matter."

"You know that isn't true."

"Don't I?" His gaze dropped away from yours entirely, fixing instead on some point on the floor between you. "My claim is questioned before I even open my mouth to speak it. Strong. Bastard. Unworthy. I hear the whispers even when men believe I cannot. They already refuse my mother the throne on nothing more than her sex. What chance have I, with my parentage laid so plainly across my face for anyone to read?"

You reached up and cupped his face in both hands, tilting it gently but firmly until he had no choice but to meet your eyes again, refusing to let him hide from you as he so clearly wanted to hide from everyone else in this castle.

"Look at me."

He obeyed instantly, though his eyes had begun to shine now, too bright, too wet, the careful composure he'd built cracking at the edges where you could see it.

"You are Jacaerys Velaryon," you told him, slowly, deliberately, making certain each word landed exactly where you meant it to. "You are your mother's son. You carry her heart in your chest, her courage in your spine, her kindness in your hands, and her impossible, magnificent stubbornness in every single thing you do. You would throw yourself into dragonfire before you let harm come to a single person you love, and you have proven that a hundred times over without a single dragon at your back to do it. That is what makes you worthy. Not blood. Not dragons. YOU."

His throat worked helplessly, and for a moment he said nothing at all, simply breathed, unsteady and shallow.

"They will never stop saying it," he finally managed. "And when we have children, they will hear it too. They will hear men call their father a bastard in the same breath they use to address him as prince. They will wonder why you married me, when you might have had any lord in the Seven Kingdoms." His voice fell to something barely above a whisper, something small and afraid in a way that had nothing to do with swords or dragons or war. "Does it not anger you? To be wed to a bastard?"

You frowned at him, genuinely offended on his behalf, and reached out to flick his forehead lightly, hard enough to startle him properly out of his spiraling thoughts. He blinked at you, thoroughly bewildered, one hand rising automatically to rub at the spot as though you'd actually wounded him.

"For saying something so utterly foolish," you told him, taking his face fully between your palms again, refusing to let the moment slip away unaddressed. "You listen to me, Jacaerys Targaryen. You are a Targaryen. You are Rhaenyra's firstborn son, the same blood that built this castle and tamed these dragons flows in you exactly as it flows in every one of your siblings. You are the finest man I have ever known, in this life or any other, and if the realm cannot see that plainly enough for themselves, then the realm deserves whatever spectacle it gets when it finally learns the truth of you."

A reluctant laugh escaped him despite himself, wet and disbelieving, and you softened, leaning closer until your noses nearly touched.

"As for our children," you continued, gentler now, "they will hear many things in this life, cruel things, unfair things, things that have nothing to do with truth and everything to do with small, frightened men who need someone to feel superior to. But they will also hear that their father was brave. Honourable. Gentle, in a world that so rarely rewards gentleness. They will know the man behind the rumours, because you will show them yourself. And if some lord wishes to speak poorly of you at some feast or council, know that his mouth does little besides make noise that fades before the candles do. I would rather spend my life beside a husband who loves me, who sees me as his equal, who asks for my counsel and treats me as his partner in all things, than be handed off as some other man's prized broodmare, valued only for what I might produce and never for who I am."

His composure finally gave way entirely at that, a watery, disbelieving laugh escaping him, the sound of a man who has been holding something back for far too long and has finally, blessedly, been given permission to let it go.

"I fear I do not deserve you," he murmured.

You leaned forward until your foreheads touched, your thumb still tracing slow, absent circles against his cheek, feeling the dampness there and wiping it away without comment.

"No," you said softly. "You simply found me. That is all any of us can hope for, in the end. Not deserving…finding."

His eyes fell closed at that, and for a long moment he simply breathed you in, steadying himself against you the way a ship steadies itself against a familiar harbor.

"So long as I breathe," you added quietly, "they will never convince me that you are anything less than the future king this realm deserves."

For the first time all evening, Jacaerys smiled, and it was small, and fragile, unguardedly yours.

And then the world came apart at the seams, all at once, without warning. Stone dissolved back into polished laminate flooring, candlelight exploded outward into the flat, unforgiving white glare of fluorescent bulbs overhead, and the smell of parchment and burning wax vanished beneath the far more mundane scents of old textbooks and stale coffee.

You stumbled backward so abruptly that your chair screeched loudly against the library floor, drawing an irritated look from a student two tables over, and across from you Jace jerked upright at the exact same instant, both of you staring at each other with matching expressions of pure, unfiltered shock. Neither of you spoke for a long moment.

Then the pain arrived, slamming into your skull like a physical blow delivered from somewhere behind your eyes, and you both cried out at once, hands flying to your temples as fragments of the vision scattered through your minds too quickly to properly hold onto any single piece of it. It lasted only seconds, though it felt like an eternity folded impossibly small, and when it finally subsided, leaving only a dull ache behind your eyes, neither of you moved for a long moment, both of you simply breathing, trying to reassemble yourselves.

"What," Jace said eventually, blinking hard, rubbing at his temple, looking thoroughly, genuinely bewildered, "what the hell was that?"

You pressed the heel of your hand against your forehead, still catching your breath, your heart hammering against your ribs as though you'd actually run somewhere rather than simply stood still in a library.

"I have absolutely no idea," you admitted.

A pause stretched between you, both of you processing, trying to make sense of something that refused to be made sense of.

"But," you added slowly, studying him across the table, searching his face for some sign that he'd experienced the same thing you had, "it looked like our dreams. The same castle. The same feeling."

His expression shifted slowly, uncertainty giving way to something more like recognition, and he nodded, still looking a little stunned by the whole affair.

"Yeah," he said. "It did."

You rubbed your temples and managed a weak, slightly unhinged smile, the kind that comes purely from having no better response available.

"So maybe we're just losing our minds together," you offered. "That's something, at least. Solidarity in madness."

He stared at you for a beat, and then barked out a laugh, sudden and loud enough that the same irritated student two tables over shot both of you a truly withering glare this time. You laughed too, unable to help it,and it took several more seconds before either of you noticed that the forgotten textbook still lay open on the table between you, or that neither of your hands had actually let go of the other's the entire time, fingers still loosely tangled together across the scarred wooden table.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The second time it happened, it was almost laughable as though the universe wanted to remind you that these visitations could arrive during the most ordinary moments imaginable, not just the dramatic ones. You were curled up together on the sofa at your shared apartment, locked in a fierce and unnecessary battle over which movie the two of you would watch that evening, Jace clutching the remote to his chest with both hands like it was the last dragon egg surviving in all of Westeros.

"You always pick the depressing films," you accused, reaching for it and being immediately rebuffed.

"They're not depressing," he argued, deeply offended by the accusation. "They're emotionally complex."

"They're two and a half hours long."

"They're masterpieces."

"They're boring."

"They won awards, actual awards, from actual film critics."

"You have old man taste, Jace, you like movies where nothing happens for two hours and then a man stares meaningfully out a window."

He gasped, scandalized, one hand pressed dramatically to his chest as though you'd genuinely wounded something vital.

"You wound me," he said, and you snorted, unable to help it, before making a sudden dive for the remote, darting around the arm of the sofa in a move you were fairly proud of. His reflexes caught you before you got anywhere near it, his hand closing warm around your waist and hauling you back against him.

"Got you."

"Jace!"

"Nope. You've lost remote privileges, effective immediately."

You twisted in his grip, laughing, trying to pry his fingers loose one by one, both of you dissolving into the familiar bickering that had become one of your favorite parts of any given evening together, and that was when the spark came back, far stronger this time, shooting through you like a current of lightning that started somewhere behind your ribs and radiated outward through every nerve. The apartment dissolved around you entirely, walls and furniture and the flickering light of the television all melting away like watercolors left out in the rain.

Warm candlelight replaced the cold blue glow of the television screen. A fire crackled somewhere nearby, comforting and steady, and the scent of cedarwood and lavender curled through the air, carried on a breeze from heavy crimson curtains swaying gently before windows thrown open to a moonlit sea blow.

Dragonstone again, you realized almost immediately, though this room felt entirely different from the tense, shadowed library of before, softer somehow, lived in rather than merely occupied for the sake of appearances. A massive four poster bed dominated one side of the chamber, its curtains dark red and embroidered with silver dragons that seemed to catch the candlelight, books stacked haphazardly beside a comfortable armchair that had clearly seen years of use, a cup of tea gone cold and entirely forgotten on a side table nearby. This was not a prince’s official chamber, not something meant to impress visiting lords or intimidate rivals. This was a home, built slowly and carefully by two people who actually lived in it together.

Jacaerys lounged across the bed itself, one arm tucked comfortably behind his head, entirely at ease, all that careful tension gone from his shoulders. His riding leathers were gone, replaced by loose black linen trousers and an ivory shirt left unlaced at the throat, the sleeves rolled carelessly up his forearms, his curls still damp from having recently bathed and hadn't bothered to properly dry them. He watched you with open fondness as you moved around the room in a long white nightdress, the thin fabric brushing against your ankles with every hurried step you took, your hair loose and falling everywhere down your back, absorbed in whatever mission had you searching through drawers and shelves and tabletops with such single minded, almost frantic focus.

He thought, quite simply, without any of the usual complications that came with being a prince at war, that his wife was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. No jewels adorned you. No court finery, no careful arrangement of hair or paint on your face. Just candlelight dancing warmly across your features while you muttered under your breath about a missing book, utterly unaware of how thoroughly you'd captured his attention, and he thought, not for the first time, that he could happily watch you like this forever, uninterrupted, for the rest of whatever life the gods saw fit to grant him.

"Ñuha jorrāelagon," he said, his voice low and warm, threading easily through the quiet room.

You didn't even look up from your search, too absorbed to notice the endearment properly.

"Hm?"

"What has my wife so frantic at this hour?"

"I'm looking for something."

"So I gathered, from the state of these drawers."

"The book," you said, finally straightening to look at him properly, hands on your hips in mild exasperation. "The one I read to you."

He blinked, sitting up slightly against the headboard, genuine surprise crossing his features. "You…What?"

"The history one, the dull one you claim to hate but always fall asleep to within ten minutes. You haven't been sleeping."

"I sleep," he protested, though even he seemed to hear how unconvincing it sounded the moment it left his mouth.

"You absolutely do not."

"I close my eyes…for extended periods."

"For three hours, maybe, if I'm generous."

"I am very efficient with my rest."

You shot him a withering look over your shoulder that had absolutely no effect on his grin whatsoever.

“It was pathetic, and you know it.” A laugh escaped him despite himself, warm and genuine. “There she is.”

"There who is?"

"My terrifying wife."

You rolled your eyes, though you couldn't quite hide your own smile, and kept searching, muttering under your breath that you knew, you absolutely knew, you had left that book somewhere in this room within the last few days. Jacaerys watched you a moment longer, something heavier settling behind his eyes now, a weight that had nothing to do with amusement.

Since the war had begun in earnest, everything about your shared life had changed, shifted in rhythm and weight in ways that had crept up on him slowly enough that he hadn’t fully registered the accumulation until now, watching you hunt for a book at this late hour. The days had folded into an endless procession of meetings and letters and ravens arriving at every hour of the day and night, military reports stacking higher on his desk than the books beside his own armchair, councils stretching long into the smallest, most exhausted hours of the night.

He had become husband second and prince first, somewhere along the way, without ever consciously choosing it, and the realization settled uncomfortably in his chest now, heavier than any armour he had worn that week, because you were still here, still caring for him in these small, quiet, unglamorous ways that no one else would ever witness or praise, still hunting down a silly book at this hour because you had discovered, somewhere in the early days of your marriage, that stories settled his racing mind enough for sleep to finally, mercifully claim him.

When had he last simply looked at you, he wondered, not as queen to be, not as political support standing quietly at his side during difficult councils, not as someone patiently waiting on the edges of his responsibilities for scraps of his attention, but simply as his wife, the woman he had chosen and would choose again in every version of this life, standing right there in front of him, deserving of far more than he had given her lately?

He rose quietly from the bed, moving with the same unhurried grace that seemed to belong to this version of him, and you didn't notice until warm arms slipped around your waist from behind, startling you out of your search entirely.

"Jace?"

He buried his face against your shoulder, breathing you in.

"I've neglected you."

Your expression softened instantly, all your earlier exasperation melting away in an instant.

"My prince."

"I have."

"You've been fighting a war."

"I've still neglected you," he insisted, and you turned in his embrace to face him properly, both hands rising to frame his face, cupping his jaw the way you had come to do so naturally that neither of you noticed it anymore.

"You have never neglected me."

"I've scarcely seen you these past weeks, truly seen you, not simply passed you in a corridor between one meeting and the next."

"I see you every day."

"Not enough." He rested his forehead against yours, his eyes falling closed. "I miss my wife."

You smiled, a little breathless at the weight in his voice. "I am standing right here."

"I know. I missed you anyway, even standing right in front of me."

Something in your chest gave way at that admission, warm and aching all at once.

"You impossible man."

"I've been called worse, by better people than you."

"You've been called stubborn."

"Frequently. I learned it from my mother, who learned it from her father, who I am told learned it from a dragon."

A laugh escaped you at that, helpless and warm, and his eyes softened even further at the sound of it.

"There she is again."

"The terrifying wife?"

"My laugh. I've missed hearing it more than I realized until just now."

Without another word he bent and lifted you effortlessly into his arms, and you squealed his name in surprise, one hand flying automatically to his shoulder for balance, protesting weakly about the book even as you wrapped your other arm around his neck.

"My love, I was hoping to steal at least one quiet hour with my wife tonight, away from ravens and councils and everything else that has claimed us both these past weeks. The book can wait a little longer."

"Can it?"

"It has survived this long without being read, hasn't it? One more night won't harm it."

He carried you back toward the bed while you laughed, swatting lightly at his shoulder in entirely half hearted protest, the room already beginning to blur softly at the edges, the fire smearing into long, warm streaks of gold, your laughter echoing strangely as though it belonged to two places at once, two lifetimes overlapping for just a moment before separating again.

Then you were back. Your apartment, the television menu still looping endlessly in the background, some cheerful little tune repeating itself for the hundredth time. Jace's hands were still around your waist, exactly where they'd been before the world had folded away and back again, and you were still laughing, until a blinding headache struck without warning and both of you stumbled apart instinctively, hands flying to your temples in near perfect unison. Then nothing, the pain vanishing as quickly and completely as it had arrived.

Jace blinked several times, looking thoroughly dazed, one hand still pressed against his temple.

"Did we just." He rubbed the back of his neck, clearly trying to gather his scattered thoughts. "What does Ñuha jorrāelagon mean?"

The answer left his mouth before he'd even had time to properly think about it, arriving fully formed just like when they come from somewhere other than conscious memory.

"My beloved."

The silence that followed felt enormous, stretching out between you.

"How do you know that?" you asked, frowning at him.

He blinked, thoroughly confused by his own certainty, scratching absently at his jaw the way he did when something puzzled him.

"I- All of us- The Targaryens, we're taught High Valyrian growing up, it's practically a family tradition, though I've genuinely never studied it in this life, not properly, not beyond a handful of words my grandmother insisted on."

"It's a dead language," you said slowly, turning the thought over.

He nodded, something almost wistful crossing his face now. "Mother always insisted we learn it, in the dreams, in whatever that was. The last connection to Old Valyria, she used to say. A thread back to something that no longer exists anywhere but in memory."

You looked at him with a soft, curious smile, something warm blooming in your chest at the thought.

"Will you teach me? What you remember of it, I mean."

His eyebrows lifted in genuine surprise. "You want to learn High Valyrian? A dead language from a life that may or may not have even been real?"

"It seems important," you said simply. "It mattered to you then, clearly, and it matters to you now, even if you don't fully understand why yet. I'd like to understand that part of you, whichever version of you it belongs to."

Jace simply stared at you for a long moment, quietly, wondering how exactly he had gotten so lucky, in this life or any other, before moving forward without warning and squishing both your cheeks between his palms until your lips puckered into an indignant little pout, and kissing them soundly, until you made a muffled noise of protest against his mouth that had absolutely no real objection behind it. When he finally pulled back he rested his forehead against yours, smiling so brightly it nearly hurt to look at directly.

"You," he murmured, "are entirely too sweet for your own good."

Your cheeks warmed instantly, heat crawling up from your neck.

"Oh, stop."

"I don't think I will."

"You absolutely should, before your ego becomes unmanageable."

"I've only just started, love. Give it time."

And somehow, despite the confusion, despite the growing pile of unanswered questions, the strange memories no longer frightened either of you quite as much as they had before, because every single one of them, so far, kept ending the same way. With the two of you finding each other, again and again, across whatever distance separated one life from the next.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

The third time it happened, things turned considerably more intense, and left you shaking long afterward in a way the previous two memories hadn't.

To shorten a story that had felt endless while it was actually happening, some stranger near campus had spent the better part of an hour harassing you outside the coffee shop where you sometimes studied, calling you names when you ignored him, growing bolder and cruder with every dismissal, until he made the fatal mistake of saying something crude and dismissive about your boyfriend, something about what a real man would want from you that a boy like Jace clearly couldn’t provide.

The next thing you fully registered, past the sudden white hot rush of fury that had apparently overridden every ounce of your usual restraint, was your own fist connecting solidly with his jaw, hard enough to send him sprawling backward onto the pavement in front of a small crowd of stunned onlookers. Your knuckles paid the price immediately, splitting open against his teeth and beginning to bleed almost instantly, and you cursed under your breath the entire walk to the infirmary while your friends hovered around you in a mixture of genuine concern and poorly concealed awe.

The infirmary smelled overwhelmingly of antiseptic, and you hated it, hated the sharp sterile sting of it in the back of your throat, hated the fluorescent lights that made everyone look slightly ill even when they weren't. The ache in your knuckles had dulled into a steady, insistent throb beneath the fresh white bandages the university nurse had wrapped around your hand, and she busied herself nearby gathering supplies, muttering under her breath about students and their consistently poor decision making.

"You really shouldn't punch people," she said, not for the first time.

"I know."

"You could have broken your hand, quite badly, on his jaw of all things."

"I know."

"So why did you do it?"

You looked stubbornly up at the ceiling tiles, refusing to meet anyone's eyes directly, feeling the last of the adrenaline finally draining out of you and leaving something shakier in its place.

"He deserved it."

One of your friends sighed heavily, dropping into the chair beside you.

Your friends exchanged looks amongst themselves, all of them equally worn down by the entire ordeal, the walk across campus, the waiting, the general chaos of the evening.

"You literally sent that guy flying, like actually flying, off his feet."

"He called Jace a-"

"We know what he called him, we were standing right there."

"And then he said something about-"

"We know, we heard the whole thing, that's rather the point."

Your best friend crossed her arms, giving you a look that managed to be both exasperated and deeply fond at the same time.

"But next time, maybe don't commit aggravated assault in broad daylight in front of half the sociology department?"

"He insulted my boyfriend."

"Which apparently now carries the death penalty, according to your reaction."

"He started it."

"And you finished it. Spectacularly. With witnesses."

You couldn't even argue with that assessment.

The infirmary doors burst open without warning, hard enough to bang against the wall behind them. Heads turned throughout the small waiting room. Jace, curls windswept and wild, hoodie half zipped, breathing unevenly as if he had sprinted the entire way across campus without stopping once to catch his breath.

His eyes found you immediately, scanning the room until they landed on your face, relief flooding through his expression for exactly half a second before he noticed the bandages wrapped thick around your hand, and everything shifted instantly into something far more urgent. Your friends silently abandoned ship at record speed.

"We're leaving."

"Absolutely, definitely leaving."

"You two have fun, we'll text you later."

Within seconds they had vanished entirely through the door, leaving you completely and utterly at the mercy of your boyfriend, who was already crossing the room in long strides, dropping his bag carelessly by the door.

"What happened?"

"I'm okay."

"You are literally bandaged, that is not okay, what happened?"

You avoided his eyes, suddenly finding the floor tiles absolutely fascinating.

"I punched someone."

Silence, heavy and disbelieving.

"You what?"

"He was being rude."

"You punched him."

"He deserved it."

Jace pinched the bridge of his nose, the exact same gesture, you would only realize much later, that his ancient counterpart used whenever his younger brothers were collectively testing the limits of their mother's patience during council sessions.

"You punched a grown man…Over words. He called you names, I understand that's upsetting, but."

"I don't care."

"I care." His voice had softened now, all the urgency bleeding out into something gentler. He exhaled slowly and crouched down beside your chair, careful and deliberate, taking your injured hand carefully into both of his own, his thumb brushing over the edge of the bandage with surprising tenderness, hoping he could somehow ease the ache through touch alone.

"I'm serious," he said quietly, his eyes lifting to meet yours properly. "You scared me. Do you understand that? Someone called me and said you'd been in a fight, and I didn't know if you were hurt badly, if you were bleeding somewhere they couldn't see, I just ran."

Guilt settled heavy and immediate in your stomach at the raw honesty in his voice.

"I'm sorry."

"I know why you did it- I do- I just-" He shook his head, seeming to search for the right words. "I don't ever want to see you hurt, especially not over something as stupid as defending me against some idiot who doesn't matter."

His fingers tightened around yours, gentle but firm, and then it came again. Electricity, not painful this time, warm and familiar now in a way it hadn't been the first two times, and the infirmary disappeared entirely around you both.

A child's giggle rang out somewhere nearby. Sunlight streamed through tall arched windows, painting golden pools of light across polished stone floors, and you found yourself seated beside a crackling fire with a toddler curled contentedly in your lap, his tiny face pressed into your shoulder as he yawned dramatically, one small fist rubbing at his eyes. Your fingers moved automatically through his silver blond curls, not because you consciously remembered how, but because your body simply knew, the motion as natural as breathing. Across the room another small boy, no older than three, sat determinedly stacking wooden dragon toys into an impossibly unstable tower, his tongue poking out slightly in concentration, glancing up at you every few seconds with immense, undisguised pride.

"Look!"

"It is magnificent," you told him honestly.

"It big."

"It certainly is."

"It dragon tower."

"I can see that clearly."

His tiny chest puffed up with satisfaction at the praise, and he immediately added another piece, sending the whole precarious structure wobbling dangerously.

The door opened and Jacaerys stepped inside, still dressed in council clothes of black and crimson stitched with dragons, though he had discarded his cloak somewhere along the way and loosened the collar of his doublet, exhaustion lining his eyes. It vanished the instant he took in the room properly, took in you, took in his brothers, his shoulders visibly easing. His entire face softened into something warm and unguarded.

"There you all are."

The little boys immediately squealed his name in unison, and the tower collapsed in the resulting chaos as the younger prince scrambled to his feet, the older one looking utterly horrified at the wreckage of his masterpiece. Jacaerys crossed the room and crouched beside him.

"I believe dragons enjoy flying rather more than stacking," he offered solemnly, as though imparting some great and ancient wisdom.

"Really?"

"So I've heard, from very reliable sources."

The child accepted this explanation without a shred of doubt, already reaching eagerly for the scattered pieces to begin rebuilding. Jacaerys looked over at you then, and his expression eased even further, warmth spreading across his features.

"I only came to say I'll be attending the council meeting this afternoon since mother seems to have disappeared." He crossed to you and rested one hand gently on your shoulder, his thumb brushing lightly against your collarbone. "Will you manage alone with these two terrors?"

You looked down at the boys, now enthusiastically reconstructing their masterpiece with renewed determination.

"They're wonderfully mannered."

"They're also little terrors, make no mistake."

"They're your brothers."

"They learned it from Daemon, I'm quite certain, he's a terrible influence on both of them."

"They absolutely did," you laughed, and he leaned down to press a soft, lingering kiss to your lips, one that spoke of affection.

"I shall not be long."

"We'll be waiting," you promised, and he finally pulled away, brushing one last touch against the toddler's curls before he left, and then he was gone, the door closing softly behind him.

Hours passed quietly after that, the afternoon light shifting slowly as the boys played and eventually tired themselves out entirely. The younger boys eventually surrendered to sleep, one curled beneath a small woolen blanket and the other still clutching his carved wooden dragon even in slumber, his small face peaceful and untroubled, both laying in their cribs. You smiled to yourself, thinking them absolute angels when unconscious, in stark contrast to their earlier energy, the fire casting soft, flickering light across the quiet nursery.

A loud crash shattered the peace, violent and sudden. The nursery doors burst open with enough force to splinter slightly against the frame, and a filthy, stained man stumbled inside, his clothes torn and reeking of travel and something worse beneath it, his eyes immediately locking onto you as you shot to your feet, every instinct screaming danger.

"Who are," you started, your voice already unsteady.

"Where is the Whore Queen?" His voice was rough, slurred slightly with something you didn't want to identify.

Your stomach dropped straight through the floor.

"What?"

"Rhaenyra. Where is she?"

"I don't know."

"Liar."

Another figure entered behind him, moving with far more precision and purpose. White cloak, gleaming Kingsguard armour catching the firelight. You breathed out in immediate relief.

"Ser Erryk."

The knight removed his helmet slowly, deliberately, and your relief died instantly, ice flooding through your veins in its place. Not Erryk but Arryk. His twin and you just knew it was the wrong twin standing in the doorway of the nursery with an expression utterly devoid of the warmth you'd come to expect. Your heart stopped cold in your chest, understanding arriving with brutal clarity.

He regarded you without a trace of warmth and without any recognition of the years you'd known his brother.

"My lady."

You backed instinctively toward the sleeping princes behind you, positioning your body between them and the door.

"You are not Ser Erryk."

"No." He drew his sword slowly, the sound of steel leaving its sheath unbearably loud in the quiet room. "I am not."

The other man lunged first, closing the distance faster than you expected, his fist tangling brutally in your hair, yanking your head back and dragging you sideways before slamming your back against the stone wall hard enough that stars burst across your vision, pain exploding from the point of impact. The boys woke screaming behind you, terrified cries filling the room.

You ignored your own pain entirely, focused only on the children, and called out desperately for the guards, and his hand clamped hard over your mouth to silence you, calloused fingers digging into your cheeks. You bit down as hard as you possibly could, tasting blood that wasn’t your own. He roared in pain and struck you across the face with enough force that the room spun violently, blood filling your mouth from a split lip.

Arryk stepped toward one of the cribs, almost leisurely, as if he had all the time in the world.

"We only came for Rhaenyra." His voice remained eerily calm, entirely at odds with the horror unfolding in the room. "But perhaps one of her sons will suffice instead."

Your heart nearly stopped altogether at the casual cruelty of it.

"No."

The other man shoved you down onto the stone floor, the cold, unforgiving edge of a knife pressed suddenly against your throat, close enough that you felt the metal's chill against your pulse.

"It'll be quick," he said, almost gently, which was somehow worse than if he'd screamed it.

Arryk looked between the two boys with something like idle curiosity, as though selecting produce at a market.

"Choose."

You stared at him in absolute horror, unable to process the request.

"What?"

"Choose which child dies."

Your eyes filled instantly, tears blurring your vision entirely.

"No."

"Choose."

"I won't."

The knife bit deeper into your skin, a thin line of pain that made your whole body go rigid.

"Choose. A son for a son. "

Your answer came without a single moment's hesitation, fury overriding fear entirely.

"Go to the Seven Hells."

The assassin backhanded you across the face with brutal force, blood splattering onto the stone floor beside you.

"I've had enough of you.”

He grabbed your throat, fingers closing tight, and his smile turned something close to vile as his eyes dragged slowly, deliberately over you.

"Or perhaps I'll keep you instead. Make you mine, once the Queen is properly dealt with."

Your entire body froze solid at the meaning behind his words, horror crawling up your spine like ice water, and you gathered every last scrap of strength left inside you, drawing on something desperate, and screamed with everything you had left in your lungs.

"JACE!"

Your voice tore through the corridors of Dragonstone, echoing off the ancient walls, carrying farther than you had any right to hope. Outside, footsteps thundered closer, multiple sets, urgent and fast.

The assassin’s attention flickered toward the door for one brief, crucial instant, his grip loosening fractionally, and that instant was all you needed. You drove your knee upward with every ounce of force you possessed, connecting solidly, and as he doubled over gasping in pain you shoved yourself free, scrambling backward, the knife slicing a shallow but painful line across your forearm as you moved, pain burning bright but already forgotten in the desperate scramble to move, to survive, to reach the door and put distance between yourself and the danger behind you.

It flew open.

"Princess!"

Ser Erryk, the true one this time, sword already drawn, and steel met steel violently as the twin brothers crashed together in a furious, desperate duel that filled the small room with the deafening ring of clashing metal. You stumbled out into the corridor, screaming for anyone, everyone, your voice raw and cracking, and knights came running from every direction, boots pounding against stone, and among them, sword already drawn, was Jacaerys himself, storming toward the commotion with his face pale and rigid with fear, still in the same clothes he'd worn to council, having clearly abandoned the meeting the moment something had felt wrong. The moment he saw you, everything in his expression shifted to rage sweeping in cold and controlled where fear had lived a heartbeat before.

His eyes swept over you in a single desperate scan, over the bruises already blooming dark across your skin, the blood at your lip, the fresh cuts along your arm, cataloguing every injury in an instant.

"Your brothers," you gasped, grabbing at his sleeve with your good hand, your voice shaking violently, "they're inside, Ser Erryk is fighting his own brother, please, Jace."

He didn't hesitate for even a single moment.

"Take her," he ordered one of the knights, already turning toward the nursery door, and the knight caught you gently as your knees finally buckled beneath you, adrenaline draining away all at once and leaving you shaking uncontrollably in its wake. Jacaerys disappeared into the nursery without another word, sword raised, and the last thing you heard before the world blurred into a haze of exhaustion and overwhelming pain was steel colliding violently somewhere behind that door, followed by shouting, and then, mercifully, silence.

It was not long before he emerged again, still furious, though visibly restraining it now, the fight held carefully beneath the surface like a banked fire. You were kneeling on the carpeted floor of an antechamber by then, his brothers finally asleep beside you after crying themselves into exhaustion, their small bodies curled trustingly against your sides, and you sat lost in thought, absently stroking their hair, staring into the fire without truly seeing the flames at all, your mind still caught somewhere in the terror of moments before. You didn't even notice him enter until his voice broke the silence, quiet and careful.

"My love."

You startled, looking up, and the moment his eyes landed on you properly, taking in the full extent of what had happened to you in his absence, something in his heart simply shattered, visible even in the low firelight.

He knelt beside you and cupped your face gently between both hands, now cleaned by the attending maesters and carefully tended, though the damage remained visible beneath the fresh bandaging, the swelling, the darkening bruise along your cheekbone.

He turned your face slightly toward the firelight, examining the cut near your temple with thoroughness, before his hand moved lower to the arm where the blade had sliced through skin, tracing the edge of the wound, and finally he rested his forehead against yours, one hand still resting protectively at your throat as though he could somehow shield you retroactively from what had already happened to you while he sat in council, unaware.

"I almost lost you today," he said, his voice breaking on the words. "I- This war is not yours. This should never have happened to you, none of it, not the fighting, not the fear, none of it."

"I am your wife, Jace," you said quietly, but firmly, holding his gaze despite the ache in your jaw. "This war is very much mine as much as it is yours. I chose this the day I married you, knowing full well what it meant."

He shook his head, refusing to accept it, and then asked, almost fearfully, his voice smaller than you'd ever heard it, "Did you yell for me?"

You nodded, and he sighed, the sound heavy with something between overwhelming relief and lingering terror, his shoulders sagging visibly.

"I knew," he said. "Something tugged at my heart in the middle of that council meeting, and my gut twisted painfully, like something was terribly wrong, and I could not explain it to the men sitting around me, I simply knew I had to come. I came as fast as I possibly could."

He pulled back just enough to tuck a loose strand of hair gently behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your cheek afterward. “Perhaps you should stay at your maiden house for some time, until this madness with the assassins has settled, until it’s safer-”

You cut him off immediately, your voice sharp despite everything.

"Absolutely not."

You would never leave him alone to face any of this without you standing beside him, not now, not ever, not for anything.

"Why are you so stubborn," he asked, though there was no real heat in it at all, only exhausted, overwhelming affection.

"Well," you said, managing a small, tired smile despite the ache in your split lip, "your habits are rubbing off on me, my love. You've made me stubborn by example."

The memory dissolved as suddenly and completely as it had come, the firelight and stone corridors of Dragonstone vanishing entirely. You were back in the infirmary, dealing once more with the familiar pounding headache and a silence that felt heavier than before, weighted with everything you'd just witnessed and felt in that other life. You didn't say much in the immediate aftermath, both of you too shaken to properly voice anything, Jace's hand still wrapped tightly around yours, neither of you quite ready to let go.

┈┈・୨ ✦ ୧・┈┈

Later that night, unable to sleep, you found yourself standing in the cool breeze atop your apartment building, the city sprawling out beneath a sky scattered generously with stars, the noise of traffic far below muted and distant. The door creaked open behind you, and you didn't need to turn to know it was him, his footsteps familiar even from a distance.

"I thought I'd find you here," Jace said, stepping up beside you, his shoulder brushing warm against yours. "You okay?"

You nodded automatically, though the gesture felt hollow even to yourself.

"I know that nod," he said gently. "It wasn't convincing."

A quiet laugh escaped you despite everything. "Not even a little?"

"Not even a little, I'm afraid."

Silence settled comfortably between you, the summer breeze playing gently with his curls, carrying the distant sound of the city below, until finally you spoke, your voice small in the vastness of the night.

"Jace?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think we're soulmates?"

He turned to look at you properly, studying your face in the dim light.

"What makes you ask?"

You smiled faintly, looking up at the scattered stars above you both. "Every once in a while, we get these flashbacks. A life we lived, somewhere, somehow, that neither of us can properly explain. No matter the circumstances, no matter how frightening some of it has been, the same warm feeling still blooms steadily in my chest every single time I look at you, undimmed and unafraid, like it's the one constant thread running through everything."

Jace considered this for a long moment, something thoughtful and tender settling over his features as he looked down at your intertwined hands.

"Maybe," he said finally. "Maybe we're tied together by one very stubborn red string that refuses to let either of us go, no matter how many lifetimes it takes."

You laughed softly through the emotion gathering unexpectedly in your chest, and he opened his arms, and without hesitation you stepped into them, letting him wrap you up tightly against him, his chin coming to rest atop your head, both of you standing quietly together beneath the stars.

"I hope," he whispered into your hair, "that string never breaks."

You squeezed him tighter, breathing in the familiar warmth of him.

"It won't."

He smiled against your hair, the expression audible in his voice even without seeing it.

"I think I'd keep falling in love with you. In every lifetime. For all of eternity, no matter what shape either of us takes. Like we could be rocks and I would love you."

You groaned dramatically into his chest, suddenly shy despite everything the two of you had just been through together.

"Oh, stop being so cheesy."

"Never," he said, grinning and pressed a soft kiss to the top of your head.

"You still died in the end though…”

“Let’s not talk about that my love.” He said nervously.

You rolled your eyes, though you didn't move from his arms. "Unfortunately."

And then the fourth memory hit….

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the scent of old paper and expensive sandalwood clung to the air of valarr’s study. it was a room that mirrored him: pristine, organized, and suffocatingly composed. you sat across from him at the heavy mahogany desk, the glare of the desk lamp bouncing off the pages of a textbook that felt like it was written in a dead language. to the rest of the campus, you were the darling—the girl with the permanent, sunny smile and the helpful hand, the one who never missed a beat in social grace. but here, under the steady, judging gaze of your sweet boyfriend valarr targaryen, that mask was slipping.

you weren't stupid. you were just bored, and the effort of actually caring about the curriculum felt like a chore you weren't paid for.

"the third paragraph outlines the economic collapse of the era," valarr said, his voice a smooth, effortless.he didn't look up from his own notes, his posture perfect, the sleeves of his white button-down rolled up to reveal forearms that were far too distracting for a tutoring session. "i believe i asked you to summarize the primary catalyst. you've been staring at the same page for ten minutes."

you let out a long, dramatic groan, leaning back in the chair until it creaked precariously.

"this is torture," you whined, tossing your pen onto the desk. "why is it so long?why are there so many dates? val, please, just tell me the answer so we can stop."

valarr finally looked up. his eyes were cool, shimmering with a hint of amusement that didn't reach a smile. he was the golden boy, the pride of his father baelor’s connections, the man who had volunteered to save your GPA not out of pity, but because he viewed your laziness as a challenge to be conquered. and cause he loved you

"because knowing the answer isn't the same as understanding the process," he replied calmly. "and because you are currently failing, which is a tragedy for someone with your intellect. focus."

you glared at him, your chest tightening with a mixture of irritation and an ache you refused to acknowledge. you loved it when he was like this—composed, untouchable, acting as if your tantrums were nothing more than a mild breeze. it made you want to tear that composure apart.

slowly, you shifted in your seat. you kicked off your shoe, the soft skin of your foot meeting the fabric of his charcoal trousers. you didn't start bold; you just let your toes brush against his ankle, a tentative, teasing ghost of a touch.

valarr didn't flinch. he didn't even pause his breathing.

you emboldened yourself, sliding your foot upward, tracing the line of his calf, feeling the hard muscle beneath the fabric. you pushed further, your toes seeking the heat of his inner thigh, moving slowly, deliberately. you watched his face for a crack—a twitch of the lip, a widening of the pupils, anything.

suddenly, his hand shot out.

his fingers clamped around your ankle with a grip like iron. the suddenness of it made you gasp, your breath hitching in your throat. he didn't squeeze hard enough to hurt, but the possessiveness of the hold was electric. he didn't look at you; he simply guided your leg back down to the floor and released you.

"the catalyst, sweetheart," he murmured, his voice dropping an octave. "unless you'd prefer i report to your professors that you're spending our sessions practicing your footwork." you felt a flush creep up your neck. the rejection should have stung, but the way he called you 'sweetheart'—that low, commanding tone—sent a jolt of heat straight to your core.you weren't finished.

"my chair is uncomfortable," you declared, standing up abruptly.

before he could respond, you rounded the desk. you didn't ask. you simply stepped between his legs and lowered yourself onto his lap, sitting sideways. you felt the immediate, firm pressure of his thighs beneath you and the heat radiating through his clothes. you leaned back against his chest, settling your weight comfortably, your hip brushing against the growing hardness in his trousers. valarr stiffened for a fraction of a second, but he didn't push you off. he didn't even stop holding the textbook. he simply shifted his arm to keep the book open in front of your face.

"if the chair was the problem, i'm glad we've resolved it," he said, though his breath was slightly heavier now. "now. the catalyst. try again." you let out a soft, feline hum, tilting your head back to look at him. from this angle, his jawline looked like it had been carved from marble. you reached up, your fingers tracing the line of his collar, playing with the top button of his shirt.

"i can't think when you're being so mean to me," you whispered, shifting your hips. you ground yourself against him, a slow roll that made you feel the exact shape of his cock through the layers of fabric.

valarr’s hand left the book. be didn't grab you; he simply rested his palm on your waist, his thumb digging slightly into the soft flesh of your hip. "you aren't being bullied," he noted, his voice steady despite the friction. "you're being tutored. there is a difference."

"i hate you," you lied, leaning in to press a lingering, wet kiss to the corner of his mouth. you didn't stop there. you trailed your lips down to his jaw, then to the sensitive skin just below his ear. you nipped at his lobe, feeling him shudder beneath you. you could smell him—the sharp scent of leather,cedar and the cologne he always wore. you moved your mouth to his neck, sucking a small, bruising mark into the skin, your tongue darting out to taste the salt of his skin.

"valarr..." you breathed against his pulse point.

"love," he commanded.

you paused. you didn't want to give in. you wanted him to beg. you wanted the golden boy to break. you shifted again, rubbing yourself against him, feeling the dampness of your panties soaking through to his lap.

"hmm?" the composure finally snapped, though not in the way you expected. he didn't lose control; he took it.

one hand slid from your waist to your upper thigh, his fingers digging in with a sudden, bruising intensity. his other hand moved to the back of your neck, his fingers tangling in your hair. he didn't pull hard, but he exerted enough pressure to force your head back, making you look him directly in the eyes.

his gaze was no longer cool. it was predatory.

"you think this is a game," he whispered, his face inches from yours. "you think you can just distract me with a few rubs and some kisses and I'll forget that you're failing this course."

"maybe i don't care about the course," you whimpered, your voice trembling.

"i care," he countered. "i care about your education. and i care about the fact that you've spent the last hour trying to see how far you can push me."

he shifted his hand from your thigh, sliding it upward.his palm brushed against the hem of your skirt, the fabric sliding up as he pushed his hand underneath. you let out a sharp moan as his fingers found the lace of your panties. he didn't go inside yet; he just pressed his palm firmly against your slit, rubbing in a slow, circular motion.

you were drenched.the friction of his palm against the thin lace sent sparks through your nerves, and you arched your back, pressing yourself harder into his hand.

"are you really that needy?" valarr asked, his voice returning to that terrifyingly calm, analytical tone. "can't even focus for one hour without needing to rub yourself on me? i thought you were my smart girl. i didn't realize you were this desperate."

"i'm not..." you gasped, but a loud, wet squelch sounded as he pressed harder, the moisture of your arousal lubricating the fabric. "i'm not desperate."

"your body says otherwise," he murmured.

he hooked two fingers under the elastic of your panties, tugging them ruthlessly to the side. the sudden exposure to the air made you shiver, and then his fingers were there—bare skin on bare skin. he didn't enter you immediately. instead, he used his middle finger to trace the length of your outer lips, dragging it slowly from your perineum up to your clit.

you cried out, your hands gripping his shoulders, your nails digging into the fabric of his shirt. "so wet," he observed, his voice a velvet caress. "it's almost embarrassing, isn't it? all this noise, all this bratty behavior, and you're practically dripping for me."

he pushed one finger inside you. he sensation was overwhelming. be entered slowly, testing the tightness of your walls, feeling the way you clamped around him. you let out a broken sob, your head falling back against his shoulder. "now," valarr whispered, his finger beginning to move in a steady, agonizingly slow rhythm. "since you're so fond of distractions, let's make a deal. for every question you answer correctly from the last chapter, I'll give you exactly ten seconds of what you want. if you get it wrong… i stop."

"please," you whimpered, "just... please, val."

"answer the question, sweetheart."

he began to move faster. the sound of it filled the quiet room—the slicking, wet noise of his finger sliding in and out of your drenched heat. you felt the air being pushed out of you in short, jagged gasps. he found your g-spot, hooking his finger upward, and you nearly blacked out from the intensity of the pleasure.

"the primary catalyst for the collapse" he demanded, his voice firm, commanding.

"the... the devaluation of the currency!" you screamed, the words tumbling out of your mouth as you chased the peak

"correct," he murmured.

he accelerated. his finger became a blur of motion, hammering into you, the friction creating a heat that felt like it was consuming you from the inside out. your right hand was locked onto his shoulder, your left hand reaching down to grip his wrist, not to stop him, but to pull him deeper. you were hovering on the edge, the tension in your lower belly coiling like a spring, your clit throbbing with every thrust

"and the secondary factor?" he asked, his voice a low hum against your cheek

"the... the war in the south!" you wailed, your hips bucking wildly. "the war in the south! oh god, valarr, please, i'm close, i'm so close—"

"one more," he whispered, his finger sliding deeper, hitting your cervix with a blunt force that made you gasp. "who was the presiding monarch during the transition?"

"i... i don't... i don't remember!" you sobbed, your body shaking, your muscles tightening in anticipation of the release. "i don't remember! just let me cum! please, please, val—!"

you were right there. the peak was a shimmering wall just inches away, and you could feel it crashing down on you. your breath was a series of broken hitches, your vision blurring.and then, in one swift, clinical motion, he pulled his fingers out. the sudden emptiness was violent. you froze, your body still vibrating, the orgasm denied at the very last millisecond.you let out a sound that was half-scream, half-sob, your chest heaving as you stared at him with wide, betrayed eyes.

valarr didn't look bothered. he slowly brought his fingers to his lips, licking the cream of your arousal from his skin with a deliberate swipe of his tongue. he watched you do it, his eyes hooded and dark.

he leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to your cheek, the contrast to his previous ruthlessness making your head spin. he gently turned your face toward him, forcing you to look at him. your lips were parted, a pout of pure frustration and longing on your face, your eyes shimmering with unshed tears of desperation.

"maybe now you're going to learn to listen, sweet girl," he said, his voice returning to that composed, golden-boy perfection.

he didn't help you up. he simply tapped your thigh with his hand, a silent command.

"stand up. go back to your chair."

you didn't move for a second, the ache between your legs pulsing with a heavy, throbbing need. you felt ruined, empty, and more attracted to him than you had ever been in your life. slowly, you slid off his lap. as you stood, you felt the cold air hit your damp skin, and the uncomfortable, heavy wetness of your panties clung to you, a constant, dripping reminder of your failure.

you walked back to your chair, your legs feeling like jelly. you sat down, the mahogany desk once again separating you from him.

valarr leaned back in his seat, crossing his legs and picking up his pen as if nothing had happened. he looked at you—really looked at you—and a small smile played on his lips.

"now," he said softly, pointing to the next page of the textbook. "let's start from the beginning. and this time, i suggest you pay very close attention."

𖥔 ݁ ˖ masterlist

^ྀི the first few weeks after the wedding feel like living inside a beautifully staged photograph. valarr holds your hand when the photographers call for it, his palm warm and steady but the moment the flashes die he lets go like the contact burns. he opens the car door for you every evening, always the same polite distance in his eyes and you learn to smile through the hollow space that sits between you on the leather seat

^ྀི the house is too large for two people who barely speak. you sleep on opposite sides of the king bed, the space between you growing wider every night. sometimes you wake to find the blanket pulled over your shoulder even though you never remember tugging it there. valarr’s side is always cold by morning

^ྀི at charity galas he stands close enough that his sleeve brushes your bare arm. when someone asks how the two of you met he answers with the rehearsed story, but his fingers find the small of your back and stay there, thumb moving in the tiniest circle against silk.you feel it for hours after.

^ྀི when his father calls, valarr’s voice changes. it becomes measured, polite, the perfect son. the second the call ends his shoulders drop and he looks at you like he wants to say something that isn’t about duty. he never does. instead he asks if you’ve eaten.

^ྀི he keeps every single invitation the two of you receive in a folder on his desk. you find it open one night and realize he’s marked the ones you seemed to enjoy with tiny checkmarks in the corner. he never asks you to go; he just makes sure the schedule works around the ones you like.

^ྀི the night you tell him you’re fine with how things are, that you don’t expect anything more, valarr goes very still. he doesn’t argue. he just reaches across the table and brushes a crumb from your lip with his thumb, the touch so careful it feels like an apology he can’t say out loud.

^ྀི your family’s business starts doing better because of the targaryen connections. your mother sends flowers. valarr reads the card, sets it aside, and later you find the flowers arranged in a vase on the dining table with a note that simply says "they’re beautiful" you don’t know if he means the flowers or you

^ྀི valarr’s hand finds yours under the table at dinner with his parents. he doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t lace fingers, just rests his palm against yours

^ྀི the first time he kisses you like he means it is after a fight that wasn’t really a fight, just two people too tired to keep pretending it’s late, the lights are off and he tastes like the wine neither of you finished

^ྀི you notice the way he loosens his tie the moment he walks through the door, like he’s letting the mask slip just a little. sometimes he sits on the couch beside you while you read, close enough that your knees touch, and stays there until you both fall asleep.

^ྀི he doesn’t say "i love you" instead he fixes the leaky pipe in your bathroom when you’re asleep. because he heard you complain about it once. he buys the exact brand of shampoo you mentioned liking in passing and leaves it in the shower without comment. he learns your favorite song and plays it low on the speaker when he thinks you’re asleep

^ྀི sometimes valarr comes home later than usual and finds you already in bed, turned toward the wall the way you’ve started sleeping lately. he stands in the doorway for a long moment, tie loosened, watching the rise and fall of your shoulders. when he finally climbs in he doesn’t touch you, but the mattress dips and the heat of him settles close enough that you feel it anyway. In the dark he whispers your name once, like he’s testing whether you’ll answer. you don’t. he stays awake longer than you do.

^ྀི the first time you cry in front of him it’s after a long dinner with his father. baelor spent the entire evening praising Valarr’s restraint, his perfect public image, the way he never lets personal feelings interfere with duty. you smile through it, play the part, and only break once the door closes behind you in the apartment. valarr watches the tears start and something in his face cracks. he crosses the room in three strides and pulls you against his chest without asking. his arms are tight, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other spread wide across your back like he’s trying to hold every piece of you together. he doesn’t say anything at first. Just holds you while you shake, his cheek pressed to the top of your head, breathing slow and steady until yours matches his.

^ྀི later that same night he kisses you like he’s starving for it. the hug turns into something else when your hands fist in his shirt and you pull him down with you onto the bed. he strips you slowly, almost reverently, but there’s nothing gentle about the way he fucks you once he’s inside. it’s deep and steady, his forehead pressed to yours, one hand gripping your thigh to keep you open for him. he keeps saying your name against your mouth like it’s the only word he remembers. when you come he follows right after, buried deep, shaking with the effort of not saying the three words that have been sitting behind his teeth for months now

^ྀི the nights you do reach for each other grow more desperate. he pins your wrists above your head and fucks you until you’re shaking, whispering "tell me what you need" against your throat like he’s begging you to ask for something he can’t give. you never do. you just hold hold him tighter afterward, pretending the way his arms tighten around you means something more.

^ྀི the ache settles a little deeper every time he presses a kiss to your forehead before leaving for work. it's the softest thing he gives you and the cruelest because it feels so much like love without the promise of it

^ྀི you finally tell him you’re tired of pretending this is just an arrangement, your voice cracks halfway through the sentence. valarr goes very still across the kitchen island. then he’s around it in seconds, pulling you into his arms again, this time lifting you onto the counter so he can stand between your legs and hold you properly. he buries his face in your neck and breathes you in like he’s been waiting for permission. when he finally speaks his voice is rough. "i never wanted to make you wait this long" he fucks you on that counter like he’s trying to make up for every quiet night

^ྀི the first time he says "i love you" it’s after another fight that isn’t really a fight, just exhaustion and too many unsaid things. you’re crying again, quiet this time, and he pulls you into his lap on the couch without asking. his arms wrap around you tight enough that you feel the tremor in his hands. he presses his mouth to your temple and says it like the words have been burning a hole in him for months. you cry harder. he just holds you through it, rocking slightly, one hand stroking your hair until the shaking stops.

^ྀི after that the sex changes. it’s still intense, still a little desperate, but there’s a new softness to the way he touches you. he takes his time now, learning every sound you make, every place that makes your breath catch. he fucks you slow and deep some nights, holding your hands above your head, whispering against your skin that you’re his, that this stopped being an arrangement the first time he saw you cry.other nights he lets you take control, lets you ride him while he grips your hips and watches your face

^ྀི valarr keeps every small thing you’ve ever left behind in a drawer in his office. a hair tie, a tube of lip balm, the spare phone charger you keep forgetting. he never tells you he collects them. just lets them sit there like proof that you exist in his space even when you’re trying not to

^ྀི when you tell him you love him too his breath catches like he didn’t think he’d ever hear it. he kisses you until you’re both breathless, then fucks you with the kind of reverence that makes you cry again, this time for an entirely different reason

masterlist

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Aftercare doesn’t exist to him, truly. He’d sooner shoe you out of his sight before he softened his demeanor to give you aftercare. If anything he’d expect you to give HIM aftercare.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He loves your mouth, gives him pleasure whenever he wants, even in your sleep.

On him he loves his cock. It’s gorgeous, at least in his eyes, and he expects anyone in his chambers to worship it as such.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Unless he’s breeding you, he refuses to cum inside of you, preferring to mark you as his territory by cumming on your face or wherever he feels.

He also forces you to swallow when you give him head, if you don’t he scoops it up and shoves it down your throat.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

He has a “softer” side, when it comes to you if you’re his sibling by blood.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Very experienced, he knows his way around a paid whore so he’d easily maneuver around your body.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Missionary or doggy, anything where he can either choke you or force your face into the bed or ground.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Serious, all the way serious, he’s never silly during sex.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He keeps it well groomed, trimmed but not fully shaven.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

I don’t think intimacy exists unless he’s cooing and driving into his sibling during their wedding night.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Gets himself off in front of you, especially if you walk in on his on accident.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Dacryphilia

Breeding

Dumbification

Somnophilia

Incest

Roleplay

Cum marking

Impact play

Knife/blade play

Overstimulation

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Anywhere, especially if it’s in public, he wants to be caught balls deep inside of you.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Seeing you cry, hearing you beg for mercy, telling him no…the list goes on.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He’d pretty much never say no to anything

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

He doesn’t give, but he’d lick up his cum from your hole and make out with you afterwards.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Fast and rough unless he’s dragging it out to make you cry more.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He enjoys quickies but they aren’t his favorite unless he’s feeling restless.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He’s always up for a risk, hence why he likes to hold a blade to your throat sometimes.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

He can last a round or two before he needs a break, but he expects you to perform oral between rounds. If you say no, he’d force it anyways.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

If he saw you with a toy he’d probably spank the hell out of you. Like not in a hot way, in a “this will leave a bruise and/or welt” way.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He’s a tease through and through. Teasing while you’re begging for him to stop; “oh, can’t handle it, can you?”

While you’re crying: “tears only make this worse for you, dove.” As he’s licking up your tears.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

A loud grunter, but he usually just hums or purrs deep from his chest.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

A virgin in the penetrative sense, I fear. He wouldn’t want to fuck a random hole, but he’d love to throat fuck anyone who’d let him (or be forced to).

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

7.5-8 at the most, thinner but not weirdly so, a purplish hue to his tip from being so pale. One large vein along the underside of his shaft.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Sex drive of a fucking maniac, he always wants to be buried inside of you someway.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

There’s a pleasant, amber-lit warmth around you as you recline back against the plush chaise, eyes dipping in the shadows of the tent. You nurse a cup of blackberry wine, remnants sticky and sweet between the grooves of your bottom teeth as you run the point of your tongue across them. You take a gentle breath, smelling the incense coiling out in thin, white wisps from the thurible suspended overhead: floral bergamot and the musk of something earthier. Shredded wildgrass. Rain on hot earth.

Languidly, your other hand cards through Daeron’s hair, fingers threading between the strands and rubbing along his scalp. His head rests in your lap, his eyes closed, his lips stained a reddish-purple from the wine and the press of your lips. He hums, a leonine purr from the depths of his chest, when the tips of your fingers run in circles along his temple.

He shifts, eyes blinking open to stare up at you. Beyond the canvas of the tent, the music of wandering bards clears the warm evening air of silence, matching birdsong with the plucking of strings and the drone of a wooden flute.

Wordlessly, you lower the cup to him, pressing it gently to his mouth and pouring some in. He drinks with his eyes on you the entire time, glassy and perfectly reflecting the candlelight over your shoulder.

“I’ve been thinking,” Daeron drawls after swallowing, eyes darting across the lines of your face.

“You’ve been thinking? That’s dangerous,” you comment softly, tugging at his hair. “Should I be worried?”

The prince rolls his eyes and continues, “Yes, yes, your jesting is hilarious. But, I have been thinking.”

You take a sip of wine. As you do, he watches the way your throat works around the swallow. His thoughts are softer around the edges, velveteen against the thick arch of his skull, and as his glazed eyes follow the wine down the drop of your throat, he feels his cock give a feeble jerk in his trousers.

You rub your fingers against the crown of his head, speaking when the silence stretches. “What have you been thinking, my prince?”

“Don’t my prince me.”

“You are my prince, are you not?”

Daeron huffs, and you smile down at him. You dip then, pressing your lips to his, the angle slightly awkward, but it doesn’t matter. The prince makes a noise from the back of his throat when your mouth drops to his, and he licks the overripe berries from your lips. He would’ve licked it from your teeth and your tongue too, but you pull away before he can deepen the kiss.

“What have you been thinking about, Daeron?” You repeat, his name so gentle rolling across your tongue. It’s a warm brush across his chest, like the feathering of fingers over his sternum. If he were less mortal, he may have started glowing, skin burning hot at the amorous lilt in that one word alone.

“Duncan,” he replies, almost breathless. The fingers in his hair are teasing, tugging, and he fights off the fluttering of his eyelashes as he looks up at you. “Ser Duncan.”

You peer down at him curiously.

A beat of silence passes, framed only by the distant strumming of a lute and the hammering of your heart against your ribs. The hand on his head shifts, and you swipe a stray lock away from his glistening eyes.

“Ser Duncan,” you say. It’s a statement. Firm and sound as the man who owns the name. The big oak of a man made up of sword callouses on his large hands and a stretching mass of shoulders beneath the thinning material of his tunic. You run your thumb over one of the prince’s eyebrows as you speak again. “And what about him?”

“He’s a big lad, isn’t he?” Daeron whispers out. “A good lad, too.”

“He is,” you agree without much thought.

Ser Duncan the Tall is a big lad. Carved from stone, fists of iron. His arms are thick, as are his shoulders, and his back, and his legs. He takes up space even when he hunches in poor attempts to make himself smaller. His chest and stomach are a solid mass of fat and muscle, soft to the touch which you had found out when, rather boldly—and rather drunkenly—you had placed a palm flat to his chest a few evenings ago. And gods, how he had blushed beneath the trailing of your hand over the solid bulk of his abdomen. Ser Duncan the Tall, a man who made you look bite-sized in comparison, all big and strong with a tendency to go bright red in the ears at the mercy of a pretty lady.

“Such a good lad,” Daeron murmurs, eyes finally closing as you trace the ridge of his browbone. The way he says it makes you smile around the rim of your cup as you take another mouthful of wine. Daeron opens his eyes at the movement, muttering, “Yeah?”

“He is,” you say again, dropping the cup to his face and pouring another decent amount of wine into his mouth. Your hand runs down his cheek, and you wipe a droplet from the corner of his mouth before it can roll down the side of his head. Thumb still at the corner of his mouth as he swallows, you ask, “And why exactly are you thinking about Ser Duncan?”

“I just thought—” the prince begins, almost sheepish, but the wine in his veins is honey-thick and warm, and that velvet brush of his thoughts isn’t bowing to any kind of sober shame. “—we could try something.”

You drink the rest of the wine, sediment swirling in the bottom of the cup as you place it to the side. The two bottles nearby roll empty against the ground. You let your pause linger as you listen to the combined plucking of chordophones somewhere across the camp.

“You want to try something with Ser Duncan?” You query, fingers feather-light as you trace over his cheekbone and the scar that sits there, gnarled but healed.

Daeron smiles. “Yes.”

“And… you think I would agree?”

Daeron continues to smile, but it grows. He reaches a hand, lazy in its movement, to cup the side of your head and bring you down to him once more. He kisses you then, gentle and sugared by blackberries, and there’s a subtle flick of his tongue against your lower lip. You huff into it, and he allows you to pull back. Looking down at him, your hand back in his hair now, you find him smiling still with a pink hue across his cheeks.

“Surely you’ve seen the way he acts around you,” Daeron says, hand trailing briefly over your throat, before tracing a line down your chest, between the valley of your breasts. He continues, “The man goes blood red when you so much as smile at him.”

You want to roll your eyes, but Daeron’s right. You know exactly how the knight shies away beneath your smile, beneath the sweep of your gaze, beneath the whisper of your praise.

Daeron’s hand stretches over the softness of your stomach, palm across your navel. “And he is such a good knight. Surely he deserves someone like you to care for him?”

You offer the prince a knowing smile. “And you wish to care for him as well?”

Daeron shrugs, the movement heavy against your thigh. He kneads at your stomach, and you puff, batting his hand away. He hums out a laugh before his head turns and he kisses your stomach through the thin linen of your chemise.

“If it pleases him,” Daeron murmurs against you. His cheeks are bright pink now, and you can’t help but skim your knuckles across it, feeling the heat prickling there. Daeron catches your hand and brings it to his mouth, kissing over the backs of your fingers. “So?”

A thick heat bundles tightly behind your navel at the thought of Ser Duncan and your prince and you. The wet kisses being left across the back of your perfumed hand aren’t helping the ache between your thighs either.

“You are very convincing, your grace,” you chide, free hand finding his hair and pulling his head back. He grunts, but takes it with lowering eyelids, watching you with the corners of his lips creeping upwards. You ignore the smug look on his face, bending to kiss him once more, lips brushing as you reply, “If it pleases him.”

—✿—

Ten minutes later, and slightly tipsy, you traipse out of your tent and across the camp, the blackberry wine hot in your veins. You shroud yourself in Daeron’s cloak, with your chemise exposed and hastily tucked into a pair of linen trousers, tied tightly around your waist. The material billows around your shins as you cross the encampment, peering through the darkness in search of Ser Duncan.

You follow the music, lured by the stringed quartet who gather beneath the golden lamplight in the opening of Lord Baratheon’s tent. You duck inside, smelling roasted meat and spilled ale, and you fight your way through the churning dancers until you reach the grand table at the very far end.

Lyonel raises his eyes from his supper, fork half-way to his mouth. His eyes twinkle, a few curls of his dark hair brushing messily over his eyes. With his other hand, he wipes them away as he addresses you by name.

“I thought you had retired for the evening,” Lyonel says, eyes trailing down your slightly dishevelled form. 

He bites the slab of meat from his fork and chews carefully as you wave off his comment, looking around the tent as you speak. “May you point me in the direction of Ser Duncan?”

Lyonel’s eyes are sparkling as he chews, then swallows. His grin is woolfish too. “Oh? Whatever for?”

Your gaze finds his and you challenge it, stern and unwavering. The liquid courage that builds like ichor in your blood is enough to chase any potential embarrassment away.

“Take a wild guess,” you say, cocking your head as you appraise him. And before he can make a wild guess—which, from experience, would be more than wild—you continue, “Do you know where he is or not?”

He takes a stab at another piece of meat, before gesturing vaguely with his fork towards the tent’s entrance. He shoves the piece into his mouth and says around the food, “I’ve put him and his boy in one of my tents for the night. He shouldn’t have gone too far, he left a mere few minutes ago.”

“Thank you, Lyonel,” you say, bending into a mocking curtsy. 

Lyonel barks out a laugh, tipping his head to you as you swivel and exit the tent. With your cloak billowing out behind you, you hurry across the encampment until the music has softened and you can make out footprints in the mud that are much bigger than everyone else’s. Ahead, Ser Duncan dips his head to avoid a lantern mounted to a post.

“Ser Duncan!” You call out to him, voice carrying honey-sweet through the warm, still air. 

He turns, slightly startled, just a few metres out from Lyonel’s tent. As you near, you notice the way his eyes widen at your state, taking in the thin material of your chemise, the well-stitched linen of your trousers, and the thick cloak that blankets your figure. He drops into a small bow as you approach, and you chuckle warmly.

“M’lady,” he greets, looking at you through those pretty light brown lashes you’d come to love staring at so much. He rises when you’re directly in front of him, forcing you to crane your head. No matter how tall you ever think you feel, Ser Duncan always makes you feel small. He clears his throat politely. “Are you alright?”

“I am,” you tell him, taking a step closer and feeling the heat radiating from his body. You watch his throat work around a swallow when you reach your hand out and gently touch the pillowy muscle of his bicep. You smile, blinking up at him. “Although, I wanted to ask something of you.”

“Of—” Dunk clears his throat again as if his mouth was too dry and his tongue too heavy. “—Of course, m’lady. Anything at all.”

You grin at that. “I was wondering if you’d like to join me and Daeron in his tent?”

Dunk’s eyes widen. Baby-blue but sparkling dark beneath the casting glow of the nearby lantern. His pupils stretch outwards, and you watch his irises cloud over as he considers the weight of your words. His eyes never stray from your face as your hand gently strokes up and down his bicep.

“I, uh, I mean, I’d… that would…” Dunk stutters, then stops, composing himself. His eyes flicker down to where your hand traces flat lines across the side of his arm, and then back to your face, where you blink up at him like a doe. He exhales a quick breath. “What would I—what would we do?”

“Drink, ideally,” you tell him, fingers drawing over his shoulder now. You reach, tracing line after line until you find the meat of his pec and you feel his breathing hitch beneath your touch. You continue quietly, “But we would like to take care of you, if that is something you’d also want.”

Dunk gapes at your boldness. “We?”

“We,” you assert with a firm nod. Your hand ghosts down one pec, thumb brushing his covered nipple. You’re tracing the hammering of his heart. “Me and Daeron. I must admit this was his idea, but if you are unwilling, that is absolutely fine. He and I will simply—”

Dunk shudders beneath your touch, and one of his large hands lifts slowly to wrap around your wrist. He stills your hand where you’d been drawing circles around his clothed nipple, and you peer up at him with a small smile etched across your face. He stares down at you, chest heaving, eyes scanning your face. Then, he spares a glance towards the tent.

He speaks facing away from you. “I am not unwilling.”

Your smile grows larger. “Yeah?”

The knight turns now, and his cheeks are pink. His ears are even pinker, and you coo up at him, lifting your other hand to feather the pads of your fingers across his cheekbone.

“I am willing,” he whispers, bending his head to draw in more of your touch. His eyes flutter closed as you cup the side of his face, feeling the heat of his blush and the subtle movement of his jaw as he speaks again. “I’m willing, m’lady.”

“Ah,” you say simply, drawing your hand away. His eyes open and he releases your wrist too. You pet his chest again. “He was right.”

“I beg your pardon?” There’s a tip of his head like a puppy.

“Daeron,” you say as if the name was gilded in gold. Perhaps, in many ways, it was. “He told me you were a good lad, and he was right.”

Something like a whine breaks out from the back of Dunk’s throat, and his eyes rise to scan the encampment, but no soul wanders in this direction. You notice the flush creeping down the column of his neck now, and you can’t help the heat that kindles behind your navel as you observe it.

Quickly, you withdraw your hand from his chest and offer the tall man your arm, which he takes without a second thought. He has to stoop slightly, which makes you chuckle.

“Come now, Ser Duncan.” You guide him towards your tent, earth churning beneath you.

The knight clears his throat. “Dunk is fine, m’lady.”

You peer up at him, patting his arm. “Dunk it is.”

—✿—

You pull the flap of Daeron’s tent aside and allow Dunk to duck in, his body hulking through the small opening. You fasten the canvas shut when you both stand inside, and you smile warmly, heart fluttering, as Dunk takes in the interior of the tent with awe. He gapes at the high ceilings draped in blacks and crimsons, the suspended lanterns, and the ornate thurible that overflows with white, bergamot-scented smoke.

Across the room, Daeron lounges much like you left him, stretched across the cushioned, ground-level chaise like a sun-drunk cat. His tunic is gone though, abdomen exposed to the lanterns and candles that fill the tent with a sunset glow. The prince opens his eyes, drawn by the movement, and the smile that pulls across his handsome face is nothing less than excited.

“Ser Duncan,” he utters, low and heady through the shadows, and the tone hits you straight in the bottom of your stomach, heat seeping between your legs as you wrap your arms around Dunk’s arm.

“Dunk,” you correct tenderly, pressing your cheek to his bicep. Your hands drift down his arm, fingers interlocking either side of his hand. You speak to the prince, still separated by metres of intricately-spun Myrish carpet. “Would like us to take care of him.”

Dunk couldn’t blush any harder if he tried.

The smile on Daeron’s face stretches even wider as he sits up and leans against the back of the chaise.

“Perfect,” he whispers, reaching across to secure a new bottle of blackberry wine.

You gently lead Dunk over to the chaise, and he lumbers behind you with his hand in yours. He inhales deeply, smelling the powdery incense and the sweet, perfumed oil on your skin as you remove your hand from his and shrug the cloak from your shoulders. Daeron gestures to the chaise, and Dunk lowers himself with a stiff grunt as you stand before him, pulling apart the knots of your trousers.

Daeron hands the knight a cup then uncorks the wine. “Ser?”

“Please,” Dunk whispers, barely aware of his own voice. 

His eyes linger on the prince, whose hair is perfectly dishevelled and framing his pretty, amber-lit face. After a moment, his eyes flit to yours, and he lets the prince pour wine into his cup as he watches the trousers drop from you, leaving you in just your thin chemise. He swallows, eyes snapping to the dark burgundy wine swirling around his cup.

Dunk takes a sip and is pleasantly surprised. It tastes nothing of the ale or cider he’s used to. It’s rich and sweet and perfectly fermented. Blackberries and sugar, but there’s a berry tartness to it too that lingers along the sides of his tongue. It tastes expensive.

You settle at his other side, and you are so close to him. Dunk can feel the press of your breasts against his arm as you lean to take the cup offered by the prince, and he can feel the shifting of your breathing before you take a sip. Daeron is close to him too, head parallel to his shoulder leaning back against the cushioned chaise. The strumming of instruments from Lyonel’s tent filters through the thick canvas, and the knight downs his entire cup as nerves begin clawing up the inside of his chest.

“There’s no need to be nervous,” Daeron chides suddenly, leaning his head against Dunk’s shoulder. He blindly reaches for the wine and pours more into Dunk’s empty cup. “You are a good knight, Ser Duncan. An honorable one at that. Don’t you think you deserve to be taken care of?”

Dunk’s heart beats wildly against his sternum. Granting him time to think, he takes another deep sip of wine. He feels slightly dizzy already, but he’s not sure if it’s the wine he’s chugged or the heady incense that clouds above his head.

“I don’t think so, your grace,” Dunk answers after a moment. “I don’t think I deserve—”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” you add, hand finding his chest again. It’s still over his heart. A resting comfort that does nothing to cool his heated blood. You smile up at him. “You’re a good knight. The best knight.”

Dunk shakes his head, a small dip in his brow. “I don’t—”

“Our favourite knight,” Daeron interrupts, watching as Dunk drinks his second cup of wine. The prince is already holding the bottle, and he refills the cup quickly, noticing the flaming flush across the giant’s face and neck. “You’re a good knight, aren’t you, ser?”

Dunk looks between you both. You feel him shudder beneath the press of your palm.

“Yes,” he responds meekly, then takes another drink from his cup.

You do as well. As does Daeron, and you and the prince exchange a knowing glance over the rims of your cups as you all drink. A quiet moment passes, the song beyond the tent changes tempo, and suddenly the heat inside you is just that. Heat. A blistering need spreading wild through your diaphragm as you finish your cup—you forgot how many you’ve had—and place it aside.

“Dunk…” You draw out, hand balling in his shirt now.

“Hm?” He hums, mouth full.

“Can I take this off you please?”

You tug at his tunic. He swallows, nearly choking on it, and nods. Smiling, you snatch the hem and tug it over his head, stretching to pull it from his arms too, leaving him bare in the warmth of the tent. You hum, pleased, two hands finding the mounds of his pecs as he reclines against the back of the chaise.

“So strong…” You mutter, squeezing the fat there. 

It makes Dunk groan, his pink-stained lips parting as he watches your fingers work across the muscle of his chest. You grip, palms flat over his nipples, watching the shift of skin and flesh. Daeron watches too, enraptured, before a scheming smile splits across his face and he holds his cup near Dunk’s collar bones. He pours a little then, and you watch with wide eyes as a trickle of wine falls across Dunk’s chest and slips between his pecs.

Dunk groans. “Oh gods.”

“Don’t make a mess now, sweetheart,” Daeron chuckles as you dip and catch the wine with the point of your tongue. You flatten it, just at Dunk’s sternum, and begin licking upwards, trailing back between his pecs and cleaning the blackberry from his skin. Daeron purrs, head resting against Dunk’s shoulder still, smiling proudly. “That’s good…”

Dunk cranes his head upwards so you can suck the remnants from the dip of his collarbone. Then you pull back, holding most of the wine on your tongue. You look at the knight imploringly, but he shifts his head, looking down at the prince.

Daeron nods. “Go on.”

Dunk grunts, a sound of unbridled relief, as he lowers his head and slots his mouth against yours. His lips are warm and surprisingly soft, and they move against yours slowly, timidly. You clutch the muscle of his chest as you crawl over into his lap properly, straddling the mass of his thighs as your mouths move. When his lips split open just enough, you swipe your tongue in, and it’s met with a low groan.

Daeron drinks and watches, but his free hand slinks upwards until he can take a fistful of Dunk’s hair, massaging the back of the knight’s head. Dunk groans again and his tongue meets yours, firm and salt-licked, and you smother it with blackberry wine. One of your hands trails off Dunk’s chest and dips lower, brushing over the hair that thickens beneath his navel in a messy line. You rub your palm over it, and you feel the contraction of muscle beneath fat, and that draws your heartbeat heavily between your spread legs.

Casually, Daeron reaches around where you and Dunk connect and takes the cup from the knight. Dunk makes a noise into your mouth, some kind of gruff acknowledgement, before both of his hands find your hips. They’re warm and solid and big.

“Alright, ser, c’mon now,” Daeron mutters and pulls at Dunk’s hair. The knight swallows his moan as he’s yanked away from your mouth, and you hide a giggle at the blush painting his cheeks and the glaze across his bright blue eyes. All cups are long forgotten now, and Daeron’s hand finds the back of your neck before he’s bringing you towards him. “We have to share the lady, yes?”

Dunk nods dumbly, the movements sluggish, as you smile and slot your mouth against the prince’s while one of your hands continues to trace the line of his trousers. Daeron’s mouth is firmer than Dunk’s, more experienced. His tongue pushes in harder, more incessantly, and his lips shift against yours with a speed you’ve only recently gotten used to. It’s messy and loud, and the prince moans wantonly into your mouth, the sound ricocheting off the tent’s canvas.

Dunk watches and you feel the stirring of his cock beneath the material of his trousers. Blindly, your hand drags down and you press your palm flat to the outline of his hardening cock. The knight sucks in a sudden breath, eyes on where you and Daeron kiss, hiding a groan as the warm pressure of your hand bears down on him.

You take your other hand, previously kneading across the thick fat of Dunk’s chest, and place it across Daeron’s lap too: his cock tenting his linen trousers and aching. He huffs into your mouth and you catch the sound with the tip of your tongue. After a moment, both of your palms working against fabric, you pull away, and Daeron gives you one last wet kiss on the corner of your mouth before he turns his attention to Dunk, who stares at the two of you like you were born from the heavens above.

“Dunk…” Daeron drawls, snatching his nearby cup and quickly downing the rest of his wine. It remains pink on his lips as he tosses the cup across the tent—the sound of it clattering making you roll your eyes—and turns his attention to Dunk. The knight snaps his gaze from you to him, enraptured. Daeron smiles, taking a hand and running a couple of fingers down the curve of Dunk’s jaw. “I would like to try something.”

Dunk’s eyes find yours for a split second. “With me?”

“With you,” the prince affirms with a molasses-thick lilt, fingers sliding down the side of Dunk’s neck. “If it pleases you, of course.”

In the amber light, candles and lanterns glowing like dozens of little suns, Dunk’s pupils swell even more. His attention flits from Daeron, to you, then back to Daeron, tracing the lines of the prince’s face, before ultimately settling on his mouth. You smile, heat unravelling in the depths of your belly, heartbeat thick between your thighs, while you continue to grind your hands against both men’s obvious bulges.

A high-pitched trill from the distant flute swirls through the tent like birdsong. Silence stretches, and then another ballad commences with a clamouring of singing voices and a dramatic strum of a lute.

A single beat of your heart passes before Dunk slowly, slowly nods, and the smile that cracks across Daeron’s face is utterly victorious. You feel the ache of your own wide smile as you remove your hands and take a fistful of each man’s hair, knuckles firm against the backs of their heads. Dunk groans, and Daeron’s smile grows wicked as you press them closer, closer, and closer still, until they both close their eyes and their mouths meet hot in front of you. Daeron’s hand stays firm on the side of Dunk’s neck as he presses inwards, mouth moving. A small, whimper-like sound slips from between the knight’s wine-stained lips as Daeron’s tongue pushes in. His hands tighten on your hips as Daeron kisses him, kneading the flesh at the top of your arse.

“That’s it, that’s so good, Dunk,” you whisper, tugging lightly on his hair. 

He whines in response, eyes blinking open as he angles his head to look at you—but Daeron doesn’t let him get far, pulling the knight down by the side of his neck and slamming their mouths back together. Dunk groans, eyes falling closed once more, and you can’t help the chuckle that escapes you as you remove your hands.

You shift in Dunk’s lap, leaning across to take the ties of Daeron’s trousers apart. They hang loosely around his hips, the knots falling apart easily, and still tongue-deep inside Dunk’s mouth, the prince lifts his hips for you. You bite down on your lower lip, another hot flash sounding through your belly, as you pull Daeron’s trousers down. He’s not wearing breeches—following your drunken round together prior to Dunk’s arrival—and his hard cock flops out hard against the lines of his abdomen.

You take it in hand, feeling the velvet-warmth of his skin, the head flushing a deep, bruising red as pre-cum pearls at the slit. The prince moans like a whore, loud and unabashed, into Dunk’s mouth as you swipe your thumb across the head, then trace it down the dip of his frenulum.

Daeron breaks the kiss and immediately slams his mouth to yours, and the sound that leaves Dunk’s throat sounds more akin to a wounded animal than a knight of the realm.

“Oh, praise the seven,” he mutters, cock throbbing in his trousers as he watches you stroke the prince’s cock as you kiss. That makes you smile, and you rip yourself from Daeron and take hold of the laces of Dunk’s trousers. You look at the knight, imploring, asking, and he nods too fast and too eager. But you love it. “Please, love, please.”

Daeron licks and sucks down the side of your neck as you pull the knight’s trousers apart. You do the same with his breeches. His hips lift momentarily, and you move awkwardly in his lap to pull his trousers and breeches down the thick mass of his thighs, bunching them near his knees as his cock falls free, thick and heavy and wet against his leg.

“Fuck,” you can’t help but breathe, and Daeron picks himself out of your neck. You reach forward and wrap your fingers around Dunk, both hands full now. He groans thickly, head rolling back against the chaise, as you slink your fingers up to the blushing head. You whisper, “Gods, Dunk, it’s—you’re so big.”

Dunk groans again. More embarrassed this time. His ears are bright red.

Daeron hums, delighted, and shoots a hand down too. He meets yours, brushing over your fingers as he wraps his own hand around the thick of Dunk’s cock, feeling the hot pump of blood and the subtle give of the velvety skin.

“You’ll split her apart,” Daeron mutters, speaking as if you weren’t right next to him. He leans his head back against Dunk’s shoulder, peppering the skin he could reach with soft kisses, before speaking again. “But she’ll take you, lad—” his eyes flit to you. “—she always does.”

Dunk groans at the prince’s words, righting his head to watch both of your hands work up and down the length of his leaking cock. You work together—Daeron leaning across to spit a blackberry-stained glob of saliva over the knight’s tip—in taking Dunk apart stroke by stroke. The poor knight shakes beneath you, chest shuddering, lips parted as whine after whine erupts from the back of his throat.

“You’re so pretty, Dunk,” you tell him, leaning forward to kiss the dip in his brow. He inclines his head, pleading, and you whisper against his lips before kissing him properly: “And you’re such a good knight.”

Daeron sucks a mark onto Dunk’s freckled shoulder, eyelids low as he watches his hand and yours stroke up and down, slick with spit and pre-cum. He bites off a moan, his cock jerking in your fingers as you move your hands at the same time. His breathing begins to pick up, a heat firing up in his belly as his eyes find where you and Dunk lick the wine from each other’s teeth.

“Alright, sweetheart,” Daeron says, and you pull away to listen. He takes hold of your chemise, and you break your hold on them for a split second so he can pull it over your head. Dunk groans, one hand immediately shifting to cup one of your tits. Pawing, kneading. Daeron continues, “Y’wanna let our knight stretch you out on his fingers?”

Dunk’s eyes widen.

You nod. “Please.”

Daeron grabs Dunk’s wrist, pulling it away from your chest and instead redirecting it between your split legs. You continue to straddle the knight’s lap as Daeron slides two of Dunk’s thick fingers over your mound then down between your thighs, tips brushing over the puffy bead of your clit. You keen, feeling the heat of your slick—and remnants of Daeron’s cum—as Dunk’s fingers dip over your clit and spread your folds apart under Daeron’s guide.

The knight moans. “This is—oh, she’s—”

“Soaked,” Daeron mutters, pushing Dunk’s fingers against your hole. You suck in a breath. As does Dunk. Daeron purrs, other hand squeezing the base of Dunk’s cock. “She’s soaked, Dunk. All for you—our good knight.”

“Our favourite knight,” you add, the final syllables stretching out into a moan as Daeron urges Dunk to press his fingers inside. Blunt and heavy and thick, spreading you apart. A dull ache builds across your womb, your thighs trembling slightly as two sword-calloused fingers push in, in, in, and then curl. You don’t know how he knows to do that, but he does, and he finds that perfect spot inside you that makes you yowl. “Oh my—ah f-fuck, Dunk, oh gods.”

His cock jerks in your hold, his chest heaving as your pussy clamps tight around his fingers. It’s unlike anything he’s felt before. Lush and silken, all vice-like around his fingers as he slowly pumps them in and out. Daeron’s fingers circle around his wrist, leading his movements.

Stuttering out a breath, you slowly wriggle your hips to meet the rutting of his fingers. You continue to stroke him too, and you feel him twitch again when your pussy flutters. A minute of this lapses before Daeron removes his hand and angles his head to the side, facing the knight, imploring with a batter of his eyelashes.

Dunk grunts but obliges without a second thought. As he splits you apart on his fingers, he dips his head to kiss the prince on his own accord. His mouth moves firmer this time, more confident. He’s finding his feet. Daeron responds to the knight’s eagerness with a lewd moan, his fingers jerking over Dunk’s cock again.

Dunk pulls to the side, panting. “Wait, wait, I can’t—”

Daeron shushes him, kissing his cheek, “I know, Dunk, I know, s’okay.”

And with that, Daeron withdraws his hand. You do as well, whimpering quietly as you place it back against Dunk’s chest for anchorage. Dunk’s head rolls back, eyes to the canvased ceiling, and he groans: half in pain, half in relief. Ghost-like tendrils of bergamot and wildgrass float just above his head, and when he exhales, now completely focused on the warm, wet heat around his fingers, the smoke shifts and dances in the lantern light.

“Add a third,” Daeron suddenly says, voice commanding but drunkenly tender.

Dunk listens. Of course he listens.

A third finger pushes inside you unceremoniously. You moan, gasping simultaneously, nails digging bluntly into the fat of Dunk’s pec. Daeron grins, watching Dunk’s fingers disappear inside you as his hand wraps around yours, helping you fist his own cock. The response Dunk has to your sounds is feverish—his head whips down and he slams his mouth to yours, although it’s mostly tongue and spit and a brief clash of teeth. You both whimper, but the kiss lasts less than five seconds before Daeron is removing your hand from his cock and urging you off Dunk’s lap.

You pout in protest. “Daeron—”

Dunk’s expression is much the same. “M’lord—”

“Gods, you’re like puppies,” Daeron chides, easing you off Dunk’s lap. The knight’s fingers slip from the clutch of your cunt, pulling a thick web of slick with them. You mewl at the loss, the emptiness, and Dunk’s wet hand instantly finds the fat of your arse as Daeron shuffles back, pulling you onto your hands and knees. The prince continues, “Here we go, Ser Duncan. Let us take care of you.”

Daeron cradles the back of your head as he settles you across the chaise, your elbows and knees pressing deep into the cushions. He presses your face against his thigh.

Dunk sits up immediately, his pout gone. Instead, awe spreads thick and fast across his handsome face as he kneels behind you. One large hand paws the fat of your arse, the curve of your hip, whilst the other clasps near the head of his cock as he drags it lightly down the split of your arse.

He moans your name. “Oh this—this is—”

“Be a good lad, Dunk,” Daeron begins, massaging circles along the nape of your neck as he wipes the head of his cock against your mouth. You’ve lifted your head now, smelling the musk of his skin and floral bergamot as you wet your lips. “You’re going to listen to your prince, okay?”

Your pussy clenches around nothing at Daeron’s words, and they’re not even directed at you. The heat behind your navel burns hotter, and hotter still as the tip of Dunk’s cock messily slides down between your folds.

“Yeah,” Dunk breathes out, nodding. His eyes are glazed over and a few loose strands of hair cling to his sweaty forehead.

“Good,” Daeron says, finally feeding his cock into your mouth. You part your lips and lax your jaw, moaning low as the prince slides in. Fending off a moan of his own, he whispers, “Push in just a little. Just the tip—oh, yeah, that’s a good lad…”

Daeron’s sentence shifts mid-air as Dunk immediately heeds his instructions: sliding the head of his cock against your hole, tracing it once with a clumsy circle, before pushing inside.

You moan around Daeron’s cock. Your heart slams against your sternum and the heat in your stomach festers into an ache. It’s a viscous need that claws up your diaphragm, set alight where he slowly pries your pussy apart. Behind you, Dunk shakes—a full body tremor as he holds himself, the tip of his cock buried inside you. His balls twitch and a heavy tension is already settling deep in his bones, his joints, as he feels you pumping warm around him.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, glassy eyes falling up the dip of your spine. “Is this—am I doing okay?”

You say something, but it’s garbled around the thick of Daeron’s cock, your words shoved back down your throat as the prince holds you by the back of the neck. Daeron laughs, a deep, rolling hum as he pets you, hips twitching and angling his cock even deeper down your throat.

“So good,” Daeron mutters, answering for you. The distant music changes again with a loud drumming of fingers against wood. Daeron smoothes his other hand down your back. “Y’can go all the way now. She’ll take you.”

You moan around his cock, tongue writhing over the warm skin. The prince’s eyes fall to you and you exchange a glance. He smiles.

Dunk groans loudly, the timbre shaking the candles nearby as he slowly pushes his hips forward. There’s a tensing in his lower stomach, up the muscles of his thighs as he tips himself against your arse, cock bullying open the clutch of your cunt. You moan again—the slide of him drawing the air from your lungs as your lips wrap around Daeron’s tip—and he whimpers.

“Oh g–gods above, this—oh, fuck, this is—you’re so—” Stinging hot with his blush, the knight struggles to string his sentence together. 

It makes your pussy flutter, something flipping low in your stomach as the heat inside you spreads further. It pulls tight as Dunk continues to feed his cock into you, prying you apart.

“Tight?” Daeron suddenly finishes for him as he begins guiding you up and down his length. Your hand works around the base, smoothing over the curve of his balls as your head moves beneath the press of his hand.

Dunk groans, eyes still closed as he nods. “Yeah, yes, shit, she’s—”

He bottoms out then, pelvis flat against the curve of your arse, his hands gripping the jut of your hips as though you mean to flee him. It’s vice-like, almost too tight. You fight off another moan as Daeron edges down your throat, cock twitching against your tongue as Dunk cuts his sentence off with a whimper.

His cock is thick inside you. The width of him splits you apart, and he reaches so far that the pressure inside you stretches from your womb to your chest. It makes you shake, thrumming like the string of a lute, trembling slightly as you arch for him. He opens his eyes and finds where your pussy takes him. His cock jerks inside of you, and you moan around the prince’s cock.

“She’s the best you’ll ever have,” Daeron begins, still drawing shapes across your arching back as the knight pulls himself from you. He thrusts back in, almost like he’s afraid to hurt you, as Daeron reaches across to paw at the flesh of your arse—simultaneously shoving his cock further down your throat. He ignores the way you gag. “My prettiest girl. Always so good for me—and now she’s being so good for you, isn’t she, Dunk?”

Sweat clings high on Dunk’s forehead, cheeks pink as he begins rolling his hips. His thrusts slowly build in pace, and his heart flips in his chest at Daeron’s words. Nodding dumbly—that’s all he feels he can do—he mutters out a string of, “yes, so good, so good, such a good girl,” as he fucks you atop the cushioned chaise.

Daeron’s hand returns to tracing across the warm skin of your back. He writes his name, his full name and title, not that you can discern that anyway.

Dunk’s thrusts are sporadic in their pressure, and it makes you whine around Daeron’s cock, trying to get the prince’s attention with your lips spread wide around him. The warmth gathering in your womb is there, festering, as your clit throbs with the weight of your pulse. He’s so close to getting it perfect—your best knight, trying so hard to please you.

You manage to catch the prince’s eye when he finally looks away from the huffing knight. His cheeks flame pink, matching the blackberry wine that clings to his lips. He coos, knowing, then directs another lilting order across your body and onto the burning red ears of Dunk.

“You won’t hurt her,” he says. “Go harder.”

Dunks looks over at the prince. “Harder?”

Daeron nods, and so Dunk listens. His fingers tighten on your hips as he pulls out, resting just inside you, before inclining in at such a force you topple forward onto Daeron’s lap. The prince groans, content, as he cradles your head against his lap while you moan around his cock. Dunk grunts as he sets his pace, the sounds bearish as the hazy cloud of incense churns like a thinning stormcloud above his head. The fat of your arse shifts, rippling as he fucks you into the chaise.

Then, he finds the spot that has your eyes rolling. The thick, blunt head of his cock nails it and, by the gods, he feels you tighten around him, and he sees your arch deepen. So he chases it: he chases the high-pitched keens stuck in your throat, and he chases the fluttering of your cunt around him, and he chases the way you rock your hips back to meet each of his thrusts. And the entire time he chases, hounding your pleasure, Daeron praises him, and that sets his pulse thundering in his ears.

“That’s a good lad… that’s it, y’doing so well for us,” the prince utters as he continues to guide your head up and down. “You’re making her feel so good, Dunk.”

You keep your mouth lax, but can barely keep up with him since Dunk’s all but forcing you towards release. You feel it building like stone in the base of your spine. And you know your knight is much the same as, despite his stamina, his thrusts slowly begin to falter.

“Please,” he mutters, practically holding you up now. “Please, sweet girl, I’m—gods, you feel so good. You’re just—you’re so good.”

You whine around Daeron’s cock, saliva stringing wet from the corners of your mouth.

“Yeah, that’s it, Dunk, she’s close,” he drawls, hand shifting from your back to your chest so he can palm at your tits. “Lean forward for me.”

Dunk does as he’s told, and he and the prince meet in the middle. Thanks to Dunk’s height, their mouths slot together easily, a clash of steel and sharpened swords. It’s rough and wet and loud, and the fact you can’t see them makes you writhe between them, both your mouth and your cunt stuffed full. You’re spit-roasted, strung out tight between their bodies as their tongues meet.

“Such a good listener,” you hear Daeron mumble against Dunk’s mouth. Then, they’re kissing again and you’re left shaking. 

Dunk’s cock ruts into you, knocking right up beside the plug of your cervix, drawing a thick, incandescent pressure from the base of your spine. It settles right at the bottom of your womb as you gag around Daeron’s cock, and as tears begin blurring your vision, the pressure mounts, and mounts, until you’re moaning loud around Daeron.

Both men pull apart at the same time to watch you come apart. Your release hits you hard, and Daeron pulls his cock from your mouth, resting your head against his thigh so you can moan “Dunk, Dunk, fuck, oh gods, nnngh—”

“There she is,” Daeron says as he pets the side of your face. His other hand is quick to rut down his length, fucking his fist as he coos down at you. “That’s my girl, taking it so well.”

The muscles in Dunk’s jaw jump as he grits his teeth, fucking you through it. He bullies his cock into you, losing his sense of self the more your heat consumes him. The way your pussy clamps around him, pulsing like the beating of his heart, makes him dizzy. The need he has for you is sickly sweet and he can taste it where he bites his teeth together. He needs you. He needs this again, and again, and again—

“Stuff her full, Ser Duncan,” Daeron says, but the order is breathy as he runs the head of his leaking cock over your cheek as you fizzle down from your high. His fist moves quickly, and Dunk can hear the wet shlick-shlick-shlick as the prince’s head rolls back against the chaise. “Spill inside her. I want you t’feel how well she takes it. How well she takes you.”

Dunk’s a pyre and Daeron the match, his words igniting all that Dunk had been holding back. With a guttural groan, nearly a growl the way it claws out of his throat, Dunk slams you down hard onto his hips—the motion drawing a tired hiccup from you—before his cock jerks. He buries himself to the hilt, stretching you apart, then moans your name like it’s the only word he knows.

“Sweet girl, sweet girl—ah, gods, m’coming, m’coming,” the knight rambles, then spills right up against the base of your womb.

It comes in thick, viscous spurts. You whine, nuzzling your face against the short, coarse hair across Daeron’s thigh.

The knight’s sounds, which have now dissolved into meek whines as his balls draw up and he pumps himself inside you, spur the prince on. Daeron moans your name, followed by a quick “Dunk, fuck,” before he’s spilling over his knuckles and painting the dewy skin of your cheek. You feel some splatter all sticky across your eyebrow too.

Dunk shudders behind you, shoulders heaving as he catches his breath. His cock rests deep inside you, plugging his seed at the base of your cervix as you tremble against him. Dizzy, he reaches across you to stroke a tender hand down your back while Daeron slides the leaking head of his cock through the cum splattered across your cheek.

A minute of panting passes before Dunk slowly removes his cock from the clutch of your pussy—much to your shared chagrin as you both let out a similar sound. He whines, watching his seed spill out of you, and you whine at the feeling of it seeping like molasses through your folds.

Daeron pats your cheek, smearing his cum across your face even more, and the stickiness against your skin and the feel of it growing tacky when you open your mouth makes you cringe.

“Daeron,” you mutter, but it’s not as firm as you wanted it to be.

Dunk collapses back onto the chaise and, much to your surprise, pulls you with him. He collects you with one strong arm around your middle and hefts you like your body mass is no more than a kitten’s. You mewl like one though, shocked and slightly sore, as he bundles you into his side and tucks his chin against the top of your head. You curl into him and he’s boiling hot.

Dunk beckons the prince with a crook of his finger too, and Daeron shuffles across the chaise—slightly unsteady, teetering nearly—before settling half on top of you. You don’t argue as he plasters himself against you, Dunk’s arm reaching around him too.

You trace the freckles across Dunk’s pec as you speak, “You alright?”

Dunk blinks down at you, dazed. “Am… I alright?”

You look up at him and smile. “Yeah.”

“Aye, m’more than alright,” he answers quickly. “M’grand, sweet girl. Are—I wasn’t too rough with you, was I? I didn’t want to—”

“You were perfect,” Daeron interrupts the knight’s stuttering, speaking for you as one of his hands—still damp with cum and spit—takes hold of one of your breasts. He kneads the flesh like he so often does when you lie together like this. “If you weren’t, she wouldn’t’ve come screeching like a wild cat.”

You roll your eyes and Dunk goes even redder.

“You were perfect,” you say gentler than Daeron. You shoot your prince a pointed look—which he counters with a soft kiss to your forehead—before you shift and press a kiss to the patch of skin just above Dunk’s nipple. “You did so well, Dunk. Our good knight.”

“Our perfect knight,” Daeron adds through a purr. 

In response, Dunk takes his hand and threads his fingers through Daeron’s hair, clutching the prince tightly as he dips his head. They share a kiss, any remnants of blackberry wine licked clean by now. A moment passes before you whine, and Dunk can’t help but chuckle as he breaks the kiss and dips even lower, kissing you too.

“I suppose you’ll fight for the honour of both a prince and a lady on the morrow, won’t you?” Daeron mutters, dragging his mouth down the column of Dunk’s neck while the knight kisses you, sucking and biting at the sun-kissed skin.

You hum against Dunk’s mouth, adding with a smile, “And when you win, you’ll have both a prince and a lady waiting to congratulate you.”

Dunk’s cock jerks against his thigh. He couldn’t go any redder even if he tried.

———

The first time Rhaenyra noticed, she nearly laughed.

Not because they were doing anything scandalous.

Because they weren't.

Jacaerys was sitting in the gardens with a book open in his lap, pretending to read while Helaena knelt in the grass several feet away, completely absorbed by a line of ants carrying flower petals twice their size.

They had not spoken in nearly ten minutes.

Jace turned a page.

Helaena tilted her head at an ant.

Another five minutes passed.

Still nothing.

Rhaenyra looked to the maid beside her.

"...Have they quarreled?"

The maid smiled.

"No, Princess."

"They have not said a word."

"They rarely do."

Rhaenyra watched another moment before Jace quietly leaned over.

"The red one has fallen behind."

Helaena followed his gaze immediately.

"Oh."

A tiny frown.

"It is carrying too much."

Jace closed his book.

Without another word, he found a small twig and laid it across a puddle, giving the ants another way around.

Helaena watched the tiny creatures cross it.

"They'll make it now."

"I thought so."

Silence settled again.

Comfortable silence.

Rhaenyra shook her head.

"They're odd."

"They're happy," the maid corrected gently.

The habit continued.

If Helaena disappeared, someone eventually found Jace nearby.

Sometimes they walked through the gardens.

Sometimes they sat by the dragonpit watching Dreamfyre sun herself.

Sometimes she talked about beetles with shells that shimmered green in summer.

Jace never laughed.

Instead he asked questions.

"What do they eat?"

"Leaves."

"How long do they live?"

"Not long enough."

"That seems unfair."

"It is."

Their conversations were simple.

That was what Helaena liked about him.

He never expected more.

It took Otto considerably longer to notice.

"What is this?" he asked sharply one afternoon after spotting them leaving the library together.

"They borrowed books," Alicent answered.

"They are together every day."

"They're cousins."

Otto made a face as though that somehow disproved everything.

"Cousins become spouses in this family."

Alicent looked away.

She knew that all too well.

The idea came from Otto soon enough.

"Helaena will marry Aegon."

It was spoken as though the matter had already been settled.

As though Helaena herself were no more than another seal pressed into wax.

Alicent said nothing at first.

Later that evening she found her daughter sitting by the window, carefully holding a moth that had landed on her sleeve.

"Helaena?"

"Mm?"

"Would you be content... marrying your brother?"

The moth took flight.

Helaena watched it disappear into the dusk before answering.

"No."

The answer came so quickly it startled Alicent.

"No?"

"I love Aegon."

Another pause.

"But he is my brother."

"As husbands often are."

"I don't want him to be."

There was no anger.

No tears.

Only quiet certainty.

Alicent suddenly wished she'd asked years ago.

A few days later, Rhaenyra found Jace pacing outside her chambers.

He froze when she opened the door.

"I was looking for you."

"So I gathered."

He scratched the back of his neck.

"I wanted to ask something."

"You've worn a path into my floorboards already. You may as well."

He looked strangely nervous.

"If... if Helaena is promised to someone..."

Rhaenyra raised a brow.

"...Yes?"

"I would like to ask for her hand."

She blinked.

"You know she's your cousin."

"I know."

"You know half the realm already thinks we're strange."

"I know."

"You know your grandsire may faint."

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips.

"I had hoped."

She laughed so loudly Syrax stirred outside.

"Oh, Jace."

He looked miserable.

"I am serious."

"So am I."

She stepped forward and fixed the collar he'd been fussing with for the last minute.

"You look at her the way your father looked at me."

His cheeks turned crimson.

"I do not."

"You do."

"I don't."

"You absolutely do."

When Viserys heard, he smiled into his wine.

"I wondered when he'd finally ask."

Daemon snorted from the other end of the table.

"I was beginning to think the boy planned to court her until they were sixty."

Viserys chuckled.

"They're shy."

"They're painful."

"They're sweet."

"They're painful."

Daemon cornered Jace later that afternoon.

"So."

Jace sighed.

"So."

"You intend to marry sweet Helaena."

"I do."

"You've got my blessing."

"...do I need it to marry her?."

Daemon shrugged.

"she's my favorite niece."

"...she's your only niece"

"She smiles about as often as I apologize."

Jace frowned.

"...Is that often?"

"No."

Meanwhile, Otto was furious.

"Helaena belongs beside Aegon."

"No," Alicent answered, surprising even herself.

Otto stared.

"What did you say?"

"I said no."

"You would risk—"

"I would spare my daughter."

For a long moment neither spoke.

Finally Otto collected his papers with a sharp snap.

"You are allowing sentiment to cloud your judgment."

Alicent watched him leave.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps she had allowed duty to cloud it for far too long.

By the time the betrothal was announced, no one who truly knew them was surprised.

Luke grinned.

"I thought you were already promised."

Jace nearly choked on his drink.

"We weren't."

"You spent every afternoon together."

"We were reading."

Luke looked toward Helaena.

She smiled shyly over the rim of her teacup.

"...Sure."

"I was."

"If you say so."

The wedding itself was smaller than expected.

Viserys insisted on family.

Rhaenyra insisted on flowers.

Helaena insisted the ceremony wait one hour because there was a butterfly resting on the sept door "and it would be rude to disturb it."

Everyone waited.

Even the High Septon.

Daemon muttered something about the realm being held hostage by an insect.

No one listened to him.

Least of all Helaena.

When the butterfly finally flew away, she smiled brightly.

"There."

"We may begin now."

Daemon rubbed a hand over his face.

"I've fought in wars," he murmured to Rhaenyra.

"I've survived Stepstones."

She smiled knowingly.

"And?"

"I've never lost an argument to a butterfly before."

Rhaenyra laughed so hard she had to hide it behind her sleeve.

The bathroom mirror is still fogged at the edges from the shower you took an hour ago, the whole apartment smells like the vanilla body oil you dabbed into your collarbones and the burnt-sugar candle Jace keeps on his dresser because he thinks it makes the place feel less like some dungeon and more like home. Rain taps against the window in that soft, uneven rhythm, and somewhere down on the street a taxi lays on its horn for three long seconds before giving up. The bass from the apartment below thumps faintly through the floorboards, someone's pregame already in full swing.

You're in front of the floor length mirror leaned against his closet door, tilting your chin, checking your lipstick, rolling a strand of hair between two fingers because you can't decide if you want to leave it down or twist it up. The dress. God, the dress. From the front it's demure, a soft slate satin that skims your front and drapes clean at the thigh, the neckline looked innocent and modest. It looked like something you'd wear to your aunt's wedding but that's the trick of it though. That's why you spent forty-seven dollars on it during a two AM TikTok haze last Tuesday.

Behind you, Jace is sprawled across his unmade bed in gray sweatpants and a white tee that's been through the wash so many times it's practically translucent at the hem. His phone is angled above his face, the blue glow catching on the sharp bridge of his nose and the messy dark curls that fall across his forehead. His feet are crossed at the ankles and he’s laughing at something, a low huff of a sound, you can hear the tiny audio of some Reels compilation.

"Sof said she's already at the bar," you tell him, thumbing through your phone in the mirror's reflection. "She got the corner booth."

"Mm." He doesn't look up. "Which bar?"

"That new one downtown. The one with the disco ball in the bathroom."

"Sounds like a fire hazard."

"You sound like your mom."

"Rude." He scrolls. "My mom's cool."

You laugh, sweeping bronzer along the high point of your cheek, and shift your weight from one side to the other. The satin whispers against your thighs. You've been waiting, actually, for him to look up. You've been arranging yourself in his peripheral vision for the last ten minutes and he's been oblivious in that specifically annoying boyfriend way, and it's starting to feel almost insulting. You bought this dress to tease him. You'd like the courtesy of being noticed back.

You set the bronzer down and pivot on your heel. Turning your back to the mirror to check the drape of the fabric across your ass, one hand smoothing over your hip.

You hear it before you see it. A sharp inhale. Then, a choked half sound that dies in his throat followed by the soft slap of a phone hitting a chest.

You glance over your shoulder into the mirror. Jace has propped himself up on his elbows, mouth open, eyes so wide you can see the whites all the way around his brown irises. His curls are sticking up in six directions from where he'd been running his hand through them. His phone is face down on his sternum, forgotten.

"What?" you ask, and you can't keep the grin out of it.

"What the fuck."

"What?"

"Turn around."

"I am turned around."

"No, turn, come here, turn all the way." He sits up so fast the mattress creaks. "Have you seen the back of that dress?"

You laugh, pressing your tongue to the inside of your cheek, and rotate slowly on the ball of your foot until you're facing him. "Well, yeah. I bought it."

"Sweets." His voice cracks on the second syllable. He looks genuinely aggrieved, like you've handed him bad news at a hospital. "Love, no."

The back of the dress is the joke. From nape to just above the swell of your ass there is nothing. No fabric. No zipper. A few delicate strap knots and chains at the small of your back and that's the entire architectural principle keeping the front on your body. The dip of your spine is on full display, the two soft dimples at the base, the smooth stretch of skin from your shoulder blades down. You spent twenty minutes with a jade roller earlier making sure the whole canvas of your back looked like glass.

Jace swings his legs off the bed and stands abruptly. He crosses the room in three strides and stops just behind you, close enough that you can feel the heat of him but not touching, and his reflection in the mirror looks stricken.

"No," he says again, quieter.

"Yes."

"You cannot leave this apartment."

"I can and I will."

"I wouldn't mind if I was there." His fingertips ghost the small of your back, not landing, just hovering, like the skin might burn him. "Like, if I was going with you, sure, whatever, wear it, look like this, be a menace, I'll fight everyone in the bar. But alone?" His voice pitches up. "You want to go alone? Downtown? In this?"

"Sof will be there. And Jessie. And probably Serena if her flight lands."

"None of them have upper body strength."

"Jace."

"I'm being serious."

You reach up and gather your hair, twisting it into a loose knot at the crown of your head. The motion pulls the dress tighter across your ribs and you watch him watch it in the mirror. His throat bobs. You slide a claw clip out from between your teeth and snap it into place, and then you tilt your head, satisfied, and reach for your mascara.

"Change," he says. Weakly.

"Nope."

He's still standing behind you. You catch his reflection and the way his mouth has gone tight, the way his eyes are doing that flicker thing where he's thinking, calculating, cooking something up. His hands are loose at his sides. His shoulders are set and he's got the same look on his face he gets when he's playing chess against his brother Luke and he's about to do something petty.

You're about to ask him what he's thinking when he drops.

Just, drops, straight to his knees behind you with a soft thud on the hardwood, hands coming up to cup the sides of your waist like he's steadying a vase.

"Jace- what are you-" you start, twisting to look at him, but he's already leaning in, and the first press of his mouth to the base of your spine punches every word right out of your lungs.

The sound you make is embarrassing. A short, high thing, half gasp, half whimper. His lips are warm and slightly parted, and he presses them just above the little dimple on the left, and then he kisses the one on the right, slower, deliberate, and you feel the heat of his breath fan across your skin in the split second between each kiss.

"Jace." You try to swivel out of his grip and his hands tighten, thumbs pressing into the divots of your hip bones through the satin. Not enough to bruise. Just enough that you're going nowhere.

"Mhm." A kiss to the base of your spine, wetter this time, a hint of tongue.

"You're being…" another kiss, "so annoying…" another, higher, right at the small of your back, "oh my god."

He kisses his way up, patient, like he's got a list. Every vertebra. He works up your spine one bone at a time and you can feel your knees getting weak. Your hands come up on instinct and brace against the mirror. Your palm leaves a fog print on the glass. In the reflection you can see the crown of his dark curls between your shoulder blades, the shell of his ear, one of his eyes closed in concentration.

At the middle of your back he opens his mouth properly and drags his teeth. You feel it in your stomach.

"Ah-" you hiss, and his answering laugh vibrates against your skin.

"You're the one who wanted attention."

"I didn't."

"You so did."

"I was doing my makeup."

"Sure." He kisses higher, right between your shoulder blades. "Doing your makeup." Higher. "In a dress with no back." Higher. "Facing away from me." His voice drops. "In the mirror where I could see you."

His mouth reaches the nape of your neck and he stands as he does it, unfolding himself up the length of your body, and now his front is flush against your back, his chest broad and warm through the thin cotton of his tee. One arm loops around your waist, splaying wide, his palm pressing flat against your stomach. The other hand comes up and slides around the side of your throat, thumb hooking under your jaw, and he tilts your head to the left with the gentlest pressure, exposing the long tendon of your neck.

You watch it happen in the mirror. Your own face, lips parted, eyes gone dark and glassy. Him behind you, curls falling forward, jaw set. His mouth against the hinge of your jaw. His mouth on the soft spot beneath your ear. His mouth sucking hard just above your collarbone, and this time you feel the sting of teeth and the deliberate pull of suction and you know, you know, he's leaving a mark on purpose. He shifts an inch and does it again. And again. Slower. Right along the ridge of your clavicle where no makeup can hide it and no scarf could reasonably cover it.

Your eyes close and your hand slips off the mirror and finds the back of his neck instead, fingers threading into the curls at his nape, and you feel him hum against your skin, pleased, when your nails scrape.

He works you over for what feels like a long time. Your pulse point. The soft under side of your jaw. The curve where your neck meets your shoulder. He alternates, kissing and sucking and dragging his tongue in slow, wet stripes. You are absolutely, comprehensively lost. The room smells like him now, and the last ghost of your perfume, and everything is very quiet except for the wet sounds of his mouth and your uneven breathing and the rain and the distant bass from downstairs. You were losing your mind.

He pulls back.

You open your eyes slowly. In the mirror, he's grinning with full teeth. Smug in a way that would be genuinely insufferable if you had any blood left in your brain. His hair is even worse than it was before. His lips are pink and wet.

Your neck and shoulder look like a paint pallet. There are three, maybe four, blooming red marks already darkening toward purple, one high enough that the collar of a jacket wouldn't touch it.

"What…" you manage, "is that face."

"I marked up my territory." He is so pleased with himself. He tilts his head, considering his work like a curator. "Certifiably mine. Notarized. Do you still want to go outside?"

You feel your jaw set. The brat in you rises like a bubble. "Yes. I do."

Something flickers across his face. His grin sharpens.

"Who…" he says, dropping his voice to a register you feel in the base of your spine, "said we're finished."

The world tilts.

He turns you by the hips, walks you backward to the mattress, and the back of your knees hit the edge of it and you go down. Your claw clip snaps loose. Your hair spills out over his navy duvet. Before you've even registered horizontal, he's peeling his tee off over his head, and then it's off and on the floor and you get the full view.

You have seen him shirtless approximately nine hundred times and it still does something stupid to you. He's lean, always has been, but two years of a serious gym habit have carved him. The flat plane of his chest with the faint scatter of dark hair between his pecs, the ridged shape of his stomach, the sharp cuts of his obliques disappearing into the low waistband of his sweats. His mouth is still red from your neck. There's a flush high on his cheekbones.

You prop yourself up on your elbows. "Very funny. My friend is waiting, actually."

He plants a hand on your sternum and pushes you back down, gently and leans over you with a knee braced on the mattress between your thighs.

"Didn't I tell you…" he says, close to your mouth, "we aren't finished yet."

You open your mouth to give him something witty. You had something. You had a whole line but it evaporated because his mouth is on yours and it is NOT gentle. It's the kind of kiss that has been building for the whole ten minutes he's been leaving hickeys on your neck, hot and open and you feel it right down to the bottoms of your feet. Your thighs squeeze together on reflex and there is already so much heat between them it's almost embarrassing. Slick. You've been slick since he hit his knees.

His tongue drags across your bottom lip, a question, and you part for him and he groans into your mouth, low and needy. Your hands find his curls and you fist them lightly, tugging, and he makes another sound, muffled, his hand slides up the outside of your thigh, catching the satin of your dress, dragging it up with him. His palm is hot as his thumb traces the crease of your hip.

He pulls back. A thin thread of spit connects your lower lip to his and breaks and lands on your chin. His eyes are half-lidded and completely blown. Your chest is heaving along with his and somewhere in the back of your head you register that your friends are absolutely getting stood up.

"Turn over," he says.

You blink. "What."

"Turn over." His hand slides under your ribs and he's already helping, guiding you onto your stomach on his duvet. Your hair fans out. Your cheek presses into the pillow that smells like his shampoo. "The dress." He tugs at it and it comes loose in one soft slither. He works the satin up over the swell of your ass and bunches it at your waist. You're not wearing underwear. You couldn't have worn underwear with this dress and you know he registered that because he makes a soft strangled sound behind you.

"Sweet mother of Gods."

"Jace."

"You're going to kill me. Like, physically. I'm going to have a stroke."

"You're being dramatic."

"You're not wearing underwear," he informs you, in case you had somehow forgotten, and his hands come down on the backs of your thighs and squeeze, and the mattress dips as he lowers himself.

The first thing you feel is his warm breath. Then his mouth on the back of your left thigh, high up, sucking. Another mark. He drags his mouth two inches over and does it again. Another two inches. You’re going to start looking like a Leopard. You feel the wet swirl of his tongue over the bruise he just made, soothing it, before he moves to the crease where your thigh meets your ass and bites, softly and you jerk.

"Oh my god-“

"Mm."

He kisses across the swell of your ass, teeth grazing, and then up, up to your lower back where he sucks another mark right above the dip of your spine, and you can feel the heat of it blooming into your skin. He is being thorough. His hands slide up the backs of your thighs and part them gently and you let them fall open because at this point your bones have turned to warm honey.

And then his mouth is on you.

The first stripe of his tongue is long, flat and slow as it goes from your clit all the way to your entrance and back, the sound you make is not a sound a human should make. It's ragged, your fingers fist in the duvet and your hips buck up on instinct and he lets you, hands sliding under to cradle the fronts of your hips, and then he pulls you back and up onto your knees so your face is still on the pillow but your ass is in the air.

"Better," he murmurs against you, and then he goes to work.

He was good at this. You have told him he was good at this once when you were both drunk on cheap red wine, and he has taken that compliment and internalized it like a religion. His tongue circles your clit in slow, deliberate patterns, and then flicks, then flattens, and finally he closes his lips around it and sucks. You make a noise into the pillow that would have neighbors calling the cops if the building had thinner walls. He drags his mouth lower and pushes his tongue into you and you feel one of his hands leave your hip, then two of his fingers replace his tongue, curling up, finding that spot as his mouth returns to your clit.

Your knuckles are white in the duvet. You reach back blindly with one hand and find his hair and just hold, twisting the curls between your fingers. Your other hand fumbles for a pillow to pull under your face, to muffle yourself, because you cannot stop the sounds coming out of you. Little whimpers. A long with a broken "oh." A stuttered "please" you didn't mean to say out loud.

"Yeah?" His voice is muffled against your wet pussy. "Yeah, sweets?"

"Jace."

"Come on."

He crooks his fingers again and sucks as you fall apart. Your thighs clamp together but that doesn't stop him as he works you through it with slow steady pressure until you're twitching and pushing his head away with a whimper of oversensitivity, and only then does he pull off with a wet, obscene sound and press a kiss to the inside of your thigh.

You felt boneless. Your face smashed into the pillow and you feel drops of sweat sliding down between your shoulder blades, your hair stuck to your temple. You crack one eye open and the room is soft and blurry in your vision.

Behind you, you hear the rustle of him shoving his sweats off. The clink of his belt buckle- no wait- he wasn't wearing a belt, that's the sound of his phone hitting the floor. The soft crumple of fabric. And then his hand is on your hip again, warm and steady, and the other is grabbing a pillow from the head of the bed and sliding it under your hips, lifting you.

You feel him line up. The blunt hot press of him against you. Your breath hitches.

"Ready?" His voice is wrecked.

"Mhm." You say in agreement.

He pushes in slow. Inch by inch. The stretch of it makes your eyes flutter closed. He was not small by any means. He's got a slight curve to him that hits you in a way you have written frankly embarrassing journal entries about, and by the time he bottoms out you can feel him everywhere. His hips settle flush against your ass as his hand smooths up your spine and back down.

"Fuck," he breathes.

"Move," you whisper.

He moves without question. The first thrust is slow, testing, and then the second is a little harder, and by the fourth he's found a rhythm and the sound of it fills the room. The wet slap of skin on skin. The soft creak of his mattress. His breath, ragged, right above you. Your own broken little "ah, ah, ah" every time he snaps his hips forward.

He folds himself over your back, his chest to your spine, one of his arms braces beside your head and the other slides under your ribs and pulls you back against him. His mouth finds your shoulder and he bites, then sucks and then bites again. A hickey blooms in the crook where your neck meets your shoulder. Then higher. Then the back of your shoulder blade. Then he pulls back just enough to see and drives forward hard and you cry out into the pillow.

You turn your head, cheek smashed against the duvet, and he sees it, sees you looking for him, and he leans down and catches your mouth from the side, angle awkward and messy, and it's all tongue and spit and neither of you can breathe right but he tastes like you making you moan into his mouth. Then his hips stutter.

"You're so-" he says against your mouth, and doesn't finish, just kisses you harder, "fuck, you're so-“

Your hand fists in his curls again and holds him there.

He straightens up eventually to get better leverage, hands gripping your hips, thumbs digging into the meat of your ass, and he watches himself move in and out of you and makes a low groan that you feel in your sternum. His hand comes down in a light slap on your right cheek and you jerk forward with a whimper and he does it again, harder, and then soothes it with his palm.

"You were really gonna go out?" he asks, panting. "Like this? Looking like this?" Another sharp thrust. "For other guys?"

"Not for-" you gasp, "other guys."

"Sure looked like it."

"Jace."

"Mhm?"

"Please-"

He shifts his angle just barely. And it hits something behind your navel and you see white at the edges of your vision, his hand slides around and finds your clit, and it takes maybe forty seconds before you're coming again, harder than the first time but this one you can't muffle at all. It rips right out of your throat. Your whole body clenches around him and he makes a broken sound holding still, jaw tight, riding it out with you.

When you come down enough to breathe he pulls out gently, and before you can protest the sudden emptiness he's flipping you onto your back.

You blink up at him, dazed, hair a wreck, dress still bunched around your waist. He grabs the hem and drags it up and off over your head and it lands somewhere around his room. Your body is flushed, chest heaving, a sheen of sweat on your covering you and hickeys blooming everywhere. His eyes are still dark and his curls are damp at the temples.

He grabs your ankles and hooks them up over his shoulders, one and then the other, folding you nearly in half. Your knees graze your own chest then he slides back in in one long push as you both groan.

"Oh-" you gasp, "oh- fuck- Jace."

"Yeah," he breathes, and it comes out shaky as his hands slide from your ankles down the backs of your calves to grip behind your knees, pinning them wider and higher, the angle of him inside you shifts so deep you swear you can feel him under your ribs. "Yeah, there you go. There's my girl."

The rain has picked up outside. It's not soft anymore, it's a steady drumming against the window, the bass from downstairs has kicked over into something with a heavier beat, a low pulse that syncs almost obscenely with the rhythm of his hips. The candle on the dresser is burning low, the wick swimming in a pool of melted wax, throwing amber shadows across the ceiling. The whole room smells like sex now.

You can barely keep your eyes open but thrusts continue to knock a soft high sound out of you and suddenly an almost pornographic sound leaves your mouth along with Jace’s name as you scratch his skin.

"Fuck, do that again."

You do it again. Four red lines blooming down the tan of his forearm, and he groans in response, low and long, and drops his head so his forehead presses against your shin where it's hooked over his shoulder. There's beads of sweat sliding down the side of his throat, and you watch it disappear into the hollow of his clavicle.

He lifts his head. His eyes are almost black, pupils blown so wide there's barely any brown left, and his mouth is swollen. He looks feral as if he's been possessed by something old and hungry, it's a look you are well aware of over the course of your relationship.

"Come here." He unhooks one of your ankles, then the other, and lets your legs drop to wrap around his waist instead, as he leans down over you, chest to chest, and you feel the flat wet heat of his skin against yours and it makes you shiver. His weight is heavy in the best way, almost grounding. He braces himself on one elbow beside your head and his other hand slides up your rips, thumb dragging along the underside of your left breast.

"Jace."

"Mm."

"Kiss me."

He does, openmouthed and messy and you moan out. He swallows the sound while his hips are moving in slow deep grinds now instead of thrusts, working himself against that spot inside your belly, every roll of him drags the base of his cock against your clit and you feel another orgasm building, low and slow like heat rising in a kettle.

He pulls back from your mouth and trails his lips down your jaw, down the side of your neck, over one of the hickeys he already made, sucking gently, marking it again, and then down, further, to the flushed skin above your breast. His mouth wraps around your nipple and he laps. Slow, flat strokes of his tongue, then he closes his lips around it and sucks, and your back arches off the mattress hard enough that your front presses up against his mouth.

"Oh god-“

"Mhm" he moans at your reaction before switching sides, giving your other boob the same treatment. His tongue circling and his teeth grazing. Once he’s done, he nuzzles into the soft valley between your breasts and presses a kiss there, almost sweet, before he mouths back up to the other side and does it all over again, longer this time, until your nipples are stiff and shiny while you tremble under him.

"Jace- Jace- please, I'm-"

"I know." His voice is thick. "I know, Love, come on, one more."

"I can't-“ you cry out.

"You can."

He shifts putting his weight on his forearms on either side of your head and drops his forehead to yours, so all you can see is him, dark curls falling forward, freckle on the bridge of his nose you've kissed a thousand times, and his hips pick up a faster and harder, almost unforgivable pace. The mattress is squeaking now, in earnest, and somewhere in a distant part of your brain you register that the downstairs neighbors' bass has gone quite and you don't care, you don't care about anything except the fact that Jace’s eyes are open and locked on yours and he is looking at you like you're the only thing in the world worth looking at.

"Come on," he pants. "Come on, come on, come on."

Your hand slides down between your bodies. He shifts up a little to give you room as your fingers find your clit, slick with both of your juices combined, you rub tight fast circles and almost immediately your over the edge and coming before you're gone.

You cry out loud, right against his mouth, and he kisses you through it, you clench around him is what does him in. He finally goes still as his whole body tenses. His forehead presses harder into yours and his eyes squeeze shut. He makes the most wrecked sound you have ever heard from him, a broken little "oh, fuck, oh fuck, sweet girl-" and you feel him pulse inside you, hot and thick, he shudders through it with his cock buried as deep as he can get.

The two of you hold there, both breathing hard. His curls tickling your forehead. Your legs still locked around his hips. Your fingers still tangled in the damp hair at the nape of his neck. Someone in the hall outside is laughing at something on their phone as they pass by, and it's such a mundane sound compared to what just happened that it startles a laugh out of you.

He lifts his head. His eyes are soft again. Brown and warm and a little glazed.

"Hi." His voice is a rasp.

"Hi."

"You okay?"

"Mhm." You say nodding.

He pulls out slowly, careful about it, you both wince at the loss. He looks down between your bodies and makes a low, satisfied sound in his throat, you tilt your chin up to see what he's seeing. His cum is leaking out of you, sliding down onto the pillow he shoved under your hips earlier. He drags two fingers through it and pushes it back into you, slowly and deliberately, the aftershock makes you twitch and gasp.

"Sorry, sorry." He's grinning. He's not sorry. "Couldn't help it."

"You are so-"

"So what."

"So much."

"Mm." He kisses the tip of your nose, and then your cheek, and then your mouth, soft this time, no tongue, just the press of him. "Stay right there. Don't move."

He rolls off you and stands. You watch him walk to the bathroom, naked, the long line of his back, the two dimples at the base of his own spine, the muscled slope of his ass and the back of his thighs. He flicks the bathroom light on and you hear the tap run. You let your head loll to the side letting your eyes roll shut. Your body feels like it's melted into the mattress.

He comes back with a warm washcloth folded in his palm, and the softness on his face as he crawls back onto the bed does something painful and specific to your heart. He kneels between your knees and cleans you up with the kind of careful tenderness that used to fluster you back when you were still figuring out how to receive it. Now you just close your eyes and let him. He wipes down the insides of your thighs, and then between your legs, slow and gentle, and then he tosses the washcloth toward the laundry hamper and misses but doesn't care at the moment.

"C'mere." He flops down beside you and drags you into his chest, and you go willingly and he arranges you the way he likes, one of your thighs hooked over his hip, your cheek on his chest, his arm heavy around your back. His hand starts a slow drift up and down your spine.

The candle finally burs out. The room dims to the blue of the streetlight through the rain-streaked window. His heartbeat is a steady, slowing thump under your ear.

"Sofia…" he says, after a long moment.

"Mm?"

"You should text her."

"Oh." You laugh, small and hoarse. "Right."

You reach blindly for your phone on the nightstand. It's got three unread texts and a missed FaceTime. You squint at the screen.

Sof (9:04 PM): where are u

Sof (9:11 PM): hello???

Sof (9:19 PM): girl is jace holding you hostage

You show Jace the screen and he snorts reading it.

"Accurate."

"I hate you."

"Mm hm."

You type back one-handed, thumb clumsy. so sorry babe. wildly detained. love u. tomorrow brunch on me. You add a red heart. You put the phone face down.

Jace's fingers are tracing something on your back and you realize after a second that he's tracing the edges of one of the hickeys he left, thumb rubbing gentle little circles over the sore skin.

"You are absolutely covered," he says, and there's something almost awed in his voice. "Head to toe."

"Whose fault is that."

"Yours." His hand slides up into your hair and cradles the back of your head. "You're the one who bought that dress."

"I bought that dress for girls night.”

"You bought that dress to torture me."

"Same thing."

He huffs a laugh into the top of your head, presses a kiss there. His mouth stays for a second, warm through your hair. You can smell his skin, the clean cedar of his deodorant almost sweated off, the sharper note of his sweat underneath, the faintest ghost of your body oil transferred onto him. You feel very, extremely, unreasonably fond of him. It rises up in your chest like a slow warm tide.

"Hey," you say.

"Hm?"

"I'm keeping the dress."

"I know."

"I'm gonna wear it out. Eventually."

"I know." His hand smooths down your back and comes to rest at the very base of your spine, right where he started. His palm is broad and warm and his fingers spread over both dimples, claiming. "Just, with me."

"Deal."

He hums, low and content, and shifts to pull the duvet up over both of you, tucking it around your shoulder with his free hand, and then he settles back, holding you closer against the long warm line of his body while the rain keeps drumming steady on the window.

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