ꜰɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴᴀʟ ᴀᴅᴅɪᴄᴛ

The petitions had continued endlessly. Each one convinced their particular trouble outweighed the last. Ormund had sat through them all: a dispute over a millstream, a merchant guild demanding lower tariffs, a minor lordling whose son had impregnated a farmer's daughter and wanted the matter handled quietly. Governance. The word itself was leaden on his tongue.

He sank lower in the copper tub, letting the scalding water close over his chest, his shoulders, until it lapped at the hard line of his jaw. Steam curled from the surface in slow ribbons, fogging the stone walls, beading on the cool stones of the floor beyond the tub's rim. The heat found the knots between his shoulder blades and pressed into them, not quite enough, never quite enough. He let his head tip back against the rim and closed his eyes.

Behind the heavy linen curtain that divided the bathing space from the rest of the chamber, voices murmured. Yours, warm, threaded with amusement, and the lighter, quicker tones of two of your maids. A burst of laughter, hastily smothered. The rustle of fabric. More whispering. He caught the edge of a word that might have been shameless and another that sounded like he won't. He did not trouble himself with it. Whatever plot they hatched behind that curtain, it was not his concern. His concern, at this moment, was the slow unclenching of his jaw and the heat working through the ache in his back.

Then the chamber door clicked shut. The maids' footsteps retreated across the outer stone corridor, their giggling fading to nothing. Quiet settled over the room like a lid pressing down, save for the soft pad of your feet moving about, and the whisper of something being drawn from a hook.

"Come here," he called. His voice carried the rough, low grain of exhaustion. He shifted in the tub, water sloshing gently against the sides. "Let me gaze upon you before you sleep."

A pause. Then the curtain parted.

Ormund's mouth opened. No sound came.

You stood in the gap of parted linen, backlit by the candles on the far side of the room, and every detail of you hit him in sequence, each one landing harder than the last. The slip you wore, if it could be called that, was the scantest, most indecent scrap of silk he had ever laid eyes on. Sheer where it ought to have been solid, the fabric clung to your body like water, tracing the curve of your waist, the soft swell of your breasts, the small peaks of your nipples pressing against the gossamer as though the material simply was not there. It ended high on your thighs, high enough that the bare skin below the hem gleamed in the candlelight. Two threads of ribbon held the whole construction up over your shoulders, knotted at the front, thin as twine. A single breath would undo them. Your waist-length hair fell in heavy curls around your shoulders, and your eyes, warm, bright with mischief, held his.

He recovered enough to find his voice. "Come closer."

You crossed to him without hurry, settling on the edge of the tub, your hip pressing against the rim, and laid your hand against the side of his face. Your palm was warm and soft. He leaned into it. The stubble along his jaw rasped against your skin.

"I have missed you," he said.

You bent and kissed him, lingering there, your mouth moving against his with a gentleness that had no urgency in it.

"I have missed you more."

He reached out, his wet hand dripping, and caught the delicate hem of your slip between thumb and forefinger. He held it, examining it as though he did not understand what he was looking at. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth; the slow, crooked expression that surfaced only when something genuinely amused him.

"Why, I wonder, is your clothing budget so high, when it does not appear you wear any clothes?"

"Ormund." You rolled your eyes. "This is for you."

"Oh?"

"It's meant to excite a husband's loins." You said it plainly. "All the ladies have garments such as this."

He laughed. The sound came from somewhere deep in his chest, unused all day, and it loosened something in him. "When, precisely, did you acquire this?"

"Does it please you?"

He drew back to look at you again. The shift in angle let the candlelight catch the silk differently. The dip of your waist, the flare of your hips, the shadow between your thighs, all lay bare to him. His eyes moved over you slowly, cataloguing.

"You look as if you'd be at home at a pleasure house."

You gasped. Your hand snatched from his face, and you drew upright, mouth parting in affront.

He caught your hand before it could leave him entirely. His fingers closed around your wrist, firm, not rough, and he drew your knuckles to his mouth. His lips pressed against them, warm and damp from the bathwater, and he held them there a moment before speaking.

"I do not mean it unkindly," he said against your skin. "Only that you look as though you were made to confuse good men and lead them to ruin."

You held his gaze. The affront in your face cracked, crumbled, gave way to something else.

"Would you spend your coin on me?"

"I would give all the gold in my treasury," he said, his voice dropping, "for a night with you."

Something shifted in your smile. It turned sly, knowing, the warm playfulness draining from it only to be replaced by something more calculated. The two of you were no strangers to bedroom games, and though this had not initially been your intention, you saw no reason to change course.

You knelt beside the tub. The stone was cold against your bare knees, and the contrast with the heat rising from the water prickled along your skin. You folded your hands in your lap, straightened your back, and let your voice drop into something soft, submissive, and wicked.

"I have never seen you here before, my lord."

He caught on at once. The exhaustion in his face rearranged itself, and when he looked at you, the softness of a husband's gaze was gone, replaced by something cooler, more assessing; the gaze of a man who had paid for a service and intended to inspect the goods.

"You remember every man who passes through these doors?"

"No, but I would remember a man as handsome as you."

"I'm not here for flattery." He leaned back against the copper rim, and the water sluiced off his shoulders, running down the hard planes of his chest, catching the candlelight. He let you look. The muscles of his abdomen ridged beneath the water's surface, and the hair on his chest, darkened by the wet, lay flat against his skin. His arms rested along the edges of the tub.

"Why are you here, my lord?" You let your gaze trace the line of his arm where it rested on the tub's rim. "Does your wife not satisfy you as a husband deserves?"

His mouth curved. The stubble along his jaw caught the light. "My lady wife pleases me greatly."

"Then why," one finger extending to trace the thick vein that ran along his forearm, "would a contented man spend his coin on a woman such as me?"

Your fingertip moved slowly. The vein stood out against his skin and you followed it from the crease of his elbow to the ridge of bone at his wrist. His hand twitched. He did not pull away.

"Do you make your living sending men back to their wives?" he asked.

"I'm only curious, my lord." You could feel his pulse beating steady and strong beneath the thin skin.

He leaned toward you. The water shifted around him, lapping at the copper sides, the space between you closed until you could feel the heat coming off his skin, see the fine details of his face, the specks of pale green caught in the blue of his irises, visible only at this distance, like chips of sea-glass in deep water.

"Because my lady wife is a delicate creature. Gently born, gently bred." His eyes moved over you, taking in the way your kneeling position pressed your thighs together and made the hem ride up. "I would never do to her the things I'm going to do to you."

Something flickered across your face. Heat, delight, the sharp thrill of a challenge accepted. Your lips parted, your hand still resting on his wrist.

"Very well, my lord," Your voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried in the humid air, clear and steady. "Use me as you see fit."

Ormund gave you a crooked grin. The kind that crinkled the corner of one eye and bared the edge of his teeth. He planted one hand on the copper rim of the tub and carefully stood, water sluicing off him in sheets, running down the hard ridges of his stomach and the thick muscles of his thighs. His body was a map of old violence: a pale ridge across his ribs where a blade had caught him years ago, a raised mark along one shoulder, the silvery seam of an old stitch-job curling around his left forearm. Light brown hair dusted his chest, trailing down the center of his abdomen in a thin line that thickened below his navel. His cock hung heavy between his legs, already half-swollen, and as he stepped over the rim of the tub without reaching for a towel, water cascaded onto the stone floor in a wide splash that went utterly ignored.

He straightened to his full height and looked down at you, still dripping, still grinning. "Stop gaping and come here."

You took a step back. His grin widened.

"Don't be shy now," he purred, closing the distance. His hand closed around your wrist. Not rough, not gentle, just certain, and he drew you forward until your body met his. The wet heat of his skin soaked instantly through the sheer silk of your slip, plastering the fabric to your stomach, your breasts. "Touch me."

You raised your hands. Your fingers found the swell of his chest first, palms flat against the dense muscle as you trailed your hands down. You felt his abdomen tighten beneath your touch in a reflexive clench, tracing the ridges of his stomach, fingernails grazing through the trail of hair below his navel. One hand traced the hard cut of muscle at his hip, that sharp V-line that angled downward like an arrowhead pointing the way, and his cock twitched; thick and heavy and hard now, lifting away from his thigh. You looked up at him and found his gaze already on you. His eyes were dark, pupils blown so wide the blue had thinned to a narrow ring; the heat in them sent a warmth racing across your skin, prickling down your neck, between your breasts, pooling low in your belly. You looked back down.

He took your hand. Guided it. Wrapped your fingers around the shaft of him; hot, impossibly thick, the skin velvet-soft over iron hardness, and held you there. "There you go." He rolled his hips, a slow, controlled thrust into your grip, and the head of his cock pushed through the circle of your fist, slick with bathwater. You felt him pulse in your hand, a heartbeat made flesh.

"My lord, you cannot possibly mean to—"

Ormund's grin sharpened. A callback to your wedding night when you had teased him with that very phrase. "I assure you, I mean to give you all of it."

You stroked him again, slow, deliberate, your thumb dragging across the sensitive head. He hissed through his teeth, eyelids fluttering shut for one unguarded second. When his eyes opened again, the playfulness had burned away. What remained was something harder, hungrier, the look of a man done waiting.

"Get on the bed. Spread your legs."

You turned and walked. The stone floor was cold beneath your bare feet, water from his body marking a trail behind him as you crossed from the bathing area into the space where your bed stood. You could hear him behind you. Not rushing. He stalked after you the way a predator tracked something wounded, not running, because running implied the prey might escape, and you were going nowhere.

You reached the bed, grabbed the carved footboard, and scrambled up onto the mattress on your hands and knees, linens bunching under your knees. Then a large hand locked around your ankle. Iron grip. He yanked, and you slid backward across the sheets with a gasp, the silk of your slip riding up your thighs, your legs dangling off the edge of the bed. You rolled over. He stood between your knees, looking down at you.

"Take that off. I want to see what I'm paying for."

Your fingers trembled. You reached up to the thin straps of the slip, hooked them with your index fingers, and slid them down your shoulders. The fabric peeled away from your skin with the dampness of his bathwater still clinging to it, and the material pooled at your waist, baring your breasts to the cool air. Your nipples tightened instantly; partly the chill, mostly him. You shifted your hips, lifting yourself, and pulled the garment down your legs, past your knees, off entirely, letting it drop to the floor in a wet heap of silk. You lay back against the linens, hair fanning out around you in a wild dark halo, and looked up at him through the candlelit haze.

"Am I to your liking, my lord?"

"Yes," he said. "Very much."

He climbed onto the bed and moved over you, not straddling yet, just close enough that you could feel the heat radiating off his still-damp skin, close enough that the head of his cock brushed your thigh and left a wet smear. He braced himself on one arm above you and looked down, the corner of his mouth curled up.

"Do you touch yourself?"

The question hit you like a slap. Heat flooded your face, your neck, your chest, blooming down to your sternum. "I beg your pardon?!"

He chuckled. Low, dark, the sound rolling from deep in his chest. "Do not take that tone with me; you are not my wife."His voice dropped a register, quiet and hard, the voice he used when issuing commands. "Answer the question."

You swallowed. "Y-yes, my lord."

He raised an eyebrow. The interest in his eyes sharpened to a point, the blue nearly swallowed by black. "Show me."

You lay back against the linens. Your legs fell open slowly, first one knee tilting, then the other, your thighs parting in increments, your breath coming shallow and uneven. You had never done this before him. Your hands moved down your body, fingertips tracing the plane of your stomach, the curve of your hip, dipping lower. You found your core with two fingers and ran them down the length of your slit, feeling the shape of yourself, the softness of the outer folds and the slick heat between them. You drew your fingers back upward, circling your clit with the pad of your middle finger, and a breath escaped you at the contact, your stomach tensing.

You brought your fingers back down. Found your entrance. Found yourself wet, dripping, honestly, the arousal thick and slippery on your fingers. You pushed one finger inside, and a moan spilled out, soft and unguarded, as you began to move it slowly in and out, feeling the walls clench around the intrusion. You looked up.

Ormund was flushed; his hand was wrapped around his cock, stroking himself in long, slow pulls, his eyes locked on what you were doing between your legs. His head was flushed, dark, weeping a steady thread of clear fluid that his thumb smeared across the crown with each pass. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscle in his cheek jumped.

"That's it," he said. His voice was shaky. Cracked at the edges. "Add another."

You obeyed. Pushed a second finger in alongside the first, and the stretch made you gasp, your head tipping back against the linens. You picked up speed. Your fingers curled inside yourself, stroking the spongy front wall of your cunt, and the sounds you were making- soft, hitching moans, breathless little gasps- filled the chamber, mixing with the wet noise of your fingers working in and out of you. Your hips rolled against your own hand.

Ormund's breathing was ragged. "It's not enough, is it."

You shook your head. It wasn't. Your fingers were slim and delicate and could not reach the places inside you that ached to be filled. Could not stretch you the way you needed, could not pound into you with the weight and force that turned your bones to water. You needed his thick fingers, his thick cock, the mass of him bearing down on you to truly stretch you the way you liked.

"Use your words."

"No, my lord, I—" You pulled your fingers free, slick and glistening, and before you could say another word, he caught your wrist. Lifted your hand. Brought it to his face, inhaling deeply, his nose nearly touching your wet fingers. The sound he made was animal, a low groan in his chest. Then he took your fingers into his mouth. His tongue swept between them, lapping at the taste of you, curling around each digit, sucking the slick from your skin with a wet, obscene sound that made your thighs clench together. You gasped. Your free hand gripped the sheets.

He released your fingers with a slick pop and crawled over you. His large body caged you in. Arms on either side of your head, knees spreading your thighs wider, his cock hanging heavy and hot between you, the shaft dragging across your stomach as he settled his weight above you. The sheer size of him blotted out the candlelight. His shadow swallowed you.

He leaned down, his mouth beside your ear, his breath hot and damp against your temple. "I hope you are prepared, because I will not be gentle with you."

A jolt of electricity ran through you, starting at the base of your skull and crackling down your spine, through your belly, straight to your cunt. Wetness pooled between your legs, a fresh surge of slick that you felt drip onto the sheets. The thought of him using your body, taking what he wanted, made your thighs tremble. Your breath came in short, shallow pants.

"My body is yours, my lord."

He braced himself on one hand, and with the other he reached between you. You felt his fingers wrap around the shaft of his cock, felt the broad head of him drag through your silky folds, through the wetness, the heat, and the friction of it; even that light contact made your hips buck. You placed one hand on his shoulder, gripping the hard cap of muscle, and the other on his bicep, feeling the cords of muscle flex beneath your palm.

He pushed into you. The full length of him drove into you in a single, brutal thrust, and you cried out, a raw, ragged sound torn from somewhere deep in your chest. You had not prepared enough, your fingers too slender, too few, for the girth of him forcing you open around his cock. You felt every inch. The sting was sharp and bright, and you loved it; loved the ache of it.

He pressed his weight onto you. His strong arms gripped you tight, pulling you against him as he sank even deeper, and you clawed at his back, fingernails raking down the sweat-damp skin, leaving red lines across his shoulder blades. He held himself there, buried to the hilt, and you felt him throbbing. A pulse that matched the hammering of your own heart. His jaw was clenched, his breath coming in short, harsh bursts through his nose. He was adjusting to the feel of you.

"You're so tight for a whore," he said through gritted teeth, and the words vibrated against your throat.

You managed to find your voice. It came out breathless. "My mistress reserves me for only the most special clients."

He leaned back onto his knees, his cock still buried inside you to the root. The new angle shifted him against your front wall, and you bit your lip. "Is that so?" he asked, one eyebrow arched.

You rolled your hips. The friction dragged a sound from both of you simultaneously. "Yes," your voice had gone half-wrecked already, trembling at the edges. "Rich men usually have small cocks."

He tilted his head. His eyes narrowed. The blue had vanished entirely; only black remained, bottomless and bright with something dangerous. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face, the kind that preceded ruin.

"I am going to enjoy this very much."

He pulled out. The drag of him was slow; you felt every ridge, every vein of his cock as it withdrew. The suction of your cunt gripping him, trying to hold him in, until only the head remained inside, the thick crown stretching your entrance. Then he slammed back in. One brutal, full-length thrust that drove the air from your lungs and punched a cry out of your throat that echoed off the stone walls.

He did it again. Pulled out to the tip. Drove back in. You felt him carving his way into you, reshaping you around him, the drag of every vein against your swollen walls as he withdrew only to plunge back in, each thrust so deep it felt as though he were reaching your throat. The wet, obscene sound of skin meeting skin filled the chamber; squelch, slap, squelch, the bed frame groaning beneath you, linens bunching and twisting under your back.

You bit your lip. Pressed your mouth shut, trying to muffle the sounds climbing out of your throat. He noticed.

"No. I pay for those sounds." His voice was rough. "Let me hear them."

He delivered another harsh thrust; deeper, harder, his hips cracking against yours, and the moan that ripped out of you was loud, uncontrolled, bouncing off the walls. Your back arched off the bed.

He picked up his pace. Thrust after thrust of him using your body for his pleasure, his hips driving forward in a relentless, battering rhythm that shoved you up the bed until your headboard rattled with each impact. You could hear yourself; wet, desperate, the sounds you were making beyond your control, moans and gasps and broken syllables that might have been his name.

"Harder," you begged, the word coming out a sob of want.

His hand found your throat. His fingers wrapped around the front of your neck; not squeezing the airway, but pressing, claiming. The weight of his palm against your pulse. Both your hands flew to his wrist, wrapping around the bone, just holding on. He slammed into you harder. Each thrust driving the breath from you, the sound from you, the thoughts from you.

He had never handled you like this. Never spoken to you this way. Each filthy word that dropped from his mouth, each degradation, each dark praise, traveled straight to your cunt like a physical touch, making you clench and drip around him.

"You dirty whore," he growled, his thumb pressed against the side of your neck, feeling your pulse hammer. "Getting off like this. Wanting to be fucked like this."

You could only moan. Heat overwhelmed heat. Your skin was burning where his body met yours. The coil of pleasure wound tight in your belly, a spring being compressed to its limit. You felt the hair at the base of his cock grinding against your clit with every thrust, the friction sending sparks up your spine, and it was so much, too much, the sensation layering and building until you could barely breathe—

Your orgasm hit you. Hard. Your whole body seized, clenching in violent, rhythmic spasms around his cock, your back arching off the bed, your nails digging into the thick muscle of his back hard enough to leave crescents. You came with a sound that was half-scream, half-sob, your thighs clamping around his hips, body shaking. He groaned above you, a deep, guttural sound, and you felt his rhythm falter for one stroke as your spasming cunt milked him.

He continued fucking into you through your orgasm. Each thrust prolonged the waves crashing through you, drawing them out, stretching the pleasure into something almost unbearable. You whimpered, oversensitive, your hands falling away from his back to grip the sheets, twisting the linen in fists. He rode you through the aftershocks, his pace still brutal, still relentless, until the pleasure edged toward pain.

Then he released your throat and stilled his hips. You blinked up at him, dazed, as he pulled out of you. The sudden emptiness was shocking. You were gaped open, fucked loose and swollen, slick with your own arousal, clenching around nothing. You opened your mouth to speak. He flipped you over. One hand on your hip, rolling you bodily across the rumpled sheets, and you found yourself on weak hands and weaker knees. Ormund's hands gripped your hips. The broad head of his cock pressed against your entrance, still slick with your orgasm, and you felt him lean over you, his chest against your back, his mouth near your ear.

"My turn," he said.

He pushed in, slower than before but still splitting you open, filling you so completely that there was no room for anything else. No air, no thought, just the overwhelming reality of being fucked.

He began to pound into you like an animal, snapping his hips forward with enough force to rock the heavy bed frame against the stone wall.

"Take it," he snarled, his voice unrecognizable.

He released one side only to snatch both of your wrists, yanking them behind your back, pinning them there, using the leverage to force your upper body down into the mattress. Your face was pressed against the linens, your breath coming in short, desperate gasps. The bed creaked and groaned under the assault, the wooden frame sounding as if it might splinter at any moment.

Your arms were useless, trapped in his grip, legs trembling violently, your muscles burning from the strain of maintaining the position on your hands and knees. Slowly, your knees gave out. Ormund let your wrists go as you collapsed, allowing you to fall flat against the mattress. He followed you down, covering your body with his while he continued to thrust into your prone form.

The angle change hit you deeper, rubbing against spots inside you that made your vision white out. He slowed his pace just fractionally, grinding into you instead of thrusting, torturing you with the depth.

"Are you going to peak again?" he rasped against your ear, his breath hot and ragged.

You let out a groan and nodded your face against the sheets. "Already?" he mocked, his voice dripping with dark amusement. "What kind of greedy whore finds her pleasure twice before a customer achieves his once?"

You could only babble, incoherent pleas falling from your lips, your mind shattered by the relentless stimulation. "Please... Ormund... I can't..."

He reached around your hip, his fingers finding your swollen, sensitive clit. He rubbed it roughly, in tight, fast circles, matching the tempo of his hips. You screamed his name as the second orgasm tore through you.

"Fuck!" Ormund roared.

He slammed into you one final time, burying himself to the hilt, and held himself there as his body seized, spilling inside you, his cock pulsing as he filled you with his seed. He groaned low in his throat, his eyes squeezed shut, every muscle in his body locked in a rictus of pleasure.

Then he pulled out slowly. The movement dragged a whimper from your lips. He shifted back, kneeling between your legs, and watched with fascination as his cum began to leak out of you. It was a thick, white trickle, running slowly down your thighs, mingling with the slick evidence of your own arousal. You looked thoroughly fucked, used, ruined in the best possible way.

Ormund threw his head back, his skin glistening with sweat in the dim light. "Fuck," he breathed, the word a prayer.

The energy in the room began to settle, giving way to a heavy, sated exhaustion. He collapsed onto the bed beside you, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling as his heart rate slowly returned to normal.

After a moment, he turned onto his side. He reached out with a gentle hand, wiping the sweat-soaked baby hairs from your forehead and brow. His touch was tender now, a stark contrast to the moments before. You opened your eyes to look at him. They were glassy, unfocused, but filled with a deep, lingering warmth.

"Are you alright?" he asked. The game was over. The role shed, leaving only your doting husband.

You nodded, unable to find your voice just yet.

"I have never..." He started, then stopped, shaking his head as if unable to articulate the magnitude of what had just passed between you. He groaned as he sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His body ached in the most satisfying way.

You continued to just lay there on your stomach, thinking of what had passed. Your mind was a haze of pleasure, the boundaries between the fantasy and reality blurring.

Ormund stood and walked across the room, his movements slow and heavy. He returned a moment later with a warm, damp cloth. The first touch of it between your legs made you gasp. You were sensitive, swollen from the rough handling, and even the gentle pressure was intense.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "Relax."

He wiped you so gently, cleaning away the mess of your coupling with a care that belied his earlier ferocity, taking his time, ensuring he was thorough. When he was done, he discarded the cloth onto the floor and pulled back the heavy duvet, gathering you into his arms as if you weighed nothing. You curled into his chest, burying your face in his neck.

"You were so perfect," he whispered into your hair, pressing a kiss to your temple.

You shifted, propping yourself up slightly on his chest to look at him. A shadow of doubt crossed your features, a vulnerability that hadn't been there during the game.

"Is that what you need to be happy?" you asked softly. "Have you been unsatisfied before in our marriage bed?"

Ormund looked at you, blue eyes serious. He reached up to stroke your cheek, his thumb brushing over your soft skin.

"I am very happy. More than I deserve."

He leaned in to kiss you, a slow, deep kiss that tasted of salt and lingering desire. He pulled back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.

"If I made you feel as though— I am sorry."

You kissed him again, laying your head back on his chest, listening to the steady thrum of his heartbeat. The fear dissolved, replaced by a warm glow of security. You traced idle patterns on his chest, your mind drifting back to the thrill of the act.

"Next time," you murmured sleepily. "I am in control."

Ormund ran his hand down your back, soothing you. "Oh, really?" You could hear the smile in his voice. "What would you like to try?"

You smiled against his skin, a mischievous glint returning to your eyes. "Perhaps I can be a princess, and you can be a dark knight holding me for ransom."

Ormund laughed out loud, a deep sound that startled the quiet room. "You're going to fuck your way to freedom?" You smacked his chest, feigning outrage. "I will not tell you my desires if you are going to laugh!"

He caught your hand, interlacing your fingers, rolling you both over, shifting his weight so he was looking down at you. The playfulness in his expression softened into something warmer and infinitely devoted.

The morning of the day everything changed began like so many mornings before it quietly, with the weight of someone else's choices pressing down on you before you had even opened your eyes.

You woke to the sound of the bells. Oldtown was a city of bells, something you had not known before you came here. They rang at dawn, at noon, at dusk, at every hour in between, marking time with a relentlessness that made you feel like you were living inside a heartbeat. The sound echoed through the stone walls of the Hightower, bouncing off the ancient masonry, seeping into your dreams. On Dragonstone, you had woken to the sound of the sea and the distant cry of your dragon. Here, you woke to bells.

You lay still for a moment, watching the light creep across the ceiling. The curtains were heavy but a single sliver of gold had found its way through the gap, painting a line across the stone above your head. You traced it with your eyes, following it from one corner of the room to the other, and tried to remember what day it was.

It did not matter. The days were all the same now.

You turned your head on the pillow. Ormund was already gone. His side of the bed was cold, the blankets pushed back, the indentation of his body already fading from the mattress. He rose early, your husband. He had a city to run and a household to command. You had learned quickly that he did not expect you to be awake when he left. He did not expect anything from you in the mornings except that you would be there with your legs opened when he returned.

You sat up slowly, pushing the heavy blankets aside. The air in the room was cool, carrying the faint, familiar scent of smoke from the fireplace. Your shift was wrinkled from sleep, twisted around your legs, and you smoothed it down automatically before swinging your feet to the floor.

You crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain, just a little. The view was spectacular, you could not deny that. The Hightower rose above the city like a spear thrust into the sky, and from your chambers near the top, you could see everything. The Honeywine River winding its way to the sea. The rooftops of Oldtown spreading out below, a patchwork of slate and tile and thatch. The Citadel in the distance, its domes and spires gleaming in the morning light. And beyond it all, the Whispering Sound, blue and endless, stretching toward the horizon.

It was beautiful. It was not home.

You let the curtain fall and turned back to the room. Your gown was laid out for you already. It always was. You had not chosen the dresses you wore since your wedding night. They simply appeared each morning, draped over the chair by the hearth, waiting for you. Today's was a deep charcoal grey with silver embroidery along the scooped neckline and long, tight sleeves. The fabric was heavy—it was always heavy—and the cut was modest. You had never worn anything like it before you came to Oldtown, and now you wore nothing else.

Your ladies arrived as you were washing your face. Three of them, all Hightower women, all chosen by Ormund's steward. They helped you into your dress without comment. The laces were pulled tight, the sleeves smoothed down, the high collar fastened close around your throat. You stood still and let them work, lifting your arms when they needed you to, turning when they asked. You had learned that it was easier to comply than to question.

"Your hair, my lady?" Ellyn asked, her hands already reaching for the brush.

You hesitated. "I thought I might leave it down today."

A pause. Barely a heartbeat, but you felt it.

"Lord Ormund prefers it up," Ellyn said. Her voice was neutral. Polite. The voice of a servant who had been given instructions and intended to follow them.

You opened your mouth to argue—it was your hair, after all, your head, your choice—but the words died on your tongue. It was not worth the fight. Nothing was worth the fight anymore.

"Very well," you said quietly.

Ellyn nodded and began to brush. You watched yourself in the mirror as she worked. The girl looking back at you was beautiful—you knew that, had always known that, had been told it so many times it had ceased to mean anything—but she did not look like you. She looked like a portrait of you, painted by someone who had only heard a description. The hair was right, silver-gold and falling in soft waves. The eyes were right, violet and clear. But something was missing. Some spark. Some light.

You looked tired. You looked pale. You looked like a woman who had been slowly fading for weeks and had not noticed until this moment.

Ellyn pinned your hair up in an elaborate twist, securing it with silver combs. You felt the weight of it pulling at your scalp, the familiar tension that always followed. Your mother had never made you wear your hair up. Your mother had let you wear it however you wanted—loose and wild when you were flying, braided with ribbons when you attended court, simple and unadorned when you were alone. Your mother had always said that you were beautiful because you were yourself, not because you looked like anyone else's idea of beauty.

You missed your mother. You missed her so much it felt like a physical ache, a hollow space in your chest that nothing could fill.

"There," Ellyn said, stepping back to admire her work. "Very proper, my lady."

"Thank you," you said, because that was what you were supposed to say.

They left you alone after that, retreating to their own tasks, and you sat by the window for a long time, watching the clouds move across the sky. Somewhere out there, beyond the city walls, beyond the Whispering Sound, beyond the Reach and the Kingswood and the Blackwater Bay, your mother was sitting on Dragonstone. Your brothers were running through the halls, laughing, arguing, living their lives.

And you were here. In Oldtown. Married to a man you barely recognized anymore.

The courtship had been so different. You remembered it now, sitting in the grey morning light, turning the memories over in your mind like stones. Ormund had come to King's Landing two years ago, representing his house at some council or another, and he had seen you across the throne room. You had been ten and eight then, young and shy. He had been thirty-six, a widower with four children, a lord in his own right. He had looked at you with such intensity, such focus, that you had felt like the only person in the room.

He had been charming. He had sent you gifts, books from the Citadel, rare perfumes from Lys, a necklace of sapphires that matched your eyes. He had written you letters, long and eloquent and full of praise. He had sought you out at feasts and tourneys, always finding a way to sit beside you, to speak with you, to make you laugh.

Your mother had been skeptical at first. "He is older than you," she had said, her brow furrowed. "And he is a Hightower. The Hightowers are ambitious, my love. They do not do anything without purpose."

But you had argued for him. You had told her that he was kind, that he was good, that he made you feel special. And eventually, reluctantly, she had agreed to the match. Not because she trusted him—you knew now that she never had—but because she trusted you. Because she wanted you to be happy. Because she thought that denying you this would only make you want it more.

And there was the political reality, too. You had known that, even then. The Hightowers were powerful. The Hightowers were influential. The Hightowers could tip the balance in the coming struggle for the throne. Marrying you to Ormund was a way of securing their loyalty, of ensuring that when the time came, Oldtown would stand with Rhaenyra.

You had been a gift. A guarantee. A hostage wrapped in silk and sent south with a smile.

You had told yourself it did not matter. You had told yourself that Ormund loved you, that he would be good to you, that the political reasons were secondary to the personal ones. You had believed him when he promised to cherish you, to protect you, to make you happy.

You had been so stupid.

The knock at the door startled you out of your thoughts. You turned, smoothing your features into the placid expression you had learned to wear, and called out, "Enter."

It was a servant, one of the many whose names you had not yet learned. He was young, barely more than a boy, and he bowed awkwardly when he saw you.

"My lady," he said. "A shipment has arrived for you. From Dragonstone."

Your heart stopped.

"A shipment?" You rose from your chair, and your voice came out breathless, eager, the way it used to sound before you learned to keep your feelings hidden. "Where is it?"

"In the courtyard, my lady. I can have it brought up to your chambers, if you wish."

"No." The word was too quick, too sharp. You forced yourself to slow down, to breathe. "No, thank you. I will come down myself. I would like to—" You stopped. You did not know how to explain what you wanted. You wanted to see it. You wanted to touch it. You wanted to hold something from home in your hands and remember what it felt like to be yourself.

"Of course, my lady," the servant said. He bowed again and retreated, and you were alone once more.

You did not run. Running would have been undignified. Running would have drawn attention. But you walked faster than you had walked in weeks, your heart pounding in your chest, your hands clasped tightly in front of you to hide their trembling.

The courtyard was busy when you arrived. Servants and guards and grooms going about their daily tasks, none of them paying much attention to the crate sitting near the stables. It was large, nearly as tall as you were, made of dark wood and bound with iron bands. And stamped on the side, clear and unmistakable, was the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen.

You stopped a few feet away, suddenly afraid to approach. It was silly, you knew. It was just a crate. Just wood and iron and the things your mother had sent. But it felt like more than that. It felt like a message. A reminder. A lifeline thrown across the distance between Dragonstone and Oldtown, telling you that you were not forgotten.

"My lady?" A servant—a different one, a woman with kind eyes and flour on her apron—approached with a slight curtsy. "Shall I have it brought to your rooms?"

"Yes," you said, and then, because you could not help yourself, "No. Wait. I want to open it here."

The woman looked surprised, but she nodded. "As you wish, my lady. Shall I fetch a crowbar?"

"Please."

You stood there, in the middle of the courtyard, while she went to find the tools. The sun was warm on your face, warmer than it had been in days, or perhaps it only felt that way because you were happy. You were actually happy. The feeling was so unfamiliar that it took you a moment to recognize it.

When the crowbar arrived the scent hit you first.

Jasmine. Your mother's perfume. The same perfume she had worn since you were a child, the same scent that had clung to her hair when she held you, to her gowns when you pressed your face into her shoulder. It was faint, barely there, but it was enough. Your eyes stung, and you had to blink rapidly to keep the tears from falling.

And then the dresses. They were packed in layers of fine paper, each one wrapped carefully to protect the delicate fabrics. You pulled them out one by one, your breath catching in your throat each time. Silk. Chiffon. Velvet so soft it felt like water running through your fingers. The colors were breathtaking, deep violet, pale blue, crimson, silver, black, gold. Lyseni cuts, every one of them. Flowing skirts and fitted bodices and sleeves that would flutter when you walked.

These were your dresses. These were the clothes you had worn before your wedding, before Oldtown, before everything. These were the clothes that made you feel like a Targaryen princess instead of a Hightower wife.

And then, at the very bottom of the crate, you found it.

The silver-grey gown.

You lifted it from the paper with hands that shook, and the sunlight caught the beadwork, and for a moment you forgot how to breathe.

It was the most beautiful dress you had ever seen. The bodice was gathered chiffon, layer upon layer of it, so fine and sheer that it looked like morning mist made solid. Tiny silver beads traced patterns across the fabric—flowers, vines, delicate spirals that caught the light and sparkled like captured stars. The neckline was a sweetheart, low and elegant, designed to frame the collarbones and accentuate the curve of the breasts without being vulgar. The sleeves were off the shoulder, sheer and flowing, held in place by jeweled straps so fine they looked like threads of starlight. The waist was fitted, structured, creating a dramatic contrast with the flowing pleated skirt below. And the skirt was layer after layer of soft, swirling fabric that would catch the air and dance with every step you took.

It was a dress for a princess. It was a dress for a dragonrider. It was a dress for you.

You held it up against your body, right there in the courtyard, and you could not stop smiling. You probably looked ridiculous—a lady of House Hightower clutching a gown to her chest like a child with a new toy—but you did not care. You did not care about anything except the feel of the fabric beneath your fingers and the sudden, overwhelming certainty that things were going to be better now.

"Would you like to wear it, my lady?"

You looked up. The servant woman was still there, watching you with an expression that was almost a smile.

"May I?" you asked, and then realized how foolish the question was. You were the lady of the house. You did not need to ask permission. But somehow, without thinking, you had.

"Of course, my lady," the woman said. "I think it would suit you beautifully."

You dressed alone. You did not want anyone else's hands on this dress. It was too precious, too personal, too much a part of you. You slipped it over your head carefully, reverently, letting the silk whisper against your skin. You adjusted the bodice, settled the sleeves on your shoulders, smoothed the skirt down over your hips. And when you looked in the mirror—

You gasped.

You were beautiful. You spun in front of the mirror, watching the skirt flare out around you, and you laughed. A real laugh, bright and surprised, the kind of laugh you had not made since your wedding night.

And then the knock came.

"My lady?" Margot's voice, muffled through the door. "The other ladies are asking if you will join them in the solar. They have heard about the dresses and are eager to see."

You took a deep breath. You smoothed your hands down the front of your gown. And then you opened the door.

Bethany gasped first. Loud and delighted, the way only a girl could gasp. "Oh, my lady! You look like a queen!"

Ellyn was more restrained, but even she could not hide her surprise. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly before she caught herself. "It is... very fine work, my lady," she said carefully. "Lyseni, I presume?"

"Yes," you said, and your voice came out stronger than it had in weeks. "My mother sent them. I used to wear this style at court."

The walk through the Hightower was different than it had ever been before. You had walked these halls dozens of times since your wedding, head down, eyes averted, trying to take up as little space as possible. But today, in your gown, you walked with your head high. You looked people in the eye. You smiled.

And people noticed.

Servants stopped to stare as you passed. Guards straightened, their gazes lingering on you longer than was proper. A young squire dropped the sword he was carrying and had to scramble to pick it up, his face bright red. You felt their eyes on you and you did not mind. You had been invisible for weeks. It was nice to be seen.

—

Ormund found you in the solar.

It was late afternoon by then, the sun beginning its slow descent toward the horizon, painting the room in shades of gold and amber. You were sitting by the window, reading your mother's letter at last—it was full of news from Dragonstone, gossip about your brothers, questions about how you were settling in—when the door opened and he walked in.

You looked up and smiled. "Husband. I did not expect you back so early."

He did not smile back. You should have noticed that. You should have seen the storm gathering behind his eyes, the tightness in his jaw, the way his hands were clenched at his sides. But you were still floating on the happiness of the morning, still wrapped in the warmth of your mother's words and you did not see.

"Where did you get that dress?"

His voice was flat. Too flat. The kind of flat that comes before a storm.

"It was in the shipment from my mother," you said, and you heard the happiness in your own voice, bright and fragile and utterly unaware. "She sent me dresses from Lys—the kind I used to wear at court. Isn't it beautiful? I have not worn anything like it since—"

"Stand up."

You blinked. "What?"

"Stand. Up."

You stood. The letter slipped from your fingers and floated to the floor. You stood, and he looked at you, and the silence stretched out between you like a wound opening.

"Ormund," you said carefully, "is something wrong?"

He crossed the room in three strides. He grabbed your arm and pulled you toward the door.

"You will come with me," he said. "Now."

"Ormund, you are hurting me—"

"Now."

He dragged you through the corridors. You stumbled after him, your beautiful skirt tangling around your legs, your jeweled straps digging into your shoulders. Servants saw you—you knew they saw you, you saw their faces turn away, their eyes drop—and shame burned hot in your cheeks. You were the lady of the house. You were a princess of the blood. And you were being pulled through your own home like a disobedient child.

He did not speak again until the door to your chambers slammed shut behind you.

Then he let go of your arm, and you stumbled backward, catching yourself on the back of a chair. Your chest was heaving. Your heart was pounding. And when you looked at his face you barely recognized him.

"What," he said, low and dangerous, "are you wearing?"

You stared at him. "It is a dress. I told you. My mother sent—"

"Your mother." He spat the words like they tasted of poison. "Your whore of a mother sent you a whore's dress, and you decided to parade yourself through my keep in it."

The word hit you like a slap. Whore. Your mother. He had never—no one had ever—

"Don't look so shocked." He stepped closer, and you stepped back, and the chair between you felt like nothing, like paper, like a wall that would crumble at a single touch. "You know what I am talking about. You know exactly what your mother is. The whole realm knows. She spreads her legs for every man who looks at her twice, and now she cannot even control her own daughter."

"That is not true." Your voice came out thin. Reedy. Nothing like the strong, confident voice you had used all day. "My mother is not—you cannot speak of her that way. She is your future queen—"

"She is a whore." He said it flatly. Calmly. Like he was remarking on the weather. "She is a whore who put bastards in the line of succession and expected the realm to bow. She has fucked her sworn shield for years—everyone knows it, even if they are too afraid to say it—and those Strong bastards she calls sons are proof. And now she has sent her daughter to me, dressed like a common bedslave, and I am supposed to be grateful?"

Your hands were shaking. You pressed them to your stomach, trying to steady yourself. "I am not dressed like a—I am not. This is just a dress. This is the kind of dress I have always worn. You saw me in them at court. You said I was beautiful. You said—"

"I lied."

The words stopped you cold.

"I lied." He stepped closer again, and this time there was nowhere to back away to. Your shoulders hit the wall. "Of course I told you that you were beautiful. That is what men do when they are courting. We flatter. We praise. We tell you what you want to hear. And you—" His eyes raked down your body, and you felt naked, exposed, like every inch of skin was on display. "You were a maiden then. Untouched. A prize to be won. I could look at you and imagine all the things I was going to do to you once you were mine."

He paused. His tongue swept across his lower lip, and the gesture made your stomach turn.

"Do you want to know what I really thought, when I saw you in your pretty little dresses? I thought about what was underneath. I thought about tearing them off you. I thought about bending you over a chair and seeing if you were as tight as you looked. I thought about how sweet it would be to be the one who finally got to touch what you were showing everyone."

"Stop—" The word came out as a choked whisper. "Please, stop—"

"But that was then." His voice hardened. "That was when you were a maiden. That was when you were untouchable. Now you are my wife. Now you wear my name and live in my house and sleep in my bed. And my wife does not dress like a whore."

"I am not a whore." Tears were burning in your eyes now, hot and stinging. You blinked rapidly, trying to hold them back. "I am a Targaryen princess. I am a dragonrider. I am your wife, and I have done nothing wrong—"

"Nothing wrong?" He laughed, and it was an ugly sound. Ugly and cruel and nothing like the warm, charming laugh you remembered from the courtship. "You paraded yourself through the entire keep in a dress that shows your tits to every man with eyes. Guards stared at you. Servants stared at you. My squire -your own uncle- dropped his sword because he was too busy looking at your body to remember what he was doing. And you think you have done nothing wrong?"

You had not known about the squire. You had not noticed. But it did not matter. It would not have mattered. He had made up his mind about what you were, and nothing you said would change it.

"It is just a dress," you whispered. "It made me feel beautiful. It made me feel like myself. I have been wearing your dresses for weeks—your grey dresses, your heavy fabrics—and I have not complained. I have not asked for anything. I just wanted one thing that was mine. One thing that felt like home."

"Home?" He sneered the word. "You mean Dragonstone? You mean your mother's castle, where she hides her bastards and her lovers and pretends she is fit to rule? That is not home. That is a den of sin and corruption, and you are lucky I took you out of it."

"Lucky?" The word escaped you before you could stop it, high and incredulous. "You think I am lucky? You think I am grateful for this? For being dragged through the corridors like a prisoner? For being called a whore in my own home? For being married to a man who—"

"Who what?" His voice dropped to a dangerous murmur. "Who what? Say it."

You opened your mouth. You closed it. The words were there, burning on your tongue, but you could not make yourself speak them. You were afraid. You were so afraid.

"Who does not love you?" He finished the sentence for you, and his smile was terrible. "Is that what you were going to say? That I do not love you? Let me tell you something, little wife. I love you more than you deserve. I love you despite your mother, despite your reputation, despite the rumors about your parentage. Everyone knows you are not Laenor's daughter—no more than the Strong bastards are. And now you come here, dressed like a whore, and expect me to be grateful?"

"My father loved me." Your voice cracked, and the tears spilled over at last. Hot and wet, tracking down your cheeks. "Laenor Velaryon raised me. He was my father. And you will not speak of him that way."

"Laenor Velaryon was a fool." Ormund's lip curled. "He raised another man's bastards because he was too weak to do anything else. Just as your mother is too weak to control her own desires. And you are just like her. Weak. Vain. Desperate for attention. You think you are special because you have a dragon? You are nothing. You are a spoiled princess who has never had to work for anything, who has never had to serve anyone, who does not know the first thing about being a wife."

"I am not—"

"You are a piece of property." He stepped forward, and his hand came up, and for one terrible moment you thought he was going to hit you. But he did not. He touched your face instead, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw with a gentleness that made your skin crawl. "My property. Your body belongs to me now. Your hair, your face, your tits, your cunt—all of it. You do not get to decide what you wear or what you show. You do not get to decide anything. You are mine. And I will not have my property parading around like a common whore."

"Let go of me."

You did not recognize your own voice. It was quiet and cold and utterly steady, nothing like the sobbing, broken girl you felt like inside.

He did not let go. His grip on your jaw tightened, just slightly. Just enough to remind you of his strength.

"You do not give me orders," he said softly. "You are my wife. You obey me. You do what I say, when I say it. And if you cannot do that—" His thumb pressed harder, digging into the soft flesh beneath your cheekbone. "Then I will teach you. I will teach you to be grateful for my attentions. I will teach you to be the wife I need you to be. And by the time I am finished, you will thank me for it."

"You are hurting me."

"I am trying to help you. But you are making it so difficult." He released your jaw, finally, and stepped back. His eyes dropped to the dress. To the silver beadwork. To the sweetheart neckline that he hated. "Take it off."

Your blood ran cold. "What?"

"Take. It. Off."

You did not move. You could not move. Your body was frozen, your mind screaming, your heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat.

"Please," you whispered. "Please, Ormund, I will not wear it again. I will put it away. I will wear whatever you want. Just please—"

"Take it off, or I will take it off for you."

You raised your hands. Your fingers were shaking so badly you could barely grip the fabric, but you tried. You tried to be good. You tried to do what he wanted. The jeweled straps slipped from your shoulders, and the bodice sagged, and then—

His patience ran out.

He grabbed the neckline with both hands and pulled.

The sound the fabric made was like a scream. A high, rending shriek of tearing silk, and then the bodice was splitting, the beadwork scattering in all directions like falling stars. You cried out and tried to pull away, but he was too strong. His hands found the seams and pulled, and the dress came apart in his grip like paper. Chiffon shredded. Beads flew. The jeweled straps snapped, the tiny stones scattering across the floor and skittering into corners where you would never find them again.

"No, no, no—" You were sobbing now, your hands batting uselessly at his arms, your voice rising to something that was almost a scream. "Please stop, please, it was a gift, it was from my mother, please—"

"Your mother." He grabbed the skirt and tore it from the waist, the pleated fabric ripping with a sound like thunder. "Your mother should have taught you how to be a wife. Instead she taught you how to be a whore."

"My mother—" You could barely speak. The words were choked with tears, your throat raw from screaming. "My mother loves me. She sent me this because she loves me—"

He laughed. It was the cruelest sound you had ever heard.

"Your mother sent you here because she wanted to get rid of you. Because you were inconvenient. Because she has her bastards to think about now, her precious Strong boys, and there was no room left for you. You were a spare. A surplus. A problem to be solved. And I solved it. I took you off her hands when no one else would."

That was when you slapped him.

You did not think about it. You did not plan it. Your hand just moved, arcing through the air and catching him across the cheek with a crack that echoed through the room. You stared at him, your palm stinging, your breath coming in ragged gasps. And he stared back at you, his head turned slightly from the force of the blow, his cheek already reddening. For a long, terrible moment, neither of you spoke.

Then he turned back to you, and his eyes—

His eyes were dead. Empty. Two pits of black that looked at you without recognition, without humanity, without anything at all.

"You should not have done that," he said quietly.

And then he reached for the rest of the dress.

You did not fight him anymore. You could not. Your body had gone limp, your strength drained, your spirit crushed into something small and broken. You stood there, shaking and crying, as he tore the remaining fabric from your body. The skirt fell away in ribbons. The underskirt followed, ripped from the waistband like paper. And then you were standing in nothing but your shift, your arms wrapped around yourself, your shoulders bare and trembling.

He stepped back. His chest was heaving. His face was flushed. And in his hands, he held the ruins of your dress. He held it up. Looked at it. Then looked at you.

Then he walked to the fireplace.

"No." The word came out as a broken whisper. "No, please. Please, Ormund. Please don't."

He threw it into the flames.

You watched it burn. The silk caught immediately, curling and blackening like a living thing in its death throes. The beadwork melted, silver droplets running down the fabric like tears. The chiffon vanished in a flash of orange, there and gone, consumed by the fire that had never felt warm, not once, not since you arrived in this cold, cold city.

You sank to your knees. You could not stop crying. Your whole body was wracked with sobs, your shoulders heaving, your hands pressed to your face to muffle the sounds. You were kneeling on the cold stone floor in nothing but your shift, surrounded by scattered beads and torn silk and the ashes of the only thing that had made you feel like yourself in weeks. And you had never felt so small in your entire life. You had never felt so alone.

And then he was there.

He knelt in front of you. His hands found your face, cupping your cheeks, tilting your head up so that you had to look at him. His expression had changed completely. The fury was gone. The cruelty was gone. In their place was something that looked almost like tenderness. Almost like love.

"See?" he said softly. Gently. As if he were comforting a frightened child. "See what you made me do?"

You stared at him through blurry eyes. You could not speak. You could not think.

"I do not want to be like this." His thumbs brushed your tears away, tracing gentle paths across your cheekbones. "I want to be a good husband to you. I want to love you, and cherish you, and protect you. But I cannot do that when you dress like a whore. You make me angry. You push me to do things I do not want to do."

You shook your head. It was a tiny, weak movement, barely perceptible. But he saw it.

"Yes," he said, and his voice was so certain, so utterly convinced of its own righteousness. "It is your fault. If you had worn what I told you to wear, if you had been a good wife, if you had simply obeyed me, none of this would have happened. I would not have had to raise my voice. I would not have had to rip the dress. You made me do this."

"I did not—" Your voice was wrecked, hoarse, barely audible. "I did not make you do anything."

"You did." He stroked your hair now, smoothing it back from your tear-stained face with a gentleness that made your stomach turn. "You know you did. You knew how I felt about those dresses. You knew I did not want you wearing them. And you wore it anyway, in front of everyone, flaunting yourself like a common—" He stopped himself. Took a breath. Softened his voice even further. "You chose to disobey me. And actions have consequences. You understand that, don't you?"

You did not answer. You could not answer. You were trapped in a nightmare, and the monster was stroking your hair and telling you it was all your fault.

"But I forgive you." He pressed a kiss to your forehead, and his lips were warm and dry, and you wanted to scrub the feeling of them off your skin. "I will always forgive you. Because I love you. Do you understand that? Everything I do, I do because I love you. If I did not love you, I would not care what you wore. I would not care who looked at you. But I do love you. I love you so much it drives me mad. And that is why I get angry. That is why I cannot control myself sometimes. Because I love you, and I cannot bear to see you make yourself look like a whore."

You were shaking your head again, but you did not know what you were denying. The words coming out of his mouth? The gentleness of his touch? The horrible, impossible reality of everything that had just happened?

"Say you are sorry," he said.

"I—"

"Say it." His grip on your chin tightened, just a fraction. Just enough to remind you that he was still in control. "Say you are sorry for what you did."

You were sorry. You were so sorry. You were sorry you had worn the dress. You were sorry you had opened the crate. You were sorry you had been happy, even for a moment. You were sorry you had ever come to Oldtown, ever said yes to his courtship, ever believed him when he looked at you with hunger in his eyes and told you it was love.

"I am sorry," you whispered.

The words tasted like ash.

"Good girl." He kissed your forehead again. "Good girl. I forgive you."

He pulled you into his arms. He held you against his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head, and you could feel his heartbeat. Steady. Calm. Satisfied.

"See?" he murmured into your hair. "It is over now. It is over. I love you. I love you so much."

You could smell the smoke from the fireplace. The ashes of your dress. The death of the girl you used to be.

"I will always take care of you," he said. "I will always forgive you. But you have to learn. You have to be better. You have to be the wife I need you to be. Do you understand?"

You nodded against his chest. You did not know what else to do.

"Say it."

"I understand." Your voice did not sound like your own. It was hollow. Empty. A shell of the voice that had laughed in the dragonpit this morning.

"Good girl." He stroked your hair. "Good girl. We are going to be happy together. I promise you. We are going to be so happy."

He held you there, in front of the dying fire where your dress was ash, and you cried into his chest until you had no tears left and when he finally pulled back and tilted your face up to look at him, you let him see the tears drying on your cheeks and the emptiness in your eyes, and you did not flinch when he smiled.

"There," he said. "That is better. That is my good, obedient wife."

He kissed you. Softly. Tenderly. The kiss of a lover, not a monster.

And you did not pull away.

Because you were learning. You were learning to be the wife he needed you to be. You were learning to smile when you wanted to scream, to nod when you wanted to fight, to say "I love you" when what you really meant was "I am afraid of you."

The hour had grown shamefully late by the time the last council parchment finally found its proper place.

Prince Baelor had spent the entire evening buried beneath duties that seemed determined to consume him piece by piece. Petitions. Correspondence. Endless disputes dressed in prettier language. By the end of it, even the candles in his solar had burned low and crooked with exhaustion.

So had he.

You saw it in the way his shoulders sagged slightly now that no courtiers remained to witness him. Saw it in the loosened collar at his throat, in the tiredness shadowing those mismatched eyes that had spent all day watching too carefully and speaking too wisely.

And gods, you loved him so much it physically hurt sometimes.

You stood beside the long table sorting the final stack of parchment while silence settled softly around the room. Outside the windows, King’s Landing slept beneath drifting darkness and distant torchlight. Inside, warmth flickered gold across shelves heavy with books and maps and the lingering remains of responsibility.

You heard him move behind you. Then, suddenly —warmth.

Baelor stopped directly at your back before lowering his forehead slowly against the crown of your head. The contact was so quiet, so weary, so unbearably intimate that your heart clenched instantly beneath your ribs.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You simply felt him there, large, warm and tired beyond words. His breath left him softly against your hair.

Something about the gesture felt dangerously vulnerable tonight. Less like affection and more like surrender. Like the weight of the day had finally become too much to carry upright.

Your hand left the parchment immediately and you turned slowly within the circle of his arms until you faced him properly. And by the Seven, the look in his eyes nearly undid you where you stood.

Need.

Not merely desire, but neediness in its rawest form, hidden beneath all the prince’s careful restraint. Love worn so openly it almost hurt to witness. Exhaustion too. Relief, longing. The terrible fragile softness he only ever allowed himself to show you.

Your hands rose instinctively to cradle his face. Baelor closed his eyes for half a heartbeat the moment your palms touched his skin.

“You are exhausted,” you whispered softly.

A faint breath of laughter escaped him, though there was no real amusement in it.

“Is it that obvious?”

“To me? Always.”

His eyes opened again slowly.

And there it was again —that unbearable tenderness in the way he looked at you. Like he loved you carefully. Like he loved you constantly. Like, perhaps, he did not even know how to stop anymore.

One of his hands settled lightly against your waist, almost hesitant. As though he still could not quite believe he was allowed this closeness with you.

“You should rest,” you murmured.

“I should.” Yet he made no move to step away. And neither did you.

The silence stretched warm between you, thick with something neither of you had named aloud yet despite how long it had existed.

Baelor’s gaze lowered briefly to your mouth, then immediately away again. Gods, he was still trying to restrain himself, even now.

You saw the effort of it written plainly across his face —the carefulness, the fear of wanting too much, the endless instinct to hold himself back lest he overwhelm you somehow.

The realization struck straight through your chest. So, you ended the distance yourself. Your fingers tightened softly against his bearded jaw as you rose onto your toes and kissed him.

Baelor inhaled sharply against your mouth. It felt almost physical, the exact moment that part of his restraint broke beneath the kiss. His hand tightened hard at your waist. The breath left him unevenly. And suddenly he was kissing you back with the full weight of his longing behind it, like he could not bear to waste a single second of finally having you this close.

He kissed you deeply, carefully at first, drinking in every soft sound you made as though he had starved for it. His other hand rose to cradle the back of your head with almost painful gentleness while your fingers slid into dark hair threaded silver beneath them.

The sound he made at that nearly ruined you. You felt him melt and unravel all at once.

“Gods,” he whispered brokenly against your mouth.

Then he kissed you again. And again. Like he physically could not stop now that he had begun.

The edge of the table pressed briefly against your behind as Baelor moved closer, large body surrounding yours entirely in warmth and steady overwhelming presence alike. Every touch remained careful despite the hunger growing beneath it, every movement restrained only by devotion. Like worship truly sat at the centre of his desire for you.

His forehead rested against yours for one trembling moment.

“You do not understand,” he murmured softly, voice rough with feeling, “how long I have wanted this.”

Your hands slipped over both sides of his neck, holding him close as you kissed him once more and felt the steady, thumping pulse of his life beneath your fingers.

Baelor exhaled shakily against your mouth before his hands slid more securely around your waist and he guided you backward slowly through the candlelit room toward the bed tucked behind carved screens.

Every step felt deliberate, intimate, devastatingly tender, like he was carrying something sacred toward an altar. And gods, the way he looked at you nearly stole the breath from your lungs entirely. Wonder. Love. A need so deep it had become almost holy.

Baelor knelt before you afterward for one suspended heartbeat, broad hands caressing their way up your right leg and taking hold of it, bending it at your knee just in front of his mouth, the hem of your gown spilled at both sides. His dark and light gaze, now almost even in its darkness, moved over your face through half-lidded eyes, looking at you with visible awe. Then slowly, reverently, he pressed a kiss against your knee just above the fabric of your stocking.

The tenderness of it shattered something inside you completely. Your hands found his shoulders for stability, feeling the warmth of his body through the dense fabric of his doublet.

When he looked back up at you again, his eyes were already wrecked with emotion. Like loving you this openly might destroy him. And perhaps he would gladly let it.

Baelor remained kneeling before you for several long heartbeats after pressing that kiss to your knee, as though he had forgotten how to breathe properly.

The candles burned low around the room, gold light flickering softly across the sharp lines of his face and the silver threaded through dark hair alike. Even from above, you could see the emotion still wrecking him openly now that the last walls of restraint had finally fallen.

No man had ever looked at you like this before, like devotion itself had taken human shape.

His hands rested lightly against your leg, large enough that warmth spread through you now that no layer of fabric separated them from the skin at the back of your thigh. Yet, despite the hunger in his eyes, he did not move further immediately.

That was Baelor.

Even now — undone, wanting, visibly trembling with it — he still treated you as though your comfort mattered more than his desire.

His gaze lifted slowly back to your face. “You are certain?” he asked quietly.

The tenderness in the question nearly shattered your heart.

You reached for him at once, fingers slipping and spanning across his face before gently guiding him closer to your body.

“Yes,” you whispered. “Baelor, yes.”

A shaky breath escaped him. His eyes closed briefly beneath your touch like reassurance itself physically affected him. Then slowly, almost reluctantly, he let go of your leg and rose to his full height again, his arms circling you and reaching the laces of your gown.

And gods — he hesitated. Not because he did not want this. Because he wanted it too much.

You saw it plainly in the way his fingers trembled faintly against the fabric of your back, in the care with which he touched you, like he feared moving too quickly might somehow break the moment apart around him.

“May I?” he asked softly.

Your chest tightened painfully.

“Yes.”

He undid the first set of laces with slow deliberate care, then paused again. His eyes lifted briefly to yours as though checking once more that you still wanted this, that you were still with him in this unfolding intimacy.

You almost laughed from sheer affection.

“Baelor,” you murmured warmly, “you may stop asking permission every half-breath.”

Heat crept faintly across his cheekbones at that.

“I do not wish to presume.”

“You could never.” The words visibly affected him.

His throat moved once before his gaze lowered again toward your gown. This time when he resumed undoing the lacing, his hands remained steadier, though reverence still clung stubbornly to every movement.

The fabric loosened slowly beneath his touch.

And all the while he looked at you as though committing every reaction to memory: the rise and fall of your breathing, the warmth blooming across your skin, the way your fingers tightened lightly over his chest whenever his knuckles brushed accidentally against bare flesh.

Gods, that seemed to affect him terribly.

Each new glimpse of skin made his expression soften further into something almost dazed. Like he could not quite believe he was being allowed this.

When the gown finally slipped from your shoulders and pooled at your feet, Baelor inhaled sharply. The sound filled the quiet room, its silence otherwise only interrupted by the soft crackling of the hearth.

You felt his hands tighten instinctively at your waist over your thin chemise before gentleness returned immediately afterward, deliberate and careful despite the visible hunger beginning to darken his gaze.

For one suspended heartbeat, he simply looked at you. And gods, the emotion in his face nearly made your eyes sting.

“You are breathtakingly beautiful,” he said softly. A truth spoken with the full weight of his heart behind it.

The tenderness of it settled warm and aching beneath your ribs.

Baelor’s fingertips brushed lightly along your shoulders afterward, almost hesitant again, like he was trying to memorize the feel of your skin beneath his hands.

“You are still overdressed,” you whispered gently. That startled a quiet laugh from him at last.

“Are you growing impatient, my sweet girl?”

“Desperately,” you confessed.

The look he gave you afterward nearly ruined you outright. Something in him seemed to surrender almost completely then. Not restraint disappearing entirely — Baelor would always be careful with you — but the fear beneath it easing at last.

His hands moved more confidently after that, sliding slowly along your sides before drawing you nearer to the edge of the bed. He leaned forward until his forehead rested briefly against yours again, breathing unevenly while his fingers traced reverently across the newly bared skin of your shoulders.

“You have no idea,” he murmured softly, voice thick with feeling, “what you are doing to me.”

Your hands lifted then to the buttoning of his doublet, undoing them downwards with the practiced ease of a lady-in-waiting, no hesitance in them.

Baelor shuddered. For all his size and composure and quiet authority, he became terribly responsive beneath affection once he allowed himself to feel openly.

You pushed the dark fabric fully from his shoulders at last, his doublet made a dull thud as it hit the ground. Underneath it, light linen stretched across broad chest and strong arms alike. Your fingers slipped toward the hem of his chemise, pulling it up over his head.

As he lowered his head to help with your task, it was Baelor who trembled beneath your hands. And when you looked back up at him, those mismatched eyes held nothing now but naked devotion and want so deep it had become almost holy between you both.

Without moving away from his body, you took enough distance to observe his torso. His chest was covered with a fine layer of hair, which ran down his stomach to the waistband of his pants, where your gaze lingered but your treacherous mind wandered.

When your gaze climbed back again to his face, the look that you found in his eyes nearly burned straight through you. There was not lust alone, that would have been easier to survive. No, this was hunger tangled so tightly with devotion that it became almost unbearable to witness. His eyes moved over you slowly, reverently, as though he still could not quite comprehend that you were real and here and allowing him this.

And perhaps the worst part was how openly affected he looked by it.

His composure had already begun unravelling beneath your hands, but now you could physically see the strain of restraint pulling tighter through him. His breathing had deepened noticeably. One broad hand remained firm at your waist like he needed grounding there, thumb moving unconsciously against your skin while his gaze lingered helplessly on every newly bared inch of you.

Your hand slowly rose to his chest, where you placed it right above his galloping heart. You looked up at him and smiled tenderly at the look on his face.

“You are…” He stopped abruptly, visibly losing the thought entirely.

You smiled widened despite the heat pooling low in your stomach. “What?”

Baelor looked almost frustrated by his own inability to answer. “Cruel,” he said hoarsely at last.

The sound of it shot warmth through you immediately. Because gods, this man wanted you. Deeply.

You could feel it in every trembling breath leaving him now. And suddenly you wanted to break the last remnants of that restraint apart completely.

Your hand slid upward behind his neck before he could fully anticipate the movement. Baelor inhaled sharply, and you pulled him down onto you as you took one last step back. The shift happened fast enough to startle a rough sound from him as his larger body landed carefully but heavily above yours against the mattress, broad arms catching his weight instantly on either side of your head.

The feeling of him there nearly stole your breath outright. Warm, heavy and entirely surrounding you.

Baelor froze for one stunned heartbeat afterward, those mismatched eyes of his staring down at you with open shock. Not because he disliked it, but because he had not expected you to lose control first.

The realization visibly destroyed him.

You felt it in the way his breathing roughened suddenly, in the instinctive tightening of his hands against the sheets beside your shoulders.

“Gods,” he whispered.

Your fingers remained tangled firmly at the back of his neck.

“I want you too, Baelor.”

That finished him. You watched the last fragments of composure finally collapse behind his eyes.

His forehead dropped briefly against yours as though the force of emotion physically overwhelmed him. Then his mouth found yours again with sudden desperate hunger, kissing you deeply enough to leave your heart hammering painfully against your ribs.

Now he kissed you like a man quenching his thirst after a drought.

His weight settled more fully over you, careful still despite the urgency beginning to thread through him, broad chest pressing warmly against yours while one large hand slid shakily along your side. Gods, he was trembling. That nearly undid you more than anything else.

Baelor broke the kiss with a rough breath, his eyes searched your face immediately.

“You are certain,” he asked again softly, almost painfully, “that this is what you want?”

The tenderness of the question while he looked visibly wrecked with desire nearly shattered your heart.

You cupped his face between your hands. “Yes,” you whispered firmly. “I want you.”

His expression afterward — you would remember it for the rest of your life. Something raw and emotional and desperately loving all at once, like those words struck somewhere deep enough inside him to ache.

Baelor kissed you again immediately afterward, slower this time but somehow even more devastating. One hand slid into your hair while the other held your hip securely beneath him, large enough to nearly span you entirely.

And gods, the reverence remained even through the hunger. Every touch still felt worshipful. Every kiss lingered. Every breath against your mouth carried the weight of restrained affection finally allowed to exist openly between you. Like he could not stop marvelling at the fact that you were truly here beneath him at last.

Baelor’s restraint finally broke in pieces. Not all at once — not violently — but like a dam giving way beneath too much pressure after too many years of careful holding.

His mouth still moved reverently against yours when suddenly his hands slid lower with newfound urgency, fingers tightening briefly against the thin fabric still separating him from your bare skin. Then, with a rough, uneven breath, he took the hem of your chemise and pulled it upwards, your body arching instinctively to allow him the movement.

It startled you. Not because it frightened you, but because it was the first thing he had done all evening without pausing to ask permission first. His breathing stopped for half a heartbeat as he tossed the fabric to an indeterminate point of the room, leaving you bare beneath him in the low candlelight.

Then he looked at you, truly looked, and whatever little remained of his composure shattered completely.

The sound that left him was low and rough and utterly wrecked. A growl. Like desire itself had finally clawed free from the careful prince who had spent so long trying to contain it.

Heat curled violently low in your stomach at the sound. Because gods, you had not thought him capable of making such a noise. Baelor seemed almost unaware he had done it at all. He sat back slightly straddling your thighs, broad chest rising heavily while his mismatched eyes moved slowly over your body with visible awe and hunger alike.

You had never seen him look less princely. Or more beautiful. You did not have the mind to discern it at that moment. What you knew was that every inch of him looked undone by wanting.

But it was the expression in his eyes that nearly stole your breath entirely. In those bright, merciful and peaceful eyes, you saw worship, like he had spent years praying quietly for something he never truly believed himself worthy of receiving.

And now you were there beneath him. Real and bare and wanting him back.

“You are a vision,” he muttered.

You reached for him instinctively, fingers brushing along his jaw. “Baelor.” The softness of your voice ruined him further.

His eyes closed briefly. His head bowed once like he physically felt the affection in your tone. Then suddenly he bent down over you again with all the hunger he had been trying desperately to restrain finally pouring free.

His mouth found your throat first. Not gentle now. Still careful but starving.

The first open-mouthed kiss he pressed beneath your jaw made your breath catch sharply. Baelor groaned against your skin, the vibration of it eliciting a moan from you, and gods, that seemed to encourage him further.

His mouth moved lower slowly, reverently, kissing and tasting every inch of skin he could reach as though he could not bear to leave any part of you untouched. The roughness of his beard against your throat sent heat rushing through you while his large hands slid along your arms, holding them above your head and over your spilled hair.

“Gods,” he murmured roughly against your collarbone before kissing lower again. “How I have longed for this.”

His mouth descended in its journey to your chest, first kissing your sternum and feeling the outrageous beating of your heart against his lips. The sheer devotion in the way he kissed you there made your entire body arch instinctively beneath him. Baelor groaned at the movement, his right arm moving under your body and holding you just like that with his hand fully extended across your back. His mouth lingered greedily against the warm skin of your chest, venturing to your left breast with wet kisses and circling its mount with his lips.

You moved the arm that Baelor's hand had let free and tangled your fingers into his hair immediately. He began playing with his tongue over your nipple. You clenched your eyes and emitted an open-mouth moan, entirely filthy in its nature.

Baelor shuddered hard. He released your nipple with a wet pop and lifted his head only enough to look at you again afterward, breathing heavily now, eyes darkened completely with desire and emotion alike.

And gods, when you looked back at him, the sight of him hovering above you like this, broad body surrounding yours entirely while devotion and hunger warred openly across his face, nearly made your heart stop inside your chest.

Like you had not merely been wanted by him. You had been yearned for.

Baelor settled more fully on top of you with a rough unsteady breath, large body surrounding yours in warmth and weight alike while candlelight flickered gold across the sharp lines of his face.

You had never seen him like this before. Not the careful prince. Not the composed Hand. Just a man hopelessly in love and finally allowing himself to want.

His right hand slid slowly downward across your body, trembling faintly despite all his size and strength. The movement alone sent goosebumps racing across your skin. He touched you like someone trying to memorize every inch at once, palm broad and warm as it drifted with loving fingers from the dip of your neck downwards over your chest before pausing there briefly.

The soft kneading of his hand against your left breast produced a sharp breath from within your throat. Baelor’s eyes lifted immediately to your face.

“There,” he murmured softly, voice already roughened by desire. “That sound… gods, just how I imagined it.”

The confession sent heat curling through you instantly, pooling lowly in your belly.

His hand continued lower afterward, reverent even through the growing hunger beginning to overtake him. Across your stomach, along your waist, fingertips tracing slowly enough to make your entire body tense in anticipation beneath him.

And through it all, he watched you. Constantly. Every reaction. Every breath. Every small movement beneath his hands. Like your pleasure mattered to him almost painfully much. Like he was committed to engrave your likings deep in his brain.

“You are so beautiful like this,” he whispered, leaning down to press another lingering kiss against your throat. “Do you know that? Gods—so wet—I do not think you understand what you do to me.”

His hand finally reached the apex between your thighs, and the sharp inhale that escaped you when he found the button of your clit seemed to strike directly through him.

Baelor groaned softly against your skin.

“There,” he breathed again, almost reverently. “Tell me if it feels good.”

The tenderness in the request nearly undid you.

You nodded quickly, your hands now occupying themselves with the hard planes of his chest. “Yes.”

A visibly emotional expression crossed his face at the answer, like your pleasure affected him nearly as deeply as his own desire.

“You have no idea,” he murmured while his forehead dropped briefly against yours, his ministrations continuing softly, “how difficult it is not to lose myself completely with you.”

One of his fingers slowly prodded at your entrance while his eyes analysed your face in search for any sort of discomfort. He grew bolder when he found none, and he finally inserted his digit inside you, his entire body tensed the moment he felt you open beneath his touch.

The reaction that crossed his face afterward looked almost unbearably emotional, like the intimacy of it struck him somewhere far deeper than simple desire. His forehead dropped briefly against yours while a rough, uneven breath escaped him, warm against your mouth.

You did not even realize that your eyes were clenched shut, your face contorted with pleasure. You opened them just to find his own — consumed by hunger — studying you.

“There you are,” he murmured softly, smiling when your brows knit together in pleasure. "My good girl."

The praise alone made your stomach tighten.

His digit remained impossibly gentle despite the growing hunger beginning to consume him piece by piece, which you noticed by the growing bulge on his pants as it pressed against you. Even now, with desire darkening his mismatched eyes and need visibly unravelling the last remnants of his composure, Baelor still touched you with reverence first.

You felt the slow careful pressure of another one of his fingers as he entered you, learning every reaction with almost painful attentiveness. The moment your breathing hitched harder beneath him, his gaze lifted instantly to your face.

“Too much?” he asked tenderly.

You shook your head quickly, fingers tightening against the back of his neck. “N— no.”

Baelor exhaled shakily at the answer.

The silver threaded through his short dark hair caught softly in the candlelight as he bent his head again, pressing lingering kisses along your jaw and throat while his two fingers continued moving inside of your cunt, flexing at the perfect spot and making you whimper.

“You feel—” His voice faltered briefly. “Gods.” The broken sound of it sent heat rushing through you instantly.

His beard brushed warmly against the skin of your chest as he kissed it and accelerated the movement of his fingers. The tension coiled in your belly made you emit the most sinful sounds, and you tried your best to hide them, covering your mouth with a shaky hand as the other remained on his chest.

Baelor noticed the movement and frowned when he rose his head, taking the offending hand from your mouth with his left one and pining your wrist to the mattress over your head. Without it, your sounds were impossible to muzzle.

“There,” he whispered looking at you. “I want to hear you.”

The sounds that spilled from you now were entirely beyond your control.

Baelor seemed to know it. The quiet authority that had surfaced in him when he pulled your hand away did not retreat — if anything, it settled more firmly into his bearing, into the deliberate unhurried way he watched your face while his fingers continued their work beneath him.

“You are taking it so well, my love,” he murmured softly. A quiet command dressed as encouragement.

His grip on your pinned wrist remained gentle but immovable. Like he had made a decision and intended to keep it. The contrast of it — his tenderness everywhere else against that one firm hold — sent heat coiling violently tighter through your belly.

His fingers flexed deeper inside you and you gasped sharply, your free hand scrabbling instinctively at his shoulder.

Baelor’s jaw tightened.

“I feel you,” he breathed, voice dropped low enough that it seemed to vibrate against your collarbone where his mouth still lingered. “Do not hide from me.”

The words undid something in you completely.

Because gods, it was not a plea. It was quiet and certain and entirely him. The same authority he carried in a war council, in a throne room, distilled now into something devastatingly intimate. Like he simply expected you to give him everything and had full confidence that you would.

And you did.

The tension that had been coiling mercilessly through your belly finally snapped apart.

Your back arched sharply off the mattress, a broken sound tearing free from your throat that you could not have smothered even if he had allowed you to try. Baelor made a rough noise against your skin at the sound of it, his fingers slowing but not stopping, drawing every last shudder from you with careful devastating patience while your thighs trembled on either side of his hand.

“My sweet girl,” he whispered. The words were wrecked. Reverent. Like watching you come undone was the most extraordinary thing he had ever witnessed in his life.

His fingers stilled gradually as the trembling ebbed from your body, remaining where they were for a long, suspended moment as though reluctant to lose the closeness of it. His grip on your wrist loosened at last, thumb brushing once across your pulse point before releasing you entirely.

When you finally found the presence of mind to open your eyes, Baelor was looking down at you.

And gods, the expression on his face.

Wonder, naked and unguarded. Emotion so raw it sat plainly across every feature without apology or restraint. His breathing was uneven, chest rising heavily above yours, and beneath the hunger still darkening his mismatched eyes there was something else entirely. Something that looked terribly close to reverence.

Like he had been trusted with something sacred and intended to spend the rest of his life being worthy of it.

“Baelor,” you managed softly. Your voice came out like a wrecked half-moan.

His throat moved. His free hand rose slowly to push a strand of hair from your face with fingers that still trembled faintly.

“I have you,” he murmured. Simply. Completely.

The aftershocks were still moving through you in soft waves when the wanting hit you like something physical. Not gradually. All at once.

Your hands moved before your mind fully caught up with them, fingers finding the hem of his trousers with clumsy, graceless urgency. The laces resisted you immediately. Your hands were still trembling — from the orgasm, from the heat still pooling low in your belly, from the simple overwhelming need of him — and the knot refused to cooperate with fingers that could not seem to remember how to function properly.

You made a frustrated sound against his shoulder.

Above you, Baelor stilled.

Then, slowly, you felt it. The quiet shaking of his chest. A sound escaped him that you had never heard before — low and warm and entirely unguarded. A laugh. Soft and tender and helplessly fond, like the sight of you undone and fumbling and desperately wanting had broken something open in him that dignity could no longer contain.

“You seem to be struggling,” he murmured, voice still rough with desire but threaded now with unmistakable amusement.

“I am not,” you said immediately.

The laces defeated you again. Completely.

Baelor laughed once more, the sound of it settling warm against the top of your head where he had pressed his mouth. Gods, even his laugh was careful with you.

“I think you are,” he said softly. “Terribly.”

You looked up at him then with what you hoped was dignity and suspected was nothing of the sort. His mismatched eyes were bright with open affection, the hunger still darkening them unable to fully suppress the tenderness sitting alongside it. He looked younger like this. Less the Prince, less the Hand. Simply a man quietly delighted by the woman beneath him.

“Then help me,” you said plainly.

Something shifted in his expression at that. The amusement did not disappear but deepened into something warmer and more devastating beneath it.

“So impatient,” he murmured. Not a criticism. Pure adoration.

“Baelor.” His name left you as something dangerously close to a whine.

His jaw moved. Like the sound of it affected him physically.

“Gods,” he breathed. “Do you have any idea—” He stopped. Exhaled roughly. “The things you do to me when you say my name like that.”

“Then stop making me wait,” you whispered.

That finished whatever remained of his amusement.

He rose from your body and his hands moved immediately with steady deliberate fingers that made quick, efficient work of the laces yours had so thoroughly failed to conquer. The contrast of it — your trembling helplessness against his calm sureness — sent heat rushing through you all over again.

But he slowed as the fabric loosened. Of course he did. Even now.

His eyes lifted to yours as his hands stilled at the waistband.

“Still certain?” he asked quietly. The question was softer this time, less fearful than before, more simply his — the instinct to check, to be sure, woven so deeply into him it surfaced even through naked want.

You reached up and touched his chest. “More than I have ever been of anything.”

The breath that left him was long and unsteady.

Then he pushed the last of the fabric down and away entirely, and for one suspended heartbeat the candlelight caught every line of him above you, and gods, you forgot, momentarily, how to breathe.

He hooked his thumbs beneath the hem of his briefs and pushed them down in one slow, unhurried movement to finally discard them. The candlelight caught him fully then, and you—

Stared.

Completely. Unabashedly. Without a single pretence of composure.

He was beautiful. Broad shouldered and lean hipped, all hard planes and warm skin dusted with dark hair that tapered down his stomach and framed him where he stood fully hard above your body. And gods, that— your mouth went dry entirely. He was thick and heavy and flushed dark with wanting, curved slightly upward in a way that made heat pool so violently low in your belly it nearly hurt.

You were fairly certain you stopped breathing for several seconds.

When you finally dragged your gaze back up to his face, Baelor was watching you, and the expression sitting across those sharp features was something entirely new.

Gone was the careful restraint. Gone was the trembling vulnerability. In its place sat something quieter and infinitely more dangerous — a small, unhurried smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. His chin had lifted almost imperceptibly. Those mismatched eyes moved over your face with full, calm awareness of exactly what he was doing to you.

Gods. He knew.

“You are staring,” he said softly.

“I am aware,” you managed.

The smile deepened fractionally. Not arrogance — not quite. Something more honest than that. The simple, unguarded satisfaction of a man who had spent the entire evening coming undone beneath your hands finally watching the scales tip the other way entirely.

He liked this. The evidence of your wanting written so plainly across your face. He liked it terribly.

He lowered himself over you again slowly, the warmth of his body settling against yours, and you felt him — all of him — hot and heavy against your inner thigh. The contact alone dragged a sharp breath from you.

Baelor’s smile had not fully faded.

“I am not going anywhere,” he said quietly as if he knew your thoughts even before you voiced them. Then, softer still, with the pride retreating just enough to let the devotion back through, “I have wanted nowhere else for a very long time.”

His hand slid beneath your thigh, drawing it upward gently, repositioning you beneath him with that same careful deliberateness that characterised everything he did. His forehead dropped against yours. His breathing had deepened again, chest rising heavily, the last traces of amusement dissolving now into something rawer.

The blunt heat of him pressed against your entrance and you inhaled sharply.

Baelor stilled immediately.

“Look at me,” he murmured.

You opened your eyes. Found his already waiting.

“I want to see your face,” he said simply. “When I—” His voice faltered for just a moment, emotion roughening the edges of it. “I want to see you.”

Your hands slid up his back and held.

“Then look,” you whispered.

A shaky breath escaped him, and slowly, with the same devastating reverence he had given everything else tonight, Baelor pushed inside you. The sound that left you was immediate and helpless, swallowed only partially by the quiet of the room.

Baelor made no sound at all.

He simply stopped. Buried only partially inside you, arms braced on either side of your head, every muscle in his body drawn taut as a bowstring. His eyes had fallen shut despite himself. His jaw was clenched. His breathing had ceased entirely for one suspended, trembling moment like he did not trust himself to do several things at once.

Then, roughly—

“Gods.”

Just that. Like the word had been torn from somewhere deep.

You felt him twitch inside you and clenched instinctively, and the sound that escaped him then was nothing like the careful prince who had spent all evening restraining himself. Low and rough and entirely wrecked, pressed into the skin of your throat where his forehead had dropped like his neck could no longer support the weight of the feeling.

“Do not—” He stopped. Swallowed hard. “Give me a moment.”

The vulnerability of it nearly shattered your heart completely. This man. This enormous, careful, quietly commanding man, undone to his foundations by the simple fact of finally being inside you.

“Take all the time you need,” you whispered, caressing the back of his head with delicate nails.

A broken exhale left him.

His hips pressed forward again slowly then, sinking deeper by careful degrees, and you felt every inch of it — the stretch of him, the fullness, the overwhelming warmth — your fingers dug into the muscles of his back hard enough to leave marks and you did not care even slightly.

“You feel—” His voice failed completely.

“I know,” you breathed.

“No.” His hips pressed flush against yours at last and he lifted his head, finding your eyes with his own, and gods the look in them— “You do not. You cannot.”

He was fully seated inside you now. The completeness of it stole rational thought entirely.

For a long trembling moment neither of you moved. His mismatched eyes searched your face with that relentless attentiveness, checking, reading, memorising. One broad hand cradled the side of your face with fingers that still shook faintly.

“Are you—”

“Yes,” you said immediately. “Baelor. Yes.”

Something in him released.

He drew back slowly and thrust forward again and the sound you made echoed off the stone walls of the solar with absolutely no dignity whatsoever. Baelor groaned low against your jaw, hips finding a rhythm that was deliberate — unhurried, deep, devastating in its patience. Like he intended to take you apart piece by piece and wanted to savour every single moment of the process.

“There,” he breathed against your throat. “Gods— there.”

His hand slid beneath your lower back, tilting your hips upward, and the new angle made white bloom briefly at the edges of your vision.

You cried out his name. Baelor shuddered head to toe.

“Again,” he said lowly. Not a request. That quiet command again, surfacing through the devotion like steel beneath velvet. His lips brushed your ear. “I want to hear you again.”

You gave him exactly what he asked for.

His rhythm deepened. The careful restraint was thinning now, each movement carrying more urgency than the last, his breathing ragged and warm against your throat, your name leaving his mouth between broken exhales like a prayer he had been saying privately for years and was only now finally allowed to speak aloud.

The hand cradling your face slid into your hair.

“Look at me,” he murmured again, pulling back just enough to find your eyes. His own were completely dark now, blown wide with desire, but the emotion in them had not diminished even slightly. If anything, it had deepened, made more naked by the hunger surrounding it. “Stay with me.”

“I am here,” you managed breathlessly. “I am here—," you moaned.

Like he needed the confirmation. Like even now, with your bodies pressed together and no possible closer he could get, some part of him still feared waking up.

The tension was coiling through you again already, rebuilt with terrifying speed, and you felt Baelor’s composure finally fracturing completely above you — his hips losing their careful deliberateness in favour of something more urgent, deeper, his broad chest pressing against yours while one hand gripped your hip hard enough that you would likely find the ghost of his fingers there tomorrow morning and feel nothing but fondness about it.

“Baelor—” His name left you broken and wanting.

“I know,” he said roughly. “I know. Come apart for me.”

And gods help you, you did exactly as he asked.

You felt it building in him as well before it broke — the rhythm losing its careful edges, his breathing coming ragged and uneven against your throat, the hand gripping your hip tightening past the point of deliberateness into something rawer and more desperate beneath it.

And gods, you wanted more.

“Baelor.” Your hands found his face, pulling it up from your throat until those wrecked mismatched eyes found yours. His hips stuttered briefly at the interruption, a rough sound escaping him at being made to pause. “This is not a council,” you whispered. “You need not pretend.”

The effect was instantaneous. Something behind his eyes simply collapsed. Not gradually. Not with the careful measured giving-way you had watched all evening. All at once, like the last stone pulled from the base of a wall.

His jaw tightened. His nostrils flared. The breath that left him was long and unsteady and when he looked at you again the careful prince was simply gone — what remained was just a man, enormous and wanting and finally, finally done pretending otherwise.

“Hold on to me,” he said. Low. Certain. A voice you had never heard from him before.

You barely had time to comply.

His arms swept beneath you — one across your back, one beneath your thighs — and he lifted you from the mattress entirely like you weighed nothing of consequence. A startled sound escaped you, hands flying to his shoulders as the world rearranged itself. Then he was on his knees, broad and steady in the middle of the bed, and you were in his lap, chest to chest, his arms locked around you like iron wrapped in warmth.

The new angle drove him so deep your vision went white at the edges.

“Baelor—”

“I have you,” he said roughly against your temple. “I have you.”

And gods, he did.

His hands spread wide across your back, fingers spanning the full breadth of it, and the sheer size of them against your skin sent heat crashing through you so violently you trembled. You felt small. Completely, devastatingly, wonderfully small — surrounded entirely by the warmth and solidity of him, your feet not reaching the mattress, your body entirely dependent on the strength of his arms to remain upright.

Baelor seemed to feel the effect it had on you.

A rough sound left him. Something dark and knowing and entirely unlike anything the careful prince would have allowed himself.

“Do you like it when I handle you like this?” he murmured against your ear.

You buried your face against his throat rather than answer. Which was, of course, answer enough.

A low sound resonated in his chest. “Gods.” His arms tightened fractionally around you, making the point of your smallness against him unavoidable. “I have thought about this.” His lips brushed your temple. “Having you like this. Being able to—” His hips rolled upward beneath you and stole the rest of the sentence entirely from his mouth.

You cried out against his shoulder.

Baelor moved then — properly, fully, with none of the careful deliberateness of before. His hips moved with a newfound deep, rolling rhythm that the position made devastating, each movement pressing you closer against his chest while his arms held you utterly immovable against him. The sounds filling the room now were entirely beyond either of your controls.

And still — still — even through the urgency, even with the last of his restraint finally abandoned — his hands never stopped being careful with you. One broad palm cradled the back of your head. The other held you against him like something precious.

Undone completely. Gentle to the last.

“Look at me,” he said roughly, pulling back enough to find your face. His own was wrecked beyond recovery — flushed, breathing ragged, eyes dark and devastatingly open. No composure. No careful princely distance. Just him, stripped entirely bare. “I want—” His voice broke. “I want to see you when you come apart around me.”

Your fingers twisted into the dark silver-threaded hair at the back of his neck and held. “Do not stop. Baelor, do not stop—,” your voice finally broke.

He did not stop.

His forehead dropped against the crook of your neck, both of you breathing the same broken air, his arms impossibly tight around you as he drove deeper still and the tension inside you wound so tight it became almost unbearable —

“There,” he breathed fiercely against your mouth. “There— give it to me—”

You shattered.

The sound you made was entirely ruinous and you felt Baelor shake around you as it left you — a full body tremor moving through all that size and warmth and strength — his own composure finally, completely gone as he followed you over the edge with your name on his lips like something holy.

For a long, suspended moment afterward neither of you existed as anything other than two people breathing hard against each other in the candlelit dark.

Then Baelor’s arms shifted — still holding, but softer now. Cradling rather than gripping. His lips pressed slowly against your temple. Your cheek. The corner of your jaw. Each one unhurried and deliberate, like he was returning piece by piece to himself and finding you still there each time.

“Gods,” he said finally. Quietly. Into your hair.

You laughed — breathless and undone and entirely helpless against it.

His chest moved beneath you in response. That low warm laugh again, the unguarded one, the one you suspected very few people had ever been trusted enough to hear. His arms tightened once more briefly. Like punctuation. Like mine.

The candles had burned lower still by the time the world returned to you fully.

You were aware of things in pieces. The warmth of him first — overwhelming and immediate, his large body curled around yours where he had laid you both down against the pillows with the same careful deliberateness he gave everything. The sound of his breathing next, slow and deep and evening out gradually above your head. The weight of his arm across your waist, heavy and certain and entirely unwilling to create even an inch of distance between you.

Baelor’s lips pressed into your hair. Once. Then again. Like he could not quite stop.

“Are you with me?” he murmured softly.

The question was so him that something ached sweetly behind your ribs.

“Entirely,” you whispered. A long slow breath left him at that. His arm drew you fractionally closer.

For a while neither of you spoke. The fire had burned low in the hearth, casting the room in deep amber and shadow, and outside the windows King’s Landing remained sleeping and entirely unaware that something irrevocable had just occurred within these walls.

Baelor moved eventually — not away, never away — only enough to press his lips to your temple with a tenderness so quiet it made your eyes sting unexpectedly.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

“No.” You turned your face up toward his. “Not in the slightest.”

He searched your expression for a long moment with those mismatched eyes, reading you the way he read everything — carefully, thoroughly, leaving nothing unexamined. Whatever he found there seemed to satisfy him. The faint line between his brows eased.

“Good,” he said simply.

His hand moved then — slow and unhurried, trailing lightly up and down your arm in a rhythm that felt entirely unconscious. Like touching you had already become something his hands did without instruction. Like they had simply decided this was where they belonged and saw no reason to argue the point.

You watched his face in the low light.

The composure had not fully returned yet. Perhaps it would not, tonight. His features remained soft in a way you had never seen them in council chambers or great halls — open and unguarded and terribly young somehow, stripped of every layer of careful princely distance. He looked like a man who had set down a very heavy thing and was only now beginning to understand how long he had been carrying it.

“You are thinking,” you observed softly.

The corner of his mouth moved. “I am always thinking.”

“Not like this.” You reached up and smoothed a thumb across the furrow that had begun forming between his brows without his apparent awareness. He closed his eyes briefly at the touch. “What is it?”

A long pause.

“I am trying,” he said quietly, “to decide whether this is real.”

The words landed somewhere directly in the centre of your chest.

“I am aware of how it sounds.” A faint self-deprecating breath. “A grown man. A prince of the realm.” His eyes opened and found yours, and the vulnerability in them was so naked it nearly took your breath away. “And yet I find I cannot entirely convince myself that I will not wake.”

You rose up slowly onto your elbow until you were looking down at him properly. His dark hair was thoroughly dishevelled against the pillow, silver threads catching the last of the candlelight, and he looked up at you with that open undefended expression and gods —

You loved him so much it lived in your bones.

Your hand took his and guided it to the centre your chest. Rested there above the steady thumping of your heart.

“Feel that?” you asked quietly.

“Yes,” he murmured.

“That is real. I am real.” You leaned down and pressed a slow kiss to the corner of his mouth, felt him exhale softly against your cheek. “And I am not going anywhere.”

For a moment he said nothing. Then his arms came around you fully, gathering you down against his chest with a care that made your heart clench, his chin resting against the crown of your head and his heartbeat steady beneath your ear.

“No,” he agreed quietly. Something settled in the word. Like a decision made and kept. “Neither am I.”

His hand moved slowly through your hair.

Outside, a distant bell marked some late hour over the sleeping city. Inside, the last candle guttered softly in its holder.

Baelor pressed one more kiss into your hair before his breathing began to slow and deepen, the exhaustion of the day and the evening and the full weight of finally having allowed himself to want something catching up with him at last.

And just before sleep took him entirely, so quiet you almost missed it—

“Thank you,” he murmured. “For not letting me hold back.”

You said nothing. Only pressed closer against the warmth of his chest and felt him breathe and let the words settle around you both like something sacred.

The city slept. The candles burned out one by one. And Baelor Breakspear, Prince of Dragonstone, held you in the dark and finally, finally rested.

You were almost asleep when it occurred to you, though. The thought arrived quietly at first, then with increasing and somewhat horrifying clarity.

Tomorrow morning you would rise from this bed — from Baelor’s bed, in Baelor’s solar — straighten your gown, and walk directly back to the chambers of Queen Myriah. His mother. The woman whose correspondence you organised, whose hair you dressed, whose daily confidence you held with practiced discretion and absolute loyalty.

You would look her in the eye, and she would look at you. And you would have to be normal about it.

Above your head, Baelor breathed slowly and peacefully, entirely unbothered, his arm still warm and immovable across your waist. You stared at the carved ceiling in the darkness and contemplated your situation with the full sobriety it deserved.

You had just slept with the Crown Prince of the Seven Kingdoms.

A laugh escaped you before you could stop it — small and helpless and slightly hysterical — muffled quickly against his chest.

Baelor stirred faintly. “Mm.”

“Nothing,” you whispered immediately. “Sleep.”

A drowsy sound left him. His arm tightened once across your waist and he stilled again, breathing evening back out within moments. You stared at the ceiling a while longer. Tomorrow, you decided, was a problem for tomorrow’s version of you.

Tonight you were warm and held and loved by a man who had looked at you like you hung the stars, and no amount of impending self-conscious eye contact with the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms was going to take that from you.

You closed your eyes. Tomorrow could wait.

A.N.: This is my first smut-centered work! Well, this and Maekar's, which you can expect somewhere along the week (I still have to proofread some parts).