#a beautiful...beautiful... stacked piece of meat....

He doesn't visibly enjoy hurting people. He sits across the table from a man who's betrayed him and he says, in a tone so warm it sounds almost affectionate, I think there's been a misunderstanding, and he tilts his head a fraction, and he keeps eye contact while one of his people unfolds a knife behind the man's chair. And the entire time Valarr is smiling that beautiful, slightly apologetic smile and somehow the man on the wrong side of the table believes he deserves this. Believes it is his own fault. Believes that if he'd only been smarter or quicker or more loyal, Valarr would not be doing this to him.

Valarr makes people agree with their own destruction. It's the most frightening thing about him.

He sleeps eight hours a night and never once has nightmares.

The rivalry between them isn't new, either.

It dates back to a summer at the family compound when they were nine and seven and Valarr won a sailing race and Aerion broke Valarr's collarbone with an oar two days later. Their fathers separated them.

Their fathers re-separated them at thirteen and fifteen, after Aerion put Valarr's face through a glass coffee table at a christening. They've been arranged-marriage civil to each other for twenty years and there's not a man in either organisation who doesn't understand that the second Maekar and Baelor are both in the ground, one of them is going to put the other in a hole, too.

The only question is which one. Money says Valarr, because Valarr is patient, surgical and has institutional weight. Money is wrong, because Valarr underestimates Aerion the way the world underestimates a stray dog with a steel jaw.

Aerion thinks Valarr is a phony. A polished show-piece. A man who's never bled for anything in his life and gets to inherit the larger share of the city purely because his father was born first.

Valarr thinks Aerion is a feral, embarrassing liability. A hand grenade with the pin missing. Useful, because he's terrifying and family, but the kind of relative you keep at a distance from your reputation.

They both, on some level neither would ever say aloud, want to be the one their fathers chose.

—

And then you come south.

—

You don't come south because of the family. That's the thing.

You come south because your father is dead.

Barthogan Stark, of Winterfell, of the north, killed not in any spectacular way but slowly, over three years, by something that ate him from the inside while you held his hand and read aloud to him in the long evenings.

The lawyers need you in the city for a month to handle the estate.

Your father's estate is large, and complicated. Your father was a Stark, which is its own kind of weight in this city even before you start opening drawers and finding things you wish you hadn't.

Your father owned half a shipping line. Your father had a standing reservation at a restaurant Baelor's people own. Your father had, you discover three days in, a file in the locked drawer of his study with the name Targaryen on the tab and photographs inside that you don't yet have the stomach to look at fully.

So you come south. Head-to-toe in black, your father's signet ring on a chain at your throat because you can't yet bring yourself to wear it on your hand.

You don't know the scene yet.

You just know your father knew these people, and you know your father is not in a position to explain why anymore.

—

You meet Bloodraven first.

A man approaches you at your father's funeral. White-haired, in a beautifully cut black coat, the wine-coloured birthmark down one side of his face, an old scar slashing through one eyebrow where the eye underneath no longer lives, partially hidden by the silky white hair.

He doesn't offer condolences. He says, "Lady Stark," in a tone of mild interest. "I knew your father."

"So did most of this city, apparently."

His mouth twitches, but it's not a smile. It's a near-smile, the way a knife is a near-flower.

"Not most of this city, no. Very few people knew your father the way I did. Barthogan and I had a long-running arrangement."

That makes you look at him properly for the first time. "Of what kind?"

"Of the kind," he says, almost gently, "that suggests you and I should also speak."

He is, you realise dimly, the most unsettling person you've ever stood next to, and you grew up surrounded by northern men who killed people for a living.

"I don't know who you are," you tell him.

Technically a lie. You've heard the name. You've heard the name in three different rooms in the last forty-eight hours, always in a hushed register, always with a small instinctive glance at the door.

"Brynden Rivers," he says. "I work for the family."

He doesn't specify which one. You understand, somehow, that this is because he works for neither and both.

"I would like to invite you to have a conversation with me, when you've finished receiving people."

"About my father."

"About a number of things."

His eye (the good one, the red one) settles on you with an unblinking focus that should feel violating and doesn't, quite, because there's nothing leering or hungry in it. It's just attention. Complete, terrible, exact.

"Starks have always been of interest to me, Lady Stark. I hope you don't disappoint."

He inclines his head a fraction and walks away.

You stand at your father's grave with this sentence sitting in your chest like a fist and think—what the fuck does that mean.

—

You find out on a cloudy Tuesday.

He sends a car and you almost don't get in it.

You even reach for your phone to call your lawyer and ask whether there's any conceivable universe in which getting into a car sent by Brynden Rivers is a survivable decision. And then you remember that you're a Stark, your father raised you for this, and your father had a file, and so you get in the car.

It drives you to a house outside the city. You expect a warehouse or a grave, frankly, but no, a house, narrow and elegant and packed floor-to-ceiling with books. A woman lets you in without speaking. (You will learn later she's mute, you will learn even later that Brynden himself had her tongue removed). A maid pours you tea you don't drink. Brynden is waiting for you in a study with three ravens perched on a sideboard like ornamental gargoyles.

He doesn't get up.

"Sit, Lady Stark."

"Brynden."

He pauses.

A small thing. He's been mid-gesture, indicating the chair across from him, and his hand stills in the air for half a beat at the use of his given name.

It is, you suspect, the first time he's been called by it in this house in a very long time. The men who come to this study call him Lord Rivers. Call him sir. Call him Bloodraven, when they're not in his hearing. Possibly two people address him the way you've just addressed him, and both of them are dead now.

His good eye crinkles at the corner, and his hand completes the gesture, his mouth turning toward that near-smile thing again.

"As you like."

You sit.

He sets a folder on the desk between you, a folder you recognise.

It is, in fact, a folder from your father's locked drawer, and the only way Brynden Rivers can have it is because your father gave it to him a long time ago and he made copies of his own, or because Brynden Rivers can simply get things and the locked drawer in your father's study did not present a meaningful obstacle.

You suspect the second. You suspect this is going to be true in a great many things from now on.

"Your father and I had what I would call a working friendship. He kept his half of the country quiet. I kept this half informed. When we exchanged information, it was always to the realm's benefit. He was, by my standards, an honourable man, which is rarer in my line of work than it should be." His good eye glitters as he takes you in, considering. After a brief pause, he adds, "I was sorry to hear of his passing. I do not say that often."

"Thank you."

The near-smile comes again at the quiet sincerity in your voice. He files it. He doesn't comment on it.

"You have, I imagine, discovered some of what he kept on the Targaryens."

Your neck prickles, and you choose your answer carefully, "Some."

"Have you read all of it?" he wonders, stirring his tea.

"No."

"May I suggest you read all of it."

It's not a suggestion and you both know it, despite how dry and mild his tone remains. A beat.

"Why are you helping me, Brynden?" you ask.

He gazes at you for a long time. One of the ravens shifts on its perch and gives a rattling croak. Brynden doesn't blink at the disturbance.

When he answers, his voice is still mild, almost amused, almost (and this is the part that will keep you up at night for weeks) fond.

"As I've told you already: Starks have always been of interest to me, my lady. Because your father gave me twenty years of clean information and asked me for almost nothing in return, and I find I would like to repay that. In a fashion he might have approved of. Because the boys you are about to meet—and you will meet them, very shortly, whether you choose to or not—both believe themselves cleverer than they are, and I have a certain professional appetite for watching clever men be corrected."

He tilts his head. "And because the city is approaching an inflection point I have spent fifteen years preparing for, and you, Lady Stark, have arrived at precisely the moment I had stopped hoping someone like you would arrive. I do not believe in providence. I do, however, believe in well-timed pieces."

You bristle. "I'm not a piece."

"No." He allows himself a half-smile this time. "You are a player. That is the part I find encouraging. I would like to be useful to you, while you are in the south. With the understanding—and I want to be entirely clear about this—that I am not a friend. I am not safe. I have my own reasons."

His good eye fixes on yours. "You should never, at any point in our acquaintance, mistake my interest in you for affection. And you should never, at any point, fail to ask yourself what I am gaining from the help I am offering. I will not be insulted by the question. I will respect you less if you fail to ask it."

You stare at him. "And if I disappoint you, Brynden?"

His expression doesn't change. "Then I will be sorry. But you will be a great deal more sorry than I am, my lady."

A very long silence follows those words.

"Alright," you say. "I would like to know one more thing before I agree."

He dips his chin. "Ask."

"What does it mean, practically, to be working with you?" you wonder, watching him carefully.

He considers the question for a beat. Sets his cup down. Folds his hands.

"It means that I have certain... habits. Of watching. Of knowing where things are, and where people are, and what is being said in rooms I am not in. These habits, when applied to a person, can be expensive. They can also be useful."

He pauses, watching his tea with a slight tilt of his head. "If you and I are doing business, my lady, then a number of my habits will, by necessity, settle on you. You will find that things you did not arrange happen on your behalf. You will find that people who might otherwise have been a nuisance discover other commitments. You will find that the city is, in certain narrow ways, easier than it would otherwise be for a woman in your position to navigate."

Your brows furrow. "You're saying I will be under your protection?"

"I am saying," he corrects, mildly, "that I am not in the habit of using that word. Protection implies an obligation. I do not take obligations to people. I take interests. While my interest in you persists, the practical consequences may be very similar to what other people would call protection. They are not the same thing."

"And if your interest in me ceases?"

"Then the practical consequences cease with it," he says simply, frankly, "I will not punish you for it. I will not seek you out. I will simply no longer be... there." His good eye crinkles slightly at the edges. "I tell you this so you understand the structure. I do not deceive my partners about the terms of the arrangement. It is one of my few professional vanities."

"And while your interest persists?"

"While my interest persists, my lady, you will find that certain men in this city become quite remarkably reluctant to inconvenience you. Aerion Targaryen, for example. Valarr Targaryen, for example."

He pauses. Picks up his cup, sipping from it for a moment.

"You are about to do something dangerous, Lady Stark," he says, leaning back into his seat. "I am familiar with what you are about to do, because I have been doing related work for a long time. You are not going to survive it on your own. You may, possibly, survive it with me. I am offering you the second option, because the first one is not, in my professional estimation, available to you."

You absorb this.

"Brynden."

"Yes, my lady?"

You laugh weakly, a slightly hysterical edge to the sound. "That's the kindest thing anyone has said to me since my father died, and it terrifies me."

He dips his chin slightly. "It should."

Another silence. Different in texture from the last one.

"Alright," you say finally. "I accept."

He tips his head. The half-smile spreads further than you have yet seen it spread. He looks, for one second, like a man who's just received a piece of news he's been waiting on for several years.

"Alright. Then we will begin, little wolf."

You look at him sharply.

He gazes back. He's called you my lady three times tonight and Lady Stark twice. He has, just now, chosen something else, and he's done it knowing exactly what he was doing, and his good eye is on yours with the calm expectant focus, curious to see what you'll do with this small test.

"Little wolf," you echo.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because it suits you. Because your father called you something similar, I believe. And because it amuses me to mark the agreement we've just made with a name only I will use, which neither of the Targaryens will be permitted to. Forgive me the vanity."

You consider him.

"That is a great deal of meaning to put on two words, Brynden."

"All my words have a great deal of meaning on them, little wolf. You will learn to read them in time."

He pours you a second cup of tea. You don't drink it this time either. You sit across from the most dangerous man in the continent and you discuss your father's files, your timelines and the people you're about to meet.

When you leave two hours later you're walking out of his house with a hand-drawn map of the city's power structure that you will memorise in your hotel room that night and burn in your bathroom sink before dawn.

You are walking out, also, with the cold clear understanding that you've just made an alliance with someone who could end you in a heartbeat. And you're walking out, also, with the unmistakable, unsettling sense that he likes you.

That this terrifying man, this man who's unmade entire dynasties and re-made governments and put bodies in walls, has decided in the space of one tea service that you're interesting. And that this is going to be, for the rest of your time in the south, both the most useful and the most dangerous fact about your situation.

At the door, as you put your coat on, you say, "Goodnight, Brynden."

He inclines his head. "Goodnight, little wolf. Please do not take the cab to the corner of your hotel."

"I know," you say. "Four blocks. Check three times."

"Very good," he says mildly.

You take a cab home. You do not let it drop you at your hotel. You have it drop you four blocks away and you walk the rest, and you check the street for tails three times before you go inside, just the way Brynden told you to.

—

You meet Aerion first.

It's at a club. One of theirs. Though you don't know it yet.

Brynden didn't tell you outright. Because he doesn't work like that.

Brynden mentioned, over the second pot of tea, that there was an establishment on a certain corner that did interesting business on Wednesdays. And that if you just so happen to be in the neighbourhood on a Wednesday around midnight you might find the atmosphere instructive.

You understood the shape of what he was saying without him needing to spell it out.

When you walk into the club, no one knows you came from Bloodraven's tea table. No one knows you were briefed on the colour of the wallpaper before you arrived. As far as the city is concerned, you're a Stark heir who's decided to take a walk on a Wednesday, and the city is going to draw its own incorrect conclusions about what that means.

You wear black. A simple slip of a dress, hair down, your father's signet ring on the chain at your throat because you can't yet bring yourself to wear it on your hand. You don't look like a girl who walked in by accident.

You also don't look like a girl who knows what she's walking into, which is the part Aerion notices first.

He's at the bar.

Silver hoops catching the red light, ringed fingers loose around a glass of something amber, the half-smile of a man pretending to find his lieutenant's story amusing. He watches you cross the floor in the mirror behind the bottles and doesn't turn around.

By the time you're three feet from him, he's already decided he's going to fuck you. He's already decided he's going to enjoy it. The only question still genuinely open in his head is how long he's going to let you pretend it's not a foregone conclusion.

"New face," he calls out, without turning.

You don't lift your eyes. "New bar."

"Is it?" His mouth twitches at the corner. He still hasn't turned. He tips his glass a fraction, watching you in the mirror over the lip of it. "What brings you in?"

"A recommendation."

"From?"

"Someone."

His eyes (pale, very pale, the kind that always look like they're catching light even when there isn't any) track up the mirror until they find yours in it. He holds you there a beat too long. You don't look away.

He sets the glass down. He turns.

Oh, you think. Oh.

You've met dangerous men before. Your father's house was full of them. You have not met one quite like this.

It isn't that he's beautiful, though he is, in a way that feels almost spiteful. Like he resents his own face for being a thing other people can use against him. It isn't the rings, or the hoops, or the half-visible ink crawling up the side of his neck.

It's the stillness. The way he looks at you like he's three moves ahead of the conversation.

His lieutenant has gone quiet. His lieutenant has gone, in fact, professionally invisible. He's slid one stool down and turned his shoulder and become deeply interested in his own phone, in a way that tells you several things at once, none of them good. The bartender has found a glass to polish at the far end of the bar.

No one is watching you. Everyone is watching you.

"Let me buy you a drink," he says.

"No, thank you," you respond crisply.

"No?"

"No."

A beat. His head tilts a fraction. Amusement curls in at the edge of his full mouth. "You walk into a stranger's bar at midnight in that dress made for taking off and won't take a drink off the house?"

"I didn't realise it was the house offering."

He laughs under his breath, a private sound. "You know who I am."

"I have a guess," you confirm neutrally.

"Do you?" His eyes go down you once, unhurried, assessing not your body but your posture, which is the thing about him he tries to hide and cannot, which is that he's far more clinical than he lets on. "Guess out loud."

"I don't make guesses out loud, Mr—"

You let it hang. You don't give him the name. He watches you not give it to him and his mouth curls, something a touch closer to approval. Not stupid, you can feel him think. Good.

"Sit," he says, and taps the stool beside him.

"No."

His brows lift slowly. "No?"

"I don't sit on command," you tell him flatly. "Ask properly."

A pause. He looks at you. Truly looks. And his expression shifts through several gears in the space of one breath. The half-smile sharpens into something almost predatory and then that drops away into something far more dangerous, which is curiosity.

Genuine curiosity. He's not been told no by a woman in his own establishment in a long time and the woman in question has done it without flirtation, without the breathy little curl of fear that he's used to detecting in women who are pretending to defy him as a form of foreplay. You have meant it. And he's so unaccustomed to meaning that he is, for one half-second, fascinated.

"Please," he drawls with a smirk, almost mocking, like this is a fun game he's indulging.

You watch him for a beat. Then, "No, thank you."

His laugh this time is incredulous. It cracks out of him before he can stop it. The lieutenant beside him doesn't look up from his phone but you can see the small involuntary tilt of his head. A man who's worked for Aerion Targaryen for a long time and has not, in his hearing, encountered this particular sound before.

"Interesting," Aerion says, under his breath. "Who are you?"

You shrug. "Someone passing through."

"Someone passing through doesn't walk into my bar."

He says my and lets it settle in the air between you. Lets you absorb it. So you understand, if you were in any doubt, exactly whose room you're standing in. It should frighten you. You're aware that it should frighten you. He has the power in this room. But you've decided, on the cab ride over, that you will not let it frighten you.

"Yet here I am."

His eyes drift to your mouth. They come back up. And then they catch, and stay, on the line of your throat. On the chain. On what hangs from the chain, the heavy old metal of the signet. The wolf cut deep and familiar enough that you can feel his recognition before he names it.

His hand moves.

He doesn't ask. He leans in (close, closer than is acceptable in a public space) and he hooks two ringed fingers under the chain at your collarbone and lifts the ring out from where it has settled inside the neckline of your dress. His knuckles brush your sternum. Aerion doesn't pretend they didn't.

He holds the ring up between you, between his thumb and forefinger, and tilts it once into the light, and looks at it, and then at you, and looks at it again.

His mouth changes shape.

The smallest possible thing. A flicker. A recalculation happening behind his face in real time. You watch him watch the ring and you watch him arrive at the answer to some internal question. You understand that the next three seconds are the only seconds in this entire conversation in which you have the advantage, because they're the only seconds in which he's been surprised.

He lets the ring drop.

It lands warm against your skin from his fingers. But his hand doesn't retreat all the way. He lets his knuckles trail, deliberately, down the line of your sternum (half an inch, no more) before he withdraws his hand. He's letting you know he did it. He wants you to know he did it. He wants you to think about it later.

"Stark," he murmurs, almost to himself.

"Yes."

"You should have led with that," he says with a lazy smirk.

"You should have asked," you retort dryly.

Aerion laughs again. It is, this time, not startled. Something more dangerous than startled, which is interested. Fully interested. The kind of interested that has costs attached to it.

He drains the last finger of amber in his glass, sets it down without looking at the bartender (who's already refilling it before the glass touches wood) and turns his whole body toward you, finally, properly, all the unhurried weight of his attention.

"Lady Stark," he drawls smoothly, tasting the name.

"Mr Targaryen."

Heat flickers in those pale eyes. "Aerion."

"Mr Targaryen," you say again, flatter.

His mouth twitches. "You're going to be difficult."

"I imagine I am," you agree mildly.

He steps a half-step closer, and you don't move.

You're distantly aware of every place on your body he's not touching.

The half-inch between his sternum and yours. The small distance between his jaw and your temple. The fact that he's breathing a fraction out of rhythm and you can feel it on your collarbone where his face is angled toward you. He's doing this on purpose, you realise, teaching you the geography of him by withholding it.

One of his rings rotates on his finger. You notice it. A tell, you'll learn later, the thing he does when his head is doing work he hasn't yet allowed his face to show.

"Have a drink with me."

It doesn't come out as a question, or offer.

"No."

"Have a conversation with me," he insists, mouth curling.

You tip your chin slightly. "We're having one right now."

"A longer one."

"No."

His eyes are on your mouth again. They have, you realise, been there for some time. He doesn't bother to pretend otherwise.

When Aerion speaks again his voice has dropped, pitched only for you, and there's a thread in it that's not flirtation, exactly. It's something more dangerous than flirtation, which is appetite, the unmasked kind, the kind he's not bothering to pretty up.

"Why are you in my bar, Stark?" he asks.

You keep your expression neutral. "To look at it."

"And?"

"And I have looked at it."

"And?"

"And I'm going to leave," you tell him flatly.

A beat follows.

"No, you're not," he says, smoothly, matter of fact.

the line of your mouth flattens ever so slightly. "I am."

"You're not," he disagrees in that confident, dangerous drawl.

You tilt your head a fraction further, eyes narrowing. "Are you stopping me, Mr Targaryen?"

Silence.

It stretches. Long enough that the lieutenant beside him gives up on his phone and is now openly, if discreetly, watching the side of Aerion's face, waiting for an order, you conclude.

Aerion doesn't turn. His eyes are on yours and his jaw is pulsing and his thumb is tracing the rim of his refilled glass in a small absent circle. You understand (you can see him understand) that the answer to your question, if he gives the honest one, is yes.

That he wants, with a clarity that's almost embarrassing, to put a hand on your waist and walk you to the back room and find out exactly how long it takes to make you stop talking to him like that. And that he is, with effort, choosing not to. Because something about you is making him choose not to, and he's not yet certain whether he resents you for it or wants to put his teeth in your throat about it.

"No," he says, finally. "I'm not stopping you."

"Good."

"Come back," he says and it sounds more like an order.

"Perhaps," you say.

"Come back, Stark."

You gaze at him, and let him have one moment of looking back. You let your eyes drop, just once, to his mouth. To the line where the lower lip meets the upper, to the faint pale scar at the corner that you had not previously noticed. Because you're not above the small cruelty of letting him know you've noticed him too.

Aerion's nostrils flare a fraction. The hand at his side flexes once and stills. This is, you suspect, going to keep him up tonight.

"Goodnight, Mr Targaryen."

His tongue touches the corner of his mouth, hooded eyes pinned to you. "Aerion."

"Goodnight, Mr Targaryen," you repeat pleasantly.

You turn.

He stops you.

Not with his hand. With his voice. Quieter this time. Almost a question. Almost.

"Wolf."

You go still.

It's the first time anyone has called you that since you came south.

You half-turn. Over your shoulder.

"Mr Targaryen."

His mouth curls. A private thing. Pleased with itself. Half cruel.

"That's what you are. You walked in here in a black dress with a wolf at your throat and you'd not be in my bar at midnight if you didn't want to be looked at. Don't make me call you Lady Stark, sweetheart. We're past that."

"We're not past that."

He loosens a small, throaty sound. "We are."

"Goodnight, Mr Targaryen."

"Goodnight, wolf."

You walk out of his Wednesday establishment in a black dress and a Stark ring at your throat and the eyes of every man in the room on your back, and you don't look back, and you don't check your phone in the cab.

You do not let yourself smile until you're inside your hotel room with the door locked and the chain on.

You stand in the dark in front of the mirror and you lift your father's ring from your sternum and you look at the heat where his knuckles touched you, the small downward trail of it, and you think calmly, that one is going to be a problem.

Your phone, on the bedside table, is silent.

It will stay silent for almost six hours, which is the longest Aerion Targaryen has ever waited to make a second move on a woman he wanted. You don't yet know this. But Brynden will tell you over the next pot of tea, because Brynden knows everything, and Brynden will set the cup down and offer a thin smile and say, that is interesting, little wolf. That is very interesting indeed.

—

You meet Valarr four days later.

At a gala. Your mother's foundation has a table and your mother's foundation now requires, by the inconvenient reality of inheritance, your face above one of the chairs.

You've been doing duty appearances for two weeks now, smiling at men who knew your father and women who knew your mother and accepting condolences from people who really only want to know what you intend to do with the shipping line. You're tired. But you're good at not showing that you're tired, which is its own kind of exhausting.

You're in dark green tonight. Not black.

You've made the small decision, in front of your hotel mirror, that you will not wear black to every event for the rest of your life. Your mother would not have wanted it, and your father would have been embarrassed by the theatre of it. So. Dark green. Heavy silk, high neck, long sleeves. The ring is on your hand tonight, finally. The chain is in a drawer in your hotel room.

You've decided that you can carry this much of him now.

You're at the bar, because the table is full of people you've already done your duty by, and you're looking at a glass of champagne you're not going to drink, when you become aware that someone has crossed the room toward you.

You don't see him coming. That is, you'll learn, the trick of him. He doesn't come at anyone; he arrives. You become aware of him in increments: a small change in the volume of the conversation behind you, a redirection of a waiter's path, the soft polite shifting of two men you'd been half-listening to as they make room without quite acknowledging that they're making it.

By the time you turn your head he's already at your elbow, easy, unhurried, with the half-smile on.

"That's a Krug," he says conversationally, looking at your glass. "You're not drinking it."

"I don't like champagne."

"Why hold it?"

"Because if I put it down they bring me another one."

His smile widens.

It is (god) it's a very good smile. You're going to have to be careful about that smile. Because it's not some practised, professional smile of a man who's been taught how to smile by a publicist. It's real. That's the problem.

His eyes are involved in it; the corners crinkle a fraction, a small genuine warmth pulling at his mouth, and the brown eye and the pale blue eye both go a touch softer. You feel (physically, in the sternum, in a way you do not allow on your face) the small unwanted lurch of someone clocking an exceedingly attractive man at very close range without the benefit of warning.

"I have a solution," he offers.

"Do you now?"

"Give it to me," he offers. "I'll hold it until they stop bringing them."

He extends one hand, palm up, and it's a beautiful hand. The white streak at his temple catches the chandelier light when he turns.

You look at him. You look at the hand. You look at him again.

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to get you to talk to me, and you're not going to do it while you're holding a drink you do not want. Your posture says I'm not going to be here in three minutes."

You almost laugh but you don't let yourself.

"That obvious?" you wonder.

"To me." He tilts his head a fraction. "And only to me, I would say. You do it very well."

You regard him for a beat. Then you put the champagne flute into his palm.

His fingers close around the stem and brush yours in the handover. It's a deliberate, courteous, almost ceremonial touch, and Valarr doesn't let his fingers linger and that is the entire point. Because the brevity of it is what makes you feel it. He's given you the smallest possible amount of skin and let you understand that you're going to spend the next several minutes thinking about it.

He sets the flute on the bar behind him, turns the stem so the foundation's logo embossed on the napkin underneath is no longer facing you, and steps a half-foot closer. Not enough to be inappropriate. Just enough to drop the volume he needs to use.

"Thank you."

Your brows lift ever so slightly. "You're welcome."

"Valarr."

"I gathered," you tell him.

His eyes crinkle again. "Have we met?"

"No."

He tilts his head slightly and it's devastatingly handsome gesture. "How did you gather?"

"The streak," you tell him bluntly.

His hand drifts up, almost involuntary, the pads of two fingers brushing back through the white at his temple. It's an unconscious gesture and the moment he realises he's made it his mouth flickers in a different way. A private, rueful thing, the look of a man who's been caught.

Which he doesn't mind being caught at by you, because being caught at it suggests you've looked at him long enough to know which thing about him is a tell.

"That obvious?" he wonders lightly.

Your mouth curves. "To me."

He laughs. A delighted, slightly startled sound. The laugh of a man who's realising he's going to have to recalibrate the next forty minutes of his evening.

"And you are?"

You tell him.

A calculated risk. But you take it deliberately. You watch his face when you say Stark, and you watch his face do... nothing.

Not the recalculation Aerion's did. Not even a flicker. Valarr Targaryen has known you were a Stark since you walked in. Valarr Targaryen has had a brief on you sitting in a folder on his desk for ten days. Valarr Targaryen recognised you across the room when he came in and chose his approach accordingly. He was already most of the way across the floor before he allowed himself to look directly at your face. And the fact that his face didn't change when you said the name is not because it didn't matter to him. It's because he was prepared for it to.

You notice all of this. You say nothing.

"Lady Stark," he says, instead. And the way he says it (unhurried, faintly amused, with a small careful weight on the lady) tells you that he knows you've read him, and he respects it, and he's choosing not to lie about it.

"Mr Targaryen."

"May I," he gestures fractionally at the stool beside you, "or are you going to refuse me on principle?"

"On what grounds would I refuse you?" you question, half genuinely curious, half interested in what he'll say.

He manages to look bashful when he says, "On the grounds that I've just confessed, more or less, to having you on a list."

"Do you not have everyone on a list?" you wonder.

His eyes warm. "Yes. But not everyone gets the seat."

You tilt your head. "Sit down, Mr Targaryen."

He sits.

He does so smoothly, settling onto the stool with the practiced grace of a man who's been taught posture by people who took it seriously, jacket falling clean without bunching, the cufflinks at his wrists catching the light when he sets his hand on the bar.

Valarr doesn't look at you while he sits. He looks at the bartender and orders, without asking you, two glasses of something that's not champagne. A rich burgundy that is, you realise when it arrives, the wine your father used to keep at the house.

You don't ask how he knew. You assume he knew. You assume he has known for some time.

"I am sorry about your father."

It's the only condolence anyone has offered you tonight that has not felt rehearsed. It sits in his mouth simply, without weight or catches.

You take the glass he hands you and you set it on the bar between you and say, "Thank you."

"I met him twice," Valarr offers.

"I know."

"Did you?" His head turns. "How?"

"My father kept very thorough notes."

A pause, short one. And then his smile turns a fraction sharper, a fraction more amused, a small genuine respect surfacing under the polish. "I see."

"Do you?"

"I am beginning to."

You sip the wine. It is, of course, perfect. You put it down. You look at him over the rim of the glass.

"Why did you come over, Mr Targaryen?"

He gazes at you with intent, simple heat. "To look at you."

"And?"

"And now I would like a great deal more time to keep looking at you."

Such simple sentence. No performance in it. That's the thing about Valarr that you're going to have to remember, you understand, in the moment he says it, he doesn't perform. He means what he says, while he's also playing you, and the two things are not, for him, in conflict. He can tell you the truth and use the truth as a move at the same time.

It's far more dangerous than lying would be.

You set the glass down.

"How much more time, Mr Targaryen?"

He knuckles settle against his mouth. "As much as you'll give me."

"That's not an answer."

"No," he agrees, pleased. "It's a proposition."

A beat.

"Dinner," he says smoothly. "This week. You choose the place. You choose the night. I'll be there at whichever hour you tell me to be there."

"And if I say no?" you ask.

A tiny smile curves his lips. "Then I'll ask again next week."

"And if I say no again?"

His smile shrinks. Goes private. And it doesn't reach his eyes the same way the first one did. And you understand (for the first time tonight, in a way that's almost a relief) that you've just seen the underneath. The thing Brynden warned you about. The dark well underneath the gold.

"I'm a patient man, Lady Stark."

"How patient?" you question coolly.

A soft laugh tickles out of him. "More patient than is good for the people I'm patient about."

Silence.

It stretches. You hold his gaze. He holds yours. The brown and the pale blue, and underneath both of them, quietly, the dark flicker underneath everything.

"Friday," you say lastly.

His expression doesn't so much as flicker. But his hand, where it's resting on the bar beside his glass, makes one small involuntary movement (the index finger lifts a quarter-inch and sets back down) and you tuck that away. A tell. Good. Everyone has one. You've just found his.

"Friday," he agrees. "Where?"

You name the restaurant.

He inclines his head a fraction. He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and produces a small card )cream, simple, a number printed on it and nothing else) and sets it on the bar between you with two fingers, sliding it the last inch toward your glass.

"In case you change your mind," he says smoothly.

"I won't."

"In case anything else changes."

You pick the card up, but you don't put it in your bag. You slide it, without looking, into the cuff of your sleeve, against the inside of your wrist, where it sits warm against the pulse. You watch his eyes track the movement and stay there.

He doesn't pretend he isn't watching. He's been letting you see, all evening, the small disciplined ways in which he's paying attention to you (your mouth, your throat, the cuff of your sleeve) and there's something more affecting about being looked at like this by a man who's in this much control of his own gaze than there would be about being grabbed by one who was not.

"Mr Targaryen," you say neutrally.

"Valarr, when we're alone," he says softly, still drinking you in.

"We're not alone."

"We are, in fact, alone," he says with a wry little smile.

You glance around, then back at him. You've been at this bar for eleven minutes and the four people who were standing within earshot of you when he sat down are no longer there. You didn't see them go. You did not see anyone signal them. They're simply gone, the way the bartender is now polishing glasses at the far end of the bar with the absorbed concentration.

You turn back to him.

"How did you do that?"

His eyes light up with almost playful light. "Do what?" he asks innocently.

"Mr Targaryen."

His mouth twitches. "Valarr. Please."

"How?" you demand.

"A man has to be useful for something, Lady Stark."

He stands, buttons his jacket. He picks up your glass and his own and sets them on the bar in front of the spot where you're sitting, a small arrangement, your wine on the right where your hand can reach it. He leans down (just enough to be heard, no more) and you smell him for the first time. Clean. Something cedar. Nothing showy. Nothing about him is showy and that is, you realise with a small internal alarm, going to be the most dangerous part.

His mouth, when he speaks, is closer to your ear than is correct. Not touching. He doesn't touch you. It's the not touching that does the work.

"Friday, love."

You go still.

Same trick. Aerion did this with wolf, except he's doing it the other way. Quietly, almost as an afterthought, slipping the endearment in under the noise of the gala as if he's been calling you that for months. As if it's already settled.

You've given him no permission.

You can hear, faintly, the small intake of breath this is doing to you. You suspect he can hear it too. He chose this exact distance for that reason.

"Mr Targaryen," you bite out politely.

"I'll see you Friday."

Valarr straightens, stepping back. He inclines his head to you the way a man inclines his head to an equal in a room full of subordinates, and he turns, walking back into the gala. Within thirty seconds he's in a conversation with a senator and his wife, laughing at something the senator has said. He doesn't look at you again. Not once. For the rest of the night.

You watch for it. He doesn't look.

You understand this is its own kind of move.

You finish your wine, sliding off the stool. You walk out of the gala with his card warm against the inside of your wrist and ghost of cedar in your hair where he leaned in. You ride back to your hotel in the dark of the car with your hand pressed flat against your sternum and think, very calmly, that one is also going to be a problem.

Your phone buzzes when you walk into your room.

A single message. A number you don't have saved.

Looking forward to Friday, love.

You don't answer.

You put the phone face-down on the dresser. You slide his card out of your cuff, setting it beside the lamp. You go to the window and gaze down at the city, all that gold and red and dark glass. You think about the two of them (Aerion's knuckles trailing down your sternum, Valarr's mouth at the air beside your ear and the word love tucked inside it) and you understand, in a way you did not understand four hours ago, that you're in genuine trouble.

Your phone, in the dark, lights up a second time.

A different number. One you also don't have saved.

You went home alone, wolf.

You stare at it.

You don't type how do you know. Or type how did you get this number. You don't type anything at all.

You put the phone face-down again and you stand at the window in your dark green dress with a Targaryen on each shoulder of your nervous system, and remember: Brynden told me to be expensive.

You're going to be exactly that.

—

And this is where the game begins. Properly.

—

The following three weeks unfold as follows:

—

Aerion chases you with animal focus.

He doesn't pretend otherwise. He turns up where you are. He sends a man to drive you home from a dinner you did not request a ride from and the man is perfectly polite when you get into the car because the alternative is making a scene. Aerion is leaning against the hood of his own car waiting for you at your hotel one night, smoke in one hand, the silver hoops catching the streetlight.

You say, "This is harassment."

"This is escort, wolf. Don't be dramatic."

His eyes drop to your mouth and stay there a beat too long. He doesn't touch you. He doesn't have to. He's been touching you for four days through the air between you and you both know it.

He kisses you for the first time in the stairwell of a building neither of you owns.

You've followed him into it because he told you he had something to show you, and you went, knowingly, because not going felt like a kind of cowardice you were not prepared to extend to him.

The stairwell is dim. The kiss is not gentle.

Aerion doesn't let it be gentle. He has you against the wall, one ringed hand braced flat beside your head, the other at the line of your jaw, his thumb under your chin to tilt your face up the half-inch he wants it. He doesn't ask, doesn't pause. He kisses you the way a man eats after he's been told he might starve.

You taste smoke. The cinnamon thing he was chewing earlier. Expensive alcohol. Something hot underneath all of it that's just him.

You kiss him back like you're trying to mark him with your teeth. Aerion makes a noise in his throat that he's going to deny later—a raw, involuntary sound—and his hand at your jaw slides back into the hair at the nape of your neck and he uses it. He tilts your head exactly where he wants it and then he makes a pleased noise against your mouth at having gotten it there.

His hips press in once. Deliberate.

He's hard against you within thirty seconds and he doesn't pretend he isn't. He grinds in, once, and your breath stutters out of you against his mouth and he feels it (you feel him feel it) and his teeth catch your lower lip in something almost like punishment for letting him have it. He pulls back enough to look at you. His pupils are blown so wide the pale of his eyes is almost gone. His thumb drags across your wet lower lip.

"Fuck, you're fun to kiss," he murmurs. "Wolf."

"Aerion."

"Mm." His mouth twitches. He likes that, likes that he got the name out of you. He drags his mouth down the line of your jaw, taking his time about it now. He kisses the place where the chain would be if the chain were there tonight. Which it isn't, which means he's noticed the absence.

Aerion drags his mouth lower. He puts his teeth lightly where your pulse is. He waits there. He waits until you make a sound you have not given a man permission to drag out of you in some time. He lifts his head.

"I like that sound," he drawls, a raspy, smug tone in his voice.

"Aerion."

He drags his tongue across your pulse, humming. "What."

You glare are him, angling your head away.

"What?" He's smiling, a lazy, mean thing. His thumb is at your bottom lip again, dragging it down. "We both know you came down here because you wanted me to put my hand under your dress in a stairwell."

"I have a meeting," you say flatly.

He laughs against your mouth. Laughs. He bites your lower lip. Tugs, rolling it between his teeth with hungry, low growl.

"Of course you do."

He kisses you one more time. Deep, bruising. The kind of kiss that's more humiliating than the hand under the dress would have been because of how thoroughly he's making sure you will think about it later. When Aerion pulls back his hand stays at the nape of your neck for one more second. His forehead drops to yours.

"Go to your meeting, wolf."

You go to your meeting.

You sit through it with the ghost of his teeth on your lip and his hand in your hair and you don't let a single person in the room see it on your face. You go back to your hotel and stand in the shower for forty-five minutes. You make yourself come twice. You don't let yourself think his name once while you do it, on principle.

You fail. Both times.

He texts you the next morning at six. You're going to come back to that stairwell.

Am I?

Yes.

Are you asking?

A pause.

Please.

You roll your eyes, don't answer.

You go to a board meeting, turn your phone face-down on the conference table and three of the other directors notice and none of them comment. When you check it after the meeting there are no further messages, which is its own message.

Aerion has learned not to push. Aerion has also learned that he can push you to a place and stop and you will, eventually, come back to that place on your own. And this is the thing he's most dangerous about. He understands restraint as a form of seduction, even though restraint is not native to him, even though every cell in him is howling and burning.

He's genuinely cruel sometimes.

He turns up at a restaurant where you're having dinner with one of your father's old contacts and he sits at the bar across the room. Doesn't approach but doesn't leave, and the contact across from you eventually says, Lady Stark, is that man bothering you? and you say, evenly, no, and the contact looks once at Aerion and once at you and decides not to ask any further questions.

When you leave, Aerion is on the curb. He flicks his cigarette into the gutter.

"Old," he remarks dryly, mockingly.

"None of your business, Mr Targaryen."

"Sixty if he's a day," he goes on, one hand slipping into his dark jeans.

You roll your eyes, walking past him. "Goodnight, Mr Targaryen."

"Wolf."

You stop, turn.

He's leaning against the lamp-post now, hands fully in his pockets, the silver hoops catching the streetlight, that pale steady stare on you, and you understand (looking at him) that he's angry. Not visibly or in a way anyone else could identify. There's a thread of it under the casual posture, in the set of his jaw, in the way one of his rings is rotating on his finger.

"I don't share, wolf."

You snort. "You don't have me," you remind him coolly.

"Not yet."

"You may not get to," you say, harder this time.

His jaw works. He pushes off the lamp-post, crossing the three feet between you without hurry and stops just shy of touching you. His voice, when he speaks, drops enough that the doorman at the restaurant cannot hear it.

"Get in the car."

"No."

He rolls his eyes, opening the door of the sleek, black thing he drove here with. "Please get in the car."

You get in the car.

He doesn't touch you in it. He keeps both hands on the wheel and he drives like a man who's consciously not doing several things at once, and the silence in the car is thick enough that you can hear your own pulse in your ears. At a red light Aerion turns his head and looks at you. He doesn't blink, neither do you.

"You let him pour your wine," he drawls calmly, too calmly.

"I let him pour my wine."

"I don't like that."

"Mr Targaryen."

"I know." His jaw moves. He turns back to the windshield. The light goes green. "I know I don't get to not like it. I'm telling you anyway."

The car slides forward into traffic.

He drops you at your hotel without a word. As you reach for the door he says, without looking at you, "I'm going to ruin you, wolf."

You pause, bristling. You look at him over your shoulder, reaching out until you hand ends up at his sharp jaw. You thumb traces over this full bottom lip, and you say, "You're going to try, Mr Targaryen."

His lips part, eyes narrowing. "Wolf."

"Goodnight, Mr Targaryen," you say politely, letting your hand drop.

You get out, shut the door behind you.

He waits at the curb until you're inside. You see him through the lobby glass. Aerion sits for a long moment with both hands on the wheel and his head tipped back against the rest, and then he drives away.

You make yourself come three times that night and let yourself think his name twice. You consider it a fair compromise.

—

Valarr's version of the chase is worse, because its buried under so much polish that you don't see it until he's already taken what he came for.

There's nothing performative about his charm. That's the part that disarms you and disarms him in equal measure.

He genuinely is funny. He genuinely is attentive. He genuinely does listen to the small thing you said in passing at the gala about preferring grey to white and does remember it three weeks later when something grey arrives at your hotel as a thank-you for a meeting. He doesn't perform interest in you. He is interested in you.

That's the trap. The cruelty of Valarr Targaryen is not that his charm is fake but that his charm is real and the darkness underneath it is also real, and the two are not in opposition, they're the same thing in different lights.

He doesn't turn up where you are. He arranges.

You go to a restaurant and he's already at the table next to yours, alone, reading something, looking up with mild surprise as you pass. You accept a charity board seat and discover the meeting is at a building he owns. Your lawyer mentions, conversationally, that a competing offer has come in on a piece of property you'd been quietly inquiring about, and you don't have to ask who the competing offer is from.

He's funding the property out of his personal portfolio. You buy it anyway, at the inflated price, because losing it would be a worse signal than the cost. The next morning Valarr sends you a card congratulating you on the acquisition and offering you, as a gift, a piece of information about the building's foundation that you did not have and that materially changes the financial picture.

I would not want you to be disadvantaged on a property you fought me for, love, the card says, in his beautiful hand. I want to be a worthy opponent.

You read the card three times. You stare at the love a long moment. Then set the card on fire in your bathroom sink, the way Brynden taught you, and you stand watching it burn and you think, oh, you absolute bastard.

He takes you to dinner on Friday.

You've prepared. Spent an hour with Brynden the night before, going through a third pot of tea, while he gave you a thoughtful little précis on which restaurant Valarr was most likely to favour and what his ordering habits suggested about his cognitive patterns.

You go in prepared. Valarr knows you're prepared. Valarr is also prepared. This is the second-most fun you've had in six months and the most fun belongs to the stairwell, which Valarr doesn't yet know about, which Valarr will eventually know about because Valarr knows everything, but which Valarr doesn't yet have confirmation of, and which is therefore not yet weaponised.

You eat duck. He eats fish.

He asks you about the north, and you tell him true things, because lying to Valarr is a fool's game—he has the resources to verify everything and the patience to do it because it's you, and no stone is unturned when it's you—and you also tell him carefully selected true things, because Valarr doesn't need to know every true thing you know.

He reciprocates. He tells you a story about his mother that he's not, you're fairly certain, told many other people. He's doing this deliberately. You appreciate the move. You don't commend him for it aloud.

He looks at you, across the table, the way a man looks at a problem he has decided is going to be the most interesting problem in his life. And one he's determined to riddle out.

He does it without looking, mostly. That's the part that does the work. He keeps his eyes on yours during the conversation, polite, level, attentive. But in the small silences, the moments when the wine arrives or the dish is changed, his gaze drifts to your mouth, to the line of your throat, to the place at your wrist where the cuff of your sleeve sits, and stays there a beat longer than is appropriate before returning to your eyes.

There's a quiet, devouring hunger in this man that could burn you down to nothing if you were a lesser woman.

You're not a lesser woman.

He's letting you see him do it. That's also a move.

Halfway through the meal he reaches across the table.

He doesn't take your hand. He picks up the wine glass next to it, drinks, sets it down (his glass, not yours, although for half a second you'd thought he meant yours and your pulse had jumped, which he can see) and when Valarr's hand returns to his side of the table his fingertips brush the back of your wrist, once. Briefly. The bare strip of skin between your sleeve and your ring.

It's not really a touch. It's the suggestion of a touch.

It's followed by him resuming his sentence without looking at his hand, as if his body has not just made an entirely separate move from his face.

"You are staring, Mr Targaryen."

"I am, love," he admits, utterly unabashed.

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to decide whether you know how very beautiful you look in this light, or whether you have decided not to know on purpose."

You set your wine down.

"That's an extremely Valarr Targaryen thing to say."

He laughs, gentle and genuine, a dimple appearing. "Is it?" he wonders, his head cocking.

"It's the kind of compliment that has a hook in it," you clarify.

His smile is quiet. Pleased. The brown eye and the pale blue eye are very steady on yours, a low, simmering devouring.

"Lady Stark."

"Mr Targaryen."

He hums, eyes crinkling at the crisp sound of his surname. "I'm going to ask you a question, love. You may, of course, refuse to answer."

Your spine sets. "Ask."

"Are you going to let me kiss you tonight?" he asks softly.

You stare at him.

He's not moved closer or lowered his voice. The waiter comes back to refill your water and Valarr keeps watching you watching him, and for a long moment, neither of you gives ground.

You consider him.

"No," you reply simply.

He nods, once. Not surprised. "Alright."

"Alright?"

"Yes." He picks up his wine again. "Alright."

That's all. No pushing, no teasing, nothing. He doesn't look wounded. Doesn't adjust his strategy. Valarr takes the no the way a man takes a card off the top of a deck. Looks at it, files it, plays the next hand. And it is (god) it's more affecting than if he had pushed. It is, in fact, the most attractive thing he's done all night, which you suspect he knows.

You finish dinner. He pays. You didn't see him do it.

At the end of dinner he walks you to your car and he doesn't kiss you.

He stops, two feet shy of the car door. The driver has the engine running. The street is mostly empty. Valarr turns to face you and he does the thing he has been doing all night, which is look at you too steadily with that devouring, soft intensity without performing the looking, and then he lifts your hand.

He kisses your knuckles. Brief. Gentle.

Then he turns your hand over. His thumb presses, once, on the inside of your wrist where your pulse is. He holds it there a half-second longer than is correct. Long enough to feel the kick.

He smiles. A small private thing. He felt it.

"I had a very pleasant evening, love."

Despite yourself, you admit, "As did I, Mr Targaryen."

Because it's true, and pretending otherwise would be foolish.

"Do you think next week we could try first names?" he jokes lightly.

Your mouth twitches slightly. "We'll see how the week develops, Mr Targaryen."

Valarr laughs, delighted, and he gets the car door for you. As you slide in he leans down and says, just close enough that no one else in the world can hear, "You're going to be the most enjoyable problem I have ever had."

You glance at him. "That's the plan."

Valarr closes the door and you watch him in your wing mirror as the car pulls away. He's standing on the curb, hands in his pockets, his white streak gleaming under the streetlight, watching you go.

You go home.

You don't make yourself come thinking about Valarr Targaryen. You instead lie in the dark of your hotel room with your hand pressed flat against your sternum and your thumb on the inside of your wrist where his was, and you think, in a tone of considerable alarm, I'm attracted to both of them. I'm genuinely attracted to both of them. And you understand, in the same moment, that this is, structurally, the thing that's going to make this work.

—

And then the rivalry gets worse.

—

It's a Thursday at one of their family's clubs. The bigger one. The legitimate one. The one Valarr's side technically owns and Aerion's side technically launders through.

You're at the bar and you've not invited either of them.

Because you're there with Brynden.

Brynden is the one you came with. Brynden in a charcoal three-piece suit, drinking water, the most unsettling man in the room and the room knows it. No one approaches you, no one even dares to look.

Brynden Rivers turning up at one of the family clubs with the Stark heir on his arm is the kind of social event that's going to be discussed in three boardrooms by morning, and Brynden knows this, which is precisely why he's done it.

"I'm being used as a signal flare, Brynden," you murmur.

"You're being used as a negotiating position, little wolf. There's a difference. You understand the difference, and you've already agreed to it. Drink your water."

You drink your water.

Aerion spots you first.

He comes in from the back and his eyes find the bar before they find anything else, the way they always do now. The moment they land on Brynden beside you Aerion's whole body locks into stillness. You can feel it from across the room.

He comes toward you.

He doesn't approach Brynden. He stops three feet short of you and he says, in a voice that's not his charming voice, "Lady Stark."

You incline your head. "Mr Targaryen."

Aerion's pale, unblinking stare slides to your companion. "Lord Rivers."

"Aerion," Brynden returns mildly.

You watch them. Aerion's jaw is set. One of his rings is rotating on his finger (a tell of his you've started to notice) and his eyes are on Brynden, not you. And then they're on you. And then they're back on Brynden.

You understand, in real time, that Aerion has just received a piece of information he doesn't know what to do with, which is that the most dangerous man in the continent has decided to escort you into one of Aerion's family's establishments without telling him first.

"May I borrow her?" Aerion asks Brynden.

The fact that he asks almost makes your jaw drop. You've never seen Aerion ask anyone anything. He takes. Always.

"That," Brynden says idly, without looking up from his water, "is a question for the lady."

Aerion's eyes flick to you. Hard, burning.

And then Valarr walks in.

Valarr is in a dark blue suit, no tie. He's in the middle of a conversation with one of his lieutenants when he walks in, head turned a fraction to the side, listening.

And then he comes through the doorway and his eyes go to the bar by pure professional habit (Valarr always clocks every entrance and exit and every person of significance in a room within four seconds of entering it) and his eyes land on Brynden beside you and his face does not move.

That's the part that's genuinely impressive. No flicker or doubletake. His face doesn't move at all, but the man he's speaking to falls silent without being told to. Because the temperature in the room has just dropped a second time, and the room feels it.

Aerion sees Valarr in the mirror behind the bar.

Valarr sees Aerion seeing him in the mirror behind the bar.

They both turn their heads, fractionally, and they look at each other, and you watch the entire ten-year cold war between Aerion Targaryen and Valarr Targaryen reignite in the space of one breath.

Neither of them moves. Neither of them speaks. You're standing between them, at the bar, with Brynden Rivers at your elbow drinking water like a man at a Sunday brunch.

You've just become the most fought-over object in the city.

Brynden, almost into his glass: "This is going splendidly, little wolf."

"Shut up, Brynden."

"Yes, my lady."

Valarr crosses to you first.

You've wondered, after, which one of them would have moved first if Brynden hadn't been there. You suspect Aerion. But Valarr is better at public spaces, and Aerion's expression has gone to a place that Valarr clearly doesn't want him acting on in the middle of a club full of men with phones, and so Valarr crosses first.

He comes up to your other side. He doesn't look at Aerion.

"Lady Stark," Valarr says in that smooth, charming voice of his.

"Mr Targaryen."

Valarr inclines his head towards Brynden. "Lord Rivers."

"Valarr," Brynden returns, equally as mildly as earlier with Aerion.

Valarr peers at you, face open. "May I buy you a drink, love?"

You feel Aerion go still at your other shoulder. Not the practised stillness, but the other one. The bad one.

"I have one, thank you," you reply carefully.

"Another one, then," he hedges. "When that one is finished."

"Perhaps."

A pause. Valarr's mouth twitches. You can feel Aerion at your other side practically vibrating. Brynden has set his water down on the bar and is now standing with both hands clasped behind his back, his good eye on the middle distance, the very picture of a man who's professionally ignoring the situation he's personally engineered.

Aerion says, under his breath, "Valarr."

Valarr doesn't turn. "Aerion."

"You're at my Thursday establishment."

"I'm at our Thursday establishment, cousin," Valarr dismisses. "I sign the licence."

"You sign the legitimate licence."

"Yes." Valarr's smile is small and too polite, almost predatory. "The one that allows you to remain operational. You're welcome."

"Valarr." Quieter this time.

You've learned what that quieter register from Aerion means.

"Gentlemen," you interrupt.

Both of them turn to you simultaneously.

It's almost comical. Or it would be comical if it weren't also one of the most dangerous moments of your life. You have the absolute attention of both of them and you can feel Brynden (feel him, without looking) begin to laugh, internally, in a way that doesn't move a single muscle in his face.

"I'm here with Brynden. Who is, as I understand it, a guest of both of your fathers. It would be courteous of you both to permit him to enjoy his evening unmolested." You offer them a cool, bland smile that turns just a little more cutting, promising, around the edges as you gaze at them. "It would also be courteous of you both to permit me to enjoy mine. You may each, separately, ask me to dinner this week, and I will, separately, consider both invitations on their merits. Is that acceptable?"

Aerion's jaw works.

Valarr smiles his beautiful, awful smile. "That's acceptable to me, love."

You angle your head. "Aerion?" you say.

He tries for a smirk, but there's a dangerous edge to it. "Whatever you say, wolf."

You hear Valarr's breath do a small, almost inaudible intake at the wolf. You don't turn your head.

"Thank you," you say, turning toward the pale haired man behind you. "Brynden, I would like another water."

"Of course, little wolf."

Both cousins watch Brynden signal the bartender for a glass of water for you, in their family's establishment, with their family's bartender, in front of their family's men, and use a name for you that neither of them has heard him use before. Neither of them speaks and you almost smile at the subtle power play.

You sip the second water, turning your back on both of them, and you continue your conversation with Brynden as if they're not there.

It takes Valarr forty-five seconds to leave and Aerion three minutes.

When you and Brynden walk out an hour later both of them are gone and the bartender has placed two notes under your coat at the coat check, one in each pocket. Neither of which you read until you're back in your hotel room and Brynden has gone home. You lock the door and run a shower for the ambient sound, the way he taught you to.

Aerion's note says: Saturday. Anywhere. You choose.

Valarr's says: Saturday. Anywhere you wish, love. Let me know what to wear.

You read them both, set them side by side on the desk. You don't respond to either of them until Friday afternoon.

You accept both.

Aerion at seven. Valarr at ten. Neither of them, of course, knows.

You call Brynden. He picks up on the first ring. He always does when you call him.

"Little wolf."

"I have a question of operational ethics, Brynden," you begin, fingers brushing idly over both notes.

A rasp of a breath. "Go on."

"I've just accepted dinner with both of them on the same night," you tell him.

A pause follows your declaration.

And then—and you will, for the rest of your life, swear that this is what you heard—Brynden Rivers, the most dangerous man in the country, makes a sound on the other end of the line that's unmistakably a laugh. One short, quiet laugh.

"Little wolf."

It takes you a second to respond from sheer shock. "Yes?"

"You're not going to disappoint me, are you?"

You smile slightly toward the horizon through the hotel window. "No, Brynden."

"Good," he says, a beat, "Wear black."

He hangs up.

—

And here, finally, is the twist.

The thing they don't know. The thing they'll not know until you choose to let them know, in your time, on your terms, with the maximum possible benefit to you.

Your father's file was not a file on the Targaryens as criminals.

Your father's file was a file on the Targaryens as victims of one.

There is, somewhere very high in Maekar's organisation and somewhere equally as high in Baelor's, a man both of them trust who's been quietly working for someone else for fifteen years.

A man your father had been tracking, on Brynden's behalf, since before you were born, because Brynden suspected and your father confirmed and your father then kept the file, because your father didn't trust Brynden completely either.

Because your father, Barthogan Stark, was nobody's fool.

The photographs in the locked drawer—the ones you finally looked at, fully, in the small hours of a Thursday morning, sitting on your hotel bathroom floor with the door locked because you didn't trust the rest of the building—show this man in three meetings, over three years, with people he should not have been meeting.

And you've decided (and Brynden agreed, with the small private fondness you've learned to read on his ruined face) that you're not going to give this information to either of the Targaryens until you've used it to its absolute maximum value to you.

You're going to date them.

You're going to learn their rooms, their men, their weaknesses, the architecture of their loyalties.

You're going to let Aerion fuck you stupid in stairwells and you're going to let Valarr take you to dinner at his mother's table and you're going to enjoy both of these things genuinely. Because you're not a liar and your attraction to both of them is, troublingly, real.

And you're going to wait.

At the exact moment of maximum leverage (at the sit-down you can already see coming, at the moment when both branches of the family are in one room, when the rivalry between them is at its peak, when each of them believes that you are his) you're going to walk in with Brynden Rivers at your shoulder, and you're going to set the file on the table, and you're going to name the man.

Both branches of the family are going to owe you a debt larger than the one your father is owed.

You're going to extract from that debt exactly what your father would have asked for, which is the thing he died waiting for and did not get.

Your father did not die of nothing. Your father was poisoned. Patiently. Over three years. By the same man in the file.

And Brynden Rivers knew the second he heard of the passing.

Brynden Rivers told you, over the second cup of tea at the second meeting, when he set the photograph down on the desk between you and watched your face for the moment of recognition. Watched you not cry, and watched you instead set the photograph back down and ask him who else knows, and listened to your voice when you asked it and decided, then, finally, that you were going to be useful.

Starks, he had said, have always been of interest to me. I hope you don't disappoint.

You're not going to disappoint him.

Stack was chaos in motion. All mouth, all ego, all sex. If Elijah was the cold, calm edge of the Moore legacy, Stack was the wildfire, loud, reckless, and fine as hell with a mouth that could talk a nun into sin. He moved like he owned every room he stepped in, spoke like he knew the secret to every orgasm, and flirted like it was a second language.

And Stassi? Stassi was the one woman who hadn’t folded for him.

It wasn’t because she didn’t think about it. Hell, she thought about it too much. But she was smart. Measured. Moved slow. She let other women fall for his bullshit and just watched from the sidelines with a crooked smile and arched brow.

They met through a mutual friend. Some house party. Stack had been draped across a leather couch like temptation personified, a red cup in one hand and a blunt in the other. Stassi had walked past him in a curve-hugging two-piece and didn’t even look his way.

He hated that. Naturally, it made him obsessed.

Three months later, she was crashing on his couch.

The lease situation was a fluke. Her roommate had dipped mid-month, leaving her scrambling. Stack had space. He also had ulterior motives. She knew. He didn’t hide it. But he never crossed that line.

Mostly.

They fell into rhythm quickly. Stassi kept to herself, headphones in, always soft-spoken but slick when it counted. Stack was a walking horn dog with no filter, but he respected her space. Teased her constantly. Called her mama in that lazy drawl. Made everything sound like foreplay.

And Stassi? She gave it right back.

He'd walk past her in nothing but sweats, print bold, grin bolder. She'd roll her eyes and say, "Put that shrimp away, Stack." He’d clutch his chest like she shot him. "Ayo, that’s crazy. You gon’ lie on my meat like that?"

She’d smirk. "What meat?"

Constant back and forth. No line ever truly crossed. Until tonight.

Stack was on the couch, phone pressed to his ear, shirtless, his low fade sharp and clean, edged like he’d just stepped out the chair. Even when he was feeling lazy, the cut stayed immaculate, a contrast to the way he sprawled across the cushions like sin itself. A blunt dangled between his fingers, the smoke curling slow above his head. His gold chain rested against his collarbone, catching the low light with every subtle shift of his body, like it was trying to draw attention to the trouble sitting beneath it. Everything about him was relaxed, but there was always that glint, that low-burning arrogance in his eyes that said he knew he looked good.

"Nigga," he said, laughing into the phone, "you mean to tell me she graded your head game?"

Smoke’s voice on the other end was as dry as ever. "She gave feedback. That’s all."

Stack cackled. "Yo, I love Ivori. That’s some real shit. What she say?"

A pause.

Then Smoke muttered, "Said I don’t eat like I mean it."

Stack howled. Damn near dropped the phone.

"You lyin’!"

"Do I sound like I’m lyin’?"

Stack wheezed. "Nah, nah, this is beautiful. The great Smoke Moore, legendary lover, certified panty dropper, gettin’ told his tongue game mid by a brat."

Smoke didn’t respond.

Stack wiped a tear. "So what you do? You fix it?"

Quiet on the line. Then:

"She let me practice."

Stack blinked.

"Practice?"

"Yeah."

A slow grin spread across Stack’s face.

"My nigga," he said, voice full of awe. "You got a fuckin’ tutor?"

Smoke grunted. "Wasn’t like that."

"What was it like then?"

"Focused. Technical. Effective."

Stack laughed so hard he choked on smoke. "You took notes? You bring a damn notepad?"

Smoke ignored him. "She squirted. Twice."

Stack shut up.

Damn.

"Aight. I respect it."

He leaned back, exhaled slowly, gaze drifting toward the hallway where Stassi’s bedroom door was cracked.

"Kinda makes you think," Stack said, almost to himself.

"‘Bout what?"

He smirked.

"What I could teach a girl if she let me really show her."

Smoke’s voice was flat. "Don’t do no dumb shit."

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you."

Stack just smiled wider. Something already turning behind his eyes.

Too late.

Stassi didn’t plan on ranting. She really didn’t. But after half a bottle of wine, her legs tucked under her on the couch and her bonnet slipping a little off-center, the words just... fell out.

“I think I’m broken,” she said, eyes on the ceiling, voice soft, too soft for the weight of what she just dropped.

Stack looked up from rolling his blunt, hands pausing mid-motion. "The fuck that mean?"

She hesitated, lips twitching like she already regretted saying anything. Then she shrugged, cheeks warm. “Sex. I don’t get the hype.”

That made him freeze. Completely.

His fingers stopped twisting the wrap. He stared at her, trying to decide if she was being serious or just saying shit. When she didn’t laugh, didn’t flinch, his brows lifted like she just broke a commandment.

“You what?”

Her gaze stayed on the ceiling, as if the popcorn texture might offer her an escape route.

She glanced at him. “It’s just… boring. Awkward. Like I’m watching a scene I’m not really in.”

Stack blinked. “You’ve had bad dick, Stass. That ain’t the same as bein' broken.”

She laughed quietly. “Maybe. But it can’t all be their fault. Like... what if I’m just not built for all that moaning and shaking and squirtin' y’all love talkin' about?"

He lit the blunt, took a slow pull, and exhaled like her comment physically offended him.

“How many bodies you got?”

She gave him a look. “Damn. You ain’t even ease into that, huh?”

“Ain’t shit to ease into. Numbers matter when you talkin' 'bout averages.”

She hesitated. “Two.”

Stack damn near choked on smoke. “Two?!”

“Relax.” She rolled her eyes. “It just never felt like anything special. I laid there. They finished. We dapped up. That was it.”

He blinked at her like she said she’d never tasted sugar.

“You had niggas dap you up after giving you trash dick?”

She snorted. “One of them gave me a high five.”

“Oh, nah. That’s criminal,” he said, mouth open. “You in here getting congratulated for surviving dick. You ain’t been fucked right, that’s the whole issue.”

She shrugged again, but there was something small in her eyes. Something a little uncertain.

Stack caught it.

He leaned back, exhaled another puff, eyes low.

“You think it’s you,” he said. Not a question. A statement.

She didn’t answer.

“Nah, mama. It ain’t you.”

His voice dropped, lazy and smug.

“You just ain’t met a motherfucker who know what he doin'."

She raised a brow. “Oh, so here come the Stack Moore special.”

He smirked. “I mean... we are talking solutions.”

“Boy, shut up.”

“Nah, for real.” He sat up, that signature glint flickering in his eyes. "You over there talkin' like you tired of bein' disappointed. I'm sittin' over here with a tongue and dick that been vetted by the streets. You tryna tell me the math ain't mathin'?"

Stassi burst out laughing. “Vetted by the streets is insane.”

“Baby, I got Yelp reviews.”

She shook her head, still smiling, but her laugh was tighter now. She looked away.

And Stack saw it. The shift. Small, but real.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

Voice lower now.

“Let me guess. You ain’t never come off penetration, huh?”

She blinked.

“Figured. What about head?”

She hesitated. Then shook her head.

“Damn.”

She bit her lip. “You really asking me all this like you’re gonna write a thesis.”

“Nah, I’m asking ‘cause I’m offended. I’m offended for you.” He sat back again, grinning. “That’s like owning a Ferrari and only drivin' it in reverse."

“You’re such a dumbass.”

“And yet you keep talkin' to me.”

She shook her head, lips twitching. “You Moore boys really think y’all are God’s gift to women.”

Stack shrugged. “Elijah think he God. I’m just tryna be the devil you like.”

She laughed again, but this time... it lingered.

He watched her. Saw the way she avoided eye contact. The way her thighs pressed a little tighter together.

He tilted his head.

“You curious now, ain’t you?”

“Not even a little,” she lied.

He leaned back and grinned. The type of grin that meant nothing about the night was staying innocent.

“Aight, mama,” he said. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.”

The next morning was too damn quiet.

Stassi moved through the apartment like the air was thinner than usual, like every sound might break something. She kept her face in her phone, fingers tapping nothing important, avoiding the kitchen like Stack was a trap set and waiting. Her oversized tee hung off one shoulder, legs bare, bonnet still on. Chill enough to pass as normal, if you didn’t know her.

Stack knew her.

And he noticed.

He clocked the way she paused at the hallway entrance, peeked into the kitchen, then dipped back to the couch like she forgot something. He didn’t say shit at first. Just stood by the fridge, shirtless in plaid sleep pants, chain swinging low against his chest as he downed a bottle of water like it offended him. There was a curl of a smirk on his lips, just barely visible, like he already knew what she was trying to avoid.

Smug. Calm. Like he hadn’t said a damn thing the night before.

But his eyes? They were tracking. Calculating.

Stack was the type to wait. Let you squirm. Let you dig your own grave and then lay in it with a smile.

Stassi tried to sneak past. He cut her off.

“You scared?”

Stassi blinked. “Scared of what?”

He stepped in her path, close enough that the scent of him hit first, clean skin, leftover cologne, something warm and deep underneath it. She swore he radiated heat like a damn furnace.

“Me.”

She scoffed. Rolled her eyes. “Boy, please.”

Stack leaned in, head tilted like he already knew the answer. “You ain’t been right since you said that shit last night. You avoiding me now?”

“I’m literally getting juice.”

“You drinkin’ air. That glass been empty.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again.

Caught.

He chuckled low, the sound rolling straight through her. “You scared I’ma call your bluff.”

“You act like I said something wild.”

“You did.” He raised an eyebrow. “You said you never been fucked right. Then looked me in the eye and told me you wasn’t curious.”

She sucked her teeth. “Maybe I’m not.”

“Lyin’ don’t look good on you, Stassi.”

She stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest. But he saw the way her nails tapped her bicep. The slight shift of her weight. Her tell.

“You really think you some kind of sex god, huh?”

Stack grinned slow. “Nah. I think I’m a problem you ain’t ready for.”

He took a slow step closer. “You over there gettin’ in your feelings about two trash-ass bodies. Meanwhile, I’m over here tryna offer you a masterclass, and you duckin’ like you scared to pass orientation.” His voice stayed low, but every word hit with a steady rhythm, like he was laying out scripture. “You worried about takin’ that leap ‘cause you know I don’t do just enough. I don’t stop at ‘good.’ I ruin shit, Stassi. I rearrange.” He ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek, gaze locked on hers. “This ain’t no soft stroke, lights-off, ‘you good?’ type of session. I don’t lay up, I lay down. Big difference. So if you standin’ here scared, it’s ‘cause you know once I touch you, that whole little ‘sex is mid’ theory? Dead on arrival.”

She barked out a laugh. “Oh, so now you teachin’ courses?”

“Advanced placement,” he said, licking his bottom lip. “Final exam’s oral. Written too. You might cry.”

Stassi blinked, then looked away fast.

He saw that too.

The tension tightened, invisible rope pulling between them. The silence hummed.

She broke it. “Maybe you scared I won’t fold.”

He stepped in closer. “You gon’ scream, Stassi.”

The way he said it… no teasing. No smirk. Just a dark promise tucked behind his voice like a blade. It wasn’t just a threat; it was a prophecy. Like he’d already seen her breaking, breathless and bent, and was just waiting for the moment to make it real.

Her breath hitched. Just a little. But enough.

He noticed. And leaned in, his mouth near her ear now, tone dipped in velvet filth.

“You gon’ scream,” he repeated, slower this time. “Gon’ forget your own name. Gonna cry ‘cause your body don’t know how to handle what I’m about to give it. And you gon’ love it.”

He let the silence stretch, just the sound of her breathing between them. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.

“Say the word,” he murmured. “You want one night? A single round? A fuck-it trial run? I’ll put you on your back and teach your whole body how to pray. Lay hands on you like a sermon. Make a believer outta you.”

She swallowed. He could hear it.

He leaned in more, breath ghosting across her jaw. “You gon’ find God, baby. And when you come back to Earth? Shit gon’ look different.”

Stassi stared at him. Jaw tight. Mind spinning.

Then she said, soft but sure:

“If I let you… it’s one time. That’s it.”

Stack’s smile returned, slow, sure, lethal. It cut through the space like a warning.

“That’s all I need.”

And just like that, the contract was sealed.

She didn’t know it yet, but there was no coming back from this.

Not with him.

Not with Stack Moore.

The air was different.

It was the kind of silence that buzzed, charged, heavy, waiting to snap. Stassi stood in the middle of the living room like she'd wandered into the lion's den, barefoot and breathless, while Stack leaned against the doorframe to his bedroom, shirt off, sleep pants slung low, arms crossed like he had all the time in the world.

“Last chance to back out,” he said, voice low, even. “Once I touch you, there ain’t no pretending after.”

She didn’t speak.

Didn’t have to.

Her eyes dropped to his chest. Tracked lower. She nodded once.

That was all he needed.

He pushed off the doorframe and crossed the room slow, each step heavier than it needed to be deliberate. Dominant. He didn’t ask permission when his hand slid to the side of her neck, thumb brushing the pulse that jumped there.

“You don’t lift a finger,” he murmured. “You just feel. That’s the only job you got tonight.”

Then he kissed her.

Not soft. Not sweet.

It was possession.

His mouth moved slow but deep, tongue sweeping into hers like he was claiming territory. His other hand gripped her waist, fingers spreading wide as he pulled her closer. Her knees buckled just a little, enough for him to notice, enough to make him smile against her mouth.

He kissed her until her head tipped back, until her breath hitched and her hands were clutching at his biceps like lifelines.

“See?” he whispered against her lips. “Already forgettin’ how to stand.”

He didn’t give her time to reply. Just reached for the hem of her shirt, lifted it over her head slow, pausing only to let his eyes roam. No rush. No shame. Just hunger. He walked her backwards, lips brushing her jaw, her neck, collarbone, layer by layer, like unwrapping a gift he already knew was his.

By the time they hit the bedroom, she was down to her panties and nothing else.

Stack’s eyes were black with it. Not lust,  intention.

He laid her down on the bed like she was something sacred. Climbed between her thighs like he belonged there. Not a second of hesitation.

“You ever had somebody talk you through your own cum?” he asked, dragging two fingers slow up the inside of her thigh.

Stassi blinked, already breathless. “No.”

“You will tonight.”

He kissed the inside of her knee. Then again, higher this time. Every press of his lips felt like a countdown. She didn’t know what number he was starting from, but when his mouth finally landed—

She gasped.

Hot. Wet. Slow.

He licked her like he already had the blueprint. Like this wasn’t practice, this was performance. That tongue wasn’t experimenting, it was executing.

The first stroke made her legs twitch.

The second made her hips lift.

The third had her moaning, hands searching for something to hold onto.

Stack groaned against her, like her pussy was feeding him.

“That’s it, baby. Stay right there. Don’t run.”

His tongue moved in slow circles, switching pressure just when she got used to it. It was like he had a map, like he’d studied her reactions in advance, tweaking the angle and pressure with each pass until her body didn’t know what to do with itself. One moment, he was gentle, barely-there flicks that teased more than pleased. Next, he flattened his tongue and dragged it slow, full, hungry. It was overwhelming.

His hand kept her thighs spread wide, firm and unrelenting. Every time her body flinched or shifted, every time her hips twitched or she tried to close her legs, he followed—anchored her like gravity. There was no escape, and deep down, she didn’t want one.

She whimpered, arching. Her breath stuttered, hands clutching the sheets like she was bracing for impact. “Oh my God…”

He chuckled dark, lips still moving. The sound vibrated against her, deep and cruel. “God ain’t here right now,” he murmured, and the way he said it made her thighs shake harder. Like he meant it. Like he was the one she should be praying to.

He slipped a finger in. Her breath caught. Then another joined it. She opened wider for him, instinct overriding shame.

Her moans grew louder, sharper.

Stack took his time, curling his fingers inside her just right, his tongue flicking against her clit in that perfect, relentless rhythm that made her toes curl.

“That’s it,” he said, voice low, coaxing. “You feel that build, huh? Let it go. Don’t fight it. I got you.”

And she did.

Her first real orgasm slammed into her like a wave. No warning. Just heat and trembling and a cry that tore from her throat before she could think to be embarrassed.

Her thighs clamped around his head. Her whole body stuttered.

But he didn’t stop.

If anything, he doubled down.

Tongue wetter, fingers deeper, his pace unforgiving. She tried to squirm, tried to pull away—

“Stack—wait—oh my God—”

Then she squirted.

Her eyes flew open, pure shock etched across her face. She gasped, reaching for his shoulder. “Wait—oh my God—what—”

He grinned into her. Groaned like it was exactly what he wanted.

She tried to sit up. “I didn’t—Stack, I didn’t mean to—”

“Shut up,” he growled, voice rough and low. “I wanted that.”

He sucked harder, angled deeper.

Another orgasm barreled through her. Then another.

She was shaking now, soaked, sheets wrinkled beneath her.

“Please—” she cried, voice raw. “I can’t—I can’t—”

He pulled his mouth away just long enough to say:

“You not done yet.”

And then he dragged her right back over the edge.

Stack didn’t fuck like he had something to prove.

He fucked like he knew.

Knew exactly what she needed. Knew how to pull it out of her. Knew how to make her stop thinking and just feel.

Stassi was already wrecked. Her legs wouldn’t stop twitching, chest rising and falling in short, ragged bursts. Her thighs were soaked, the sheets ruined, her voice caught somewhere between a moan and a plea. She barely noticed him shifting up the bed, pressing kisses up her trembling stomach, her ribs, the swell of her breast.

But she felt it when he lined up.

“Breathe,” he said low, palm splayed across her stomach. “You gon’ take this real slow.”

The head of his dick slid against her, thick and hot, dragging through her slick like a threat. He teased her first, nudging her entrance, then circling her clit just to feel her flinch. The tip pressed in just an inch, then pulled back, over and over until she was trembling underneath him, hands grasping for something, anything to hold on to. Her thighs kept trying to close, but he just gripped them and held her open like she was his favorite meal.

Then he pushed in slow, too slow, like he wanted her to feel every single inch splitting her open. It was a stretch, almost unbearable, dragging her walls wide with no warning, no mercy. She could feel every ridge, every pulse of him. It was too much and not enough. She wasn't ready for it, not really, but she'd never wanted something more in her life.

Her head fell back. A gasp punched from her chest.

“Fuuuuck, Stack—”

“That’s it,” he grunted, voice tight, low. “You feel that? That grip? Shit, mama, your pussy don’t wanna let me go.”

He bottomed out, hips flush, and stilled.

Her legs were already shaking again.

He didn’t move. Just leaned down, lips grazing her ear.

“You thought sex was boring?” he murmured. “Look at you now. Shakin’ like I’m the first nigga to ever touch you.”

She whimpered.

He smiled.

Then he started to move.

Slow at first. Just a grind. Deep, heavy rolls of his hips that dragged his dick against every nerve-ending she didn’t know she had. He watched her face the whole time, every twitch, every gasp, every wide-eyed moment she realized this was something she wasn’t built to handle.

“Say it,” he whispered. “Say my name.”

She tried. Choked on it.

“Say it.”

“Stack—” she gasped, and he rewarded her with a sharper thrust.

“That’s what I like to hear.”

Then he flipped her.

Had her on her stomach, hips lifted, cheek pressed to the mattress. He slid back in like he owned it, and he did.

This angle hit different.

She cried out, clawing the sheets.

He leaned over her, one hand gripping her neck, not choking, just enough pressure to keep her grounded.

“You wanted to be fucked, right?” he growled, voice grinding low in her ear as his hips rolled deeper. “This what you meant?”

She nodded, fast and frantic, but it wasn’t enough for him.

“Use your words.”

“Y-yes,” she sobbed, voice breaking open. “Yes, Stack—please—please—”

He grinned against her shoulder, kissed the spot beneath her ear, and gave her more.

More stroke. More pressure. More filth. His hips snapped forward, deliberate and punishing, the sound of skin on skin echoing through the room like a rhythm he never broke. And the way he angled? Vicious. Deep. Designed to find every place inside her that had never been touched right.

She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Every time he pulled out, she tried to inhale; every time he slammed back in, it knocked the air right back out.

“Yeah,” he murmured, dragging a hand down her back, gripping her ass hard. “That’s what I thought. You talk tough, but your body don’t know how to lie.”

Then he slowed it down again, not out of mercy, but because he wanted her to feel it. All of it. The grind. The stretch. The way he filled her too deep, too perfect.

“You gon’ cry for me?” he asked. “Come all over this dick again like you did my face? Soak me ‘til I can’t move?”

And she did.

She broke apart under him, body jerking, voice gone raw. She wasn’t just coming, she was weeping, moaning, tears slipping from the corners of her eyes as her body overloaded. Her fists balled tight in the sheets, her nails digging into fabric like she could anchor herself to reality, but even that felt like too much. Everything was too much. The stretch of him. The pressure building again in her belly. The heat between her thighs that wouldn’t fade. It wasn’t one orgasm. It was a wave crashing again and again, dragging her under.

Her throat gave out before her body did, a sob cracking loose that turned into another moan. She tried to speak, tried to tell him she needed a second, but the words wouldn’t come. Just sound. Just ache.

She didn’t even know she was crying until he slowed down, leaned in close, and said it with a grin, lips brushing her tear-slick cheek:

“There she go.”

He kissed the side of her neck. Let it linger.

“Cry about it, mama.”

His voice was all velvet threat, low and proud, like her tears were exactly what he wanted.

And they were.

Stack didn’t move right away.

He stayed pressed against her back, still buried inside, his body heat wrapped around hers like a blanket she couldn’t shake off. His chest rose and fell with every deep breath, sweat trailing down his spine, lips brushing the edge of her shoulder. He was still hard. Still there. And Stassi? She was quiet. Still trembling. Her body was wrecked, but her pride tried to recover before her heartbeat did.

She shifted beneath him.

He didn’t move.

“You good?” he asked, voice low. Gravel-thick.

“Mhm,” she hummed, trying to pull the sheets back up over her chest, as if modesty still had a place here.

Stack leaned back just enough to look down at her.

“Don’t do that.”

She blinked, still breathless. “Do what?”

“Act like this ain’t shift somethin’.”

She rolled to her side, careful not to meet his eyes. “It’s just sex.”

He chuckled. Dark. Like she told a joke.

“Your legs still shakin’, mama. Ain’t no ‘just’ in that.”

She stayed quiet.

He kissed her shoulder, slow. Dragged his mouth along her skin like he wasn’t done. Because he wasn’t. His hand slid across her waist, down her thigh, then back up again.

“You say that out your mouth,” he whispered, “but your pussy still grippin’ me like it got somethin’ to prove.”

He started to move again. Slow. Deep.

She gasped, fingers curling in the sheets.

“I didn’t come,” he said casually, like he was stating the weather.

She turned her head, dazed. “What?”

He leaned in, lips at her ear. “You came, what—three times? Four? Squirted all over me, cried in my mouth, called me please like it was my name. And I still ain’t come yet.”

Her eyes widened.

“So,” he continued, hips rolling into her again, deeper, meaner, “I’m gon’ take mine now.”

He gripped her hip with one hand, the other planted beside her head, and started fucking her again, no build-up this time. Just power. Just intent.

She gasped, back arching.

“Stack—”

“Nah. You said it was just sex,” he gritted, voice strained as he pounded into her. “So don’t act new now.”

It didn’t take long. Her body was already wrecked, too sensitive, her mind barely tethered to reality as Stack drove into her with that same brutal rhythm. Every thrust dragged a sound from her she couldn’t stop, high-pitched, broken, needy. He had her folded beneath him, every muscle clenched, her fingers fisting the sheets, her back arching to meet him even when she thought she had nothing left.

Stack wasn’t quiet. He was grunting low in her ear, filthy praise falling from his mouth between clenched teeth. “That’s it, take it. Just like that. You feel how deep I am, mama?” His voice cracked at the edges, thick with restraint.

She was babbling now, half-formed words, moans, his name, breath hitching as her overstimulated nerves sparked with every movement. Her legs shook around his hips, her pussy fluttering around him, dragging him closer and closer to the edge.

And when he finally came, deep, hips locked, body rigid with release, it wasn’t quiet or clean. It was raw. He let out a guttural groan, biting into her neck as he emptied himself inside her, his hips grinding to make sure she took every drop. He didn’t pull back right away. Just held her close, breathing ragged, letting the moment hang between them like smoke in the air.

He stayed there a moment, breathing heavy.

Then pulled out slow.

His fingers found her again.

“What are you—” she started, but her voice cracked.

He slid two fingers inside her, still wet, still stretched, and started to move.

“You gon’ sit here,” he said calmly, “and tell me that was nothin’? That I don’t matter?”

She bit her lip hard.

“Say it,” he whispered. “Say what you need.”

She turned her face into the pillow, silent.

He curled his fingers just right.

She moaned high and broken.

“Say it, Stassi.”

Her breath hitched. Her eyes shut tight.

“Fuck—”

He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, didn’t stop moving.

“Say. It.”

She shattered again.

This one was different. It was full-body. Her back arched off the bed, her hands clutched at nothing. She moaned his name again, no hesitation this time.

And when she came down, breath ragged, tears at the corners of her eyes again, she finally whispered:

“I need it.”

Her voice cracked.

“I need you.”

–

The next morning, the sun hit differently.

It felt disrespectful, even. Too bright. Too loud. Stassi stood in the middle of her bedroom, arms crossed, a throw blanket wrapped around her naked frame like it could protect her from the memory of last night.

Her legs were sore. Like, for real. Every step made her wince. She’d tried to walk to the bathroom and ended up gripping the wall like her knees forgot how to function. Her thighs ached, her voice was gone, and her chest felt like someone had scooped out her insides and filled them with static. Her hips protested every shift. Her inner thighs burned like she’d run a marathon uphill. Her skin still tingled in places he’d touched, kissed, bit, and claimed. Her brain hadn’t rebooted fully, stuck in a loop of moaned-out names and the way he’d whispered filth like it was gospel.

She’d been hushed. Quieted in a way she didn’t have language for. Like Stack had reached inside her and pressed pause on every smartass remark she thought she’d fire back.

And Stack? That bastard was in the kitchen humming.

Shirtless. A frying pan sizzling like it was any other day. Nothing about his demeanor screamed last-night-wreckage. He looked relaxed. Smug, even. Like he knew exactly what he’d done and was already thinking about doing it again.

She could hear him through the cracked door, sounding like he hadn’t just rearranged her whole soul eight hours ago. Like he hadn’t made her cry in his mouth or cum so hard she forgot her damn name.

He even laughed at something on his phone.

Which only pissed her off more.

Stack [Texting Smoke]: She said it was mid. Now she can’t walk.

Smoke: 🤣. She folded?

Stack: Folded, cried, came four times. Girl need a support group.

Stassi paced.

Tried to shake off the echo of his voice in her ear. Tried to ignore how her body still felt like it belonged to him.

She peeked into the hallway. There he was. Back turned, plate in one hand, flipping eggs like he wasn’t a menace. His tattoos flexed when he moved, and his low fade was still sharp, like even sleep couldn’t dull him.

She stepped into the doorway.

He didn’t turn around. But he felt her.

“’Bout time you came out,” he said, casual as hell. “I was gon’ bring you breakfast in bed, but I didn’t think you could eat and cry at the same time.”

She squinted. “You’re not funny.”

He finally looked at her. Grinned. “You laughed.”

“I’m sore.”

“You welcome.”

She limped to the fridge. Opened it. Closed it again without grabbing a damn thing. The air between them was thick again, but different now. No tension. Just… expectation. Like they both knew what came next, even if no one said it.

She leaned against the counter. Crossed her arms. Raised an eyebrow.

“We still roommates, right?”

Stack turned to face her, plate in hand, that same smug-ass grin spreading across his mouth.

Before he could speak, his phone lit up again. Another text. This time, followed by a FaceTime ring.

Smoke.

Stack rolled his eyes but answered anyway, phone tilted just slightly so Smoke couldn’t see who was behind him.

Smoke’s face popped up on the screen, hoodie on, eyes narrowed like he already knew something was up.

“Yo,” Smoke said. “So… you ghosted me all night. That mean it happened?”

Stack sipped his juice slow, dramatic. “What you think?”

Smoke’s eyebrows lifted. “She alive?”

Stack looked over his shoulder. Stassi was at the counter, sipping water like she was minding her business. Like she hadn’t been folded in half and crying twelve hours ago.

“She walkin’ funny, but she breathin’.”

Smoke smirked. “You always do too much.”

“I do just enough.”

Smoke glanced past him. “She hear me?”

Stack grinned wider. “She hear everything.”

Stassi flipped him off without turning around.

Smoke laughed. “Yeah. You gone.”

Stack ended the call.

Turned to face her again, plate in one hand.

She looked at him, lips tight, eyes narrowed.

“We still roommates, right?”

He stepped closer. One hand slid around her waist like it belonged there. He set the plate down and pulled her closer.

“Nah.”

He kissed her shoulder, voice dropping low.

“You mine now.”

He paused, then grinned against her skin.

“My little sex slave or whatever.”

She groaned, shoving at his chest, not hard enough to move him, just enough to let him know she was still in there somewhere. “Don’t make it weird.”

“You already did,” he said, chuckling. “Cryin’ and callin’ me daddy like a damn Disney princess with a past.”

Satoru hadn't dropped his pout in a good minute, holding his bangs back with his hand and peering at the jagged scar on his forehead. He studied one side, then turned his head to look at the other then back to the middle again. His eyes were still narrowed, tracing along the scar's edges until he stood up straight with a huff through his nose.

Spinning around and leaning in closer and over your phone, his pink lips still pressed into a pout he pointed up at his scar. "Sweetheart, I'm not as pretty anymore," he mumbled. "Do you still love me?" he asked, his eyes flicking up to yours with just a hint of seriousness.

You set your phone down on the bedside table.

"Take that stupid shirt off." You smiled as his lips parted and his eyes widened in surprise. For a moment he didn't seem to understand, before he nodded, reaching back to tug his shirt off over his head and toss it somewhere on the floor.

The room was filled with the sparkling glow of the scars that bisected his body. They were stunningly beautiful — like looking into the deepest space of stars in beautiful hues of blues and white. They were frigid to the touch, crafted like fine webs of cursed energy and holding his body together permanently.

That was what this was really about, you knew that already. He'd made his jokes about the scar, coming back home to you with his tail between his legs. He'd showed it off like it was a neat party trick. After this long though, did he honestly believe you'd be fooled by that act?

"Lay down," you said softly and he smiled before stacking up the pillows carefully behind him and getting comfortable.

With a hum of approval, you walked towards that fancy vanity he'd bought you that you hadn't asked for. He'd done it anyway as if he needed to apologize, which was stupid of course. You pulled out a drawer, running your fingers over the shades until you found that adorable tint of pink that matched the pink of his lips. Turning back to him with a smile, you paused at the end of the bed.

Satoru grinned at you, laying back and getting relaxed with his hands linked together behind his head. His eyes traced your body as you slowly pulled off your shirt, giving him a little tease of skin before throwing it aside. With a smirk you kept up the little show, revealing more and more skin until you could see his teeth sinking into his lower lip and the glow in his eyes flipping on.

"You think you're not pretty?" You asked softly, holding the lipstick carefully in your hands and beginning a slow crawl up from the foot of the bed. "Satoru, are you kidding?" Taking a seat right on his hips you leaned forward with your hand on his middle You tipped your head to the side then held up the lipstick. "I think you need a reminder of how pretty I think you really are," you whispered.

His breath started to catch as your palm slid a little further up his chest. He nodded eagerly, a flush creeping up his cheeks. "Yeah?" he managed, "So is that all I am to you? A piece of meat for—"

"No," you hushed him, pressing the tip of the lipstick to his lips. He blinked, holding still as your other hand gently gripped his chin and lifted up his head. Slowly you dragged the color messily over the top of his lips, swiping your thumb across his lower lip. "No witty remarks. No silly jokes," you whispered, watching the pink blush rise higher on the apples of his cheeks.

"This time, I'm going to kiss every part of your body," you continued, releasing his chin and pulling back the lipstick. His eyes widened when your eyes met his before you pressed it to your own lips in a soft kiss. You couldn't help but giggle at his surprise and he smiled at you like his breath had caught.

Silently, his eyes followed the head of the lipstick as you dragged it over your lips, tinting them his color. His chest was starting to rise a little faster, his eyes holding wide on you. You kept your eyes on his, slowly lowering your head to kiss the corner of his lips, pressing just a little harder and just a little longer than usual. When you drew back it was a perfectly sweet little print you'd left, right at the corner of that soft smile of his.

"You are more than pretty," you whispered, kissing the edge of his cheekbone this time to leave another mark there. "You are beautiful."

He snorted, his eyes flicking away towards the wall when you pulled back again. You tipped your head, smiling down at him as he tried to act like that didn't affect him. "What's wrong, Satoru?" you cooed, "Do you really think I wouldn't love you anymore?"

He fluttered those long white eyelashes at you only to gasp when you twisted your hips just right to give him a wonderful little stroke of pressure. It was enough to make his cock throb, swelling just a little thicker against your naked cunt from inside his pants. He chuckled in his throat, managing to look back up at you again and shyly whisper, "Well, I don't have much else going for me—" he chuckled again, dark and accepting this time.

But you weren't taking that shit from him.

"Don't you talk about yourself like that," you chided him, smiling at his tiny little breath of surprise. Twisting out the lipstick a little further, you painted your lips with fresh color. Using your free hand, you pushed your fingers up through his bangs, holding them back to press kisses across the scar on his forehead.

"I almost lost you," you murmured, "and you want to joke about scars?" His breath caught and he squirmed almost nervously. Your fingers pushed up at his chin again, forcing him to look at you.

"I love you no matter what happens," you whispered. "No matter what anyone thinks or says or does, you are the only man I'll ever love."

Satoru's eyes misted for just a moment — you caught it before he blinked it away and hid it with a smile. For just a few quiet moments your eyes stayed locked with his, the two of you holding a silent wordless conversation that said more than you knew he could handle with words.

With an inhale he started to make a joke, you could see it on his face — he didn't know what else to say. Instead you shoved him back and smirked, laughing when his eyebrows shot right up.

In a barrage of kisses, you marked his chest. Then his shoulder, laughing with him as he "tried" to stop you. With every few kisses you paused to glide on a little more of that color, winking at him when he stared up at you with those big sparkling blue eyes. The light coming from his middle pulsed gently with his heartbeat, the stars blinking in the space twinkling almost brighter.

Your wiggled out his grasp, kissing the palm of his hand before leaning down. He gasped just before your lips touched just above the scar. He hissed through his teeth on the inhale, laughing in disbelief as you kissed closer to it. His hands had at some point gripped to your shoulders, fingers tense.

Satoru's breath caught when your lips touched the frigid scar. It burned, but you drew back confidently with a smile that seemed to knock the rest of the wind out of him.

"Okay, time out," he laughed, breathless and blushing under you. He held up his palm and you took your chance, leaning forward to kiss right in the middle of his palm. He grinned at you, pushing you back. "You're going to break me in half again," he murmured, covering his smile with his hand.

"I love you too, Satoru."

A month has passed where you and Senku would occasionally get a big meat in the traps that he made.

A month has passed where the feelings you have were worsening day by day.

And

A month has passed and there you were with Senku, teaching him how to fracture the silica rich rocks like flints and quartzite to make weapons. Your once soft hands were forming many scars from the sharp stones that made your palms and fingers bleed.

"Hah, you impressed me, how did you know how to make such primitive weapons?" Senku asked, his hands were equally, if not more,scarred like yours.

But unlike the beautiful and museum worthy arrowhead that you made, his was wonky.

"I went to my uncle who had an archeologist friend that learned how to make primitive weapons" Using a stone, flintknapping the rock to take a piece out of the large piece of stone.

"Ah! This is perfect for an arrowhead!" Taking the piece, you put it in front of the sun. Senku stopped fracturing his own piece to look in your direction, his eyes showing something near from an emotion he shows only to Byakuya even though its hidden.

Awe.

You throw the piece to the woven basket made by Senku, it was good, average even with little to no experience that he has other than seeing you and Yuzuriha doing similar stuff when camping unprepared with the group.

Giving it a brief glance, you smiled at the thought he would ever consider some of your 'lessons' to heart. It makes your stomach turn red.

You threw the unshaped arrowhead to the basket and focused to making the most important weapon you need. A variety of spears and axe to hunt for meat.

A few hours later, you were finally finished with the axe, the pointed blade was still dull in your opinion but it could chop up trees if you so pleased to do so and thats what you were doing as your newly made axe created sharp cuts to the tree with precision.

Senku has longed went out his way to continue on his observation of the nitric acid and its effects on the stone casing.

You, on the other hand focused on chopping down more wood for the fire and the making of your little home.

Heh.

Yours and Senku's home.

'AHHHHHH'

Your face turned bright red as you speedily chopped the tree down while your mind raced through the almost inappropriate things when you think about your supposed puppy crush that lasted for 3,700 years.

'We're literally sleeping next to each other!'

'Does that mean we're married?!'

'ONG WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU Y/N'

You didn't even noticed you were chopping up air as you continued striking where the log has been through your flustered state. You collapsed into the floor then rolled on it like you would have done in the comfort of your bed and then scream on it to your pillow after watching the legend of the blue sea.

You kicked your feet to the air as you try to let the feelings be expelled from your body.

'OUT'

'OUT YOU VILE FEELINGS'

Even a rock's life has to be better than this.

—-

6 months in the stone world but it didn't mean you were used to it. There were multiple scenarios where you think you would never get used to it, like this day because

WHY WERE YOU IN THIS POSITION RIGHT NOW?!

You were laying down super still in the bed—it was literally just a bunch of leather stack together but ok, not daring to move and learn the way of the rock as you try to fall asleep again.

But how could you exactly? The scientist was pressed up against you, relishing the warmth of your body as if you were a warm body pillow. His legs were intertwined with yours and his arms were gripping on your waist, subconsciously pulling you closer to him as his face lay on your chest.

Your face is probably enough to heat up and melt iron and that would just be an understatement. The blood rushed into your face as you try not to squirm away.

'Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit'

It was too intense for you

That eventually you ended up with passing out.

——-

What goes on in the mind of Senku?

Well for one it would be the continuous and subconscious counting of seconds, honed from the time where he turned into stone. It just became ingrained into his body. But other than that, what else?

Well theres science and his multiple ongoing hypothesis of the phenomenon that turned humans into stone and the cure for it.

But about his personal life and viewpoint of you? Well. He didn't have a prior interest at you.

No, not at all.

He appreciated your work ethic and your willingness to listen and share your knowledge to him back in the days of technology.

But other than that, he never knew you as much as Yuzuriha does.

Granted, the brunette was your friend since childhood and was the president of your club.

Lately the scientist noticed with just how much you are changing or maybe you werent.

For most of the moments he knew you, he would only see the girl who fangirls on the fictional guys she reads on, the girl who was known to be one of the sweetest and kindest in the campus.

The type of girl who would be the dream of every man and woman in the world.

And here you are on his arms, the world has long fallen apart into something that is so unfamiliar to both of you and yet you still have the luxury to fall asleep in vulnerability by his side.

Your hair was messily crumpled to your face, hiding the features that could make anyone swoon. His fingers couldn't help but tuck the hair into the back of your ears.

You encha-

No

That was wrong, feelings are illogical.

——————