#therogueflame

You rolled your wrist, trying to shake out the ache. The sword felt heavier now, your fingers sluggish around the grip, sweat making the leather slick. You adjusted your stance and lifted the blade again.

“Again,” Baelor said gently behind you.

Your brother’s voice was as familiar as your own breath.

You had not heard him approach. You rarely did. He had always moved like that, quiet-footed since childhood, forever appearing at your shoulder when you least expected it. One moment you were alone, the next his warmth was at your back, close enough that you could feel it through your shirt. His hand slid over yours, broad and callused, guiding your fingers into place the same way he had when you were small enough to hold a wooden practice blade.

He adjusted your thumb and knuckles with careful patience, slow and deliberate, as if you might bruise under too much pressure.

“Not so tight,” he murmured near your ear. “You’re fighting the blade.”

“I am not,” you said, though your voice came out thinner than you meant.

“You are,” he replied, fond and certain. “Relax. Let it move.”

He stepped closer as he spoke, chest brushing your back. His other hand settled at your waist to steady you, thumb resting just above your hipbone. The touch was practical, familiar, the way it had always been when he corrected you.

It still made your breath hitch anyway.

You lifted the sword again, trying to follow his instruction.

“No.”

The word cut clean through the warm quiet.

Maekar crossed the sand toward you with long strides, dark hair damp with sweat, sleeves shoved up to his elbows. He did not slow when he reached you. He simply stepped into your space and took the sword straight out of your hands like it belonged to him.

“That stance will get her killed,” he said.

Baelor’s hand did not leave your waist. “It will keep her from exhausting herself in the first exchange.”

Maekar shoved the hilt back into your palms and adjusted your grip with brisk efficiency. His fingers were hotter than Baelor’s, rougher too, moving you without hesitation. He pushed your shoulder down, angled your arm, then planted his hand low on your hip and turned you a few inches like you weighed nothing.

“Like this,” he said. “Center your weight. If someone hits you, you hold.”

You swallowed. “You’re both contradicting each other.”

“You should listen to me,” Maekar said.

“You should listen to me,” Baelor said at the same time.

It would have been ridiculous if it weren’t so typical. They had been arguing over how best to teach you since you could walk.

Their hands stayed where they were.

Baelor’s at your waist. Maekar’s just beneath it.

You could feel the heat of them through your clothes, one on each side, guiding and correcting as if you belonged there between them. Your pulse thudded embarrassingly loud in your ears.

“Lift your elbow,” Baelor said softly.

“Lower it,” Maekar said.

“She needs flexibility.”

“She needs stability.”

“She needs both,” you muttered.

Neither paid you any mind.

Baelor adjusted your wrist again, his fingers sliding down your forearm. Maekar’s hand tightened at your hip to keep you from moving the way Baelor wanted. Their knuckles brushed over your side.

Then stayed.

It was the smallest contact, barely anything at all, but it felt like lightning. Both of them went still at once. You felt it in the way their hands paused, the way their breathing changed. Slowly, their gazes lifted.

Not to you.

To each other.

It was not anger exactly. Not yet. Something sharper. Measuring. Territorial. The look men gave across a tourney field before the first charge.

“Let go,” Maekar said quietly.

“I’m supporting her,” Baelor replied.

“So am I.”

You stood between them like a contested prize, the sword still raised uselessly in your hands.

“If you’re both finished using me as an example,” you said, trying for dry humor, “I would like to actually practice.”

Neither answered.

Baelor’s thumb flexed against your waist, almost unconsciously. Maekar’s fingers tightened at your hip as if to anchor you there. Your skin burned where they touched you.

“Strike,” Baelor said.

You obeyed, swinging forward. The blade cut the air cleanly, but before you could recover Maekar stepped in, catching your wrist and redirecting the motion, guiding you through a sharper, faster follow-through.

“Again,” he said.

You did.

This time Baelor corrected your shoulders mid-swing, pressing you back into alignment. You stumbled half a step and both of them steadied you at once, hands firm, bodies close enough that you could feel the heat of their chests on either side. For a moment you were trapped between them, sand shifting under your boots, their grips tight and certain.

Not unpleasantly.

Your breath stuttered.

Maekar noticed. His eyes flicked down to your mouth before lifting again. Baelor noticed that, his hand tightening almost imperceptibly at your waist. Something shifted in the air, heavier now, thicker than the dust.

“You’re distracting her,” Maekar said.

“I’m teaching her,” Baelor replied.

“You’re coddling her.”

“And you’re manhandling her.”

“I don’t mind,” you said.

They both went quiet. Both looked at you. Then, slowly, at each other again.

The yard had gone nearly silent, banners rustling overhead, the last scrape of boots fading beyond the gates. It felt like the three of you were alone in the world. Baelor’s hand never left your waist. Maekar’s never left your hip. Neither seemed inclined to move, like stepping back would mean conceding something neither of them intended to lose.

You realized with a slow, dizzy clarity that they were not touching you by accident anymore. They were touching you because the other one was. Because neither would yield the space. Because neither meant to let go first.

“Well?” you said softly. “Are you going to keep arguing, or are you going to teach me?”

Baelor’s mouth curved faintly. “Again.”

Maekar’s grip tightened just enough to make you shiver. “Again.”

You did not remember the last few swings. Only the heat of them on either side of you. The steady correction of your wrist. The firm pressure at your hip. Their voices low and close to your ears, overlapping until you could not tell whose breath brushed your skin. When at last the sword slipped from your fingers and thudded into the sand, all three of you stilled at once, breathing hard.

“That’s enough,” Baelor said quietly.

Maekar did not argue, which might have unsettled you more than anything. He simply reached down, picked up the sword, and handed it back to a passing squire without taking his eyes off you.

The walk to the Keep began without discussion. It simply happened. You wiped your palms on your trousers and stepped toward the archway that led inside, and they fell into place beside you like they had done it a thousand times before.

Only now there was nowhere to escape them.

The corridor was narrower than the yard, the stone walls holding the day’s warmth. Your boots tracked sand across the floor, the sound soft and rhythmic. Baelor took your right without thinking. Maekar claimed your left just as naturally. You were aware, acutely, of the way their arms brushed yours with every step.

Too close to be accidental.

Too close to ignore.

Baelor reached for your hand first. He turned your wrist gently, examining the leather glove like you were still a child who needed tending. His brow furrowed.

“You’ve split the seam,” he said. His thumb traced the worn patch near your palm. “You’ll blister.”

“I’ll survive,” you said.

“I know.” His voice softened. “Hold still.”

He loosened the laces and retied them tighter, slower than necessary. His fingers slid over your knuckles, your pulse, the inside of your wrist. Every touch deliberate, careful, reverent. The corridor felt too warm suddenly.

On your other side, Maekar made an impatient sound in his throat. “You’re fussing.”

“I’m fixing it.”

“She’s not wounded.”

“She will be if I don’t.”

Maekar stepped closer anyway, his shoulder brushing yours. His hand found the buckle of your sword belt without asking permission. “Here.”

Before you could protest, he unfastened it and slid the belt free. The leather dragged across your hips as he pulled it loose, slow enough that you felt every inch of it. His knuckles grazed your waist. He did not hurry. He never hurried.

“I can take that myself,” you said.

“I’ve got her,” he replied.

Baelor glanced up, expression mild but edged. “Clearly.”

The word hung between them, quiet and sharp.

They did not look at each other, but you could feel it. The competition threading through every small gesture. Baelor brushing dust from your sleeve. Maekar taking the belt and slinging it over his shoulder like it belonged there. Baelor adjusting the strap of your bracer. Maekar’s hand settling briefly at the small of your back to guide you around a crack in the floor you would have stepped over easily.

You did not need guiding.

They knew that.

They did it anyway.

Their shoulders bumped once. Neither apologized. Neither yielded an inch of space.

You were suddenly hyperaware of the corridor’s tightness. Of their thighs nearly brushing yours. Of the heat of their bodies bleeding through linen and leather. Of how easily either of them could reach for you at any moment.

“Don’t crowd her,” Baelor said quietly.

“I’m not,” Maekar replied.

“You are.”

“She hasn’t complained.”

They both looked at you.

Your mouth went dry. “I’m fine.”

That only seemed to make it worse.

Baelor’s hand settled at your waist again, familiar, protective. Maekar’s fingers hooked into the fabric at your hip, tugging you half an inch closer like he refused to let Baelor have more of you than he did. The touches overlapped. Hands nearly brushing. Neither retreating.

You wondered if they even realized how much they were touching you. Or if they did and simply refused to stop.

You tried to focus on the sound of your footsteps, the flicker of torchlight along the walls, anything but the steady pressure on both sides of you. But every small thing betrayed you. Baelor’s thumb tracing idle circles through the fabric at your waist. Maekar’s knuckles grazing your hip when he shifted the belt. The way they leaned in close when they spoke, voices low enough that only you could hear.

“I’ll see her back,” Baelor said.

“I already am,” Maekar answered.

Silence followed. Thick and heavy.

Their shoulders bumped again.

Still neither moved away.

You exhaled slowly, realizing with a strange, fluttering certainty that the tension from the yard had not broken at all. It had only tightened. Stretched thinner. More deliberate. Every step deeper into the Keep felt like winding a bowstring further and further back.

Caught between them, hemmed in by stone and heat and two steady hands that refused to leave you, you wondered which one of them would let go first.

Neither seemed inclined to lose.

The small solar near the yard door appeared almost by instinct. You pushed it open without announcing anything, grateful for somewhere to sit, somewhere to breathe that was not a corridor barely wide enough for your shoulders.

They followed you in automatically.

Neither of them hesitated.

The door shut behind you with a soft, solid thud.

The room trapped the day’s warmth. Leather, oil, dust, sweat. The air felt thick, close, intimate in a way it had never seemed before. There was only one bench, one narrow table, one rack of spare gear. Too small for three people who had just come off the training field.

Too small for Baelor’s broad shoulders, too small for Maekar’s restless energy, too small for the way both of them crowded near you without thinking.You sat heavily on the bench and reached for your boots, but you barely got your fingers on the straps before Baelor was already kneeling.

“Let me,” he said quietly.

You didn’t argue. You never did with him.

He rested one knee on the stone and took your ankle gently in both hands, thumbs warm through the leather as he loosened the laces. His movements were slow, methodical, careful not to tug too hard. Like you were something fragile.

Behind you, Maekar made a soft sound of impatience and stepped closer.

“Hold still,” he muttered, already reaching for the clasps at the back of your armor.

You hadn’t even asked.

Metal clicked softly as he worked them free, fingers sure and efficient. Where Baelor’s touch lingered, Maekar’s moved with quiet confidence, sliding beneath straps, undoing buckles in seconds. His knuckles brushed the back of your neck, then your shoulders, then lower along your spine as each fastening gave way.

You inhaled sharply before you could stop yourself.

Neither commented.

Baelor tugged the first boot free and set it aside. His hand stayed at your calf a moment longer than necessary, steadying you as you shifted your weight. His thumb traced a small, absent circle against your skin, thoughtless and gentle.

Maekar slid the loosened plate from your shoulders, his palm spreading briefly at the small of your back to keep you from tipping forward.

Between them, you barely had to move at all.

It was strangely easy. Natural. Like this was something they’d always done.

Like you belonged exactly here.

One kneeling.

One standing close behind.

Both touching you without hesitation.

The room felt warmer by the second.

Baelor reached for your other boot at the same moment Maekar reached around you for the last buckle at your side. Their arms crossed in front of you, creating a wall of muscle and heat. Your breath caught as Maekar's chest pressed briefly against your back, his fingers working at the stubborn clasp while Baelor's hands slid up your calf to steady you.

"I can manage," you said, but the words came out breathy, unconvincing.

Neither acknowledged your protest. Maekar's knuckles grazed your ribs as the final buckle gave way. The pressure of the armor released, leaving you feeling oddly vulnerable in just your thin shirt. Baelor's fingers lingered at your ankle, his thumb tracing the hollow there with deliberate care.

"You pushed too hard today," he murmured, gaze fixed on the reddened skin where your boot had rubbed.

"She can handle it," Maekar countered, but his hand at your hip said something different. Gentle. Almost possessive.

You sat perfectly still between them, caught in the strange gravity they created. The room had shrunk to just the three of you—Baelor kneeling before you, Maekar standing behind, both watching you with expressions that made your skin flush hot.

"You don't need both of us fussing," Maekar said, though he made no move to leave. His fingers trailed up your side where the armor had been, testing for bruises he knew weren't there.

"Apparently I do," you replied, aiming for lightness and missing by a mile. Your voice came out too soft, too breathless.

Baelor's eyes darkened at the sound. "We've always looked after you."

The way he said it—soft, almost reverent—made your pulse stutter. You could feel Maekar's breath against your neck, his heat at your back, while Baelor's hands continued their slow path upward.

"Always," Maekar agreed, his voice rougher than his brother's but no less intent. His fingers traced a path along your shoulder, finding the place where muscle had tensed during training. When he pressed his thumb against the knot there, you couldn't help the small sound that escaped you.

Baelor's eyes flicked up to meet yours at the noise, then drifted past you to his brother. Something unspoken passed between them—a challenge, a question, a decision. You couldn't read it, but you could feel the shift in the air, the way the tension crystallized into something sharper, more deliberate.

"You're sore," Baelor said softly, his thumb pressing gently into the muscle of your calf. "You should have stopped earlier."

"I'm fine," you managed, though your voice betrayed you, coming out breathless and thin.

Baelor's hands slid higher, past your calf to the sensitive back of your knee. His touch was gentle but deliberate, thumb tracing small, teasing circles against your skin. Maekar's hands worked at the knot in your shoulder with more pressure, his callused fingers finding the exact spot that ached. The dual sensations made you dizzy—Baelor's gentleness below, Maekar's strength above.

"She says she's fine," Maekar murmured, though his touch belied his words. He was not treating you like someone who was fine. His fingers worked deeper, finding tension you hadn't realized was there, drawing a soft gasp from your lips.

Baelor's hands paused at the sound. "Is that too much?"

"No," you whispered before you could stop yourself.

The air in the room seemed to thicken. Baelor's thumb traced a slow, deliberate path up the inside of your thigh, stopping just short of impropriety. Maekar's hands slid down to your waist, steadying you as you shifted under Baelor's touch. The warmth of his palms seeped through your thin shirt, a stark contrast to the cooler air against your newly exposed skin.

"See? Not too much," Maekar murmured, his lips close enough to your ear that you could feel the warmth of his words. "She can handle more than you think."

Baelor's eyes never left yours as his hand stilled high on your thigh, thumb resting dangerously close to where your legs met. "Is that true?" he asked softly. "Can you handle more?"

The question hung in the air, weighted with meaning that went far beyond training and sore muscles. Your heart hammered in your chest, skin prickling with heat that had nothing to do with exertion. The truth was dangerous, but it slipped past your defenses anyway.

"Yes," you whispered.

Something changed in Baelor's eyes—a flicker of restraint giving way. Maekar's hands tightened at your waist, his chest pressing more firmly against your back. For a moment, neither moved, as if testing whether you'd take the word back.

You didn't.

"Look at her," Maekar murmured to his brother, his breath hot against your neck. "She's been waiting for this."

Baelor's thumb traced one more deliberate circle on your inner thigh. "Have you?"

Words failed you. Your breath came too quick, too shallow, your nod barely perceptible. A confession without words.

Baelor's fingers tightened on your thigh as his other hand rose to cup your face. His thumb traced your lower lip, feather-light, testing. "How long?"

"Too long," Maekar answered for you, his mouth suddenly at your neck, the barest graze of teeth against your pulse. "She watches us in the yard. When we spar. When we train." His hand slid up your side, just beneath the curve of your breast. "Thinks we don't notice."

Heat flooded your face. You hadn't realized they'd seen.

"Is he right?" Baelor asked, still holding your gaze, his thumb continuing its torturous path across your lip.

You couldn't lie. Not with both of them touching you, reading every tremor in your body. "Yes." Baelor's eyes darkened at your admission, his pupils expanding until only a thin ring of color remained. His thumb pressed more firmly against your lip, parting them slightly.

"And what do you think about?" he asked, voice low. "When you watch us?"

Maekar's mouth was still at your neck, his breath hot against your skin. You felt his teeth graze your pulse point, testing, before his lips pressed there in something too deliberate to be anything but a kiss.

"Tell us," he murmured against your skin.

Your head tilted back instinctively, giving him better access. The movement pushed you further into his chest, your back against his warmth, your throat exposed. Baelor watched the motion with undisguised hunger, his hand still firm on your thigh.

"I think about..." Your voice faltered. It was one thing to have these thoughts alone "...this," you whispered, the confession barely audible. "Your hands. Both of you."

The words hung in the air, honest and raw. Maekar's teeth scraped gently against your neck, not quite a bite, while Baelor's thumb pressed more firmly against your lower lip.

"Our hands," Baelor repeated softly. "Like now?"

You nodded, unable to form words as Maekar's palm finally slid up to cup your breast through your shirt. The weight of his hand made you arch slightly, pressing yourself more firmly into his touch.

"And what else?" Maekar murmured against your skin, his voice rougher than before. His thumb brushed over your nipple, a deliberate circle that drew a soft gasp from your lips.

"More," you whispered, the word barely audible.

Baelor's fingers dug deeper into your thigh, the pressure sending sparks of heat through your body. His gaze never left yours, watching every reaction, every flutter of your lashes as Maekar's thumb continued its torturous circles over your hardening nipple.

"More what?" Baelor asked, his voice deceptively gentle. His thumb traced the seam of your lips, pressing just enough to feel the wetness behind them. "You need to be specific."

Maekar chuckled against your neck, the vibration traveling down your spine. "She's shy now? After watching us for months?" His teeth grazed your earlobe, making you shiver. "After following us into empty corridors? Standing too close in the armory?"

Your cheeks burned. You hadn't realized they'd noticed every incidental moments. Had they always known? The thought made your pulse race faster, your skin heating with more than just embarrassment.

"I didn't think you saw me," you admitted, voice barely above a whisper.

"We see everything," Baelor murmured, his thumb pressing more firmly against your lower lip until you parted for him. The pad of his thumb slipped past your teeth, resting against your tongue, salt and leather and heat. "Everything."

Maekar's hand kneaded your breast more deliberately now, no pretense of checking for injuries. His other hand slid down to your hip, fingers digging into the muscle there, anchoring you against him.

"Tell us what you want," he demanded against your ear, his voice rough-edged and impatient. "Say it."

Baelor's thumb withdrew from your mouth, leaving a trail of dampness across your lip. His eyes never left yours, watching the way your breath quickened, the way you swallowed hard before answering.

"Both of you," you whispered, the confession burning in your throat. "I want both of you." Your confession hung in the air between them, raw and honest. For a moment, neither moved—as if giving you a chance to take the words back, to retreat from the precipice you'd just approached.

But you didn't want to retreat. You'd thought about this too many times, imagined it in the darkness of your chamber when sleep wouldn't come. Both of them. Their hands. Their mouths. The impossibility of choosing between them when you'd always wanted both.

Baelor moved first, unfolding himself from the floor with a smooth, catlike inevitability. The shift brought him dangerously close, erasing whatever boundary had existed between you. His hands slid up your legs as he rose, one anchoring above your knee, the other bracing lightly at your waist, steadying you. The heat of his palms burned through your clothes, as if you wore nothing at all. He rose to his full height, and suddenly you were looking up at him, at the intensity in his eyes, at the way his hair had fallen carelessly across his brow. The air between the three of you seemed to vibrate, electric with anticipation and something more elemental, something greedy and selfish.

Baelor didn't hesitate. The look on his face was not one of uncertainty, but of satisfaction, as if he’d just solved an equation that had lingered in his mind for years. His gaze flicked to his brother behind you, then back to you, and a slow, wicked smile curled his lips. You felt Maekar tense at your back, his grip tightening on your hip, as if bracing for what Baelor would do next.

Baelor bent forward, his mouth hovering just above yours, close enough for you to taste the heat of his breath, but far enough that you’d have to close the distance yourself. His hand left your knee and cupped your face, thumb brushing the apple of your cheek, his touch reverent yet claiming. For the briefest moment, you wondered if he would actually kiss you, or if he’d make you ask for it again—if that was the game he was playing.

"Both," he repeated, his voice low and thoughtful. His fingers traced your jawline, tilting your face toward his. "You've always been greedy."

Behind you, Maekar made a sound like a growl. "She's always known what she wanted." His teeth grazed the sensitive spot where your neck met your shoulder, no longer tentative. "Haven't you?"

The dual assault left you dizzy—Baelor's face hovering above yours, his thumb tracing your cheek, while Maekar's mouth worked against your neck, hot and demanding. You couldn't answer, couldn't find words when your body was singing with sensation.

"I asked you a question," Maekar murmured against your skin, his hand tightening possessively at your breast.

"Yes," you gasped, the word barely formed before Baelor closed the distance and captured your mouth with his.

His kiss was nothing like you'd imagined—and you had imagined it, countless times. It was not gentle or hesitant. It was not the quiet reverence you'd expected from him. It was hot and hungry, the culmination of a restraint that had finally snapped. His mouth moved against yours with certainty, his tongue teasing the seam of your lips before pressing inside, claiming you with a confidence that left you breathless.

Maekar's hands tightened at your waist, as if unwilling to yield even an inch of you to his brother. His teeth closed more firmly on your neck, a sharp counterpoint to Baelor's kiss that drew a muffled sound from your throat. The contrast was dizzying—Baelor's mouth possessing yours, Maekar's teeth marking your skin.

The pleasure of it was overwhelming—too much sensation, too many points of contact. You were caught between them, suspended in their shared hunger, unable to do anything but surrender to it. Baelor's kiss deepened, one hand sliding into your hair to angle your face exactly how he wanted it. The gentle brother, the measured one, kissed you like he'd been starving for it, like he might devour you whole.

Maekar's patience had clearly run out. His hand left your breast and tangled in your hair, pulling your head back from Baelor's kiss. The sudden separation made you gasp, eyes flying open to find Baelor staring down at you with dark, possessive heat. Before you could speak, Maekar turned your face toward him and claimed your mouth with bruising intensity.

Where Baelor had been consuming, Maekar was conquering. His kiss was harder, demanding, his tongue sliding against yours with deliberate skill. His hand fisted in your hair, controlling the angle, keeping you exactly where he wanted you. You felt the scrape of his stubble against your skin, the heat of his mouth, the insistent pressure of his lips.

Your mind spun with the contrast between them. Baelor's kiss had been consuming but measured, a careful claiming. Maekar took what he wanted with unapologetic hunger.

When he finally released you, your lips felt bruised, your breath coming in short, uneven gasps. Maekar's eyes were dark with satisfaction as he looked past you to his brother."Well?" Maekar said, his voice a rough challenge. "Which do you prefer?"

The question hung in the heated air between them. Your lips still tingled from both their kisses, your body caught in the space they created. You couldn't answer—couldn't choose—and they knew it.

Baelor's hand slid back to your face, thumb tracing your lower lip, swollen now from Maekar's attention. "She doesn't need to choose," he said softly. His eyes never left yours as he spoke, watching every flicker of expression. "Do you?"

You shook your head, the small movement making Maekar's grip in your hair tighten. The slight sting sent heat curling through your belly.

"Say it," Maekar demanded against your ear. "Tell us again what you want."

The word fell from your mouth, heavy with desire: "Both." Your voice trembled, then steadied. "I want everything—you, and you. Please.”

A slow, satisfied smile spread across Baelor's face. He exchanged a look with his brother over your shoulder—some silent communication passing between them that made your skin prickle with anticipation.

"Then you shall have us," Baelor murmured, his thumb brushing your lower lip once more. "But not here."

"Not like this," Maekar agreed, his voice rough against your ear. Without another word, Maekar released your hair and stepped back just enough for you to stand on unsteady legs. Baelor's hand found yours, fingers intertwining with a possessive certainty that sent heat coursing through your veins. The simple touch felt more intimate than it should have, his thumb tracing small circles against your palm.

"Come," he said quietly, the command gentle but brooking no argument.

Maekar's hand settled at the small of your back, guiding you toward the door with a pressure that made your skin burn through the thin fabric of your shirt. Neither seemed willing to relinquish contact, keeping you between them as Baelor led the way through the corridors.

The walk felt endless. Your legs trembled slightly with each step, anticipation and lingering exertion making you unsteady. Every brush of their bodies against yours—a shoulder here, a hip there—sent electricity through your nerves. Maekar's fingers slid beneath the hem of your shirt as you walked, grazing the heated skin of your lower back. Baelor's thumb continued its maddening circles against your palm, a small point of contact that somehow felt more intimate than it had any right to be.

The corridors were mercifully empty. Whether by design or luck, you encountered no one as Baelor led you deeper into the Keep, past the familiar routes to your own chambers, toward the royal wing. Your heartbeat quickened with each step, awareness dawning of exactly where they were taking you.

"Someone will see," you whispered, though the protest sounded weak even to your own ears.

"Let them," Maekar murmured, his voice a dark promise that made your skin flush hot. His hand pressed more firmly against your back, urging you forward when your steps faltered. "I want everyone to know."

Baelor's grip on your hand tightened, neither confirming nor denying his brother's declaration. Instead, he led you around a final corner to a heavy wooden door you recognized immediately. The royal apartments. His chambers.

When the door closed behind the three of you, the sound echoed with finality. The room was larger than yours, dominated by a massive bed draped in rich fabrics. A fire burned low in the hearth despite the day's warmth, casting long shadows across the stone floor. The air smelled of sandalwood and leather, of Baelor's particular scent.

For a moment, none of you moved. The reality of what was happening—what was about to happen—settled over you like a physical weight. You stood between them, caught in the gravity they created, your heart hammering against your ribs.

Maekar's hands slid around your waist, pulling you back against his chest as Baelor stepped forward. You found yourself trapped between them once more, but this time there was no pretense of training, no excuse of checking for injuries. This was deliberate. Wanted.

"Last chance," Baelor murmured, his hand coming up to cup your face. "Tell us to stop, and we will."

"I don't want you to stop," you whispered, the confession hanging in the heated air between you.

Something shifted in Baelor's expression then—a final restraint falling away. His thumb traced your lower lip before he bent to capture your mouth again, this time with a hunger that made your knees weak. Behind you, Maekar's lips found the sensitive spot where your neck met your shoulder, teeth grazing the skin there as his hands worked at the laces of your shirt with deft, impatient fingers. The dual assault left you gasping, caught between Baelor's demanding kiss and Maekar's teeth at your neck. Your head swam with the sensation, too much and not enough all at once.

Maekar tugged your laces free with practiced ease, his warm hands slipping beneath the loosened fabric to slide against your bare skin. The calluses on his palms created a delicious friction that made you arch into his touch. Behind you, you felt rather than heard his satisfied chuckle, the vibration rumbling through his chest and into your back.

"She's responsive," he murmured against your neck, his voice a heated whisper meant for his brother's ears as much as yours. "Always has been."

Baelor broke the kiss, his breathing heavier now, his eyes dark as he watched Maekar's hands moving beneath your shirt. His thumb brushed your cheek in a gesture almost tender, contrasting with the heat in his gaze.

"She always has been," he agreed, voice low. "Even when we were teaching her to ride. Remember how she trembled when we lifted her onto the saddle?"

Maekar hummed agreement against your neck, his hands sliding higher beneath your loosened shirt, fingertips grazing the underside of your breasts. "This is better."

You couldn't suppress the shiver that ran through you at his touch, at the way they discussed you as if you weren't there—as if you were a shared secret between them. The casualness of it, the ease with which they touched you, spoke of desires long harbored but never voiced.

Baelor's hands reached for the hem of your shirt, lifting it slowly, deliberately, his knuckles grazing the heated skin of your stomach as he pulled upward. You raised your arms instinctively, allowing him to draw the fabric over your head. The cooler air of the chamber kissed your exposed skin, raising goosebumps that Maekar immediately soothed with his palms.

"Beautiful," Baelor murmured, his gaze traveling over your bare torso with undisguised hunger. His hands hovered just above your skin, not quite touching, making you ache for contact.

Maekar was less patient. His hands cupped your breasts from behind, thumbs circling your nipples until they hardened into tight peaks. The rough calluses on his fingers created a delicious friction that drew a soft gasp from your lips.Baelor finally reached out, his hands joining Maekar's, fingers brushing against yours as they both explored your exposed skin. The sensation of four hands on your body at once sent a wave of dizziness through you, your head falling back against Maekar's shoulder as they touched you.

Baelor stepped closer, eliminating what little space remained between your bodies. His chest pressed against yours, trapping Maekar's hands between you as he bent to capture your mouth once more. This kiss was deeper, hungrier, his tongue sliding against yours with deliberate intent. You felt surrounded, consumed by them both—Baelor's mouth demanding your surrender while Maekar's hands continued their teasing exploration.

Their hands worked in tandem, as if they'd discussed this moment for years. Maekar's fingers pinched and rolled your nipples between calloused fingertips while Baelor's palms slid down your sides, mapping the curve of your waist before settling at the laces of your trousers. The dual sensation—Maekar's rougher touch at your breasts, Baelor's more measured exploration—left you trembling between them.

Baelor's fingers deftly worked the laces of your trousers, loosening them enough to slip his hand inside. The heat of his palm against your lower belly made you gasp against his mouth, your body arching instinctively into his touch. Behind you, Maekar made a sound of approval, his teeth grazing your earlobe as his hands continued their torturous attention to your breasts.

"She's trembling," Maekar murmured, his voice rough with satisfaction. "Can you feel it?"

Baelor hummed agreement against your lips, his fingers dipping lower, teasing along the edge of your smallclothes. "I can feel it," he replied, breaking the kiss to watch your face as his hand slid further down. "I wonder how wet she is."

Your face burned at his words, but the embarrassment only heightened the ache between your thighs. Baelor's eyes held yours as his fingers slipped beneath the fabric, finding the slick heat waiting there. His sharp intake of breath when he felt your wetness made your knees weak.

"Drenched," he murmured, his voice rough with approval. His fingers traced your folds with deliberate patience, exploring the evidence of your desire without quite giving you the pressure where you needed it most. "For both of us."

Maekar's hands tightened possessively at your breasts, his breathing heavier against your neck. "Let me feel," he demanded, one hand sliding down your stomach to join his brother's.

For a moment, you thought Baelor might refuse, might claim this pleasure for himself alone. But instead, his hand shifted, making room for Maekar's fingers to slip alongside his own. The sensation of both their hands between your th ighis was almost too much to bear. Different textures, different pressures—Baelor's touch measured and deliberate, Maekar's more demanding, both exploring your most intimate place with unhurried curiosity. Your hips bucked involuntarily, seeking more pressure, more friction.

"Patience," Baelor murmured against your mouth, though his own breathing had grown uneven. His middle finger circled your entrance without penetrating, gathering your wetness before sliding up to tease your clit with feather-light touches.

Maekar was less restrained. His finger pushed inside you without warning, the sudden intrusion drawing a broken moan from your lips. "So tight," he growled against your neck, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin there as his finger curled inside you.

The dual sensation—Baelor's teasing circles around your clit, Maekar's finger thrusting inside you—made your head spin. You were caught between them, trapped in the pleasure they created together, your body responding with shameless eagerness to their combined touch. The knowledge that they were touching you together, fingers overlapping between your thighs, sent a wave of molten heat through your core.

"The bed," Baelor murmured against your lips, though he made no move to release you. "Now."

Maekar withdrew his finger with reluctance, drawing a small, involuntary sound of protest from your throat that made both men chuckle. Without warning, Maekar's hands gripped your waist and lifted you as if you weighed nothing, turning you toward the massive bed that dominated the chamber.

Your loosened trousers slid down your hips as they guided you backward, Baelor's hands steadying you, Maekar's pushing you backwards until your legs hit the edge of the mattress. You fell onto the soft furs, your trousers sliding further down your thighs as you landed on your back. They stood over you for a moment, both pairs of eyes dark with hunger as they took in the sight of you—half-naked, breathless, skin flushed with desire.

"Look at her," Maekar murmured, his voice rough with approval. "Waiting for us."

Baelor's expression was more measured, but no less intense. His fingers worked at the laces of his own shirt, loosening them with deliberate patience. "She's been waiting a long time."

You watched, transfixed, as they undressed. Maekar was impatient, stripping off his training clothes with efficient movements, revealing sun-bronzed skin and hard muscle beneath. The scars that crossed his torso told stories of battles and training accidents, mapping a history of violence and victory across his skin. Baelor undressed more methodically, each movement deliberate as he revealed his body inch by inch. Where Maekar was all hard angles and barely contained energy, Baelor was fluid grace, his musculature more refined but no less powerful.

Your breath caught at the sight of them both, standing at the foot of the bed like twin aspects of the same desire. Different in their approach but identical in their hunger as they looked down at you.

Maekar reached for your trousers first, tugging them down your legs with impatient efficiency. The fabric scraped against your sensitized skin, drawing a soft gasp from your lips. Baelor's hands followed, gentler but no less insistent as he helped remove the last of your clothing until you lay completely bare before them.

"Spread your legs," Maekar commanded, his voice rough with desire. You obeyed instinctively, thighs parting under their hungry gazes. The cool air of the chamber kissed your most intimate place, making you acutely aware of how exposed you were, how vulnerable beneath their matched intensity.Maekar moved first, climbing onto the bed with predatory grace. His weight made the mattress dip as he positioned himself between your spread legs, his large hands gripping your thighs to push them wider apart. The hungry look in his eyes made your breath hitch as he lowered himself, his breath hot against your inner thigh.

"I've thought about tasting you for years," he murmured, his lips brushing against your sensitive skin. "Watching you in the yard, sweating, breathing hard. Wondering how you'd taste after a long day of training."

You couldn't respond, couldn't form words as his mouth moved higher, leaving a trail of heat along your inner thigh. The bed shifted again as Baelor joined you, positioning himself at your side, one hand sliding into your hair to turn your face toward him.

"Look at me," he commanded softly. "I want to see your face when he tastes you." His fingers tightened in your hair, not painfully but firmly enough to hold you still as Maekar's mouth finally found your core.

The first touch of his tongue against your sensitive flesh made you cry out, back arching off the bed. Maekar groaned against you, the vibration sending shockwaves through your body as he explored your folds with hungry precision. His hands gripped your thighs, holding them apart as his tongue circled your entrance before dipping inside.

"That's it," Baelor murmured, watching your expression intently as pleasure overwhelmed you. "Let us hear you."

Your eyes fluttered closed as Maekar's tongue flattened against your clit, applying delicious pressure that made your hips buck against his mouth. Baelor's hand immediately tightened in your hair, giving a sharp tug that made you gasp.

"Open your eyes," he commanded, his voice gentle but firm. "Watch what he's doing to you."

You forced your eyes open, meeting Baelor's intense gaze as Maekar's mouth worked between your thighs. The dual sensations—Maekar's tongue expertly circling your clit while Baelor's hand tightened in your hair—sent waves of pleasure through your body. Maekar groaned against you, the vibration making your hips jerk upward, seeking more.

"She tastes even better than I imagined," Maekar murmured against your flesh, his eyes dark with hunger as he glanced up at his brother. "You should taste her."

Baelor's thumb traced your lower lip, his gaze never leaving yours. "Soon," he promised, his voice thick with restraint. The heat in his eyes made you shiver, anticipation building in your core as Maekar's mouth continued its relentless assault. His tongue worked with practiced skill, alternating between broad strokes and precise flicks that had you trembling. Baelor's hand remained in your hair, keeping you anchored as pleasure threatened to sweep you away.

"She's close," Maekar murmured against your sensitive flesh, the vibration of his words sending sparks through your nerves. "I can feel it."

Baelor's free hand moved to your breast, thumb circling your nipple in time with Maekar's tongue. "Not yet," he commanded softly. "Make her wait."

Maekar hummed his agreement, slowing his pace deliberately, drawing back just enough to deny you the pressure you needed. Your hips lifted instinctively, seeking his mouth, but his hands pressed firmly against your inner thighs, holding you open and immobile.

"Please," you gasped, the word falling from your lips before you could stop it.

Baelor's eyes darkened at the sound, his grip in your hair tightening. "Listen to her beg," he murmured, a note of satisfaction in his voice. "I've waited years to hear that."

Maekar's laugh vibrated against your core, a dark chuckle that sent shivers up your spine. "She'll beg more before we're done with her." His tongue traced a torturous circle around your clit without touching it directly, the near-miss making your thighs tremble.

"Will you?" Baelor asked, his thumb brushing your nipple with maddening lightness. "Will you beg us properly?"

"Please," you whispered again, the word a desperate prayer between your lips. "Please don't stop."

Maekar's eyes gleamed with satisfaction, his mouth curving in a predatory smile against your flesh. "There it is," he murmured, the vibration of his words sending new waves of pleasure through your core. "Again."

"Please," you gasped, shame and desire twisting together in your chest as your hips strained against his iron grip. "I need—I need—"

"Tell us exactly what you need," Baelor commanded softly, his fingers still tangled in your hair. His other hand continued its torturous circles around your nipple, never providing enough pressure to satisfy. "Be specific."

Baelor's words made your face burn hot enough that you had to look away, but the emptiness pulsing between your legs left no room for hesitation. Your tongue darted out to wet your lips as you forced yourself to meet his gaze again. "I need to feel you," you breathed, voice cracking with desperation, "inside me, against me—anything—please—" The last word escaped as barely more than air.The last word left your lips as a plea, and something in Baelor's expression shifted. A decision made. His hand released your hair, sliding down to cup your face instead, his thumb tracing your cheekbone with surprising tenderness.

"We've been patient," he murmured, more to himself than to you. His eyes flicked to Maekar, who had paused between your thighs, watching the exchange with dark intensity. "Too patient."

Without another word, Baelor moved, positioning himself on his knees beside your head. His cock stood proud against his stomach, thick and flushed with need. The sight of it made your mouth water, your body clenching around nothing as you imagined how it would feel inside you.

"Open," he commanded softly, his thumb pressing against your lower lip.

You obeyed without hesitation, lips parting as Baelor guided the head of his cock to your mouth. The salt-sweet taste of him bloomed on your tongue as he pressed forward, his thickness stretching your lips. Above you, he made a sound somewhere between a groan and a sigh, his hand returning to your hair to guide your movements.

"Gods, look at her take it," Maekar murmured, his breath hot against your inner thigh as he watched. His fingers replaced his mouth, sliding through your folds with deliberate pressure. "She was made for this. For us."

Caught between them, you felt yourself dissolving into pure sensation—Baelor's cock sliding deeper into your mouth while Maekar's fingers circled your entrance. Your body trembled between them, caught in the pleasure they created together. Baelor's thumb stroked your cheek, feeling the shape of himself inside your mouth with reverent fascination. Your jaw ached pleasantly as he rocked deeper, testing your limits with careful precision.

"That's it," he murmured, voice strained as you hollowed your cheeks around him. "Take me deeper."

Maekar's fingers circled your entrance once more before pushing inside, two at once, the sudden stretch making you moan around Baelor's cock. The vibration drew a hiss from Baelor's lips, his hips jerking forward involuntarily. The sudden motion pushed him deeper into your throat, making you gag slightly before you adjusted. His hand immediately gentled in your hair, thumb stroking your temple in silent apology even as his eyes darkened with satisfaction.

"Careful," Maekar murmured, his fingers curling inside you with deliberate precision. "You'll choke her."

"She can take it," Baelor replied, his voice strained as he watched your lips stretch around him. "Can't you?"

You hummed agreement around his thickness, the vibration making him groan again. Between your legs, Maekar's fingers worked deeper, stretching you with careful insistence.

"She's ready," Maekar said, his voice rough as his fingers worked inside you, stretching you with deliberate care. The wet sounds of his movements filled the room, mingling with your muffled moans around Baelor's cock. "So wet I can barely keep hold."

Baelor's hand cupped your face, his thumb stroking your cheek as you worked your mouth around him. His eyes never left yours, watching every flicker of pleasure cross your features as Maekar's fingers curled against that perfect spot inside you.

When Maekar withdrew his fingers, the soft whimper you couldn’t suppress drew knowing smiles from both brothers—Baelor’s brow quirked even as his cock stayed buried between your lips, slick and throbbing. Maekar grasped himself, the impressive length poised hot and insistent between your thighs. His hungry gaze flicked down to where Baelor’s shaft vanished in your mouth before returning to your glistening slit.

Slowly, deliberately, Maekar positioned himself at your entrance. The head of him pressed in—warm, insistent—and you gasped around Baelor’s cock. Maekar’s eyes locked on yours as he pushed forward, the first inch stretching you exquisitely while Baelor’s cock filled your mouth, his pulse throbbing at the back of your throat.

“Gods,” Maekar growled, hands clamping on your hips with bruising intensity. “So tight.”

Baelor’s dark gaze never left you as he kept his length deep in your mouth, one hand cupping your cheek, his thumb brushing your lips. “Look at you,” he murmured around his cock. “Taking him so beautifully.”

Maekar sank deeper, inch by agonizing inch. The delicious burn as he seated himself fully inside you sent your back arching off the bed, your body adjusting around his impressive girth while Baelor’s spit-coated cock remained deep in your throat. When Maekar paused, buried to the hilt, he met your eyes with a satisfied smile.

“Breathe,” Baelor whispered, stroking your hair as the fullness overwhelmed you. His voice was muffled in your mouth, but reassuring.

Maekar began to move—pulling almost all the way out before driving home slowly. Each deliberate thrust radiated pleasure through you, your walls clenching around him, even as Baelor’s cock pulsed in your mouth, his breadth hot on your tongue. Baelor watched with undisguised hunger, one hand sliding down to cup your breast, thumb circling your nipple in sync with Maekar’s slow, powerful rhythm.

“How does she feel?” Baelor asked, his voice rough with anticipation, muffled though it was.

“Perfect,” Maekar growled, thrusting harder as you tightened around him. “Like she was made for this.”

Heat flooded your cheeks at his praise, and another wave of pleasure coiled through you. Maekar hissed as your walls clenched, hips stuttering for a moment before he found his pace again.

“She likes being praised,” Maekar observed, voice husky. “Tell her how good she is, brother.”

Baelor’s eyes grew heavy-lidded as he continued to fuck your mouth, sliding in deeper with each of Maekar’s strokes. His free hand drifted up to the hollow of your throat—gentle, possessive—sending electric shivers through you without choking or pressure. Your heart pounded under his touch, and without thinking, you wrapped your fingers around the base of his cock in your mouth, stroking him in time with his brother’s thrusts. The guttural sound he made vibrated against your tongue.

Baelor's control shattered with each thrust into your waiting mouth. "I can't—" he gasped, voice breaking as his hips stuttered forward. The prince who commanded armies now trembled above you, his composure crumbling as unfamiliar, raw sounds escaped his throat. His fingers tightened in your hair, his breathing ragged as pleasure overwhelmed his legendary restraint. "Perfect," Baelor whispered, voice strained. "So perfect with your mouth around me while he takes you."

Maekar's pace quickened, his hips snapping forward with increasing urgency. The dual sensations—his cock stretching you below while Baelor filled your mouth—pushed you toward a precipice you couldn't resist. Every nerve ending sang with pleasure, your body caught between them, used and worshipped in equal measure.

"She's close," Maekar growled, his fingers digging into your hips as he angled himself to hit that perfect spot inside you.

Baelor withdrew slightly, allowing you to breathe, his thumb tracing your swollen lips. "Not yet," he commanded softly. "Not until we say."

The order sent another wave of heat through your core, your walls clenching around Maekar's thickness as your body fought to obey. Pleasure coiled tighter, a spring wound to breaking point, but you forced yourself to hold back, to please them both.

"Good girl," Baelor murmured, his voice thick with approval. He guided his cock back between your lips, gentler now, letting you breathe between shallow thrusts. "So obedient."

Maekar's rhythm transformed, becoming methodical and precise—each powerful movement designed to keep you suspended at the precipice without allowing release. His fingers dug into your flesh as he widened your stance, tilting your hips until pleasure exploded through your core like shattered light. The disciplined prince began to falter, his measured cadence breaking as your body gripped him tighter with each plunge, his torso dropping closer to yours as the need for climax overtook his restraint. Maekar's face was transformed by desire—the stern lines softened, his usual severity replaced by raw hunger as he watched you stretched between them. Maekar's rhythm grew erratic, his powerful thrusts becoming desperate. His fingers dug into your hips hard enough to bruise as he drove deep one final time, his release hot and pulsing inside you. The sound he made—half growl, half groan—echoed through the chamber as his body shuddered against yours.

The sight of Maekar's climax, the hot, slick rush that painted your walls and dripped down your thighs, sent a matching shudder through Baelor. He never took his eyes off you, watching your face the moment Maekar gave in, the moment you trembled and mewled around Baelor's cock, your lips stretched wide and your tongue pressed flat beneath his crown. The sight of his brother undone—the quicksilver loss of composure, the deep growl torn from Maekar’s throat, his jaw clenched and sweat-slicked—made Baelor’s iron self-control unravel. You felt it in the frantic pulse of his cock, in the sudden tautness of his thighs, in the way his hand knotted in your hair and forced your mouth flush to the root, squeezing just enough to let you feel the wildness in him. And in the hot, desperate gasp that rose from the prince's lips, so unlike the careful, measured commands he'd given you moments before.

But Baelor didn't finish, not yet. He dragged himself back from that edge with a trembling shudder, withdrawing from your mouth with exquisite slowness. As he pulled free, a sticky web stretched between your lips and the tip of his cock, the sight of it kindling a flicker of pride in your chest. Baelor’s expression was transformed: the cool, regal mask was gone, replaced by something raw and feral and beautiful. His pupils were blown wide, his cheeks flushed, his lips parted in shallow breaths. He gazed down at you as if you held the answer to every riddle, and for once, he looked entirely mortal—devastating, but breakable. “Now I claim you,” he whispered, the words thick with urgency.

Maekar, chest heaving, collapsed beside you for a moment, his hand cupping your thigh, his fingers stroking little patterns into your skin as if to remind himself you were real, that he could touch you. There was a peculiar gentleness in his touch, a softness that belied his rough—almost brutal—release only seconds before. His other hand brushed sweat-matted strands from your forehead and tucked them delicately behind your ear, his thumb tracing the bruised curve of your jaw. He watched Baelor with hooded eyes as the elder brother stood, his cock dripping and glistening, then moved to the edge of the mattress with the purpose of a man intent on making good on a vow.

Baelor’s hands were gentle as they found your waist, lifting and turning you as though you weighed nothing, arranging you precisely as he wanted: on your knees, bent forward, elbows to the sheets, your ass held high and open, the fresh ache of Maekar’s climax still painting the insides of your thighs. Baelor spread your knees wider with his own, and for a moment he simply knelt behind you, his hands resting on your hips, his presence looming over your body like the shadow of a mountain. He drew his fingers up your sides, pausing to press into the softness just above your hipbones, then down again, leisurely, as if mapping you for the first time.

His fingertips grazed the backs of your knees, the flesh of your inner thighs, the curve of your buttocks, never lingering anywhere long enough to satisfy. Every caress sent a new tremor through you. Your cunt still clenched around emptiness, twitching with the last echoes of Maekar’s orgasm, but Baelor would not be rushed. He traced the puckered ridges left by Maekar’s hands, then dragged his thumbs apart to spread you further, making an appreciative noise as your slickness—Maekar’s and yours, mingled—glistened in the candlelight. He leaned forward, his breath feathering across your lower back, and pressed a slow, savoring kiss to your tailbone.

There was a reverence in Baelor’s every movement, as if he were performing a sacred rite rather than an act of conquest. His lips trailed up your spine, planting a slow series of kisses up each vertebra, pausing at the nape of your neck to inhale the scent of your hair. His hands never stopped moving, thumbs stroking circles into your hips, fingers splaying out like he might anchor you in place forever. Each touch was a promise: I see you, I want you, I will take my time learning every inch of you.

You tried to brace yourself for the first thrust, already trembling with anticipation, but Baelor only pressed the blunt head of his cock between your folds, letting it slip and slide through the mess Maekar had left behind. He rocked his hips, notching the tip at your entrance, but didn’t push forward. Instead, he uttered a command, soft but absolute: “Look at me.”

You craned your neck around, peering back over your shoulder. The sight of him behind you—hair loose, lips parted, chest rising and falling in ragged rhythm—sent another pulse of heat through your core. His eyes locked on yours, dark and all-consuming, and for a moment the world contracted to the space between the two of you. He reached forward, caressing your cheek with one hand, then slid that palm up and over your scalp, the pads of his fingers massaging your scalp in lazy circles. It was grounding, almost hypnotic, the way he kept you anchored in his gaze even as the rest of your body hovered on the precipice of sensation.

With your gaze pinned, Baelor finally pressed forward, entering you with slow, inexorable force. Inch by inch, he filled you, the stretch made all the more exquisite by the lingering soreness from Maekar. You moaned—long, low, and involuntary—as Baelor bottomed out, his pelvis flush against your buttocks. He held himself there, unmoving for a beat, letting you feel the totality of him inside you, the thick pressure of his cock and the possessive weight of his hands. He bent forward until his chest pressed your back, his lips at your ear.

As you exhaled, he began to move, drawing out with the same agonizing patience before sinking back in, every stroke measured and perfect. There was nothing frantic about Baelor’s rhythm; he fucked you with the same discipline he brought to swordplay, each movement precise, each withdrawal a calculated loss, each return a reclamation of territory. The friction set your nerves alight. The flare of pleasure was different from Maekar’s—less desperate, more inexorable, like a tide that would eventually sweep you under. Baelor’s hand on your neck, his cock inside you, his body pressed to your back: he surrounded you, boxed you in with pleasure and will.

Every time you squeezed around him, Baelor shuddered, his control straining at the edges, but he never broke pace. Instead, he brought his lips to your ear again, his voice a low growl: “Is this what you wanted? To be filled by me, even after Maekar?” You managed a breathless nod, which he answered with a cruel, sweet chuckle. “Good girl. That’s how I like you—stretched and trembling and desperate for more.”

From your new vantage, you became aware of Maekar, who had not been idle. He knelt before you on the mattress, his chest and belly streaked with sweat and the evidence of your shared pleasure. His cock, which you’d assumed spent, had already begun to harden again, the tip beading with anticipation as he watched Baelor claim you. Maekar leaned in, close enough that you could taste the salt of his skin, and pressed his lips to your temple, then to the corner of your mouth. “Open,” he said, echoing his brother’s command, and you parted your lips, your tongue darting out instinctively.

Maekar guided his cock to your lips, letting you taste the remains of his release as he slid along your tongue. The act was filthy, decadent, and you loved it. You moaned wantonly, the vibrations traveling up Maekar’s shaft as he thrust gently into your mouth. With Baelor’s rhythm measured and deep behind you, and Maekar filling your mouth with slow, deliberate strokes, you found yourself suspended in a kind of sensory stasis—every hole filled, every inch of your body belonging to them, the two brothers taking you in a rhythm as natural as breathing.

Baelor’s hand fisted in your hair, holding your head steady for Maekar, while his other hand gripped your hip, angling you to take him deeper. Maekar’s hand rested lightly on your crown, thumb stroking your cheek as he watched you service him. He didn’t push or force, just let you set the pace, the tip of his cock bumping the back of your throat in a steady, teasing rhythm.

The two brothers fell into a kind of unspoken accord: when Baelor thrust forward, Maekar withdrew; when Maekar pressed in, Baelor pulled back. It was as if they’d rehearsed this choreography a hundred times, the way they moved in perfect counterpoint, never crowding your boundaries but always keeping you full, always keeping you hungry. The alternating pressure in your ass, your cunt, your mouth became a wave of sensation, building and breaking, building and breaking, each cycle bringing you closer to a kind of pleasure that eclipsed language.

Sandwiched between them, you lost all sense of where your body ended and theirs began. Every inch of you belonged to them in this moment—claimed, worshipped, used in perfect harmony. The pressure built inside you, coiling tighter with each synchronized movement. Baelor's steady thrusts from behind sent shockwaves through your core while Maekar filled your mouth with deliberate patience, his eyes never leaving yours. The pleasure built beyond what you thought possible, caught between their bodies, suspended in their shared rhythm. Maekar's taste filled your mouth as Baelor's hips snapped forward with increasing urgency. The steady cadence they'd established began to falter as both men approached their limits.

"Look at her take us both," Maekar growled, his voice strained as his cock slid deeper between your lips. "Greedy little thing."

Baelor's grip tightened on your hips, his thrusts becoming more forceful. "She was always meant for this," he replied, puncutated by a thrust. "For us."

Their words sent another wave of heat through your core, your walls clenching around Baelor's thickness. The added pressure made him groan, his rhythm stuttering for a moment before he regained control.

"Now," Baelor commanded, his voice a harsh whisper against your ear. "Come for us now."

His permission broke the last thread of your restraint. The pleasure that had been building crashed through you in waves, your body convulsing between them as your walls clamped down around Baelor's cock. Your mouth tightened around Maekar, drawing a harsh groan from his lips as your throat worked involuntarily against him.

"That's it," Maekar growled, his hand tightening in your hair as you trembled.

Your vision blurred at the edges, pleasure overwhelming your senses as both men continued their relentless pace. Baelor's thrusts became more erratic, his legendary control finally slipping as your body milked him with each pulsing wave of your climax. His fingers dug into your hips, holding you where you belonged as he thrust deep one final time, his release hot and pulsing inside you. The sound he made—a low, broken groan—vibrated through your entire body as he filled you, his cock throbbing with each pulse.

Maekar followed moments later, his release flooding your mouth, hot and bitter-salt on your tongue. His grip in your hair tightened almost painfully as he held you still, making sure you took everything he had to give. "Swallow," he commanded roughly, watching your throat work as you obeyed.

The three of you collapsed together onto the sweat-dampened sheets, a tangle of limbs and ragged breathing. Your body ached beautifully, used and satisfied in ways you'd only imagined in your most secret dreams. Baelor's arm draped over your waist, pulling you against his chest, while Maekar settled on your other side, his hand resting possessively on your hip. You lay between them, heart still racing, body trembling with aftershocks as your breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Mine," Maekar murmured against your shoulder, his teeth grazing the skin there in a gentle bite.

"Ours," Baelor corrected softly, his lips brushing your temple. His fingers traced idle patterns on your stomach, dipping occasionally to the sensitive place between your thighs where both their releases mingled and leaked slowly onto the sheets.

You shivered at his touch, oversensitive but unwilling to pull away. The weight of their bodies on either side of you felt right somehow, as if this was where you had always belonged. Between them. Claimed by both. 

The room smells of blood, fresh linen, and melting candlewax. Voices rise and fall around you, distant and muffled, as if you lie submerged beneath dark water, hearing the world from far above. A healer murmurs at your shoulder; another speaks softly at your feet. You hear skirts rustle, the scrape of a basin across stone. A cool cloth presses to your brow—though who placed it there you cannot be certain.

“Breathe, my lady.”

As if you’d forgotten how.

You try. Pain seizes you again, a white-hot tide that erases thought. A raw cry tears from your throat.

“Again.”

A strong hand encloses yours. Familiar.

Valarr.

You can’t lift your head to see him, but you know the shape of his palm, the gentle pressure of his fingers. He has been your silent anchor through it all. Another contraction floods you; your vision blanches to white.

“One final push.”

A lie, but you obey.

All narrows to agony, to crushing pressure, to salt stinging your lips. Someone urges you onward. Then—release. An impossible emptiness. And then a cry: sharp, furious, alive.

Your mind falls silent.

Motion swirls around you—mouths moving, hands reaching, cloth passing between strangers, laughter of relief.

“A healthy child.”

Relief so profound your chest caves in. Healthy—thank the gods. Then the words that follow:

“A daughter.”

You turn your head, barely enough to see through tears and candlelight.

Valarr has stilled. No drama, no frown, no cruel words—only his grip on your hand loosening for a breathless heartbeat. That tiny shift feels colossal.

Your stomach drops.

He steps forward, gaze fixed on the small bundle in the healer’s arms, his face unreadable in the flickering glow. That cool, princely reserve is intact.

And then your own thoughts turn cruel.

Of course. Baelor’s son. A prince. Sons are heirs. The logic ancient as it is merciless.

The infant wails again, indignant and loud. An older attendant by the hearth smiles kindly. “Perhaps the next will be a boy.”

Something curdles inside you. Her tone was gentle—so much the worse.

You search Valarr’s face, waiting for outrage, correction, dismissal.

He says nothing.

His silence stretches long enough for humiliation to burn beneath your skin.

The healer lifts the swaddled infant to your chest. She is impossibly warm and smaller than you’d ever imagined—so tiny your next breath feels like a threat. Pale silver hair clings damp to her head. Her features, scrunched in fury at existence, are already achingly beautiful.

Your daughter.

Tears burn your eyes as the healer lifts her away again, and the absence gouges your heart.

Valarr remains silent. You cannot know the violence of thought behind that silence.

A son—that hard word strikes him like iron. Not because he wanted one, but because he knows exactly what a prince becomes: a child born burdened by names and duties he never asked for, measured and molded before he can comprehend it.

He understands heirship too well.

So when the healer asks softly, “My prince, would you like to hold her?” uncertainty crosses his face for the first time all night. Not reluctance—fear.

He moves forward.

You have seen him ride, wield swords, command councils with unwavering confidence. Now he cradles your daughter like a treasure made of sugar and starlight, so cautiously that one wrong move could shatter her. His broad hand nearly enfolds her whole back.

You should feel comforted. You know you should. But fatigue and hurt twist every emotion.

He studies her tiny face in silence. Then, voice low and almost to himself, he says, “She is very small.”

The words cut deeper than any pain before.

Too small. Too fragile. Not enough.

A daughter.

You turn your face into the pillow, hiding tears and shame, more exhausted than you have ever been.

From across the room, Valarr adjusted his hold, watching the faint rise and fall of her tiny chest as though the world’s fate depended upon it.

When sleep finally came, it did so in fragments. Not true rest, only brief stretches of blankness between pain and waking. Time lost all meaning within the birthing chamber. Morning might have arrived hours ago or mere moments before. Candles had been replaced, the linens changed, and the sharp scent of blood softened beneath lavender water and melted wax, though the faint metallic trace of it still lingered.

Your daughter lay swaddled in the cradle, so snug she looked impossibly small, her face turned toward the carved wood as if already affronted by the world.

Every time you looked at her, your chest softened. Every time you looked at Valarr, it tightened.

He was kind. Gentle. Attentive. He asked if you were in pain, if the healers had brought fresh water, if you needed anything adjusted. He kissed your brow once before dawn, brushing damp hair back with familiar tenderness. Yet something felt wrong—distant.

He spent long stretches silent, gaze fixed not on you but on the cradle, lost in thoughts he never voiced. When servants entered with trays or linens, he snapped into princely composure so quickly it made your teeth ache.

Then the congratulations began. Courtiers arrived in gentle waves—enough to drain you of strength. A lady clasped your hand and declared your daughter beautiful. Another praised the ease of the birth, which almost made you laugh. An older lord mused that healthy daughters often herald sturdy sons. Someone else chirped, “His Grace will be pleased”

It never stopped. Not overtly cruel—just the constant implication that this was only a beginning, not the whole. You dreaded every door’s opening. Valarr said nothing—not encouraging the remarks, not silencing them. You told yourself correcting fools would be exhausting. You told yourself many things, but the hurt spread nonetheless.

By afternoon your thoughts turned ugly, in that private way shame often does: I gave him a daughter when a prince needs sons. The thought lodged in your chest, whispering as a healer adjusted your pillows, as you watched your baby yawn. It sharpened every silence between you and Valarr. He was being kind—and kindness felt like polite disappointment, like restraint.

The announcement of Baelor’s arrival sent a ripple through the chamber. Servants straightened, voices hushed. Even weak and aching, you sensed the shift.

The Crown Prince entered with quiet gravity, dressed in silver and gold without ostentation. He looked older—worn by fatherhood, politics, responsibility.

When his gaze fell on the cradle, something softened—genuine warmth that comforted you. Valarr stood straighter.

“Father.” “Valarr.”

Baelor leaned over the cradle with solemn curiosity, as if inspecting something unexpectedly precious. “Well,” he said, “a fine beginning.”

Your stomach sank. Not harsh, not cold—just institutional. A beginning, as if your daughter were an opening statement, not a whole being. He nodded at you politely. “A healthy child is always cause for gratitude. The realm has use for healthy children.”

There it was. Valarr’s jaw tightened. You didn’t know he reacted to the idea itself; all you saw was his silence. Baelor continued, oblivious: “Your son will follow in time, no doubt.”

Your lungs forgot to work. Your heart dropped, making you nauseous. Silent agreement. Restraint. Baelor offered a few words on rest and recovery—you replied, smiled where expected, felt his fleeting touch on your shoulder. Then he was gone. The room exhaled relief, but the damage remained.

Valarr returned to the cradle at once, not to you, but to her. Even that felt strange. He didn’t scoop her up, coo, or parade her before visitors. He watched. Once you woke to find him utterly motionless at the cradle’s edge, staring so intently you feared something was wrong.

“What is it?” you rasped. “Nothing,” he said, then looked back at the baby.

Later he questioned a healer for ten minutes on feeding intervals, temperature, fussing, uneven breathing, hiccups—anything that might be abnormal. The healer answered with saintly patience, but to your bruised heart it looked like scrutiny, as if he were searching for flaws.

Once, while she slept, he reached in and touched one tiny fist with a single finger—just enough for her to curl reflexively. He froze. You watched, chest aching. His expression unreadable. He eased back, not picking her up, retreating.

You thought he wished she were someone else. The thought lodged deep, explaining every strange pause, every careful distance. You hated yourself for it, hated him a little for giving it room.

Late in the night, you woke to an unsettling stillness—nothing like the familiar hush of your chamber with its soft breaths, crackling hearth, and occasional rustle of linens. This silence was keener, wrong somehow, piercing the fragile remainder of your sleep and pulling you awake before you even knew why.

You opened your eyes to darkness faintly silvered by moonlight. For a moment you lay there, disoriented and aching, body heavy with exhaustion. Then a surge of instinct sent your gaze to the cradle. It stood empty—only shadow and folded linen remained where your daughter should have been.

Your heart stuttered. You tried to sit up too quickly, and a white-hot stab of pain stole your breath. One hand shot to your stomach, the other clutched the sheets as a wave of panic flooded your chest. The cradle was empty. Valarr’s side of the bed was empty too—but that brought no comfort. Deep down you knew there could be a reasonable explanation—a nurse, a healer, Valarr himself—yet the sight of that vacant cradle hollowed you out.

Still, you forced yourself upright, biting back a cry as every movement protested. Your legs trembled when they hit the floor. In the dim candlelight, every familiar shape in the chamber felt alien and menacing. You wrapped a robe around your shoulders with clumsy fingers and stepped into the corridor, its hush broken only by distant footsteps of servants keeping to the shadows.

A maid near the far wall straightened when she saw you. “My lady?” she whispered.

You said nothing. You could not bear to ask aloud. So you pressed on, hand trailing along the wall for support as the world tipped beneath you. Every breath felt shallow, each step sent a dull ache through your hips. You knew the healers would scold you, that Valarr might chide you too—but none of that mattered.

At last you reached the nursery door, left slightly ajar. A thin ribbon of firelight curled across the floor. Then you heard him—Valarr’s voice, low, soft, barely above a breath.

Your panic shifted, then dissolved entirely. You leaned one hand against the doorframe and peered inside.

He sat by the hearth in a carved wooden chair, his fine shirt loosened at the throat, laces undone as though he’d dressed—or undressed—in haste. Strands of hair had fallen forward, mussed by restless hands.

Against his chest, your daughter slept. He cradled her beneath one broad palm, her body so small his hand nearly covered her back. Her cheek nestled in the open V of his shirt, her fragile breaths rising and falling against him. He held her with a reverence that made your heart ache, as if every movement needed the gods’ permission.

You had seen him composed, proud, even amused—and once, breathtakingly tender. But never like this. He was unguarded, laid bare by love.

He bent his head until his mouth hovered above the crown of her silver-dust waves. “They will tell you many things,” he murmured, thumb barely stroking her back. “They will say princes are born for duty, that their blood is a debt paid the moment they breathe. You are fortunate not to be one.”

Your throat clenched, but you stayed at the threshold, rooted by his tone. He paused, watching her as if expecting an answer. When she murmured in her sleep, he stilled instantly, then let his shoulders drop fractionally.

“I know they will still expect things from you,” he whispered. “I’m not so foolish to think daughters escape unscathed. They will see alliances in you, a marriage to be arranged, softness to mold into obedience. They will be wrong.”

You tightened your grip on the frame. He bowed his head lower, voice emerging from somewhere deeper than words.

“They may ask me for sons,” he said after a moment. Your chest constricted.

“They will not have you as consolation,” he continued, and the words landed like a strike. Silence fell over the nursery. All the hurt you’d carried through the day—after Baelor’s visit, after the announcement, the careful distance you’d mistaken for disappointment—shattered under the force of his vow.

Finally, something in you cracked quietly. Pain and relief intertwined until you could no longer contain it.

You pushed the door open. It creaked, and Valarr’s head snapped up.

For a heartbeat he looked startled. Then he took in your disheveled robe, the way you leaned on the frame, and concern cut through his gaze. “You should be in bed,” he said gently, the familiar command beneath it making you want to laugh, though your chest felt too raw.

“You are not disappointed,” you said. Soft, barely audible, but not a question.

He stared. “What?”

You stepped inside, ignoring your body’s protest. The firelight painted the room in gold—shelves of folded blankets, the cradle’s carved edge. “You are not disappointed,” you repeated.

Confusion crossed his face, then horror. His eyes searched yours. “You thought…” he began, voice thick.

“I thought you wanted a son,” you finished, folding your arms protectively. “I thought that was what I was meant to give you.”

He paled. You felt a flicker of satisfaction that it wounded him, if only a little. “The old woman by the hearth said next might be a boy. Your father called her a fine beginning, a son to follow in time. Everyone spoke as if she were unfinished.”

You pressed on. Your voice trembled but held firm. “And you said nothing.”

He flinched visibly. “No,” he admitted. “I did not.”

The baby shifted, and both of you froze. Then Valarr adjusted his hold, sliding his palm over her back to soothe her. The simple tenderness of the gesture made your heart ache again.

“I thought if I spoke, I’d say too much,” he whispered.

You laughed softly, a sound without joy. “So you said nothing instead.”

He nodded, head bowed. “I was not disappointed,” he said quietly.

You wanted to believe him—and you did—but it did not erase the day. His voice lowered further. “When they announced a daughter, I felt a relief so fierce it frightened me.”

You went still. Not the answer you expected. He seemed to know it. “Not because she’d be easier, or matter less,” he continued, gaze on the child. “But because for one foolish moment, I thought she might be spared.”

He swallowed. “A son born of me would be claimed before his first breath—by name, by blood, by court, by my father’s love. Love can still place a sword in a boy’s hand and call the weight of it a privilege. Every man around him would believe it kindness to shape him early for power. I know what they do to sons.”

His simple confession struck deeper than any blade. You sank into the nearest chair, too tired to stand.

Your daughter sighed in sleep, and Valarr’s face softened despite himself. He lifted his head to you. “I failed you today,” he said plainly. “You had just given birth. You were in pain, and I let silence drive a wedge where there should have been only joy.”

Tears welled in your eyes. He bent and pressed his lips to the crown of the baby’s head so gently it was almost not a kiss. “No,” he said, looking up at you. “Never.”

Firelight flickered on your daughter’s cheek. Valarr’s voice carried fierce tenderness. “I only wish the world were less eager to ask children what use they might be.”

Your daughter gave a small, restless wriggle against him. The moment she moved, Valarr’s gaze dropped to her, and his hand steadied on her back as if by instinct—so natural he barely noticed he did it.

“She is not free from the world,” he murmured. “I know that.”

You lifted your eyes to him. He met your look as though he’d caught your unspoken challenge, but still you pressed on.

“A daughter doesn’t escape burdens just because she’s not a son. She’ll inherit others—expectations about who she should be, marriages decided before she even understands the word, obedience praised as if it were virtue. Quiet will be mistaken for meekness, softness seen as an invitation.”

Valarr listened, silent. Good. Let him hear every word.

“She won’t be spared duty merely for being a girl,” you went on. “She’ll be shaped all the same.”

“I know,” he said, and this time his voice carried a weight you recognized: real understanding. “You’re right.”

Relief eased some of your tension, though not all. Valarr looked down at your daughter again. His jaw set.

“When my father called her ‘a fine beginning,’ I wanted to tell him she was only a beginning of herself.”

Your throat burned.

“You should have,” you whispered.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I should have—and I will.”

The simplicity of his promise nearly broke you. He shifted the baby higher against his chest so gently she hardly stirred. Her face, soft and oblivious, pressed into him as the world outside negotiated her worth.

“I would have loved a son,” he confessed suddenly. You caught your breath. He met your eyes at last.

“I need you to know that. If she’d been a boy, I’d have loved him fiercely. Feared for him. Done everything in my power to spare him burdens. I wouldn’t have resented him for the weight others placed on him.”

You nodded, slow and tight.

“But it’s her,” he said, voice thickening with wonder, “and I’m grateful it’s her.”

Tears came before you could stop them. You looked away in shame, but Valarr saw anyway. His face softened with a tenderness that made your heart ache.

“My love,” he said.

You shook your head, too raw to answer.

“I thought I’d failed you,” you managed.

He froze, then rose from his chair with deliberate care.

“You did not,” he said, kneeling beside you so the three of you—father, mother, child—were close in the flickering firelight.

“Never,” he repeated, quieter now but no less certain.

You pressed a hand to your mouth, unable to speak. Valarr’s free hand found yours and guided it from your face.

“You gave me her,” he said, voice low.

The baby sighed softly between you. His eyes never left yours.

A sob lodged in your chest. “It sounds foolish now.”

“No,” he said. “It sounds like what my silence made of the day.”

You wept harder, but he did not hurry you. He simply stayed kneeling, your daughter nestled at his heart, eyes on you like you were something sacred.

When your breath evened out, he turned his gaze to the child.

“No one will teach her she’s less,” he vowed—his voice a quiet promise, not a comfort.

“No one will make her feel unwanted because she wasn’t born a boy.”

The words landed cleanly. You looked at him through wet lashes. His face was resolute.

“If they ask for sons in her presence, they’ll answer to me. If they call her ‘the beginning,’ I’ll ask what they think still needs to begin. If they treat her as practice for an heir, I will correct them.” A humorless laugh escaped him. “And if my father ever forgets himself, I’ll correct him too.”

Despite yourself, you laughed through your tears. Valarr’s lips curved.

“She’ll know who she is,” he said, “not by courtly measure or succession, not by the arrival of a brother.”

He glanced down and noticed her tiny fist curled in his shirt, holding nothing yet everything. “She is mine,” he said, then lifted his eyes to you: “Ours.”

Your chest tightened around that word. Gently, you reached to touch your daughter’s soft silver hair. Valarr leaned in so you wouldn’t have to bend.

“She’s so small,” you whispered.

He winced, memory of his earlier words flickering across his features.

“I know how that sounded.”

You gave him a tired, tearful look.

“Terrible.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but I only meant I’d never held something so tiny without fearing I’d fail it.” Your last defenses melted.

“She is very small,” he repeated, but now his voice rang with wonder, terror, and love. “And somehow she’s made the world feel vaster than it was yesterday.”

You closed your eyes briefly. When you opened them, he was watching you.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For my silence, for leaving you alone.”

You nodded—knowing forgiveness didn’t erase the hurt. But your hand stayed on your daughter’s head, and his remained around yours.

“I need you to say it next time,” you whispered.

“I will.”

“No disappearing into princely silence.”

He offered a wry half-smile. “No disappearing into princely silence.”

The baby let out a tiny, disgruntled murmur. You both froze, then Valarr looked down at her with such fierce concern that laughter bubbled up through your tears.

“She makes one sound and you’d summon every healer in the keep,” you teased.

“I considered it,” he admitted.

“She’s only fussing.”

“She sounds aggrieved.”

“She’s a newborn. That’s most of what she knows.”

Valarr’s smile widened. Your daughter settled against him once more, her cheek tucked against his chest, her tiny breath warm against his skin. Around you, the hearth burned low, the keep beyond these walls still heavy with titles and expectations, full of people who would wake with duties already arranged for them. But within that small circle of firelight, none of it seemed to matter. Valarr bowed his head over your daughter as though before something sacred, and for the first time since her arrival, you allowed yourself to believe that no child of his would ever mistake silence for lack of love.

He is not alone. The court never lets him be. Ladies linger around him like wasps drawn to ripe fruit, sharp-eyed and silk-wrapped, fluttering fans and lashes with feigned restraint. One of them, a girl from House Velaryon with pale skin and storm-colored eyes, reaches out and lays her hand on his forearm as she speaks. It is not a casual touch. Her fingers slide, her thumb grazes the inside of his wrist. She leans in as she laughs, just a little too close.

He lets her.

He does not touch her back, not quite, but he also does not stop her. His expression does not shift, his body does not tense. He just tilts his head slightly, wine catching the light as he takes another sip, and listens. You see the way the girl watches his mouth as he drinks. You see the way her gaze slips down to his neck and lingers there. It makes something ugly twist low in your belly.

You have not touched your wine. You have not said a word in several minutes. The man beside you, some knight’s son with a lion-stitched doublet and soft, forgettable features, has been trying to speak with you since the second course. You barely hear him. He asks if you liked the music. You do not answer. He tries again, offering a gentle smile and a question about dancing. You turn your head slightly and say no, quiet but cold. He does not ask a third time.

All your attention is fixed on Daemon.

He knows. Of course he knows. He has not looked at you, not even once, but he can feel your gaze like a tether pulled tight. You know he can. That smile of his has curved sharper. He lifts his cup just slightly, as if in silent toast, and laughs at something the Velaryon girl says, even though you doubt he was listening. His whole body is a performance, and tonight you are not in the front row. You are not even part of the act.

You hate it.

You hate the way she looks at him. You hate that she is allowed to. You hate that she touches him in front of everyone and no one says a word. You hate that she might think she could keep him, even for a moment, even for a night. You are not his wife. You have no claim. You are not even promised. You cannot stop her. You cannot reach across the table and slap her hand away. You cannot stand and declare what he is to you, what you are to him, because no such thing has ever been said aloud.

Still, your body remembers the shape of his hands. Your skin still bears the bruises he left. You remember the way his breath felt against your throat when he called you sweet girl, when he told you to stay still, when he said yours like it meant something. But none of that matters here. Not in front of the court. Not in front of her.

She leans in closer again. Her hair brushes his shoulder. Her laugh rises like bells. Daemon lifts his goblet once more, sips slow, then finally moves his gaze.

He looks at you. Only for a moment. No more than a breath. But it is enough.

His eyes meet yours across the chaos and gold of the feasting hall. He does not blink. He does not look away. And then he smiles. Not for her. Not for the room. For you.

You do not smile back.

You hold his gaze a moment longer than you should, until it burns. Then you rise. Quietly. Deliberately. The scrape of your chair is barely heard beneath the swell of music and wine-soaked laughter, but it cuts through you clean.

You leave before the final toast is raised. Before the singers begin their third round. Before she can lean in again and whisper something sweet and simpering into his ear.

You do not storm out. You do not make a scene. You walk with your chin high and your silence sharp, knowing it will follow you more loudly than any words would have.

Your chambers are too warm when you enter. The fire crackles too loudly. The wine on the table sits untouched.

You do not pace, but you feel like you might. Your skin itches with something too close to rage, too close to want. It sits behind your ribs and twists, slow and tight, until you can’t bear to sit still.

You feel him before you hear him. The door does not creak, but it opens. He does not knock. Of course he doesn’t.

Daemon steps inside like the room belongs to him. Like you do.

“You left early,” he says.

“You noticed,” you reply.

“I notice when someone stares at me for half the feast,” he says, voice smooth. “And then vanishes before the sweets.”

You turn to face him. “I suppose I lost my appetite.”

He smiles. “A shame. The roasted pears were delightful. But not quite as sweet as the Velaryon girl’s lips.”

Your face does not change. “You kissed her?”

“No,” he says. “But she wanted me to.”

“And you were tempted.”

“I am always tempted,” he says, stepping further into the room. “That is what makes it fun.”

You lift your chin. “Fun.”

He shrugs. “You must know by now how I enjoy being watched.”

“I saw you,” you say. “I saw the way she looked at you.”

“I let her.”

“You let her put her hand on you.”

“She has hands. What was I meant to do, hack them off at the wrist?”

“You could have said no.”

“I never say no to harmless attention,” he says, smiling. “It keeps the court guessing.”

“It keeps the court thinking you are theirs to take.”

He takes a step closer. “Let them think what they will. They are wrong.”

“Are they?” you ask, sharp. “You did not look particularly unavailable tonight.”

“And yet here I am,” he says, spreading his hands slightly, “in your chambers, not hers.”

You cross your arms. “That proves little.”

He cocks his head. “Does it?”

“You belong to no one,” you say.

He doesn’t argue. “True enough.”

“You are not mine.”

“No,” he says again. “But gods, how you want me to be.”

You exhale slowly through your nose. “You are full of yourself.”

“I have good reason to be.”

You stare at him. He stares back.

“You think I should have made a show of rejecting her?” he asks. “That I ought to have stood in the middle of the hall and shouted that my cock is already spoken for?”

“Is it?” you say, soft yet cold.

He steps close enough for his voice to drop. “You would know.”

You tilt your head. “Would I?”

He smiles. “Don’t be coy. It doesn’t suit you.”

You step around him, slow, measured, the air between you too warm now, too thick. “You act as though you enjoy the idea of women fighting over you.”

“I enjoy being wanted.”

“And you enjoyed being wanted by her.”

He looks at you for a moment. “I enjoyed knowing you were watching.”

You stop.

He watches the way you still.

“I could have let another man walk me back tonight,” you say.

“You did not.”

“No. But I could have.”

He smiles, faint and dangerous. “And I could have taken her to bed.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because she’s not you.”

There it is. Said simply, said plainly, with that flash of teeth just beneath the charm. He doesn’t soften when he says it. He doesn’t look ashamed. He offers it like a challenge.

You stare at him, chest rising.

“You let them think they have a chance,” you say, quieter now.

“I let them look,” he replies. “That’s all they get. A glimpse. A taste of something they’ll never touch. That is the game, little cousin. Let them ache for it.”

“And what of me?” you ask.

His expression changes just slightly. “What of you?”

“If I want more than a game,” you say, voice like ice beneath flame. “If I am not content with glimpses and riddles. What then?”

He takes a step toward you, close enough that you feel his breath against your cheek when he speaks. “Then you are not like them.”

You do not flinch. “But you want me to feel like I am.”

“No,” he says, voice low. “I want you to feel the difference.”

You look up at him. “Then make it.”

He studies you.

“I have no claim,” you say. “No ring. No promise. Nothing but your word and the marks you leave behind.”

He lifts his hand to your jaw, gentle, dangerous, not quite touching. “That should be enough.”

“It isn’t.”

There is no space left between you. You feel his restraint like the crackle before lightning. You want him to snap. You want him to beg. You want him to yield—but you don’t want him weak.

“You test me,” he says.

“And you let me.”

He smiles, slow and wolfish. “Because I want to see how far you’ll go.”

“And what happens when I go too far?”

His lips hover near your throat. “Then I will drag you down with me.”

The silence that follows hums like a live wire. Nothing breaks it. Not the wind, not the fire, not the pounding of your heart. You don’t flinch. You don’t breathe. You wait.

When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, but no less dangerous.

“If I am yours,” he says, “say it.”

You meet his gaze, steady. “If you are mine, act like it.”

He watches you for a beat longer. A breath. Two.

Then he moves.

His mouth finds yours before the words are cold in the air. No warning, no restraint. Just heat, hard and immediate. His hand knots in your hair and drags, angling your mouth to his, and he kisses you like you’ve both already lost. Like this was always going to happen. His teeth graze your lip, catch, pull. Not hard. Just enough to make you gasp.

You press into him, chest to chest, hips already shifting like your body wants something before your mind can catch up. You kiss him like you mean to punish him for every smirk, every flirtation, every woman who looked too long. He kisses you like he’s daring you to try.

His hands drop to your waist. He lifts you without asking.

You feel the edge of the table dig into the backs of your thighs as he sets you down atop it, dragging you forward until your hips meet the wood. The same table where you sometimes take meals. Where letters wait unopened. Where you sit like a lady when others are watching.

Not now.

His body crowds yours, knees parting your legs as he leans in, mouth brushing your throat, breath hot.

"Mine," he says against your skin, the word like fire.

Your hands find his shoulders, digging into the velvet of his doublet, feeling the solid muscle beneath. You want to rip it away, to see him bare and wanting, to mark him as he's marked you.

"Prove it," you challenge, voice barely steady.

His laugh is dark, dangerous. "So demanding." His teeth graze your pulse point. "So greedy."

One hand slides up your thigh, bunching the silk of your gown, finding the heat between your legs. You're already wet for him—have been since you watched him across the hall, since you imagined tearing him away from her. His fingers press against you through the thin fabric of your smallclothes, and you can't help the sound that escapes you.

"There," he murmurs against your throat, fingers stroking slow, deliberate circles. "That's what I wanted to hear."

You bite back another moan, head falling back as he works you with practiced ease. The silk of your gown pools around your hips, and his free hand traces the line of your collarbone, down to the laces of your bodice.

"She could never make sounds like that," he says, voice rough with want. "Could never arch like you do. Could never—"

"Stop talking about her," you gasp, nails digging crescents into his shoulders.

His fingers still. "Jealous?"

You meet his gaze, breathless but defiant. "Possessive."

The shift in his gaze is subtle, but you see it: a spark of something molten behind the glinting violet, some chemical recognition of your challenge that makes his breath hitch and his jaw tense. His lips curve, not in mockery this time but in anticipation, as if your defiance is the final ingredient he’s been waiting for.

“Good,” he says, and the word is roughened by want—almost hoarse as it breaks against your mouth.

He crushes you back into the table with his body and kisses you fiercely, teeth clashing, lips bruising, tongue sliding in with a claim so absolute it erases the memory of anything softer. The taste of him is as intoxicating as the wine left untouched on your table; smoke and salt and something sweeter beneath, a promise of indulgence laced with threat. He kisses you like he means to possess you from the inside out.

His hands move without mercy. One closes tight around the nape of your neck, holding you exactly where he wants you as he devours your mouth. The other slips beneath the generous folds of your gown—an impatient sweep up bare thigh, knuckles grazing sensitive skin until he finds your smallclothes and drags them aside. You feel cool air against fevered flesh just before his fingers make contact: two at once, slick with intent, pushing inside you so abruptly that you gasp against his lips.

He swallows the sound whole, then pulls back just enough to let you see how much it pleases him.

“So wet already,” Daemon murmurs, voice gone almost guttural with hunger. His thumb circles lazily over that aching bundle of nerves—just brush after cruel brush—while his fingers press deeper within, stretching and curling until your body trembles around him. “Were you thinking about this while you watched me across the room? While she touched my arm? While she batted her lashes and hoped I’d take her to my bed instead?”

You open your mouth to speak but all that comes out is a whimper—the humiliation sharp as pleasure when he smirks down at you.

“Mm,” he says. “Just as I thought.”

He works your body with an expert’s patience: slow thrusts punctuated by sudden twists of his hand that jolt pleasure up your spine. Each time he brings you close to release, he slows again—deliberately stalling, denying what’s already within reach. You realize too late that this is a different kind of game: not the one played for courtly advantage or public display, but one meant solely for this room and this hour and both your undoings.

Your hips buck against him—helpless now—and heat floods your cheeks as you realize how shamelessly you’re moving for him. Every time he retreats just enough to make you ache for more, every teasing circle of his thumb or shallow dip of his fingers makes you crave it more desperately.

He bends low until his lips are at your ear.

“I want to hear you say it,” he whispers—a demand hidden behind velvet softness. “Say what you wanted while you watched me.”

You can barely form words; your pride wars with need and loses every round. Still, when he crooks two fingers just right within you—pulling a shudder from somewhere deep and secret—you stifle a cry behind bitten lips.

He does not tolerate silence for long.

"Answer me," he commands, stilling his movements.

"Yes," you gasp, desperate. "Yes, I was thinking of this," you admit, voice catching as his fingers resume their torment. "I was thinking of how only I know what you sound like when you're inside me."

His smile is all teeth, all triumph. "And what sound is that?"

You reach between your bodies, finding the hard length of him straining against his breeches. He hisses when you palm him, squeezing just firmly enough to make his rhythm falter.

"Show me again," you challenge. "I seem to have forgotten."

In one fluid motion, he withdraws his fingers and brings them to his mouth, tasting you with deliberate slowness. His eyes never leave yours as he sucks them clean, and the sight makes heat pool low in your belly, makes your thighs tremble.

“Stand up,” he says, and his voice is not a request—it’s the leash or the whip, it’s the ring of steel on stone. You obey before you’ve even processed that you’re moving, legs trembling beneath you, skin burning with shame or anticipation. He shifts your body, handling you like he owns every inch: guiding your hips so they nudge the edge of the table, palms flat to its surface, head bent. For a heartbeat, he just stands behind you—close enough that you feel his heat but not touching. You become aware in that pause just how badly you want him, how hollowed out and untethered he’s made you with nothing but words and steady pressure.

Then the air changes; he moves in. His chest presses to your back with an intimacy that feels almost tender—almost. The illusion of gentleness lasts only long enough for him to seize hold of your wrist and pin it beside your head against the wood. He leans in until his breath ghosts over your ear, hot and deliberate, and lets his other hand slide up beneath your hair to encircle your throat—not choking, just holding. Just reminding.

You hear rather than see him undo the laces at his waist. There’s a moment when nothing happens except the double thunder of both your pulses.

“I want you to remember this,” Daemon says, voice pitched for your ear alone. “When you sit with your ladies tomorrow, gossiping over sweetmeats. When you stroll through the godswood with them and pretend not to look at me from beneath your lashes.” His hand abandons your throat and travels down the length of your back, slow as syrup, until it slides under your skirts and traces along your inner thigh. “I want you to feel this between your legs all day. I want every step to remind you who did this to you.”

He gathers up your gown in one practiced motion—no pretense left—and bunches it above your waist. The air on skin should be cooling but instead it stings, as if every nerve has risen up in revolt. You can hear him breathe in when he looks at you: a soft inhale through clenched teeth. He presses into you then—hot flesh against wetness—and positions himself at your entrance but does not push forward yet.

“Say it,” he murmurs into the shell of your ear.

You bite down hard on defiance, it tastes metallic on your tongue. “Say what?” Your answer is another challenge—a glint of rebellion even now.

His fingers tangle tight in your hair and haul back gently—just enough for pain to mingle with pleasure and send a jolt down your spine. “Say who owns you.”

The question hangs in the air like ash after fire. You can hear voices from deeper in the keep—a man laughing drunkenly two floors below, bells tolling midnight—but here there is only the question and his body pressed against yours.

You let yourself breathe once before answering. “Yours,” you say, barely more than a whisper.

“Louder,” Daemon commands.

You swallow pride and gasp, “I’m yours.”

He rewards honesty with violence—a single thrust that buries him inside you so deep that stars explode behind your eyes and all sense of poetry deserts you in favor of white-hot sensation. The sound torn from you is less than human.

The world shrinks down to hips slamming into yours, his cock splitting you open again and again until nothing exists except those points of connection—his hand cinched around yours on the table’s edge, his teeth scraping behind your ear when he bites down hard enough to mark skin for days. One arm comes around to flatten across your sternum, he holds both hands prisoner now so all you can do is brace yourself against each punishing stroke.

You lose count of how many times he pulls out nearly all the way before sheathing himself again with a violence that seems meant as punishment or reward—or maybe just necessity. The table protests under each impact, somewhere in another life you'd be worried about splinters or bruises or whether anyone will hear but here all that matters is keeping pace with him as he drives into you harder each time.

He does not stop talking throughout—not once—but now his words are reduced to grunts and groans mixed with filthy encouragements.

“Good girl…that’s it…take all of me…” Each command lodges itself deeper until finally every ounce of dignity crumbles into need.

You come apart once, convulsing around him so intensely even Daemon grunts in surprise, but he does not let go or slow down, if anything he fucks through it harder while holding tight so none of those shudders escape without being felt by both parties. When wave after wave hits until tears dampen the wood beneath where your cheek is pressed flat, he softens fractionally—his hand stroking soothing circles over where his other pins yours down—but then resumes pace as if determined to wring out every last drop from what remains.

There is something breaking loose inside him, too. By now each thrust comes paired with a half-choked curse or plea, voice more ragged than before, less certain even as body moves relentlessly forward.

He growls low in his throat when climax approaches—you can feel him swelling inside just before release—and for one last instant everything sharpens into unbearable clarity.

The taste of sweat running salty from his jaw onto yours. The burn where nails gouge crescent moons into wood. The way neither one will ever be forgiven for what comes next.

His release comes in violent pulses, hot and pulsing deep inside you. He makes no attempt to withdraw, pinning you harder against the table as he empties himself with a growl that vibrates through your joined bodies. His hips stutter, then press flush against you, holding there as if to seal what he's done. To mark you from within.

You feel him throb inside you, feel the wetness of his seed as it fills you. His breathing is ragged against your neck, his weight nearly crushing as he drapes over you, spent but unwilling to separate.

For several heartbeats, neither of you speaks. The only sound is shared breathing and the distant echoes of the feast continuing without you.

When he finally pulls away, you feel the loss of him like a physical ache. His seed runs warm down your thighs, and you remain bent over the table, trembling, unable to trust your legs to hold you upright. The silk of your gown falls back into place, but it feels foreign now—like a costume you've forgotten how to wear.

Behind you, you hear him adjusting his clothing, the soft rustle of fabric and leather. When you finally turn, he's watching you with an expression you can't read. His hair is disheveled, his doublet wrinkled, but he looks entirely too composed for what just transpired.

"Look at you," he says, voice softer now but no less intense. "Thoroughly ruined."

You straighten slowly, wincing at the pleasant ache between your legs, at the wetness still cooling on your thighs. You should feel shame. You should feel used. Instead, you feel claimed in a way that satisfies something primal inside you.

"Is that what you wanted?" you ask, smoothing your gown with hands that still tremble slightly. "To ruin me?"

His smile is slow, almost tender. "I wanted to remind you."

"Of what?" You meet his gaze steadily, refusing to be the first to look away.

"That she may touch my arm, but you..." He steps closer, one hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from your face. "You have parts of me no one else will ever know."

The gentleness is almost more unsettling than his roughness. You lean into his touch despite yourself, your body still singing with the aftershocks of what he's done to you.

"And tomorrow?" you ask. "When the court gathers again? When other ladies bat their lashes and reach for you?"

His thumb traces along your cheekbone. "Tomorrow you'll sit at that table knowing my seed is still inside you. Knowing these bruises came from my mouth." His voice drops to a whisper. "Knowing that while they dream of having me, you already do."

The arrogance should infuriate you. Instead, it sends another pulse of heat through your core. You can feel him there still—the stretch, the fullness, the evidence of his claim slowly seeping from your body.

"You're insufferable," you tell him, but there's no venom in it.

“Nyke āōhon,” he says.

I am yours.

Not teasing. Not smug. Just truth, laid bare between your breaths.

The words settle like ash on your skin, weightless and hot. Your pulse stirs again, though you are already wrecked. You study his face—how the usual sharpness has faded from his eyes, how the heat still coils beneath it, steady and sure.

"You say that now," you murmur. "But what happens when another lady reaches for you tomorrow night?"

He doesn’t look away. "She won’t."

"And if she does?"

"Then she'll lose her hand."

You blink once.

He says it like a fact. Like a weather report. Like something he's already decided.

There is no jest in his voice. No grin. Just quiet certainty, as if the notion of any other woman touching him is not only offensive but punishable. Permanently.

You should find it absurd. You don’t.

Not when your body still aches from how he claimed you. Not when his seed is still inside you, warm and thick and unmistakably his. Not when the bruises blooming along your hips match the span of his hands. Evidence, all of it. Proof you don’t need to ask for.

His hand rests on your hip, fingers slow, possessive.

“Let them look,” he says. “Let them wonder. You’ll already know.”

You don’t answer him.

Not with words.

Instead, your fingers trail down to where his hand rests on your hip. You curl yours around his wrist and pull it away—not roughly, just firmly. A silent correction.

His eyes flick up. Curious. Intrigued. He doesn’t resist.

You rise from the table, slowly, your skirts settling uneven around your legs, the fabric rumpled and half-undone from what he already did to you. Your body aches in places only he knows, but you stand tall anyway.

You take two steps back, crossing the chamber without looking at him. You don’t need to. You can feel his eyes on you like a second skin.

You stop at the edge of the couch. Pause. Let the quiet thicken.

Then you look back over your shoulder.

“Well?” you say. “Will you sit, or must I make you?”

His mouth twitches. That flicker of a smile. He crosses the room without a word and lets you push him back into the cushions, one palm on his chest.

You climb onto his lap before he can settle. Hike your skirts up. Settle your weight on him slow, deliberate, like you’re daring him to move.

He exhales through his nose, sharp and amused.

“Is this a game to you?” he murmurs.

You lean in until your mouth brushes his ear.

“No,” you whisper. “This is a reminder.”

Then you rock your hips against his, and whatever clever thing he was about to say dies on his tongue.

He hardens beneath you almost instantly, his body responding even as his breath catches. You feel him through the fabric of his breeches—thick and wanting already, as if what happened moments ago was merely an appetizer.

"Again?" His voice is rougher now, strained. "So soon?"

You don't answer with words. Instead you grind down against him, slow and deliberate, letting him feel the heat of you through the layers between. His hands come up to grip your waist, fingers digging into silk and flesh.

"Greedy little thing," he breathes, but there's admiration in it. Hunger.

You can feel his seed still slick between your thighs as you move against him, the evidence of his earlier claim making each roll of your hips smoother, more provocative. The knowledge that you're marked by him, filled by him, sends fresh heat spiraling through your belly.

"You like knowing you've marked me," you say, hands sliding up his chest to rest against his throat. "That I'll carry part of you inside me for days."

His pupils dilate at your words, at the press of your fingers against his pulse. "Yes," he admits without shame.

You lean closer, lips brushing his jaw. "Then you'll understand why I need to mark you too."

Before he can respond, you bite down on the tender skin just below his ear—not gently, not teasingly, but with enough force to leave an impression. He jerks beneath you, a sharp intake of breath, and you feel him grow harder still.

"The court will see that," he says, but there's no protest in his voice. If anything, he sounds pleased.

"Good." You pull back to meet his gaze. "Let them wonder who gave it to you."

His hands flex against your hips, thumbs pressing into the soft hollows above bone. "You think I'll let you brand me so easily?" There's challenge in his tone, but his body betrays him—the rigid length beneath you pulses with each heartbeat.

"I think you already have," you murmur, tracing the mark blooming red against his throat. "I think you want everyone to see it."

He watches you through half-lidded eyes, the violet of his irises nearly swallowed by black. "Perhaps I do."

You work at the laces of his breeches, fingers nimble despite the tremor of desire running through them. He lifts his hips slightly to help you, a silent acquiescence that makes your power over him feel both fragile and absolute.

When you free him, he's already fully hard again, the head glistening with evidence of his arousal.

His breath stutters when you wrap your fingers around him, stroking once from base to tip with deliberate slowness. The sound he makes is half growl, half plea—a crack in that carefully maintained composure that makes satisfaction bloom warm in your chest.

"Look at me," you command softly.

His eyes snap to yours, violet fire and desperate hunger. You hold his gaze as you position yourself above him, feeling him hot and hard against your entrance. The wetness between your thighs—his seed mixed with your own arousal—makes the first brush of contact electric.

You sink down onto him slowly, taking him inch by torturous inch until you're fully seated in his lap. The stretch burns sweetly, your body still tender from before, but the feeling of being filled by him again makes you moan despite yourself.

"Seven hells," he breathes, head falling back against the cushions. His hands grip your hips hard enough to bruise, but he doesn't try to control your pace. Not yet.

You begin to move, rolling your hips in slow, deliberate circles that make him twitch inside you. Each movement sends sparks of pleasure racing up your spine, but you keep your rhythm measured, controlled.

You begin to move, rising up until only the tip of him remains inside before sinking back down with agonizing slowness. Each motion draws fresh sounds from him—quiet gasps and bitten-off curses that make your own arousal spike higher. The power is intoxicating, watching the Rogue Prince reduced to trembling need beneath you.

His breathing grows ragged as you continue your torturous pace, lifting yourself almost completely off him before sinking back down with maddening slowness. You can see the effort it takes him not to thrust up into you, the way his jaw clenches with restraint.

His jaw clenches as you take your time, hands fisting in the silk of your skirts where they pool around his waist. You can see the effort it costs him to remain still, to let you dictate the rhythm when every line of his body screams for more.

"Patient, aren't you?" you murmur, trailing your fingertips down his chest. "I never thought I'd see the day."

His laugh is strained, breathless. "Don't mistake restraint for patience, sweet girl."

You lean forward, letting your lips hover just above his. "And what should I mistake it for?"

"Strategy," he says, voice rough. His hands slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts through your gown. "I'm letting you have your moment."

You raise an eyebrow, rocking your hips just enough to make his breath catch. "My moment?"

His smile is sharp-edged even as pleasure makes his voice thick. "You think you're in control because you're on top. Because I'm letting you set the pace." His thumbs trace higher, finding your nipples through the silk and circling them with maddening lightness. "But we both know who taught you to move like this."

The touch sends heat spiraling through you, but you don't let it break your rhythm. If anything, you slow further, until each rise and fall of your hips becomes an exercise in torture for you both.

"Perhaps," you breathe, "but you're still the one begging."

"Am I begging?" His hands slide to cup your breasts fully now, kneading the soft flesh as his hips finally jerk upward—just once, just enough to bury himself deeper and make you gasp. "Or am I simply enjoying the view?"

His thumb brushes across your nipple again, more firmly this time, and the sensation shoots straight to your core. You can't help the small sound that escapes you, the way your inner muscles clench around him in response. His smile widens, knowing.

"There," he murmurs, "that's what I wanted."

You lean down until your lips brush his ear. "And what about what I want?"

"Tell me," he breathes, his hands sliding to your hips again, fingers digging into flesh.

Instead of dignifying his question with a response, you anchor both palms flat against the solid muscle of his chest and bear down. You ride him in earnest now—none of the earlier coyness or measured pace, nothing calculated in your thrusts save raw hunger. Each downward stroke impales you on his cock, driving him impossibly deeper, until every inch of you is stretched and claimed and rendered wholly, ruthlessly his. The sensation is ferocious. It wrings sharp little cries from your lips that you cannot stifle, a symphony of surrender and defiance all at once.

The sound as your hips meet is obscene. Wet, rhythmic, an endless collision punctuated by the slap of flesh and the rasp of your breath. Somewhere below you the velvet cushions squawk and creak in protest beneath the violence of your movements, somewhere above you is only the hot blur of your own need and the violet fire of his gaze. He stares up at you as if he wants to memorize every twitch and tremor, as if your pleasure is the only thing in the world that matters—even as his own self-control unravels by degrees beneath your hands.

Then that control snaps altogether.

With a guttural sound, Daemon surges upward without warning. He wraps one arm around your waist, hard and unyielding as a steel band, crushing your body flush against his. The other hand slides into your hair at the nape and fists it tight, yanking your head back to bare the column of your neck. Before you can so much as gasp, his mouth is on your throat, hot and seeking.

“Mine,” he rasps against skin gone feverish beneath his tongue. Then he bites—not playfully but with primal intent—at the place where neck meets shoulder. It’s a sharp burst of pain that vaults straight into pleasure, he worries at it with teeth and tongue until you feel blood surely just beneath the surface, until tears spring to your eyes and you have to clutch at his shoulders to hold yourself together.

You dig your fingernails through his doublet with such force that you’re surprised not to draw blood yourself. The pressure only goads him onward. Beneath you, Daemon takes command of both rhythm and tempo. He thrusts up into you with brutal precision, using every ounce of strength in those infamous rider’s hips to drive himself deeper still. The new angle makes something inside you catch fire—each movement slamming into that sweet spot inside, making lights flare at the edges of your vision.

You try to keep up with him but it’s hopeless. There’s no pacing this, only helpless submission to sensation so intense it borders on agony. You want to slow down but he won’t let you—he holds you right where he wants you and fucks into you relentlessly until pleasure becomes something desperate and frightening.

He marks you everywhere he can reach—the curve of jaw, hollow of throat, even along collarbone where bruises will flower purple-black by morning—but always returns to that first spot behind your ear. He tongues it between words when he pauses for breath, occasionally he licks at the sweat pooling there as though tasting proof of conquest.

There is no space for pretense or courtly games here now—not when ecstasy burns through both of you like wildfire.

He slows briefly just long enough to slide a hand between your legs again, thumb slicking over where you're joined. Sensation detonates outward from each rough circle until you're gasping nonsense words into his hair—beseeching or cursing him or simply wailing because it’s too much—but still he doesn’t relent.

You never thought yourself capable of begging until now.

"You think you can take control from me?" His voice is a rasp against your ear, his breath hot and damp. "You think I don't see what you're doing?"

Your answer is a moan as he hits that perfect spot again, your body clenching around him involuntarily. His laugh is dark, triumphant.

"There it is," he murmurs.

He shifts beneath you, adjusting your position without breaking his rhythm. The new angle sends sparks shooting up your spine, makes your thighs tremble with the effort to maintain even the illusion of control.

One hand leaves your hip to slide between your bodies, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves and circling it with the precise pressure he knows will undo you. The dual assault—his cock driving deep inside while his fingers work their magic—makes your control slip further.

"Daemon," you gasp, the name torn from your throat.

"Say it again," he commands, voice tight with his own building pleasure. "Let me hear you."

"Daemon," you repeat, louder this time, not caring who might hear beyond these walls. His name becomes a chant, a prayer, falling from your lips with each thrust.

The tension coils tighter in your core, your movements growing erratic as you chase your release. He feels it coming—the way your inner walls flutter around him, the catch in your breathing—and doubles his efforts, fingers working faster against your swollen flesh.

"Come for me," he growls, the words vibrating against your skin. "Let me feel you break around me."

It's not the command that sends you over the edge but the raw need in his voice—the way he sounds as desperate for your pleasure as you are. Your release crashes through you with such force that your vision blurs at the edges, your body convulsing around him as wave after wave of ecstasy washes over you. You cry out his name one final time, loud enough that it echoes off the stone walls, a sound that would scandalize the entire court if they heard.

Daemon holds you through it, his rhythm faltering only slightly as your inner walls clench and pulse around him. When you slump against him, trembling and spent, he cradles the back of your head with unexpected tenderness, his lips brushing your temple.

"Beautiful," he murmurs, and for once there's no calculation in the word—just awe, rough and honest against your skin.

But he's not finished. Even as aftershocks still ripple through you, you feel him growing impossibly harder inside your oversensitive flesh. His hands grip your hips again, lifting and positioning you despite your boneless state.

"Not yet," he breathes, and begins to move again—slower now but no less intense, each thrust deliberate and deep. "I'm not done with you."

You whimper at the overstimulation, your body still singing from your release, but you don't pull away. Instead you let him use you, let him chase his own pleasure while you tremble in his arms. The sensation borders on too much, pleasure and pain blurring together until you can't tell where one ends and the other begins.

His breathing grows ragged against your neck, his movements more urgent. You can feel him swelling inside you as his own release approaches. His hands tighten on your hips, fingers digging deep enough to leave marks that will mirror the ones already blooming across your skin.

"Look at me," he demands, voice strained with the effort of holding back. When you lift your head, your eyes are glazed with pleasure and exhaustion, but you meet his gaze.

The raw possession in his words sends an unexpected pulse of heat through your oversensitive body. You're still trembling from your own climax, but something deep inside you responds to the hunger in his eyes, the way he watches you like you're the only thing that exists.

His thrusts become erratic, desperate. You feel him pulse inside you once, twice, then his release tears through him with a violence that makes his whole body go rigid beneath you. He pulls you down hard against him as he empties himself, his seed flooding you with liquid heat. A guttural sound escapes his throat—half growl, half prayer—as he holds you motionless, letting every pulse of his release fill you completely once more.

You feel the warmth of him spreading inside you, mixing with what remains from before, marking you in the most primal way possible. His grip on your hips is bruising, desperate, as if he's afraid you might disappear if he loosens his hold even slightly.

When the last tremors fade, you both remain still, breathing hard against each other's skin. The fire has burned lower while you were lost in each other, casting dancing shadows across the walls. Your body feels liquid, boneless, thoroughly claimed in ways that go far deeper than flesh.

"The feast," you murmur eventually, though neither of you makes any move to separate. "They'll notice we're gone."

His laugh rumbles through his chest where you're pressed against him. "Let them notice." His fingers trace lazy patterns along your spine, possessive even in gentleness. "Let them wonder what kept the Rogue Prince from their tedious company."

You shift slightly in his lap, feeling him still buried deep inside you, and he hisses at the sensation. The movement sends a fresh trickle of his seed down your thighs, a reminder of how thoroughly he's claimed you tonight.

"They'll talk," you say, though you make no effort to move away from him.

"They always talk." His hand slides up to cup the back of your neck, thumb stroking the tender skin he marked earlier. "The question is whether you care what they say."

You consider this, studying his face in the flickering firelight. His hair is disheveled, silver strands clinging to his damp forehead, and there's a smugness in his expression that should irritate you. Instead, it makes something warm curl in your chest—satisfaction at being the one to unravel his usual composure.

"I stopped caring what they say the moment you first touched me," you admit quietly.

Something shifts in his gaze at your confession—a flicker of surprise, perhaps, or recognition. His thumb continues its gentle stroking along your nape, and for a moment the silence between you feels different. Less charged with conflict, more weighted with understanding.

"Good," he says finally. "Because after tonight, there will be no hiding what you are to me."

You raise an eyebrow. "And what am I to you?" 

He looks at you like he can’t believe you’re still asking. Like he’s already told you—flesh to flesh, word to word, again and again until the whole room reeks of it.

His hand curls at your neck, thumb brushing just behind your ear. Slower now. Steadier.

"You’re mine," he says.

The words are simple. Unearned, if they came from anyone else. But they don't. They come from him.

And gods, after tonight, you feel it. In your throat. In your bones. Between your thighs. In the mess you’ll carry with you to the bath tomorrow, and in the way you already dread having to share a room with anyone who dares look at him like they don’t already know.

You breathe in deep and let it out against his shoulder.

His hand stays at your nape. Your body aches in the best way a body can ache. His legs are half spread beneath yours, and he hasn’t moved to pull away. You think he won’t for a while.

You close your eyes.

Let them look.

Let them talk.

You are his, and he is yours. 

Valarr stands before you on the smooth flagstones, shoulders squared beneath his velvet doublet. The single silver streak in his dark hair catches a flame’s gleam, tracing an imperious arc over his brow. His hand closes around yours—warm, sure—and the ribbon that binds your wrists is the deepest Targaryen red, its satiny fibers pressing a promise into your skin.

From the dais, the High Septon’s voice rolls through the nave like distant thunder. “Who stands before the Seven to be joined as one flesh, one heart, one purpose?”

Valarr’s chest rises and falls in even rhythm. His voice rings out clear as steel. “Valarr of House Targaryen, son of Baelor, blood of the dragon.”

A collective intake of breath from the congregation ripples across the hall—noble ladies and grizzled knights all leaning forward at the echo of that lineage.

Your own name forms on your tongue, cool and steady. When you speak, the sound feels new, as though it has already grown accustomed to sharing the space beside his. The stillness deepens.

The Septon inclines his head, eyes sliding from you to Valarr. “Will you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife—cherish and protect her, stand beside her in light and shadow, in plenty and in want, in peace and in war, forsaking all others, until the Stranger calls you home?”

Valarr does not glance at the robed figure. He turns those dark-lashed eyes on you instead. “I will.” The words land with the weight of wrought iron.

The sept leans in, as though the very walls strain to hear his vow. “I vow before the Seven who are One,” he continues, his voice dropping to a private timbre meant only for your ears, “to honor you as my wife and my equal. I will guard your body with my strength and your name with my blood. I will seek your counsel, treasure your voice, and bear every burden the realm lays on my shoulders. What is mine shall be yours; what is yours I will cherish. In this life and the next, I am yours.”

No flourish, no grand gesture—just the raw sincerity hanging between you like a living thing.

The Septon turns once more, voice steady: “Will you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband—cherish and protect him, stand beside him in light and shadow, in plenty and in want, in peace and in war, forsaking all others, until the Stranger calls you home?”

Heat blooms at your wrists where the ribbon presses. You feel Valarr’s thumb brush yours, a gentle anchor. “I will.”

Your own vow rises clear, your voice steadier than your racing heart. “I vow before the Seven who are One to honor you as my husband and my chosen heart. I will stand beside you when the realm exalts you and when it condemns you. I will be your solace in weariness, your courage in doubt. I will keep your secrets, guard your trust, and share your fire without fear. Where you walk, I will walk. Where you rule, I will stand. In this life and whatever lies beyond it, I am yours.”

Silence falls like a velvet curtain. Every candle seems to hold its breath.

The High Septon lifts his hands and tightens the ribbon for the briefest moment—an unspoken benediction—then draws a slender blade. It catches the candlelight in a bright arc, and with a precise stroke, the ribbon parts, its fibers drifting away like scarlet ash.

Your wrists separate, yet your hands remain joined, fingers entwined as if by some invisible thread. The crowd exhales as one, the hush lingering.

Valarr stays still, his gaze unwavering, as though committing the exact curve of your cheek to memory. Then, slow and deliberate, he raises his free hand. His fingertips brush against your veil, gentle as a feather, reverent as a prayer.

When his lips meet yours, the kiss is proper—measured for onlookers and history alike—yet the warmth lingers, a quiet defiance of ceremony, marking this moment as only yours.

When he steps aside, the vaulted silence snaps in two. Applause crashes through the sept like thunder rolling over stone pillars. Women’s silk skirts whisper across polished floors; men’s boots click against marble in a staccato chorus. Somewhere near the nave, a relieved laugh rings too loud, ricocheting off carved beams. The great oak doors at the far end swing open with a sharp groan, and sudden sunlight floods in—warm beams dancing on dust motes—while distant bells peel in rising waves.

Valarr’s hand, cool and sure, slides from your cheek down to the small of your back as he pivots you toward the aisle. His movement is fluid, regal: elbow to yours, guiding. Yet when the crowd surges forward with outstretched hands—brushing your gown, murmuring “Blessings on the queen”—his fingers tighten once, a gentle reminder of his claim amid the tide of well-wishers.

By the time you slip from the sept’s sanctified hush, its scented candles and echoing chants already seem a memory. Outside, banners of black and red ripple like flames in the breeze. Rose petals drift in spirals around your ankles, soft as confetti. The bells grow louder still, joined now by a plaintive horn carried on the wind from the great hall.

Inside that hall, noise greets you like a living thing. Fiddles and drums crash in relentless waves; the shrill trill of pipes bounces off stone walls hung with more black-and-red banners. Long oaken tables groan beneath honey-glazed boar, racks of venison slick with spiced jus, and pyramids of jewel-bright fruits. Flagons of deep red wine stand half-empty as lords hoist goblets overhead, shouting congratulations, while ladies behind lace fans lean close to whisper. A stout knight nearby bellows at his own jest, sloshing wine down his tunic.

You and Valarr take your places at the high table. Your heavy crown is swapped for a slender circlet, yet the weight of every gaze remains—measured smiles, raised eyebrows, meaning in every toast.

“To the Prince and his radiant bride,” cries a gray-bearded bannerman, lifting his goblet. “To heirs strong and plentiful,” calls another. “To fire that never falters,” rings through the hall.

Goblets rise again; a wave of “hear, hears” crashes across the benches. Valarr meets each with flawless poise—clasping forearms, inclining his head—voice warm but measured. He wears a doublet of midnight velvet threaded with gold; his smile is effortless, his posture unshakeable. Throughout it all, his hand never leaves your back, palm resting against the smooth curve of your waist, thumb making slow, idle circles on the silk.

Beneath the table, your gown’s crimson folds spill over the bench, the candlelight painting them molten gold. His knee brushes yours once—deliberate enough to quicken your pulse—and again, as if testing a secret boundary. You shift, and his hand drifts lower for a heartbeat before arching back, fingers settling again at your hip. Above, he turns to a lord’s question about trade routes, brows knitting in thought, voice steady and thoughtful.

Hidden by the tablecloth’s heavy folds, his fingers find yours. They thread around your hand, loose but certain, palm to palm. You feel the warmth of him there—far warmer than the chill of the sept—and his thumb begins a slow, deliberate map across your palm, as if memorizing every line.

“Are you weary?” His lips brush the shell of your ear, soft as the whisper of silk, though the world watches. You feel his breath—warm, spiced with the last dregs of red wine—then his fingers slide over your knuckles, trailing a faint tremor down your wrist. Your pulse thuds beneath his touch, then stills as he withdraws, his face composed while another lord’s booming speech drones on about alliances and prosperity. The hall’s torchlight ripples over polished helms and gilded goblets, but nothing distracts you from the steady rise and fall of his chest at your side.

He leans in again, voice low, a promise in the rumble. “Soon.” His hand presses against the small of your back, guiding you forward through the swirl of dancers in jewel-toned gowns and velvet doublets, glasses in hand, laughter ringing sharp as steel. Crystal goblets clash; someone’s laughter cracks like a whip. Around you the celebration pulses—strings play a stately minuet, then a livelier jig, then the first wild chords of something untamed. You sense the shift before it happens: the dancers speed up, their steps careless, skirts and hems kicking higher. A cup lands on the long oak table with a crash.

“Bedding!” A tremor of laughter ripples through the crowd. “To the bedding!” “Send them off properly!”

The cry jumps from table to table—a chant, a dare. “Bedding! Bedding! Bedding!” It swirls overhead like autumn leaves in a gale. At your ear, Valarr’s jaw tightens, a single breath expelled through his teeth. His thumb glides over your waist, gentle and unyielding. Then he stands, every movement unhurried, as if he alone understands the turn the night has taken.

“If it must be so,” he says, voice level.

A roar answers him, drowning the last strains of music. Hands—bold and giggling—tangle in your hair, tugging pins free. Fingers unfasten pearls at his collar, then inch down the velvet of his cloak. A cousin dares to reach for his boot; a single scowl sends him stumbling back. Through it all, Valarr holds you—your elbow, your hip—steady, unwavering, as the crowd teases your skirts loose, the hem brushing your ankles. Someone shouts to carry you off. His eyes flash; he steps forward, voice soft but sharp.

“We will walk.”

No one protests. Torches are snatched from sconces; a procession forms, winding through arched doorways and shadowed corridors. The chant follows you: “Bedding! Bedding!” Feet echo on flagstones, torches flicker against carved stone, and teasing voices bounce off vaulted ceilings. At the bedchamber door the crowd surges one last time—final whoops, crude advice tossed like rose petals—then a fist raps the wood. The heavy doors swing wide.

They urge you inside. Then: silence. The doors close with a thud that drowns out the fading laughter and stomping feet. The sudden quiet is a breath held.

For a heartbeat neither of you moves. Outside, torchlight bleeds through the keyhole; inside, only the hearth’s glow and a circle of candles illuminate the room. Shadows pool in the corners. The four-poster bed stands ready—draped in cream linens, crowned with tassels of gold. A perfumed cushion lies atop a low table, untouched.

You are alone.

Valarr stands a few paces away, the space between you taut as drawn silk. Without the press of spectators, the heavy scent of burning pine, the clang of goblets, there is only the soft sound of your breathing and the distant drip of melting wax. His dark hair has loosened from its knot; a pale curl brushes his temple. Your braids have come undone too, ribbons trailing across your shoulders.

For the first time all day, no one is watching.

He exhales, a warm puff that lifts a stray lock at your temple. A half-smile tugs at his lips—gentler than any decree issued tonight. “Well,” he says, voice soft as linen.

Your fingers smooth the crimson silk at your hips. Behind him stands the bed, its carved dragon-head posts gleaming in the candlelight, cream linens turned golden in the glow. A muffled cheer rattles the windowpane.

Valarr's eyes flick to the heavy oak door, then back to your face. The muscle in his jaw twitches once. His fingers curl, uncurl, curl again at his sides before he takes three measured steps toward you. The floorboards creak beneath his boots. He stops close enough that you catch the scent of cloves on his breath, but his hands remain at his sides while his gaze traces the curve of your cheekbone, the hollow of your throat.

"It seems," he says, voice dropping to barely above a whisper, "we have been delivered."

The corner of your mouth lifts in answer to his, a silent acknowledgment of the absurdity.

The candle nearest you gutters, sending shadows dancing across the wall. Your breath comes quicker now, the air between you warmer than it should be. The fire pops and hisses.

Valarr's fingertips brush against yours, cool at first, then warming. The pad of his thumb finds the blue vein at your wrist, pressing gently where your pulse thrums beneath the skin—just as he did when he slid the ring onto your finger, just as he did beneath the feast table. His throat works as he swallows, and a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, smaller than his public one, crooked to the left.

"Just us," he murmurs.

You nod. A pin slips from your hair, landing with a soft clink against the stone floor. "No more speeches," you whisper. "No more eyes."

His smile deepens, revealing the small dimple in his right cheek that none of the court painters ever capture. The firelight softens the sharp angles of his face, turning the silver thread in his dark hair to burnished copper. His fingertips graze your temple, tucking a wayward strand behind your ear, lingering against the curve of your cheek.

"I've wanted to be alone with you all day," he admits, voice low. "Even in the sept, with everyone watching, I kept thinking..." He trails off, gaze dropping briefly to your lips before returning to your eyes.

The heat in your face has nothing to do with the fire. You lean slightly into his touch, permission without words.

Valarr's breath catches audibly. His hand slides to cup your cheek more fully, his thumb tracing the line of your jaw as if committing it to memory. The playful uncertainty in his eyes shifted to something deeper, more intent, the blue of his irises almost swallowed by expanding darkness.

"May I kiss you properly?" he asked, so close now that his words ghosted against your lips. "Not for ceremony or tradition. Just for us."

The question made your heart stutter against your ribs. After all the formality and ritual, this simple request felt more intimate than anything that had come before.

"Yes," you whispered, the word barely audible even in the quiet room.

He closed the space between you with exquisite slowness, giving you time to change your mind if you wished. But when his lips finally met yours, there was nothing hesitant about it. This was not the chaste, ceremonial kiss from the sept. This was heat and tenderness in perfect balance. His fingers tangled in the loosened strands of your hair as he drew you closer, his other hand finding the small of your back where it had rested throughout the feast. But this time there was no pretense of propriety, no audience to moderate his touch.

You melted into him, hands finding the front of his ceremonial doublet, feeling the warmth of his chest beneath the rich fabric. The kiss deepened naturally, his mouth moving against yours with growing confidence, learning what made your breath catch, what made your fingers curl tighter against him.

When he finally drew back, his breathing had quickened, matching your own. The firelight caught in his eyes, turning them to molten amethyst.

"I've wanted to do that since I first saw you today," he confessed, voice rougher now. "You were standing there in the sept, and I couldn't breathe. The way the candlelight touched your skin... it was like you were made of fire yourself."

His hand drifted to the lacing at your back, fingers hovering a breath away. "May I?"

You turned, presenting the intricate knots. The first brush of his fingertips against the cords sent gooseflesh across your shoulders. He worked each crossing with the concentration of a man untying a sailor's knot, his breath warm against your neck. The gown loosened notch by notch, the rigid fabric that had kept you upright all day finally giving way.

"In the sept," he whispered, his lips so close to your ear that you felt rather than heard the words, "when I said those words about honor and protection—" His fingers stilled on a particularly stubborn knot. "I wasn't reciting. I was promising."

The silk released with a sigh. Cool air rushed against your spine where sweat had gathered beneath the heavy fabric. Valarr's breath caught audibly as the gown slipped lower, revealing the curve of your shoulder blades.

His fingertips traced the path where silk had been, following the ridge of your spine. "I've dreamt of this," he murmured, voice rough.

You glanced back over your shoulder. "This exact moment?"

A flush crept up his neck, visible even in the firelight. His smile cracked through his composure, crooked and unguarded. "The dreams were... less detailed." His fingers skimmed lower, raising trails of sensation. "And entirely inadequate."

The gown collapsed around your ankles in a whisper of fabric. You stepped free, the shift beneath thin enough that the firelight silhouetted your form. Valarr stood motionless, the pulse at his throat visibly quickening.

"Now you," you said, your voice steadier than your hands.

His fingers fumbled with the first clasp of his doublet, then found their rhythm. One by one, the golden fastenings came undone. The heavy brocade parted to reveal linen beneath, damp with sweat at the collar. When he shrugged the formal garment off, his shoulders rolled with the fluid motion of someone finally setting down a heavy burden.

When his shirt followed, the candlelight caught the silver-white scars beneath his right collarbone—three parallel lines, old wounds from some training accident he'd never mentioned. Your fingertips reached out, hovering just above his skin, before tracing the ridged edges. His chest rose and fell more rapidly.

"Your hands are cold," he murmured, yet he leaned into your touch, his skin burning against your fingertips.

"And you're warm." The heat of him radiated through your palm as you spread your fingers across his chest. "Like dragon fire."

His lips curved upward, revealing that crooked incisor you'd noticed during the ceremony. He captured your wrist, turning it over. His breath ghosted across your palm before his mouth pressed against it, the slight dampness of his lips leaving a cooling mark that made you shiver.

His mouth traveled to the inside of your wrist, lingering over the blue veins there, then up to the sensitive crook of your elbow. Each press of his lips left your skin tingling, your breath coming faster.

The mattress pressed against the backs of your knees. He paused, the blue of his eyes nearly swallowed by black, a muscle working in his jaw. His thumb brushed across your lower lip, questioning.

You rose onto your toes, fingers threading through the silken curls at the nape of his neck, tugging him down until your lips met his. The heady sweetness of clove and dark red wine curled between you as you whispered against his mouth, “I am yours, and you are mine.”

His brow tightened in that moment, pupils darkening as a flush bloomed across his cheekbones. With a single, fluid movement, he swept you into his arms and carried you over the threshold of the bed. The mattress groaned softly beneath the weight of furs and linens as he settled you among the layers, his body arching above yours, fingertips grazing the hollow at your hip to steady himself.

“Mine,” he murmured against your throat, each syllable vibrating through your skin. His mouth trailed from your ear to the curve of your collarbone, lips feather-light at first before pressing gently into the softness there. One hand slipped under the hem of your shift, fingertips tracing slow, deliberate patterns over the smooth planes of your thigh, drawing a shiver up your leg. “And yours.”

He peeled the fabric upward, thumbs brushing the sensitive skin just beneath your ribs, then glided it over your breasts. As the garment pooled at your elbows, his gaze roved over you in a slow, reverent sweep—eyes bright with wonder at the faint rise and fall of your chest, at the pale curve of your waist.

His palms moved like cartographers, mapping every curve and hollow of your body as though memorizing it. Each gentle press of his thumb awakened sparks along your skin, and you pressed back, meeting his exploration with mounting heat. He bent forward, lips parting to brush a trail of soft, warming kisses along the center of your chest, each one lingering long enough to draw out a breathy moan.

“Guide me,” he whispered, voice husky, the vibration of his words sliding through your flesh. “Show me how to please you.”

A tremor of pleasure rose in your throat as he trudged slowly downward, dark hair brushing your collarbones like a whisper of silk, then spilling across your breasts. His mouth closed around the peak of one, hot and wet, while his other hand circled the opposite in mirrored rhythm, eliciting soft gasps with each deliberate twist of his thumb against your nipple.

“Is this right?” he asked, eyes lifting to yours—dark pools of concentration and raw desire. His touch never faltered, every stroke attuned to the beating of your pulse, the arch of your spine.

“Don’t stop,” you breathed, voice soft and urgent.

He listened to the music of your moans, adjusting the angle of his head, the curve of his fingers, as if tuning an instrument. His hand drifted lower, fingertips brushing the sensitive plane where your thigh met hip, exploring the swell there with careful curiosity. Each glide and contour asked a question, every pause awaited your response.

When he finally slipped two fingers between your thighs, he held your gaze unwaveringly, watching for the flicker of your lashes, the tilt of your lips, as he traced the secret fold of your pleasure again and again—discovering, claiming, worshipping you.

His fingers, feather-light, traversed your skin like a cartographer mapping uncharted territory. He found the spots that made your breath catch, like the hollow at the base of your neck, and the delicate skin behind your ear. When he brushed against the taut bundle of nerves at your core, your spine arched, a soft, involuntary cry escaping your parted lips.

"There?" he whispered, his voice rough and low, like the first stirrings of distant thunder. You managed a nod, your voice stolen by the sensation. He circled the spot with a delicate precision, his eyes never leaving your face, watching every micro-expression with an intensity that was almost tangible.

Pleasure coiled within you, a storm gathering on the horizon, each touch driving you closer to the edge. Valarr seemed to interpret your body's responses as easily as he would a cryptic parchment, adjusting pressure and pace with every gasp or tremble. His other hand still cradled your breast, thumb grazing the sensitive peak, while his mouth found yours again, swallowing your increasingly desperate sounds.

"Please," you breathed against his lips, your body arching towards his touch. "Valarr, I need—"

He silenced your plea with another kiss, deeper now, almost desperate. "Tell me," he murmured, his voice breaking slightly. "What do you need?"

You reached for the remaining fabric at his hips, fingers fumbling with the lacings. "You," you breathed. "All of you."

His eyes darkened at your words, a flush spreading across his chest and up his neck, like a sunrise chasing away the night. With a visible reluctance, he withdrew his touch to help you with the lacings, his hands steadier than yours, though his breath came in ragged gasps. When the last of his clothing fell away, you could only stare at the lean beauty of him, all pale skin and defined muscle, bathed in the flickering glow of the firelight.

Your fingers reached out, tracing the same path of discovery he had followed on your body. You followed the line of his collarbone, the dip of his waist, the curve of his hip. When your hand wrapped gently around him, his eyes fluttered closed for a moment, a soft groan escaping his throat, like the distant call of a nightbird.

"You're sure?" he asked again, his voice strained as he positioned himself above you. In answer, you pulled him down for another kiss, wrapping your legs around his hips. The first press of him against you drew gasps from you both, like the sharp intake of breath before a plunge. He entered you slowly, carefully, his forehead pressed to yours, his eyes watching your expression with tender concern.

"Are you—" he began, but you cut him off with a whispered, "Don't stop," your fingers digging into the firm muscle of his shoulders.

A shudder ran through him as he sank fully into you, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts, like the final gusts of wind before a storm breaks. For a moment, he remained perfectly still, trembling slightly with the effort of restraint. Then, softly, like a secret, he breathed against your lips, "I love you," the words escaping him like a confession long held captive.

Something shifted in his eyes then—a subtle alchemy from the soft glow of vulnerability to the hard, unyielding glint of certainty. He caught your gaze, held it, and for a heartbeat you felt the entire world contract to the narrow space between your bodies, every sense ablaze and hungry. When he began to move, the bed beneath you groaned in protest, and each careful thrust was punctuated by a shaky inhale, shock rippling through both of you at the newness and the gravity of sensation. Your bodies searched for a rhythm, and at first it was clumsy—a tangle of limbs and startled whispers, and then a gasp as you adjusted to the slow, delicious stretch of him inside you. Valarr’s hands gripped your hips with careful reverence, as if you might vanish if he pressed too hard, but the warmth of his touch and the heat of his gaze made it clear he never wanted to let you go.

Your own body rose to meet his, hips moving in time to his, your legs wrapping around his waist for leverage and to pull him deeper. The world beyond the bed, the room, the castle, all receded—there was only the searing heat of skin upon skin, every nerve ending sparking alive. Your hands mapped the topography of him—the ridges of his shoulder blades, the taut muscles of his back, the delicate scars beneath his collarbone. Each new discovery, each responsive shiver, fed your own need, and you found yourself arching up into his touch, silently urging him to go harder, faster, deeper.

He caught your lower lip between his teeth, biting down gently, and you gasped into his mouth, the taste of clove and wine and desire mingling on your tongues. You tangled your fingers in the thick silk of his hair, pulling him even closer, and felt his body shudder in response. “Don’t let go,” you murmured, half a plea, half an order. He answered with a deep, guttural sound, the kind you’d never heard from him before, and buried his face in the crook of your neck, breathing you in like a drowning man desperate for air.

The pleasure built, slow and inexorable as the turning of the tide, cresting higher with every thrust. Valarr’s hands slipped beneath you, palms spanning the small of your back to tilt your hips, changing the angle in a way that made bright sparks explode behind your eyelids. You clung to him, your nails digging crescents into his skin, and he seemed to relish the hurt, his rhythm growing bolder with every gasp and cry you gave him.

At some point, your shift had ridden up around your ribs, exposing your chest to the cool air and the steady heat of his mouth. He ducked his head to lavish your breasts with attention, tongue circling and flicking until you arched up, wordless in your need. You barely registered the sound escaping you, but Valarr seemed to be listening for every note, responding to every shift of your body. His hands never stilled; one cradled your face, brushing stray hair from your cheek, while the other alternated between cupping the back of your head and stroking the length of your thigh.

Time collapsed in on itself; minutes became hours, or perhaps it was the other way around. With every movement, his restraint began to unravel, the careful mask of prince and diplomat slipping away to reveal only the man beneath—hungry, yearning, utterly devoted to the act of making you his. He whispered your name between kisses, sometimes so softly you felt it more as a vibration in your bones than a sound in your ears. "Mine," he breathed, punctuating the word with a rolling thrust that left you breathless.

The pressure inside you coiled tighter and tighter, a storm gathering on the horizon. You clawed at his back, leaving marks you hoped would linger, a physical memory of this night. When his hand slid between your bodies to find the slick, aching place where you were joined, you nearly sobbed from the intensity. He circled his thumb, gently at first, then with more intent as he learned how your body responded. “There?” he asked, the word ragged, desperate. You could only gasp, “Yes, gods, yes—don’t stop—”

He didn’t. His fingers and hips worked in perfect tandem, every thrust, every brush of his hand, every swallow of your moans calculated to bring you to the very edge and hold you there. When it finally broke, the climax ripped through you with a force that left you trembling, your back bowing off the bed as you keened his name into the firelit hush. He watched you come undone, awe and longing painted in bold strokes across his beautiful face, and only then did he let himself go, following you over the precipice with a shout that sounded like both victory and surrender.

You clung together in the aftermath, bodies slick with sweat, the mingled scent of sex and red wine heavy in the small, shadowy space. His arms wrapped around you as if to shield you from the world, the weight of him comforting and grounding against your chest. For several heartbeats, the only sound was your racing pulse and his staccato breaths, each one a soft tremor against your neck.

But even as you lay there, the pleasure still echoing through your limbs, you sensed a new vulnerability in the way he held you. His thumb traced slow circles on your hip, hesitant, as if seeking permission to keep touching you. When he finally lifted his head, his face was flushed, silver-gold hair clinging to his damp forehead. The vulnerability in his expression made your chest ache with tenderness.When he finally lifted his head, you saw the tips of his dark hair plastered to his forehead in tangled waves. His cheeks burned pink, breath coming in slow, shuddering gusts that left the hollow of his throat damp. Vulnerability quivered in the amber glow of his eyes, and a strange, molten ache pooled beneath your ribs.

“Are you all right?” he whispered, his voice husky, as one long-fallen curl slipped free of his brow. He reached out, brushing the strand against your cheek—his fingertips light, almost questioning. You nodded, your throat too tight to form words. His concern brushed across your heart like a summer breeze stirring rose petals: unexpected, gentle, unforgettable.

He shifted on the silk sheets, thighs sliding against yours, keeping a fingertip pressed to your collarbone as he lifted you until your shoulders rested against his chest. Your skin met his in a cool tumble of sheets and heated sweat; the scent of your hair mingled with his, faintly spiced by the torches in the hearth. He leaned in, planting a soft kiss at your temple. You felt the beat of his pulse settle, slow and even, beneath the nape of your neck.

“I meant it,” he murmured into your hair, voice low as the coals in the fireplace. “What I said before.”

You turned toward him, tracing the curve of his jaw by firelight, and met his gaze. Those violet eyes—dark now, almost black in the flicker—held the same fierce spark of princely command, but softened by something quieter: a man’s devotion laid bare.

“I meant it, too,” you whispered, letting your words drift across the warm skin of his chest. They weren’t vows uttered under marble arches watched by painted gods, but truths breathed into a private world. His mouth curved in a crooked half-smile, nothing like the polished politeness he reserved for councils and courts. It was small, intimate—just for you. His fingers traced idle circles along your shoulder blade as though mapping the contours of your body for the first time. A single touch sent a shiver along your spine, even though the heat between you still lingered.

For a long beat, neither of you spoke. The fire in the hearth hissed and settled; the candles guttered, dripping wax. Beyond the thick stone walls of the keep, laughter and music had fallen silent, the revelry at last concluded.

Valarr leaned forward again, pressing his lips to the side of your head with a tenderness you’d never known he could summon. His arm tightened around you—not in claim, but in promise—and you melted closer, your palm finding the steady drum of his heart against your chest.

No crowns here. No banners. No witnesses.

Only warmth, breath, and the faint tang of smoke mingled with silk. Outside, the realm waited—with its heirs, its histories, its hungry flames.

Inside this hush, you closed your eyes in the curve of his arms and let the world keep its counsel.

His handwriting was dreadful. While most noble boys spent years bent over desks under the watchful eyes of maesters, mastering neat letters and proper spacing, Duncan’s script looked born of stables and campsites—scribbled between sword drills and dusty roads. The letters were oversized and uneven; some leaned left, some right. One line slanted steadily downward as though he’d forgotten where he intended to write before remembering halfway through. An ink blot near the middle never failed to make you smile, picturing him hunched at a table too small for him, scowling as though the act of writing were a personal affront.

The letter’s message was painfully ordinary: a brief account of the road, a grumble about the rain, and a promise that he remained in good health. It should not have been enough to sustain you—but somehow, it was.

Outside your chamber’s open window, summer carried on without you. Sunlight spilled across the stone floor in great pools of gold. Below, horses stamped and whinnied in the stables. A stableboy called out, laughter drifted up from the yard, and in the distance steel rang out as guards drilled under the afternoon sun. The castle breathed and moved and carried on, indifferent to your waiting.

At the bottom of the page lay his name—nothing more, no title or flourish, just Dunk, scrawled in that same awkward hand. It had been months since you had last seen him.

The realization settled heavily in your chest each time you let your thoughts wander back to him. You remembered that morning he left with painful clarity: spring was just loosening winter’s grip, the roads thick with mud, the air sharp with impending rain. You watched from the yard as he checked straps and saddlebags one last time, pretending not to stare whenever his gaze met yours. Most of all, you remembered him riding through the gates—impossibly large atop his horse, filling every space he occupied, so vast it seemed absurd the world could swallow him whole. Yet swallow him it did.

Weeks turned into months. Ravens arrived too rarely. Every rider on the road caught your eye; every distant shape sparked a foolish hope before dissolving into disappointment. You spent afternoons by the windowsill, telling yourself you were enjoying the weather even as you watched the path.

It wasn’t fear you felt most—it wasn’t that you doubted Duncan’s strength. It was his absence. You missed the heavy echo of his boots in the corridor, the way he ducked under doorways despite knowing perfectly well how tall he was, the sight of him folded awkwardly into chairs that seemed ready to collapse beneath him, the quiet comfort of knowing he was somewhere nearby, ready to be found.

With a sigh, you folded the letter and pressed it to your chest, sinking deeper into the bed. Warm sunlight spilled across the blankets, a gentle breeze stirred the curtains, and the scents of grass, horses, and distant summer fields drifted in. The castle’s sounds receded, softened by thick stone walls and the afternoon’s drowsy heat.

Just rest your eyes for a moment, you told yourself. Waiting was exhausting.

Your fingers curled around the parchment as your lids grew heavy. Slowly, you drifted off, the letter still tucked against your heart. The first sound slipped into your dreams so quietly you mistook it for part of them.

You stirred beneath the blankets, a reluctant frown creasing your brow. The sun’s warmth pressed against your skin, and you hovered between sleep and wakefulness. Then you heard it again—a faint creak.

Old castles settled in murmurs: floorboards groaning, hinges complaining, stone shifting with the seasons. But this sound pulled you further from sleep.

You opened your eyes slowly. Through a haze of lingering exhaustion, the familiar shapes of your chamber emerged. Sunlight had shifted across the floor, reaching farther than before. The curtains fluttered at the open window. For a moment you lay still, disoriented by the unexpected heaviness in your limbs and unsure how long you had slept.

A strange tension settled over you. Without thinking, your gaze drifted to the doorway, and you blinked against the fog of sleep as your eyes fought to focus.

Your eyes found him before your mind did.

The afternoon sun was at his back, pouring through the window, and it reduced him to silhouette—a dark mass filling the doorway, large and motionless in a way that felt borrowed from some half-remembered dream. You had dreamed him so many times. You knew the trick of it. The way want could dress itself up as vision.

You waited for him to dissolve.

He didn’t.

Slowly, the details came. The travel-stained cloak. The dust packed into the creases of his boots. Hair longer than you remembered, pushed into disorder by weeks of open road. The afternoon light caught the hard geography of his face and mapped the miles there without mercy.

He had always been too large for doorways. He had always been too large for rooms, for chairs, for any space the world set aside for ordinary men. He was too large now for the fragile construction your sleeping mind had tried to build around him.

You could not have said how long you stared.

Then he spoke.

“My lady.”

Two words. Soft, and worn rough by the road, and so thoroughly, impossibly his that something in your chest simply gave way.

You were across the room before the thought had fully formed.

The blankets caught at your legs. The letter fell. Your foot snagged the edge of the mattress and for one terrible moment the floor lurched up toward you—you caught the bedpost, stumbled, kept moving. Every septa who had ever despaired of you would have despaired again.

You did not slow down.

Months of waiting. Months of ravens that never came, of riders on the road who were never him, of lying awake trying to remember exactly how his voice sounded. All of it compressed into the few feet of stone floor between you.

Your bare feet slapped against it as you crossed.

Duncan’s eyes went wide.

You gave him no time to speak. The distance that had felt, only moments ago, like something that might never close—closed. You crossed it without hesitation, without grace, without any of the composure you had always intended to have when this moment finally came.

His arms caught you before you could do either of you any damage.

The impact pressed the air from your lungs. His boots scraped once against the stone, absorbing you, and then the floor was gone entirely—he had lifted you without apparent effort, his arms locked around you, and a laugh escaped you that you hadn’t planned, startled out of you by the sudden weightlessness.

The room tilted.

You held on.

He was here. Warm. Solid. Real in a way that no amount of rereading a letter had ever managed to make him.

Your fingers slid to the nape of his neck while the other hand tangled in the dusty folds of his cloak. You felt grit beneath your touch and breathed in the scent of the road—horse sweat, leather, wind, distant horizons. Underneath it all lay something achingly familiar that tightened your chest. Duncan.

He bowed his head and nestled it against your throat as if breathing itself urged him there. For a long, suspended moment neither of you spoke. Months of separation folded into the space between heartbeats, and words felt hopelessly small.

You squeezed him tighter. He squeezed you tighter still.

There was no dignity in your embrace. Had anyone walked in, they’d have seen the daughter of a noble house clinging to a dusty hedge knight like a woman clutching driftwood. You didn’t care.

One of Duncan’s hands spread across the middle of your back; the other slid under your thighs, lifting you against him with ridiculous ease. You should have blushed. Instead, it only made you cling harder. Duncan showed no desire to set you down, either.

When you finally released enough tension to look at him, it felt like prying two halves of a whole apart. His arms never loosened: one arm braced beneath your legs, the other broad and warm across your back, as if he’d decided that after these months, letting go was impossible. Up close, the journey he’d endured was written on him—dust stubbornly caked to cloak and boots, afternoon light catching the worn angles of his jaw, tired shadows beneath his eyes. He looked older, not by age but by distance, by roads walked, by cold camps and countless nights under unfamiliar stars.

You had replayed this moment more times than you could count—during sleepless nights, at dull dinners, perched by windows you pretended not to watch. In every fantasy you had a clever line ready: a sharp quip about how long he’d been gone, a complaint about the infrequent ravens, some feeble bid for dignity. Now, with his arms holding you and the familiar blend of horse and wind around you, every planned word vanished.

“You’re home.” Your whisper was barely more than breath.

Duncan’s gaze stayed locked on yours. For a heartbeat he simply looked, his expression softening in a way that made your ribs ache. Then he nodded once.

“Aye.”

No grand speech, no explanations, no apologies—just that simple, unmistakable word. So thoroughly Duncan that a laugh escaped you, breathless and half in tears. You’d missed him—every facet of him: the awkward honesty, the way he could distill a flood of feeling into a single syllable and make it enough.

Your hand rose on its own, brushing a wind-tangled lock from his brow before settling against his cheek. He leaned into the touch without thinking, as natural as breathing, and your heart clenched at the sight. It had been months since you’d felt his skin beneath your palm, months since you’d looked into those eyes and known he was alive and here. Relief swelled through you, mingling with something else now—something quieter that had been growing all along in his absence.

His gaze dropped to your mouth.

It didn’t linger. It didn’t need to.

You did not remember who closed the distance.

The kiss was unhurried—not from restraint but from something more like recognition, the way you might finally say aloud a word you had been turning over in silence for months. When you broke apart it was only to look at him again, to press the fact of him into memory, but Duncan seemed to keep arriving at the same need at the same moment, and the looking never lasted. A breath. The soft sound of the castle somewhere far below. Then one of you would find the other again.

Movement entered the room without announcing itself.

A shift in weight. The slow swing of the walls around you. He was walking, or something like walking—it had none of the qualities of a decision. His hand stayed where it had settled against your hair. Your arms stayed where they had locked. The idea of renegotiating even an inch of that arrangement seemed to occur to neither of you.

You had spent months with a fear that lived just beneath everything else: that you would surface from some dream to find the room unchanged, the letter cooling in your hands, the doorway as empty as it had always been.

Your fingers pressed into his neck.

A sound came from low in Duncan’s chest. Wordless. Unguarded.

Then the backs of your legs met the mattress, and you understood where he had been walking to all along.

The bed waited where it always had. The light across it was the same light. Nothing was the same.

The yard had gone silent, or you had. The castle might have been a painting on the wall for all it concerned you now. His hands were warm. His heartbeat was steady against your chest. That was the entire world.

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

His forehead dropped to yours. His eyes fell shut. A broad hand at the small of your back, the other lost somewhere in your hair—neither of you renegotiated any of it. You looked at him anyway, the way you kept returning to look at him: the road-dust beaten into the weave of his cloak, the hair gone longer and fallen across his brow, the tiredness under his eyes that wasn’t one night’s worth but many nights’, accumulated, carried home. He’d earned that weariness mile by mile, under skies that weren’t yours to share.

Still. Underneath all of it. That same unmoving center—the particular gravity of him that you had spent months bumping up against the absence of, the way a room feels wrong before you realize what’s missing from it. You raised your hand to his face, tracing the sharp line of his jaw, feeling the stubble that had grown in his absence. The roughness beneath your fingertips was new, a reminder of the time that had passed between you. Duncan turned his head, pressing his lips against your palm, and the sensation sent a shiver through you that had nothing to do with the summer air.

“You’re real,” you whispered, half-afraid that speaking too loudly might break whatever spell had brought him back to you.

“Real enough,” he murmured against your skin, his breath warm and alive against your wrist.

The bed creaked slightly as he shifted his weight, lowering you onto the mattress with a gentleness that seemed impossible from hands so large. You sank into the familiar softness, but nothing felt the same—not with Duncan’s body pressed against yours, not with months of longing finally finding its outlet.

Your fingers found the clasp of his cloak, working it loose with trembling hands. The cloak fell away with a whisper of heavy fabric, revealing the worn leather jerkin beneath. You felt the warmth of his body through the thin material of your nightgown as he settled beside you, his weight dipping the mattress. His hand moved to your waist, fingers spreading wide enough to span nearly the entire breadth of you.

“I’ve thought of this,” he admitted, voice low and rough. “Every night. Every morning.”

You reached for the laces of his jerkin, tugging them free with more urgency than grace. “Show me,” you whispered, your fingers trembling slightly as they worked.

His hand stilled yours, enveloping them completely. “Slow,” he said, the word both command and plea. “I’ve waited too long to rush.”

The restraint in his voice made something flutter low in your belly. You nodded, allowing him to guide the pace. He shifted, rising above you, and the sight of him—all broad shoulders and tired eyes made something deep within you ache with want.

His weight settled over you, careful but insistent. You felt the heat of his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt as he lowered himself. The mattress dipped beneath his bulk, drawing you toward him like a tide. His breath warmed your neck as he pressed his lips there, a kiss so tender it made your eyes sting.

“I’ve missed you,” you whispered, your voice catching. “More than I knew how to miss anyone.”

His hand slid up your side, following the curve of your waist, pausing at the swell of your breast. The touch was hesitant, reverent. You arched into his palm, silently encouraging. His thumb traced slow circles through the fabric, drawing a soft gasp from your lips.

The afternoon light played across his face as he looked down at you. Something shifted in his expression—the road-weariness giving way to something warmer, hungrier. You reached up to trace the line of his mouth, feeling the roughness of stubble beneath your fingertips. The simple touch made his eyes flutter closed for a moment, as though he’d been starved for it. His mouth found yours again, and this time the kiss deepened with purpose. The taste of him—dust and salt and something uniquely Duncan—filled your senses. Your fingers tangled in his hair, longer now than you remembered, and you pulled him closer, needing to feel every inch of him against you.

His hand slid beneath the hem of your nightgown, calloused fingers trailing up your calf, your thigh. The sensation sent shivers racing across your skin. You gasped against his mouth as his palm settled on the curve of your hip, his thumb tracing small, maddening circles.

You arched into his touch, your body responding to him as though no time had passed. His hand traveled higher, fingers spreading across your belly before slipping beneath the thin fabric of your nightgown. When his palm cupped your breast, you felt a shiver race down your spine. His thumb brushed across your nipple, drawing a soft gasp from your lips. The sensation was electric, making your skin prickle with awareness. You’d forgotten how his hands could make you feel so thoroughly claimed.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” he murmured against your throat, his breath hot against your pulse point. “Every cold night on the road, I’d close my eyes and you’d be there.”

Your fingers worked at the laces of his jerkin with renewed urgency, finally loosening them enough to push the leather aside. The shirt beneath was thin, worn from travel, and you could feel the heat of him radiating through it. When your palm pressed flat against his chest, you felt the steady thud of his heartbeat beneath your touch.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, his eyes dark with want. Without breaking eye contact, he reached for the hem of your nightgown. The fabric whispered over your skin as he drew it up your body. Cool air kissed your skin, raising gooseflesh in its wake. Your breath caught as he revealed inch after inch of you, his gaze following the fabric’s retreat with an intensity that made your skin flush. When the nightgown finally slipped over your head and away, you felt suddenly vulnerable beneath his stare. Duncan’s eyes traveled the length of your body with a reverence that made your chest tighten. He looked at you as though you were something precious, something worth traveling across kingdoms to find again. The hunger in his gaze was tempered by something softer, something that made your heart ache. His fingers traced a path from your collarbone down to the curve of your breast, feather-light yet deliberate. When his thumb brushed across your nipple, you couldn’t suppress the soft sound that escaped your throat. The sensation sent sparks racing through your body, awakening every nerve ending.

You reached for his shirt, tugging it upward. He obliged, raising his arms so you could pull the fabric over his head. The sight of him—all broad chest and muscled arms, dusted with a scattering of hair—made your breath catch. You’d forgotten the sheer physical presence of him, how his body seemed to fill every space it occupied.

His lips found the hollow of your throat, pressing a kiss there that seemed to reach all the way to your core. Your fingers tangled in his hair, holding him close as his mouth traveled lower, tracing the line of your collarbone with agonizing slowness. When his tongue flicked across your nipple, a sound escaped you—half gasp, half moan—that echoed in the quiet chamber.

The afternoon light caught the dust motes dancing in the air around you both, turning everything golden as his mouth continued its exploration. The world outside your chamber faded to nothing—the distant sounds of the castle, the summer breeze, the lingering scent of horses and leather—all of it dissolved into the sensation of his lips against your skin.

Your hands mapped the terrain of his back, feeling the raised lines of old scars, the play of muscle beneath skin. Months of sword drills and long rides had honed him further, and you traced each new ridge with wondering fingers. Duncan shuddered beneath your touch, a low sound rumbling in his chest.

His hand traveled from your breast, gliding down the curve of your waist, his palm mapping every inch as though reacquainting itself with topography forgotten in absence. He lingered at the jut of your hipbone, his thumb drawing lazy circles that did nothing to soothe the anticipation coiling deep inside you. Then his fingers splayed, inching lower, until his entire hand pressed flush against the plane of your stomach. The heat of it was startling; it felt as though he could brand you with the memory of his touch alone.

He paused there, fingers flexing against your trembling abdomen, and for one devastating moment you thought he might stop—might decide that he’d misread the invitation shining in your eyes, the breathlessness of your voice, the way your body curled toward his like a living vow. But then his hand slipped lower, and you arched—an involuntary, helpless motion—as his palm cupped you, pressing against the wet heat between your thighs.

You made a sound then, a fractured exhale, and felt the bedsprings creak beneath you. “You’re wet already,” Duncan rasped, the words barely more than a marvel uttered against your breast. His voice vibrated through you, raising gooseflesh along your skin, and you wondered if he could feel your pulse galloping beneath his lips.

You tried to respond, tried to shape words around the heat in your throat, but the only language left to you was touch. You clung to him, nails biting into the hard muscle of his shoulders, every muscle in your legs tensing in anticipation. His fingers traced languid, tormenting circles, moving with infuriating slowness. It was as though he wanted to savor every moment, to draw out the tension until you couldn’t stand it.

He lifted his head to look at you, eyes gone impossibly dark, the blue nearly swallowed by the black. “Tell me what you want,” he said, his voice rough with need and restraint. The words, the tone, the unwavering focus in his gaze—they threatened to undo you.

You bit your lip, your mind a jumble of need and disbelief and the simple, elemental fact of him. “Please,” you whispered, the word barely audible, torn from you by the pressure of his thumb circling exactly where you wanted it most.

Duncan’s jaw tightened, his hands shaking with the effort of holding back. “Please what?” he pressed, and you felt his breath ghost over your lips, stoking the fire already burning there.

You wanted to answer, to tell him everything—all the things you’d imagined, all the places you wanted to feel him, how you’d lain awake at night reliving the dull ache of loneliness as a prologue to the fever-dream of being together again—but your tongue fumbled the words. Instead, you crashed your mouth against his, pouring every unsaid thing into that kiss, hoping he could taste the longing that had kept you alive in his absence.

He rewarded you with his hands, one bracing at your hip, the other sliding between your thighs, his fingers parting you with exquisite care. You cried out, the sound muffled by his mouth, as his touch found the exact spot that made you shudder. He stroked you there, slow at first, then faster as you rocked against his hand. The rhythm he found was merciless.

Every stroke coaxed another gasp, another arch, until your whole world narrowed to the relentless pleasure building inside you. You clung to him, your nails painting red crescents in his skin, your hips rising to meet every motion.

He never broke the kiss, drinking in your every sound, your every tremor. “That’s it,” he whispered against your mouth, as if you needed permission to let yourself go. He pressed a finger inside you, then another, the sensation almost too much after so much time, so much longing. You felt yourself break around him, your body clutching at his hand, pulling him in deeper, closer.

“Gods,” you breathed, the word dissolving into a moan as pleasure overtook you. The wave hit with shocking force, blinding and total, drowning out everything but the heat and the tension and the perfect, perfect rupture. You arched, your whole body seizing as the sensation crested and broke, leaving you gasping and shaking in its wake.

Duncan watched you fall apart, his own breath coming ragged, every muscle in his frame tense with the effort of holding back. He held you through it, never letting up, his thumb gentle now as he coaxed every aftershock from you, his murmurs a constant in your ear.

When your body finally loosened, when you sagged beneath him, trembling and boneless, he pressed kisses to your shoulder, your collarbone, your lips. You opened your eyes to find him watching you—not with hunger alone, but with something softer, something like awe.

“I need you,” you managed, the words ragged and true. You reached for him, fumbling with the laces of his breeches, your hands clumsy with urgency. The moment your fingers brushed the leather, Duncan caught your hand, holding it fast.

“Not yet,” he said, but it wasn’t a rebuke. His voice was gentle, thick with emotion. “Let me remember this. Let me have every bit of you.”

He bent to your stomach, his mouth trailing a line of kisses downward, each one a purposeful punctuation. His lips brushed the soft underside of your breast, the ridge of your rib, the hollow where your hip met your thigh. Every touch sent shivers through you, your senses still raw from the climax, hyper-attuned to every point of contact.

He knelt at the edge of the bed, pulling you toward him with effortless strength. Your legs parted around his broad shoulders, and you felt the scrape of his stubble against the delicate skin of your inner thigh. His hands pinned your hips to the mattress, thumbs stroking gentle, grounding circles as he pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee. Then another, higher this time, and another, until your whole body trembled with anticipation.

You couldn’t help the sound that escaped you—a needy, desperate whimper. “Please, Duncan,” you begged, voice hoarse with longing. “I can’t—please—”

He answered with his mouth, his breath hot and humid against your sex. When his tongue found you, you nearly sobbed with relief. He licked a slow, deliberate stripe, pausing to suck gently, teasing the most sensitive part of you until you were writhing, gasping, reaching for something to anchor you to the world.

Your hands found his hair, clutching fistfuls of it, desperate to keep him exactly where you needed him. Duncan moaned against you—an answering vibration that you felt everywhere—and worked his tongue with the same patience he’d shown with his hands, never rushing, never relenting.

He knew your body, even after months apart. He read every tremor as though it were a line in a letter written just for him. He listened for every gasp, every stutter in your breath, every subtle shift in your hips, and adjusted his touch accordingly. You were helpless under the onslaught, reduced to gasps and moans and the tangled language of want.

When he slid two fingers inside you, curling them just so, you came undone again. The pleasure built and built, coiling so tightly you thought you might break. You didn’t recognize the sounds coming from your own throat, didn’t care what the world outside your window might overhear. Nothing existed except this—him, you, the gold-washed afternoon and the relentless, perfect fullness of sensation.

When release came, it was wild and shattering. Your body arched off the mattress, every muscle tight as a bowstring. You cried out his name, the syllable sharp and bright in the quiet room. Duncan held you through the storm, his tongue and fingers working you until you were wrung out, spent, and shaking.

Only when the tremors subsided did he ease his touch, kissing you softly, reverently, as though thanking you for the offering. He drew himself up, bracing his weight above you, his chest heaving with the effort of restraint. You reached for him, pulling him down, and he kissed you with open desperation, as though he was drowning and you were the only air left in the world.

The taste of yourself on his lips shocked you, sent a flare of heat through your belly, and you clung to him all the more. It felt impossibly intimate—more so than anything before. You never wanted to let go, never wanted to lose this sense of being so wholly known, so completely claimed.

When the last tremor subsided, Duncan rose above you, his eyes dark with desire, his breath uneven. You reached for him, pulling him down for a kiss, tasting yourself on his lips. The intimacy of it made something shift deep within your chest.

“I need you,” you whispered against his mouth, your hands sliding down to the laces of his breeches once more. This time, he didn’t stop you.

His weight settled over you as you freed him from his remaining clothing, the heat of his skin against yours making you gasp. The sensation of him pressing against your center sent a fresh wave of desire coursing through you. Months of absence had made you both hungry, desperate.

When he finally pushed inside you, you both groaned in unison. The feeling of him finally filling you again after months of emptiness made your eyes sting with tears. The stretch, the fullness—it was almost too much, too intense after so much time apart. You clutched at his shoulders, nails digging into his skin as you adjusted to the sensation of him. He held still, allowing you to feel every inch of him, every heartbeat pulsing through him. The restraint it cost him was evident in the trembling of his arms, the tension in his jaw. You wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, and a groan tore from his throat.You felt the tremor run through him as he began to move, a slow, deliberate rhythm that had you gasping for breath. The sensation of being filled, of being connected again after so long apart, overwhelmed you. Your body remembered his, even as your mind marveled at the reality of his presence.

“Look at me,” Duncan whispered, his voice rough with need.

You opened your eyes, finding his gaze fixed on yours with an intensity that stole your breath. In that moment, nothing existed but the two of you—the world beyond the castle walls, the distance that had separated you, all of it dissolved into the sensation of his body moving against yours.

His pace quickened, each thrust driving deeper, filling you completely. You arched beneath him, meeting each movement with your own. The sound of skin against skin, of breathless gasps and whispered names, filled the chamber.

“Gods,” he groaned, his forehead dropping to yours. His forehead dropped to yours. The intimacy of the gesture made your heart clench. You could feel every ridge of his brow, every bead of sweat forming there. His breath came in ragged bursts against your lips, and you felt the tension building in him, in the way his muscles coiled beneath your palms.

You wrapped your legs tighter around him, urging him deeper. The angle shifted, and you both gasped as he hit a spot inside you that sent sparks racing up your spine. Your fingers dug into his back, nails leaving half-moons in his skin as pleasure built to an almost unbearable peak. His rhythm grew erratic, each thrust driving deeper than the last. You felt yourself tightening around him, pleasure building at the base of your spine, spreading outward like wildfire. Your fingers raked down his back, leaving marks that would stay with him for days—tangible proof that this was real, that he was here.

“Duncan,” you gasped, his name a prayer on your lips. The sound of it seemed to break something in him. His movements became more urgent, his grip on your hips tightening as he pulled you harder against him. The bed creaked beneath you, the headboard tapping a steady rhythm against the stone wall.

You were close—so close—the tension coiling tighter with each thrust. His hand slipped between your bodies, finding that sensitive bundle of nerves, and the touch sent you spiraling. Your back arched off the mattress, every nerve ending firing at once. The world went white behind your eyelids as pleasure crashed through you in waves.

The sound you made was unlike any sound you’d ever made before—raw, unguarded, torn from somewhere deep inside you. Your body clenched around him, pulling him deeper as the pleasure crested and broke. You felt Duncan tense above you, his rhythm faltering as he found his own release. His groan vibrated through your chest as he spilled inside you, his arms trembling with the effort of holding himself up.

For long moments, neither of you moved. The only sounds were your ragged breathing and the distant murmur of the castle. Your heart hammered against his, and you wondered if he could feel it—this overwhelming, terrifying love that had grown in his absence.

When he finally shifted, you whimpered at the loss of him. He settled beside you, pulling you against his chest. His heartbeat gradually slowed beneath your ear, steady and reassuring. His fingers traced lazy patterns on your back, and you shivered at the touch.

The letter lay forgotten on the floor, crumpled and trampled in your rush to reach him. You could see it from where you lay, a pale smudge against the stone. Months of waiting, compressed into that single sheet of parchment—and now it meant nothing compared to the solid reality of Duncan beside you.

His breath steadied gradually, his chest rising and falling beneath your cheek. The afternoon light had shifted again, painting the walls in deeper gold as the sun began its descent. You lay there for a long while, your limbs tangled with his, neither of you willing to break the fragile silence that had settled between you. The sweat cooling on your skin made you shiver, and Duncan drew the blanket over you both without a word, his arm tightening around your waist.

Outside, the castle continued its afternoon rhythms. You heard the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, the whinny of horses being led to water. Life went on, indifferent to your reunion, and somehow that made it all the sweeter.

This is not a quiet place. It is not meant to be.

Tankards knock together in careless toasts. Dice rattle across a table and are swept up again amid cheers and groans. A half drunk singer bellows a song three verses out of order and is encouraged to keep going anyway. The canvas walls bow and ripple as laughter crashes against them, as if the sound itself is trying to break free.

You enter with little ceremony. A brief announcement that barely survives the din. A dancer brought to entertain while men drink and boast and relive the day’s glory. You have learned not to wait for silence. You step into the tent as it is, letting posture and movement do the work words never could. Your spine is straight, your chin lifted. Confidence settles into your bones with familiar ease. You are used to being watched. You know how to hold an audience without asking permission.

The music finds you, uneven at first, then steadying. You move with it, deliberate and practiced, letting silk whisper against skin, letting coin catch the light with each turn. The crowd does not quiet, but it shifts. Conversations soften. A few heads turn, then a few more. Watching you becomes part of the evening’s indulgence, another pleasure folded neatly between wine and laughter.

At the center of the tent, a knot of men occupies more space than the rest. They are loud, broad shouldered, flushed with drink and triumph. Their voices rise easily above the din, punctuated by booming laughter that draws glances even from those too far away to see its source clearly. Whoever leads that sound does so without effort, as if the tent itself were inclined to listen.

Gradually, the laughter resolves into a shape.

He sits among companions but never quite blends into them. Too tall even while seated, too broad in the shoulders, built like something meant for impact rather than subtlety. A cloth-of-gold surcoat catches the torchlight whenever he moves, the crowned stag emblazoned upon it bright and unmistakable. His black hair is already untidy, pushed back by careless fingers, his blue eyes sharp despite the wine. He gestures widely when he speaks, throws his head back when he laughs, slaps the table hard enough to make tankards jump.

Lyonel Baratheon has been enjoying himself for hours.

He laughs often and loudly, at jokes and boasts and memories of blows traded on the field. He laughs at his opponents and at himself in equal measure. The sound is infectious, rolling through the tent and pulling smiles from men who have never spoken to him and never will. This is the Laughing Storm in his element, tipsy and unrestrained, fully aware of the space he takes up and reveling in it.

You move again, the rhythm carrying you a little closer, the line of your body cutting cleanly through heat and noise.

His laughter stumbles.

It is subtle. Just a hitch in the sound, a breath caught half a second too long. His eyes lift without conscious thought, drawn by motion before reason has time to intervene. When he looks at you, it is not with hunger or calculation. It is quiet and arrested, as if something unexpected has struck him squarely in the chest.

For a heartbeat, the tent fades. The noise dulls. The easy grin he has worn all evening falls away, leaving his expression open and unguarded.

Then awareness snaps back into place.

He blinks and shakes his head once, as if to clear wine and distraction both. His hand reaches for his tankard and finds it empty. He snorts softly at that, then sets it down with care that feels oddly deliberate. His mouth pulls back into a familiar grin, bright and practiced, and he turns to the man beside him, raising his voice to reclaim the moment. A joke is made. Laughter answers it.

He does not look at you.

He tells himself there is nothing remarkable here. Dancers come and go at tourneys. Beauty is not rare, and spectacle is Ashford’s currency tonight. There is no reason for this to matter.

Three heartbeats pass.

His eyes betray him.

They slide back to you, drawn by the steady confidence of your movement, by the way you seem to carve space from the crowd without effort. His posture shifts despite himself, shoulders squaring, laughter softening into something more focused. He leans back, crossing his arms loosely over his chest, as if that might disguise the way his attention has narrowed.

It does not.

You dance through heat and noise as if neither can touch you, as if the tent itself bends around your presence. Lyonel watches, no longer the loudest thing in the room, no longer performing for anyone but the moment unfolding in front of him. The storm that has laughed all night grows strangely still, caught off guard by an unlikely disruption that has stepped into Ashford’s revelry and refused to be ignored.

The music winds down at last, the final notes swallowed by applause and shouted approval. Coins scatter across the packed earth. You dip into a practiced bow, accepting it with an easy smile, then straighten and step back, giving the space back to the crowd. The tent exhales. Conversation swells again, louder now, looser.

As you turn to leave the center of the floor, you see him.

He makes no pretense of looking elsewhere. The Baratheon lord sits with his companions near the tent's heart, one arm stretched casually along the bench behind him, torchlight catching gold thread and the antlered silhouette sewn across his chest. The laughter has died in his throat. His blue eyes track your movement with the focused attention of a man who has found something unexpected in familiar surroundings and cannot quite decide what to make of it.

You meet his gaze.

He does not look away.

That, more than anything, decides it.

You angle your steps toward his table, unhurried, the easy confidence of someone who knows exactly when she is being watched and refuses to shrink under it. A few of his companions notice your approach and fall silent, curiosity flickering across their faces. Lyonel shifts slightly as you stop beside the bench, close enough to speak without raising your voice.

“If you keep staring like that,” you say, calm and lightly amused, “people will start thinking you’ve never seen a dancer before.”

A low chuckle passes through the men at his table. Lyonel lifts a brow, slow and deliberate. “If I hadn’t,” he says, “I’d have done better to hide it.”

You glance to the empty cup near his hand. “You didn’t try very hard.”

“No,” he agrees. “I didn’t.”

“You’re meant to look bored,” you tell him. “It spares feelings.”

“I’ve never been good at that sort of courtesy,” he replies. The wine has roughened his voice, but there’s a dry steadiness beneath it. “And you didn’t seem in need of sparing.”

“I’d have stopped sooner if I were,” you say. “Or danced poorly.”

That draws a brief laugh from him, quieter than the thunder he favors. He shifts on the bench, turning more fully toward you, his attention narrowing in a way that feels deliberate rather than careless. “Confident,” he says.

“Practical,” you answer. “I know who’s watching.”

“And you count me among them.”

“You’re present,” you say, glancing once around the tent. “That seems reason enough.”

He considers it, his gaze straying for a moment to the space where you had danced, then returning to you. “You’re not afraid,” he says, more observation than challenge.

“I’ve little reason to be,” you reply. “Men who laugh so freely tend to be poor threats.”

One of his companions sputters into his drink. Lyonel cuts him a sharp look before turning back to you, the corner of his mouth lifting. “You speak plainly.”

“It’s a habit.”

“And a risky one.”

“Only if honesty is mistaken for provocation.”

A quiet laugh escapes him, unguarded. For a moment, the Laughing Storm recedes, leaving a man who looks faintly caught off guard by his own interest. “Do you often speak to men of my station this way?” he asks.

“I speak to men as they present themselves,” you say. “You’ve given me no cause to do otherwise.”

“I’ve been watching you.”

“Without comment,” you allow. “I’ve endured worse.”

His eyes dip to the coins scattered near your feet before lifting again. “You came to this table.”

“I did.”

“Why.”

You lift a shoulder in a small shrug. “It seemed the liveliest.”

That earns him a slow, genuine grin. “You’re not wrong.”

The space between you eases, the tension softening into something quieter. No one nearby seems to notice. His name, stitched in gold across his chest, loses its weight here. He is only a man seated on a bench, and you are only someone who met his gaze and chose not to look away.

“And what name do you go by,” he asks at last, voice even but intent, “when you’re not dancing?”

You tilt your head. “Are you asking as the Laughing Storm?”

His smile lingers. “No,” he says. “I think I’ve had enough of that for one night.”

The interruption comes the way most things do at tourneys. Loudly, without warning, and for reasons that have nothing to do with either of you.

Someone shouts for Lyonel from across the tent, a booming call that carries his name with the expectation of obedience. At the same time, a fresh cask is rolled in near the entrance, drawing a cheer that ripples outward as men surge to their feet. The bench jolts as one of his companions stands too quickly. The careful pocket the two of you have carved out begins to collapse under its own attention.

Lyonel exhales through his nose, glancing once toward the noise. “That’ll be about wagers,” he mutters, more to himself than to you.

“Sounds urgent,” you say.

“It never is.” He pauses, then rises in one easy motion. Up close, his height is impossible to ignore, but he makes no show of it. His gaze flicks to you, then away, as though the decision has surprised even him. “Come,” he says after a beat. “For a moment.”

It is not a command. There is no rank in his voice. Just impulse.

You nod once and follow.

He steers you toward the back of the tent, where the canvas is tied open to let in a little air. The crowd thickens closer to the cask, shouts rising as cups are filled and refilled. For a few precious seconds, no one notices the two of you slipping aside. The noise dulls, still present but less immediate, like surf heard from a distance.

Outside, the evening has cooled. Torches burn lower here, their light softer, shadows longer. The grass is less trampled, the air carrying the faint scent of night flowers and damp earth. 

Lyonel settles, the last of his laughter fading as his stance eases.

“I meant to thank you,” he says.

There is no stiffness in it, no rehearsal. Just a statement offered plainly.

You lift a brow. “For the dancing?”

“For the night,” he corrects. “You altered it.” His mouth curves faintly, self aware rather than uncertain. “Not many manage that.”

“It’s a talent,” you say.

“I believe you.” He glances back toward the pavillion, where laughter breaks again, then returns his attention to you without hesitation. “Most come here to be noticed. You came and made the noise change.”

“And that deserved thanks.”

The quiet settles, unforced. 

“You could have taken that and gone,” he says after a moment.

“I could have.”

“But you stayed.”

“You asked me to.”

A hint of amusement flickers in his eyes. “I did.”

The hush settles again, easy this time. Torchlight moves across the gold thread of his surcoat, along the strong line of his jaw.

“You bear being watched well,” he says.

“You saw that.”

“I see more than most think to notice,” he replies. “It saves trouble.”

You smile, small and unguarded. “It wears on a person, all the same.”

His eyes lift to yours, steady and intent, the last of the humor draining from them. “It does,” he says.

You look at him then, really look, without the press of bodies or reputation framing him. Without the thunder of laughter. He seems younger here, not smaller, but less burdened by expectation, blue eyes thoughtful beneath dark brows.

“So,” you say, measured and deliberate, “did you enjoy the tourney?”

“The fighting?” he asks.

“The day,” you clarify. “The noise. The winning. All of it.”

He considers the question, unhurried. “I did,” he says. “I usually do.”

“That sounded like habit.”

He laughs again, lower this time. “You listen closely.”

“I’m curious.”

“About me,” he says, a note of surprise there.

“About the man who laughs loud enough to shake canvas,” you reply. “Not the name sewn into his surcoat.”

Something eases in his expression at that. Not discomfort, but release, as if a familiar weight has shifted its hold. “Few bother to separate the two,” he admits.

“What do they ask, then?”

“When I’ll fight again. Who I’ll face. Whether I’ll win.” He lifts a shoulder. “Or they don’t ask at all. They decide.”

“And are they usually right?”

“No,” he says at once. The certainty in it seems to catch even him by surprise.

The Laughing Storm's expression changes, softens. His brow lifts slightly, eyes widening just enough to reveal surprise beneath them. You've caught him off-guard with such a simple question—who is he when the crowd disperses?

Neither of you rushes to break the silence that follows.

The quiet between you feels easy, unforced. From the pavilion behind you, the sounds of the revel drift outward, dulled by distance and night air. Lyonel shifts his weight, resting one shoulder briefly against the pavilion’s outer post. His arms cross loosely at his chest, not as a guard, but at ease. 

"The stars are clearer tonight than they've been all week," you observe, or perhaps you mention how the musicians have finally found their rhythm after hours of wine.

He laughs.

Not the booming sound that earned him his name. Not the thunder that shakes walls and pulls attention. This laugh is quieter, warmer, surprised out of him rather than performed. It escapes before he can think to shape it. He cuts it off halfway through with a breath, then lets it finish anyway, shaking his head faintly.

Lyonel becomes aware of the way his shoulders have loosened, of how easily the sound came. He realizes, dimly at first, that he is comfortable. Not merely amused or intrigued, but at ease in a way he rarely allows himself to be when someone is new. He is not measuring his words. He is not waiting for the moment he will be asked something of him. He is simply standing here, listening to you speak, and finding that he wants to keep doing so.

The thought settles, steady in its certainty.

You notice the change as well, though you cannot name it yet. The storm has not returned, but something steadier has taken its place. He listens when you speak, truly listens, his attention patient and unhurried. When you pause, he does not rush to fill the space. He waits, eyes steady on yours, as if whatever you might say next is worth the time it takes to arrive.

Your banter loosens, the edges rounding off. The teasing remains, but it no longer seeks to provoke. It invites instead. When you smile at him now, it is slower, warmer, and when he smiles back, it lingers. There are pauses between words that stretch just a little longer than necessary, not uncomfortable, simply full.

You glance down at his hands at some point, the way they rest easily at his sides. They are large, scarred, the hands of a man who has spent years gripping reins and blades. Yet when a passing boy nearly collides with you both, Lyonel steps aside at once, guiding the lad away with a gentle word and a touch that is careful rather than abrupt. He waits until the boy has gone before turning back to you, attention returning without frustration or impatience.

“No harm,” he says.

You watch him for a moment. “You’re patient.”

He lifts a brow. “With this?”

“With people,” you answer. “When you’re not making a show of it.”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “There’s little need for noise when no one’s watching.”

You take that in. Up close, without the roar of the tent around him, he seems steadier than you expected. Not softer, exactly, but measured. A man used to holding himself in check once the moment requires it.

You tell a small story then, something simple from your travels. You do not embellish it. You do not perform it. You just speak. When you laugh at yourself midway through, the sound slips out easily, unguarded.

Lyonel watches you when you laugh.

Not the way he watched you dance. Not with arrested attention or surprise. This is softer. His gaze warms, his expression gentling without him realizing it. The sound of your laughter seems to settle somewhere deep in his chest, easing something he had not known was tight. He listens to it as though it is something he might want to remember later.

He answers your story with one of his own, quieter than the tales he tells inside. No boasts. No grand gestures. Just a moment from his youth, a memory of dust and nerves and learning how heavy armor feels when fear has a voice. He almost stops halfway through, glancing at you as if to gauge your interest, but you are listening closely, eyes intent, and so he continues.

The pauses between you grow heavier, weighted now with something unspoken. When one of you smiles, the other answers it without thinking. When your hands brush as you shift closer, neither of you pulls away immediately.

You meet his gaze and find it steady, present, absent of pretense. In that look, you see gentleness where you expected force, patience where you expected storm. The Laughing Storm stands before you still, but for once, the thunder has gone quiet, leaving behind something warm and constant in its wake..

The tent behind you surges again with noise, a fresh swell of laughter and shouts as another round is poured, but it feels distant now, like weather moving across a far field. Lyonel shifts his weight, resting one shoulder more fully against the pole, and you mirror the movement without thinking, closing the space between you by inches rather than steps. It is an unspoken decision, made without urgency.

You are the one who speaks first.

“Dancing is easy,” you say at last. You keep your eyes on the pavillion’s edge, where torchlight shivers along the seam. “You learn the steps. You learn what folk want to see.”

Lyonel listens, saying nothing.

“What comes after is harder,” you add. “When the music’s done.”

He waits.

“You stand there,” you say, quieter now. “And there’s nothing to hide behind.”

The words settle between you. You half expect him to brush them aside, to make light of them, but he does not.

“I know,” he says.

It is said without emphasis, without comfort. Just truth.

You look at him then. He has straightened, his stance easy but attentive, the careless swagger gone for once. His hands hang loose at his sides. His gaze does not waver.

“I’ve been good at what’s asked of me,” he continues. “Winning when I’m sent to win. Laughing when it’s expected.” A faint smile crosses his mouth, brief and dry. “It makes things plain.”

“For them,” you say.

He inclines his head. “For a time.”

The torch near you gutters. In its light, he looks worn in a way no blow could leave. Not diminished, but burdened.

“There’s weight in it,” he says. “A name doesn’t sit light, once you’re grown into it. Nor the knowing that folk expect you to remain the same, year after year.” His eyes shift toward the tent, where the noise still rises and falls. “They cheer because they know what they’ll be given.”

“And what do you give yourself,” you ask.

The question hangs. He does not answer at once.

“At need,” he says finally, “what’s required.” He draws a slow breath. “If I don’t hold fast, someone else must.”

You nod. “That’s a lonely sort of duty.”

“I’m not without men,” he says, then pauses. “But there are few moments when I’m not braced for something.”

The word needs no explaining.

You step nearer, not touching, but close enough that the space feels chosen. “People like us,” you say, “we’re meant to be seen. One way or another.”

“Aye,” he says.

“We’re less often meant to be uncertain.”

A hint of a smile returns, faint but real. “That’s true enough.”

He studies you then, not weighing, not judging. Simply seeing. “And when you’re not dancing,” he asks, “who are you, then.”

You think on it. You do not dress the answer.

“Quieter,” you say. “And not yet finished becoming myself.”

He nods once, as if that were answer enough.

A shared smile passes between you, soft and unguarded.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. The night air cools the heat from your skin. Somewhere inside, someone calls Lyonel’s name again, but it is less insistent this time, easily ignored.

In the small, honest space you have carved out together, there is no audience to satisfy, no role to play. Just a shared understanding, fragile and rare, settling gently between you like something worth protecting.

The moment stretches, delicate and balanced, as if either of you might tip it with the wrong word.

Lyonel breaks it first.

Not with laughter. Not with thunder. With a decision.

He straightens, shoulders setting as if he has come to a decision. Something shifts in his eyes—a decision made for himself alone, not for the crowd. Behind you, voices rise in another wave of revelry, like a tide pulling at him to return. You can almost see the weight of expectation settle on him, then, remarkably, slide away.

“There’s quieter ground beyond the lists,” he says. “The air’s clearer.”

He pauses, then turns his head toward you. “Come with me.”

You don’t hesitate. “Gladly.”

Relief flickers through him, swift and unmistakable. Some quiet tension leaves him. When he moves, it is unhurried. His hand lifts, stopping just short of you, a silent question.

You answer it by stepping closer.

His fingers brush your wrist, light and careful, as though he is acutely aware of his own strength. The touch is gentle, grounding, meant only to guide. When you do not pull away, his thumb settles briefly against your skin, warm and steady. It is not a grand gesture. It does not need to be.

The two of you slip away from the pavilion while the crowd remains distracted, voices raised, attention elsewhere. No one stops you. No one notices. The Laughing Storm vanishes into the night without fanfare.

Beyond, the grounds are quieter. The torches thin out, leaving pockets of shadow and silver moonlight. The grass is cool beneath your feet, the air clean and faintly scented with earth and crushed leaves. Somewhere in the distance, armor clinks softly as men move, but it is far enough away to feel irrelevant.

You walk side by side, his hand still at your wrist until he lets it fall naturally, fingers brushing yours once more before separating. The closeness remains even without the touch, an invisible thread drawn tight between you.

“I ought to return,” he says at last. “Before I’m missed.”

“When you must,” you reply.

He looks at you then, searching your face as though committing it to memory. “This was no folly,” he says.

“No,” you agree.

The certainty surprises neither of you.

Your laughter comes easily as you walk, quiet and shared, prompted by nothing more than the relief of being here, of having chosen this moment instead of letting it pass. He smiles at the sound, softer than he ever has before, and you catch him watching you again, not to study or assess, but simply because he wants to.

The path curves gently away from the noise. He matches his stride to yours without thinking, adjusting instinctively when the ground dips or the grass thickens. When you slow, he slows. When you pause, he stops with you. The steadiness of him is unmistakable now, not something he performs, but something he is.

You talk about small things. Nothing important. Everything important. The night, the torches, the way Ashford looks different when you’re not standing in the middle of it. There is no rush to say more than feels right.

Eventually, the path turns back toward the glow of the camp.

He looks down at you for a long moment. Then his hand lifts, briefly, his fingers brushing your knuckles as if to mark the place.

“Will our paths cross again?”

“They will.”

The answer seems to steady him. He nods once, as if that is all he needs, then turns back toward the noise and firelight beyond.

As he walks away, the noise rises to meet him, laughter and voices swelling as they always do. He takes his place among them easily enough.

This was no passing amusement, no idle hour taken from the night. It is a thing he will remember, and keep in mind, and guard against being carelessly spent.

The Laughing Storm returns to the crowd with the knowledge that this is not something meant to fade with the noise.

The carriage ride feels longer than the voyage that first took you to Highgarden, but this time there is no veil, no lavender perfume, no bridal nerves tucked into your gloves. You wear your riding leathers beneath a heavy velvet cloak, the color too rich for a woman with no husband and no name. Your hands are bare. Your hair unadorned. Your mouth still set in that same quiet line, the one you learned to hold when the Reach looked at you like a storm they couldn’t contain.

The Red Keep has not changed since you left it. It rises above the city like a red god, towering and unyielding, its shadow spreading from the spiked towers to the streets below. The stones still glisten like blood when the sun hits them, casting an amber glow before dusk. The air still smells of oil and fire, a familiar tang of smoke and iron and promises burnt to ash. The guards still stiffen when you pass, their eyes bright with curiosity, unsure whether they should bow or look away and pretend they’ve not seen you. You catch your reflection in a shield as you walk through the gate, beneath the portcullis where you last saw the glint of sunlight on Aemond’s hair. You look like someone they thought was gone. A hush spreads in your wake, rippling through the corridors, a sweet echo of scandal that follows you like a shadow. Maids pause with linens half-folded. Courtiers shift and whisper as you pass, their conversations frozen. Your mother’s ladies offer faint, artificial smiles, the tilt of their heads betraying their impatience to be the first to tell her. You can hear the murmur before it reaches your ears. She’s back. She’s failed. She’s still childless. She was too proud, they say. Too cold. They say it in whispers, in glances, in silence that is more damning than words. They say the same things in King’s Landing that they said in Highgarden. Like a song passed from one musician to the next, they keep playing the same refrain. You recognize it all.

They know the match was political, a symbol more than a promise, a show of good faith as useless as a gilded parchment. That your wedding was a masterpiece of civility and nothing more. That Ser Lyonel Tyrell—gentle, golden, delicate—never once reached for you in the dark. That the garden never bloomed. That the Tyrells petitioned for annulment with grace and urgency, their letters riddled with concern for your soul. No heir. No bedding. No shame, only regret, tendered with the precision of an accountant’s ledger or a merchant’s bill of sale. And underneath it all, the unspoken truth: you were never meant to be someone’s wife. You were meant to be their burden. Their lesson. Their problem to solve.

When you left King’s Landing, you were Alicent’s daughter. Now you are something less and something more. The one who failed. The one who came back. The one who belongs nowhere except where others don’t want her.

You enter the throne room alone. No handmaid, no brother at your side, no welcoming line of lords eager to claim your favor. You walk with your spine straight, your chin lifted, each step purposeful. You expect to be ignored. Perhaps tolerated. Perhaps pitied.

You are not prepared for Aemond. Not for the way he commands the room like a lord, like a dragon, like something both regal and dangerous. The years have sculpted him into a stranger, one who stands just below the dais and a little apart from the others, his body angled toward the Iron Throne as if it belongs to him. His eye catches yours the moment you appear. You feel it—a burning and intrusive stare, hot and direct and deeply unfamiliar, as if he’s picking you apart, inspecting each piece polished or flawed. He is taller, much taller, than you remember. His shoulders broader, his stance lethal and still. The sapphire gleams cold and pitiless where his eye once was, a bright gem that seems to see everything, to miss nothing. His jaw is sharp now. His mouth cruel and knowing.

He wears the black of the court like armor, as if the velvet and silk could shield him from insurgents and assassins, and the longsword at his hip is heavy, solid, not for show. He watches you like a man appraising a threat, ready to draw blood, and when his lips curl, it is not in welcome.

You pause at the edge of the hall, and the years pause with you. Your gloves remain on. Your expression does not falter. But something inside you stills, freezes, like a river in winter.

Aemond doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t acknowledge you before others can see. He lets the others gather near, shields himself with their presence. Lord Beesbury greets you with a thin, perfunctory smile, obscured by his drooping white mustache. Ser Harrold offers a nod, polite and stiff as his back. The queen smiles and, with effort, makes it convincing. No one mentions the annulment. Not yet. Not in front of Aemond, who watches it all with quiet, simmering amusement.

Then, slowly, with intention and certainty, Aemond steps forward.

He does not bow. He does not smile. “Lady Maidenflower,” he says, just soft enough that only you hear it, enough that it stings.

You turn your head just slightly, exactly enough to make him feel the weight of your reply. “Still clever, I see.”

His eye sweeps over you like a blade. He is not hiding the weight of it, the roughness of the cut. “You returned untouched, then. I’d wondered.”

“Lyonel Tyrell was a poet,” you reply, because you have sharpened your own edges. “Not a fool.”

“Poets rarely have the stomach for conquest.”

You meet his gaze without blinking, without flinching, though your heart still remembers how to race. “And you’ve always had too much of it.”

“I was twelve when you left.”

You tilt your head, and the movement is easy, graceful, scornful. “You still are, most days.”

That earns you a smirk, slow and deliberate, a lord’s smirk. A dragon’s. “Not anymore.”

He takes a single step closer. You don’t move. You let him come.

The pause between you stretches, heavy and hot and alive with unspoken challenges and renegotiated terms. His eye dips to your mouth, and it is not quickly, not politely, not as a brother should. When it rises again, it lingers.

You turn before he can speak again, before he can make you doubt or remember. You offer him no parting glance, no farewell. But you feel it as you walk away—his stare on your back, weighty and hungry. Not a boy’s gaze. Not a brother’s.

Let him look. Let them all.

You did not come back for their sympathy or to stand around, shrinking, while they trample your pride. The thought of wilted and drooping pity is almost amusing, withered and limp like Highgarden’s banner when the wind dies, and you refuse to let it gather at your feet like a folder of discarded marriage contracts. You returned because the summons meant something. Because they wanted you here. Because the annulment meant nothing. Because they are beginning to remember who you are and what you are worth. The realm has no place for a woman like you—a woman with no husband and no duty and no shame to parade—except when it needs one. You are still a dragon’s daughter, flames running molten where other women leave room for fear, and it seems they’re starting to recall the heat of their own blood. They thought a marriage would change you. That the Reach would wear you smooth and pliable. That seven years of silence would make you weak, complacent, eager to return with their leash around your neck. They were fools. You have not softened. You have stripped away everything unnecessary. You have become what you always should have been: scaled, certain, and dangerous. Aemond would be a fool, too, if he still believes he knows the girl who left. If he thinks the same breathless, reckless fool of a girl stands before him, he is welcome to try and find her, to search and search and find nothing at all. He will not.

It’s a few days before you see him again. Long enough that the ache dulls, the whispers shift, the court forgets to look twice. You don’t. You feel him in every corridor. His stare in the back of your skull. The words he didn’t say sitting heavier than the ones he did. You don’t seek him out. Not really. But when the sound of clashing steel drifts through the windows one morning, sharp and furious, your feet carry you there before you can stop them.

The yard is already thick with the sound of clashing steel and barked commands by the time you arrive, drawn not by curiosity but by the unmistakable pitch of Aemond’s voice, rising above the rest. You round the corner and find him standing over a boy barely older than twelve, sword in hand, patience worn thin. The boy is sweating and panting, bleeding lightly from the lip. Aemond says something low enough you can’t catch, but the tone carries and your stomach knots.

"Enough."

Aemond doesn't turn right away. The boy does, blinking at you like he's been thrown a lifeline, desperate and unsure. You step down into the yard without pausing, hands still gloved, shoulders squared, a defiance in each step. You know Aemond sees you, but he remains fixed over the boy, as if your presence is a small interruption. As if you are the one who should wait. As if waiting for the exact moment when his controlled apathy strikes deepest. He finally shifts, looking over his shoulder with slow, deliberate disinterest.

"You are not his commander," you say, your voice sharp and unyielding.

"I am his prince."

You take another step. "And you're still picking fights with boys too small to fight back."

That gets his attention. His eye catches yours and holds. The cut is deep, unrelenting, meant to wound. A quiet breath passes through the onlookers. No one moves. The boy backs away quickly, too smart to stay where the lightning is about to strike. Aemond sheathes his sword, but only halfway. His smirk is faint but not amused, a taunt that is both familiar and new.

"Would you like to teach him, then?"

You tilt your head. "I'd rather teach you."

His smile sharpens. "Then show me."

The court knows you well enough not to question it when you shrug off your cloak and take the spare sword from the rack. Your tunic is laced tight, boots steady, sleeves rolled. You are ready before they realize it, before you realize it yourself. You know the forms, the weight of the steel, the cadence of Aemond's skill. But you don't know the way the court watches now, not with surprise but with certainty, as if expecting exactly this. As if you haven't been gone seven years. Aemond stretches his neck as you step to the center. He doesn't offer the usual salutation. You don't bow.

When you strike, it's without warning. It feels right. Quick. Merciless. He parries fast, steel hissing, and the first clash draws a ripple from the men watching. You dance around him, light on your feet, quicker than he expects. It is a dance you thought you'd forgotten. The rhythm is familiar but off. He's faster now. Stronger. You are sharper. Angry. His blade grazes your shoulder. Yours slices along his side. He doesn't flinch. You don't, either. The heat builds quickly, sweat blooming beneath your collar. He presses harder, with more force, more insistence, more precision than the boy you thought you remembered. You give ground only to take it again. You used to beat him with speed, with patience, with quick, calculated precision. Now he meets you at every turn, matching blow for blow, circling like a predator who knows exactly where to bite.

How much he’s changed. How much he hasn’t.

How much you have.

When he finally gets you on your back, it's not clean. You stumble on loose gravel. He takes advantage, a fierce flicker of triumph in his eye. Your sword hits the dirt. Everything that’s happened since you left King’s Landing—the whispers, the annulment, the letters filled with false concern, the look on his face when you returned—everything that should have made this easy pinches sharp inside your lungs, more painful than his grip. His boot lands between your legs, arm braced against your throat. Not choking. Just holding.

Too close. An echo you can’t outrun.

You expect him to move. He doesn't.

His breathing is rough. So is yours. You can feel the sweat on his wrist, the heat of his body over yours. You look up. His hair is wild. His eye is burning.

"Still think I'm just a boy?"

You don't answer. His grip tightens just slightly. His fingers brush your jaw. He leans in, slow and sure, gaze locked to your mouth like it means something.

You shove him. Hard. He stumbles back, laughter spilling from his chest, not loud but knowing, as if you just gave him the answer he wanted. You roll to your feet before anyone can help you. Your chest is heaving, cheeks flushed, skin hot. You don't look at anyone else as you retrieve your sword and your pride.

"Lesson over?" he calls.

The pause stretches between you. You don’t let it hold. You shrug on your cloak with deliberate ease, the same ease you’ve cultivated since you returned. The hush follows you back into the keep. You feel his eyes like fingers pressing into your skin, a touch that lingers and burns and doesn’t fade when you reach the corridor.

It’s still there at supper. Fresh, insistent. No one else notices the bread you don’t eat, the soup that cools in your bowl, the wine you drink without tasting. You’re the only one who hears the hollow ring of his boot against your sword, echoing through the hall with every half-heard whisper. It doesn’t soften when your mother asks if you’re well, when the maids bring the third course, when the candles burn low. When your mother tells you it was wise to come home, you nod, polite and unconvincing. You take your leave, and the walls feel closer, the halls longer, the air colder.

You don’t think of him. You don’t think of the weight of his body, the feel of his fingers on your jaw. You’re only thinking of the cold when you tighten your laces, only thinking of the chill when you pace the length of your room. The scratch of the quill in the chamber next to yours is louder than you’d like, and the letters on your desk are too frantic and familiar to answer. You are not restless. You are thoughtful.

You think so hard you don’t realize you’ve left your chambers until you find yourself walking without thinking, past the solar, up the stairs, down the hall to the wing where he sleeps. You don't plan it. You don't knock.

You push the door open without a plan, breath quick and shallow from the unguarded walk. He’s there, not surprised, not even questioning your intrusion. Shirtless, lounging in a chair by the hearth, legs spread, as comfortable and confident as if he owned the place. He might as well. The heat of the fire licks the dampness from his hair. A goblet of wine sits comfortably in his hand; his sword rests close by, in easy reach. He looks up at you with an expression that feels both new and old, the same practiced disregard you once swore would never cut you again. Like he expected this. Like he’s been waiting. 

"Come to finish what we started?" 

Your throat tightens. Something in your chest does, too. The echo of it ricochets in your bones, and you shut the door with more force than you mean to. The sound is too loud, too final, but not enough to break the smile on his face. 

"You embarrassed me in the yard," you say. There's a catch in your voice you hope he doesn't hear. You step closer. He hums, not quite a laugh. Almost. 

"You embarrassed yourself." 

You bite back a retort. He watches you try, waiting for the hollow bite of it, waiting for something deeper. 

"You put your hand on me." The words taste more bitter than you expect, and he hears it. You know he does. He shrugs, the carelessness deliberate, and finishes the rest of the wine in a single, slow swallow. 

"You didn't tell me to stop."

Anger and something else lances through you, sharp and unmistakable. A flower blooming violent beneath your skin. "You're not a child anymore," you say. "Fine. But you are still beneath me." There's satisfaction in that. A small thrill. He sets the goblet down with a thin click, the faint trace of red staining the rim. His smile returns, slow and sharp, more a weapon than a jest. 

"Not where it counts."

You don't think, just move, a breathless reckless fool, too sure and too hurt to stop yourself. Your palm cracks across his face and his head turns with the force of it. The wine sloshes in his goblet when you strike him, but he does not drop it. He sets it down on the table carefully, eyes glittering with something you don’t recognize. He looks back at you with a hunger you've never seen before. A hunger that burns like dragon’s blood, searing and inscrutable. Not in him. Not from anyone. 

"Again," he says.

Your breath catches. There's no air in this room, this keep, this entire place. You stare at him. His smile flickers wider when you don't answer. You don’t have to. He knows. He knows. You step closer, and he rises from the chair as you do, caught on the same pull. The distance vanishes faster than you mean it to. Faster than you can stop. Fury frays and threads you together. The space between you disappears quick and final and damning.

"You think you've won something?"

He shrugs, every inch of his body unwound and lithe. "You came here."

"To remind you of your place."

"Remind me, then."

He moves too quickly. Or maybe you move too slow. His hands catch your waist and your spine hits the door hard enough to steal your breath. The night explodes in stars behind your eyes. He doesn't press. Doesn't hurt. Just holds you there with his body, chest against yours, breath hot on your cheek, the heat of him impossible to escape. You grab his wrist, digging in, nails biting soft skin. He holds the wince behind his teeth, gaze fixed on you like he'd die before looking away. 

"Let go of me."

The words are hard. 

"Lyonel never touched you, did he?"

Your hand tightens on his wrist, so hard it shakes. You slap him again, harder this time, and the crack of it splits in the air between you, a current setting stone to fracture. 

He laughs.

"Again," he says. 

You don't. But gods, you want to. You want to and you hate it and you hate him and you turn and leave before you remember how to breathe.

You leave him there with the taste of your own fury still on your tongue. Your hand aches. So does your chest. You don’t look back. You don’t sleep. Not really. You lie awake and stare at the ceiling, the canopy of your bed a cage you can’t escape, can’t untangle. His voice plays over and over in your mind. Lyonel never touched you, did he. The worst part is how softly he said it. Like a secret. Like a truth. Like he knew exactly where to cut, exactly where to let the worst of it bleed.

The candles burn low in your chambers. The chill nips at your windowpanes. You don’t feel it. You feel the ghost of Aemond’s fingers on your hips, his breath on your cheek, the tremor beneath his skin. Everything you thought you buried comes rushing back, rushing through you, rushing until it cleaves the air from your lungs. Why did you return? Why did you think you could stay away? You are not restless. You are not impatient. You are thoughtful, but that thought is wrapped around him like a noose. Like a bruise. Like a bright, sharp hope.

You came to win. You’ve already lost.

By morning, the bruises are already forming beneath the surface of your skin. The memory of Aemond's touch blooms purple and dark, echoes of his fingertips wrought in flesh. You wish the sensation of him would fade as fast. It doesn't. The court is louder now. You feel it in every corridor, every room, every shift in posture when you enter. It clings to you, an invisible murmur that grows teeth. No one says your name, but they don’t need to. You returned without a husband. Without a child. Without a claim worth anything except shame. You were sent to the Reach to secure the realm and came back with nothing but silence. So now they whisper.

She must have refused him.

She must have failed.

She must have been too difficult to want.

The echoes are just as loud as the words. Each clever jab works its way beneath your skin, seeds of doubt taking root and sprouting vines you can't cut through. Even your mother looks at you differently. Her voice is soft, but her eyes are measuring. The warmth she once kept for you has cooled into caution, as if your return might stain her skirts if you stand too close. Her questions come dressed as concern, but you know the shape of judgment. And the ladies at court, the ones who used to play cyvasse and braid your hair, now look through you like you’re made of smoke. They weave tales you can’t quite hear, tales that bleed from one mouth to another, tales whose edges are sharp and cutting.

They don’t ask, but their silence does. What did she do wrong? Was he kind? Did she cry? Did he ever touch her at all? Or did she come back just as she left, proud and unspoiled and completely alone?

You do not answer them. You do not give them the truth they seek, the truth that tugs too close to the center of you. You walk through the halls like nothing has changed, like you are still the same creature you were before. You are not. Aemond says nothing to you in court. He does not look your way unless others are watching, and even then, it is brief. Quick enough to pass as something else. But you can feel it. He lets the rumors curl around you like smoke, never once bothering to stop them. He could silence it. One word from him and the court would fall quiet. But he doesn't. He listens. He watches. He waits.

You find him in the yard again, a few days after the incident in his chambers. He's alone this time. No one dares train with him lately, not since the last sparring match left a knight concussed. He moves with that same quiet precision, that same lethal grace. The sun catches the sweat at his temple, his shirt already discarded and thrown to the side. Your skin prickles at the sight, at the memory of him even more unguarded, even more certain. You should leave. You don't.

You don’t know what you mean to say when you see him there, when you watch him move and remember the way he looked at you, the way he still looks at you. You don’t know what you mean to do when you feel the full weight of his indifference, of the stories he lets the court tell. But you are moving before you can talk yourself out of it. Before the bruises fade, before this second return becomes as hollow as the first. You are moving and it feels like a mistake, but you’ve already made that mistake before, already seen what comes of it. There's no going back. This time, you mean to win.

He sees you before you speak. Of course he does. He always does.

“You following me now?” he says without looking up.

“I could say the same.”

His blade drops slightly. “You never used to lurk.”

“You never used to be worth watching.”

He turns at that, slow and smooth. “Didn’t stop you before.”

You ignore the heat crawling up your neck. “I gave the orders. You followed them.”

“You think that’s still true?”

“You think it’s not?”

“You dragged me through the mud. Screamed at me in front of knights twice my size.”

“And you listened.”

He steps in close. “Try it now. See if I still do.”

Your breath catches. His voice drops, soft and deliberate.

“They say no man ever wanted you. That Tyrell barely looked at you. That you came back untouched because no one could stand the thought.”

You don’t answer. You don’t move.

He tilts his head, close enough to touch. “Is that why you hate me looking?”

“Because you’re not supposed to.”

He smiles, slow and awful. “I can’t stop.”

He steps closer, closing the gap with a slow, sure determination. You don’t move. You don’t even flinch. His face is inches from yours now, and everything about him pulls you in and splits you apart. You can smell the leather of his gloves, the salt on his skin, the faint scent of iron and heat. His hand lifts slowly. You feel the brush of his fingers at your jaw, soft, testing, like he’s taking measure of the space between breath and need and wanting. You could slap him again. You could turn and walk away. You don’t. Your breath is shallow. He watches your mouth. 

You step back. You leave. You don’t speak. You don’t run. You walk away with your back straight and your heart hammering in your ribs like it’s trying to claw out. 

That night, you dream of him. Of course you do. You dream of his mouth, the cut of his lips, the press of his body hot and unrelenting against yours. You dream of his hands, the rough drag of his fingers on your cheek, your skin, your throat. The way his voice dropped low, soft and deliberate. The way his voice dragged low when he said your name. You wake tangled in your sheets, flushed and furious and aching, and you cannot tell whether you want to kill him or keep him. 

It starts with silence. It starts with rooms you pretend not to linger in, corridors you just happen to walk through, doors you pass more slowly than you should. It starts with you lying to yourself—small, careful lies you don’t quite believe. You don’t mean to look for him. That’s what you tell yourself. You don’t mean to, not at first. Not at first, but you find him anyway. 

He’s in the yard. He’s in the hall. He’s at the table, two seats down, eating grapes one by one like they mean something. Every time you look up, he’s already watching. 

You tell yourself it’s nothing. That you are only keeping an eye on him. That someone has to. That it might as well be you. But the lie doesn’t last. Not when the heat flares again behind your ribs every time he speaks. Not when you walk past the training yard and stop to watch. Not when your name comes from his mouth and you have to swallow hard before answering.

You avoid him. Until you don’t.

You find him at the edge of the godswood, on a day when the sun beats down like a curse and the wind is too warm, your thoughts too loud and insistent. He’s leaning against the old heart tree like it belongs to him, as if it's only there to hold him, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. His head is tilted up to the canopy, eyes closed, jaw sharp. He hears you long before you mean to speak. Even from a distance, you feel the weight of his awareness. As you move closer, he turns slowly, the light catching on the scar beneath his eye, the gleam of the sapphire where it settles. He watches you like he’s been waiting.

"You’ve been restless," he says. "I can tell."

"You don’t know anything about me."

He pushes off the tree and takes a step forward. "I know you come looking for me and pretend you don’t."

You set your jaw. "You think too highly of yourself."

"No," he says, a crooked grin on his lips, closer now. "I think exactly enough."

You take a step back. He follows.

"What do you want?" he asks, voice low.

You hate the question. You hate that he asks it like he knows you don’t have the answer.

"Nothing from you."

He circles you now, slow and deliberate. "You used to look at me like I was a boy. Now you look at me like I might bite."

"Maybe I think you should be put down."

He laughs, a soft huff that barely leaves his throat.

"Do you know what it did to me?" he says. "You left. Married some wilted flower. Let him look at you like a prize he’d never unwrap."

You flinch. He sees it.

"He didn’t even try, did he?"

You snap before you can stop yourself. "No. He didn’t. He was afraid. They all are."

The words hang between you like smoke, pulled from the center of you, unplanned and brutal. You breathe them in and try not to choke. Aemond steps closer. His voice goes quiet.

"I’m not."

You shake your head. You want to run. You don’t. He lifts his hand, not touching you yet, just hovering near your cheek.

"Say the word," he says, "and I’ll make you forget every man who ever disappointed you."

You slap him. His head snaps to the side, but he doesn’t recoil. He lets out a sound that freezes you in place. A moan. A real one. Low and ragged like it was dragged from his chest. When he turns back to you, there’s a flush high on his cheekbone. His lips are parted. His eye burns.

"I knew you liked it rough," he murmurs. "I remember how you used to throw me down."

You stare at him, breath caught halfway between a curse and a gasp. He leans in closer, slow, measured. You don’t move.

"You used to knock the wind out of me. You’d say I was too soft. That I’d never survive the yard unless I learned to take a hit."

"You never did learn."

"That’s not true," he says. "I learned to like it."

You shake your head again, but your fists stay at your sides. Your feet don’t move.

"You think this is a game."

"No," he says. "I think this is exactly what we’ve both been waiting for."

Your pulse roars in your ears. The godswood is quiet, but everything feels too loud. Too close. His breath brushes your cheek.

"Tell me to stop."

You leave him standing in the godswood, breath shallow, palms hot, the trees watching like they know what you almost said. You don’t speak. You don’t run. But you can’t quite breathe either. You walk back through the Keep like you’re sleepwalking, like you might burn through the floor if you stay still.

Night sinks in around you. The walls feel tighter. The fire in your chamber roars too hot. You pace. You pour wine you don’t drink. You open the window and shut it again. You think about sleeping. You think about forgetting. You think about how he looked at you when he said I’m not.

You tell yourself not to go. And then you do.

The hall outside his door is empty. The candlelight flickers low. The door isn’t fully shut. As if he left it waiting.

You don’t knock. You don’t speak. You step inside, and he’s already there. Shirtless, again. Hair damp. Leaning against the table like he hadn’t moved since the godswood. His eye finds yours and doesn’t flinch. You close the door behind you. You don’t lock it. He watches you cross the room without saying a word. He doesn’t ask why you’re here. He knows.

“I didn’t come for this,” you say.

He nods, slow. “Then say no.”

You don’t. He pushes off the table and walks toward you like he already knows how this ends. Like he’s dreamed it a hundred times and every version ends the same. He doesn’t reach for you. Not yet. He waits.

You’re the one who moves. Your hand fists in the collar of his shirt and drags him closer. Your mouth hovers near his, your breath unsteady, your body already too warm. You don’t kiss him. Not yet.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

“I know.”

And then you break. You kiss him like you’re furious. Like he’s the only thing that’s ever made you feel anything and you’d rather drown in it than say it out loud. His hands are everywhere. Yours are worse. There’s nothing careful about it. Nothing sweet. You don’t want sweet. You want to be ruined.

You want to ruin him back. The table knocks over. His back hits the wall. Your boots scatter across the floor. You don’t stop. You don’t think. You don’t ask. When he lifts you up and carries you to the bed, you let him. When he lays you down and looks at you like you’re the first real thing he’s ever wanted, you don’t speak.

He peels back your clothes with a precision that makes you ache, each layer a secret he's uncovering. Your shift falls away, and he stares at you like you're sacred. Like you're something he shouldn't touch but will anyway. His hands are rough, calloused from years of swordplay, but they move across your skin with a reverence that makes your breath catch. You don't want reverence. You want him to hurt. You want to hurt him back.

You flip him beneath you, straddling his hips, hands pinning his wrists above his head. His eye widens, pupils blown, a smile curling at the edge of his mouth. You lean down, hair falling around your face like a curtain, and bite his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. The taste of copper fills your mouth. He moans, hips bucking up against yours.

"Is this what you wanted?" you ask, voice barely above a whisper. "To ruin me?"

His fingers dig into your hips, bruising and possessive. "I wanted to be the one who touched you first."

You laugh, bitter and sharp. "Not everything is yours to claim."

"No," he says, flipping you beneath him with a strength that makes your breath catch. His weight settles between your thighs, delicious and heavy. "But you are."

You should fight. You should push him away. But your body arches into his touch, craving the heat of him, the burn of his skin against yours. His mouth finds your throat, teeth scraping over your pulse, and you gasp, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling hard enough to hurt. He hisses against your skin, the sound vibrating through your bones.

"Tell me to stop," he says again, but this time it's different. It's not a challenge. It's a plea. You can hear the need beneath it, raw and desperate. It would be so easy to tell him no. To walk away. To leave him as broken as you've been. Instead, you pull him closer.

"Don't stop," you whisper against his mouth. "Don't you dare stop."

He trails kisses of fire down your body, spreading your thighs open and bringing his face close to your core. His breath is hot, his mouth everything you expected and nothing like you imagined. You choke on a sound that might be a sob, that might be his name, that might be something you’ve never said to anyone. There is a feeling of novelty between your legs. You don’t know what to do with it, what to call it. You don’t know how to stop it. His tongue traces a path that makes you gasp, your body shuddering beneath him, and every scrape of his teeth sends a shock to places you forgot you had. He pins your hips with his hands. Holds you there until you think you might scream, might call him something you’ll regret. You writhe, helpless and hungry, his mouth pushing you toward something you can't recognize but can't resist. It's new and wild and terrifying. It's more than you were ready for. You feel it building beyond your control, burning through you, breaking you down, and he's relentless. You’ve never been this close to shattering. You’ve never wanted to.

When it crests, it's like wildfire—unstoppable, consuming, spreading through your limbs until you're arching off the bed, his name torn from your throat. He holds you through it, mouth still working, drinking in every tremor until you push him away, too sensitive to bear it.

He moves up your body like he's been waiting his entire life for this moment. He's like a predator, but one who is starving, respectful, already intoxicated by your essence. His mouth is slick, his eyes are wild, and his hair is tousled from your touch. When he kisses you, you taste yourself on his lips, and it sends a wave of heat through you. It makes you want to hide. It makes you want to be consumed.

He pulls back just enough to truly see you, and something raw and broken flickers across his face. You watch it shatter within him. You feel it cracking beneath your ribs.

His hands tremble as they explore your body. They're not hurried now, not greedy. Just desperately seeking. He wants to discover what makes you gasp, what makes you tremble, what makes you wrap your legs around his waist and dig your nails into his shoulders, calling his name like a curse.

Both of you are frantic, lost in something that has been building since the moment you returned. Since before that. Since before you left. Since forever.

When he finally sinks into you, the sound that tears from your throat is something between a sob and a moan. It hurts. Of course it hurts. But it's the kind of pain that feels like salvation, like something breaking open inside you that's been locked too long. He watches your face as he moves, drinking in every reaction, every gasp, every flicker of pleasure that crosses your features. His pace is relentless, punishing, exactly what you need and nothing like you imagined.

"Look at me," he growls, and you do. You meet his gaze and don't look away, even when it feels too intimate, too raw. His eye burns into yours, the sapphire gleaming in the firelight like a second witness to your surrender. "Say my name."

You bite your lip, refusing at first. His hand slides between your bodies, finding the place where you're most sensitive, and your resolve crumbles.

"Aemond," you gasp, the syllables breaking on your tongue like a prayer. "Aemond," you breathe again, and again, like a confession you can't keep hidden anymore.

His rhythm stutters at the sound of it, his name on your lips like a spell he never thought you’d cast. It tears through him, wild and fierce and reckless, like it can’t be contained. His pulse surges with the rush of possession, with a pride that borders on madness. The moment is electric, charged, impossibly taut. He crushes his mouth to yours, swallowing every moan, every gasp, as if your voice alone could undo him, as if all your protests only fuel him further. The pace is dizzying, the edge razor-sharp, and you’re close, so close to something you've never let yourself feel before. Not like this. Not this blinding. Your body arches into him, desperate and unguarded, and you cry out, nails scoring down his back, leaving trails that scream of violence, of passion, of the pain you both need and the pleasure you can’t tell apart. He hisses at the sting, but the sound is nothing like surrender.

"You're mine," he growls, branding you with his words, his teeth grazing your throat, the promise lethal and soft and everything you’ve ever wanted to deny. "Say it."

You choke out the word, shaking your head as you do, still defiant even as your body says otherwise. Even as it betrays you, traitorous and unrelenting, your resistance splintering like ash before a torch. "No." It's barely a whisper, a last stand against the fire, but even you don’t believe it. You clench around him, pulling him deeper, binding him to you with every shuddering breath. He tightens his grip in your hair, and the pull arches your back, exposing your neck, your pulse, the truth you're trying to hide.

"Lie to me again," he says, his voice fractured with desire, the edges rough, unsteady. "And see what happens."

His eye is locked on yours, shining full of hunger and something else. Something that makes you want to give in just to see what it would do to him. You meet his gaze with a challenge, despite the tremor in your voice, despite the pleasure that is slowly unraveling you. "I am not yours."

His lips curl into a smile that is nothing but teeth and intent. He slows his movements with devastating precision, pulling out so slowly it feels like a loss, thrusting back in to make you pay for every lie, for every second you didn’t admit you were his. The impact shatters your defenses, touching something deep inside that makes you want to come apart. Makes you want to break just so he can put you back together.

"Liar," he breathes, but the word is tangled with awe, with worship, with disbelief that he ever let you go. His hands are brands on your skin, holding you in place as he moves, marking you with fingers as determined as his heart, as his claim, as his promise.

You’re losing. You’re lost. Your resolve crumbles, rushing out of you so quickly you feel dizzy with it. The pleasure winds tight, impossibly tight, spreading through your body faster than you can stop it, faster than you can pretend you don’t want it. You’re on the brink, teetering at the edge, and you can’t pull back. Can’t stop it. Can’t stop any of it.

"Say it," he demands, pushing you to the point of no return, his rhythm pushed to the breaking point as his control slips. As he starts to fall apart with you. "Tell me who you belong to."

You want to fight him. You want him to bleed the way you did. You want to be empty of him. You want him to lose the same way you did. You want to give him nothing. You want to watch him break. You want him to hurt the way you did. You want to give him everything. You want him to know it. You want to ruin him as he's ruined you. And suddenly, you are. The word leaves your throat like it’s tearing you apart, like it’s putting you back together. The admission is pain and salvation. The confession is agony and release. "You." The silence shatters. Your resolve shatters. Something wild and desperate between you shatters. You come undone with it, unable to hold anything back. Your voice, your control, the last of your resistance. "You," you whisper, the sound already gone. "You, Aemond."

It breaks something in both of you. He kisses you then, deep and consuming, and you fall apart beneath him, waves of pleasure wracking through you, your release a storm breaking against the shore. He follows you over the edge, his own release a fierce, primal claim, his body tensing above you, inside you, around you. The sound he makes is raw, unguarded, nothing like the prince who holds his emotions in check. His forehead presses against yours as he shudders, as he spills himself inside you, marking you in the most primitive way. You think he might have forgotten how to breathe, how to hold back, how to be a dragon and not a man. You think you might have forgotten the same.

It leaves you both unmoored, wild and vulnerable, unable to hold anything back. Every moment is a fracture, a split-second proof of his soul laid bare. Every tremor a piece of you given in ways you never thought you could. Never thought you would. The heat of him, the weight of him, it should feel like too much. It should feel like surrender. You should feel conquered, defeated. But for the first time, it feels like exactly what you’ve been wanting. Exactly what you’ve been waiting for.

It takes an eternity for the storm to pass, for the world to settle around you, but you hold fast through it, to him, to each other. You feel it long after the shakes subside, after your bodies run out of breath and fury and will. The truth of it so potent you can’t suppress it. Can’t deny it. Not even to save yourself. For a moment, neither of you move. His breath mingles with yours, ragged and spent. His weight is heavy, but you don't push him away. You can't. Your fingers trace the scars on his back, mapping the history of a boy who became a man you didn't recognize. Who became a man you couldn't resist.

When he finally rolls to the side, you feel the chill of the room rush back, reminding you of where you are. Who you are. What you've done. You lie there, staring at the ceiling, your body humming with remnants of pleasure and something heavier. You should leave. You should get up, gather your clothes, and slip away before the castle wakes. Before reality returns. Before the weight of this settles fully on your shoulders. Instead, you stay.

His fingers trace lazy patterns on your skin, following the curve of your hip, the dip of your waist, like he's memorizing the map of you. Neither of you speak. The silence isn't uncomfortable, but it's heavy with things unsaid. With questions neither of you are ready to answer.

"They’ll know," you whisper, voice ragged from crying out his name.

He doesn’t flinch. Just looks at you—calm, unreadable—as if the words mean nothing at all.

"And?"

You swallow. "You don’t understand what they’ll say."

"I do." His voice is flat, unbothered. "They’ll say what they always do. It changes nothing."

You push his hand away, sitting up fast. "I’m not yours to claim."

His eye flicks to you, sharp and steady. "I never said you were."

That catches you off guard—but before you can speak, he adds, quieter this time:

"You chose this. Just like I did."