do you want the house tour?

The boy was his second son, the third child, suffering from the same shy and intellectual personality Aemond had as a child. His eldest, Rhaegar, was forward and confident, with a streak of arrogance Aemond had to admit he nurtured sometimes—his heir had everything to be proud of, after all—and his second, a daughter, was much the same.

His younger son, Aenys, was more tender-hearted but no less intelligent. He had a softness to him and his looks favored you, his mother, in his eyes and in the curl of his mouth when he smiled—those details never ceased to make Aemond’s heart swell. Rhaegar is my pride, but Aenys is my joy, he had said to you often enough, in the secret cove of your chambers.

“Why are you not in the courtyard?” Aemond asked, running a hand on his child’s shoulder. The white-haired boy lifted his head to peer up at his father. 

“I thought I would read some histories, today,” he said, then went back to deciphering the runes. 

“Are your lessons with the Maester insufficient?” Aemond frowned. Peering over his shoulder, he saw the chapter he was currently reading was more advanced than what the Maester was currently teaching him. “Perhaps I shall have a word with him.”

“Oh no, they are perfectly adequate. The Maester is a wise and patient teacher,” came the quick answer, sounding too rehearsed to be the truth. 

Aemond put his palm flat on the open page, hindering Aenys’s reading. “Tell me, son,” Aemond insisted. 

“There is nothing to tell, father,” he hurriedly replied, dipping his chin.

“Did he reprimand you, give you an additional assignment?” Aemond insisted, and the child shook his head vehemently, but refused to meet his eye.

“No he did not. I did not misbehave,” Aenys protested rather unnecessarily, almost as if he’d stricken a nerve without meaning to.

Aemond sighed and closed the book, pushing it back on the table. “Then you shall attend to your lessons as prescribed. Afternoons are for sword training. Join your cousins in the yard at once, I am sure the swordsmaster is waiting on you,” he instructed, stepping aside so Aenys could push his chair back.

The child did as he was told, shoulders held stiff and eyes lowered. “Yes, father.”

Aemond could not get his growing suspicions to settle, and after a short visit to his daughter’s lessons, he made his way down to the courtyard where he knew the young princes were training. He had walked this way many times as a boy himself, and later as a growing man, finding true purpose in training his body as well as he honed his mind. 

However when he stepped outside, it was not such noble feelings that awaited him. Instead his stomach went cold and heavy at the scene he came upon. 

Lying down in the gravel, Aenys was looking up at his cousin, his practice sword discarded, and an air of despair on his face. “Leave him alone, Jaehaerys!” Rhaegar admonished. 

“Need your brother to come to your rescue?” Jaehaerys taunted. “Then perhaps your place is upstairs with your sister and mi—”

Jaehaerys stopped his rant, his voice breaking in the middle of a word, and he swallowed nervously, stepping back. Aenys rose hurriedly, pushing Rhaegar’s helping hand away, eager to see what had quieted his cousin’s vitriol. When he turned, he saw his father was standing on the edge of the training yard, arms crossed behind his back severely. 

“Is this the values you are taught in this yard, boy?” Aemond called to Jaehaerys, his voice piercing the air like the crack of a whip, and yet, he had barely raised his voice. He scarcely needed to, his tone was sharp enough.

“No, uncle,” came the quiet reply—the boy knew better than to disagree. 

Aemond approached slowly, menacing, his height towering over his nephew. “Is this the way a future king behaves?” he asked, calm and cold, and Jaehaerys flushed in shame, shaking his head. “Answer me, boy.”

“No, my Lord Hand,” Jaehaerys replied, his lower lip wobbling slightly, and the deference of the title made satisfaction curl in Aemond’s stomach—it did not matter to him that he was humiliating a child, and the heir to the throne, as long as he would insure that his own son was safe from harm.

“You shall do well to think on it,” he continued, all the while refraining from touching his son, letting him stand on his own. Instead, he turned to Rhaegar. “Take your brother to his studies. Your training here is done today.”

“Gladly, father,” Rhaegar said, curling a protective hand around Aenys’s arm and leading him back into the castle. 

“I shall be with you shortly,” Aemond called after them, then turned to his nephew once more. “You are dismissed as well. I believe a time of reflection in your chambers is advised, while I have a word with the king.”

Heart thundering in his chest, his blood rushing in his ears, Aemond climbed up the stairs leading the king’s chambers with one precise goal in mind—ensuring that his son would never be subjected to such treatment by his own blood. The heat he felt behind his breastbone was reminiscent of the one he had felt as a child, berated by his own brother and mocked by his nephews, and he could not control his rage.

Aemond burst into the royal chambers, uncaring that he had not knocked, or in what situation he would find the king. 

Thankfully, Aegon was simply seated in front of the hearth, a slice of fruit in his hand and a book across his lap. He gave him a bewildered look and a pinched smile, but Aemond spoke before he could. “Would it be too much to ask you to rein your child in?” he spat out.

The king raised a brow at him, surprised at the sudden outburst. “Whatever it is you mean.”

Aemond walked up to him until he was looming over Aegon. “I mean your son and heir ruling terror over the training yard, pushing mine own boy into the dirt,” Aemond explained. 

“It’s nothing, Aemond,” his brother snorted, setting the fruit aside and wiping his hand on his thigh. “The lot of boys!”

“Discipline your child, or I will do it myself,” he warned. “I am warning you Aegon, I do not care that he is heir to the throne, if I find him putting his hands on my son again, in a manner unbefitting a prince, there will be consequences.”

“Is that a threat?” Aegon asked, caught between amusement and incredulity. He rose to find himself face to face with his younger brother, but Aemond did not back down, even when facing his king.

“It very much is, Aegon,” he vowed. “You might not care to raise a hand to your son, but I do not share your reserve on that matter.”

Aegon did seem taken aback at such a direct confrontation, but in his usual fashion, waved Aemond off like it was a trivial issue. “Fine, fine,” he conceded, but Aemond feared it would not be the end of it. 

Aemond took his leave with one last scalding glare, and allowed himself a moment to quiet his rage before he sought his sons again, finding them in their shared quarters. Aenys was reading with Rhaegar watching over him. The sight the two boys made, sitting close to one another on a sofa, speaking in conniving whispers, made his heart clench. 

As soon as he saw him, Rhaegar rose and came to him with a contrite look. “I am sorry, father, I have failed my role as older brother,” he announced.

“In no way whatsoever have you failed,” Aemond answered firmly, but his boy shook his head.

“It is my role as eldest to protect and defend him, and I was unsuccessful,” he sighed, visibly frustrated with himself. “I should have come to you.”

Aemond put his hands on his son’s shoulders, looking back and forth between his two boys. “Yes, you should have, because it is my role as father to protect you.”

Aenys closed the book with a sharp snap, and Aemond loathed to see tears rising in his eyes. “I am sorry, father,” he moaned. “I fear I have disappointed you.”

Aemond sighed and reached for his son. “In no way have you disappointed me. I have disappointed myself, as I have failed you,” he said again, glad when the boy came to him, dipping his head and leaning into his arm when Aemond curled it around him.

“What would have me do?” the boy whispered behind his curtain of white hair.

“Jaehaerys is a little fool, much like his father was at this age. You are better than this,” he said, resting his other hand on Rhaegar’s shoulder. “Both of you.”

“Isn’t this blasphemous of you to say, father?” Rhaegar asked.

“I am the king’s brother, it comes with privileges,” he hummed. “I shall train you as well, from now on. In addition to the swordmaster.”

“You have duties, father, surely you can’t—” Aenys protested, looking up at him.

“My greatest duty is to you,” he replied, bringing his child close by the back of his head, and kissing his forehead. The boy leaned into it, and for a second, the fury in Aemond’s chest was abated.

The day was heavy on Aemond’s mind as he crossed the threshold to his chambers that night. He shared those rooms with you, even though you had your own, but you used those as a place to receive your ladies and oversee your daughter’s lessons, and every night you came to sleep in his bed. There was a comfort to knowing that no matter how terrible the day had been, he had a safe haven with you.

However, as soon as he had closed the doors and started to unbuckle his doublet, he noticed your agitated mood. “Have you lost your mind, husband?” you asked, not unkindly, but the remark was enough to reignite his anger.

“Quite the contrary, I have come to notice things I was blind to,” he said, shrugging his doublet off, and despite your unwelcoming words, you came to assist him. You pulled the heavy garment from his arms and draped it neatly over a chair, smoothing over the shoulders with the palms of your hands.

“I was told you threatened the king, and spoke to your nephew in a harsher way than I have ever heard from you, even towards your own children,” you recounted, rather unnerved by your husband’s sudden erratic behavior. 

“I do not need you to give me lessons on how to handle this situation,” Aemond admonished, pushing his discarded boots under his chair and untucking his shirt from his trousers. “Where were you, when our son was being abused by his cousin?”

You scoffed, his evening robe in hand—your other hand had settled over your swollen stomach. “Where was I? I was right here, at your side, being a mother to your children and raising them. I could ask you the same thing. Where were you?”

At that Aemond looked furious, but he said nothing. Instead he turned his back on you, his fists tight at his sides. Setting the robe aside, you came to him, wrapping your arms around his waist, burrowing as close as your growing belly allowed. “This is unlike you, Aemond,” you commented.

One of his hands came to your wrist, holding you in place, your arms tight around his belly, anchoring him and soothing his anger. “My sons kept it a secret from me,” he finally confessed.

With a sigh, you buried your face between his shoulder blades. “They respect and admire you. Aenys wanted you to think he’s strong, that he can hold his own.”

“I have neglected him, his happiness,” Aemond admitted, what he had previously thought was anger revealing itself as shame. “He has been wretched and I have been blind to it.”

Bringing your hands flat on his stomach, you felt his ribcage expand and retract, and you said not a word, allowing him to ground his breathing under your touch. “I can only hope I have not neglected yours,” he said after a minute, turning around in your hold. 

“I am perfectly content,” you were quick to reassure him while his hands trailed across your belly, the back of his knuckles tracing the growing curve of it, up to your waist.

“How is my son?” he asked, and you knew the topic of today’s affair was closed—it would be a while, perhaps, before he could speak of it again, and you did not begrudge him his privacy. 

Aemond was a man of careful planning and rehearsed conversations, and you knew that there would be nothing to gain from questioning him when he needed to collect his thoughts on a matter. “Your son?” you replied, amused. “How might you know it is a son? I do not know, myself.”

A small smile pulled at the corner of his lips. “I see the signs in your mood, in your body,” he murmured, and the reverence in his tone flustered you. 

After all these years at his side, all he needed to undo you was a few carefully-chosen words, showing how observant he truly was. In a few months, when the babe would be born, you would not be surprised to see him be proven right.

“Do you, now?” you asked, breathless, and his answer came in the form of a kiss, firm and chaste.

Aemond always took his time when kissing you—he never delved in with passion right away, instead coaxing you into it with slow, purposeful presses of his lips. He lingered after a breath, grazing your mouth with the sharp curve of his upper lip, kissing you softly as though to say farewell, only to come back to you before you could open your eyes.

Only when he had teased you with the softness of his mouth would he grant you the passion of his tongue, and you knew he savored it as much as you did, and such a careful dance was done for his sake as much as yours. His passion was always measured, ever so cautious, and to feel his fire simmer under his skin brought you a pleasure greater than any other.

Tonight was no exception, even though there was an edge to his passion that you did not feel often. It spoke of a need for softness and stillness, and you were glad to give it to him.

“Despite what you say, I have neglected you,” he hummed, dipping his head into your neck, nearly groaning aloud when you carded your fingers through his loose hair. “I have been absent.”

“Our full nursery would suggest you have not,” you smiled, and it was with a gentle hand to your belly that he guided you to bed. On the way his eye patch was left on the bedside table and the rest of your linens were discarded—his shirt and trousers, along with your nightgown. 

Some nights bare skin was the only thing that would soothe the both of you, your bodies growing warm and sated at the mere touch of the other. 

Aemond’s body molded into yours with the practice of a thousand nights, your back arching into his chest, your legs tangling under the sheets. He hooked his chin over your shoulder, his hand tracing the slope between your hip and your knee, occasionally coming to your belly.

“Aemond,” you breathed, your fingers curling with his on the pillow where his other arm had slithered under your neck. 

It was not long before you could feel the length of him pressing at your lower back, a line of heat and hardness, but there was no burning desire to seek this sort of pleasure. It would have been easy to lose himself in you, taking you this way, tucked against his tall frame, his hands roaming your skin to his heart’s content. However this was not what he truly wanted, despite his body’s reaction to yours.

The softness of your skin and the pleasure of your touch could be enjoyed without bringing baser urges into it. Holding you in his arms was more than enough to settle and satisfy him on this night, and there would come other occasions to let passion consume him.

Aemond kissed the crook of your shoulder, lingering, savoring your shiver under his lips, and this was true the true wealth of a man, he thought. Children he found pride in, and a wife upholding him, soothing his sharp edges and blessing him with nights of true respite. 

This was his kingdom, more than the realm he served as Hand, and what defined him as a man.

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose. Not beta read. Requests for Aemond are currently open.

While his reasoning was sound, and you were relieved to lead your child out of harm’s way, you loathed being separated from your husband. Were your son older, you would have sent him to ward and remain at your husband’s side, but Aenar was barely two years of age, and required your constant presence. 

Still, you felt as though you were failing your husband. “I wish I could stay at your side, as a dutiful wife should,” you told him regretfully, glancing at the carriage that would take you away.

“In those circumstances, your greatest duty as my wife is to keep my son safe, and raise him away from harm,” Aemond assured you, then pressed a kiss to your babe’s forehead before you handed him to the nurse that was to accompany you.

She climbed inside the carriage, getting your son out of the rain, and allowing you privacy to bid your farewells to your husband. His squire was holding a large umbrella over the two of you, and you wanted nothing more than to dismiss him, only to spend another minute in the sole presence of your husband, but there was no time for it. 

The sudden fear that you might never set eyes on Aemond again seized your heart with its icy hand, as though the Stranger himself was after you. “Please be safe, I beseech you,” you murmured, heat prickling behind your eyes.

“I will,” Aemond answered, but the both of you knew he could not make such promises. “We shall prevail before the end of the year, and you shall come back to me.”

The young squire looked aside as Aemond rested his forehead against yours, then dipped his head to press a kiss to your mouth. It was not in his nature to show his affection outside of your chambers, even less in the presence of guards, but neither of you could afford to mind. 

“Do not make me a widow, I beg of you,” you murmured against his lips, and he swallowed the sob you could not contain, forgoing all sense of propriety, letting passion and grief take over for a moment. 

TWO YEARS LATER

Letters had been scarce and further apart as war had raged on. Aemond had been right—he had prevailed, even though all around him had perished. Only his mother and younger brother remained, and the crown had landed on his head, and with it a fractured realm. 

At the head of many houses were now infants with their mothers for regents, and Aemond thought it a good start to his reign. These boys would grow knowing what had to be sacrificed for peace, and what had been lost when a usurper had attempted to seize the throne. Aemond hoped his reign would be strong and long, but no matter what fate had in store, he knew his legacy was safe in his son Aenar.

It had been two years now since he had laid eyes on his child, and on you. War had taken much of his time and at first, he had believed he could bury his longing into military strategy, until eventually your absence became a throbbing bite he could not ignore. It made him disagreeable, cruel perhaps, and he longed to find some softness again, in your arms. He yearned to feel your touch again—he now knew it was not right for a man to be apart from his wife, and all this time he had refused to take a mistress. 

He also longed to see the child that he had last seen as a babe, wondering what his character was now, what remained of the joyful infant he remembered. He had charged his brother to escort you back from Oldtown, and had received the news an hour prior that Tessarion had been sighted over the Roseroad, escorting a small caravan of carriages and soldiers carrying the hightower banners.

Since then he had waited, slowly pacing the courtyard, arms crossed severely at his back. All servants gave him a wide berth, standing at the ready to welcome their queen. Aemond could feel his heart beating wildly in his neck as the carriage passed through the heavy doors and finally stopped in the middle of the yard. A squire rushed with a stepping stool as the door opened. 

For the last hour you had been trembling, unable to contain the frantic beating of your heart—once the Red Keep had come into view, the last two years of agonizing waiting had come back to you, and you were on the verge of tears.

Leaving your son in the carriage with his nurse, you nearly jumped the steps into the gravel. Aemond rushed to you and the two of you collided—his kiss was scorching, far bolder than he had ever dared in public, and you surged up into him, just as passionate. He made a noise you had never heard from him, an anguished groan that shattered your heart and you dug your nails into his back, holding him as tightly as he was holding you, near pain. 

Everything came back to him in that instant—the sweet months of courtship, the passionate nights of your honeymoon, the joyful birth of your son, the strength of your devotion as you stood by his side even in war—all overshadowed by the coldness of your absence, the bed he avoided, the void left with only the memory of your love to sustain him.  

This living hell was now over, and you were safe by his side once more. His queen.

Aemond made a mournful sound when you stepped away, only to gaze up at him in wonder, and give him a low, reverent curtsy. 

There were no prayers fervent enough to testify to your gratefulness—you would serve the Gods as they desired for the rest of your days, you vowed in your mind and in your heart, for they had returned your husband alive, healthy and victorious.

“My king,” you said, your voice cracking with emotion, and to hear his newly acquired title in your mouth set fire to his blood.

However before he could reach for you again, a nurse stepped out of the carriage, holding out her hand for a small figure dressed in green to take it and make its way down. Aemond froze—across from him, his own features were reflected to him on the face of his son.

“Come greet your father, as we’ve rehearsed,” you encouraged, holding out your hand for Aenar to come, and he stepped to your side obediently, looking up at Aemond without any outward emotion.

“Good day to you, father,” he said, words he had obviously learned and repeated many times, but Aemond thought he would weep upon hearing them—from his own child's mouth, had come the most perfect High Valyrian. It was thick in his mouth and lacked the proper accentuation, but it was the most melodic sound he had ever heard. 

“The maester and I have worked hard to make sure he knew his father's language,” you explained with pride, and Aemond had never felt so grateful for you in his life.

Carefully, he lowered himself to the ground, kneeling in the gravel for all to see, and put himself at his son’s height. “Good day, my son, ” he said slowly, carefully enunciating the lifted vowels of High Valyrian. “I have missed you greatly.”

At that Aenar’s face contorted in emotion, and after a suspended second, he burst into frantic tears, and Aemond welcomed him into his arms, tucking his head into his neck and soothing his cries. He rose in one swift movement, taking his child with him with one arm under his bottom.

“We shall take him to the nursery. A bath has been drawn and luncheon is waiting,” he told you, holding out his free arm, which you gladly took.

In truth you had missed the Red Keep, not for its bricks or its court, but for the fact that it was your husband’s home. A weight you had gotten used to and couldn’t feel anymore was lifted from your shoulders as you stepped through its doors once more. 

The nursery had not changed since you had last lived here, the curtains and carpets remained enchanged, and all the toys necessary for a boy Aenar’s age were waiting. 

“Mind Prince Aenar for a moment,” Aemond said to the nurse, who started on removing his travelling cloak. 

In the hallway, two guards were standing vigil near the door. “Turn away,” he barked at them, and before you could even wonder why, Aemond’s mouth slanted over yours again, hot and demanding, his hands cradling your face in fervor. 

Passion erupted in you like a dormant volcano and you clung to his waist, but once again his natural restraint won over and he did not allow your shared desire to boil over. 

For nearly an hour you watched with unconcealed joy as Aemond rediscovered his son and heir. Aenar was a bright boy with a curious mind, and it delighted the young king. 

Once bathed and fed, he had soon shown signs of tiredness, and your heart had ached upon seeing your husband cradle him into his arms and lower him into the sheets and blanket of his crib, tucking him in like he hadn’t done for two years. 

The two of you watched as Aenar’s eyes fluttered and fell, slumber taking over little by little until his face went slack and his body grew heavier beneath the embroidered blanket, his breathing deepening. 

“He looks like you, more and more each day, and it was both a torment and a blessing,” you said quietly, tracing your husband’s profile with your eyes—he was bent over the crib, watching the simple wonder of his sleeping child, safe and healthy, and by his side once more. 

“He is beautiful,” Aemond replied with pride, a soft smile on his face the like he never displayed for anyone. “My son and heir.”

He turned to you when you did not say another word, his gaze turning mournful. “You look at me as though you have seen a ghost.”

“All around us is death but we have made it through to the other side. You are alive, and king, and I never imagined such an outcome.”

“There were times I thought I would never lay eyes on him again, or you,” he confessed, a lurking darkness in his tone that chilled you to the bone. 

“I cried every night and prayed twice as much,” you said, emotion rising in you once more, the like you could hardly contain. “A wife should not be parted from her husband. I tried to be strong but I could not—”

Aemond reached for you again, hushing you quietly, pressing his lips to your brow. “Being parted from you was a living hell,” he admitted, then led you out of the nursery. “Let him sleep, the journey has surely exhausted him.”

A stern look towards the nurse and the guards was all that would have been needed, but he spoke nonetheless. “You are guarding the most precious jewel in the realm. The heir to the Iron Throne. Ensure he is safe,” he ordered them, a barely veiled threat to what would the consequence be if they failed.

Aemond led you to the king’s rooms where the table had been set, but you did not think you could swallow a mouthful. “Do you wish to rest instead?” he asked when you refused the cup of wine he handed you, and seemed intent on ignoring the trays of cheese and sweet fruit. 

“No,” you replied, slightly breathless, and that single word ignited him. Aemond seemed calm on the surface, but you could see he was trembling, and his carefully constructed restraint was making you quiver, for you knew what it held.

Without a word he crossed the space between the two of you in quick strides, and as soon as his lips were upon yours, you surged up against him—he kissed your mouth for a few hurried breaths, passionate and nearly furious in his desire, then buried his face in the crook of your neck, leaving a trail of hot kisses.

“I cannot wait any longer,” he confessed, unclasping his own clasps and belt, pulling his doublet off his own shoulders and discarding it—the sound of leather and iron hitting the floor made you clench, a streak of heat running up your core. 

He brought you against him by the hips, more forward and less elegant than he usually was, and you melted into his embrace, a desperate whine falling from your mouth when you felt the hot line of his manhood against your abdomen. “Never again shall we part,” he murmured. “It would be the end of me.”

“Please, husband,” you begged, and you thought he would tear the laces of your gown in his impatience, your own trembling fingers undoing the clasps of his trousers.

He kissed your neck without restraint as he undressed you and you undressed him until he had kicked his boots and trousers aside and he was standing bare in front of you. He was a marvel, smooth marble skin stretched over lean muscle, a few new scars littering his skin. You kissed his chest, your hands wandering across his newly scarred skin, pressed up against him, his cock trapped between your abdomens. 

Aemond melted into your touch, savoring the heat of your mouth and the softness of your hands, his fingers carding through your hair when you slowly fell to your knees at his feet, your mouth slanting over the dip of his hip, his straining cock sliding against your cheek.

He was not above begging, not after so long without your love. “Please, my love,” he rasped, and you complied eagerly, licking the underside of his cock before sucking the head of it into your mouth. 

Aemond hissed behind gritted teeth, widening his stance. The heat and sweet pressure was torture, as was the sight of his wife on her knees for him, but he forced himself to breathe slowly as you started a careful rhythm, taking him into your mouth as far as you could, your eyes fluttering close. 

He could only take a mere minute of it, and soon he was pulling again before lifting you into his arms swiftly, your legs wrapping around his slim waist. He carried you to the sheets and tipped you against them, rocking his hips down into yours gracelessly—he needed to have you now.

The emptiness inside of you ached, a hot pulse that clenched your entire core when he teased the head of his cock between your folds. He looked half mad with desire, as undone as you felt, and you wanted to ask if he had taken a lover or if those two years of separation had been celibate for him as well.

“Why your tears?” he asked, wiping the stray drop that had escaped the corner of your eye.

“I have missed your bed,” you replied, and it was the truth.

“It has been cold without you,” he replied, and sensing your question, continued. “I would never touch another. I could never desire another. Never,” he vowed as he finally pushed inside with a groan.

The stretch was the sweetest agony for the both of you, and the heat around his cock and the look of utter bliss on your face broke his resolve. “Gods,” he gasped, thrusting into you nearly frantically, watching closely for any frown of pain but instead your mouth dropped open and your hips snapped back into his.

While your coupling had never lacked passion, they had always been restrained affairs, careful and slow, but this time was nothing like it. For a moment the two of you were lost to the sharp pleasure of your reunion, burning quick and fierce in your blood. 

Aemond took your hand and held it against his chest, pressed to his heart, and you wanted to weep with relief that he was alive under your palm, beating wildly.

“My queen,” he called, to which you clenched around his cock, lost to the sweet drag of his hard length against your walls.

“My king,” you answered with the same reverence.

Pleasure built and crested at the pit of Aemond’s stomach and he let it, surrendering to it completely. Soon it reached the point of no return and he stilled inside of you, burying his head into your neck as his peak took over his senses and he spilled inside of you. You held him as he shook and hooked your ankles at his lower back, shuddering at his unrestrained groans and gasps. 

Once most of it had passed he sought your mouth again and kissed you, deep and languid, answering the frustrated grinding of your hips and, to your utter relief, started to thrust into you again. “I'm not sated of you,” he said, hissing slightly at the slight ache that came with it, but unwilling to pull away from you after so long without your body under his. “I will not leave you unsatisfied.”

He watched the holy sight you made, unraveling under the steady thrusting of his hips, knowing how to roll them into you so his cock dragged against your sweet spot and his abdomen ground against your core. Pleasure irradiated into your whole body at the dual sensation, all the more so against his heated gaze.

Now that he had found his release once, Aemond found his focus was sharper, attentive to every shiver than ran across your skin, any flicker of frustration or bliss, allowing him to adjust to your own desire. His whole body felt alight, on the verge of unbearable heat, but he relished the sight you made, savoring the lights and shadow of rapture across your face. 

“I love you,” you said, straining your neck towards him and he answered your silent call, bending down to kiss you once more, his tongue prodding yours passionately. 

His second peak was building, slow and sure, pulled like the tide to the moon of your pleasure. As his rhythm picked up again you threw your head back, covering your mouth to silence your cries, but he took it away and laced his fingers with yours atop the sheets.

“I love you,” he whispered into your neck. “I am untethered without you. Half a man, half a king.”

With a cry that sounded like a sob, your peak crashed over you like the wave of a storm against a cliff, nearly brutal in its intensity—your whole body shuddered and shook, your core throbbing as you lost your thoughts to it. Aemond followed you, spilling into your body once more, and the two of you clung to each other, nails digging into skin and leaving half-moons. More words of love and devotion were whispered, promises to never be parted again.

Finally, when your bodies had grown heavier and your breathing had turned slow once more, Aemond rose from the bed and draped a robe over his shoulders before handing you one. Wrapping it around yourself and enjoying his scent that clung to it, you watched as he poured a fresh cup of wine and plucked a small plum from the tray, bringing both to you. 

Aemond smirked, proud and slightly vain, at the way your eyes ran over his skin. He pried the sweet plum open and fed you a half from his own fingers, his thumb caressing your chin as he did. “There will be a supper held in your honor tonight,” he announced with a soft sort of pride, the sort that was only yours. “So the court can properly welcome their queen.”

Humming your agreement, you kissed his palm and took a sip of wine. “I hope the queen's quarters will be agreeable to you,” he continued, to which you shook your head.

“No. I refuse to be parted from you ever again. I shall sleep here every night,” you declared, and to that he looked all the more satisfied. You denied him when he bent down to kiss you, instead handing him back the cup of wine, nodding to the bedside table. “It is still early in the day. Come back to bed.”

Aemond’s smirk grew and his eye crinkled—he complied. “Yes, my queen.”

Dividers by @zaldritzosrose.

Comments are always deeply appreciated ♡

Tagging those who were interested: @sun2951 @esmeesmeesme @sanktalana @fangirling-jess @ilariyalavorowrites @respectoughfully @nicksolemnlyswears @ziv-helpless @dreamilypurplepillar

Aemond taglist: @chattylurker @multyfangirl @thenameswinter99 @darylandbethfanforever9 @still-jon-snow

@jasminecosmic99 @merovingianprincess @bunbunbl0gs @dixie-elocin @xxxkat3xxx

@fluorescentadolescent1 @milostkag @alexxavicry @zaldritzosrose @sapphirehearteyes

@aemondsbabe @targaryen-dynasty @snowtargaryen @lilithgreenbean @persephonerinyes

“What would you call it then, husband?” You voiced, shuffling the books on the chair behind him, placing it onto the desk before sitting beside him. “I’m reading, wife.” As if to send his point across, he turns a page in between his two fingers, but he does not even seem to be glancing at the sheet. 

Fighting the urge to roll your eyes, you sigh. “You’re angry.” 

That’s when Jace finally moves to face you. “Aren’t you?”

You look down for a moment to shrug, of course the idea was bizarre and clearly a blow to your family’s honor. “I don’t see what good it would do.” you reply, “They are an insult to us.” Jace murmured, looking ahead of him, jaw clenching. “To what makes us Targaryens.”

“If any common lout can ride a dragon, then–” You were quick to cut him off. “Yet that does not make me common. Or you.” You try to convince him, inching your chair closer to your betrothed. 

“You know what I am.” He responded, no, that’s not what you were going to have. “I do not care, Jace.” You firmly said, reaching for his hands underneath the desk as you looked at him while he maintained to avoid your gaze. 

Raising a hand of his enclasped in yours, you press your lips against the back of his hand, a show of affection. “You are the crown prince, the son of the rightful queen- and here you are sulking because you believe that if not for the dragon, or the trappings of your station- that you are nothing.”

Placing your hand still holding his on your lap, you couldn’t help but just want to drown out your husband’s thoughts and distress.

“Do you believe that you are the first noble heir who was not sired by his noble father?” Taking an inhale of breath, you added. “Such is the way of the world, Jace, and in resenting it you only diminish yourself.” 

Hoping it will come through to him as you stroke your thumb on his hand that was now on your leg, his palm resting on the flesh through your robes. 

He still doesn’t meet your gaze and it sends you frustrated, but you keep trying anyway. “Easy enough to say.” He replied, voice tinged with rancor. You see him swallow as he stares into the void of candles and books. “I’ve heard the whispers the whole of my life.”

Your face pulls to a sympathetic look, gaze momentarily flickering to the ground, cursing the accusations Jace had been succumbed to ever since in your youth. You squeezed his hand on your leg, your gaze holding onto him. “Then prove to them you are worthy, you are Jacaerys Velaryon, heir to the Iron Throne- no one would change that, unless you will not get up and take your place by your mother’s side.”

After what felt like an eternity, Jacaerys finally gave in and had looked at you, though still shying away as he leaned his head back, blinking away the moisture from his eyes. You sigh, squeezing his hand again.

You felt that silence was enough, letting your words sink into Jacaerys’ mind. “I’m sorry.” He said after a while, in which you shook your head. “There is no need to be sorry, Jace.” You reach up, cupping his face with your free hand as you slowly make him turn his head to face you, to look earnestly in your eyes. 

“I am with you, through your ups and downs.” You murmur, stroking your thumb across the apple of his cheek, “We’ll get through this together, we’ll end this war, see your mother to the throne.” You promised, leaning in to capture his lips to seal the vow. 

He reciprocates, squeezing your leg as his other hand found your arm, tracing up to cradle the back of your neck, pulling you closer. 

“What would I do without you?” He murmured against you, breaths mingling together in a dance as your lips brushed against the other.. 

“Perhaps still pouting and sulking, my king.” You teased, pulling back and getting up from your chair, sending Jace befuddled yet stimulated, you calling him king had seemed to fry every last thought he had before recovering.

A smirk came to his face, amused at your teasing as he also rushed to stand, lunging to try and capture you in his arms, but you had anticipated it as you easily slipped from his grasp, his troubles melting as the wax on the lit candles. 

“You tease me now, wife? How shall I punish you if I ever become king?” It sent your heart fluttering and your insides heating as Jace played along, making you continue your act, placing your hand above your chest in mock disbelief. It was a start, you would always want to see your husband in high spirits. 

“That is if you can catch me first, my king.” 

You anxiously played with your hair as one of your handmaidens braided it. Your other handmaiden standing in front of you, adding the accessories to your beautiful ivory gown. Today was your wedding day. It was a joyous day in King’s Landing, your mother, the queen,  having ascended the iron throne and having slayed your traitorous uncle, she could finally rule. You were already betrothed to your brother Jacaerys before the war but the wedding was put on hold because of the events. But today was the day, you were nervous but also excited. After 7 days of celebrations the royal wedding would take place, in the very room the iron throne was in. After some time of preparing you were ready to head down to the doors that led to the throne room. As you stood there nervously waiting for the doors to open you felt a hand on your shoulder, your step father prince Daemon would walk you down the aisle. He offered his arm with a smile and when you took it the doors opened revealing the huge room decorated with candles, feathers and flowers. And not to mention the hundreds of people from court within. Your eyes immediately shot to the end of the aisle where your soon to be husband stood next to the high septon who would be officiating. 

You were pulled out of your thoughts when Daemon started walking, all the eyes in the room were on you, soft gasps all around at the sight of your beautiful dress and hair. You walked alongside Daemon down the aisle and when you reached the end, Jace took your hand so Daemon could join your mother and brothers at the base of the steps. Jace walked you up the few steps to where the high septon stood. Both of you taking each other's hands and giving each other a nervous smile. Then the high septon spoke. “The love of The Seven is holy and eternal. Source of life and love. We stand here today in thanks and praise to join two souls as one. Father, Mother, Warrior, Smith, Maiden, Crone, Stranger hear now their vows.” You kissed Jace’s cheek before he spoke. “I am yours and you are mine. Whatever may come.” Then you repeated the words. “I am yours and you are mine. Whatever may come.” You smiled, which was returned by Jace. The high septon continued. “Here in the presence of gods and men, I proclaim Jacaerys of house Velaryon, (Y/N) of house Velaryon to be man and wife. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.” The septon ended. Jace gave you a light kiss on your lips and the room disrupted with applause. You both looked at your mother, brothers and Daemon, and they smiled. Then Jace took your hand and walked you down the steps, now the celebrations could begin. 

After hours of dancing, feasting and entertaining your guests you started getting nervous for the next part of the wedding, the bedding ceremony. Even though the old tradition of people “making sure” the ceremony actually took place was dropped years ago, it still scared you. You knew the basics of it, of course. But still, you didn’t know what it would actually be like and it made you nervous. Obviously Jace was a sweetheart and would take care of you, so you expected it to still be a positive occurrence. What you didn’t know was if Jace had any experience already, of course as a man he was allowed to bed whomever, whenever he wanted but you always thought it didn’t fit his character, and he rarely left the Red Keep, so you decided you were both clueless, which made it a little less intimidating. Jace sat beside you at the large table in front of the guests. Your family all sitting next to you two. And alas the feast was declared over by the queen and you and your new husband left the room to his bedchamber.

His bedchamber was a place you have been to many times before but now it was different, you were going there with a completely different intention. An intention that made the heat pool in your belly. As if Jacaerys read your thoughts he asked “Are you alright? It’s okay to be nervous, I’m nervous too.” You were glad that even though wine was poured as water tonight, he didn’t overflow his cups. Wanting to be sober with just enough of a buzz for confidence. “I’m alright, yes, but I am nervous. Ha- have you had any...well experience?” You asked him anxiously, getting ever closer to his bedchamber. “No not really, I wanted to save myself for marriage too, it’s only fair. And I have to admit that I also didn’t want to uhm- father bastards, you know.” He explained, grabbing your hand and ordering the guards by his door to leave you, you both certainly did not want anyone listening in. As he led you inside your nervousness grew and you started to feel hot all over your body, and he hadn’t even touched you yet. 

“Jace, do you know...well you know, how to do this?” You asked him, looking him in his beautiful chocolate eyes. “The basics, yes, don’t worry. I’ll make sure to never hurt you, and if you want to stop you can always just tell me, okay?” He told you sweetly, as he put his hands on your waist, taking in your beautiful figure. “Okay, I trust you.” You mumbled putting your hands on his chest. He looked in your eyes and brought his lips closer to yours. You could feel his warm breath on your lips and you slightly parted them, waiting for him to close the gap. At last his big soft lips were on yours, the moment heating by the second and you grabbed his brown hair slightly tugging at the roots, which earned you a groan from him. He then walked you back towards his bed pushing you down before confirming you were still okay with it. 

After you told him it was okay he immediately had his lips on yours again, his tongue now asking for permission to enter. Something that you eagerly permitted, as his tongue came in touch with yours, you softly moaned in his mouth. You could feel your wetness between your thighs and you wanted him to touch you so badly. “Jace, please touch me, just touch me, anywhere.” You begged as you removed your lips from his for but a mere moment. “Anything for my wife.” He muttered. He kissed your cheek and started removing your dress and undergarments. After he undressed you he started removing his own clothes as well. And holy fuck did he look good, his toned abs, his biceps, you didn’t know your husband was this well gifted under his clothes. But as you observed him, your eyes landed on his already hard cock, glistening with precum at the tip. He was big, at least you assumed that he was bigger than other men, he sure looked like it. 

Jace saw you observing him and smiled. “I hope I am not disappointing you my love.” You looked at his face again and a blush spread across your face. “No no, not at all. You are incredibly handsome Jace.” You admitted, he grabbed your face again and kissed you deeply. You moved your hands over his toned chest, which made Jace groan against your lips. “Let me touch you Jace, please.” You pleaded with him, you wanted nothing more than to wrap your hands around his slightly dripping cock. “Of course, please touch me.” He moaned at your touch and you started to move your hand experimentally. Gripping him sometimes harder and sometimes softer again to test how he would react and what he would like best. A firmer grip clearly got the best reaction so you firmly started jerking him off until he begged you to stop. “Why? What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” You asked him nervously, had you grabbed him too hard and hurt him? “No no not at all, it’s just- if you had continued... I would’ve... finished too early.” He smiled awkwardly. 

“Oh- of course, I’m sorry. I just wanted to make you feel good.” You smiled. “Ooh fuck.” He mumbled to himself, loving the way you said that. “And it did feel really good, I promise but I need to make you feel good now. So that I might prepare you for...the actual activity.” He expressed. You smiled at him and he pushed you to lay down, while trying to remember the words of the book he had read about sex he decided that he would be better off experimenting himself to see what made you tick. So he slid his hand up your thigh and touched the mound between your legs softly. He decided that that was the right move as you moaned at his touch. Again he touched you only this time he added a bit more pressure and moved to try and find the spot that made you moan the loudest. Then he found it, the nub that made you moan his name in pleasure. “Yes- please- right there Jace.” You moaned, grabbing his wrist out of want. 

He smiled to himself and felt himself become even harder, unable to stop himself he began humping the bed softly while rubbing circles on your clit at the same time. He joined you in your moans and soon you trapped his hand between your legs when you closed your thighs shut as you came, feeling the wetness gushing out of you, almost screaming your husband's name. Jace stopped moving to avoid cumming and removed his hand when you had calmed down and opened your legs again. “That was amazing Jace, I think I’m...prepared enough now.” You smiled hazily at him. “Alright, as you wish.” He said before moving his hips close to yours, gripping is cock and sliding his tip across your slit, trying to find your entrance. When he slipped in, you both let out a moan. He stayed still for some time to let you get used to his size. After a while he moved deeper into your wet cunt making him moan again, never in his life could he have imagined the pleasure, finally understanding why men are so desperate for it. 

“Are you alright? Can I start moving?” He asked you not sure if you had adjusted enough. “Yes I’m okay, it doesn’t hurt as bad as I thought it would.” You reassured him, it was indeed better than you thought. So he started moving his hips slowly, grinding against you while trying not to moan too loud, he was clearly in heaven. After a couple of thrusts he began moving faster not being able to help himself, you just felt too good. “Oh Jace, yes- you feel so good.” You moaned his thrusts starting to feel better each time he moved in and out of you. Jace then moved closer against you, pressing his chest against yours, burying his face in your neck, now absolutely pounding into you hard. He couldn’t help but moan your name over and over again against your neck. 

But he really did it when he moved to be hitting you right against the spongy spot that made you scream for more. You begged him to finish inside you, all you could feel, see and smell was Jace. He was filling your every sense. The slapping of your skin and your moans surely to be heard in the halls, but you were too focused on Jace and chasing your own high to notice. Jace’s balls pounded against your ass and even that felt good. You could tell by his moaning, stuttering and heavy breathing that he was getting close to his release. Luckily you were dangerously close yourself, and this time it felt different somehow, like it was going to be more consuming. You moaned Jace’s name at every thrust and he started to get sloppier. Just as he was about to cum you felt yourself squirting hard, soaking the sheets underneath you, you arched your back and your hands gripped on to the mattress for dear life, screaming your husband's name. Your walls tightening around him made him fill you with his seed, as he moaned loudly. You gasped for air as you had apparently been holding your breath due to the intensity of your release. Confused as to what just happened. 

A month after the Gullet, the castle still smells faintly of medicines, as though the sea itself has followed Jacaerys home and settled in the stone with him.

You have grown so accustomed to it that you hardly notice anymore.

A month ago, you would have given anything to smell it. A month ago, there had been blood. So much blood. But now there are only maesters, all the time.

Three of them stand gathered around the table right now near the window, speaking in low, serious voices while Jace sits in a carved chair looking increasingly irritated with every minute.

Sunlight spills through the narrow panes behind him, catching in his dark curls and turning the edges of them gold, softening him in a way that makes him seem almost boyish despite everything he has endured in the last couple weeks.

His injuries have faded from terrifying to merely alarming. The worst of the bruising is gone, the cuts have begun to heal, and colour has returned to his face, though not yet enough for you to relax.

Unfortunately for everyone else, so has his stubbornness.

You stand beside him with one hand resting lightly on the back of his chair, partly affection but mostly precaution if you're being honest with yourself, because the prince has developed an unfortunate habit of forgetting that nearly dying is supposed to slow a person down.

"Your Grace is recovering admirably," Grand Maester Gerardys says at last.

Jace straightens immediately, as if the words themselves have restored him. Gerardys clears his throat with the patient air of a man who has spent his life delivering unwelcome truths to the powerful. "Recovering admirably, however, does not mean recovered."

Jace slumps back with all the theatrical suffering of a man condemned to the Wall. Gerardys continues as though he has not noticed the prince's offence.

"Your ribs are still mending. The wound to your side has not fully healed. The fever has passed, but weakness remains. Any unnecessary strain could set back his recovery considerably."

Jace folds his arms. "What strain?"

The three maesters exchange a glance, and you immediately become suspicious. Jace notices it too, his brows drawing together. "What strain?" he repeats, sharper this time.

Nobody answers.

The silence stretches, and stretches, and then stretches a little further, until finally the old maester clears his throat again, looking faintly pained. "This includes physical exertion."

Jace nods at once. "Yes, I gathered that, obviously."

"Excessive physical exertion."

"Yes."

"Particularly..." Gerardys pauses, and one of the younger maesters suddenly finds the floor fascinating. "...marital exertion."

The room falls completely silent.

For a single moment Jace simply stares at them. Then his face changes all at once, horror and outrage arriving together.

"I beg your pardon?"

You turn away quickly because you can already feel laughter rising in your throat and you know if you let it out now you will never stop. Beside you, Jace looks scandalised beyond measure. "What do you mean?"

"My Prince-"

"No." The word echoes off the stone walls. "Absolutely not. This is absurd and I refuse to accept it."

Gerardys remains maddeningly calm. "It is only temporary."

"Temporary?" Jace sounds personally betrayed. "You are forbidding me from bedding my own wife."

The younger maester goes slightly red. You stare very intently at the tapestry across the room, because if you look at Jace now you will lose whatever dignity you have left. He points an accusing finger at the entire collection of healers. "I survived a naval battle."

"Indeed."

"I was shot."

"Yes."

"I nearly drowned."

"Correct."

"And your conclusion is that my greatest threat is my wife?"

The maesters look vaguely embarrassed. Jace looks outraged. And suddenly, despite the lingering ache that still lives in your chest whenever you remember the sight of him bleeding on a bed, you feel lighter, because this is familiar. This is your Jace. He's alive enough to argue and complain. Alive enough to glare dramatically at innocent old men and be stubborn.

Your hand slips from the chair to his shoulder, and immediately he covers it with his own. Gerardys notices, and his expression gentles. "My Prince," he says, "the restriction is not punishment."

Jace groans. "I would beg to differ."

A few of the maesters smile despite themselves. Gerardys gathers his papers, "It is only another month."

Jace nearly chokes. "A whole month?"

"Perhaps less, if recovery continues."

"A month."

"You survived the Gullet. Surely you can survive a few more weeks."

Jace mutters something deeply disrespectful under his breath, and you squeeze his shoulder in warning and affection both. His fingers immediately tighten around yours as he looks up at you, exhaustion and frustration playing on his features.

You smile at him, and his expression softens immediately.

Then Gerardys speaks again, and the spell breaks at once. "And separate beds may also be advisable."

Jace's head snaps around, "No."

Silence settles over the chamber. Jace's hand remains wrapped around yours, firm and warm and immovable. "I nearly died, so I am not sleeping without my wife."

They exchange glances and then, wisely, surrender. "Very well."

You lower your head to hide your smile, because truly, there are battles even the maesters cannot win.

That evening the matter should have been settled, at least in theory.

The maesters had spoken, their instructions delivered and their warnings had been repeated no fewer than six times over supper, as though saying them often enough might somehow make Jace more inclined to obey.

Instead, he is attempting to negotiate, which is perhaps exactly what you should have expected from him and yet still feels faintly absurd when he is sitting there shirtless on the edge of the bed, looking incredibly offended by the very concept of restraint.

You sit beside him with a fresh roll of linen in your lap while he holds one arm lifted so you can reach the wound along his side.

The chamber is quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the distant, steady sound of waves striking the cliffs below; night has fully settled beyond the windows, leaving only darkness on the other side of the glass and the warm gold of candlelight within.

Carefully, you peel away the old bandage, and he hisses through his teeth at the movement. You glance up at once. “You are being dramatic.”

"Three arrows pierced my body.”

“A month ago.”

“It still counts.”

You make a skeptical sound and reach for the ointment, though you cannot quite keep the corner of your mouth from twitching. For a few moments silence settles between you. You smooth the salve across healing skin, studying the angry scar that is beginning to form there, the sight still makes something twist painfully in your chest.

There are moments when you look at him and see only Jace; your husband, your best friend, the boy who once raced you through castle corridors and stole lemon cakes from the kitchens with the shameless confidence of someone who had never once been told no in his life.

Then there are moments like this, when memory comes back all at once and with it the blood, the fever, the endless waiting, the terrible certainty, however brief, that you might lose him. Your fingers pause before you can stop them.

Immediately, his hand settles over yours.

He notices. Of course he does.

You lift your eyes, and his expression softens at once. “I am all right,” he says quietly.

“Mm.”

His thumb brushes slowly across your knuckles.

Then, because Jacaerys Velaryon possesses the survival instincts of an overconfident golden retriever, he says, “I still think the maesters are being unreasonable.”

You close your eyes for a brief, weary moment. You had been wondering how long it would take.

“You are recovering from grievous injuries.”

“I am recovering exceptionally well.”

“You still tire walking up stairs.”

“Well, I dislike those stairs.”

You begin wrapping the fresh bandage around his ribs. “They are not unusual stairs, Jace.”

"They are steeper than other stairs."

Despite yourself, you laugh, and his grin appears immediately. He tilts his head, thoughtful in the way that always makes you suspicious.

“What exactly constitutes marital exertion?”

You nearly drop the bandage. “Jacaerys.”

“It is a reasonable question.”

You finish tying the linen perhaps just a little tighter than necessary, and he winces. You feel no guilt whatsoever.

“They were quite vague,” he says after a moment.

“They were not vague. They were, in fact, extraordinarily clear.”

Jace considers this with the air of a man weighing evidence in a trial he has already decided to win. “Perhaps to you.”

“To everyone.”

“Not to me.” His smile widens, and you are suddenly struck by the realisation that the maesters should perhaps have prescribed confinement in separate castles.

“They said strain,” he says, as though he's continuing a perfectly sensible conversation.

“Yes.”

“And exertion.”

“Yes.”

“So theoretically-”

“No.”

“What if-”

“Jace.”

He stops, though only because he is laughing now, actually laughing, and the sound fills the room so easily that for a moment you forget everything else.

“You are impossible,” you inform him.

“I have been told.”

He reaches for your hand, and you let him take it. His fingers close around yours with a warmth that feels almost unbearably familiar, and when he speaks again his voice has lost its teasing edge. “Another month is a very long time.”

You shake your head, smiling softly, but before he can begin constructing another ridiculous argument, you lean forward and press a kiss to his mouth.

The effect is immediate. Jace falls silent, blessedly, wonderfully silent, and when you pull back he blinks once, then twice, as though he has forgotten every thought he was having.

A second kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, then another against his cheek, and with each one his smile grows slower, softer, warmer, until by the third he has entirely abandoned his campaign against the maesters.

You feel rather proud of yourself.

He grins and reaches for you, and you allow him to pull you nearer. The blankets shift around you both as you settle beside him carefully, because he is still healing and you are both painfully aware of it.

His arm slides around your waist. Your head finds its familiar place against his shoulder.

The first week after the maesters' decree is irritating.

The second becomes ridiculous.

By the third, it's infuriating.

Jacaerys Velaryon approaches recovery the way he approaches every obstacle in his life: by refusing to accept that it is truly an obstacle at all.

If the maesters insist upon restrictions, then he will simply find exceptions.

One evening, as you sit beside him on the bed with your book open in your lap, he glances over and says, almost casually, “I stand by my opinion that their instructions were imprecise.”

You do not look up. “No.”

“They never actually provided definitions.”

You turn a page. “They are maesters, Jace, not scholars debating philosophy.”

He sighs, long-suffering and theatrical, and shifts a little closer.

Recently, he has become fond of finding excuses to sit beside you, or hold your hand, or drape an arm around your shoulders, or rest his head in your lap while insisting he is 'too weak' to move despite having spent the entire afternoon arguing in council.

“What if,” he begins. You close your eyes.

“What if,” he repeats, undeterred, “the concern is specifically overexertion?”

“It is.”

“Then surely the solution is simply avoiding overexertion.”

At last you lower the book and look at him properly. His expression brightens at once, as though he has won something merely by drawing your attention.

“Jace.”

“Yes?”

“No.”

He groans, and you return to your book.

Three nights later, he appears to have developed a new argument. You discover this when he is sprawled across the bed with his head resting against your shoulder, warm and comfortable and entirely too pleased with himself.

“What if,” he says thoughtfully.

You nearly laugh. “Again?”

“I have had several days to refine my position on the issue.”

“Gods preserve me.”

“What if I simply did not move very much? You could do all the... moving... uh, like difficult parts.”

You lower your embroidery hoop and glance down at him. He looks entirely sincere, which somehow makes it worse.

“Jacaerys.”

“I am not going to do any part because we are not going to do anything.”

He studies the ceiling for a moment, then turns his head just enough to look at you. “I think you are dismissing my proposals too quickly.”

“I think you enjoy hearing yourself talk.”

“I enjoy talking to you.”

Oh, you hate how good he is at being charming.

His arm slips around your waist. “You know,” he says quietly, “I do understand why you’re worried.”

The humour fades a little. You look at him, but his gaze remains fixed on your joined hands.

“You frightened me,” you admit.

Something flashes behind his eyes. “I know.”

Silence settles between you, gentle and sad and comfortable all at once. Then, because he is incapable of allowing a serious conversation to remain serious for too long, he lifts his head and says, “So that is still a no?”

You stare at him.

Jace immediately begins laughing, and when you throw a cushion at his face he catches it easily, looking delighted by the rejection.

Which, unfortunately, only convinces you that recovery is proceeding exceptionally well.

One morning at the beginning of the fourth week you're standing at the edge of the bedchamber, the salt-laced wind moaning through the open shutters as the last embers in the hearth crackle low.

Jacaerys is desperate today, even more than usual

He lies propped against the pillows, his bare chest rising and falling with quick, restless breaths, the angry red scars along his ribs and hip still mapped in fresh pink, but they are scars now, nonetheless.

It's been two months since the Gullet.

To the naked eye he seems fully recovered — he partakes in council meetings, goes on long walks with you along the shore, is no longer winded by those particularly steep stairs — but the maesters’ edict remains iron.

No strain, no exertion, no touch that might tear what they say has barely knit. Yet here he is, dark eyes fixed on you with shameless hunger, voice low and frayed.

“Please,” he murmurs, the words thick with frustration, his hand extended, palm up, fingers flexing as if he can already feel the shape of your waist.

“I cannot do this, I’m not some broken thing anymore. I feel you every night in my dreams, and then I wake up and you won't even let me touch you properly. I need your hand, your mouth, anything. Just… let me feel you again.”

He sits up a little straighter, a small grin finding his lips, voice dropping to a growl. “You’re aching too, I know it. Two months without feeling how wet you get for me-"

"Jacaerys, stop being so crude, you cannot possibly think-" but he continues, completely disregarding your objections.

"Gods, I’d give anything to see you under me like I used to, but I won’t move. I swear it. Just you, I'll even lie still.”

Your fingers tighten on the bedpost, because you cannot dent he's right. You do miss him, painfully so. You miss the feel of his hands on you and the stretch of him inside you, but reluctance still coils tight in your chest.

You take one hesitant step closer.

The cool stone floor beneath your bare feet gives way to the softness of the mattress as you perch carefully at his uninjured side, your fingers brushing the edge of the linen without yet touching him.

“Jacaerys,” you whisper, “I cannot, the maesters said-” But the way his hips twitch, just once, desperate and involuntary, stops the protest on your tongue.

A soft, helpless sound escapes him, and something shifts inside you, because this, in a way, is also him in pain, except this time you actually have the power to help him.

Your hand drifts over the sheet, hovering just above the bulge you can just start to see emerging beneath the linen.

“You must promise me you’ll lie perfectly still,” you remind him, the words gentle but unyielding, “There are reasons they forbid it; you could open one of the wounds.”

His dark eyes flash, jaw tightening as if he might argue, but apparently the months of forced stillness have left him too raw, too aching, and he nods once, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple.

You smile then, small and maybe a little teasing, and let your fingertips graze the linen over the head of his cock.

Slowly you peel the sheet down, then work on the laces of his breeches before pulling them down and finally revealing him fully to the firelit air.

His cock thick and flushed dark, the vein along its length pulsing visibly as you wrap your fingers around the base with deliberate lightness, still not quite sure how this is going to go.

He groans, low and broken, head tipping back against the pillows, but he holds himself rigid as promised, muscles trembling with the effort.

You lean in, breath ghosting over the sensitive head, and press the softest kiss there, tasting the salt of him while your free hand rests lightly on his uninjured hip to remind him of the boundary.

“Only on my terms tonight, dearest husband,” you whisper against his skin, stroking him once, slow and torturous, savouring the way his breath hitches and his fingers clutch the bedding instead of reaching for you.

“I will give you this, you just lay there and let me take care you.”

You tighten your grip just enough to draw another shuddering groan from him, your thumb circling the slick head of his cock in slow, deliberate strokes that make his thighs tense against the sheets.

He’s so hard it must be painful, the heavy length twitching in your fist with every pass,

The sight of your big, strong husband, normally so commanding, now reduced to biting his lip to keep from thrusting stirs something warm and aching in your chest.

It feels like the biggest relief.

You still remember every moment of the last two months, watching him wince at every breath, lying awake beside his bandaged body while fear gnawed at you both, and now here he is, flushed and leaking for you, trying so hard to obey even as his hips give one tiny, involuntary roll.

It’s adorable, that stubborn flicker of dominance surfacing in the way he grits out your name, only for it to dissolve into a whimper when you lean down and drag your tongue along the underside of his shaft.

His fingers fist the bedding harder, knuckles white, and you can see the war in his eyes, the urge to grab your hair and guide you deeper warring with the maesters’ warnings and his own fragile healing.

“Fuck… just like that,” he rasps, voice cracking with need so raw it makes your own neglected body clench.

You take him deeper into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks with a soft suck that has him arching his head back.

It's as if you're watching him heal in real-time, because he’s becoming himself again, that fierce, passionate man who once pinned you laughing to the furs.

You hum around him, savouring the salt-bitter taste of him while your free hand strokes soothing circles over his tightening stomach.

You pull off just enough to murmur against the flushed skin, teasing the slit with the tip of your tongue until his breath stutters.

“Still, Jace.”

Then you resume your rhythm, slow, twisting strokes of your hand paired with wet, deliberate licks. He trembles beneath you, every suppressed sound proof of how desperately he’s craved your touch.

You quicken your pace with deliberate mercy, not seeing a point in dragging this out any longer than you have to, lips sealed tight around him as your tongue swirls and your hand pumps in steady rhythm, feeling the way his thighs quake despite his vow to stay still.

His voice breaks on your name, half-command and half-plea, while one of his hands finds your hair and grips tight, not that you mind at all.

Finally, he spills hot and pulsing across your tongue, thick spurts you swallow with a soft moan of your own. You keep stroking him through it, gentling your touch as the last tremors fade, watching the tension drain from his battered body until he lies boneless and breathless, dark eyes glassy.

For a long moment afterward, neither of you says anything.

The chamber is quiet except for the soft crackle of the fire and the distant rhythm of the sea beyond the windows. The candles have burned lower than either of you realised, leaving the room washed in warm gold and shadow.

Jace lies beside you with that same dazed, contented smile still lingering on his mouth, as though he has not quite remembered how to put it away.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye and shake your head. “What?”

His smile only deepens. “Nothing.”

“Mhmm.”

He gives a quiet, breathless laugh and reaches for your hand where it still rests atop his stomach, threading his fingers through yours. His thumb moves over your knuckles, warm and absentminded.

The sight of him like this, softened and unguarded, makes something in your chest loosen.

You fuss over him out of habit more than necessity, fetching a washcloth, straightening the blankets around his hips and making certain he is comfortable, searching his face and posture for any sign that he has overdone himself despite every promise he made.

Jace watches the whole business with open affection, his expression growing gentler by the moment.

“My darling,” he murmurs, though there is no real complaint in it. You ignore him. “You are checking on me.”

“Someone has to.”

His teasing fades then, leaving something softer in its place. For a moment he simply watches you, and when he lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles, the gesture is so familiar that it catches you off guard all the same.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

You look up at him.

The words are not playful nor triumphant, not even particularly clever. Your chest aches unexpectedly, because beneath all the bargaining and persistence and impossible shamelessness, you know what this has really been about.

Weeks of fear. Weeks of recovery. Weeks of being careful. Weeks of wondering whether life would ever feel normal again.

You squeeze his hand, and his fingers tighten around yours at once.

“You do not need to thank me.”

“I do.”

His voice is gentle. “I know I was insufferable.”

You giggle softly. “Do you now?”

Without either of you needing to say anything, Jace opens his arm toward you. You move into it at once, as naturally as breathing, as though you have done it a thousand times before. Because you have. Your head settles against his shoulder, his arm folds around your waist, and the blankets shift around you both as you settle more comfortably together.

Eventually you feel his lips brush lightly against your hair, a sleepy, lingering kiss that makes you smile before you can stop yourself.

“Tired?” you murmur.

“A little.”

“You should sleep.”

“So should you.”

The waves continue their endless song beyond the walls.

A month after the Gullet, the castle still smells faintly of medicines, as though the sea itself has followed Jacaerys home and settled in the stone with him.

You have grown so accustomed to it that you hardly notice anymore.

A month ago, you would have given anything to smell it. A month ago, there had been blood. So much blood. But now there are only maesters, all the time.

Three of them stand gathered around the table right now near the window, speaking in low, serious voices while Jace sits in a carved chair looking increasingly irritated with every minute.

Sunlight spills through the narrow panes behind him, catching in his dark curls and turning the edges of them gold, softening him in a way that makes him seem almost boyish despite everything he has endured in the last couple weeks.

His injuries have faded from terrifying to merely alarming. The worst of the bruising is gone, the cuts have begun to heal, and colour has returned to his face, though not yet enough for you to relax.

Unfortunately for everyone else, so has his stubbornness.

You stand beside him with one hand resting lightly on the back of his chair, partly affection but mostly precaution if you're being honest with yourself, because the prince has developed an unfortunate habit of forgetting that nearly dying is supposed to slow a person down.

"Your Grace is recovering admirably," Grand Maester Gerardys says at last.

Jace straightens immediately, as if the words themselves have restored him. Gerardys clears his throat with the patient air of a man who has spent his life delivering unwelcome truths to the powerful. "Recovering admirably, however, does not mean recovered."

Jace slumps back with all the theatrical suffering of a man condemned to the Wall. Gerardys continues as though he has not noticed the prince's offence.

"Your ribs are still mending. The wound to your side has not fully healed. The fever has passed, but weakness remains. Any unnecessary strain could set back his recovery considerably."

Jace folds his arms. "What strain?"

The three maesters exchange a glance, and you immediately become suspicious. Jace notices it too, his brows drawing together. "What strain?" he repeats, sharper this time.

Nobody answers.

The silence stretches, and stretches, and then stretches a little further, until finally the old maester clears his throat again, looking faintly pained. "This includes physical exertion."

Jace nods at once. "Yes, I gathered that, obviously."

"Excessive physical exertion."

"Yes."

"Particularly..." Gerardys pauses, and one of the younger maesters suddenly finds the floor fascinating. "...marital exertion."

The room falls completely silent.

For a single moment Jace simply stares at them. Then his face changes all at once, horror and outrage arriving together.

"I beg your pardon?"

You turn away quickly because you can already feel laughter rising in your throat and you know if you let it out now you will never stop. Beside you, Jace looks scandalised beyond measure. "What do you mean?"

"My Prince-"

"No." The word echoes off the stone walls. "Absolutely not. This is absurd and I refuse to accept it."

Gerardys remains maddeningly calm. "It is only temporary."

"Temporary?" Jace sounds personally betrayed. "You are forbidding me from bedding my own wife."

The younger maester goes slightly red. You stare very intently at the tapestry across the room, because if you look at Jace now you will lose whatever dignity you have left. He points an accusing finger at the entire collection of healers. "I survived a naval battle."

"Indeed."

"I was shot."

"Yes."

"I nearly drowned."

"Correct."

"And your conclusion is that my greatest threat is my wife?"

The maesters look vaguely embarrassed. Jace looks outraged. And suddenly, despite the lingering ache that still lives in your chest whenever you remember the sight of him bleeding on a bed, you feel lighter, because this is familiar. This is your Jace. He's alive enough to argue and complain. Alive enough to glare dramatically at innocent old men and be stubborn.

Your hand slips from the chair to his shoulder, and immediately he covers it with his own. Gerardys notices, and his expression gentles. "My Prince," he says, "the restriction is not punishment."

Jace groans. "I would beg to differ."

A few of the maesters smile despite themselves. Gerardys gathers his papers, "It is only another month."

Jace nearly chokes. "A whole month?"

"Perhaps less, if recovery continues."

"A month."

"You survived the Gullet. Surely you can survive a few more weeks."

Jace mutters something deeply disrespectful under his breath, and you squeeze his shoulder in warning and affection both. His fingers immediately tighten around yours as he looks up at you, exhaustion and frustration playing on his features.

You smile at him, and his expression softens immediately.

Then Gerardys speaks again, and the spell breaks at once. "And separate beds may also be advisable."

Jace's head snaps around, "No."

Silence settles over the chamber. Jace's hand remains wrapped around yours, firm and warm and immovable. "I nearly died, so I am not sleeping without my wife."

They exchange glances and then, wisely, surrender. "Very well."

You lower your head to hide your smile, because truly, there are battles even the maesters cannot win.

That evening the matter should have been settled, at least in theory.

The maesters had spoken, their instructions delivered and their warnings had been repeated no fewer than six times over supper, as though saying them often enough might somehow make Jace more inclined to obey.

Instead, he is attempting to negotiate, which is perhaps exactly what you should have expected from him and yet still feels faintly absurd when he is sitting there shirtless on the edge of the bed, looking incredibly offended by the very concept of restraint.

You sit beside him with a fresh roll of linen in your lap while he holds one arm lifted so you can reach the wound along his side.

The chamber is quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the distant, steady sound of waves striking the cliffs below; night has fully settled beyond the windows, leaving only darkness on the other side of the glass and the warm gold of candlelight within.

Carefully, you peel away the old bandage, and he hisses through his teeth at the movement. You glance up at once. “You are being dramatic.”

"Three arrows pierced my body.”

“A month ago.”

“It still counts.”

You make a skeptical sound and reach for the ointment, though you cannot quite keep the corner of your mouth from twitching. For a few moments silence settles between you. You smooth the salve across healing skin, studying the angry scar that is beginning to form there, the sight still makes something twist painfully in your chest.

There are moments when you look at him and see only Jace; your husband, your best friend, the boy who once raced you through castle corridors and stole lemon cakes from the kitchens with the shameless confidence of someone who had never once been told no in his life.

Then there are moments like this, when memory comes back all at once and with it the blood, the fever, the endless waiting, the terrible certainty, however brief, that you might lose him. Your fingers pause before you can stop them.

Immediately, his hand settles over yours.

He notices. Of course he does.

You lift your eyes, and his expression softens at once. “I am all right,” he says quietly.

“Mm.”

His thumb brushes slowly across your knuckles.

Then, because Jacaerys Velaryon possesses the survival instincts of an overconfident golden retriever, he says, “I still think the maesters are being unreasonable.”

You close your eyes for a brief, weary moment. You had been wondering how long it would take.

“You are recovering from grievous injuries.”

“I am recovering exceptionally well.”

“You still tire walking up stairs.”

“Well, I dislike those stairs.”

You begin wrapping the fresh bandage around his ribs. “They are not unusual stairs, Jace.”

"They are steeper than other stairs."

Despite yourself, you laugh, and his grin appears immediately. He tilts his head, thoughtful in the way that always makes you suspicious.

“What exactly constitutes marital exertion?”

You nearly drop the bandage. “Jacaerys.”

“It is a reasonable question.”

You finish tying the linen perhaps just a little tighter than necessary, and he winces. You feel no guilt whatsoever.

“They were quite vague,” he says after a moment.

“They were not vague. They were, in fact, extraordinarily clear.”

Jace considers this with the air of a man weighing evidence in a trial he has already decided to win. “Perhaps to you.”

“To everyone.”

“Not to me.” His smile widens, and you are suddenly struck by the realisation that the maesters should perhaps have prescribed confinement in separate castles.

“They said strain,” he says, as though he's continuing a perfectly sensible conversation.

“Yes.”

“And exertion.”

“Yes.”

“So theoretically-”

“No.”

“What if-”

“Jace.”

He stops, though only because he is laughing now, actually laughing, and the sound fills the room so easily that for a moment you forget everything else.

“You are impossible,” you inform him.

“I have been told.”

He reaches for your hand, and you let him take it. His fingers close around yours with a warmth that feels almost unbearably familiar, and when he speaks again his voice has lost its teasing edge. “Another month is a very long time.”

You shake your head, smiling softly, but before he can begin constructing another ridiculous argument, you lean forward and press a kiss to his mouth.

The effect is immediate. Jace falls silent, blessedly, wonderfully silent, and when you pull back he blinks once, then twice, as though he has forgotten every thought he was having.

A second kiss lands at the corner of his mouth, then another against his cheek, and with each one his smile grows slower, softer, warmer, until by the third he has entirely abandoned his campaign against the maesters.

You feel rather proud of yourself.

He grins and reaches for you, and you allow him to pull you nearer. The blankets shift around you both as you settle beside him carefully, because he is still healing and you are both painfully aware of it.

His arm slides around your waist. Your head finds its familiar place against his shoulder.

The first week after the maesters' decree is irritating.

The second becomes ridiculous.

By the third, it's infuriating.

Jacaerys Velaryon approaches recovery the way he approaches every obstacle in his life: by refusing to accept that it is truly an obstacle at all.

If the maesters insist upon restrictions, then he will simply find exceptions.

One evening, as you sit beside him on the bed with your book open in your lap, he glances over and says, almost casually, “I stand by my opinion that their instructions were imprecise.”

You do not look up. “No.”

“They never actually provided definitions.”

You turn a page. “They are maesters, Jace, not scholars debating philosophy.”

He sighs, long-suffering and theatrical, and shifts a little closer.

Recently, he has become fond of finding excuses to sit beside you, or hold your hand, or drape an arm around your shoulders, or rest his head in your lap while insisting he is 'too weak' to move despite having spent the entire afternoon arguing in council.

“What if,” he begins. You close your eyes.

“What if,” he repeats, undeterred, “the concern is specifically overexertion?”

“It is.”

“Then surely the solution is simply avoiding overexertion.”

At last you lower the book and look at him properly. His expression brightens at once, as though he has won something merely by drawing your attention.

“Jace.”

“Yes?”

“No.”

He groans, and you return to your book.

Three nights later, he appears to have developed a new argument. You discover this when he is sprawled across the bed with his head resting against your shoulder, warm and comfortable and entirely too pleased with himself.

“What if,” he says thoughtfully.

You nearly laugh. “Again?”

“I have had several days to refine my position on the issue.”

“Gods preserve me.”

“What if I simply did not move very much? You could do all the... moving... uh, like difficult parts.”

You lower your embroidery hoop and glance down at him. He looks entirely sincere, which somehow makes it worse.

“Jacaerys.”

“I am not going to do any part because we are not going to do anything.”

He studies the ceiling for a moment, then turns his head just enough to look at you. “I think you are dismissing my proposals too quickly.”

“I think you enjoy hearing yourself talk.”

“I enjoy talking to you.”

Oh, you hate how good he is at being charming.

His arm slips around your waist. “You know,” he says quietly, “I do understand why you’re worried.”

The humour fades a little. You look at him, but his gaze remains fixed on your joined hands.

“You frightened me,” you admit.

Something flashes behind his eyes. “I know.”

Silence settles between you, gentle and sad and comfortable all at once. Then, because he is incapable of allowing a serious conversation to remain serious for too long, he lifts his head and says, “So that is still a no?”

You stare at him.

Jace immediately begins laughing, and when you throw a cushion at his face he catches it easily, looking delighted by the rejection.

Which, unfortunately, only convinces you that recovery is proceeding exceptionally well.

One morning at the beginning of the fourth week you're standing at the edge of the bedchamber, the salt-laced wind moaning through the open shutters as the last embers in the hearth crackle low.

Jacaerys is desperate today, even more than usual

He lies propped against the pillows, his bare chest rising and falling with quick, restless breaths, the angry red scars along his ribs and hip still mapped in fresh pink, but they are scars now, nonetheless.

It's been two months since the Gullet.

To the naked eye he seems fully recovered — he partakes in council meetings, goes on long walks with you along the shore, is no longer winded by those particularly steep stairs — but the maesters’ edict remains iron.

No strain, no exertion, no touch that might tear what they say has barely knit. Yet here he is, dark eyes fixed on you with shameless hunger, voice low and frayed.

“Please,” he murmurs, the words thick with frustration, his hand extended, palm up, fingers flexing as if he can already feel the shape of your waist.

“I cannot do this, I’m not some broken thing anymore. I feel you every night in my dreams, and then I wake up and you won't even let me touch you properly. I need your hand, your mouth, anything. Just… let me feel you again.”

He sits up a little straighter, a small grin finding his lips, voice dropping to a growl. “You’re aching too, I know it. Two months without feeling how wet you get for me-"

"Jacaerys, stop being so crude, you cannot possibly think-" but he continues, completely disregarding your objections.

"Gods, I’d give anything to see you under me like I used to, but I won’t move. I swear it. Just you, I'll even lie still.”

Your fingers tighten on the bedpost, because you cannot dent he's right. You do miss him, painfully so. You miss the feel of his hands on you and the stretch of him inside you, but reluctance still coils tight in your chest.

You take one hesitant step closer.

The cool stone floor beneath your bare feet gives way to the softness of the mattress as you perch carefully at his uninjured side, your fingers brushing the edge of the linen without yet touching him.

“Jacaerys,” you whisper, “I cannot, the maesters said-” But the way his hips twitch, just once, desperate and involuntary, stops the protest on your tongue.

A soft, helpless sound escapes him, and something shifts inside you, because this, in a way, is also him in pain, except this time you actually have the power to help him.

Your hand drifts over the sheet, hovering just above the bulge you can just start to see emerging beneath the linen.

“You must promise me you’ll lie perfectly still,” you remind him, the words gentle but unyielding, “There are reasons they forbid it; you could open one of the wounds.”

His dark eyes flash, jaw tightening as if he might argue, but apparently the months of forced stillness have left him too raw, too aching, and he nods once, a bead of sweat tracing down his temple.

You smile then, small and maybe a little teasing, and let your fingertips graze the linen over the head of his cock.

Slowly you peel the sheet down, then work on the laces of his breeches before pulling them down and finally revealing him fully to the firelit air.

His cock thick and flushed dark, the vein along its length pulsing visibly as you wrap your fingers around the base with deliberate lightness, still not quite sure how this is going to go.

He groans, low and broken, head tipping back against the pillows, but he holds himself rigid as promised, muscles trembling with the effort.

You lean in, breath ghosting over the sensitive head, and press the softest kiss there, tasting the salt of him while your free hand rests lightly on his uninjured hip to remind him of the boundary.

“Only on my terms tonight, dearest husband,” you whisper against his skin, stroking him once, slow and torturous, savouring the way his breath hitches and his fingers clutch the bedding instead of reaching for you.

“I will give you this, you just lay there and let me take care you.”

You tighten your grip just enough to draw another shuddering groan from him, your thumb circling the slick head of his cock in slow, deliberate strokes that make his thighs tense against the sheets.

He’s so hard it must be painful, the heavy length twitching in your fist with every pass,

The sight of your big, strong husband, normally so commanding, now reduced to biting his lip to keep from thrusting stirs something warm and aching in your chest.

It feels like the biggest relief.

You still remember every moment of the last two months, watching him wince at every breath, lying awake beside his bandaged body while fear gnawed at you both, and now here he is, flushed and leaking for you, trying so hard to obey even as his hips give one tiny, involuntary roll.

It’s adorable, that stubborn flicker of dominance surfacing in the way he grits out your name, only for it to dissolve into a whimper when you lean down and drag your tongue along the underside of his shaft.

His fingers fist the bedding harder, knuckles white, and you can see the war in his eyes, the urge to grab your hair and guide you deeper warring with the maesters’ warnings and his own fragile healing.

“Fuck… just like that,” he rasps, voice cracking with need so raw it makes your own neglected body clench.

You take him deeper into your mouth, hollowing your cheeks with a soft suck that has him arching his head back.

It's as if you're watching him heal in real-time, because he’s becoming himself again, that fierce, passionate man who once pinned you laughing to the furs.

You hum around him, savouring the salt-bitter taste of him while your free hand strokes soothing circles over his tightening stomach.

You pull off just enough to murmur against the flushed skin, teasing the slit with the tip of your tongue until his breath stutters.

“Still, Jace.”

Then you resume your rhythm, slow, twisting strokes of your hand paired with wet, deliberate licks. He trembles beneath you, every suppressed sound proof of how desperately he’s craved your touch.

You quicken your pace with deliberate mercy, not seeing a point in dragging this out any longer than you have to, lips sealed tight around him as your tongue swirls and your hand pumps in steady rhythm, feeling the way his thighs quake despite his vow to stay still.

His voice breaks on your name, half-command and half-plea, while one of his hands finds your hair and grips tight, not that you mind at all.

Finally, he spills hot and pulsing across your tongue, thick spurts you swallow with a soft moan of your own. You keep stroking him through it, gentling your touch as the last tremors fade, watching the tension drain from his battered body until he lies boneless and breathless, dark eyes glassy.

For a long moment afterward, neither of you says anything.

The chamber is quiet except for the soft crackle of the fire and the distant rhythm of the sea beyond the windows. The candles have burned lower than either of you realised, leaving the room washed in warm gold and shadow.

Jace lies beside you with that same dazed, contented smile still lingering on his mouth, as though he has not quite remembered how to put it away.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye and shake your head. “What?”

His smile only deepens. “Nothing.”

“Mhmm.”

He gives a quiet, breathless laugh and reaches for your hand where it still rests atop his stomach, threading his fingers through yours. His thumb moves over your knuckles, warm and absentminded.

The sight of him like this, softened and unguarded, makes something in your chest loosen.

You fuss over him out of habit more than necessity, fetching a washcloth, straightening the blankets around his hips and making certain he is comfortable, searching his face and posture for any sign that he has overdone himself despite every promise he made.

Jace watches the whole business with open affection, his expression growing gentler by the moment.

“My darling,” he murmurs, though there is no real complaint in it. You ignore him. “You are checking on me.”

“Someone has to.”

His teasing fades then, leaving something softer in its place. For a moment he simply watches you, and when he lifts your joined hands and presses a kiss to your knuckles, the gesture is so familiar that it catches you off guard all the same.

“Thank you,” he says quietly.

You look up at him.

The words are not playful nor triumphant, not even particularly clever. Your chest aches unexpectedly, because beneath all the bargaining and persistence and impossible shamelessness, you know what this has really been about.

Weeks of fear. Weeks of recovery. Weeks of being careful. Weeks of wondering whether life would ever feel normal again.

You squeeze his hand, and his fingers tighten around yours at once.

“You do not need to thank me.”

“I do.”

His voice is gentle. “I know I was insufferable.”

You giggle softly. “Do you now?”

Without either of you needing to say anything, Jace opens his arm toward you. You move into it at once, as naturally as breathing, as though you have done it a thousand times before. Because you have. Your head settles against his shoulder, his arm folds around your waist, and the blankets shift around you both as you settle more comfortably together.

Eventually you feel his lips brush lightly against your hair, a sleepy, lingering kiss that makes you smile before you can stop yourself.

“Tired?” you murmur.

“A little.”

“You should sleep.”

“So should you.”

The waves continue their endless song beyond the walls.

The waiting is the cruellest part.

Dragonstone had always been a place of storms. The sea hurled itself endlessly against the jagged black cliffs below the castle, the wind screaming through ancient stone corridors as though the mountain itself mourned some forgotten grief.

You had lived there long enough that neither sound troubled you anymore, yet tonight every gust felt like an omen.

The great hall was quieter than you had ever known it to be. No music played, no servants spoke above a whisper, and even the youngest of the dragonkeepers seemed to tread more carefully through the corridors. Word had arrived shortly before dusk that the Triarchy’s fleet had met Prince Jacaerys in the Gullet, that a battle had begun.

Nothing further had followed.

Nothing certain, at least. Nothing that could be trusted.

You stood beside one of the narrow windows overlooking Blackwater Bay, your fingers clenched so tightly against the stone that they had long since gone numb, but you couldn't find it in yourself to care.

Beyond the glass the sea stretched endlessly into fading darkness, the last traces of sunset vanished an hour ago beneath gathering clouds. Every ship that appeared on the horizon made your heart leap into your throat only for it to sink again when the shape proved wrong. You had spent nearly the entire day doing little else, waiting for ravens, waiting for ships, waiting for news, waiting for someone to tell you whether your husband was still alive, because he had to be.

You miss him terribly, your husband.

There had once been a time when the title had seemed almost impossible, back when you were children racing through the halls of Driftmark and Dragonstone, bickering over everything and nothing while the adults around you exchanged knowing smiles.

Later had come the betrothal, then the wedding itself. Another carefully arranged union meant to strengthen bloodlines and secure alliances, at least on parchment. In truth, neither of you had objected nearly as much as propriety perhaps required.

If anything, Jace had spent the months before the wedding looking infuriatingly pleased by the entire affair.

The memory warmed and ached all at once.

You had been terrified on your wedding day.

Not of him, never of him, but of the enormity of it all. The ceremony, the expectations, the knowledge that after that night the world would no longer see the two of you as cousins who had grown up together, but as husband and wife, the future king and queen.

You remembered sitting beside him during the feast, scarcely touching your food while half the realm seemed determined to stare and smirk.

Jace had leaned closer then, hidden from the crowd by the chaos of celebration.

"You look as though they are marching you to an execution." You had shot him a glare, but his grin had only widened.

He continued, "You are marrying me."

"That is precisely the problem."

He had laughed at that, bright and warm and completely unoffended. The same laugh that had followed you through most of your life.

And later, when the feast had ended and the castle had finally grown quiet, when your nerves had returned twice as fiercely as before, he had been perfect. He was patient enough to coax a smile from you when you thought your heart might pound straight through your ribs, patient enough to sit beside you for nearly an hour talking about everything and nothing until your fear gave way to laughter, and he finally showed you exactly how he planned to demonstrate his love to you.

He had been patient enough to remind you, gently and repeatedly, that he was still Jace.

Not the prince. Not the heir. Not some stranger suddenly placed in your chambers.

Just your Jace.

The boy who had stolen your books and hidden them in absurd places. The boy who had followed you around Driftmark insisting he was helping whenever you attempted anything alone. The young man who reached for your hand whenever he thought no one was looking.

Your husband.

The title had never felt strange after that night.

Not when he reached for you in his sleep.

Not when he kissed your forehead before every departure, no matter how brief.

Not when he looked at you as though the gods had somehow given him more than he deserved.

His wife - the words had never failed to delight him.

Gods.

You would have given anything to hear him say them again.

The thought struck with such force that you had to close your eyes, as though shutting them might somehow keep the ache from spreading any further through your chest.

No. You refused to think like that, he had to be alive.

Jacaerys Velaryon was many things; he was stubborn, reckless, far too willing to throw himself into danger whenever duty demanded it, but he was alive. He had flown Vermax since childhood, crossed half the realm in service of his mother. This would be no different.

The heavy doors at the far end of the hall opened, and this time it was not a servant. Queen Rhaenyra entered surrounded by several members of her household, though even at a glance it was clear she scarcely noted them.

Your aunt looked exhausted.

The last months had carved new shadows beneath her eyes, and war had done what age never could, drawing strain into every line of her face and every measured step she took across the hall. When her gaze found yours, neither of you spoke.

You simply crossed the room together, and for a moment neither of you remembered crowns or titles or the weight of the realm pressing down upon your shoulders.

You took her hands. They were icy cold.

“Nothing?” she asked quietly.

You hated the hope in her voice because it mirrored your own. You swallowed and shook your head.

“Nothing.”

She had spent her entire life learning how to hide fear, yet this was her son, her heir, and no amount of royal dignity could erase that. You watched her glance toward the windows, toward the sea, toward the darkness swallowing the horizon, and suddenly she looked less like a queen than a mother waiting for her child to come home to her.

“I remember,” she said softly, “when he was six years old.”

The abruptness of the statement surprised you, though not enough to keep you from listening. “He insisted Vermax was large enough to carry him.”

Despite everything, a faint smile touched your lips. “At six?”

“He argued with me for nearly an hour.” The memory seemed to warm her briefly, though only briefly. “‘Aegon conquered kingdoms on dragonback,’ he told me. ‘Why must I wait?’” The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come. “He cried when I refused him.”

You could picture it perfectly. Jace had always possessed that same relentless determination, the same certainty that if something needed doing, he should be the one to do it.

The queen released a slow breath and when she spoke again her voice was quieter still. “He was never afraid.”

The words seemed meant for herself more than for you. You looked down at your joined hands. “No.”

“He should have been.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes met yours as she reached up and touched your cheek, an old gesture, one she had used since you were a child running through the halls of Driftmark. “My sweet girl,” she murmured.

The affection nearly broke you, because it sounded dangerously close to pity.

Before either of you could speak again, hurried footsteps echoed through the hall. Both your heads snapped toward the sound. A messenger, breathless, boots were soaked with seawater, and hope exploded through the room so suddenly it felt physical.

The boy dropped to one knee before the queen. “My Queen.”

“What news?”

The messenger swallowed. You saw it then, the hesitation, the fear, and suddenly every instinct in your body screamed.

No. No. No.

The boy lowered his eyes.

“The battle is over.”

The entire hall seemed to stop breathing as everyone in the room stopped to listen as he continued, “The losses were heavy.”

“The prince-” His words faltered.

You felt Rhaenyra’s hand tighten painfully around yours. “The prince what?” the queen demanded.

The messenger swallowed again. “Several survivors report that Vermax was seen falling.”

The world tilted. For one impossible moment you thought you might collapse. Beside you, Rhaenyra went utterly still. The queen’s face became unreadable, not calm, not composed, simply blank, as though her mind had rejected the words entirely. “Seen by whom?” she asked.

The messenger blinked. “My Queen?”

“By whom?” Her voice sharpened. “Who witnessed this that you speak of?”

“Sailors, Your Grace. Men from Lord Velaryon’s fleet.”

“And did they see his body?”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Did they recover Vermax?”

“No.”

“Did they see my son die?”

The messenger looked suddenly terrified. “No, Your Grace.”

Rhaenyra released a slow breath. For the first time since the boy had entered, a flicker of life returned to her expression. “No body,” she said, the words sounding as though she were convincing herself.

The messenger lowered his head. “Yes, Your Grace.”

The queen turned away, and you knew immediately she was finished with the conversation, because if she remained there any longer she might break, and queens were not permitted such luxuries.

Everyone in the room understood what had gone unsaid; a prince missing after battle, a dragon falling from the sky, the heir to the Iron Throne lost somewhere upon a dark and merciless sea.

Three days passed in a blur of ravens, rumors, and prayers that seemed to grow thinner with each hour.

Messages arrived from the Gullet in fragments and contradiction, each one less certain than the last, each one leaving you no wiser than before. Sailors returned with salt in their hair and fear in their eyes, speaking of smoke and fire and the terrible confusion of battle, but none could say with any certainty whether Prince Jacaerys had lived through it.

Some swore they had seen Vermax fall, others insisted the dragon had vanished into cloud and flame, and a few claimed the prince had been lost with him.

The worst part was not knowing.

Death, for all its cruelty, possessed a certain finality. You could mourn the dead, bury them, you could've screamed and raged and wept for your husband until the pain eventually dulled into something survivable, but this was different.

Every morning you woke expecting news.

Every night you went to sleep without it.

You found Rhaenyra in the Painted Chamber shortly after dawn one day, standing before the great table of Westeros with her hands braced lightly upon its edge. The room was empty save for her.

Sunlight streamed through the high windows, casting pale gold across the painted mountains and rivers, yet the queen seemed untouched by its warmth. For a long moment neither of you spoke.

“They found pieces of Vermax.”

The words struck like a physical blow. You felt your stomach twist. “Where?” you asked, though you were not certain you wished to hear the answer.

“Floating among the wreckage.” Her voice remained steady, too steady, as if she had forced it into obedience. “The search vessels recovered scales. Fragments of wing membrane.” She paused, and when she spoke again there was something raw beneath the restraint. “Enough to know it was him.”

Vermax.

Gone.

You remembered the young dragon circling Dragonstone years ago, awkward and eager, barely more than a hatchling, all sharp angles and restless energy. You also remembered Jace’s pride every time he spoke of him. They grew together, learned together, and neither truly belonged to a world without the other.

You could not bear to imagine what Vermax’s death must have looked like.

The queen’s fingers brushed the painted coastline. “They say he fought until the end.”

You knew she was speaking as much about her son as she was about the dragon, and neither of you mentioned it.

Rhaenyra lowered her eyes. “I cannot remember his voice.”

The confession shattered something inside you.

“I try.” She pressed a hand against the edge of the table, as though it were the only thing keeping her upright. “I know I should be able to. I know it. Yet every time I think of him, I remember his face and not his voice, and I am terrified that if enough time passes, I shall lose that too.”

The cry came shortly after noon.

It began as a shout from the battlements, then another, and another after that, the sound echoing through the castle in a way that made every head turn. Footsteps thundered through nearby corridors. You looked up to see soldiers already moving toward the harbour below, and a knot of unease formed immediately in your chest.

You rose from your seat, the book resting in your lap slipping forgotten onto the bench. Outside, the castle seemed to have come alive all at once.

“What is happening?” you asked the first guard you encountered, and the man looked breathless when he answered.

“A ship.”

“A ship?” you repeated.

He nodded. “One of Lord Corlys’s.”

Hope was a dangerous thing, something you had learned repeatedly over the last several days, and yet your pulse quickened all the same. Without waiting for further explanation, you gathered your skirts and hurried after the others.

The wind struck your face the moment you emerged onto the battlements. A ship was making its slow approach toward Dragonstone’s harbour; Its sails were torn, one mast had clearly suffered damage.

The harbour below erupted into activity as the vessel finally reached shore. Tiny figures began moving across the docks. “Come,” Rhaenyra said suddenly, her voice sharp with urgency. Without waiting for a response, she turned and strode toward the stairs.

You followed immediately.

By the time you reached the harbour, a crowd had already gathered. You searched every face but none belonged to Jace.

The queen pushed forward, and no one dared stop her. “Where is Lord Corlys?” she demanded. A sailor pointed toward the ship, and moments later the Sea Snake himself appeared.

“My Queen,” he said carefully, and the world seemed to stop.

"Have you found Jacae-"

“The prince lives, your Grace.”

You stared at him, certain you had misheard, and beside you Rhaenyra made a sound that was dangerously close to a sob. “The prince lives,” Corlys repeated. “He was recovered from the water.”

“He is badly wounded,” Corlys continued, his voice rough with fatigue. “We were uncertain he would survive the journey.”

The relief lasted only an instant before terror returned twice as strong. Your feet were already moving. “Where is he?”

Corlys turned toward the ship, and for the first time you noticed the group of sailors descending the gangplank behind him. They carried a litter between them, and upon it lay a familiar figure, deathly pale.

Jace's clothing had been cut away in places, leaving blood-soaked bandages wrapped tightly around his chest and shoulder. Dried blood stained the side of his neck and disappeared into hair darkened by seawater and salt. One of his arms hung limp over the edge of the litter, unmoving.

You had imagined this moment a thousand times over the last four days, and not once had it looked like this.

“Jacaerys.” The name escaped before you realised you had spoken it.

You pushed forward through the crowd, heedless of the bodies in your way.

Up close, the damage was even worse.

A strangled sound caught in your throat. There were arrows.

Not still embedded in him, the maesters aboard ship had evidently removed those, but the evidence remained. Thick bandages wrapped his shoulder and side where shafts had pierced flesh, and another disappeared beneath the bloodstained linen crossing his ribs.

His lips had taken on a faint bluish tinge. He looked cold. Far too cold.

“Jace.”

Your voice broke on the name, but you received no answer.

The sight of his closed eyes filled you with a terror so complete it became difficult to breathe. You reached for him instinctively, but before your fingers could touch him a hand caught your arm.

“My lady.”

You barely heard the words. You tried to pull free at once, desperate to reach him, desperate to make him answer.

“Jace.”

The hand tightened.

“My lady, please. He requires treatment immediately,” someone said, but the words barely registered.

“He needs me.”

The statement emerged before you could stop it, raw and desperate and nothing like yourself.

“My lady, he needs physicians.”

The queen had reached the litter without you even noticing. Whatever composure she had maintained these past days fractured instantly. A trembling hand rose to his face, and she brushed damp hair from his forehead.

“My boy,” she whispered.

The words were so quiet you almost did not hear them.

The queen closed her eyes, and for a heartbeat she looked very close to collapsing. “Get him inside. Now.”

The maesters needed no encouragement. The litter lurched forward, and you followed immediately, only for another hand to catch your arm before you could go after him. This time you fought it at once, not violently, not consciously, but with the blind panic of someone who could not understand why they were being kept from the one person she needed most.

“He is my husband.”

The words came out sharp enough to surprise even yourself.

“He is hurt.”

“My lady-”

“He is my husband.”

The hand on your arm hesitated, and you realised vaguely that it was Ser Lorent, one of the Kingsguard. His grip loosened immediately, though not enough to release you entirely, only enough to keep you from throwing yourself directly into the path of the maesters.

His voice softened. “Princess.”

You looked at him then, and the knight’s expression was full of sympathy. “They must work.”

You looked toward the castle entrance, toward the place where Jace had vanished, and a memory surfaced without warning.

The morning he had departed for the Gullet, you had stood with him in the courtyard while Vermax waited nearby, restless and impatient. He had kissed your forehead before mounting his dragon, a small gesture, almost absent-minded, the sort of thing husbands and wives did every day.

Neither of you had treated it as a farewell. Neither of you had imagined it might become one.

The waiting proved worse the second time, because now he was here.

Only a few stone walls separated you from him, and still you could do nothing.

Occasionally someone would emerge from his chamber, and the queen would immediately rise to her feet, demanding updates before the door had even fully opened, but the answers never seemed sufficient.

"He lost a great deal of blood."

"The arrow missed the lung."

"The fever concerns us."

"We are doing everything we can."

The phrase quickly became one you despised with all your being. It sounded too much like the sort of thing people said when they were preparing you for the worst.

As daylight faded beyond the castle windows, you heard a groan that froze the blood in your veins, and you were moving toward the door before you even realised it.

A guard stepped into your path.

"Princess."

"That was Jacaerys."

The knight hesitated, and you knew immediately you were correct. "Please," you said quietly. "I only wish to see him."

The guard looked uncomfortable. "The maesters instructed-"

Your voice cracked. "I know what the maesters have said."

You stared at the closed door, at the barrier standing between you and your husband. A husband who had nearly drowned, who had fallen from the sky, who might still die while you sat obediently outside waiting for permission to care.

You crossed the corridor before anyone realised what you intended. The guard stepped forward.

"My lady-"

"He is my husband," you repeated, your voice trembling. "Not only a cousin or a prince." The guard looked horrified.

"If he dies, I will not be sitting in a corridor while it happens."

Then another voice spoke.

"Open the door."

You turned.

Rhaenyra stood at the far end of the passage. The queen looked exhausted, more exhausted than you had ever seen her, yet her gaze remained steady.

The guard immediately stepped aside. "Your Grace, the maesters instructed-"

"I heard what they instructed, open the door."

This time no one argued. The guard obeyed.

The chamber beyond smelled strongly of herbs, blood, and vinegar. For a heartbeat you remained frozen in the doorway, and then your eyes found the bed.

The world narrowed once again.

Jace lay motionless beneath a mountain of blankets. Someone had washed away most of the blood. Without it there was nothing to distract from how pale he had become, nothing to hide the dark bruising visible along his neck and jaw, nothing to disguise how frighteningly still he remained.

A maester approached immediately.

"My lady."

Your gaze never left the bed.

"Will he live?"

The question emerged before anything else. The old man hesitated, "He survived the journey."

"That is not what I asked."

"We believe he will, Princess." The maester continued. "The arrow wounds have been cleaned and stitched. The water in his lungs concerns us less than it did earlier. The greater danger now is fever."

You found yourself staring at Jace's hands, at the familiar shape of them, at the fact that they were still. He had never been still, even when he was sleeping Jace tended to move and fidget, to occupy more space than seemed physically possible.

"The fever?" Rhaenyra asked quietly from behind you.

The maester nodded. "If it worsens, infection may follow." The old maester glanced between the two of you, then, surprisingly, his attention settled upon you.

"He should not be left alone tonight."

The maester continued, "We will monitor him, of course. Medicines must be administered. Dressings changed. Yet fevers are strange things." His expression softened. "Patients often fare better when familiar voices remain nearby."

The maester inclined his head. "If you wish to stay, my lady, we would welcome the assistance."

For a moment you could only stare. After hours of being held back, stopped, and sent away, the words hardly seemed real. The old man smiled faintly. "You are his wife, after all."

Beside you, Rhaenyra released a slow breath. When you looked toward her, the queen was watching you with tired understanding.

"You should stay."

You hesitated. "Your Grace-"

"He will want you when he wakes." She stepped forward and pressed a kiss against your forehead, just as she had done when you were a child. Then she reached out and briefly touched her son's hand.

"My stubborn boy," she murmured.

The words were meant for him, for herself, for the gods, perhaps for all three.

When she finally withdrew, the chamber seemed strangely quieter.

You moved toward the bed slowly and sat in the chair which had already been pulled up next to the bed.

The first hours passed quietly. The sun disappeared beyond the western sea. Servants arrived to light candles throughout the chamber before departing once more. Shadows gathered in the corners of the room, and the air smelled faintly of herbs and vinegar, with the salt still lingering stubbornly in Jace's hair despite the maesters' efforts to wash it away.

He never woke.

Several times you thought he might. A slight movement beneath closed eyelids. A change in his breathing. Fingers twitching weakly against the blankets. Each time hope surged through you so quickly it almost hurt, and each time it faded once more.

The fever worsened shortly after nightfall. One of the older maesters noticed it first. You watched him place a hand against Jace's forehead before exchanging a glance with his apprentice.

"What is it?"

The apprentice hesitated, but the older maester did not. "The fever has risen."

Now that it had been mentioned, you could see it. A faint flush had appeared high across his cheeks, perspiration dampened the hair at his temples and his breathing seemed shallower.

The maester moved toward a nearby table. "We expected this, and so we shall bring it down."

A basin of cool water sat upon a nearby table, fresh cloths resting beside it. "When his skin grows too warm, use these." The maester's expression softened. "He knows your voice."

The old man glanced toward the bed. "Patients are often more aware than they appear. Speak to him."

Then he left.

For several moments, you simply stared at the basin, at the cloth resting within it. Then, slowly, you dipped it into the water and wrung it dry. You folded the cloth and gently pressed it against his forehead. The heat startled you.

Gods.

A knot of fear tightened inside your chest. You carefully brushed damp hair away from his face.

"Your mother has frightened half the castle." A faint smile touched your lips, briefly. "She threatened a maester earlier."

"She has not slept."

And so the smile disappeared.

At some point after midnight, a faint sound interrupted the silence. It had come from the bed. For a heartbeat, the room remained still. Then it came again, a murmur, barely audible. You immediately leaned forward.

"Jace?"

His head shifted slightly against the pillow. The movement was so faint you might have imagined it, yet your pulse leapt.

"...higher..." His brow furrowed. "...Vermax..."

The name hit like a knife.

"No," he muttered. The word emerged rough and strained. "No—"

His breathing quickened. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He looked younger, simply a frightened young man trapped inside a memory he could not escape.

Without thinking, you reached for him. Your hand closed around his. His expression remained tense. Another fragment escaped him, too slurred to understand. Then-

Your name.

Tears burned suddenly behind your eyes. You lowered your head, pressed his hand gently against your forehead, and for the first time since the ship had arrived, since you had seen your husband carried ashore looking more corpse than man, you allowed yourself to cry.

Not loudly - there was no strength left for that - only silent tears slipping free while candlelight flickered softly across the room.

The fever finally broke sometime before dawn, though you did not realise it at first.

It was the movement of his fingers that woke you.

For one disorienting moment you thought you had imagined it. The chamber was still dark, save for the faint grey light beginning to creep through the windows, and everything looked exactly as it had an hour before.

Then his hand tightened around yours, and for the first time it was not the weak twitching of fever, but a small yet deliberate squeeze.

You lifted your head so quickly your neck protested. “Jace?”

His eyes were already open, though only halfway, unfocused as he stared up at the ceiling. Then they found you, and the confusion in them faded almost at once. A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.

“There you are.”

The sound of his voice nearly broke you. You had heard him mumbling through the fever for hours, but this was different.

For a moment you could only stare at him. He looked positively terrible, and there was no gentler way to put it. Bruises darkened one side of his face, his lips were still pale, and his voice sounded rough from seawater and days of unconsciousness.

He looked exhausted even lying motionless beneath the blankets, but none of that mattered anymore.

Tears started burning immediately behind your eyes.

“Oh, don’t,” he murmured, and the faint smile widened just enough to make him look unbearably like himself. “Don't cry.”

“You nearly died,” you said before you could stop yourself.

At once his expression softened, the teasing slipping away. For several seconds neither of you spoke. Then his thumb brushed weakly against your hand.

“I gathered,” he said quietly.

The simplicity of it hurt more than denial would have.

You swallowed hard and gave him a look that was meant to be stern and came out trembling instead. “You stupid man.”

A faint laugh escaped him, though it clearly cost him, his brows drawing together in grimace.

“You married me.”

"Wasn't aware I had a choice, actually." Without thinking too hard about it you leaned forward and pressed your forehead gently against his. Beyond the windows the sea continued its endless assault against Dragonstone’s cliffs, but inside the chamber there existed only the two of you.

Eventually he spoke again, his voice softer now, “I thought about you.”

Your eyes closed. “Jace-”

“When I fell.”

The memory clearly remained fresh, and painfully so. You lifted your head slightly, and his gaze drifted toward the ceiling once more.

“I remember the water,” he said after a moment. “The cold.” One hand tightened weakly against the blankets. “I remember trying to help Vermax.”

He swallowed; the loss of a dragon was not something words would ever mend. You reached up and gently brushed hair away from his forehead, and his eyes shifted back toward yours.

“I could not help him.” The pain in his voice was enough to make your own throat ache. Carefully, you threaded your fingers through his.

“He knew you stayed.” Jace looked at you, holding your gaze. “I promise he knew.”

He nodded once. He trusted you enough to accept the comfort and his fingers tightened around yours again.

“I remember thinking I would never see you again.”

You stared at him then, at the boy you had grown up with, the prince who had spent years pretending he was not watching you across feast halls, the young man who had once climbed halfway up a sea cliff because you had jokingly remarked that the flowers growing there were pretty, the husband who still reached for you in his sleep.

The thought of losing him hit with renewed force.

“Do not,” you said, and your voice cracked on the words. “Do not ever say that again.”

A faint smile appeared. “There is the woman I married.”

You narrowed your eyes immediately. “Jace.”

The smile widened, weak and mischievous and entirely familiar. “I was beginning to think you liked me better unconscious.”

“You were much quieter. He actually laughed, though the sound dissolved into a wince almost immediately. You leaned forward at once. “Do not laugh.”

“You insult me and then forbid me from defending myself.”

“You are injured.”

“I am being persecuted.”

So somehow, despite everything, you found yourself smiling, and the sight seemed to satisfy him enormously.

You had spent half your lives together - before the marriage, before the betrothal, before either of you had been old enough to understand why the adults around you smiled whenever you argued.

His gaze drifted toward your joined hands, and a small smile returned. “You realise my mother is going to be unbearable.”

You laughed quietly. “Only now?”

“She nearly smothered me with affection before I left.” His expression turned thoughtful. “Actually, she may smother me literally this time.”

“You deserve it.”

“I fought a naval battle.”

“You worried her.”

“I was shot.”

You both went silent again.

“I am sorry,” he said softly.

You blinked. “For what?”

“For making you afraid.”

Before he could say anything else, you leaned forward carefully, mindful of bandages and bruises and injuries, and pressed a kiss against his forehead.

And when Jace squeezed your hand once more before drifting back toward sleep, you settled back into the chair without complaint.

But he doesn't move away. That's the thing about your temperamental dragon. The refusal is always louder than the retreat, and the retreat never comes.

He stands exactly where he is, tension drawing his slender shoulders tight beneath his tunic, pale eyes narrowed to slits. You rise from the bed and cross the distance between you, bare feet quiet on the stone, and he watches you come the way a hawk watches an approaching hand, nostrils flaring.

You reach up without an invitation and he catches your wrist in a vicegrip. Hard enough that the bones grind.

"I said no." His voice has dropped into something serrated, all edge, no breath. "That is a whore's ornament. You will not put a whore's collar on a prince of the blood."

"I'm not putting it on a prince of the blood," you say, and your thumb finds his pulse, hammering, frantic, a traitor drumming against your skin. "I'm putting it on my husband."

His lip curls. Genuine, blistering contempt, the kind he wears like armour, the kind that has made grown men step back from him and whisper he's mad. "You've lost your mind, wife. This is beneath me. Take your Lysene filth and—"

"And what?"

You don't raise your voice. You tilt your head and watch him, patient as winter frost, while his mouth keeps shaping poison but his hand hasn't tightened, hasn't shoved you back, hasn't done any of the things Aerion is so very capable of doing when he means his refusals.

His body knows you even when his pride won't permit him.

You can see it in him, the war happening behind his eyes. Hatred and want tearing at each other like dogs. His breathing has gone uneven, the tendons in his neck taut as bowstrings. He's furious, genuinely furious, and he's half-hard already, and the combination is doing something to his expression that looks almost like anguish.

"You also haven't moved," you observe mildly, pressing a little closer.

Aerion's nostrils flare. But his grip on your wrist loosens. It's not a permission, never permission, just the muscles giving out under the weight of what he wants and won't ask for.

You step into the space he hasn't made for you and he lets you, jaw clenched so tight you can see the bone beneath that smooth pale skin, and when your fingers brush his throat he flinches like you've put a blade there, sneering down at you.

You fasten the collar with steady hands. The clasp clicks, quiet as a lock turning. Gold settles against Aerion's skin like it was poured there. Fine links pooling into the hollow of his throat, amethysts glowing dark against all that pale, furious warmth, the delicate chain trailing down his collarbone. His pulse jumps so hard beneath the metalwork you can see it in the tremor of the links.

He is, objectively, the most striking thing you've ever seen.

You let him watch you realise it. You don't hide the way your gaze tracks the gold against his jaw, the flush climbing his neck beneath the chain, the way his platinum hair glows against the gleam of metal.

You take your time with it. Look at him the way you'd look at something you own. Appraising, proprietary, openly pleased with what it's infront of you.

"My beautiful dragon," you murmur, and there's nothing teasing about it. Just a wolf admiring what belongs to her.

Aerion's whole body locks up. there's a crack in his expression and for a half-second you see the raw thing underneath, stunned and starving, before the hatred slams back down like a portcullis.

"Quiet," he warns, voice scraped thin. "Don't call me that."

"Beautiful?" You trace the line of gold with one finger, following it along the tendon in his throat. His skin is burning. "But you are. All collared up for me. All that pride and fury wrapped in gold like a gift." Your finger reaches the chain and curls loosely around it. "Like something I bought. Something I'm keeping."

"I will break your hand," he snarls, but his voice has fractured somewhere in the middle of it, gone hoarse and bitten, and his hands are fists at his sides that aren't moving, aren't reaching, aren't doing anything at all because his body has chosen you over every hateful word in his mouth.

"Look at you," you breathe, and you let your admiration sit open on your face, undisguised, almost tender. "My prince. My pretty, collared husband. Wearing a courtesan's chain because his wife asked and he couldn't say no."

"I said no—"

"Your hateful mouth said no." Your eyes drop, pointed, unhurried, to where the evidence of his body's opinion is unmistakable. "The rest of you has a different answer, husband."

The sound he makes is closer to snarl, like he's about to leap forward and throttle you.

"They tell me these are put on courtesans in the pillowhouses," you tell him, conversational, your thumb stroking idle circles against the chain at his throat. "On the loveliest ones. The ones men cross the Narrow Sea just to kneel before." You lean in, your mouth near his ear, close enough to feel the heat pouring off him. "A collar to say this one is precious, this one is wanted, this one has been claimed by someone who can afford the price of them."

Your lips brush the shell of Aerion's ear. He's shaking. Fine, continuous tremors he can't control, running through him like current through wire.

"But you're not a courtesan, are you?" you murmur. "You're a dragon. My dragon. Collared and flushed and hard for me, and all I've done is call you pretty and put gold on your throat."

His hips snap forward, involuntary, vicious, a jerk of motion so sharp the chain shivers in your grip and his breath tears out of him ragged. You feel the length of him grind against your thigh and the confirmation of what you already knew floods you with something hot and deeply, viciously satisfied.

You smile. Wolfish. The smile of a predator who's found the exact place her teeth fit best.

Aerion's hand comes up and seizes your face. A capture, fingers digging into your jaw, your cheeks, wrenching your head so you're forced to meet his eyes. They're blown black, the pale lavender almost gone, eaten alive. His mouth is a shaking, vicious line.

"You think this is funny?" he rasps, and there's something fraying in his voice, an edge that sounds like it's being held together by nothing but spite. "You think you can play with me, collar me like some—some Lysene bed-slave and then smirk at me—"

You don't stop smiling. You let him see every inch of it. The smugness, the heat, the cool Northern certainty that you've claimed something he'd sooner die than hand over. You turn your face into his grip and press your lips to his palm, unhurried, greedy, and feel his fingers twitch against your skin.

"I think," you say knowingly against his hand, "that you liked it when I called you beautiful. I think you liked it so much your whole body told me before your mouth could catch up." Your tongue skims his palm, just barely, tasting salt. "I think my pretty husband wants to be admired. I think he always has. And I think if I told him he was good right now, he'd come apart."

His hand tightens on your face until it almost hurts. His chest is heaving, every breath hauling through him like he's physically fighting something inside him. You can feel the chain taut between your fingers, connecting your hand to his throat like a leash, like a lifeline.

Aerion stares at you and you stare back. The room is so quiet you can hear the candles gutter and the chain clink, once, with the tremor running through him.

Then he crashes his mouth onto yours.

His teeth catch your lower lip and bite, hard enough that copper blooms on your tongue, and you hiss into it, fingers tightening in the chain. He licks the blood off your mouth and comes back for more, tongue pushing past your gasp, his free hand fisting in the back of your hair so hard your scalp sings.

He's trying to take it back—every sound you pulled from him, every tremor, every helpless grind of his hips—kissing you like he can swallow the evidence of what you've done to him and burn it.

You let him have the violence of it. You open your mouth and take his tongue and bite it, feel Aerion jolt, feel the groan rattle through his teeth into yours. Your free hand comes up and grabs his jaw, holds him still, and you kiss him back with teeth and intention, licking into his mouth with the focused, unhurried authority. You catch his bottom lip between your teeth and pull, dragging it out, and the noise he makes is humiliating and so gorgeous you smile.

He breaks away panting, wild-eyed, mouth swollen and blood-smeared, and you don't let him get far.

You tug the chain.

A measured pull, the gold biting into the back of his neck.

Aerion's head tips forward, forced, the angle dragging him down toward you, and you hold him there, his mouth hovering over yours, breathing your air. The chain pressed firm against his throat. His pulse hammers against the links hard enough that you can feel it thrumming through the gold into your fist.

"Stay," you murmur against his mouth. A command. A wolf's word.

You pull again. Harder. A real pressure now, the collar snug against his Adam's apple, gold links creasing the flushed skin, and you watch Aerion's eyes go glassy and his lips part on a breath that has nowhere to go.

He moans.

Not behind his teeth. A real, wrecked, open sound, the kind of sound courtesans are trained to coax from their wealthiest patrons, obscene and helpless and utterly without dignity. The kind of sound a prince of the blood should never make. If anyone else heard it, it would ruin him, you know.

He moans like a whore with your hand wrapped in his leash, and the vibration of it travels through the chain and into your fingers and settles, hot, at the base of your spine.

You hold the chain taut. His throat works against the pressure, swallowing around gold. His mouth finds yours again. Wetter this time, messier, all desperation and no technique, his teeth clashing against yours, biting at your lips like he can punish you for this even as his body bows into you.

You kiss him back with blood on both your mouths and one hand in his hair and the other wrapped in gold links, holding his throat, keeping him exactly where you want him.

Your collared, shaking, furious, beautiful husband. Yours.

Aerion doesn't break the kiss so much as redirect it. One moment his mouth is on yours, blood and spit and the taste of his own undoing, and the next his hands are at your waist, hauling you backwards. You feel your spine hit the edge of the bed frame hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs.

"On the bed," he snarls against your mouth. "Now."

You could resist. He knows it. The chain is still wrapped around your fist and his throat is still collared in gold and if you pulled right now he'd have to stop, have to kneel, have to wait. You could make him beg for it if you felt like it.

You choose not to.

You let yourself fall back onto the furs and he follows you down like gravity, one knee between your thighs shoving them apart. He wrenches them apart, graceless, nothing courtly about it.

His hands find the laces of your gown and yank. Fabric tears. You hear stitching give, the soft rip of silk surrendering, but Aerion doesn't care, doesn't pause, just drags the ruined bodice down your shoulders and off your arms with the efficiency of a man stripping armour.

"Wretched thing," he breathes, and the words land hot against your collarbone. His mouth follows the words. Teeth scraping the jut of bone, tongue dragging through the hollow of your throat. "Wretched, insufferable—"

He bites the swell of your breast through your shift and your back arches off the bed. His hands are everywhere, pulling linen, shoving wool, ripping where pulling isn't fast enough. Cool air hits your skin in patches—your stomach, your ribs, the tops of your thighs—and his mouth chases every new inch of you like he's starving and you're the only thing left in the larder.

"You think you can collar me," he hisses, dragging the shift over your head and throwing it somewhere behind him. His eyes rake down your body, naked now, spread beneath him on the dark furs, and for one raw second the hatred in Aerion's face cracks and what's underneath is so hungry it looks like pain. "Think you can put a leash on a dragon and smile about it? You smug, superior—"

"Beautiful," you interrupt softly, admiring. Your eyes trace the collar at his throat, the way it catches candlelight as his chest heaves.

His jaw locks so hard you hear the teeth grind.

"—vicious little wolf," he finishes, and his voice has gone thick with something that isn't anger anymore.

He's still dressed. His tunic is rucked, his breeches straining, and when you glance down you can see the dark stain spreading at the front of the linen where he's leaking, where his body has been ahead of his pride since the moment you fastened the clasp.

You let your gaze settle there. Deliberate. Hungry.

"You know," you say conversationally, tracing one finger down the chain at his throat, "in the Lysene houses they auction the prettiest ones. The patrons bid all evening. Wine and silks and perfumed halls, and the courtesans walk among them, collared just like this—" your nail taps a single amethyst "—so everyone knows the goods are spoken for."

Aerion's nostrils flare. A muscle jumps in his cheek.

"They'd have bid high for you." You tilt your head, considering him. That platinum hair mussed, mouth bitten raw, gold at his throat, cock straining wet against his laces. "Very high. A prince with a face like that? Those eyes? That mouth?" You smile, slow and wolfish, briefly dragging your thumb over his full bottom lip. "I'd have outbid them all. Every merchant prince and magister in the room. I'd have bought you for myself and taken you home in your collar and kept you exactly like this. Hard, and furious, and all mine."

A sound rips from Aerion, rumbling through his frame.

His hand shoots to his laces, fumbling, tearing at the ties with shaking fingers, and you watch him strip his breeches down his hips with none of the control he prides himself on. His cock springs free flushed and dripping, slick at the head, twitching with his pulse, and the evidence of what your words have done to him is obscene and unmistakable.

He doesn't give you time to admire it.

His hands seize your thighs and wrench them open. Wide, wider, until the stretch burns and your hips cant off the furs. He settles between them and you feel the blunt, wet head of him drag through the slick mess of you once, catching at your entrance, and then he drives in.

One stroke. All of him. No preamble, no patience, no tenderness.

Your head snaps back. The sound that leaves your mouth is half gasp, half snarl. He's thick and hard, furious inside you, every inch of him a declaration, and your body seizes around him in a clench that makes Aerion's shoulders shudder.

"There," he grits out, teeth bared, hips already pulling back for the next thrust. "Is this what you wanted? Your collared whore between your legs?"

He snaps forward. Hard. Your body jolts up the bed, furs bunching beneath your spine. His hands pin your hips, thumbs digging into the hollows, holding you open, holding you still while he fucks into you with furious, punishing strokes. The narrow cant of his hips drives a rhythm that's all fury and no mercy.

"Spoiled—" Thrust. "—conniving—" Thrust. "—wolf—"

Aerion bites the junction of your shoulder and your neck. Sucks the skin between his teeth hard enough to bruise, hard enough to mark, and the sound you make is shameless, back bowing, your fingers scrabbling at his ribs.

He bites lower. The top of your breast. The ridge of your collarbone. Everywhere his mouth lands he leaves evidence. Welts, teeth-marks, the wet shine of his tongue, mapping you like territory he's conquering even as the collar at his throat says otherwise.

You let him have it. The fury, the pace, the bruising grip. You let him think he's reclaiming himself.

Then you wrap the chain around your fist and pull.

The collar bites into his nape. Aerion's head jerks forward, forced, and the angle changes, drives him deeper, and the sound he makes is guttural and broken, so far from princely it would make his father weep.

"My pretty whore," you murmur up at him, and your voice is steady even with him buried to the hilt inside you, even with your thighs shaking around him. "My beautiful, expensive, collared—"

Aerion's hand closes around your throat.

His fingers find the column of your windpipe with the precision of a man who's t done this before, who knows the anatomy, who's imagined the give of it. Real pressure follows his grip and your airway narrows to a reed.

You lean into it.

Your chin tips up, back arching. You press your throat harder against his palm and moan. Open-mouthed, loud, the kind of sound that fills a room and stains the air. The look on Aerion's face when he realises you're not afraid, that you like it, that the compression of your breath is making you clench tighter around his cock, is something you will keep behind your teeth for the rest of your natural life.

"You," he manages, and his hips haven't stopped, punishing rhythm gone ragged at the edges now, his voice husky. "You're the whore of the two of us. Acting like this. Taking my cock like this. Listen to the mess of you. Moaning with my hand on your throat like a—a dockside—"

You yank the chain. Harder than before. Hard enough that the gold bites welts into his skin, hard enough that Aerion's breath cuts short and his eyes roll and his next thrust goes so deep you feel it in the back of your teeth.

Your hips snap up to meet him—deliberate, brutal, grinding him into the deepest, most sensitive part of you—and the wet sound of it is filthy, unmistakable, the slick drench of your body taking his echoing off the stone walls.

His composure shatters.

What's left is animal, narrow hips pistoning, the obscene slap of his skin against yours, his fingers spreading you wider, thumbs hooking your thighs and pulling until you're split open around him in a way that's almost too much. The stretch burns. The fullness borders on pain. You're going to ache tomorrow, going to feel every brutal inch of this for days, and the knowledge of it—the phantom soreness already gathering in your hips—makes you wetter, makes you greedier, makes you tighten around him until he chokes.

"Fuck—"

He hooks your legs over his shoulders. The angle goes deeper, filthier, the wet sound of his cock working in and out of you loud enough that you can hear every thrust, every slick drag, the rhythmic slap of his balls against you keeping time like a drumbeat.

You reach up and wrap both hands in the chain and haul him down toward you, bending yourself nearly in half, pulling him deeper by his collar until Aerion's forehead presses against yours and you're breathing the same ragged air.

"Come in me," you tell him. An order, a wolf's command.

"Do not order me—"

But his hips stutter, his jaw going slack. The muscles in his neck cord tight against the gold links and you feel him break. The first hot pulse of him inside you floods you, thick and sudden, and Aerion's whole body seizes above you like a man struck by lightning.

He spills in deep, wrenching surges, hips grinding against yours with each gush, and there's so much of it—gods, so much—you feel it flood the space where you're joined, feel it overflow, feel the hot trickle of it escape around his cock and drip in slow rivulets onto the sheets beneath you.

The heat of it, the sight of your pretty dragon shaking apart above you, collared, spilling himself into you, desperate and greedy, pushes you over.

You come snarling. Your back arches off the bed, your teeth bared, your fingers coiled in the chain. The pleasure tears through you in savage waves and your body clenches around him. A vice-grip that wrenches a shocked, gutted noise out of his chest.

Aerion's hips slam forward on instinct, burying himself as deep as he can go, and both hands grab your backside, full handfuls, fingers sinking into the flesh, dragging you onto him like he can crawl inside you.

"Fuck—fuck, you're—gods—" Greedy and petulant even now, grinding into your contractions, chasing the squeeze of you. His cock pulses and you feel the fresh hot leak of him, not a full release but close, dangerously close, his body trying to spend itself again just from the clench of yours. "Take it—take all of it, you greedy—perfect—fucking —"

The filth spills out of him unchecked, half-words and fragments, praise tangled up in profanity. His arms lock around you, both hands still full of your ass, and he folds over you, curling, coiling, a dragon wrapping around his mate with his face buried in your throat and his hips still rocking in small, helpless pulses.

Burrowing into you. Trying to get closer when closer doesn't exist.

You hold him through it. Chain slack in your fist now, your other hand in his silver hair, your legs still trembling where they're hooked over his shoulders.

He stays inside you through every aftershock, twitching, half-hard, refusing to pull out even as the mess between you gets obscene. His spend leaks around his cock, dripping in slow pearly rivulets down through your folds, pooling beneath you on the sheets.

You reach between your bodies and touch yourself, fingers sliding through the slick ruin of his release and your own, spreading it over your core, your navel, the trembling plane of your stomach. Painting yourself with the evidence of him.

Aerion watches you do it. His chest heaving, his mouth open, his eyes tracking your fingers with the dazed, shattered focus.

You bring your fingers to your mouth. Hold his gaze. Taste.

His cock twitches inside you. He makes a low, growling sound.

Then, slowly, as if his bones have turned to water, he collapses. Aerion's weight comes down on you in a controlled fall, his face dropping into the curve of your neck, his breath coming in long, shuddering pulls against your pulse. The chain goes slack between you. The collar shifts, warm against your collarbone where his throat presses.

For a long moment there's nothing but breathing. The guttering candles. The cooling sweat between your bodies. His heartbeat thuds against your ribs, gradually slowing.

You burrow into him. Turn your face against his chest and press your mouth there. Teeth grazing his sternum, his collarbone, the smooth skin over his ribs. You nip. Suck a patch of skin between your lips and release it flushed. Your tongue drags through the salt-sheen of his sweat, tracing the cut of muscle, and your hand drifts up to stroke his chest, his throat, fingertips trailing the chain at his collar, the ridge of his Adam's apple, the hollow beneath.

Petting him. Mapping the territory you've claimed.

Aerion's hand comes up and cradles the back of your head. His fingers thread through your hair, and he shifts, angling his neck, tilting his shoulder down, offering you more skin. Easier access.

"You're an animal," he informs you, voice scraped raw and dry as bone. His thumb traces the curve of your skull. "A feral, uncivilised creature who should have been left in the kennels at Winterfell."

You suck a bruise into the ridge of his collarbone. He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled, and tips his chin higher, baring the collared line of his throat to your mouth with an ease that contradicts every word coming out of it.

"Disgusting habit," he adds, as you nip the tendon below his ear. His fingers card through your hair, untangling, smoothing. Stroking, greedy and possessive. "Gnawing on your husband like a bone. Do they teach you that in the North? Is it in the wedding vows, hm?"

You hum against his skin. Your teeth graze his pulse point and his breath catches—just barely, just enough—and his hand gentles at your nape, cradling rather than holding.

You can feel him preening under it. The commentary is armour but his body is liquid, angling into every scrape of your teeth, every press of your lips. Offering himself up piece by piece while his mouth pretends outrage.

You press a kiss to the hinge of his jaw. Soft. Almost sweet.

Then you pull back just enough to meet his eyes.

"My pretty whore," you murmur fondly.

The reaction is instantaneous.

His eyes flash, pale lavender burning through the blown-black aftermath, and his hand snaps from the back of your skull to the nape of your neck, gripping hard, fingers digging into the tendons. He drags you up and kisses you. Bruising. All teeth, his tongue pushing into your mouth, tasting himself on you, tasting everything on you.

His other hand slides down your body. Between your thighs. Through the mess of his own spend. He pushes two fingers into you easily, so wet you barely feel the stretch of him, just the sudden fullness and the obscene sound of it, his seed squelching around his knuckles as he curls deep.

"Whore," he repeats against your mouth, low and dangerous, his fingers pumping into you with a rhythm that's already building toward something. "You want a whore, wife? I'll fuck you like one." His teeth catch your lip. His fingers twist and you gasp. "Over and over. Till you can't walk. Till the whole Red Keep knows what I've done to you. Till you're dripping with me for days."

You laugh. Breathless, warm, the sound vibrating between your mouths. Your hand finds the chain and you pull him closer—not hard, just a steady pressure, a reminder of what's still fastened at his throat—and your legs wrap around his hips, drawing him in, fitting your body against his like a key turning in a lock.

"Good," you say.

His fingers curl inside you, his mouth finds yours again. The collar gleams between you in the candlelight.

Aerion found your hand, interlinking his fingers into yours. “Although I agree, my father specified that we must be in attendance for its entirety.”

He spoke with his usual abruptness, yet apprehension called out from the depth of his voice. He despised telling you the opposite of what you wanted to hear just as much as you despised hearing it.

You looked at him blankly and huffed before turning your head away from him, your right hand carelessly swirling the red wine in your hand.

Aerion too huffed, his eyes rolling briefly and his lips pursing together as he thought.

“How can I make it more entertaining for you, wife?”

Your ears perked up, and you turned your head towards him once again, the corners of your mouth tugging ever so slightly.

He watched as you thought with amused eyes, though the same amusement did not show on his lips.

“Perhaps,” you tossed your hair beyond your shoulder, “a duel would suffice.”

Aerion took a deep breath to calm himself, your request was ridiculous, and you knew that. His brows raised at you, and you simply watched him with expectance.

“Darling, I cannot turn this seemingly positive evening into one with gore.”

“Why not?” Your reply came immediately.

“My Prince, my Princess, my apologies for the interruption.” You heard an unfamiliar voice say, the tone polite. Your eyes rolled at the interruption, whereas Aerion’s glistened- he had been saved momentarily.

You did not look at the man, your eyes still locked onto your husband, still awaiting an answer. Aerion, however, faced forwards to see him. It was Lord Humfrey Hardyng, a noble from the vale. Aerion’s eyes scanned the man in his entirety.

“My lord.” Aerion said, though his tone was not driven by politeness.

“I believe that you have not yet met my daughter, lady Jeyne.”

Aerion did not respond, simply looking at the pair with the same monotone expression that he usually held firmly. Your husband knew that you would not appreciate his communication with another woman, even if it was a simple matter of polite politics. Dealing with you while in a bad mood would be much worse than an unpleasant exchange.

You, now momentarily giving up on Aerion’s explanation, turned your head to face the pair.

You had met Lord Humfrey before, and so you felt no need to acknowledge him. His daughter on the other hand, you had not met. Her hair was dark, almost jet black, and it sat wispily on her small shoulders. She looked quite young, perhaps a few years younger than yourself. Through no control of her own, she gawked at you.

“Do you not speak, girl?” You snapped, your arms now folded over one another. Aerion’s hand held your thigh firmly underneath the table, his fingers squeezing the skin underneath the fabric of your dress at the coldness of your words.

“My apologies, my lady, I-“

“My Princess.” You corrected, taking a large sip of wine before placing the cup back down on the table, the harsh metal clinking as it sat.

“My Princess, I express my deepest apologies.” The girl stuttered.

“All is forgiven.” You smiled a sickly sweet smile, fake of course, but a smile all the same. You looked at the girl more closely, and stopped abruptly when you saw the glistening stone on her neck. Your eyes widened in pleasure. Aerion groaned.

She wore a silver chain, one that was doubled and embroidered with hints of gold. The stone was an emerald snake that weaved intricately into rubies that glistened even in the dark candlelit hall.

“That is a fine necklace.” Your finger extended as you pointed towards her neckline, yet you did not speak to her, nor her father. Your words were directed to your husband, and he knew exactly why.

“It is, my love. A fine necklace indeed.” He agreed, placing a gentle kiss onto your cheek.

The girls face brightened, happy that the Princess herself had complimented her with such heartfelt words. Her Lord father, however, noticed the uneasy expression on Aerion’s face, and felt weary himself.

“Thank you, Princess, it is a family loom, it means a great deal to me.” The girl held the pendant as she spoke, her smile growing wider and wider with each passing moment. Your smile did not grow alongside it, though. It disappeared entirely.

“That is heartwarming indeed.” You said. “You are dismissed.” Your hand waved carelessly.

The girls smile dropped in confusion, and Lord Humfrey simply nodded before ushering his daughter away.

Your head turned back to face your husband’s, and he followed suit. You had intended to speak, but before you could, Aerion placed his lips to yours, inviting you into a kiss full of passion and love. You leant into it, of course, enjoying the hunger that drove him.

Yet, you would not be distracted that easily.

You pulled away after a little while, your hand placed on his chest as you gently pushed him from you. He groaned at the fact that he couldn’t feel the plumpness of your lips anymore, and begrudgingly opened his eyes. Despite the vast amount of people in the room with you, you both acted as though you were alone, as usual.

Using both hands, you smoothed his collar, allowing your hands to stay there as you pecked his lips once more.

“The necklace.” You said, your lips a mere centimetre away from his own. “I need it.”

As soon as Aerion had seen the necklace, he had known you would fall in love with it; it consisted of your two favourite colours, and its glowing intricacy and individuality were something that you looked for in every item that you owned.

He was just as certain that you would not stop until you had it.

Pushing out his chair and tightening his jaw as he forced his mouth shut, Aerion stood up. You looked up at him, a bright smile on your face now that you knew he would go to seek out what you desired. He stood above you and used his hand to hold your jaw, bending down, he placed a kiss to your forehead before walking away in search of the Lord and his daughter.

Unfortunately for Aerion, Lord Humfrey had outright refused his offer of a large sum of coin for the necklace. Although he had apologised profusely, he was absolutely certain that the necklace would not be leaving his daughters neck anytime soon. Aerion was worried that you may end up ripping it from her collarbone if you had to wait any longer.

Your husband cringed at the thought of having to tell you that you could not have it. It was the first instance where he would not be able to give you what you desire, and the very idea of it killed him.

Later that night, when he arrived to your shared chambers, he found you perched at the end of the bed, sat up straight, your right leg crossed over your left. You clasped your knee with your hands and bounced your hung foot in anticipation of his arrival- your impatience growing.

Your head visibly perked up when you heard your guard outside greet Aerion.

“My love.” He greeted, the huge oak door creaking behind him as it closed with a thud.

“My love.” You responded back to him.

“It is a complicated matter.”

Your body relaxed ever so slightly at the disappointment of his words.

“I do not see how? She has a necklace, I want it.”

A ghost of a laugh drifted through him at the simple stance you took on situations such as this.

“It is their family loom, they absolutely refuse to give it up, it would be a political nightmare.”

He sat next to you now, placing his hand on your bare thigh. You immediately removed his hand from your leg and shuffled away from him. Your husband raised his chin upwards and took a deep breath; preparing himself for what was to come, the way that you would now torture him.

“Alright.” Was all you had said. You did not even look at him, instead crawling underneath the thick furs that lay a top your bed, and closing your eyes with stubbornness.

Aerion lay next to you, he spent the entire night attempting to hold you or touch you in one way or another, but you swatted him away every single time. Even though you longed for him to hold you, to feel his skin on yours, your stubborn nature refused to give in.

For three whole sunrises, Aerion had not felt the tender touch of his wife. You would not let him anywhere near him, stating that he clearly did not love you enough, because if he did then you would have emerald and rubied snakes around your neck.

He brought you hundreds of different necklaces, ones that in his opinion were even more extravagant and expensive than the ones owned by the Lords daughter. But no, you refused them.

“Princess you are torturing me now.” He pleaded as he looked down on you. His knees crumbled as you looked up at him in that moment, your eyes shining in the sun light, looking so innocent and beautiful. He craved your touch, your kiss, your body. Yet you knew you would not give him what he desired until he had fulfilled your own wishes.

Without a word, you simply looked up at him with a sad expression, before huffing and looking away. He had tutted loudly, the familiar feeling of anger crashing through his bones.

And so he adventured out again, in the hopes of using his power of persuasion- which usually included violence, so he had no idea what he would do. He decided that he would not approach the Lord, but instead, Lady Jeyne herself.

Aerion wasted no time in stating what he wanted, and an immediate vision of panic washed over the young lady’s features.

“My Prince, I, I, I cannot. My family would never forgive me.” She clasped the pendant in her fingers.

Aerion gritted his teeth. “My wife will never forgive me.” He stated matter of factly, as though that would change anything.

Abruptly, the lady opened her mouth once more. “Do not tell my father I told you this, I beg of you, but-“ she paused.

“Continue.” The prince demanded.

“There is another, an exact copy of this one, kept by a family in Braavos. I am sure that they would sell it for a sum.”

That was all he needed, barely responding before crashing out of the room, a new found feeling of hope coaxing him forwards. Yet, as he approached the door, he had a thought. A thought that made his eyes widen, and caused him to stop completely.

“The princess would not stand for another lady wearing the same jewellery as her, you must leave.” He told her, half expecting her to argue it. She did not though, she simply agreed that she would travel back to the Vale before the duplicate would arrive.

And so Aerion spent the following evening and day in its entirety writing letters back and forth, bargaining. The final agreed settled price was one that he would try to erase from his memory entirely, and one that he would never dare to reveal to his father.

Finally, the necklace arrived, and as Aerion sat there watching the gems glow in the beaming light of the sun, he could not help but smile at the anticipated reward that you would give him that evening. He had missed you so much that his skin began to itch, and he craved the feeling of your mouth completely. The very idea of you underneath him made his mouth salivate.

You had been sulking in the library, mindlessly scanning the words on a book that you did not remember the name of, when you were summoned.

“Your husband wishes to see you.”

“It better be worth my time.” You told the man, who simply nodded, and extended a hand in front of him, signalling you to walk.

As you entered the hall, you found Aerion sat on a chair proudly, his shoulders back, a smirk on his handsome face, and a large box sat firmly on his lap. You fought the corners of your mouth, anticipating what lay under the cover.

“My Princess.” He said happily. He could not wait a moment longer before using both of his hands to carefully undo the fastening. He turned the box so that it faced you, and undid the lid slowly, revealing the beautiful jewel that sat inside.

You let out a sigh of relief, imagining the way that it would feel around your neck. Clapping your hands together joyfully, you danced towards him elegantly.

“Aerion, you did it!”

Truthfully, you had not actually expected him to successfully get the necklace, and had began to accept it- slowly but surely.

But, yet again, he had found a way to grant you what your heart desired.

“Shall I put it on you?” He asked, his smirk still sat stubbornly on his lips. His brow furrowed slightly when you shook your head.

“Not yet.” You turned your head towards the guards in the room. “Out.”

Aerion stay sat in the chair, and you planned to join him.

Now in front of him, you bent down and placed a gentle, lingering kiss on his lips. Using both hands, you equally as gently took the box off of his lap and placed it on the floor below, before straddling his thighs.

He sighed in pleasure at the feeling of you on top of him, his nose now trapped in the crevice of your neck. He took a breath inwards, the musky and sweet scent of your perfume filling his nostrils.

Using a hand, you held his chiseled jaw, and attached your lips to his once again. This time, much hungrier, your way of thanking him for his impeccable service.

As your tongues danced around each others, your hips naturally could not help but to grind onto his own, as you felt him grow harder beneath you. He groaned against your lips at the feeling, and wished that it would never end.

Yet it did.

Abruptly, you stood up, causing his eyes to snap open in detest. He relaxed again when you commanded that he remove his breeches. Hastily, he did as he was told, the complete hardness of him now springing free and bouncing off of his own stomach.

Sinking onto your knees, you looked up at him once more, and he nearly undone at the simple sight of you. A perfect depiction of beauty.

His eyes closed when he felt the wetness of your mouth around his cock, an embarrassing whimper escaping him at the feeling.

You were so talented with your mouth, in so many ways, and he thought of all of them as your tongue held him prisoner.

It did not take him long to come undone completely, and you happily swallowed it all. Standing up again, you wiped your mouth, your hands then immediately finding the hem of your dress, and hoisting it up so that you can straddle him once again.

Your sweet moans filled the room as you sank down onto him, the rhythm of both of your bodies meeting as one, like puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly.