any pronouns 18+ this is a random acc but do not spam likes, i do not write here and i only support and read. i simp. that's what i do often. or like most of the time. okay yea maybe always. but shush
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: pregnancy has left you sickened by nearly every scent in oldtown. your only reprieve is burying your face in gwayne’s neck. though your poor husband rarely escapes without his pretty, pale skin thoroughly ravished.
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: smut, romance, cockwarming, pregnant sex, p what p, poor gwayne, his wife is a menace, domestic fluff, 18+ MDNI
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐚𝐧: in celebration of gwayne finally having a bath in hotd. don’t get me wrong, I would have 100% risked that STI for dirty Gwayne, but now we can all admire that pretty pale neck again….
anways! this is also a little thank you for the unexpected, wonderful reaction i received on my debut gwayne fic! this can be read as a continuation or a stand-alone.
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐰𝐜: 1.3k (oneshot)
You were barely showing, just the softest swell beneath the silk of your abandoned nightgown, but the pregnancy had already made your stomach squeamish.
Gwayne sat with you in the wide armchair by the open balcony doors, the warm night air billowing the gauzy curtains with the scent of the bay and night-blooming summer flowers. You were settled fully in his lap, arms around his neck, bare skin against his, his cock buried deep inside you and simply… resting there. Warm and full from your first round. Neither of you moved. The slow, steady throb of him against your walls was enough. It soothed the deep soreness pregnancy had left you with, and that restless ache that forever made you want to live in his skin.
Your nose was buried in the pale column of his throat.
You could not get enough of the smell of him. Clean skin, faint traces of the cedar and orange soap the maids used on him, and underneath it the deeper, warmer scent that was purely your Gwayne.
Ormund’s cloying perfumes made your stomach turn these days and the entire household reeked of his potpourri. You kept the windows and doors thrown open all day and night. But your husband’s neck was the one thing in the world that did not make you want to retch.
So you scented him constantly. And took advantage of him as you pleased, ravishing his pretty, pale skin. Your poor husband patiently endured his fate, condemned to spend his days feasted upon, the long column of his neck bitten red and purple for the whole of court to see.
“My dragon love is attempting to eat me again,” he murmured, voice low and amused even as he tilted his head to grant you better access. “I have a meeting with the High Septon in the morning, you greedy, greedy woman.”
You hummed against his skin, the sound making him close his eyes. His Adam’s apple bobbed and you attacked it. Your teeth scraped at the sensitive skin. He hissed, hand tightening on your hip. You soothed the sting at once with soft kitten licks, tongue tracing the indentations you had left.
“Sorry,” you whispered against his skin, not sounding very sorry at all. “You are just so pretty, husband. And you smell… gods, Gwayne.”
You whined as you buried your face again in the curve of his neck, just breathing him in. You felt like Ormund with his damned pomander.
“How am I to survive a whole week without this?” you asked mournfully.
“Stay.” His hand found the gentle swell of your belly and spread protectively over it. “It is far too much strain to ride in your condition.”
“The babe will be perfectly fine—"
“It is too much strain for you.”
He caught your chin and guided your face away from his throat until you were forced to look at him. Green eyes steady, serious. “You are already ill every morning. You scarcely keep anything down till midday. I worry for you.”
You hummed in reluctant acknowledgment and dipped your head again, resuming your slow, wet kisses, tasting the salt of his skin.
“Rhaenyra is with her second child already,” you murmured against his skin. “We want to go together and choose eggs for the babes to cradle with.” Your hand drifted down to rest over his on your stomach. “Oh, how sweet would it be if they were of the same clutch?”
“Very sweet,” Gwayne conceded, though his tone suggested he found the prospect considerably less charming than you did. He tried, but your husband was not born with fire singing in his blood. You could not fault him for not understanding. “But please, dearest, you should make the journey after the babe arrives and you have recovered.”
You answered him by rolling your hips.
A slow, deliberate grind that dragged your slick walls along the thick length buried inside you. Gwayne’s breath left him in a rough exhale and you felt him twitch inside of you, swelling even fuller. His hands immediately settled at your hips, large and warm.
“Again, for me,” he rasped.
You obliged. Up and down, slow at first, savoring every inch of the stretch, the way he filled you so completely even when neither of you was thrusting hard. The armchair creaked beneath you. You were dripping; his seed from the first round already spilled out with every upward slide, slicking his thighs and balls, making filthy wet sounds that filled the quiet chamber. Mixed with the quiet wash of the bay and the soft rustle of curtains, it was obscene.
You whined and he helped you without hesitation. His strong hands lifted and lowered you in a steady, generous rhythm, strong thighs braced beneath yours.
You kept your face buried to his skin, dipping to suck dark marks at his collar, breathing him in like you were starving for him, licking sweat from his skin, biting down whenever the pleasure spiked too high.
“That’s it,” he whispered against your hair, voice strained. “Have what you need, sweetling. Use me.”
You whimpered and clenched around him, his words going straight to the tight coil low in your belly. Your pace turned desperate, grinding harder, faster, chasing the friction of his cockhead against that perfect spot inside you while your sensitive clit dragged against the base of his dark curls on every roll.
“My love,” he gasped, head tipping back against the chair, his eyes fixed on you. “My beautiful love. Gods, I should keep you always like this— soft and lovely with my babe.”
Your pace quickened, hips rolling with growing urgency. The soft swell of your stomach brushed against his abdomen with every downward slide. One of his hands left your hip to cup the back of your head, holding you close so you could keep nuzzling and biting as you pleased. The other remained firm on your hip, helping you rise and sink, rise and sink, until the pleasure coiled tight and bright low in your belly.
You pulled your head back just enough to grip his chin and drag his mouth to yours. Breath mixed. Teeth clicked.
You came with a muffled cry, walls fluttering and clenching around him. Gwayne groaned deeply, hips lifting once, twice, grinding up into you as he followed, spilling hot and deep while you rode out every last pulse.
For a long moment neither of you moved. You stayed exactly where you were: impaled, trembling, staring into his green eyes while you stroked his hair and pressed soft, open-mouthed kisses to his lips. His hands stayed wrapped around your back, holding you gently against him even as his cock twitched with aftershocks inside you.
“That was shameless,” he murmured.
“Was it persuasive?”
Gwayne gave you a long, unimpressed look. You smiled sweetly.
“…You are an unscrupulous woman.”
You squealed with joyous victory, peppering thankful kisses to the scar under his eye.
He ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it from his face, doing poorly to hide his own smile.
“You have my blessing— provided the maesters find no cause for concern.” His gaze sharpened. “And you will rest once you arrive. You will not exhaust yourself attempting to keep pace with your sister, and at the first hint of pain— however slight— you will stay with her and send for me.”
“You make me sound so terribly fragile.”
He pressed a kiss to your left eye, then to your right. “You are what is most precious to me.”
Then he bent to your throat and began repaying your greedy attentions, one lingering kiss at a time.
HOTD masterlist
@ange0o
if you want to be in my tagged for any character i write for let me know :)
genre: angst, romance, heartbreak, hurt/little comfort
pairings: robb stark x reader
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Notes: WARNING!!!!! Mature themes ahead, read at your own risk
The stone under your knees did not feel like the stone of your childhood. Winterfell’s granite had once been a comfort—thick and timeless, a shield against the howling northern wastes. Now, it was just cold. A damp, parasitic cold that crawled up through your kirtle, through the layers of skin and muscle, until it nestled deep in the marrow of your bones.
Theon had taken the Lord’s bedchamber for himself. He had changed nothing but the smell. The faint, clean scent of cedar, fur, and the dried lavender you used to tuck into the linen chests was gone, choked out by the stench of sour ale, grease-hardened wool, and the stale salt-stink of men who had spent too long on the sea.
It had been a room defined by the crisp, biting air of the North, layered with the comforting, grounded smells of beeswax, old parchment, and the dried lavender you harvested every autumn. Now, it was a tomb of decay. Theon had taken the room, not as a conqueror, but as an interloper who hated the space he occupied because it refused to recognize him as its master.
He sat in Eddard Stark’s chair—a massive, ironwood throne-like seat that seemed to swallow him whole—and tried to mold himself into a shape that did not fit.
You were bound to a chair near the hearth, the rough rope digging into your skin until the numbness turned to a dull, throbbing ache. Every time Theon’s eyes flicked toward you, they were bright with a manic, flickering intensity.
"Where are they?" he asked again, his voice cracking. He was holding a piece of parchment, his knuckles white. "Bran. Rickon. They did not just vanish into the stone, Y/N. They are here. They have to be here."
You did not look at him. Instead, you focused on the fading embers in the fireplace, letting your mind drift back to the years when Winterfell was a living, breathing home.
You remembered a winter afternoon, the sky a bruised purple, when the four of you—you, Robb, Jon, and Theon—had been tasked by Lord Stark to clear the snow from the armory roof.
The afternoon was supposed to be a simple chore—hauling timber from the lower ward or clearing the frozen paths of the keep—but the heavy, untouched drifts of fresh winter snow had proved too much of a temptation, descending rapidly into a chaotic, breathless war of packed ice and flying powder.
Jon had naturally assumed the role of the strategist, his keen gray eyes mapping out the terrain behind the stables, picking the highest snowbanks for vantage points and rationing the ice-balls like a commander plotting a campaign.
"Hold your fire," Jon hissed, ducking low behind a stack of split pine, his breath pluming white in the freezing air. "Let Robb overextend himself. He always charges before the flanks are secure."
"I heard that!" Robb yelled from across the yard, his face flushed red with exertion, a wild grin stretching across his features.
He was the reckless vanguard, howling with laughter as he charged headfirst into a drift, taking a direct hit to the shoulder without an ounce of self-preservation.
"And for the record, a true commander leads from the front!"
"A true commander gets himself buried in a snowbank if he doesn't watch his left," Theon called out, stepping out from the shadow of the wood-pile with an arsenal of perfectly packed snowballs cradled in the crook of his arm.
His trademark lopsided grin flashed in the pale winter light.
"Look at him. Completely exposed. Gods, Robb, you're easier to hit than a target painted red."
"Shut up, Theon, and watch your own back!" you shouted back, launching a stealthy missile that caught Theon squarely in the ear, sending a spray of white dust over his dark hair.
Theon gasped, dropping half his ammunition with a theatrical shriek of betrayal. "Traitor! I thought we had an alliance against the direwolves!"
"An alliance?" Jon laughed, popping up from his snowbank to lob a well-aimed projectile that grazed Theon’s chest. "We never agreed to terms, Greyjoy."
Flushed, freezing, and shivering beneath your heavy wool cloaks, you had eventually called a truce, retreating to the shadowed interior of the back storehouse out of the biting wind.
There, by the dim light filtering through the cracked oak door, you had unburdened the stolen charcoal you’d scavenged from near the blacksmith's bins.
Together, you spent hours sketching crude, merciless, and howlingly funny caricatures of the castle masters across the whitewashed lime walls—Maester Luwin with a nose resembling a pickled turnip, Septon Chayle with a mouth perpetually open in pious shock, and Ser Rodrik with whiskers so long and wild they looked like an angry cat clinging to his cheeks.
"Make Luwin’s ears bigger," Theon urged, leaning over your shoulder with a smudge of black soot smeared across his nose, pointing a charcoal-stained finger at the wall. "If he squints any harder at those old tomes, his spectacles are going to crack."
"If I make them any bigger, he won't be able to hear us sneaking out of lessons tomorrow," you muttered, adding a particularly ridiculous tuft of hair to the Septon's portrait.
"He won't hear us anyway," Jon said, stepping back to admire the gallery of insults with a critical, approving eye. "Not over the sound of Robb snoring through history lectures."
"I do not snore," Robb protested, though he was laughing too hard to sound convincing, throwing a light punch at Jon's arm. "I merely... contemplate the histories with my eyes closed."
"Aye, deep in the crypts of slumber," Theon snorted, ducking just in time to avoid a playful swipe from Robb.
When Lord Stark had finally found you, the four of you covered in soot, freezing, and laughing so hard your ribs felt bruised, the silence in the doorway had been absolute.
He hadn't shouted.
He hadn't called for the guards or threatened extra chores in the freezing stables.
Instead, his stern, weathered face had remained completely still as he stepped over the threshold, his dark eyes lingering for a long, agonizing beat on a particularly unflattering portrait of Maester Luwin rendered with three eyes and a crooked cap.
A muscle had twitched beneath the heavy growth of his beard, fighting a losing battle against the humor threatening to break through.
Finally, he had let out a long, slow sigh that plumed white in the freezing air, reached into his belt, and tossed a rough linen rag right into Robb’s chest.
"If you are going to waste your time on such things," Ned had said, his deep voice barely hiding the rich, bubbling current of amusement beneath it, "at least ensure you are not caught before you finish the work."
And with a faint, ghost-like smirk, he had turned on his heel, leaving you all staring at the rag in stunned, triumphant disbelief before the laughter had started up all over again.
That memory—the warmth of his approval, the shared secret—was the only thing keeping the terror at bay. You forced yourself to breathe it in, the phantom scent of pine and horse hair, trying to drown out the reality of Theon’s presence.
"They are not here, Theon," you said, your voice a rasping whisper. "And even if they were, I would sooner bite my own tongue off than give them to you."
Theon’s face hardened. He stood up, the chair scraping harshly against the stone floor. He walked over to you, his boots making a heavy, aggressive sound.
Your heart wrenched at how his feet sounded.
Too heavy.
Too rash.
The Theon Greyjoy you knew did not let his next step be as predictable as his first. The sound of those boots sent a cold, coiling dread straight down your spine. It wasn't the light, cocky stride of the boy who used to race you through the snowbanks or boast of the Iron Islands while smearing charcoal on the storehouse walls. That Theon was a ghost buried deep beneath the winter snow of a lifetime ago.
This Theon walked with the stiff, brittle pride of a man constantly trying to convince himself—and everyone else in the room—that he belonged in a seat he had stolen.
He stopped just short of your chair, looking down at you with eyes that refused to meet yours straight on, darting away and snapping back with defensive fury. The fine wool of his borrowed finery looked wrong on him, stiff and uncomfortable, like armor he didn't know how to wear.
"Where are the boys, Y/n? Do not test me. I am not asking as your friend anymore."
You let out a dry, hollow laugh, though there was no humor in it—only a profound, aching sorrow as you looked up at the stranger wearing your old brother-in-arms' face.
"Friend?" you echoed, your voice steady despite the iron shackles binding your wrists to the table. "Is that what you call pointing a blade at the people who raised you, Theon? Is this what old Balon’s halls taught you? To come home only to tear down the walls that kept you safe?"
The words hit him like a physical blow. The mask of the ironborn commander cracked for a fraction of a second, a flash of raw, wounded panic crossing his features before he slammed the door shut on it. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek.
He leaned in, planting his hands flat on the table, bringing his face dangerously close to yours.
"You do not know my father," Theon spat, though his voice shook slightly, betraying the lie. "You do not have even an inkling of what it is like to be given away as a hostage, to spend years waiting for a ghost to come claim you."
Your heart clenched as his eyes welled with tears.
"Balon Greyjoy is a king. And I am a prince of the Iron Islands."
"A prince?" You tilted your head, your gaze sweeping over the cold stone of the solar and pictured the frightened faces of the few northern servants forced to watch in silence as the very stronghold that promised them safety was being ransacked with their own bannermen, and finally back to his haunted eyes.
"Princes do not have to scream to prove they belong in the room, Theon. They do not have to burn a castle to the ground just to feel tall."
The accusation hung in the stifling air between you, heavy and suffocating.
Theon pulled back as if he’d been burned, his chest heaving under his doublet. For a long, agonizing moment, the fierce, brittle commander melted away, leaving only a broken boy caught between two worlds that had both rejected him.
He looked down at his own hands—the hands that had once thrown snowballs in the yard, now stained with a betrayal he could never wash off.
"What happened to you?" you asked softly, the anger draining out of your voice, replaced by a quiet, devastating pity. "While we were away... while the war took us all to different hells... what did they do to you, Theon, that made you look so much like the man who locked you away?"
Theon froze. The aggression drained out of his posture, leaving him looking suddenly fragile, as if a stiff northern wind could blow him apart. He stared down at the scarred wood of the table, his bottom lip trembling just a fraction before he bit down hard to stop it.
"Knives leave marks. You can bleed, and you can heal, and you can remember who put them there." he whispered, the sound so raw and devoid of life it barely carried across the room. "The stares are different."
He looked up then, and his eyes were entirely empty—not the eyes of a conqueror, but of a child who had spent years staring at a closed door, waiting for a father who never loved him.
"Day after day, year after year, they looked at me and reminded me that I was never a Stark. That I was a captive. A hostage. A living corpse holding a seat until my father decided to collect his debt." Theon said, his voice cracking, a tear finally spilling over to cut a clean path through the soot on his cheek.
He reached out, his hand hovering over the table as if he wanted to touch yours—as if he wanted to reach back across the years to the snow-covered yard in Winterfell—before he pulled his fingers back sharply, curling them into a fist.
"I did not come back here to burn your home," Theon whispered, his voice thick with a pathetic, desperate self-loathing. "I came back because I spent years learning how to hate myself, and I finally figured out I needed a crown to make me forget."
You shook your head at his words.
"You can still undo this Theon. Let go of this delusion you have that you were unloved," you whispered fervently, hoping your words would sway his mind.
"You were raised side by side with Robb. With Jon. With me." you murmured, your bound hands trying desperately to free themselves as you wished you could have held his instead.
Both of your hearts cracked as the tears fell from Theon's eyes.
"Please Theon," your eyes stung with unshed tears, threatening to escape, "Let us go back."
He looked at you again and you swore you could see him again.
"Back to the stables." you tried to smile.
Something flickered then in Theon's eyes. Something so akin to nostalgia and grief brought on by unwanted memories as you continued to speak.
Anger is stronger. Came a voice inside his head. Anger is safe.
For one fragile, agonizing heartbeat, the hard line of his jaw trembled. The cruel, rigid posture of the Ironborn commander faltered, and beneath the stolen finery and the bitter posturing, you could see the boy who had once shared stolen bread and laughter in the yard.
His gaze softened, catching on yours with a desperate, naked plea.
A plea to stop digging.
To stop reminding him of a life he had forsaken, or perhaps, begging you to pull him back across the chasm before he fell too far.
His hand twitched forward on the table, fingers opening just an inch, reaching out toward yours like a drowning man grasping for driftwood.
But the iron was unforgiving, for as quelling the warmth of Stark was, the chill of Pyke swept back into his bones.
The warmth in his eyes shattered, instantly replaced by a sudden, violent surge of panic. Remembering where he was, who he was supposed to be, and the terrifying void that awaited him if he admitted he was wrong, he flinched away as if your words were laced with poison.
Anger was a shield.
Anger didn't ask questions or make you feel small.
Anger was safe.
His fist slammed down onto the scarred wood of the table with a force that made the iron shackles rattle against your wrists. The nostalgic ghost in his eyes was violently extinguished, replaced by a dark, furious glare that burned with all the self-loathing he refused to face.
"Enough!" Theon roared, his voice cracking with a ragged, hysterical edge that echoed off the high stone rafters of the Great Hall.
"You hold onto those memories like they are holy relics," he hissed, leaning down so his face was inches from yours. "But they are gone. The Starks are losing. They are running south to die, and you are here, starving for a ghost who does not even know you’re alive."
"You think you can look at me with pity?" he snarled, though the tremor in his voice betrayed how close he had just come to breaking. "You think you can sit there in chains and pick apart a prince of the Iron Islands? You know nothing of what I am! You never did!"
He spun away, turning his back to you as he dragged a hand violently across his face, scrubbing away the moisture he refused to let you see. When he turned back around, the mask was bolted back on, nailed down with iron and spite.
The third day brought a shift in the air, a drop in temperature that seemed to mirror the encroaching malice of the castle.
Yara Greyjoy walked into the solar with a stride that made the ironmen around her seem like decorative shadows. She was lean, whip-cord thin, and wore her power like a second skin. She looked at the room, then at Theon, then at you, and her lip curled in a sneer.
"This is it?" she asked, her voice echoing with a sharp, nautical edge. "This is your kingdom, brother? A damp room in a broken castle, and a girl tied to a chair? You’re playing at being a King while the rest of the world is actually fighting."
"I hold the North," Theon snapped, his pride instantly wounded. "I have the seat of the Starks."
Yara laughed, a sound that felt like ice breaking.
"You have a pile of cold stone, Theon. And you took it because you knew the wolves were away."
The muscle in Theon's jaw ticked at her tone.
"It’s the trick of a coward, not the conquest of an Ironborn." she smirked at him, "If you think this proves you’re a man worthy of the Seastone Chair, you’re more delusional than I feared."
She turned on her heel, her gaze lingering on you for a moment of detached, icy pity, before she walked out. The silence she left behind was heavy with Theon’s shame. He did not scream, but the air in the room seemed to constrict.
He looked at Dagmer, who had been lingering in the shadows like a vulture.
"Get her to talk," Theon commanded, his voice devoid of any humanity. "I don't care how."
Dagmer approached you with a slow, deliberate gait. "You heard him, girl. Where are the boys?"
When you offered a sharp, mocking laugh, Dagmer did not hesitate. The back of his hand met your face, the metal of his glove tearing the skin of your cheek. You felt the warm trickle of blood, the sharp, stinging pain, but you kept your eyes fixed on him.
Dagmer stepped back, his heavy hand raised for another blow, waiting for a nod from the head of the table.
Instead, you slowly turned your head back, ignoring the iron-tasting blood welling in the corner of your mouth. You did not flinch away from Dagmer. You looked right past the scarred Reaver, fixing your eyes entirely on the man sitting in the high seat.
"Is this the great victory you brought back from the sea, Theon?" you asked, your voice steady, dripping with a quiet, lethal contempt that cut straight through the ringing in your ears. "Hiding behind an old dog while he does the hitting for you, just like your father used to?"
Theon stiffened, his fingers curling white around the arms of the stolen chair.
Kindness had failed, the sharp realization hit you like a physical blow as you watched the helpless panic flare behind his eyes.
You could not save him from himself; you could not reach the boy who used to throw snowballs in the yard. But if you couldn't use warmth to break the iron shell around him, you would use venom.
You would draw his fire, make him furious, keep him locked in this frantic spiral of pride and wounded ego. Every jagged word you threw at him was a second bought, a distraction spun out of malice and old memories, giving Robb the boys, just a little more time to bring the North back home.
"Is that what this is Theon? Does your sister chide you like that too, or does she make you stand in the corner until she remembers you're there?"
Your voice went dangerously low as you continued.
"Have you traded one prison for another, brother?"'
The slap that followed was meant to silence you, but it only fueled the fire in your chest. Dagmer struck you again, his fist catching you in the stomach, knocking the breath from your lungs.
"You think you’re being loyal? You are just dying for people who are already dead." he leaned in, his voice a low, gravelly promise of pain. "Tell me where they are, or I will ensure you never see the sun again."
He left you shivering, the pain radiating through your body in waves. When he returned to Theon, you heard the muted, desperate tone of his report.
"She hasn't cracked. She’s stubborn, like all of them."
Theon stared down at the polished wood of the table, his jaw working as a cold, paralyzing dread seized him.
Dagmer’s brutal efficiency had not worked which meant the ironborn way had failed.
But worse than that—sickeningly, suffocatingly worse—Theon knew exactly what would break you.
He knew the specific, quiet terrors that haunted your nights at Winterfell, the hidden vulnerabilities you had once trusted him with in the dark days before the war. He knew the precise, cruel lever to pull to make you scream, and the horrifying realization that he held that weapon in his hand made his stomach heave.
For a fraction of a second, he was frozen by the sheer cowardice of his own mind, terrified to speak the words aloud because uttering them meant admitting he had truly become the monster his father always said he was.
He swallowed hard, his throat dry and burning.
Just forming the syllables around his mouth felt more bitter than any ale he had ever drank, tasting of ash and old guilt, poisoning him from the inside out.
Theon looked at you, his eyes wide and panicked. "Then we change the method," he muttered, the words struggling to leave his throat.
Dagmer’s scarred lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk. He did not look disgusted by the hesitation; if anything, a dark, dangerous glint of approval lit up his one good eye as he looked down at the boy who was finally starting to learn how to rule like an Ironborn.
"Well, well," Dagmer rasped, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that hummed with grim amusement.
He crossed his arms over his broad chest, shifting his weight with the relaxed posture of an old hound watching a pup bare its teeth for the first time.
"Listen to the Prince. Spoken like a true reaver."
He cast a sideways glance at Theon, a flicker of wicked respect cutting through his weathered face. It was a cruel, bloody rite of passage, and for all his stuttering and cowardice, the boy had finally found the stomach to cross the line.
"The Maester," Dagmer suggested, his tone casual, as if he were discussing the weather. "He’s been trying to send ravens. He’s the one who’s been sheltering the truth. You break him, and the girl will lose her last hope."
Theon recoiled, his face ghostly pale. "Luwin is... he is old. He’s served this house for forty years. He’s no warrior."
"He is a man with a mind, and minds are easily bent," Dagmer countered, his voice smooth and persuasive. "If you want to save yourself, my Prince, you have to stop looking at them as people you once knew."
Theon sat back down in the Lord’s chair, his hands trembling. He looked at your face painted in purple and red, still glaring. Still fighting.
"They are targets. The Maester is the key."
He wanted to say no; you could see the ghost of the past struggling behind his eyes, reaching for a scrap of honor that had long since been buried. But the memory of Yara’s mockery, the crushing weight of his own insecurity, and the suffocating pressure of his lie drove him over the edge.
"Do it," Theon whispered, his voice cracking like dry timber.
Dagmer turned his heavy gaze back to you, the amusement in his eyes turning cold and predatory.
"Well girl," Dagmer said, stepping back toward the table with a renewed, sickening sense of purpose. "Let’s see how long that northern pride holds when we start bringing out things a little heavier than a closed fist."
Dagmer’s heavy boots echoed against the flagstones as he turned his back on you, shouting a sharp order toward the shadows near the entrance.
"Bring him out."
For a second, you were confused, expecting another reaver, a rack, or some heavy iron instrument dragged from the armory. But then you shook your head, a fervent, breathless no as you looked to Theon—searching his face, desperately hoping to find a shred of the boy who used to hide behind the pantry doors, praying he hadn't actually sunken this low.
Theon refused to meet your eyes. He stared rigidly at the grain of the table, his jaw clenched so hard the muscles jumped, his silence a total, damning confession.
The heavy oak doors groaned on their iron hinges. Footsteps dragged across the flagstones—slow, shuffling, and painfully familiar.
The familiar jingle of coppers and irons sang in your ears like some sick, wicked song.
You watched in horror as the ironmen forced the old man into the room.
Luwin’s chain rattled against his chest, a soft, pathetic sound. He looked at you, his eyes filled with a terrifying, calm sorrow, as if he had been expecting this moment for a long time.
You began to pray, your mind screaming for Robb, for Catelyn, for any force of nature that could tear through the walls and end this nightmare.
But as the ironmen approached the Maester with their tools of trade, the silence of the room was broken only by the crackle of the fire and the agonizing, slow intake of the Maester’s breath.
The nightmare was no longer a shadow; it was here, and it had a face.
"Drink." Theon said.
He held out a silver chalice, the wine sloshing over the brim and dripping onto his leather breeches.
He was sitting at the heavy oak table, his boots propped up among the scattered tallies of Winterfell’s grain stores. He did not look like a prince. He looked like a boy wearing his father’s armor, the heavy kraken plate sitting awkwardly on his narrow shoulders.
You did not move. You kept your chin tucked against your chest, your arms wrapped tight around your ribs. The right side of your face was stiff, the skin purple and swollen where his ironborn captain had struck you.
"I said drink, Y/N." Theon’s voice lost its easy, mocking lilt. It went sharp, thin, vibrating with that frantic, volatile temper that had governed every hour since he took the castle. He slammed the chalice down on the table, the silver ringing against the wood.
"Do not play the silent martyr with me. Not today. I have been more than patient with you. I gave you the high bed. I kept my men from the kitchens from using you in the yard. I treat you as a proper prisoner, and you look at me as if I were a common brigand."
"You are worse than a brigand," you said. Your voice was a dry, thin rasp, your throat parched from days of refusing his salt-meat. "A brigand takes the gold and runs. You sit in a dead man's seat and call yourself a ghost."
Theon was out of his chair before the words had fully left your lips.
The speed of him—that quick, loose-limbed grace he’d always had on the archery range—made your stomach violently twist. You flinched, your entire body jerking backward into the corner, your head hitting the heavy oak of the wardrobe with a dull thud. Your eyes went wide, staring at his boots as they stopped inches from your knees.
He did not hit you this time. Instead, he dropped to his haunches, his fingers seizing your chin with a bruising grip, forcing your face up. His thumb pressed directly into the split skin of your lower lip, breaking the thin scab that had formed over the tooth-mark. The sudden, sharp burn of pain made you gasp, the taste of iron filling your mouth once more.
"Look at me," he hissed, his breath hot and smelling of the rancid lard from the kitchens. "Look at the Prince of Winterfell. Your precious Robb is running like a dog in the west, burning villages because he’s too afraid to turn back and face me. He does not care about this house. He did not care about you."
"Why do you hold out for a man who looked at you and saw nothing but a nameless beggar?"
The words tore through you, colder than the wind from the wall. It was the same wound Robb had left, but Theon did not just touch it—he dug his dirty fingers into it, twisting until you could not breathe.
"He is twice the man you are," you choked out, your eyes burning with tears you refused to let fall. "Even when he is blind with rage, he is a Stark. You are nothing but a squatter in his mud."
Theon’s smile went crooked, an ugly, trembling thing. He leaned closer, his other hand coming up to grasp the hair at the back of your head, pulling until your scalp burned and your neck arched backward at an unnatural angle.
"We'll see what he is when I send him your ears," he whispered against your skin. "He left you to guard his seat, didn't he? A pathetic little sentinel for a house of ghosts. Well, this seat belongs to the Greyjoys now. Everything in it—the gold, the grain—it is mine to dispose of as I see fit."
You felt your body go rigid, your heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against your ribs.
Every instinct screamed at you to lunge, to bite, to do anything to break his hold, but the sheer agony of his grip pinned you in place. You watched his mouth move, the words dripping with a venom that made your stomach churn.
You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to shut out the sight of him, but the phantom image of his distorted, desperate face burned behind your eyelids.
"You are not a Greyjoy, Theon," you choked out, your voice a jagged, trembling rasp that betrayed your terror. "You are a parasite. You wear his clothes and sit in his chair, but you do not even have the spine to stand up in it."
Theon snarled as his eyes shined with anger.
"You are terrified of them, aren't you? Terrified that Robb will come back and see exactly what you’ve turned into."
Theon’s grip tightened, his knuckles turning white as he shoved your face further back, forcing you to look at the heavy oak door. You coughed as you clutched at your neck, desperately heaving in bouts of air.
"You have this quaint, misguided notion that your silence is heroic," Theon murmured, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial, almost tender register that made your skin crawl. "You think you are protecting them. But all you’re doing is setting the stage for a performance you won’t want to see."
You willed yourself to glare harder at him in between your coughs.
"Dagmer is not a man of patience. He does not care about the history of Winterfell or the honor of the Stark," Theon sneered, "He is a man of action, and action is what you’re going to get."
He moved to go to the door and ust when you thought he would leave, he merely knocked, and a scream echoed so loudly and so familiar in the halls that it stopped your coughs immediately.
The maester.
Theon knocked again and the sound repeated.
A shudder racked your frame, a deep, bone-deep trembling that you could not suppress. You stared at that door, your mind recoiling from the implication.
You felt a coldness wash over you, a numbness that began in your fingertips and spread inward, threatening to swallow your senses. You felt small—insignificant—as if you were shrinking away from the monster that used to be a boy you shared childhood summers with.
"Stop," you whispered, the plea tearing out of you, raw and broken.
"Th-Theon, please. He has nothing to do with this. He is just a teacher!" your throat hurt as you rasped out to him, "He is an old man!"
The scream died down into quiet whimpers and huffing breaths and you desperately tried to scramble away from the sounds as if it was in the room with you.
"There is no coming back from this, Theon. I beg of you." you were crying now, your chest heaving up and down as you tried to free yourself from your bonds. "You will never be able to look at yourself in the mirror again!"
Theon snarled then and grabbed your head by your hair. He leaned in so close his nose brushed against yours, his eyes darting frantically, searching for a sign of surrender you would never give him.
"The more you aren't willing to talk, the more Dagmer will make you listen," he threatened, his fingers tightening in your hair until fresh tears pricked your eyes and spilled, hot and fast, down your cheeks.
"I have given him free rein with the Maester."
You felt sick. The very room looked as if it was going to swallow you whole and spit out your bones for the crows to salvage.
"Have you ever heard a man of letters scream, Y/N? Have you ever heard the sound of someone who has spent his entire life studying the stars and the seasons and realize that none of that knowledge can save him from a blade?"
His words hit you like a physical blow.
You felt your chest constrict, your lungs struggling to draw in air. Your hands, still bound, twitched against the rope, your fingers clawing at the fabric of your dress in a desperate, futile attempt to ground yourself.
You felt a wave of nausea crest and break, and you turned your face away, but his grip remained absolute.
You were helpless, your loyalty to the Starks—the memories of Lord Stark's protection, Jon’s quiet encouragement, Robb’s laughter, the way Sansa used to brush your hair—all of it felt like a target painted on your back.
He dragged you up by your hair, forcing you onto your feet, his grip so tight you feared he might tear a lock of hair from your skull. He shoved you toward the center of the room, near the heavy wooden door where the muffled sounds of struggle had already begun.
"You want to be a martyr for the Starks?" he hissed, his voice trembling with a volatile mixture of rage and profound, pathetic insecurity. "Then you can listen to them die one by one."
"I will start with the Maester, then the few guards who haven't surrendered, and then..."
Theon had to stop himself from talking as a ringing went in his ears, as if his own body was telling him no. To stop all of this. To listen to your earlier words.
But he was already in too deep. The kraken had clawed its way up to the surface of his heart and clenched it until it turned to stone.
"Well, then I might just run out of people for you to mourn, and I will have to look for someone else to break."
You stumbled, your knees buckling, but he hauled you up again, his eyes wild.
You looked at him—really looked at him—and saw the abyss.
You realized with a crushing, absolute clarity that the boy who once laughed at your childish antics was truly dead.
There was only the kraken left, a creature of salt and bitterness. You opened your mouth to curse him, to scream, but all that came out was a broken, animal sound of despair.
"Go ahead then," you sobbed, finding a shred of defiance in your misery as you looked him square in the eye.
"Break me. Kill us all. But you will forever be lost." you snarled.
"You will die a coward in a place that never loved you, and no one will remember your name."
He shoved you toward the high bed, the heavy furs that once smelled of cedar and home now saturated with the wretched, suffocating stench of sea salt and dried sweat.
You did not fight him with screams. You fought him with the silent, desperate ferocity of an animal cornered in a snare.
You lay there, shivering, every nerve ending screaming in protest, while the heavy thud of boots retreated from the room.
Your fingernails raked against the tough leather of his jerkin, leaving white marks where you failed to draw blood, and when your teeth finally found the soft skin of his wrist, you clamped down with every ounce of remaining strength.
The copper taste of his blood filled your mouth, a fleeting, savage victory that vanished the second his fist connected with your jaw. The world tilted and dissolved into a gray, featureless void, leaving you to crumple into the furs.
The room was bathed in the sickly, flickering light of a dying hearth when you awoke.
Theon stood over you, his face twisted into a grin that felt like a surgical incision. There was no warmth in his expression, no recognition of the girl he had once raced through the stables. His eyes were flat, dead things—empty voids where the spark of the boy you knew had once lived. He was a stranger wearing a familiar face, a hollowed-out man you could no longer bring yourself to call brother.
"Well hello, clerk," he murmured, his voice smooth and oily. "I see you finally decided to rejoin the living."
You shifted your weight, the pain in your jaw radiating in jagged lines, but you forced a shaky, hollow laugh.
"You look just as wretched as the rest of your men, Theon," you rasped, your tongue thick with the taste of iron.
His smile vanished, replaced by a snarl that pulled his lips back from his teeth.
He surged forward, his hand raising in a blur of movement that made you instinctively flinch and squeeze your eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable sting of another blow.
But the strike never came.
Instead, something heavy and wet hit the furs beside your hip with a dull, sickening thud.
You looked down and your world stopped entirely, the air vanishing from the room as you zeroed in on the object.
It was Maester Luwin’s belt.
The polished brass that had once shone under the library lamps was now dulled, stained with dark, sticky trickles of blood that had soaked into the leather.
You stared at it, the horror too immense to process, your pulse hammering against your throat like a trapped bird.
Theon stood back, his own expression flickering with a momentary, unbidden shock as he watched you.
He seemed to have expected a scream, a snark, a deluge of tears—the kind of reaction that would have validated his cruelty. But you only stared, your eyes wide and frozen, reflecting the blood-slicked metal.
He blinked, the phantom of the boy he used to be flickering in his eyes as he looked at your shaking form, a flash of memory crossing his face—the way Luwin used to chuckle when he corrected their Latin, the way he had helped mend Theon’s tunic after a spar.
He shook his head violently, a twitching, involuntary motion, and clamped his jaw tight to suffocate the guilt.
"I did what I had to do," he spat, his voice regaining its jagged edge as he turned toward the door. "I am the Prince of Winterfell, and I will be obeyed."
He paused in the threshold, the shadows of the hallway swallowing his frame.
"Tell me where they are, Y/N. Tell me, and we can stop this nonsense. But if you hold out, that belt is only the beginning of what I will strip away from you."
He slammed the door, leaving you in the suffocating quiet.
Your hand trembled, hovering inches above the leather. You were terrified to touch it, afraid that the contact would bind you to the nightmare forever, yet a morbid, magnetic pull drew your fingers downward.
As you brushed the surface, the unnatural, biting cold of the brass and the congealing blood seeped into your skin—a chilling, final reminder of the man who had been the conscience of this house. It was a coldness that seemed to bleed directly into your marrow, a sensation your mind branded into your memory with searing precision.
The silence was broken not by defiance, but by the jagged, rhythmic hitch of your breath turning into quiet, broken sobs. You wept for everything.
You wept for the Maester and for your own arrogance; blaming yourself for every tally you had kept and every secret you had guarded that had ultimately led to this ruin.
You cursed your own heart for holding onto the ghosts of Robb and Jon, believing that memory was a form of protection, when it was only a tether to a life that had been burned away.
You realized, with a terrifying clarity, that the girl who had sat in the library counting grain tallies was dead. The clerk who had once basked in the quiet, approving amusement of Winterfell had been erased. In her place was something hollowed out, something forged in the furnace of this betrayal and tempered by the ice of the Maester’s blood.
Your cries had subsided but you did not move. You couldn't. You remained curled in the grease-stained furs, your gaze glued to the blood on the leather, your voice a fractured, whispered ghost of a sound.
"Robb,” came your whisper, your own voice sounding foreign to your ears.
“Please come back," you whimpered into the dark, clutching your chest. "Please."
You pressed your face into the cold, rough furs and squeezed your eyes shut until spots of light danced behind your lids.
Your breath came in ragged, uneven hitches, each one a testament to the void now widening inside your chest.
You did not pray to the Old Gods or the New.
You simply whispered the only name that had ever stood between you and the dark.
Outside the heavy oak door, the world seemed to stop.
Theon had not walked away as he had intended. He stood in the narrow, torch-lit corridor, his back pressed firmly against the stone wall. As the soft, broken sound of your plea drifted through the wood, the mask of the iron-willed prince fractured.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his throat working convulsively as he fought the sudden, violent surge of grief that threatened to tear him apart.
He was drowning in the wreckage of a home he had tried to conquer, trapped in the suffocating silence of a castle that no longer knew his name. Every sob he heard from within the room sounded like a gavel strike, sealing his fate, and as the tears continued to fall, the prince of nothingness sat in the dark, shivering in the grip of a realization that would never let him go. He had finally achieved everything he had been told he deserved, and in the process, he had ensured that he would never, ever be whole again.
His own heart, long hardened by the cold salt of the sea and the corrosive ambition of his father, felt as though it were quietly breaking behind the lacquered plate of his borrowed armor. He did not want to hear it—he did not want to know that he was the reason for the terror in your voice—but the truth was a persistent, gnawing rot.
A single tear, hot and unbidden, tracked a clean path through the grime and soot on his cheek, followed quickly by another. He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the hard, unforgiving floor, burying his face in his hands.
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: for four years you've stolen affection from ser gwayne hightower. kisses pressed to his cheek. fingers buried in his auburn hair. now you're finally betrothed, yet he remains as painfully chivalrous as ever, denying being pulled into an unwatched hallway or even a kiss despite his mischievous princess' every attempt to entice him.
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬: smut, p with p, mild angst, fluff, heavy romance, swearing, poor gwayne, reader is a menace, yearning, making out, cunnilingus, thigh riding, 18+ MDNI
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐚𝐧: reader is targaryen (rhaenyra’s younger sister)—no physical features are explicitly described other than targaryen features (purple eyes and silver hair since i couldn’t resist)
title from freddie fox's droolworthy reading of Keats' La Belle Dame Sans Merci~ link
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐰𝐜: 8.9k (oneshot)
Gwayne Hightower would not touch you.
It was beginning to feel like a punishment.
He was ever the attentive fiancée. He offered his arm when you walked. He held your waist to help you dismount Dreamfyre, but let go as soon as your riding boots brushed the floor. During feasts, he led you by the small of your back when the crowd pressed too closely, but he never allowed it to settle there. These many years you had been beside him, and he had never even stolen a kiss.
He spent four years before your match as your personal knight. And you had hardly been restrained with your affection for him then.
You pressed kisses to his cheek whenever he did something that pleased you. You threaded your fingers through his auburn hair when he knelt before you to fasten the ties of your riding boots. You touched him at any opportunity. And now that he was your betrothed, your behavior grew tenfold.
You wore your lowest cut gowns, enough to earn disapproving stares from the maids, and leaned over tables when he stood across from you, asking what he thought of your rubies, baring your throat with the peak of your breasts.
A few goblets into any feast, you became a terror. You would catch Gwayne’s hand beneath the table and attempt to pull him toward abandoned halls, empty balconies, shadowed alcoves— anywhere private enough so that he might finally claim what was his.
He always followed where you led him. His fingers would close around yours. He would let you pull him from the hall, his long strides carrying him behind you without protest until the music dulled and the torchlight thinned. He followed until he realized what you planned. Then it was like trying to pull a stubborn mule by the rein.
"Princess…”
"Ser Gwayne." You would wrap your arms around his neck.
He would carefully peel them away. You would press yourself against him and feel, unmistakably, the hard outline of his cock against your stomach. Proof enough that he was not unaffected by you.
Sometimes his eyes closed as though he were praying through some private agony. His breath would leave him slowly through his nose. His large hands would settle upon your hips, warm and tight enough to make you ache beneath the silk.
But Gwayne always stepped away. He always peeled your hands from his clothes and returned you to the safety of the feast like some wayward child who had wandered too close to the fire.
Gwayne was too good a man. Too honorable. A knight who still believed in chivalry when half the realm treated it as a pretty lie told to maidens before men stuck themselves inside. He guarded your virtue more fiercely than you, refusing to take advantage of your wine-softened judgment no matter how you tempted and tormented him. Gwayne never allowed himself to ruin you.
It was the hottest day of the summer when you realized why.
You went to the training yard whenever the weather was warm. When the knights in their exertion would shed their shirts to continue their training. It was improper. This was explained to you endlessly by your ladies, your father, even your sister, but no one succeeded in stopping you. You sat there for hours, watching as sweat ran down his throat and gathered along the hard planes of his chest. His auburn hair darkened at the temples. Broad through the shoulders, lean at the waist, his pale skin flushed from the sun.
You sat beneath a covered gallery with a cup of watered wine and made no effort to conceal your staring at only him.
Gwayne made every effort not to acknowledge it.
But the other knights did not conceal their interest in you. A young knight from the Reach bowed every time he passed the gallery. Another removed his shirt despite having done nothing strenuous enough to justify it. When one of them asked whether you might favor him with your ribbon for his next bout, Gwayne lowered his practice sword and looked at him.
“Ser Roland.”
“My lord?”
“If you possess enough breath to beg favours from the princess, you possess enough to continue.” Gwayne struck him hard enough to send the knight sprawling into the dust. When his opponent rose, Gwayne disarmed him so violently that both wooden swords cracked.
He never looked toward you, but the muscle jumping in his jaw was satisfaction enough. His jealousy was one of the few scraps you had. They were pitiful little things, but they proved Gwayne’s restraint was not disinterest.
When the training ended, you descended into the yard while the men washed and dressed. Gwayne’s shirt lay where he had left it. You only meant to collect it for him. That was all. A sweet, wifely gesture before you were properly his wife.
A ring slipped from the breast pocket when you lifted the linen.
It fell into the dust without a sound. It was gold, old enough that its surface had softened with years of wear. Small, delicate, made for a woman’s hand. A pale green stone rested in its setting, not bright like an emerald but gentle, almost clouded, with tiny filigree vines around the band. It looked like a humble version of your own betrothal ring on your finger set with purple sapphire.
Oh.
For months, perhaps longer, you had noticed him touching something inside that pocket. His fingers would disappear briefly beneath the edge of his doublet, finding something hidden there. You had caught him alone once, holding a small golden object in his palm and staring down at it with such a contemplative expression that you had quietly retreated before he noticed you.
You had wondered what it was. And now you knew. A woman’s wedding ring.
You looked toward Gwayne. He stood beside the well, speaking to another knight as water ran over his bare chest. He did not notice you.
Perhaps she was blonde. Oldtown seemed filled with golden women in your imagination, graceful and pious, with eyes as crystal blue as their waters. Likely she was the daughter of some landed knight, far too low for the son of Otto Hightower. She had to be beautiful.
Like your sister, Rhaenyra, you had been permitted your pick of the eligible men presented to you.
Ancient lords offered themselves beside sons younger than some of their horses. Heirs came from every corner of the realm, gathering at Driftmark until the corridors filled with unfamiliar banners and the stables groaned beneath the weight of their entourages. They waited in a line that curved through the great hall, each man eager for his chance to stand before you and explain why his blood was worth joining to yours.
You had sat on the throne of pale driftwood, made comfortable with plush white furs. Your skin polished with oils and perfume and your hair woven with pearls.
Your father’s advisor sat lower at your side, jabbering endlessly on about advantages in your ear.
The men themselves offered ships, armies, ancient blood, loyalty, gold, grain, any and every resource the crown had want for, they offered at your feet. Young and old praised your beauty, your intelligence, your lineage. You were the fairest daughter of the king. Truly befitting the title Jewel of the Realm. A true dragon amongst women. You rested your cheek on your fist.
One lord promised to give you six healthy sons despite appearing near death himself. Another recited the victories of every knight in his family since the Conquest. A young heir stumbled through a poem about your amethyst eyes, despite never having actually looked at your face since his attention was too caught at your breasts.
Then Gwayne stepped forward and bowed.
Your Gwayne. He was painfully handsome in the green finery of his House and silver jewelry; his auburn hair brushed back from his face.
“My princess, House Hightower has—"
“I accept.”
It was the first time you had spoken since the procession began. Silence spread across the hall.
Gwayne remained bent for a moment. When he lifted his head, his expression was almost comical. His eyes were wider than you had ever seen them, lips slightly parted.
“Princess,” the advisor beside you began cautiously, “perhaps you should consider—”
“Pray, consider what?” you turned on the man sharply. “House Hightower is among the oldest and wealthiest houses in the realm and Ser Gwayne’s father has served faithfully as Hand of the King for years.”
Otto Hightower was the worst of any power-hungry, conniving snake you’d ever witnessed, and his elder brother had only one son, Ormund. A cruel, volatile young man according to what Alicent heard from Gwayne. It was a matter of time before he befell accident and Gwayne would inherit Oldtown in his stead.
You had not spent years dreaming of Gwayne without considering what marriage to him would mean. You were besotted, not a fool.
“Every merchant vessel entering the Honeywine pays for the privilege. Every hold filled with silk, spice, wine, steel, or grain enriches House Hightower before its cargo ever reaches the market. Their wealth may not lie buried beneath a mountain like House Lannister’s, but trade does not run dry.”
You looked back to Gwayne, softening your voice. “I have always longed to see Oldtown. The most beautiful city in Westeros perfumed by endless flowers, I am told, and near enough I would be only two days by dragonback from my most precious sister. I think it a fine match.”
Gwayne looked at you.
You had begged him often enough for stories of Oldtown. Of the Hightower burning against the evening sky. The bells of the Starry Sept. Of the great markets along the Honeywine, crowded with merchants and sailors from half the known world. Of the city in spring and summer, when flowers climbed every wall and spilled from every garden until the streets seemed to burst with them. He always answered you patiently.
Otto coughed into his hand to poorly conceal his delight. He had already been presented and rejected before his son. He stood among the assembled lords looking every bit like a fat cat drowning in cream.
At the time you had thought Gwayne’s reaction adorable.
Now you felt like you were going to vomit—
He would not kiss you because he did not want to.
Gwayne had ceased being your personal protector once the betrothal was announced. A future husband could not stand alone outside your chambers at all hours without inviting questions about your virtue. And you— vain, witless creature that you were— found it romantic. You imagined him restless in his new rooms, him lying awake with the same ache that kept you from sleep.
All the while, he had been touching another woman’s ring through the fabric over his heart.
Suddenly every kindness he’d shown you spoiled beneath the memory of it.
He had been romantic, in his careful way. He remembered which flowers you liked and had them brought to your chambers when the gardens were bare. He stood beneath your balcony in the rain because you had fallen asleep under the covered daybed before dismissing him. He warmed your gloves before winter rides and carried sugared plums in his pocket because he knew you became more foul-tempered when hungry. After you rolled your ankle, he had carried you through half the Red Keep.
That was Gwayne’s particular cruelty. He was too good a man to be careless with you. Too honorable to let his reluctance become unkindness.
He had proposed because his father commanded it.
He was your knight only because he was commanded.
You had seen him joust the day your mother died. Alicent had spoken of her brother, how he was good. He was kind.
You had been lonely, half-wild with grief— you had seen your beautiful mother bleeding out in her bed. His blood in the mud. The unfairness. The helplessness of everything. You fixated upon him like a dragon with prey. You wanted him. You wanted him more than you'd ever wanted anything.
Viserys had always had a fatal weakness for his daughters. Jewels, hawks, gowns, ponies, sweetmeats, if either of you desired something, he rarely found the strength to refuse.
He was only seven-and-ten, already a knight. The scar beneath his left eye a neat line of black thread against pink swollen skin. He spoke his oaths to you. That day onward, his life belonged to you.
Perhaps someone had given the ring to him before he left. Perhaps he had intended to give it back with another promise.
Your stomach lurches painfully and you need to physically hold back the vomit, closing your mouth and constricting your throat.
His back was to you. You dropped his shirt back beneath the tree as though the linen had burned your hands. With no greeting nor blown kisses you turned on your heel.
You returned to your chambers, hand clenched around the ring until your nails drew blood. When you finally opened it, the delicate gold was stained red along one edge.
By twilight, you found Gwayne beneath the Heart Tree.
The sky above the walls had deepened to violet, the last of the sun caught in the highest windows of the Red Keep. Gwayne sat with his back against the pale trunk, his linen shirt only half-buttoned and his auburn hair disordered from the repeated drag of his hands through it. His doublet lay overturned across one knee. The contents of his pockets had been emptied onto the grass beside him
The sight of him scraped away much of the satisfaction you had carried with you.
The goldsmith had worked quickly when summoned by a princess. You had rejected three designs for chains before choosing one fine enough to disappear beneath Gwayne’s clothes, but strong enough that the ring would not be lost again. It was plain gold, without gems or needless ornament. Anything grander had seemed an insult to the modest woman you imagined once worn it.
Now, seeing the strain around his mouth and the bleakness in his eyes, you wished you had not taken it at all. “Gwayne.”
His head lifted sharply.
Relief came too quickly before he mastered it. He rose at once, brushing grass from his clothes, though his attention never left your face.
“My princess.”
You smiled despite the ache beneath your ribs. You had done something kind for him. That was what mattered. You brought the velvet pouch from behind your back and offered it to him. “I have something for you.”
He accepted it carefully, brows furrowed together.
The fine chain spilled over his palm, followed by the ring he had clearly spent the last several hours searching for like a madman. Relief broke naked across his face. His shoulders lowered. His mouth parted on a breath.
“Forgive me.” Your voice came quieter now. “I should not have taken it.”
His eyes rose to yours.
“It fell from your shirt in the yard, and I feared you would lose it. You carry it loose in your pocket as though it were a copper.” You touched one finger to the chain in his hand. “Something so precious deserved better.”
“You had this made?”
You nodded. You would not be cruel enough to let him lose his last piece of her merely because you were a stupid, spoiled little bitch who imagined herself loved.
He looked at the chain again, thumb passing over the links with painful care.
Gwayne had always been good to you. Your blood was not made for gentleness, but he made you wish to be good back.
He was romantic in a hundred small ways. He gave you everything a good man might reasonably give a lady but withheld any single thing that would have allowed you to believe he wanted you as a man.
He slipped the chain over his head and tucked the ring beneath his shirt. It disappeared against his chest, settling exactly where you had intended— directly over his heart.
You looked at his face and wondered what kind of woman could place such grief there.
“She must have been very dear to you.”
Something changed in his expression. Love, certainly. Loss. A tenderness so old and deep that it appeared to have settled permanently into him.
“She was.” he said quietly. “More than I could ever explain.” His hand closed around the ring, “I miss her constantly.”
Something inside you broke like a final cut of a frayed thread. You clasped your hands together so he would not seem them shaking. You smiled once more, though it felt like stretching skin over a corpse. “It is late, I should return inside.”
He stepped toward you. “Allow me to escort you.”
“There is no need.”
“It is dark,” he reached for your hand.
You stepped away before he could touch it. The movement was small, no more than half a pace.
Still, his fingers stopped in the empty air between you. You pretended not to notice, giving a shallow curtsy, “good evening, Ser Gwayne.”
You had never addressed him so coldly in private before and his brown knit.
“My princess—”
You only turned on your heel.
You spent the two weeks before your wedding being haunted by a woman who did not possess a face.
You saw her in every maid with golden hair. Every noblewoman who giggled at something dry Gwayne had said. Every daughter of the Reach who lowered her lashes and found some reason to linger near him.
Sometimes she was blonde and gentle, pale as milk, with a soft voice made for prayer.
Sometimes she was dark-haired and bold. The sort of woman who might have met Gwayne in stables or beneath the shadow of the Hightower, pressing herself against him while he promised her a life he would never be permitted to give. You imagined he liked boldness if it was her.
Sometimes she had a full, romantic body that would have filled his hands beautifully. Sometimes she was slim-boned and graceful, made to stand beside him without making him look like a man burdened.
You imagined him kissing her without having to be begged. Following her into dark halls without stopping halfway to remember his honor. You imagined his hands closing around her waist because she was gentle and he wanted them there, rather than because she had been dismounting a dragon and needed help down.
You imagined him fucking her. The thought arrived most at night, vicious and detailed. Gwayne beneath another woman. Gwayne above her. His auburn hair disheveled through her fingers, his mouth open against her breast, his cock disappearing inside her body.
You became despondent.
The curtains remained drawn in your chambers. You did not rise until later and later in the day. Your meals sat untouched and stone cold or sent back to the kitchens.
Weeks’ worth of unopened gifts all from House Hightower sat piled high and collecting dust. The sent bouquets made your chambers smell of sweet moonblooms and died where they were placed because you would not allow your ladies to put them in water.
Far, far more had already been sent ahead to your soon-husband’s home in preparation for your arrival. You dreaded the thought of seeing any of it. You dreaded ever seeing Oldtown.
Your favorite gowns disappeared into the furthest reaches of your wardrobe. The low necklines Gwayne had once looked away from were replaced by collars worked high beneath your chin. You wore heavy embroidered silk despite the heat and sleeves buttoned at the wrist.
The first afternoon you appeared dressed like a particularly wealthy septa, Rhaenyra had choked on her watered-wine and kept staring like you'd grown a second head.
When you saw Gwayne later in the day, he eyed your gown as well. You gave him the same distant courtesy you might have offered any knight at court. “Good day, Ser Gwayne.”
You did not kiss his cheek. You did not touch his hair. When he offered his arm, you accepted because refusing would cause gossip. Your hand rested lightly upon his sleeve. Nothing more.
You addressed him only when courtesy required it.
Thank you, Ser Gwayne.
That will be all, Ser Gwayne.
You need not trouble yourself, Ser Gwayne.
Within two weeks, Rhaenyra had exhausted both her patience and her sympathy.
“You are ill,” she said, bursting into your chambers, despite it being the midday before your wedding, to find you still in bed. Your wedding gown hung ready for you against your painted screen. You spent the night and morning staring glumly at it.
Your sister planted both hands upon her hips.
“You do not attend the training yard. You have not spoken of your wedding, not with me or the planners. You have not tormented poor Ser Gwayne.” Her eyes narrowed. “And worst of all, you have not even been to see Dreamfyre in three days.”
You groaned, just wishing for her to go away. “I am not ill.”
"I swear to the gods, if you're pregnant out of wedlock—"
You dragged a pillow over your head. “I'm not pregnant, you bloody fool.”
There was a pause and you could feel her gaze burning a hole into your back. “Are you certain.”
“I would first need to actually bed him for that to be possible.”
Rhaenyra crossed the room in several quick strides and ripped the pillow from your face, staring down at you as if it was life and death. “You have not bedded him?”
You glare up at her, face scrunched.
“Your wedding is tomorrow. You have been betrothed for months. By the gods, what have you been doing all this time?”
You rolled away from her.
“Send for him. Have him take you. When the child arrives before the proper number of moons, we can claim it came early.”
You threw a pillow at her. “Are you deranged! I am still a maiden!”
She wore satisfaction like silk having managed to finally rile you for the first time in weeks. She sat heavily at the edge of your bed and laid atop you, her low back across yours. “Tell me.”
You did not want to. But there were no secrets allowed between you. And your sister was a relentless animal. She would remain atop you all day if necessary. She’d lie here till the end of time if it meant you would feel better.
“There is another woman.”
As you told your story, your sister’s expression did not change. You didn’t expect her to understand. She has little interest in your brother-in-law, Laenor, which was hardly surprising considering he possessed even less interest in her entire sex.
“Ah. Well.” She nodded, resolved. “He has always made you too soft anyways. And now the solution is obvious,” her mouth curved faintly. “He will be your husband before the court. In private, you must do as I do. Occupy yourself elsewhere just as he will.”
Your stomach soured horribly again at the thought of another woman in his bed while you were married. But your thoughts moved toward her newest personal knight.
Ser Harwin “Breakbones” had become a frequent presence near your sister. Broad as a fortress wall, smiling too easily whenever she spoke. Due to your sister's scandalous stories, you were far more familiar with the way the man used his cock more than his actual personality.
“Such as your new occupation with Ser Harwin.”
Her smile widened. “Ser Harwin is certainly devoted to his duties.”
“I am certain he performs them tirelessly.”
“He has remarkable stamina.”
You laughed and you saw her face light in the way it always did when she managed to make you laugh. Then you saw the idea form in her head. A devious little spark.
Before you could object, she caught your face between both hands and smashed a kiss against your cheek. It was wet, loud and irritating.
You shoved at her shoulder, wiping her spit off. “Ugh! Get off me.”
“No more of this.” She declared.
“You are not queen yet. You cannot simply command my misery finished.”
She seized you again and smooshed another disgusting kiss upon your other cheek. “Tonight, we are going out.”
Your sister returned after dark. She slipped through the hidden door behind the tapestry without knocking, wearing a rough brown tunic, loose breeches and boots that had been stolen from a stable boy. Her silver hair had been braided tightly and shoved beneath a dark wool cap, though several pale strands had already escaped around her temples.
She carried another bundle beneath one arm.
“Get dressed.”
It was far from the first time the two of you had escaped into the city. Within the hour, your hair had been crushed beneath a cap, your body hidden beneath coarse wool and Rhaenyra was pulling you through the city by the hand. It smelled like piss and roast meat and floral perfume poured over unwashed skin.
You drank first in a tavern where every table was sticky and the ale tasted as though it had been strained through an old boot. Then a brothel where sailors sang were loud and one of them narrowly missed vomiting into your lap.
You would learn later what happened inside the Red Keep.
A maid entered your chambers shortly before midnight and found the bed empty.
She panicked, searching everywhere you may have hidden in your chambers or the kitchens. All your ladies spent years watching you and Gwayne. if you were upset, they fetched him. When you caused mischief, he untangled it. When you disappeared, he always knew where to look. So, frantic, she burst directly into his chamber finding him halfway through removing his doublet.
"My lord," she gasped. "The princess... I—I cannot find her."
For one moment, he simply looked at her.
His mind rejected the words. You had retired hours ago. He had watched you leave the hall, dressed in dark blue, your throat covered to the chin. You had scarcely looked at him all evening.
“What do you mean, you cannot find her?”
The girl began to stammer. “Her bed is empty, my lord. Her ladies thought she was asleep. No one saw her leave, and the window is still locked, and I checked the solar, but she is not—”
“Who entered her rooms tonight?”
“No one, my lord. I swear it.”
“Who was stationed outside?”
“Ser Martyn and Ser Olyvar.”
“And they saw nothing?”
“No.”
“Then either they are liars or imbeciles.”
The maid’s eyes filled with tears at his harsh tone. Gwayne scarcely noticed. Fear had already taken hold of him, cold fingers sinking through flesh and curling around bone. You had been different for weeks. Quiet. So unlike yourself that he had begun to worry you had fallen ill, though every maester he sent to you insisted otherwise. You acted now with perfect courtesy to him. You looked at him as though he were a fucking stranger and it was driving him to madness.
Now your bed was empty.
“Say nothing of this,” he ordered.
The maid blinked. “My lord?”
"You will not wake the castle. You will not summon the guard. You will not speak a word of this unless I command it."
"But the princess—"
"Would be ruined before dawn if the Red Keep learned she vanished from her chambers the night before her wedding."
The words tasted foul. Vanished. The night before her wedding.
He had seen reluctant brides before. Girls wrapped in silk and pearls with red-rimmed eyes. He had pitied them. He never imagined you among them. Not after you had chosen him.
But you had retreated from him. And Gwayne couldn’t understand for the life of him why. He tried everything. He sent flowers, your favorite white moonblooms, roses, violets, and sweet peas till your chambers began to resemble a garden. Every morning your maids carried armfuls of dead flowers out. So jewels followed. Silver necklaces set with sapphire, emerald earrings, rubies meant to lie against the hollow of your throat. You wore none of them. He suffered through two hours with a court poet selecting syrupy verses he knew would make you tease him.
You only thanked him for the politeness shown by House Hightower.
You scarcely left your chambers anymore, and whenever he sought a private word, your ladies intercepted him with smiling excuses. The only place he ever truly saw you was at dinner and he couldn’t bloody well ask why you were no longer trying to entice his clothes off in front of the king.
His last resort, he wore your silk favor around his wrist every morning in the yard. It was almost embarrassing.
A favour was meant for battle or a joust, not an ordinary afternoon in training. The other knights had noticed. One had smiled knowingly before Gwayne put him flat on his back in the dust. Dutifully, he tied your purple and green woven silk to his wrist every morning.
You always possessed some uncanny gift for appearing whenever he removed his shirt. Without fail he would look up from the yard to find you leering over the gallery, licking your lips like a cat— he, your cornered songbird.
But you never came. His heart fell everytime he glanced to the empty gallery and he was mottled with bruises because he kept glancing, failing to notice the blows coming to him.
He knew first where to search.
Dreamfyre’s enormous body rose and fell beneath the darkness of the Dragonpit, blue scales catching what little firelight reached her. When Gwayne approached, one golden eye opened and fixed upon him with displeasure.
He stopped well beyond reach of her jaws. He had known your dragon for four years. That did not make him foolish enough to mistake familiarity for safety.
Dreamfyre released a low rumble that vibrated through his ribs.
“I know,” he said, jumping back, “I very much dislike my being here as well.”
You had not fled the city. You would never have left without your dragon. You loved the beast with a devotion that was purely absurd considering she possessed teeth longer than his forearm and could swallow the both of you without chewing.
Relief came first. Then frustration. He had not spent four years enduring your mischief without learning that when you caused trouble, Rhaenyra was rarely far.
Gwayne closed his eyes “Seven fucking hells.”
The poppy den was warm enough to make your skin damp. Carpets covered every inch of the floor, stained with wine and ash. Smoke curled beneath the ceiling, sweet and burnt, thick enough to soften every face in the room. Men and women reclined against embroidered cushions with glassy eyes while servants moved between them carrying wine and pipes.
Neither of you smoked. You only liked the smell. You had drunk just enough to feel pleasantly warm without guaranteeing tomorrow's misery.
Rhaenyra sprawled beside you with one arm thrown over her eyes and one boot missing. You had no notion where it had gone.
A servant bent to refill your cup. His tunic hung open almost to his navel, displaying a great deal of smooth golden skin. Rhaenyra lifted her arm just enough to watch him leave. “Laenor would like him.”
“Laenor likes anything with a cock and a smile.”
“He is not so particular about the smile.”
Your laughter choked on your wine and burned as it came out of your nose.
Rhaenyra laughed so hard that she rolled onto her side, clutching her stomach.
You did not hear the door open. Gwayne stood at the entrance to the den, chest rising hard beneath his cloak. For the better part of an hour, he had searched every establishment Rhaenyra’s personal guard, Ser Cole, told him of. Dread sitting like lead in his stomach. He had imagined finding you in some alley with your throat cut open. Some filthy bastard laying hands where no man had leave to touch. He had imagined blood staining your silver hair.
He had not imagined you were lying facedown upon a stained carpet, cheeks flushed, drunk off your pretty little arse and laughing with your equally asinine sister
Then you turned your head and your laughter died.
Rhaenyra followed your stare. For several moments, no one moved.
He expected you to rise and come to him with an apology. You’d wear that sweet, sheepish little smile you used whenever your behaviour crossed the thin line between troublesome and outright criminal. You would hug his upper arm, press it to your breast and look up at him with fluttering lashes, telling him it had only been a bit of fun, Gwayne. And, as usual, he'd melt for you.
Instead, you and Rhaenyra looked at one another.
Something silent passed between you. You bolted in opposite directions.
Rhaenyra threw herself through the back entrance, her single boot abandoned somewhere behind her. Her laughter vanishing behind a hanging curtain.
You made it a few steps before Gwayne caught you around the middle.
A startled cry escaped you his arm locked across your stomach, crushing your back against his chest while you kicked uselessly.
“What,” he said against your ear, each word clipped with terrifying precision, “in the seven hells possessed you?”
“Unhand me this instant!” You struggled harder, trying to pry his arm from your waist.
Gwayne only tightened his grip. He had been imagining your throat opened because some Flea Bottom cunt had recognized the silver of your hair.
You drove your heel backward, narrowly missing his knee.
His patience ended.
He bent, caught you behind the knees and you shrieked as he threw you over his shoulder.
Blood rushed to your head. His shoulder dug beneath your ribs with every step as he walked out. You slapped both hands against his back and tried to force yourself upright, but the position gave you no leverage and you hung limp. Your cap slipped free and fell somewhere in the street white hair spilling nearly brushing his boots.
“Gwayne—!”
His hand struck the fat of your arse. It was not hard enough to truly hurt, but it stung even through your breeches, sharp enough to leave you frozen for one astonished breath.
Then outrage flooded you. “You fucking beast!”
Gwayne’s hand remained splayed across the backs of your thighs, keeping your flailing hips pinned against his shoulder.
“Compose yourself,” he said, voice dangerously calm, “If you kick me again, I shall take it as confirmation that the first correction was insufficient.”
“You would not dare.”
“Tonight has already proven that you greatly overestimate my patience.”
You kicked him again.
Gwayne halted. For one silent moment, his hand remained motionless against your thighs. Then he sighed through his nose. “As you wish.”
His palm cracked against your backside a second time. It landed harder than the first, not cruelly, but firmly enough that the sting bloomed hot beneath your breeches.
You gasped. “You—”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“You sanctimonious cunt!”
You fought him the entire way back to the keep. You pounded your fists on his back and cursed his name, his House, and every Hightower ancestor unfortunate enough to have produced him. You threatened to have him dismissed, exiled, fed like a goat to dragons. When that failed, you informed him with crocodile tears that your ribs were breaking and he needed to put you down. He only huffed and shifted your hips higher upon his shoulder to take the pressure off, and you released a scream of pure frustration.
By the time he reached the hidden passage, his breathing had grown harsh, and sweat dampened the hair at his temples. Still, his hold never loosened. He endured your tantrum until you reached the concealed door behind the tapestry in your chambers. Gwayne shoved the panel open, strode inside, and threw you onto the bed.
You bounced on the mattress with a startled cry. He slammed the hidden door closed and turned upon you. You had never seen him so angry, never at you.
"What," he hissed, "possessed you?"
"It was only one evening."
"One evening in a brothel."
"A poppy den.” You crossed your arms, climbing to your knees on the bed. "Rhaenyra was only trying to give me a night of freedom."
"I do not care if she took you to the Starry Sept.” He looked at you with incredulous anger.
"The night before your wedding you went wandering Flea Bottom," he repeated, running his hand through his hair but saying the words slowly as if to make them sensible. "You could have been recognized. You could have been taken.” He scoffed. “Do you understand what men do to women they find unguarded in places like that? Do you understand what they would have done to you?”
“I do not belong to you yet, lord husband,” You snarled, “You forget to whom you speak, Ser.”
His face hardened. "I have forgotten nothing."
"Then remember our vows are not spoken till tomorrow. Until then, where I go and what I do are of no concern of yours."
“No concern—” His laugh was short and disbelieving. “I have spent the last hour searching Flea Bottom because you vanished from your bed, and you dare tell me you are no concern of mine?”
“You need not trouble yourself. By this time tomorrow, you will have all that was promised to you.”
Something in his expression shifted, though his anger remained. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“My hand. My name. Dragon’s blood for House Hightower.” Your face was inches from his, voice growing colder. “I shall stand beside you before the court. I shall leave for Oldtown when you commanded. I shall spread my legs and give whatever heirs your father expects of me."
Gwayne went utterly still.
You should have stopped. Instead, wounded pride drove the blade deeper. “Is that not enough?”
“Enough?” he repeated.
“You have never wanted anything more from me.”
He looked as if you had slapped him. “You believe that?” he asked.
“I assure you, I will perform my duty as well as you preform yours.”
Neither of you spoke. You only stared at one another, breathing hard. Then something in him seemed to crack, not into anger, but into exhaustion.
“You have not looked at me in two weeks.” His voice had gone quiet in a way that was worse than shouting. “If you cannot bear this match—if you cannot bear me—” He looked at you. “Tell me. Tell me plainly and I will find a way to undo it. I will fall on my sword before I see you miserable.”
Your throat tightened. Whatever anger had been there had quickly vanished. It hurt to look at the despair on his face.
"What would you have of me to ease this wretchedness I have must have done to you?”
You wanted. God you wanted. Just once before everything changed between you. Just once before he ceased to be your Gwayne when he returned to her.
You leaned up and pressed your lips against his. He was as still as a statue. You moved your mouth against his clumsily, pursing your lips together and then rubbing your lips against his. Gwayne still didn’t move. Your heart pounded painfully in your chest and your face flushed with embarrassment. Tears came to your eyes at his lack of reaction. When you pulled away you tried to hide your face from him. “I am so sorry.”
You still held him, your fingers buried in his hair, tears spilling freely down your cheeks. “I tried,” you say. “I swear I tried to be better.”
"I do not understand." You sobbed and tried to release him, but his hand caught your wrists keeping your palms pressed against his face though it was scrunched in confusion. "Sweetling, by the gods, what do you mean?”
“I tried to stop humiliating you. To stop touching you when you did not want me to. I know I have been selfish. I know what your father made you give up for this marriage.”
His brow drew sharply together. “What did my father make me give up?”
“The woman in Oldtown.”
Silence.
“The what?”
“The ring,” you forced out. “The woman whose ring you carry. You said she was dearer to you than you could explain. You said you missed her constantly.”
For one long moment, Gwayne only stared. The misery of the past weeks lay suddenly naked before him. You thought—
Seven fucking hells.
You thought he belonged to another woman.
Gwayne’s fingers tightened around your wrist.
“I cannot—" your words dissolved around your broken breath. “I am not selfless. I cannot while you bed her. Gods watch her have your children. Please, Gwayne— please— I know you do not love me but please I cannot bear that—”
His mouth cut off your choked rambling.
The force of it bent you backward. His hands cupped your face, almost reverent in their gentleness, a startling contrast to the cruel hunger of his mouth. You made a suprised sound and he swallowed it.
For years he had imagined this.
Every night he stood outside your chambers, he imagined opening the door. He imagined finding you beneath the thin summer sheets, your nightgown rucked around your thighs, and finally taking what you had spent years offering him. Honour be damned, to hold you, press his lips to yours and finally bury himself in your slick, soft heat. Every indecent gown you wore he imagined throwing up your skirts and bending you over the nearest table until you forgot to laugh at him.
But you were his sweet princess. His beautiful love, innocent despite being a demon sent specifically to torment him. Despite what you believed, you did not truly understand the ugliness of men. He had spent years protecting you from his own indecency. He could not endure the thought of you looking upon him with fear or disgust if he acted.
But you were sobbing into his mouth because he had been so restrained that you actually believed he loved another, and Gwayne simply couldn't fucking bear it.
He had loved you since he was a squire visiting, unnoticed at the edge of your father’s yard. You had run right past him, silver hair amess, using your ruffled dress as a pouch for your stolen lemon cakes, your sister hot on your heel, not even noticing he existed. He still remembered the sound of your laughter.
Now you dared apologise for keeping him?
You cried harder.
Gwayne shushed you against your mouth, the sound low and ragged as he tried to soothe you but he did not stop. Each sob was cut short by another kiss. His tongue pushed between your lips with none of his usual courtesy, invading you so thoroughly that your fingers tightened painfully in his hair.
You whimpered.
The sound nearly ruined him. He dragged you closer until your thighs struck his, one hand sliding behind your neck to keep you where he wanted you. His tongue moved against yours with vulgar hunger, licking into your mouth. You only opened for him, trembling while he took and took.
When you finally choked on a breath, Gwayne tore his mouth away. Only an inch. Barely enough to let you gasp.
“The woman,” he whispered, kissing the corner of your lips. “Your supposed rival—” Another kiss. “My mother.”
You froze but Gwayne kissed again before you could reply.
“The ring belonged to my mother.”
His mouth moved over yours between each broken word, as though he could not force himself to leave you long enough to explain.
“She died when I was eight,” a kiss to your upper lip. “I loved her.”
You could not stop sobbing, whether from the wine or the relief or violent exhilaration of having his hands finally upon you.
Gwayne muttered an apology against your mouth, though nothing in the way he kissed you was sorry.
You coughed when his tongue pushed too deep. He drew back just enough for you to breathe, lips still brushing yours in small, feverish kisses, unwilling to surrender even that scrap of contact.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
Kiss.
“Sweetling, breathe.”
Kiss.
You sniffled and turned your face away, overwhelmed by the rough scrape of his mouth tasing of salt from the humiliating tears covering you both.
Gwayne caught your chin. His fingers forced your face back toward him. Then he kissed your tightly pursed mouth again.
“I love you,” he said between kisses, “I love you. I love you.”
You laughed now against his mouth, still trying to kiss him back each time, still with wet cheeks.
"I should go," He said in between kisses, but he made no move to stand.
You didn’t answer, just tugged him by his collar. You couldn’t let him go. Not now, not after this. The only thing you wanted was to spend this night together, in love. You press yourself against his body with frantic, clawing need to be closer, so that you could cut him open and bury yourself inside his skin. Maybe that would finally relieve that ache you felt within you every day. You rolled your hips, desperate and Gwayne immediately offered his leg without thinking.
Acting on instinct, you hitch your legs around him, and gasp at the sensation. His leg against your thighs and your clit rubbing him through the rough material of your trousers. The friction was exquisite and brutal all at once. You rocked against him, unsteady and wild, while his mouth gentled on yours— his hunger seemingly somewhat satiated by the sensation of you against his leg.
But soon the fabric began to burn, chafing your sensitive skin raw. “Gwayne,” you begged, voice fraying. “Please—it’s too rough.” You tightened your legs around him, holding on like you might drown. “I need—”
He understood, ever your valiant knight. He pulled back just enough to lay you down on the mattress, your body pliant beneath his hands. He tugged at your trousers, the burlap scraping one last time as he dragged them down your thighs.
He looked at you and the intensity of it nearly burned. His eyes raked over your slick, flushed cunt, the faint trembling of your naked thighs, the way your knees tried to edge together in reflexive shyness. His mouth fell open as if he’d never seen a woman before. He groaned as if wounded, “Gods be good.”
You giggled, face hot with the embarrassment of being seen for the first time. It was unbearable. You tried to cross your legs, but his palms eased them apart again with effortless strength.
“Don’t stare,” you whispered, throwing your arm over your eyes.
“You’re so beautiful.” Gwayne's gaze was on your face, dark at the cheeks and vulnerable for him.
He settled down between your legs. He kissed your thigh, then turned his head and kissed the other. He ventured higher and gave a soft bite to the sensitive skin and nosed at the spot before running his tongue over it.
He didn't let you set the pace. When you tried to grind closer, he held you still, forcing you to let him savor. He sucked, he licked, he bit gently at your inner thighs, making sure every inch of soft flesh was marked before he even considered giving you what you desired.
“Husband, please”
As if to reward you for his new title, Gwayne brought his mouth to your center, until his nose was hovering above your clit. You felt him inhaling deeply and you yelped. His eyes were shut tight in bliss, as though committing the very scent of you to memory before he pressed a kiss to your mound. “Gods you’re soaked.”
The first swipe of his tongue was unlike anything you could have imagined. You gasped and slammed your hands down on the mattress. "Gwayne."
Gwayne moaned and pressed closer.
He took it slow at first, so slow you could have died from it. He licked at your entrance without ever quite dipping inside, just tasting the slick on his tongue. He kissed at your clit ever so gently, just to feel you shiver and moan under his lips. But when Gwayne finally, finally licked his way from your entrance up to your clit, the bastard avoided touching it directly with his tongue, instead swirling little circles around the pearl just for the sake of making you twitch and grab at his hair needily, practically humping his face the same way you had his thigh.
He didn’t allow you. One broad hand pinned your hips to your bed, still slowly licking up down and everywhere but where you needed him most. You were throbbing now, achingly empty, and Gwayne was only humming softly above your clit and slowly dancing his tongue in the spaces around it. Not content to let you get away from him without some form of punishment it seemed.
“Gwayne,” your fingers pulled at his auburn hair.
His green eyes opened looking up at you—a direct, flat stroke over your clit that made you gasp, your back bowing off the bed, your knees clamping around his ears as a shock of pure sensation ignited along your nerves.
The game was over. Now his tongue worked you in earnest, lavishing attention directly on your clit before straying from his patterns to trace the hooded flesh around it, only to return again with relentless, focused laps.
Obscene wet noises filled the room, making you shut eyes and turn your head away, body singing in pleasure, a delicious knot building fast in your belly.
But he pulled back and you practically sobbed, your fingers tightening in his hair as he said muffled and breathless against you, “Eyes, wife. Eyes back on me.”
He resumed again only after your eyes were locked on him, though your vision was watery.
His lips sealed around your clit, and he suckled on the bead with a careful mouth, not hard enough to bruise, but certainly hard enough to let the tight knot in your stomach peak and crash through you.
You screamed as you came, having to bite the flesh of your lip to keep from waking the entire keep. Your back arching tight and knees slamming shut around Gwayne’s ears. You couldn’t speak but you whined and Gwayne knowingly went back to licking broad stripes with his tongue, soft enough not to overwhelm you.
He kept licking until you pushed his head away, panting as you came down from your release. Watching the debauched act of him licking his lips, wiping off the excess slick with the back of his hand before his cheek rested, haggard on your thigh.
For a moment all you could do was lay there.
"Was that it?" You ask dumbly. "Was that all?"
Gwayne turned his head and gave a bite against your thigh.
"No," you laugh, pushing his head back as he continued placing punishing bites on your delicate skin. "I meant— will you not let me tend you?"
Rhaenyra had explained to you, in graphic detail, every act she knew to preform and you had always been eager to have him in your mouth, but right now, you could hardly remember how to articulate your own name.
Gwayne laughed and lifted his head. "I do know what you mean." He climbed up over your body and collapsed beside you.
Your fingers toyed with the lace of his breeches, but his hand lifted your knuckles to his lips. "Not tonight, sweetling." He took you into his arms and pulled you close.
You huffed at him and he laughed. “Patience.”
“I have waited far too long already,” you whined but were content enough to turn in his arms and tuck your head into his neck. "Can we not just find someone to marry us now?"
He laughed. Gwayne wondered how you would react if he told you that he would take himself in hand and murmur your name, spilling over himself nearly every night for four year.
"I will marry you tomorrow, in the light of the Seven so all may know I didn’t steal you away in the night.”
He pet your hair and you preened. “Fine... but if you refuse to finally bed me afterwards, I shall lock you in with Dreamfyre and let her have her way with you instead."
Gwayne bit back a laugh. "I am at your service, my princess."
You laughed again and as your eyes slowly closed to sleep, you felt him shift out from beneath you, and your hands fisted to his shirt.
"I must go," he said, gently unfurling your hands. "Before anyone wakes."
"No, stay with me," you whined.
He laughed softly. "Soon, my love, I promise."
He kissed you once, twice, four times, before he pulled away from your grip and slid out of bed.
And when tomorrow came, you two stood together before the altar of the Seven, dressed in white and green, the scent of beeswax and fresh flowers filling the sept. Sunlight poured through colored glass, bathing the marble in pools of ruby and sapphire. You cut one another's lips and were one with him, exactly as you had always been meant to be.
HOTD masterlist
𓏲ּ𝄢 𝐚𝐧: if you stayed this long, thank you thank you thank you!! this is my first fic i’m posting after a very, very long slump. I have more queued up and more in the works MWAH!
if you want to be in my tagged for any character i write for let me know :)
gwayne my pretty princess my skittish horse my frightened gazelle nobody's doing the medieval romantic knight renaissance painting serve like you are i love you
- ser gwayne hightower x rhaenyra’s daughter!reader
synopsis. Ser Gwayne Hightower is tasked with escorting you, the sole daughter of the newly anointed Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, across the Reach and into the Crownlands as part of a deal securing amnesty for House Hightower. Along the way, you realize you do not hate him as much as you thought.
contents. smut, angst, slowburnish, reader is rhaenyra’s eldest daughter (around the same age as aegon) and silverwing’s rider and is so spoiled that she has never seen a baby chick before, enemies to lovers, mutual pining, grief, show elements but also canon divergence, sex pollen, oral (f recieving), fingering, p in v, loss of virginity, multiple orgasms, cum eating, bath sex, reader is comically oblivious at some points, gwayne needs you so bad
a/n. 13.5k words wow big day for me, spoilers for the show?, inspired by a request i got (thank you very much anon wherever you are), inspired by the film lady chatterly’s lover at some points, takes place directly after jace dies and rhaenyra takes the throne
It was a glum day, the day you were told your brother was dead, and you were alone with the usurper’s uncle. The dread—that feeling that something was just wrong—settled deep in your stomach before the words came out of his mouth.
The Hightower army had found you many months prior, nearly deceased following an attack on your dragon, Silverwing. You had told her to fly home to Dragonstone, to leave you, and you have lived off of the hope that she made it back safe.
They took you as prisoner that day, and in spite of all you thought of them, they did not treat you too horribly. You believed it was like preparing a pig for slaughter, though, so you never wavered in your loyalty to your mother. You would die as a Black. It was not going to take the threat of death to let a word of the Green agenda come from your mouth.
Surprisingly, it was your cousin, Daeron, who offered you the most kindness. He was the only person you could yield to in the entire Hightower base. You could only pray he wasn’t relaying every conversation you’d had back to the Lord Ormund Hightower.
Everyone else treated you like you were common. Specifically Ser Gwayne Hightower.
He was rude—and vain—and arrogant. He was irritating. When he would try to make conversation, you would always end up in a fight. And it was just your luck for him to be the one instructed to take you on a multiple-week-long journey from the Reach and back to your rightful home in the Red Keep.
He was the one to tell you that your mother had taken King’s Landing back. You assume your mother saw it fit to have the Queen Dowager’s brother be the one to accompany you, because maybe she has something in store for him when you make it there. Perhaps a beheading? He could do without the ability to speak.
Then he was the one to tell you that you would join her in King’s Landing. That you were finally going home. It was the only thing to come from his mouth that made you joyful.
You overheard chatter that by you departing the Reach as soon as the letter was received, and by you making it back unharmed, House Hightower would be granted something close to immunity for their role in the war. You knew it was something a lie. Your mother and stepfather would never let the Green beasts live with what they had done—not only to you, but to her son too. To your mother herself.
The thought of what your mother might be doing to the Dowager Queen now gave you anxiety from being excluded. You should expect that they’ll be calling for Daeron’s capture too, though perhaps you will be able to put in a good word for him—get him sent to the Wall instead of hanged.
Speaking of Daeron, he was already somewhere distant when you had finished gathering your belongings, even though the things you owned in the encampment were scarce. You had said your goodbyes to each other not long ago—he claimed he had to prepare for something with Lord Ormund, and that he would not be available the next morning, for your departure.
You were, as expected, ready to leave. You had wanted to lie down and rest so that the next morning would come sooner, but Ser Gwayne had called you into his tent for one final word.
“There was something else written in the letter. Something I believe should have been saved for a calm moment, such as this,” he begun, and held up the refolded parchment which illustrated the clemency that would be provided to House Hightower upon your safe return to King’s Landing. “Would you prefer to read it, or shall I?”
The glint in his eye was one of compassion. You did not like it.
You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Proceed.”
He raised his brows, pressing his lips together before giving a heavy sigh and opening the parchment back again. The fingers that gripped either side of it seemed to waver. His eyes quickly found the line he had so desperately wanted to read.
He inhaled a heavy breath. “The Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne Jacaerys Velaryon was slain in battle against the Triarchy Fleet. He was struck down by crossbow fire alongside his dragon, Vermax, in the waters off the Gullet.”
Gwayne let his hands drop slowly, and he sealed the parchment back. He looked back up at you.
Your head was shaking back and forth. Denying his words, maybe. The movement had come naturally, and you could not stop it.
“Is this a jest?” you exhaled a small laugh, hoping it would work to quell the distress already coursing through your veins.
You knew it was not a jest.
You knew if the war did not end soon then he would die in some violent, gruesome way, but to hear it confirmed was something entirely different. To hear it confirmed by a Hightower was something worse. The primal need for the man before you dead, perhaps in such a way your own brother was killed, washed over you in an instant.
He remained silent at your question. "It pains me, though your brother's death does not alter our course,” he said instead. “We shall depart at first light.”
It pains him?
You will show him something that pains him.
There was a lengthy distance between the two of you already, but you quickly closed it as you rushed across to smack him across his cheek.
Your hand stung, yet you did not wait for his reaction. Instead, you turned on your heel and left the tent.
Jace did not hit you until the fresh air did, and you let yourself shed the tears that you had pushed back into your sockets. The tears that you could not—would not—let fall in front of the enemy.
day one
You never liked Gwayne. He was arrogant, and he would treat you as if you weren’t the daughter of the Queen—or more importantly to them, the granddaughter of King Viserys, and the niece of their usurper.
The ride up the roseroad so far had been silent. He had tried, but you did not speak a word in response. It pains me, he had said, and then he practically told you to get over it and go home! He is moronic, and conceited. It pains you that you have to make this journey with him.
If need be, you could be doing this by yourself. You’re fierce enough to ride alone—gods, you’re essentially already riding alone, Gwayne’s useless self.
Your brothers taught you to be fierce, in spite of their age. Jace had always insisted on letting you spar with them in the yard of the Red Keep, and you learned quite well from it. You certainly couldn’t beat a knight with your skills, but it had helped you gain a certain confidence that princesses tend not to have.
Aegon had never liked you practicing with them. Neither did Ser Criston. You did beat the usurper once—caught him off guard and swept him out from under his feet—which must have bruised his ego in the process, as he felt it just to push you to the ground when your back was turned right after. That earned him a clout in the ear from Ser Harwin.
You chuckle to yourself recalling the memory—specifically Aegon’s stupid face when he realized who had hit him, and more specifically when Ser Harwin did not get in trouble for it—and you notice Gwayne looking at you in your peripheral. The smile is wiped clean off of your face.
“Does something amuse you?” he mutters.
When you look over to see him, he is glowering at you, his upper lip lifted with judgment.
“I understand you may not have many fond memories to look back on when times are tiresome, but I do.” You look forward at the road ahead.
He scoffs out a laugh. “I have many fond memories.”
“Tell me one,” you counter.
All you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. Ser Gwayne Hightower, the parentless knight, no recollections to look back on fondly.
Gwayne sucks in a breath. “I do not have to.”
“That is what I thought.” You smirk to yourself, and lightly kick the side of your horse, forcing it forward and ahead of him.
day two
You were unsure if you should speak the words you did, but they had just slipped out at a certain point.
“I take it you did not care much for Jace.” Your gaze had already been trained on the head of your horse. It seemed hard to look anywhere else.
You and Gwayne had been mindlessly trekking forward all morning, both of your eyes still heavy with the slumber that you had lacked, sleeping in an inn on top of stiff beds.
“What makes you say that, princess?” he asks.
“You are a Hightower. Your sister is the Dowager Queen. Your nephew is the usurper. You kill for them—” you look over to him. He has been staring at you the whole time, and he looks quite furious.
“I believe you will find I do not have much of a choice in the matter,” he interjects sharply.
Your head shakes. “Everyone has a choice.”
He huffs. “What do you reckon I do? Desert my army? Get caught and hanged for treason?”
“I would.” You look back at the road ahead. “I should.”
Gwayne sighs, and returns his attention to the road as well. “We both have duties, my princess. Duties one cannot simply run from once they get to be too demanding.”
“Essos is said to be nice this time of year.”
A short laugh escapes him. “Essos is said to be nice all times of the year.”
You let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Would it not be nice? I’m sure they don’t care about who we are there. We could be free. You could be a sellsword, and I…” your thought trails off. You cannot think of what you would be somewhere like Essos.
“You could be a scribe,” Gwayne says sincerely.
You nod. “I could.”
The idea of a life in Essos, perhaps with Gwayne, seems appealing at the very moment. The lack of sleep much be getting to you.
It does seem nice. Abandoning your name, as much as you are loyal to it, could be the best decision that you have made. He seems to want the same, if you convince yourself his words weren’t just tactical, some way to earn your empathy so that you will convince your mother to spare him once you reach the Red Keep.
If the war would not come to an end with her taking of the throne, you would have to escape there yourself. And if Gwayne wanted to come with you, if he was still alive by the time you left, you might just be willing to take him with you. Silverwing—who had surely made it back to Dragonstone—was large enough to saddle two.
day three
The inn you would stay in tonight would be much worse than the last. Not only because of the stiff beds, but because of the lack of them too.
Gwayne knew of the ones that would not ask any questions while not costing all the coins in his possession. So far they had been shit, but they had been true to their history of keeping quiet with matters that did not concern them, as far as you both knew.
You would remain outside with your cloak hood pulled tight over your head and your body facing a wall until Gwayne would come fetch you to take you to the room.
He would refer to you as his squire to the innkeepers and guests who questioned your presence. If they had questioned your demeanor, he would call you reserved and paranoid. Nobody had asked anything past that, but if they did, he was prepared to tell them that you had been tormented by some childhood event.
When Gwayne had taken you to your room that night, you had not expected to be faced with a singular bed.
“Have you gotten your own room?” you had asked, not realizing until you had drawn off the cloak from your head that there was only one mattress before you.
Gwayne only shrugged. “It was all that remained. The innkeeper told me that puppeteers are traveling in town, and all seem to be staying here.”
You could not contain your fury at the thought of sharing a bed with him. Or making him sleep on the floor. “How many fucking puppeteers are there?” you demanded, body tense with unreasonable anger.
He scoffed out a laugh. “My princess, it isn’t exactly the largest inn.” He had already begun shucking off his armor, as well as ridding himself of his gambeson and chausses. “You will live. I will sleep on the floor.”
“Are you sure? Can’t you speak with the innkeeper?”
“There is no need to draw any more attention to us. And what, princess, will you be sleeping on the floor in place of me?” he mocked, already in knowledge of the answer. “Do not fret over it. I have slept in worse places.”
You were silenced at that, and had called him for help with undoing your dress. The whole ordeal was strangely impersonal. He had done it the night before, and you felt nothing. Perhaps it be the exhaustion both of you had carried.
The two of you had retired to your respective sleeping areas shortly afterward, both clad in just your smallclothes.
Later that night, you found yourself wide awake, shivering in the relentless cold that seemed to break in past the shut windows.
Gwayne had been sleeping on the floor furthest from where you were lying on the bed. You assumed he was sleeping as well, but it was strangely silent. You had expected to hear the soft breathing of someone consumed by their slumber, though all you heard was the whistling of wind outside.
And your heart still held unpleasant sympathy for where he had been forced to rest. If your thoughts were true, he was not sleeping at all.
“Ser?” you whisper.
“Is something wrong?” you hear from below.
You smile at his voice. No, at being right. You do not smile at his presence, you smile because you like being right. You rolled over then, the mattress groaning beneath you, to stare at the dim expanse of the side where he lay.
“Are you comfortable there, on the floor?” you question, smile piercing through your words.
He scoffs. “You jest, princess, but I have no doubt that this floor is just as soft as the mattress you lay on.”
You were hit with a flurry of breathless laughter at his words. It must be your lack of sleep. You could hear him chuckle too after some point, but both of you had been slowly silenced as the seconds passed until you could only hear the commotion outside again.
Perhaps you should invite him to sleep alongside you. You are not without mercy. Of course, it would be strictly unromantic, not like how a wife and her husband might find one another on restless nights such as this one.
“Would you like to put that to the test?” you say without a second thought.
Gwayne clears his throat. “I would not want to invade on your solace, princess.”
“There is plenty of room for you.” You crawl across the bed to see him.
Your eyes find him as he thoughtlessly fiddles with the edge of his chemise, and as he freezes once he meets your gaze.
You beam down at him again. “And it would bring me solace, knowing you were sleeping the slightest bit easier.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“I am.” You think it is the sleep deprivation deluding you. You would never act like this normally. He can sense it too.
He slowly rises from his position on the ground, and multiple bones crackle once he stands.
You roll back over to your side of the bed, watching as he joins you. He seems tense, especially as you join him under the covers.
The two of you lie in bridled silence, neither one of you able to fall asleep. A chill runs through you from the temperature, and Gwayne’s head swivels to look at you.
You turn over on your side to meet his gaze, expecting him to say something. He does not, and looks back up at the ceiling instead.
Your brain, clouded by the fact that you are simultaneously freezing cold and devastatingly fatigued, opens, then pauses as you search for the words.
“Are you cold as well?” you mumble.
Gwayne shrugs nonchalantly. “Slightly.”
You chuckle mirthlessly. “I am.” The sheets suddenly feel rough against your skin. “More than slightly.”
“I can ask the innkeeper for another quilt.”
His earlier words flash back to you. “There is no need to draw any more attention to us,” you repeat.
You see the corner of his lip turn upward. “What do you reckon I do, then, princess?” he asks, and you reach out to touch his arm.
The muscle quickly tightens under your hold.
“You’re warm.” You move closer to him. “If we lie close together, we might just make it through the night.”
That is how you ended up huddled next to Ser Gwayne Hightower for the rest of the night.
You were unaware of the fact that he was lying frozen next to you, and that he did not get a wink of sleep, especially as you mindlessly slung an arm around his middle in your slumber. And as your nipples, solid from the cool breeze that had seeped in through the windows, brushed up against him as you shifted throughout the night.
day four
Gwayne had stopped to relieve himself when you heard them.
The myriad of chirps from some kind of birds had caught your attention, and you had jumped from your horse in an instant, following the sound.
You found yourself on the edge of an open field, behind some bushes, as you looked down to some small yellow birds that weren’t flying away. You deduce that they must like your presence.
It wasn’t long before Gwayne anxious voice interrupted your calm, calling your name just moments before stumbling upon you.
“What are they?” you whisper.
“Chicks,” he responds, in a normal tone. At your silence, he continues, “baby chickens.”
“Truly?” you question, head cocked to the side, watching them.
Gwayne stares at you. “Have you… never seen chicks before?”
“No, only…” you turn your head to him, “chickens.” You shrug.
He shakes his head with a theatrical sort of despair. It would have seemed real if the corners of his lips were not upturned.
“You truly are a princess,” he mutters, and crouches down to the ground.
You stoop down alongside him, watching as the chicks run past one another, chirping quietly.
“Can I touch one?” you mumble.
He gestures with a chin toward the chirping bunch. “Go on, then.”
You reach down to one of the animals, but you can’t quite seem to get a good grip on it. You don’t really try to grip it. You do not find the chance to. Instead, your hand just lingers hesitantly above the crowd of them.
Gwayne’s hands come down to meet yours. He grabs one of them, effortlessly and gently, cradling it in his hands.
Your hand is still lingering beside his, still in a motion as if you were going to grab one, as he did, so he brings the chicken in his hands to yours. You bring your free hand to join the other and cup them together.
He lets one hand release the chick into yours, and it comes down below the two of your hands as if to hold it steady. The other covers the chick to prevent it from jumping out of your hold.
The hand that is under yours touches it, and urges it to close. “Gently,” he murmurs, and you’re holding the chick on your own now, gently and effortlessly, just like he was.
His hands withdraw from yours. He watches as your lips curl up, a pure joy that he had yet to ever witness fill your face, do exactly that. His own mouth mirrors something similar.
You shudder nervously as the chick twitches around in your grip. It comes out half in the form of small chuckles and half in struggled exhales.
Your brows draw together. It seems impossible to relax them, and you feel a panic settle in at nothing in particular. Perhaps it be that your brothers are dead, maybe because you are with a man that you have such complicated and mind-boggling feelings for, or that you were just held as a prisoner for the Greens, and that man is a Green, he is the Green, the Hightower Green you have been conditioned to hate—
Gwayne has stopped smiling. You feel tears running down your face. The chick flies out of your grip once you try to see it closer, and you try your hardest to catch onto your breath, to catch it as it runs from you, but you cannot. You are sobbing before you get any sense to stop it.
“My princess?” he leans closer to you, a wavering hand inching dangerously close, and you push yourself from off the ground. He follows.
“I’m sorry,” you manage through heaving breaths, smoothing down your now wrinkled dress. Why are you apologizing? You do not know why you are apologizing. He is a Green. He should be apologizing to you, for being on the side of the war that killed your brothers—oh, gods, your sweet brothers. Your sweet, young, desperate, dead brothers.
“It’s all right,” he mumbles. His hands, still, are reaching toward your arms, yet not touching. Never touching. Just hovering near yours, always, like he wants to touch you, but he doesn’t.
You wipe your eyes, but the tears keep falling. You mutter something again. Sorry, you hear yourself say again, and then your body moves for you. You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace so tight you might be strangling him.
He stumbles back slightly, arms still hesitating beside you, and then finally you feel it. He folds them gently around your waist. As gentle as he held the chick.
“Don’t cry,” he comforts.
You do not obey. You would if you could, but for now, you remain in his hold. You, regrettably, enjoy it.
day five
Gwayne did not like to see you cry.
He had first seen it the moment you realized you were captured by the Hightowers. You hadn’t been conscious enough when they found you to care about where you were being taken. He hadn’t enjoyed the sight then, not as his belligerents did, and he does not like to see it now.
He was the one to convince his fellow commanders to spare your life and to instead take you as a hostage. He was the one to have you held in a tent next to his own in the encampments with his two most upstanding soldiers posted outside, and not in those grimy cages fit for animals. He was the one to have you ride your horse directly next to his when on the road with the rest of the army—much to your dismay—as to prevent any dishonorable conduct from occurring. He would never tell you these things, of course, but they live with him.
Gwayne would tell himself that he did all of these things because it was right, that he would do it to any other female prisoner-of-war, given the shocking lack of honor among his knights who vowed to defend it. He had done a good job separating the wheat from the chaff when he became a commander, but there were only few he truly trusted to never harm the young, an innocent—and those who cannot protect themselves. Like you.
You liked to put on a front. And it somewhat worked with others, but not with him. He wishes it would, for some odd reason. Maybe he would not see you the way he does, if it did. He would still treat you with mercy, but it would not be to the level it is. He would never have accepted your hug. He thinks he would have pushed you away.
He wouldn’t have, but he believes he would have.
Since he had finally felt your touch the afternoon previous, the road to the Red Keep had been as quiet as the first day of your journey together. He suspected you had been embarrassed after letting him see your emotions, as you had been combative toward him every day since you had woken up from your comatose state.
He had expected it to come at some point, the unveiling of your feelings, but not in that way. He had expected to hear you sniffle from beside him while on your horses. He would have stayed silent, and he would have let you cry. He believes he would have let you cry on your own if you hadn’t come to him for comfort first.
The fact that you did had brought him joy. It made him hopeful, in some strange way he did not feel himself familiar with.
“You are betrothed to Lord Samwell Blackwood, are you not?”
You look at him, puzzled. “He has been with the Stranger since the war begun.”
Gwayne nods curtly. “So I’ve heard.”
“Then why have you asked?”
He inhales a heavy breath. “I feel it my duty to tell you of this.” He clears his throat. “Before your mother took the throne, there was word among our commanders to betroth you to your cousin, Prince Aemond.”
“You jest.”
“I do not.”
You cock your head to the side, wetting your lips. “And what did you have to say in the matter?”
“That is unneeded for you to know.”
“Why? Because you encouraged them to?”
His voice picks up immediately where you left off. “No, because I fought against it.” He scoffs a laugh. “The One-Eyed Prince is… he is mad.” At your gawking laugh, he turns his head to you. “You must know it too. He is simply and utterly mad.”
“You are his uncle.” You would never tell of his treasonous words to any other, but you feel you must remind him.
“Are you going to betray me and inform my army of the fact?”
“I do not have loyalty to you, though I will not speak of the words to another.”
“Good. Now you tell me something in confidence,” he presses.
You shake your head at the sheer audacity of him. “Why would I do that, ser?”
“What else will we converse about? It is a long and arduous road ahead of us.” His eyes peer into yours, and you feel a sudden urge to tell him everything you have ever kept from him.
“Alright then,” you look to the sky in mock ponder. “When I was young, I would pray to the gods each and every night for a gallant and true knight to take me away from the Red Keep and off to some distant land. There was this one knight, he had belonged to our Kingsguard, who I absolutely adored.” You sigh on the memory, oblivious to the fact that a true and gallant knight was riding right alongside you. “I was just a girl then. It was a silly dream. And the gods do not always play in my favor.”
Were you jesting? Or were you truly so oblivious?
“Do you remember his name?” he asks.
“It has lost me. But I remember his face. He was gorgeous, that one, and very gentle, too. Back then he was the same age as my brother is now.”
He does not let you sit with the fact that you mentioned your brother as if he were alive. “That’s quite young, isn’t it?”
You nod. “Indeed. He was the youngest of every knight in the Keep. Perhaps the youngest in history.”
“What happened to him?”
You exhale a breath, and look down to your horse’s head. “He was in the fire that killed Ser Harwin. I do not know why he had been called to Harrenhal, and I suppose I shall never know. Are you yourself betrothed, or married, ser?”
He huffs. “Gods, no. I was, and remain, of little use as a political pawn for House Hightower, my father being the second son.”
“Therefore if you were to wed, you would do so for love,” you state.
“I suppose so.”
day six
The hood of your cloak was pulled tightly over the upper half of your face, seemingly ritual for whenever you made it to inns, and you felt a tap on your shoulder.
You turn, expecting to see Gwayne, but in his place stood a knight in armor, donning a Hightower sigil on his gambeson.
It is your luck to see Gwayne rushing up from behind him to fetch you.
“Squire, let us retire to our room, yes?” he says, and you nod eagerly, pulling the hood further over your face. The two of you attempt to move forward, and you make it past the knight—
“That is no squire,” the man interjects, grabbing onto your wrist, stopping you. “That is a girl.”
Gwayne steps in between you and the knight, forcing him to release your joint from his hold. His gaze flicks down to the man’s gambeson.
He takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice. “If it pleases you, she’s my distraction for the night, ser. Not worth your notice.”
The knight clears his throat, and Gwayne steps back.
“Blessings upon King Aegon.” He smiles, turning back to the inn entrance.
His hand guides you forward, lingering on the small of your back, surely for the sight of the knight behind you. And then it trails down, over the curve of your back end, and you feel the slightest grip onto it before the door behind you closes, and his hand immediately falls away.
The walk to your room is silent.
Gwayne swallows painfully once you make it to your room.
“I’m sorry—” he begins.
“How may I distract you tonight, ser?” you interrupt, smiling stupidly at his lie, and he sighs one of relief at your lack of offense.
He breathes out a laugh, and swiftly moves to shed himself of his armor. He has been struggling on his own each time he has done so. You only noticed it the last night, and offered help, but had been rejected.
You would not ask this time, you would simply do. Your fingers were desperate and untrained in their efforts, but they did the trick in time for him not to deny you, and he was rid of the metal captivity.
You turn as he does, ridding yourself of your heavy cloak and pushing your hair out of the way of the laces of your dress. He pulls them loose without a word, and the warmth of his body behind yours would surely prove the most effective thing of the night, you decide as you gaze at the thin quilt on your bed.
As your gown slides down your body, you can hear the shuffling of Gwayne removing all but his linens behind you. If you took just a step backward, you would be touching him.
“It is a terrible coincidence, the Hightower army resting here,” you mumble, your hands fiddling with the light cloth around the your wrists.
“It is,” he agrees solemnly.
You retreat from his warmth and sit on the edge of your bed, your back up straight and your fingers clasped together in your lap. You weren’t particularly tired this night. Maybe it be from the surge of adrenaline at the knight outside, and it had already raged through your limbs, rendering them restless the moment the door to the inn had shut behind you.
Gwayne’s hand was close to you then, to an area you regarded as most private among you, a maiden. The memory of it twinged deep in your stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling.
He had joined you in sitting on the edge of a bed, albeit his own. His own stature had mirrored yours. All tense and surged with the possibility of a fight.
“It is rather cold this night,” you mutter.
Gwayne nods curtly. “It is.”
Your gaze lowers to watch your fingers be relentlessly picked on by those of the other hand. “I fear one of those knights will bust through the doorway, and take me away with little fight, you being so far from me,” you whisper. The night was silent enough for him to hear it.
“I fear the same.”
You look up at him. “If he were to do so, it would certainly raise suspicion if your whore was sleeping in a bed adjacent to yours.”
He takes a turn to meet your eyes. “If you wish to sleep in the same bed as I, you need only ask.”
Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. “May I sleep in your bed tonight, Gwayne?” you muster.
“As you wish, my princess.”
day seven
Your horse stops before you instruct it to.
In the distance lies a field of flowers, pink and purple, some yellow, and all illuminated by sunlight. It was nearly time for it to set.
You cannot still be in the Reach, you think. It has been much too long, but thank the gods if you are. What a sight to see.
You want to see it closer. Gwayne will be okay with it, you declare, and you hop off of your horse and begin walking in the direction of the field.
“No, princess,” he says, exasperated. “We cannot go off trail again.”
“The flowers,” you breathe. “It is beautiful.”
The scent in the air is intoxicating. It is rather pungent, the closer you get to it, and the air seems more sultry than just moments before.
You remove your cloak from your shoulders, letting it drop behind you as you continue forward. It is the slightest bit relieving from the heat, but your body quickly acclimates to it again, and the sweat begins beading. It is no wonder. The sleeves under your dress are long. It makes you question why you decided to wear such a stupid thing, in this climate.
Once you make it to the field, it envelopes you. The fever. It starts in your lower abdomen in a heavy thrum and travels up the rest of your body.
Where is Gwayne?
You turn around. He is just a few steps behind. He has been trailing behind you the entire time. It was hard to notice, with the pull of the meadow, but now that you are here, he is all you can think about. All you can focus on. You do not like that.
His hair illuminates in the sunlight, much like the flowers. Your skin tingles.
He froze in his movements the moment you did. You continue further into the field. His feet fall in step with yours, and you think you can hear his breathing, all shaky and uncertain.
You make it to an empty patch of the meadow, and stop once again.
“Ser?” you turn back to face him. The scorch of the sun worsens with each passing second. Sweat gathers on your brow. “My dress... please… help me get it off.” You raise a timid arm to your back, accepting defeat once you find yourself unable to reach the laces.
Gwayne’s thumb twitches toward you. His forehead glistens. He must be burning too.
You spot the clench of his jaw, and take a wary step toward him.
“Stop—” he holds a hand out, body turning away from you. “Do not move. Please. Just stay there.” He avoids your gaze.
“What is it?” you ask. You know what it is.
You know what he is feeling, because you feel it too. It presses hard and deep in your abdomen, and it just wants to be relieved. You want to be relieved. And Ser Gwayne Hightower looks rather handsome in this light, surrounded by the pink and purple—and was it red?—flowers. He seems close to pouncing on you like a wild dog. Gods, may he?
He had always been alluring. May it be your frustration that you could never have him in the way you wanted that made you so combative, or the fact that he is a Green—it is probably both, but neither seem so important now. Not when you feel the heat of a thousand suns burn through you, all the way to your core, and then all over again.
The man himself looks close to releasing in his braies just by looking at your face. It brings you some ease, yet also further discomfort, to know that he feels the same as you. You had blocked out the idea, seeing yourself as delusional and unrealistic for thinking he would ever show any form of attraction toward you.
“Gwayne—” you exhale, though it releases itself in the form of a groan. “It is sweltering.” You bend over to clutch the end of your dress, and you are close to pulling it off yourself, if fate was willing. Something halts you.
“Please, don’t.” His voice sounds pitiful. It is all low and whiny. “I do not know if I can handle that. Not now. Not when… fuck.”
You want to keel over and die.
You release the cloth from your grip and let the dress fall back down. You rise back up, slowly, and flatten down the wrinkled fabric of your middle with your hands.
Your lips tremble. “What do you want to do?”
“I am unsure.” He still cannot look you in the eye. “It is impure, and unchivalrous for me to be thinking of you this way.”
“I am all right with it.” It is then that you realize how you sound. Desperate for a Green, as if you were a common whore, which is probably what he thinks of you as. At least he tries to fight it. You should fight it too. You are fierce enough to fight whatever it is that is welling up inside of you.
Your eyes are squeezed shut, and the shame tries to conquer the hunger—but the hunger wins in the blink of an eye. The blink of your eye, in fact, as you look back at Gwayne.
“We cannot,” you mumble. “We should not. I am a maiden. You are the opposition. We cannot.” You repeat the words to yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If the shame did not prevail, perhaps distraction will. Your eyes shut tight again, and you repeat the words. We cannot. We should not. You are a maiden. He is the opposition.
We cannot, we should not, you are a maiden, Ser Gwayne Hightower is hard by simply standing in your presence—
Your eyes snap open, and you find that you are standing directly in front of him. You must have been inching closer to him with each sentence you repeated.
Your gaze flicks down to his crotch. Sure enough, your thoughts did not lie to you. Perhaps your dragon blood has given you the gift of prophecy.
He finds it appropriate to look at you, finally, and you realize how close you are to one another.
In specific—how close your lips are to one another. So, so close, yet so far. You almost want to give in, and you lean just a little closer. He stays still, though when you stop moving, his head moves closer too, close enough that you can almost feel his breath fanning into your own mouth.
Your noses are touching, that is how close you are. You could just slot your lips right onto his. It would be so easy, so incredibly simple, if you would just move forward, just a little—
His hands reach up to cradle your face in his hands, thumbs on either side grazing your cheekbones. They move down your face, down to your lips, and one of the thumbs strokes over the bottom lip. And he closes the gap.
You feel his lips envelope yours first, and then you feel his tongue inch into your mouth. Your lips close over one another’s, and he moans. Ser Gwayne Hightower is moaning into your mouth, and it feels like you have been sent to each of the seven heavens and back again. Your head is pushed backwards with the force of his kiss.
Your hand reaches around to brush over his nape. His hands travel further down your body, one finding itself wrapped around your waist, the other petting your breast over your dress. It seems that the true touch of it pacifies him, as it allows you to push deeper into the kiss, letting your tongue slide into his mouth.
You only break away to lower yourself to the ground. He follows, as though the answers to every challenge in his life were held on your lips. He hikes your dress up your legs, your smallclothes with it, until they both pool at your waist.
He lifts two fingers to his mouth, coating them in spit before reaching down to your bare cunt and thrusting them inside. You let out a shrieking moan, letting your head press into the dirt below you and thrashing back and forth in pleasure.
“Look at me,” Gwayne instructs. You let your eyes lock onto his, you try, but the deep press of his fingers inside of you makes it hard to focus. His lips, hanging open, hover just above yours, and he moves forward to bring you and he together again.
It is breathing moans into each other’s mouths and pathetic, desperate mashing before you finally get the hold onto his lips, or perhaps him onto yours. His fingers cease, and slip out swift enough for it to go unnoticed for a single moment.
He breaks apart from your mouth, and wastes no time in sliding himself down your body. The disappointment at the loss of his fingers does not last long, as his lips lock onto your cunt.
Gwayne snakes his arms under your legs and he yanks your body closer to him. Your fingers curl in his hair, and he only laps harder at you.
“Y—yes, ser—” you cry, your thighs squeezing his head, clit pulsating under the assault of his tongue.
He breaks away for just a moment, big blue eyes locking onto your weak ones. “Not ser. Gwayne. My name is Gwayne.”
And he dives back into you, gathering your wetness on his tongue in a torturous swipe from bottom to top, one that earns a sweet little whine from the depths of your throat. It reminds him, in that moment, of the sounds you would make when you did not get your way back in Oldtown—the sounds he would shamefully think of as he fucked his fist late at night, the sounds that he would repent about for thinking and acting on with such humiliating vitality, and more importantly, for not regretting any of it in the slightest.
The sheer relief you get from his mouth onto yours is unlike anything you have felt before, because you have not felt it before. You had heard word of the act in song, and in gossip spread around by your ladies-in-waiting, but to experience it was the greatest decision you ever made. A true, gallant knight between your legs, satiating the hunger that spread in your loins and his alike, yet he is only focused on your release now, latching his tongue on your clit and sucking hard.
His fingers graze your folds and glide around the edges, already slick with your wet. One finger probes, just the slightest bit, and you shudder at the contact.
You let out a loud cry as it presses itself fully inside, without warning. Perfection, you think you hear him say. The words vibrate on your clit, agonizingly so.
His finger pumps in and out of you, and his mouth works on your cunt all the same. The fire in your veins only grows stronger as your climax approaches.
Your fingers tug and pull on his hair, and somewhere in the middle of your gratification a second slim finger of his joins the first, pressing deep into your cunt as they allow him.
The sounds coming from your mouth you do not think you have ever made before. They approach from deep in your lungs and are hoarsely ripped from your throat.
It creeps closer, that unfamiliar thing called release, and your walls tighten around his fingers. Gwayne only sucks harder, and pushes his fingers further into your cunt, his knuckles pressing into your folds.
The feeling floods your body in an instant. It feels prickly, for some odd reason, and it nips your limbs, but blissfully so. Your brain feels fuzzy, and you cannot think of anything but him. It is a way that makes you crave for it immediately once it ebbs.
You let out a little sob once his fingers slip out from inside you. You didn’t know you were crying, and a few stray tears fall from your eyes before you realize.
Gwayne licks a stripe up your cunt, collecting whatever fluids he procured down there into his mouth and swallowing them with the gulp of a man who might just be dying of thirst.
He is up your body and has his wet lips on yours by the time you tear yourself away from the sight. It is then that you feel how truly hard he is under his linens. His cock presses against your spent core, and he nearly jerks back at the contact.
“Gwayne,” you breathe, and his head shoots up to look at you.
“What is it, sweet girl?” he mumbles, suddenly winded by the sweet sound of his name on your tongue.
“I want you to fuck me.”
He is frozen solid at your ask. Your arousal on his mouth glistens with each slight twitch upward. “You’re sure of it?”
You nod, but it is not enough.
“Tell me,” he commands.
“I want you to fuck me, Gwayne, how else must I tell you?” you reply impatiently, and grind your hips up to feel his hardened cock brush against you once more.
Both of your hands come up and intertwine themselves behind his neck, preventing him from straying any further—pulling him down to you, in fact, so you can grind up on him some more.
You lift your head from the ground to try and capture his lips into a somewhat calculating kiss, but his strength prevails, and his head softly twitches back before your mouth can get hold on his.
You fall back, defeated, but his hand comes to hold your wrist, and he comes down to close the gap. He chuckles into your mouth at your desperation, and you only kiss him harder, as if you were trying to become one with him.
His hand rubs up and down your wrist for a moment, before he reaches down to release his lower half from his linens.
You take a hand from off his neck and reach down to meet his own, searching around for his cock. You get a firm grip on it, stroking it up once. He lets out a shuddery moan, and his hand finds your wrist once again—not stopping you, but guiding you, perhaps.
He pumps himself with your hand, and you let him for only a moment, before overpowering his gentleness and guiding his length to your cunt. The tip of it glides on your folds. You could die right here, and it would be okay.
Gwayne pushes into you with a wounded groan, his jaw hanging wide open. You, on the other hand, nearly shriek.
He rocks himself out of you slowly, then back into you almost sluggishly.
“Is this all right?” he manages through strangled breaths, and you nod fervently, using the hand still on his neck to push his head closer to yours.
You mean to kiss him, but his forehead lies on yours instead. You’ll take what you can get.
He presses swift pecks on your cheeks, on your nose, and on your lips as he gains momentum. Your eyes flutter shut, but his hand comes up to press a few light smacks to your cheek.
“I said to look at me,” he grunts. “I want to see your eyes—“
You open them back up at that. They’re glossed over again, with tears, and you’re glad that Gwayne does not take it as pain. There was pain, but it is long gone. He kisses the droplets as they fall from the corners of your eyes.
It is utterly intoxicating, the drag of his hips. He seems to lose himself in the feeling too. Wave after wave of constant pleasure washes over you with the somehow gentle slam of him into you.
You babble incomprehensible speech, just as lost as he is as he, slack-jawed as he fucks you. His eyes are focused on your face, your face saturated with sweat, for a single twitch of anything at all, yet he finds nothing. Nothing but rapture, as he believes it should be. He brings his hand back down to your clit and strokes it so delicately, but it brings you sweet relief all the more.
You feel it cresting again. Up your spine, down your legs, dumbing your brain into mush, prickling at the back of your neck. “Gods, Gwayne—Oh, gods, I’m gonna—“
You don’t finish the sentence. It hits you, you cum again, so hard around his cock, and it isn’t long into your perfect bliss before he is pulls out, spilling his seed onto the bunched-up cotton of your dress.
You feel as though you are one with him. It is like your flesh melts into his. Your sweat certainly does, especially as he joins his forehead with yours again, all sticky and damp.
“I am deeply sorry—” he says in between quick kisses, “to have taken your maidenhood.”
You shake your head softly. “If it shames you so, I can raise a proposition of marriage to my mother once we get back to the Keep.” He laughs at that, unknowing you were not telling a joke.
Still, you breathe out a chuckle.
day nine
The communal bath that you had found yourself in was satisfyingly empty. Since Gwayne had taken your maidenhood two moons previous, you had been desperate for it to happen again, and again, and perhaps a thousand times more, though you resisted the urge to ask outright while in the inns.
Now, though, seemed like the perfect moment to do so. You could clean yourself properly for the first time in weeks, and then dirty yourself all over again with the satisfaction of your mutual sin.
He had already undone the laces of your dress for you, and you stepped out of the gown that dropped to your feet, eager to feel the warmth of the water envelop your skin. And for him to join you. So that you could see—and feel—his bare body, properly. You had already shed your linens by the time you made it to the water.
You had retreated to the further side of the bath, so that you could watch as Gwayne undressed himself. It was nicer like this, being able to take in his body for the first time, as he stripped off his gambeson, then his chausses, and then, finally, his smallclothes.
His figure was very unsurprisingly robust. The light of the countless candles surrounding the baths set for quite the intimate atmosphere.
You bit back a smile as he inched closer to the bath, stepping inside with a heavy sigh of relief. The Hightowers did seem to prioritize cleanliness. Perhaps they place it next to godliness. Gwayne certainly does not seem to mind, given how keen he was to eat your cunt until you came undone on his tongue.
He threw his head back with a shuddering sigh once he finally sunk into the water. You watch as the grime expels from the surface of his body in one fell swoop, becoming one with the rest of the stream.
“Have you something to say?” he questions, a brow darted upward at your uncharacteristically blissful expression.
Your cheeks flushed, a harder, content smile crossing over your face. “Just observing.”
“Must you observe so far?” he mutters.
“I must,” you sneer, giving a firm nod.
His eyes flick down to your bare breasts, sat warped on your chest under the soft wave of the water.
He quickly averts his gaze to the center of the bath once you perk them forward with your arms.
“I am truly apologetic,” he starts. “For taking your maidenhood. ‘specially in such an unclean place, where anyone could have seen us if they had simply come to probe into the noise.”
You scoff. “Would you have preferred it happen inside the walls of some dull inn?”
“I’d have preferred you comfortable.”
“I was comfortable. I am comfortable.”
At his silence, you push yourself off of the wall and glide over to him. He sits frozen as your chest brushes against his arm.
“Are you a maid, ser? Well—were you a maid?” you question, feigning a look of innocence.
“I haven’t been a maid for a long time, princess.” His head hangs low.
He lets you grip his arm and guide it between your legs. “Are you ashamed of the fact?”
“I am ashamed that I am not,” he mutters, seemingly unfazed as you grind your cunt against his wrist. You let out a low moan, your breath wavering before you realize his lament.
So you release his arm from your hold and straddle his hips, placing your hands on each of his shoulders. Your chest is eye level with his face. It seems to be the only thing that can bring his head back up.
You can feel his cock hardening below you as you rock back and forth against him. He watches your face that stares down back at him—both of your jaws are slack, and you breathe heavy pants into each others mouths, gaining some semblance of pleasure from the act.
But it is not enough, no. It is never enough.
You take a hand from his shoulder and reach down to grip his length, guiding it into your walls at once. You push down unto him with a sweet little cry, one quickly silenced by his lips on your own.
His kiss is just as tender as you remember it being, amorous flowers aside, and you hum into him. A hand cups your cheek and he tilts his head, his tongue breaching the plush of your lips, just exploring.
Your fingers curl around his nape as you thrust, up and down, up and down, and he concurrently rolls his hips back and forth.
“Fuck—sweet princess—” he moans once he breaks apart from your mouth.
You gasp and shudder, and he reaches his head up to kiss all over your face. Your eye, the brow bone above it, down to the highest point of your cheek on the side of your face, then to the corner of your lip, and then he cranes his head down to kiss you on your neck. You throw your head back to allow him access.
Once he reaches your sternum, he darts his tongue out first when attaching his lips to it. “Oh, gods,” you whimper into his hair.
“Ser? Gwayne—” you can't quite speak, the words near dying on your tongue. “Are you mine, Gwayne? Tell me—” your hips slow, and his only speed up. He begins fucking up into you, and another moan rips through your throat.
He nods fervently against your neck, lifting his head back up to see you. “I am yours, princess. Fuck—” his hips stutter, though he relents.
It does not give you solace. If he is yours, how long shall he remain so? Until the gods rip him from your grasp—which would be soon now, with each tread of your horses closer to the Red Keep.
His hand slides up to your ribs as if to stabilize you, and he wraps it around your middle. His forehead drops to your shoulder, raising with each jolt of your body upward, the constant slam of his cock up into your cunt and then out again.
You know few things now, except for him. Your walls clench around him, and he nearly ceases at that. You continue in his ministrations, rocking back and forth onto him, savoring in the way his length hits you in the spot that makes you feel near the brink of climax.
“I love you.” You think you hear yourself say. And he just watches you, as you chase your peak, so blissfully unaware of the words that just came from your mouth. Your sweet mouth.
Gwayne reaches a hand to cradle your head, and push it closer to his, so that he can take your sweet mouth into his. It is less of a kiss and more of two mouths pressing against each other, but you accept it either way. The two of you pant raggedly against each other, and you feel your core tighten with each deep press of his cock inside of you.
He can feel it too. It is more of threat than satisfying, the idea of spilling his seed inside of you, but you seem to not care. You might just not know. If you were true to your word of your maidenhood—he does not care if you were or not—you must be pitifully unknowledgeable on the subject.
He remembers word of you being betrothed to some high lord widow who had died on the frontlines of battle when the war first broke out, fighting for the side of your mother. Then, once you were captured, there was word of you marrying one of his two younger Targaryen nephews. The thought of you being kept as a prisoner for Aemond sends a shudder through his body, and he rids himself free of the idea as his orgasm approaches closer.
“My princess—” he tries. You do not notice. You persist in your pursuit of release, and he grips your jaw gently, catching your attention. “Look at me.”
You nod at nothing in particular, mouth hanging open and mewling needy whimpers as you oscillate on his cock.
“I cannot—I cannot cum inside.” He lets out a strangled moan as you begin grinding faster than just moments before, as if encouraging him to do so.
“Why not?” you breathe.
His head nearly lulls back as he staves off his own release. “You could get with child.”
You grip his hand and lead it to your breast, and he lets himself fall for your entrancement, kneading it between his fingers. Your nipple is caught between two of them, and he presses them together just the slightest bit too hard, earning a wince from above him. It makes him realize he has been regrettably neglecting them this entire time.
“My breasts are sore.” You inhale sharply. “I shall bleed soon.”
Ah. In that case—
Gwayne dips his hands back into the water, finding your hips to guide them, delighting in the way your moans grow more and more fervent as his cock drags against your walls.
It approaches swift, and you do not have any time nor stamina to warn him of it. You wonder if he can sense it.
Just as quick as it came, it washes over you in an instant. Your muscles clamp down around him, and he moans loud into your shoulder—you soon feel a warmth deep in your womb, the warmth of his seed. A minuscule part of you hopes it will take.
Shortly afterward, he lifts your bodies from the water, carrying you with your legs wrapped around him. His cock has slipped out of you, but the kiss he places on your lips distracts you from the loss.
You push his chest, separating your mouths, and wrap your arms around his neck. “Let us leave together, Gwayne. Silverwing is large enough to saddle two. You could be a sellsword, and I a scribe—I your wife. I shall give you children, if it is what you desire. We can spend our days in rest and tranquility, like this.” Your breath still hasn’t caught.
It is a moment of silence before Gwayne finds the words. The dubious words, though the ones that provide enough hope to settle you. “Perhaps, my princess. Do not worry yourself with eventuality.” And he sets you down on the marble just above the bath. Your calves dip back into the water, and it is then you realize that they are aching.
He kneels down into the water and takes your legs over his shoulders. You feel the stretch in your thighs, equal parts from their growing soreness and the length of his shoulders. His release begins seeping out of your cunt from the pressure of it all.
He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, then to the inside of your thigh, and then finally to your clit. His head dips down to your opening, and he sucks.
It becomes more like he is kissing, or eating you, at some point. You cannot tell. The pleasure has already gotten to be too much, and you are writhing under him.
His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you closer to his mouth, and you loudly and embarrassingly moan, your fingers rake through his hair, gripping it tight when his nose brushes against your clit.
You haven’t discovered his objective, but thank the gods for him. It is somewhat relaxing and simultaneously frustrating for him to be lapping away mindlessly at your cunt.
“Please, Gwayne, let me cum—” you beg, all breathless and crestfallen, and his eyes flick up to you. He finds you are the most spoiled thing he has ever met, yet also the most beautiful. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly should consider being taken as your husband.
He nods once. “As you wish.”
And his mouth is replaced by his fingers. He pumps them into you, a relentless pace, and his lips find themselves back onto you, but now on your clit.
He laps at you and rocks his fingers further inside, getting your folds all slick and glossy with both your own and his own arousal, as well as his own saliva.
He curls his fingers deep in your cunt, in that spongy spot that once sheathed his cock, and it is enough to bring you to climax before you realize it.
You swear your vision goes black for a moment as you cum, and the bliss fills your body over the irritation. It was embarrassingly fast how quickly he brought you to absolution, but you did not have enough might to let it wash over you the way your orgasm had.
Gwayne looks up at you with those big blue eyes of his, now glossed over. The lower half of his face is sheen with your cum—his cum—and he pants and lifts himself up to join you on the marble, his strong body glistening with the damp of the bath.
You think you might faint.
day fourteen
Tonight’s inn had been the nicest of all fourteen. You and Gwayne had jointly decided for it to be the last of your stops, and that you would make the journey the rest of the way there without sleeping.
It was not long to King’s Landing. As much as you had longed to see your mother, and to be home again, the thought of what would happen to Gwayne in the coming days was a thought too harrowing to bear.
But it had lingered in your mind since the field. Certainly he could not leave you, having taken your maidenhood. Your mother would find a way. She knows what it is like to be infatuated with someone you should not be infatuated with. She knows Gwayne. As a soldier for the opposition, yes, but she knows him all the more.
If she has held mercy for his sister, she would certainly hold mercy for him, especially given the situation at hand. The situation of you being in love with a Hightower, and him having bedded you—well, fucked you in a field, then in a bath, a few scattered moments along the road of him lapping at your cunt, or sticking his fingers there to cull your nerves the nights you were too tense to sleep. Your mother coddled you enough before you were taken hostage, and she would certainly do more once you are back with her.
Gwayne seems to sense your restlessness. You have resorted to single bed rooms in the inns, given the underestimated lack of coin he decided to bring with him. He has been able to pick up on your behavior for the last few days—noting to himself how much you lack sleep the closer you get to King’s Landing—and he has always been able to get you to talk about it. Tonight, you seem not wanting of his perception.
He turns over to face you. “Are you feeling well?” he asks.
You look to him for a moment. “I feel fine.”
Propping himself up on one arm, he maneuvers himself closer until he is hovering above you, as he stares down at where you lie. “You mustn’t need to lie.” His voice is soft.
Your lungs expand with a heavy breath of air. “I do not wish for you to leave when we return to the Red Keep. You told me that we would talk about it, and we never have.”
He brushes your hair behind your ear with his free hand. “What would you like to talk about?”
“I want us to wed.”
Gwayne stares into you. And then hangs his head low with laughter.
“I am serious, Gwayne. If you swore fealty to my mother, the rightful queen, she would show you mercy. I have no doubt she has shown it to your sister, and to your niece and her daughter too.” His smile was wiped from his face sometime as you spoke.
“You cannot be certain of that, though, can you princess?” he mumbles, raising his head back up to cock it to the side.
“I cannot.” You begin picking at the skin around your fingernails.
Gwayne places a hand over them, stopping you. “The agreement was for me to bring you, unharmed, to the Red Keep. And then I would leave, or they would have my head.” His hand envelops one of yours.
“My mother would not let them have it, if I simply tell her.”
“You speak lightly of a heavy thing, my princess.” He squeezes your hand a bit tighter. “If you so much as suggest that the Hightowers are anything less than treasonous vipers, your mother’s council will smell a captive who has learned to love her cage. You are her only daughter, yes, and she adores you. Therefore, if she discovers how thoroughly I have failed to keep my distance, amnesty will be the last thing she grants my house. It will be fire and blood, starting with my head on a pike.”
“She knows what it is like to love someone forbidden to her.”
Gwayne grins at your words. “She also knows she must satisfy her council,” he says softly.
As much as it pains you, you realize he is right. Yet he still remains as handsome as ever in the dark, and his lips are glossed over, looking so plump and lonely.
“Will you kiss me?” you mutter, and kiss you he does. His mouth is just as soft as you had imagined, and he is still so tender and hesitant in his ministrations you almost feel a want to take over.
Your lips are pliable, though, and part for him almost instantly. The hand that held yours comes up to cradle your cheek, and your legs open up a spot for him to slot himself into.
You are grateful for the loss of layers in spite of the outdoor elements—which have been terribly cold nearly the entire journey—as they give you easy access to the growing length in Gwayne’s linens.
He breathes a low groan into your mouth when you reach a hand under the fabric cuff of his waist to grip his cock. You pump him in a slow rhythm, and he nearly falters completely, the arm propping him up above you buckling and lowering him to his elbow.
The hand cradling your face moves to your own core, and he hastily hikes your shift up your thighs. His fingers find your cunt, pressing his thumb to your clit and stroking it.
The two of you breath and pant into one another’s mouth, the speed of both of your caresses increasing as your moans do.
“Would you—” Gwayne pants, “like me inside?”
You nod eagerly, and pull your hand from his cock. His own hand ceases motion on you, and he uses both arms to gather your body and flip you onto your stomach. The featherbed mattress bounces with the movement, and you reach your hands behind you to pull your shift up entirely to your middle, perking your ass up toward him.
Gwayne has already rid himself of his smallclothes in the meantime. He places a hand right above your backend, stabilizing both you and himself, and lines himself up with your cunt.
He leans his body over yours and presses soft kisses along your spine, pushing himself inside of you with a long groan. You let out a needy one all the same.
“Keep moving—” you beg, letting the top of your head fall to the pillow below you. He hums in response, and begins thrusting slowly, still hesitant.
It is a stretch, but a welcome one nonetheless. It is easy to lose trail of your thoughts with the drag of his cock in and out and the press of his chest to your back, the song of his pretty little grunts and groans singing in your ear.
He wraps his arms around your middle, one hand gripping a breast through the soft cotton of your shift. You flick your hair away from your neck, and his lips quickly find the spot, tipping you into absolute bliss.
One of his arms, the one not clutching your chest, sneaks down to your core, and he begins rubbing your clit with a seemingly endless vitality.
The other pushes the two of you up so that you are both standing on your knees. Your hands extend to his head behind you, pushing it closer as you awkwardly crane your neck so that you can join your lips with his in what may be the sloppiest way they have ever met each other.
His fingers continue their assault on your pearl, and his hips rock into you, and it all feels so much. So good, yet so much. Your chest rises and falls rapidly with each slam of his cock into your cunt, the strength of which also makes his head bob slightly into your kiss, coating the area above and below and beside your lips with his own spit.
There is little surprisingly little build-up to your release. It comes quick, like the tide coming in to take away a shell from the shore. It seems to tear through you, lighting up every nerve in your body, pulled straight from your breathless lungs and your racing heart and illuminating your frenzied brain with nothing other than euphoria.
He is still pumping in and out of you, seemingly chasing his own release. You feel a warmth deep in your overwhelmed cunt, and you know he has come, his body slowing entirely. He breaks away from your lips with a soft little cry, and you simply look at each other for a moment as your breath returns to the both of you.
In this moment, you think Ser Gwayne Hightower is the most beautiful creature in the world.
“You are more than a beauty,” he says in turn. You grin at him, still breathless, and join your lips together once more.
day sixteen
When you arrive at the gates of the Red Keep, Syrax and Caraxes are posted on the battlements.
You look over, and Gwayne seems as if he might just curl up and die. You scoff out a laugh at the sight, and he immediately straightens his back.
Open the gates, yells some guard from behind the wall, and the gate begins to part, grinding against the gravel below.
You will see your mother today. For the first time in months, you will see your mother. Will she be different? Is she a different person now that she is on the throne? More importantly, will she be a different person now that her eldest son is dead? You wonder if they have burned the body yet, or perhaps even set it out to sea. He could not become a Targaryen, as he would never become King—the gods would not allow it, so history will remember him as a Velaryon. It would only be fitting for his body to be released into the water.
You should tell her about this. She must be so overwhelmed with all of her recent duties, she may have forgotten about the fact. Is little Joffrey still in the Vale? Surely, mother must have sent for his return by now. He is too vulnerable there on his own, no matter who he is with.
When you blink hard in an attempt to settle yourself, you realize your horse has been guided inside the walls of the Keep, and Gwayne is helping you off of your horse. His hands are on your waist, and you jump down with a grip on his wrists to stabilize you. Yet your eyes are not on him—they are on any entrance, every door where your mother could come out of.
He sighs, and you finally glance at him. His hands hesitate to leave their spot on your middle. “You are home, and you are safe, my princess.” And then his arms drop back to his side, as if ashamed he let them linger for a moment too long.
“Must you go?” you breathe out a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood that seems to deepen with each passing moment.
His hand reaches for yours, and his voice is lower now. “It is the deal.”
For some reason, your heart seems to shatter. It feels odd and disheartening, knowing that he in this moment has a harsher effect on you than anything before.
Your expression has dropped, and Gwayne must be able to see it. His hand grips yours tighter, and he sucks in a breath, his head dropping to avoid your gaze. Your gaze, which quickly wells with tears. You are confused as to how this would have been the outcome of your journey together—and you are unsure if you are glad of it, or instead disappointed in yourself for not realizing that this is what would always happen.
You lower your voice too. “I do not want you to go,” you say, and your hand finally reciprocates Gwayne’s affection. You clutch it, tight, hoping it may get through to him.
It does not. His head does not lift, not even a single bit. You think you can see his brows furrow.
“I have done my duty, my princess,” he mumbles.
Hundreds of solutions flow through your mind in an instant. He could stay, swear fealty to your mother, and he could be yours. He could be your sworn shield and protector. He could be yours, if he would only say yes.
You open your mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. The words die on your tongue.
“Stay,” is what you can manage. “Please, Gwayne.”
His head tilts up, but he still averts his gaze from yours. Something else, something in the distance, catches his attention. It catches yours too. Two heads of familiar lengthy silver hair—your mother and her husband—inch closer to you and Gwayne.
The hand that held onto his was already back at your side. You must have done it without thought.
“Mummy,” you mumble. And she smiles.
She inches closer to you, seemingly dumbfounded that the sight before her is real. “Sweet girl,” she says, and you feel close to crumbling.
You want to step closer, to close the gap between the two of you, but you cannot bring yourself to leave his side.
But Gwayne is by your side one moment, and gone the next. He is pulled away by the gold cloaks, and it is with little struggle. He lets himself be pulled away. He lets himself be pushed out of the walls of the Keep, and he watches as you stand and stammer all bewildered and reaching to plead his forgiveness to the queen.
The gate closes on him once his horse is by his side.
day thirty five
You have not found much use for yourself since you have returned to the Red Keep. Neither has anyone else.
The war still rages on. It reminds you of the promise you had made to yourself, to leave if it did not end, to leave with Gwayne to Essos. He would be a sellsword, and you a scribe, under the protection of Silverwing.
It seemed a better life, a freer life, you and he on the road together. Being locked away in your chambers of your own volition, anything seemed better.
But Gwayne had abandoned you that day. He had let himself be carried away, and your mother had ignored your pleas of his fealty. It seemed nobody was on your side.
You had only wished for peace. Whatever had grown in place of it had taken your brothers away from you, and Gwayne, too, in some way.
If the war had not gone on, perhaps you could have met him another way. Perhaps he would have been your betrothed. And you could love him the way you wanted to, the way you should have since you woke up in the encampment with him by your side.
He had protected you all those months ago, you had come to realize. The violence of the men who fought under his command would have harmed you more than the words that came from his mouth when defending himself in your stupid fights, the ones you would feed into when he forced you to ride alongside him as the soldiers would march further into the Reach. The words that you replied with when he would anger you, when he would attempt to get close to you.
You should have let him get close to you when he tried. Your need for survival had prevailed then and you took every attempt as some sort of tactic to manipulate you to his side.
But Gwayne had no side, as you swiftly figured out. He wanted out of his cage seemingly as badly as you did, but he did the intelligent thing—the thing he warned you he would always do—and returned to his people, to those he swore loyalty to.
These days, it feels you have no people. Your mother is always off attending to her royal duties, your stepfather and cousins assisting her. And you have no brothers left to bond to. Joffrey is still too little, and too shy, to converse with. The others, your half-siblings, are just a few years young.
If the Hightowers had left you for dead that day, you think you would be more comfortable in the arms of the Stranger than you do in this seemingly haunted home. Your maidenhood would be untainted, and your memory would live on as tragic and loyal. You had left to fight for your mother’s cause after all and you would have died for it then, gods willing.
A piece of you wants to hurl yourself from a window for the treasonous thoughts you have had, but you just want peace. You want peace and freedom. Most of all, though, you want Gwayne.
You can only hope he wants you too, wherever he is. You will wait, and you will bide your time until the war is over—if you live until then. And you will take Silverwing and fly to him, and you will be with him, and you will exile yourselves to Essos. You will dream of that outcome until it happens.
— summary: no matter how far duty takes him, gwayne always finds himself crawling back to you.
— pairing: gwayne hightower x targaryen!female!reader
— word count: ~1.7k
— content: +18, smut !!! (minors dni), p in v sex, unprotected sex, creampie, afab!reader, established marriage/relationship, mutual pining, possessive language, he whimpers and cries, praise kink, body worship, gentle dominance, sub!gwayne, he is so pathetic for reader, happy ending.
writer’s note: english is not my mother tongue, so please forgive me if there is a grammatical error. hope you like it!
“You believe I ought to let you go, hm?” you ask breathlessly, your hands hooked securely around his neck, your unforgiving hips bringing flashes of pleasure throughout his entire boneless body.
Neither of you have any knowledge of how long you’ve been there, nor how many times you’ve peaked. The evidence of your orgasm now making a sticky mess between your legs and spraying his thighs, creating a wet sound that’s nearly lewd each time you lower yourself all the way down onto his cock and bottom out, sitting all pretty on his lap.
A goddess hovering above him, mighty and glorious. And there he remains, but a servant at her mercy.
Gwayne is lost in the haze of your body and your cunt and the way you're making him feel—so lightheaded that he can hardly even comprehend your words. Though he does, for he was made to listen to you, to answer to you, to obey you, to receive whatever you choose to bestow upon him.
“N-no,” he babbles his reply, his lovely lips—all wet with sweat and his own spit—tracing a trail of sloppy kisses down your throat. His lean arms lock your body tight against him in an unavoidable cage, his hands molding to the outline of your hips and guiding you up and down on top of him, to ride him like a savage. “Never let me go, my love. I could not bear to be away from you any longer—hmm!—”
The dirt clinging to him, the fine dust of the trail ground into his skin, the smudges of earth dried against his jawline, temple and cheekbones from days of relentless travel, doesn’t diminish him. It fucking heightens him. Every sweat-streaked trace of soil on his flushed face and along the tense line of his neck only serves as a raw, tangible marker of how far he had pushed himself in the last days, how tirelessly he journeyed... just to reach you.
Seeing him like this; weary, filthy, and thoroughly pathetic, ignites something fierce and primal deep within you. It makes your blood run hotter, turning every harsh, heavy bounce of your hips into a claim over every inch of him.
“And what did you do all this time we’ve been apart?” you question him in a remarkably steady voice, considering just how utterly overwhelmed he's making you feel, tugging sharply at his reddish hair to force him off your neck so you can look him straight in the eye. “How many whores were you with while I was gone, husband?”
The sight of him—your sweet, perfect knight—now reduced to a ruined mess begging for your mercy, makes your insides clench even tighter. Your cunt pulses around the length of his hard cock, impossibly tight, sucking him deep inside, so deep that his swollen tip bumps up against that one special little spot inside you that lights up stars everywhere you look.
It’s a remarkable circumstance, that you two have withstood all these months away from each other. The only thing that could ever separate you would be death or war, and war has fallen in between you, unfortunately locking you into opposing sides. Your birth name and your dragon are what, months ago, dragged you away from the peace of Oldtown and back to Dragonstone, where you were summoned to take on an important role alongside your mother Rhaenyra, the true heir to the Iron Throne.
And Gwayne, by his family name, had to follow his sister's orders and swear allegiance to the Usurper.
Your husband shakes his head in despair, whimpers slipping from his half–open lips, and big tears welling up in the corners of his beautiful eyes, blue and sparkly like a sky full of stars. “N–none, my Princess. I could never be with anyone else.”
You know it’s true, and that someone like Gwayne—your Gwayne—could never even consider being with anyone other than you; he could never possibly betray you. His own values as the most righteous and honorable man in the Seven Kingdoms forbid it, and most importantly, he is simply much too in love with you to view anyone else with the kind of gaze that is only reserved for you.
His body belongs to you; his soul, heart, and mind are yours.
“No?” nevertheless, you question through a low whisper, taking full advantage of the fact that you’re performing a slow circular motion down his lap so you can lean toward him and kiss his lips. He moans into your mouth, making you breathe him in, his thrill, his pleasure, his appreciation.
The very moment your dear husband spotted the ominous silhouette of your dragon swooping down from the cloudy sky and onto him and Criston’s futile little army, he knew it was all over. He had endured so much over the past few moons, forced to follow that foolish man around. It was absurd—what other choice did they have? Nothing but to beg for the dragon’s mercy.
Fortunately for him, it was you who descended from the clouds, for if it had been anyone else, he would be as dead as Cole.
He keeps whimpering as your hips rise again, your velvety walls wrapping all around his cock, making him twitch inside you, as your tongue runs passionately along his cheekbone, wiping away the tears that have dampened his freckled, flushed skin.
“No one takes me the way you do, my beloved,” he claims, kissing your lips to seal it like a promise. He kisses you again and again before continuing to whisper sweet things to you. “No one feels like you—so tight and perfect. I—fuck—I am yours.”
He pulls you down hard against him, his hips snapping upward to meet your descent with an ungodly, wet slap that knocks the breath clean from your lungs. The tip of his cock buries itself ruthlessly against that exquisite, agonizing spot inside you, making the world behind your eyelids fracture into brilliant bursts of gold and white, of him, his soul.
“Yours,” he repeats, a broken, desperate prayer against the seam of your lips. His slender fingers dig brutally into the soft flesh of your hips, leaving bruises that will surely bloom tomorrow. “Always yours. Slice open my chest, my love... look inside, feel it... there is no room for a King or a crown or a throne. Only you. Only my wife, my sweet wife.”
Gwayne locks his arms around your waist and shifts his weight, rolling you both over in one fluid, breathless movement. In an instant, the tent spins, and he settles above you, his heavy, warm body pressing you back into the wrinkled bed and thrusting his hips into you.
He looks down at you through a veil of disheveled, reddish hair, his sky–blue eyes dark with emotion and body utterly undone by yours.
“G–gwayne...” you moan out his name, your hands moving up to the broad curve of his shoulder blades, your fingers digging into his freckled skin as he frames your face with trembling hands. “My dearest”
“Yours,” he pledges, the words rolling off his tongue and onto your lips like a prayer and he kisses you again, and again. “Let me give you everything. Take it all—all of me.”
He sets a relentless, desperate pace, driving both of you straight past the edge. Your back arches into him, your legs wrapping tightly around his waist as the tension builds to an agonizing, exquisite peak.
When the wave finally breaks, it crashes over both of you at once—a blinding, overwhelming release that leaves you clinging to one another, gasping for air and crying each other’s names as your heartbeats clash against each other’s chests in tandem.
Gushes of his seed warm your insides, coating your walls in his color and laying claim to your womb.
The feeling is so familiar, the way he fills you right to the brim, so much that trickles overflow out the edges of your throbbing, abused cunt.
“Gods above...” Your lover sighs weakly against your collarbone, leaving a wet trail of saliva on your skin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you...”
You stroke the soft, auburn hair at the nape of his neck, breathing in the scent of rain, leather, and him.
Your fingers trace appreciatively the familiar curve of his back as your chest heaves in time with his, the wet warmth between your thighs a quiet, lingering mark of the love he just poured into you.
“Gwayne,” you call out to him softly into the dark, your voice cutting through the heavy silence of the tent.
He shifts slightly, pressing a tender kiss onto the sensitive skin beneath your jaw. “I'm here, my love. I'm right here.”
You cup his beautiful face in your hands, forcing him to lift his head so you can look straight into those clear, desperate blue eyes. The tears have dried on his cheeks, but the vulnerability in his gaze is raw and absolute.
“Then come with me,” you say, the command laced with a quiet, pleading ache that makes his breath catch in his throat. “Leave all of this behind tonight. Fly with me to King’s Landing and bend the knee to my mother; she will grant you mercy and forgiveness.”
Gwayne freezes, his chest resting heavily against yours as the weight of your words sinks in.
“My love...” he begins, his voice thick with an ache so profound, for love and for you. He presses his forehead against yours, his warm, uneven breath fanning over your lips. “Would that truly make you happy? Is this what you need from me?”
“It is what I desire above all else in this world,” you answer without hesitation, your voice trembling with the full weight of your devotion. You kiss him tenderly, tasting the salt on his skin. “I want you by my side, Gwayne. I want you, alive, safe, and mine. I need you with me.”
A shaky, shuddering breath escapes his chest, and a brilliant, tearful smile bleeds across his flushed face.
“Then it is done,” Gwayne breathes out, capturing your mouth in a kiss that tastes like sweet relief and irreversible surrender. He pulls your body flush against his, resting his weight over you one more time. “Take me with you, my Princess. Where you fly, I shall follow.”
genre: angst, romance, heartbreak, hurt/little comfort
pairings: robb stark x reader
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Notes: this chapter is a little shorter than the previous ones, rest assured though my friends that there will be more to come!
The Riverlands were green, but it was a wet, rotting green that smelled of old river mud, stagnant water, and horses that had died in the ditches.
There, the rain didn’t clear the air; it only seemed to press the stench of the war deeper into the earth. It clung to the canvas of the tents, rusted the hinges of the supply wagons, and turned the encampment of the Northern army into a sprawling, miserable bog. Every step across the camp was a battle against the mud, which seemed determined to swallow the boots, the gear, and the very spirit of the men who marched beneath the Stark banner.
Robb Stark moved through this landscape like a man possessed, a living manifestation of Northern fury.
Since the crossing of the Trident, he had carved a path of wreckage through the Lannister lines that would be sung about for centuries. He had broken the siege of Riverrun with a tactical brilliance that defied his age, outmaneuvering the vaunted Jaime Lannister, and then proceeded to tear through the Lannister host at every turn.
He had won the Battle of the Camps with the surgical precision of a master surgeon, and he had shattered the forces at Oxcross, turning the pride of the West into a disorganized rabble. His name had become a whisper of terror in the Lannister camps—a young wolf who did not play by the rules of chivalry, but by the cold, biting logic of the North.
Yet, as the victories piled up, the boy who had left Winterfell seemed to retreat further behind a mask of iron.
It was in the tent that smelled of old maps, damp wool, and the metallic tang of dried blood that Catelyn Stark found him.
She had ridden hard to reach him, her cloak heavy with the filth of the road, her face etched with the weariness of a woman who had seen the world turn to ash. When she pulled back the tent flap, the sight that met her was not the son she remembered.
Robb was hunched over a table scattered with charcoal-sketched maps, his fingers tracing lines of supply routes and troop movements. He was older—years older in the space of months. The boyish softness of his jaw had sharpened into a blade; his eyes, once bright with the quiet contemplation of a lord’s son, were now flat, weary, and colder than the winds off the Wall.
He didn't look up when she entered. He simply continued to mark a position on the map, his hand steady.
"Robb," she said, her voice soft, carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken fears.
He stiffened, the quill hovering for a heartbeat before he set it down. He turned, and the look he gave her was not the look of a son greeting his mother, but of a general evaluating an arrival.
"Mother," he replied. His voice was deeper, stripped of its youthful inflection.
She walked toward him, her hand reaching out to touch his arm, but she stopped, sensing the invisible wall he had erected around himself. "You have won everything, Robb. The victories... they are staggering. The North bows to your name."
"Yet the war is far from over," he countered, turning back to the maps. "Tywin Lannister is still in the field. Stannis is moving. Renly is posturing. My victories are just the beginning, not the end."
Catelyn looked at him, seeing the weight of the crown he hadn't yet been given, but was already wearing in his soul. "Winterfell is suffering, Robb. The people look to you. They need their Lord. You have proven yourself. Come home. Let the bannermen finish this."
Robb leaned over the table, his knuckles pressing into the wood. "I will not go back to Winterfell. Not while there is a Lannister on a throne, not while my sisters are held hostage in their capital, and not while the North has the strength to fight for its own sovereign right."
Catelyn sighed, a slow, rattling sound that seemed to pull the breath from her lungs. She looked at him then—truly looked at him—with the fierce, protective, and sorrowful gaze of a mother who understood that her child was no longer hers to guide. She saw the iron in his spine, the steel in his gaze, and the terrible, beautiful necessity of his purpose.
"No," she said, her voice a whisper of resigned understanding. "I figured you would not. You have your father's stubborn heart, Robb. And his cursed sense of duty."
She moved closer then, and this time, she reached out, cupping his face in her hands. He didn't pull away, but he didn't lean in, either. He remained rigid, a statue of duty.
"Just promise me," she continued, "that you will not lose yourself in the process. The North needs a Lord, yes, but it needs a man, too. Do not let the mud and the blood make you forget what you are fighting for."
He pulled away gently, his gaze returning to the map. "I know what I am fighting for, Mother."
The air in the command tent was thick enough to choke on—a suffocating blend of damp canvas, guttering oil lamps, and the metallic, biting scent of wet iron. Rain drummed against the roof with a relentless, maddening rhythm, turning the encampment outside into a drowning world of black mud.
Robb sat at the head of the table, his fingers tracing the jagged topography of a map that meant nothing to the men gathered in the shadows. He looked hollowed out. The victories at the camps and Oxcross had bought them time, but they hadn't bought them peace. His eyes, once bright with the impatient fire of youth, were now dulled by the constant, grinding fatigue of command.
Catelyn stood just behind his shoulder, her cloak heavy with the damp of the road. She had watched him grow over these past few weeks, not into the man she had hoped for, but into something sharper, colder, and terrifyingly inevitable.
She had sent Ser Rodrik Cassel back to Winterfell with a heavy heart, convinced that the Master-at-Arms would be the anchor the castle needed.
He is the shield of the North, she had told herself, clinging to the thought as if it were a prayer. With Rodrik there, the walls will hold. The people will be safe.
But as she looked at the map, she felt a sickening lurch in her gut. The North felt impossibly far away, a distant, fragile dream that the war was slowly eroding.
"The Lannisters aren't going to just watch us bleed them, Robb," she said, her voice a low, urgent warning. "We have left the North exposed. I have sent Rodrik back to Winterfell, but the castle is far, and I fear what might crawl out of the shadows if the Lannisters realize just how much of our strength is pinned here in the Riverlands."
Robb didn't look up. "I know the risks, Mother."
"Do you?" She stepped closer, her voice tight with a mother's desperation. "We are fighting for a throne that doesn't belong to us, while our own home sits vulnerable in the frost. Every day we spend in these Riverlands, we leave Winterfell more open to those who would see our line extinguished."
Before Robb could reply, the tent flap groaned inward. Greatjon Umber ducked his head, bringing the storm in with him. He was a mountain of a man, his surcoat stained with the mire of the camp. He didn't come to talk of strategy. He came to demand a change in the world.
He stared at the men huddled in the tent—Karstark, Glover, Mormont. They were tired. They were men of salt and iron who had marched through hell, only to realize their leaders were playing a game they didn't understand.
"We’ve done your fighting," Greatjon rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "We’ve won your battles. And for what? To be pawns of the South while our own halls stand silent?"
He turned to Robb, his gaze heavy with the weight of the men he led. "My father died waiting for the Starks to stop acting like guests in their own country. We don't want a seat on their small council. We don't want their laws. We want to be home, and we want a leader who knows the cost of the ground we walk on."
"I am a Stark," Robb said, his voice quiet. "My place is here, to finish what my father started."
"Your father is dead!" Greatjon’s roar shook the oil lamps. The men in the room went still, the only sound the frantic patter of rain against the canvas.
"He’s dead because he played by their rules. Look at us, boy. Look at the mud we're sleeping in. We aren't Southerners. We’re Northmen. We’ve fought for you because we’re bound by blood, but that blood isn't for the Riverlands. It’s for the North."
Greatjon stepped forward, his massive hand coming down on the trestle table with a force that made the map shudder. "I don't need a scroll from a throne-room to tell me who my king is. I’ve seen you lead. I’ve seen you win. And I’ve seen enough of the South to know we have no place among them."
One by one, the other lords began to shift. The tension in the room snapped. It wasn't a ceremony; it was a realization. Rickard Karstark was the first to drop to one knee. Then the Glovers, then Maege Mormont, her face hardened by the loss of her men. They knelt in the cramped, miserable space of the tent, their armor clanking against the floorboards.
Then, it began.
It wasn't a chant, not at first. It was a low, guttural murmur that started in the back of the tent—the sound of a hundred tired men finding a single, shared purpose. It rose in volume, a rhythmic, thundering declaration that seemed to pull the very air from the room.
“THE KING IN THE NORTH! THE KING IN THE NORTH!”
Catelyn felt the breath hitch in her throat. As the roar grew, drowning out the rain, she looked at her son. Robb stood frozen in the center of the kneeling circle, his face pale, his jaw set in a line of agonizing resolve.
For a heartbeat, the flickering oil lamp cast a shadow across his brow, and she saw him—not as the boy who had played in the gardens of Winterfell, but as Ned. It was the same stillness, the same unbearable weight of duty, the same devastating honor that had led her husband to his grave in King's Landing.
Her heart shattered. She realized then that by letting this happen, by allowing the Northern lords to tear them away from the Iron Throne’s reach, they were sealing their own fate. She thought of Ser Rodrik in the empty courtyard of Winterfell, trying to keep the peace with a handful of guards, oblivious to the fact that the men kneeling in this muddy tent had just made his mission impossible. They were drawing a line in the sand that the Lannisters would never forgive.
The chant reached a fever pitch, a deafening, primal wall of sound.
Robb didn't speak. He didn't ask for this. He stood there, the living, breathing image of his father’s pride, trapped in a destiny he hadn't asked for but couldn't refuse.
The crown wasn't made of gold; it was made of the blood of the men around him, and as the cries for a King in the North rattled the tent poles, Catelyn saw the fire. She saw the smoke drifting over the glass gardens, the iron men creeping through the woods, and the cold, hollow silence of a home that was already lost.
The boy was gone. The King was born in the mud, and as the shadows lengthened, the winter—the true, hungry winter—began its long march home to claim them all.
Robb sat in his tent near the Crag, the King’s crown of bronze and iron sitting on the camp table beside a half-eaten loaf of hard barley bread. He hadn't touched the food.
The war was going well—the smallfolk sang of the Young Wolf, the lords toasted the boy who had never lost a battle, and the Lannisters were bleeding in the west—but every victory felt like another stone added to his pockets.
His shoulders were bowed under the weight of his cloak, his eyes ringed with the dark purple of exhaustion as he recalled his previous conversation with his mother.
Catelyn Stark had argued for hours, her voice a calm, desperate blade against the walls of his tent, insisting that he could not win the war with the meager handful of men currently under his command.
She knew the rules of survival better than any general, and she saw clearly that without a wider net of alliances, her son’s rebellion would be nothing more than a brief, tragic flicker in the history of the realm.
With a heavy heart, she pressed him to let her ride to Renly Baratheon, framing her departure as a diplomatic necessity rather than a retreat from the suffocating pressure of his new crown.
Robb eventually bowed to the logic of the numbers, though his eyes lingered on her with a haunting, wordless plea as he realized she was the last bridge to the world he was rapidly leaving behind.
It had not been two fortnights when the news came to the King in the North.
The heavy flap of the tent snapped open, letting in a sudden gust of damp, chill wind that made the candles flicker and hiss.
Edmure Tully stepped in. His copper beard was damp with drizzle, but it was his face that caught Robb’s attention—it was entirely drained of color, his jaw set so tight the muscle bunched beneath his skin. In his hand, he held a single, crumpled piece of parchment, the red wax seal already cracked to dust.
"Robb," his uncle said. His voice had no weight to it. It was the voice a man used when he was delivering the names of the dead.
Robb didn't look up from his maps, his fingers adjusting a small wooden marker shaped like a trout near the Golden Tooth. "If the Freys are complaining about the outriders again, uncle, tell them I have no patience for it today. They will take the flank I gave them or they can march back to the Twins."
"It is not the Freys." Edmure stepped closer, his heavy leather boots dragging across the muddy canvas floor.
He set the paper down on the map, right over the blue line of the Trident, covering the very heart of the Riverlands.
"A raven from the North. From a hunter who escaped into the wolfswood."
Robb paused.
His hand, still holding the wooden direwolf marker, froze in the air. The silence in the tent grew suffocatingly loud, save for the rhythmic patter of rain against the canvas overhead.
"The North? Is it my mother? Has she reached White Harbor?"
"No," Edmure said softly, his voice dropping an octave. "It's Winterfell."
Robb’s head snapped up, his blue eyes instantly sharpening, narrowing with a sudden, icy focus. "What of Winterfell? My brothers are there. Ser Rodrik has the garrison—"
"The garrison is gone, Robb," Edmure interrupted, his voice hollow. "Theon Greyjoy took the castle. He brought two score ironmen up the kiss of the shore, took the wildlings' paths, and scaled the walls in the dead of night. There was no one left to hold the gates."
The room seemed to lose its air.
Robb stood slowly, the iron plate of his armor scraping violently against the wood of his chair as he stood. His heart battered against his ribs, a cold dread flooding his veins. "My brothers. Bran. Rickon. Tell me they are safe."
Edmure looked away, his eyes fixed on the canvas wall of the tent, unable to meet his nephew's gaze. "The hunter... he says they are gone, Robb. Fled into the woods before the castle fell, or worse."
The man eyed the King in the North as his grip began to crack the wood.
"Theon has declared himself Prince of Winterfell."
The breath left Robb in a ragged gasp.
His home.
His brothers.
The world was tilting on its axis, spinning out of his control while he sat in the mud of the south. But before he could even process the terror threatening to drown him, a sharper, more agonizing thought cut through the chaos.
"What of the head of the staff? Gage? The maester?" Robb demanded, his voice cracking, stepping around the table until he was gripping Edmure's tunic with his bare hand. His knuckles went white.
You? His voice had died down.
"They would not run. They wouldn't leave the children. Tell me they escaped. Tell me that–" Robb paused to catch jis breath, his eyes shaking. "Tell me that she is safe."
Edmure Tully did not know who his nephew was asking about but he had an inkling of it. He had fought beside the boy turned king for weeks now, has seen his victories and how he has led the vanguard into war.
And he would not say it out loud but he took great pride in how Robb looked more Tully than Stark. With his auburn hair, blue eyes, and his mouth that spouted words that rivalled Catelyn's pottymouth when they were young.
But in the rare moments where Robb would let his guard down, he resembled his father. Eddard Stark who fought for the same rebellion his son would soon overcome. Ned, who had taught him everything there is to know about courage and bravery but could never step up to his lady wife when she had a temper. His father, who held honor and duty above all else, but never his love.
And right now, he had seen that look in his eyes that looked straight at him.
A painfully familiar look that he knew could only be brought on by being on the verge of losing the one you love.
Edmure closed his eyes, swallowed hard, and shook his head. "She did not escape, Robb. The ironmen caught her in the yard, the Maester had been caught with her."
Robb waited with baited breath, Edmure did not want to continue.
"The hunter... he was hiding in the stables before he took a horse. He saw it all."
"Saw what?" Robb snarled, his voice rising into a frantic, desperate roar. "Speak, man!"
"Greyjoy has her," Edmure said, the words forced out like teeth being pulled. "He did not put her in the irons with the others. He dragged her up to the Keep. To the Lord's chambers."
"Your chambers, Robb. They–They say he has claimed her as his prize, before the eyes of the whole castle, to mock you. He flaunts her on the walls."
The wooden direwolf in Robb's hand cracked.
It did not just split; the old pine shattered down the center under the sudden, terrible strength of his grip, the sharp splinters biting deep into his palm, tearing through the skin until a thick, dark line of red began to ooze between his knuckles, dripping onto the map below.
He did not feel the pain. He could not feel anything but the sudden, suffocating roar of his own blood in his ears.
In the small, agonizing space of his own mind, the noise of the rain outside and the distant shouting of the camp vanished. All he could hear, playing on a cruel, endless loop, was the echo of his own voice from three turnings of the moon ago, booming against the stone rafters of the Great Hall.
He had done this. He had stripped you of your armor, taken your safety, your confidence, your belief that you had a home, and he had shattered it because he was too weak to carry his own fear.
And then he had left you there. Unprotected. Alone in a castle stripped of its men, while he rode south to chase a crown made of mud and iron.
"My Lord?" Edmure asked, stepping backward in genuine alarm as the young king's face went from an ash-white to a deep, dark purple, his chest heaving as if he were suffocating. "My Lord, we must consider the strategy. If we march north now, we lose the Riverlands—"
"To hell with the Riverlands," Robb whispered.
The voice did not belong to the King in the North. It was the voice of a boy who had just realized the ice beneath his feet had grown too thin, a boy who had traded his soul for a crown he never wanted and lost everything that mattered in the bargain.
Robb just wanted his sisters back.
He had just wanted to come home.
He looked down at his bleeding hand, the red drops falling directly onto the word Winterfell written on the parchment. His eyes were wide, wild, and entirely unhinged with a terrifying, protective fury.
"Robb, listen to reason—"
"Get Greatjon!" Robb roared, the sound tearing from his throat like a wounded animal, throwing the shattered pieces of the wooden wolf across the tent. He slammed his bloody fist onto the table, shattering the map weights.
"Get Greatjon! Tell the Umbers to mount! Tell the Karstarks to draw their steel! We ride north! We ride tonight, even if the horses drop dead beneath us!"
𑣲⋆ THIS IS ME PRAYING THAT THIS WAS THE VERY FIRST PAGE.
— soulmate robb stark x fem!arryn!reader.
— canon divergence (everybody lives au.. mostly. well. every stark lives au, at the very least 😬)
enchanted, 10.1k part i.
꒰ summary. you always knew soulmates were real, but you never thought you would find yours. travelling to the north with your father to learn about the berries you loved so much led you to a man you felt an undeniable connection with. but was he a true gentleman . . or were you being fooled by the heir to the north?
enchanted, 9.1k part ii. (coming soon)
꒰ summary. a wedding between jon arryn's daughter and ned stark's son was sure to be the most important event of the season, right? the days leading up to your wedding are filled with nerves, fun and royal scandal. preparing to marry the man the gods chose for you, your soulmate, while the kingdom is at stake is no easy feat.
let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist!
ain't it funny how the honey wanted you all along... (masterlist) dilf! robb stark x chambermaid! f! reader
game of thrones masterlist ᯓ ao3
word count: 25k
series description: lord robb stark has long been mourning his long dead wife. everyone - and we mean everyone - around him has long since given up attempting to wed him off with another lady. and for the most part? robb's been happier that way.
until he sees you, his daughter's chambermaid.
suddenly - the lines between lord and chambermaid, and man and woman, blur over and under, in and out one another far too quickly. what will he do? what will you do?
roe speaks: this series is finally finished! (but for a final epilogue, to be written soon~) thank you to everyone who came along on this journey and read my ramblings of a dilfy robb stark!
chapters:
ᯓ★ teaser
ᯓ★ Chapter 1: Do you intend to make this a habit, then? Falling into my arms?
ᯓ★ Chapter 2: Ten more minutes in Heaven could justify a lifetime in Hell..
ᯓ★ Chapter 3: "Please, lovie, need you to tell me. I can't stand the thought of hurting you."
ᯓ★ Chapter 4: "You have wronged her, Robb. Let go."
ᯓ★ Chapter 5: "In every single living thing around me - all I see is you. I love you"
ᯓ★ Chapter 6: "I intend on loving you, 'till the Heav'n's themselves part us - and beyond. The stars, the Gods and all that exists have fated us to one another"
ᯓ★ Chapter 7: "Perhaps, the Heavens have blessed us..."
one shots:
★ "on your knees f'me, love." (or, crawling to dilf!robb stark)
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