(This is kinda inspired by Snow White, I’ve been thinking of doing a fairytale AU series. And I was thinking of Henry cavil as a twisted Snow White).
It was during the cruel winter that the good queen had her son. A boy with skin as white as snow, lips red like blood, and hair ad black as ebony. The good queen only had a moment to look upon her beautiful son before child fever over came her. She died that same cruel winter. The boy was named Snow.
It would be years before the good king set his eyes on another. This woman was different in most ways to the good queen. She was cunning, ambitious, and where the good queen had a beauty as gentle as her heart, the woman had a striking one. Something that struck every person who looked at her, including the good king.
Snow was seven when his father told him the news of marriage. That he was to get a mother and a baby sister.
The wedding was quick, but beautiful. Every thing was perfect, Snow hadn’t been to any weddings before but he knew that one was perfect.
It was a week after the wedding that he finally saw you, his father took him up to the nursery. There you were lying in your crib.
“She is so small. How will she do anything?” Snow asked his father, looking up at him with wide blue eyes.
The king let out a loud chuckle, “She is a baby, they don’t have to do much. You will have to wait till she is much older to play your silly games with her.” The king replies with a fond smile. As Snow looks back down at you, promising himself that he would protect you no matter the cost.
It was when you were seven and snow was fourteen when his father died. That was the same winter your mother became cruel, showing no mercy to anyone. Killing those who disagreed with her. Becoming obsessed with her beauty, asking her mirror if she was the fairest of them all. Snow had the worst of it, or so he thought. That was until you turned fourteen, and he 21. He saw your mother ask the mirror as aways, but she heard a different answer this time.
She was not the fairest of them all. You her daughter was.
That’s when he saw his stepmother give you an apple. He saw from his window as you passed out, and the guards took you to the deepest part of the dungeons.
It was two more years after he finally over through your mother. Ending the rein of the evil queen. He had his men search high and low for where she was keeping you. That’s when he found you, he dropped to his knees when he saw you in that glass coffin. Gods you are beautiful. He thought to himself.
He ordered the glass to be taken, and searched for anyway to wake you from your slumber.
That is when his men told him it was dark magic that put you to sleep. And he realized he would do anything to wake you.
pairing: ormund hightower x targaryen-niece!reader (reader is alicent's daughter but no major descriptions given except hair)
warnings: dead dove do not eat. dark fic. non con. dub con. incest. (they're second cousins as reader is alicent's daughter) aged up characters. reader is twenty. faux incest. (reader was raised by ormund) . heavy manipulation. coercion. psychological abuse. alluding to grooming? (more so reader is brought up to think her targaryen heritage is shameful and also to follow the faith of the seven - no implication of him wanting reader as a child). drugging with aphrodisiacs. dacraphylia. choking kink (kinda). smut. virginty checking. murder and blood at the start. more book canon rhaenyra taking king's landing. reader thinks team black is evil but is brainwashed into believing so. 18+ MDNI
a/n: if you read the warnings and go ewww, no. leave and block me. if you read this, and go eww but yes pls, come and show me some love. this is almost 7k words guys but please enjoy. barely proofread im sorry guys it was so long and im tired.
you are responsible for the content you consume. make sure to read warnings before proceeding with any of my fics
It is quite the thing to never truly know one's father.
There was a time, you believe, when your wide eyes knew him, the white hair and the violet eyes. Days when you were a babe and the comfort of a voice you heard in the womb carried, and you felt a familiarity to him, a warmth when he held you.
But these are all assumptions you make.
You’ve never truly known Viserys Targaryen. You know the stories told to you by your governess, and on the odd occasion your grandsire tended to you in the years he resided in Oldtown, you heard of his greatness from him too.
Even sitting here, under the dim candlelight of the tavern, listening to the sweet melody the bard strums on his lute, you try to paint a picture of him.
Generous. Oh, kind.
These words have been shared by many, and even as the man sings them, as if speaking them into existence, you can’t picture the man he sings of. The man who sired you. The man that sent you away when you couldn’t even crawl out of your own cradle.
A man you only saw twice when you were brought back to King’s Landing. A man that only left the confinement of his chambers once in the three years you’d been at court. Only on the return of his eldest daughter, only to protect her claim to the Iron Throne. A man you barely recognised, grey strings of hair coming out in patches on his head, blackened teeth and a face eaten by disease. He looked like a man already dead, clinging to the last grips of life, decaying before everyone’s eyes.
For a second, you tried to picture him younger, you as a babe in his arms and your tiny hand wrapped around one of his fingers. Even then, sitting across from you, the picture could not come to mind. The mere mutter of the word father brings a different image, a man with short mahogany hair, loose curls and deep blue eyes. A statue cloaked in green, a sharp jawline and lips pressed together in a thin line.
Ormund Hightower, a man you haven’t seen for five long years, is the man you’ve pictured for as long as you can remember. The shape of him, standing over you, so vivid in your mind you’re sure you could picture him sitting across from you now.
You wonder how he’s changed.
Have the grey strands taken root in his hair? Have the lines on his face drawn deeper over time? Would he look at you the same? Would he remember the girl that clung to his leg as a child, or the teenager that revelled in his approval of curt nods and brief words? Would he see the woman you have grown into?
You never thought you’d see him again; the night before you left him, he told you so. You’ve thought about it often, the fat tears stinging your eyes and falling across your cheek. The sobs you desperately tried to fight back as you gritted your teeth, ones that broke through your chest and left you quivering as you threw yourself at him behind the closed doors of his studies.
Unbecoming of a woman, you knew that, especially one that was well versed in your faith. You thought he might disapprove of the way you acted, shake his head and tell you so. Yet he didn’t; he let your hands find his shoulders, nails dig into the tunic, piercing into the skin underneath with no complaint. His arms wrapped around you, one hand placed firmly at your back, rubbing soothing circles into the small of your back.
We always knew this day was coming; he reminded you before pulling you away, placing his hands on your cheeks to hold you from him. This is your duty, where mine is here.
You wish you had told him how you wanted to say— wish that in that moment you begged him to let you reside here if just for a few more years. But you have always been destined to return to court, to marry into a noble family and draw new alliances for your family.
Yet in your five years away from home, away from the only family you’ve ever really known, a marriage never came to fruition. Offers came, many were discussed, and one proposal sat over your head for a year, but then came the death of the King, Viserys, and the placement of your eldest brother on the Iron Throne, and House of Arynn decidedly didn’t want to align themselves with usurpers. You’d never say it out loud, but you’d been happy, even if it was only prolonging the inevitable.
Wars bring bountiful amounts of marriages. But wars also bring death, and while you always knew that, you’d never been privy to the sight of it. Not until over a fortnight ago, when you’d been yanked from your bed in the night, forced to leave the confines of the Redkeep with one trusted guardsman with you.
Blood paved your way through the streets of King’s Landing, the Goldcloaks turning on the King’s Guard, shoving their swords deep into their backs. Even at the dead of the night, and on the brink of winter, it had been awfully hot, sweat beading on your head, and at every glance in a different direction you could see why: the glow of a fire bright from above, around almost every corner. The streets of flea-bottom had been a battle to get through, and if it hadn’t been for Ser Ronard protecting you with his very life, it may have been your body bleeding out on the cobblestones.
You dread what they could have done to you. Stripped you, beaten you, and molested your dead body.
They are animals, Ormund’s voice rang in your head and even now as you remember, you feel the ghost of his fingers as they brush your hair behind your ear. Nothing like our common folk.
Don’t they even deserve the mercy of the Gods? You’d asked him.
That is for the Gods to decide.
Ser Ronard clears his throat from beside you, pushing the bowl of stew towards you.
“Eat,” he commands.
You don’t look up, shaking your head.
“My Lord will have my head on a stick if I bring you to him thin as bones,” he grunts out, fingers reaching out for your chin but you flinch out of reach. He points to the bowl once more. “Eat.”
Your hand reaches out for the spoon, stirring the slodge in the bowl. It doesn’t smell right but the last few days you’ve managed to stomach worse just to fill the pit in your stomach.
“It’s not so—” Ser Ronnard twists his head to the window, eyes pinching as if to concentrate.
You don’t hear it at first but the hooves trotting against the ground come quickly. Fast and many.
“Up.” Ser Ronnard is yanking you up by your elbow before you can think, pulling you towards him and charging through the tables towards the back of the tavern.
But the way becomes easily blocked, the townspeople turning against you within an instant, and then you feel it, the hood of your cloak being torn down and your thick locks being lifted for all to see.
“It’s her,” someone points, shouting from beside you. “They are after her.”
These rats are fast but Ser Ronnard is faster, unsheathing his sword within a moment, the sliding of metal being heard like a ringing in your ears and then a slice, the man’s hand falls from your head and onto the wooden floorboard.
“Go.” He tells you, shoving you away and placing his body between you and them.
Them. Vermin. Traitors to the crown. Supporters of Rhaenyra the cruel.
The thoughts are all you can think as you run into the open night, ducking out of the way of light from torches and taking for the trees.
Days and nights spent dressed in beaten-down cloaks and hopping between one town to the other just to keep yourself hidden could all be for nothing. Rhaenyra’s men had been at every town, every tavern, every nook and cranny you had come across. You’d been glad for your dark rouge hair, the thickness of it making it easy to hide the tuft of silver. Easier to blend in with the common people, the rats that swarm these towns.
They support her. You’re not safe with any of them. Ormund had taught you that, had reminded you of the enemy in his many letters. She who shares your blood and your father’s face is not to be trusted.
There’s an evilness in your eldest sister, and your uncle, a taint in the blood. It runs in you as well, but lucky for you, Ormund has been there to protect you from it.
But he’s not here now. He’s nowhere to be seen in the dead of the night as you hide between the bushes. Nowhere to be heard as Rhaenyra’s men surround you and whistle for you to come out. Nowhere to be felt as one of them drags you by your ankle to get you out.
All you feel is the damp ground underneath you, mud taking its root under the your fingernails as you desperately try to scramble away and the man’s hands as they fight against your kicking legs.
He had been right, they’re all savages, every single last one of them. All awful beasts that do not care for the likeness of your blood, not the ones that bow to the false Queen Rhaenyra.
“You wretched—” You try to scream, but his foot catches your ankle, throwing you over onto your front without so much as a struggle.
You kick back, and with your nails digging into the soil you try to crawl forward. But he doesn’t let you, and you feel your feeble attempt be stopped as you feel his hands now on your back.
He’s on top of you, weight pressing you down into muck and you hear it, the tearing of your clothes from behind you, loud as he fumbles with his trousers to release himself.
“No,” you plead, tears lodged at the back of your throat. Your hand falls out in front again, dragging your heavy body slightly before you’re pulled back again. “No, please.”
Savages. Worse than you could have ever imagined.
He groans, not out of pleasure and for a second you’re not sure why, as he becomes still behind you. But then you feel it, blood dripping onto your back, and the weight of him being pulled off before his lifeless body is dropped by your side.
“Up.”
The voice doesn’t quite register; it takes a second before it is piercing through the ringing in your ear, and even then your body can’t quite familiarise itself with it. But your body recognises those hands pulling you up, and the feel of the wide shoulders as they encase you. You don’t relax; you can’t, but your arms fall around him, gripping him with a tightness that borders on suffocating.
“I’m here,” his voice soothes you, lips caressing the shell of your ear, his warmth breath against your skin making you shiver. “I’ve got you, my love.”
In your years growing up in Oldtown, you rarely went a fortnight without seeing Ormund. As the years passed and you grew older, he became a prominent figure in your life. The man raised you, alongside your uncle Gwayne, so it’s no surprise the man was always present in your day-to-day life.
But since your arrival at Tumbleton, Ormund has not visited you once.
You hear him, though- the echoes of his voice travelling through the empty halls, and his footsteps in the dead of the night when he paces outside your room. You know the stress he’s under; while you may never quite understand the strategies of war, you can understand the position he’s in. Daeron only holds a small dragon, barely grown, and you yourself have never bonded with a dragon. His final hope resides in your brother, but since his abrupt departure in King’s Landing, you don’t know where he resides or where he will go next.
Ormund and his men are alone.
It’s something you come to make clarity with as the maids tend to you in the bath. This luxury is not promised; tomorrow it could be taken from underneath you.
You hiss when one of the maids’ hands drags the cloth against your bruised hip, twisting your head to look at her. Plain clothes and face, no striking features that remind you of the maids back home. She could be a traitor, you think. A pretender.
You snatch the cloth from her hands but your hand stops for a second, eyes flickering between the other maids that surround you.
You go to bark but swallow, cowering like a beaten dog. “I can tend to myself,” you tell them in a meek voice.
“Of course, my princess.” They all mutter, bowing before clearing out of the room at once.
They stop before the door, bowing once again before scuttering out.
Ormund.
You notice him, dressed in dark green breeches and a pale white tunic, so thin you can see the defined muscles of his chest, all the way to the dark trail of hairs that travel down—
You twist your head away, eyes closing as shame takes over your body.
“My Lord, I—”
“Did he touch you?” Ormund questions, and when you turn around, he’s stood over you.
“My Lord—” you shake your head, shifting forward in the water as if bracing to get out. “I—I don’t—”
“ —Did he touch you?” Ormund’s hands are clenched by his side, fists drawn so tight that they are white. He bends down, falling to his knees and hands coming to grab onto the wooden tub. “That—“ he clenches his jaw, and spits out the next words through gritted teeth. “Did that beast touch you?”
“He didn’t—“ your words get lodged into your throat and you can feel the sob stuck in the back of your throat, clawing to make its way out as you bite it down. “I swear it.”
His eyes darken, the blue irises almost fading to black as you look at them. It brings you back.
Memories of the man before you making you bow before the Maiden for forgiveness, to the Mother for mercy on your own soul.
It’s not your fault, he’d tell you, but you need to pray for mercy to not end up like your savage ancestors.
You’d weep, knees digging into the stone floor of the sept, his hand pressed against your shoulder to keep you down.
The words try to break free from your throat now, to explain but tears flood your vision and panic takes over. He didn’t touch me, I swear it, you wish to scream but your voice makes no sound.
“Keep still.”
You do exactly that as his eyes keep you transfixed to the spot, his cold gaze not allowing you to move an inch as his hand reaches underneath the water. You feel it, his soft hand against your knee, slow at first as they part your legs before making their way up between your thighs.
Like a good girl, you take it, biting on the inside of your cheek and keeping your cries to sniffles. His fingertips feel larger than they look, running along your inner thigh as they make their way up and up—
You gasp, and his hand stop against you, cupping your mound with his palm against the top and fingers reaching against your hole. Even with how much you want to, you keep your legs open, fighting against the urge to close your thighs against his hand.
“This is where he would have touched you,” he tells you, through a heavy breath. His finger reaches down and the tip aligns itself with your hole as he continues, “This is where that savage would have taken—“ His eyes fall close, and he lets out a strangled breath, a moment, before the tip of his finger breaches your hole, forcing it open.
You try to keep still but your hips fall back, hands bracing against the sides of the tub as if to escape. But his hand comes against your shoulder, pressing firmly down to hold you in place.
“I need to be sure.” His finger deepens then moves side to side while you hiss and cry at the feel.
“It hurts,” you whimper, scrunching your eyes closed. “Please, he didn’t—“
His finger pulls back, sliding out of your walls as he hushes you, “It’s okay.”
It doesn’t feel okay. His hand rests against your thigh once more, and you can’t help but squeeze your thighs together, trying to force him out.
“You did good.”
—And yet you’re trembling in the warm water, unable to open your wet eyes. Your hands grip onto the edge of the tub still, not sure whether to jump out or to force yourself back under the water.
“Look at me,” he commands, and you feel his wet fingers grip your chin.
You do.
“You did so good.” He smiles, a small proud grin as he wipes the tears that fall against your cheek. “You understand why I had to do that?”
You nod. Unlike your ancestors, you will not be ruined by your own savage tendencies.
“I missed you,” he whispers, face inches from yours, breath fanning against your face.
So close you could kiss him.
Your body goes rigid at the thought.
It’s your blood, you remind yourself, you can control it.
“Didn’t you miss me?” His eyebrows draw together, and his lips twist into a frown.
“Yes,” you let out on a choked sob. “I missed you. I missed home.”
“And home is?” He asks, voice soft and melodic.
“Home is Oldtown. Home is with you,” you tell him.
His hand shifts, cupping your cheek and his forehead falls to rest against yours. He’s close, so close, you hear him as he inhales deeply, breathing in your scent. “That’s my girl.”
A fortnight has passed and still no word from Aemond, and no sight of Aegon.
Disappointments, you hear Ormund scream from the other side of the hall. Idiots, all of them.
You’re not making it any better, not that you can help it. But for the last few nights you’d fallen with a strange fever, sweats pulling you from your sleep and your body burning for no reason at all. Sometimes you have an appetite, and other times none at all. None of the maesters can be sure of the reasoning for it, prescribing you tea at every hour and hoping it will pass. The tea does nothing, and another brew sits cold on your bedside.
They’ve pleaded with Ormund to keep his distance. Told him they don’t want whatever ailment has taken over you to pass to him. Not in the midst of a war. Not when your lives are on the line.
Yet he visits often, not trusting the maids that tend to your bedside or the maesters that have been appointed by his own deceased father. Not to look after you.
Ormund sits now, slouched against his wooden chair, legs spread wide with you perched by his feet, a cushion underneath you for comfort. Rage radiates off him; you can feel it in the way his thighs tighten underneath your head, and you try your best to stop from moving around. But you are restless, mind fogged and skin littered with bumps across your body. You can’t help it, lulling your head to the side to look up at him again.
He sighs, a large breath through his nose and his thighs tighten once again.
“I thought you were trying to sleep?”
You look up at him through wet lashes, fluttering as if to keep them open. You want to sleep, your mind clouded with a tiredness you’ve never felt before but your body is restless and you shift against him to find some sort of comfort.
“Hmm?”
You whine, head rolling around again till your forehead is pressed against the inside of his thigh. “I can’t.”
“I should ask the maesters to brew some tea.” One of his hands falls to the back of your head, fingers combing through the strands, and the feel of the tips of his fingers scratching against your scalp causes you to shiver.
“No more tea,” you mumble against his breeches.
“You barely drank the last.”
You hear a scuffle on the other side of the room, maids following his command you imagine.
You lift your head again, and it takes a second for your vision to clear and for you to fully see him.
“Please,” You whine, but he doesn’t listen— he doesn’t look down.
You want his attention— no, you need his attention. You need him to look down at you, to acknowledge your pleads.
Your hands drag themselves up from his knees, fingers running along his thick muscles before wrapping around the tops of his thighs. His muscles tighten, harder than before and he finally looks down at you, nostrils flared and jaw clenched.
“Amused?”
Your hands slide down, releasing your grip and you lean back slightly, dropping your head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what took over me. I—”
His face relaxes and his head lulls back as he takes another languid breath. “You can’t help it.”
You hum, tilting your head to the side.
“I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
You jump at the sound of the maid placing the tea pot down beside you, eyes falling to her as she pours a cup.
Ormund takes it from her, placing it out in front of you.
“Drink,” he commands, and the second you hesitate he presses the cup to your lips. “Drink.” The firm tone of his voice willing you to his command.
The heat of the tea is bearable, but still a tad too hot as it floods your mouth with its bitter taste. You imagine this is what dirt tastes like, but there's a hint of citrus that helps you swallow it down. You don’t want it, but he pours it into your mouth anyway, eyes glued to yours, eyebrows pinched together, telling you without words to obey him. You do, willing as much liquid as you can down before it comes too much, hot liquid burning your skin as it spills from the confines of your mouth.
He takes the cup away when you start to cough, pushing the cup back into the maid’s hand before giving her a curt nod to leave.
You try to push off him, giving yourself space as you choke on the last bits of liquid that have become trapped in your throat, but his hands come around your arms, keeping you locked in place.
“Breathe.”
You try, letting out a shaky breath, willing the tickle in your throat to dissipate. Eventually it does and you blink back the tears that have swarmed your waterline.
“Good girl,” he whispers, hands pulling you towards him. “Come.”
“I shouldn’t,” you tell him, but your body betrays you, crawling upwards until your head is resting against his shoulder and your legs are perched over his. “The maesters—” the words become muffled as you bury your head in the crevice of his neck. “ —you’ll get sick.”
“That’s my burden to bear.” His voice is soft, and his hand gentle as it falls against your thigh. “You are my burden.”
“Yes,” you answer him, not out of your own volition but a certain pull deep inside of you that speaks to him— that heeds his call.
His hand moves, trailing up your thigh and back down again, the material of your cotton gown following his slow movements. You hum, unbeknownst to you and another sound follows, a low rumble from the back of your throat you can’t place, but you know isn’t right.
“I’m sorry— I—” the next noise is louder, a desperate whimper and you feel a wave of heat flush over your body, dampening your skin.
Everything feels strange so suddenly. The material of your gown feels uncomfortable, almost scratching your skin every time you shift about. His hand— You’ve become deeply aware of Ormund’s hand pressed against you, heavier than before and almost soothing as it glides up the back of your thigh.
You want more, that you’re sure of, but you’re not sure of yourself or the words to ask for it.
What is it you want? These clothes off your body. His hand higher. His hand against your bare skin. Your thighs clamp together at that thought and you feel slick oozing from you as you rub your legs together.
He grasps the back of your hair, detaching you from his neck and forcing you to look up at him. His brows furrow together, but his expression is kinder than before. But it changes, eyes hardening and his muscles becoming stiff underneath you as his eyes trail down your body. Your chest rising and falling, your nipples pebbled underneath your gown, the way the material becomes almost transparent from your wet skin.
A part of you grasps, his darkened gaze and the way his mouth parts as you try to steady your rapid breathing.
Sinful girl, he must think, poisoned by your own blood.
“It’s exactly as I thought,” he states, eyes dragging themselves back up to your face.
“It’s my blood, isn’t it?” Just like your sister. Your elder brothers. Your ancestors. Ormund had been right all along. “Am I going to die?”
He pauses, his hand on your lower thigh tugs your skirts up, allowing the chill of the night air to touch your skin. It feels good, a sort of relief, but only temporary.
Your body freezes when the material reaches higher, lifting over your ankles, shins and then towards the middle of your thighs.
“I think I know a way to help you.” He swallows, and you watch as the bulge in his throat protrudes. “But—” his hand falls against your sweat-covered skin and you let out a small gasp, your skin burning under his touch. “—you need to understand.”
“Please,” you let out between a broken cry. “Please. Please. Please.” You repeat until the words jumble together.
The tip of his fingers slides beneath the material of your gown, and your hand darts out towards it. To stop it, or to push it away, you’re not entirely sure.
The air has shifted; you sense it completely now as you look up at Ormund. The man that raised you, that took care of you as his own, is touching you— his fingers drifting up to a place the septas taught you was for only your husband.
“Your blood craves its own,” he tells you, and you can’t quite understand what he speaks of “But if I’m right—” he bites down on his words, the tips of his fingers hovering up your thighs and over your stomach. “If I’m right, I can help you.”
How? You think to question him but the word doesn’t reach your lips. “Please,” is all you have him, the single word taking over your senses and your mind.
“Your blood…” his eyes widen, and his brows raise as he speaks. “…it wants its own.”
Your mind reels and his teachings ring in your head.
Incestuous savages.
It makes sense. Your body’s call for kin. Your brother and your sister married. Your elder sister and uncle. Even your father married his cousin.
Blood magic and curses, your ancestors have forsaken you.
Your eyes flutter up at him, tears flooding your vision at the thoughts. You can feel it, that very affliction that runs through your veins. Your senses are heightened and your body is burning for a touch of another.
“I may not have Targaryen blood,” he whispers, and his hand drops, landing on your breast, fingers splayed over it. “But you and I share the same blood. I think it could work.”
Your body freezes, his eyes falling to his finger as it moves flicking over your hardened nipple.
The man who raised you. A man you see is more akin to you than your own father, own mother, own brothers and sisters.
“You’re married,” you grit out through clenched teeth. Like that would make it any worse.
His hand shifts from your hair, wrapping around your neck before pulling you dangerously close. You could kiss him, or he could kiss you. As if sensing your thoughts his grip tightens and you find yourself wheezing for breath.
“Or—“ you gasp, hand reaching for his.
He looks down at you, lips frowning and jaw clenching once again into an almost pained expression. “I’d do this for you. Forsake my honour, for you.”
Fat tears slide down your cheeks in sheer horror but your body reacts in a different way, thighs clenching when his finger flicks over your nipple again.
“I could save you.”
He’s right. Every part of you reacts to him like some bitch in heat, craving his touch. Even if your teachings from the seven tell you different. They don’t understand this, they couldn’t possibly grasp the idea of this. Neither could you. It’s only here seeing the way your body trembles and bucks into his touch do you see how right he is.
You don’t want to die.
“Please save me,” you ask him only loud enough for him to hear.
“My girl.”
The words travel through you and you can’t help but shiver against him.
You close your eyes, bracing for the impact of his lips against yours at any moment but it doesn’t come. Only when your eyes open, do you feel his nose against your throat, inhaling your scent like he’s gasping for it.
His lips come after, grazing against your neck, just under your chin where his hand doesn’t cover and then upwards till they finally meet your lips.
It’s not at all how you expect it —but then again you never had much time to imagine much —he’s tender at first, his lips caressing yours, taking his time as he moves against your mouth. Open-mouthed pecks to the corner of your lips, and then your bottom lip until his lips meld into yours and you forget to breathe.
He pulls away, his hand sliding from your throat and his thumb finding your bottom lip, pulling it apart from the top.
“Let me help you.”
He dives forward this time, not so kind as his lips find yours for a second time. Your lips move, not with his but almost against him, intending to push him away. It doesn’t work and your lips part as you feel his teeth nipping at your skin— to speak, only for his tongue to shove against yours, forcing your words into a whine.
What would you have said anyway? No, don’t do this. A part of you still screams, your hand falling against his own as he gropes your breast. But then your thighs shift and you find yourself melting into his body.
Wouldn’t it be easier to forget. Wouldn’t it be safer to let him take care of you?
Ormund’s arm comes underneath you, hoisting you up and himself with you, never once allowing his lips to leave your own. It feels good— dangerously good as his saliva drips into your mouth and his tongue slides against yours. Is this how your ancestors felt the first time they lay with their own blood?
Your back hits silk sheets and cushions as Ormund places you down, breaking apart from you. You lift yourself, hazy eyes searching to find him, only to freeze when you see him undressing himself at the end of your bed.
You fall backwards, letting your eyes fall closed for a moment.
Better to not look. Better not to think.
You feel the weight of the bed dip by your feet, and your body moves on autopilot, heels digging in to push yourself further up the sheets. You’re stopped though, one hand finding your ankle yanking you right back down.
He tuts, and you feel the weight of him over you, crawling till he’s hovering directly above you. His hand lifts your skirt, throwing the material up until it’s bunched around your waist.
“Do you think I want to do this?” He questions, and you feel his breath against your face. “Hmm?”
You shake your head.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” his voice stern as his forehead presses against your own. “Look at me.”
Your eyes open to a blackened gaze peering down at yours.
“Do you think I want to do this?”
“No,” you answer, tears clawing at the back of your throat. “You don’t want to do this.”
“I’m doing this to help you,” he whispers, lips pressing against yours again. “I’m doing this to save you.”
He lowers himself against you, and you realise how bare he is as you feel his harness against your inner thigh. You’re not sure how you pictured it, but the length of it against your thigh brings fear to your mind.
“Let’s get this off.”
You feel the gown being torn from your skin, and you find yourself lifting your body off the bed for him to pull it off your shoulders.
You don’t even have time to think before you’re being shoved down, lips finding your own and thighs being pried open. His body falls between your legs, hips pressing down against yours and you feel him there. Hard, thick and leaking.
But you also feel yourself. Slick covered thighs that fall around his hips and a drenched cunt that oozes with the feel of him sliding against it.
He was right, he’s always right.
Your hips buck up to him, and you can’t help the way your body reacts, your hole clenching around nothing as the tip of him catches your entrance. Your body wants this, it’s leaking all over him and when he pulls away, you let out a pathetic whimper.
“Hush,” he whispers against you, breaking his lips away from your own. “You’ll get what you desire.”
Then you feel it, his tip sliding against your folds with precision, slowly and then even slower over your sensitive nub. Your body reacts literally, mouth falling open into a whine or a moan, you’re not certain you can separate the two but it makes him smile. You feel it, lips widening against your cheek and it leaves you confused, opening your eyes to be sure it’s true.
Your lips fall open to speak, to question him but the words die on your tongue as he lines himself up against you before sliding in with one full thrust.
His lips fall open on yours, a sigh escaping him while a cry escapes you.
It hurts. Your walls feel like they’ve been forced open and the wetness does nothing to prepare you for him. Tears kiss your cheeks and your teeth grind against each other, forcing the sobs down.
He moves, dragging his dick out your walls before he’s shoving himself in.
“It hurts,” you let out through a choked sob, your whole body freezing underneath him. Your hands find his shoulders, pushing him back but his torso is like a stone wall that won’t let up —except from his hips that roll as he slowly slides in and out of you.
“Shhh.” His lips press into your cheek, then the corner of your parted lips. “It’ll feel better soon. I swear it.”
—So, you try to keep quiet, sucking in harsh breaths and letting out shaky sobs that have your body frozen against him. It hurts, and you feel like your walls are being torn open from the inside and he keeps going.
In. Out.
In and then out.
Your breathing steadies and your chest begins to settle. The pain is still there, but it’s faded and when his cock drags against your walls, you feel yourself tighten around him.
“See,” you hear his voice in your ear, and his lips follow, settling below and kissing the delicate skin there.
“It feels—”
“I know,” he replies, his voice different— grittier. “Told you didn’t I?” —and you hear it again, caught in a groan, coming from the back of his throat. “Making you feel better?”
You nod, a sick moan spilling from your lips is the only answer you can give. Slick is pouring out of you again, and you forget that it was ever painful to begin with and you also realise when he speaks once again, it does something to you, nipples becoming oddly more sensitive and cunt squeezing him.
It does something to him too, you feel it in the way he changes his pace, and his hands fall down to your hips to keep you glued to the bed. He’s only doing this for your own good, you remind yourself but the way his thrusts become faster has you thinking differently.
“Please,” you plead with him, legs falling around his hips, hooking behind them. “My Lord, plea—”
“Sire,” he snaps, teeth pressing against your skin. “Please, sire.”
His hand comes around your throat, and he presses his forehead against yours, lips parting.
“Please, what?”
“Please—” your words get caught as he delivers a nasty thrust against you.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Please, sire.”
You let the words out between a gasp, before he’s shoving your thighs down further, his cock reaching a point so deep inside you that you swear you can feel him in your stomach.
“Please,” you beg between strangled sobs. “Please, sire. Please. Please…”
“My good girl.”
Your walls tighten and you’re sure if your body could have its way it’d keep him there, his shaft stuck inside you, every ridge and vein imprinted into your very walls. You should feel ashamed at the thoughts, and maybe when you recover from your sickness you will, but right now all you want is to break underneath him.
—And some part of you does, a tension in your stomach snapping and a body-numbing feeling taking over you. Blood rushes to your head, and your vision becomes cloudy as you look up at him. You think you’re saying something, lips open and tongue moving. Maybe not even words, maybe a string of sounds that blur into one.
Then relief.
A relief washing over you that you haven't felt in days, all while his cock continues to rut into you with a vigour that borders on cruel.
It’s him giving you this relief, his cock spilling inside of you, letting out steady ropes of his seed until you’re full of him. It feels good and your restless body relaxes underneath him, taking everything he has to offer you. Every bit of him until your moans turn to gentle sighs and there’s nothing left for him to give.
“You feel better, don’t you.”
He doesn’t ask, he states it like he already knows like he can read the expression on your face. You wonder what you look like right now, hair tangled and face covered in a mix of dried tears and sweat.
You nod, and your eyes close for a second.
“Yes,” you answer him. “Better.”
And you think that’s it, the end of it.
But as the seconds pass you become acutely aware of how he’s still buried inside of you and how hips, even though they turned into an almost slow drag, haven't stopped moving for even a moment.
“We should keep going then,” he says, and his weight becomes heavier, more relaxed as it falls on top of you, trapping you completely underneath him. “Keep going till you’re cured.”
You open your mouth to speak, to protest—
“ —Till we are certain.” His hips shove into yours, rougher than before and you feel his seed drip out your walls and over his cock. “We want to be certain, don’t we?”
Your lips close, words you were about to say becoming a distant memory as you nod in agreement.
Because Ormund is right. He’s always right and your walls leaking out all over him proves it.
Better to be certain, then to wake up craving more.
"Your mother whored herself to a Targaryen. I will not give you to your own brother. I will not allow you to repeat her sins and bring further shame upon the Hightower name.”
By then, he had crossed the solar and taken your chin firmly in his hand, his fingers dimpling the skin of your cheeks. You had begun to cry, though you could not tell whether it was from fear, shame, or the sudden loneliness of knowing you might never truly belong anywhere.
“But then I could live with Father and Mother,” you whispered, tears slipping down your cheeks. “I could go home.”
Ormund bent until his face was close to yours, his breath hot against your skin. His grip tightened beneath your chin. “This is your home.”
sent to oldtown as a ward beneath your cousin lord ormund hightower's protection, you learn there are some vows that are easier to preach than to keep.
warnings: 18+ (mdni), eventual smut, canon-typical incest (cousins), sexual humilation, loss of virginity, religious guilt, age gap (~20 years), grooming, dubcon, emotional manipulation, obsession (mutual), stockholm syndrome, power imbalance, canon divergent, no use of y/n
BLOOD OF MY BLOOD, KIN OF MY KIN. (ORMUND HIGHTOWER X WIFE!READER, DAERON TARGARYEN X MOTHER FIGURE!READER PREVIEW) — a glimpse into the years you and ormund raised daeron before the war took its toll, and all the years after it.
Daeron’s hands tremble around the leather hilt of Ormund’s sword. His misty eyes find the prisoner kneeling just before him, bloodied and chained for a crime any noble man would surely commit, before glancing slowly to where his uncle looms just behind him. Candelight flickers in shades of orange-gold upon the man’s chiseled features, pooling a dark black in the shadow of his eyes.
“What would Mother think of this?” Daeron hears himself ask, voice shaking under the weight of the tears burning in the backs of his eyes.
Ormund’s face softens, though there is little tenderness in what he asks of the boy now. “Alicent would understand,” he coos in a gentle voice. “War asks difficult things of every great house—”
“I didn’t—” Daeron swallows hard, shier now than moments before. “I did not mean the Lady Alicent…”
Realization flashes across Ormund’s face — a visible recognition of exactly which woman the boy had been referring to, and had been referring to since he was a babe; whenever the word would tumble accidentally from his mouth, without a second spared for the correction. Daeron might not have been yours by blood, but he was yours in every other way that mattered.
But still, Ormund does not soften for it.
“Your mother would be proud,” the man answers, brows lowered as if the answer was plain. “Don’t you see? Any strike against this army is a strike against her, against everything she’s built to keep you safe… Any man who raises his fist against our men raises it, in the end, against her… And do you not want to protect her, just as she has spent every day protecting you?”
Daeron swallows hard; the weight of Ormund’s words feels heavy in his throat. His trembling hands tighten around the sword hilt. His teary eyes linger on the steel blade, flickering gold in the candlelight. “No, please, I beg you,” the prisoner pleads. Daeron’s eyes lift to find his and linger there for a long moment. He sees your face in the back of his mind, the only real mother he’s ever known since he was sent to ward, and hears Ormund’s voice in his head as he draws the heavy blade back.
Then he strikes.
COMING SOON.
p.s. i don't do taglists (other than my @bugfics account) but feel free to leave a comment here if you'd like to be notified when the fic drops!
warnings: ~6k, one shot, age gap, forced proximity, smut, unprotected p in v ( a surprise tool that can help us later!!), mdni, both povs, jack abbot the consent king, not proofread yet
a/n: shawn hatosy transcends gender and sexuality, he is a lesbian spiritually !! there will be 'lost' spoilers, but you don't have to know the plot of the show. i swear you will fall in love with 'lost'. i mean the main character's name is 'jack shepherd' it just had to be done. pics from pinterest. divider from this post. ao3!
two players, two sides. one is light, one is dark.
It's been two months stranded on the island. The beach camp had evolved from chaos into something resembling order. Shelters dotted the sand, constructed from salvaged plane parts and palm fronds. A communal fire pit served as the heart of the settlement, where people gathered for meals and warmth and the illusion of normalcy. Rationing systems had been established. A semblance of civilization carved out of wilderness.
But beneath the surface, fractures ran deep. Some survivors still clung to hope. They maintained the signal fire on the ridge, took turns scanning the horizon for rescue planes that never came. Others had accepted the truth: no one was coming. No one knew where they were. This island was their home now, whether they wanted it or not.
And through it all, Jack held them together.
You watched him now from across the camp, standing near the fire pit with a small group gathered around him. His shirt was rolled to his elbows, his hair longer than it had been on the plane, sun-bleached at the tips. He was gesturing as he spoke, explaining something about water purification or food storage. People listened. They always listened to Jack.
He'd never asked for the role or declared himself leader. But in the vacuum left by disaster, someone had to step up, and Jack was the kind of man who couldn't help but take responsibility. It suited him, even if the weight of it showed in the lines around his eyes.
"Doc's got it all figured out, doesn't he?"
You turned to find Sawyer leaning against a palm tree, arms crossed, that perpetual smirk on his face. Being stranded on an island hadn't softened him. If anything, the island had sharpened his edges, turned him more cynical, and combative.
"Someone has to," you said carefully.
"Sure. And we're all just supposed to fall in line? Follow Captain America over there into whatever plan he's cooked up?" Sawyer's drawl was lazy, but there was an edge beneath it. "Funny how nobody voted on that."
"You want to take over, Sawyer? Be my guest."
He laughed, short and sharp. "Hell no. Too much work. I'm just saying, maybe the good doctor shouldn't get too comfortable playing king."
Before you could respond, Jack's voice cut across the camp. "Sawyer. Got a minute?"
Sawyer pushed off the tree with exaggerated slowness. "Duty calls." He sauntered over to Jack, and you watched the two men face off. They were roughly the same height, but everything else about them was opposite. Jack's controlled intensity versus Sawyer's casual defiance.
"We need to talk about the exploration," Jack said, his tone even. "I want to head inland tomorrow. See if we can find fresh water sources, maybe higher ground for a better vantage point."
"We?" Sawyer raised an eyebrow. "You got a mouse in your pocket, Doc?"
"You, me, Hurley, and—" Jack's eyes found yours across the camp, held for just a fraction too long before he looked away. "And her. Four people. We'll be gone most of the day."
"And what if something happens while you're playing explorer? Who's in charge then?"
"Sayid can handle things. He's more than capable."
Sawyer studied Jack for a long moment, then shrugged. "Fine. But if we run into whatever the hell makes that noise in the jungle, I'm using you as bait."
"Noted," Jack says looking at Sawyer.
You turned away before either of them could catch you watching. Two months, and you haven't gotten any better at hiding it. The way your pulse quickened when Jack was near. Or how you found excuses to be wherever he was.
Nothing had happened. Nothing could happen. Jack was the leader. And you were still the fugitive, even if no one else knew it. Even if the marshal's body had been found three days after the crash and buried without ceremony.
Jack watched her walk away and forced himself to focus on Sawyer's complaints about the exploration plan. It was getting harder to ignore the pull he felt toward her. Two months of working side by side, and what felt like a lifetime of wanting something he had no right to want.
She was younger. At least twenty years younger. And even if age didn't matter on this island, even if normal rules had been suspended, there were other complications. The main one being that getting involved with anyone right now was the last thing he should be doing. But God, he wanted to.
He wanted to know what made her smile, really smile, not the careful expression she wore around the others. And the most visceral feeling of it all - he wanted to touch her without the excuse of checking an injury or handing her supplies.
"You even listening, Doc?"
Jack blinked, refocused on Sawyer. "What?"
"I said, what time we leaving tomorrow?"
"Dawn. Pack light."
Sawyer's smirk widened. "You got it, Chief."
As Sawyer walked away, Jack let himself look toward where she'd gone. Just for a moment. Long enough to remind himself why he was doing this. Why he kept going when exhaustion threatened to drag him under. Because she was here. They were all here. Because someone had to keep them alive.
NEXT DAY - Dawn came too early, as it always did. You met the others at the edge of camp, packs slung over shoulders, water bottles secured. Hurley looked nervous, his eyes darting toward the jungle. Jack looked like he hadn't slept, which was probably true.
"Everyone ready?" Jack asked.
"As I'll ever be, dude," Hurley said. "But, like, are we sure this is a good idea? I mean, we don't really know what's out there."
"That's why we're going," Jack said. "We need to know what we're dealing with."
"Could be dealing with nothing," Sawyer offered. "Could be this island's just a regular island and we're all paranoid."
"You believe that?"
Sawyer's silence was answer enough. The jungle swallowed you within minutes of leaving the beach. The temperature dropped, air thick with humidity and the smell of vegetation. Sounds echoed strangely here. The rustle of leaves that could be wind or could be something else. You walked behind Jack, watching the way he moved through the undergrowth with careful precision. He'd found a walking stick somewhere, used it to push aside vines and test the ground ahead.
"Soo what exactly are we looking for?" Hurley asked after an hour of walking. "Like, a Starbucks? Because I would kill for a Frappuccino right now."
"Water sources," Jack said. "Caves, maybe. Anything that could provide better shelter than what we have."
"And if we find whatever makes that freaky noise?"
"We avoid it," Jack says without looking back.
"Great plan, Doc. Real detailed," Sawyer mutters.
Sawyer was in rare form today, his commentary a constant stream of sarcasm and complaints. But you noticed he stayed alert, his eyes scanning the jungle with the same wariness Jack showed. For all his attitude, Sawyer wasn't stupid. He knew the danger as well as anyone.
The terrain grew rougher as you continued. Rocky outcroppings jutted through the jungle, and more than once you had to scramble over fallen trees or navigate around dense thickets. Your legs burned. Sweat soaked through your shirt. But you kept pace, refusing to be the one who slowed them down.
"Wait," Jack said suddenly, raising a hand.
Everyone froze. You strained to hear what had caught his attention, but there was only the usual jungle noise. Birds. Insects. The distant crash of waves.
"What is it?" you asked quietly.
Jack pointed ahead, and you saw it. A break in the vegetation. Something that didn't belong. You moved forward as a group, pushing through the last of the undergrowth, and stopped.
Dull gray metal, partially covered by vines and dirt, set into the ground like a door. But not just any door that would be on a supposably uninhabited island. This was industrial, heavy, with a small window of thick glass at the center.
"What the hell?" Sawyer breathed.
Hurley took a step back. "Dude. That's, like, man-made. Someone built that."
Jack was already kneeling beside it, brushing away dirt. The metal was solid. The symbols were unfamiliar, possibly numbers or letters in a language none of you recognized.
"It's a hatch," Jack said. "Some kind of entrance."
"To what?" you asked.
Sawyer crouched down, running his hand over the metal. "This thing's been here a while. Look at the rust. But it's still solid. Whatever's underneath, someone wanted it sealed tight."
"Should we try to open it?" Hurley's voice was uncertain.
Jack looked up at you, and for a moment, it was just the two of you. His eyes asked a question you couldn't quite read. Trust me? Help me? Be careful?
"Yes," Jack said finally. "We need to know what this is."
It took all four of you to find the mechanism. A wheel, like something from a submarine, hidden beneath more vines. Sawyer and Jack grabbed it first, muscles straiining as they tried to turn it. Nothing. The metal had fused with age and weather.
"Let me help," you said, adding your weight to the effort.
Hurley joined in, and slowly, agonizingly, the wheel began to move. Metal shrieked against metal. The sound echoed through the jungle, loud enough to send birds scattering from the trees.
"Keep going," Jack grunted.
The wheel turned. Once. Twice. Three times. And then, with a hiss of released pressure, the hatch began to open.
Darkness yawned beneath. A ladder descended into shadow, the rungs slick with moisture. Cool air wafted up, carrying a smell of metal and something else. Something sterile and wrong.
"Okay," Hurley said. "This is officially creepy."
Sawyer peered down into the darkness. "Could be supplies down there. Food, medicine, maybe even a radio."
"Could be a trap," you countered.
"Only one way to find out." Jack was already swinging his leg over the edge, finding the first rung of the ladder. "I'll go first. If it's safe, I'll call up."
"Jack!—" you started, but he was already descending.
You watched him disappear into the darkness, your heart hammering. Seconds stretched into minutes. Then his voice echoed up, distorted by the metal walls.
"It's clear! Come down."
Sawyer went next, then Hurley, then you. The ladder was longer than you expected, at least twenty feet down into the earth. Your hands slipped on the rungs, and you had to concentrate on each movement, each careful placement of your feet. When you reached the bottom, Jack's hand steadied you. His touch was warm, solid, and you let yourself lean into it for just a second before stepping away.
The space around you was like something from a Cold War bunker. Concrete walls lined with pipes and electrical conduits. Emergency lighting flickered overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow. There were rooms branching off from the main corridor, doors hanging open to reveal what looked like living quarters, a kitchen, storage areas.
"Someone lived here," you said softly.
"Yeah." Jack moved forward, examining everything with clinical precision. "Recently, too. Look at this."
He pointed to a calendar on the wall. The dates went up to a few months ago. Just before your flight crashed.
"So where are they now?" Hurley asked, his voice small, eyes darting around.
No one answered. You explored carefully, the four of you staying close. The bunker was extensive, far larger than it had appeared from above. There were supplies. Canned food, medical equipment, even books and entertainment. Someone had lived here for a long time. Years, maybe.
But they were gone now.
"This is insane," you said. "What is this place?"
Before anyone could answer, a sound echoed through the bunker. A deep, mechanical grinding. You all froze, looking at each other.
"What was that?" Hurley whispered.
The sound came again, louder. And then, with a finality that made your stomach drop, you heard it. The hatch closing. You ran back to the main corridor, but you already knew what you'd find. The hatch was sealed. The wheel on this side wouldn't budge, no matter how hard you tried.
"No, no, no," Hurley was saying, pulling at the wheel. "Come on, man. Open up."
Sawyer tried next, then Jack, then all of you together. Nothing. The mechanism had locked from the outside, or jammed. You were trapped.
"Okay," Jack said, his voice carefully controlled. "Okay. We don't panic. There has to be another way out."
"Or we're stuck here until someone finds us," Sawyer said. "Which could be never, in case you forgot we're on a deserted island."
"The others know where we went. They'll come looking."
"And how exactly are they supposed to open that hatch from the outside? We barely got it open with four people."
Jack's jaw clenched. You could see him fighting to stay calm, to be the leader everyone needed. "We'll figure it out. In the meantime, we have supplies. Water. Food. We can last a few days if we have to."
"A few days?" Hurley's voice pitched higher. "Dude, I can't be stuck underground for a few days. I'm already freaking out."
"Then don't freak out," Sawyer snapped. "Panicking doesn't help anyone."
"Easy for you to say. You're not claustrophobic."
"We're all claustrophobic right now, Tubby. Deal with it."
"Hey, that's not—"
"Enough!" Jack's deep voice cut through the argument. "Fighting doesn't help either. We need to stay calm and think this through."
You moved away from the group, needing space to process. Underground. For an unknown amount of time. The walls seemed to press in closer, the air thicker. You forced yourself to breathe slowly, to push down the panic threatening to rise.
Jack appeared beside you, his presence solid and grounding. "You okay?"
"Fine."
"You're a terrible liar," ge smirks.
Despite everything, you almost smiled. "So are you."
He didn't deny it. Instead, he looked back at Sawyer and Hurley, who were still bickering. "We'll get out of this. I promise. I'll get you out."
"You can't promise that."
"I can try."
"Jack, I—" you started, but Sawyer's voice interrupted.
"Hey, Doc! You better come look at this."
The moment broke. Jack stood, the mask sliding back into place. "We should see what he wants.You followed him back to the main room, where Sawyer was pointing at the computer screen. The countdown had reached 47 minutes.
"So what happens when it hits zero?" Sawyer asked.
Jack studied the screen, the instructions on the wall. "I don't know. But I don't think we want to find out."
"You think we should enter the code?"
"I think we should be careful. We don't know what this system does."
"Could be nothing," you offered. "Could be someone's idea of a joke."
"Or it could be important." Jack's voice was grim. "We'll watch it. If it gets close to zero, we'll make a decision then."
The bunker felt smaller with each passing second. You'd all tried to rest, but sleep was elusive. Hurley had finally dozed off in one of the bunks, his snoring a constant background noise. Sawyer was sprawled in a chair, eyes closed but not quite asleep.
You and Jack had taken the first watch, monitoring the computer. The countdown was at 10 minutes now. You'd watched it cycle through once already, Jack entering the code at the last moment. The numbers had reset to 108 minutes, and nothing else had happened.
"Do you think it actually does anything?" you asked quietly.
Jack shrugged. "No way to know without letting it run out. And I'm not willing to risk that."
"So we're stuck entering a code every 108 minutes for however long we're down here."
"Looks like it."
You leaned back in your chair, studying him in the dim light. He looked older in the harsh fluorescent glow, the lines around his eyes more pronounced. But there was something compelling about him, something that drew you in despite every reason to keep your distance.
"Can I ask you something?" you said.
"Sure."
"Why did you become a doctor?"
He was quiet for a long moment. "My father was a doctor. A surgeon. One of the best. I guess I wanted to prove I could be as good as him."
"And were you?"
"Better, actually. At least technically. But he never saw it that way." Jack's voice was flat, emotionless. "He died thinking I was a failure."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. He was probably right."
"Jack, don't say that," you say softly.
"I couldn't save him." The words came out harsh, raw. "He was dying, and I couldn't do anything. All my training and I was useless. What kind of doctor does that make me?"
You reached out without thinking, your hand covering his. "The human kind. You can't save everyone."
"I should have saved him."
"Why? Because he was your father? Because you're a doctor? Or because you think you owe him something?"
Jack looked at your hand on his, then up at your face. "All of the above."
"That's not fair to yourself."
"Life's not fair." But he didn't pull his hand away. "What about you? What were you running from?"
The question shouldn't have surprised you, but it did. You'd been so careful, so guarded. But down here, trapped in this bunker with time stretching ahead of you, the walls you'd built felt thinner.
"Everything," you said finally. "I made mistakes. And instead of facing them, I ran."
"What kind of mistakes?"
You hesitated. This was the moment. You could tell him the truth, or you could keep lying.
"I was in love with someone," you said slowly. "Someone I shouldn't have been. And when things went wrong, when people got hurt, I ran. I've been running ever since."
"Until the plane crashed." Jack added.
"Until the plane crashed," you agreed. "Hard to run when there's nowhere to go."
Jack's thumb brushed across your knuckles, a gesture so small and so intimate it made your heart stutter. "Maybe running isn't the answer."
"What is?"
"I don't know. Staying, maybe. Facing things instead of hiding from them."
"Is that what you're doing? Facing things?"
He smiled, sad and self-deprecating. "I'm trying. Not sure I'm succeeding, but I'm trying."
The computer beeped. Five minutes left. Jack pulled his hand away, and you felt the loss of his warmth like a physical ache. He stood, moved to the terminal, entered the code with practiced efficiency. The numbers reset. 108 minutes until you had to do it again.
HOUR 30 - Jack couldn't sleep. He'd tried lying on one of the bunks while Sawyer took a turn watching the computer, but his mind wouldn't shut off. He kept thinking about her hand on his, the way she'd looked at him when he'd talked about his father. She'd opened up, just a little, about her own past. He wanted to know more. And wanted to take away whatever pain she carried.
But more than that, he just wanted her. It was a dangerous thought. He was supposed to be the responsible one. Getting involved with anyone, especially her, was the last thing he should be doing. But God, he was tired of being responsible. He sat up, running his hands through his hair. Across the room, she was curled on another bunk, her back to him. He couldn't tell if she was asleep or just pretending.
"Can't sleep either?"
Her voice was soft, barely audible. She rolled over to face him, and even in the dim light, he could see the exhaustion in her eyes.
"No," he admitted.
"Want to talk about it?"
"Not really."
She smiled. "Fair enough."
They lay there in silence, Jack wondered what would happen if he closed that gap. If he crossed the space between them and just... let himself have this. But he didn't move. Because he was Jack, and Jack didn't do reckless things. Even when he desperately wanted to.
HOUR 35 - The bunker had taken on a timeless quality. Without windows, without natural light, it was impossible to tell if it was day or night above ground. You'd all lost track of time beyond the countdown on the computer screen.
Hurley and Sawyer had finally crashed, both of them snoring in their respective bunks. You and Jack had volunteered for another watch, sitting side by side at the computer terminal.
"Do you think they're looking for us?" you asked.
"Probably. But I don't know if they'll find this place. We barely found it ourselves."
"So we could be stuck here for days."
"Maybe." Jack's voice was carefully neutral. "Would that be so bad?"
You looked at him, surprised. "Being trapped underground with limited supplies and no way out? Yeah, I'd say that's pretty bad compared to the hell we've been thrown in."
"I meant..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Never mind."
"No, what did you mean?"
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was low, almost hesitant. "I meant being here. With you. Away from everything and everyone else. Would that be so bad?"
Your heart hammered. This was the kind of conversation that led to places you couldn't come back from.
"Jack, I'm not sure if you want to hear my-"
"I know." He cut you off."I know all the reasons this is a bad idea. But I-I can't stop thinking about you. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you since the day we crashed."
You reached out and took his hand. He looked at the countdown on the screen. 108 minutes. Then back at you.
"We have 108 minutes," he said. "And then we figure it out."
"That's not an answer."
"No. But it's what we've got."
You leaned in and kissed him. It was soft at first, giving him a chance to pull away. But he didn't. Instead, his hand came up to cup your face, his thumb brushing your cheekbone as he deepened the kiss. His other hand found your waist, pulling you closer until you were practically in his lap. You went willingly, your hands fisting in his shirt.
It had been so long since you'd been touched like this. Since you'd let yourself want someone. And Jack was... God, Jack was everything. Strong and gentle and careful, even now, even as his control started to slip.
He pulled back, breathing hard. "We should... there's a room. In the back. More private."
You nodded, not trusting your voice. He stood, taking your hand, and led you through the bunker to one of the smaller rooms. It had probably been an office once, with a desk and a filing cabinet and a small cot shoved in the corner. Jack closed the door behind you, and suddenly the space felt even smaller, more intimate.
"Are you sure?" he asked, his hands on your shoulders. "Because if you're not, if you have any doubts, we can stop. No questions asked."
"I'm sure." You reached up, touching his face. "Are you?"
"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."
Jack had imagined this moment more times than he cared to admit. Late at night, lying in his shelter on the beach, he'd let himself fantasize about what it would be like to touch her. To kiss her. To have her in his arms without the weight of responsibility and judgment pressing down on him. But the reality was so much better than any fantasy.
She was soft and warm in his arms, her body fitting against his like she was made for him. Her hands were in his hair, tugging gently at curls, and the small sound she made when he kissed her neck sent heat straight through him.
He wanted to take his time. Wanted to savor every moment, every touch, every gasp. But there was also an urgency to this, a desperation born of two months of denial and the very real possibility that they might not make it out of this bunker alive.
"Jack," she breathed, and the sound of his name on her lips nearly undid him.
He pulled back, his hands shaking slightly as he reached for the hem of her shirt. "Can I?"
She nodded, raising her arms, and he pulled the fabric over her head. She was beautiful. Sun-bronzed skin, the scar on her wrist from where he'd stitched her up that first day. Evidence of survival, of strength. He kissed the scar, then her shoulder, then the hollow of her throat. She gasped, her hands clutching at his shoulders.
"Your turn," she said, tugging at his shirt.
Jack hesitated. This was the moment he'd been dreading. The moment when she'd see him, really see him and realize. He took a breath and pulled his shirt over his head. Then his cargo pants fell to the floor.
Her eyes went to his left leg immediately. To the prosthetic that started just below his knee, the result of an accident years ago that he rarely talked about. He waited for the questions, the pity, the awkwardness that usually followed. Instead, she reached out and touched it. Her fingers traced the edge where metal met skin, gentle and curious but not pitying.
"Does it hurt?" she asked.
"Sometimes. Not right now."
She looked up at him, and there was no judgment in her eyes. No disgust or discomfort. Just acceptance. "Okay."
That was it. Just "okay." And somehow, that simple word meant more than any reassurance or platitude could have. Jack pulled her close again, kissing her deeply, pouring everything he couldn't say into the kiss. Thank you. I want you. You're beautiful. I'm terrified. I'm falling for you. She responded in kind, her hands exploring his chest, his shoulders, his back. Learning him the way he was learning her.
Jack guided her toward the cot, and she went willingly, pulling him down with her. The mattress was thin and uncomfortable, but neither of you cared. You were too focused on each other, on the way his weight felt pressing you into the mattress, on the way his hands mapped your body with reverent care.
"Tell me what you want," he said, his voice rough.
"You," you breathed. "Just you."
He kissed you again, slower this time, taking his time. His hands worked at the button of your jeans, and you lifted your hips to help him slide them down. He followed the path of the fabric with his lips, kissing your hip, your thigh, the inside of your knee.
"You're killing me," you gasped.
"Good." But there was a smile in his voice. "I want to take my time with you and memorize every inch of you."
"We might not have time."
"Then I'll work fast."
He did, his hands and mouth working in tandem to drive you higher. When he finally settled between your thighs, when his fingers found the heat of you, you couldn't hold back the moan that escaped.
"Shh," he murmured against your skin. "The others."
"I don't care."
"You will if Sawyer makes a comment about it later," he said muffled with his lips against you.
Despite everything, you laughed. And then his fingers moved in a way that made laughter impossible, made everything impossible except the sensation of him touching you, learning you, taking you apart with careful precision.
"Jack," you gasped. "Please."
"Please what?"
"I need... I need you. Inside me. Now."
He groaned, the sound vibrating through his chest. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. God, yes."
He pulled back long enough to shed his remaining clothes, and you took the opportunity to do the same. When he settled over you again, skin to skin, the sensation was overwhelming. He was warm and solid and real, and you wrapped your legs around his waist, pulling him closer.
"I don't have..." he started, then stopped. "We don't have protection."
"I don't care. I'm pretty sure we're gonna die and I trust you."
"You shouldn't."
"But I do."
He kissed you again, deep and thorough, as he positioned himself. "Tell me if I hurt you. Tell me if you need me to stop."
"I will. "
He pushed in carefully, and the stretch was immediate and intense. He was thick, substantial, and you felt every inch as he filled you. Your breath caught, your fingers digging into his shoulders as your body adjusted to accommodate him.
Jack's eyes locked on yours, searching, watching every flicker of sensation that crossed your face. He didn't ask if you were okay. He didn't need to. He could see it in your eyes, the way your lips parted, the way your body softened and opened for him.
When he was fully seated inside you, he paused, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. His breathing was ragged, his muscles trembling with the effort of holding still. Your hands slid up his arms, feeling the strength there, the tension coiled in his shoulders and back. Fingertips meshing with lean muscle and controlled power, and you could feel him shaking with restraint.
"You feel incredible," he murmured, his voice rough. His hands moved to cup your breasts, thumbs brushing over your nipples as he began to move. Slow, deliberate thrusts that had you gasping.
He kept his eyes on yours, never looking away, even as his rhythm built. One hand slid down to grip your hip, angling you so he could go deeper, and you cried out at the sensation.
"There," you gasped. "God, right there."
He maintained that angle, that rhythm, his gaze intense and unwavering. You could see everything in his eyes—the desire, the vulnerability, and his overwhelming need. Your hands roamed his back, feeling the flex and shift of muscle as he moved, the way his body worked above you.
"You feel so good," he murmured, his voice strained. "So perfect. I've wanted this for so long."
He angled deeper, his strokes growing more deliberate, each one hitting that perfect spot while his hips ground against you with an intensity that made your breath catch.
"Jack—fuck—I'm close."
"Let go. I've got you," Jack rasped against your lips.
The steady rhythm of his body against yours it pushed you over the edge. You came with a cry you barely managed to muffle against his shoulder, your body clenching tight around him.
Jack groaned, his rhythm immediately faltering. "I can't—" His voice broke, frustration and desperation mixing. "I'm sorry, I can't—"
He thrust deep, once or twice, and then you felt it. The hot pulse of his release flooding into you, the way his cock throbbed inside you as he came. It was visceral and intimate, feeling him lose control, feeling the warmth spreading through you.
He buried his face in your neck, his whole body shuddering. "I'm sorry," he gasped against your skin. "It's been so long, I couldn't—I wanted to make it last—"
You wrapped your arms around him, holding him close. "Don't apologize. That was perfect."
"I finished too fast." There was embarrassment in his voice, vulnerability. "You deserve better than—"
"Jack." You tilted his face up, making him look at you. "That was exactly what I needed. You were exactly what I needed."
For a long moment, neither of you moved. You just lay there, tangled together, breathing hard. Jack's weight was heavy on you, but you didn't want him to move. Didn't want this moment to end.
Eventually, he shifted, rolling to the side and pulling you with him. The cot was barely big enough for one person, let alone two, but you made it work, curling into his side.
"You okay?" he asked softly, his hand stroking your hair.
"Better than okay."
"I didn't hurt you?"
"No. It was perfect. You were perfect."
He kissed the top of your head. "I'm far from perfect." You didn't believe him. He was quiet for a moment, his hand still moving through your hair in soothing strokes. "What happens now?"
"I don't know." You exhaled slowly. "We're currently trapped underground. Eventually someone will find us, and we go back to camp. Back to trying not to die on this island."
"I meant with us." His voice was quiet, almost hesitant.
You tilted your head to look at him. His eyes were serious, searching. "What do you want to happen?"
"I want..." He paused, his jaw tightening. "I don't know. I just know I don't regret this."
"Even though it complicates everything?"
"Yeah. Even though." He looked away, then back at you.
You didn't know what to say to that. Didn't know if there was anything to say. So you just nodded, and he pulled you closer.
You lay there in comfortable silence, your head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. His hand traced patterns on your back, and you felt yourself starting to drift.
"Sawyer and Hurley are going to want us to rotate back soon," Jack said eventually, his voice drowsy. "Take the next shift."
"Probably," you say indifferently, not caring if the failure to enter the code results in castaporhe. You only cared about being submerged in freckled arms.
"We should get dressed. Be ready when they come looking," Jack says lazily.
"Five more minutes."
He chuckled softly. "Five more minutes."
But five minutes turned into ten, then twenty. You were both exhausted, the adrenaline and emotion of the past hours catching up with you. Jack's breathing evened out, and you realized he'd fallen asleep. You should have woken him. Should have insisted you both get dressed and gone back to the main room. But instead, you let yourself have this. This moment of peace, of intimacy, of feeling safe in someone's arms.
Just for a little while longer.
HOUR 47 - The banging woke Jack from the deepest sleep he'd had in months. For a moment, he was disoriented, unsure where he was. Then he felt the warm body pressed against his, smelled the scent of her hair, and remembered. The banging came again, louder this time. Voices shouting from above.
"Shit," Jack muttered, sitting up quickly. "They're here. I think tthey found us."
She was already moving, scrambling for her clothes. "How long were we asleep?"
Jack checked his watch. "A few hours. Damn it, we need to get dressed. Now."
They moved with frantic efficiency, pulling on clothes, trying to make themselves presentable. Jack's shirt was inside out. Her hair was a mess. There was no hiding what they'd been doing, but they had to try.
"Do I look okay?" she asked, her voice uncertain.
Jack took a moment to really look at her. Flushed cheeks, swollen lips, hair tangled from his hands. She looked thoroughly ravished, and the sight sent a bolt of possessive satisfaction through him.
"You look beautiful," he said honestly.
"JACK!"
"I know. Come on."
They hurried back to the main room, where Hurley and Sawyer were already awake, looking confused and disoriented.
"What's that noise?" Hurley asked.
"Rescue," Jack said. "Someone found us."
The banging intensified, and then, with a screech of metal, the hatch began to open. Light poured in, blindingly bright after two days in the dim bunker. Voices called down.
"Jack?! You down there?"
It was Sayid. Jack moved to the ladder, looking up at the faces peering down. "We're here. We're all okay."
"Thank God. We've been searching for hours. What happened?"
"Long story. We'll explain when we get up there."
One by one, they climbed the ladder. Hurley went first, then Sawyer. Jack gestured for you to go next, and you started up, acutely aware of his eyes on you. When you reached the top, hands pulled you out into the sunlight. It was late afternoon, the sun beginning its descent toward the horizon. A group of survivors had gathered, their faces relieved.
Jack emerged last, and immediately people started asking questions. What had they found? Were they okay? What was down there?
Jack handled it with his usual calm authority, explaining about the bunker, the supplies, the strange countdown. He didn't mention what had happened between you. Didn't even look at you as he spoke. But you could feel the connection between you, invisible but undeniable. Something had shifted in that bunker.
As the group started back toward camp, Jack fell into step beside you. His hand brushed yours, just for a moment. A silent acknowledgment of what had passed between you.
"Later?" he said quietly, so only you could hear.
"Later," you agreed.
And as you walked through the jungle, surrounded by the others but feeling utterly alone with him, you realized that everything had changed.
The island had brought you together. The bunker had broken down your walls. And now, there was no going back. Whatever came next, you'd face it together. Just like he'd promised.
🌿🌊📗𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘶 𝘹 𝘫𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘣𝘰𝘵 🌀🐟🌏
-- this ain't over/under but it's damn good. lmk if there should be a full fledged pitt x lost au with all the pittlings... love you all!
Sent to the Hightower to serve as a companion to Lord Ormund’s motherless daughter, you expected a quiet life of duty and the chance at a modest marriage. You did not expect to catch the eye of the Lord of Oldtown himself.
pairings: Dark!Ormund Hightower x Lesser Noble!Reader
warnings: dark!Ormund is a warning in and of itself; psychological manipulation and gaslighting; extreme power and status imbalance; age gap; forced marriage/entrapment; obsessive and possessive behavior; mild physical aggression; physical coercion; unwanted physical advances; non-con elements (no smut, just a heads-up for sensitive readers)
words: ~4k
author’s note: I have so many ideas for what happens next, and I really want to write their wedding night to see how that dynamic plays out behind closed doors. But let me know if you guys actually want more of him!
tag list: @yerhina @alaeratrrn @exxotiic
The carriage ride leaves your bones aching, but as soon as the colossal shadow of the Hightower falls over you, all your exhaustion is replaced by an overwhelming dizzying anxiety.
You step out onto the ancient cobblestones of Oldtown, the salty sea breeze immediately clinging to your skin. Above you, the tower stretches so high it seems as though it pierces the heavens, a monument to a family whose wealth and piety are unmatched in Westeros. You pull your cloak tighter around your shoulders, clutching the small lavender sachet hidden in your pocket. It is one of the few comforts from home you brought.
Your father’s parting words still echo in your ears: “You are eighteen now. A woman grown. Serve Lord Ormund’s daughter well, keep your head down, and pray that the Maiden smiles upon you enough to catch the eye of a wealthy knight or noble.”
You are a lesser noble, born to a house with a proud name and beautiful lavender fields but empty coffers. You are here under the guise of an honour; to be a companion and caretaker for Lord Ormund’s toddler daughter, a child tragically left without a mother, since birth. But you and most likely everyone else knows, that you are here to secure a good marriage, completely at the mercy of the Hightower’s hospitality.
A stiff-lipped steward leads you through the winding, cavernous halls and never-ending stairs. The sheer opulence of the keep is suffocating, tapestries woven with gold thread, braziers burning with expensive incense, and statues of the Seven watching your every step with unblinking stone eyes.
You are escorted into a grand, sunlit solar to await the Lord of the house.
The heavy oak doors open, and Ser Gwayne Hightower steps in first. He offers you a warm, handsome smile. "Welcome to the Hightower, my lady. I trust the journey wasn't too punishing?"
Before you can offer your curtsy and reply, the air in the room suddenly grows heavy.
You smell him before you see him. The overwhelming, but soft scent of crushed clove, and citrus oil sweeps into the room, overpowering the gentle warmth of the solar.
The guards at the door snap to attention and Lord Ormund Hightower steps over the threshold.
He is a striking, formidable man, a decade and a half your senior, wearing a pristine doublet of dark grey and forest green. In his left hand, he holds a silk handkerchief pressed lightly beneath his nose, his eyes narrowed in a faint display of distaste, as if the very air of the world outside his tower offends him.
"Cousin," Ormund says, his voice rich and confident. He barely looks at Gwayne. His pale, calculating eyes are fixed entirely on you.
You drop into a deep, immediate curtsy. "My Lord. Thank you for your gracious hospitality."
Ormund steps closer. You keep your eyes trained on the stone floor, but you can feel his imposing height looming over you. He stops just a fraction of an inch too close. You tense, waiting for him to speak, but instead, you hear the softest intake of breath. You stay frozen, extremely aware of the clean, soothing scent of lavender and rainwater clinging to your own skin, praying he doesn't find it offensive, but slowly, Ormund lowers the handkerchief from his face.
"You are a welcome sight," Ormund finally says, as he takes a step back. "And a welcome presence. My household has been... bereft of gentle graces since my wife's passing."
He smiles, a perfectly gracious, lordly expression that soothes your nerves. He gestures to the shadows near the door, and a boy steps forward.
"This is my ward, Daeron," Ormund says, his tone shifting instantly from soft to sharp, expectant.
You look at the boy and your breath catches. It was Prince Daeron Targaryen almost your age, with silver hair and violet eyes. But despite his royal blood, his posture is rigid, his hands clasped tightly behind his back. He looks at Ormund with a need for approval, before turning his gaze to you. In his eyes, you see the exact same anxiety you feel twisting in your own stomach.
"It is a pleasure, my lady," Daeron says, his voice polite but strained.
Gwayne steps forward then. "She must be exhausted. The nursery has been prepared, and I am sure little Lady Bethany will be thrilled to have a new companion,”
"Of course," Ormund murmurs, his eyes dragging over your face one last time. "See that you settle in well." He turns mid-sentence and sweeps from the solar, taking the heavy scent of cloves with him. The moment the doors click shut, the suffocating pressure in the room vanishes. Daeron's shoulders slump in relief, and Gwayne lets out a quiet breath, offering you a sympathetic smile before guiding you away to your new quarters.
The next few weeks slip into a quiet, unexpectedly gentle routine. The nursery quickly becomes your sanctuary. Little Lady Bethany is a sweet, lovely child who latches onto you almost immediately, burying her face in your skirts and finding comfort in the soft scent of lavender you bring.
Every afternoon, the heavy oak door opens to welcome the Lord of Oldtown, and every time, you prepare yourself for the imposing, arrogant man you met on your first day. Instead, you are met with the picture of a devoted, grieving father.
He sits in the plush chair by the window, lifting little Bethany onto his lap with a startling gentleness. While she plays with his signet ring, Ormund talks to you, he asks about the songs you hum to his daughter, which leads to long, surprisingly deep conversations about the old ballads of the Reach and the histories of the First Men.
During these visits, you often notice him closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. But in truth you think nothing of it. The nursery always smells of clean linen and the lavender oil you dab on your wrists and neck. To you, it simply seems that the heavy burden of lordship exhausts him, and he finds peace in the innocent, sweet-smelling quiet of his daughter’s room. You begin to admire him, seeing a gracious, intelligent man who deeply loves his family beneath his imposing exterior.
Daeron also makes a habit of slipping through the door, when Ormund is occupied with duties of his court. Without his guardian’s looming shadow, Daeron is entirely different, he is quick-witted, kind and funny. Your friendship with him blossoms effortlessly.
You sneak down to the kitchens to steal warm lemon cakes and spend hours wandering the library, stifling giggles as Daeron dramatically recites terribly written poetry he finds in the dusty archives. Ser Gwayne often catches you both in your mischief. Instead of reprimanding you, the handsome knight always covers for you two, offering a quick wink or even distracting the guards so you and Daeron can make an escape to the gardens.
For the first time since arriving, you begin to believe you might actually be happy here and the anxiety that you felt on your arrival has almost completely melted away. Until one night on your fourth week you were walking down one of the grand corridors, carrying a mended cloak for Bethany, when you heard footsteps.
Lord Ormund is walking ahead of you, deep in conversation with a steward. From a side passage, a young, nervous servant girl hurries out. She is carrying a heavy basin of hot water mixed with strong, pungent pine oil and vinegar for scrubbing the floors. In her haste, she trips. The basin clatters loudly against the stone, and the hot, sour-smelling liquid splashes directly onto the hem of Lord Ormund’s velvet cloak.
Ormund stops. The silence that falls over the corridor is freezing. The steward immediately takes three steps back.
"Forgive me, my lord!" the girl sobs, immediately dropping to her knees in the puddle, her hands shaking violently. "Mercy, please, I tripped…"
You freeze a dozen paces away, hidden in the shadow of a stone pillar. Ormund looks down at the weeping girl. His handsome face contorts into something monstrous. His eyes darken and his lips pull back in a sneer of pure, unadulterated disgust. He kicks the bucket at the girl cowering on the floor, who lets out a pained sob when it hits her.
"You ignorant, clumsy little rat," Ormund hisses. His voice is cold, it carries a venom so potent it makes your stomach turn. He steps closer to the cowering girl, looming over her. "I will have you stripped and thrown into the harbor to wash the stink from your skin…"
You take a tiny, involuntary step backward. Your shoe scuffs softly against the stone.
Ormund’s head snaps up. His pale eyes lock onto you in the shadows.
For a terrifying heartbeat, you see the monster looking right at you. Then, as if a switch has been flipped, the cold fury vanishes. His features smooth out into a picture of polite grace. The vicious lord disappears, replaced instantly by the gracious, smiling patriarch.
"Ah, my lady," Ormund says smoothly, stepping neatly around the trembling, sobbing servant without a downward glance. He pulls his clove-scented handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing at his nose with practiced elegance before offering you a warm smile. "Minor clumsiness. Nothing to fret over. Come, walk with me away from this dampness. The air here has grown terribly foul."
You take his offered arm, your hand still trembling slightly. For days after the incident, you cannot shake the image of the weeping servant girl and the monstrous, flat look in Lord Ormund's eyes. It haunts you. Yet, every time you see him in the nursery or the great hall, he is the very picture of grace. He asks after your health with genuine warmth, and he listens to your thoughts with rapt attention. He is so perfectly gracious, so attentive, that you begin to doubt your own memory. Perhaps you misunderstood the situation. Perhaps the overwhelming stress of ruling such a massive city and lordship had simply caused a momentary lapse in his otherwise noble composure.
You try to push the lingering unease away and focus on the real reason your father sent you to Oldtown. During the evening feasts, you make polite conversation with a few eligible knights. One of them, a charming third son from house Rowan, even asks you for a dance and promises to call upon you the next day in the gardens. But the next morning, he never arrives. When you see him across the courtyard later that week, he averts his eyes, and quickly turns in the opposite direction. He is not the only one. Any suitor who shows even a flicker of genuine interest in you soon finds an excuse to keep their distance.
You assume it is simply your lack of a substantial dowry, but the isolation soon begins to spread into your daily routine.
Your joyful afternoons with Daeron are suddenly cut short. Just as you are settling under a tree in the gardens, a steward will appear, bowing deeply. “Forgive the intrusion, my Prince, but Lord Ormund has ordered an urgent review of your High Valyrian translations.” Gwayne, too, finds himself unexpectedly burdened. Whenever the knight stops by the nursery to share a joke and a lemon cake, a guard inevitably arrives to summon him to the armory or dispatch him on a patrol of the city gates.
You never suspect that Ormund is orchestrating it. How could you? He is the Lord of Oldtown, his mind is occupied with trade routes and the Faith, not the social calendar of his daughter's companion.
Yet, as the keep seems to empty around you, you increasingly find yourself alone with him.
It begins with small gestures that leave your head spinning. You tell yourself you are simply unused to the customs of such a big court. He is a powerful lord and you are a lesser noble in his care. It is only natural he checks on you.
One afternoon you are sitting on the rug, humming softly as you braid little Bethany’s hair. You know Lord Ormund has entered the room, but you are so focused on the child that you do not look up at him until he is kneeling right beside you.
"She loves you dearly," he says, his deep voice vibrating in the quiet room.
You look up, startling slightly. A loose strand of your hair falls across your face. Ormund lifts his hand. His knuckles are warm and slightly calloused as they graze your cheek, gently tucking the stray lock of hair behind your ear. His fingers linger against the shell of your ear for the briefest heartbeat before falling away. His eyes are dark, focused entirely on your face. But when your breath hitches in panic, he merely smiles, a soft, paternal smile and turns his attention back to his daughter. The warmth of the touch remains long after his hand has withdrawn. You felt foolish for the way your heart had begun to race.
You were in your chambers, brushing out your hair and preparing for sleep one night, when a sharp, heavy knock rattles your door. A guard stands in the dimly lit corridor, his face unreadable. "Lord Ormund requires your presence in his office, my lady."
Your stomach twists into a tight, cold knot. It is far too late for a proper visit, and inappropriate for an unwed maiden to be summoned to a lordly office at this hour. But you have absolutely no power to refuse the Lord of Oldtown. You pull a modest woolen shawl over your thin nightgown and follow the guard through the dark, echoing halls.
When the heavy oak doors of the solar close behind you, the silence of the room is suffocating. Ormund is pacing behind his massive carved desk. The usually pristine lord looks unraveled. His dark velvet doublet is unclasped at the throat, his brown hair is slightly disheveled. Scattered across the desk are crumpled pieces of parchment bearing the broken wax seals of the Tyrells.
"Fools," Ormund mutters, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrates in the quiet room. He doesn't even look at you as you stand frozen near the door. "Surrounded by ignorant, grasping fools who cannot see past their own miserable, petty ambitions." Then he finally looks at you with hard eyes and takes you in. "Pour me a drink," he orders, gesturing tightly toward a silver flagon and jeweled goblet resting on a side table in the darkest corner of the solar. "The Arbor Red. And be quick about it. My patience has been thoroughly bled dry tonight by fools."
You swallow hard, keeping your head down as you cross the room. You can feel the crushing weight of his stare tracking your every movement. You reach the table, your fingers shaking as you lift the heavy silver flagon. The red wine sloshes slightly, threatening to spill over the rim of the goblet. You are so focused on keeping your hands steady that you don't hear him move.
You don't hear his footsteps on the carpet. You only realize he is there when the overwhelming heat of his large frame radiates against your back.
You freeze, the flagon suspended mid-air.
Ormund steps flush against you, entirely eradicating the distance between you. His chest presses heavily against your spine, solid and immoveable. You are trapped between the edge of the table and him. Your breath catches in your throat, a quiet, terrified sound, but you are too paralyzed by the sheer power imbalance to pull away.
Slowly, deliberately, Ormund lowers his head. You feel the faint scratch of his jaw brush against the shell of your ear. He buries his face in the curve of your neck, his nose pressing into your hair.
He takes a long, shuddering intake of breath, inhaling the clean, soothing scent of the lavender oil on your skin. His broad chest expands against your back. As he breathes you in, the rigid, tension in his body seems to melt away, leaving behind something far heavier.
"My lord…" your voice comes out as a breathless, panicked whisper.
"Hush," he commands softly. "They suffocate me with their stench," Ormund murmurs, his lips brushing right against your fluttering pulse point as he speaks.
He lets out a low, rough sigh that vibrates against your collarbone. "Seven hells," he murmurs, his voice stripped of all its polish reduced to a dark rumble. "You are the only clean thing in this rotting, foul-smelling city."
You try to shrink away, to slide out from between him and the table, but the moment you move, his large palms grip your waist with bruising, possessive force, halting your escape instantly. He easily holds you in place with just his hands on your hips, dragging you backward until your lower half is pulled flush against him. You can feel every hard line of his body pressing into yours.
His right hand slowly releases your waist, sliding upward. His long fingers drag possessively over your stomach, the searing heat of his palm burning through your thin nightgown. His hand moves higher, spreading wide as his thumb deliberately brushes against the soft underside of your breast.
"Lord Ormund, please," you plead, your voice shaking. "This isn't proper."
His hand tightens slightly and he turns his head, pressing an open-mouthed, wet kiss against the column of your neck.
Panic finally shatters your paralysis. With a sudden, desperate surge of strength, you twist your body to the side. Your arm strikes the silver flagon of Arbor Red you had just poured. It tips over with a deafening crash, sending a wave of wine splashing across the polished oak table and down the front of Ormund’s doublet.
Ormund flinches, his grip loosening for just a fraction of a second, but it is enough and you rip yourself away from his warmth. You do not look back to see his reaction. You run.
You do not sleep that night. You sit on the edge of your bed, shivering in your thin nightgown, watching the moonlight slowly turn to the grey light of dawn.
As soon as the sun breaks over the horizon, you drag your worn leather trunk from beneath the bed. You are leaving. You will face your father’s wrath and return to the beautiful lavender fields of your home. It does not matter that your family has empty coffers, you cannot stay in the shadow of this tower a moment longer.
A sharp knock at the door makes you freeze.
"My lady?" It is the cheerful, airy voice of a senior handmaiden.
You hesitate, your heart hammering against your ribs. You slowly pull the door open to reveal not just the maiden, but a steward and a household guard. In the maiden's arms is a breathtaking gown of smoke grey velvet, intricately embroidered with the emerald green flames of House Hightower.
"What is this?" you ask, your voice hoarse and broken.
"A gift from the Lord of Oldtown, my lady!" the handmaiden beams, entirely oblivious to your horrified face. "And my deepest congratulations! The entire keep is celebrating."
The floor seems to tilt beneath your feet. "Celebrating?"
"Lord Ormund announced it at the break of dawn. His mourning is over. He has sent his swiftest raven to your lord father and already spoken to the Septon." The steward steps forward, bowing deeply. "You are to be wed before the moon turns."
The breath leaves your lungs. He bypassed you entirely. As the absolute authority in the Reach, where the Tyrells aren’t concerned, his word is law. Your impoverished father will surely accept a massive dowry and from the Lord of Oldtown no less, who he holds in such high regards. You are utterly trapped.
Before the maiden can step into the room to dress you. The familiar scent of crushed clove and citrus sweeps through the corridor.
Ormund steps into the doorway. The servants immediately bow and scatter like frightened mice, leaving you alone with him.
He is perfectly composed. The monster from last night is completely gone, replaced by the immaculate, gracious lord you have come to know in the sunlit nursery. His hands are clasped loosely behind his back, making him appear open, unthreatening.
His eyes sweep over your terrified frame, taking in your trembling hands and the worn leather trunk dragged halfway across the floor. A look of sorrow crosses his handsome features.
"My lady," Ormund murmurs, his voice rich and soft. He does not approach you. He purposefully leaves a wide, respectful distance between you. "Did I frighten you so terribly?"
You swallow hard, unable to find your voice.
Ormund sighs, a heavy, weary sound, and lowers his head. "I came to offer my most sincere apologies. When I woke this morning the shame I felt was devastating." He looks up, his eyes meeting yours with such vulnerability that it knocks the breath from your lungs. "The letters from Highgarden, the endless demands of the Faith... the crushing weight of this lordship had utterly broken my spirit. I poured cup after cup of the Arbor Red until my senses were clouded.."
He takes a single, slow step forward. You stiffen, but he immediately stops, raising a hand in a calming gesture.
"I meant you no disrespect. I swear it by the Seven," he says, his voice thick with what sounds like genuine emotion. "You must understand, you have been such a comfort to me since you arrived. You quiet the noise in this keep. Last night... I was a drowning man, and you were the only solid ground. I allowed my desperation to overwhelm my manners. I was a fool to let my affections frighten you."
You stare at him. The sincerity in his voice makes the room spin. Affections? Last night, his large palms had gripped your waist with such force. He had backed you against a table, his voice completely stripped of its polish. But looking at him now, a powerful lord humbling himself before a girl of a noble house of no real consequence, speaking of his burdens with such openness, and a terrible seed of doubt begins to take root in your mind.
Was he truly trying to hurt you? Or was he simply a lonely, exhausted man who had momentarily lost control of his heart?
"I realized this morning that my actions had compromised your honour, and my own," Ormund continues smoothly, his tone shifting into one of noble resolve. "And I could not bear the thought of you fleeing Oldtown in fear, returning to a life of hardship when I could offer you everything. I wished to show you that I do not view you as a fleeting comfort."
He offers you a small smile. "You will never have to worry about your family’s empty coffers again."
Ormund bows deeply to you, the absolute picture of chivalry and grace, before turning and sweeping from the room.
You sink slowly onto the edge of your bed, your legs no longer able to support you. The familiar, overwhelming scent of crushed clove and citrus sweeps through the room, wrapping around you like an invisible chain. You look at your half-packed trunk, then at the magnificent velvet gown draped over the maiden's arms.
Ormund Hightower x Fem!Prisoner!reader (House/family unspecified)
Summary: Ormund summons his prisoner while he bathes; you.
Warnings: Stockholm syndrome (?), power imbalance, age gap, unhealthy dynamics, needy reader, size difference, bath sex, fingering, condescending talk, groping, PiV, breeding, praise, aftercare if you squint
2.9K
It was an early morning, and while the people of Oldtown were just barely waking up, their Lord had already been up for a long time. First sending ravens, then training, then making sure his soldiers were working hard as he ordered them to.
By the time all was in order, the sun was creeping over the horizon, and Ormund found himself back at his chambers, removing his armour. Here, all was in order as well. His maids had cleaned and made his bed while he was working, and different servants had prepared his spread and, most importantly, his bath. He saw the steam curling up from the hot water, saw his most trusted maid make the water scented just the way he liked it.
He had shed his armor and weapons, moving towards the table to break off a piece of still warm bread. “I am sure that is enough,” he spoke evenly, the maid pausing immediately, the dried rose petals still in her hand. “We wouldn’t wish to overdo it, would we?”
By ‘we’ he meant her. A clear warning to not mess up the perfect scent of the water and potentially ruin his morning bath.
He stripped out of his final layers, not caring a few servants were still lingering around to finish up the final cleaning, and stepped into his bath. The water was hot, probably hotter than most people would be comfortable with, but it soothed his strained muscles immediately.
He closed his eyes, taking a moment to breathe in the scent and relax his mind. He heard the door open, close, open again and close once more. He did not open his eyes. He could hear the sound of one of his knights armour, the man standing silently near the door.
“Bring the girl,” he said, only opening his eyes when he heard a lack of movement. His eyes locked onto the knight, the man clearly hesitating a second. “The girl,” he repeated, his eyes narrowing slightly in warning, “bring her to me. Now.”
The knight turned slowly, then left his chamber immediately. Ormund could only sigh. He watched the last servant girl leave his chambers, and as he waited for his prisoner to be brought out, he ate a few morsels from the spread that had been so meticulously prepared for him.
Fruits, meats, soft bread and herbal tea. After a few minutes, his fingers started tapping impatiently against the edge of his tub. And finally, he heard the heavy wooden door open again. His knight re-entered the chamber, holding you by your bound wrists. He wasn’t that gentle with you, for you were a prisoner of the Hightowers. Yet still, the fabric that bound your wrists was soft. Tight enough to stay in place, an iron ring attached to put a chain on you if needed. But the fabric on its own was not enough to hurt. Ormund had made sure it wouldn’t.
“Leave us,” he ordered the knight, and this time spoke hard enough to make sure the man did not hesitate to leave. He shut the heavy door behind him, and Ormund was certain he assumed his post in front of the door.
He watched you for a moment. And you stared right back.
It was hard to call you a prisoner, truly. Around three weeks in, and Ormund had started being quite fond of you. He liked how spoiled you were, how you hadn’t truly realised the danger you had been in. You had shown your teeth, and he liked that. He liked it very much.
Even now, even though your wrists were bound, you nearly looked like a lady. Freshly bathed, since he wouldn’t have you smelling like a prisoner, and dressed in a soft, green-tinted gown, since he also wouldn’t have you looking like one.
Foolish? Perhaps. But you had clawed your way right under his skin.
“I had the most productive morning,” he said, breaking the silence between you two. “Letters have been sent, my men have been trained. And now… a most perfect bath.”
He hadn’t bothered to cover himself at all. There was no need to, you had seen every inch of him before. And he had seen every inch of you.
“Your father, too, has sent another letter. He seems to be nearly ready to pay the ransom to return you.”
You moved, though slowly. You walked towards him, his eyes following your every move, and he stared as you held out your bound wrists to him in a silent plea.
Untie me.
Even as a prisoner for nearly a year, you were bold as ever. Even if you were not a prisoner, the way you approached him, Lord Hightower, was with the confidence of a woman who had never been told no before. A woman whose father was not indebted severely by her captor.
Yet still, he untied you.
His hands were surprisingly gentle, undoing the knots, until the ropes fell away, forgotten on the floor. He heard you let out a soft sigh, and he carefully rubbed the warm skin of the inside of your wrists.
"You sigh as if the ropes were a personal insult to your station, rather than a consequence of your house's failings," he murmured, a flicker of amusement touching his eyes. He watched a soft pout form on your lips.
“You mean my father’s,” you said quietly, knowing your father’s gambling was the very reason you were stuck in this situation. A daughter in exchange for a debt. He certainly didn’t seem in a rush to pay it off. And Ormund didn’t mind.
He let out a dry chuckle, leaning further back in his tub when he let go of your wrists.
“Yes,” he said, “your father. Quite an insolent man, if one can call him a man at all. A true man pays off his debts. And though his debt is deep, one would think that an imprisoned daughter is enough to make a person act right.”
You didn’t reply to his words. They were meant to humble you, embarrass you of your father and your lineage, and to push you closer to Ormund instead.
He was a man. He was a Lord, a knight, a man of faith. He was the perfect man for a woman like you. And each day he tore down your walls and your love for your family, until there was only room left for him in your heart.
You may be under his skin, but Ormund… Ormund was in your heart.
So you remained silent and let his words wash over you while you removed your green gown. Ormund watched with silent attention, watching every inch of skin be revealed. You wore no undergarments, since you were still a prisoner. And Ormund refused to indulge you too much.
Besides, it was easier for him that way.
You stepped into the warm water, settling right on top of his lap as if you belonged there. Your legs were on either side of his hips, and you nuzzled your face against his throat like a needy cat. When you didn’t feel his large hands settle on your waist the second you had sat on him, you let out a soft whine. Ormund only sighed, his hands sliding from your hips up to your waist, settling you closer against him. You had to be the most spoiled prisoner that had ever existed.
“No reply?” he spoke gently, one of his hands sliding up your spine, then moved to tug your head back by your hair. “You are a brat, my lady,” he said softly, his eyes searching yours. “Do you believe that simply because you climb into my bath, you don’t have to reply to me?”
He watched you search for an answer for a moment, your hands playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.
“I do now know what you wish to hear,” you whined, shoulders slumping. “You wish to hear me agree? That my father is a gambler? An embarrassment? A bad father and man?” You sighed annoyed, a noise that Ormund didn’t like to hear. You rested your head on his shoulder again. “Just say you love me again,” you whispered. “Oh, please… I do so love to hear it…”
Ormund sighed himself, an irritated sound. It had been a mistake, something he had said in the heat of the moment. But you had clung to those words like a beggar clings to a coin, and he knew you had bound yourself to him forever.
He looked down at you, his hand moving up and down your spine. You didn’t want him to let you go free, you wanted him to be yours as well. Fully and completely. You wanted him to bend to your will, spoil you in whichever way you wanted him to. And, Gods help him, he would. He liked seeing you smile, and dressed up in Hightower colours and he liked hearing you moan and mewl his name.
"You know it is a lie," he murmured, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. "A man does not 'love' a prisoner. A man does not 'love' a girl who treats his lordship like a personal servant and his war like a tedious interruption to her morning."
“I do not do that,” you tried to argue, your lips brushing the skin of his throat.
He ignored your words, instead taking a hold of your hips and pressed you tighter against him. He felt your breasts pressing against his chest, your nipples already hard from either the cold or arousal. Ormund knew which one.
"I love you," he said, the words sounding heavy, as if they pained him to say them out loud. "I love you enough to let you ruin me. I love you enough to let you sit in the middle of a war and act as though the world exists only to serve your whims. Does that satisfy you, my little prisoner? Or must I say it again while you're busy devouring me?"
“You must say it again,” you breathed out, sitting upright on his lap. You cupped his face between your hands, feeling the slight stubble underneath your fingertips. “You must tell me again,” you repeated, “for I love you. Most ardently-”
Ormund released the breath he was holding, his hand pressing against your lower back. His eyes dropped towards your lips for a moment.
"You say you love me," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your mouth. "Do you mean it? Or is it just another way to demand what you want? Because if you mean it... if you truly love the man who holds you captive..." He leaned in, his lips brushing yours, "...then stop talking. Stop whining. And show me."
You returned the kiss, your lips pressing against his. They were surprisingly soft against yours, though by now you had gotten used to that contradiction. You tilted your head slightly, enough to deepen the kiss, lips now moving against his, and then pulled back.
“You may only love me,” you murmured against his lips, “Only me. I am the only woman in your heart-”
You placed your hand on his chest, right over his heart, pretending not to feel hurt that his heartbeat was slow and steady instead of pounding against his ribcage. Ormund sighed your name, watching your dilated eyes.
“You are foolish,” he spoke so gently it nearly sounded like a compliment. Both his hands grabbed your hips, pulling your body flush against his, his hard cock now pressing right against your core. He kissed you again, deeper this time. He forced his tongue between your lips, wanting to taste you, wanting to remind you that it was him who held the ropes.
He broke the kiss just long enough to trail his lips down the line of your jaw, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below your ear, eliciting a soft gasp from you.
"If you are the only woman in my heart," he growled against your skin, his hands lifting you slightly so he could feel the full, staggering heat of you pressed against his cock, “then just take me.”
You moved your hips then, starting a slow, steady grind against him. You pressed your bare cunt against his member, your clit pressing just right against him. You let out shaky breaths, and they became more uneven when he slid his hands up your waist to cup your breasts.
"Look at me," he murmured, his voice a low, authoritative rasp that cut through the haze of your pleasure. He squeezed your breasts, something that made a low moan escape you. You opened your eyes again, forcing yourself to look into his eyes. He pressed a kiss against your throat, sliding one of his hands between your legs, slipping a finger into your warm center. He watched your lips part in a silent moan, and he surged forward to kiss you again.
"You are mine," he said, the words a dark vow whispered as he moved his finger in and out of you, adding a second when he felt impatient. "Not the Vale’s. Not your father's. Mine. Do you understand?"
He felt you grind down on his thick digits, so he grabbed your throat and forced you to look at him.
“I will not repeat my question again,” he spoke lowly, darkly.
“I-I under--understand-” you managed to pant out, and you knew he was pleased with your answer when he slid his hand away from your throat and back to your hip.
“Good girl..” he said, slipping his fingers out of you and tilting you just enough so the tip of his cock was lined up with your entrance.
He didn't ask if you were ready, or even if you wanted this. Because he knew you did. He owned you, body and soul. He pushed you down onto his cock, relishing in the way your head tilted back and a deep moan escaped you. He was so big, so thick, you always felt like you were stretched to your limit. “Ormund,” you breathed out. “Oh… nnh…”
“Yes,” he gritted out, fucking into you from underneath, ignoring the way the cooling water was splashing over the edge. “Take it. Take it like the good little girl you are.”
He drove into you, deep enough to leave his mark that would stay there forever. A piece of you only he would ever reach.
"Say it again," he commanded, his tone soft but possessing that unmistakable authority. He leaned down, his chest heaving against yours. "Tell me who you belong to. Tell me whose name is on your lips when you lose yourself."
He wanted to hear you moan his name. It made him feel like the most powerful man in the world. And even though he was quite nearly the most powerful man in Oldtown, the high he felt when he was dominating you, owning you, was a high he had never felt before.
“Ormund-” you gasped out, grinding hard down on his cock, moving with a desperation he nearly found endearing. “I’m-I’m yours--only yours.”
Your words were broken and stammered, but it was exactly what he wanted to hear. He held your hips even tighter, moving you harder up and down his cock until he felt the familiar trembling of your body when you were nearing your climax.
“That’s it,” he purred in your ear as he rubbed circles against your clit, “come for me. Come all over my cock.”
He held you tightly and made sure your movements never faltered up and down his cock when your own movements became choppy and stuttered. And then, when you finally fell over that edge, you kissed him. His fingers squeezed your flesh so tight he was leaving bruises, and all he could taste was you on his tongue. He forced himself balls deep inside of you as he came, ignoring your soft pained mewls. He came so deep inside of you, he knew his cum was flooding your womb, which pleased him deeply.
As he slumped back against the tub and you against his chest, the water slowly calmed down as well. He held you close against his chest, allowing you to catch your breath, yet not allowing you to remove yourself from his softening cock.
“There,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss against your forehead. He felt you rest your entire weight against him, and he simply held you close, his hands on your waist and massaging the sore skin of your hips.
He felt you move sluggishly, moving your head back up to look at him. You pressed yourself up, your hands on his shoulders, kissing the side of his mouth.
“Be mine…” you spoke quietly, that same desperation still clinging heavily to your voice. Your fingertips traced his jaw, the stubble on his cheek, his lips, and he let you. His eyes softened as he watched your tired eyes, still shining with that desperate need to hear him say he loved you, too. That he needed you, too.
“You know I already am,” he admitted softly, his hand catching yours, the one that was trailing his features. “You know I am. And yet, you ask it as if it were a new thing. As if we are not already tangled in a knot that even the finest weaver in Oldtown could not undo." He kissed you again, a kiss that spoke as clearly as his words just had.
Can be read independently, but technically speaking it is the second and final part to this.
Ormund Hightower x fem!Reader
Summary: Ormund attends your wedding (night).
Includes: angst; forbidden love (?); iffy interpretations of canon (Ormund insists that he can claim the right to your wedding night (which is nonsense but oh well)); Ormund lifts and carries reader; smut; loss of virginity; Ormund being a very concerning individual; but you kind of really like him; not beta read
A/N: has this been done before? I do not know. But I thought these two deserved at least one night together.
Word count: 6.1k
Read on Ao3
banner by @/strangergraphics
All is perfect.
Your newly-wedded husband, who has kind eyes and warm hands, been whispering sweet nothings in your ear the whole day. Your parents-in-law, who have welcomed you to Castle Ivgrove with open arms, are nothing but patient with you. And the banquet prepared to celebrate your nuptials is simply a marvel of joy and merriment: the tastiest dishes, the jolliest tunes, the finest company. You have laughed your heart out, drunk yourself into a soft dizziness, danced yourself into near exhaustion and with it you have fatigued your husband, who did not grant you a dance even with your brother, so eager to instead be close to you the whole evening.
It is only a shame your parents could not attend, but their absence is not their fault: their carriage got damaged on the road, and the repairs are not so easily completed. If you so wished, you are certain that your new family, the Hastwycks, would have postponed the wedding for a few days, but you insisted on going through with it as planned. Your wedding was postponed long enough already. First the lord Hightower refused the match your father made. Only after many complaints did your liege lord broker you a different—a better, it can be said—match. However, those nuptials were adjourned three times due to the Septon finding last minute issues with the days you and your betrothed chose for the ceremony. It was a bitter pill to swallow, even more so three times, but you are not foolish enough to disregard a man of the Faith: you would not wish to be wed on any other day unless an auspicious one.
And what an auspicious day it is. Truly, you could not be happier. Only sealing your sacred vows to your husband in full could increase your joy now.
‘My lord husband,’ you say as he helps you return to your seat after yet another dance. ‘The hour is growing late.’
He is an honorable man, your lord Morgil Hastwyck, and you suppose, even handsome. If only not so handsome as him. You smile through the disturbing thought brightly, never mind that your cheeks hurt. It will pass, these sinful imaginations, these heinous desires. You have said your goodbyes to your lord Ormund Hightower weeks ago, and if all goes as it should, you will not see him again for months, if not years. Your wicked hunger for him will die once your husband takes you to your marital bed and you belong fully and only to him. It is not too late for you yet, you can still be an obedient wife.
But kind Morgil only smiles at your insinuations and so you remain on your place at the midst of the table, looking at the guests making merry and listening to the next happy tune. It is fine, you tell yourself, you can wait a while longer. There is no hurry at all, you have all the time in the world.
Until you have not. Through the opened doors of Ivgrove walk in four men; not invited guests, for no guest would ever bring armor and swords to a wedding. No, these men do not carry any sigil you have seen here until now. Instead, their silver plates of armor are adorned with the white tower topped with red flames of your liege lord’s house. The Hightowers. The music dies out, the guests stop dancing and all becomes silenced. Swallowing your breath, you place your hands flat on the table and push yourself on your feet—just in time to meet the gaze of the fifth and final intruder.
It is him.
He looks you straight in the eyes as he walks in, his hand resting on the hilt of Vigilance. How handsome he looks, how strong, how certain of himself. Not for the first time you are reminded that, unlike your husband, Ormund Hightower is no young boy, only about to grow into lordship. No, he is a true lord of house Hightower, seasoned with experience, dedicated to upholding honor and duty. Duty, however, should have kept him at Oldtown, in his wife’s chambers.
But here he is. The crowd parts to make way for him, but he walks into the middle of the room as if no one were there except for you. All his attention is gratuitously, freely bestowed onto you. You should not like the sight of him. And yet, you indulge yourself: for a moment you let yourself drown in the fantasy that he has come to you as a husband.
But he is not dressed in the white and gray of his house. Instead, he is dressed in deep emerald green. As if he were calling his bannermen to war.
As the wedding guests, all bannermen to the Hightowers, bow and courtesy, your lady mother-in law and lord father-in-law hurry to welcome their liege lord with the respect he is due. In the meanwhile your husband takes hold of your hand. You barely dare to move, caught under Ormund Hightower’s observant gaze as you are, but your husband guides you politely to the middle of the room.
‘—always welcome in our hall, my lord,’ the elder lord Hastwyck assures.
Ormund just smiles in that unsettling and disarming manner of his. He does not utter a word, only waits patiently until the lord and lady of the castle step back, and your husband presents you to him. As you sink into a polite courtesy, your gaze falls on the pearl white of your wedding dress. That is the only advantage which came with the numerous postponements: it is decorated marvelously, the embroidery a wonderful pattern of dragonflies, butterflies and flowers. You had plenty of time to see to refining these patterns after all.
‘You have been honored with a lovely bride, Morgil Hastwyck,’ Ormund Hightower says.
The first words uttered since he came in. Slowly you rise, and as you do so, for a moment, it feels as if it is all for him. This dress you so meticulously embroidered, the heat in your cheeks and sweat on your brow, and even, how disgracefully, the vows you spoke in the Sept this morrow. You cannot meet his gaze now, and so you look desperately at his knights behind him, at that Targaryen boy—how lost the young prince looks now, and how worried. His widened eyes and rigid stance do nothing to soothe you. Something bad will happen.
‘I am a lucky husband, my lord,’ Morgil agrees.
Ormund hums, in that pensive manner that only predicts trouble, and he mutters, ‘Day has made way for night.’
He does not allow you to avoid his gaze for longer. He takes hold of your chin. You jolt in surprise, but the small step you take back, he compensates by drawing closer. He forces you to meet your gaze. And something wicked glimmers in those brown eyes. In the gasp of a breath a horrid thought passes your mind, but you shake it off immediately. He cannot mean to attempt such a base thing. It would be against his own nature.
And yet, perhaps…
‘My lord, you cannot—’ you begin to whisper, but he is already speaking, his voice loud and certain, ‘I claim my right to this night with your bride.’
The silence in the great hall of Ivgrove swells to a grotesque weight, suffocating you. You shake your head in awe. He must have lost his mind, no other explanation can be given. For this right has been abolished decades ago, and even more so, it was one a lord could only claim over the lowborn. House Hastwyck may not be of the bluest blood, but it is not common, it is noble. He cannot do this. You know this, all around you know this.
And yet, your husband merely says in acquiescence, ‘My lord.’
Around you the nobles burst out in applause. You cannot believe what you are hearing. Lips parted in shock, you look at your lord Morgil, but he bows his head not even in avoidance of your face, but in subjugation to his liege lord.
‘You cannot do this,’ you whisper, eyes shooting back to Ormund.
But he merely raises an eyebrow. Before you can phrase your protests louder, he is already hoisting you over his shoulder.
‘No!’ you exclaim, ‘My lord, let me go, you cannot do this!’
It is common knowledge. It is the law. And yet, as he carries you off all clap: your husband, your parents-in-law, and every single guest. No one raises their voice in protest. They are apparently all more loyal to their lord than to the laws of men and gods alike. And so they keep their mouths shut and even applaud as their liege lord carries of someone else’s newly wedded wife.
You writhe and cry out in dissent as he carries you up the stairs. You curse even the servant who shows him the way to the very bedchamber you are meant to share with your husband. Ormund goes about his actions as if you were utterly still and silent, so unbothered he is by your attempts at putting up a struggle. By the time he sets you down on the blue silk covers of the bed—your marriage bed—indignation pounds harshly in your head.
This is not right, this is unlawful. And yet, no one keeps him from closing the door and caging you in.
As he draws closer to you, he says, ever politely, ‘Congratulations, my lady, on your marriage.’
And this time, when he smiles, it is not malicious, but tenderly. At least as much tenderness as he is capable of.
You force yourself to stand and face him head on. ‘You cannot do this, my lord.’
‘Tell me, my lady, who is the liege lord of house Hastwyck?’
Still he tries to reach you, to touch you, but you are insistent on keeping whatever distance remains.
‘Often you best me in the art of rhetorics and argumentation, my lord, but on this you will not.’
He should not be smiling at you like this, as if he is truly joyed to see you, to hear you speak, even if you do so in anger.
‘Let us not waste this night on debate, my lady.’ Still he comes closer, nearing you as if one would a feral cat. ‘The matter is simple. For hundreds of years stronger and fiercer men have had the right to claim the brides of lesser men. I only mean to honor tradition.’
‘The queen Alysanne—’
‘Yes, the old Targaryen witch mislead our forefathers to abandon tradition,’ he interrupts, a sharp edge to his voice.
It is not often he so makes his distaste for the royal house of the Seven Kingdoms known, but you have been aware of it for a long while now. He holds little love for the Targaryens, and maybe he is right to do so. The Hightowers have been lords of these lands since time immemorial. Yet, it matters not: what he means to do goes against ruling law, and has even been deemed a sin by the Faith. But still he only tries to reach you. You, in trying to avoid him, have worked yourself into quite the predicament, back pressed against the lush tapestry adorning the wall.
‘Tradition once gave highborn lords the right to claim the maidenhead of lowborn brides,’ you admit. ‘But I am not lowborn.’
You try to slip past him, but he grabs you by the waist and pulls your back flush against his chest. You try to free yourself from his hold, but he is tall and strong and so easily cages you in his embrace. He leans in, burying his face in the crook of your neck. He takes in a deep breath.
For a moment, you fear or hope that he may retreat then. He is sensitive to smells, easily put off by the faintest notion of an unpleasant odor. You have been dancing, you have worked yourself into a sweat. He will take note of something a bit sour and he will retreat—except, he does not, except he just rubs his nose against your earlobe.
‘You are not,’ he admits in a whisper. ‘And yet, I claim your wedding night, my lady, and if you will, your maidenhead.’
He is trying to make you melt. To make matters worse, he is almost succeeding. If only because the lavender smell of him is so familiar, the timbre of his voice so calming. A man like him has no business being so well-versed in the arts of seduction. But is it seduction? Or is it tenderness? Warmheartedness? Part of you is inclined to give in. You are, after all, but a woman in love. Foolishly and blindly and terribly in love. And here you are offered a taste of the apple of your eye.
But the only reason you found yourself in this precarious position to begin with is that other part of you: the one which is inquisitive and sharp-minded enough to have ever impressed your liege lord in the first place. That part of you has been confused as to the details of this match. Your dowry, humble as it is, could never have been of the sort to impress a house such as the Hastwycks. And now you see why they may have welcomed you regardless.
Almost ashamed by your own thoughts, you whisper, ‘This is why you brokered this marriage, did you not? You did not even sell me, as a father would her daughter. No, my lord—’ You turn in his embrace, facing him, and sneer, ‘—you have bought me as base man would a whore.’
The silence tells you enough, but it is the darkening of his eyes and the heavy bob of his throat as he swallows that assure you of your correct guess. What a silly girl you are, that you did not question it more seriously before, that for a moment you thought he would let you marry another without even an attempt to yet claim you. He inhales and exhales slowly, not saying a single word for a long time. Finally he places his hand over your throat and says, ‘You should have been mine, my lady.’
‘You made me another’s.’
‘Only at your insistence,’ he snaps. You jolt at the venom in his voice, but he, noticing you fright, is quick to hush, ‘Only at your insistence, and only at… at this condition. You will be another lord’s beloved lady wife, but your maidenhead belongs to me. Tonight you belong to me.’
His words may have the form of statement and insistence, but at their very core they are a plea. Despair lines these vows, desperation glistens in his dark eyes. How you want to soothe him. But you cannot. It cannot be right, can it?
‘I took sacred vows in front of the gods, my lord, as did you when you wed your lady wife. We are each bound to another.’
‘We are bound, yes.’ He cups the back of your head, and leans in, until his forehead rests against yours, his nose rubs against yours. ‘But I am not a common man, my lady. And the gods recognize my right to you. Or do you think that if I were to call your husband to a duel now, the gods would bless him with a victory over me?’
Your legs are trembling, so upset you are. But also so content. He is so close to you now, so close as he is in your guiltiest dreams and most wicked fantasies. You grip the fabric of his doublet to keep yourself on your feet.
‘First you speak of claiming my wedding night, now you speak of dueling my lord husband,’ you mutter. ‘Ormund, I thought you were a man of the Faith, a man of honor.’
He scoffs, his grip on you softening. Then, he does the last thing you expected he would: he sinks onto his knees. Mouth agape you watch him kneel in front of you, his hands firmly gripping your hips. But his eyes are raised to meet yours.
‘This is the gods’ will, my lady,’ he says with such certainty that you almost believe it. ‘And as always I mean to do their bidding dutifully and honorably.’
You cannot help it. You reach for his face, tracing your fingertips over his cheek. But the touch is so unsuited that you press your eyes close.
‘Tell me you do not want this,’ he says suddenly. A moment passes as if he is scared to press the matter further, but he does, ‘Tell me you scorn me, and I shall—’
‘How can I speak such a lie?’ you interrupt in a cry.
Shocked, you place your hands over your mouth and stare down at him.
‘My maiden fair,’ Ormund mutters with such tender pity that your heart melts.
He rises onto his feet, prying your hands away from your mouth. His shadow falls over you as he speaks next, ‘You are mine to claim, my lady, you shan’t disgrace yourself by delivering yourself to your liege lord willingly.’
You desperately want to believe that. You desperately want him.
‘I-I should not,’ you whisper.
‘You should,’ he assures, ‘For your lord has commanded it, for this is the gods’ blessed order of things: for the strong to bless the weak. My lady—’ He takes both of your hands in his, kissing each softly, slowly. ‘—let me bless you with a child.’
You heart hiccups. A child, his child. It cannot be. It should not be. But you cannot deny that you have dreamed of it. And so you nod.
‘Yes?’ he presses, lips ghosting over your cheek.
You nod again.
‘I need to hear you say it,’ he murmurs.
Head swimming, heart bursting, you say, ‘Yes.’
You have barely uttered the word or he is kissing you. Whatever softness he spoke to you with is gone. He claims your mouth with the force and violence of a man who has been bereaved of what he desired for far too long. You let him, eagerly and wholeheartedly, you just let him kiss you like that. With desperate power. He is touching you in a way you have never before been touched: palming your body as if appreciating every curve and line of it, kneading your flesh as if testing its softness and pliability. So overwhelming these sensations are that you barely notice that he is guiding you towards your marital bed.
He kisses you so vehemently, yet helps you on the bed with care. He handles your body as if it were a sacred thing, moving so until he is certain that you are comfortable and content. He is reluctant to part from your lips, only doing so to quickly slip of your white shoes, to get rid of his boots and sword. And you, you cannot help yourself, you chase after his kisses with elated eagerness. When he finally joins you on the bed, you you wrap your arms around his neck and pull him back with you. He lets you move him, but when he is on top of you, when his tall and strong body cages you, it is clear that it is you who are at his mercy. His lips drift to your cheeks, to your neck, leaving a trace of fleeting kisses. His hands dip underneath your back, fumbling with the laces of your bodice.
‘You smell of saffron again,’ he mutters. ‘And lilies, and… hm, you.’
He kisses your throat and then, when he has undone your bodice, he bites down in the tender skin. You yelp and then, not able to help yourself, you giggle.
‘What a pretty laugh.’
He sits back on his knees, pulling you up with him. You place your hands firm on the silk sheets and you look up at him through your lashes. He is hesitating, you can see it in his eyes. It is a rare sight, this uncertain shimmer in his brown irises, but it is there now. Your body moves as if it has a mind of its own. You shift to sit on your knees and, drowning in his dark gaze, you begin to unbutton his doublet. He lets out a nervous breathe, a scoff of some sorts, but does not say a word.
In soft silence, lined by the glow of oil lamps and the cover of night, you undress him. At first your fingers shake, so nervous you are under his touch, but gradually longing overtakes you and your movements become steadier. It is a relief when his doublet and shirt are gone, to have your fingertips touch the hot flesh of his torso. He is firm and yet, a bit mellow. You press a kiss to his lips, smiling up at him.
‘Certainly you must know, Ormund, this is what I see in my most guiltiest of dreams.’
‘I too am looking at something straight from a dream,’ he confesses.
He kisses your lips, your cheeks, your brow, as if distracting you from what his hands are doing. A pleasant heat settles over your skin as he slowly pulls down your dress, baring your body to him. All guilt and shame you felt moments ago ebbs away as he does so. Being naked before him, is not something you can find fault in. After all, he has already seen your soul, why not your body?
‘My maiden fair,’ he mutters as he lets his hands drift to the swell of your breasts.
He urges you onto your back, lowering his face to the valley between your breasts. You sigh as he kisses you slowly, almost languidly there. It distracts you so that you barely notice him doing away with your dress entirely. He indulges himself in you, licking your nipples, palming the fat on your body, placing kisses there where you never imagined one could be kissed. Something between your legs begins to ache. You are defenseless against these sweet advances, this delirious claiming. And so, when his hand drifts over the sensitive flesh of your thigh, you can do naught but relax into the touch.
‘What are you doing?’
Your voice is accentuated by a laugh, both nervous and excited; for you truly do not know what he is doing, but you do know that you like this. That he likes this. As you dutifully follow his wordless command and spread your legs, he places a kiss over your tummy, and then dips his tongue in your belly button. With a muffled giggle, you prep yourself up on your elbows and look down at him. But the laughter dies in your mouth as you see him. He is kissing your hip, placing his hand over the inside of your thigh, as to hold you open. His dark eyes meet yours and you feel your cheeks burn.
He would not, you think, he would surely not do that—and yet, still holding your gaze he does. He kisses you there, on that warm, soft flesh between your legs. Your lips part as your breath escapes you. He smiles, not tenderly this time, but full of wickedness. He kisses you there again, but this time worse, better. With a gasp you fall onto your back. You have touched yourself before, so you are not entirely ignorant of pleasure. But this, what he is doing now with his mouth—his tongue—is different.
He wraps his lips around that sensitive nub there, and you cannot help but squirm. His touch is unraveling you, and you can feel yourself becoming slick with something else than his saliva. These new sensations, there is no way you can handle them. But you will have to, for he mercilessly grabs hold of your hips and keeps you down as he feasts on your flesh. Eyelids fluttering, you feel yourself sinking away in a warm pool of pleasure.
Obscene sounds fall over your lips, not words, just shapeless moans and whines and whimpers. If he minds them, he does not let them deter him. He is on a quest to claim you and so, undeterred, ever-devoted, he licks your slick folds and sucks on your sensitive nub and—
‘Ormund?’ you whine in confusion as you feel him slip his fingers over you.
He hushes you. ‘Lie back, my lady, let me take care of you.’
‘What are you doing?’ you ask, hands gripping the sheets.
At these words he pushes himself up and lies down next to you. But his hand, remains between your legs. He pulls you into a half embrace.
‘Surely, you are not so naive as to not know,’ he teases.
Yes, that is what he does. He taunts you with his words, and he torments you with his fingers. Almost absentmindedly he pets that sensitive button between your legs.
‘Naught I know of this,’ you say. ‘Why would you do that with your mouth, why do you do this with your fingers?’
As you speak, he just continues to rub you and you catch the amused grin on his face for what it is: he is happy with what he sees, perhaps even delighted. Perhaps that is why he pulls you even closer. That you do not mind. It is good to feel his firm chest against your naked body, to feel his warmth seep into your bones.
‘I did that with my mouth, because I wish to be a diligent lover to you, my lady. And I do this with my fingers, for you need to be opened up before you can take my cock.’
You hiccup at that lewd talk.
‘Opened up?’ you repeat almost indignantly.
He just kisses your lips, and then mutters, ‘Like this.’
And slowly he presses a finger inside of you. Your breath hitches, but he kisses you through it. Kisses you through all of it: him rubbing his thumb over that sensitive nub of yours, him carefully inserting a second finger, and then him pumping his fingers inside of your aching hole. You are uncertain whether it should feel this good. But gods, does it feel heavenly.
‘There you go,’ he praises all sweetly. ‘There you go, my maiden fair, let me open you up.’
‘Ormund,’ you whine.
He does not hush you again, instead he seems rather pleased with himself. So damn pleased.
It comes so suddenly. A sort of wave, a sort of surge, a fire, making your body tremble. You cry his name, burying your face in the crook of his neck. All he while he continues pushing his fingers inside your aching hole, toying with that sensitive nub.
‘Good girl,’ he whispers as you claw your fingernails in the flesh of his shoulder.
Finally he ceases his antics. He slips his hand from between your legs and you lean into him, as if you could be even closer to him. He brings his fingers, glistening with your slick, to your lips. He does not need to say a word, for you to know what to do. His eyes are all guidance you need. Obediently, you part your lips and lick his fingers clean. He does not enjoy messes and filth. And yet, he mutters almost absentmindedly, ‘Pretty.’
He returns you to lie on your back, this time making certain you are comfortably resting on the cushions. You barely noticed that you were closing your legs, until he pats his hands against the inside of your thigh and he tuts. Scoffing, you spread them again and he, biting his lips, sits down on his knees between them.
With doe eyes you watch as he unties his trousers, as he pulls them down and frees his cock. While he gets rid of the piece of clothing, all you have eyes for is that; his manhood, hard and erect, red at the tip, and throbbing. Your heart hiccups into a gallop as you, to your utter horror, realize that your mouth has begun to water at the sight.
‘My lady,’ he says softly as he gets comfortable between your legs, ‘You look frightened.’
‘I should not want to,’ you just mutter.
His hands are palming your waist lazily. What comfort you find in that touch, as if being kneaded into obedience. ‘Should not want to do what?’
‘Want to touch you there, my lord,’ you admit.
He presses a kiss to your cheek. ‘If you want to, then you should.’
He takes hold of your hand, but then he does something you did not expect him to be capable of. He spits onto your palm. You raise your eyebrows in surprise and he chuckles. Perfectly guessing your thoughts he says, ‘I know, uncharacteristically foul of me.’
He guides your hand towards his manhood and you press your lips together tightly, muffling a sound of confusion. But still, led by instinct more than his grip, you wrap your hand around him. Your heart jolts at the touch, at the firm weight of him. And even more so, at the trembling breath that escapes his lips. He does not force your movements in the slightest. When you slowly bring your hand down, to the base of his cock, and then up, to that flushed tip, you do so on your own accord. What a lewd sight. What a delicious sight. Gnawing at your lip you begin to pump his cock with your hand. You are fascinated by the feel of him, the slick sound of your touch.
And he, for his part, lets his head fall back and—dear gods—he moans. Flustered you raise your eyes to him, and he meets your gaze with a smug smile. And then, again, a deep groan slips from his mouth. Enthralled by this scene and utterly mesmerized by the sensation of it all, you stroke his cock with a diligence you did not know you had in you. And he rewards you by shivering and sighing and, then, finally, by leaning in to kiss you.
You almost feel as good as when he touched you there, at your most intimate spots.
And then, all of a sudden, he grabs your hand and pulls your touch away.
‘I—I am sorry!’ you yelp in a reflex, but he claims your mouth again.
Only after a long while does he break the kiss, does he say, ‘You would have me waste my seed on your belly, my lady.’
‘I did not mean to,’ you reply.
He cages you in under his body, his chest flush against yours. And you can feel it: his manhood prodding at your aching hole.
‘I know,’ he says, and then, more strained, ‘Fuck—My fair lady, let me make love to you.’
‘Are you not already, then, my lord?’
He scoffs. He coaxes you to look him in the eyes. And as you drown in that dark gaze, he begins to press inside you. The strain is painful, if not also delightful. Strange, how aching and yearning can be so similar. Holding your breath, you let him do as he pleases. He is careful and slow, as if scared to send you running. As if you would run from him, as if you would run from this: this sensation of him sinking inside of you is the most bliss you have ever experienced. Once he has buried himself inside you into the hilt, he remains still for a moment, kissing your brow. No words are exchanged, he discerns your moods and feelings merely through exchanged touches and glances, but once assured that you are, if anything, perfectly comfortable, perfectly content, he slowly begins to rock into you.
It is sweet lovemaking, you suppose, saccharine and velvety soft. There is a dull ache to it at first, but it easily melts away in the most delectable pleasure you have ever felt. This is all you ever wanted. Him, this close to you, him in your marital bed, him claiming you as his. His moans and sighs in your ear are the prettiest sound you ever heard. You lift your hips, trying to meet his movements, but the clumsy attempts only make him chuckle somewhat.
Instead, he gradually increases his pace, until finally he is thrusting into you with such force and need that you can barely keep up. You dig your fingers in his shoulders and then, as he starts pounding into you near frantically, your touch slips and you are scratching his back.
‘Ormund,’ you whine, and all of a sudden he pulls out of you.
He slips from the bed. For a moment you fear you have upset him—he has a difficult temper—but then he drags you by your waist to the edge of the bed. What a marvelous sight he is, standing there, naked, his cock erect with desire for you. He wraps your legs around his waist, his cock rubbing against your slick folds. He teases you like that for a short while; sliding his manhood against your wet, hot flesh, now and then his tip prodding against the sweet spot of your entrance.
You are too dizzy with desire, too out of breath with overwhelming need to still be able to beg, but when you prep yourself up on your elbows, he suddenly stills. You can only imagine how you look now. A wanton whore most like. But it must entice him, for suddenly he has no patience for taunting you anymore. He presses inside you again and you sigh in delighted relief.
You let him do as he pleases, for it pleases you: how he splits you open with his cock, how his thumb toys with your sensitive nub, how his hand palms your breast. It is all for him, you and your love and yur desire, it is all his. Just as in this moment, he belongs only and utterly to you. As he makes love to you so, it does not take long for you to come undone. Whining his name over and over again as if it were a prayer, you tremble and shiver. And he, guides you through, it calling you his maiden fair, his good girl, his beloved—but it does not keep him from fucking you. You are granted no respite, for he is now chasing his own pleasure and that pleasure he gains from sinking his cock inside you. He has far more stamina than you, outlasting you for so long that you are uncertain of what you feel. But you do not mind, he may use you as you please if only in this moment. If only because you like how he moans your name as he chases his own releases.
And then he stutters to a halt, a moan dying in his mouth. Gripping your waist firmly he spills his seed inside of you. You welcome the strange sensation, but in truth all your attention is on his half closed eyes, his face contorted in ecstasy. You push yourself up on the palms of your hands, kissing the line of his jaw, before burying your face in the crook of his neck. You are sad to feel him slip out of you, but at least he keeps you close. He climbs once more on the bed with you, keeping you flush against his body as he sits down, back resting against the headboard.
You cup his face in your hand, inspecting his grim expression. You find that you cannot guess what is going on inside his head.
‘What are you thinking of, my lord?’
‘I am thinking that it is sad, my beloved lady,’ he replies as he maneuvers you so that you would sit astride on his lap, ‘that I can only lay claim on this single night with you.’
A heavy weight settles in your chest. For that sorrow you feel as well.
‘It is one night more than I ever dared hope we would have together,’ you say, mostly to keep your own spirits up.
He lets out a deep sigh. For a moment he just looks at you, his gaze straying over the curve of your neck, the swell of your breast, the fat of your tummy, as if trying to engrave it all in his memory, than he says, ‘The night still stretches long before us.’
‘I—I must remind you, my husband would still expect me to—’
‘No one will take you from me until dawn breaks,’ he interrupts harshly, and then, even more insistently, ‘No one will take you from me.’
And when he kisses you once more, you almost believe him on his word.
I was watching Braveheart recently and now I've got a dark little thought rattling around in my brain that is quite different from my normal fare.
Do we think Westeros has anything resembling right of the first nigh? Because I can completely see Ormund being the sort of cruel, entitled lord who would try to exercise such a “right,” especially where Gwayne’s bride-to-be is concerned.
Whether he actually covets her or simply sees it as another way to exert control over his cousin and remind Gwayne of his place remains to be seen.
A small little blurb beneath the cut. Warning for dubcon and sexual coercion.
“You may stay to watch, if you wish,” Ormund offers Gwayne, though his attention never leaves you. “I am generous, after all.”
His thumb and forefinger tilt your chin upward, forcing your gaze toward him. Instead, your eyes find Gwayne over his shoulder, and an ache so deep blooms in your chest it feels as though you have been run through with a broad sword.
When your attention lingers there a moment too long, Ormund’s other hand settles at your hip, his grip tightening just enough in warning. Slowly, reluctantly, your gaze returns to him.
For a moment, he seems content simply to look at you, as though savoring the discomfort he has caused. Then he leans closer, his nose brushing your cheek as he draws in your scent.A slow smile spreads across his face, but his eyes remain cold and calculating.
“Lavender and honey,” he murmurs. “My favorite.”
I have no idea why but I apparently just love the idea of torturing Gwayne like this.
in the crucible of war, tying the two strongest houses in a holy matrimony is a scheme easier than any other. you’ve known ormund hightower your entire life, but he is also the man who has broken your heart... in a play of power and game of love, how will you protect your heart from him?
genre/warnings:
suggestive, marriage of convenience, unrequited love, slight enemies to lovers, hurt/comfort, yearning, age gap, mentions of pregnancy, kidnapping, fluff, tyrell!reader (reader is ormund's second wife), takes place during the dance of dragons, spoilers! from house of the dragon season 3
notes:
gif by @/alysmond. wc. 5.5k ! so ormund hightower makes an appearance, james norton is hot and i just watched house of guinness... so here's some brainrot concocted in my brain <3
They said... the best fairytale is the one that begins with a wedding.
The lady of the roses and the lord of the high tower. There was no union more perfect in the eyes of the Reach as the drums of war began to echo across Westeros. You were the vision of genteel grace and elegance while Ormund stood beside you as a stalwart protector.
Men mourned the loss, for the fairest maiden of Highgarden was no longer theirs to dream of, while women looked on with envy, wishing for a husband with the strength and stature of the Lord of Oldtown.
If only they have known…
Had it been ten years past, you would have been the happiest woman in the Seven Kingdoms.
And if fairytales begin with a wedding, then yours was doomed from the start— because long before the day you wed him, your story had taken root in heartbreak of your own making.
You had known Ormund Hightower all your life, loved him when you were young and foolish enough to believe that your innocent heart mattered to him. For years, you had molded yourself into his ideal—you kept yourself pretty, perfected your manners, and stayed up late reading tedious books just so you could casually strike up a conversation on subjects he cared about.
“Only you would throw yourself in the studies of the arts of war. What a charming young lady you are.” He would smile and be amused, and you would bite the inside of your cheek, genuinely believing you were winning him over.
You had carefully crafted your image as a prim, intellectual lady, dedicating every ounce of your grace and intellect to a singular, desperate goal: enticing him.
And you really thought you were at the forefront of his thoughts too—
“I present my victory to you, my lady. And at my behest, name you as the queen of love and beauty.”
The day you were crowned by the dashing heir of Oldtown right after he won the tourney before the entire court was the day you truly believed your girlhood dreams had come to life.
However... Ormund Hightower was apparently a man of distinct taste— and the young flower of House Tyrell was not on his list of potential brides, despite his fondness of you.
“Any good man would be delighted to be the object of your affections, no more so than I.”
It was the night after the news had broken of him asking for the hand of the vivacious Lady Tarly. He had a crooked smile, even as you stared at him with heartbreak shining in your eyes.
“Alas, I am a man soon to be wed. We must cease these meetings, so I ask you not to call on me any longer.”
Your heart died then, and stayed cold for the next ten years.
But fate, working its cruel irony, returned Ormund to you just as the war of succession for the Iron Throne began to tear the realm apart. Although the man before you was no longer the posh new lord of Oldtown, but a seasoned man hardened by politics and a wife who died in childbed.
“Declare Aegon the rightful heir and commit five thousand of your men. In exchange... my protection and the hand of the Lady Tyrell.”
Your good sister, the Lady of Highgarden, who was the regent for her infant son, had wished to remain neutral amidst the ongoing civil war. But the Hightowers were kin to the queen dowager and had been fiercely loyal since ancient times. Confronted with Ormund Hightower’s formidable host and the threat of dragonfire, she simply could not refuse his offer.
However, you had not forgotten the man who had broken your heart.
. . .
“Who would have thought that you would remarry? Your poor wife must be weeping in her grave.”
That was the first thing you said to his face after ten years, and he was entirely unfazed and amused instead.
“Of course, no one is more delighted than I to accept this most generous proposal,” you followed, your voice dripping with sweet venom as you paced before him. “But I wish to settle an arrangement first.”
Ormund leaned back, an intrigued glimmer in his dark eyes. He had a small smile and gave you a nod, gesturing for you to continue. “And what might that arrangement be, my lady?”
“I wish to maintain my freedom. I expect to be allowed to live on my own terms, and that includes being permitted to keep my own counsel, travel as I see fit, and take my own companions.”
Ormund’s lips twitched, as he tilted his head. “Companions? Do you mean lovers?”
You lifted your chin and looked down at him with haughty defiance. “I suppose so. Because frankly, I cannot see either of us engaging in romance in our otherwise unfortunate union.”
How was it that the man who once meant the world to you be the one you felt nothing for when fate twisted its narrative so you could become his wife?
“The rose has grown rather sharp thorns, I see.”
For the first time, you saw how Ormund’s eyes lit with distaste, even if he was ever amused. “As much as I could imagine, I couldn’t possibly allow that. At least for old times’ sake, shouldn’t you grant me the grace of fulfilling the role of your lord husband?”
“Let us speak freely here. If I recall correctly, it is my house’s bannermen you seek, and ten years is a long time,” you scoffed. “We might have been fond of each other once, but we are, at present, not.”
“Oh, but I am,” he countered smoothly, “still very fond of you, Lady Tyrell.”
Ormund finally rose from his seat and approached you with ease. His blue eyes narrowed, and a wicked, knowing smile curled his lips.
“And I have no intention of sharing what is mine, least of all with men lesser than I am. If it is a lover you want, then you will find I am more than sufficient.”
He stepped into your space, a particular yet pleasant smell—from his collection of pomander, no doubt—filled your senses. Leaning down, he whispered directly into your ear:
“At least let me prove to you that we don’t need romance to find… a common ground.”
This man was far more cunning than you had ever given him credit for, seamlessly crafting a trap for you to fall into.
But if he thought he could effortlessly master you like a piece on a chessboard, he was sorely mistaken.
He might have broken your heart a decade ago, but now, you held the shards.
Ormund Hightower, however, seemed intent on making good on his word.
He lavished you with his wealth, stood beside you like a devoted and gallant husband, and before long, even the smallfolk began singing praises of your match—utterly charmed by the sight of their Lord and the new Lady Hightower.
And he wanted the exclusive rights to your bed? Fine. You would grant him lordly dues, but—
—seven hells, you would have never expected that sex with him would be this great.
One time, it had started with him pinning you against the walls of your chambers, devouring your lips like a man in heat. The other time he took his time, worshiping every inch of you until you were weeping his name into the silk pillows, begging for a release he purposely delayed.
And now—
“Haah...”
The breath hitched in your throat as you sank down onto him, the heat and friction from where the two of you were joined striking like a sudden fever. You sat astride his hips, your skirts pooled around you, anchoring him beneath you.
Ormund’s calloused hands were gripping your waist as he let out a grunt, trying to steady himself against a shifting tide. He looked up at you, his blue eyes hooded, blown wide with a hunger that melted away the facade of composed lord from the war council.
This was him entirely at your mercy—
You rolled your hips with a fluid, agonizing grace that drew a ragged groan from deep within his chest. You kept your chin tilted high, meeting his lustful gaze with a mocking smile.
“Is this all it takes to render the Lord of Oldtown into submission?” you taunted, your voice trembling slightly with the pleasure of him, though you forced the words out like a dare. “A woman’s touch?”
Ormund’s jaw clenched, a breathless grin on his face. “Since when... have you become so sharp-tongued?”
“Since I realized pretty words are wind and noble lords are fickle liars,” you provoked, leaning forward until your tangled hair brushed his cheek, your breath hot against his ear. “Now, are you content to let me rule your bed just as Highgarden rules over you?”
Crafty little lady. That was his breaking point.
With a low roar, Ormund seized control. He didn’t unseat you—instead, his hands locked onto your hips like iron clamps, guiding your body into a bruising rhythm that completely shattered your cool. He drove up into you with fierce thrusts, proving with every deep stroke just how formidable he truly was.
The smug defiance bled out of you, replaced by needy gasps of pain as he chased your peak, drowned in his carnal dominance until the world blurred into a haze of white-hot heat and mutual ruin.
. . .
When it was over, the heavy silence of the chamber returned, and you woke to find yourself tangled in his arms.
Ormund lay with his eyes shut, his broad, bare chest pressed against you, holding you fast.
His hair was disheveled, his eyelashes were long, and for a moment you saw your first love again, who stood tall amidst the rose gardens.
How is a man well-known for his faith luring you into thinking of sins?
You immediately tried to pull away as your pride demanded that you re-establish your distance. However, when you moved to swing your leg off him, a sudden ache between your thighs made you wince slightly.
Ormund noticed instantly as his eyes fluttered open. He shifted beside you, his voice unusually soft in the dim light. “Are you sore?”
“I am perfectly fine,” you snapped, brushing his arm away as you reached for the sheets to cover yourself, trying to regain a semblance of independence.
You had expected him to either offer an argument or wear that infuriating smirk. He did neither. Instead, he quietly rose from the bed, and you watched him, expecting him to leave you be.
However, a moment later, Ormund returned to the bedside. He gently pulled back the linen sheet and before you could protest, the soothing, comforting heat of a warm towel pressed against your inner thigh, wiping away the slick remnants with tenderness.
You froze, the sharp retort dying in your throat.
His touch was gentle, devoid of the lust from moments ago and completely stripped of the smugness he wore by day.
“Do not coddle me, Ormund,” you croaked, your voice tight as he pressed another clean, warm towel gently over your lower abdomen for comfort, before pulling the sheets over you.
“You ride like a wanton, yet you are far from used to it,” he sighed softly, as if lamenting. “I would have been gentler, if I had known.”
You fell silent as shame coiled in your chest—a mirror of when you were just a young girl vying for his attention only to face the news of his impending wedding to another woman.
But he is taking care of you now, and you have become his lawfully-wedded wife. And in this quiet gesture, a dam broke in your memory— of a young man who draped his coat over your shoulder as you basked amidst the roses of Highgarden.
“You must be cold. Go inside already,” he would say, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.
You used to dream of his touch, his love, his everything. It was bittersweet how he was yours now, but you were torn between heartache and a desire to pay him back in full for what he had inflicted on you—the bitter, humiliating pain of not being chosen.
“Must you hate me that much?”
You blinked up at him, caught off guard. Ormund met your gaze with a certain sternness you had rarely seen from him.
“...to the point of hurting yourself?” he went on, his brow furrowing as he looked down at you. If you were bold enough, you would presume that it was concern that you saw in his eyes.
Yet… it only made that part of your heart clenched instead.
Why now? Why only after you had hated him enough to last a lifetime? Why only after you had spent nights crying yourself to sleep that he finally turn his eyes on you?
It was so fucking unfair.
“You presume too much, Ormund Hightower.”
Your response was biting cold, yet so soft and whispery. He blinked, a flicker of surprise crossing his features.
“Rest assured, in this very contractual marriage of ours, I have no intention of feeling anything for you,” you continued, your lips curving into a cruel smile. “Other than with my body.”
To your relief, not a single muscle in his jaw twitched, burying whatever thoughts your words had stirred in him.
He shook his head lightly, finally breaking your gaze, a ghost of a smile returning to his lips, though it never reached his eyes.
“So be it then,” Ormund murmured, his voice dropping to a low baritone that carried no warmth, only the absolute finality. “How regrettable though. One may mistake you as the rose, whereas you have long since become its thorns.”
Without waiting for your answer, he straightened, turning his back on you to dress, leaving you alone in the quiet wreck of the bedsheets.
You have done it. You had ensured that his affection would forever remain beyond your reach.
That may be so, but it did not mean the physical hunger between you regressed in the slightest
You had laid with him a few more times afterwards. Each encounter in his chambers was an exercise in numbing hearts— he took you with a demanding dominance that left you breathless and slick with sweat and pleasuring you as if you were the only woman he worshipped.
Yet, as soon as the sun rose, Ormund was back to his cynical self, his crooked smile and calculating gaze ever keen on you. He kept you at an arm’s length though since that night, strutting through the halls of the Hightower as the proud lord he was.
You truly believed you could kill that fragile part of your heart that still yearned for him, matching his coldness with your own pride.
Until the turn of the moon, at least.
“My lady... this is strange.”
The pale morning light filtered through the arched windows of your solar as your maid, Ellyn, tugged firmly at the laces of your corset. You stood before the tall silver mirror, waiting to be cinched into your dress.
“What is?” you asked, feeling how her fingers slipped on the laces.
Her hands smoothed over the small of your back as she tried once more to force the edges of the bodice together. “The laces simply won’t meet. It is as though it has shrunk.”
“Do not be foolish. Pull harder.”
“I am pulling, my lady, but...”
Ellyn hesitated, her eyes shifting to your reflection. Slowly, a realization dawned to her as she stepped to the side. “Oh, my...”
You looked at your reflection then, and for a moment, you forgot how to breathe.
There, beneath the unlaced corset, your normally slender waist held an unmistakable curve—a slight protrusion in your belly that had not been there a moon ago.
“Bless the Mother,” Ellyn whispered, her hands dropping away as a smile broke across her face, entirely unaware of how your breath had caught in your throat. She beamed at you, asking:
“My lady... your courses— when did you last bleed?”
. . .
“We will march for Tumbleton.”
You were pulled from your daze at the dining hall when Ormund’s voice broke your thoughts.
“You, however, are to remain in Oldtown,” he continued, adjusting the signet ring on his finger. “You know the city and the ledgers. I need a steady hand to rule it in my stead.”
His words passed by at first.
“I’m bringing my ward Daeron and his beast. I have also arranged for the merchant boy to have his hair dyed to stand in his place—”
“A double?” you asked, almost in disbelief. “If anyone notices the deception—”
“They won’t,” Ormund interrupted smoothly, a cold smile touching his lips. “People see what they expect to see. Silver hair, a fine cloth, and the right escort would do to make one a prince. It keeps the boy safe, and more importantly, it keeps our leverage intact. I’d wager sooner or later they’re going to demand his head.”
It was this exact cunning that had captivated you. He was a man who saw the board three moves ahead, possessing an intellect forged for the cruelties of war. The fact that your child would have him as father brought a wave of reassurance, somehow.
But at the same time, dread creeped in— with the news of his departure, the secret beneath your skirts suddenly felt twice as heavy.
Ormund paused, his sharp eyes narrowing as he caught the hollow look in your eyes. His lips crooked.
“No counsel to give? You already wear the expression of a widow grieving a husband lost to the war.”
The barb pierced through your fog, sparking a sudden flash of ire as you gave him a look. “Do not flatter yourself.”
“That’s more like it.” He rose from his seat with a low chuckle. He didn’t see the ghost that seemed to settle over you, nor the way your hand instinctively wanted to press against the fabric of your skirts.
There were barely two days before his banners moved out, and somehow you didn’t have it in you to let him go without any parting words.
“May the Seven guide your path.”
The hollow blessing tasted like ash in your mouth, but it caught his attention. Ormund paused and turned back to face you.
However, there was no warmth in his expression—only an expressionless stare that bore straight through your soul.
“I thank Her Ladyship for her blessing,” he said, his voice dropping into a formal cadence. “Though I find it unnecessary.”
Three weeks had passed since then, and even the air in Oldtown was thick with the apprehension of war.
With Ormund riding out to lead his host, the governing of the city fell upon your shoulders. While it was your first time doing so, you found that you possessed the head and patience for it.
And thankfully, it kept you busy enough to keep the ghost of him out of your thoughts.
Yet at the same time, unbeknownst to you, your devotion to the city made you a conspicuous target.
It happened on a gray morning while you were overseeing the distribution of rice near the harbor. Before your household guards could even draw their steel, men in dark cloaks had surrounded you and cut down the soldier closest to you—
“Lay down your swords!” you screamed, trembling as the smallfolk were sent into a cries of horror after the man’s blood splattered across the cobblestones.
The crowd erupted into a panicked frenzy, scattering like birds before a hawk. Your remaining guards hesitated, their blades shaking in their hands as the cloaked men closed the circle around you.
From the shadows of the docks, a man stepped forward. He wore a dun-colored cloak, his brigandine bore the banners of Targaryen black and red. Men loyal to the Queen Rhaenyra.
“Yes, yes...” the leader sneered, his voice cutting through the screams of the fleeing smallfolk. “Tell them to keep their steel sheathed, Lady Hightower, or we will turn these docks into a slaughterhouse.”
“You dare bring violence to Oldtown?” you demanded, your voice finding its steel despite the frantic pounding of your heart. “Lord Ormund will have your heads on spikes before the moon turns.”
The man laughed, a harsh, grating sound. “Oh don’t you know, my lady? Lord Ormund bit off more than he could chew. Even as we speak, he lies dying in a pool of his own blood in Tumbleton.”
The world seemed to tilt beneath your feet, leaving you hollowed out by an icy shock. Without thinking, your hand flew to your abdomen, your fingers pressing firmly against your velvet gown, trying to find something to hold.
Dying. The word echoed in your mind like a funeral knell. The fortress of ice you had built to protect your heart shattered. For all your vows of indifference, the thought of him bleeding into the dirt tore a jagged wound through your chest.
Your captain of the guards stepped in front of you, his sword raised. “My lady, we can take them. Run for the gates!”
“If a single blade is drawn, my men will cut these peasants,” the leader warned. “We will burn these docks, and every innocent soul on them will die because of your pride. Come with us quietly, or watch Oldtown bleed.”
You looked at the terrified faces of the very people you had spent weeks watching— the women holding their children close, the old men trembling behind the grain carts.
For years, Ormund had protected them as their lord. Even if he is now— No matter how, you couldn’t let his city fall.
You placed a firm hand on your captain’s arm , forcing his blade down. “Lower your sword,” you commanded quietly.
“But my lady—!”
“I said, lower it.” You stepped past him, lifting your chin, refusing to let these dogs see you tremble. Looking at the leader in the eye, you spat, “I will go with you. Spare the city, and let these people go.”
He gave a mocking bow. “A noble choice, Lady Hightower. The realm will remember your piety.”
A rough hand seized your arm, dragging you towards a waiting carriage. The smallfolk of Oldtown wept aloud as they watched their lady—the sweet rose who had looked after them these past few weeks—spirited away into a cage.
Only when the heavy door slammed shut and the iron bolt clicked into place did the stark reality finally crash over you.
Tears welled in your eyes, spilling down your cheeks as you cradled your belly and struggled to breathe under the crushing weight of the very possibility that the man you had once again fallen in love with might well be dead.
There were many things, in truth, that Ormund favored in you.
You always smelled of sweet roses— out of everything, that was probably what he liked the most.
The vast gardens of Highgarden suited you, and he remembered the girl you used to be, the one who had been too timid to look him in the eye at first, but who had beautifully worked herself up to be able to do so.
He knew of your affections— he has always known. It flattered him, though none but himself and the Gods would ever know that he, too, harbored a quiet fondness for the pure and innocent Lady Tyrell.
His little rose. In truth, he had believed that someone so young and sweet as you were too naive, and therefore, unsuitable to be with him. His late wife—rest her soul, for he had been fond of her too, though it was never a blind, consuming love—had been different. She had been compliant, and more than ready to submit herself to her wifely duties, and she was who he needed when he first took on the mantle of the Lord of Oldtown.
The Gods are cruel and just, as all men know, especially when his dutiful wife died in a tragedy and he had to turn to House Tyrell to aid his house in its conquest for the throne— only to find you, his rose, still very much beautiful and unwed.
However, that sweet rose has grown thorns. So sharp the thorns that he has almost forgotten how soft the petals are.
You no longer stuttered and conducted yourself with pride that both vexed and captivated him. In the beginning, he had been intrigued by the woman you had become because he was convinced that the gentle little lady of his memories was still there, waiting to be coaxed out.
That was why on the day he took you to his bed and realized the truth—that you were merely performing and he had been anything but gentle—he drew the line.
But you merely looked at him with eyes as cold as winter.
“Rest assured, in this very contractual marriage of ours, I have no intention of feeling anything for you.”
Every time those words echoed in his mind, it felt as though a dagger were piercing his lungs, as much as he hated to admit it.
. . .
“Lord Ormund! My lord! Thank the Gods you’re back!”
Tumbleton had been a bloodbath, and he barely survived it himself—a blade having pierced his armor and a hair’s breadth from his heart. But the market city had fallen, the Blacks had been broken there with the betrayals of two of their own dragonriders, and in the grand game of thrones, that was all that truly mattered.
However, the moment he stepped his foot back at Oldtown after six weeks, the atmosphere in his own home were grim— his household servants were openly relieved, some almost weeping, as if he was a ghost returned from the grave.
“They told us you were dead, my lord,” the head guard told him somberly. “We thought all was lost.”
“A blatant lie made to weaken our morale,” Ormund hissed, his hand dropping to the pommel of his sword as his wound ached. “Tumbleton has fallen, and I’m far from the grave.”
Still, he sensed something dreadful had occurred by how mournful the maidservants were—
“My lord!”
Before Ormund could demand what had happened in his absence, a shrill voice cut through. Ellyn, your faithful handmaiden, pushed past the other servants, her eyes were red-rimmed from days of crying.
She fell to her knees, clutching desperately at the hem of his traveling cloak.
“You must help her, Lord Ormund! You must bring her back!”
A cold knot of dread coiled in his stomach. He looked down at the trembling girl, his brow furrowing deeply. “Calm yourself, girl, and speak clearly.”
And the words she uttered next, as she looked up at him with tear-streaked cheeks, made his blood run colder than when he saw dragons burning Tumbleton.
“The lady! Three weeks ago, while the city was fooled by the news of your death, the false queen’s men took her away!”
They had taken you to Tumbleton.
The market city was ravaged beyond repair. For three weeks now, they had held you hostage in a makeshift holdfast. They gave you barely enough bread and water to keep you alive, and as the days bled together, your hope withered to nothing.
Your unborn child, who grew heavier by the day beneath your heart, was the only thing left to give you the strength to survive this madness.
And as if your situation weren’t desperate enough, through the timber door of your cell, the muffled voices of your captors reached your ears. They were conversing in frantic, hushed tones.
“The smallfolk are rioting in King’s Landing. They’re storming the Dragonpit. The Queen is fleeing!”
“Then what of us? What of the woman?”
“Leave her. If the Hightowers find us here, they’ll flay us alive. Set the fire. Let the ashes cover our tracks.”
Alarmed and struck by a sudden, feral terror, you flung yourself against the door.
“Let me out!” You screamed for help, your voice raw, hitting the wood until your knuckles bled.
But the only response was a thud, followed by the crackling of fire and pitch. Smoke and heat began to seep through, as the chamber was slowly being consumed. You were trapped.
Realizing you would soon meet your demise, the strength left your legs, and you collapsed into the dirt, trembling with tears.
I would die, Ormund already did, and I have never told him.
You bitterly regretted never telling him that you were with his child.
As the heat grew unbearable, your mind drifted away to the sun-drenched rose gardens of your home, where you and Ormund Hightower had first met.
He is devilishly handsome and cunning. Your first love who had broken your heart once, but still owns it to this very day, when you would breath your last.
The black smoke filled your lungs, choking the breath from your throat. Your vision began to tunnel, the edges of the room blurring into darkness as you surrenderred to the Stranger.
Then, through the flames, a sudden, violent crash echoed— the sharp ring of steel slicing through. Through your fading, tear-blurred sight, a figure burst through the burning doorway.
You could have sworn you saw the shimmering edge of Vigilance cleaving through the smoke, its blade gleaming. That was the Valyrian steel your husband wielded.
Was it a cruel figment of your dying imagination?
But then, the heat of the fire was eclipsed by the fierce, solid weight of heavy arms wrapping around you, lifting you from the ground. And right against your ear, came a trembling voice you recognized:
“I have you,” Ormund whispered, his voice cracking with a raw emotion you had never heard from him before.
“Hold on to me. I have you, dearest.”
The next time you awoke, you were in his bedchambers in the Hightower.
The suffocating stench of smoke and pitch was gone, replaced by the familiar, comforting scent of the crisp sea breeze blowing off the Whispering Sound. The moment your eyes fluttered open, you saw him.
He was staring down at you, his dark eyes ringed with exhaustion, but shadowed with a profound relief. He was only in a loose linen tunic that showed the bandages wrapping his chest.
“Ormund...?” your voice was a broken rasp. You reached out a trembling hand, terrified your fingers would pass right through him. “Are you... are you truly here? T-they told me you were slain—”
His eyes softened, and he smiled. Not the crooked one or a smirk, but the sincere, tender smile you had fallen in love with ten years ago.
“I’m here,” he assured, his deep voice and scent wrapping around you as he took hold of your hand.
Your first tear fell, and your voice broke into a sob then. Ormund pulled you gently but fiercely into his arms, tucking your head beneath his chin, and you clung to him, burying your head into his chest, weeping for the horror you had survived and the miracle of his embrace.
Slowly, he pulled away. His hand moved from your hair to cup your jaw, tilting your face up. The sorrow in his eyes flared into something primal— and he pressed his lips to yours in a deep, passionate kiss.
He drank you in as if you were the only life-giving water in a world reduced to ash, and you kissed him back with everything you had left. You had the man you loved returned to you, and he had the sweet rose he cherished safe in his arms.
When he finally pulled away, both of your breaths coming in ragged gasps. The tender silence stretched between you, but then Ormund’s gaze drifted downwards.
His large, warm palm rested against your belly, a knowing look in his blue eyes.
“Must you hide so many things from me?” he asked softly, his gaze boring into yours with an intensity that made your heart skip.
“I... I was—”
“Would you continue to do so if I told you that now, it is you who holds my entire heart and soul in the palm of your hand?”
You didn’t even dare to blink, and he held your gaze and a bittersweet smile touched his lips.
“I have always longed for that lady amidst the field of roses,” he murmured, his voice dropping to a rough, impassioned whisper. “Even though she knows nothing of it, even though I know she is too pretty for the likes of me, and even though I have broken her heart... I still selfishly wished I could have her for myself.”
“Ormund...” Your lips wobbled, ingesting every word as the tears pooled fresh in your eyes.
His vivid blue eyes, so warm and tender, crinkled faintly as he brushed a fallen tear from your cheek with his thumb.
“So even if roses bear thorns, I would gladly suffer a thousand cuts from now on… so long as I am the only one who gets to hold you.”
That was everything you needed to hear. You surrendered yourself to his embrace again, letting him kiss the crown of your head.
Dragons might continue to dance and the kingdoms would burn, but in that fleeting moment within the walls of the Hightower, the bloodstained game of thrones ceased to matter—
For the lord had reclaimed his lady, and their story might lead to a fairytale after all.
House of the Dragon: Ormund Hightower x Targtower!reader
Rating: Explicit (MDNI)
WC: 2.5k
HOTD Masterlist
Tags/Warnings: Incest (second cousins), uncle/niece roleplay, age gap (reader is 19, and Ormund is in his late 30's), power imbalance, spanking, religious guilt, bathing, scent kink, fingering, penetration, masturbation, sacrilege. no use of y/n, reader is mentioned to have silver hair, no beta we die like Luke :(
A/n: IDK I'm just horny for Ormund, and anytime I can write uncle/niece, I'm gonna do it. I'm team neutral, so please don't bring black vs green dynamics onto my blog or fics. Comments, reblogs, and likes are always appreciated. Let me know if you'd like to be added to any tag lists! My asks are always open.
Summary: No one can test Lord Ormund's patience quite like you can.
Shimmer circled the stronghold, her pearlescent scales glittering in the dim light as the sun set in the sky. You were not meant to be flying out on her after dark, but you were never one for following the rules, Much to Ormund's ire. Hobert had given you a longer leash, spoiling you as your grandfather had in the Red Keep before you and Daeron were sent to ward in Oldtown. You tested Ormund's patience more than your dear sweet twin, Daeron. You liked to believe the Targaryen blood pumped hotter through your veins. She swooped down on your command, landing on the blackstones, alerting the guards to your arrival. You slipped down her wing, landing gracefully on your feet before striding with ease and confidence into the base of the Hightower.
"You reek of that beast," Ormund scowled the moment you set foot inside, peering down at you from the balcony. He removed the silver pomander from his doublet and inhaled the citrus and clove scent of the tightly packed satchel nestled inside.
"I've grown used to it; it does not bother me," you replied with a shrug of your shoulders, a long silver braid falling down your back. Those eyes remained on you like a hawk. While you thought only Targaryen blood rushed through your veins, he saw the Hightower breaking through. The Blood of the First Men. Mayhaps that's why he favored you and Daeron so. Mayhaps he wished to remove Aegon and Aemond from the succession and crown Daeron instead.
"I've had a bath prepared for you," he stated, beckoning you closer with a crooked finger as he descended the winding staircase to meet you halfway.
"How kind of you, Uncle," you said sweetly, peering up at him. He wasn't, not truly, but you preferred to call him that over cousin. Especially since the term got under his skin so easily. He grasped your chin firmly once you were close enough.
"We have talked about this. I do not want you flying alone, unprotected," he lectured, a disapproving look etched across his face.
"Shimmer may look pretty, but she is fearsome. She bit the finger off my nursemaid when she hatched."
"Only you would brag of such brutal behavior." However, his lips twitched in amusement in remembrance of the Hightower guard who grabbed your arms and sequentially lost his to the jaws of your pearly beast. Not even he could deny the thrill he got when you obeyed his orders to lay dragonfire to traitors of the crown. Mayhaps the one time he could stand the smell of burnt flesh.
You huffed. "If anything, I learned the art of brutality from you."
"You are a wicked girl. You should go to the sept and repent for your sins."
"Or you could correct my ways, Uncle."
"That is a dangerous game. We agreed to stop."
"Mayhaps I was too hasty in my agreement to that. I have missed it, I have missed you. Gods know I need a firm hand to guide lest I turn into a feral dragon myself," you whispered, peering up at him through your lashes.
"I should take my belt to you," he warned, fingers digging into the flesh of your jaw. He had never once struck you in your younger years and never dared to lay a finger upon your precious twin.
"While I kneel in front of the altar? Leaving welts over my skin for atonement?" You truly were a wicked little thing, and Gods, he would follow you straight into the Seven Hells.
A shiver ran through him, briefly closing his eyes as he imagined you prostrate on the hard stones in front of the blazing altar as his cane struck your tender backside. Welts blooming over your skin as he thrashed your dragonhide, seeing if he could make you break. He abhorred yet welcomed a challenge. His hand fell away from your jaw, and he clenched your upper arms, shaking you gently.
"Seven Hells, you drive me to the brink of madness, little niece," he groaned. What mortal man could resist your temptation?
You smiled, arousal gathering between your thighs, and suddenly your riding leathers felt awfully restrictive.
"Shall you punish me before or after my bath?" you teased.
"I suppose I can bear that wretched stench a bit longer." He hauled you off, one hand furled tight around your bicep as he dragged you down the halls and into your chambers, barking at the handmaidens to leave. He stood nearly a head taller than you, and it made your knees weak. You never cared for silly boys; you yearned for a man. When you had turned eight and ten, you tested the waters with him. He had been widowed two years before and had not taken a second wife yet. His children were more suitable to be your companions than he was. Yet that stopped neither of you from toppling into the forbidden. More taboo for him than you. Targaryens had long made a practice of incent.
You glanced over at the tub filled to the brim, steaming billows from it, and the retracted partition resting at the lip. It was decorated with numerous dragons in flight over blooming orchards with trees filled with ripe fruit. You loved it. It had been a gift from Ormund on your previous nameday. He rewarded as much as he disciplined. You could smell the scent of roses. He preferred you sweet to counteract your surliness. Your muscles ached for the warm waters, always enjoying a long soak after riding your mount.
Ormund wasted no time in ripping your riding coat open. It was made of green wool, lined with black silk, and kept fastened with golden buttons shaped like the Hightower. The sweat and smell of burnt meat were pungent on your clothing.
"Now what was that pretty dragon of yours burning?" he hummed, working your green tunic over your head, leaving your top half bare to his ravenous eyes. At least you and Daeron had been blessed with pretty dragons, well kept and gleaming, and not some of these rank beasts, like the one Aemond flew. Ormund detested the hoary bitch.
"She grows hungry during a flight," you replied simply.
"Answer the question. Have you been pilfering the livestock again?"
"A sheep, a pig. Though she longs for an aurochs."
"I'm hardly surprised. She has the same spoiled taste as her rider." He pushed you into the chair and knelt to remove your boots, wrinkling his nose at the mud and what was most likely dung clinging to them. The gag he let out was so dramatic that you had to clamp your hand over your mouth to muffle your laughter. He placed them outside your doors and ordered one of the handmaidens to clean them thoroughly. When he returned to the spot in front of you, he removed his ornate doublet and rolled the sleeves of his undertunic up his strong forearms. Veins prominent, and your teeth yearned to sink into him. To feel his blood fill your mouth and seep into yours.
You squeaked as he yanked your breeches off with such force that you had to dig your hands into the arms of the chair to keep from toppling out. He yanked you onto your feet, taking seat before yanking you over his lap. Your hardened nipples scraped over the fabric of his breeches as his palm rested on your upturned rump, gently kneading your flesh. The first crack felt like dragonfire searing your skin. A strained gasp toppled from your lips. You had goaded him into it after all.
Each smack lighted a fresh fire over your exposed skin. You gritted your teeth, doing your best to control yourself. Though you suspected he enjoyed it when you caused a fuss. Handprints blazed on your skin, and you nearly sighed with relief when his hand stilled. Shimmer's roar could be heard, shaking the walls as she mirrored your pain.
"Fetch me your hairbrush," he ordered, stroking the back of your thighs.
"N…no, Uncle, please," you begged, not sure you could take much more, even though moments earlier you were encouraging him to strike you with his belt.
"I want you to feel this on the morrow when you are in the saddle," he growled, squeezing your abused backside. "I want to bruise you."
Heat lapped in your lower belly, a twitch making your pearl ache. Slowly, you pushed yourself up with your hands braced against his strong thigh, retrieved the silver brush from your vanity, and watched his large hand wrap around the handle. Your knees nearly gave out. You hated it, yet you craved it. He was everything you needed. Everything you wanted; the full attention of a man who could control you when you needed it. He was your rider, and you were his dragon.
The strikes against your flesh cracked through the room, salty tears spilling from your eyes as your Uncle tenderized your flesh, cutting through that thick dragonhide of yours. It was divine.
"There, there, sweet niece," he cooed, stroking your abused flesh before gathering you in his arms and letting you sob into his chest. Yearning to crawl inside his skin, to dig your talons in. Despite the pain and humiliation, arousal clung to your thighs, and the smell beckoned him. Tangy and sharp, like a plum.
He carried you over to the bath, carefully lowering you into the balmy waters. Pink rose petals floated around you. You hissed softly as your sore arse grew used to the temperature before the pain began to subside slowly. He unbraided your hair, untangling it with the brush he had used to spank you with before having you close your eyes as he poured the water jug over your scalp. There was a mixture made of plant lye he preferred to use to clean your hair, gently lathering it up with his skilled fingers. After he rinsed it, he applied a thin lotion made from boiled goat's milk and jasmine to soften your hair.
His brow knitted together as he made you stand, before methodically scrubbing every inch of your body. The dip of the sponge between your thighs made you shiver. Ormund breathed in deeply, a soft smile crossing his face as the dragon stench disappeared from your skin. Your freshly scrubbed skin was glowing, and your hair gleamed like molten silver. Tenderly, he dried you off, skimming his fingertips over your abused bottom. Bruises were already forming, and he felt satisfied with his work.
He moved you in front of the mirror, turning you slightly so you could see the marks he had seared on your skin. You groaned, peering over your shoulder and knowing riding tomorrow would be painful. You took hold of his wrist, lifting his palm to your mouth and kissing the rough skin that had struck you moments earlier.
"Thank you, Uncle," you murmured.
His fingers tangled in your wet hair, pulling you close and crashing his mouth against yours. The air left your lungs, head spinning.
"You have me under a spell, niece. Sent by the Gods to torment me."
"I could think of worse punishments," you teased, panting softly.
"I no longer wish to sully you. I will take you to wife," he whispered, gazing into your eyes.
"Truly?"
"The least I can do is make you an honorable woman. I cannot bear the thought of another man putting his hands on you. You are mine." His fingers dug painfully into your sore skin. Mayhaps if he wed you, the Gods would forgive him for all his sins. To save a young maiden from toppling further down the path of ruin.
"I have always been yours, Uncle."
He lifted you into his arms, your strong thighs looping around his waist as he carried you toward the bed. You were placed on your belly, his mouth pressing soft, eager kisses down your shoulders and back, then over your reddened backside, a smattering of violet bruises decorating the areas he struck the hardest. His face lowered against the curve of your arse, nose nudging against your cunt, before he pulled away to remove his clothing. The fresh, clean scent of your skin made his cock stiff. How delicious and pure you smelled. His little dragon now a soft, docile lamb for him to ravage. He rolled you onto your back, pulling you close to him as his cock nudged against your opening.
"We will repent together in the morning, side by side, sweet niece. On our knees, begging for forgiveness," he whispered before plunging deep inside you.
"Yes, Uncle," you purred.
He set a steady pace, each thrust making the pressure in your belly build until finally it released. His cock glistened with your wetness as he spilled his seed onto the floor. He had sinned enough for one day; he would save that for when you became his wife, and he would fill you with many babes. Ormund held you in his lap once more, kneading your breasts and pinching your nipples until you had a second release with his fingers buried deep inside. Your nectar coated his skin, and there was a brief moment he wished to bottle the scent. To unscrew the lid and breathe in his niece's sweet ambrosia, fresh from her cunt. After, he dressed you in a silk nightgown and brushed your hair before tucking you into bed.
"It will be cold tonight, snuggle up. Pleasant dreams, sweet niece," he whispered in your ear, his voice making your flesh tingle as he tucked the soft fur around you.
The next morning, you dressed demurely in a pale pink gown with pearls around your wrists, dangling from your ears, and clinging to the hollow of your throat. You appeared as an innocent maiden, silver hair tightly braided around your head, covered with a netted pearl snood, as you knelt beside your Uncle and lit a candle, then snuffed out the match with a soft breath. You clasped your hands tightly together, bowing your head in reverence.
"May the Maiden forgive me for my lustful desires," you whispered. "May she protect me from them until I am married."
A smirk curved over Ormund's face, but he kept his eyes closed, head bowed thoughtfully in his own prayers.
"May the Father guide me onto a more righteous path and send proper punishment to correct me when needed," you murmured sweetly.
One hand furled tightly around your throat, squeezing pleasantly and forcing you to peer into your Uncle's blue eyes. "Again, until you mean it." He pressed your hands against the altar, bending you forward and rolling your dress up around your waist.
He unlaced his breeches, withdrawing his cock and stroking himself to the sight of your bruised arse and the sweet sounds of your prayers of repentance. His seed sparkled on the webbed bruising on your backside, swirls of green, purple, and dark blue. He adjusted himself without a word, leaving you to your prayers before sending his men to hunt down an aurochs for your dragon. He didn't need another hungry dragon testing his patience.
summary: you're wed to ser gwayne hightower in one last desperate attempt to unite the realm; but when the war tears the two of you apart, you're taken prisoner by his cousin, lord ormund hightower, where the line between duty and desire begins to blur. (12k)
contents: targ!reader (no physical descriptions), love triangle, enemies to lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, forbidden love, infidelity, canon divergence, cw for brief mentions of attempted assault and smut 18+ (MDNI): fem receiving oral, unprotected sex, ormund has a scent kink
( NAVIGATION ) | ( MASTERLIST ) | ( AO3 )
i. DUTY & HONOR
Your last name was, perhaps, your greatest burden. It was the very walls of your prison; the unseen chain cinched perpetually around your throat. You had inherited the dragon’s blood, it seems, but not the dragon’s freedom — and when Rhaenyra’s fleet sailed across the Narrow Sea to wage war over a throne of swords, it forgot to take you with it. The only home you’d ever known was soon filled with ghosts donned in Hightower green and whispers of your leaving.
You were going to die here. That is a truth you learned long ago. Your only wish was that they’d hurry up and get it over with.
They gave you a husband instead.
Your marriage to Ser Gwayne Hightower was heralded as an act of wisdom, the proof that wounds carved by old grievances could yet be stitched together, with silk ribbons tied around the wrists and a few spoken vows declared before the Sept. It was to be the very bridge that united the green and black. But the bridge burned anyway, and left the two of you behind.
“They wed us to prevent a war that had already begun,” you’d scoffed, already deep into your cups at the feasting table, when Maester Orwyle called the fight to come inevitable.
“No…” Gwayne hummed from beside you, still perfectly temperate, though his blue eyes were heavy with a burden too old for a man of his years. “They wed us so that, when the histories of this moment are written, someone might say that they tried.”
You’d laughed then, loud enough to gain the attention of the rest of the courtiers at the long table — because Ser Gwayne was not entirely wrong, to be sure, but he was far too generous for his own good; generous enough to believe that the effort of your marriage actually meant something in the grand scheme of things.
Gwayne Hightower was a sensible man. He was not outwardly affectionate, maybe, but he was no less kind. There was no great love in your union — not like all the songs and fairytales insist, at least — but there was safety. Security. Stability. His presence often found you like the thick walls of an ancient keep, steadfast against the howling winds of a summer storm. You would find no certainty of your future in war, but being Gwayne’s wife meant, at the very least, that you were still alive today.
That unsaid assurance is perhaps a greater gift than any truly loving marriage could’ve been for you. And, perhaps, it was with that unsaid assurance that you came to admire him, without ever realizing you were doing so — always searching for his face in crowds, waiting every night for the familiar sound of his footsteps to walk outside your chamber doors, constantly watching him from a distance (which has become a most embarrassing habit of yours).
You find him now on the western balcony overlooking Blackwater Bay, where the moon climbs high over shimmering midnight waters. The salty breeze mixes with the scent of damp stone and dying fires from the lantern light glittering in the city below. Gwayne stands alone with his forearms propped on the pale stone balustrade, having exchanged his armor for a forest-green doublet embroidered with winding gold vines. The fading torchlights gild his silken auburn hair, stirred loose by the sea breeze.
You linger just beneath the archway, hidden in the place where the torchlight turns to shadow, studying the slope of his strong shoulders and how they rise and fall with each breath. He looks lonely; lonely enough for your chest to tighten with the want to close the distance between you and slip in beside him. But your feet refuse to move. And whatever affection was warming in your chest before pierces through you like a sword.
“You’re staring.” The suddenness of his voice startles you.
“…You’re supposed to be watching the sea,” you respond, half-shy. He doesn’t look back at you when you emerge finally from the shadows; slippers scuffing the cobblestones, black skirts fluttering at your feet.
“I was,” Gwayne nods.
“Then how could you possibly notice I was standing there?”
He turns to face you then, as you settle on the balcony just beside him, keeping a few feet of careful distance between you like you always did — as if, in your union, an invisible line had been wedged between you and could not be crossed.
The corner of his mouth lifts slowly into a crooked smile. “Because I notice everything about you,” he answers like it’s simple, like he hadn’t just stolen the breath from your lungs.
Heat crawls up the low neckline of your dress, speckling across your cheeks and the very tip of your ears. You turn away, face screwed in a feigned disgust, and busy your hands with an imaginary wrinkle on your sleeve.
“That,” you murmur. “Is a terrifying thought.”
“Well, it ought to terrify you,” Gwayne quips knowingly, bending softly at the waist to fold his arms along the stone railing. “I’ve seen the way you steal the candied slices off of all your lemon cakes just to leave the sponge untouched, you know? Like an utter madwoman.”
“Well…” you huff, face flaring hot at the acknowledgment of being so openly seen by another. “It seems I made the dreadful mistake of marrying the observant man in the Seven Kingdoms.”
“And here I thought that distinction belonged to my cousin,” Gwayne jokes lowly, brows raised to his hairline. “I shall write to Lord Ormund at once and relieve him of the title.”
You laugh quietly through your nose and turn away again. Silence settles comfortably over you once more, filled only by the distant clanging of metal as guards change their shift and the far-off crowing of a caged raven. The night feels impossibly dark, emptier than usual. It feels like an omen of sorts.
“It grows worse, does it not?” you wonder aloud through the breath that catches in your chest, as if you were half scared to even ask.
Gwayne’s thin smile slowly fades. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Aye,” he nods. “I fear it does.”
“I keep… hoping that…” You swallow around the invisible hand tightening around your throat. “That they’ll remember I am your wife before they remember whose blood I carry. I feel it’s the only reason they’ve yet to take my head.”
“Of course, they remember,” he assures you.
“It feels less and less so these days.”
“They’re only frightened—”
“I’m frightened,” you remind him.
The admission lingers between you like the salt water scent hanging in the air. Gwayne studies you for a long moment — he sees the flicker of sincerity flashing across your face right before you turn away from him again, and the way your jaw clenches a second later in regret of saying the words aloud.
He leans an elbow along the parapet to face you fully. And, as if to soothe you, he asks, “If there were no war… No thrones, no dragons—”
“No Hightowers?” you add.
“—If the Stranger himself appeared before you now and offered you another life,” the auburn-haired man continues with a hint of a smile gracing his lips. “What would you do?”
You ponder the question for a moment, eyes zeroed on the navy black horizon ahead as your fingers fidget on the stony barricade. “I should like a farm,” you answer, mouth twitching into an absentminded grin. “Somewhere far away from here. So I could raise chickens—”
“Chickens?” he scoffs a dry laugh, then softens a second later at the sincere look you give him. He swallows hard and nods supportively. “Most ladies would’ve said children, is all…”
“Well, I am not most ladies…” you tell him. “I would have a field of apple trees, and a hundred dogs to protect all my chickens and horses and fluffy cows— you know, the ones that live down in the Reach?”
“Well…” Gwayne croons. “You’ve certainly thought about this, haven’t you?”
“Every day,” you confess. The honesty in your answer strikes him down like a blade; the sorrowful look that heavies your face even more so. The reality of your situation returns to you then, settling over you like gravity’s inevitable weight. You swallow hard before you confess, “I fear they’ll kill me if matters grow worse at Dragonstone.”
“They won’t.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I do,” Gwayne assures you and takes a slow step closer, until the inherent warmth of his skin dulls the bite of the bitter sea wind. He ducks his chin to his chest to chase your gaze, peering down at you with glittering blue eyes. “I swore a vow before gods and men, did I not?”
“So do most men—”
“Well, I am not most men,” he lilts with an air of amusement hanging on the edge of his words. “I actually meant my vows.”
Your eyes soften as they search his face, looking for any hint of hesitation or doubt in his handsome features. You find no uncertainty there; just the maddening, immovable confidence that seems to be stitched into the very fiber of his making.
“If this castle should fall tomorrow…” you whisper to him, eyes narrowing in skepticism. “Or if your family decides that I have become too great a burden to keep here… What happens then?”
“Then I shall stand in the doorway,” he shrugs.
A shocked laugh sputters from your mouth at his boyish conviction. “And if they mean to come through it?”
“Then…” His lips jut softly. “They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“You are a valiant knight, Ser Gwayne, but you cannot fight an entire army.”
“Perhaps not,” he replies with a sad sort of smile. “But armies are made of men. And every man who wishes to reach you will first have to face me... As I said… I meant my vows.”
Something in his words strikes a deep sadness within you. No one had ever spoken of your being like it possessed any value worth defending, and now the words come from the very family you were meant to despise.
But even still, for the first time since the ravens brought the tidings of war and the dragons took wing against dragon, you believed him. You believed that, should the whole realm come crashing down around you, Ser Gwayne would likely be the only one left standing at your side when the last stone fell.
And, gods, how stupid you were to do so.
ii. OATHS & ASHES
The news of your husband’s leaving came not from your husband himself.
It came, rather, in whispers at court, slithering through the Red Keep like snakes beneath rushes — passing from Gold Cloak to stable boy to serving girl to scullion. “They say Ser Criston and his knights are marching for Harrenhal on the morrow,” says a thick-accented handmaiden. “Lord Hand means to smoke Daemon from the castle. It’ll be Prince Aemond’s before the next moon, no doubt.”
Your stomach dropped so harshly at the whispers that you nearly retched upon the marble. It was not Gwayne’s leaving that frightened you so, but rather what his absence would represent — he might as well throw you to the hounds himself before he goes, because you were as good as dead with him gone.
Your slippers strike the ancient stone in a frantic rhythm as you turn on your heel to storm back the way you came. The harsh echo of the soles catches the attention of surrounding servants, who flatten themselves against the walls as you hurry suddenly past. Your heartbeat pounds like thunder in your ears, far louder than the bells of the Great Sept that toll the evening hour — the combination of both feels like an ominous funeral knell.
You rush up the winding stone staircase with your crimson skirts gathering in your fists. Gwayne’s chambers sit directly opposite yours, and you find the heavy wooden door is cracked ajar. The hinges screechbeneath your palm when you shove it the rest of the way open without warning. The sight you find on the other side hollows you from the inside out — a travel satchel, laid open along the emerald sheets. Inside, a whetstone, riding gloves, a leather-bound prayer book, a sword belt, a flask.
The careful order of it all feels almost cruel. Chaos, at the very least, would suggest some air of hesitation from the man; a faint pause at leaving you behind. This, however, feels far too final.
Gwayne stands at the head of the bed with his back facing you. His pale hands work with a quiet precision to roll a Hightower-green cloak into his bag. He did not need to turn at the sudden intrusion. He learned the sound of your footsteps long ago.
“I wondered how long it might take,” the man croons distantly. The calmness of his voice, the indifference, sets you entirely aflame.
“Why would you not tell me?” you bite in response.
Gwayne glances over his shoulder at you then. The flickering candlelight turns his hair a more golden shade of Hightower-red, and carves the soft edges of his face out in shadow. He was still every inch the striking knight that the whispers purported him to be — broad as an oak tree, handsome as a saint carved into an altar — but there’s a foreign weariness etched into his features now. It darkens the skin beneath his eyes, turns his gaze a duller shade of icy blue.
“Well, I was going to, of course.”
“When?” The sharpness in your voice could draw blood.
“…Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Your laugh splinters the otherwise silent room, sharper than broken glass. You shut the door behind you with an aggressive hand and close the distance between you, dress skirts billowing wildly at your ankles. “When you ride at dawn? And you meant to tell me when your horses were already saddled?”
“Yes,” Gwayne sighs, lowering the folded doublet into its place. “I thought I might spare you one night’s grief—”
“You’re abandoning me,” you tell him then, as if to translate the man’s words back to himself. You linger at his side, eyes darting wildly over his profile when he fails to meet your gaze. “Just like all the rest of them. You do realize that, right?”
“The king has given orders—”
“Well, it wasn’t the king who stood beside me at Blackwater Bay not even a week ago, was it?” Your voice lowers into a faux-masculine tone, trying and failing to mock him. “If anyone comes for you, I shall stand in the doorway—”
Gwayne scoffs. “Surely, I do not sound like that.”
“—They shall first have to make a corpse of me.”
“Yes… I remember,” he answers through a slow huff of annoyance, stepping back from his travel bag to drag a pair of weary hands down his face. “I was— well into my cups by then, as you well know—”
“Oh, do not cheapen those words now,” you spit, shoving hard at his shoulder. Gwayne’s features twist in offense as his wide eyes glance down at the hand you’d pushed him with, though he doesn’t move an inch. “Don’t dishonor yourself with a coward’s excuse just to make up for the fact that you lied.”
Gwayne’s composure fractures at that. He had spent too much of his life trying to be a good knight, a good man — one that maybe his callous father could be proud of — so he refuses to stomach accusations of otherwise from you.
His icy blue eyes harden into a glacial sort of look, more hurt than truly angry. He lays his cloak into place to face you fully.
“Do you not see that I am leaving to keep the fight from coming here?”
“Do not you see that by leaving me here that I’m as good as dead?” you retort through a jaw clenched tight. “If you do not take me with you, then—”
“Of course I’m not taking you with me!” he scoffs with a crooked smile, like it’s funny to him. “You’d be dead before we made it to the God’s Eye—”
“And I will be dead before this war is won if you leave!” you shout, voice wet and fragile with the unshed tears burning the backs of your eyes. “The fight is already here! The people who wish me dead are in these walls! They pour my wine, they wash my hair, they cook my food, they bow when I walk by and whisper when my back is turned! And if you aren’t here, then…”
You trail off with a ragged breath. Your corset feels suddenly tight against your ribs. You choke back the sob that strangles your throat and blink rapidly to clear the haze of tears blurring at your waterline. You peer up at the man with the sternest gaze you can muster.
“I am… frightened,” you tell him, though your voice cracks into a fragile whisper halfway through.
The anger disappears from Gwayne’s face as quickly as it arrived. His shoulders deflate with a slow huff through his nose as he takes a slow step towards you. His hands release their clenched fists to reach hesitantly for your face. His palms are warm and softly calloused when they cup your cheeks, caressing you with a tenderness he hasn’t shown since your bedding ceremony six or more moons ago.
The quiet half-smile he gives you, then, is weighed down by a palpable sadness.
“To tell you the truth… I have never been more afraid than I am right now,” he confesses in a low murmur, swiping his thumb over the warm apple of your cheek. The softness in his voice threatens to undo you entirely.
“So then don’t go,” you plead in a small voice, grasping at the front of his emerald doublet until the golden vines wrinkle under your grip. “Please.”
“If Harrenhal remains in Rhaenyra’s hold, and if Daemon rallies the Riverland armies, then the war will come here,” Gwayne continues in a painfully steady voice. “I fear I don’t have a choice in the matter.”
“Everyone has a choice,” you tell him, filled with a girlish sort of rage once more. “But, I suppose you’ve already made yours.”
The man meets your scowl with a tired, slightly heartbroken smile. “Please do not make me spend my last night with my wife quarreling with her,” Gwayne jokes quietly, swiping an eyelash from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “At least leave me with something to hold onto until my return.”
Your tight chest deflates with a slow sigh from your nose. The rage ebbs evenly into grief. “And what shall I have, hm? Considering tonight is very likely my last one alive and all…”
Gwayne laughs. “You are being… catastrophically dramatic.”
Your chest burns with a mixture of rage and desire. He could never possibly understand you, but somehow, he is the only one with the walls of the Keep who ever has. The contrast is dizzying.
“I hate you,” you hear yourself say.
“Perhaps...” Gwayne hums, warm breath fanning across your cheek. “But not nearly as much as you love me.”
Your first instinct is to strike him for the sarcasm in his words; your second is to weep at the truth of them. He kisses you before you can do either.
He ducks down to press his lips to yours in a tender kiss, a mere brushing of your lips. The last time he had done so was beneath the glowing candles of the Sept, following the declaration of your wedding vows. But that was an obligation, a political victory of sorts.
This kiss is far sweeter in comparison. You feel the man heavying against you as he falls deeper into your touch. He opens your mouth with his and flicks the pad of his tongue against yours, like velvet brushing velvet. Your hands tremble as they leave the chest of his doublet to rake through his auburn locks, like silk between your fingers. You sigh against his open mouth at the taste of him — like wine and mint and oranges — sweet enough to get drunk on.
It takes you a long moment to realize his hands have snaked around your waist accordingly. You don’t realize his deft fingers are loosening the tie in your corset until the discomfort in your ribs disappears entirely. Your body acts before your mind, and your arms slither from their sleeves to curl once more around Gwayne’s broad shoulders.
The man folds the top of your dress down until your bare chest is revealed to him. A grumbled moan sounds in the back of his throat as he pulls you back into him with two wide palms along your bare back, pressing your breasts flush against his chest. He thinks, if he concentrated hard enough, he could feel the steady thundering of your heart like this.
“Gwayne—” you whisper against his mouth when you feel something hardening against your hip. Your hands drop from his hair to slide between your bodies, headed for the tie in his trousers to release the stiffness growing there.
He twists you round in the meanwhile, shoes scuffing the cobbles, until the bend of your knees meets the edge of the mattress behind you. He lays you down without once taking his mouth off of yours, with one wide palm splayed along your ribcage and his other cradling the back of your neck.
He pulls off of you with a quiet smack to catch his breath. A small whimper sounds in the back of your throat when his warm body leaves yours, rising to reach down for your skirts. Your bare chest heaves as you sit up on your elbows to watch him fumble with your dress. “Gods above, how many skirts are you wearing?” you hear him complain under his breath. “I’ve faced hedge knights with fewer defenses than this.”
You giggle when he finally pushes the layers of your dress up to your hips. Your thighs spread on instinct, exposing yourself to him. Gwayne’s mouth waters at the sight of your silken folds, already glittering in anticipation. Your chest tightens when he falls to his knees before you.
“What are you doing?” you ask on bated breath.
Gwayne flashes you a love-drunk grin and a pair of glassy blue eyes. His warm palms smooth along the velvety skin of your inner thighs to spread them further. “Call it a knight’s act of service, shall we?” he quips.
His auburn head disappears beneath your bunched-up skirts a second later. Your face twists momentarily in confusion before you feel his tongue slotting in the silk folds of your cunt. He licks a fat stripe up the length of it, until his tongue finds something that makes your hips twitch despite yourself. His mouth closes around the sensitive button, suckling at it with a grumbled moan in the back of his throat.
Your head tips back at the feeling. Your lips part as if to moan, but the electric shock in the pit of your stomach knocks all the available air from your lungs. You feel him laughing against you when your thighs clench suddenly around his head, tighter than you realize.
Gwayne pulls off of you with a quick smacking sound. He wears your slick down to his chin as he flashes you a teasing, glassy-eyed look. “I’d quite like to keep my head, dear wife—”
You say nothing in response to his quip. You just dart a head to the crown of his skull and shove his face back between your thighs.
Gwayne complies without complaint, lapping at the honey you leak for him, until the wet sounds of his mouth fill the quiet chambers. You rock your hips against his face, bracing yourself with the auburn locks you clench in your fist.
His nose nudges the swollen bud that makes you keen, right before he takes it in his mouth again. Your skin buzzes at the foreign feeling.
“Gwayne—” you gasp. A tight feeling settles deep in your stomach, like a fraying knot about to snap. Your back arches off the mattress. Your hand tightens in his hair. Your features screw in a pain look, half-scared at the pleasure welling within you. “I can’t—”
“Mm…” he just keeps moaning against you, letting the vibrations deepen your pleasure. His wide hands smooth up and down your outer thighs when they tremble on either side of his head, clenching around him as your orgasm hits you with a pleasured whine. He laps up every ounce of honey you leak for him, and sighs hard through his nose at the salty-sweet taste of you.
Only when your legs grow finally lax around his jaw does he pull back from your thighs. A smile curls lazily at his rosier, more swollen mouth. The bottom half of his face glitters in the candlelight with a mixture of saliva and cum — you lift your head in time to watch him wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.
“If this truly is my final night alive…” you say through panted breaths, eyes still wide from the shock of your simmering pleasure. “I feel I could finally die a happy woman.”
“I’m glad I could be of service, princess…” Gwayne smiles lazily, grimacing slightly at the ache in his knees as he rises from the unforgiving cobbles. He leans down to lay his warmth back over you. You stop him with a firm hand on his chest.
“I want to be on top this time,” you confess in a breathless whisper, eyes darting back and forth between his.
Gwayne’s brows raise slowly in shock at your sudden display of dominance. The corner of his lip twitches into a smile the same way his cock twitches in his boxers. He nods until the words catch up to him. “As you wish…”
iii. CROWNS & CAGES
You did not weep when they came for you, scarcely a fortnight after your lord husband’s leaving.
Gwayne was gone by first light, perhaps already a league or more away before you stirred awake that morning to the chill of an empty bed. He parted with nothing but a folded scrap of parchment resting where his head had been the night before. In his scrawled handwriting, half-smudged from where his wrist had dragged the ink in haste, he wrote: “Write to me. Don’t die. I’ll build the form for you myself.”
You keep the note tucked safely inside the chest of your corset now, folded so many times that the edges have already begun to soften. You keep it close to your heart like a holy relic, or perhaps, a threat to whatever unlucky son of a bitch kills you first — something to discover on your corpse after they slit your throat, so they’ll know who to answer to upon your husband’s return.
Eventually, the servants ceased asking whether you needed anything, and all your meals came cold. Conversations ceased the moment you entered a room, and doors slammed shut before you could reach them. And then, when word spread that a wild dragon had taken wing not far from here, all eyes of suspicion turned to you — to whom a dragon had never belonged, though the blood in your veins wearied the courtiers all the same. Rhaenyra had already added three new riders to her fleet; she certainly did not need another.
You were no longer a bride, but a prisoner in pretty gowns — it was the Queen Dowager, and your sister by law, who confirmed as much to you.
“I had hoped…” Alicent started slowly, bathed half in sunshine and half in shadow from where she stood before the window in your quarters, watching the distant storm clouds blow in over Blackwater. “That I might never have to ask this of you.”
Her auburn curls swept over her pale shoulder when she turned to face you. Something heavy sat in her round green eyes, as if she wanted you to finish the rest of it for her. But you remained as stoic and silent as ever from where you sat at the small dining table just across from her. Your hands wrung into knots over your skirts, hidden beneath the surface, as you waited for the words of your fate to fall from her lips.
“The council believes that— Should the opportunity present itself, you would attempt to reach the wild beast. The Cannibal, I believe it’s called,” Alicent said. “And through him, Rhaenyra.”
“So…” You sighed, making no attempt to argue the subject. It did not matter whether or not it was true; the possibility was enough to make you a criminal. “The Black Cells, then?”
“No,” Alicent shook her head, half-offended by the suggestion. “Of course not. My cousin, Lord Ormund, he commands the Hightower host. He has agreed to keep you under his… protection for the time being.”
“Protection?” you echoed through a scoff. The word tasted foreign and bitter in your mouth. “What a pleasant name for captivity.”
Alicent’s face flickered with a mother’s sort of sympathy. Her hands wrang together beneath the draping sleeves of her emerald dress.“You will be treated with every courtesy your station deserves, I assure you.”
“If your council means to bargain with me, Your Grace…” you started with a sad smile. “They mistake me for something worth bartering for. Rhaenyra already abandoned e— keeping me hostage will not make her respond to your offered terms.”
“Even still… You would be far safer there than you would be here, whether or not you believe that’s true,” Alicent said. “I know what my brother would wish of me. And Gwayne would never forgive me if I didn’t do everything I could to keep you safe.”
The long journey south smells of wet earth and horse dung. By the time you reach the Hightower encampment — which sprawls across the rolling fields like a second city — your fine silk gown has long surrendered to the dust of the road, and your hands now bear the tenderness of a week spent in the saddle.
Your broad-shouldered escort guides you through the avenue of canvas tents billowing wildly beneath snapping green banners. The air smells of woodsmoke, cooked venison, and salty sweat — the soft breeze carries with it the sound of laughter, barking hounds, clanking chainmail, and shouted commands.
A pair of guards draw back the heavy canvas of the biggest pavilion in the camp. “My lord,” one says to announce your arrival inside, right before the entrance flap closes heavily behind you.
Inside, candles burn despite the lingering daylight, filling the enclosed tent with the smell of beeswax and parchment from the large map covering the long oak table. Pieces carved from ivory and oak mark castles and armies across the whole of Westeros, waiting to be won or maybe burned.
A strange man stands over them with his broad hands planted along the edge, visibly built beneath his ornately decorated armor, and standing several inches taller than the rest of the knights in the room.
Lord Ormund was not pretty like Gwayne, but he was his own kind of handsome, made of sharp edges and strong features. His Hightower-auburn curls are less vivid in color and sheared short. He has his family’s pair of striking blue eyes, too, which feel a little like they’re piercing you when he glances up from his map.
“Leave us,” he commands his guards in a low, melodic voice, keeping his eyes on you as his knights filter out of the tent. Their armor clatters faintly as they go. The man doesn’t say another word until they’re gone.
“So…” he hums, one corner of his mouth lifting upwards. “The infamous dragon bride.”
Your brows bounce at the title. It feels like another chain around your neck. “I suppose I’ve been called worse…” you sigh, studying him with the same curiosity. “You must be Lord Ormund.”
“I must,” the man nods as he rounds the war table at an unhurried pace.
His boots sink into the woven rungs laid across the hard earth with each step. He towers several inches over your head when he plants himself in front of you. He smells of steel and sweat and strongly of incense.
“I expected someone… older.”
His brows raise in amusement. “And here I expected someone taller.”
“Well,” you deadpan, eyes narrowing up at him as your hands clasp behind your back. “I’m sorry for disappointing you, Ser.”
“Oh, I’ve endured far worse disappointments, my lady, I assure you.” A ghost of a smile graces his pink lips as his eyes soften slightly around the edges. “I give you my word. While you remain beneath my banners, no harm will come to you.”
You sigh hard through your nose. “Yes… People keep promising me that.”
“I’m sure they have… But I intend to honor it.” The certainty of the man’s words unsettles you. It’s strange, you find, to be looked at like you were something worth protecting. “And if you require anything— anything at all. You need only ask.”
You nod slowly with a deep exhale, considering the offer. “A quill,” you conclude firmly.
Ormund blinks. “A… A quill?”
“Yes,” you say. “And parchment.”
“For… What purpose?” he laughs.
You glance over your shoulder towards the tent’s fluttering entrance, where the last light of the early evening burns gold against a sea of green banners. You wonder, briefly, how many soldiers outside this pavilion would celebrate if they found you dead on the morrow — how many would mourn, how many would care enough to do anything at all.
You think, perhaps, that in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms, there is only one person who would weep for you. And he was a hundred leagues away.
“So that I may write to my lord husband,” you answer finally. “And tell him that I was right… And that he still owes me a farm.”
Lord Ormund allows you to write to Gwayne that night, and every seventh day after. It was the only thing you could look forward to, since there was little else to do at camp. He had been gracious enough to give you your own pavilion at the edge of the command encampment, close enough for the sentries to watch but far enough away to force you into solitude.
It was clean and moderately comfortable — with a narrow cot draped in a single wool blanket, a traveling chest for the few dresses you were allowed to bring, a wash basin, and a small writing table tucked beneath the only slit in the canvas that permitted daylight. Inside smelled of candle wax, pressed linen, and lavender soap.
Outside smelled of war — of pressed metal from the blacksmiths, of men cursing over burnt porridge, of stableboys tending to horses who fouled the earth faster than they could shovel it. It was cruel, how the world went on while you could go scarcely a step without an escort. Eventually, you became accustomed to feeling a hundred eyes upon your back — most curious, others suspicious, some outright hateful.
The letters you wrote to Gwayne, at least, gave you the illusion of escape. You tended to each with careful precision — melting the wax, stamping it shut, then tying it off with a ribbon — and watched from afar as one of Ormund’s knights carried them toward the rookery. It was not until the twentieth day at camp, when you wandered further than you were typically allowed, that you noticed that none of your messages had been sent. You watched the knight toss the letter into the fire, flinching slightly when the flames sparked beneath the fresh kindling.
It had been four days since then.
And you haven’t eaten once in protest.
It took roughly half that time for Lord Ormund’s patience to run thin. He’s suffered the endless whispers of your attempts to starve to death with an increasing displeasure. He commands thousands of knights beneath his banners, serves as the leader of his house with grace, and yet — he still cannot seem to manage to command one lady to supper. It was absurd. Humiliating. And worse, it invited doubt. What army will follow a man whom they believe incapable of governing his own household?
On the fifth evening, after your breakfast tray went untouched that morning, Ormund opts to bring you your supper himself. He marches through the crowded camp with his jaw clenched tight like a soldier headed into battle. His chainmail clanks with every step. Avoiding the stares he gets from surrounding knights feels borderline impossible.
He throws open the entrance of your tent without ceremony. The canvas snaps sharply beneath his aggressive hand as he ducks suddenly underneath it. The light of the golden evening pours suddenly inside around his towering silhouette before the flap falls shut behind him once more, trapping the two of you inside.
There, he finds you lying on your cot, staring upward at the slit in the pavilion where one lonely shaft of sunlight spills through. Your fingers drift lazily through the rays, as if you were trying to catch it somehow.
Your head snaps suddenly to the side at the sudden intrusion — your hair is loose and unkempt, because no one ever taught you how to do it yourself, and all of your dresses are now wrinkled and stained with dirt. The thin white nightgown you wear makes you look more sunken, more lifeless.
Ormund grasps your tray with one hand and reaches for your small writing desk with the other. He lectures you through the distant pang of sympathy in his chest.
“I have commanded men twice your size—” His boots are heavy on the thin rug as he carries the desk over to you. “I have started sieges, I have broken sieges. And yet—” He slams the table in front of you with a dull thump. You try not to cower under the icy blue glare he gives you. “I cannot seem to persuade one prisoner— a lady, no less— to eat her supper. And I confess, it does very little for confidence in my command. So eat.”
Ormund slams the tray onto the desk. The broth steaming in a small wooden bowl sloshes over. Next to it, strips of leftover venison and a broken loaf of stale bread. Your empty stomach twists painfully with a mixture of nausea and hunger.
“So…” you start lowly, clearing your throat when your voice comes gravelly. You rise from your supine position on weak limbs. The fabric of your nightgown rides up your thighs as you turn to place your bare feet on the ground — eyes dull when you peer up at the man from beneath your lashes. “You admit it, then? That I am your prisoner here?”
His jaw clenches tight. His nostrils flare through a sharp breath. He no longer finds amusement in your banter. “Your status here depends entirely on your pliancy,” he spits, ripping off a piece of the stale loaf. “Now eat.”
You flinch when his fist rears suddenly towards your face, holding the broken bread just in front of your mouth. You blink wildly up at him, features screwed in offense. “…Excuse me?”
“Eat.”
You swat his hand away; it moves scarcely an inch. “I’m not a child—”
“Well, at present, you are behaving remarkably like one,” Ormund argues through a tight jaw. “Now open your mouth.”
You respond with only a glare.
Fury rages through the man’s chest. He wishes wordlessly for the strength of the Mother and the Warrior engraved upon his armor as he offers bitterly, “Or shall I make you?”
You spend a long moment staring up at him with eyes cold enough to freeze wine. You hold his gaze as your mouth parts slowly to accept the chunk of bread he pinches between his thumb and forefinger. He places it upon your tongue with a surprising gentleness, considering the wrath he’d had moments ago.
“Chew,” he commands, glaring down the bridge of his nose at you. Your jaw moves slowly. Ormund nods in approval. “Swallow.”
Your heart lurches into your throat at his order. But you do as you’re told, throat bobbing as the piece of bread goes down. Another piece follows soon after; this time, your lips part before he asks you to do so. Relief crosses over his strong features as he places the food onto your tongue. His shoulders sag with the exhaled breath that it feels like he’s been holding for days.
He looks almost worried for you; relieved, almost, to have fed you. A warm, foreign feeling settles in your chest accordingly.
“I am trying… Very hard to be kind to you,” Ormund confesses, scarred hands twitching at his sides. “So I cannot, for the life of me, understand why you insist on making this so difficult.”
“My letters,” you tell him. “Why aren’t they being sent?”
“The rookery master feared they could be intercepted,” he answers plainly. “I could not risk one falling into enemy hands. I… meant to tell you.”
“When?” you spit.
“When I found a safer way to deliver them.”
A bitter laugh sputters from your mouth. “What curious men you Hightowers are,” you quip with narrowed eyes. “So fond of deciding what sorrows I ought to be spared.”
His brows lower in confusion. “Is that not a kindness?”
His answer lingers between you for several long moments. There was no cleverness in his words, only an honesty that strikes you like a fist to the stomach.
“Aye. I suppose it is,” you answer, clearing your throat when your voice catches.
A strange emotion strangles you, and burns at the back of your eyes as you look down at your dress. Your dull nails pick at a smudge of mud on the fabric that will likely never come off. An embarrassed sort of laugh tumbles from your mouth.
“Perhaps I… I spent so long waiting for someone to hurt me that I no longer remember what kindness is supposed to feel like.”
Ormund nods through a slow exhale from his nose. He glances to the side and walks the short distance to the stool that the table had knocked over in his rage. Your wet eyes follow his form as he walks away and then back to you, setting the chair on the other side of the table. You can feel the warmth radiating from his body, even in the scarce distance between you.
“I’ll admit— A man spends enough time at war, they start to forget that mornings are not meant to begin with fear,” he says, reaching again for the loaf of bread, but this time breaking it in half. “I forget myself, at times, but… if you’ll allow me… I’d very much like to prove to you that I can be kind.”
Your weary features soften around the edges. “Well, I don’t have much of a choice in the matter, do I?” you tell him, with a more sincere smile hinting at the corners of your lips. “I am your prisoner, after all.”
“So you keep insisting,” Ormund quips with his own quiet grin. “But I should rather you thought of yourself as my… responsibility.”
Your heart stumbles a beat. Responsibility felt much safer than hostage, or bargaining piece, or burden. It felt, you’ll admit, like a kindness.
iv. SILK & SWORDS
You fall into a steady routine at the Hightower encampment by the fifth moon of your captivity.
Each morning arrives with the same mournful groan of a warhorn that rolls across the grass green hills before the sun has even broken the horizon. You wake to the distant ringing of hammers against anvils, hounds barking for gristles off the cookfires, and knights shouting for their squires. The first hours were reserved for armorers; the afternoons for drilling knights whose swords cracked together until you could feel them ringing in your skull; and the evenings for songs, laughter, and ale.
Your days, however, remained painfully empty.
Lord Ormund had been kind enough to provide you with greater comforts as the weeks went by — cushioned pillows and heavier woolen blankets for when the nights got colder; sprigs of lavender for your bedside to keep out the stench of man; more parchment and colored ink to busy your hands when the days were especially long. And all of them were especially long. He’d given you his leather-bound prayer book, too, and even though you were not an entirely pious woman, you’d read through it enough times to recite each passage from memory.
The camp has since grown accustomed to your being there, ever since Ormund slackened his metaphorical leash on you — “You’ve had more than ample opportunity to run,” he’d said beneath the scratching of his quill. “Besides, where exactly would you go? No one else would take you.” No one bats an eye when you leave your tent, after three days of relentless rain had finally broken, to pick fresh berries from the brushes along the treeline.
Your crimson silk dress scrubs the dewy evening grass as you collect wild raspberries into a small wooden bowl. The juices stain your fingertips the color of red wine. The sweet scent mixes with the smell of wet earth and mint leaves crushed beneath your slippers. You bend at the waist to parse through tangled brambles, searching for the ripest berries. For the first time in months — years, maybe — you feel almost peaceful.
“Is that a love letter—?”
The voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. Your heart lurches into your throat as you jerk to full height again. The small bowl of berries slips from your grasp and rolls through the wet clover like so many drops of scattered blood. Behind you, you find a vaguely familiar hedgeknight, scarcely ten paces away — made of broad shoulders, broken teeth, and greasy hair that falls to his shoulders.
It takes you an embarrassingly long moment to catch your breath.
“I’m sorry,” you say through a tightening chest. “You… You startled me.”
“Did I?” he hums gruffly, in a voice that borders on amusement.
You cower into the hedgerow behind you as he approaches you, reaching you quickly on much longer limbs. He looms close enough for you to smell the sweat and ale and horse piss on his chainmail, close enough for you to lift your chin to meet his gaze.
His eyes never quite reach yours. They linger, instead, on your chest. “Letter from your lord husband, is it?” he asks, motioning with his head.
Your chin ducks to follow his eyes, where the rough edges of parchment nestled against your chest peek out from your corset. Your hands lift to cover it instinctively. “Yes. It’s a… a letter. From home.”
“Mind if I take a look at it?” he asks, taking another daring step closer. You wince at the sour smell of him. “What does Ser Gwayne write his pretty wife, hm?”
“Please, don’t—”
His hand shoots out. Thick, filthy fingers hook beneath the neckline of your gown, hard enough to stretch the fine silk with an audible crack. You react on pure instinct accordingly, lifting your own hand to strike him before your mind could forbid it.
The sound of your palm colliding with his bearded jaw cracks through the hedgerow like a whip.
His head turns slightly under the blow.
Your breath catches in surprise at yourself.
The back of his hand catches you across the cheek before you can blink. A red-hot pain explodes from your ear to your jaw as your world lurches suddenly sideways. You hit the unforgiving earth below with a huff when the air rushes from your lungs. Coppery blood pools thick on your tongue from where your teeth had cut the inside of your cheek.
“You little cunt—” you hear the man say, right before he catches a fistful of your skirts to pull you back towards him. The fabric screams beneath his hand. The cool evening air strikes your legs all at once when the silk rips up to your thighs.
You kick wildly at the man. Your slipper strikes uselessly against his shoulder. Your fingernails claw muddy furrows through the soaked earth.
“I am— Gwayne Hightower’s wife—” You tell him through panted, fearful breaths. He flips you onto your back by your ankle. Your foot burns beneath his grip. Your head strikes the soaked earth. Through the lack of air in your lungs, you heave, “He will have your head for this—”
“Oh, will he?” the hedge knight laughs with a brown-tooth grin. “‘Cause he ain’t here—”
The hand not holding your squirming ankle reaches for the tie in his trousers.
Then, in a blink, steel sings with a clean rasping sound. Warm blood splashes from your right jaw up to your left temple. For a flicker of a moment, you can’t quite comprehend why — not until the hedge knight kneels suddenly before you, with open eyes that have gone strangely distant. He topples suddenly sideways with his neck bent at an awkward angle, head half cut off and spouting bright red blood.
You blink wildly through the haze of death until you find Ormund standing just behind the corpse, chest rising and falling beneath his heavy armor. His longsword drips crimson onto the grass where your raspberries lie.
Sweat from the long day clings to his dark curls, wetting them against his temples and forehead. Flecks of blood dot his jaw like crimson stars. His blue eyes burn with something fierce, but his voice remains remarkably soft.
“My lady…”
You open your mouth to answer him, but nothing comes out.
Only then do you notice how violently your body is shaking, buzzing with a white-hot fear, as you scan the scene surrounding you — your torn skirts, the blood staining your chest, the dead body at your feet. You stare at the hedge knight’s gushing throat without fully understanding the sight of it.
Ormund reaches you in three long strides. He sheaths his sword without a word before dropping carefully to one knee. He slides one arm under your leg and his other behind your back, hoisting you upward with a pair of strong arms. The scent of blood and earth gives way to the smell of leather, incense, and bathing oils as he cradles you to the broad wall of his chest.
Your trembling hands clench a fistful of the green velvet cape draped along his shoulder.
“You’re safe, my lady,” Ormund murmurs as he carries you back to camp. “You’re safe.”
Your face finds the hollow space between his jaw and collarbone. You’re not entirely sure if you believe the words he speaks, but you know now that you do believe in the man who speaks them.
v. SANCTUARY & SIN
The weeks that followed could be divided into two — the days before the attack and all the days after.
For a time, you startled far too easily. A dropped shield sent you into a panic. A knight laughing too loudly made your pulse skyrocket. And if a pair of bootsteps walked too closely behind you, you lost all your breath before your mind had time to remind your body that no one meant you any harm.
Nights proved harder still. You dreamt of nothing but rough hands and torn silk and crushed berries that smelled so sweet the thought alone made you sick. One moment you were suffocating beneath the sweaty body of a hedge knight, and the next, your canvas door was thrown open while you were choking on a scream.
Ormund stood silhouetted before you, barefoot, with a sword in his naked hand. He’d reached you with haste, after having your pavilion packed up and pitched again not quite twenty paces from his following the attack — “It’ll be easier that way,” he assured you. “If another fool decides to trouble you, I’d rather not have to cross half of Westeros to remove his head.”
His curls were flattened from slumber, his linen shirt unlaced to reveal his broad chest heaving with panic. His sleep-swollen eyes swept every corner of the empty pavilion before they settled finally on you. His steel lowered as he crossed the tent to settle beside you, smoothing a hand up and down your back despite the way your nightgown clung uncomfortably to your sweaty skin.
“We’ll move your bed into my tent,” he’d said. “You’ll sleep there for the time being.”
It was concern disguised as a command. One you could not refuse if you wanted to.
Ormund’s tent was large enough to pass for a modest hall — maps and banners occupied one half, while the other had become something half-resembling living quarters. Your smaller cot was placed opposite his beneath the same sloping canvas roof, separated by little more than a table crowded with candles and books. You would wake occasionally to find Ormund already seated beside the brazier in nothing but a linen shirt, reading dispatches by firelight while occasionally glancing over to see whether you were sleeping soundly.
You pretended that you were, if only to keep on watching him.
But then the late summer storms arrived; and the unforgiving deluge washed over the camp with enough violence to shake the pavilion you slept beneath. Thunder cracked like an explosion closely overhead, and you woke with another frightened gasp before remembering where you were.
Ormund was already awake, as if stirred in knowing that you were scared.
“If you’re frightened…” he murmured from across the darkness. A flash of lightning revealed his blanketed body, and his face half-smushed into his pillow. “I imagine my bed could accommodate two people without either touching the other."
You crossed the space between your cots and climbed beneath his blankets without another word.
You haven’t left his bed since.
The days soon settle into something almost resembling normalcy. Ormund, you find, possesses an absurd fondness for taking care of you — always making sure that you’ve eaten breakfast before he’s started his mornings; delivering his wool blankets to you before you can complain that you’re cold, warming your hands between his calloused palms when he does so; and escorting you through camp with a protective hand splayed along the small of your back.
No one ever cared for you with such deliberate attention before — even Gwayne, as gentle as he was, could only love you from a respectful distance before the war had sent him off. Your husband washed away into memory, into the note left abandoned somewhere on the forest floor.
You did not know whether he still rode beneath banners or if his corpse had been picked clean by crows. You did know, at the very least, that Ormund was here — he was there in the mornings when you woke and each night when old fears crept back into your skin. It was a dangerous thing, you soon realized, to mistake safety for love. Or more dangerous still, to suspect that the two were any different at all.
You watch from Ormund’s bed — freshly bathed beneath your thin ivory slip, with your legs kicking lazily from where you lie on your stomach — as his squire removes pieces of his armor. A sketchbook lies open before you, alongside a collection of colored inks.
“This is what you get for tightening the straps so much,” Ormund hums as Daeron struggles with the final buckle across the man’s broad shoulders.
“Well, you’d like them to remain attached, wouldn’t you?” the boy quips back.
The man smiles despite himself. “You complain more than any squire I've ever met, do you know that?”
“I learned everything from you, did I not?”
When the final piece of armor comes finally free, Ormund dismisses the boy back to his tent. The entrance cover opens and shuts behind the boy, letting in a rush of cool evening air before it closes again. Silence returns to the expansive pavilion, filled only by the crackling of burning candles.
Ormund, left only in his loose dark breeches and a linen undertunic, walks to the round table to pour himself a goblet of wine. “What is occupying you so completely over there?”
“I’m hard at work,” you answer vaguely.
“So I see.” He eyes you carefully over the glugging of the flagon. A faint, unreadable flicker crosses his face. “Writing to Gwayne, are you?”
“No,” you sigh. “I’m drawing you.”
You set the quill into the inkpot and lift the sketchbook to face the man with a girlish grin, which seems to be becoming more and more frequent as the days go by. Ormund’s light eyes squint to study the page. It was unmistakably him drawn in the ink, though perhaps only if one was exceedingly charitable. The proportions are all wrong: his nose is too large, his mouth is too small, one eye sits higher than the other, and he’s missing his left brow.
His eyes flick to meet yours again. “…Is that intended to be me?” he asks, motioning with the goblet in his fist.
“Of course,” you shrug like it’s obvious.
“Well,” he sighs, raising the cup to his mouth. “I had no idea that I resembled that of a rotting turnip.”
You gasp in faux-offense that’s soon overcome by a fit of laughter. “It is not that bad!”
“My lady…” Ormund huffs sympathetically, abandoning his ale to saunter slowly towards the bed. “This could be considered treason— I should confiscate this immediately."
“You shall do no such thing,” you tease.
“Oh really?” he croons, brows raised in amusement.
He lunges for you in an instant. You jerk back onto your haunches with a squeal, cradling the sketchbook to your chest. You dodge each of his attempts to take it with a girlish gracelessness, laughing harder with each of his failed attempts. Ormund smiles at the sound without realizing it, dropping the table of ink to the rug below before clambering onto the bed to follow you.
One final tug sends the book flying across the bed, and the two of you go to reach for it at the same time. The momentum carries you forward until you land clumsily against his chest, knocking the breath out of him as his back hits the mattress, with you squarely on top of him.
It takes you a long moment to realize your precarious position — your chest brushing his beneath your thin slip, noses nearly touching, breaths nearly entwining. Your laughter fades first, but you still do not move. Ormund’s smile flickers, but his hands lift to rest lightly along the arms you use to prop up your weight on top of him.
You can feel each of his warm breaths fan against your chin. You could get drunk on the ale stained on his mouth from the proximity between you alone. Closer by an inch or two and you would taste it on his lips.
“We ought not,” Ormund murmurs lowly, as if he can read your mind.
“Ought what?”
“This,” he answers. His blue eyes flick briefly in the space separating your mouths. “You are another man’s wife. My cousin’s wife.”
You swallow hard at the mention of Gwayne. It had been far easier to forget him, in truth. “I have not seen my husband in nearly a year,” you reply in a small voice. “I do not even know whether he yet lives…”
Pain etches in Ormund's strong features before disappearing behind his usual practiced restraint. His hands tremble with the urge to smooth away the frown between your brows, but he does not allow himself the satisfaction.
“I swore on oath to protect you,” he says. “To serve you in my cousin’s absence.”
You, without possessing a similar self-control, lift a hand to brush a wild curl from his temple. “And do you intend to keep that promise, Lord Ormund?”
He nods against the mattress. “Of course I do.”
“Okay then…” you hum as a smile tugs slowly at one corner of your mouth. “Then serve me.”
You duck down to close the distance between you without a second thought. The tip of your nose grazes the strong bridge of his as you press your lips to his chapped ones, nothing more than an experimental brushing of your mouths. You go to pull away just as quickly as you came, and whatever restraint Ormund had had before vanishes in an instant.
He lifts his head from the tousled blankets to chase your mouth, cradling your neck with a wide hide to draw you back into him again. The second kiss lands with none of the careful uncertainty of the first. This one is slower, deeper, and far more languid. His tongue licks into your mouth, tasting of wine and the mint leaves he always chews after supper. You sigh through your nose to savor it, melting further into his chest.
Your mouths move together with an awkward sort of tenderness, learning one another by the second. Ormund kisses you far rougher than Gwayne ever did — it’s all tongue and teeth and spit, as if he were committing the taste of you to memory: the meat from your supper, the berry from your tea; the guilt from your broken vows, the relief of being found after believing yourself long abandoned.
Your breath catches in your throat when Ormund suddenly takes charge, urging you onto your back with his mouth still on yours. He pulls off you with a quiet smack, wearing your spit on his rosy mouth like gloss.
“Do you want me to stop?” he asks with heavy eyes that dart back and forth between your glassy ones.
You shake your head against the cushions beneath you, features twisting with a pained look at the thought of stopping now.
“Do you understand what will follow? What… vows both of us will be breaking?”
Your eyes glisten as they dance between his blue ones. “The war broke those vows,” you tell him, half-breathless. “Not us.”
Ormund nods wordlessly for a moment, pleased with your answer. “Then open,” he says.
Your mouth parts for him on instinct. He lifts his middle and pointer finger to your lips, wetting them on your tongue, before sliding them in between your bodies. His hand disappears beneath the skirt of your slip. Your head tips back when you feel his fingertips sliding between your velvety folds, brushing your clit before sinking into your waiting cunt.
Your sigh fills the quiet tent, accompanied by the low groan in the back of Ormund’s throat.
“You’re softer than I imagined…” he confesses, almost to himself.
“Imagining me a lot, are you?” you tease on bated breath.
“Yes,” he answers without missing a beat. “I dreamt of how your cunt would wrap around me… of how you’d soak the sheets… of what noise you’d make when I moved my fingers like this—”
A whine catches in your throat when he crooks his fingers just so, nestling the fatty part of his palm flat against your clit. Your hips buck into his hand despite yourself. Your exhaled whine is half-drowned beneath his breathy chuckle.
“There it is…” he praises.
“Fuck me,” you plead, face crumpling under the weight of your need. One hand twists in his hair, while your other fists in his thin white tunic to keep him close. You only vaguely realize how little you sound like yourself as you plead: “I need it so bad, Ormund, please, fuck me—”
The man goes dizzy at the sound of your begging, as if he brought you into his camp, his tent, his bed, to do anything other than serve you.
His fingers glitter with your slick when he drags them out of your cunt. He brings them to his nose, nostrils flaring slightly as he inhales the scent of your musk upon them. You whine at the sight of it — half-disgusted, half-intrigued. You watch with heavy eyes when he brings the same hand into his trousers to fist his half-hard cock fully stiff for you.
It’s a mess of tangled limbs for a moment, as you drag his shirt gracefully from his torso while he attempts to free himself from his breeches. He’s made of tanned skin, toned muscles, and a dusting of auburn hair from his sternum to his stomach. It grows more dense at the root of his cock — which is not quite as long as Gwayne’s, but thicker still and adorned with more prominent veins.
Ormund works himself hard with his fist; the reddened head of his cock leaks pearly drops every time his hand moves upwards. Your mouth waters for a taste. You let him smear it along the folds of your cunt instead.
You curl your arms under his broad arms to splay your hands along his shoulder blades. They flex slightly under your touch as he leans down over you. You tense on instinct when he pierces you with the tip of his cock. “Shh, shh, shh,” he soothes lowly, fighting back his own grunt as you spread so perfectly around him.
He sinks slowly into you, slow enough for you to feel every vein and ridge of his cock as he mounts you until his hips are flush with yours. Your mouth parts. He ducks down to kiss you before a moan tumbles out, swallowing the pretty sound with his mouth.
He stays still against you for several long, agonizing moments. Your hips buck against his in anticipation. “Please move,” you whine, digging crescent shapes into his shoulders with your nails. “I need you so much, please—”
Ormund’s jaw clenches tight. “Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve been inside another woman?”
Your face screws. “I’d rather not hear about your previous exploits at the moment—”
“Don’t,” Ormund spits, shuddering on top of you when you roll your hips into his once more. He grasps your thigh hard enough to dig bruises into the plush skin with the hand not holding himself up beside your head. His light eyes turn glacial in an instant, darting wildly between both of yours. “I won’t… I won’t last…” he confesses.
Your eyes soften around the edges with a faux innocence. “This isn’t going to be the last time you fuck me, is it?”
The crude word falls so effortlessly from your pristine mouth that it makes his cock jerk within your drooling confines. “I don’t want it to be. No,” he answers, half-shy.
“Then I don’t care how long you last,” you assure him with a lazy grin. “You have kept me hostage for nearly a year— Surely, I’m entitled to make some use of my captor while the realm delays the war, am I not?”
Ormund’s resolve crumbles under your permission. He rolls his hips forward and back again, never quite pulling all the way out of you. He groans quietly when you clench around the sensitive head of his cock; and you swallow down a whimper when the coarse hair below his stomach rubs mercilessly along your sensitive clit.
Your head tips back. He falls to the hollow space between your neck and shoulder.
Ormund’s open-mouthed breaths fan warm along your burning skin as he stumbles into a graceless rhythm, thrusting hard enough to make the wooden frame of his bed squeak quietly beneath you.
The pressure on your clit is relentless. You squirm underneath his sweat-slick body, chasing and running from the pleasure all at once. “I know. I know. It’s okay,” you hear him slur against your skin. “Just take it. Just fuckin’ take it— Fuck—” His voice breaks like splintered glass.
He tenses suddenly above you, taut muscles trembling. You hear his breath catch for a moment, right before a foreign warmth pools in the very pit of your stomach. He groans in time with his release, heavying his weight further against you.
You aren’t far behind.
He grinds his hips lazily to ride out his high, smothering your sensitive clit as the warm, wet, sticky feeling continues to bloom inside of you. “Ormund—” you gasp, tensing beneath him.
“There it is…”the man praises as you tremble underneath him, smearing his lips against your jaw until they reach your parted mouth. “There it is— Fuck, that’s it,look at me.”
Your eyes snap open at his command, bleary and heavy-lidded. You ride out the rest of your orgasm with your gaze locked with his glassy one.
The honeyed moment doesn’t last nearly as long as either of you would’ve liked.
“My lord?”
The two of you sober in a flash as the spell between you shatters. Ormund stills suddenly above you, as if pierced by steel. The warmth flees from his features at once, replaced by the hard composure of the commander of House Hightower. You, too, freeze where you lay beneath him — pulse thrumming hard in your throat as the muffled voice drifts once more through the pavilion.
“My lord—”
“Yes, Daeron,” Ormund spits through gritted teeth, nostrils flaring as he breathes through the rage searing in his chest. “What is it?”
The squire hesitates at his uncle’s harsh tone. “Forgive me for the intrusion, my lord…” the boy says carefully, hidden behind the covered entrance. “But a messenger arrived from the river road. He bears urgent word from Ser Criston’s camp.”
You feel your stomach sink — or, perhaps, it’s only the mixture of cum seeping out of your still fluttering confines, soaking the sheets beneath you. You feel unspeakably dirty now, and the lack of regret only deepens the feeling.
Ormund remains motionless above you for a moment before sitting back on his haunches. You shiver at the absence of his warmth, and wince slightly when his softening cock slips out of you. “A letter?” he calls to the entrance, brows lowered. “What news?”
“It is sealed, my lord,” Daeron says. “The messenger said it was to be opened by our hand alone.”
Ormund’s confusion deepens. “And who sends it?”
After another brief hesitation, the voice answers solemnly: “Ser Gwayne, my lord.”
Ormund Hightower x Targ!reader, Daeron x sister!reader (maternal relationship)
summary: And what is the eldest sibling, but a shield for the younger?
words: 2k
cw: MDNI 18+ targcest (Ormund is technically her cousin and I guess that does not count in GOT terms, but I am warning it anyways), allusions to sex, toxic relationship themes, co-dependent dynamics, manipulation, slightly OOC Ormund?, religious themes, talks of blood “impurity”, reader rides Silverwing, reader is Aegon’s twin, but no physical description is used, not proofread, lmk if I missed any
Next Part
Most forget that you came out first. It was something that nobody truly talked as it would send a few of Otto's plan out of motion. It would make Aegon seem like he deserved it less. So, it was something that was pushed under the rug and never truly talked about.
But you knew it. All your siblings knew it purely based on how you treated them. You were the eldest. You were always the protector from the world, and suddenly that posed an issue in Otto's plan once more and you were sent off to Old Town.
To be raised in the way of the starry sept. To be forgotten that you would technically inherit a throne over Aegon. To Ormund.
You thought your days of playing protector were over, but you were wrong. And though your methods had changed, and so had the threats. The goal was the same. You were a shield. For Daeron.
You kept Ormund at bay. You took his frustration and his anger instead of Daeron. He still saw it. He still heard it all, but he never handled the brunt of it. You did, and you always would to protect him.
He was a boy, and most days he felt as if he was your boy rather than Alicent's or Viserys.
Yours and Ormund's son.
Your skirts, whispered against the ground, as your feet moved quickly through the halls. No one stopped you. No man dared spared you a second glance in fear of Ormund. And no woman let their eyes analyze you in fear of you.
A steward had come sprinting in worry, carrying Daeron's quick need of you, and the closer you approached you knew exactly why. You could hear his outburst before you had even pushed open the doors.
You paused, seeing Daeron's frightful expression, listening as Ormund screamed of craven cunt's, lifting his sword before slamming it down against the table. Marking it time and time again.
"Ormund. "
He did not stop, continuing to yell. Striking the table with his blade repeatedly. You closed your eyes letting out a sigh.
"Ormund!" you yelled louder, more sternly finally poking through the anger.
He stopped abruptly, his ragged breaths filling the room as he sheathed his sword. He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Daeron stared at you wide eyed, and you smiled at him. Your composure remained calm, "Daeron why don't you leave us," you suggested.
The Hightower's wild expression met yours, "He should know—"
You cut him off, "We can tell him afterwards," you held his burning, gaze watching as his face changed slightly.
Before he nodded, "Leave us, Daeron. You as well," he said nodding Jon Roxton. Your brother hesitated, but you smiled at him once more, and finally he left.
The solar was now empty beside the two of you, and your kind smile dropped from your face in a flash, "What has happened?" you asked, calmly.
Ormund's composed demeanor had once returned, "Gwayne has sent word. Aemond will not be joining us after all," he told you, and you watched his jaw clench momentarily.
His eyes swept across your form taking in your appearance. Your dress was the colors of his house, like he preferred. Your hair was styled the way he liked. Every single visible thing about you was the way he liked down to the tiniest aspect and that was on purpose.
"And Gwayne? Are they joining us here?" you asked, taking a step across that line like you did time and time again. It was an invisible boundary and you knew him well enough to know he would make the next move.
He moved toward you quickly now standing in front of you as if the space between you was previously unbearable. You knew he liked to be as close as possible when given the chance. As if you were one whole rather than two individuals. He reached forward gripping your chin. Not harshly, but merely forcing you to meet his eyes.
"We must alter our scheme," he told you.
You hummed, "If anyone can come up with a solution it is you," you fed into his ego, with a gentle smile. "We have time. We have Silverwing, and you know I will do as I must for you."
For you. That was purposeful. Not for Aegon. Not for the Throne, but for you because he mattered more than it all. As if everything in your life was replaceable, but him.
He nodded, letting go over your chin. His large hand moved petting down your hair until it moved to rest against your neck tilting your head upwards. His head then moved to rest against the crook of your neck as he breathed you.
"What would I do with you, my girl?" he whispered.
"You will never have to find," you assured him.
Ormund pulled back, with a smile still holding you, having you meet his eyes as if you would turn away, "You shelter him," he then said, referring to Daeron.
"I want what is best for him," you whispered.
"Are you saying I do not? I have done nothing, but help you both. Saving you from the sully of your kin," he told you, his voice started to rise, but he was still calm. He had not allowed the violence that filled him to fully take over.
Not yet.
You did not reply at first, searching for the correct words, because any wrong footing and you would be in dangerous territory. You had learned how to steer away from that. To control the controller without him knowing.
"Of course not. You are our savior, my love, but Daeron…He needs to be our shining boy, and if you push him before he is ready then he will dull," your hands, moved up his face the way you knew he liked. His eyes closed, moving into your touch, closing his eyes as if you soothed away all the wrath slowly.
It would not kill it completely, but it would be soon enough. When he remembered his favorite ways he liked to use you in dulling the rage that burned inside him. One that would cause your mother to weep, or mayhaps not. What would truly appall her was more that you enjoyed his rage.
"Tell me what you are thinking," you whispered, wanting to know what was going through his mind. Needing to know what you were working with to start formulating a plan, the proper words, and what he needed from you.
"Aegon and Aemond are tainted. They are…"
"Unfit to rule?" you asked, causing him to nod.
"And who do you think shall take their place then?" you asked, treading the line carefully.
You did not want to lead him to a place that you did not want him to go. Not Daeron. You did not want to suggest Daeron. You did not want him to choose Daeron. The sweet boy, who held a kindest that was so often not found in your life anywhere. He was a boy, and a crown would do nothing, but weigh him down.
You would protect him if you must, but—"You are the eldest," he whispered, bringing you from your thoughts. Your eyes met his face, and you watched an idea click into his mind.
Your stomach churned. It was something that you had heard him whisper about in passing. When he rutted into you, talking about breeding you. That he would bring a purity to your blood. His children could sit the throne. Because you were the eldest not Aegon.
You could feel him harden against your stomach at the thought, "You are the rightful heir, and…" he smiled, his lips turning up wickedly, as his hand drifted down resting on your hips, "Oh, my brilliant girl. Think about it now. What we could have…"
You knew this was better. This was what you were meant to do. Take the burden form your younger siblings, and you would do it for Daeron. You would do it for Ormund.
"Do you think I could do it? That they would accept me as a ruler?" you asked, looking away in pretend bashfulness. As if you could not believe the idea.
"Oh, my beauty. I would not leave you in this alone. I will help you, just as I always have," he pressed his mouth to yours, before letting his mouth trail down your throat.
"I will restore your Throne." He kissed at your throat, his teeth grazing against the soft flesh.
"Our children will rule," his hands moved, pulling your skirts up, and you could feel your arousal dripping out of you.
"Then we must be wed finally," you told him, and you could feel him grin against your skin as if he was victorious. As if he had convinced you as if he were in control.
"I will make the arrangements, and our true campaign shall begin."
You smiled softly to yourself as you finally found Daeron despite your shaky legs, from Ormund’s ceaseless breeding “celebration.”
"I knew I would find you here," you called out. His head laid against his beautiful blue mount, whispering reassurance that they would soon be allowed to take flight.
It was what made everything you had done worth it. His happiness. His innocence. His protection.
Tessarion's head snapped up toward you, but she did not growl in warning. If anything she looked almost happy to see you. Your brother turned to face you, "Is he still angry?"
You shook your head. You clasped your hands in front of you as you then approached the pair. Your hand lifted slowly allow the dragon time to react, but she never did. Finally you moved against her scales petting her slowly.
Your own dragon Silverwing, flew constantly around the town. In warning, to your half-sister, to the folks of what laid outside their gates. She was also too big to keep chained up, but you would have allowed that anyways. As it was you were slowly working on getting Terssarion that same freedom.
"Not so much," you told him. You lifted your arm without sparing him a glance, knowing what he needed.
He slipped into your embrace quickly allowing you to hold him as you continued to show his mount affection. "I am sorry you had to witness him like that," you told him pressing a kiss to his head.
"Aemond is not coming is he?" he then asked, instead of replying to apologies.
You let out a sigh, dropping your hand from the dragon as you pulled Daeron from your embrace gently. He stood in front of you as you cupped his cheeks, "No he is not."
He stared at you, with big sad eyes that caused your heart to ache, "What then?" he asked.
You swallowed, "Ormund has decided he wishes to appoint a new Heir… Aegon is thought to be dead…and Aemond has abandoned the throne," you pushed your lips together, "He has decided he wants me to sit the throne."
"What of our brothers?" he questioned, eyes wide in disbelief.
"You know what he thinks of our brothers. Of our family, and this…" You closed your eyes, "This is the best option for all of us. For you. I am the eldest. It is my job to protect you," you assured him.
He stared at you for a moment, before nodding. Because he believed you. That is what you always had done. Protect him. Do what is best for him before yourself. Though he was young he knew this at his very core, because it was all you had ever shown him. Maternal love he never received anywhere else.
"You know I will not let anything happen to you?" It was a statement, as much as question. You wanted him to know how much you cared for him. You needed him to know that you would protect him no matter what. That you would do whatever it took to keep him safe.
"I know."
You smiled, pressing a kiss to his forehead, "Good. Let us get some food into you and then you should sleep. The days that come will be long."
warning: 18+, smut, afab!reader, dark!Ormund, rough sex, slapping, scent kink, hair pulling, jealousy, abuse of religion/abuse of power, hurt/comfort, fluff, age gap (Ormund late 30's, Reader 20's), hightowercest, no use of Y/n
Summary: The engagement to Prince Daeron was a guarantee that the Hightower bloodline would continue to rule the throne. A gentle prince, young but not a leader like her cousin Ormund. As her understanding of the prince deepens, jealousy and ruthlessness take hold of Ormund until, one evening, emotions erupt and she realises that her cousin is just as much a sinner as she is.
Word count: 3013
• ────── ✾ ────── •
She knew nothing beyond Oldtown, her family seat, and the wider Reach, where green, fertile soil, colorful meadows, and vast fields stretched out one after another.
The great old city, a metropolis of millions bustling with trade and commerce, with the Sept towering above it all.
Almost everything, that is, for the symbol of her house, the Hightower, was the one that towered above all, its light guiding seafarers and all those seeking the true path.
Her own path began in Oldtown, born into one of the oldest, most respectable and wealthiest houses, accompanied by the unmistakable green as Lady Hightower.
A young girl who was by her sister Alicent’s side as often as she could; though there was a small age difference between them, it did not diminish their bond.
On the contrary, for every prayer the eldest daughter offered, her little sister tried to imitate her; every song and every oath she learned from Alicent.
Their brother Gwayne, always cheered on by his sisters in the courtyard, rejoiced even when he had merely completed his training successfully.
The early years of a childhood filled with care, during which they saw their cousin Ormund’s guest more as a friendly acquaintance than as what he would later become.
“Ormund, I’ve learned some new prayers” the child who used to lose herself in fantasy and dreams had grown into a young lady.
Alone at home, her father took Alicent and Gwayne with him to the royal court, a decision made through tears, a farewell she hoped would not be for long.
Left alone in the city, in her family’s tower, surrounded by servants and a steward, her uncle, yet even he, as a lord, did not have much time for his niece.
She beamed all the more brightly when Ormund returned from his business and duties; even back then, a smile full of charm played on his lips.
“It delights not only the seven to hear this, little flame” he replied, a warm, fuzzy feeling a hint of shame, for she was no longer a child and yet he still called her that.
His hands no longer rested on her hips; she was no longer a child he could twirl around or make fly through the air—it was not proper to touch a young woman that way.
Instead, he offered a bow, which she returned with a curtsybut his hand, so warm and large, brushing her back, let her know that he would seek her out.
Ormund had never forgotten his little cousin; on the contrary, over the years the two had grown ever closer in their prayers to the Seven.
Ormund unlike her brother Gwayne, was more composed, more prudent, calmer, less quick-tempered, always too calm—for she could not have imagined how unpredictable her cousin could be.
Behind the kind smile, his hands would gently hold hers as he helped her up from her kneeling position during prayer, and he would gently hold the spoon to fill the vessel with new spices and herbs.
How could such a principled man have become a monster?
• ────── ✾ ────── •
At the latest with the calamity in the capital the king’s passing and all the quarrels and letters that had fueled the feud between the two sides, something erupted.
The royal family was torn apart over the throne; their own place in Oldtown had since changed.
Duty and a vision of the future left her facing an engagement.
“The Seven will certainly not approve of this” she found herself saying once again in her cousin’s chambers.
The paper bearing her sister’s consent lay crumpled on the table in a fit of rage; though she tried to keep her voice steady, her own unease trembled within it.
Ormund looked calm, his lips curved into a faint smile, understandably amused by her behavior.
“And what would the Seven approve of, dear cousin?” he asked, taking the yellowed paper in his fingers and slowly smoothing it out, a rhythmic motion as his gaze fixed on her.
It was a question she dared not answer honestly, lest the sinful thoughts growing within her be revealed.
Her gaze once again lingered on his blue eyes, whose cool intensity had only grown stronger over the past moons and suns.
The longer the conflict dragged on, the more presumptuous Ormund became—and the more captivated she grew.
“We must bind all the other houses, the great houses, to us. Baratheon alone is not enough” she said, breaking eye contact to point at the map; the small figures representing the false queen’s troops were far too numerous, far too many.
Footsteps echoed through the room; the paper of the note fluttered on the table, and Ormund’s hands sought hers.
A gentle yet firm grip, close by, she caught the scent of his incense, enveloping her strongly. His warm, rough hand held hers tightly.
“Don’t let such doubts take hold, aren’t we the rightful house? So give yourself to the prince…I’ll never be far away” they should have been words of comfort and care, but they sounded more like the hiss of a snake coiling around its prey.
His cousin did nothing but nod silently in agreement.
What else could she have done when the survival of her house was at stake and she was now betrothed to her nephew Daeron?
The prince, nearly a decade younger, a squire whose very existence was justified by his bloodline and his dragon.
A young man who, when he flew to Oldtown, tried to make amends: “It is a pleasure to meet you, my lady” he tried to appear strong, but she could see the naivety in her nephew’s eyes as he gently held her hand.
No chaste kiss, just a brief, formal exchange.
“Likewise, my prince. You’ll be well here. Tell me about your wonderful dragon” she replied. The question about his dragon at least filled him with pride; a smile, a sincere one, that also won her over.
An engagement was not a marriage, yet this closeness to Daeron, his precarious existence for Ormund, as she saw it, just as her cousin Daeron did, held no affection.
Lord Hightower hated everything about his dragon nature; in her eyes, he was an innocent child, but what else could she do but remain silent and follow the two of them back inside?
• ────── ✾ ────── •
The initial feeling that something was changing seemed almost unfounded.
Although she was engaged to the prince, hardly anything changed between her and her nephew.
On the contrary, the similarities between his nature and that of her siblings quickly became apparent.
“You play the harp skillfully, my brother taught you well” she said, her praise bringing a smile to his face whenever the two of them found themselves together in the estate’s garden, spending their free moments there.
Not out of duty, but of her own free will, to calm him and relieve him of the strain of a war that was beginning to rage.
Daeron’s fingers deftly plucked the strings, and his humming blended with her soft singing, a song of a knight’s courage mingling with the prayer to the Seven.
“Ser Gwayne has been a good teacher...your siblings miss you” Daeron spoke up as the last notes faded away, a gust of wind in the garden causing the flowers to sway.
A painful realization, she had been separated from her loved ones for so long now, and here she was with a prince and a lord whose gaze she could feel upon her.
Her hand gently pressed against his shoulder as he helped her to her feet.
“Of that I’m certain, that’s why harmony is so important” Daeron held the harp more tightly, as if its lovely sounds could banish all the evil in the world.
When they parted ways, Daeron heading off to sword training and she passing her cousin Ormund she saw him turn up his nose. The revulsion as he instinctively kept his distance, wanting to move away from her.
“You reek fire” was his reply as she watched him walk away; the older boy continued on wordlessly, ignoring her puzzled gaze.
In the past few weeks, he had shown nothing but aversion—sometimes more obvious, sometimes less so—toward his squire.
Toward a prince, a young man who seemed just as helpless as she was. “Rejection is just as unpleasant!” her voice echoed through the hallways after him, knowing he would hear it even as he caught up with his squire in the courtyard.
Rejection…or are you capable of jealousy? her thoughts tormented her, this sin she had almost forgotten in her concern for Daeron.
It was surely just frayed nerves in the face of war—nothing more and nothing less. Of that she was almost certain.
A certainty that lulled her until dinner in the hall, where the small gathering of the Hightowers and the prince proceeded mostly quietly.
The food was warm and freshly prepared, the wine tart, and the conversation, about prayers, occasional progress in training, and personal matters, had always provided light entertainment.
Today things seemed different; by the light of the torches, Daeron, sitting next to her, barely touched his food. In contrast, for every bite Ormund took with relish, the prince’s cutlery remained untouched.
“Are you not feeling well, Daeron?” she asked, her voice tinged with concern as she now watched the whole scene with unease.
Her fiancé, however, merely stared silently at his plate, his hands clenched slightly into fists.
She looked questioningly at Ormund, who merely shrugged, seeming to have no idea, and instead took a sip of wine before turning his eyes toward Daeron.
“My squire must learn to get along without his beast” the older man said, placing a hand on Daeron’s shoulder, causing him to flinch and open his hands.
She was stunned when she saw the slight burn on his hand. “Daeron, what did he do? Ormund, this is your ward!” she abruptly stood up and pulled Ormund’s hand away from Daeron.
As she moved the younger man behind her, she felt his hand cling to hers, a faint tremor. Lord Hightower, who had remained seated, slowly rose.
“I-I tried to hold Tessarion, but Ormund, he tore me away” she could hear her nephew quietly behind her and pushed him a little further back toward the door.
Ormund made no move to approach her, simply watching the two of them with those cold eyes.
“Go to the Master, and then to your chambers” her command was acknowledged with a nod, even though he paused at the door for a moment before slamming it shut behind him, and the young prince’s footsteps faded into the hallways.
No sooner had they faded than the chair standing between them crashed to the floor; her cry turned into a flinch as she stepped back from him.
A breathless laugh escaped his lips.
“You fear me more than his beast? More than his blood?” the question, full of sarcasm, struck her as she slowly circled the table to get away from him, her fingers running over the wood of the table.
“He is a boy, my nephew, my fiancé, a prince of the realm...you can’t treat him like this” words that unleashed the pent-up rage within the older man as he lunged forward over the table and seized her.
Her scream echoed through the room; his hand clamped around her throat as he pinned her against the table with his body alone.
His hot breath met hers; tension coursed through both their bodies as his gaze pierced hers.
“He is your fiancé, yet I command him as I please, a kindness I have spared you” his hand tightened around her throat for a moment; her pulse pounded, hot blood coursed through her veins as fear mingled with this closeness.
Her attempt to break free only caused him to press her harder against the table. “Kindness? You’ve corrupted your own words—you’re a sinner” no sooner had he finished speaking than the slap burned on her cheek, leaving it red and stinging.
Her whimper was pained and frightened; her hands pressed against his chest as Ormund placed a kiss on her cheek, gentle, chaste, as if he had never strayed from his path.
“Shhh lies weigh heavily on the heart. Is it not true that in your heart, too, there is sin?” words that sent a shiver down her body; fingers that pushed him away caught on the green fabric of his tunic.
A feeble attempt to hold on to the pain as the tip of his nose traced the curve of her neck, inhaling her scent.
Relieved of the burden, for fear of further provoking this monster’s wrath, the girl, who had dreamt of nothing more than being with her cousin, nodded.
A brief nod, a “Yes” she could make out Ormund’s smile.
Satisfaction as he watched his lovely cousin finally surrender herself just as he had. One of his hands wandered downwards, pressing against her corset; a sweet pain as her ribs were squeezed, a silent urging to speak further – for he had remained chaste with her until now.
“The sin of the flesh…the-the incestuous relationship I’d hoped to have” with every further word, his hand wandered further down, pressing the fabric of her dress against her thigh, the soft skin painfully held in place by him.
His body held her fast in place; any tremor she might have felt had long since been stripped away by his presence. “With whom? Tell me” he whispered in her ear, a light bite on her thin skin, her thighs inevitably clenching together.
A flush of shame set her body ablaze as she shook her head – a refusal that was too much.
Ormund pulled away from her with a jerk, but no sooner had she breathed a sigh of relief, free from his grip, than his hands seized her hips and he spun her round; her hips struck the table with a dull thud as her upper body bent over it.
The once-tidy meal was reduced to chaos as plates were knocked askew and goblets overturned; her fingers scraped across the wood in a attempt to steady herself as his body pressed against her from behind.
She let out a whimper, yet could feel his arousal hard against her.
“Who is it?” he asked in her ear as he gripped her neck roughly, leaving her no chance of escape. The familiar scent of incense filled her nostrils once more – the last spark of truth, of conviction – as she closed her eyes in shame and whispered, “It’s you, Lord Ormund.”
That shuddering exhalation, almost a grunt, as his fingers caressed her head – a twisted tenderness…the moment she believed he’d had enough was quickly dispelled when she heard the clack of his belt.
“Oh, my dearest, such a sin will surely be forgiven, don’t you think?” he asked, the rustle of her fabric as he lifted her dress slightly; a smile appeared, predatory, when he saw her nod, her thoughts too clouded by a lust she had been reining in for years.
“That’s my obedient little one” he said; the kiss on her neck sent a shiver through her as Ormund gently parted her thighs, lifting her body effortlessly, grabbing whatever bit of skin he could get his hands on.
Before he entered her with a breathless grunt, her moan muffled as his fingers had slipped between her lips, pressing against her warm, saliva-stained tongue as he began to move slowly.
“That’s good, let’s cast these sins aside together” hot breath brushed her ear; her attempt to say something, to pray, to respond, was reduced to a muffled, lustful sound.
Lust had them both in its grip; anger and fear had long since been consumed as the slap of flesh against flesh echoed through the hall.
The dull scraping of the table with every hard thrust grew slightly frenzied; her hips, despite the fabric of her greenish dress, would surely be stained, just like the rest of her body.
A body that moulded itself to his, allowing itself to be used as in her sinful dreams, every patch of exposed skin marked by the grip of his hand.
As she lifted her hips slightly, her heels just barely touching the floor, she could feel him deep inside her, filling her wide; it was as if the gods themselves were granting her such arousal through Ormund.
“Can you feel the forgiveness?” the question came breathlessly, as the grip on her neck dug harshly into her hair.
Ormund licked the film of sweat from her neck, greedily revelling in her scent, “Yes-Yes” a muffled cry of agreement escaped her, driving him on further.
His thrusts were still harsh, yet were gradually losing their rhythm; the more she moved towards him, the more unhinged Ormund became.
Little by little, his self-control vanished as, in a final act, her cry rang out through the room; Ormund’s hand caught in her hair, tugging towards him, and the Lord forced her to arch her back.
Painful.
Exciting.
Both reached their climax in the final thrusts as she clenched around him and he poured himself into her, warm and sticky.
The fluid sent a shiver through her as it trickled slightly down her thighs whilst Ormund withdrew from her, his gaze savouring her exposed form before he straightened his clothes.
Seemingly having regained his composure, she was breathless, struggling to even rise from the table.
“We thank the Seven for our blood ties, so that we may pray once more” he said by way of farewell as his hand gently stroked her back.
That faint smile returning to his lips before she found the strength to rise yet he had already vanished out of the door.
The monster had taken her sin away.
• ────── ✾ ────── •
masterlist
info: This was only created after Ormund’s outburst in episode four – he looked so good (love me some manipulative fictional guy) and I’m finally back with a smut one-shot – university is stressful, I’m writing papers and I’ve got a job, so I haven’t been able to post anything – so all the more thanks for reading.
The latest episode of HotD has completely awakened my muse.
Now I can't decide which story I want to write.
One where Ormund dies, and the reader, his long-suffering, abused wife, is married to Gwayne (let's handwave stuff and make Gwayne the new Lord of Oldtown). It'd be full of yearning, tender romance, and plenty of smut as she learns what it's like to be truly loved.
Or… the darker option. The reader is Gwayne's wife, but Ormund has always coveted her. Circumstances tear her away from Gwayne and into Ormund's hands, and what follows is an angsty, dark, smutty story.
In the meantime, my inbox is open for drabbles and thoughts on these two men....
Synopsis: Before the altar, she kneels in holy dread, to pray for the war that waits ahead. But he breaks her hymn on the sacred stone, and whispers, “Tonight, pray to me alone.”
The stone of the Hightower did not merely hold the heat of the summer; it seemed to exhale it, thick and heavy with the scent of the sea and the distant, rotting mud of the Honeywine. From the highest solar, the sounds of Oldtown at midnight were a low, ceaseless murmur—the distant clink of armorers hammering out steel by forge-light, the braying of pack mules in the lower courtyards, and the steady, rhythmic trudge of thousands of boots echoing off the cobblestones.
The host of the Reach was gathering. The Green Dragon was lifting its wings, and tomorrow, her husband would lead it into the maw of a Kingdom tearing itself apart.
In the private Septry adjoining their bedchambers, the air was different. Here, behind thick oak doors banded in iron, the world was reduced to the sharp, sweet smell of melting beeswax, the heavy musk of tallow, and the faint, dried ghost of summer lavender.
She knelt on the unforgiving stone floor, the hem of her white linen nightgown spread around her like a shroud of fresh snow. It was a modest garment, high-necked and long-sleeved, fitting for the wife of the Voice of Oldtown.
Her hair, usually pinned in elaborate, jewel-woven braids that befitted her noble station, had been unraveled for the night. It hung down her spine in a single, thick, loose plait, the dark silk of it catching the golden, undulating glow of the candles.
Before her stood the seven alcoves, each housing an effigy carved from solid weirwood, brought down from the North centuries ago and polished until the wood looked like old bone. The candlelight flickered violently in the drafts that crept beneath the door, throwing long, twisted shadows of the Gods against the whitewashed walls. The Stranger was a mere cowl of darkness in the corner, but her eyes were locked onto the Mother, whose painted face smiled with a serene, terrifying detachment.
She clasped her hands together, pressing her knuckles against her chin until the skin turned white, her fingers trembling with a frantic, rhythmic motion.
”Gentle Mother, font of mercy,“ she whispered, her voice a fragile thing in the vast, hollow quiet of the tower.
”Save our sons and save our sires... shield them from the clashing swords. Keep the sky clear of the shadow of wings. Let the fires that burn be only the hearths of home.“
She swallowed hard, her throat tight, a stray tear finally escaping her lashes to trace the pale curve of her cheek. She did not brush it away. It fell, dark and heavy, onto the linen of her gown. She shifted her gaze to the Warrior, whose wooden sword was raised in an eternal, silent promise of defense.
”And the Warrior... let his shield be thick,“ she begged, her voice cracking, dipping into a desperate, hushed plea that felt less like a prayer and more like a negotiation.
”Let him guard my lord. Let him stand between Ormund and the steel of his cousins. Bring him home whole. Do not let the Stranger look upon him. Do not let–“
The heavy, unmistakable thud of a leather-soled boot snapped the silence of the corridor.
Her breath hitched in her throat. The words of the holy hymn died on her tongue, leaving her mouth dry. She did not turn immediately; she knew the stride. It was a heavy, grounded step, the walk of a man who carried the weight of an entire Realm on his shoulders and refused to let it bend him.
The iron latch clicked. The door groaned on its hinges.
Standing in the doorway of the Septry, cutting a massive, imposing silhouette against the dim light of the outer solar, was Ormund.
The Lord of Oldtown looked entirely undone by the weight of the coming dawn. The pristine, courtly lord who sat in the shadow of the Citadel—the man who spoke with the measured gravity of a Hightower—had been stripped away by the reality of the march. His heavy steel plate was gone, left in the armory or on its stands, but he had not fully undressed for sleep. He wore only his dark linen tunic and heavy leather riding breeches.
The tunic was completely unlaced at the throat, gaping open to reveal the stark, pale line of his collarbone and the dark, thick hair of his chest.
His face was shadowed by a heavy, rough stubble that had grown over days of council meetings and camp inspections, and his dark hair was windswept, smelling of the salt-air and the woodsmoke of the thousands of campfires burning outside the city walls.
He did not step forward immediately. He simply stood there, his large frame filling the threshold, his dark eyes fixed entirely on her. There was an intensity in his gaze that made the breath stall in her lungs—a raw, feral look that she had rarely seen in the quiet, dutiful years of their marriage.
”My husband,“ she breathed. Her hands, previously locked in holy supplication, dropped to her lap. The instinct of a highborn lady took over, and she placed her palms on the stone, preparing to push herself up to greet her lord properly.
”You should be resting. The Grand Maester said the raven from King’s Landing requires your signature before the vanguard departs. The host marches at first light, you need your–“
”Shh.“
The word was a low, gravelly vibration that cut through her frantic speech like a blade through silk.
He stepped into the holy space, his heavy strides purposeful, loud against the sacred quiet. He did not allow her to stand. Before she could find her footing, he was over her, stopping so close that the dark leather of his breeches brushed against the soft, white fabric of her nightgown.
He towered over her, a great, solid pillar of flesh and blood that completely eclipsed the carved statues of the Gods behind him. The flickering candlelight cast his shadow over her, swallowing her in his darkness.
She looked up at him, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
”My lord, please. Let me call for the squires to pour you wine. You are burning with the fever of the march. Let me–“
”I told you to be quiet,“ he murmured. His voice was rough, scraped raw by hours of shouting orders to captains and arguing with lords from the Arbor to the Marches.
He reached down. His large, calloused hand—the hand of a knight who had won his spurs in the blood of the Stepstones—wrapped firmly under her jaw. His fingers were hot against her skin, the broad pad of his thumb resting just beneath her ear, where her pulse was fluttering visibly, frantic and fast.
With a slow, deliberate pressure, he tilted her chin upward. He forced her to look all the way up his imposing frame, exposing the long, delicate line of her throat to the candlelight. She felt entirely small beneath him, kneeling at his feet, her body trembling not from the draft, but from the sudden, suffocating gravity of his presence.
He looked down at her, his eyes dark, the pupils blown wide until the irises were almost entirely black. There was no courtly deference in his face now; there was only a heavy, desperate hunger.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he pressed the pad of his thumb against her bottom lip. The contrast was a bruising thing—his skin was rough, hardened and scarred from years of gripping a sword hilt and the rough leather of riding reins, while her lips were soft, smooth, and trembling under his touch. He applied just enough pressure to part them, his thumb sliding over the smooth edge of her teeth to taste the wet, hidden heat of her mouth.
A helpless, warm gasp escaped her, her breath puffing hot against his skin as he pushed his thumb deeper. He flattened her tongue beneath his weight, stroking the slick, wet interior of her mouth, claiming her voice before she could even think to use it. He was anchoring her, pulling her out of the spiritual Realm she had been trying to lose herself in, forcing her back into the reality of his flesh.
”Do not waste your breath on the silent Gods tonight, my love,“ he murmured, his voice dipping into a dark, rough register that made a sudden, sharp heat coil in the very depths of her stomach.
His thumb stroked the inside of her cheek one last time before he slowly withdrew it, leaving her lips wet, parted, and glistening in the candlelight.
”Pray to me.“
The sheer, blasphemous weight of his words shivered down her spine. To say such a thing in the Septry, beneath the eyes of the Seven, should have filled her with terror. It should have driven her to her knees in true repentance.
But as she looked up into his rugged face, seeing the fierce, protective desperation that lined his brow, she realized the truth: the Gods were wood and paint, silent and distant in their alcoves. But Ormund was real. He was hot, he was breathing, and he was hers.
Before she could process the thrill of her own submission, Ormund dropped heavily to his knees on the cold stone floor right in front of her.
He did not give her a chance to pray, to think, or to maintain the perfect, pious modesty she wore like armor during the day. He yanked her into his chest, his large arms wrapping around her waist with a force that knocked the air from her lungs.
He smelled of horse, iron, and the bitter tang of stale wine, mixed with the deep, musky scent of his own sweat.
His large hands immediately swept down, bunched into the heavy linen of her nightgown, and dragged the fabric ruthlessly up past her knees, her calves, and her thighs.
He did not care for the neat folds of the linen; he bundled it in his fists, pulling it up past her waist until her bare hips and her completely unprotected center were entirely exposed to the cool, candlelit air of the Septry.
His large, hot palms gripped the soft flesh of her inner thighs, parting her knees forcefully, settling himself between them.
”Ormund– the altar–“ she whimpered, her hands bunching into the fabric of his unlaced tunic, her fingers finding the thick hair of his chest as he caught her by the shoulders and pushed her backward.
The cold stone floor bit into her bare back and buttocks, a shocking, rigid contrast to the burning, radiating heat of his heavy body pressing down between her thighs. She gasped at the sensation, her spine arching as the chill of the Hightower met the fever of his skin.
He leaned over her, his rugged face hovering inches from hers, his dark eyes glittering with an unhinged, desperate intent. Below, where their bodies met, she could feel the thick, rigid length of his erection pressing hard against her weeping, unbothered cleft. He was already leaking, the heat of his pre-cum searing against her closed petals.
”Let the Gods watch,“ Ormund growled against her ear, his hot breath branding her skin, his teeth grazing the sensitive lobe of her ear until she shivered.
”Let them see what I am fighting to come back to. Let them see what belongs to me, and me alone.“
His large hand reached down between them, his calloused fingers finding her already slick and swollen slit. He did not tease; he used his fingers to smear her own natural dampness up over her sensitive clitoris, making her hips jerk off the floor with a sharp, needy whine. Then, he gripped his own length, rubbing the swollen, weeping head of his cock against her dripping entrance, coating himself in her heat.
Before she could beg for him to fill the ache, his mouth crashed onto hers.
It was a bruising, desperate kiss, completely swallowing any further protests. His tongue thrust deep into her mouth, a heavy, rhythmic mimicry of what was to come, tasting her fully, drinking her in as if he were a dying man in a desert. He shifted his weight, pinning her down with the sheer mass of his upper body, and with a heavy, relentless, downward thrust of his hips, he drove his thick length entirely inside her.
He bottomed out against her cervix in one tight, unforgiving stroke.
She cried out into his mouth, a muffled, high-pitched sound of shock and overwhelming pleasure. Her fingers dug desperately into the hard, knotted muscles of his back, her nails scratching against his skin through the linen of his tunic as her hips arched off the cold stone from the sheer stretch of him filling her so completely. She had never felt him this large, this unyielding.
The pace he set was hard, fast, and demanding, driven by the ticking clock of the coming dawn.
He pulled out almost entirely, his wet, thick length glistening in the candlelight, before burying himself back inside her with a wet, heavy slap of their hips that echoed off the stone walls of the Septry. He wanted to lose himself in her entirely, to drown out the noise of ravens, war strategies, and dying men in the wet, tight, suffocating pleasure of her body.
Every time she gasped, every time a desperate, breathless sob of pleasure escaped her, Ormund caught the sound with his mouth, kissing her deeply, tasting her tears and her desire. He grabbed her wrists, breaking her grip on his back, and brought them above her head. He pinned them flat against the stone floor, locking his heavy fingers with her smaller ones, immobilizing her beneath him. The movement forced her chest to arch upward, her breasts thrusting tight against the bunched fabric of her gown, her nipples hardening under the friction.
”Look at me,“ he commanded, pulling his mouth back just enough to look down into her face. His deep lord’s voice vibrated through her entire chest, dark and demanding as his pace became more frantic. His hips hammered into hers, the friction creating a slick, loud, squelching sound that filled the quiet Septry, a sinful rhythm before the altars of the Gods.
”Tell me you feel me. Tell me I am here.“
”I feel you– Ormund, please–“ she choked out, her head rolling back against the stone, her eyes wide and locked onto his fierce, dark gaze.
The frantic friction of his pubic bone slamming against her clitoris with every deep, heavy thrust was too much. It was sending white-hot, agonizingly sweet waves of pleasure straight to her lower stomach, building a tension so tight she could barely breathe. She was entirely exposed beneath him, her nightgown ruined, her body slick with their combined fluids right in the shadow of the Seven, but looking up into his face, she realized this was her true altar. This fierce, possessive act of love was more comforting, more real, than any silent prayer she could have offered. He was her lord, her protector, her God tonight.
”You are here,“ she cried out, her voice echoing in the rafters.
”You are here!“
Her internal muscles clamped down incredibly tight around his thick length as her climax finally hit. Her body shook violently from head to toe, her hips twitching against his as she spent herself fully on the stone floor, her walls pulsing around him in desperate, gripping waves.
The tight, milking squeezes of her climax broke Ormund’s last thread of control. His breath hitched, a low, animalistic growl ripping from his throat. With a final, shattering thrust, Ormund drove into her one last, deep time, burying himself to the very root, pinning her hips flat against the stone as his own release tore through him. He threw his head back, the muscles in his neck straining, cords standing out as he pumped his hot, thick seed deep inside her core, wave after wave of his warmth filling her up until she felt heavy with him.
He trembled against her, his strength suddenly leaving him as he collapsed forward, his forehead resting against her shoulder. He panted heavily, his chest heaving against her breasts, his sweat dripping down onto her collarbone. His cock remained inside her, still twitching within her slick, filled heat, anchoring them together on the floor.
For a long time, the only sound in the Septry was the ragged, desperate ring of their breathing, and the slow, wet dripping of their combined fluids onto the cold stone beneath them. The candles flickered, some finally guttering out into columns of thin, white smoke, leaving the room darker, more intimate.
Eventually, the frantic energy faded, replaced by a heavy, aching exhaustion that settled into their bones. Ormund shifted his head, his face burying into the soft crook of her neck. His rough stubble scraped harshly against her delicate jaw and throat as he pressed a series of slow, worshipful kisses to the damp skin there—a silent, tender apology for his previous roughness, a return of the lord who cherished his lady.
”Come,“ he muttered against her skin, his voice thick with sleep and satisfaction.
He slid out of her with a wet, soft sound, leaving her center tingling, cold, and dripping with his warmth. Before the chill of the stone floor could fully claim her body again, Ormund gathered her up in his massive arms. He stood up, lifting her effortlessly against his chest. Her ruined nightgown bunched around her waist, and she could feel his wet seed dripping slowly down the back of her thighs, a warm, heavy reminder of what they had just done.
He carried her out of the darkened Septry, leaving the silent wooden Gods behind, and stepped into their adjoining bedchamber. The bed was vast, piled high with soft down mattresses and heavy winter furs. He set her down gently in the center of the sheets, climbing in immediately after her before the warmth could escape.
Ormund dragged her back against his chest, his front flushing against her back until they were perfectly tangled together under the heavy blankets. His large hand came around her waist, resting possessively over her soft, sticky stomach, his thumb tracing slow, lazy circles over her skin.
The rhythmic friction of his fingers brought a soft, contented sigh from her lips. He nudged his face back into her neck, his breathing slowing, his heartbeat steady, strong, and alive against her shoulder blades.
As the remaining candles at the shrine in the other room finally burned down to ash and darkness, she stared out the window at the faint, pale grey light of dawn beginning to bleed into the eastern sky. The vanguard would move soon. The horns would blow, and he would leave her.
She had not finished her prayer to the Mother.
She had not finished her plea to the Warrior.
But listening to the steady, living rhythm of her husband’s breathing, she closed her eyes and felt a strange, profound sense of peace.
She had given him his sanctuary. Now, she would wait for his return.
