warnings: modern au. non con. dub con. age gap. fingering. smut. mdni. 18+
pairing: ormund hightower x babysitter!reader
based on this ask by @darkficslover
you are responsible for the content you consume. make sure to read warnings before proceeding with any of my fics
it used to be easier working for the hightowers. babysitting their kid was a nice little side gig along with your studies. easy work, keeping an eye on the little one while they were both out at work or on a date. then they divorced, and like their son, you got split in the custody agreement.
you didn't mind so much, double the pay for the same amount of work. you actually thought of it as a sweet deal, that was until ormund started hanging around more often.
he strolls in from a twelve hour shift, shirt clinging to his broad chest, loosened by a few buttons around his neck. he'll hang around the kitchen, leaning back against the wall as he watches you fix him a plate and wait for you to place it down on the table before you’re pulling his kid upstairs to have a bath.
he never used to be around as much, and even when he was, he never hung around you. but now he's here in the early hours of the morning, and the late hours of night, standing back and watching like a predator studying its prey.
watching as he does now, standing at the top of the stairs as you step out of his son's room. you shiver when you spot him, a cold feeling running through your spine that keeps you frozen to the spot. goosebumps cover your skin, and your mouth runs dry just from the feel of his heavy stare on your body.
it's worse in the dark, with the only light being the one from the bottom of the stairs, mostly being blocked by his hulking frame. you're waiting for him to say something, to give you a sign that it's okay to leave but he just shifts instead, letting his eyes run down your frame painfully slow, like he's undressing you. you swallow, crossing your arms over your chest before finally clearing your throat.
"he went down quite quickly," you whisper into the dark, offering a small smile to the man. "been quite active today so I don't think he'll be up in the early hours of the morning."
he doesn't respond, doesn't offer you a nod or a silent hum, just stands in his position and lets his eyes run over you. it's unsettling but you choose to ignore it, moving to step around him. it doesn't work, his hand comes around your wrist when you get close, stopping you in your tracks.
everything in your body tenses then, worse than before and you wonder for a moment if he can feel the way your heart thuds in your chest. maybe if he realises how uncomfortable you feel he'll stop. or maybe he won't.
you should say something, tell him you need to go but you can't find the words, it's like his touch has winded you, leaving you short of breath.
his thumb caresses your wrist, and for the first time in the evening he speaks, "you should stay."
you hesitate, giving him the pretence of thinking over the decision, before parting your lips to decline the offer but he's quick to cut you off.
"the little gremlins been waking in the night, interrupting my sleep," he says, still holding your wrist, still keeping his heavy gaze featured on it. "a man like me needs his eight hours, can't be fussing around with the kid when I've got a job to do."
you look up then, catching his gaze and you can't think. you shouldn't stay, you know that. you should politely decline and make your way home. but this isn't the first time he's asked you to stay later, and like the other times, you have a feeling he's not going to take no for an answer.
those times were different though, a few hours extra to make sure the kid settled properly into sleep or even just to give him company when he was watching tv in the living room. a few hours is different to staying overnight. because at least fully awake you’re able to keep a clear mind, at least you can sense his change in mood, and make a quick exit before he can touch you.
you’re more vulnerable in the spare bedroom, practically laying out on a silver platter waiting for him to devour his meal.
you still end up there though, mind sitting between sleep and the waking world, exhausted from the long day but for various reasons you can't fully relax into a deep sleep.
you've locked the door, even placed a chair against it for safe measures. but it doesn’t stop him, and it’s not long before you hear the drag of the wooden legs against the carpet.
you feel the weight of the bed dip as he sits on the edge of it, but your eyes only begin to open when you feel the covers being peeled off of you.
you mumble something incoherent, eyes settling on his shadowed frame, and your hand instinctively reaches out to stop him. no, you go to say but his soft lips are already pressing against yours before you can manage to get the word out.
his hand finds the back of your head, pulling you deeper into his kiss while his body presses against you, guiding you down against the bed. you wish you had more fight in you, and while your thighs clench around his other hand that trails between your legs, you don't have the energy, nor strength to push him out.
you've known for a while that this would happen, no matter how many times you've tried to place distance between you and the older man, you knew from his heavy gaze that he would find some way into your bed.
it's his bed really and trapped between his hulking frame and the mattress beneath, you find it easier to part your thighs and try to pretend it isn't happening. to simply become limp under his touch and let him have your moldable body as if you're a doll.
but when his fingers slip into the comfort of your pyjama shorts, you find out that ormund doesn't want a doll. not like this anyway.
"look at me," his heavy breath demands it, pulling his lips from yours. "look at me."
you open your wet eyes, blinking back tears as you try adjust to the darkness. the moonlight from the window hits the side of his face, and you notice how his icy blue eyes are blurred by his thick pupil. hungry. it's the only way you can describe it. some starved foul beast.
"good."
a gasp escapes you as his finger glides over your folds and he parts his own lips pressing them against yours again as if to inhale it. his tongue slides into the crevice in your mouth, and at the taste of mint and liquor on his tongue, it becomes harder to slip into the back of your mind.
some part of you wishes you resisted more, and it only grows when he manages to stretch your hole to squeeze in a second finger.
you clench around the digit, wetness leaking out of you and making a mess of his hand. he chuckles at this, and you feel his chest vibrate against yours as it pours from his chest, rubbing against your nipples that pebble from the simple touch.
"so sensitive," he grins into your lips, circling his fingers in your spongy walls until you're whimpering for him. "you like that."
and the awful thing is, you do. your walls clench with every movement of his fingers, and you feel the pleasurable feeling building in your lower stomach as he continues his assault.
the third finger is where you lose it, and your hands find his thick arm as if you mean to stop him. as if you mean to wrench him out of you. you don't, your nails dig into his bicep as he circles your hole, hitting a delicate spot deep inside that you've never been able to reach before. it's like he's stretching you further, seeing how wide you can go for him. the thought unsettles you, and it makes your mind spin all at the same time, and one more circle of his fingers has you coming completely undone for him.
he silences your moan with his lips, but the sound still escapes, almost like a desperate animal meeting its end. a plea, a cry for help, something of the sorts as he devours you completely.
and it feels good to become a little more pliant underneath him, to simply just let this happen.
Some would whisper that the Prince's love you bordered on obsession, a love that could not be translated through poems and songs, and yet the seeds of war were oft planted during times of peace, for the tale that would unfold, was one born of unwavering love and a loss that knew no boundaries.
𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: explicit sexual content, tender moments, yearning, angst, so much angst, possessive behaviour, so much love, character death, porn with plot, blackfyre rebellion, abduction, death, grief, minors dni.
𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄.
Hope you all enjoy. Remember this is an AU, as I am aware that Aegor Rivers only formed the Gold Company after the First Blackfyre Rebellion. Uh, I even cried writing the ending, hope all the time I spent paid off, don't even know whether anyone would actually be invested in this, but I just know I did my best and that's good enough for me.
𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐔𝐋𝐀: 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄 inspired, featuring the pairing between Prince Baelor Targaryen and AFAB reader.
The Red Keep had never felt so alive as it did in those last peaceful days before the realm tore itself open.
Spring had come late that year, and the godswood was heavy with the scent of new leaves and damp earth.
Courtiers moved through the corridors with forced smiles, speaking of the weather and the upcoming tourney at Storm's End, while their eyes darted toward every raven that arrived from the south.
You ran barefoot down the long gallery that overlooked the godswood, silk skirts whispering against the stone, laughter spilling from your lips like sunlight.
Behind you came the heavy, purposeful stride of your husband, Prince Baelor Targaryen, the man called Breakspear by half the realm, the heir to the Iron Throne, completely undone by the mere sight of you.
His dark hair was unbound, the usual careful braids abandoned in the chase—as you had once insisted that you had always wondered what he'd look like had he given it a chance to grow, and Gods help him, Baelor who had always kept his hair short and neat, had loved you with sucn unwavering devotion that he had grown it—and his mismatched eyes shone with a mischief that no one outside these walls ever witnessed.
“My lady wife,” he called, voice rich with amusement and something deeper, “you cannot simply vanish when the Small Council awaits my presence. Come back here.”
You glanced over your shoulder, cheeks flushed, and only ran faster. “Then catch me, my prince. Or is the great Breakspear’s legs too slow for a mere woman?”
He growled, a soft, delighted sound and lengthened his stride. You heard the soft scuff of his boots, the low laugh that always undid you, and then strong arms closed around your waist just as you reached the arched doorway to the solar.
He spun you against the cool stone, bracing one hand beside your head so that the weight of his body caged you without crushing and his breath stirred the hair at your temple.
“Caught,” he whispered, and pressed a kiss there, soft, lingering, right against the pulse point where your temple met your hairline. “Gods, you smell of lemon and summer. Do you know what you do to me when you run from me like that?”
Before you could answer, a dry, exasperated voice cut through the corridor.
“Seven bloody hells, Baelor.” Prince Maekar stood at the far end of the gallery, arms crossed over his black-and-red doublet, expression caught between fondness and pure irritation.
“The realm is about to bleed and you are chasing your wife through the halls like a green boy at his first tourney feast. Father is waiting. The Blackfyre pretender has raised his banners in the Reach. And here you are, kissing her temples as though the world has not gone mad.”
Baelor did not release you, if anything, his arms tightened, and he turned only his head, hair brushing your cheek, and fixed his younger brother with a look of unrepentant affection.
“The realm will still be mad in an hour, Maekar. My wife will not wait forever for me to remember that she is the only thing that makes this crown bearable.” He kissed your temple again, slower this time, as if sealing a vow. “Go tell Father I will be along presently. I have important business.”
Maekar rolled his eyes so hard it was audible. “Besotted. Utterly, hopelessly besotted. The gods save us from princes in love.” He turned on his heel, muttering curses under his breath that included several creative references to Baelor’s parentage and the general uselessness of romance in wartime. “I’ll tell Father you’re delayed by ‘strategy.’ Try not to get her with child again before the sun sets, brother.”
When the corridor was empty once more, Baelor rested his forehead against yours. The laughter had faded into something quieter, more serious. His thumb traced the line of your jaw with infinite care.
“He is not wrong,” he said softly. “The realm is fracturing. Daemon Blackfyre has the Golden Company and half the stormlords whispering his name. I will have to ride soon.” His eyes searched yours. “Promise me you will stay within the Keep. No riding out to the villages, no visiting the sept alone. Promise me.”
You lifted your hands to his face, feeling the faint scar at the corner of his mouth from some long-ago tourney. “I promise. But you must promise me something in return.”
“Anything.”
“Come back to me. Whole. Or if you cannot come whole, then come at all. I will take whatever the gods leave me of you.”
He closed his eyes as if the words had struck something vital. Then he kissed you, properly this time, deep and slow, the kind of kiss that tasted of farewell even while the sun still shone and when he drew back, he rested his lips against your temple once more and whispered, “I will always come back to you. In this life and whatever follows.”
That night the candles burned low in the prince’s chambers and outside, the city murmured with the restless energy of a capital that knew war was coming.
Bells had tolled for the evening hour; somewhere a singer practiced a ballad about the black dragon and the red, but inside your shared chambers, there was only the two of you, and the soft crackle of the hearth, and the knowledge that every moment was already becoming memory.
Baelor undressed you with a reverence that made your throat tighten, every lace he loosened, every soft brush of his knuckles against your skin, felt like a prayer.
He paused at the curve of your shoulder, pressing an open-mouthed kiss there before continuing.
When you stood bare before him he looked at you as though he had never seen anything so precious in all the Seven Kingdoms.
“I dream of this,” he murmured, lifting you onto the great canopied bed. The mattress dipped beneath his weight as he followed. “Even when I am awake. Especially when I am awake. I close my eyes in the council chamber and see the way the light touches your hair. I hear the scrape of a quill and think of your laughter.”
He settled between your thighs, the heat of him a welcome weight.
His mouth found the sensitive place just below your ear, then the hollow of your throat, then lower still, mapping you with a patience that belied the urgency in his hands and when at last he rose above you again, eyes searching yours in the golden light, he held himself still.
“Tell me you are mine,” he said, voice rough. “Not the realm’s. Not the court’s. Mine. Say it so I can carry the words into whatever comes next.”
“I have been yours since the day you placed that cloak around my shoulders,” you answered. “Longer, perhaps. Since the first time you smiled at me across the training yard and forgot to breathe. I am yours in every way a soul can belong to another.”
A broken sound left him as he entered you slowly, so slowly that every inch felt like a vow being rewritten in flesh and only when he was fully seated did he hold still, forehead pressed to yours, breathing with you until the initial stretch eased into pure, aching pleasure. “My beautiful wife, my everything.”
Then he began to move, deep, measured strokes that drew soft gasps from your lips.
He kissed your temples between each thrust, soft and almost worshipful, as though anchoring himself to the living reality of you.
One hand cradled the back of your head; the other laced with yours against the pillows. The world narrowed to the slide of skin, the quiet sounds you made for him alone, the way his hair fell around your faces like a private curtain shutting out the realm and its coming war.
“I love you,” he breathed against your temple. The words were a confession and a plea. “Gods help me, I love you more than the Iron Throne, more than my own name, more than the peace of the realm itself. If the Stranger came for me tomorrow I would still die grateful that I had this, that I had you.”
You arched beneath him, nails scoring lightly down the strong muscles of his back, and felt him shudder.
He shifted the angle of his hips and something bright and overwhelming built low in your belly.
When release took you both it was quiet and devastating, no grand cries, only the tight clutch of bodies and the whispered repetition of each other’s names like a litany.
Afterward he remained inside you, still kissing your temples, your eyelids, the corner of your mouth, as if afraid that if he stopped the moment might end forever.
“Stay,” you murmured into his hair, fingers carding through the dark strands, a soft smile playing at your lips.
“Always,” he answered, the word muffled against your skin. “Even when I cannot. Especially then. I will find my way back to you, my heart. I swear it by the old gods and the new, by the blood of the dragon and by every quiet hour we have stolen together.”
He held you through the long night, one arm a steady band across your waist, the other hand resting over your heart as if to count its beats.
Neither of you slept much. There was too much to say, and too little time left in which to say it.
The First Blackfyre Rebellion did not arrive with a single trumpet blast. It seeped into the realm like poison in wine, first the whispers in the alehouses, then the open declarations from the Reach, then the banners of the black dragon rising from Oldtown to the stormlands.
Daemon Blackfyre, the bastard son of Aegon the Unworthy, had claimed the sword Blackfyre and with it a throne he believed his by right of steel and blood. He had the Golden Company, the loyalty of many second sons and ambitious lords, and a cause that burned bright enough to draw men from their hearths.
Baelor rode out from King’s Landing at the head of a glittering host, the red three-headed dragon of House Targaryen streaming above him. You stood on the battlements with the wind in your hair and watched until the last spearpoint vanished into the haze of the kingsroad.
He had kissed your temples one final time before mounting, had pressed his forehead to yours beneath the eyes of the entire court and whispered, so only you could hear, “Wait for me.”
You had answered that you would wait until the stars themselves fell from the sky.
What neither of you knew was that Daemon Blackfyre had already decided you were a useful piece on the board.
“The Breakspear loves his lady wife beyond all reason,” Daemon was said to have remarked to his captains one night around a campfire somewhere in the Reach, the black dragon banner snapping overhead. “A man who loves that deeply is a man who can be broken. Bring her to me. Alive, if possible. Dead, if she proves difficult. Either way, Baelor will come running and when he does, we will end this war with one stroke of the sword.”
The men he sent were not common sellswords.
They were knights who had once sworn to the red dragon and now flew the black, men who knew the secret passages of the Red Keep and the habits of its household.
They came in the quiet hour before dawn, when the guards were changing and the city still slept beneath a sky the color of old bruises.
You woke to the cold kiss of steel at your throat and a gloved hand over your mouth and the last thing you saw before the darkness of a heavy hood closed over your eyes was the black dragon embroidered on a man’s sleeve.
The fields outside the village of Redgrass were already soaked in blood when the messenger found Prince Baelor.
He had been fighting for hours, his armor dented, his famous spear broken and replaced with a longsword taken from a fallen knight of the Golden Company. Maekar fought at his left side, m grim of face, cutting down Blackfyre men with methodical, almost clinical fury.
The air reeked of iron, smoke, and the sweet rot stench of opened bowels and somewhere to the south the Golden Company held a ridge, and the black dragon banner snapped in the wind like a living, hateful thing.
The messenger was a boy no older than sixteen, face white with terror and exhaustion, his horse half-dead beneath him. He had ridden through the lines with a sealed letter from the Hand and a verbal message he could barely force past his lips.
“My prince—my lord—forgive me—” The boy’s voice cracked. He swallowed hard. “Daemon Blackfyre sent men into the capital three nights past. They took the princess. Your lady wife. They mean to use her against you. The Hand has sent riders in pursuit, but the trail leads toward the Blackwater. If they reach the river crossings—”
The world stopped.
Baelor heard the words, yet for a heartbeat they made no sense and then the meaning crashed through him like a warhammer to the chest.
You.
Taken.
In the hands of men who followed the black dragon, men who had been ordered to bring you alive or dead.
The same men who even now might be hurting you, frightening you, deciding whether your life was worth more as leverage or as a message.
Absolute fear, cold, pure, and older than any battle seized him. His hands began to shake so badly the sword nearly slipped from his grip.
The sounds of the ongoing fight receded to a distant, meaningless roar, but all he could hear was the thunder of his own blood and the memory of your laughter echoing down a sunlit gallery, the soft press of his own lips against your temple, the whispered promise that he would always come back.
“Where?” he demanded, and the word came out raw, almost unrecognizable. “Tell me where.”
“They were seen riding hard for the Blackwater Rush, my prince. Toward the old holdfast at the crossing. A dozen men, maybe fewer after the pursuit. If they reach the river—”
Baelor did not wait for the rest as he was already turning, already shouting for a fresh horse, already ignoring Maekar’s furious protest as his brother seized his arm.
“Baelor, damn you, the battle is not finished!” Maekar’s fingers bit through the plate. “If you abandon the line now the center will fold. Daemon himself is on that ridge. We can end this today—”
“Then hold it without me,” Baelor snarled, and for the first time in their lives Maekar saw true terror in his brother’s eyes, not the controlled concern of a commander, but the raw, animal fear of a man whose entire world had just been placed in the hands of his enemies. “They have her. Do you understand me, Maekar? They have my wife. My wife! I will burn the Reach to cinders and salt the ashes before I let them keep her one hour longer than I must.”
Maekar’s face twisted and for one haunting moment the younger prince looked as though he might strike him, or drag him back by force and then something like reluctant, painful understanding flickered across his features.
He released Baelor’s arm with a curse that would have made a septa faint.
“Go, then. Take twenty men and ride like the Stranger himself is at your heels. I will hold this bloody field. But if you die for her, brother, I will never forgive either of you. Do you hear me? Never.”
Baelor was already gone, spurring his horse through the press of bodies and the rising smoke, the only thought in his mind a single, desperate prayer.
Let me reach her in time. Let me not be too late.
They found the Blackfyre party at dusk, near the ruined holdfast that overlooked a bend of the Blackwater. Smoke rose from a half-collapsed tower. Horses stamped in the outer yard, their reins held by a single squire who looked barely old enough to shave. And in the center of the open space, held between two armored men, was you.
Your gown was torn at the shoulder. A bruise darkened one cheek. Your wrists were bound with rough cord, but yet you stood straight, chin lifted, eyes searching the trees as though you had known, had always known, that he would come.
Baelor did not announce himself with horns or banners. He simply rode out of the shadows with twenty knights at his back and a fury that made the air itself seem to burn. His face was white beneath the dirt and blood of the day’s fighting.
“Release her,” he said, and his voice carried across the yard like the edge of a blade. “Or I will take your heads and send them to Daemon Blackfyre in a sack, with my compliments.”
The captain of the Blackfyre men, a lean knight with a black dragon on his breast and a scar that pulled one side of his mouth into a permanent sneer, smiled without warmth. He tightened his grip on your arm until you winced, and drew a short sword, setting the point lightly against the soft place beneath your ear.
“Prince Baelor. How predictable. Daemon said you would come. He said the Breakspear would abandon even the decisive battle for the sake of one woman.” The man pressed the blade a fraction harder. A thin line of red appeared against your skin. “Drop your weapons. All of you. Or she dies here, and you can explain to the realm how your great love got her throat cut while you watched like a helpless green boy.”
Baelor’s men shifted uneasily. Twenty against a dozen, but the blade at your throat changed the arithmetic of the world.
Baelor himself had gone utterly still, his heart hammering.
Only his eyes moved, calculating distance, angle, the precise moment when the captain’s attention might flicker, the exact reach of his own longsword.
You met his gaze across the yard and in that look passed a lifetime of understanding.
You saw the fear in him, the same absolute, soul-deep terror that had driven him from the battlefield at Redgrass.
You also saw the resolve, and the terrible calculation of a man who would risk everything rather than watch you die under another’s blade.
“Do not yield,” you said clearly, though your voice shook. “Baelor, do not. Whatever happens, do not give them what they want, promise me, please.”
The captain’s smile widened. He pressed the blade harder still. The red line lengthened.
That was when everything shattered.
One of Baelor’s younger knights, green, desperate, and positioned too far to the left, loosed a crossbow bolt. It was meant for the captain. It flew true enough, but the man twisted at the last instant, using your body as a shield.
The bolt took him in the shoulder instead of the heart.
He staggered, cursing, and in the same motion drove his short sword forward, not in a clean killing stroke, but in a wild, defensive thrust as he tried to keep his footing and control of his captive.
Baelor was already moving. He had thrown himself from the saddle the moment the bolt flew, longsword flashing in the dying light.
He reached the knot of men in three strides, cutting down the second guard with a single brutal stroke that nearly took the man’s head from his shoulders.
The captain, wounded and half-blind with pain, swung blindly toward the new threat.
And Baelor, seeing only the blade still near your throat, seeing only the man who had dared to lay hands on you, struck with all the force of his terror and love and rage.
The longsword punched through the captain’s side and continued on, because in the press of bodies and the chaos of the moment there was no clean angle left. The tip of the blade, red already with the captain’s blood, found the soft give of your flesh beneath the ribs.
For an instant no one moved.
The world held its breath.
Then the captain crumpled.
You made a small, surprised sound, more breath than cry, and looked down at the steel that had entered you.
Baelor’s steel.
The sword he had swung to save you.
“No,” he said. The word was barely sound. “No. No, no, no—”
He caught you as your knees buckled, lowering you both to the packed earth of the yard with a care that was almost gentle even in its desperation.
His hands, those same hands that had once chased you laughing through sunlit halls and undressed you with reverence in the candlelight, now pressed frantically against the wound as if he could push the blood back inside by force of will.
The sword still protruded; he dared not pull it free.
“Look at me,” he begged, voice cracking into something raw and young. “My love, look at me. You are going to be well. Do you hear me? The maesters will come. I will carry you myself if I must. Just stay with me. Please. Please stay.”
You lifted a trembling hand and touched his face, smearing bright blood across the dirt and sweat on his cheek.
Your eyes were already growing distant, but they found his with the same clarity they had always held, the same love that had once made him forget the Iron Throne existed.
“You came,” you whispered. A faint, wondering smile touched your mouth. “I knew you would. I never doubted.”
“I will always come,” he choked. Tears cut clean tracks through the dirt and blood on his face.
He bent and pressed frantic, desperate kisses to your temples, once, twice, a third time, as if the familiar gesture could somehow reverse the irreversible, as if the press of his lips might seal the wound or call your spirit back. “I love you. Gods, I love you more than life. Do not leave me. Please. I am nothing without you. The realm can burn to ash. Just stay. Stay with me.”
Your fingers curled weakly in his hair. The smile remained, soft and almost peaceful.
“Then I will wait,” you breathed, the words barely more than a sigh. “In whatever follows… I will wait for you. As I always have.”
The light left your eyes while his lips were still pressed to your temple.
Baelor Targaryen, heir to the Iron Throne, victor of a dozen tourneys and the greatest hope of his house, made a sound that no one who heard it ever forgot, a raw, animal howl of grief that rose above the clash of the dying fight and the rising wind.
He gathered your body against his armored chest and rocked, whispering your name over and over as if repetition might weave a path back from the dark.
Around them the last of the Blackfyre men were cut down without mercy. The yard grew quiet except for the stamp of horses and the soft, endless press of a prince’s mouth against the cooling skin of his wife’s temple.
They say that when Prince Maekar finally reached the holdfast the following morning, having left the field at Redgrass in the hands of loyal captains once the black dragon’s host began to break, he found his brother still kneeling in the blood-soaked dirt, your body cradled in his arms.
Baelor had not moved all night. “I killed her, oh, Gods, I killed my wife.”
He had not allowed the silent sisters near, he had simply held you, and kissed your temples, and spoken to you of every small, private joy the two of you had ever shared, as though the words might weave a path back from wherever the Stranger had taken you.
Maekar, hard man that he was, stood in silence for a long time.
The younger prince’s face was unreadable, but something in the set of his shoulders spoke of a grief he would never name aloud.
At last he went to one knee beside his brother and rested a gauntleted hand on Baelor’s shoulder.
“She is gone, Baelor,” he said, voice rough with an emotion he rarely allowed. “The gods have taken her. You must let the sisters do their work. The realm still needs you.”
“I killed her,” Baelor said simply. He did not look up. “My own hand. My own blade. In trying to save her I became the instrument of her death. Tell me how the realm is supposed to need a man who cannot even protect the one person who made the realm worth saving.”
“You were trying to free her from traitors. The blame lies with Daemon and the men who took her from her bed. Not with you.”
“Does it?” Baelor looked down at your still face and with infinite gentleness he brushed a strand of hair from your brow and pressed one last kiss to your temple, soft, lingering, the same way he had always done when the world was quiet and the two of you were alone. “I was supposed to protect you. That was the only vow that ever truly mattered. And I failed. I failed you.”
He allowed the silent sisters to take you at last. He walked beside the litter all the way back to King’s Landing, never once mounting a horse, as though any distance between his body and yours was unbearable and when they laid you in the quiet sept of the Red Keep he refused to leave.
For three days and three nights he kept vigil, speaking to you in the old tongue of Valyria, in the soft common speech of the court, in the private language of shared glances and half-finished sentences that only the two of you had ever understood. He told you of the battle.
He told you of Maekar’s curses. He told you, over and over, that he loved you, and that he was sorry, and that he would wait as long as it took.
On the fourth morning Maekar found him asleep on the cold stone floor beside the bier, one hand still resting over yours as if even in exhausted sleep he could not bear to let go.
The war continued.
Daemon Blackfyre fell at last upon the Redgrass Field, cut down by the combined fury of Baelor’s remaining forces and Maekar’s relentless advance. The black dragon was broken. The realm, for a time, was made whole again.
But something in Baelor had been broken beyond mending. He still fought when called upon. He still advised his father, the king.
He still smiled when the court required it, and spoke of justice and the good of the realm with the same measured wisdom that had once made men call him the best of the Targaryen sons.
Yet those who knew him best, Maekar above all, saw the emptiness behind his eyes, because his brother no longer chased anyone through the halls of the Red Keep.
He no longer laughed as though the world were a private jest shared between two hearts.
At night, when the candles burned low in his chambers, servants sometimes heard him speaking softly to an empty chair, or felt the faint brush of a kiss against a temple that was no longer there to receive it.
In the years that followed, bards would sing of the Battle of Redgrass and the fall of the Blackfyre pretender.
They would sing of Baelor’s courage and Maekar’s iron will.
Few dared sing of the quiet tragedy that had unfolded at a forgotten holdfast beside the Blackwater, of a prince who loved too deeply, and of the accidental blade that ended the only story that had ever truly mattered to him.
Yet sometimes, when the wind moved through the godswood of the Red Keep just so, those who lingered near the heart tree claimed they could hear two voices, one deep and steady, one bright with laughter, speaking of lemon-scented summers and the promise of a love that would wait, if need be, beyond the ending of the world.
For Baelor Targaryen had sworn he would always come back to you.
And in the quiet places between the heartbeats of the realm, it was said that somewhere, somehow, you were still waiting.
Baelor Targaryen vowed to all the old Gods and new, he'd find you, even if he had to offer up his own soul in payment;
Pairings: Jacaerys Velaryon x Dragonseed!Fem!Reader
Summary: the line between hate and love is really thin.
WARNINGS: Enemies to lovers (kinda), slight angst, hurt to comfort, kissing, yearning, my boy is a little confused, ñuha jorrāelagon/my love
A/n: I don’t know how much of an enemies to lovers this is, but I hope you’ll like it! It came out way longer than I imagined💀
masterlist | wc: 17.1k (yall I overwrote I’m sorry)
THE CASTLE seemed to change its face from the moment the dragonseeds arrived at Dragonstone. The black stone corridors, worn smooth by the passage of countless generations of Targaryen rulers, no longer knew the austere silence that had always defined them. Where once only the measured footsteps of princes, ladies, guards, and councillors echoed, now unfamiliar voices intertwined, accents from the streets of King's Landing and the rest of the Crownlands, nervous whispers and restrained laughter. Men and women of every age walked those halls with the awareness of being in a place they had, until only days before, been able to observe only from afar, imagining it shrouded in legends and tales. Some advanced with their chests swollen with pride, as if the mere fact of being summoned already made them worthy of the blood they claimed to possess. Others, instead, kept their heads bowed, eyes fixed on the stone floor, intimidated by the castle's grandeur and by the stern gazes of the nobles who watched the crowd with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. It was enough to meet a lord's or lady's eyes for a single instant for many to immediately lower their gaze, as though they feared crossing an invisible boundary.
You belonged to neither of those categories. You had no reason to puff out your chest, nor any desire to appear superior to the others, but neither did you allow fear to bend your back or slow your steps. You walked those long corridors with composure, maintaining the bearing you had learned over the years: your back straight, chin slightly raised, and your serious gaze fixed ahead.
Every detail of the castle seemed to watch you in silence. The volcanic stone walls barely reflected the flickering torchlight, casting shadows that stretched across the floor like claws. The air held the familiar scent of sulfur and sea, carried by the wind that slipped through the narrow windows overlooking the cliffs. From time to time, the distant roar of a dragon reverberated through the very rock of the castle, making the ground tremble beneath your boots. You continued walking without haste, seeking only to pass unnoticed among the multitude of unfamiliar faces, many of whom shared the same silver hair and violet eyes that bore witness to an ancient blood, though diluted by time.
That was precisely your intent, to blend into the crowd until the moment of the trial, without drawing unnecessary attention or feeding expectations. No one knew what fate awaited them in the Dragonpit, and you were no different from the others. And yet, fate seemed to have decided otherwise.
When Grey Ghost emerged from the shadows of his cave, the murmur ceased almost instantly. The dragon observed everyone present with his large pale eyes, maintaining the natural wariness that had earned him a reputation as a shy and solitary creature. For long moments, no one dared move. Then you stepped forward, slowly, without sudden gestures, allowing him to decide the distance between you. You felt the warmth of his breath brush your face as his snout approached your hand. When your fingers touched his cold, smooth scales, Grey Ghost did not pull away. On the contrary, he slowly extended his neck and lowered himself before you, offering you his back. Around you fell a silence so deep it seemed unreal. Every face turned in your direction, every gaze fixed on the scene, unable to comprehend what was happening.
Grey Ghost had always been considered the most elusive of the dragons of Dragonstone. He avoided men, shunned even the company of his own kind, and rarely allowed himself to be seen for long. No one had ever managed to get close enough to touch his scales, let alone mount his back. And yet that day he recognized you as if he had been waiting for you his entire life. There were no chains, no commands spoken in High Valyrian, no displays of force, only a silent recognition between dragon and rider. That gesture alone was enough to dispel all doubt. From that moment on, you were no longer just one of the many dragonseeds who had come to the castle. You had become the rider of Grey Ghost.
Thus, on that very same day, you were officially welcomed by Queen Rhaenyra into her ranks. The news spread through the castle with surprising speed, passing from mouth to mouth among soldiers, servants, and knights. Some offered you sincere smiles, others simply observed you with respect, while a few did not even try to hide a hint of envy. To be chosen by a dragon was a privilege that no man or woman outside the royal family could have even dreamed of. It was the dragon who chose, and that choice could be contested by no one.
Among all the looks you soon learned to distinguish in the days that followed, there was one that seemed to seek you out persistently, even when you would have preferred to go unnoticed. It lacked the naive curiosity of the servants and the veiled suspicion of the lords gathered in the queen's council. It was a hard, stern gaze, almost irritated by your mere presence, as though every time your paths crossed you reminded him of something he would rather forget.
Prince Jacaerys Velaryon observed every new dragonseed with a coldness that was difficult to ignore. Hugh received reprimands for his arrogance, Ulf was constantly called out for his loose tongue and inability to respect court etiquette. You, on the other hand, gave him no reason to criticize you openly. You behaved with respect, followed orders without complaint, and never sought to draw attention to yourself. And yet, every time the prince met your gaze, his expression seemed to stiffen ever so slightly.
You were, after all, a woman, and Jacaerys never addressed you with a direct insult, never raised his voice to you, and certainly never laid a hand on you. His conduct remained impeccable by the standards of the court. And yet, a simple greeting was enough for him to respond with a barely perceptible nod or with a silence so heavy it bordered on offense. At times his eyes lingered on you a moment longer than necessary, with an intensity capable of making you tense without understanding why. Anyone observing from the outside would probably have thought the prince merely ignored you. You, however, came to believe the exact opposite. No one observed with such consistency something that truly meant nothing to them.
More than once you searched for an explanation for that apparent hostility. You wondered if, without realizing it, you had spoken out of turn during one of the councils or training sessions. You asked yourself whether Grey Ghost might have awakened an unpleasant memory in the prince, or whether the simple fact that such a reclusive dragon had chosen you represented, in his eyes, something difficult to accept. Every hypothesis seemed as plausible as the next, yet none found confirmation. Jacaerys remained as inscrutable as the ancient stone statues that adorned the castle. In the end, you gave up searching for answers no one seemed willing to offer. If the prince truly had a reason to look at you that way, it would be up to him to reveal it, not for you to guess.
So you simply continued to live your days, following the discipline you had imposed upon yourself from the moment you arrived at Dragonstone. Each morning, when the wind from the Narrow Sea swept through the courtyard and made the black and red banners of House Targaryen billow, you trained with Baela. The princess fought with remarkable speed, alternating precise thrusts with movements so fluid they seemed like a dance. Every bout forced you to improve, to correct the position of your feet, to make each strike more solid. The sound of wood against steel blended with the distant calls of dragons soaring above the cliffs and the crash of waves against the rocks. At the end of each training session, your arms were heavy and your fingers sore from the constant grip on your sword hilt, yet a genuine smile almost always appeared on your face without you noticing. Baela had a way of turning every fight into an engaging challenge, and as the days passed you found yourself appreciating her company more and more.
When training ended, you devoted long hours to studying High Valyrian. You sat in the quietest rooms of the castle, far from the bustle of soldiers and the murmur of the court, repeating words and phrases until your tongue finally began to move with ease. At times you corrected your pronunciation again and again, refusing to settle for approximation. You understood the importance of that language for one who rode a dragon, and you were not willing to appear unprepared.
On quieter afternoons, when the sky above Dragonstone was covered in gray clouds and the rain forced many to remain inside the castle, you sought refuge in the library. There, time seemed to pass more slowly. Yellowed parchments, worn maps, and leather-bound volumes filled shelves so old they seemed part of the very walls. The scent of paper, dust, and aged wood mingled with the salty air drifting through the half-open windows. Within those pages, you found a peace the rest of the castle rarely offered, as though the weight of the coming war remained, at least for a few hours, shut out from that silent room.
Without your knowledge, the prince was present in nearly every one of those moments that had come to shape your days.
He did not seek your company, nor did he ever find a pretext to speak to you, and yet he always ended up wherever, by chance or not, you happened to be. At times he lingered on the upper gallery overlooking the inner courtyard, a vantage point from which it was possible to observe every training session without being easily noticed. He would lean against the stone balustrade, his face turned slightly toward a guard with whom he pretended to discuss shifts, patrols, or military matters, but his eyes constantly betrayed the act.
Every time your sword crossed with Baela's, his gaze followed the clash of blades, studying the way you shifted your weight, how you corrected the position of your feet after a mistake, how stubbornly you rose each time the princess managed to throw you off balance. He watched you take the blows without complaint, wipe the sweat from your brow with the back of your hand, and immediately resume your guard, as though fatigue were nothing more than an inevitable companion to be embraced with discipline. There was no arrogance in your movements, nor any desire for display. That, more than he was willing to admit, seemed to unsettle him.
At other times, it was the library that made him a silent observer of your days. He would enter with one or two volumes tucked under his arm, walking slowly through the narrow aisles between shelves filled with parchments and manuscripts, pretending to search for a particular text. The scent of worn leather, candle wax, and aged paper filled the air, while the silence of the hall was broken only by the rustle of turning pages and the quiet crackle of the fire in the hearth. You, seated by a window through which a pale light filtered, seemed entirely absorbed in the study of High Valyrian. Your fingers traced the faded lines of ink, while your lips moved softly, repeating words, shaping their pronunciation with patient care. At times you would pause, your brow furrowing slightly at a more difficult passage, only to begin again from the start, without showing the slightest sign of frustration.
Jacaerys always continued on his way when he passed by your table, yet he never failed to turn his head slightly in your direction when he was certain you were not looking. It was a gesture as quick as it was unintentional, and yet it repeated itself with a consistency even he could no longer ignore.
Then there were the simplest moments, the ones no one would have thought worth noticing. He saw you laugh with Baela after a particularly grueling training session, when both of you, still breathless, let your swords fall and allowed yourselves a brief moment of rest seated on the low wall of the courtyard. He watched you shake your head at one of the princess's provocations, or smile faintly when you finally managed to understand a difficult passage during your studies. He even saw you climb toward the highest terraces of the castle, those from which Grey Ghost would take flight over the Narrow Sea. From a distance, your figure appeared small against the vastness of the sky, your cloak whipped fiercely by the salt-laden gusts rising from the cliffs, while the dragon emerged slowly from the mist, silent as a specter. Even then, the prince remained still, watching, unable to turn away before both dragon and rider vanished beyond the horizon.
Each time, it was the same. His chest would seem to tighten, a subtle yet persistent tension gripping his stomach and making his breathing heavier. He tried more than once to convince himself it was nothing but irritation. It had to be. It could be nothing else. You represented what he, despite the blood that ran through his veins and the title he bore, would never possess. Every time his gaze fell upon you, that feeling returned, as relentless as the sea crashing against the island's rocks. He tried to smother it with duty, with council obligations, with the study of military strategies and maps, but the mere glimpse of you from afar was enough for everything to resurface with the same force.
Your hair fell over your shoulders like threads of silver, reflecting the light of the sun or the colder glow of the moon. When the wind lifted it, it seemed almost to merge with the clouds that wrapped around the tall towers of Dragonstone. Your eyes were pale, carrying that violet hue so often celebrated in the chronicles of the Targaryens. They were the same eyes described in tales of Aegon the Conqueror, of Visenya, of Rhaenys, of the ancient lords of Valyria who had ruled the world upon the backs of dragons. You embodied that image effortlessly, as though time itself had chosen to bring back a fragment of that ancient lineage through your very existence. No one, looking at you, would ever doubt your heritage.
He, on the other hand, knew all too well the weight of a gaze.
He was the prince of Dragonstone. The heir chosen by Queen Rhaenyra. The one who would one day claim the Iron Throne, if the gods and war granted him the time. And yet all of that seemed to fade every time someone looked upon his face. It was enough to see his dark hair, so unlike the silver of the Targaryens, or those brown eyes that bore nothing of ancient Valyria, for doubt to once again find the courage to rise to people's lips. No one dared to speak that word openly before him, at least not at court, but Jacaerys had learned as a child that silence could wound as deeply as an insult. Bastard. A short word, yet one capable of following him all his life like a shadow he would never escape.
No crown would ever change the color of his hair. No dragon would transform his eyes into those the world expected of a Targaryen. Not even the oath of a thousand lords would be enough to erase what his enemies continued to consider undeniable proof of his birth. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he studied the history of his house, how relentlessly he trained with the sword or spent entire nights beside the queen's councilors discussing war and politics, there would always be someone ready to remind him that his face told a different story from the one the realm was meant to accept. It was an old wound, long since scarred over only in appearance, that kept reopening each time the past found a new way to stand before his eyes.
And you had become one of those ways.
You had possessed since birth what he had spent an entire lifetime trying to make up for through duty, sacrifice, and merit. No one would ever question the blood that ran in your veins. No one would ever lower their voice while looking at your face to wonder who your father truly was. It was enough for you simply to exist for the world to see a daughter of ancient Valyria. He, on the other hand, had been forced to build his legitimacy day by day, like a man compelled to raise a castle stone by stone while knowing that someone would try to tear it down all the same. Perhaps that was why he continued to look at you more than he should. Because, without meaning to, you had become the reflection of everything that had been denied to him before he was even born.
One afternoon, the sky above Dragonstone turned a pale, almost milky blue, veiled by thin streaks of cloud that let through a soft, gentle light. The air still held the chill carried by the sea, and the wind brought with it to the gardens the salty scent of waves breaking against the high cliffs. Those gardens did not possess the richness of those in King's Landing, nor the abundance of the strongholds of the Reach. They were small, sheltered by walls of volcanic stone and shaped with patience to wrest a few patches of green from a harsh island battered by storms. Few flowers managed to grow in that dark soil, yet those that survived seemed to do so with stubborn resilience, bending to the wind without ever breaking.
You walked slowly along the gravel path, letting the rhythmic sound of the waves accompany the thread of your thoughts. You had no particular destination. You simply followed the path winding between the flowerbeds, breathing deeply that sharp air that tasted of sea and rain. At last, you stopped before a small cluster of flowers, their pale petals seeming almost out of place on that island of stone and ash. You bent down naturally, studying their delicate form as though you wished to understand every detail. Your fingers brushed lightly against one of the slender stems without bending it, tracing its outline. At that very moment, a cloud gave way to the sun, and a blade of golden light poured over you, igniting silvery reflections in your hair.
A stronger breeze from the sea lifted a few loose strands, carrying them across your face. You smiled faintly, with that unguarded expression that appeared only when you believed yourself entirely alone, brushing them behind your ear with a slow, absent gesture. Then, with great care, you picked a small flower that had already bloomed, brought it close to your face, and breathed in its faint fragrance, unaware that, from one of the loggias overlooking the gardens, a pair of chestnut colored eyes had remained fixed on you far longer than their owner would ever have admitted.
Anyone watching you from afar would have seen only a young woman gathered in the quiet of a garden, intent on appreciating the fragile beauty of a flower that had bloomed against all odds on an island of stone and fire. Nothing in that scene would have drawn more than a passing glance. Any lady might have paused in the same way, bent with the same delicacy, breathed in the scent of a flower before continuing on her way. It was a simple image, almost insignificant, and for that very reason it would have escaped the notice of most. Jacaerys, however, saw far more.
His eyes did not linger on the flower, nor on the garden or the light filtering through the clouds. They settled only on you, and remained there with a constancy he himself could not explain. He noticed the way your fingers brushed the petals without tearing them, as though you feared breaking something so fragile. He noticed the calm with which you breathed in the salty air, the slight movement of your shoulders, and that quiet serenity that seemed to belong to you. In that moment, you were not the rider of Grey Ghost, nor one of the new dragonseeds welcomed by the queen. You were simply the woman who, without intending to, had awakened in him feelings he would have preferred never to know.
He remained motionless beneath the garden's entrance arch for long moments, unaware of time continuing to pass. He seemed to hear and see nothing. His hands hung relaxed at his sides, his face impassive as he had been taught since childhood, yet within him every thought seemed to have come to a halt. It happened to him rarely. He had grown up learning to observe every detail, to anticipate his opponents' moves, to reflect before speaking, and to maintain control over his emotions at all times. And yet it was enough to find you there, unaware of his presence, for that discipline, built over years of study and duty, to suddenly show a crack.
There was nothing studied in your movements. No gesture seemed crafted to draw anyone's attention. You did not tilt your head as many court ladies did when they knew they were being watched, nor did you let your lashes blink an excessive amount of times. Every movement seemed to arise with the same natural ease as the wind passing through that garden. You bent because you wished to observe a flower, you smiled because the moment genuinely stirred something within you, you breathed deeply because you enjoyed the sea air.
Jacaerys had spent his entire life surrounded by men and women who weighed every word and every gesture, who turned even a smile into a political instrument. You, on the other hand, seemed incapable of pretending. Even when you tried to go unnoticed, you ended up drawing his attention.
The smile that appeared on your face was small, barely there. Your lips curved, your eyes softened almost imperceptibly, and your expression, until a moment before composed in the quiet focus with which you had been observing that small flower, seemed to brighten. It was not the open, carefree smile he had sometimes seen during your training with Baela, when one of the princess's provocations finally managed to make you laugh. This was something much smaller, more fragile, born spontaneously and destined to vanish within moments. It was precisely that fleeting nature that made it impossible to ignore. For an instant, Jacaerys had the distinct impression that the entire garden had changed along with your expression. The golden light of the afternoon seemed to fall more gently upon your face, the wind stirred the silvery strands of your hair, and even the sound of the sea felt more distant.
You are more beautiful than you should be, he thought with irritation, more beautiful than many of the ladies he had known at court. More beautiful than the young noblewomen who had tried to capture his attention during feasts.
The realization struck him with the force of a blow. His jaw tightened at once as an inexplicable irritation spread through his chest. How could that have been the first thought that came to his mind? Why did his gaze linger on such insignificant details? Why did he remember the shade of the color of your eyes, the way you smiled, or how the wind lifted your hair, instead of focusing on matters of far greater importance? He was the Prince of Dragonstone. He was the queen's heir. Every day of his life should have been consumed by the war drawing ever closer, not by a girl who paused to smell a flower.
He drew in a slow breath, trying to regain the control that seemed to have slipped from him without warning. Perhaps this was the punishment the gods had chosen for him. All his life he had borne the weight of accusations, whispers, and suspicions about a birth he had never had the power to choose. He had learned to live with the judgment of others, with their looks, and with that word murmured behind his back since childhood. Was that not enough? Did the gods truly need to torment him with thoughts as absurd as they were unwelcome? Why you? Why the very woman who reminded him most of everything he would never be? Why had the gods decided that his eyes should continue to seek you even when every rational part of him commanded him to look elsewhere? He inhaled once more and composed his face into its usual stern expression, the one that had become a second skin over the years. No one must suspect the turmoil stirring within his chest.
His boots sank slightly into the gravel path, producing a soft sound, yet enough to break the silence of the garden. The small stones crunched under the weight of his step, and you reacted at once. You lifted your head naturally, letting the flower slip slowly from your fingers back among the others. For a moment your eyes met, then, as soon as you recognized the prince, you straightened with that composure that now seemed to define your every gesture. Your hands folded neatly before you, your head inclined in a proper bow, and your voice broke the silence with that calm that never seemed to leave you. "My prince."
Jacaerys stopped at your side without replying. Following a habit learned from watching Daemon during the years they had trained together, he placed both hands upon the hilt of his sword. The gesture, now almost instinctive, gave him a sense of steadiness, as though the mere contact with the weapon reminded him of who he was and the role he was meant to fulfill. For a few moments he kept his gaze fixed on the sea, following the slow crash of waves against the rocks, for he found it infinitely easier to look at the horizon than to meet your eyes directly.
When he finally spoke, his voice came out steady, controlled, devoid of any inflection that might betray what had crossed his mind only moments before. "My mother has summoned you to the Painted Table."
You lifted your head slightly, nodding with quiet acknowledgment. You did not seem surprised by the news, nor intimidated by the queen's summons. "Thank you for informing me, my prince." Your voice was gentle, measured, without hesitation. There was no attempt to prolong the conversation beyond what was necessary, no unnecessary question, no polite smile. It was the respectful tone one reserved for a prince, and nothing more.
Jacaerys hated it.
For a brief moment, however, you seemed on the verge of adding something. Your lips parted slightly, your gaze lifting slowly to his face. Jacaerys had the faint impression that you were searching for the courage to voice a question you had held back for too long, perhaps about his constant coldness, perhaps about the reason for those glances he continued to cast your way without ever offering an explanation. He waited without realizing it, hanging from your lips. But the moment faded before it could take shape in words. Whatever thought had brushed your mind, you chose to let it die there. You closed your mouth again, gave a faint shake of your head as though reproaching yourself for the hesitation, and lowered your gaze once more.
Then you moved past him with quick steps, brushing lightly against him as you resumed the path leading back toward the castle. Your cloak swayed softly behind you, carried by the sea breeze, while a faint trace of your scent lingered in the air for a moment. You did not look back even once. You kept walking with the same calm with which you had entered the garden, leaving him standing motionless behind you.
Jacaerys followed your figure with his eyes until it disappeared beyond the stone arch that marked the entrance to the castle. Only then did he slowly release the breath he had, without noticing, held for most of the encounter. His fingers tightened slightly on the hilt of his sword as his jaw hardened once more. It irritated him that you avoided his gaze with such determination, as though his presence were something to be endured only for as long as strictly necessary. And more than anything, it angered him that inexplicable desire that continued to grow within him, the desire to force you, at least once, to look him in the eyes. Not with the respect owed to a prince, not with the caution reserved for a superior, but the way one looks at a man.
The days that followed passed slowly. The island continued to live according to the unchanging rhythm of the tides crashing against the cliffs, the salt-laden wind that swept endlessly across the battlements, and the beating wings of dragons that, at irregular intervals, darkened the sun as they flew over the castle. The sentinels changed shifts at the same hours, the blacksmiths continued their work in the forges heated by the mountain's fire, the servants moved through the corridors with the same discreet steps, and the queen carried on her war councils without granting herself a moment of rest. To an outside observer, nothing seemed different from the day before. And yet, beneath that reassuring semblance of normality, something had changed. It was a subtle sensation, almost imperceptible, like the moment when the wind shifts direction before the sea begins to ripple. No one spoke of it. No one seemed to notice. Only Jacaerys came to feel its weight each time he crossed those same halls that, until a few days earlier, had seemed unchanged for as long as memory could reach.
You were simply no longer there.
Your absence crept slowly into his days, at first as a negligible detail, then as something impossible to ignore. You no longer appeared in the long corridors, where he would sometimes pass you as you held a few volumes against your chest or walked calmly through torchlit galleries. You were not in the library, seated by the windows overlooking the Narrow Sea, where you used to spend hours surrounded by timeworn chronicles and manuscripts in High Valyrian, so absorbed in study that you forgot even the passing of time. Not even the courtyard echoed anymore with the sound of your sword crossing with Baela's, accompanied by the brief laughter that sometimes escaped you after a particularly intense clash. Even the upper terraces, from which Grey Ghost would take flight among the currents rising from the cliffs, now appeared suddenly deserted. It was as though someone had erased every trace of your presence from the castle without leaving any explanation, turning you into nothing more than a memory.
To anyone else, that absence would have gone unnoticed. Dragonstone housed dozens of knights, ladies, servants, advisors, and soldiers. Every day someone left, someone arrived, and someone else remained occupied with duties that kept them out of sight. One less person within those walls would hardly have raised any questions. For Jacaerys, however, your absence became a detail so persistent that it crept into his thoughts even when he tried to ignore it. On the first day, he paid it little mind. He simply thought your paths had not crossed. After all, the castle was vast, and the demands of war now consumed most of his time. On the second day, however, he began to notice the void left by your presence in the places you had made your own. He even found himself glancing toward the table in the library where you used to sit, inevitably finding it empty. By the third day, that simple observation had already turned into a question that, however absurd, kept returning insistently to his mind.
What if you were avoiding him?
The thought struck him as so senseless that it irritated him immediately. Why would you avoid him? There had never been any argument between you, no quarrel, no openly spoken harsh words. True, his behavior had never been particularly warm. He was well aware of that. He had maintained a constant distance, had greeted your every salutation with coldness, and had allowed his gaze to speak far more than the few words you had exchanged. But all of that had always seemed sufficient to keep the relationship purely formal. He then thought back to your last encounter in the gardens. He saw again the moment when you let that small flower fall among the others, your composed bow, the kindness with which you had thanked him. Above all, he remembered that hesitation. For a moment, you had seemed as though you wanted to say something, perhaps a question, perhaps a remark long held back. Then you had changed your mind. You had lowered your gaze, chosen silence, and walked away without looking back. The more he tried to dismiss that memory, the more it returned.
Perhaps you had truly misinterpreted his coldness. Perhaps you had decided that the prince of Dragonstone preferred to have nothing to do with you. It was a conclusion that, observing his own behavior, he himself might have found reasonable. If that were the case, the simplest choice for you would have been to keep your distance, limit yourself to strictly necessary interactions, and spare yourself the discomfort of crossing paths with someone who seemed to greet your presence with a stiff expression. That thought should have left him completely indifferent. Indeed, it should even have been a convenient solution. If you had truly stopped seeking his company, he would have no reason to question his own behavior or to struggle against those emotions that kept surprising him. And yet, instead of relief, he felt an inexplicable irritation rise within him. A discomfort difficult to ignore, directed as much toward you as toward himself.
The answer came a few days later.
The small council was gathered around the Painted Table. The carved surface of Aegon the Conqueror's Westeros reflected the light of the many candles, while lords, maesters, and commanders discussed the progress of the war, troop movements, and the ravens that had arrived during the night. Jacaerys listened in silence, speaking only when asked for his opinion. It was in the middle of a conversation regarding the distribution of dragonriders that one of the councillors made a brief reference to you. No one seemed to attach particular importance to the news. The queen had entrusted you with a mission a few days earlier. You had departed on Grey Ghost, and the success of your task depended largely on the discretion with which it would be carried out. For that reason, neither the destination nor the purpose of the mission had been disclosed. The matter was dismissed within moments, and the discussion immediately returned to issues deemed more urgent.
Jacaerys remained motionless for the rest of the meeting. He continued to nod when addressed, offered his opinions on military strategies with his usual clarity, and did not allow a single emotion to show on his face. Only he, however, noticed the faint sense of relief that had passed through his chest the moment he learned the truth. You were not avoiding him. You had not chosen to vanish from his sight. You were simply away, engaged in serving the queen as any dragonrider would. That simple awareness was enough, at least for a moment, to ease the weight that had been pressing on him in recent days.
It was only later, as he walked through one of the long corridors, that he realized something. His hands had remained clenched with such force during the meeting that deep reddish marks had been left in his palms. He slowly opened his fingers, observing the imprints his nails had carved into his skin, and a flicker of irritation immediately crossed his thoughts. He forced a rational explanation upon himself before any other interpretation could take shape. He was not worried about you. No. There was no reason for him to be. You were one of the queen's dragonriders, one of the most valuable assets the Blacks possessed. Grey Ghost represented considerable strength, and its loss would inevitably weaken his mother's forces. That was the only reason for his tension. A commander had a duty to be concerned for his riders. Nothing more. He repeated it to himself several times, as though by repeating it he could make it true.
Nothing more.
From that day on, he made that sentence his conviction. He repeated it every morning while studying with the maesters. If his thoughts strayed to you, he cut them off immediately, reminding himself that he was merely assessing the strength of the queen's forces. He repeated it during training in the courtyard, when every strike of his sword felt heavier than the last and his focus slipped with unusual ease. Baela eventually halted their sparring more than once, watching him with growing perplexity and asking where the precision that usually defined his movements had gone. He dismissed every question with a brief answer, attributing his distraction to the fatigue accumulated over recent weeks. Even in the evening, when the castle fell quiet and only the sound of the sea rose through the open windows along with the steady breath of the wind, he continued to repeat the same explanation, as if it were an oath capable of silencing any doubt.
But the days kept passing, and no word came from you.
No raven reached Dragonstone bearing your name. No messenger reported having encountered you along the road. No sentinel announced having seen Grey Ghost flying over the cliffs with his characteristic silent glide. The sky above the island continued to be crossed by dragons, but none of the great shadows cast against the clouds belonged to yours. And, as the days passed, the silence you had left behind began to weigh far more heavily than Jacaerys was willing to admit, even to himself.
The days continued to flow with the same unchanging rhythm, until no one truly noticed the exact moment when they ceased to be merely days and became an entire week. Time, at Dragonstone, seemed to wear away differently than in the rest of the realm. The tides continued to rise and fall with the same regularity, dragons crossed the sky leaving behind immense shadows that raced along the black walls of the castle, and the wind never ceased to blow through the towers, carrying with it the acrid scent of sulfur and the sharper tang of salt. And yet, as the hours passed, the silence left by your departure slowly began to fill with words.
At first, they were only whispers exchanged between two servants while changing pitchers in the kitchens, or among guards sharing a watch along the walls. Then those voices began to spread, passing from mouth to mouth with the swiftness typical of fortresses besieged by uncertainty. Some claimed that the mission entrusted to you by the queen had ended in the worst possible way, and that you had fallen far from Dragonstone, dragging Grey Ghost into death with you. Others, more inclined toward suspicion than compassion, preferred to imagine a different story. They said that dragon's blood was not enough to guarantee loyalty, that power changed the hearts of men and women alike, and they insinuated that you had simply turned your back on the queen, fleeing with your dragon toward lands where no one could claim your obedience or force you to fight a war that was not yours.
Jacaerys heard those words only once, and it was more than enough. He was crossing one of the corridors leading to the western terraces when a knight, convinced he was far enough from prying ears, casually voiced the possibility of betrayal. The prince stopped without saying a word. He did not raise his voice, did not draw his sword, and did not utter a single rebuke. He simply turned slowly toward the man. The look he gave him was so cold it seemed carved from the same volcanic stone as the castle itself. There was a hardness in his eyes that was enough to extinguish any further words before they could be spoken. The knight visibly paled, lowered his head at once, and found no courage to add anything more. The corridor fell silent within moments, as if that conversation had never existed. Jacaerys resumed walking without turning back, but within himself he rejected that possibility with conviction.
He did not truly know you. He had spoken to you only a handful of times, always briefly. He did not know your story in detail, did not know what fears had accompanied you growing up, nor what dreams you held when the world fell silent. And yet there were things that did not need to be told to be understood. He had watched you long enough to recognize the discipline with which you faced every task entrusted to you, the seriousness with which you approached even the most exhausting training, and the respect you showed toward the queen and anyone above you in rank. But above all, he remembered the way your face changed whenever someone mentioned your family in King's Landing. It was not an obvious change. It was enough, a slight softening of your gaze, an almost imperceptible pause before answering, or a smile that appeared for the span of a breath. They were details so small that no one else would likely have noticed them. He had. For that reason, he dismissed without hesitation the idea that you might have chosen to disappear of your own will. No. You would never have abandoned the people you loved. If Grey Ghost had not yet returned to Dragonstone, it meant only one thing. Something had prevented you from doing so.
So he waited. He waited without realizing it, until that waiting became part of his days. He waited in the morning, when he stepped onto the highest terraces of the castle and the first light of dawn gilded the waves of the Narrow Sea. He waited in the afternoon, unconsciously interrupting the games with which he entertained his brothers whenever a shadow crossed the windows of the Painted Table. He waited above all in the evening, when the sky blazed with shades of red and orange and every distant shape seemed as though it might belong to a dragon returning to its home.
More than once, he found himself lifting his gaze toward the horizon for no particular reason, as if some part of him were constantly listening for a beat of wings that never came. Every time a dragon flew over the castle, his heart would quicken for a moment, only to slowly return to its rhythm when he recognized Vermithor, Syrax, or one of the others. Grey Ghost never appeared.
That afternoon, the sky was covered by an unbroken stretch of gray clouds, so low they seemed almost suspended above the sea. Jacaerys had taken refuge on the beach at the foot of the fortress, a place he often returned to when the weight of his thoughts became difficult to bear. Far from the council chambers, from the constant strategic discussions, and from the expectant gazes of the court, the ceaseless sound of the waves managed, at least in part, to bring order to his mind. He walked slowly along the shoreline, letting his boots sink slightly into the damp sand. The wind lashed his cloak against his legs and carried with it the sharp scent of salt and approaching rain. Before him, the sea seemed endless, stirred by dark waves that crashed violently against the black rocks of the coast. For a moment, he stood watching the horizon without thinking of anything, allowing the sound of the water to fill the silence.
A sudden shout shattered that fragile stillness. One of the guards raised an arm, pointing toward the sky, indicating something beyond the clouds. "Dragon!" The word was almost immediately swallowed by the wind, but it was enough.
Jacaerys lifted his gaze at once. At first, he could make out only a dark shape struggling to emerge through the clouds. It was too far away for him to recognize with certainty, but a few wingbeats were enough for the silhouette to become unmistakable. Grey Ghost.
His heart leapt violently in his chest before reason could form a coherent thought. For the briefest instant, relief struck him so suddenly it nearly stole his breath. He was alive. He was returning. You were returning.
Then the distance closed, and relief gave way to terror.
Grey Ghost was not flying as it should. One wing dipped noticeably with every beat, forcing it into constant corrections to keep from losing altitude. Its body wavered in the sky with unnatural, labored movements, as though each stroke of its wings tore through unbearable pain. The closer it came to the shore, the clearer its wounds became. Deep gashes tore across its flank, blackened by blood that had long since dried and crusted over its scales. In places, the armored hide had been completely stripped away, exposing the flesh beneath. A long wound ran along its neck to its shoulder, and even from that distance its breathing appeared strained.
The guards immediately began running toward the place where the dragon seemed intent on landing. Jacaerys did not wait for orders.
His legs moved before his mind had time to think. He ran along the beach, feeling the sand give beneath his boots and the wind tearing the breath from his chest. Around him, the sound of the waves vanished, replaced by the thunder of Grey Ghost's massive wings cutting through the air as it drew ever closer to the ground.
The dragon struck the earth with a force that made the beach tremble. Its claws sank into the sand, carving deep furrows, while its enormous body skidded forward for several meters before finally coming to a halt. Grey Ghost lowered its long neck slowly and let out a hoarse, broken sound, so far from the powerful roar it was known for that it resembled a lament. Its nostrils flared in an attempt to draw breath, its flank continuing to rise and fall with difficulty.
That was when your body slipped from the saddle. There was no attempt to hold onto the straps. No instinctive movement. You fell heavily onto the damp sand like a lifeless doll, your body completely limp.
For a moment, time seemed to stop.
Jacaerys reached you first. He dropped to his knees beside you so quickly he did not even notice the sand staining his clothes. His breath caught in his throat the moment his gaze fell upon your face. It was smeared with dried blood, dust, and salt. Strands of your silver hair clung to your cheeks, partly concealing small cuts scattered across your skin. Your clothing was torn in several places, and deep wounds crossed your arms, shoulders, and side, some still wet with blood. Your hands, worn from gripping the reins, were covered in abrasions. He called your name immediately, his voice one he scarcely recognized as his own. He searched for a response. A deeper breath. The flutter of your eyelids. Anything. When none came, he placed a hand upon your shoulder with extreme care, giving you the faintest shake, as though afraid you might break.
Nothing.
Fear surged through his chest, making him tremble. Without allowing himself another moment of hesitation, he slipped one arm behind your back and the other beneath your knees, lifting you from the ground with a gentleness he would never have thought himself capable of. He held you tightly enough to keep you from slipping, yet every movement was measured, careful not to worsen wounds he could not yet count. You felt impossibly light in his arms, too light, and that sensation unsettled him more than the blood staining your clothes.
He rose to his feet and began running toward the castle without slowing once. He crossed the main courtyard, completely ignoring the stares of soldiers, servants, and nobles who turned as he passed. Some stepped aside immediately at the sight of your condition; others remained frozen, unable to comprehend what was happening. Jacaerys did not care. In that moment, there was only the ragged sound of his own breathing, the weight of your body pressed against his chest, and the hope that it was not too late. When he finally reached the fortress entrance, his voice rang through the stone halls with a force that silenced all other conversation.
"The maesters!" he shouted, not breaking stride. For the first time, desperation openly fractured the usual steadiness of his tone. "At once!"
The doors to your chamber burst open with such force that they struck the stone wall, making the iron hinges shudder. Jacaerys crossed the threshold without slowing, still holding you in his arms as behind him the corridor filled with hurried footsteps, urgent orders, and the rustle of the maesters' long robes as they gathered at the sound of his cry.
He laid you down with the utmost care upon the bed, as though even the softness of the mattress might cause you further pain. Only when he was certain your body was supported by the cushions did he step back, finally allowing the healers room to work. Within moments, the room, until then silent, transformed into a place of ordered urgency.
Some servants brought basins of boiling water, from which thick steam rose to veil the air. Others arranged clean bandages, linen cloths, and carefully sterilized iron instruments on the table beside the bed. The acrid scent of blood quickly mingled with the sharp smell of crushed medicinal herbs, lavender, artemisia, and the alcohol used to cleanse the wounds. Needle and thread were prepared with practiced hands, while the maesters bent over you, exchanging quick instructions, layering one command over another until a constant murmur filled the room. Your wounds were washed one by one, the dried blood patiently loosened by warm water, the lacerations examined carefully before being stitched. At times, one of the healers would shake their head slightly at the depth of a cut, but no one wasted time on unnecessary words. They simply kept working.
Jacaerys never left the room. He could have waited outside like anyone else, entrusting your fate to the skilled hands of the maesters and returning to the duties that called him elsewhere. No one would have found such a choice unusual. And yet he remained, unmoving, almost oblivious to the presence of anyone else. He stood by the window, his hands clasped behind his back in an attempt to maintain, at least in appearance, the composure expected of him. From that position, he could see the sea churning beyond the castle walls, the waves crashing violently against the black rocks, and the gray sky slowly giving way to sunset. He saw none of it.
His eyes kept returning to the bed, following every movement of the healers, every fresh bandage, every stain of blood replaced with clean linen. More than once, he realized he had been holding his breath without noticing. Each time, he forced himself to inhale slowly, reminding himself that this concern was not truly about you. He repeated it stubbornly, as though it were a formula capable of restoring order to his thoughts. You were one of the queen's dragonriders. The war was being fought thanks to men and women like you. To lose Grey Ghost would mean depriving the Blacks of one of their most valuable weapons. That was all that unsettled him. It was the fate of the realm weighing on his chest. Duty, nothing more. And yet, every time your face tensed faintly as a wound was treated, that explanation seemed suddenly far less convincing.
Time seemed to slow within the room. No one spoke more than necessary. Only the soft crackling of the fire in the hearth could be heard, along with the faint clinking of metal instruments and the sound of bandages being slowly unrolled. At last, when the final wound had been treated and the last stitches completed, the eldest of the maesters straightened with visible exhaustion. His hands were still stained with blood despite repeated washings. After studying your face for a moment, he gently placed two fingers against your wrist, as if seeking further confirmation. Only then did he turn toward the prince. In a calm voice, he explained that you had lost a considerable amount of blood and that your body had endured a strain that might have killed anyone else. "The wounds are deep, but none appeared to have reached any vital organs. If infection did not set in and if the gods showed mercy, she will recover. It would require time, rest, and great patience, my prince."
Jacaerys listened without interrupting, merely nodding once. It was a small gesture, yet the slight drop of his shoulders betrayed a relief he did not allow himself to acknowledge. "I understand."
When the last Maesters left the room, silence returned to fill every corner. The door closed slowly behind them, and suddenly it was only the two of you. The fire continued to burn in the hearth, spreading a gentle warmth, while the orange light of the flames cast uneven shadows across the stone walls. Jacaerys remained still for a moment, as if uncertain what to do, then slowly dragged a chair beside the bed and sat down. He rested his forearms on his legs, clasping his hands so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He continued to watch you without a word. Your face, finally cleansed of blood, appeared paler than usual. Bruises were already darkening along your jaw and beneath your cheekbone, while bandages wrapped your shoulders and arms almost entirely. Your breathing was slow and steady, yet so faint that more than once he found himself checking to be sure your chest was truly rising.
Time passed. Perhaps a few minutes, perhaps an hour, during which Jacaerys never took his eyes off you. Then it happened.
The fingers of your hand moved faintly above the covers. A movement so slight it might have seemed an illusion if the prince had not been watching you so intently. Your eyelids trembled weakly, as if the light of the fire had suddenly become too bright, and after a moment they lifted with visible effort. Your gaze was still clouded by exhaustion and pain, unable to focus immediately on what surrounded you. Jacaerys rose so quickly that the chair scraped sharply against the floor. In two strides he was at your side. "Easy." His voice, unexpectedly, came out much softer than he intended. There was none of the usual hardness that always accompanied his tone when he spoke to you.
When you instinctively tried to sit up, a grimace crossed your face at once. Pain seemed to stiffen every muscle in your body, forcing you to stop. Jacaerys reacted before you could fall back. One hand slipped behind your shoulders, the other gently supported your arm, helping you slowly sit upright against the cushions. Every movement was careful, as though he feared applying too much pressure to your still-fresh wounds. He did not withdraw his hands until he was certain you could keep your balance on your own. Only then did he step back half a pace, though he continued to watch you with that severe expression that seemed to return to his face almost by instinct.
A long, motionless silence fell between you. You breathed slowly, trying to adjust to the pain that every movement seemed to awaken. He remained standing beside the bed, unable to find a position that felt natural. In the end, it was Jacaerys who broke the quiet. "What happened?" he asked. He had tried to keep his voice calm, but the words came out harsher than intended, as though tempered by the anxiety that had built over those long days of waiting.
You slowly bit your lower lip as you studied his face. For a moment, you seemed to search his expression, as if trying to understand which of the many emotions hidden behind that mask of severity was the true one. Then you lowered your gaze slightly. "I did not know you cared."
Those words struck him more than he would have admitted. The prince remained still for the span of a breath. Who does she think me of?
Then he rose so abruptly that the chair scraped loudly across the stone floor. He closed the distance between you in a few steps and stopped before you. Slowly, he lifted a hand toward your face in a spontaneous gesture. His fingers hovered a few inches from your cheek, where a deep bruise stood out sharply against your skin. For a long moment, he truly seemed on the verge of touching you, of confirming with his own hands that you were real, alive beneath his reach, warm and breathing. Then something held him back. His fingers twitched, slowly curling into themselves, closing into a fist as his arm fell back to his side. "An attack against you is an attack against the Crown." The words came out rigid, almost rehearsed, as if he had grasped desperately for the first explanation that could conceal everything else. Even to his own ears, they sounded hollow.
You let out a slow breath. "There was a fight." Your voice was low, strained. You closed your eyes for a moment, as if the mere act of returning to that memory was nearly as painful as the wounds still crossing your body.
His face remained still, his eyebrows twitching sightly. "With whom?"
"With Prince Aemond." The name fell into the room with the weight of a blade. Jacaerys did not move. Only his jaw tightened visibly. "I managed to escape only because Grey Ghost was faster. But he pursued me, for hours." You paused to catch your breath, lowering your gaze slowly to your bandaged hands. "I had to hide for days before he finally gave up. If I had returned at once, he would have followed us to Dragonstone."
Jacaerys continued to look at you in silence. In his mind, the image of Vhagar pursuing Grey Ghost through the sky formed with stark clarity. It was enough to know Aemond to understand that he would not have abandoned the chase until one of them had fallen. The wounds that covered your body told the rest of the story better than any explanation. After several long moments, the prince drew a slow breath, forcing the tension tightening his chest to remain hidden behind his impassive expression. That wretched cunt of a kinslayer had not only killed his brother, now he meant to take you as well. At last, he gave a single nod. "You did what you had to." he said.
He remained still for another moment, studying each of your wounds as though he wished to imprint them upon his memory, then slowly turned toward the door. His hand reached the wood, but hesitated before grasping the handle. Without looking at you, he added in a voice that had returned to calm, though threaded with a weariness difficult to hide. "We will speak when you have regained your strength, until then, rest." He waited just long enough to be certain you had heard him, then left the room. The door closed slowly behind him with a soft sound of wood and iron. Only when he found himself in the empty corridor did he allow his eyes to close for a moment, drawing a deep breath.
For the first time in many days, the weight pressing upon his chest had grown slightly lighter. Not because the war had changed. Not because the danger had passed. But because he knew you were still alive.
In the days that followed, something in Jacaerys changed. At first, it was only small details, subtle enough to be mistaken for simple courtesy: a glance that lingered on you a moment longer than necessary whenever he thought you weren't paying attention, an unusual attentiveness to your movements, an almost involuntary need to make sure you weren't putting too much strain on your still-aching leg. No one else seemed to notice the change. He felt it every time you entered a room and his gaze sought you out before his mind was even aware of it, every time the sound of your footsteps made him lift his head automatically, interrupting whatever he had been doing. It was as if a part of him had begun to orient itself toward you instinctively, like the needle of a compass incapable of pointing anywhere but north. He constantly sought reassurance that you were well, that the pain was easing, that some color had returned to your face after the injury. And whenever his eyes finally met yours, an inexplicable relief would sweep through his chest, leaving him confused each time by the intensity with which his own heart reacted to something so simple.
That concern, however, did not remain confined to small gestures. Day after day, it turned into a constant presence. During your rehabilitation sessions, he was always there. He would sit at a distance, pretending to be absorbed in military reports or studying a map, but his attention was entirely fixed on you. Every time you clenched your teeth to endure the pain of a movement that was too sudden, his shoulders would stiffen unconsciously. When you faltered even slightly, he would rise before your balance was truly compromised, ready to catch you if needed. He rarely intervened, knowing how much you valued your independence and how much you hated feeling fragile, but the tension with which he followed your every movement was impossible to hide. And that same presence extended throughout the rest of the day. He would accompany you along the corridors of Dragonstone even when you insisted you could walk on your own, keeping just enough distance not to suffocate you, but never enough to lose sight of you. He was discreet and silent, constant as a shadow the sun could not erase. Even the servants had begun to grow accustomed to the sight: the prince who, with any excuse, always seemed to end up wherever you were.
Every day he found a new reason to knock on your door. Sometimes he claimed he needed to deliver documents that could not wait until morning; other times he said he wanted to report a decision made during council or inform you of developments along the coast. Occasionally, the excuse was to ask if you needed anything, whether the maester had already visited, to make sure your fever had not returned. The pretexts were so transparent that neither of you truly believed them. Least of all him.
Every time he left your room, he convinced himself it would be his last visit of the day, that he would finally stop looking for reasons to see you again. And yet, after only a few hours, the desire to see you returned with stubborn persistence. All it took was the memory of your smile, your voice, or the way you tilted your head slightly when listening, for another reason, another seemingly plausible justification, to form. And when he finally stepped out of your chamber, closing the door behind him, he was always left with that strange sense of incompleteness, as though he had forgotten something important inside. No amount of time spent with you ever seemed enough. It was an inexplicable emptiness that opened within him the moment he walked away, compelling him to long, almost unconsciously, for the next time he would see you.
That constancy frightened him. The more he tried to ignore it, the more evident it became. Jacaerys had always trusted in his discipline; he had been raised to control every emotion, to place duty above personal desires, to never allow his heart to interfere with his judgment. And yet now that certainty was wavering. He began to doubt himself, wondering when everything had changed and, more importantly, why. He tried to convince himself it was only a sense of responsibility. You had been seriously injured during a mission entrusted to you by his mother, it was natural to feel involved, to worry about your recovery, to make sure nothing worsened. He repeated it to himself like a prayer, seeking comfort in reason. But that explanation grew weaker with each passing day. Because responsibility did not explain the relief he felt when he saw you smile. It did not explain the tightness in his chest when he saw you in pain. And above all, it did not explain why his mind continued to seek you out even when he was occupied with matters of far greater importance.
He began to notice impulses that were increasingly difficult to control. He wanted to touch you. Every time you sat beside him, he felt an almost irresistible urge to reach for your hand, just to intertwine his fingers with yours and confirm whether your warmth was truly as reassuring as he imagined. When a loose strand of your hair slipped free and fell across your face, his fingers would move unconsciously, driven by a natural instinct to brush it aside with infinite gentleness so he could see you more clearly. The slightest accidental brush of your shoulders during a conversation, or the fleeting contact of your hands when passing an object, sent a sudden shiver through his entire body, leaving him motionless for a brief second. It was a new sensation, intense, almost destabilizing. To prevent himself from giving in to those impulses, he had begun, almost unconsciously, to clench his fists behind his back or cross his arms over his chest whenever you were too close, as though he could contain his desire simply by preventing his hands from moving. But the struggle grew harder each day, because the need to touch you never diminished, instead, it grew quietly within him.
Then came even more dangerous thoughts. He caught himself looking at your lips far more often than was appropriate. It would happen suddenly, in the middle of an ordinary conversation. You would be speaking, telling him something with that effortless naturalness he had grown so accustomed to, and he would realize too late that he had stopped listening, his gaze caught in the way your lips moved. They looked so soft, slightly parted when you smiled or said his name, and for no logical reason he found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss them. He would immediately try to banish the thought, almost frightened by its boldness, but it was already too late. The image had taken root. He told himself it was only curiosity, a fleeting whim destined to fade. And yet it returned each time with greater clarity. He even remembered the mornings at breakfast, when you would absentmindedly gather a drop of honey that had slipped from your bread with the tip of your finger and bring it to your lips in a simple, mesmerizing gesture. From that moment on, whenever honey appeared on the table, his mind would recreate that scene. He was inexplicably convinced that your lips must be as sweet as that honey, as soft as they appeared to his eyes.
That image began to haunt him at the most unexpected moments. It surfaced during council meetings, forcing him to reread the same reports over and over because he could not focus. It followed him while studying maps of the war, when his attention should have been on naval routes and enemy armies, yet his thoughts kept returning to you. It reached him even in flight, astride Vermax, when the wind should have cleared his mind of all distractions. All it took was closing his eyes for a moment, and your face would appear with startling clarity, your smile, your eyes, the sound of your laughter, the way you said his name. The more he tried to suppress those thoughts, the deeper they rooted themselves within him, spreading into every corner of his mind with relentless persistence. He was like a moth unable to resist the pull of light, fully aware of the danger yet irresistibly drawn to what might consume him. And the most unsettling truth was that, despite the fear it stirred in him, a part of him did not want to stop following it at all.
He had always believed he knew himself. He had grown up convinced that discipline was the most important quality a prince could possess, the foundation upon which to build every choice, every word, every action. From childhood, he had been taught to master fear before facing it, to never let emotions interfere with duty, to maintain control even when everything else seemed to collapse. He had learned to ride a dragon long before becoming a man, and over the years he had come to understand that true strength did not lie in imposing one's will through force, but in mastering one's deepest impulses. He had always believed the same applied to the heart. Emotions could exist, of course, but they had to remain in their place, silent, incapable of bending reason. He was certain he could do it. Certain he knew every corner of his soul, every limit of his will.
And yet you had shattered that certainty with ease, without doing anything extraordinary, without even realizing it. You had not tried to win him over, had not spoken words meant to seduce him. You had simply been yourself. And that had been enough. Your presence, your courage, the way you faced pain without letting it define you, the smile you still offered others despite your wounds. Without realizing it, his heart had ceased to belong to him. It had happened slowly, day by day, until the moment he understood he was no longer master of it at all.
He tried to fight that feeling with all the determination he possessed. He forced himself to treat you exactly as he always had, without allowing even the slightest change. He continued to address you in the same composed tone, to maintain a distance that felt more unbearable with each passing day, to avoid any gesture that might betray what he truly felt. Every morning, as soon as he opened his eyes, he told himself he would stop searching for you with his gaze, that he would spend at least one day without finding an excuse to come to you, without inventing new reasons to knock on your door. He tried to convince himself it was only a passing phase, a restlessness born from the fear of having nearly lost you. He clung to duty as though it were a shield capable of protecting him from his own feelings. War loomed over the realm. Each day brought new reports of the Greens' movements, new losses, new villages destroyed, new oaths broken. He was the eldest son of Rhaenyra Targaryen. His duty was to prepare to lead men into battle, to forge alliances, to make decisions that would shape the fate of the realm. He could not afford weakness. He repeated it to himself every day. Love, or whatever name could be given to the feeling that tightened his chest whenever he saw you, was a luxury that did not belong in his life. Not now. Not ever.
So he tried to suffocate it. He pushed it deep into the furthest corner of his heart, where he hoped time might slowly consume it until it disappeared. He convinced himself that if he ignored it long enough, it would fade into nothing more than a distant memory, a passing moment destined to close on its own. But the opposite happened.
Every day spent by your side made those feelings stronger, deeper, more deeply rooted. It was enough to see you cross the courtyard of Dragonstone for his breath to slow. It was enough to hear your voice among dozens of others for every other sound to fade away. It was no longer just attraction, nor simple affection. It was something far greater, something that had begun to intertwine itself with every thought he had of the future. And there came a moment when he had to face the truth. He would rather face certain death than live to see the day you left his life. The idea that you might live far from him, that one day your smile might be meant for someone else, that you might build a future in which he had no place, filled him with unbearable pain. It was a selfish thought, unreasonable, unworthy of a prince raised to put the realm before himself. And yet it was what he felt. The more he tried to deny it, the more he recognized its truth. He could no longer imagine his future without you in it. Every plan, every hope, every victory he envisioned suddenly seemed meaningless if you were not part of it. No, he would not endure losing you. Not after coming so close to watching you die.
It had been just under a week since your return to Dragonstone. The castle had slowly resumed its usual rhythm, but anyone who crossed your path could not fail to notice how your body still bore the marks of the battle. The deepest wounds had finally begun to close, but they left thin reddish lines along the skin of your face and neck, silent promises of scars that would remain. The bruises, now faded into shades of purple, yellow, and green, testified to the violence of the impact from your fall. Every breath drawn too deeply stirred the dull ache of your cracked ribs, forcing you to inhale with care. Your burned and torn shoulder protested with every sudden movement, reminding you in sharp flashes just how fragile your body still was.
The maesters insisted every day with stubborn persistence, prescribing absolute rest, compresses, potions, and weeks of inactivity. They repeated over and over that you had survived your clash with Vhagar by a miracle, and that forcing your recovery would risk undoing all the progress you had made. But their words seemed to bounce against an invisible wall. You had never been capable of remaining still while the world moved on without you. The thought of spending entire days shut inside your chamber, listening to tales of battles fought by others, felt far more unbearable than the pain itself. So that morning, when the sunlight barely filtered through the windows overlooking the sea, you were already on your feet.
You wore your riding leathers, heavier than usual, reinforced in the places where the material could better protect you in flight. With quick, efficient movements, you filled a sturdy leather bag with everything you deemed essential: spare clothes, rolls of clean bandages, a flask full of water, a small sharp-bladed knife, medicinal herbs, vials of painkillers, and anything else you might need far from the castle. Every bend pulled at your still-fresh wounds. Every movement made your body protest with sharper, more insistent pain. But you continued without so much as a complaint, gritting your teeth each time the pain threatened to slow you down.
When Jacaerys knocked lightly and stepped into your chamber, your heart lurched. He remained frozen in the doorway, unable to take even a single step forward. For a long, endless moment, he simply stared at the scene before him as though his mind refused to understand it. His gaze drifted slowly over your face, still marked by bruises, over the thin bandages visible beneath the collar of your tunic, over the stiffness with which you moved your injured shoulder as you tried to ignore the pain. Then he noticed the nearly full bag, the bandages, the knife, the medicines carefully arranged, and everything fell into place at once.
He felt his stomach tighten instantly. His heart dropped violently in his chest, stealing his breath. For a moment, he hoped he was mistaken, that there was another explanation, something simple his mind had not yet grasped. But deep down, he already knew the answer, and that certainty made everything far more terrifying.
"What are you doing?" he asked at last, breaking the silence. His voice sounded calm, almost controlled, but beneath the surface lay a tension so strong it made it just slightly lower than usual.
You did not pause for even a moment. You continued arranging the contents of the bag with precision, fastening one of the straps with a firm motion before answering, without even turning toward him. "I'm going on a mission."
Those three words were enough to make his blood run cold. His brows drew together immediately as he stepped closer, unable to take his eyes off the wounds that still marked your body. He stared at you in disbelief, struggling to understand how you could even consider mounting your dragon again when even breathing seemed to cost you such effort.
"You're not healed yet." His voice came out harsher than he intended, strained with concern he could not hide. "Your wounds will reopen. You can't go."
You placed more bandages into the bag with the same calm as before, without sparing him a glance. "Aemond burned a village last night." Your voice remained surprisingly steady. "After an attack like that, he'll have to rest. He's vulnerable. If we move now, we can strike."
Jacaerys felt something inside him snap the moment you said those last words. You spoke so naturally, as though the possibility of facing danger again carried no weight, as though the memory of your clash with Vhagar had already been pushed into some distant corner of your mind. He, on the other hand, could not forget anything. Every image of that day still haunted him with brutal clarity, even at night. He saw again the sky darkened by the vast wings of Grey Ghost, heard the deafening roar, relived the moment he had feared he would never find you alive again. All it took was closing his eyes for it to return with the same violence as before. And so, as he watched you calmly preparing that bag, a sudden anger rose within him.
It was not directed at you. It never could be. It was anger at the war that seemed to demand everything from you, at Aemond for reducing you to this state, at fate for continually placing you in the path of death, but most of all at your stubborn determination that drove you to sacrifice yourself again and again without granting any value to your own life. It felt unbearable. Before reason could stop him, his body had already moved.
He crossed the room in a few strides. The sound of his boots echoed across the stone floor, quick and decisive, filled with tension. When he reached you, his hand rose instinctively and closed firmly around your wrist. His fingers wrapped around your skin, stopping at once the motion with which you were placing the last bandage into the bag. It was not a violent grip, there was no intention to hurt you, no desire to impose himself by force. Quite the opposite. Even in that moment, he was careful with you. His hold was firm enough to stop you, secure enough to keep you there before him for at least a moment longer, but never painful. It was as though, if he let go of your wrist, he knew he would watch you walk out of that room and head straight toward a danger from which you might never return.
At last, you stopped what you were doing and slowly lifted your gaze to him. For a long moment, neither of you spoke. The silence that filled the room seemed almost tangible, broken only by the distant crash of waves against the cliffs of Dragonstone and the wind slipping through the half-open windows. Your eyes remained locked on each other, unable to look away. Jacaerys felt his breathing slow, while his heart continued to pound hard against his ribs. Jace's eyes were filled with conflicting emotions: fear, frustration, exasperation, and something far deeper that he could no longer hide. His fingers, still wrapped around your wrist, trembled slightly. It was a barely perceptible tremor, but enough to betray how fragile the control he was desperately trying to maintain truly was. The mere thought of letting you go had become unbearable.
"No." The word came out slowly, low, almost hoarse. He held your gaze without lowering it for even a moment, shaking his head faintly as though even imagining what you had just said was unacceptable. "You're not going anywhere." His voice grew firmer, more resolute, yet beneath that firmness something trembled that he could not conceal. "Not until those wounds are completely healed."
For the first time since you had known each other, those words did not belong to the heir prince issuing an order to one of the queen's riders. He was not speaking as the son of Rhaenyra Targaryen, nor as the warrior accustomed to giving commands during war councils. He was simply a man who had known the terror of losing you, and who was not willing to face it a second time. Everything he had tried to suppress over the past weeks now surged to the surface all at once, turning that simple sentence into a plea disguised as an order.
You stared at him for another moment, unable to fully understand what you were reading in his eyes. Then, without a word, you reacted on instinct, wrenching your wrist free from his grasp in a swift, abrupt motion. Jacaerys's fingers opened immediately, devoid of any intention to hold you by force, and remained suspended in the air for a few endless seconds, motionless, as though they had suddenly forgotten what they were meant to do next. For a moment, he stood there, his hand still slightly raised between you, staring at the empty space where your wrist had been. That simple gesture sent a sharp pain through his chest, far more painful than he would have ever admitted.
You looked at him, your eyes still burning with the stubbornness that had always defined you, but this time something else was mixed into it. Anger. A slow-building anger, born from a sense of inadequacy you had tried to ignore for far too long. You felt your heart pounding against your still-aching ribs as you struggled to keep your breathing steady despite the tension filling the room.
Since your return to Dragonstone, you had the constant impression that you could no longer take a single step without sensing his presence. Wherever you went, he was there. Always close enough to watch you with that concern you had come to find suffocating. Always ready to intervene at the slightest sign of strain, to notice even the smallest grimace of pain you tried in vain to hide. If you stepped into the courtyard, he would appear shortly after. If you attended a council meeting, he would find a place beside you. If you spent time in the library or on the castle terraces, your paths would inevitably cross. At first, you had thought it a coincidence. Then you began to realize it was not at all. That constant presence had begun to suffocate you. Every one of his attentions, every question about your condition, every concerned glance seemed to remind you constantly that you were injured, that your body was no longer what it had been. You, on the other hand, desperately wanted to forget. You wanted to feel free again, strong, capable of making your own choices. And he, without realizing it, seemed to be taking even that from you.
You inhaled slowly, trying to suppress the agitation that threatened to crack your voice. When you finally spoke, you kept your eyes fixed on his. "Why do you care so much?" you asked calmly, without looking away. "Ever since I came back, you've been constantly hovering over me. You're always in my room, always behind me, always ready to tell me what I can or cannot do. It's almost as if you're afraid to even let me walk on my own." You shook your head slowly, letting a loose strand of hair slip behind your ear, while with an almost unconscious gesture you pointed to the still-visible bruises on your face. "I'm not made of glass. I'm a dragonrider. I chose this life. This is my duty."
Your words struck him with the force of a blow straight to the chest. Jacaerys stood still, unable to respond. He lowered his gaze slightly for a moment, drawing in a deep breath in a futile attempt to regain the control slipping through his fingers like sand. He felt the blood pounding in his temples, his breathing growing heavier, while inside him weeks of fear, sleepless nights, restrained silence, and unspoken feelings surged all at once, pressing hard against the last fragile barrier he had built. He tried once more to suppress them. He tried to remind himself who he was, what he represented, what he was supposed to say. But that fragile calm held only for a few seconds before cracking completely under the weight of everything he could no longer contain.
"Your duty?" Jacaerys repeated, and for a moment disbelief, bitterness, and a kind of anger that had never been directed at you mingled in his voice.
Those words suddenly felt devoid of meaning. He had spoken them himself hundreds of times throughout his life. Duty came before everything, before desire, before fear, before happiness. He had built his entire existence upon that principle, sacrificing without hesitation any part of himself that might stand in the way of the destiny imposed upon him. And yet, hearing you use that same word to justify a mission that, in his eyes, amounted to a death sentence, stirred something dangerously close to rebellion within him.
Without even realizing it, he took a decisive step toward you, closing the distance between you. His gaze never left yours, as though he feared that if he looked away even for a second, you might truly walk out of that room and disappear forever. "Your duty is not to walk straight into certain death!" he burst out at last, his voice, usually controlled, filling the chamber with an intensity that made the silence itself tremble. The stone walls seemed to echo his words, amplifying the desperation behind them. "You can't just pack a bag, mount your dragon, and leave as if nothing happened! You've seen Aemond fight, and you're injured! You know what Vhagar is capable of, you'll never prevail in this state!" Each sentence came faster than the last, as though he feared he would not manage to say everything before it was too late. His chest rose and fell quickly now, his breath unable to keep pace with his racing heart. For a moment, he seemed to try to compose himself. He clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white, drew in a deep breath, and lowered his head slightly, as though speaking the next words required far more courage than facing any battle. He swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry, before lifting his eyes to yours again. "If you face him alone..." His voice faltered slightly. "You will die."
Those words hung between you, and they were what finally shattered the fragile control you had been holding onto until that moment. You felt something explode inside you, an emotion that had been building for days. All the anger, all the fear you had refused to acknowledge since returning to Dragonstone, all the pain your body continued to inflict with every breath, all the guilt that gnawed at you every time you thought of the villages reduced to ash and the people you had failed to save, everything fused into a single sudden flame, so intense that it burned away every trace of restraint.
You looked at him, your eyes shining, filled with determination. You could feel your heart pounding so hard against your injured ribs that every breath was painful, yet you did not take a single step back. "Then I'll die trying to kill him!" you shouted with all the strength you still had left. Your voice trembled slightly under the weight of the emotions you were finally allowing to surface. "Every day we wait, more innocent people are burned alive! Every day Aemond flies over defenseless villages, and every day someone loses their family, their home, everything they had! If there's even the slightest chance I can stop it, I'll take it!" You drew in a strained breath, ignoring the sharp pain that shot through your chest. "I do not care what happens to me."
The world seemed to stop for Jacaerys. All that remained was the weight of those last words, echoing mercilessly in his mind. I don't care what happens to me. He had truly heard them. They were not a product of fear or imagination. You had said them with conviction. He felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him suddenly pale. His breath caught for a moment, as though a hand had closed around his throat. Until that instant, he had desperately tried to convince himself that his fear was exaggerated, that in the end he would find a way to protect you, that he would somehow stop you from putting yourself in danger again. But now he understood. The greatest danger was not Aemond. It was not Vhagar. It was you, with your willingness to sacrifice yourself without hesitation, with your complete indifference to your own survival. For the first time, the possibility of losing you ceased to be a distant fear and became something terrifyingly real.
He closed the short distance between you in two strides, and before you could step back or turn away, his hands came to rest on your shoulders. The contact was firm, but not rough. He held you with both hands as if afraid you might vanish before his eyes at any moment. He turned you fully toward him, forcing you to meet his gaze, and gave you a slight shake. You could feel the warmth of his hands through the thick fabric of your tunic, the faint tremor in his fingers, his unsteady breathing as he tried in vain to steady it. Your faces were now very close, so close that you could see every trace of tension on his features, every muscle tightened along his jaw, every emotion he had tried so hard to conceal.
"Do you even realize what you're saying?" he asked, his voice breaking. Nothing remained but a frightened man, watching the person he cared for most slipping away before his eyes. "Do you hear yourself?"
You looked at him without answering. For a few seconds, silence claimed the room again. Jacaerys drew in a deep breath, desperately searching for words that seemed to slip through his grasp every time he reached for them. He lowered his gaze slightly, unable to bear the weight of your eyes any longer. He seemed to be fighting something within himself, a war that had begun long before the one consuming the realm. His lips parted more than once, yet no sound came out.
"Have you... have you thought about me?"
You frowned slightly. For a moment, the meaning of his words escaped you entirely. You looked at him in confusion, unable to understand what he meant. "Why would I think about you?"
Those few words left him breathless. He went still. Every muscle in his body seemed to tense at once. His hands, still resting on your shoulders, gradually lost their strength, though they did not pull away. His lips pressed into a thin line as he slowly lowered his gaze, unable to meet your eyes any longer. His eyes fell, almost involuntarily, to your lips, not to avoid your gaze, but because they seemed the only point on your face close enough to give him the courage he so desperately needed. The silence that followed became almost unbearable. Neither of you moved. Beyond the windows, the wind continued to howl between the towers of Dragonstone, carrying with it the distant sounds of dragons in flight, while inside the room there remained only the uneven rhythm of your breathing.
When he finally lifted his eyes to you again, something had changed. The mask he had worn his entire life was gone. There was no longer the heir prince measuring every word, controlling every emotion, placing duty above himself. Standing before you was simply Jacaerys, a young man, terrified and vulnerable. "How did you..." he whispered, sadness lacing his voice, his eyes glistening faintly with unshed tears. "How did you not notice?"
The question hung between you for an endless moment. Then he drew in a slow breath, as though it were the last before stepping into the void. You furrowed your brows, your stomach fluttering with nerves. "What?"
"I love you."
The words left his lips barely above a whisper, so soft that the wind itself seemed ready to carry them away. And yet, the instant they were spoken, they carried the weight of something immense. They filled the entire room, erasing every distance, every misunderstanding, every silence that had stood between your hearts until that moment.
You remained completely still, as though time itself had stopped. You felt your heart skip a beat as your eyes widened in shock. Instinctively, you searched his gaze, almost hoping to find uncertainty there, a hint of a smile that might reveal it as a joke, some sign that those words had been spoken in anger or fear.
But you found none of that.
Only sincerity, so deep it stole your breath away.
Time seemed to come to a halt at the exact moment those three words left Jacaerys' lips. For a long moment, neither of you was able to add anything more. The room, which only moments before had been filled with raised voices, anger, and fear, was suddenly swallowed by a deep silence. Even the wind that blew beyond the open windows, threading its way through the ancient walls of Dragonstone, seemed to have grown more distant. You simply continued to look at each other, motionless, now separated by only a few inches. Your breaths intertwined in the space between you, slow and uneven, still broken by the emotion of the argument that had just ended. You kept staring at him, your eyes wide, unable to look away from a face you knew so well and that now, suddenly, seemed to reveal a completely different person. The surly prince you had known was gone, before you stood only a young man who had finally torn down every defense and placed his heart in your hands, without knowing whether it would be shattered.
It was Jacaerys who broke the silence. "Don't go, my love.”
His voice was barely more than a whisper, so soft it seemed almost afraid to break the fragility of that moment. There was no authority left in those words. No command. No imposition. All the firmness with which, only minutes before, he had tried to stop you from leaving had vanished, leaving space only for something infinitely more vulnerable. It was only a plea. A request spoken by someone who had finally stopped hiding behind his role, his title, the duty that had guided every moment of his life. He was asking you to stay not as a prince, but as a man. Not for the good of the realm, not for a military strategy, not because your wounds still needed time to heal. He was asking it for himself. Because by now he could no longer imagine a world in which you might disappear from his life.
Slowly, as if afraid that any sudden movement might shatter the delicate balance that had formed between you, he raised both hands. For a moment they hovered a few inches from your face. He hesitated. It was unusual for him, he had never been afraid to act. But this was not about fighting an enemy. This was about you. Only when he convinced himself that you would not pull away did he let his palms rest gently against your cheeks. The contact was incredibly light, almost hesitant. His hands were warm, but they trembled slightly against your skin. You could feel that faint tremor clearly, a tiny detail that, more than any words, revealed everything he had tried in vain to hide in the days before.
His fingers lightly traced the line of your cheeks, brushing with infinite care even the thin, still-reddened scars that time had not yet erased. He did it with the same attention one gives to something precious and fragile, as though he feared that even the slightest rough gesture might make you vanish before his eyes. He drew you a little closer to him, without forcing you. The movement was so slow that you would have had all the time in the world to step away, to retreat, to end that moment before it even began. Jacaerys seemed almost to expect your refusal. He watched you with an intensity that revealed all his uncertainty, as though his heart were beating so hard it kept him from even breathing properly. But you did not pull away. You remained there, motionless, allowing the distance between you to slowly disappear.
That was when his lips met yours.
The kiss began slowly, as if even he could hardly believe he had found the courage to close the distance he had respected for so long. It was a kiss that spoke far more than words ever could. Within that gesture was all the fear he had carried through nights spent imagining you lost to him. There was the relief of knowing you were still there before him. You felt the slight tremor of his lips against yours, the same tremor that still ran through his hands as they gently held your face. It was a warm, shy contact, sweet as candy.
After a few moments, he pulled back just enough to rest his forehead gently against yours. He stayed there, eyes closed, breathing deeply in a futile attempt to calm the heart that seemed ready to burst from his chest. Your foreheads remained pressed together, your noses brushing lightly, and his lips seemed reluctant to leave yours, chasing them gently. For a long moment, he said nothing. He breathed in your scent slowly, as though trying to etch it into his memory, almost afraid he might forget it.
When he slowly opened his eyes again, he looked at you with desperation. "Please, ñuha jorrāelagon..." he whispered, his voice now completely broken. "Don't go."
Those words came out with a vulnerability you had never seen him show to anyone. Almost without realizing it, he sought your lips again, kissing you a second time with the same softness, but with a more evident hunger. The kiss lasted slightly longer than the first, as if every moment spent so close to you helped calm, at least in part, the chaos stirring in his heart.
"Please..." he murmured again, his breath breaking against your lips.
When the silence continued to offer him no answer, fear immediately tightened around his chest once more. He drew you a little closer with extreme gentleness, never holding you tightly enough to take away your choice. There was an almost obsessive care in every movement, as though he feared even an embrace too strong might hurt you. He kissed you again, with the same slowness, savoring every moment as if it were the most precious of his life. Then again, and again, and again. Each time his lips left yours, his eyes immediately searched for yours, desperately hoping to find in them an answer that still did not come. He kept whispering barely audible pleas, small please’s, while his voice betrayed his fear.
He was desperate, aching to feel your lips once more, longing to hold you and plead into your ear. Every fiber of his being urged him to keep you, to convince you to stay, to protect you from a fate that had already taken too much from his family. He had already seen the pain Aemond was capable of inflicting. He had already known the emptiness left by the loss of a brother, an absence that could never be filled. He did not want, he could not, lose you to the same man who had taken his brother from him. If necessary, he would challenge anyone, cross the sea, bend the sky itself to prevent it. He would not allow your blood to be spilled as so many others had been. He would not endure another loss.
His pretty girl.
At last, the weight of the stubbornness you had carried on your shoulders for days seemed to slowly melt away. You let out the breath you hadn't realized you had been holding, as the tension gradually left your body. You lifted your chin slightly until your forehead rested gently against his. You closed your eyes. "I won't go."
Jacaerys drew in a deep breath, as though until that moment he had been living without air, his head beneath water. He felt his chest finally fill with a full, free breath, as all the tension that had built over the past days slowly dissolved. His shoulders relaxed, his fingers stopped trembling, and a small smile, disbelieving and full of relief, appeared on his face.
He remained looking at you for a long time in silence, as though he wanted to memorize every detail of your face. The curve of your lips, the light in your eyes, the small scars that time might one day soften but that, to him, would never diminish your beauty. He brushed his forehead against yours once more, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing in the scent he loved so much, treasuring that instant as something irreplaceable. Only then did he seek your lips again, drawing you into one last slow, silent kiss.
SUMMARY: Father Baelor Targaryen has spent fifteen years believing his faith could withstand anything. Then you walked into his parish, carrying your own grief, and suddenly the hardest thing he's ever had to confess isn't to God, but to himself.
WARNING(S): priestAU/modernAU, dual POV, no use of y/n, AFAB reader, religious themes, hierophilia (priest kink), forbidden romance, slow burn, mutual pining, religious guilt, crisis of faith, catholic imagery, blasphemous thoughts, grief, emotional repression, yearning, unresolved sexual tension (for now), loneliness, age gap (40s and 20s), unhealthy devotion, obsessive thoughts, explicit sexual thoughts, emotional confrontation, confession, crisis of vocation, complicated grief, fear of abandonment, self-loathing, references to self-destructive behaviour, mentions of pregnancy loss, yearning so intense it qualifies as a public health concern, hurt no comfort, cliffhanger.
WC: 24.3k (forgive me father for I have lied: this part is not shorter than the first)
A.N.: thorny dividers are mine. i believe this second part is actually heavier than the first one, and more dialogue-centered as well. as always, thank you so much for reading and i'll be happy to read your thoughts on it!
There had to be something inherently wrong with you, lusting after a priest the way you currently were.
That was the working theory you'd been repeating to yourself for the better part of a month now, some private incantation you trotted out every time the thought resurfaced, as though naming the wrongness of it might eventually talk you out of feeling it.
February had settled over the city with its usual bleak commitment — grey skies, the kind of cold that got into your bones rather than simply your fingers, the sort that made walking feel like a small penance in itself, one you nonetheless preferred, most days, to the overheated apartment waiting for you and your mother at the end of it.
Your own mind, meanwhile, remained stubbornly, inconveniently far from cold, if you were being honest with yourself, which you were trying, with limited success, to be more often these days.
You had attempted, repeatedly, to simply stop. To file Baelor back into some more appropriate category — priest, friend, safe harbour — and leave him there. Every attempt collapsed within the length of a single church visit. Something about crossing that threshold undid whatever resolve you'd built up in the days since your last one.
It wasn't even purely the sexualizing of him that troubled you most, not anymore. You'd spent the better part of your adult life harbouring a low, manageable fondness for older men, and it had never once presented an actual problem — a fact you could point to, if pressed, as evidence you weren't entirely unhinged. What actually alarmed you was the timeline.
Sometime after New Year's, without you quite noticing the transition, the thoughts had stopped being purely physical and started building something considerably more serious: an entire imagined life with him, constructed detail by unauthorized detail. What books he might like. What music he listened to when no one else could hear it. Whether he'd complain, the way older men supposedly did, about his knees aching before rain. Whether he'd learned to cook properly at some point in his years of rectory living, or whether the parishioners' casseroles were doing the heavy lifting entirely.
Lately, though, the questions had curdled into something with considerably less innocence to it. Whether he'd want you on your hands and knees or pressed flat against a wall, whether his hands would be gentle about it or not gentle in the slightest, whether that low, ruined register you'd heard exactly once, wrapped around a joke about a coroner in a half-lit church, would sound the same wrapped around your name in an entirely different context.
When those thoughts started arriving daily, you understood, with a certain grim clarity, that you were well and truly fucked.
Well — not fucked yet, you'd thought at the time, and then laughed out loud at your own audacity, alone in your kitchen, like the unhinged woman you were apparently becoming.
But God, the thought of it.
Baelor on his knees for once instead of you. That broad, imposing frame of his folded down to fit between your thighs, his face buried against you, his bearded jaw dragging rough and maddening against the softest skin you owned until the drag of it alone had you gasping for reasons that had nothing to do with the cold.
You imagined his mouth working with the same unhurried, devastating attention he brought to everything else he touched — no rush in him anywhere, nothing careless, as though he had all the time God had ever handed anyone and intended to spend every last second of it exactly there.
You imagined his fingers joining his mouth eventually, long and thick, exactly the kind of hands that had once closed entirely around your waist and lifted you like you weighed nothing at all, and you imagined his other hand gripping the curve of your ass hard enough to hold you exactly where he wanted you, keeping you trembling and open against him, his mouth on your pussy until you were begging.
You imagined him drawing back just far enough to look up the trembling length of you — that mismatched gaze finding yours from between your own legs, dark and wrecked and finally, entirely undone — his mouth wet and parting to say those three words you'd been quietly dying to hear him say for—
"Are you even listening to me?" Kiera's voice cut through with a mix of exasperation and amusement that suggested this wasn't the first attempt at your attention she'd made.
You blinked, hard, twice, dragging yourself back into the actual coffee shop currently containing you, the unglamorous February gloom of it, condensation fogging the window beside your booth, your own coffee gone entirely cold in front of you. The three of you had claimed this same booth most Wednesday afternoons since university, back when Kiera had still been dating the ex who'd eventually made her cry in this exact seat. Some traditions simply outlasted their original reasons for existing.
"What?" you managed, unconvincingly.
She and Rowan laughed together, that synchronized laugh of two people who'd been friends with each other roughly as long as they'd each been friends with you, and you picked up your spoon and stirred your ruined coffee anyway, mostly for somewhere to point your eyes that wasn't either of their faces.
"I know that look." Rowan — red hair currently escaping its bun in three separate directions, always the louder of the two — leaned across the table with open delight. "You're dick hungry."
You aimed a glare at her sharp enough to drill through bone and looked to Kiera for backup instead. Kiera only nodded in solemn agreement.
Betrayed, you thought. By your own friends. Who needed enemies.
"You've been living on some other planet this last month," Kiera said, not unkindly. "Whoever it is got you good. I think you should just make a move already."
Rowan nodded so enthusiastically her mug nearly sloshed over the rim. "You should suck his dick, honestly. Get it over with."
Kiera snorted into her own cup. You grimaced, mostly on principle and not because that same thought hadn’t lived in your head for a while now — Rowan's bluntness had exactly one setting, and you'd stopped expecting anything more delicate from her sometime around age nineteen.
"It's not that easy." You busied your hands with the spoon again. "He's not — completely available."
Rowan sipped, unbothered. "Ask his girlfriend for a threesome. What's the issue?"
You laughed, though it came out considerably weaker than you'd intended. "He doesn't have a girlfriend."
"Well then." Rowan raised an eyebrow over the rim of her mug. "Who exactly is stopping you?"
Your spoon traced slow circles through the coffee, watching the small whirlpool it made before it settled flat again. "It's — complicated."
"Complicated usually means married," Rowan said, entirely unimpressed.
"Worse."
Kiera frowned properly now. "How is that worse?"
You let the silence stretch a beat too long, long enough that both of them exchanged a look across the table before you finally sighed through your nose and gave it up.
"Well." She leaned back, arms crossing, visibly recalibrating. "That's inconvenient."
"That's one word for it," you chuckled and said, flat.
"Other one might be fucked up," Rowan commented in her usual instinct to make everything a joke. "How does that even happen? Did you meet him at a bar in disguise, or—"
"I started going back to church. After dad." You shrugged, the explanation feeling both entirely true and wildly insufficient at once. "He was just — there. Kind, mostly. And then not just kind."
"And how long has 'not just kind' been going on?"
"Since October, if I'm honest about it. Properly honest."
Kiera did the math out loud, unimpressed. "That's four months."
"I could do the maths myself, thank you."
Rowan, who had gone uncharacteristically quiet through this part of the interrogation, finally spoke up. "Okay, but four months of what, though. Have you two actually — done anything?"
You felt your face heat despite the coffee shop's mediocre attempt at central heating. "There was a moment in December. Nothing happened, but it almost did."
"Almost? How almost?"
You decided not to add anything. You were in deep enough as it were to give any more details.
"I'm just saying," Kiera went on, tone gone thoughtful now, turning the information over properly. "That's not a crush, sweetheart. A crush doesn't survive four months on nothing. That's a whole relationship you've been quietly building in your own head, with a man who has no idea he's in it."
Does Baelor actually have no idea? Am I completely imagining the closeness and the way he looks at me? You thought about how he had returned to his initial self after the December incident. Well, not like his initial self, but warmer. But that might just be your brain playing games again with you.
You chuckled at your own inner monologue. Kiera, though, didn't laugh at all. She'd been watching your face for most of the conversation with an attention you'd been carefully not noticing, and something in her expression softened now, almost imperceptibly, into something considerably more serious than the moment strictly called for.
"No," she resumed quietly. "There has to be more than that."
You frowned. "What do you mean?"
She tilted her head, studying you the way she'd studied you across a thousand smaller crises over the better part of your friendship. "You don't want to sleep with him."
You looked away immediately. "Of course I don't." Liar, your inner voice all but screamed.
"No, I know you do,” she ignored your attempt at lying. “But you don’t want to just sleep with him, right?"
"I don’t know what you mean."
"Then why," Kiera said, gently, "do you look like someone just asked you to put down a dying dog?"
"That's a horrifying comparison," you said, mostly to buy yourself a few more seconds.
"Answer the question."
Rowan snorted into her coffee at that, but Kiera didn't so much as glance at her, attention fixed entirely on you with that infuriating, familiar patience of someone who'd known you half your life and had stopped falling for your deflections sometime around the same year Rowan had. "You have that face."
"What face?"
"The one you had after that loser of a boyfriend finally left. The one you get whenever you care far more than you're willing to admit to."
You opened your mouth to argue and found, with some alarm, that no convincing counter-argument presented itself anywhere in your head.
"I've..." You let the breath out, defeated. "I've caught myself wondering stupid things."
Rowan brightened immediately. "Like what? Whether he's good in bed?"
"No." It came out too quickly. "Not — not just that."
Both of them waited, patient in the specific way friends got when they sensed the real thing finally surfacing.
"I've wondered what music he listens to. Whether he likes old films. Whether his knees would complain every time it rains." You were aware, even as the list kept coming, of exactly how ridiculous you sounded, and couldn't quite manage to stop the momentum of it. "Whether he takes his coffee with sugar or black. Whether he'd—" You caught yourself, abruptly aware of the sentence you'd nearly finished out loud.
"Whether he'd what?" Kiera prompted, quiet.
You stared down at the cold coffee cradled between both hands, unable to look at either of them for this part. "... whether he'd be happy with me."
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Rowan's teasing had drained entirely out of her face, replaced by something closer to sympathy than you were prepared to receive from her.
"Jesus Christ," she muttered, finally. Fucking ironic word choice, you thought, and nearly laughed despite everything. "You've got it bad."
You let out a humourless laugh of your own, resting your forehead against one hand. "I know."
"No," Kiera corrected, softly, reaching across the table to close her fingers around your wrist. "No, I don't think you do, actually."
The three of you sat inside that silence for a while, none of you in any hurry to be the one who broke it. You were the one who finally did.
"He's actually invited me to dinner with his brother's family, this Sunday." You said it fast, pushing through before either of them could interject. "It's my father's anniversary. My mother's going to be a wreck around the house, and I think — I think it'll be good for me to have somewhere else to be that day."
Rowan and Kiera exchanged another look, eyebrows lifting in perfect, damning synchrony.
"I'll be sending some very useful, very vanilla positions to the group chat," Rowan announced after a beat, entirely deadpan. “Wouldn’t want to be partially responsible for the death of a priest.”
You finally laughed — real, loud enough to turn a head at the next table over — for what felt like the first time all conversation.
Kiera's teasing had gone soft again, that same softness from a few minutes before. "How are you doing with that, by the way. The anniversary."
"Ask me again next week," you said, which wasn't really an answer, and she let it go without pushing, because she'd known you long enough to recognize which doors you'd actually open if she knocked and which ones you'd simply lean harder against.
The laugh helped, the way laughing with these two specific people always eventually helped, even when the thing underneath it hadn't changed even slightly.
Rowan reached over to steal a sip of your abandoned, cold coffee, grimaced dramatically at the taste, and marched off to order you a fresh one without being asked. Kiera didn't let go of your wrist for a while yet, her thumb tracing an idle, absent line back and forth over the pulse point — the kind of small, wordless anchor she'd been offering you in one form or another since the two of you were fourteen and she'd sat with you in a school bathroom for reasons neither of you discussed anymore.
You let yourself be anchored. It was, you thought, watching Rowan argue cheerfully with the barista about oat milk, one of the few things in your current life uncomplicated enough to simply enjoy without picking apart.
Baelor had three moles on the front of his neck.
They sat close together in a pattern that had struck you, the first time you'd properly seen them, as something almost deliberately celestial — a small constellation someone had pressed into his skin and then, for reasons known only to whatever cosmic sense of humour governed these things, tucked away beneath a collar for the rest of the world to never notice. It seemed, to you, something entirely unfair.
You'd caught sight of them only once, weeks ago now, on some ordinary afternoon when he'd shed the white for a few unguarded minutes and you'd happened to be standing close enough to see. Your mouth had gone dry on the spot. You'd spent an embarrassing number of hours since wondering whether there were more of them somewhere beneath the black — an entire private galaxy hidden under years of careful vestment, one you had absolutely no legitimate reason to want to map with your own hands. Or, if you were being fully honest with yourself, which lately you increasingly weren't inclined to be, your own tongue.
They joined a growing private inventory of him you'd been keeping without ever consciously deciding to start one.
Like the single, perfect beauty mark sitting just at the corner of his right cheekbone, isolated and precise, exactly midway between eye and beard as though God — or whoever handled such details — had placed it there with a ruler. The thin, pale scar interrupting the very end of his left eyebrow, source unknown, a story you'd caught yourself wanting to ask about and then never quite finding the nerve.
But it was his hands that had captured you first and had never fully released their grip since.
Big. Strong, by every piece of evidence you'd personally gathered — you still remembered, with a specificity that did nothing good for your composure, the afternoon he hadn't simply helped you down from a chair but had quite literally lifted you off it, like your own weight was a fact he'd found entirely negligible. Long fingers. Nails kept short and clean. Veins standing visible beneath the skin of the backs of his hands, ones you were fairly certain ran the whole length of his forearms if you ever got the chance to actually check. You had, if you were tallying honestly, imagined tracing every visible inch of them with your tongue often enough by now that you felt something close to acquainted with the whole geography of it, purely through repetition.
Your imagination had turned into something filthy these last months — not days, you corrected yourself, months, if you were being accurate about it. And right now, watching him from your pew as he worked his way methodically through reorganizing the parish bookshelf, the late afternoon light coming through the high windows gone thick and amber, the particular gold that only showed up an hour or so before the church emptied for the evening — it caught him now and then as he moved between shelves, reaching for a title on the top row that put the stretch and pull of him on full, unfair display, or crouching to sort something at floor level in a way that drew his cassock taut across his shoulders.
You were fairly sure the display wasn't intentional. You were also sure you didn't give a fuck whether it was.
Your imagination had already moved several steps past his hands and was currently occupied with putting those particular fingers to an entirely different use. Somewhere south of your navel, specifically.
You shook your head, hard, and shut your eyes for a moment, as if the gesture alone might physically dislodge the thought. When you opened them again you turned your face toward the familiar wooden cross above the altar instead, and let a small, unimpressed scoff escape you.
Do you test all your followers this hard, or is it just personal with me, you directed at Him, silently.
No answer arrived, same as always. You'd asked variations of that question more times than you could count these past months, and He'd maintained the same unbroken silence every time, which you'd come to interpret, perhaps unfairly, as tacit permission rather than disapproval. It was, you thought, a convenient theology to have arrived at, and you weren't about to examine it too closely.
You pulled out your phone instead, in search of a distraction that wasn't currently the man reorganizing a bookshelf ten feet away from you, and opened the group chat.
I'm at the parish and I can't stop imagining things, you typed.
Rowan's reply arrived almost before you'd finished sending it. Is the altar a good height for him???
You glanced toward the altar despite yourself, weighing the question with more genuine consideration than it probably deserved. Probably a bit low, honestly, you typed back.
A string of purple devil emojis followed, then, oh girl he tall tall.
Kiera's typing bubble appeared next. Don't do anything you'd regret later. Ever the careful one.
Girl that's easy for you to say, Rowan shot back before Kiera could add anything further. You've got Valarr pounding you senseless every other night and I’ve got Raymun eating out of the palm of my hand. Let the girl enjoy some of His divine creation.
Kiera's dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again. All I'm saying is be careful. You know we'll be here if it goes wrong. I just don't want to pick up the pieces again, like with the last guy.
You sighed, quiet enough not to disturb the church's stillness. She wasn't wrong to say it. Your last boyfriend had left you in genuine wreckage, and it had been these exact two women who'd put you back together afterward, one slow week at a time.
That's fair, you typed. I don't want to make you pick up the pieces of me again either.
Girl don't you worry about that, Rowan sent back immediately, I've got no problem scraping your coochie off the ground if it comes to that, followed by a generous handful of winking emojis.
You had to physically suppress a snort, aware of exactly how loud any sound would carry in an empty church. Heat crept up into your cheeks anyway. You bit your lower lip and typed back before you could think better of it: My coochie wouldn't end up on the ground, because his mouth would be—
"Hey." Baelor's voice arrived directly at your left shoulder, close enough to nearly startle the phone straight out of your hand and yeet it across the church. "Would you mind giving me a hand with some of the new books?"
You turned to find him already looking, his eyes having clearly drifted to your screen mid-sentence, the message still sitting there half-finished and catastrophically incriminating. You slammed the phone face-down against your thigh with trembling fingers as fast as you were physically capable of and produced something you hoped read as a normal smile.
"Yeah — yeah, of course." You did not sound normal.
He was leaning against the back of your pew, his face closer to yours than you'd fully registered until he turned it directly toward you, close enough now that there was no possible way he'd missed the colour currently flooding your cheeks.
"Are you alright?" His brow drew together. "You seem a bit out of breath."
You were, in fact, out of breath, and having him this close was doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. "I'm fine. Probably just caught a bit of a cold," you tried, aiming for lightness and landing somewhere considerably less convincing.
He frowned, properly this time, and his right hand rose into your field of view before you'd fully processed it was moving — the back of it pressing gently to your forehead. He hummed, low, considering.
"You're definitely warm." His hand shifted, the backs of his fingers trailing from your forehead to rest instead against one cheek, and you felt the rasp of his knuckles against your skin, dry and warm, and had to consciously stop yourself from turning your face into the touch like some starved creature. His frown deepened even as something distinctly amused pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Warmer here, actually."
You wanted, quite sincerely, to die on the spot.
Hey, your own brain unhelpfully supplied, he could always check whether the lips run warmer than the cheeks. You get to pick which lips.
You extracted yourself from his grasp with more force than the moment strictly required, mourning the loss of contact even as you executed it, because you plainly could not be trusted to remain within arm's reach of him and your own treacherous brain simultaneously.
"Baelor, I'm fine," you said, a touch sharper than intended, though he didn't so much as flinch at the tone. "I don't want you catching anything."
He only smiled wider and made no move whatsoever to actually put distance between you. "I'd sooner risk a fever," he said, "than pretend I'm not worried."
Fuck, your brain supplied again, with feeling. We're definitely on fire now.
You stared up at his eyes and found something there you could only have described, if pressed, as adoration — open, unguarded, entirely unlike the careful public warmth he handed out to the rest of the parish. You shook your head, mostly to break the eye contact before it did any further damage.
"You mentioned books," you said, seizing the subject change for the sake of your own cardiovascular health. "Did you forget how to read? Need a hand sounding out the big words?"
He huffed something close to a laugh. "No, I remember perfectly well. I believe I've managed the Scriptures competently enough these past years." The corners of his mouth twitched further upward. "I simply wanted an excuse to monopolize your company for an hour or two."
Your heart did something undignified in your chest. "That sounds suspiciously premeditated."
He smiled fully at that, the expression finally reaching all the way to his eyes, those sharp canines catching the light for a moment as he did. He leaned his head a fraction closer to yours. "I knew you'd never suspect such villainy from a man carrying a Bible."
He straightened, then, rising to his full and considerable height in front of you, and your eyes — treacherous things, apparently incapable of behaving themselves for even a single uninterrupted minute today — tracked the movement of him without your permission, sweeping briefly over the whole of him as he rose.
He offered his hand to help you up, and as you took it, you found yourself thinking, not for the first time, that he'd grown noticeably warmer toward you since December — the careful, apparently ordinary distance replaced by something considerably closer and considerably harder to explain away as your own overactive imagination.
You couldn't, in fact, blame your imagination for a single part of it. Not for the way his fingers closed around yours now, certain and unhurried, and squeezed.
You let him lead you toward the bookshelf, matching your pace to his without quite meaning to, and told yourself, with the same shaky conviction you'd been running on since October, that you could absolutely handle whatever the next hour of shelving hymnals next to him was about to do to you.
You were, you knew even as you thought it, lying.
He was doing a spectacularly poor job of concentrating on the books.
He'd catalogued the entire top shelf twice now without retaining a single title — he could not, if pressed under oath, have named a single volume currently passing through his own hands — his attention snagging instead, over and over, on the woman standing four feet away from him, sorting hymnals into some system only she seemed to fully understand. Her hands, moving quick and sure between spines, the small, unconscious flex of her fingers each time she pulled a book free. The line of her neck where it disappeared into her collar, exposed each time she tipped her head to read a call number, a stretch of skin he had spent an unconscionable number of these last minutes wanting to press his mouth against. Her — simply her, the whole unbearable fact of her presence in a part of the church few people ever bothered to visit, close enough now that his own cock had apparently decided it was done deferring to whatever remained of his better judgment and was making its opinion known with a persistence that bordered on cruelty.
The old stacks sat tucked into a low-ceilinged alcove next to the sacristy, a corner of the building most of the parish had entirely forgotten existed. The hour had gone late enough that the last of the day's amber light had drained out of the high windows entirely, leaving them lit by nothing but the single bare bulb overhead. They were, as far as he could ascertain, entirely and completely alone, in a part of the building no one would think to look for either of them, for at least another hour.
He was aware of this fact the way a man is aware of a loaded gun left within easy reach. Not actively reaching for it. Simply aware, at every moment, of precisely how little effort it would take.
He could press her back against the shelving behind her right now, he thought, with the same detached, horrified clarity he brought to most of his worst ideas these days. Could close the four feet of distance still separating them in two unhurried steps, could feel the small, surprised sound she'd make against his mouth when he finally did what he'd been fantasizing about since October and simply kissed her — her mouth first, hard enough to bruise if she let him, and then, God help him, her throat, working down the column of it with lips and teeth both until he reached the collar of her shirt and whatever lay just beneath it that he'd only glimpsed once, entirely by accident, and had never once managed to forget since.
There was a mole, small and dark, resting in the shallow space between her breasts — visible for exactly as long as it had taken her collar to gape, that Christmas Eve, when she'd collapsed against his chest crying and he'd had nothing better to do with his own treacherous eyes than look down at the crown of her head and, in doing so, see considerably further than he'd had any right to.
He had not gone looking for it. He wanted that on some private record somewhere, for whatever it was worth. But he had seen it, and he had not forgotten it, and he had — he made himself think the words plainly, since plain honesty for himself seemed to be the only discipline he had any capacity left for these days — used the memory of it since. More than once. Three times, if he was counting accurately, which he was, because some perverse instinct in him insisted on keeping score even as the number itself made him wince.
He was not, he would freely admit, particularly proud of that fact. He had noticed, with some alarm, that he was growing steadily less ashamed of it with each repetition, the way any sin presumably grew easier to commit the second and third time a man permitted himself the first.
He had, somewhere in these last weeks, made his peace with the fact that he was absolutely and irreversibly finished.
There was very little dignity left in continuing to pretend otherwise to himself, whatever dignity he still managed to perform for the rest of the parish. And he had made his peace, too, with the considerably larger admission underneath the smaller one — that whatever this was, it had stopped being purely carnal months ago, if it had ever been purely carnal at all.
He loved her.
He had finally said the word to himself plainly enough that it no longer required euphemism to survive contact with his own conscience. He thought, sometimes, of the old theologians who'd insisted love and desire were properly ordered toward each other, that eros rightly directed eventually became something closer to caritas — and thought, with a bitterness that surprised him, that none of them had apparently accounted for a man in his exact position, wanting a woman with the whole of both registers simultaneously and having no legitimate direction left to order either of them toward.
It was, if he allowed himself to examine it with anything like clear eyes, a faintly absurd thing to have arrived at. He had constructed, somewhere in the private space of his own skull, an entire relationship with a woman who had no idea the structure existed — imagined conversations he'd never had, a whole domestic future built out of nothing but proximity and want, a life that existed nowhere except behind his own eyes. And yet he craved her the way his lungs craved air, an urgency that didn't diminish with acknowledgment the way most cravings eventually did, only sharpened. He needed her the way his heart needed blood moved through it — not as an indulgence to be rationed out and enjoyed occasionally, but as something closer to a constant, involuntary function, present in every single beat whether he attended to it or not.
He had grown considerably more reckless since December — since she'd come back to him on Christmas Eve, since whatever had broken open in the both of them that night had apparently not fully closed again in the weeks since.
He stood closer to her than strictly necessary whenever proximity presented itself as an option. He spoke to her now with a candour he extended to no one else in his life, not his brothers, not his own confessor, saving for her alone whatever scraps of real honesty he still had in him to give. And he had, God forgive him — he meant that literally, he hoped God was in fact prepared to forgive him for it, because he had not yet managed to stop doing it — begun making sure, every single time she knelt in front of him for Communion, that his fingers grazed the wet warmth of her tongue exactly the way they had that first involuntary time, months ago, when the contact had genuinely been an accident rather than something he now engineered with quiet, deliberate care.
He remembered, with a clarity that shamed him, the most recent Sunday — how her eyes had lifted to his at the exact moment his fingers made contact, how she'd held the look a half-second longer than the sacrament strictly required before dropping her gaze and returning, dutiful and quiet, to her pew. He had spent the rest of that Mass in a state of low, humming distraction he was fairly certain no one else in the building had noticed, though he supposed a man in his position had grown reasonably skilled at not being noticed for exactly this sort of thing.
He felt, doing it, precisely like what he was: a predator. A wolf who had spent years perfecting the exact cut and drape of sheep's clothing, using the one moment of the week she trusted him without reservation to take something small and illicit for himself, wrapped in the cover of the single most sacred rite he had the authority to perform.
And yet — and this was the part he turned over most often, searching for whatever exoneration might be hiding somewhere inside it — she had never once recoiled. Not so much as a flicker. If anything, something in the way she looked back at him afterward, dazed and a little too warm around the eyes, suggested the opposite of discomfort entirely.
He told himself, some days, that this meant something. Other days, more honest ones, he suspected it meant nothing at all — that she simply hadn't noticed, that a man well-practiced in reading exactly what he wanted into an ambiguous glance had found, in her, an extremely willing canvas for his own self-serving interpretation. He did not actually know which version was true. He had decided, with the particular cowardice of a man unwilling to test a comfortable theory against reality, not to find out.
Out here in the stacks, away from anything so freighted with meaning as the altar rail, his hands had taken to chasing hers with whatever flimsy pretext presented itself — a book exchanged between them that could easily have simply been set down on a shelf instead, a particular passage he suddenly needed to show her that required, apparently, both of their fingers on the same page at once. Once, reaching past her for a volume on the higher shelf, he'd let his forearm brush deliberately along the length of her own, slow enough that neither of them could reasonably have called it accidental, and she had gone very still beside him for exactly as long as the contact lasted, breath catching audibly enough that he'd heard it even over the creak of old shelving.
She never pulled away. Not once, in the better part of an hour they'd now spent together, had she so much as flinched from the contact, and he was beginning to suspect his own hands of acting with an intention his conscious mind hadn't fully signed off on, some old animal logic operating several steps ahead of whatever restraint he still had left in reserve.
She was so warm. She smelled, up this close, like her usual jasmine and her own scent — floral, faintly sweet, entirely her own — and he was aware, with a fresh wave of something close to genuine self-disgust, that he had started arranging his own movements around the simple, animal pleasure of standing near enough to catch it. He must look, he thought, exactly like a stray dog trailing some kinder stranger's scent down an alley, hoping against all evidence that this time, finally, someone might actually decide to keep him.
It was, mercifully for whatever remained of his composure and considerably less mercifully for the rest of him, a small blessing that the books themselves were finite.
His cock had been pressing, hard and increasingly insistent, against the front of his trousers beneath the cassock for the better part of the last twenty minutes, and he found himself, not for the first time this year, sincerely grateful for the concealing yardage of black fabric the Church had settled on centuries ago, apparently with foresight he'd never once had reason to appreciate until now.
"You're still coming on Sunday?" he asked, watching her dust the last traces of shelf-dust from her hands together, the final book finally settled into its rightful place.
"Of course I am."
"Good," he smiled lightly.
She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicion visibly creeping across her face. "I can't believe you weaponized books against me, by the way."
He blinked back at her with practiced, entirely unconvincing innocence. "Weaponized?"
"You admitted you only wanted an excuse to monopolize my company."
"I admitted no such thing."
"You did!"
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, infuriatingly smug even to his own ear. "I admitted I wanted your company. The books were simply—" he considered his next word with theatrical care, "—a fortunate opportunity."
She snorted. "That's a distinction without a difference, Baelor."
"Is it?"
"Absolutely."
He considered the accusation with exaggerated solemnity, weighing it as though it were a genuine theological question rather than the flirtation it plainly was, before inclining his head in mock concession. "Then I suppose I'll simply have to find another, more honest opportunity."
The words left him so matter-of-factly, so entirely without the caution he ought to have exercised around a sentence like that, that it took her a full heartbeat to register what he'd actually said. He watched the realization land — watched her eyes widen just slightly, watched the colour climb back into her cheeks, the ones she'd only just managed to ease down from their earlier crisis.
A complete, lovesick dog, he thought again, watching her. Utterly without shame left to spend on the matter.
He gathered the empty book crate at his feet, if only to give his hands something to do besides what they actually wanted to do, and followed her toward the main space of the church, watching the sway of her hips ahead of him with an attention he made absolutely no effort to redirect.
Whatever thin ice he'd been treading on these past months, he thought, following her into the ordinary light of the sanctuary, he had apparently long since stopped noticing the sound of it cracking beneath his own feet.
Sunday came, and he still hadn't decided, by the time they reached the end of her street, precisely how he intended to explain her presence to Maekar, because his brother actually didn’t know she was coming.
It was an ordinary enough Sunday on paper — one of the regular rotations his brother insisted on, dinner with him and Dyanna and all six of the children, a standing invitation Baelor accepted perhaps two Sundays out of every four and would, if he was honest with himself, have very likely declined this particular week. He had not been in the mood for the specific chaos six children under one roof reliably produced, not with everything currently occupying the greater share of his attention. And then she had mentioned, almost in passing, in the tone of someone determined not to make more of the fact than it deserved, that tonight marked a year since her father's death.
He had asked her before he'd finished fully deciding to. A single phone call to Dyanna, two additional plates added to a table that had never once, in his years as a priest, held a plate for anyone he'd brought there himself.
He had dressed for the evening in the plain black shirt and jeans he kept for the rare occasions he left the parish entirely — no collar, no cassock, nothing to announce what he was to anyone who happened to pass them on the street.
He caught his own reflection once, briefly, in a shop window on the walk over, and was struck by how thoroughly the absence of the collar changed the man looking back at him. Simply a man. Tall, greying at the temples, walking beside a woman toward his brother's house for Sunday dinner, indistinguishable from a thousand other men doing precisely the same ordinary thing on precisely the same ordinary evening.
He had to laugh the thought off almost as soon as he'd finished having it — a short, private huff of breath that she glanced over at, curious, and that he waved away with some invented comment about the cold. He did this often now, he'd noticed. Manufactured a small joke, threw some cheap comedy at whatever wreckage his own mind had just handed him, because the alternative to laughing was feeling the full weight of it, and he had learned these last months that he could not afford to feel the full weight of it while still upright and functioning in public.
She had gone quiet somewhere around the third block, uncommonly so, and he could see — the way he'd learned, over these months, to read the specific grammar of her silences — that she'd sunk somewhere deep into her own thoughts, some private country he had no map for and no legitimate right to enter uninvited.
He would have paid nearly anything, in that moment, for even a minute's access to whatever was moving behind her eyes. Did she think of him, he wondered, with anything like the frequency or the gravity with which he thought of her? Some desperate, starved part of him wanted — needed — to believe she did.
Another part of him, the part still bound tight by fifteen years of collar even when the collar itself sat folded in a drawer at home, rose immediately to scold the wanting. You are a debauched man, the voice informed him, without much interest in being argued with. How dare you imagine, even for a moment, that she thinks of you in anything like the way you think of her.
He fought the voice down the way he'd learned to fight most things down these days — not by winning the argument, exactly, but by refusing to let it finish making its case before he changed the subject inside his own skull.
She smelled so sweet, walking this close beside him — jasmine drifting up from her hair directly into his awareness with every small shift of the wind, the same scent he had, by now, come to associate so completely with her presence that he doubted he'd ever manage to smell it on anyone else again without his whole chest tightening involuntarily.
He wanted, with an intensity that frightened him a little, to bury his face in the crook of her neck and simply breathe her in until the scent embedded itself somewhere permanent — in his clothes, his skin, the actual blood running through him, indistinguishable from his own physiology by the end of it. He wanted to press his mouth to that same stretch of skin, to feel the give of it beneath his lips, the warmth and softness of her throat, and kiss it with the kind of reverence he had once reserved exclusively for—
"Is this the direction?"
Her voice cut cleanly through the thought, severing it mid-collapse, and he found her stopped in front of a door he recognized immediately even through the fog she'd just interrupted.
He cleared his throat, recovering himself with more effort than the simple question should have required. "Yes. This is Maekar's."
He rang the bell. Aemon answered — a boy no more than fifteen, all knees and elbows and the particular restless energy of that specific age — and turned immediately back into the house and hollered, at a volume that indicated he'd been doing this his entire life, "Uncle Baelor's here!"
Maekar’s voice answered from somewhere further inside, raspy and entirely unbothered by the volume of his own. "Let him in and make yourself fucking useful, Aemon!"
She laughed, quick and delighted, at that. Baelor cleared his throat again, glancing sideways at her with something between apology and fond resignation. "I should warn you in advance — Maekar runs a bit short-tempered. He loves those children with the whole of himself, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the first five minutes."
She waved the concern away easily. "Don't worry. My dad was pretty similar."
They crossed the threshold together, and he pulled the door shut behind them. She shrugged out of her jacket, and his hands found the collar of it before he'd made any conscious decision to reach for it, hanging it automatically on the hook beside the door the way he'd hung his own coat there a hundred times before — the gesture so unthinkingly domestic that he only registered its full weight after he'd already completed it. He had never once, in years of visiting this house, hung anyone's coat but his own.
She thanked him, quiet, and smiled at him in a way that did something entirely unhelpful to his chest. He thought, watching her, that he would do anything currently within his power to be the recipient of that exact smile for the rest of whatever life he had left to live.
"Took you long enough." Maekar's voice arrived a moment before the man himself did, appearing in the entryway with the particular scowl he wore for approximately ninety percent of his waking hours, a scowl that had seldom, in Baelor's experience, actually indicated real displeasure. "What made you change your mind?" His eyes moved from Baelor to her, and back to Baelor again, something calculating already working behind them.
"I'm sorry," she said, glancing between the two brothers. "I thought Baelor had mentioned I'd be coming?"
Maekar said nothing to that. Only looked at him a beat longer than was entirely comfortable. It was Dyanna who broke the small, suspended silence, appearing at her husband's side with the warm, unhurried competence she brought to every room she entered.
"You were expected, don't you worry, dear." She came forward and pressed a familiar peck to his cheek, the same greeting she'd been giving him for as long as he could remember. "Baelor told me he'd be bringing company tonight," she added, directed pointedly at Maekar, who only frowned, apparently unconvinced, before shrugging the matter aside entirely. "Come on, then — dinner's getting cold."
Dinner unfolded with more ease than he'd allowed himself to expect.
Daeron kept himself uncharacteristically restrained with the wine. Aerion, normally the most reliably difficult of the older children, behaved himself with a courtesy Baelor privately attributed to the novelty of an unfamiliar face at the table. Maekar’s youngest girl, Rhae, had demanded to know whether she liked dogs, and upon receiving an enthusiastic yes, had spent the better part of ten minutes describing, in exhaustive and largely fictional detail, the dog she intended to campaign for come her next birthday. She had listened to the entire performance with a gravity that suggested she found it genuinely fascinating rather than merely tolerable, asking follow-up questions at exactly the right intervals, and Baelor had watched the whole exchange with an ache in his chest that had nothing at all to do with lust and everything to do with some quieter, more devastating type of want.
He watched her face ease, over the course of the meal, into something he hadn't seen on her some days — the tightness around her eyes loosening by degrees, her smile arriving more easily and staying longer each time, until by the time the plates were mostly empty she looked, for the length of an ordinary Sunday dinner, like a woman who had simply never lost anyone at all.
When the meal wound down, Maekar rose to clear the plates and threw Baelor a look that was less invitation than instruction. Baelor followed him into the kitchen without comment, the door swinging shut behind them and cutting the noise of the dining room down to a low, distant murmur.
Maekar set his stack of plates into the sink with more force than the crockery strictly required and turned to face him directly, arms crossing over his chest.
"Alright. Care to tell me what's actually going on?"
"Whatever do you mean?" Baelor attempted, with considerably less conviction than the deflection required to work.
"You have never, in the whole of your priesthood, brought anyone to one of these dinners." Maekar's eyes didn't leave his face. "Not once. Fifteen years."
"She needed a distraction tonight. She's having a difficult time at home just now."
Maekar made a short, disbelieving sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "A difficult time." He shook his head slowly. "Baelor. Who is she?"
"She's from the parish. I've been helping her through some things. That's the whole of it."
"'Helping her through some things,'" Maekar repeated, flat, each word landing with deliberate weight. "And can you explain to me, then, why you spent the entire meal looking at her the exact way you used to look at Jena?"
Baelor felt the name land somewhere just beneath his ribs, cold and sudden as a dropped stone.
"I was not—" he started.
"You absolutely were." Maekar spoke straight over him, giving him no room to finish even the denial. "Baelor. What is going on with you?"
How, Baelor thought, staring at his brother across a kitchen he'd known his entire adult life, was he meant to explain to this man — to anyone, to himself, if he was being fully honest — that somewhere in these last months he had begun quietly, seriously entertaining the idea of leaving the priesthood altogether. That the thought no longer arrived as blasphemy to be immediately confessed and dismissed, but as something he turned over at night with an attention that frightened him more than the sin itself did.
"She's a grown woman managing her own grief. She doesn't need you playing at whatever this is." Maekar's voice had dropped, losing some of its earlier sharpness, replaced by something closer to genuine concern. "I've watched you disappear into that collar for fifteen years, Baelor. I know what it looks like when you're actually present in a room, and I have not seen it — not once, not really — since before you were ordained, since Jena." He paused. "Until tonight. And you were looking at her the same way."
"Maekar, I—"
"I'm so sorry to interrupt." Her voice arrived from the kitchen doorway, and both men turned to find her standing at the threshold, apologetic. "My mother just called. I should probably be getting back."
Baelor nodded at her, grateful for the interruption in a way he suspected showed plainly on his face, and turned back to his brother. "I'll call you in the morning. Coffee, maybe, if you've got the time."
Maekar didn't look particularly thrilled by the proposition, but nodded once, gruff. "You'd better call. Or I'll be showing up at that church myself to drag you out of it bodily."
Baelor managed something close to a real laugh at that and turned back to her, crossing to the door and taking her jacket from its hook the same way he'd hung it — without conscious decision, simply reaching for the task as though it belonged to him now. Dyanna and Maekar saw them out with the easy warmth of people who'd done this a hundred times before, for a hundred other ordinary Sunday guests, and Baelor let himself, for just the length of the goodbye, pretend that was all this was.
He turned Maekar's question over for the first several blocks of the walk to her home, the way a tongue can't help returning to a sore tooth. The way you used to look at Jena. He hadn't realized, until his brother said it aloud, that his own face had apparently stopped being capable of hiding what the rest of him had been failing to hide for months now. He wondered, uneasily, who else might have noticed and simply chosen, out of kindness or discretion or their own discomfort with the implications, not to say a word about it.
She stayed quiet nearly the entire walk back to her house, and Baelor understood well enough why, without needing her to say it aloud — understood that whatever waited for her behind that door tonight, on this particular anniversary, was a considerably heavier thing than anything six loud children and a home-cooked meal could hold at bay indefinitely. He didn't comment on it. He simply walked beside her, matching his pace to hers, and let the silence be whatever she needed it to be.
When they reached her door, she stopped, hand hovering near the handle, and hesitated a moment before turning to face him instead.
"Thank you for tonight." She looked up at him properly, the porch light catching the tired, grateful set of her face. "I needed the distraction."
He smiled at her, aware of his own hands aching faintly where he'd kept them clenched at his sides for most of the walk, some last reserve of discipline spent entirely on the simple, exhausting effort of not reaching for her. "It's nothing. If anything, I owe you the thanks. Maekar behaved himself with remarkable civility, and I suspect you're entirely responsible for it."
She laughed at that, low and easy, and he could see — could feel, somehow, in the quality of the pause that followed — the machinery behind her eyes working at considerable speed, turning something over that she hadn't yet decided whether to act on.
She shook her head once, hard, like she was physically dislodging whatever argument had been running in there, and her body moved before the rest of her had fully caught up to the decision — closing the distance between them and wrapping her arms around his middle, pressing herself against him, her hands coming to rest flat against his back.
It took him a full second to react — or, more accurately, to keep himself from reacting with anything close to the force his whole body wanted to.
His arms came around her in turn, one settling at the small of her back, the other rising to cradle the back of her head, guiding her face gently into the front of his chest. He wondered, distantly, whether she could feel how unsteady his own heart currently was beneath her cheek, hammering against his ribs with none of the composure that years of discipline were supposed to have granted him by now.
He was fairly certain she could. But she didn't say anything about it, if she did.
He held onto the moment longer than was strictly necessary for the comfort of a distraught friend, cataloguing, with the same helpless thoroughness he brought to everything about her lately, the exact way she fit against him — how her head settled naturally into the space just below his collarbone, how her arms had found their way fully around him rather than offering the more restrained, careful embrace two people in their actual positions probably ought to have exchanged.
She drew back eventually — reluctantly, he thought, or perhaps only hoped, unable to fully trust his own reading of it — and looked up at him again.
"I'll see you over the week," she said, and held his gaze a moment longer than the sentence strictly required.
If the embrace had nearly undone him, what came next very nearly finished the job entirely.
She rose onto her toes, one hand still resting light against his chest for balance, and pressed a slow, deliberate kiss high against his right cheekbone — brief enough, in isolation, that it could have passed for nothing more than an ordinary, friendly gesture between two people who'd simply had a long evening together.
It did not read that way to him. It did not read that way to any part of him currently paying attention, which, by that point, was the whole of him.
She turned and let herself into the house without waiting for a response, and Baelor stood exactly where she'd left him on the dark porch, reining himself in with what felt like the last available inch of restraint he currently had access to — because every other part of him, every part he'd spent years training into obedience, wanted nothing more than to close the distance she'd just opened between them, press her back against the nearest wall, and have her there and then, whatever the cost turned out to be.
It was, he thought, watching her door close between them, well and truly starting to get out of hand.
It was, when you allowed yourself to actually examine it, a fairly ridiculous state to be in.
Nervous — properly nervous, palms-damp, stomach-hollow nervous — over a dinner with a man's brother and his family. It wasn't a date. It was, by any reasonable definition available to you, simply a dinner, the kind people attended constantly without their hands shaking while they did up the buttons of their shirt.
So why, precisely, were you currently failing to manage even that?
Oh. Right. Because you were in love with a priest, and had been, if you allowed yourself the full and uncomfortable honesty of it, since sometime before December ever arrived to make the feeling official. That was the small matter currently underlying the larger, more manageable-sounding matter of nerves.
And it wasn't only that, either, if you were determined to be thorough about your own downfall this evening — you were also, plainly and inconveniently, so relentlessly attracted to the man that you couldn't actually remember, with any real confidence, the last time you'd touched yourself without his face arriving somewhere in the process, invited or not. You'd tried, a handful of times, to summon someone else entirely — an ex, a stranger from a film, anyone at all who didn't come with a collar and a vow of celibacy attached — and had failed, every single time, within the first several seconds.
Your own imagination, it turned out, had developed something close to a monopoly, and you'd stopped fighting it sometime around mid January.
"Fucking hell," you muttered to yourself, halfway down the stairs toward the front door.
Yeah, your own brain agreed helpfully, as your body went about the business of shrugging a coat on without waiting for the rest of you to catch up. That's where we're headed, all right. But have you seen him? The man is worth the eternal damnation, easily.
You shook your head at your own brain's editorializing and opened the door, and there he was, already waiting: tall, dressed head to toe in black, no collar anywhere in sight, already looking directly at you. You thought, with a clarity that should have alarmed you more than it did, that the single colour that would actually suit him best was his own bare skin, laid out beneath you, or above you — you weren't particular about the arrangement.
Your breath caught at the way he smiled. You had to physically suppress the impulse to launch yourself at him — to kiss him, to eat him whole, to do something considerably less appropriate than simply saying hello to a man on your own front step.
You genuinely wouldn’t remember much of anything past the third block.
Later, comparing notes in your own head the way you occasionally did after time spent with him, you'd realize that had apparently been happening to both of you simultaneously, each of you disappearing into your own private fog at exactly the same stretch of pavement — though in the moment you only knew that you were too deep inside your own head, fixated on the specific, aching want to simply lace your fingers through his, to notice much else about the walk itself.
He looked so good out of his usual attire. Available, somehow, in a way the collar never let him look, and your heart performed something close to a full cartwheel at the image your own mind kept helpfully supplying: the two of you, simply a regular couple, walking to a regular family dinner on a regular Sunday, nothing forbidden about any part of it.
The February cold had finally started loosening its grip these last few days, the air carrying the thin, specific promise of a season about to turn, and you let yourself, for the length of that walk, imagine an entire future built out of nothing but ordinary Sundays exactly like this one — dinners with his family, walks home in the early evening, his hand finding yours without either of you needing to manufacture a reason for it first.
You noticed, glancing sideways, that he'd gone quiet too, visibly somewhere deep in his own thoughts, and you caught yourself wanting, in a moment of pure and fairly horrifying selfishness, to be the only thing currently occupying his mind. What a genuinely terrible thing to wish for, you thought, because you were essentially wishing a whole life of lust onto a man who'd spent years actively training himself out of it, and doing so purely because you wanted the privilege of being its cause.
You allowed yourself a small smile at the image your own mind produced next, apparently determined to entertain you through the remainder of the walk regardless of your own better judgment: an old-fashioned scale, the kind with two brass pans hanging from a central beam, you seated in one and the Cross balanced in the other, and Baelor — helpless, without a second thought — abandoning the Cross entirely and rushing toward your side of the scale instead.
That's a rather pretty image, one part of your brain observed, pleased with itself.
Sure, another part answered, considerably further south and considerably less interested in metaphor, but the image of him actually eating your pussy would be better.
You didn’t berate your body for the obvious hyperfixation it had developed with that particular idea. You had to agree: it was a far better picture. One that assembled itself without your permission or consent — Baelor on his knees in front of you, buried between your thighs, eating you like a starved man finally given a proper meal, which you were fairly, privately certain he would be. You allowed yourself precisely three full seconds of indulging it before dragging your attention back to the actual physical world around you.
You came to a halt only once you registered that the street you'd been walking had turned into the exact one Baelor had described to you, days earlier, in case you'd decided against his company and needed to find your own way. You hadn't, not for a single second, considered going alone. It hadn't even occurred to you as an option worth weighing.
"Is this the direction?" you asked.
Baelor came to a stop beside you and nodded, seemingly taken out of his own thoughts by your voice. "Yes. This is Maekar's."
He rang the bell. A boy answered after a few seconds, no more than fifteen, and immediately turned back into the house to holler, at a volume that suggested long practice: "Uncle Baelor's here!"
A raspy voice answered from somewhere further inside, entirely unbothered by matching the volume. "Let him in and make yourself fucking useful, Aemon!"
You laughed as Baelor shook his head in what looked like long-suffering defeat. "I should warn you in advance — Maekar runs a bit short-tempered. He loves those children with the whole of himself, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from the first five minutes."
You laughed again and waved the concern away, wishing, in the same breath, that you could reach up and kiss away the small frown currently sitting between his brows. "Don't worry. My dad was pretty similar."
You crossed the threshold, and before you'd fully processed the intention to remove your own coat, Baelor was already easing it off your shoulders for you. Your chest did something warm and complicated at the gesture, and you turned to thank him properly as he hung it, giving him the widest smile you currently had access to. You could have sworn, for half a second, that his eyes went slightly wider in response — though you didn't get the chance to examine his face further, because a rough voice cut in from further inside the house.
"Took you long enough."
The man who came around the corner into the entryway was, you registered immediately, nothing at all like Baelor, either physically or in the general weather of him. He was tall too, broader through the shoulders if anything, but his colouring belonged to an entirely different register — hair so pale it read almost white under the hallway bulb, eyes a shade of blue so light they looked faintly lilac and unreal, an expression carrying a scowl you had genuinely never once seen cross Baelor's own face in the whole of the last six months.
"What made you change your mind?" Maekar's gaze moved from Baelor to you, the scowl deepening, and then back to Baelor again.
Shit, you thought, a spike of panic arriving fast and unwelcome. Did he not actually tell them I was coming?
"I'm sorry," you said quickly, glancing between the two brothers. "I thought Baelor had mentioned I'd be coming?"
A tense beat passed between the two men, neither willing to break first, before a second voice arrived — warmer, more musical, cutting cleanly through whatever standoff had been quietly assembling itself.
"You were expected, don't you worry, dear."
The woman who appeared at Maekar's side had to be Dyanna, exactly as Baelor had described her, and she was, you noted with a small unwelcome twist somewhere beneath your ribs, genuinely beautiful — warm-eyed, easy in her own skin, the kind of pretty that seemed entirely unbothered by its own existence. She crossed to Baelor and pressed a quick, familiar peck to his cheek, and you felt something ugly and possessive flare up in you before you could fully stop it — not jealousy over the kiss itself, or over who it came from, but over the sheer, uncomplicated permission behind it.
She was allowed to do something you very much were not, and the unfairness of that gnawed at you considerably more than you wanted to admit, even privately.
"Baelor told me he'd be bringing company tonight," Dyanna added, directed pointedly at her husband, before turning fully toward the dining room. "Come on, then — dinner's getting cold."
You filed the small, ugly flare of jealousy away somewhere you didn't intend to examine again tonight, mostly because you knew exactly how unreasonable it was. Dyanna was married. Dyanna had known him for years, had raised six children who called him uncle, had earned that casual cheek-kiss through decades of ordinary, accumulated familiarity you had no business begrudging her. But none of that logic made the feeling any less real while it lasted.
Dinner turned out to be genuinely pleasant, in a way that caught you slightly off guard — it reminded you, with a pang you weren't entirely prepared for, of the family dinners you used to have, back when you'd still had an actual family gathered around one table rather than the smaller, quieter arrangement you and your mother currently managed alone.
Maekar's children were, without exception, very funny. You were thoroughly charmed by the youngest, who introduced herself with enormous solemnity as Rhae and then spent the better part of ten minutes describing, in exhaustive and mostly fictional detail, the exact dog she intended to campaign for at her next birthday. Her father scoffed audibly at some point during the pitch. Egg, apparently the youngest of the sons, immediately rose to his sister's defence — he wanted a dog too, as it happened, and saw no reason her campaign shouldn't also serve his own interests.
You found yourself, somewhere around the second course, genuinely laughing for the first time in longer than you wanted to calculate — not the careful, managed laugh you produced for your mother's benefit most days, but something looser, unguarded, pulled out of you by children who had no idea they were doing anything remarkable at all.
You got thoroughly absorbed in adjudicating the resulting squabble, right up until you noticed a pair of warm, mismatched eyes settled on you from across the table. You'd been feeling them, if you were honest, for most of the meal already — a steady, low-grade awareness humming under everything else — and had made a deliberate point of not looking back too often, aware of exactly what currently sat behind your own eyes and entirely unwilling to let either Maekar or Dyanna catch a glimpse of it across a dinner table.
When the meal wound down, Maekar rose without a word, directed a look at his older brother that clearly wasn't optional, and the two of them disappeared toward the kitchen together. Their departure seemed to function as unspoken permission for the rest of the table to scatter as well — the older three, Daeron, Aerion, and the eldest daughter, Daella, vanished toward whatever corner of the house teenagers vanished to, and you were left at the table with Dyanna and the two youngest, Egg and Rhae, since Aemon, you'd learn, had gone missing somewhere into a book roughly ten minutes into dinner and could not currently be counted among the socially present.
Dyanna let out a low, fond chuckle into the relative quiet. "They're at it again, those two."
You looked at her, brow furrowing slightly, unsure what exactly she meant. She caught the confusion and smiled wider.
"Baelor and Maekar. They love each other completely, but they cannot, for the love of God, stop arguing like two old women at a supermarket checkout."
You laughed at that, surprised into it. "Is that fairly common, then?"
Dyanna closed her eyes for a moment, eyebrows lifting, and let out a long breath that suggested she was selecting from a genuinely extensive catalogue of examples.
"Years back, at one of Aerion’s friends' birthday parties, he got himself into a bit of trouble — started a fight with another boy over something entirely forgettable now. Maekar went in defending his own son, the way you'd expect. Baelor, though, sided with the other kid, because he'd apparently decided Aerion was in the wrong regardless of whose blood he shared." She shook her head, something between exasperation and genuine fondness in the gesture. "The two of them got so deep into arguing about it that they ended up properly fighting each other, right there at a child's birthday party. That's where Baelor's eyebrow scar comes from, if you were wondering."
Your mouth fell open, entirely involuntarily.
Well, your brain supplied, unhelpfully delighted with itself, now we know where the scar came from.
You filed the detail away with something close to tenderness — one more small, hard-won piece of a man who gave almost nothing away about himself voluntarily, gathered instead through the generous, unguarded testimony of people who'd known him far longer than you had.
"Say," Dyanna went on, her voice gone softer, more curious. "Have you known Baelor long?"
"Just short of half a year, actually," you played with the corner of your napkin.
She hummed to herself, considering that, something working behind her eyes that you couldn't quite read. "That explains some things."
"I'm sorry?" You frowned properly this time.
She waved a hand, dismissive but kind. "Don't worry — nothing bad, I promise." Her smile, when it came, was entirely genuine. "It's only that we haven't seen Baelor look this much like himself for a very long time. Years, honestly."
You wanted, badly, to ask her exactly what she meant by that — what version of himself she was referring to, whether it was a version you'd actually met or one that existed only in family memory, further back than you had access to. Before you could manage the question, your phone buzzed against your leg. A missed call from your mother, and a follow-up text that told you plainly enough that you needed to be heading home sooner rather than later.
"I'm so sorry," you said, already rising from your seat. "My mother's having a rough time tonight, and I should probably get back."
Dyanna nodded in immediate understanding. "Do ask Baelor to see you home — I'm sure he was about to leave shortly anyway." Something in the specific way she said it suggested an ulterior motive you couldn't quite locate the shape of, though you filed the observation away for later consideration rather than chasing it down in the moment.
You headed for the kitchen instead of the door, meaning to collect him yourself, and caught the tail end of a sentence in Maekar's voice as you approached. "—since before you were ordained, since Jena. Until tonight. And you were looking at her the same way."
Baelor's voice was already answering, low. "Maekar, I—"
You stepped into the doorway before you could hear whatever came next, some instinct telling you this wasn't a conversation you were meant to have overheard even the fragment of. "I'm so sorry to interrupt." Both men turned to find you standing there. "My mother just called. I should probably be getting back."
You filed the name away without examining it too closely — Jena — a small, unfamiliar weight added to a growing collection of things about Baelor you didn't yet have full access to.
The two brothers exchanged a few more words — something about coffee, a shared morning — and then you were at the entrance again, Baelor already reaching for your coat and easing it back over your shoulders with the same unthinking care as before.
You were quiet for nearly the entire walk back to your own house, Dyanna's comment circling in your head on an insistent, repeating loop. Your mother, waiting at home; the date — your father's anniversary, a full year now — should have been occupying the whole of your attention instead. They weren’t. The only thing currently taking up any real space in your thoughts was the quiet man walking beside you, equally silent, equally somewhere else.
You stopped at your own door and looked up at him.
"Thanks for tonight," you said. "I needed the distraction."
He smiled — that warm, entirely disarming smile you wanted, with an intensity that embarrassed you slightly, to press your own mouth against — and thanked you back, simply, humbly, like you'd done him some enormous favour rather than the reverse.
How is he like this, you thought. How is he so humble. So good. So thoroughly, impossibly out of reach?
You shook your head at your own question before it could finish settling.
He wasn't out of reach. Not really. Not tonight, not standing this close to you on your own dark porch with nowhere else either of you currently needed to be.
And to prove it to yourself, if to no one else, you closed the small remaining distance between you and wrapped your arms around him, tight, pressing yourself fully against the solid warmth of his chest.
He went still, for one long, terrifying second, and you were nearly certain — nearly, achingly certain — that he was about to step back out of the embrace entirely. Before the fear could properly take root, though, his arms came around you instead, engulfing you completely, one settling at the small of your back and the other rising to cradle the back of your head, pressing your face gently into his chest. You breathed him in without meaning to — soap, a soft trace of frankincense and something warmer underneath it, entirely his own — and thought, with a clarity that startled you, that you could quite easily spend the rest of your life exactly here, in this precise configuration, and want for very little else.
You wanted, absurdly, ferociously, to bite him. To leave some small, visible mark exactly there, over the place where his heart currently hammered against your ear like something trying to break free of its own cage — to claim some tiny, permanent piece of him that no cassock or collar could ever fully cover again.
You pulled back eventually and looked up at him properly, and you could have sworn — you were nearly certain, though the porch light made everything slightly harder to read — that his pupils had gone darker, wider, blown open in a way that had nothing at all to do with the dim light between you.
"I'll see you over the week," you told him.
And before your own better judgment could catch up to your body, you were already rising onto your toes, one hand braced flat against his chest for balance, closing the last of the distance to press your mouth to his cheek — high, right at his cheekbone, exactly where that single isolated beauty mark sat, as if waiting for you.
You let the kiss linger. Warm, maybe a little too wet to pass entirely as innocent, held a full beat longer than a simple peck strictly required.
You lowered back onto your heels and turned toward your own door without waiting to see what your face might have given away, because you knew — not buried especially deep, not really hidden from yourself at all — that if you stood there in front of him one second longer, you would stop respecting, entirely and immediately, the plain fact that he was a priest, and therefore, however you personally felt about the arrangement, God's property rather than yours to claim.
You actually had to make yourself do the exercise — sit with it deliberately, the way you might work out a math problem you'd rather avoid — to remember the last time you'd properly seen that looming darkness sitting behind your own eyes. If pressed to pinpoint it, you'd have landed somewhere in the last days of December.
What a fucking coincidence, your brain supplied, entirely unhelpfully, though you couldn't exactly argue with it.
The harder exercise, if you were honest, was trying to remember the last time you'd seen that same darkness properly settled in Baelor's.
You were growing happier, day by day, in a way that still occasionally caught you off guard when you noticed it happening. Not easily — nothing about the last year had been easy, and you doubted anything ever would be entirely easy again in quite the way things had been before your father died — but manageable, in a way that felt genuinely new rather than simply performed for everyone else's benefit.
The season helped. It was spring now, properly, mid-April, the days stretching longer and brighter with each week that passed, and you felt the shift somewhere down in your own bones, a kind of thawing that had nothing to do with the actual weather and everything to do with it, simultaneously.
Walking to the parish that morning — Baelor had invited you to a garden party some of the nearby parishes were holding together, and you'd said yes without a second thought, had even baked cookies for the occasion, an act of domesticity that would have struck you as faintly absurd six months ago — your thoughts kept drifting, as they reliably did these days, toward him.
The carnal thoughts hadn't gone anywhere, exactly. You doubted, at this point, that they ever fully would. But they'd been quietly demoted to second place, the podium instead claimed almost entirely by something considerably more domestic — sweeter, sillier, the kind of idea that made Rowan cackle with delight and made Kiera's brow furrow with genuine worry in equal measure.
You've got the face again, Rowan had told you just last week, entirely delighted by the observation. The one where you're planning a whole wedding in your head and pretending you're just thinking about the weather. You hadn't been able to muster much of a denial.
Rowan's amusement made sense to you. She'd known you long enough to know that whatever your heart eventually settled on wanting, you generally found a way to go after it, obstacles notwithstanding. Kiera's worry made just as much sense, in its own way — she knew, too, that a man in Baelor's particular position would keep your brain permanently split down the middle, one half occupied with wanting him and the other occupied with the quieter, more responsible voice telling you to let the man be, to spare him whatever ruin loving you back might actually cost him.
Both of them were right, as far as it went.
You wanted Baelor. You'd stopped being especially shy about that fact, at least in the privacy of your own head, even if you still hadn't told either of your friends his actual name — some instinct in you insisting on keeping at least that much of him entirely yours, unshared, uncommented on by anyone but you.
You had grown bold these last months, showing up at the parish with the flimsiest pretexts imaginable — your class had been cancelled, your mother was deep-cleaning the house and needed the space, you were simply passing by and thought you'd pop in, three separate excuses you'd deployed inside the same single week without a shred of shame.
You were fairly sure, by now, that the parish secretary had started keeping a tally, judging by the look she gave you every time you breezed through the door with yet another flimsy justification in hand.
Baelor never once commented on the pattern. If anything, you could sense — somewhere underneath the surface of things, in the quality of his greeting whenever you appeared — that he not only tolerated the frequency but had come to expect it, maybe even to look forward to it in whatever quiet, unspoken way a priest was permitted to look forward to a parishioner's company.
You'd exchanged phone numbers somewhere in the middle of it all — you'd been mildly, delightedly surprised to learn he carried an actual smartphone rather than the old flip phone you'd half expected, which had earned you a low, amused I'm old, but not biblically ancient from him when you'd said as much aloud.
On the evenings you didn't manage to cross the church's threshold for one reason or another, a message would arrive from him anyway, late, simple and unassuming: asking whether you were alright. You'd taken to reading far too much into the exact minute his replies arrived, and further still into the ones that came stamped well past midnight, when any reasonable priest ought to have been asleep hours earlier. It was sweet. Endearingly, almost unbearably sweet, in a way that had your own brain working overtime trying to justify what it clearly, desperately wanted to be true — that maybe, just maybe, Baelor didn't think of you purely as a parishioner in need of pastoral attention.
It was beyond obvious, of course, that he enjoyed your company more than that of the parish's usual elderly regulars — a person could have been legally blind and still picked up on that fact from across the building. But what your own mind had spent these last months quietly, methodically doing was hunting for evidence of something considerably larger than mere preference.
You'd become something of an expert, without ever setting out to be, in reading the specific language of his eyes — you knew, now, the exact look that meant he was simply tired, the one that meant a sermon had cost him more than usual to deliver, the one reserved for a parishioner he was patiently, valiantly enduring rather than actually enjoying, and the one that meant he was, for whatever brief stretch of time, genuinely and uncomplicatedly content.
And there was another look, one you'd only started properly cataloguing these last few weeks, that arrived exclusively when he looked at you — something that resembled affection with a specificity that frightened you a little every time you caught it.
You remembered, with a level of detail that still made your chest ache pleasantly, the Tuesday two weeks back when he'd looked up from a hymnal mid-conversation and simply held your gaze a beat too long, something unguarded and helpless crossing his face before he caught himself and looked away, murmuring something about needing to check on a delivery you were entirely certain hadn't actually arrived that day at all.
Was Baelor in love with you? You weren't bold enough, not yet, to actually answer that question out loud, even inside the privacy of your own skull. You'd learned, the hard way, not to give the thought too much wing. You had no particular interest in becoming Icarus, flying straight into the one sun capable of melting you down to nothing.
Nearing the church that morning, you found yourself revisiting, for perhaps the fourth time, your choice of outfit for the day.
You'd stood in front of your own mirror a full ten minutes longer than the decision strictly warranted, turning sideways, second-guessing the length, before finally telling yourself, with as much conviction as you could currently manage, that you were simply dressing for spring and not for the specific effect you privately hoped it might have on one particular man's composure.
It was properly sunny out, the kind of clear April morning that made the whole prospect of an outdoor gathering genuinely appealing rather than merely tolerable, and you'd settled, eventually, on a floral sundress — nothing too revealing, paired with a sensible pair of tights, since Baelor had mentioned other priests would be attending, and while you were entirely, privately confident that Baelor himself qualified as considerably more than merely a cool priest — a fact you measured, these days, in the pooling heat that gathered between your thighs practically every time you stood near enough to him — you couldn't necessarily vouch for the other men of the cloth arriving with him.
You crossed the church's threshold and made your way to the sacristy, where you knew you'd find him, and there he was exactly as expected — dressed the way he always dressed for these excursions beyond the parish walls, all in black, dark denim and a black button-down, the white collar sitting in stark, deliberate contrast against the rest of him.
The sight of that collar still, even now, had you internally screaming bloody murder — a small, constant, entirely unwelcome reminder of the one fact standing between you and everything you currently wanted, which was that whatever else he was to you, he was not, strictly speaking, yours.
"Hi," you said, smiling, setting the cookie tray down on the nearest table.
He turned to look at you and smiled back, crossing the small distance between you to lower his head and press a quick kiss to your cheek — a habit he'd settled into without discussion since that night after the dinner with his family, one you privately treasured more than you were entirely willing to admit even to yourself.
You couldn't properly articulate the exact size of the gladness that small gesture produced in you every single time he performed it. If you had one complaint to register against the practice, it was only that your underwear stood in a state of comprehensive ruin every time he did it. But you weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth over a technicality like that.
He stepped back after the greeting and turned toward the mirror to finish adjusting his collar.
"Is the venue very far?" you asked, turning away to take a cookie off the tray.
You couldn't have known it, not facing away from him as you were, but had you turned back a half-second sooner you would have caught Baelor's gaze tracking the whole length of you in the mirror's reflection, lingering, however briefly, at the hem of your dress sitting just above your knee. By the time you did turn, cookie in hand, he'd already turned too, expression settled back into its usual careful composure.
You closed the distance between you, and instead of simply handing the cookie over, you brought it directly to his mouth instead — an unconscious echo of Communion that struck you only after you'd already committed to the gesture, the cookie and the tip of your fingers grazing his lips as you set it between them. His mouth was warm. Soft, under the slight roughness of his beard. Your stomach performed a small, involuntary flip that something considerably lower down mirrored with rather more enthusiasm.
He took the cookie fully into his mouth and bit down, chewing thoughtfully for a moment before his brow furrowed. "Not a lot," he said, around the mouthful, and then, more decisively: "We'll take the car. This is bloody good, by the way."
You laughed, delighted, and nodded, gathering the tray back up and following him toward the exit.
His car turned out to be an old, black thing that had clearly seen better decades, and you waited beside it while he gave the young deacon left in charge of the parish for the day a final, thorough set of instructions — when to expect you both back, what to do if anyone came looking. You smiled at him as he finally crossed to join you, an easy, unguarded smile that fell from you with increasing frequency these days, and watched it get mirrored straight back at you without any hesitation at all.
The half-hour drive turned into the perfect occasion for reminding Baelor, at volume and with considerable enthusiasm, exactly which decade he actually belonged to.
The car had no Bluetooth to speak of, some relic of an era that predated the concept entirely, but your phone speaker did the job well enough once propped against the dashboard. You cycled through a playlist heavy on the kind of unapologetic nineties pop that had scored the whole of your adolescence, narrating your selections with running commentary about the considerable gap in your respective musical educations, and Baelor took the ribbing with far better humour than you'd expected, laughing properly at a couple of your choices before insisting, with mock offense, on queuing up a few of his own.
"You've clearly never properly experienced good music," he informed you, with the amused gravity of a man about to correct a serious oversight, and proceeded to play something considerably older and, you had to grudgingly admit after the first thirty seconds, considerably better than you'd expected.
You knew more of them than you'd let on at first — you weren't nearly as musically hopeless as your difference in years might have suggested — and somewhere around the third of his selections you found yourself singing along under your breath without fully deciding to. Baelor joined in a moment later, and you discovered, or more accurately remembered from some half-buried Sunday months back, that the man had a genuinely beautiful voice, low and sure and entirely unselfconscious about using it outside the confines of a Mass.
He was so beautiful like that. Relaxed. Genuinely happy, in a way you didn't get to witness often enough, with you specifically the cause of it rather than an accident of good weather or a decent homily landing well.
You arrived to find the venue already properly crowded, cars lined up along both sides of the lane leading in, and Baelor found a spot among them without much trouble. You climbed out and made for the boot to collect the cookies, but he beat you to it, already holding it open by the time you rounded the car.
You thanked him, taking the tray in both hands, and caught sight of a scatter of crumbs still clinging to his beard — evidence, you gathered, that he'd managed to steal a second cookie for himself sometime before pulling out of the parish lot. You balanced the tray against one hip and reached up with your free hand to brush the crumbs away.
His hand found your waist without any apparent forethought on his part — instinct, you might have called it, if pressed — settling there warm and wide, thumb resting just above your hip bone.
"There." You smiled, stepping back half an inch once the job was done. "We wouldn't want anyone accusing you of gluttony, would we?"
You finally met his eyes properly, and found he'd already been looking at you — that same expression you'd never quite managed to fully name, somewhere in the general country of affection, except now it carried something else layered underneath it, something you recognized immediately and without any need for translation, because you'd felt the exact same thing living behind your own eyes more times than you could count these last months.
Hunger.
Your breath caught somewhere high in your chest, and you genuinely couldn't have said what either of you might have done next — your blood had relocated itself entirely southward, leaving precious little available for higher reasoning — if a voice hadn't arrived from a short distance away and dissolved the moment entirely.
"Oh, God save us all." The voice was male, warm, clearly delighted with itself, and pitched for maximum teasing effect. "They've let you out."
Baelor retreated from you, half a step, no more, and turned toward the sound with a smile already forming.
The man approaching was tall — nearly matching Baelor for height — with a mass of dark, curling hair gone visibly grey at the temples, and a beard following the same pattern, which put him, you gathered, somewhere in the same rough decade of life as Baelor himself. He was dressed identically in the collar-and-black uniform of the day, save for one notable exception: a pair of startlingly, defiantly yellow socks visible above his shoes as he walked toward you.
"I was wondering how long it would take you to show up," Baelor said, easy.
"You're looking disappointingly alive." The man grinned, closing the remaining distance in a few long strides. "I'd been rather hoping to inherit your books." He reached you fully and threw an arm around Baelor's shoulders before he could think to evade it. "I've missed you, you sanctimonious bastard."
Baelor slanted him a sideways look, fighting a smile and losing. "I don't believe that's an appropriate greeting for a priest, Lyonel."
"No?" Lyonel's grin only widened. "Then peace be with you, you sanctimonious bastard."
You laughed before you could stop yourself, which was apparently enough to redirect the whole of Lyonel's considerable attention onto you. He looked you over for a beat, his grin somehow finding room to stretch even further.
"Ah." He pointed a single finger back and forth between the two of you. "So you're the poor soul who's been putting up with him."
You raised an eyebrow. "Poor soul?"
"Don't let him fool you." Lyonel leaned in, conspiratorial. "He looks terribly patient, but give him five minutes and he'll start lecturing you on the correct way to shelve books, the proper temperature for tea, or precisely why your commas are in the wrong places."
"I have never—" Baelor started.
He ignored Baelor. "He's done all three. To me."
You laughed properly this time. “He actually had some comments on my way of shelving books,” you admitted with a smile, much to Baelor’s patience. Lyonel barked a laugh and clapped his friend’s shoulder again, while Baelor pinched the bridge of his nose with the long-suffering expression of a man who had clearly weathered this exact exchange for years already.
"We haven't been introduced," Lyonel said then, offering you his hand with sudden, easy formality. "Father Lyonel Baratheon. Friend, occasional nuisance, and living proof that the seminary's admissions process has always been worryingly lax."
You gave him your name, shaking his hand with your free one.
"A pleasure." His teasing smile softened into something genuinely warm as he said it, and he glanced sideways at Baelor before settling his attention back on you. "Any friend of his is welcome here. Though I confess—" the grin came roaring back— "I was beginning to think he'd simply invented you."
"I assure you, she's very real," Baelor said, dry, though something in his voice suggested he was only half joking.
"Is she, though?" Lyonel squinted at you theatrically. "No, I suppose you're right — invented women don't generally bring baked goods. Very thorough of you, whoever you are," he said as his hands gestured to the whole of you.
The three of you joined the wider gathering, and the hours slid by pleasantly, easily, the whole afternoon settling into a loose, sun-warmed rhythm that outdoor parish gatherings apparently specialized in.
Baelor introduced you to more people than you could keep straight by the end of it, and every single one of them, without exception, had something warm to say about your cookies, which ran out well before the picnic lunch was properly served — though Baelor, ever resourceful, had managed to smuggle one away for you before the tray emptied entirely.
You even recognized a face in the crowd: Dunk, a classmate from a few of your university courses, there because Lyonel happened to be the appointed priest for his grandmother's parish. He'd nearly choked on his lemonade when he spotted you standing beside Baelor, clearly recalibrating several assumptions about your Sunday mornings in real time, and you'd had to fend off a solid ten minutes of gently incredulous questioning before he let the subject drop, more out of genuine curiosity than any real suspicion.
The afternoon carried on in that same easy register throughout. An elderly woman from one of the other parishes cornered you for a full twenty minutes to discuss, with startling passion, the proper ratio of butter to sugar in a shortbread recipe she was convinced your cookies had been secretly based on. A group of younger children recruited you into an elaborate, entirely incomprehensible game involving a frisbee in which appeared to be several invented rules that changed depending on who was currently losing.
You had, you could say honestly, a genuinely wonderful time.
But the thing you enjoyed most, more than the cookies or the introductions or the easy, sun-drenched pleasure of the day itself, was the experience of turning to find Baelor already looking for you across the crowd, every single time — as though some invisible thread ran taut between the two of you regardless of distance, pulling his attention back to you whether he'd consciously decided to look or not.
It was well into the last hour of the afternoon, the light gone long and gold across the grass, when you found yourself sitting a little apart from the main crowd, working through a pastry one of the children had pressed into your hands with an insistence you hadn't had the heart to refuse. Lyonel found you there and dropped down onto the grass beside you without much ceremony.
"Mind if I steal this spot?"
You waved him down, and he settled in easily, asking you a string of small, unremarkable questions you answered without much thought — where you were from, what you did, how long you'd been coming to Baelor's parish. He was, you discovered, remarkably easy to talk to, disarming in a way that made you forget, for stretches at a time, that you'd met him only a few hours earlier.
At some point you glanced across the crowd and found Baelor mid-conversation with a cluster of other parishioners, and smiled at him without thinking about it. He caught the look and smiled back, brief and warm, before returning his attention to whoever was currently speaking to him.
Lyonel noticed and the conversation pivoted, smooth as anything, straight onto the subject of Baelor himself.
"You found him rather quickly, didn't you." It wasn't quite a question.
You blinked. "I’m sorry?"
"Baelor," he said simply.
"I suppose he's making sure I don't get lost." You reached for an explanation that sounded reasonable even to your own ears. "I don't really know anyone else here."
Lyonel huffed something close to a laugh. "Neither do half the people currently here, and he hasn't gone chasing after any of them."
A short silence settled between you.
"He's always been like that," Lyonel said eventually, gaze drifting toward his friend.
You looked at him, waiting.
"Quiet," he clarified. "Seminary was full of loud men — you can imagine the type," he gestured to himself. "Baelor wasn't one of them. He'd sit in some corner with a book, pretend not to be listening to anything happening around him, and then turn out to remember every single word anyone had said, days later, when you'd least expect it."
You smiled. "That sounds like him."
"It is him," Lyonel affirmed simply. "Do you know how many parishes he served before the one he's at now?"
You shook your head.
"Six."
Your eyebrows went up. "Really?"
He nodded. "He cried, every single time, when he had to leave one for the next."
Your gaze drifted, unbidden, back toward Baelor, still deep in conversation a little further off. "He's never told me that."
"He wouldn't. Doesn’t like to make a martyr out of himself," Lyonel said simply. That, you could easily understand; you had been practising the same type of sacrifice for longer than you could remember. Lyonel followed your gaze for a beat before continuing, his voice dropping lower. "He's lonely."
That brought your attention snapping fully back to him. "What?"
"He'd hate me for saying it out loud." Lyonel shrugged, unbothered, curls bouncing with the motion. "He'd deny it until Judgment Day arrived personally to contradict him. But it's true."
"I'm sure he has friends," you said, a little defensively.
"Oh, certainly."
"He has you."
"He does." Lyonel nodded, something gentler crossing his face. "But friendship isn't the same thing as other kinds of company. Especially not after what happened with Jena."
Jena. That name again.
You'd tried, more than once these past weeks, to simply bury the name somewhere you wouldn't have to keep confronting it — some instinct warning you that curiosity, left unchecked, would eventually kill you outright. And here it was again anyway, resurfacing exactly when you'd least braced for it.
You turned to look at Lyonel more directly. "Is Jena Baelor's sister?" You reached for the most harmless explanation available, some cousin or close family friend, anything that wouldn't require you to examine the alternative too closely.
Lyonel's eyebrows rose, and he let out a warm, startled chuckle. "No, my dear girl." The amusement in his face faded as quickly as it had arrived. "She was Baelor's fiancée. Before he was ordained."
Whatever your face did in response to that must have been considerable, because Lyonel shifted his whole body to face you properly, the last of his teasing dropping away entirely.
"You don't know," he said. Not quite a question again.
You shook your head. "I heard him and Maekar talking about her once. I think Maekar was asking Baelor why he was looking at me the way he used to look at her. I assumed she was family. A close friend, maybe."
Lyonel's frown deepened, and he glanced toward Baelor for a long moment before returning his attention to you. He was quiet for a while after that, thumb moving in slow, absent circles around the rim of the paper cup in his hands.
"I probably shouldn't be the one telling you this," he admitted finally. "If Baelor ever found out, he'd murder me with his bare hands." The corner of his mouth lifted, briefly, before the expression sobered again entirely. "But I think you deserve to actually understand what Maekar meant."
He looked toward Baelor once more, still deep in conversation with a small group some distance off.
"Her name was Jena Dondarrion. They met at university. Together for years — everyone assumed they'd marry eventually, and honestly, so did they. They had a date set. Invitations sent. All of it."
He paused, visibly choosing his next words with real care.
"Baelor had always carried this — quiet doubt, underneath everything. Not because he didn't love her, but because some part of him kept wondering whether God was asking something else of him entirely. A few weeks before the wedding, he told her he was frightened. Not of marrying her — of standing at that altar and making promises while the doubt was still sitting there, unresolved. He wanted to postpone. Just until he was certain." Lyonel let out a slow breath. "He believed honesty would be the kinder choice, but what Jena actually heard was something considerably different — that the man she loved wasn't certain he wanted her at all."
You tried to picture it — a younger Baelor, unmarked yet by years of vestments and vocation, standing in some ordinary room trying to explain an uncertainty he could barely have had words for yet, watching it land as something entirely different than he'd intended.
You thought of your own father, the plain, uncomplicated faith he'd carried his whole life without apparently once doubting it and wondered what it must have cost a man to doubt something that fundamental and still try to be honest about it anyway, knowing exactly what the honesty might cost him.
Lyonel fell quiet for a beat before continuing, his voice noticeably lower now.
"She left. Baelor respected the decision — didn't fight it, didn't chase her. He assumed, in time, that she'd simply moved on with her life, the way people generally do. Months later, he found out she'd been pregnant."
Your breath caught somewhere in your throat, and your eyes went helplessly to Baelor, still laughing at something across the crowd, entirely unaware of what was currently being said about him. You thought of every quiet moment you'd caught in his face these past months and mentally, painfully, refiled every single one of them against this new information. The silences that weren't simply tiredness, the way he sometimes looked at nothing in particular during his own sermons, all of it suddenly slotting into a shape you hadn't had the pieces to assemble before now.
"She never told him," Lyonel went on, quiet. "She ended the pregnancy before he ever even knew there had been a child to know about."
Neither of you spoke for what felt like an eternity. The only thing that kept you grounded was the feeling of your heart beating loudly at your throat.
"He blamed himself," Lyonel said eventually. "For her pain. For the pregnancy. For all of it, really — he convinced himself every terrible thing that followed was simply the price owed for not having been able to choose in time." He shook his head slowly. "I've never, in my whole life, watched anyone grieve the way he grieved. He stopped eating unless someone physically sat with him while he did it. Stopped answering his phone. Stopped opening the curtains in his own flat. There were nights I slept on his sofa because I didn't trust leaving him alone with his own thoughts for that long. It took the better part of a year before he started resembling anything like himself again. And even then, something in him had changed permanently — he threw himself into the priesthood with a new, almost desperate intensity after that, as though enough devotion applied consistently enough might eventually fill whatever Jena's leaving had removed out of him. I don't think it ever quite managed to."
You understood exactly what he meant, in a way that landed somewhere painfully close to home — Kiera and Rowan had done precisely the same for you, once, at the worst of your own darkest stretch.
"He wasn't a bad man," Lyonel said, his gaze fixed somewhere out past the crowd entirely. "He was a broken one. Still is, I believe."
You stared at Baelor, trying and largely failing to reconcile the man he was describing with the one you actually knew.
"I've never seen him look at anyone the way he looked at Jena," Lyonel said, quieter now, his eyes finding yours again. "Until this day. Until you." He glanced back toward Baelor, who happened, at that exact moment, to laugh at something one of the children had just done.
You fought, hard, against the sympathetic tears building behind your own eyes, and lost anyway — one slipped free despite the effort, tracking down your cheek before you could catch it.
Lyonel noticed, of course.
"Are you in love with him?" he asked, after a single moment of silent grace.
Your face snapped toward his, eyes gone wide with something close to panic.
"Don't worry." He held up a hand, gentling his tone immediately and smiling warmly in your way. "This isn't a confession, and it isn't a trap either."
You fidgeted with your own fingers, found the gesture insufficient, and wrapped your arms fully around yourself instead. "He's a priest," you gave him.
"He is." Lyonel watched you carefully. "But that wasn't the answer you actually wanted to give, was it?"
"I shouldn't—" You cut yourself off.
"Shouldn't what?"
"It doesn't matter." You closed your eyes for a moment, shaking your head. "Shouldn’t you be trying to take this off my head? Threatening me with eternal damnation or something?"
Lyonel laughed, and some of the tension in the atmosphere dissipated with it. "I think I mentioned that I am not the best example of a priest," he said. "And don’t change the subject, it matters to you."
You wanted, badly, to simply lie — to give him some easy, deflecting answer and let the whole conversation dissolve back into the comfortable teasing register you'd started in. You found, when you actually tried to reach for the lie, that you didn't have one readily available. Not for this. Not for him.
Silence settled between the two of you. Somewhere beyond the trees, a fresh burst of children's laughter went up. Plates clinked together nearby as people began gathering the remains of the picnic, folding the day toward its natural close. The whole ordinary world simply continued on, entirely unbothered, as though yours hadn't just quietly ground to a complete halt beside it.
Lyonel let out a soft sigh at the stretch of your silence. "My dear girl," there was nothing unkind nor patronising in his voice. "I didn't ask whether you thought you ought to love him."
You finally looked at him properly. His expression had gone fully gentle now, every trace of the earlier teasing stripped entirely away.
"I asked whether you do."
You looked across the crowd to Baelor one last time, and answered while your eyes were still on him — his own gaze finding yours at the exact same moment, brows drawing together at whatever he could read on your face from that distance.
"Yes." Your voice came out as a thin line, steadier than you'd expected. "I love him."
As the words left you, you watched Baelor start walking toward the two of you.
This was, without question, a disaster.
Not from any vantage point available to the rest of the party — nothing about the afternoon looked, from the outside, like anything other than a pleasant spring gathering, cookies and lemonade and the ordinary noise of several parishes mingling in good weather. But Baelor knew, somewhere deep in his own gut, exactly how thoroughly the whole of it could easily go wrong. Nothing escaped Lyonel. Nothing ever had, not in nearly twenty years of friendship, and Baelor had been fool enough to bring her directly into his oldest friend's orbit without properly accounting for that fact.
He couldn't stop looking at her. He'd tried, repeatedly, throughout the day, and failed every single time within minutes — his eyes finding her across the grounds as though some involuntary system in him had simply reassigned tracking her as its primary function for the afternoon.
She looked absurdly beautiful in that dress. Something in him refused, point blank, to look away from it for any length of time worth mentioning, the pull of her something closer to magnetism than mere attention. He wanted, with an intensity that frightened him fresh each time it arrived, to take her aside somewhere private and strip that dress carefully from her body, to worship every single inch of skin it currently concealed — lavish it with his mouth, with promises he fully intended to keep this time, whatever keeping them eventually cost him.
He thought, watching her laugh at something one of the children had said, of every specific way he'd catalogued her over these last months — the moles at the base of her throat, the give of her waist beneath his hands that December night, the sound she made when startled, which he had, God forgive him, engineered the occasion to hear more than once purely for the private pleasure of it.
He was, he thought with a kind of exhausted, resigned clarity, no longer capable of looking at her and seeing merely a parishioner in need of his care. He hadn't been capable of that in months.
He wondered, distantly, whether he'd ever actually been capable of it at all, or whether that had simply been the story he'd needed to tell himself in order to keep breathing normally in her presence.
That want occupied the greater share of his thoughts for most of the day. He thanked God, with real and specific gratitude, that circumstance hadn't handed him many actual moments alone with her — his flesh was weak today in a way that frightened him, weaker than it had been in weeks, and the thread holding the whole of his composure together seemed to fray a little further with every additional day she remained a fixture in his life rather than a passing temptation he might eventually outlast. He was a priest of fifteen years' standing, a man who had built an entire vocation on the discipline of wanting rightly rather than simply wanting. And here he was, watching a woman laugh across a churchyard, unable to remember the last time discipline had actually won a single round against whatever this had become.
It was well into the late afternoon when the unease first settled over him — some low, wordless instinct pulling his attention across the grounds before he'd consciously decided to go looking for her. He found her seated near Lyonel, the two of them deep in what appeared, from this distance, to be an easy, genuinely funny conversation — both of them laughing about something he had no access to.
He knew Lyonel. Knew, with the certainty of two decades' friendship, that his friend wouldn't say anything genuinely unkind to her, wouldn't overstep some obvious boundary out of simple carelessness. Or would he? Because one moment Baelor watched her smiling in his own general direction, easy and unguarded, and the next he watched her come dangerously close to tears.
Baelor felt something cold drop through his chest. Lyonel didn't look guilty, watching her — only worried, in the specific way Baelor had learned to read on his oldest friend's face over years of knowing every register that face could produce. Lyonel glanced up and met his eyes across the distance, and in that single look Baelor could see, with sudden and terrible clarity, that his friend understood exactly the size and shape of whatever currently sat between Baelor and her.
Baelor excused himself from the small knot of parishioners currently claiming his attention and made for them at something close to an outright rush. He was nearly at their side when Lyonel said something to her, low, that Baelor didn't catch — and she rose immediately, walking away fast enough that her shoulder nearly collided with his own as she passed, without so much as glancing up to acknowledge him.
He halted. Turned to follow her with his eyes, but she was already gone, swallowed into the crowd. He turned back to Lyonel instead, who had risen from the grass as well, and found his own confusion mirrored back at him from his friend's face.
"Lyonel. What happened?"
His friend didn't answer immediately, only regarded him with an expression Baelor couldn't fully parse.
"Lyonel," he pressed again.
"She's alright." Lyonel's voice had none of its usual ease in it. "She just needed a moment of silence. That's all."
Baelor didn't believe a word of it. "What did you tell her?"
Something in his own gut insisted, with real certainty, that whatever the answer turned out to be, it would matter considerably more than Lyonel currently wanted to admit.
Lyonel only looked at him for a long moment. "How long has it been since your last confession, Baelor?"
There was nothing of the earlier teasing left in his voice at all.
Baelor huffed something that only barely resembled a laugh. "Fuck my last confession. She wouldn't even look me in the eye, and I want to know why. What. Did. You. Tell. Her."
Lyonel ignored the question entirely. "Do you want me to hear it?"
Baelor found himself at a complete loss, anxiety climbing fast and unpleasant through his chest, the whole situation slipping visibly beyond whatever control he'd imagined himself still having over it. Before he could produce any kind of answer, Lyonel spoke again.
"Give yourself some grace, Baelor. If not for your own sake, then for hers."
Something in the specific phrasing of it — for hers — landed harder than anything else Lyonel had said so far, a direct hit to the exact place Baelor had spent the whole afternoon trying not to look at directly.
There was a plea buried in his friend's voice — genuine, unmistakable — and Baelor could not remember the last time Lyonel had actually pleaded with him for anything. He looked around at the grounds, noting the attendants already beginning their slow drift toward the exits, and nodded once, sharp and final, before following Lyonel inside the parish.
He stepped inside the confessional and lowered himself onto the narrow kneeler set within, the familiar close dark of the space settling around him in a way that felt, for once, entirely appropriate to his own current state.
He had heard perhaps ten thousand confessions himself, over more than a decade; had grown so practiced at the choreography of the sacrament that he sometimes forgot, standing on the other side of the screen, how differently the whole architecture of it felt from the penitent's chair — smaller, somehow, more exposed, despite the same darkness and the same careful anonymity the space was meant to provide. Through the mesh screen he heard Lyonel settle into the confessor's side.
"You do remember how this works, don't you?" Lyonel dared, one last flicker of his usual humour slipping through.
"Just start, Lyonel."
Lyonel huffed. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."
Baelor traced the same shape across his own chest — old habit rather than any presently felt conviction, the motion arriving from years of muscle memory rather than from anything currently living in his heart.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." The formula arrived easily enough, worn smooth from repetition. "It has been five months since my last confession."
He heard Lyonel suppress something close to a gasp on the other side of the screen, and was privately grateful his friend had the discipline not to comment on it directly.
Baelor gave him the list, the whole ordinary catalogue of it: impatience with a parishioner, eating meat on a Friday he'd forgotten was a day of abstinence, a wandering mind during Mass he hadn't managed to properly discipline. Small, manageable crumbs, offered up in place of the actual meal he had absolutely no intention of setting on the table.
"That's it?" Lyonel asked, when he'd finished.
"You asked to hear my confession. That is my confession."
"I heard nearly this exact list the last time you came to me. I'd wager good money it'll be identical again next time." Lyonel's voice had gone threaded through with real impatience now.
"It is an honest examination of conscience."
"It's an honest examination of the parts of your conscience you've already decided are safe to hand over." Lyonel didn't let the silence that followed settle for long. "I'm not asking you this as your friend right now, Baelor. I'm asking as the priest currently responsible for your soul, in this exact conversation, in this exact moment. Is there something else?"
It wasn't, in any real sense, a question. That was precisely what terrified Baelor most about it — the plain, unmistakable invitation to walk through a door Lyonel knew perfectly well stood open in front of him.
"No," Baelor said finally, and marvelled, distantly, at how easily the lie left him.
A beat of silence followed, and then the screen between them slid open with a sudden, decisive scrape — Lyonel's own doing, his eyes, when Baelor turned to find them, gone properly desperate.
"When are you going to stop hurting yourself with lies?"
Baelor turned fully to face him. "I am not lying—"
"Bullshit." Lyonel cut him off entirely, no patience left for the deflection. "That girl. The one you look at exactly the way you used to look at Jena—"
"That isn't confession material."
"Isn't it?" Lyonel let out a short, humourless laugh.
"Temptation itself carries no guilt," Baelor said, reaching for the old, familiar shelter of doctrine even as some quieter part of him recognized exactly what he was doing. "Attraction isn't a sin, Lyonel. You know that as well as I do — better, probably, given how creatively you've always interpreted your own vow of—"
"Don't." Lyonel cut him off a second time, sharp. "Don't hide behind good moral theology to dodge the truth. I learned half of that theology from you, which means I know exactly how it's meant to be used, and exactly how badly you're misusing it now."
Baelor found he had no answer ready. Lyonel was, infuriatingly, entirely correct.
The silence stretched out for what felt, to Baelor, like a genuine eternity before Lyonel spoke again.
"Do you love her?"
Baelor choked slightly on his own breath and found he couldn't meet his friend's eyes.
"I'm trying to deal with it," he offered, reaching for whatever honesty he currently had access to.
"You have never once been a hypocrite, Baelor." Lyonel's reply came fast, unrelenting. "And yet right now, while you sit in here trying to deal with it, there is a woman standing out there blaming herself for wanting something she believes she has no right to want. Something you are actively giving her hope for, whether you mean to or not." His voice had gone sterner than Baelor could remember hearing it in years — genuinely angry, in a register Baelor struggled to recall his friend ever occupying before. "So I'm going to ask you again, and I want the truth this time. Do you love her?"
Baelor opened his mouth around another deflection and discovered, searching for it, that he had none left in reserve.
He was so tired. Not the ordinary tiredness of a long day, or even the specific exhaustion four years of spiritual dryness had taught him to carry as a kind of permanent low hum beneath everything else — this was different, heavier, the particular fatigue of a man who had spent months performing a version of himself for public consumption that bore less resemblance to the actual truth every single day.
He was tired of standing at the altar and lying, calling what he felt for her pastoral concern. Tired of the specific effort it took, every single time she attended Mass, to arrange his face into something appropriately neutral while she knelt in front of him. Tired of performing an entire second liturgy of denial parallel to the one he actually believed in.
He had been lying to everyone for months — to Maekar that night, to Lyonel now, to God every time he performed Mass, to her since December and to himself, most thoroughly of all — and the lying had cost him considerably more than the truth currently threatened to.
Enough, he finally allowed himself. Enough.
"Yes." The word landed strangely in his own ears, foreign after so many months of careful avoidance. "Yes. I love her."
He braced, instinctively, for shame to follow the admission out into the open air. What arrived instead was relief — immense, bodily relief, the kind that made his own shoulders drop several inches he hadn't realized he'd been holding rigid.
He followed the thread of his own honesty further, since stopping now seemed considerably harder than simply continuing. "I've thought about leaving. Properly leaving the priesthood. Some nights I want it badly enough that sleep simply doesn't come."
Neither of them spoke for a long moment after that landed between them.
Lyonel swallowed, audibly, and let out a slow breath. "I know you threw yourself into this life because you felt you owed it to Jena, in the end — that becoming what you'd doubted, properly and fully, was the only way you could make any sense of what happened with her."
Baelor said nothing, because there was nothing to say — every word of it landed true, precise as a blade finding exactly the gap in armour it had been aimed at. He had never once, in four years of turning this over in the dark, allowed himself to hear it laid out quite this plainly by someone else's mouth. Lyonel raised a hand before Baelor could interject anyway.
"I know the crisis you've been carrying these past four years traces straight back to that. And I know you've been thinking about leaving for considerably longer than the last six months, whatever you've told yourself about the timeline." He paused. "But I need to be certain this girl isn't simply a scapegoat for a decision you were already circling long before you met her. I've watched you struggle with this for over a decade, Baelor. Much as I hate agreeing with your walking migraine of a brother on anything, he's right that you cannot keep going on like this. Not if it's going to end the way it nearly did the last time. We very nearly lost you, and I don't intend to watch it happen twice."
Baelor breathed deeply and made himself actually examine the question rather than flinch from it. Was she simply the excuse his own long-buried want for freedom had been searching for all along?
The answer arrived as easily and immediately as breath itself.
No. Absolutely not.
"She is not an excuse," Baelor said, admitting it not only to Lyonel but, for the first time, plainly to himself as well. "She is the reason I feel like I still have a heart."
Lyonel nodded slowly. "So why haven't you told her?"
"Because I'm afraid." The admission cost him something to produce, but it came anyway. "I am terrified of holding her happiness in my own two hands and throwing it away the same way I threw Jena's."
He thought of Jena more than he let anyone know — not the version Lyonel had likely just given her out on that lawn, the tragedy reduced to its necessary shape for someone else's understanding, but the actual daily texture of it: the specific sound of her voice on the last phone call she'd ever return, the quality of silence that had followed his own honesty like a verdict.
He had told himself, for years, that what happened with her was the result of speaking a difficult truth too late and too clumsily — that the sin, if there was one, had been in the timing, in the delivery, some correctable failure of tact rather than in the truth itself. Sitting here now, he wondered whether that had ever been accurate. Whether the actual failure had been something closer to cowardice dressed up as honesty — offering her his doubt only once it had grown too large to privately manage alone, rather than trusting her with it from the beginning, when trust might still have given them both room to survive it together.
He did not know, watching that same fear rise in him now with someone else's happiness at stake, whether he had actually learned anything from what happened with Jena, or whether he was simply better at recognizing the shape of his own failure while still no better equipped to stop repeating it.
"You deserve happiness, Baelor." Lyonel's mouth had gone tight, something fierce and protective moving behind his eyes. "God knows, if anyone currently alive has earned it, it's you." He paused, softer now. "And for what it's worth, I don't think loving her makes you the villain of this particular story. I think it might be the first honest thing you've allowed yourself in years." The corner of his mouth twitched, the old humour creeping back in at the edges. "But you still need to get your shit together, my friend."
Baelor mirrored the small, rough chuckle that followed, though his own came out considerably more strained.
After a short pause, Baelor breathed in deeply. "And my penance?"
Lyonel laughed properly at that. "You've got penance enough built in already, being the patron saint of overthinking yourself into an early grave."
He gave Baelor the absolution — the old, familiar shape of it, mercy and reconciliation folded once more into words that belonged to the whole Church rather than to either of them individually, ending, as it always ended, with the small cross traced in the air between them and Baelor's own quiet Amen.
They stepped out of the confessional together and embraced, brief and firm, the wordless farewell of two men who'd known each other considerably too long to need actual words for it. Together they made their way out toward the parking lot, where they found her already waiting beside Baelor's car. Lyonel lifted a hand in farewell, and she returned the gesture with one of her own, faintly unsteady visible even from where they stood.
"Quite the good priest, you turned out to be," Baelor teased, low, as they walked.
Lyonel laughed and clapped a hand against his shoulder. "I believe I already told you — I've never claimed to be a good example of anything."
"No," Baelor agreed. "But you might be a good friend, on occasion, if the mood strikes you correctly."
Lyonel pressed a hand to his own chest. "Careful. Keep talking like that and I'll start believing you actually enjoy me."
Baelor managed a proper laugh at that and crossed the remaining distance to his car alone. She was already sitting inside, waiting, and he could read, even through the windscreen, the particular weight of whatever was currently sitting on her — something eating at her from the inside, quiet and unresolved, that he was fairly certain, walking the last few steps toward the driver's door, he was about to have to finally, actually address.
The half hour back to the parish was the longest you remembered living through. There was no music this time — the phone sat dark and silent in the cupholder between you — and no words passed between you and Baelor either. Only a thick, unbroken silence and a weight that seemed to settle heavier across your shoulders with every mile.
You turned everything you knew about him over and over in your head, examining it now against the shape of what Lyonel had told you. The darkness you'd caught behind his eyes so many times these past months, in sermons, in silences, in the specific way he sometimes looked at nothing at all — you understood it now, completely, understood exactly where it had come from and exactly how much it had cost him to carry alone for as long as he had.
The bigger part of you — you were completely certain it was the bigger part — ached for him. Of course it did. Whatever else was currently happening between the two of you, no decent person could hear what you'd just heard and feel anything but sympathy for the man who'd lived it.
But another part of you, smaller and considerably uglier, sat curled in some dark corner of your mind, asking a question you didn't especially want to be asking. Why hadn't he told you himself? You'd told him everything — every ugly, unmanaged piece of your own grief, laid bare in a confessional and then, later, laid bare again outside one more than once. He'd been the very first person you'd trusted with any of it, before Kiera, before Rowan, before anyone.
That small, ugly part of your mind wanted to know why the trust hadn't run both directions.
You thought of your father, of how he'd never once kept anything from you that mattered, not even the hard parts — not the money worries, not his own fear near the end. You had built your whole understanding of intimacy around that model: that love meant telling the truth even when the truth cost something. Baelor, apparently, had built his around something else entirely.
Traitor, that voice hissed inside you. Just like everyone else.
It wasn't fair, this feeling, and you knew it wasn't fair even as you felt it — knew Baelor owed you nothing, technically. Not his history, not his griefs, not access to every locked room in a life he'd been building for years before you ever walked through his door, but knowing that didn't make the feeling any quieter.
You chased the thought away, hard, the moment it surfaced, but you knew, even as you did it, that it would come circling back before the day was through.
You'd known, going looking for him earlier, that he'd gone into the confessional with Lyonel — a woman near the refreshment table had told you as much, unprompted, when she'd noticed you scanning the crowd. And the anxiety had gnawed at you steadily ever since, low and constant.
You knew, somewhere underneath all of it, that Baelor seemed happy with you. He had to be. Or he's delivering an award-winning performance, some other unkind voice supplied. Maybe he'd gone to Lyonel for guidance on how to be rid of you gently, that same voice continued, and your heart ached, physically, sharply, at the mere thought of it.
You hated how quickly your mind reached for the worst version of every possibility. You hated it, and you couldn't seem to stop doing it anyway, the habit worn too deep after a year of losing things without warning to trust that anything good might simply be allowed to stay.
By the time Baelor pulled the car into its usual spot outside the parish, the light had gone the bright beginning dusk of early evening, long shadows stretching across the gravel lot, and neither of you had said a single word to break the silence that had ridden the whole way back with you.
He cut the engine and sat for a moment, hands still resting on the wheel, knuckles pale with whatever grip he currently had on them, before turning to look at you properly.
"Are you alright?" His voice was careful, gentle in a way that only made the ugly voice in your head louder rather than quieter. "You've been quiet."
"I'm fine," you said, too fast, already reaching for the door handle.
"You're not." He caught your wrist before you could fully commit to escaping, his touch light enough that pulling away would have cost you nothing at all, and you hated, in that exact moment, how badly some traitorous part of you didn't want to.
You got out of the car anyway, needing the space more than you needed whatever comfort his hand might have offered.
The parish stood dark and entirely empty at this hour, every other soul long since gone home for the evening, and Baelor let the two of you in through the side door without a word, closing it quietly again once you'd both crossed the threshold. Neither of you discussed where you were headed. Your feet simply carried you, the way they so often did lately, toward the small side chapel and the tabernacle at its heart — the same quiet corner that had already held so much of whatever this had become between you these past months. Baelor followed a step behind, silent the whole way, until he called your name.
"Talk to me." Baelor stepped closer, quieter now. "Please."
He meant it kindly. You could hear that he meant it kindly, could see it plainly enough in the careful, searching way he was looking at you — and it was precisely the kindness of it that finally cracked something loose in you, some dam that had been holding since the moment you'd walked away from Lyonel on that lawn.
"What did you tell him?" The words came out sharper than you'd planned, aimed directly at him. "In there. What did you and Lyonel actually talk about?"
Something shuttered, briefly, behind Baelor's eyes. "Telling you would break the seal of confession."
"Of course." The laugh that came out of you had nothing funny left inside it. "How dumb of me to think you’d actually tell me."
You felt something give way in your chest, some seam that had been straining the whole drive back finally splitting open.
"Do you know how much of myself I gave you?" Your voice shook, but you kept going anyway, because stopping now felt more dangerous than continuing. "Everything. Every ugly piece of myself I've ever tried to hide from anyone else — my mother, my grief, the things I think about God that would probably get me struck down if He were even half as literal as people claim. I handed you all of it. I trusted you with all of it, because I thought that was the whole foundation of this," you gestured between you both, "that we told each other the truth. That was the one thing I actually believed about you, Baelor, and now I don't know if I was right to."
"That isn't—"
"You've made a career out of trusting people." You talked over him, unable to stop the momentum now that it had started. Your voice cracked, and you let it. "It's like you'd only ever trust me if I wore one of those collars myself."
"That is not true," he gestured towards you, coming closer.
"Isn’t it?" You threw your arms out, gesturing at the whole of the chapel around you — the tabernacle, the pew where you'd once knelt trying and failing to remember how to pray, the entire impossible shape of the last several months. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks exactly like that. It's always looked exactly like that."
He lowered his gaze, unable to look at you. Ah, so there was some truth in your words.
"It's more complicated than what you're—"
"Is it too much for your conscience to look at me now, Father?" you spat, words venomous even to your tongue.
He raised his eyes to you again. "Do not call me that." The words came out low, almost a hiss, like the title landing from your mouth specifically had physically wounded him in some way you hadn't intended. Or perhaps you had.
You blinked, startled by the force of it despite the fire that kept you going.
"Why not?" You pushed anyway, some reckless momentum carrying you past the point where you might otherwise have stopped. "It's what you are, isn’t it? And apparently it decides who gets the real you and who gets whatever's left over." You raked a hand through your hair and sighed. "I thought this could be different. God, I actually believed I was worth it," you said more to yourself than to him.
"You are. You definitely are," The words left him fast, almost involuntary, like he hadn't fully decided to let them out yet. His hands came toward you, trying desperately to reach you, to build the burnt bridges again.
"Then prove it." Your voice cracked around the demand. "Tell me something true. Right now. Just once, Baelor, be completely honest with me."
He didn't answer, turning half away from you instead, one hand dragging back through his hair. You watched the muscle work in his jaw, watched him visibly search for and fail to find whatever composed response he usually had ready. You watched him struggle, fight with himself. But you guessed that final wall that protected his innermost part stood too tall for him to jump it. Or for you to look above it.
"Baelor." Your voice softened despite the anger still sitting hot in your chest, some older, gentler instinct winning out over the wounded one. "Let me help you. Whatever this is, whatever you're carrying — you don't have to carry it by yourself. Not with me."
"I didn't ask for your help," he said. His voice was low.
"You'd never ask for help. That's the thing with us." You stepped nearer, some part of you still hoping proximity alone might make him understand what words apparently weren't managing. "We keep waiting for someone to notice we're drowning instead of just saying we can't swim anymore."
"No, you don’t understand. I don't need you to fix me." The words snapped out of him, defensive, louder than anything you'd heard from him before.
You stepped nearer to him, just a pace away. "I don't want to fix you. I want to love you!"
Baelor flinched at the tone of your voice, at the weight of your words, visibly, though he said nothing in response, his silence somehow louder than anything he could have actually said. Still, he didn’t look at you.
"And I know you love me." You pushed on anyway, because stopping now felt like a betrayal to yourself. "I know you do. So why do you keep walking away from it?"
He turned to face you fully at that, and his eyes, when you finally met them, were full of more than you had any hope of properly naming. There was anguish, anger, hope.
"Because every time I look at you—" his voice cracked around the words, "—every single time — I see the life I will never get to live. And it's driving me mad."
He advanced as he said it, closing what little distance had remained between you, and you found yourself rooted to the marble beneath your feet, eyes gone wide, tears already blurring your view of him. Your lip trembled, once, then twice. He stood close enough now that you could see clearly, for the first time all day, the exact difference in the colour of his eyes — the specific detail you'd catalogued a hundred times from a safer distance. Your gaze dropped, treacherous, to his mouth, before you dragged it back up to his eyes with real effort. You said nothing.
"Every time I close my eyes, I see your face," he went on, quieter now, almost helpless with it. "I hear your voice. Your laugh lives inside my head, constantly. Every single time you're near me it feels like I'm losing more of my own mind. You have condemned me to a life of yearning I am not permitted to act upon."
His voice broke on the last of it.
Your mouth fell open. "Condemned you?" You couldn't quite believe the word, couldn't reconcile it with anything that would have ever come from his lips.
"Yes." His eyes never left yours. "Condemned me. Condemned us."
A single, heavy tear finally spilled free and tracked down your cheek. A beat of silence stretched between you. And then, because it was the only true thing left in you to say, you said it.
"Baelor, we were already condemned."
Your voice came out barely above a whisper.
It was his turn to look at your mouth now, his own trembling faintly around whatever words he still hadn't let himself say. He was close — close enough that the smallest movement from either of you would have ended the distance entirely, would have ended the whole of the misery currently sitting between you in one motion. His jaw tightened once, twice. You watched him swallow. His lips parted around a breath that never became actual words before pressing closed again, as though he were physically restraining something.
You became suddenly, painfully aware of your own mouth — of how dry it had gone without your noticing. You wet your lips without thinking about it at all, an entirely unconscious gesture, and watched his eyes track the movement with an intensity sharp enough to make your own pulse stutter out of rhythm. You could feel the warmth radiating off him even across the last inches separating you, could smell the last trace of sun and grass and something underneath both that was simply him.
Neither of you spoke. Every word that tried to form arrived a full heartbeat too late, discarded before it ever reached your tongue.
He leaned forward, just enough that some part of you thought, with a clarity that felt almost peaceful, this is it. Your breath caught before you could stop it. His did too. For one impossible, suspended heartbeat the entire world narrowed itself down to the single remaining inch separating your mouths.
Then something shifted behind his eyes.
He stepped back.
"We can't—" His voice had gone rough, wrecked. "God, I — I can't cross that line."
He turned away from you, both hands rising to cover his own face, and you let your breath out in a long, shaking exhale, the tears you'd been holding finally spilling freely down your cheeks with a mute sob. You gathered whatever strength you still had access to, turned toward the exit, and started walking, leaving him standing exactly where he was.
You did not look back.
← PART 1 | PART 3 →
A.N.: yes, I am leaving it there until part three *smiles deviously*
in an arranged marriage the reader doesn’t expect much, being painfully oblivious to the strong feelings their husband to be has for them
cw: yearning arranged marriage suggestive content not proof read
a/n: based on this lovely request<3
baelor targaryen
even though he decided long ago you are the woman he wants, you never see any certain emotions behind his mismatched eyes, mistaking his propriety and restraint for lack of personal investment. baelor doesn’t want to frighten or pressure you, knowing how earthshattering it must be to be married to a man you barely know, so he gives you space, lets you breathe and explore everything at your own pace, which for you looks like a mere formality. the dutiful prince fulfilling his duty without any personal interest. baelor personally makes sure you are comfortable, protected, and feel safe in your new home, though you are sure that is a standard royal provision. even during his free time, his attention keeps returning to you, as he finds any reason to see you, speak with you, or ask your opinion on something 'important', never daring to cross a line or take advantage of your vulnerable position, not even by letting himself say a flirty comment, sure that not pushing his affection onto you is for the best. baelor invites you for walks, trying to get to know you better in a way that won't feel crowding, though barely showing any emotions. he even asks whether you are truly content with this arrangement or if it's something you plan to endure, and he asks it so seriously that you start thinking he himself wants out of it. this makes you want to reassure him that you will be a loyal and undemanding wife and understand that even though it will be a loveless marriage, you won't cause him trouble. baelor is so taken aback by your words and the casualness of your tone that he stops walking altogether, staring at you with stunned "i have no concerns regarding... that, my lady"
maekar targaryen
he is also oblivious to the fact that he has feelings for you, yet the truth of it bleeds into every moment of his day, even when he brushes it off internally as mere 'concern'. maekar becomes more stern with servants, inspects his future wife's chambers himself, personally assigns guards, barking orders about how everything is not 'suitable' for a noble lady, ensuring every part of your new life, even the flowers that maids have to bring in every morning, is of the best quality. you view him as controlling and impossible to please, not realising he is just desperate to please you. maekar wants to create a comfortable life for you, expressing his feelings through acts of service, yet acts so sternly while doing all that, no one suspects a thing. he questions you relentlessly. where do you want to live, what do you need, and which members of your household do you want to keep, though his tone makes it feel like an interrogation rather than care. maekar fights his demons daily, not allowing himself such weakness as getting smitten by his bride, even though he knows he was the one to insist on this particular match, lying to himself, claiming it's just politics. he becomes visibly irritated whenever you speak, as though you two will lead largely separate lives, because you are convinced the prince practically can't stand you. with time, maekar learns how to express his feelings properly because the possibility of you looking at him with disgust, distrust, or worse, detachment is much scarier. it reaches a point where he is forced to confess how completely infatuated he is by you right to your face to finally break free from the gnawing doubts and torturing uncertainty of his own mind. he says it so spontaneously, you don't believe your ears at first, carefully studying his hesitant expression and violet eyes full of longing
valarr targaryen
will try to properly but softly prove to you his feelings. naturally, you brush it off as mere politeness. valarr gives you every conventional sign of romance, but because he is so charming, courteous, and princely, you assume none of it is unique to you. at first, he doesn't even realize you are convinced that his affection is a generic set of good manners and natural charm. you tell everyone that valarr "could make any woman happy" because you truly believe that all he does is fulfill his duty by playing the role of a good husband to be, completely unaware of the pure love that fills his chest with every glance at your smile. your coldness at his romantic gestures he interprets as rejections, trying to bear the thought of you not feeling the same towards him, suspecting that maybe someone more lucky already owns your heart, determined to ease your pain as your husband as much as he can, knowing how tiresome and torturing it may feel to love one sidedly. valarr doesn't want to burden you with his feelings, creating polite distance when he doesn't see the same look in your eyes, and he is ready to carry all this in his heart in secret forever, but when you say that "he might eventually love somebody else" and that you understand them, all the strength leave shis body and he kneels in front of you, hands hovering near yours, not even daring to touch saying that what you imply is completely impossible since his heart belongs to you solely for longer than it is proper. watching your surprised expression, valarr apologises immediately for forcing you into such an uncomfortable situation of dealing with the matters of his heart that you clearly have no interest in and how selfish of him it was to corner you with all that, but you shush him with a soft, trembling smile and a quiet "i never knew, my prince"
daeron targaryen
he believes it’s for the best for you to think there is nothing more than politics involved. daeron makes jokes about your marriage, discussing with you the absurdity of it, the dread of duty, taking the role of a companion in misfortune rather than a suitor. every sarcastic comment from him, for you, is a confirmation that neither of you takes this marriage seriously. he drops off words of postponing the wedding, inventing different reasons to keep it as it is now, innocent, and you think that’s because he thinks your marriage will rob him off the frivolous lifestyle he has now, but in reality he just tries to avoid the inevitable wedding night, knowing that after that hiding his feelings would become absolutely unbearable. you don’t even suspect a think, sure that there is nothing more than casual friendship between you too and daeron does big work for you to keep believing that, even inventing some lady he is supposedly in love with, just to distract you from noticing the way his gaze seem to be always glued to you. he is a mess, a wreck, an awful, undutiful, lazy husband and he knows that, also knowing that you deserve someone hundred times better than him. daeron hates and loves the fact that you don’t know how much you mean to him, doing scandalous things in order to cancel the betrothal all together, not letting himself “taint” you with his reputation and lifestyle but the greed… the yearning and the fear of losing you from his sight all forever forces him to constantly be close, accompanying you to walks in the gardens, sitting near you at feasts and gossiping with you in the halls secretly hoping for you to understand everything from his eyes. his hungry desperate eyes
aerion targaryen
there is just no way you don’t know. aerion makes sure his every gesture, every words, every glance radiates ownership, possessiveness and ungodly desire for you. constantly tells you how precious, beautiful and uniquely his you are, not letting even a single thought of doubt to trouble your pretty head. aerion will tell you how good you make him feel and how lucky you are he chose you, referring to you as his dragon mate, his jewel, and in rare tender moments of weakness - his love. since day one of the courtship you are suffocated by the amount of theatrical affection he pours onto you, barely letting you leave his sight. even though it is still a moon before your wedding, aerion’s touch is far from innocent, cornering you in the gardens, in the dark halls and hidden passages to cover your sweet neck with hickeys and murmur all the things he plans to do with you once you are officially his before the gods. he asks you to let him into your chambers every night, savouring the secrecy and pure lust of the moment, making out with you until your lips bruise. aerion is openly affectionate with you and even gentle, though every sweet word, tender kiss and expensive gift is laced with a perverse, monstrous obsession that borders on madness. aerion is always by your side, practically convinced you are already married, only teasing you and himself with the knowledge he will take you in properly soon enough. since the first moment you saw him, you knew, solely from his terrible gaze on your skin - you are his till the end of times
ser duncan the tall
he practically loses the ability to talk alltogether, when you are near, turning into a big red mute mess, which leads you to conclude the match makes him very uncomfortable. dunk won’t touch you even if it costs him his life, because he knows he just wouldn’t be able to stop if he once lets himself loose, avoiding any physical contact with you very thoroughly, while dreaming about the very same thing night and day. you think he isn’t attracted to you, especially convinced in that because of the way he speaks to you, in harsh and short sentences, barely looking you in the eyes. dunk is sure you see how absolutely smitten he is and what a pathetic mess he becomes because if your gaze and gets even more embarrassed when you carefully probe whether he is disgusted by you, thinking you mock him cruelly with such questions, because to him it’s so painfully obvious he is in love with you. when you see him laughing and relaxed with other people, it only strengthens your belief that he prefers any other company except yours, treating the practical, sweet and deeply tender things he silently does for you as a part of how kind he is towards everyone. when you assure him you won’t demand of him more than duty requires and that you can be only friends, he becomes so miserable, he can’t even force out a word which you interpret as relief. egg is driven crazy by how stupid you both are, ready to run to you and tell what ser duncan truly feels if only he didn’t swear to dunk he would keep his secret silent. so all he can do is drop hints that go completely unnoticed. eventually, you offer dunk a way out of this arrangement “without blame” and he is so horrified by the possibility of losing you, fear makes him very articulate for a few minutes in which he pours all the love and affection he has been feeling for you all this time. dunk rambles so much you have to shut him up with a kiss
a/n: i realised that to write it out properly, i need many more words, so maybe i will expand some characters and do a separate work for some if you would like that, but idk!! please lmk if you have any thoughts <33
If you do a 4th chapter of Aerion and his woods witch, it could be both of them drinking the sex pollen this time
I Promise You
Aerion Targaryen x fem!reader
✿ having spent time with aerion at summerhall, you both come to a realisation (part four of Here With Me).
✿ 18+
✿ wc: 7.5k
✿ cw: fem!reader/healer!reader, no y/n, reader is undefined and smart asf, possessive!aerion (not as bad this time lol), dual consensual sex pollen/stimulant consumption, SMUT, slight predator/prey (chase), unprotected piv, semi-clothed sex, outdoor sex, prone bone, creampies, slight hyperspermia?, multiple orgasms, praise, pet names (sweet girl, etc), dirty talk, hint of a breeding kink, fluff (so maybe ooc but shhh), strong language, maekar being a good father, ser roland mention again <3
✿ a/n: lol here is the highly requested part four. thank you all for the love and support on this series !! i hope you enjoy :)
part one here — part two here — part three here
The gardens of Summerhall hum around you as bees flit from flower to flower, and birds nesting in the lush elm overhead sing out loudly. It’s peaceful here. It’s peaceful and quiet as you sit between two protruding roots, your back pressed to the elm’s trunk with a book spread open in your lap.
You compress a small, delicate flower to the page and scrawl around it. You note its smell, the colour of its pollen, the way its light pink petals feel like silk between your thumb and forefinger. You note where you found it: growing small, undersized beneath the towering, well-pruned carnations that grow in abundance before you. You tack the flower in place with a small droplet of sap, thumbnail indenting the amber as if it were a wax seal, and you blow it gently to set it dry.
The soft padding of footsteps across grass draws your gaze from your notebook. Prince Maekar approaches, his hands clasped behind his back, head cocked slightly in curiosity as he notices the book open in your lap.
You move to stand, a slightly embarrassed scramble as you place your book aside, but the prince holds up his hand. The gesture stills you immediately, and you peer up at him from your spot at the base of the tree. You watch him exhale a deep breath as he steps into the elm’s shadow and takes a seat a metre or so from you on a low stone bench.
Silence stretches as the prince looks out across the garden of carnations, the blooms varying in pinks and the lightest of purples. Fidgeting with the edge of a page, you watch the prince carefully, a small knot of guilt forming in the base of your stomach. You’re not sure why you’re feeling this way, but a prince of the realm was sitting calmly across from you, and suddenly you realise just how out of place you are here.
“My wife had these planted,” Maekar says suddenly, nodding towards the garden. Your eyes dart from him to the sea of carnations. He continues, “She grew quite fond of them. They made up the crown I gifted her during my first tourney after our marriage. I suppose, since then, she saw no reason to favour roses or lilies or what have you.”
You listen carefully, eyes finding the prince’s side profile again. You observe the hard lines of his face, the slope of his nose, the pox scars across his cheekbones. Having spent the past month at Summerhall, basking beneath the clear summer sun, his pale skin has the comings of a golden Dornish glow.
“They’re beautiful,” you decide to tell him, thinking back briefly to your discussion with Aerion about the flowers several days ago.
Maekar turns to you then, his attention leaving his wife’s flowers. His eyes, light in colour, appear darker beneath the thatching branches of the elm, but his gaze is surprisingly soft. He takes you in, and you watch him take you in, like a man thinking of what to say next.
“What have you done to him?”
The knot of guilt in your stomach suddenly grows tenfold. “I beg your pardon, your grace?”
“You’ve changed him,” the prince says. “Aerion. He’s… different.”
Your fingers curl around the edge of your book as you lean back against the elm’s trunk, hoping for it to swallow you, draw you in and hide you amongst bark and sap. But you remain under the watchful stare of the Prince of Summerhall, and all you can do is clear your throat and try to gather your thoughts.
“I apologise—” You begin, but Maekar quickly cuts you off.
“Since… you,” he says pointedly. “The boy has been… calmer about the home. He is still Aerion, I must admit, and he is still intense and rather poor-mannered, but he is calmer. He has more patience with our servants, and he speaks softly to his sisters.”
You listen. The knot of guilt in your belly has shifted into something else. Something warmer. That fuzzy sort of feeling you get when someone bigger than you, someone more important, praises you without warning.
“He hasn’t threatened to kill anyone in a very long time,” Maekar continues, a small laugh escaping him. It makes you smile. Then he shakes his head, lips a flat line across his face as he looks at you. “So what exactly have you done to him?”
You think for a moment, still fidgeting with your notebook.
“In all honesty, your grace, I’m not quite sure,” you answer truthfully. “I have treated his injuries, and soothed his illnesses, and I have—”
“Given him what wants,” Maekar interrupts, nodding. “He’s never needed to chase attention. He’s always been the centre of it. But now, with you… things are different, aren’t they?”
You reply with a slow nod.
Maekar huffs out another laugh. “Gods above, he’s absolutely infatuated with you.”
The heat in your stomach burns hotter, and it spreads wide too. It fills your chest, ichored sunlight seeping between the ivory of your ribs. You lean back against the tree, unable to keep the nervous smile from your face.
A few beats pass before Maekar shuffles further down the bench. He taps the spot beside him then, gesturing for you to sit. You obey, folding your book neatly beneath your arm and padding across the grass, churned slightly by the exposed roots. You sit down beside the prince, feeling the warmth of his body amidst the cool shade. And then the pair of you sit there in comfortable silence for another few moments, listening to the bees and watching the light summer breeze brush through the rows of carnations.
Quietly, Maekar resumes, his eyes on the garden. “You are welcome here for as long as you see fit. Although—” he turns to face you now. “—I must admit, I hope you see fit that your stay here be… more permanent than temporary. Aerion is, well, better with you.”
You feel the press of the prince’s eyes on the side of your face as you look out at the sprawling gardens. A worker passes through the flowers, humming peacefully to himself.
“I have a shop,” you say quietly, placing your book back on your lap so you can curl your fingers around the edge of the cold stone bench. “I have a community to help. I… I am not a maester, your grace.”
“I understand that.”
“I cannot—” You take a deep breath. “—I cannot just leave that behind.”
“I understand that also.”
You look at the prince now, spending a split second gnawing nervously on your bottom lip. You release it to sigh, feeling the corners of your mouth twitch downwards. You fight the pout as you reply, “Then what am I to do?”
Maekar thinks for a moment.
“Do you wish to leave?” He asks, head cocking to the side to gauge your reaction.
Your reply is instant and frighteningly visceral. “No.”
The branches overhead tremble as a pair of birds cut through the leaves, chasing one another, screaming and shouting. Maekar waits for them to fly on, the sounds of their fighting disappearing around the gleaming castle, before continuing.
“And I suppose my son would have my head if I even insisted you go.” He reaches across then and places a hand against your knee. It’s comforting and friendly in a way you hadn’t been expecting, and for a split second, you feel the hot press of tears behind your eyes. He looks at you, expression soft. “As I said, m’lady, you are welcome here. You are welcome in the Keep. You are welcome anywhere my son needs you.”
The word need pierces you through the chest.
“As for your shop,” Maekar says, removing his hand from your knee now. “You must keep working. You enjoy it, do you not?”
“Yes, your grace.”
“Then you shall continue working, and if Aerion really lo—” The prince stops himself. He stares out at the flowers, then draws himself back into the conversation as though nothing had happened. “If he really needs you, if you mean that much to him, then he will allow you to do that. I will… I will also have a word with him, if that would be helpful.”
You can’t help but smile. “Thank you, your grace.”
Maekar looks you up and down once more. He smiles then—again, it is small and a mere press of his lips in a slightly curved line—and offers you one last pat on the knee, his hand large and warm against the linen of your skirt.
“No,” he says softly. “Thank you.”
—✿—
That evening, you watch the sun set from one of the latticed windows of your chambers. Streaming lights of watery pink and orange move across your desk as you sit before it, your notebook open in front of you. The candle adjacent casts a subtle yellow halo across the pages as you finish your notes for the day and close the book.
There’s a knock at your door as you gather yourself to your feet. You pad across the chambers and pull the door open, finding Ser Roland waiting there patiently, his hands clasped behind his back.
You offer him a warm smile. “Hello, ser.”
The kingsguard nods in return, his armour glinting beneath the flames that mount the walls and light the long hallway.
“I apologise if I’m disturbing you,” Roland says first. “But I have been asked to fetch you. By his grace.”
You lean against the doorframe, frowning slightly. “Ser Roland, we’ve had this discussion. Aerion can fetch me himself. You must not let him run you about.”
Ser Roland gives you a small, nearly embarrassed smile as he looks up and down the hall briefly before replying, “I understand that, my lady, but he said it was urgent.”
“Of course he did,” you mutter, unamused, as you draw back into your chambers to grab your cloak and your satchel of supplies, just in case.
“He’s in the gardens,” Roland tells you, and you follow him then, through the winding halls of Summerhall and out into the garden.
The sheer expanse of the space is covered in shadow as dusk falls heavily, and the large elm trees that frame the perimeter appear like dark, hulking masses silhouetted by a pale pink sky. Ser Roland gestures to the closest elm, and you thank him, before crossing the gardens alone until you bend beneath a particularly low-hanging branch and enter the cool shade.
Aerion paces over the exposed roots. The sound of your footsteps snaps his attention over to you, and even through the shadow, your eyes now adjusting, you see the flash of relief on his face. He rounds the low stone bench, and you smile warmly as his arms circle around your waist, pulling you into him. His face immediately finds the crook of your neck, and he inhales deeply, nose pressing to the tendon along the side as your head tips to accommodate him.
“Little witch,” he greets you, words muffled against your skin. The vibrations are tickling, and you can’t help the way your smile grows wider and a pleasant heat settles in your tummy. The prince groans softly against you, his body warm against yours, arms tight around your middle. “I’ve missed you.”
You can’t help but laugh. “You have only been away since midday.”
“And that’s too long,” he admits, taking a few more moments to inhale the rose water and honey from your skin, before he pulls back.
His hands remain on your sides though, fingers pressing firmly against the plush of your hips.
The way he’s looking at you makes you want to step back within yourself. Fire burns deep in his irises, and the way in which he drags his eyes down the length of your body, then back up again to trace the lines of your face through the shadows, is intense. He stares at you as if he can see inside. As if he can see through the linens that cover your body, through the barrier of your skin. As if he can see the clattering of your heart against your ribcage.
You look away, hands finding the strap of your satchel nervously. It rests heavily against your hip. But the prince doesn’t let you look away: one hand finds your jaw, surprisingly gentle, and guides your eyes back to him.
“What’re you looking away for?” He questions you, cocking his head to the side. His tongue darts out, presses briefly to the corner of his mouth as he waits for your response, then disappears again. “I’m right here.”
You maintain eye contact for as long as you can, and a victorious smile stretches across his face. He takes a step forward, and the hand on your jaw vanishes—as does the one on your hip—and he takes both to bring your satchel up and over your head. You watch him carefully as he takes the satchel from you and steps back, placing it on the low stone bench and flipping it open. You join him, watching him rifle through the contents without protest.
You can’t help but smile and huff a laugh out through your nose as the prince searches near frantically, muttering to himself.
“What exactly are you looking for?” You ask, placing a hand on his shoulder.
He looks at you. “The first day we met. What did I drink?”
You huff out another laugh, shaking your head. “The stimulant?”
“Yes, that,” Aerion says, still looking at you. “Do you have it?”
You look at him strangely. “Why would I bring a stimulant here?”
“Because you’re a good girl and you’d bring everything from that little shop of yours if it means it would make me happy,” the prince says, a serpentine smile crossing his face. He leaves the satchel on the bench and draws you into his arms again, before dipping and pressing the softest of kisses to the very corner of your mouth. When he lifts his head, he’s still smiling. “So?”
One of his hands finds your back beneath your cloak. It sits on the small of your back, and that warmth in the base of your stomach kindles even warmer. The brashness of his words, his ego, should make you roll your eyes and shove him away. You wouldn’t pack nearly half of your shop into your satchel to make him happy; you’d do it to make yourself happy, knowing you could help anyone. But—
Slowly, you nod.
His smile grows as you dig through the contents of your satchel. Bottles and vials clink together, and Aerion watches you carefully with his hand still on the small of your back. Your heart beats heavily behind your sternum as, in the shadowed darkness, your fingers brush against a small velvet pouch near the very base of the bag. You pull it out and then unthread the ties, pulling out a little vial: the liquid inside wine-red, shining like it was coated in oil.
“Gods above, you never disappoint me, do you, sweet girl?” Aerion practically purrs as he takes the small vial from your grasp. He uncorks it with a push of his thumb, and he brings it to his nose to inhale. You smell it from where you’re standing—internally congratulating yourself at such a clean, potent batch—and taste overripe grapes and crushed honeysuckle at the back of your throat. Aerion groans, eyes closing as he says, “I remember this.”
He raises it to his lips, but you shoot a hand out and clamp your fingers around his wrist.
“What are you doing?” You hiss out, urging his hand away from his mouth. He relents marginally. You frown. “Aerion.”
The prince returns your challenging stare with one of his own. “I’ve missed you.”
“I know,” you reply simply, slightly annoyed. “But you cannot—”
“I have missed you,” he repeats, firmer this time. It’s loud in the silence of the night, dusk having shrouded the garden in still, dark shadows. The hand on the small of your back presses you closer by a fraction, and you feel the heat radiating off of him. A pyre of a man, fire thick in his veins. “And so I am going to drink your little stimulant, and then I’m going to fuck you for as long as I want.”
Your mouth goes dry, but your fingers remain tight on his wrist. “Your grace—?”
“Don’t start that now,” Aerion whispers.
“Aerion,” you begin instead, your other hand finding his chest. You push a palm flat over the beating of his heart, softened by his padded doublet. You are about to convince the prince not to drink the stimulant. Convince him not to go through that intensity again. But there’s a glint in his eyes that makes you reconsider, and the heat in your belly certainly isn’t helping. You sigh slowly. “Aerion, you need to be careful.”
He watches you thoughtfully.
Carefully, your fingers rise from his wrist and he lets you pluck the vial from his grasp. He continues to watch, patient, trusting, as you lift the vial to his mouth. If not for the blurring of shadow around you, you would have seen the way his pupils expanded like a cat’s and the way his throat bobbed in anticipation.
“Open,” you whisper.
He obeys immediately. His lips part for you. With gentle precision, you tip the vial against his lips, and watch through as drop after drop, thick like blood, slips over his lip and into his mouth. You count out the measurement in your head, and you pull the vial away when six drops gather behind his teeth.
He swallows before smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “And how much did you give me?”
“Enough,” you reply simply.
He eyes you skeptically. “Enough?”
“It’s the correct dose,” you tell him honestly. “So it will make you feel good. There won’t be that… well, breathless desperation you experienced last time.”
It’s a subtle jibe, and he takes it, rolling his eyes. But the moment passes quickly before he’s grinning, rubbing his hand over the base of your spine as his eyes drop to where you hold the vial in one hand, your other still across his chest.
“Well?” He nods down at your hand. “Drink up.”
You frown. “No.”
Aerion leans in and presses his mouth to yours. The tip of his tongue swipes serpent-like against the split of your lips, and you can’t help the way your body reacts: eyes falling closed, blood heating up, and you open up for him and that sharp tongue of his, letting him slide it across your teeth and then against your own. You taste grapes as he kisses you deeply, and the sickly-sweet drip of honeysuckle down the back of your throat has a whine lifting from you, your fingers balling against the material of his doublet. The prince responds with a noise of his own, a deep purr from the top of his chest, as he coaxes your tongue into a rhythm that is almost too slow and too much at the same time.
You’re not sure how much time passes before Aerion pulls away. He rests his forehead against yours, and you’re both panting slightly, the space between you non-existent as he pins you to his front, the hand on your back a solid anchor.
“It tastes nice, doesn’t it?” He whispers, eyes scanning your face. He angles lower then, speaking against your lips as he holds them there, brushing softly. “It tastes so good, sweet girl. C’mon, just this once.”
The next kiss is slower, more tender, but he still tries to bully his tongue into your mouth. You turn your head with a huff, and he chuckles against your cheek, smearing spit over your jaw with his kiss-slick lips before pulling back. And then he watches you with rapt attention, the smile on his face near villainous as you lift the vial to your mouth.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Aerion mutters, pleased, as the deep red liquid drips slowly from the vial, all viscous and thick and sweet-smelling. He watches the droplets, and he observes the way you obviously count in your head—six, then no more—before you cork it and stuff it back into your satchel. Aerion is beaming as he chases your movements, both hands wrapping around your waist again. “Oh, my sweet girl. Always so good for me.”
You roll your eyes. “I didn’t do it for you.”
“Of course not,” Aerion replies sarcastically. Then: “So, how long will it take before it starts working?”
“With the correct dose?” You lilt, wriggling free of his grasp. You take your satchel and heft it back across your shoulder. “Not long. Twenty minutes, I suppose.”
You walk away from him then, ducking out from under the elm’s low-hanging branches and following the narrow stone path back towards the castle. He follows you with a wicked grin on his face, his cloak billowing out behind him, casting a shadow that appears like wings beneath the rising moonlight. His hand slips around your waist again, and he pulls you into his side, still walking. Ser Roland stands near the door, ever dutiful.
“Shall we make this more fun, then?” Aerion whispers in your ear, and he thinks about sinking his teeth into the outer shell, but he decides against it.
You shoot him a pointed look as you come to a stop at the bottom of the steps. Roland’s eyes flit down to the pair of you for the briefest of moments, before they drag back to the darkness that envelops the garden. A torch glows hot overhead, his armour appearing gold.
“What?” You hiss out as Aerion’s touch finds the delicate belt at your waist.
“You have twenty minutes to hide,” he tells you then. It’s a quiet threat that pushes on the heat in the pit of your belly, the weight threatening to seep between your thighs. He’s grinning, and you see the points of his teeth flash in the moonlight. “And wherever I find you is where I fuck you.”
He says that last part louder. It’s pointed. Sharp and purposeful, and Roland shifts his weight nearby, turning his head to scour the perimeter.
You slap Aerion on the chest, getting one foot on a step. “You’re horrid.”
Aerion’s hand clamps down on your wrist and he leans in. “You love it.”
You pull your arm from his hold with a huff and ascend the steps. He remains at the bottom, smiling up at you when you pause in the doorway and gaze back at him. You know the effects will take him earlier—you didn’t feel the need to tell him that these stimulants typically work faster for men—but you know the effects will find you eventually. You suppose, then, you’d need to find a good hiding place.
“Ser Roland,” you begin, still looking at Aerion. The knight turns his attention immediately and steps closer. Enough for you to place a delicate palm to the plate across his chest. You look at him then, smiling softly. “Would you escort me to my chambers?”
Aerion watches the interaction from the bottom of the steps. His smile has not yet disappeared, but even through the dusk-blurred darkness, you could see the narrowing of his eyes. You could see the fire burning there, raging deep in the colour of his irises, and you could feel the heat of his stare as you continue to offer the kingsguard a disarming smile.
“Of course, my lady,” Roland nods, gesturing for the door.
You turn and follow the gesture without another look back, but you don’t miss the call out from the Targaryen prince behind you: “I’ll see you upon the hour, little witch.”
—✿—
When you had returned to your chambers and slipped your cloak and satchel back into their place of belonging, you had thought briefly about taking the antidote. Sipping the tansy-soured liquid and warding off the stimulant’s effects, thus leaving the prince to moan and whine through the corridors of Summerhall while you hide yourself away. You thought of it with a cunning grin, a golden and far-reaching pride spreading through your chest. But ultimately, with Summerhall quiet of the rest of the Targaryen family, and the sun having set completely behind the horizon, you decide against it.
Especially when, upon the hour, twenty minutes having whisked by like a billow of smoke, you find yourself creeping down one of the long halls with an ache between your thighs. The batch was pure and potent and it had taken you like an illness.
You trawl a hand along the smooth wall, trying desperately to keep yourself upright as heat blooms through your chest and runs down your spine, pooling in the base of your stomach. It’s seeping into your womb too, a low pressure beneath your navel, collecting strongly in your core until you can feel yourself. Warm, wet, pressing hot into the linen of your smallclothes, and each movement, each shift of your thighs, draws the material too close to your cunt, to the peak of your swollen clit, and you withhold everything inside you not to whine out like befallen doe.
The hall is mercifully empty of kingsguard and servants, and you reach the grand doors leading to the gardens with sweat damp on your forehead. Your face is hot to the touch as you press the tips of your fingers against your cheek.
As you do this, you hear hurried footsteps behind you, and you whirl around, skirts floating around your shins. At the very end of the hall, beneath the casting flickers of the mounted candles, Aerion rounds the corner. Even from a distance, you can see the flush across his cheeks, how dishevelled his white hair is, and the part of his pink lips as he sucks in desperate, ragged breaths.
He freezes when he spots you, fists balling at his sides. His doublet is missing, and his tunic sits loosely against his abdomen, the ties near the neck and wrists undone, exposing slivers of ivory skin.
“There you are,” he says quietly, and it barely travels down the hall. It’s a comment made more to himself, you realise, as a low groan fights out from the back of his throat. He takes a step closer, flamelight overhead shrouding his face in shadow. “My girl.”
You shoulder the door open, fighting past the need sitting high in your chest and ignoring the fluttering of your heart at the sight of him. The tepid night air greets you, and you break out into the gardens with a small, breathless laugh as you hear footsteps breaking out into a run behind you. You descend the steps quickly and run across the garden, fingers fisting the thin fabric of your skirts as you hold them free of your ankles. You run by the elm, slipping through the darkness, and the rush of air on your face is heavenly.
But a pair of arms wrap around your middle before you can get much further, and they haul you to the ground between a row of rounded shrubs. You breathe out an easy laugh, giddy and slightly dizzy with need, as Aerion flattens his body against yours, pinning you to the plush grass.
You turn your head and watch him from the corner of your eye as he pants above you, his hips grinding against the curve of your arse. A blazing shock rips through your core at the press of his cock between the split of your thighs as he nudges your legs apart and hikes up your skirts. You react with a loud whine, hips bucking back to push him deeper against your covered core.
You feel the prince shift behind you, moving as he rocks his hips and groans.
“Gods, this is going to feel so good, sweet girl, I promise,” Aerion whispers, and you catch the glint of metal beneath the pale moonlight. The prince has pulled his dagger from its sheath at his hip, and the sight of it has you biting your lip to suppress a loud moan. He pulls his hips back just enough so he can pinch the fabric of your smallclothes away from your cunt, and he hisses out, “Fuck, you’re—fuck, you’re soaked.”
It’s breathless and near pained in the way he says it, before he’s slicing through the linen of your smallclothes. Night air braces against your core, and you cry out, hands scrambling in an attempt to grab fistfuls of damp grass as he tosses his dagger aside and runs two fingers up and down your slit. The movements are heavy, rough, as his other hand pulls apart the strings of his trousers and breeches.
The stimulant clouds your thoughts as you try your best to arch back off the grass, pushing into his touch. You whine, his name jumbled somewhere in the sound that whispers through the garden. The heat in your tummy sits heavy and low, and something taut tugs against it each time his fingers draw across the puffy bead of your clit, then down through your swollen folds.
“I promise,” Aerion breathes out, and you feel the blunt press of his cock against your cunt, warm and solid where you clench around nothing. His body rocks against yours as he pushes forward just slightly, his entire being shuddering with restraint as he notches the head inside you. He groans, eyes screwing shut. “I promise, little witch, this is going to feel so good—I’ll make you feel good. I’ll—fuck, f-uh-uck—I’ll make you feel so good, I promise.”
He’s rambling and groaning as he slides into you, the thick of his cock pushing you apart. But you take him. Whining and shaking, you take him: your pussy opens, warm, willing, desperate for him as his hips press down against your backside. It’s a slick, tight heat that has his blood roping hot in his veins as the stimulant commandeers his thoughts: take it, take it, take it.
“Aerion,” you breathe out, hot cheek flat against the cool grass.
It’s as if you can feel every ridge, every vein that warps up the underside of his cock as he pushes inside you. Your nerves are alight, bleeding too warm through your stomach, drawing pleasure from everything around you: the thick split of his cock inside you, the hard press of his body against yours, the wet chill of the grass against your skin, the silence of the garden around you. It works you up, need whipping up like a fever through your body, skin clammy with sweat, heart hammering against your sternum.
And it all feels so good.
The prince bottoms out inside you, his hips snug against your arse. It’s unceremonious and needy. But he doesn’t stop—there’s no point of relent before he’s pulling back out and then driving back in.
The sound of the movement is wet, loud, the press of a thumb into the flesh of an overripe peach. It makes Aerion’s cheeks burn redder, blood pumping hot in his ears as he drives into you, arms straining as he holds himself up.
And, gods, you’re so warm. The heat of your body is plush, the smell of you is intoxicating. He groans, bending his head to nose at your temple while his hips slam down against your arse. He ruts you into the grass like this, just panting against the side of your head, listening to the wet schlick of his cock splitting your pussy apart, and the pretty little moans that tumble from your mouth.
“Oh gods,” you whimper. He nails that perfect spot inside you, over and over and over. But then again, with the stimulant flowing freely in your veins, every spot inside you feels like the perfect spot. “Aerion—Aerion, oh—”
“I told you,” he whispers right by your ear. “I told you it’d feel good. I told you, sweet girl.” He pulls back then, head dropping, eyes falling shut again as his hips move, and he has to focus hard on keeping his rhythm as your pussy clenches tight around him. But he continues, voice finding him hoarse: “You always take me so fucking well—fuck, fuck—”
His movements speed up until the sound of flesh-on-flesh echoes quietly around the garden. He groans hard, the noise splitting from between his lips so loud it makes your heart jolt in your chest. You reach behind you then, arm moving blindly, until the tips of your fingers brush against the linen of his tunic.
Your first stimulant-induced orgasm finds you quickly. You can feel it coming—you can nearly taste it, red wine bitter and floral sweet around the edge of your tongue—and you moan as it builds. Intense heat festers in your tummy, slots heavy between your lower vertebrae. It takes over your body, seizes your autonomy with a winding, molten hand and holds you limbless against the grass as the prince lures it to the surface.
“Aerion, please,” you moan, eyes squeezing shut as it slams through you. You tremble against the grass, your cunt drawing tight, clenching tight, as you release around him. Your blood turns to ichor as it hurtles through you, and you feel like you’re glowing. Pulse after pulse, gilded gold, body trembling as you whimper, “Aerion… Aerion.”
The prince comes without warning. He simply anchors himself to you, pushing the head of his cock as far as he can reach, and spills right up against the plug of your womb. He groans as he flattens himself to your back, his hips rolling desperately as he empties himself inside you, mentally begging for you just to take it, take it, take it.
Aerion groans, counting the beats of his racing heart—one, two, three, four—as he’s buried inside of you, still feeling his seed drooling, cock twitching where you wrap warm and tight around him. You grow still beneath him too, and the pair of you suck in breath long displaced, blanketed by nightfall.
A silent minute passes. A raven barks somewhere in the far distance.
Then, you whine, fingers tightening on his tunic. “Aerion.”
“I know,” Aerion groans in response, his cock still achingly hard inside you. He feels it twitch, a heavy weight in his balls as he adjusts his hips, the movement sliding him against you and wrenching a deep-seated moan that interrupts your whining. He grunts as he sits up. “I know, I’ve got you.”
His cock slips from the wet clutch of your cunt, and he bites down a pained groan. His hands find your waist, and you move with his urging until you’re flat on your back. Your skirts remain bundled above your hips, and the prince uses the new angle to pull your torn small clothes away from your thighs now, tossing them aside. You can’t find it in you to care as you lift your hands beneath his tunic, tracing the lines of his abdomen. His skin is warm, your hands strikingly cold from the grass, and he hisses when you trail them quickly up and over his pectorals, swiping across his nipples.
For a moment, he fists his hard cock, the tip red and leaking, as he watches himself dribble out of your pussy. He moans, low in his throat, and you respond in kind, the feeling of his cum drooling down the curve of your arse making you squirm against the ground.
“You’re perfect,” he whispers, before he’s ripping his tunic over his head.
You grin lazily, remnants of your orgasm still sitting comfortably across your brain. Your hands run up and down the pale expanse of his chest and abdomen as he guides his cock back to your cunt. Then, he’s pushing in in one deep thrust. You gasp, arching off the ground, air sucked from your lungs as he fills you.
“Oh gods,” you manage to mutter, fingers tightening against the muscle of the prince’s chest as he ruts into you, sweat beading between the curve and rolling down towards his sternum. You whine out, the pleasure inside you aching, bruising. It hurts too good. “Aerion, like—like that, fuck, just like that.”
Then, Aerion dips to kiss you.
It’s a brief clash of tongue and teeth as he fucks you. One of his hands finds the plush of your thigh, hefting it around one of his hips. Almost subconsciously, you lift the other, and now both of your legs are wrapped around his middle, pulling him closer and closer with each thrust into the cool grass. Your hands wrap around his neck as you kiss him, and small, breathy noises escape you with each press of his tongue.
When he withdraws from the kiss, his lips shining, he pitches his hips and forces his cock even deeper inside you. The neat patch of hair at the base rubs against your swollen clit, and as he knocks up towards the base of your cervix, you feel tears pooling in your lashline.
The stimulant is potent as you suck in a desperate breath. You can taste it, feel it coagulating deep in your chest as raw need strings taut through your womb. It’s a craving you’ve never had before as the prince fucks you with all he has, panting and grunting and moaning your name as if it were the only word he knew.
A carnal need sinks its claws into your psyche, and the moan that rips free of your throat sounds nothing like you. Your pussy clenches tight around his cock, urges him deeper, and you bring the thought home—deeper, need it, need it, harder—by pressing your ankles to the flesh of Aerion’s arse. He groans above you, a dip forming in his brow as he blindly obeys, thrusts coming deeper and deeper until you can feel him in your stomach.
“Fuck, I know you feel it too,” the prince says around a grunt, eyes on you. “You need it so bad, sweet girl, I know. I know.”
You’re nodding because it feels right. You’re nodding because it’s Aerion who’s speaking to you and you’re nodding because it’s all you can think to do with him filling you like this.
“Aerion, please,” you whisper and it nearly hurts coming out. All the vowels and constants are slurred together as it squeezes past a moan lodged in your throat. The prince thrusts into you hard, body pressing down against yours even firmer, and it frees the moan, which finds the tepid night air like a yowl. “Aerion.”
Aerion’s barely holding on. “I know, I know. This is it, sweet girl, I promise—this is it. You—you feel it? Yeah? Fuck, fuck, yeah—” he rambles around a moan of your name. “—Tell me what you need. Tell me.”
One of your hands finds the back of his head and you thread your fingers through the soft white locks there. He groans lowly as you give him a small tug, anchoring yourself as close to him as possible as your second release packs tightly into your womb. It’s hotter than the first. It’s more visceral, leaning with all its weight behind your navel.
And that carnal need, the need with teeth and claws and an inhuman desire, holds on. It doesn’t let you go. It shakes you in its maw until you’re trembling against the grass, trembling in his hold, thrumming like the plucked string of a harp.
“Need you,” you whisper to him, tears rolling down your cheeks now. You’re burning hot and the muscles in your thighs are stiffening around his waist. “Need you, Aerion. Need you to—to come in me a–uh–gain.”
Aerion moans your name like a prayer. It’s wanton and lax across his serpentine tongue, tasting of ripened grapes and crushed honeysuckle. It tastes of you as he lowers his head and takes your mouth, passing the ending syllables directly between your teeth. You accept the kiss with a small whine.
When he pulls back, you’re both teetering on a wire. His eyes are black beneath his pupils and the shadows that consume you both.
“Tell me—” He breaks off with a grunt as your pussy flutters around him. “Tell me you love me when you come.”
“Aerion,” you mewl, a couple of tears rolling down towards your temple as your head tips back, spine arching off the ground.
He says your name in return. “Tell me.”
So, you do.
Your second orgasm comes crashing through you like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. You’re shaking, your legs are clamping around him, and your fingers grip tightly as it passes through you. A pure current of energy as it tracks down your spine and fissures over your womb. Your pussy clamps down around the thick of his cock, pulsing, hammering with the wild beating of your heart.
And while it drowns you, while that carnal need rips you apart from the inside out, you’re whimpering, begging almost, “Aerion—gods, I love you. I love you, I love you—”
Aerion comes with the muscles in his jaw flexing as he bites down a loud moan. His cock twitches, his balls jerk tight where they slap against your arse, and then he’s spilling straight against your womb for the second time.
But you watch his jaw unhinge as he empties himself inside you, and he whimpers your name as his hips lose their rhythm, spurred on only by the press of your heels against his arse. His thrusts slow, and he’s still filling you, muttering your name as you whisper how much you love him. And you do this, a murmuring of confessions beneath a cloak of glittering stars, as he keeps coming, thick and warm and full. You whisper and hold him tightly until his cock finally stops twitching inside you and slowly, slowly, begins to soften.
The prince collapses on top of you, and you let out a tired “oof” as he settles. Your legs drop from his waist, fatigued. The movement makes him groan where he’s buried his face against your neck, breathing you in.
You pet his hair and let the silence simmer as the heat in your body gently seeps away, leaving nothing more than a pleasant tipsy-sort of giddiness in your brain, and a dull ache deep inside your pussy.
You don’t know how much time passes before Aerion lifts his head. All you know is that you’ve gone cold against the dewy grass and goosebumps have raised across your arms.
“Did you mean it?”
You peer at him. “Hm?”
“What you said,” he mutters, shy. Aerion Targaryen didn’t get shy. But here he was, a blush crawling across his cheekbones. He was thankful it was dark. He continues softly, “What you said when…”
“Oh,” you mutter as his sentence lulls.
He grunts, obviously anticipating your response.
But you smile at him. “I suppose I did.”
He freezes against you.
You breathe out a small laugh. “Aerion?”
“It’s the stimulant, isn’t it?”
You shake your head slowly. “No, Aerion. I… I love you.”
Aerion looks at you. Studies you in the dark. His eyes trace the lines of your face: your eyebrows, your eyes, your nose and your mouth. And his gaze doesn’t rise again until he’s repeated the movements a few times over. You bite your lip, hiding your smile, and shift your muscles until your cunt clenches around the width of his softening cock.
You feel his abdomen clench and he shoots you a look. “Witch.”
You just smile.
Then, he sighs and leans forward. He plants a delicate kiss to the corner of your mouth. Your fingers still move against the back of his head, and you see him preening as he pulls out of the kiss.
“I…” He huffs through his nose, as if annoyed that he was struggling to find the words. “I love you, sweet girl. And I don’t think—I’ve never loved anyone like… like this.”
Like this. He’s never loved someone this viscerally. He’s never cared this much.
It’s your turn to lift your head and kiss him, and he allows you to lick over his lips. You share the lasting remnants of the stimulant before it dissolves forever.
And there’s thoughts of impossibility in your mind. You are a woods witch. He is a prince of the realm. There is no room for love here. You are two seeds, planted and grown in two completely different worlds, watered by completely different storms and yielding fruit of lives completely different to one another.
But as he kisses you with a tenderness you once assumed no Targaryen could possess, you begin to convince yourself otherwise.
You tell him, mind clear, “I love you.”
He replies in the same tone, in the same breath, “I love you.”
And it doesn’t taste of overripe grapes and honeysuckle. The words are not burnt around the edges from the heat of pleasure, fraying with lust or obsession. I love you tastes like you; of rose water and sugar, and the ink on your fingers and the sweat on your skin.
He kisses you again, and whispers another I love you against your lips for good measure.
———
ok not marathon sex but they both got a prize at the end :)
I wonder how and when did Bloodraven realize he was falling in love with Lady Oakheart. He doesn’t strike me as a “love at first sight” kind of person; I doubt he expected to care about her at all during their wedding. My best guess is that he fell for her over the course of the first few months of their marriage, while he spied on her through his ravens (and Pebble specifically). I wonder if he was aware he was in love with her when he first caught her feeding scraps to Pebble, or if he realized he was in deep when LO ran away crying after he scolded her for making one of his ravens fat.
How to Train Your Raven (Prequel - Brynden's Account)
Pairing: Brynden Rivers x f!reader
Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here. Warnings: Brynde's pov, arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, Westeros politics.
a/n: You'd be correct, dear anon. <3 Who's in the mood for the angst and yearning I've been sparing you?
The first time Brynden Rivers saw his bride, he felt nothing at all.
She was pretty enough, he supposed, in the way all highborn maidens were pretty when scrubbed, polished and poured into a wedding gown. She stood straight and silent through the ceremony, face composed, hands steady as he bound her cloak about her shoulders. She did not tremble. She did not look at him with the barely concealed revulsion he had grown accustomed to seeing on the faces of highborn ladies.
The wedding was brief, as he had arranged. The septon spoke his words, the king nodded his approval, the court applauded with the precise amount of enthusiasm required by protocol. There was no bedding ceremony. Brynden had seen to that personally, informing the wedding planners in no uncertain terms that any attempt to strip his bride and carry her through the castle would result in immediate reassignment to the Night's Watch. The court had tittered behind their hands, speculating about why the cold sorcerer wanted privacy: was he ashamed of his body, marked as it was? Was he planning some dark magic that required secrecy? Was he simply incapable of performing his husbandly duties?
He did not care what they speculated. He cared only that the girl would not be humiliated on his account.
The girl. He did not even think of her by name yet. She was an obligation, a duty, a reward he had not asked for and did not want. The king had decreed that House Oakheart's treachery would be forgiven in exchange for their daughter's hand, and Brynden had accepted because refusal was not an option. He had spent years asking for Shiera's hand and being refused, and now the king had given him a wife he did not want as compensation for the one he could not have. It was, he thought, a particularly cruel joke.
He escorted his bride to her separate chambers and bid her goodnight with a polite bow. She curtsied in return, her eyes on the floor, and did not speak.
He did not visit her that night. Or afterwards.
The first week of his marriage passed in a blur of council meetings, intelligence reports and the endless, grinding machinery of ruling a kingdom. He barely thought of his wife at all. She was a problem he would deal with eventually, a loose thread to be tied off when he had the time. In the meantime, he gave her the courtesy of his absence and trusted that she would find ways to occupy herself.
He did, however, send a raven to watch her.
It was standard practice. He set ravens to watch everyone: the king, the council, the lords and ladies of the court, the servants, the foreign dignitaries, the merchants at the docks. His wife was no different. She was a new variable in the complex equation of the Red Keep, and Brynden did not like unknown variables. He selected a raven from his flock: a sturdy, unremarkable bird, and instructed it to follow Lady Oakheart wherever she went, to observe her actions, to report back to him.
The raven obeyed. It was a good raven, well-trained, inconspicuous. It perched on windowsills and rooftops and watched the new Lady of the Tower go about her days.
She did not do much.
She wandered in the gardens, sitting alone on stone benches while the other ladies walked in chattering clusters. She visited the library and read histories of the Seven Kingdoms until the light failed. She knelt in the sept before the Maiden's altar, her lips moving in silent prayer. She returned to her chambers and sat by the window, staring out at the sea.
She did not seek out company. She did not gossip with the servants. She did not attempt to curry favor with the queen or befriend the other highborn ladies. She simply…existed. Unobtrusively. Like a ghost who had not yet realized she was dead.
Brynden watched her through the raven's eyes and felt a faint, distant flicker of what might have been guilt. He crushed it without difficulty. He had not asked for this marriage. He owed her nothing beyond the basic courtesy of his name and his protection. If she was lonely, that was her concern.
He turned his attention back to his work.
After a couple more weeks, the raven stopped reporting useful intelligence.
At first, Brynden assumed the bird had simply grown bored. Watching a lonely woman sit in a garden was not stimulating work, even for a raven. But when he reached out to check the bird's position, he found it perched on the windowsill of his wife's chambers, eating a strip of meat from her outstretched hand.
He stared through the raven's eyes, nonplussed.
She was speaking to it. Soft, meaningless words, the kind of chatter one might direct at a pet. She asked if it was hungry. She asked if it was cold. She told it that its feathers were very glossy and that it must be a very clever bird to have found its way to her window.
The raven, his highly trained, carefully conditioned spy raven, was preening under her attention like a common pigeon.
Brynden withdrew from the bird's mind and sat back in his chair, considering his options. He could replace the raven with another, one that had not been compromised. He could instruct the bird to keep its distance, to observe without interacting. He could abandon the surveillance entirely. She was clearly no threat, and there was little point in monitoring a woman whose greatest act of sedition was feeding dried meat to the local wildlife.
But he hesitated.
She had spoken to the raven. She had smiled at it. She had touched its feathers with gentle fingers, her expression soft and unguarded in a way he had never seen it before. Perhaps, unsuspecting, she would reveal more to it.
He decided to let the raven stay.
He began to listen.
It was not a conscious decision. He was working late in his solar, his eye burning with exhaustion, his mind numb from hours of reading reports and drafting responses. He reached out to the raven out of habit, a brief check to confirm its position, and found himself lingering in its mind longer than necessary.
She was sitting by the fire in her chambers, the raven perched on the arm of her chair. She had given it a name. Pebble, of all things, because its breast feathers reminded her of the stones along the Mander. She was speaking to it in the soft, confidential tone of a woman sharing secrets with a trusted friend.
"He is polite," she was saying. "My husband. He is very polite. He bows when he sees me, asks after my health and holds doors open for me. It is more than I expected, truly."
Brynden felt his brow furrow. She was speaking about him. To a raven.
"I know he does not want me here," she continued, stroking Pebble's breast feathers with one finger. "I know this marriage was not his choice. The whole court knows he asked for Shiera Seastar a thousand times. The whole court knows I am a punishment for my family's treachery, dressed up to look like a reward." She laughed humorlessly. "A reward he clearly did not want. Like giving a man a sack of grain when he asked for gold."
Pebble croaked sympathetically. Brynden, watching through the raven's eyes, felt that flicker of guilt again. Stronger this time. Harder to crush.
"But he is kind," she said. "In his way. He does not mock me or ignore me or make me feel small. He treats me with courtesy. I am grateful for that." She paused, her hand stilled on the raven's feathers. "I wish I knew how to talk to him. I wish I knew what to say. He is so intelligent, he must be, to do all the work he does, and I am afraid that if I open my mouth, I will say something foolish and he will think me an idiot."
She was afraid of sounding foolish. She, a highborn lady of House Oakheart, educated by septas and tutors, was afraid that the bastard sorcerer would think her an idiot.
Brynden withdrew from the raven's mind and stared at the wall for a long moment. Then he returned to his work.
He did not sleep that night. But that was not unusual. He rarely slept.
A couple more weeks later, he learned that she had been reading histories of the Seven Kingdoms.
She mentioned it to Pebble one evening: "I have been reading about the Conquest. And the reigns of the early Targaryen kings. I thought perhaps if my husband ever chose to speak with me about matters of state, I would not stare at him with my mouth open like a fool."
She paused.
"Not that he ever speaks to me about matters of state. Or about anything, really. He is always busy. I see him in passing, he bows, and he asks after my health, and then he is gone. But I want to be prepared. Just in case."
Brynden, sitting at his desk three floors above her, set down his quill. She was reading histories. She was educating herself on the affairs of the realm. She was doing it so that she could talk to him, if he ever chose to talk to her.
He did not know what to do with that information. He filed it away in the part of his mind reserved for intelligence he did not yet understand.
Then she began showing Pebble her dresses.
She laid them out on the bed one afternoon, a rainbow of silk, velvet and embroidered linen, and asked the raven for his opinion. Pebble, who had no opinion on fashion but a very strong opinion on anything that might contain hidden food, hopped from gown to gown with his head cocked, occasionally poking at a ribbon or a bead with his beak.
"The lavender is my favorite," she said, holding up a pale gown the color of twilight. "And the green. The pale green, not the dark one. The dark one makes me look sallow. But the pale green brings out my eyes. At least, that is what my mother always said."
She held the green gown against herself and looked in the mirror. "They used to compliment me in the Reach," she said quietly. "My friends, my family, the lords who came to visit. They said I was beautiful. I believed them."
She lowered the gown. Her reflection looked back at her, pretty and utterly miserable.
"Here, no one says anything. I suppose I am not worth noting. Not compared to…" She trailed off. She did not say the name. She did not need to.
Shiera.
Brynden felt the name like a blade between his ribs. He had not thought of Shiera in weeks: a startling realization, given that he had spent years thinking of little else. But Shiera was in Lys now, or perhaps Volantis, or perhaps somewhere else entirely. She was not here. His wife was here.
His wife, who believed she was not worth noting. His wife, who thought herself a sack of grain compared to Shiera's gold.
He withdrew from the raven's mind and sat in the darkness of his solar, the candle burning low, the silence pressing in around him.
He did not know what to feel. He was not accustomed to feeling anything at all.
But the real headache was yet to come.
It was evening. She was sitting by the window, Pebble on her knee. The sun was setting over Blackwater Bay, painting the sky in shades of rose and gold, and she was stroking the raven's feathers with absent-minded affection.
"He has very striking bone structure, my husband. Don't you think?" she mused.
Brynden lost his train of thought entirely.
"His cheekbones," she continued, oblivious to the fact that her husband was now listening with every fiber of his being. "And his jaw. It is very sharp. Very defined. Like a statue. And his hair...I have never seen hair that color. Silver, but not old. Like moonlight."
Pebble croaked. She scratched under his chin.
"I wonder about his birthmark. The servants whisper that it is shaped like a raven. I have never been close enough to see for myself. He always keeps his distance. But if it is true, if it really is shaped like a raven, what a marvel that would be. A man marked by the gods, carrying his sigil on his skin."
Brynden touched his own face. His fingers traced the edge of the birthmark, the wine-stain blotch that had made children scream, ladies flinch and grown men cross the street to avoid him. She thought it might be a marvel. She wanted to see it up close.
"Of course, I will probably never know," she added, her voice turning rueful. "He flees my company at every opportunity. I am surprised he has not taken to climbing out of windows when he sees me coming." She sighed and lifted Pebble to eye level. "You are very handsome as well, you know. For a raven. Your feathers are so glossy. Do you think my husband would notice if I got him a new doublet? Something with silver embroidery? He only ever wears black. It is very severe. Though I suppose it suits him. Gray as well, sometimes. But it is such a dull color."
She was talking about his wardrobe. She was talking about his cheekbones, his hair, his birthmark and his doublets. She thought he was handsome.
Brynden rose from his desk and crossed the solar to the small mirror that hung on the wall. He rarely looked at himself, there was little point, given that he only had one eye and half a face worth looking at, but something had compelled him tonight.
He stood before the mirror and studied his reflection.
The birthmark was livid against his pale skin, a splash of dark red that covered half his cheek and crept down his neck. The scar where his missing eye had once been was a hollow, puckered ruin. His hair was silver, yes, but it was the silver of a corpse, not the silver of moonlight. His cheekbones were sharp, but they were sharp in the way of a man who did not eat enough, not in the way of a statue.
Foolishness. She was a lonely girl pouring her heart out to a bird. She was grateful for his courtesy and had mistaken it for something more. She would come to her senses soon enough.
Yet, he stood before the mirror for a long time, her words echoing in his mind.
Like a statue. Like moonlight. A marvel.
He did not sleep at all that night.
He found himself seeking her out.
He began to take his meals in the small dining chamber adjacent to the Tower, knowing that she would be there. He began to linger in the corridors when he knew she would be passing. He began to ask after her health with something more than perfunctory courtesy, waiting to see if she would say something, anything, that would give him an excuse to stay.
She never did. She answered his questions politely, kept her eyes on the floor and did not presume upon his time. She had been trained too well for that.
But sometimes, when he turned to leave, he would catch a glimpse of her face: the brief, fleeting expression of disappointment before she smoothed it away, and it would lodge in his chest like a splinter.
He did not know what to do about it. He did not know what to call it.
He only knew that when he reached for the raven's mind each evening, it was no longer out of habit or duty. It was because he wanted to hear her voice. He wanted to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling, what she would say next to the little bird who had become her only confidant.
He wanted to know her.
Eventually, the topic of bedding came up.
It was the one topic she had avoided until now. She spoke of his appearance, his intelligence, his work, his courtesy. She spoke of her loneliness and her fears and her hopes. But she had never spoken of the marriage bed, of the fact that her husband had not visited her chambers since the wedding night, or rather, had not visited them at all.
Tonight, she spoke of it.
"I am not a fool," she said, her voice very quiet. She was sitting in her nightgown, Pebble perched on the headboard above her. "I know he does not want me. I know he loved another woman. I know I am nothing like her."
Pebble made a soft, questioning sound. She reached up and stroked his breast.
"But if he ever did come to me...if he ever did choose to consummate this marriage...I am afraid he would find me lacking. I am afraid I would not know what to do. I am afraid he would compare me to her and find me wanting." Her voice cracked and she pressed her hand to her mouth. "I am afraid he would leave and never come back. And I would be alone again. I would be alone forever."
She was crying. Silently, without fuss, the way she did everything. Tears sliding down her cheeks and dripping onto the front of her nightgown, her shoulders shaking with the effort of keeping quiet.
Brynden withdrew from the raven's mind so abruptly that he knocked over his inkwell. Black liquid spilled across his desk, ruining three reports and a letter. He did not notice. He was standing in the middle of his solar, his heart pounding.
She was afraid. She was afraid of him, but not in the way he had thought. She was not afraid of his sorcery or his spies or the dark rumors that followed him through the castle. She was afraid that he would find her lacking. She was afraid that he would compare her to Shiera and find her wanting. She was afraid of being alone forever.
She was afraid, she was crying, and she had no one to comfort her except a raven.
A raven that he had sent to spy on her.
The guilt that he had been crushing for weeks rose up and swallowed him whole. He stood in the darkness of his solar, ink dripping from his desk onto the floor, and he felt something that had been frozen for a very long time was beginning to thaw.
He did not sleep that night either.
The next morning, he decided he would speak to her.
He opened the door of his solar and stepped out. He knew she was outside on the stairs. He did not know what he was going to say. He only knew that he could not let her cry alone in her chambers one more night, pouring her heart out to a bird who could not answer her.
"My lady wife," he said.
"My lord." She scrambled to her feet and dropped into a curtsy, failing to hide her surprise. "Forgive me, I did not mean to disturb you. I was only…"
His gaze had moved past her to the raven. He opened his mouth to speak, and the words he had prepared about duties and obligations and the expectations of their marriage, died on his tongue.
Pebble was worrying at a shred of capon, his beak tearing at the meat with smug contentment. Except Brynden could hardly recognize the creature. To some degree, he had been aware that she was overfeeding the bird, and therefore had stopped feeding him himself. But that had caused Pebble to cease returning to the Rookery altogether. And it would appear that left in her care, he had gone spherical.
"That is my raven," he blinked.
"Yes, my lord. I hope you do not mind. He comes to my window, and I…"
"He is fat."
a/n: And we all know how the rest went...
a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out. Comments, reblogs and likes are appreciated! <3
a/n: Voluntary donations are accepted on Ko-fi, your support helps me write more: https://ko-fi.com/catbayunthestoryteller <3
a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the series taglist.
pairing(s): daeron "the drunken" targaryen x fem!reader
summary: "You know... I could be your friend, my lord."
"Friend. It would be nice... to have a friend."
words: 10.5k
cw: explicit, smut, drunk sex, service kink, oral sex, piv sex, unprotected sex, coming in pants, coming untouched, multiple orgasms, daeron is a munch, mentions of moon tea, spit kink, biting, scratching, hair pulling, master & servant, forbidden romance, servant!reader, reader called 'girl' and 'lady' speed running friends with benefits lmao, night terrors, hurt/comfort, angst, yearning, they yearn so fucking bad, idiots in love, daeron has implied mommy issues but we been knew, insecurity, low self esteem, mildly proof read fuck it we ball
a/n: "i'm going to write a 2k porn without plot" 10k words and plot later..... lmao OOPS. i have at least [checks notes] four more ideas involving these two idiots so if anyone is desperately interested or has anything they'd like to see as these two's "friendship" unfolds let me know <3 peace n luv
ALL MY WORKS ARE 18+ MINORS DNI. I BLOCK AGELESS BLOGS
fic playlist for your listening pleasure
I like the sound you make
when you're clawing at the edge and without escape
do you like that, baby?
I could make you cum 20 times a day
The screaming is what stopped you.
Normally, Summerhall is a quiet place. The most sound comes from the wind whistling through the windows, and even then it's only a slight breeze. The air lingers with the scent of fresh spring grass most of the time, and the halls are usually empty save for the royals present, and the occasional servant. That is to say, Summerhall is generally peaceful.
So, of course when you heard screaming as you were making your final rounds for the night, you would have stopped and wondered what exactly, the fuck, it was about.
Your first glance around the hall you were in told you that you were the only servant in the vicinity, it being the hour of the eel— which was great for you, being a woman, and unarmed, but it was also generally par for the course. The second glance told you that the screaming was coming from Prince Daeron's chambers.
Prince Daeron. He has always been something of an enigma to you. Daeron the Drunken, they call him, and perhaps it's true. You see him drunk more often than not, but still there's something about him that strikes you as less… princely, than the others. A way of being that is more in tune with the common folk. He thanks the servants. He treats almost everyone with respect and frankness, when he's sober enough to do so. He carries himself like a man who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, and it sets him apart from the rest of his family.
But he's also absolute shit at fighting. You had the opportunity to see him compete in the lists at a tourney at one point, and he spent most of it face down in the mud, and the rest in the infirmary. So, if something was happening to make the Prince scream that badly…
And you were running. Down the hall, up the stairs to the Prince's chambers, without stopping to call for help or to think why, in the name of the suffering Seven, you were willing to jump directly into the fray for a Prince who probably didn't even know you existed.
Because you have a soft spot for him. That is the reason, the one you would never admit to anyone out loud. You like his laugh. You like his witty jokes during feasts where the only thing you usually have to occupy you is how bad your feet hurt. You like the way he grins when he notices that you've laughed at them, and the twinkle of his pale eyes when he does. And you like how, any time he has ever spoken to you, he didn't make you feel like you were beneath him.
That is the unspoken reason for why you threw yourself into his chambers without checking to see if there's an unknown attacker on the loose. Stupidity is what some might call that. Others, loyalty.
When you come into his chambers, it's mostly dark. You struggle to see from the light of the one or two candles left burning in their stands. But as you squint, you can make out the shapes of furniture, the far end of the room, the end of the bed, and eventually, him.
Prince Daeron Targaryen is alone in his bed. He's tangled in the sheets, and even in the low candle and moonlight you can still make out the sheen of sweat across his arms and shoulders, dampening his hair.
There is no intruder. He's having a nightmare.
You stand in the light cast by the open doorway, and you wring your hands as you consider what you should do. It's entirely unbecoming of a woman, servant or no, to be tending to the Prince alone— but then, Prince Daeron lets out an unholy shout in his sleep that could rattle the windows, and you instinctively jump to close the heavy wooden door behind you.
Great. If anyone were to come now, they'd think you're attacking him. The thought crosses your mind as you pad towards his bed, but you dismiss it as soon as it arrives. You can't just leave him like this, battling something unseen in his mind, bad enough to make him scream the way he's doing.
You mean to gently rouse him, of course. Or, as well as you can manage— but that idea is quickly squashed when, as soon as you're within reach of him, his arm shoots out and nearly comes down against your head.
You catch it reflexively. It wasn't a forceful throw, but it's enough to require your full strength as you catch his forearm in your two hands. He jerks his elbow, seeming to fight the hands he feels around his muscle.
"Prince Daeron," you hiss, grunting as he jerks in your grip. Your fingers dig in, halting his movements. "Daeron. Wake up."
A horrified gasp. Somewhere in the darkness is an intake of breath so sharp that it seems to tear directly through his lungs. Then, the struggle against you just… stops.
And suddenly, Prince Daeron is sitting up before you, his arm still in your hands, his eyes shining in the dim ambient light.
"Oh…" he breathes, once he comes back to himself. His awareness returns slowly; you imagine it may be due to whatever wine he drank, which clings to him and gives scent to the sweat on his brow.
Daeron's eyes eventually find yours, wide and fearful, and you can see the wheels turning in his head as he struggles to comprehend the situation. His gaze casts wildly from your face, to the sheets he's tangled in, his sweat-soaked shirt, and his arm as you grip it tightly, frozen in midair.
"Oh—" he says again, this time choked off on the end. "I'm sorry, I— did I…?"
"It's all right," you tell him immediately, without thinking. You don't seem to be doing much of it, tonight.
"I'm sorry," Daeron repeats, and his voice cracks. The sound hits painfully somewhere in your chest, somewhere tender and unsuitable for being touched by a prince. But he's still whispering it, over and over like a chant, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," and he pries his arm out of your grip only to hastily gather you into his arms and pull you to him by the waist.
You freeze. Your arms suspended in midair, without a place to go or purchase to be made, hover just above his shoulders as he plants his head against your chest. He squeezes you the way a child might squeeze a stuffed toy, for comfort, for soothing, and you… you don't actually know what to do.
You have a prince hugging you. His ear to your pounding heart, his hand pressed to your spine to keep you there. What are you supposed to do, in this situation?
Deciding that there is no way, in any book written by Maester or common folk, that there are directions for a moment such as this. So, you don't spend the time pondering any. You lower your arms and cradle him around the shoulders, laying a palm flat against the back of Daeron's head as he clings to you.
Daeron takes a deep, stuttering breath that shakes in his shoulders, and you realize after a moment that he's crying. You hold him tighter for it. You bend your head down over his like you can shield him from the weight of his torment with your own body, somehow.
He's still muttering apologies, muffled by your bodice against his mouth. It ignites a part of you that is overly protective, monstrous in its capacity to defend that which it holds dear. It's all teeth and claws and snarling ferocity against any percieved threat.
Your hand smoothes his hair away from his temple, ignoring the stringiness of it as he presses his face to your breast, his hands clinging to your back like he can become a part of you if he just gets close enough. "Shh. You did nothing wrong."
"I almost hit you."
"But you didn't." He shakes in your arms. You pet his head. "You didn't."
Even so, he doesn't loosen his grip. He holds you to him like you're something precious that he doesn't want to lose, presses close to you at the edge of the bed with a desperation that you've never quite experienced before. You can't figure out what to do with it, so instead you do what you know to— soothe.
"It was only a nightmare," you tell him quietly, raking your fingers through his hair. Daeron's shallow breath whistles through his teeth as you do, and you let your nails scratch lightly over his scalp. He shudders. "You know what my mother used to tell me about nightmares? Once you're awake, they're gone. They can't bother you anymore."
"Not mine," he argues. Fingers dig into your back, holding you like an anchor. "Mine are real. Mine hurt. Blood, and— and ash. Rivers of fire. Monsters."
"There are no monsters here," you assure him quietly. "Just me."
Daeron makes a small noise, his hand moving to hold the curve of your hip. With one arm still around your waist, he lifts his head from your chest to look up at you. "I'm glad it's you."
Your hand still cradles his head as he peers at you through the darkness, the light of the moon reflected in his eyes. You brush his hair away from his face as you gaze down at him, tear streaked cheeks and trembling lips and all, and feel like you want to burst into flames from the look of sheer reverence on his face.
"Me?" Your brows tilt in confusion, while you still idly twist his hair around your fingers.
Daeron nods. You don't know if it's the drink still working on him, or just the emotion of the moment, but he quietly admits, "I like it, when you're near me."
You're at a loss for how to answer him. You hold your prince's face in your hands like a lover, and it scares you how much you want him to be. You're horrified by how badly you want to bend down and kiss him, to soothe away his pain with soft touches and slow hands. It worries you, almost moreso, that he would probably let you.
He makes no move to let you go, but you have to. Before you do something that you'll both regret.
You pull back slightly, and he slowly releases you, although you can feel the tension in his hands like he wants to pull you back in. You have to put distance between you, to ensure that he doesn't, and that you won't go like a moth to a flame. Instead, you step across to the small vanity by the wall and pour him a glass of water. You can feel his eyes on you through the dark, but you refuse to turn and meet them with your own.
He takes the glass readily enough, but pauses when he realizes that it isn't wine. He lets the cup hover below his lips with a rueful look on his face.
"Drink it," you dare to order him, momentarily feeling the rush of adrenaline that comes from ordering a man above your station.
Daeron shoots you a defiant look, but does what you tell him. He drains the cup, one eye on you all the while, and when he hands the empty cup back to you, it's with a low mutter of thanks.
"Good," you say quietly, taking the cup to return it to the vanity.
"Will you stay?" Daeron asks when you turn back towards him. He looks sheepish, fisting his hands in the tangled bedsheets. "Would you… stay with me tonight? I can't— I don't want to be alone."
You hesitate. Why do you hesitate? You're torn between a desire to say yes and curl yourself around him like smoke, and refusing him outright. It would be improper for you to stay with him in any capacity; it could mean your removal from Summerhall, and a world of trouble for you should you need to find a new employer.
Still, you clasp your hands and take a step towards his bed. "Is that wise, my lord?"
Daeron blinks. He breathes out a long, defeated sigh. "Probably not."
You nod, and examine him now that your eyes have truly adjusted. The dark rings under his eyes, the dappling of sweat on his shoulder where his shirt has shifted to the side and slipped off.
"I can't stay with you all night, my lord. It wouldn't be appropriate for either of us," you tell him honestly, and the words feel sour in your mouth. Daeron watches you with a mixture of apprehension and hope as you approach the bed and stop just when your skirts brush the mattress. "But… I could stay, at least until you fall back asleep. If you'd like."
"I can't see how I'll get any sleep, now," he croaks, fiddling with the sheets and disentangling his legs.
"The night is still young," you tell him softly. "Just try."
He glances at you as you straighten his pillow for him. "If I start to— if I have fits again…"
"I'll wake you."
"I was going to tell you to fetch a guard," he objects, his expression earnest. "You can't catch my arm every time. I'd hate to… I don't want to hurt you."
You smile, and even you can feel the warmth of it. "As you like it, my lord."
Daeron stares at you for a moment, looking as though he wants to say something else. Ultimately, he seems to think better of it, and he settles back against the pillow. He seems to stare unblinkingly up at the canopy over his bed for a moment before he blows out a puff of air and says, "I don't particularly want to go back to sleep, you know."
You grunt noncommittally, perching yourself on the edge of his mattress. "You look tired," you say, passing a gentle finger over one of the dark rings beneath his eye. The touch is unnecessary and indulgent— something you could easily lose a hand for, in the wrong company.
Daeron is not the wrong company. Daeron lifts his own hand and captures yours, then presses his lips to your knuckles in lieu of saying anything else. It conveys what he wants. His thanks. His trust. The emotional weight of the evening, at least somewhat eased by your presence.
"Sleep," you chance to order him again, and like before, he listens.
With his eyes closed, and half asleep already, he murmurs, "I hope I dream of you." It causes an ache in your chest that you can't, or won't, explain for.
You don't know if he does. Once his breathing slows, and he doesn't rouse when you drop his hand, you leave his chambers without looking back.
Prince Daeron is standing in the wine cellar.
You watch him for a long time. Mostly because it's the first time you've ever seen one of the royals in the servants' area of the castle, but also because he seems to not realize that you are standing there even with your shadow blocking the doorway, because as soon as you'd seen the mess of honey-gold hair on his head and made the purposeful decision to just… look.
Because you've never really allowed yourself to, before. You regard the nobles the way you are expected to, as a servant— deferrent, but only in cursory glances. You don't stare. You make eye contact when spoken directly to, and otherwise keep your eyes downcast, curtsy when necessary, jump to attention when directed to. You are not supposed to gaze openly, staring like you are now.
You tilt your head, eyes raking up and down his frame like you can consume the entirety of his appearance all at once and keep it forever if you try hard enough. His hair is clean, likely neatly combed earlier in the day but now falling around his face in unruly, thick waves. His doublet is red velvet, and the hint of white of his shirt presses out at the collar like a flash of light. He looks much better than he did the last time you saw him this close— less sickly, more composed. Maybe he's already had a drink or two, but it's hard to tell with him.
Since the other night, you haven't known what to think. You haven't necessarily avoided the prince, but neither have you sought him out. You figured he probably doesn't remember anything that transpired between you in the dark of his chambers. You didn't want to sift through the memory and try to figure out why, exactly, you kept coming back to the feeling of his arms around your waist, his head on your chest, his lips on your knuckles.
Daeron does not strike you as being a prince. He reminds you, oddly, of the few men you've been intimate with— pretty smiles and fumbling hands, tipsy in dimly lit taverns and inns. Once, regrettably, over a barrel in the back alley behind a pot shop. Watching Daeron swaying a little in the wine cellar of Summerhall, you feel your eyes shift to the wine cask beyond his shoulder.
That's dangerous, you tell yourself sharply before turning your attention back to the present, back to him. One of the noble lords of the house you serve, still unaware that you're leering at him like a pervert.
"Your grace?" you finally chance to say, softly.
"Mm?" Daeron is distracted. He doesn't turn around. You don't think he even realizes that you are a person standing in the room, and not just a voice inside his head.
"Prince Daeron." You say it a little louder this time, trying to rouse his attention.
Daeron starts, turning to look at you. His feet are still rooted in place, but he pivots at the waist to peer at you over his shoulder. He looks at you for a long— very long— moment. His eyes travel up and down your body a few times, before he finds his voice. He raises his eyebrows, shooting you a sardonic look. "…Ye-es?"
In response you offer him a small, polite smile. "Can I help you with anything, my lord?"
Daeron blinks, seeming to think over your words carefully. Then, he squints, his focus shifting as though he's only just remembered why he came down here. "I can't seem to find the Arbor Gold."
Your smile turns into something more fond. "The Arbors are kept at the far end."
"Right." He looks down that way, but doesn't move further into the cellar. After a pause, he confesses, "I haven't been down here, myself, in ages. I never had to. Always had someone else to do it for me."
You consider his words for a moment. "Was there no one to serve you tonight?"
"I didn't want to be a burden." He waves his hand as though it's nothing worth giving more thought, but it doesn't stop you from frowning. "Gods. It seemed so much bigger down here when I was a lad. Always does, though, doesn't it?"
When he smiles at you like you're sharing an inside joke, you find yourself smiling at him, too. After a moment, you offer, "Would you like me to bring some Arbor Gold to your chambers, my lord?"
Daeron opens and closes his mouth once, his eyes roving across the casks before he nods, chuckling. "Probably would be for the best."
You wipe your hands on the front of your kirtle and move to fetch a pitcher from the hooks on the wall, when you hear him cough.
"Would you…?"
You turn to gaze at him again, finding him apprehensive. It's an odd thing to have a Prince all but shrinking before you, as though he is afraid of overstepping, somehow. But the look leaves him almost as soon as it arrives, and he straightens his spine somewhat. He raises his chin a tick, clasps his hands behind his back in an almost funny impression of his father.
"Would you care to join me?"
"My lord?" You raise an eyebrow, half-sure you misheard him, and half-surprised that you didn't.
"For wine," he adds, as though that wasn't clear. He gestures vaguely at the casks. "As long as I'm pulling you away from your duties, and you're indulging me. Perhaps you could join me for a cup."
You blink. Look for some kind of jest or trick in his features, and find none. Daeron is an open book, his eyes wide and pale as a field of lavender in spring. His cheeks are flushed, and for the first time you wonder if it's entirely due to the drink.
After a long pause, you tilt your head. Kindly, you ask, "Is that wise, my lord?"
"Probably not."
You stare at each other— you, with your hand on the pitcher, half turned towards him. He, with his hands clasped behind his back, his weight shifting from foot to foot. And then, his eyes rake once over your body, a slow and deliberate up and down that sends a shiver through you. It is not a trick of the light. It is something very much like what you had been doing, secretly, to him.
Or, perhaps not so secretly. When his eyes find yours again Daeron's are open and inviting, sharing a look of knowing. He knows, somehow, the way you'd been staring at him— have been, for a while, when you thought he was entirely unaware. You're not in the exact frame of mind to question why or how that is. If the stories you've been told if the Targaryens are anything to go by, the prince might very well have eyes in the back of his head.
Of course, you've never been known for your grand ideas. You like his smile a bit too much when you say, "Give me ten minutes."
Fuck, he's pretty.
That's the first thing you think when you step into Prince Daeron's chambers with a light rap on the door, before foregoing propriety and just letting yourself in. You figure, if any of this were proper, he would have asked his own cupbearer, wherever the boy went, to bring him the wine. He would not have invited you to share it with him. And you would certainly not have accepted, and Daeron wouldn't have positively bounded out of the wine cellar like a knight before a joust, and you would not have secretly stolen to your own quarters for a quick once over at your mirror.
And, of course, he wouldn't be sitting there in his shirtsleeves, his doublet undone, his blouse open at the collar like something from a painting. He's so fucking pretty. Does he know? It's hard to tell, with him— Daeron's pattern of behavior makes him hard to pin down. It could be that he knows how handsome he is, but he carries himself through the shadows like he'd rather sink into them. You don't know him to be one of the princes who has ladies throwing themselves at him, so perhaps he assumes that means he isn't attractive, and that he must take his pleasure where he can get it.
If that's true, it's a shame. You were told once, by another maid who had been employed at Summerhall for longer than you've been alive, that Prince Daeron takes after his mother— that's why he doesn't have the same pale Targaryen coloring as his siblings. And you imagine that must be true, because although you never saw Lady Dyanna in life, it's obvious that he doesn't bear the same severity in his features as that of his father, Prince Maekar.
Daeron's features are softer, gentler. His honey-gold hair shines like sunlight by the fire, his lilac eyes catching the light and turning almost silver. Rosy lips and cheeks, a dimple in one of them when he smiles. His legs look strong and his arms muscular, as much as one might expect from a Prince, but less so than one who might spend all his time training. You remember, with a sharp surge of warmth at the base of your spine, the feeling of his arms as they squeezed you around the waist.
He is not a warrior. Something tells you he is not a poet, either— so that begs the question, what is he?
"Are you going to stare at me all night?"
Daeron turns his eyes to you, and there's a flash of that dimple in his cheek, his lips turned up at the corners humorously.
You avert your eyes almost instinctively, but cannot suppress your own small smile. "Apologies, your grace."
"Bah." He throws out an arm, making a grabbing gesture towards you as if to will the wine pitcher directly into his outstretched hand. As you approach and hand him a goblet, he mutters good-naturedly, "If I were really so concerned about it, I wouldn't have invited you into my chambers. Who knows what might happen?"
You bite back a smirk as you fill his cup. "Do you think I would take advantage of you?"
"Why, of course," he says with mock-surprise. "Me, a poor drunken Prince all alone, and you, a devastatingly handsome girl with a keen eye. My honor is likely forfeit."
A loud blast of laughter leaves you, such that it makes Daeron give you a startled look. Then delight sweeps across his features, and he laughs to himself as he takes the pitcher from you and fills your own cup.
"Do you mean to tell me that you're chaste, my lord?" You bite your lip slightly at the jab, lowering yourself into the chair across from him when he gestures to it. "Taken up the black, have you?"
"Me? Never." Daeron lifts his wine and takes a sip, though looks entirely bemused as he does so. "I'm not disciplined enough, and I fear Summerhall would miss the soul of my wit. Although, I imagine the thought has crossed my father's mind once or twice." His eyes flick over your form, focusing in on the cup that you grasp in your hands. "Drink, my lady. Before it goes warm."
The finery of the moment gives you pause— you don't believe you've ever sat in a chair this opulent, much less drank Arbor wine out of a silver goblet while making banter with a prince. It seems that the night is full of wonders.
"I'm not a lady, your grace," you remind him softly, lowering your eyes as you lift your cup.
Daeron in quiet for a moment, watching you thoughtfully. His lilac eyes linger on your lips as they touch the rim of your cup, and then he says, "All women are ladies. All men are knights."
"All men are fools," you add, feeling the sharpness of the wine at the back of your throat.
"True enough," Daeron agrees. "But it makes the other statements no less true."
"Well," you say, chewing on your lip as you look up at him through your lashes. He watches you with a calm, comfortable expression, as though you are just another person he might have met at an inn, or a tavern. Amicable. Gentle. "That's kind of you, my lord."
Daeron smirks into his cup. "That's a first."
"What is?"
"Kind is not something anyone would usually call me," Daeron remarks. "Certainly not to my face, at least."
"No one's ever… called you kind?" You tilt your head. "What of your friends?"
"Friends?" Daeron laughs. He throws his head back slightly, as though the mere notion is hilarious to him, but there's a sadness to it that grips at your heart and squeezes painfully. When he looks at you again, he shakes his head and gives you a rueful smile. "I don't have any friends."
You pause, wracking your brain. "But… You have five siblings."
"Siblings are not the same as friends." He tilts his head towards you, looking at you with a sort of deadpan humor that you're sure is intended to make you feel more at ease. "If they were, I imagine most families would be better off."
You consider the idea, and then make a face. "I suppose that's a fair assessment. You're quite right."
"Thank you. I've been saying so for the longest time, and no one ever believes me." He toasts you with a grin. It splits his face wide and makes him seem so boyish and sweet that you have to look quickly away.
"You know…" You hum, sipping at your wine demurely. You try to train your expression into something neutral— perfunctory, even— as you say, "I could be your friend, my lord."
Daeron is quiet for a moment too long, and you glance up to find him staring into the fire distantly. Then, he echoes, "Friend."
"Mhm." You take another sip of wine and wonder, absently, if perhaps there's something in it to make it double strength. There's no other reason you can think of for why you'd be so forward with a prince, but that you like him, and that he's been kind to you thus far.
Then, quite to your relief and also to your dismay, Prince Daeron shifts and takes a long breath through his nose. He says, so soft that it's almost as though you weren't meant to hear it, "It would be nice… to have a friend."
You hide your nervous smile with the rim of your cup.
Daeron clears his throat, and then looks up at you. He crosses one leg over the other, resting his ankle on his knee as though he's talking business late at night in front of a tavern fire. "And you would be my friend? Take up the mantle and… what, exactly?"
"It's not like being a sworn sword, your grace," you snort derisively. The wine has made you bold. Daeron seems to like it.
He gives you a lopsided grin. "No? What do friends do, then?" He rests his chin on his hand, his elbow on the arm of his chair as he slouches toward you like a sunflower turning towards the light. "Do tell me, since I have no earthly idea."
"Well," you begin, casting your gaze towards the fire. You feel suddenly shy with his eyes upon you, as though you can feel the intensity of his gaze directly through your bodice. Your heart leaps up into your throat. "Friends… they look out for each other."
"Mm?"
"Take care of each other, I mean."
"Mm." The tone changes to something suggestive. "Take care of each other how?"
Your face is burning— is it from the wine? The fire? You can't tell anymore. "Well, I— I suppose, with whatever the other needs. A helping hand. Companionship. Someone to talk to, or to be still with, or—"
"Or to hold?"
Oh, gods. That's your first thought when you look at him, and he's still staring at you, unwavering in his focus. Slowly blinking as though he's enraptured by you and has no intentention of looking away, even if he spends the rest of the night with his eyes still set upon you.
His arms around your waist. His ear pressed over your beating heart. His eyes peering up at you in the darkness, begging you to stay. His lips pressed to your knuckles. 'I hope I dream of you.' You let him, and you let him, and you let him.
"Yes, I suppose. In some cases." You nod, mostly to yourself, and then take a swig of the wine so large that you feel it stretch your esophagus on the way down.
Still watching you with a serene smile on his face, he says, "Then, I'd like to be your friend."
You swallow past the thickness in your throat, and return with a wobbly smile of your own. "Thank you, my lord."
He makes a short noise. "You should probably call me 'Daeron' when we're alone." Then amends with a wink, "Since we're friends."
"Right." Then, when he raises an eyebrow, you add, "…Daeron."
His responding smile is softer around the edges than the others, and holds something tenderly in it that, you think, he doesn't exactly want you to see. It's held to his chest like a secret.
Now is your turn to watch him the way he's been watching you— fully, unabashed, no attempt to hide the open hunger on your face. He's distracted by the fire, by his cups, and by the ring that he twists on his forefinger with his thumb. You watch the movement and feel, like a hot coal sinking down the line of your spine and between your legs, the arousal that you'd been trying so desperately to push away in the wine cellar.
"You know—" you say sharply, so suddenly that you see Daeron blink in suprise. He shoots you a curious look when you continue, hoarsely, "Friends do… other things, too."
"Is that so?" He gives you a once-over with an expression like he knows exactly what you mean, but feels like indulging you, anyway. "Like what?"
"Like…" You try to think of the best way to say what you're thinking.
Friends can fuck. Friends can do unspeakable things to each other an then carry on like nothing in the world ever happened.
Instead you say, "Favors."
"Favors?" Daeron parrots, refilling his goblet. "What kind of favors?"
You don't say anything. You don't have it in you to voice it— you've never seduced anyone before. You're not used to the talking, more the doing. You're very good at the doing, or so you've been told. But you don't have the words, and so you just… look.
The same way you've been doing all night, but this time without waiting for him to look away. His eyes are fixed on you as you take a long, lecherous, languid assessment of his body. Starting from his pale eyes, and traveling down to his lips, along the line of his throat to where his chest is laid bare from his open collar— the collar he loosened, on purpose, before you came in. Down further, to his hands holding the goblet aloft. Beautiful hands, hands that tremble a bit from the drink, but whose fingers are long and laced with veins that run down the back of his palm. Down, to the space between his legs where he's already made a tent in his breeches.
"Ah," he murmurs, more a breath than anything, but it's enough for you to snap your eyes back up towards his own. "Those kind of favors." He smirks, then quirks a brow and cocks his head. "Do you go to bed with all your friends?"
"Only the pretty ones."
That makes him laugh. Loudly, fully. It splits through the air like a bell, settling around your shoulders like hands squeezing you. Then, he sets his goblet down on the low table between you, and points at your cup. "Do you want more wine?"
You look down at your near empty goblet. "Sure. Why not."
Of course, you expect him to simply pick the pitcher up and refill your goblet, like a normal person. And you certainly imagine that you will both continue hedging about your desire to fuck each other, until one of you inevitably topples onto the bed in your wine-drunk stupor and the other follows with soft giggles and wandering hands. That's the basic script you've learned, by now, to follow when it comes to drunken dalliances. Except, Prince Daeron isn't a normal man, and your first mistake was expecting that he would act accordingly.
You don't expect him to crawl towards you on all fours. He lowers himself from his chair and approaches you like a dog looking for an affectionate hand, and you think your heart stops and starts nearly five times between his chair and yours. He gazes up at you with wide, almost innocent eyes— almost— and settles on his knees to take the goblet gently from your hand.
If you weren't frozen in shock, you might have realized that he would have liked it if, in that moment, you reached forward and stroked his head. But you would not be so presumptuous.
Daeron, for that matter, is. You hate him for it as much as you like him for it, or at least that's what you tell yourself. Daeron fills your goblet, but instead of simply handing it back to you, he holds it as he raises himself up on his knees until he's nearly towering over you. He's still so tall, even on his knees before you, and you have to suppress a sigh when one hand comes up and gently cups your chin, his fingers warm where they touch your skin. One thumb tracing the plush of your lower lip, but without deigning to press in.
"Open," Daeron says, his voice soft enough that you don't question it.
You part your lips and let him feel a flash of wetness on your inner lip with his thumb, the rough edge of your teeth. He waits there for a second, feeling. And then he raises your goblet to his own mouth and takes a small sip.
You gasp, more out of surprise than anything else, when he leans forward and his lips replace his thumb. Your chin tilted up, his face hovers just a fraction of an inch from yours before closing that gap, and he lets the wine flow from his mouth into yours. It spills sweet and warm from his tongue onto your own, and you find yourself instinctively grasping onto his arms for something stable to keep yourself upright.
You swallow. Daeron makes a pleased noise when he feels it, his thumb gliding along the curve of your chin.
"Gods," you mutter after a moment, your face still so close to his that you can see every detail in his lilac irises— where the blue turns into pale purple, where midnight blue flecks the inner ring.
Daeron cracks an almost victorious grin, but only for a second. Then, he squints. "Are we still friends?"
"Only if you intend to greet me that way every time you see me," you tell him. You thought yourself so stunned that you couldn't speak, but it seems the words come just as easily when you have no brain in your head to form them.
"Good," he answers brightly. Then, he gives you one of his looks of faux-severity, which never quite seems to land right on his features. "Then, perhaps we can be honest, and stop acting like we don't want to eat each other alive."
You snicker, turning your hands to fists against the sleeves of his shirt. "Your fault for half undressing yourself before I came here."
"You've been undressing me in your head the whole time, anyways," Daeron argues petulently, and when you open your mouth to object, he presses his finger to your lips. "Don't lie, your face betrays you every time."
You grumble a half-hearted assent, just before nipping lightly at his fingertip with your teeth. Daeron makes a little noise and jerks his hand away, just before echoing your giggle with one of his own and smoothing your hair away from your face.
"You're so lovely," Daeron admits to you after a moment. His hand still gently cradles your chin, but he looks down the slope of his nose at you with something wistful in his eyes. "I didn't thank you properly, the other night." He sits back heavily on his heels, hands folded against his thighs, eyes shining up at you. His neck— fuck, his neck— long and lean and exposed from where he tilts his chin up to look at you. "Let me atone for my transgressions."
"You don't have to— my prince," you gasp when his fingers wrap around your ankle and he draws your skirts upwards. The fabric whispers against your skin without much more urging.
"I'm not a prince," he says quietly, his eyes focused on your face. "Not with you."
You give him an incredulous look. His hand smoothes up your calf, and you practically swallow the squeal that threatens to break from your throat. "Because we're friends?"
"Yes." He's not teasing, or joking. His expression is as genuine and earnest as you've ever seen it, his hand tightening on your calf. "Will you let me thank you properly? Or am I to sit there simpering like a fucking imbecile all night?"
You bite back a snort, your hand momentarily flying to your lips before you give him a sidelong glance. He's still waiting for your approval, you realize.
"If I told you to go and sit there like an imbecile, you would?" you ask him, more out of curiosity than anything.
"Yes." It is, again, without question. He doesn't have it in him to be anything but forthcoming, apparently.
You believe him. You reach forward and stroke his head, once, just to remind yourself that he's real, and not a figment of your imagination. "It would be very indecent, you know."
"Yes, very." He blinks at you. He isn't deterred in the slightest. Amused, even, as his lips curl into a wan smile.
You can't help but mirror it. "Do as you like, my lord."
The grin he gives you is pure, selfish indulgence. He raises your calf and presses a kiss just below your knee— a chaste thing, nothing out of the ordinary, except that it's him and it's your knee. Your heart beats in your chest loud as thunder as he drags his lips upwards, over the curve of your knee, past the shelter of your skirts.
"Daeron," you hiss suddenly, gripping the arms of your chair for dear life as he pulls you forward in your seat.
"What?" The petulance in his voice is the only thing you have ever seen or heard from him to suggest his lineage. He sounds so much like his father when he says it, glancing up at you through long, fluttering lashes.
"Do you—" Your eyes bounce around the room, while you search for the proper words to voice your concern. "Are you sure you want to… do that?"
Daeron is frustratingly straight faced. He's so gravely serious about it that you almost want to laugh. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Because…" You bite your lip, suddenly bashful. "I've been working all day, and… and I haven't bathed."
Daeron gazes at you for a moment, his brows lifted incredulously before he laughs. His breath ghosts across your bare thigh, making you shift in his hold.
"You could have been riding bareback through the mud, and I would still want to taste you." His words send a horrid wave of heat rushing through your body. "Now let me."
You answer with a squeak, because he takes to the plush of your inner thigh with a nip of his teeth, the soft drag of his lips following. He is hard and soft— teeth and lips, wet tongue and rough beard stubble. Your mouth opens and closes, searching in vain for something to say or a sound to make, but nothing comes out.
Not until Daeron rucks your skirts up to your hips and yanks the laces of your smallclothes, his eyes suddenly sharper than they have been all night. The sight of your bared sex appears to have sobered him, somewhat. He leans forward, shouldering your thighs upwards while his hands spread you wide. Your slippers jump ship, falling to the carpet with dull thuds that act as punctuation. A small whimper leaves you, a mild sound of alarm at being so utterly exposed to him.
"You… gorgeous—" Daeron sighs, nuzzling his nose into the matted curls surrounding the cleft of your pussy, wet with your arousal. You gasp, your face burning as he takes a deep lungful of air, breathing in the scent of you.
He gives you a warm brush of his tongue, so soft that nought but a sigh escapes your lips. Daeron coaxes your thighs further apart, hoisting you towards his face with a strength you didn't know he had. Maybe he only uses it on occasions such as this, with his head between your legs and his mouth on your cunt.
"Gods," he mumbles against you, accented with a flattening of his tongue. "You're so sweet."
Your hands find his hair, and he groans. The sudden vibration makes you jolt, your hips bucking up into him, your back bent awkwardly towards the backrest of the chair while you struggle to find your stability. Daeron is unbothered. Daeron is tasting you with a voracity that, quite frankly, appalls you— his mouth makes a lewd slurp and his tongue worms its way into your entrance, a flexing of the muscle in an imprudently intimate place.
You never would have thought he'd be like this; certainly, most of the servants in the castle have suggested that he drinks too many to be of any use in the bedroom. But he still, somehow, managed to get his women— whores, usually, but you never heard any of them complaining. You thought it had something to do with the coin, but now… now, you aren't so sure.
"Daeron, I— I won't— fuck." The words tumble out, cut off on a little moan when he sucks, latching onto your clit and not letting go. He drags his tongue over it and you go boneless, your spine bowing into the hollow created between the seat and the backrest. Your chin hits your chest awkwardly and you find his eyes, staring up at you from between your legs, dark and vehement.
Daeron whines when you tug on his hair, a noise so gorgeous that it makes everything within you tighten up hard and sharp. Your hips buck against him, but Daeron's hands grasp you and hold you down against the edge of your seat, keeping you from moving an inch.
It's cruel, the wanting— how deeply it has you in its thrall; because you have him between your legs, and it's not enough. There's still that hollow in your chest that wants him inside it, but which is too small to house a dragon.
"Fuck, you're pretty," you gasp, hands on his head and in his hair, eyes on his. He makes a small noise, his eyes fluttering shut in earnest, but you continue, "So fucking pretty, Daeron, gods—"
His slick tongue, more dextrous than it has any right to be, strokes over your clit again, and again, and again, and you think you might choke. You aren't paying attention to how hard your fingers are gripping at him, scrabbling at his head until your nails find purchase and dig in, and Daeron moans unbelievably loud. The sound is filthy, depraved— he buckles, his hips lurching against nothing, his head both dipping low and pushing against the feeling like he wants more of it.
You hold him with both hands, your palms cradling his head to you like some precious thing. He follows your urging until there is nothing but the sounds of your moans mingling with his, and the rocking back and forth of his mouth and your hips.
You cum against his tongue, and it leaves you with a shattered cry and long, cloying spasms that seem to go on for ages, made stronger for the fact that he won't stop. He keeps sucking on your clit, ignoring your pleas for mercy, and his hand just strokes along your thigh as he feels it twitch against his ear.
When Daeron pulls off of your clit with a loud slurp and a ragged gasp, his cheeks are tinged red. His lips flushed and wet with you, his eyes shining in the firelight. "You— you have no idea," he stutters out, his words slightly thick and garbled in the back of his throat, "what you do to me."
Fuck, he looks absolutely wrecked. The strands of his golden waves that you'd captured in your fist hang in tangles around his face, and he pants heavily through parted lips.
"I could do more," you say, struggling to sit forward. "I could— I could fuck you so hard, Daeron, I—"
Daeron laughs breathlessly, dropping his forehead against your thigh in a way that seems bashful. "Ah... That may be difficult, at the moment."
"What…?" You peer at him in confusion as he leans back on his haunches, and then you see it. A blotch of wetness darkens the front of his breeches, which would explain for the roughness of his breath. "Oh."
"Terribly undignified, I know," he muses, grunting as he squeezes his eyes shut and shifts uncomfortably. "Not that I ever had any dignity."
You don't know whether to laugh, or cry, or fucking moan at the sight of him. You can't look away from the stain on his breeches. He came in his pants. You did that. Or, moreso, he did that with his face between your legs. Untouched.
With a wild hair that forces you to act before thinking— as you do more and more often, when it comes to him— you move your leg. Your foot, bare of your slipper, presses just against the crotch of his breeches, and a noisy groan tears from his lips.
He captures your ankle in his hand, his eyes suddenly dark. "That's… tender."
"I should hope so." A devilish smile curves at your lips, such that Daeron makes a pathetic noise at the sight of it. His thumb brushes back and forth against your ankle as you lift it, setting your toe against his chest. "We have plenty of time, my lord. I'm not done with you, yet."
You push, just barely, with your toe against his sternum, and he topples like a house of cards. He falls heavily back onto his hands, knees splayed wide to brace himself against the Myrish carpet, his chest leaping with the effort of his breath. Daeron tilts his head, looking almost like a confused puppy as you lower yourself from your chair, setting your hands on his knees and jerking them apart, much like he did yours.
"Take off your shirt," you order him.
Daeron opens his mouth to say something, seems to think it over, and then closes it. He begins with the open doublet, shrugging it away like so much fodder. His hands, shaking, find the front of his shirt and tug, loosening it from his breeches before throwing it over his head.
Your eyes and hands are greedy things. They want to take and absorb him until every edge and angle has been etched into your memory, to keep for yourself. You crowd yourself between his thighs and push him until he lays flat against the floor, the soft expanse of his stomach trembling beneath your touch.
He's more muscular than you thought he would be. Softer than a soldier, but beautifully toned. Your hands run over muscle padded by soft flesh, flushed red and dotted with freckles that you want to trace and lavish with your lips. Your palms cup and smooth over arms that are stronger than they have any right to be, fingers trace along veins that jump with the drumbeat of his pulse. Blood beating hot beneath his skin— blood of a dragon. Blood born of fire, even if the only fire he gives you is the kind he stokes between your legs.
Daeron whispers your name, and it nearly breaks in his throat where he seems to have lost his voice on his way down. The sound of it slams through your chest and worms its way down into your gut, kindling the fire already struck there by his mouth.
You take his hands. Big, warm things that stop shaking once yours are inside them, maybe only because you can hold them still. Your fingers lace with his, and his breath catches— you lift, bringing them over his head to rest against the carpet, his pectorals pulled taut, his ribs raised and the hollow of his stomach stretched to accomodate.
"Stay there," you tell him, and he does. It's a dangerous thing, to be able to order a prince around, and have him listen. To have him follow your instructions happily, blithely, like a dog responding to the snapping of your fingers. Good boy. Lay down. Roll over.
Your lips find his collarbone first. They linger there while you breathe him in, much like he did you— now that you've had some wine, yourself, you can't smell it much on him. Instead, you smell what lies under it; the spice of whatever Dornish perfume he wears against his throat, the musk of his sweat, the lingering sweetness of the lilac oil from his bath water. Your tongue flutters out to taste it, and Daeron gasps loudly, arching up into your touch with a desperation bordering on needy.
"This— this is what friends do?" Daeron asks quietly, his breath caught in his throat as your lips trace a path down his chest. Your tongue flicks out over one nipple, and he stiffens, his arms twitching like he wants to bring them down against you. He doesn't.
"They can," you say. "If you want."
"I want." A groan, airy and hoarse. "Oh f-fuck— I want."
"Good," you sigh. "Because I want it, too."
You bite at his ribs. He moans, and lets you. It stokes something terrible in you that wants to stake a claim, to be rough with him even while you continue being gentle. You want to sink your teeth in, so you give him the softness of your tongue instead. His responding sigh is worth it, and the slow widening of his thighs as you move downward.
"Did you dream of me, my lord?" you ask him as your hands find the laces of his breeches.
A hollow laugh rattles from his ribs and into your mouth. "More than you know."
That's not what you meant— and yet, it's exactly the answer that you wanted. Your lips part against his stomach, tongue laving before you suck, hard, hard enough to burst capillaries and leave a deep red bruise in your wake.
Daeron moans loud. Almost loud enough to echo around the bedchamber, his hips jolting upwards and finding no purchase. His arms finally come down, landing with dull thumps on either side of him. "Oh, fuck, what're you— what're you doing?"
"A favor," you say simply, and lick him from his navel to his hip.
"Here?" Even as he asks, your hands are pulling the ties of his breeches. "On the floor? There's a bed just over there."
"I would have fucked you on one of the wine casks," you grumble as you tug, the ties finally coming loose. You nuzzle in and lick over soft chestnut curls of hair, earning a shallow gasp in response.
Daeron laughs, a little too breathy. "Was that what you were thinking about? Figured I had something on my face."
When you meet resistence in the form of his hips, laying on the floor and keeping you from tugging his pants off, you pause. A prince's floor is better than a wine cask. Your eyes flick up to his, looking at you with mild amusement. "Do you mind?"
He lifts his hips. You pull. The fabric goes with a whisper, and you sit back to muscle them down the length of his legs. He's toned here, too. It's mildly unfair, considering his aptitude for athletic pursuits, and you have a mind to tell him— but he's hard again for you, already, and you don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth.
"There," you sigh, admiring him. He's pretty everywhere. Even his cock, rosy like the rest of him, wonderfully thick and smeared with cum left over from when he'd spent in his pants.
You lean down, and without pretense or lead in, take him into your mouth. Daeron shouts. It's different from the last time you heard it— not anguished, but instead carrying a note of delight in it. He's heavy on your tongue and tastes of salt, smells of musk like he had by his throat, but more. You taste him like you have all the time in the world, with a fervency to mirror his own.
Finally, you pull off of him, a string of spit connecting you. You say, almost conversationally, "I'm going to fuck you, now."
Daeron blinks, naked and spread-eagled beneath you. "Really? I had no idea. If this was your plan the whole time, you really must let a man know."
You snort, positioning yourself over him, your skirts rucked up around your thighs. "I'll give you fair warning next time, my lord."
"Next time," Daeron mutters, seemingly dazed, his hands finding your hips. "Yes."
You take him slowly, his cock stretching you so wide that your hips stall, your teeth grinding together as you brace yourself with a hand on his chest. "Fuck," you grit out, seating yourself fully, feeling him brush up against something wonderful and devastating there inside you. "Fuck, Daeron."
"Mhm." He's out of breath already. Panting, his lips parted and gazing up at you with the most pleading, desperate look you've ever seen. You move, and his mouth drops open with a ragged moan, his eyes falling shut as his head rocks back against the carpet.
Your hand finds the column of his throat. His pulse pounds beneath your fingers, his adam's apple bobbing against your palm. "Oh gods, you're so fucking good for me."
Daeron makes a strangled noise, his fingers digging into your hips. His hips lurch, trying to drive further into you— he fills you so completely, the relief of it is such that it draws a sigh from you.
You raise yourself up, sink back down. You begin a rhythm that has you keening, and has his breath stolen from his lungs.
Daeron reclines against the carpet, his hands beginning to guide your hips, his eyes starry and fixed on you in awe. His eyebrows pinch together, a smirk curving on his parted lips.
"What?" you ask him, breathless, a quiet moan leaving you as you grind your hips in slow circles. Your entire body feels like it's on fire. From the crown of your head to the tip of your toes, you feel as though the sparks dancing up your spine have ignited a blaze through you. When Daeron raises a hand and grabs at the front of your bodice, the laces loosening at his clumsy tugs, you fear that he may feel your blood boiling beneath your skin.
"Beautiful," Daeron whispers, his fingers parting the loosened front of your bodice to expose your breasts. "You're so beautiful."
"Daeron." Your cunt clamps hard around him, your breath catching in your throat as he drags his thumb over your hadened nipple, cupping the weight of your breast in his hand.
His mouth drops open in a moan, his eyes fluttering shut for just a moment. Then he lifts himself up on his elbow, pulling you towards him with one arm.
Daeron plants his face between your breasts clumsily, his mouth open and hot against your bare skin. "I'm not— ah, fuck— not worthy of this. You shouldn't— shouldn't give me—"
"I'll give you what I fucking want." Your fingers thread through his golden hair, softer now than you had been before, but no less insistent. "And right now, what I want is to make you cum."
Your words draw a strained sound from him that cracks in his throat, and he nips lightly at the curve of your breast with his teeth. The sharp edge of it sends a shockwave through you, pleasure mounting between your legs. Daeron audibly chokes, his eyes shut tight and mouth open over your breast as he feels you pulse around him.
Your head droops over his in an approximation of the way you held him before, days ago, while he came down from a nightmare. Your body jerks as his tongue laves against your nipple, his hand fumbling to yank your skirts up so that it can fit between your legs. A clumsy thumb finds your clit, unmeasured in his touch but focused in on just the right place to make you cry out, your face screwed tight at the onslaught of sensation.
"Oh fuck," you sob, feeling your orgasm wash over you with fury. Your body seizes, your muscles locking down tight around his cock, his thumb slipping through your wetness and nudging at your clit in small circles. It's too much, all at once, and you cum hard while he moans into your skin, his mouth still slotted over your breast.
Daeron makes a strangled, somewhat wet noise against you. You feel the sound vibrate against your skin like it was torn from some part of him that was still attached to it. His fingers tighten on your back, his hand pulling you flush to his chest while his hips grind up into yours, and you feel the rush of his release within you.
He cums pretty, too. You should have figured that he would.
"Beautiful," he's whispering again, soft against your body even as his thumb continues to work over your clit to the point of oversensitivity. "You're so beautiful— beautiful girl—"
"Hush." You lift his head, looking down at him as he takes shallow, shaking breaths. His eyes look heavy, drooping like they do halfway toward sleep. His face is still flushed, but his eyes are sparkling, pupils blown wide and dark. You tuck his hair back away from his face, and his eyes flutter shut, his head leaning into your hand like you may hold him up while he sleeps.
Instead, you lower him back down to the floor, and he goes, slowly, without complaint. You lay heavily on top of him while he's still inside you, growing soft, his cum beginning to leak from and making a sticky mess between your thighs.
You'll have to make moon tea in the morning. It doesn't matter, now.
"I did. Dream of you," Daeron murmurs, a weak noise breaking in his throat when he grinds his hips up into yours again for a brief second. "Of this."
Your heart practically slams up into your throat at his confession. You stare down at his gorgeous, placid face, and you're overcome with the urge to kiss him. You haven't kissed him yet, you realize— he spit wine into your mouth, but that was less a kiss and more a debased way to cut the fat from your mutual desire.
You almost drum up the courage to do it. Almost. But then, Daeron blinks his eyes open and finds you staring down at him, four inches from his face, and he grins lazily.
"Friends?" He asks, tracing a finger up your spine.
You clench your jaw and swallow the courage that you had been gathering. You nod at him, close enough that you can taste his breath. "Friends."
Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here.Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, smut, angst, fluff, Westeros politics.
Brynden had summoned you to his solar with a brief message delivered by one of his young guardsmen: the Hand requires your presence, my lady, at your earliest convenience. This was not unusual. You often spent your evenings in the solar now, reading by the fire while he worked, the comfortable silence between you punctuated by the scratch of his quill and the occasional rustle of raven wings. Sometimes he would call you over to his desk to show you something amusing in a letter, or to ask your opinion on a matter of court gossip, or simply to kiss you before returning to his work.
So you went willingly, leaving Alysanne in the care of her nurses, and climbed the winding stair to the Tower of the Hand with a light heart.
The solar was warm, lit by the usual blaze in the hearth and the candles in their iron holders. Brynden sat at his desk, a stack of parchments before him, his quill moving steadily across a letter. He did not look up when you entered, but he gestured to his lap with a flick of his fingers, a silent command that had become familiar over the years.
Come here.
You crossed the room and settled onto his lap, arranging your skirts so they did not interfere with his work. His free hand came to rest on your hip, he pressed a brief kiss to the curve of your neck before returning his attention to his letter.
This, too, was familiar. He liked having you close while he worked, liked the warmth of you against him. You had learned long ago that he found your presence grounding, a tether to the present moment when his mind was scattered across the Seven Kingdoms, seeing through the eyes of a hundred different ravens. Sometimes he would pause in his writing to squeeze your hip or brush his lips against your temple, small gestures of affection that required no words.
Tonight, however, his hand did not stay on your hip.
You were reading over his shoulder, a letter from the Warden of the North, something about grain stores and winter preparations, when his fingers slipped beneath the hem of your dress. The touch was casual, almost absentminded, as though he were stroking the arm of his chair rather than the inside of your thigh. You shifted slightly, surprised but not displeased, and his hand moved higher.
His fingers found the slit in your smallclothes, and then they found you, warm, dry and entirely unprepared.
You opened your mouth to speak: a question, a protest, you were not sure which, but the word dissolved into a sharp intake of breath as his thumb pressed against your pearl. He did not look at you. His eye remained fixed on the parchment before him, his quill still scratching across the page, but his hand was moving now, stroking you with a slow rhythm that made your thoughts scatter like startled birds.
"Brynden," you managed, but the word came out strangled.
He did not answer. His thumb circled your pearl, feather-light, then two of his fingers dipped lower, slipping inside you with an ease that made your face burn. You were already growing wet, your body responding to his touch with a readiness that was at odds with your confusion. His fingers curled, finding that spot inside you that made your vision blur, and you bit down on your lip to stifle the sound that wanted to escape.
He worked you steadily, methodically, his thumb stroking and pressing while his fingers pumped in a rhythm that was almost leisurely. The pleasure built in waves, coiling tight in your belly, and you felt yourself approaching the peak, your breathing quickening, your fingers digging into the arm of the chair...
He stopped.
His fingers stilled inside you. His thumb lifted from your pearl. The sudden absence of sensation was jarring, like a door slamming shut in your face. You made a sound, a small, desperate whimper, and tried to shift your hips, seeking the friction he had denied you.
His arm tightened around your waist, holding you still.
"Brynden, what..."
He pinched your pearl. Not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make your words dissolve into a high, breathless squeak. His fingers twisted inside you, and the sharp jolt of sensation somewhere between pleasure and discomfort, stole the rest of your sentence from your throat.
You slumped against him, panting. He released the pressure and resumed the gentle stroking, his thumb soothing the ache he had just created, his fingers moving in that same unhurried rhythm.
He still had not spoken. He still had not looked at you. His quill was still moving across the page, though you noticed now that his handwriting had grown slightly less precise, the letters a fraction larger than usual.
The pleasure built again. You tried to stay quiet this time, tried to prepare yourself for the moment he would stop, but when his fingers slowed and his thumb lifted, the denial was just as jarring as before. You let out a sound that was almost a sob, your head falling back against his shoulder.
"Please," you whispered. "Please, I..."
Another pinch. Another twist of his fingers. The words shattered on your tongue, replaced by a moan that you could not have suppressed if your life depended on it.
He gentled his hand again, returning to the slow, steady massage of your cunny, and you realized with a kind of dazed wonder that he was not going to let you speak. Every time you tried to form a word, every time you opened your mouth to ask a question or voice a protest, he would pinch your pearl or twist his fingers or press down hard on that spot inside you until your voice failed you entirely.
This was on purpose. This was calculated. This was, in its own strange way, a kind of conversation, one in which you were not permitted to participate.
The cycle repeated. Over and over. He would stroke you to the edge of release, his touch steady and relentless, and then he would stop just before you could fall, leaving you gasping, trembling and clutching at his arm. You tried to be quiet, tried to hold still, tried to prove that you could endure whatever strange game he was playing, but your body betrayed you every time. You whimpered. You begged. You moaned his name.
"Brynden. Brynden. Please, husband..."
He inhaled sharply at that, husband, and for a moment his fingers stilled entirely. Then he resumed his stroking, slower now, gentle, you felt the tension in his shoulders ease a fraction.
But he still did not let you peak.
By the time the candles had burned down to stubs and the fire had settled into a bed of glowing embers, you had stopped trying altogether. You were slumped against his chest, your head lolling on his shoulder, your body a trembling, over-sensitized wreck. Your mind had gone blank and hazy, all thought dissolved into a fog of thwarted pleasure and exhaustion. You could not have formed a sentence if you tried. You could barely remember your own name.
You did not understand. Your husband was strange, you had known that from the beginning, had accepted it, had learned to love it. He had his moods, his silences, his moments of peculiar intensity. But he had never directed anything of the sort toward you before. He had always been gentle with you, even in passion. He had always explained himself, even when the explanation was difficult. It was one of the cornerstones of your marriage, this habit of laying your minds bare to each other, no matter how ridiculous or uncomfortable the thoughts might be. It was what had brought you together in those early, uncertain days, and it was what had kept you together through everything that followed.
Yet now he would not speak. He would not look at you. His brow was furrowed as he read the text in front of him, a different letter now, something about trade routes in the Stormlands, and his jaw was tight. His fingers were still moving inside you, and you did not know what you had done wrong.
The tears came without warning. One moment you were drifting in the fog, and the next you were crying, silent tears sliding down your cheeks and dripping onto his doublet. You sniffled, a wet, pathetic sound, and your shoulders shook with the effort of keeping quiet.
Brynden sighed.
It was a soft sound, more weary than exasperated, but it made you flinch anyway. His hand stilled. His quill stopped moving. For the first time since you had settled on his lap, he spoke.
"Silly girl," he murmured.
His voice was low, almost tender, but there was an edge to it that you did not recognize. He sounded...miffed, you thought. As though you had somehow disappointed him, though you could not fathom how.
But even as he said it, his thumb found your pearl again, and this time he did not stop. He stroked you with a firm, steady pressure, his fingers curling inside you in just the right way, and the release that had been denied so many times crashed over you like a wave. You cried out, your back arching, your hands clutching at his arm, and he held you through it, his touch gentling as the last tremors faded.
You were too exhausted to move. Your limbs felt like water, your eyelids too heavy to lift. You were dimly aware of Brynden setting down his quill, lifting you in his arms and carrying you through the darkened Tower to your bedchamber. You were aware of him laying you on the bed and drawing the blankets up to your chin, of him pressing a kiss to your forehead and murmuring something you were too tired to hear.
Then you were asleep.
The next day, he acted as though nothing had happened.
He was already gone when you woke, his side of the bed cold. You lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, trying to make sense of the night before. The memories came back in fragments: his hand beneath your dress, the endless cycle of pleasure and denial, the tears on your cheeks, the sound of his voice calling you a silly girl.
Your body still ached faintly, a pleasant soreness between your legs that made your face heat when you shifted under the blankets.
You dressed slowly, your mind turning the puzzle over and over. Perhaps he was simply stressed. The realm was always demanding, and the Hand of the King bore the brunt of it. There had been tensions with the Iron Islands, trade disputes in the Vale, the usual undercurrent of conspiracy that ran beneath the court like a hidden river. It was possible that he had needed an outlet, some strange release from the pressures of his office.
It was possible. But it did not feel like the whole truth.
You found him in the great hall at midday, breaking his fast with the king and the small council. He looked up when you entered, and his single red eye met yours across the room. There was nothing in his expression to suggest that the night before had been anything out of the ordinary. He nodded to you, a brief, courteous gesture, and then returned his attention to Lord Velaryon, who was expounding at length about something to do with shipwrights.
You relaxed, a little. Perhaps you had imagined the strangeness. Perhaps it was only one of his moods, and it had passed.
But that evening, when the summons came again, your stomach tightened with a mixture of anticipation and unease.
You went to him anyway.
The second night was worse.
He did not even bother with the pretense of working. When you settled onto his lap, his hand went immediately to your thigh, sliding beneath your dress with a purposeful efficiency that made your breath catch. His eye was fixed on you now, not on the parchments on his desk, and his gaze made you feel like a mouse pinned under the shadow of a hawk.
You tried to be still. You tried to be quiet. But when his fingers slipped inside you, already wet, already aching from the memory of the night before, you could not stop the small, desperate sound that escaped your throat.
The cycle began again. Pleasure, building and building, and then the sudden, jarring halt. Pinching. Twisting. Denial.
This time, you tried to scramble off his lap.
You twisted in his grip, your hands pushing against his chest, but his arm tightened around your waist like an iron band. He did not yank you back or hold you down by force. He simply…held you. His arm was immovable, his grip unbreakable. You looked up at him with wide, bewildered eyes. He arched a single silver eyebrow, unimpressed.
"Did I displease you somehow?" The words burst out of you before you could stop them, high and trembling. "Have I done something wrong? I do not understand what is happening. I do not understand what you want from me. Please, Brynden, just...just tell me what I did..."
"You did nothing wrong." His voice was calm, measured, entirely at odds with the chaos he was wreaking on your body. His fingers were still moving inside you, slow and steady, and it was almost impossible to think through the haze of sensation. "I simply want your thoughts on me."
You stared at him, uncomprehending. "My...my thoughts?"
"Your thoughts." He repeated the words as though they should be self-explanatory. His thumb traced a lazy circle around your pearl, and your hips jerked involuntarily. "I want your thoughts on me. Your mind. Your attention."
"My thoughts are already on you." Your voice cracked with frustration. "They are always on you. You are my husband. My dearest friend. My closest confidant. The father of my daughter. Of course my thoughts are on you. I have not been refusing my wifely duties. I have not been refusing to bed you. I do not understand what you..."
He was not listening. Or rather, he was listening with only one ear, his attention divided between your words and something else entirely. His eye had dropped to your chest, to the emerald necklace that rested against your collarbone, the oak leaf pendant he had given you years ago, the one you had worn almost every day since.
You fell silent, your protests dying in your throat. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong, you did not know what it was, and the man who had always explained things to you was staring at your necklace as though it held the answer to a question he had not asked.
Then he spoke.
"Do you ever imagine a different life?"
The question was so unexpected, so disconnected from everything that had come before, that you could only blink at him. "What?"
"A different life." His fingers stilled inside you, but he did not withdraw them. His eye lifted to meet yours, his gaze was cold and searching but terribly fragile. "Some days. When you are alone. Do you imagine what your life would be like if the king had never decreed that you be married to a bastard sorcerer as punishment for your family's treachery?"
Your heart stopped.
"If you had married a pretty Reach knight instead?" His voice was quiet, almost conversational. "A man with a bright smile and a lively laugh? Sunlit curls and a face unmarked? You would live in his castle, surrounded by green fields and summer flowers. You would bear him children who shared his comely likeness and a legitimate name. You would wake every morning to a handsome face on the pillow beside you, instead of..." He gestured vaguely at his own face, the birthmark, the scarred hollow of his missing eye. "Instead of this."
You stared at him. The haze of pleasure had evaporated entirely, replaced by a cold, creeping understanding.
The lord from the Reach.
He had arrived at court three days ago. A young man, newly come into his inheritance, with hair the color of honey and eyes like summer sky. He had been charming and polite and almost impossibly beautiful, the kind of beauty that belonged in songs and tapestries, the kind of beauty that made people stop and stare.
You had been charmed by him. Not in the way Brynden feared, not in the way of a woman tempted to stray, but in the way of someone who had spent years surrounded by the muted colors of the Crownlands and who had suddenly been reminded of the vivid greens and golds of home. He had spoken of the Reach, of Oldtown and Mander and Arbor, and you had drunk in his words like a woman dying of thirst.
You had also, you remembered with a sinking heart, commented on his appearance.
He ought to have a dozen portraits commissioned of himself, you had said to Brynden, after the lord had taken his leave. It would not be vanity. He is simply breathtaking to look at. Like a painting come to life. Like a statue by a master sculptor. I have never seen a face so perfectly proportioned.
You had meant it as an observation. An aesthetic appreciation. The way one might admire a sunset, or a particularly well-constructed bridge, or a bird with exceptionally glossy feathers. The lord was beautiful in the way that a mountain was beautiful: impressive, awe-inspiring, and entirely irrelevant to your personal happiness.
But Brynden had not heard it that way.
You looked at your husband now and you saw what you had missed before. The tension in his jaw that was not from the pressures of the realm. The way his hand trembled slightly where it rested on your hip. The fragile, defiant misery in his single red eye.
He had heard your words and he had understood them in the only way he knew how. He had heard you praising another man's beauty, and he had remembered every time he had burned for Shiera Seastar, every time he had begged for her hand and been refused, every time he had watched her choose another man over him. He had remembered what it was like to love a great beauty and dream of her, and he had assumed that you were doing the same.
That you were dreaming of a prettier life. A prettier husband. A prettier face to wake up to.
"Oh, Brynden," you breathed.
His expression flickered. "I am not asking for reassurance. I am asking a question. Do you imagine it? Do you wish..."
"No." The word came out stronger than you expected. "No. I do not wish for a different life. I do not imagine being married to a pretty Reach knight. I do not dream of sunlit curls and bright smiles. I do not want a castle in the Reach or children with his comely likeness. I want you. I have always wanted you. You are my husband, my friend, my home. How can you not know that?"
"You said he was breathtaking."
"I said the sunset over Blackwater Bay was breathtaking last week. Do you think I wish to marry the sunset?"
"That is not the same."
"It is exactly the same." You reached up and cupped his face in your hands, forcing him to look at you. "He is beautiful in the way a painting is beautiful. Something to admire and then walk past. He is more beautiful than either of us. It means nothing. He is not you."
Brynden's mouth opened but no sound came out.
"You have spent so many years believing you are hard to love," you continued, your voice trembling. "You have spent so many years measuring yourself against beautiful things and finding yourself wanting. But I do not love you for your face. I love you for your heart, your mind, your strange and stubborn soul. I love you for the way you lean down to kiss me. I love you for the way you look at our daughter as though she is the most precious thing in the world. I love you for the way you said 'silly girl' last night, even when you were being cruel, because I could hear the tenderness underneath it."
His eye was very bright. "I was not being cruel."
"You were being frightened." You stroked your thumb across his birthmark, the way you had done a thousand times before. "You were frightened that I might want someone else. Someone easier. Someone prettier. So you tried to…what? Keep my attention? Prove that you could hold it, even if you could not hold my heart?"
"I was not..." He stopped. Swallowed. "I do not know what I was doing."
"Yes, you do. You were trying to make sure I could not think about anyone else. You were trying to fill my mind so completely that there was no room for pretty Reach lords or imaginary lives." You leaned forward and pressed your forehead to his. "But my mind was already full of you. It has been full of you for years. You did not need to do any of this."
He was silent for a long moment. His hand was still inside you, you realized distantly, though it had gone still and slack. The absurdity of the situation struck you suddenly.
"I am an idiot," he said finally.
"You are a man who has been hurt very badly and who never quite believed he deserved to be loved." You kissed the corner of his mouth. "But you do. You deserve to be loved. And you are loved. By me. By Alysanne. By that wretched raven, in his own way. You are loved, Brynden Rivers, and no pretty Reach lord is going to change that."
His hand slipped out of you, you felt the loss of him like a small ache. He wiped his fingers absently on a handkerchief and then wrapped both arms around you, pulling you tight against his chest. His face pressed into the curve of your neck, his breath was warm and unsteady against your skin.
"I am sorry," he said, the words muffled. "I should have spoken to you. I should have explained. I should not have..."
"No, you should not have." You stroked his hair, the silver strands slipping through your fingers. "But I forgive you. Just…next time, use your words. You are very good with words when you choose to be."
"I am out of practice with difficult ones."
"Then practice." You pulled back and looked at him, your hands still framing his face. "We will practice together. As we have always done."
He looked at you, the misery in his eye fading. "I do not deserve you."
"You say that so often that it has ceased to have meaning." You kissed him deeper and felt his arms tighten around you. "Now. Are you going to finish what you started, or are you going to leave me aching for a second night in a row?"
The corner of his mouth twitched. "That depends. Are your thoughts on me?"
"My thoughts," you said, "are so full of you that there is no room for anything else. There never has been. There never will be."
He kissed you and his hand found its way beneath your dress again.
The first time Pebble stole a strip of bacon from your breakfast plate and flew off with it still dangling from his beak, you assumed he was simply being greedy.
The second time, when he snatched a chunk of chicken and vanished out the window without so much as a parting croak, you assumed he was being greedy and ungrateful.
By the fifth time, you knew something was amiss.
"He is not eating it," you said, standing at the window of the solar with your hands on your hips, staring at the empty sky where your raven had disappeared. "He takes the food, flies away, and does not come back for hours. He is not eating it here. He is taking it somewhere else."
Brynden did not look up from his desk. "He is a raven. Ravens cache food. It is what they do."
"He is not caching it. I followed him once...well, I tried to follow him. He flew over the rooftops and I lost him near the kitchens." You turned to face your husband, your expression accusing, as though he were personally responsible for Pebble's mysterious behavior. "Something is going on."
"He is a raven," Brynden repeated, his quill scratching steadily across a parchment. "He does raven things. You are overthinking this."
"I am not overthinking. I am observing. You are always telling me to observe."
"I tell my spies to observe. You are not my spy."
"I could be your spy. I am very observant."
Brynden set down his quill and looked at you. His expression was the one he wore when he was trying to decide whether to be amused or exasperated. "You wish to be a spy now?"
"I wish to know what my raven is doing with all the food I give him." You crossed your arms. "He is not eating it. He is taking it somewhere. What if he is in trouble? What if he has gotten himself caught in something and he needs the food to...to bribe a cat, or something?"
"My love..."
"Ravens are intelligent. He could bribe a cat."
Brynden pinched the bridge of his nose. "My love. You are aware that I am currently attempting to prevent a war between the Iron Islands and the North. There are Greyjoy longships massing near Bear Island. The Master of Ships is in a panic. The Warden of the North has sent three ravens in as many days demanding the Crown's intervention. And you wish me to divert my attention to investigating the dietary habits of your pet raven."
"He is not a pet. He is a companion."
"He is a stout bird who has you wrapped around his talon."
"He is not..." You stopped, took a breath, and tried a different approach. "You can see through the eyes of your ravens. You do it every day. It would take you five minutes. Less than five minutes. You could send one of your working ravens after him, follow him to wherever he is going, and then you would know. I would stop asking, and you could go back to preventing the war with the Iron Islands."
Brynden stared at you. You stared back.
"I will stop asking," you repeated, "if you just look. Once. Please."
The silence stretched. Ravens on the perch had gone silent as if sensing an argument.
"Very well," Brynden said with the voice of a man who had weighed the costs of resistance and found them too high. "I will send a raven after your errant bird. But when we discover that he is simply hoarding food in a gutter somewhere, I expect you to concede that you were being ridiculous."
"I will concede nothing until I have evidence."
"You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met. I love you. Now shoo and let me work."
The next morning, you fed Pebble an extra portion of shredded capon, the tender meat you had specifically requested from the kitchens. He wolfed down a few bites while perched on your wrist, his black eyes bright with satisfaction, and then he snatched the largest remaining piece and launched himself out the window.
"Now?" you asked, turning to Brynden.
"Now," he agreed and closed his eye.
You watched him as he reached out with his mind, his consciousness slipping into the network of ravens that blanketed the city. His expression went distant, his body still and relaxed in his chair, his breathing slow and even. It was a strange thing to witness, the man you loved, present and absent all at once, his mind soaring over the rooftops of King's Landing while his body sat motionless before you.
Minutes passed. You twisted your hands in your lap and tried to be patient.
Then Brynden's eye opened.
"He has a family," he declared.
You blinked. "What?"
"A family. A mate and three hatchlings. He has been taking the food you give him and bringing it to them." Brynden's voice was flat, but his expression was bewildered. "They are living in a crevice in the Tower of the Hand. Three floors down. He has been commuting."
You stared at him. "Pebble has a wife?"
"A mate. Ravens do not marry."
"Pebble has a mate and children and he did not tell me?"
"He is a raven. He does not speak. He cannot tell you anything."
"He could have indicated. He could have…I do not know. Drawn pictures in the dirt. He is very intelligent."
Brynden leaned back in his chair and regarded you with an expression perilously close to amusement. "You are upset that your raven did not inform you of his marital status."
"I am not upset. I am…surprised." You stood up and began to pace, your skirts swirling around your ankles. "All this time, I thought he was lonely. I thought he needed my attention. I brought him into our bed because I thought he was sad and cold. And the whole time, he had a family three floors down."
"A family you fattened him up for. He has been using your generosity to provide for his mate and offspring. It is rather resourceful, when you think about it."
"He has been using me."
"He has been accepting your offerings and distributing them to his dependents. It is what any good provider would do."
You stopped pacing and turned to face your husband. "I want to see them."
"The hatchlings?"
"The mate. The hatchlings. All of them. I want to meet them."
Brynden sighed. "They are wild ravens. They are not accustomed to human interaction. They will not perch on your finger and eat from your hand the way Pebble does."
"Brynden."
He held up his hands in surrender. "When the hatchlings are old enough to fly, I am sure Pebble will bring them to meet you. He has brought you everything else. Dead mice. Shiny buttons. The occasional stolen ring. His offspring seem like the natural next step."
You sat down heavily in the chair across from his desk. "Pebble has a family," you repeated. "He was not lonely after all."
Brynden rose from his chair and crossed to you. He knelt before your chair, his hand finding yours, his single eye searching your face.
"You were lonely," he said quietly. "When you first came here. You were lonely, and you found comfort in a raven because there was no one else to give it to." He lifted your hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to your knuckles. "But you are not lonely now. You have me. You have Alysanne. And Pebble, it seems, has a family of his own. Perhaps that is not a betrayal. Perhaps it is simply…growth."
You looked at him. "When did you become so wise?"
"I have always been wise. I simply did not always apply it to matters of the heart."
"Because you were too busy applying it to the Greyjoy longships."
"The Greyjoy longships are significantly less complicated than you are."
You let out a wet laugh.
Three weeks later, Pebble brought his family to meet you.
You were in the nursery, playing with Alysanne on a blanket spread across the floor. She was sitting up on her own and grabbing at everything within reach, her silver hair sticking up in soft tufts and her eyes bright with curiosity. She had recently discovered the joy of blocks, small wooden cubes painted with letters and animals, and was engaged in the serious business of knocking over every tower you built.
Then you heard the familiar scratch of claws on the windowsill.
Pebble hopped through the narrow opening and landed on his customary perch. But he was not alone. Behind him came another raven, smaller and sleeker, her feathers a glossy black with a blot of white on her left wing. And behind her came three young ravens, their flight still a little unsteady.
You stared.
Pebble puffed out his chest and made a sound that could only be described as smug. Look, he seemed to be saying. Look what I made.
"Pebble," you breathed. "Are these your...is this your family?"
The female raven cocked her head at you, her black eyes assessing. She did not seem afraid, only curious. The hatchlings, fledglings, you supposed they were now, huddled together on the perch, peering at you with the wide-eyed uncertainty of children meeting a stranger.
Alysanne let out a delighted shriek and waved her blocks in the direction of the ravens. "Ba!" she announced, which was her current word for everything.
"Yes, birds," you said. "They are birds. Very good, sweetling."
Pebble hopped down from the perch and waddled across the floor to where you sat.
"You want me to feed your children?"
Pebble croaked.
"Your children who you did not tell me about. Your children who you have been feeding with the food I gave you."
Another croak, this one slightly more insistent.
You looked at the fledglings, still huddled on the perch. They were watching their father with expressions that clearly said, Father, why are you talking to the large featherless creature?
"All right," you said, picking up the dried meat. "But only because they are your children. And because they are adorable."
You held out the meat toward the fledglings. They did not move. The female raven, Pebble's mate, you supposed, gave a soft caw, and one of the fledglings, the boldest of the three, fluttered down from the perch and landed on the floor a few feet away from you.
"Hello," you said softly. "I am your father's…person. I am the one who has been feeding him all these years. You have my food to thank for your survival."
The fledgling hopped closer. Its eyes were bright and curious, so like Pebble's that your heart warmed. It snatched the meat from your fingers and fluttered back to the perch, where its siblings immediately began squabbling over the prize.
Pebble watched this with an air of paternal satisfaction.
Brynden found you an hour later, still in the nursery, surrounded by ravens. The female had come down from the perch and was sitting on the arm of your chair, allowing you to stroke her breast feathers with a tentative finger. The fledglings had grown bold and were hopping around the blanket, investigating Alysanne's blocks and pulling at the fringe of the rug. Alysanne herself was in raptures, her tiny hands reaching for the birds with the focus of a child who had inherited her father's determination.
"What," Brynden said from the doorway, "is happening."
"Pebble brought his family to meet us." You looked up at him with a smile that was only slightly sheepish. "This is his mate. I have not named her yet. And these are the children. Also not yet named."
"You are going to name them."
"Of course I am going to name them. They are Pebble's family. They deserve names."
Brynden looked at the ravens. The ravens looked at Brynden. There was a moment of mutual assessment, the Hand of the King and the flock of birds regarding each other with identically tilted heads.
"Pebble has found himself a handsome family," Brynden said finally, nodding toward the fledglings.
"They are beautiful," you agreed. "What about Pearl for the wife? For the white on her wing. It looks like a pearl against the black. The little one with the white spot on his breast, I am thinking of calling him Speckle. The smallest one shall be Pudge. And the bold one who came down first, perhaps Pebble Junior. Though that might be confusing."
"You are going to name the bold one Pebble Junior."
"He is very like his father."
Brynden crossed the room and knelt on the blanket beside Alysanne, who immediately grabbed a fistful of his silver hair and yanked. He endured this with the stoicism of a man who had long since accepted that fatherhood involved a certain amount of physical abuse.
"Your mother," he told Alysanne, "has adopted an entire flock of ravens."
"Ba," Alysanne agreed.
"Indeed." He extricated his hair from her grip. "Alysanne, there is something important I need to tell you about your mother and these ravens."
Alysanne looked at him with the grave attention of a baby who understood none of the words but appreciated being included in the conversation.
"You must not tell anyone about this," Brynden said, his voice very serious. "When you learn to speak...and I suspect you will learn early, given your parentage, you must not tell the lords and ladies of the court that your mother talks to birds. Do you understand?"
"Ba."
"People will think her mad if you tell them. They already think certain things about this household. They think your mother is being held captive by a ruthless sorcerer who does terrible things to her in his tower. They do not need to know that she spends her afternoons naming ravens."
You snorted. "They think you are torturing me?"
"Rumors persist. I have not bothered to correct them. It is useful to be feared." He glanced at you and his expression softened. "Though I would prefer that our daughter not grow up believing her father is a monster."
"She will not." You reached over and covered his hand with yours. "She will grow up knowing her father is clever and sometimes terrifying, but also kind and gentle and deeply loving. She will know him for who he truly is."
Brynden was quiet for a moment. Then he turned back to Alysanne, who was now attempting to put a wooden block in her mouth.
"The point," he said, "is discretion. The ravens are a family matter. They are not for court. They are for us. Do you understand?"
Alysanne removed the block from her mouth and said, "Bird."
You and Brynden stared at her. She could not yet pronounce the letter r properly, it sounded more like bighd, but it was close enough.
"Did she just..."
"She spoke."
"Her first word was 'bird.'"
Alysanne, apparently pleased with the reaction she had garnered, pointed at the fledglings on the blanket and repeated, "Bird. Bird. Bird."
They responded with caws.
Brynden pinched the bridge of his nose. "Her first word was not 'Mama' or 'Papa.' It was 'bird.'"
"To be fair," you said, "there are a lot of birds in her life."
"This is your fault."
"It is Pebble's fault, actually. He is the one who brought his whole family here."
Alysanne, having grown bored of blocks, crawled over to her father and climbed into his lap with the determination of a tiny conqueror. "Bird," she informed him.
"Yes," Brynden said, wrapping his arms around her. "Bird. There are many birds. And your mother loves them all, and your father loves your mother, so the birds are here to stay. But remember..." He touched a finger to the tip of her nose. "...discretion."
"Bird," Alysanne said firmly.
"That is not discretion."
Alysanne reached up and patted her father's face, her small hand landing squarely on his birthmark. "Ba," she said.
"I will take that as agreement." He pressed a kiss to her silver hair. "You are a good girl, Alysanne. The best of girls. And one day, when you are older, I will explain everything. The ravens, the dreams, the blood of the old gods that runs in our veins. But for now, this is our secret. Yours and mine and your mother's. Can you keep a secret?"
Alysanne looked at him solemnly. Then she turned and pointed at Pebble. "Ba-ba."
"Close enough." Brynden rose to his feet and offered you his hand. "Come. The small council is meeting in an hour, and I need to brief the king on the situation before then. You should eat something before the meeting."
"I am not attending the small council meeting."
"You are attending the small council meeting. You have a better understanding of Reach politics than half the lords on the council, and I need someone in the room who will not spend the entire time arguing about grain tariffs."
You took his hand and let him pull you to your feet. "Is that the only reason?"
"No." He leaned down and kissed you. "I also like having you there. You make the meetings bearable."
"What about Alysanne?"
"The maids will watch her. And our esteemed guests," He glanced around the nursery, at Pearl on the headboard, Speckle and Junior on the windowsill, Pudge on the rug and Pebble on his perch. "shall have to relocate to the Rookery."
Part 5: coming soon...
a/n: Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out. Comments, reblogs and likes are appreciated! <3
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a/n: Comment if you'd like to be added to the series taglist.
Warnings: Smut, porn with some plot, Gwayne being a little pathetic, dom-ish reader, afab reader, fem!reader, kissing, penetration (P in V), unprotected sex, bathtub sex, cowgirl, dirty talk (just a little), some praise, a bit of begging, fluff, no use of y/n, not proofread.
Word count: 2.6K
Part 1 (the first one explains who the reader is but I think this can be read separately too)
a/n: the love i feel for him came as a complete surprise
You felt him before you saw him.
Your woods had always been quiet. The war had made them a bit less so, but still quiet enough for you to notice he was near almost immediately.
You craned your head toward where you heard footsteps, eyes scouring through the green for his strawberry locks. He was not hard to find, not with the way he was bumbling through the bushes.
The moment Gwayne's eyes fell on you, a wave of relief washed through him.
You looked the same as when he last saw you, though now you were accompanied by a raven who rested on your arm. He had not seen the animal when he was here last, but something told him that you had long been companions.
You raised your head softly in greeting, which caused him to give you a slight nod.
“My lady,” he muttered, a bit out of breath.
“I did not expect to see you, Ser.”
The raven crowed at him, but you were quick to shush it.
“Don't worry, dear. He's harmless.”
Gwayne could not tell if you were talking to him or to the bird.
“I thought you said you knew things.”
“I did,” you said, raising your arm, causing the raven to fly off into the night sky. “Till you came along.”
Gwayne's brows furrowed at your words.
“You cannot see what will happen?”
“In truth, I don't know if I ever did. Perhaps I just saw what was most likely to happen, and not what would be.”
Something passed over Gwayne's face. You noticed it instantly.
“My words grieve you,” you stated.
“Yes,” he confessed. “I may have made a mistake.”
You raised a brow at him, silently questioning.
“Might be best if I just show you.”
He turned looking back into the bushes he had come from. You tried to look for whatever he seemed to be searching for. It took you a moment, but then you saw it—a flash of orange between the green.
“It is alright,” Gwayne called softly. “She will not harm you.”
You watched as the orange shifted, inching closer and closer until a boy was revealed to you. He shied away from your watchful eyes, keeping his gaze on the ground as he moved. It was only when he was standing next to Gwayne that he dared look at you, and even then it was only for a brief moment.
They were related. You could tell almost immediately.
“This is my nephew, Daeron.”
Gwayne's words only confirmed your thoughts.
You made your way over to them slowly.
Daeron trembled like a leaf as you approached. For some reason, it pained you to see him so frightened. If he had been a man, you might have relished the reaction, but he was only a boy, and you would not harm him.
“No need to be frightened,” Gwayne whispered.
“Your uncle is right, boy. You need not fear me. I am—”
You paused, brows furrowing as you got close enough that, if you reached your hand out, you would be able to touch Daeron.
Gwayne glanced at you in confusion, not understanding your sudden hesitation.
“Dragon blood,” you whispered.
The little bit of color left on Daeron's face seemed to drain away at your words.
You could feel Gwayne tense for a moment, uncertainty filling him. His hand hovered at the hilt of his sword. He did not want to harm you, but he would do so if you put his nephew in danger.
Luckily, he didn't need to take such drastic measures.
Your face opened into a smile, the largest one Gwayne had ever seen you wear. You placed your hand up, shushing Daeron softly as he flinched. Once your palm came in contact with his chest, you let out a soft hum.
“Breathe, boy. 'Tis alright.”
Despite his wide eyes, Daeron did as you asked, taking a deep breath in. You nodded at him, closing your eyes. You stayed like that for a while, eyes closed, your palm pressed against Daeron's chest as he breathed.
“She is not with you, is she?”
“My lady?” Daeron breathed.
“Your dragon,” you whispered, your eyes still closed. “She is not with you.”
“We had to leave her. A dragon would—” Daeron faltered for a moment.
“Call too much attention,” Gwayne finished for him.
Your eyes snapped open, your head turning to look at Gwayne. He returned your gaze, causing a soft smirk to grace your lips.
“Shame,” you muttered, taking a step back.
You observed them for a second before turning on your heels and walking toward the house.
“I'll make dinner.”
Daeron and Gwayne watched your frame disappear into the house, both of them frozen in confusion for a moment before following you inside.
Gwayne sat at the table, his eyes unfocused as he stared at nothing. Absentmindedly, his finger traced the rim of the cup before him.
The soft padding of feet against stone caused him to snap out of his thoughts. He watched you as you returned from deeper in the house. You made your way to your worktable, barely sparing him a glance. Gwayne had become used to this behavior. He took your lack of attention toward him as an opportunity to observe you in silence.
“It took him a while to settle,” you finally spoke, still not turning to face Gwayne. “His heart was beating so fast in his chest, it was like treating an injured bird.”
Gwayne let out a soft sound at your comparison. It was a mix of agreement and amusement. You turned to face him then, leaning against your table for a moment before walking toward where he sat. Gwayne lifted his head to look at your face as you stood before him, his blue eyes tracing over your features.
You lifted your hand to his face, your fingers tracing softly over his skin. It took everything in him not to let out a sigh at your touch. Not to close his eyes and nuzzle into your soft hand.
“The bath is ready for you,” you whispered, your fingers still moving against his cheek.
Gwayne knew he did not need to say anything. The moment you took your hand from his face and returned to your table, he got up, making his way to the bath.
He sat in the warm water, trying to still his beating heart and rid himself of the thoughts of you that had suddenly seemed to plague his mind.
He was not startled by your presence this time. Unlike when he'd first been here, he now felt like he knew you. So when you stepped from behind the wall, he did not flinch. If anything, he sank deeper into the water.
Unconsciously, his eyes went to your hands, expecting you to be carrying some sort of elixir to place on his wounds as you had done before.
This time, however, you carried nothing with you.
Upon looking at you, Gwayne noticed you wore something he had never seen you in before. A robe of such deep blue it looked like the night sky itself.
“How is the water?” you asked as you walked closer to him.
“Warm,” he sighed, desperately trying to keep his voice level.
“Good,” you said.
And then, to his great surprise, your hand moved to the tie of your robe.
Gwayne's eyes widened as you dropped the piece of clothing to the ground, leaving you completely naked before him.
He should avert his eyes. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.
But something about your expression told him that you wanted him to look.
So he did.
His eyes traced over your skin with something that wasn't quite greed, but not entirely innocent either.
You walked up to the bathtub, your eyes never leaving his as you moved. You lifted your foot, motioning to get into the bath.
Gwayne's hand snapped up before he could even think about what he was doing. Your gaze flickered over to his extended palm, surprise flitting across your face for a second before you accepted his gesture, your hand moving to hold onto his as you stepped fully into the water.
Your hands remained intertwined as you sank into the water, your thighs moving against his as you settled onto his lap.
Gwayne shuddered as you sat, finally releasing your hand. You stared at each other in silence, the water splashing softly around your bodies.
Gwayne was flushed, his lips slightly parted as he waited for what you were going to do.
When your hand moved to his chest, your nails grazing his skin softly, he allowed himself to close his eyes, a breathy sigh escaping him without shame.
You smiled at the reaction, but Gwayne could not see it with his eyes closed.
You shifted slightly, your body grazing against him, causing him to let out a soft groan as his eyes snapped open.
You were so close to him now that he could feel your breath against his face.
His hand, which had been gripping the edge of the tub desperately, moved to your face, gently cupping your cheek. His eyes moved from yours to your lips, and, as if understanding his silent request, you inched closer, your lips slotting against his.
The softness of the kiss surprised him. He had grown so used to your distant behavior, to your short words and cold demeanor, that the warmth that seeped into his body as you kissed him had been most unexpected.
Unexpected, but not unwelcome.
His other hand moved to settle on your thigh, squeezing the skin softly as you deepened the kiss. He did not know if you did it on purpose or not, but your body rocked softly against his, making his breath hitch as you rubbed against his hardening cock.
But from the way he felt you smile against his lips, he realized it had been done on purpose.
His hand left your cheek, slipping beneath the water so he could grip your hip. He pushed you down slightly, and the soft breath you let out against his lips at the action made him feel like the luckiest man in all of Westeros.
You bit at his lip, tugging it as you began to rock your hips, his hands gripping onto your skin with such force you'd be surprised if you didn't bruise.
Gwayne called your name softly, causing you to lean back slightly so you could look at his face.
“Yes?” you breathed, never stopping your gyrating motions.
“May I—” he groaned, his eyes snapping shut as you hit a particularly sensitive spot. “I need to be inside you.”
“Oh?” you said, a teasing lilt to your voice.
“Please let me—ugh—I promise I'll—fuck...” His breath hitched as your nails dug into his chest, rougher this time.
“You'll what?” you teased.
“I'll make you feel good,” Gwayne managed through gritted teeth.
“Oh, is that so?”
You leaned forward, your tongue moving against his neck before your lips came close to his ear.
“A knight that knows how to fuck,” you whispered, your teeth nipping at his earlobe.
Gwayne groaned at your words, his hips jerking up almost involuntarily. The action caused you to let out a small moan despite yourself, and the sound had Gwayne practically whimpering.
“Is that what you want, Ser Gwayne? To fuck me?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “Please.”
“You're cute when you beg, Ser.”
“Fuck,” he groaned.
“Oh, do you like it when I use your title? Is that it?” you questioned.
Gwayne could not manage to speak, so he simply nodded enthusiastically. You hummed softly, smiling at his state.
“Go on then, Ser. Fuck me.”
That was all he needed.
Gwayne moved so quickly you were shocked there was still water left in the tub when he settled you into the position he wanted.
Your mouth opened in a slight moan as he entered you, the intrusion stealing the breath from your lungs. Gwayne was not much better off, his brows deeply furrowed as he breathed out a string of curses.
Once you finally grew accustomed to the feeling, he began to move, his hips lifting quickly into you. The water splashed around your bodies as you moved in tandem, both desperately chasing the pleasurable feeling of being together.
You were doing a good job at keeping quiet, breathy moans escaping you with every thrust of Gwayne's hips. The knight, however, was having a harder time. Your hand snapped up to cover his mouth as a particularly loud moan threatened to escape him.
“Shh,” you whispered. “Don't want to wake the young prince.”
The groan that slipped from Gwayne vibrated against your hand.
“You're close,” you stated, your free hand moving to rest on his chest to keep yourself steady.
Gwayne nodded against your palm, his brows furrowing deeper. You leaned forward, nipping and kissing at his throat, your body growing aware of your own closeness to cumming the more soft sounds escaped Gwayne.
You managed to make your way to the knight's ear, your nose pressing against his cheek as you whispered sweetly, “Let go, Ser.”
Gwayne's hips bucked one last time as pleasure washed through him. His teeth sank into one of your fingers, using it to muffle the sinful sounds that escaped him as he came. The pain mixed with the pleasure of him inside you, and before you knew it, your body was crashing into his as you let out a silent moan, your mouth wide as your eyes rolled to the back of your head.
The water was long cold, but it did not bother either of you. You sat between Gwayne's legs, your back pressed to his chest as you enjoyed his closeness. His hand moved up and down your arm, tracing shapes and letters against your wet skin.
For the first time you'd seen him, Gwayne seemed completely at ease. You'd be lying if the knowledge that you were the one who had put him in such a state didn't make your heart flutter with unexpected feelings.
Gwayne placed a kiss to your hairline. There was no need for him to do so, which made the action that much more meaningful.
“We'll have to do something about his hair,” you said suddenly, pulling Gwayne out of the blissful state he had found himself in.
He let out a deep sigh, the action echoing against your skin.
You turned your head to look at him, one of your hands moving to play with his hair.
“And yours, for that matter,” you whispered as your fingers toyed with his locks. “Though it is a shame. I quite like your hair as it is.”
Gwayne smiled at your words. His hand moved to yours, tugging it away from his hair and to his lips so he could place a tender kiss on the back of it.
“We will deal with all that another time,” Gwayne muttered, his lips still pressed against your skin. “After all, there are other things than the war.”
You let out an amused huff, recognizing your own words being echoed back to you.
“You are right, Ser,” you whispered, inching your face closer to his so you could place a chaste kiss upon his lips.
Gwayne hummed softly against your lips, and when you parted from him, your body moving back to its original position against his chest, he couldn't help but notice how you settled deeper into the water, relaxing against him.
Gwayne smiled, his arms moving to wrap around your waist beneath the water.
He would deal with it all tomorrow. Tonight, he wished to think only of you and the feeling of your skin pressed against his.
Warnings: none i think, mentions of wounds but no description, no use of y/n, fem!reader, not proofread
Word count: 2.4 K
a/n: I might do a part 2 for this, but I'm not sure yet. The reader character is heavily inspired by Alys' character (as if that wasn't obvious 🙃)
“What are you?”
You were used to the question. Many had asked the same thing before. But from their mouths, it had always been a question meant to put you down, not to understand. Not with him. He asked as if he was genuinely curious.
You turned to glance at him, eyes tracing over his muddied face and worse-for-wear armor.
“Eat,” you said, glancing at the bowl before him before turning back to the task you were occupying yourself with.
Gwayne glanced at the soup before him. At least, he believed it was soup. His stomach growled, his thoughts begging for the warm liquid, but something stopped him from eating.
“It isn't poisoned.”
Your words caused Gwayne's attention to snap up from the bowl. You hadn't turned to look at him, still busy with the plants or something of the sort. Even so, it was clear you had noticed his hesitation.
“You are starving. Eat.”
He glanced back at the bowl, brows furrowing as he tried to decide whether to trust you or not. You let out a huff, placing something down on the table and wiping your hands on your clothes before making your way to where he sat.
Gwayne's eyes followed you as you walked toward him, his body tensing as he anticipated the worst.
But then you did something he hadn't expected.
You leaned against the table, grabbing the spoon you had given him and using it to scoop some of the liquid into your mouth. Gwayne's brows furrowed deeper as he watched you swallow. You gazed at him, your eyes boring into his blue ones.
“There. Not poison, see? Now eat.”
Gwayne barely waited for you to turn around completely before scarfing down the meal before him. He couldn’t see it as your back was turned to him but a soft smile graced your face as you listened to him eat.
Once he had finished his soup, the last real meal he'd had in a while, Gwayne allowed himself to take in his surroundings.
The house was small, made of stone that had been so overtaken by plants that it was a miracle he had managed to spot it against the rest of the forest. He had expected it to be empty. The state of it was not fit for living, but he had been wrong.
You had watched him in silence for a while before finally speaking, and, quite honestly, scaring him so badly he thought his heart would fall out of his chest. He had raised his sword to you on instinct, eyes wide as he watched you move out from the shadows.
It was then that he realized you were a maiden.
The fear caused him to sheath his sword a bit more slowly than he would have liked, but you didn't seem to mind. You stared at the weapon as if it were nothing but a harmless piece of metal.
Gwayne's eyes moved over your robes, trying to assess if you wore any enemy colors. He had no luck there. Your garments seemed simple, and although they were dark, he could tell it was more of a navy than black.
He had no idea where he was. On his way to Tumbleton, he had been turned around by bandits and bounty hunters searching for Aemond. He had been separated from his men—what little there were left—and stumbled upon your home.
Gwayne's attention snapped back to you as he heard you set something down on the table before him. His eyes moved from you to the cup now sitting before him. Before you even told him to, his hand was moving to lift the cup to his lips.
The moment the liquid touched his tongue, his face soured. He let out a cough, a hand moving to drag over his face before he turned and tried to spit the liquid out.
Beside him, you let out an amused sound.
“What in the Seven!”
He gaped at you, expecting to see some sort of malice in your expression, but you just smiled at him.
“It's for the critters,” you said plainly, as if it were obvious.
Gwayne continued to gape at you, brows furrowing as he managed to cough out, “What critters?”
“You didn't think leeches were the only thing in that bog, did you?”
Gwayne thought of asking you how you knew he'd been trekking through the bog, but decided better of it. He glanced into the cup, his face contorting as he took in the pasty green liquid.
“It tastes dreadful.”
“It's meant to,” you stated simply. “It needn't taste good to be good for you.”
It was sound logic. Gwayne knew that. Many illnesses were tended to by maesters with concoctions that did not go down without a fight.
Still, he was unsure whether he should drink whatever this was. He did not know you. You wore no house colors and seemed to be living alone in the middle of the woods.
“If I wanted to harm you, I would have by now.”
You stood before your table, hands crossed over your chest.
Gwayne took a deep breath, his eyes glued to yours as he did. Then he grabbed the cup and chugged the liquid. It was no easy task. His body seemed to want to do everything it could to stop the liquid from going down, but eventually he managed. He set the cup down with more force than necessary, gasping for air.
“Nicely done.”
There was a teasing tone beneath your words, but Gwayne decided to ignore it. You took the cup from the table, swiping your finger against the rim to collect some of the leftover mixture before licking it clean. Gwayne grimaced at the action, and you couldn't help but grin.
“The bath's ready for you. But you best hurry. The water won't be warm much longer.”
Gwayne felt confused for what felt like the hundredth time since walking into your home. And as usual, you expressed nothing but mild amusement toward him.
“It's just behind that wall,” you said, nodding your head toward the corner as you busied yourself at your table once again.
The water was quite pleasant. You had been right when you said it would not be warm much longer. In fact, Gwayne had been sitting in it for so long that it was already getting cold. Still, he could not convince himself to get out. After so many arduous days, it felt good to just sit still for a while.
His eyes were closed, hands placed on the edge of the bathtub. He wasn't quite sure what did it, but all of a sudden he felt like he was no longer alone.
He opened his eyes and immediately found you.
He flinched, his body moving to try and cover himself up. You merely huffed a laugh at his desperation.
“Don't worry, it's nothing I haven't seen before.”
“You should not be here!”
“Oh, is that right? I should not be in my own home?”
“No, that's not what I—I only meant you—” He stopped himself. It was no use. You were right. This was your home. You had every right to do whatever you wanted, although he would have liked for you to give him a bit of privacy.
“I wasn't going to barge in on you. I have no interest in spying on vulnerable men,” you said with a smile.
“But seeing as you took so long, I started to worry that perhaps your wounds had been worse than I'd imagined.”
Gwayne felt oddly touched by your words. You had come to check on him because you thought perhaps he had died in your bathtub.
Now that you had seen he was still very much alive, Gwayne expected you to leave.
You did not.
In fact, you made your way closer to him. It was then he noticed you carried something with you. His eyes trailed after you as you made your way to the tub. The scent of crushed herbs became stronger as you came nearer.
And then you kneeled down, settling beside the tub.
You dipped your hand into the jar you had brought. Gwayne watched as you lifted your fingers to his skin, pausing only for a moment. He gazed into your eyes and found you already looking at his face.
“Just relax,” you whispered. “You can trust me, Ser.”
A million questions filled his mind, but he pushed them down once again, opting instead to take your advice.
You began covering his wounds with the strange paste you had brought with you. He would grimace every so often because of the sting it caused, but soon enough it was gone, replaced by a soothing coolness. As you worked, you hummed something that Gwayne did not recognize.
“You still haven't answered my question,” he said softly.
Your eyes moved from a wound to his face. For the first time, Gwayne allowed himself to look at you fully, his eyes moving over your features in careful exploration.
You were quite beautiful.
“I think you already know the answer.”
Gwayne nodded softly, his eyes never leaving yours.
“Well then, what am I, Ser?”
“A witch.”
You smiled.
“Something of the sort, yes.”
For the first time, Gwayne allowed himself to let out a soft laugh. The sound made your smile grow deeper.
“And you are a knight,” you stated.
“Yes.”
“But that is not all,” you continued. “A Hightower.”
“How did you—”
“The same way I knew you'd find me. The same way I knew to ready the stew and heat the water,” you whispered, “because I know things.”
He should be scared. Scared of your gifts and what you were capable of. But he couldn't find it in himself to be frightened of you. You were a beautiful maiden who had treated him with nothing but kindness.
You rose from your spot, suddenly causing Gwayne to tilt his head up to keep looking at you.
“I seem to have gotten them all,” you muttered, more to yourself than to him.
After a moment, you finally met his gaze.
“Once you are done there, there is a pair of trousers for you over there,” you said, pointing to a bench Gwayne had not noticed until now. “I do not have a shirt for you, I'm afraid, but the nights here are warm, so I doubt you would need one anyway.”
“My clothes—”
“Need washing,” you cut in. “They smell worse than you did.”
You did not give him a chance to react before turning on your heels and walking out of sight.
When Gwayne emerged from behind the wall, clad in trousers that fit well enough despite being a bit loose around the waist, he found you bent over your worktable once more.
On the table where he had sat before lay a bowl of stew.
Without a word, he crossed the room and sat.
You did not acknowledge him.
The only sounds were the crushing of herbs and the quiet scrape of his spoon against the bowl.
He could not remember the last time silence had felt... comfortable.
By the time he finished, you had already risen from your work. You approached only after he had set the empty bowl down. Your hand reached for it.
"Thank you."
The words left him before he had time to reconsider them.
For the first time since he'd met you, you simply looked at him.
Not amused.
Not knowing.
Just... surprised.
"There is a bed in the next room." You nodded toward the doorway. "It is not particularly comfortable. But I imagine you've slept in worse places."
He gave a small nod.
"Good night."
You had already turned away.
"...Good night."
It had been two days since Gwayne Hightower had stumbled upon your home. He had attempted to leave the morning after he arrived. You had looked up from your herbs and simply said,
"Not today."
He had asked why.
No explanation had followed.
Some part of him had wanted to argue. Another—one he did not fully understand—had listened.
So he stayed.
His wounds closed quicker than they should have. The bruises faded. His strength returned. He found himself growing accustomed to your company.
By the fourth morning, however, the guilt had become unbearable.
A war did not stop because one knight needed rest. He needed to get to Tumbleton. Needed to get to Daeron.
He tightened the straps of his armor, now cleaned and mended. His sword hung once more from his hip.
When he stepped toward the door, your voice stopped him.
"You should not go."
"I appreciate what you've done for me."
You said nothing.
"But there is a war being fought." His voice hardened. "I have duties."
You did not move.
"You truly should not go."
Something inside him snapped.
"Do you not understand?" He spread a hand toward the world beyond your door. "There is a war beyond these woods."
"King fights queen. Brothers kill brothers. Houses rise and fall. Men die," you stated, your eyes never leaving your book.
"You speak as though none of it matters," Gwayne muttered, slightly exasperated.
A soft laugh escaped you.
Not mocking.
Merely... amused.
"It is curious," you whispered, your hand moving to grab another pile of herbs. "How easily you nobles convince yourselves that your world is the only one that exists."
Gwayne frowned.
"I have lived in these woods for years."
You finally glanced toward the trees beyond the doorway.
"Kings have come and gone. Banners have risen and fallen into the mud."
You looked back at him.
"Even so, the forest did not change. The rivers did not change. The birds continued to sing."
Your eyes settled on his.
"The world is much larger than your war, Ser."
Silence stretched between you.
"If you wish to leave..." You focused back on your book. "I will not stop you. But I would advise against it."
Gwayne hesitated. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword. Every instinct born from the last four days told him to listen. To trust you. But duty had ruled his life long before he'd wandered into these woods.
"Thank you," he whispered before stepping out into the woods.
You lingered at your table for a moment before making your way to the doorway. You watched his back move deeper into the woods until you could no longer tell the green of his clothes from the green of the leaves.
You stared at the woods long after he was gone, waiting for something to come to you.
But there was nothing.
There was only fog.
As though fate itself refused to tell you where Ser Gwayne Hightower's road would end.
summary: when your marriage to gwayne hightower can't produce the heir you need, you decide to strike a bargain with his cousin ormund instead, by convincing him that breeding you is holy work instead of sin. (9k)
characters: ormund hightower / fem!reader, gwayne hightower / wife!reader, very brief mentions of gwayne hightower / criston cole, daeron targaryen
contents: arranged marriage/lavender marriage, slow burn, enemies to lovers, infidelity, found family core, gay!gwayne, canon divergent, heavily inspired by scenes from game of thrones season 2 cw for manipulation, religious manipulation, smut 18+ (MDNI) unprotected sex, breeding kink, slightly dubcon
gif creds: pissbataille
You’d learned long ago that conviction was the true secret to any good performance. A thing done halfheartedly will always betray itself, but a thing done boldly enough is never questioned. This is the prophecy you’re sent to Oldtown with — a girl of a half-forgotten house, wed to one of the wealthiest in Westeros, for no better reason than to smooth a debt your father was owed. You’d learned the skill of performance quite well; long before you declared your vows at the Starry Sept in a dress of Hightower green and gold.
You were the dutiful daughter, the biddable bride, the docile wife — roles you played to perfection.
Your performance is not yet done when the heavy door groans shut on its hinges behind you, sealing you into the bedchamber with your new lord husband — whom you’ve only ever met between council meetings and crowded feasts. Beyond the candlelit walls, the wedding celebration rolls on with you — the drone of a hundred conversations, a burst of drunken song, a sea wave crashing cliffside.
All day, you’ve been a thing to be gawked at; to be dressed and undressed and dressed again; to be led down a sept of Hightower banners like livestock bought and sold. But now there is only the candlelight, and the sighing sea, and Gwayne Hightower watching you with an expression you can’t quite place.
“You look… beautiful,” is the first thing he thinks to say; and there is no air of performance in the words at all. Whatever else could be said of him, Gwayne Hightower has never been a cruel man — and, as he sees it, it would be far too cruel a thing to begin a marriage with a lie. “Perhaps I’m a bit partial on the matter, but… Hightower green does suit you, my lady.”
He flashes you a kind smile over his shoulder beneath the glugging of the dark violet ale he pours into a jeweled chalice. It sounds much louder in the quiet, along with that of your slippers whispering against the cobbles as you walk further into the unfamiliar chambers — the place you’ll likely spend the rest of your days, like a vast and gilded tomb.
“Thank you, my lord,” you say with a smile as your hands reach for the gold tie at your waist. It unlaces with one soft pull, and your fingers head next for the button keeping you wrapped in the emerald fabric. “Though… I must say… I think it looks much better like this—”
The gown pools to your feet with a soft thud, leaving you suddenly bare above the waist before him. A thin silver chain sits across your belly, holding your pale underskirt in place around your hips. The dancing firelight kisses through the thin fabric to reveal the shape of your body underneath it — the curve of your inner thighs, and the shadow of hair just between them.
“—Don’t you?” you wonder, eyes widening in a faux-innocent sort of look.
Gwayne’s chest rises with a slow inhale as his pale eyes move slowly over the sight of you — not with desire, perhaps, but with reverence. The quiet appreciation a man might have for a fine piece of art, to be admired at from a careful distance.
“Well…” the man hums lowly, lips curling upward into an unsure smile. He abandons the untouched goblet on the table behind him and closes the remaining distance between you, lest you see the uncertainty hidden in his eyes. “You certainly do not need it, my lady…”
His pale hands are cold when they smooth around your waist, just above the thin chain of your underskirt; fingers long and calloused from decades of swordwork. You tip your chin back to meet the man halfway when he ducks softly down to kiss you.
His pink mouth is soft and plush against yours, tasting of wine and mint and the honeyed remains of dinner.
When your hands reach for his broad shoulders, you can feel the tension coiled in his muscles as he attempts to summon a hunger all men should surely possess for a woman like you. You feel the trying within him without having to search for it — you’d been patient with men your whole life, been told of what your mouth did to them before you were old enough to truly understand the words, and how little urging men typically required for you to do so.
Though it seems to require a great deal more of that urging here now.
You kiss him deeper, licking into his parted mouth in a way that has made every man before him surrender to his knees. Gwayne exhales a heavy sigh through his nose, breath fanning warm along your cupid’s bow as his hands grip tighter at the plush of your waist. You let yours slide down the front of his emerald coat until they reach the leather of his belt. You cup him gently there just below, expecting to find him some of the way hard, but find him soft under the trousers instead.
Gwayne pulls off your mouth with a soft smack. His panted breaths fan across your cheek as he rests his forehead against yours. “Forgive me…” he laughs breathlessly, tongue darting to lick your spit from his mouth. “Must be the wine…”
Your mouth curls upward into a sympathetic smile. “Shall I fetch Ser Criston?”
Gwayne goes rigid against you in a blink. Horror floods his pale blue eyes and wrinkles the pale skin between his brows. “…What?”
“Perhaps he could join us— I truly wouldn’t mind,” you tell him, peering at the man with eyes wide in earnest when he steps back from you. “He could help you get started until you’re—”
His chest shudders through a trembling breath as the heat of humiliation prickles beneath his skin like burning embers. “I— I don’t know what you’re talking about...”
Gwayne turns away from you completely then. He puts the entire breadth of the chamber between you as he makes way for the balcony, inhaling deeply to drag the starry, summer night air into his tightening lungs. You watch him go as a cold feeling surges through your chest; not quite anger, and not quite hurt. You slip back into the crumpled wedding gown with a heavy sigh, fastening the emerald fabric closed once more.
“We are husband and wife now— There is no need for us to play games here,” you remind him, tying the gold lace around your hips as you step onto the balcony with him. The silken breeze ripples in your skirts as the whole of Oldtown stretches before you in flickering torchlight and salty air. Your hand settles gently over his spine, and he tenses beneath the soft weight of your tenderness on instinct. “Save that energy for the rest of court, my lord— You’re going to need it.”
Gwayne turns slowly to face you. His blue eyes have gone a paler shade from the unshed tears hiding in the very backs of them, glittering gold in the firelight. You meet his look of uncertainty with a surer smile.
“I don’t care if you want men and women equally, or if you prefer the company of men alone,” you mutter lowly with your head bowed close, words meant for his ears alone. “We can try again later, however you’d like— with a friend present, perhaps, if that eases things. Whatever you want. But for my sake, it must be done.”
The shadow of his adam’s apple bobs in his throat through a thick swallow. “And if I cannot?” he whispers on bated breath, light eyes swimming as they dart back and forth between yours. “Do it at all, I mean?”
Your smile does not waver in the face of his doubt. You simply shake your head at him in return. Your hand drifts up his spine until your fingers thread in the short auburn hair at the nape of his neck.
“Before you took me in, my lord, I came from a far lesser house. Where bread was counted— actually counted, so that my brothers might eat their fill and I might learn to want less… I had a father who reminded me daily what I cost to feed and clothe and keep unmarried. I wore gowns made out of scraps from my brother’s clothes before I came here,” you confess through a teary sort of laugh. “I know what it means to manage hard things, my lord. And I know there is always a way through them, if only you’re clever enough to find it.”
Gwayne’s furrowed features loosen into a look of kinship and distant admiration. Whatever grievance he’d carried onto this balcony moments ago seems to slip from his tense shoulders entirely. As the quiet swells between you, the crowd below notices your presence on the balcony above. They call up at the two of you like barking hounds — all of them hungry for a story they might tell their children one day, of the night they watched a girl from nowhere marry among the richest and most handsome in Westeros, like a fairytale come to life.
“Smile, Ser Gwayne,” you lilt with an artificial grin of your own. You hold onto his arm with one hand while your other lifts to wave at the crowd gathering in the city below. “They’ve waited for this part all day…”
Gwayne inhales a deeper breath; one that comes more easily to him this time. His smile seems to sit more effortlessly on his mouth, too, right before he ducks softly down to kiss you once more. Distant applause rings through the starry night when your lips meet — though there is little desire in it now, at least, not the kind the townsfolk below surely imagine there must be.
There is only relief. The quiet alleviation of a burden finally being laid to rest; the final bow before the curtain is drawn.
The Hightower was a city built atop itself. Dungeons beneath kitchens, kitchens beneath halls, halls beneath solars, and solars beneath beacon fire that never died out. You feel more like a ghost haunting the torchlit halls than a bride of three weeks past wandering the passages of her own home.
You slip into the kitchens on the whim of a sleepless night and come away with a square of honeyed lemon cake the cooks keep in stock specifically for you. A small theft, you think, as you take graceless bites on the walk back to your room — letting the sponge scatter in dry crumbs along the chest of your pale nightgown.
You’re three turns away from your chambers when you round another twisted corner and run directly into Lord Ormund Hightower — Gwayne’s eldest cousin of a few years or more, who stands a few inches or more taller in comparison too. He smells perpetually of the lavender-sandalwood incense from the silver pomander chained to his belt; still dressed for the day despite the late hour, with his doublet buttoned to the throat. His short dark-auburn curls are slightly mussed as though he’d been raking his hand through them, suggesting a quiet worry somewhere inside of him that he otherwise keeps hidden.
“My lady…” the man greets in a low melodic voice, and with a polite smile that shows mostly in the deepening creases beside his eyes.
With half of the cake still wadded in your cheek, you give the man a wordless look in return. One you’ve perfected over weeks of these exact encounters — a practiced, cynical, not-quite glare that makes you look half-dead behind the eyes.
You, to put it plainly, did not care for Ormund Hightower. Gwayne had told you once, in the short way he often spoke of his cousin, that the man had a cruel streak he hid under all that piety. “He’s worn the mask of righteousness for so long…” he’d whispered under his breath, at a particularly unforgiving feast. “It isn’t any wonder how it fooled the man wearing it.”
And you believed your husband, for he had never once given you reason not to.
So it was rather dreadfully unfortunate that Ormund is, by any honest measure, an extraordinarily handsome man. More unfortunate still is how exceedingly difficult it has proved to hate such a handsome man — even as he falls into step beside you down the dimly lit corridor without invitation. Though his long legs match your even pace with an ease that irritates you more than it probably should.
“Sweets? At this hour?” he squints, nodding toward the nearly finished cake still pinched between your fingers. He flashes you a curt grin when you give him no immediate response in turn. “Though it makes sense, I suppose— that a thing as sweet as you would so often crave for them…”
You pluck the rest into your mouth with an unyielding glare. “I am perfectly capable of finding my own room, Ser Ormund,” you tell him, swiping your palms together as you swallow down the mouthful. “There is certainly no need to trouble yourself escorting me—”
“Your room?” he echoes, brows lowering until a deeper shadow is cast over his pale eyes in the dying torchlight. “Not our room?”
He flashes you a playfully confused look that you meet with nothing at all, features as still and as pleasant as smooth waters — a tentative expression you’ve grown to wear like armor, in these restless weeks at court.
“Is that because my cousin snores too loudly, my lady?” Ormund pries at your silence. “Or do you just have a taste for solitude?”
“I do enjoy a bit of time to myself, yes…” you answer lightly with a single nod, arms folding neatly at the base of your spine. “Though I’m sure the concept must seem foreign to a man as desperate for company as you seem to be.”
“Well— desperate is a strong word,” he laughs somewhat bitterly, not missing the hidden insult in your words. “I am simply curious, my lady. Three weeks married and I have yet to hear so much as a whisper of your wedding night. Usually, there is some talk, as you know— between handmaidens, septas, and the like… And yet, there has been no word… Almost as if there were nothing to speak of…”
You keep your eyes forward and your pace steady, even when you feel Ormund’s pale eyes searing into your profile. “You seem quite interested in my marriage, Lord Ormund,” you quip lightly.
“Your marriage is quite interesting,” Ormund chuckles. “Not only to me, of course, but to the realm… It isn’t every day a lady of so small a house weds into one so great… That sort of thing always breeds interest… if nothing else.”
You turn slowly to face him, eyes narrowing with a feigned curiosity. “You’ve never married, have you, my lord?”
He falters briefly at the sudden question. The corners of his smug grin flicker slightly at the edges, as his adam’s apple bounces through a slow swallow. “No,” he answers finally and clears his throat. “I have been… unlucky in my affections, unfortunately.”
You nod to yourself and slow to a stop just outside your chamber door. Your nightgown whispers at your ankles when you turn to look at him properly for the first time since you collided in the corridor. You trade your usual glare for an artificially sweet expression — a softness where there had only been steel, a warmth where there had only been bitter cold. An expression you learned how to counterfeit over the years, though it seems to come a bit easier to you now.
You spot the exact moment he notices how differently you look upon him. The fleeting furrow of his brows; the way his gaze drops for half a second to your mouth before he catches himself again; the way his nostrils flare faintly, as though he cannot help but breathe you in. He can smell the bathing oils clinging to your skin and the floral perfume threaded in your hair from the proximity between you.
“That is unfortunate,” you murmur gently, stepping close enough towards him that it forces him to look down at you rather than past you. “Though perhaps it’s for the best— the whole notion of marriage seems to confuse you, so allow me to explain it.”
Ormund’s gaze hardens in a flicker. The dancing shadows from the dimming torchlight catch the clenching of his jaw as his ringed fingers curl into loose fists at his sides. But even still, your pretty smile never wavers.
“Your cousin is my husband by law— sealed by septon and signature and the whole weight of your family’s name behind it, so… Whatever we prefer in the privacy of our own chambers is no business of yours. Nor the realm’s. Nor anyone’s but his and mine,” you tell him with a polite grin despite the hidden venom in your words. “A woman does not require her husband’s appetite to match her own in order to be his wife, does she?”
“I feel The Seven would disagree with you, I’m afraid,” Ormund hums lowly, with the same artificially sweet tone threaded through his words. “The Father charges the husband to provide, and the Mother to nurture what is provided… The Faith is quite clear on what a dutiful marriage is for, my lady— And it is not... natural for a bride to remain a maiden three weeks past her wedding.”
The smile you give him then verges on sympathetic.
“You assume a great deal, my lord, about what you state you think I remain in,” you mutter quietly, and watch the weight of your words — the ambiguity within them — settle across his chiseled face. You tilt your head to your shoulder and drop your voice into a gentler tone. “But since you are obviously so fond of quoting scripture, perhaps you’ll recall what the Mother teaches of mercy— that even a sinner's body may yet serve a holy purpose, so long as the intention behind it is pure."
The words strike him harder than a whip across the spine. He tips his shaven chin upward, peering down at your faux-innocent stare from the bridge of his nose.
You can see him wrapping his head around it all: a woman sinful enough to have known men before her husband, yet still somehow pious enough to wield the scripture like a sword of her own. It is unlike any expression you’ve seen from him before — a mixture of both fluster and acclaim. Your stomach twists with the sheer excitement of having put it there at all.
“Good night, Lord Ormund,” you say with a smile before slipping through the heavy door of your chambers. You shut it behind you with a soft click before he can think of the words to respond, and don’t spare a single look back at him before abandoning him in the empty corridor.
The bed you share on rare occasion with your husband is a wide, absurdly ornate thing — carved with Hightower lighthouses and shrouded by heavy velvet curtains designed to conceal the indecencies of the marriage bed; though there would be no indecencies to hide here. It was Gwayne’s room alone most nights, and on the few you actually shared it, it held nothing more scandalous between you than idle talk and innocent touches of fleeting affection.
You share one silken cushion between each other now, with your arms tucked beneath your heads and your breaths entwining on every exhale. Your legs tangle subconsciously together under the blankets like school children sharing a bed — the sort of closeness that meant nothing and expected even less.
“Do you know what Lady Merrell asked me today?” you mutter aloud into the silent bedroom, filled only by the crackling hearthfire and your shared breaths.
Gwayne exhales hard through his nose in place of a laugh; the tip of it almost brushes the bridge of yours as he shakes his auburn head against the pillow. “I hesitate to pry…”
“She wanted to know whether I’d seen the maester about my courses,” you deadpan. “Very delicately, of course— as if she weren’t truly asking about whether or not I was capable of bearing children at all.”
Gwayne’s brows furrow. “And what did you tell her?”
“That my blood was a matter between myself, my maester, and the fucking Seven— and that she was more than welcome to bother the other two for further detail, should her curiosity prove so desperate…” you scoff and roll onto your back. Your tired eyes trace the painted stars on the ceiling, where the gold leaf flakes slightly around the edges from time gone by. “Yesterday it was Lady Woodwright, the day before that it was your father… We’re six moons married, Gwayne, and no belly to show for it— The whispers will only get worse from here.”
“Aye… I imagine they will,” Gwayne huffs distantly, jaw flexing through a thick swallow. His soft eyes trace the outline of your profile, made weary from the long day and the particular mercilessness of court. “What about Ser Adrian?” he offers suddenly. “He’s been rather obvious about his admiration for you as of late… I daresay he’d be a rather— willing participant, should a thing be asked of him.”
Your head turns slowly until your cheek brushes the silk cushion below. Your brows lower as your eyes search his face for any hint of uncertainty or sarcasm, and find only sincerity swimming in his pale blue eyes instead.
Your lips curl into an amused smile. “Are you offering to lend out your wife like a common whore, dear husband?”
He scoffs. “Of course not! I’m only saying that you have options, is all. If only you’re clever enough to find them— isn’t that what you said?” Gwayne quips with a sly smile, eyes narrowing in a playful look. “Though, I confess, I don’t much care for the idea of Ser Adrian’s hands on you at all… I’ve known the fool too long; and I know too well where they’ve been…”
You exhale a quiet laugh. “Careful, my lord. I’ll start to think you’re jealous…”
“I’m only trying to be efficient, dear wife,” he quips, lifting his fingers to muss idly at the lace frills along the chest of your nightgown. He goes quiet for a long moment thereafter, gaze going distant in thought before he mutters suddenly aloud. “…What about Ormund?”
Your eyes narrow. “What about Ormund?”
“He’d certainly be the best match, wouldn’t he?” Gwayne shrugs. “He’s unmarried. And of mine own blood— Close enough in kin that whatever child came of it would surely favor the Hightower look, regardless of the getting…”
You keep your face carefully arranged into a look of mild surprise, as if the man’s name had not already been living in the back of your head for weeks now already.
You hadn’t expected Gwayne to arrive at the conclusion on his own, to be sure — you had assumed you would need to steer him slowly there, the way you had steered so many men to so many unconscious decisions before now. You had been circling Ormund for weeks, carefully cultivating a rivalry with just enough fire behind it to keep it warm for later use; though you hadn’t been entirely sure what that use would look like until now.
“That wouldn’t trouble you?” you mutter softly.
Gwayne considers for a long moment before shaking his head against the pillow, auburn tendrils set aflame beneath the emerald silk below.
“No,” he answers, pink lips jutting softly. “I only very much doubt we could manage it… He is not so easily led as other men, my cousin. He’s like to think it a mortal sin twice over— adultery and deceiving his own blood besides… I’d only worry that his piety, if that’s what he so wishes to call it, isn’t like to bend for something as simple as a pretty face. Even yours.”
He smiles tiredly and lifts his hand to pinch your chin between his thumb and forefinger. The slow smile you give him in turn borders on devilish in an instant. “Leave that part to me, dear husband.”
You lay awake long after Gwayne’s breathing had evened beside you, mapping out every possible avenue of subterfuge available to you. All men were similar in their own ways; they each had specific buttons to press or levers to pull that brought them down to their knees without trying — there was an air of gentle submission in all of them, should you know where to look. And Ormund’s, you figured, lay somewhere in his conviction, which he used as a sword most days. Or a shield.
There was no use in arguing a seemingly pious man out of his faith, you realized, but there was every bit of it in arguing him into believing his faith required precisely what you needed from him.
So you find the man the following afternoon, where you know he takes his lunches in solitude on the balcony overlooking the eastern gardens. The air smells of washed linens strung to dry on the balustrade down below and the perfumed scent of lemon trees planted in a long line across the lawn. A warm breeze blows in from a cloudless blue sky, and Ormund smells you before he sees you — the sweet, musky concoction of bathing oils he’s come to associate with you alone.
He glances up from his plate of sliced bread, soft cheese, and ripe figs a half second before you turn the corner. He stills at the sight of you with his fork and knife still in hand — it was a rare sight, really, you coming to meet him on your own. Rarer still is the forlorn look etched upon your features now, that you try hopelessly to hide.
“My lady…” Ormund hums lowly, equal parts confused and delighted as he jokes, “To what do I owe the interruption of my solitude?”
“I wasn’t aware solitude required your permission to be interrupted, my lord,” you quip in response, eyes narrowing in his direction as you walk further onto the sun-bleached stone. The sharp smile you give him in turn is heavy with a sadness you do not entirely feel but let show regardless. “I believe you taught me that one, actually.”
Ormund swallows down his mouthful. The humor drains slowly from his chiseled features at the strange sound of your voice, having seemingly lost all the bite he’s come to cherish. “You are troubled,” he says to himself, neither a question nor a firm statement.
You scoff as though to dismiss him, hands folding over the back of your rustling skirts. “I’m perfectly well. Thank you for noticing.”
“You are not,” Ormund insists with a shake of his head and gestures with his cutlery for emphasis. “Your comebacks want for their usual bite, I’m afraid. And you only argue with me when you’re in proper spirits— I’ve come to look forward to it, really, so… something must surely be amiss.
You let your averted gaze drift slowly from the greenery of the garden to his attentive eyes. You peer at the man from beneath your lashes, letting your composure crack just slightly — just enough to allow him to believe that he’s the only man in the entire realm perceptive enough to have noticed it.
You let your sheepish smile waver at the edges as you assure him with a shake of your head, “It’s nothing that concerns you, my lord. I assure you—”
“Everything at Oldtown concerns me,” he scoffs as though the statement were as obvious as any other. “Curse of the tower, I’m afraid…”
He sets his silver cutlery to his plate with two quiet clinks and gestures to the seat across from him. “Sit,” he tells you. “Tell me what’s soured you, sweet girl.”
The nickname is not a rare one from his lips, though it strikes you warm somewhere deep in the chest as though it were the first time you’ve ever heard it. You inhale sharply through your nose, ribs straining slightly against your corset, and close the remaining distance between you. Ormund gives you the whole of his attention as you smooth down your skirts and descend into the opposite seat — the same unwavering devotion you imagine he must give to his prayers.
“It’s only the throes of marriage, I suppose,” you attempt to joke, though the humor dies somewhere in your heavy exhale halfway. Your gaze turns back to the garden below instead. “Your cousin, he… He still hasn’t…”
“Touched you?” Ormund finishes when you trail off, with very little reservation in comparison. He scoffs in amusement to himself and cuts into his fig without looking up. “Of that I’m well aware. My cousin has always lacked the appetite for finer things, my lady… But it isn’t a failing of the meal, I assure you.”
You flash him a weak smile in return.
“I have tried... so hard to be patient with him… It’s what the Crone teaches, isn’t it? That wisdom is only ever earned in the waiting?” you tell him, hands twisting into a knot in your lap. “But I fear that I am running out of time here before the whole court decides that I am either— barren or unwanted, and either way I am ruined for it… I will have no house to run back to if this fails, Ormund— No one wants a spoiled bride.”
“Come now, my lady,” the man croons with a teasing grin. “A rich husband who asks nothing of you in bed would sound like a mercy to most wives—”
The quip dies in his throat when you reach across the round table between you, grasping at the hem of his coat with pleading hands. Yours are smaller compared to his larger, sun-kissed ones. His knuckles are rough against the delicate skin of your palms as you hold him gently there.
“I have nothing, Ormund, but this marriage,” you tell him, voice trembling. “And it is— slipping through my hands no matter how tightly I hold onto it.
Ormund tenses at the sudden contact, pale gaze flitting from your fingers caging his wrist to the teary look in your eye. “What is it you’re asking of me?” he wonders lowly.
“Nothing,” you chuckle with a teary laugh. “I guess I have simply no one else to speak to here… I try to talk to the Gods, but… The skies have not yet answered me, and I… I figured that— no one speaks for Them as well as you do… I suppose I’m only asking for a little guidance, is all…”
Ormund’s chiseled features loosen slightly, as though pleased by the words — by the obvious compliment woven inside of them. His adam’s apple bounces through a swallow as his chin tilts slightly with pride. His hand turns slowly beneath yours, until his larger, warmer fingers engulf your own.
“Guidance I can offer,” he assures you gently, with a sincere smile pulling at the corners of his plush pink mouth. “You should not go without simply because your husband cannot provide.”
The words strike you deep in the chest.
“I only wondered whether—” you continue, letting a small stammer catch in your tiny voice as your gaze turns to your entwined hands. “Whether you believed the Seven would truly begrudge a woman a child. When the only alternative is her ruin… Whether mercy might permit what… what duty would otherwise forbid.”
A flicker of fleeting confusion furrows at Ormund’s strong brow. His eyes narrow briefly when the weight of your words finally hits him — of what you seem to be asking so suddenly of him. He inhales slowly and shifts in the cushion seat below, but never once lets go of your hands.
“Do you… Are you asking— if I…” He swallows hard, eyes glancing over your shoulder as if to check for any wandering passersby that might hear him. “If I might give you a child?”
You meet his squinted gaze with a pair of heavy, teary ones. “No one would have to know…” you whisper to him, half-choked by a manufactured emotion. “I would be in your debt forever. Gwayne, more so, perhaps— A debt I assure you will be paid in full, however you see fit.”
He falters briefly at your words, broad chest inflating with an inhale he forgets to let go. It is a rather beautiful thing to witness, you realize — to watch a man of conviction search the seams of his faith for a fault inside it; one that may warrant an answer he so desperately wants to provide.
His calloused hands squeeze gently at your fingers, and you think for a moment you have him.
“…I cannot,” he answers finally, and then clears his throat when the words nearly strangle him. He swallows and pulls back from you again, spine tensing straight in his chair. His hands ache with the urge to hold yours the moment he lets you go, but he curls them into fists instead. “It is not— holy, what you’re asking of me. Whatever mercy might excuse. And whatever animosity exists between my cousin and myself… And whatever— feelings I might have for you.”
When his eyes lift from his half-gone plate to your pleading gaze, you let the silence sit between you for a long moment. You let him feel the full weight of having disappointed you — let the tears gathering like dew upon your lashes strangle him like two fists around his throat before blinking them away again.
You flash him a wavering smile in turn. “Of course,” you nod, drawing further away from him with a deliberate hesitance. “I should not have asked it of you. Forgive me, my lord, I— I shouldn’t have come at all.”
You rise suddenly from your seat, and Ormund follows quickly in suit. He tries desperately to catch your eyes when you turn away from him, and feels a deep panging in his chest when he fails.
“I am sorry I cannot help you more, my lady,” he calls after your retreating figure, and only catches himself in his palpable desperation when you pause in the doorway. You spare him a weary glance over your shoulder — and fight back your own pleasure at the wounded look on his face.
“I only hope the Seven prove half so forgiving, my lord,” you smile weakly and leave him there with his forgotten meal, letting his faith and conscience wrestle with one another in the unforgiving silence you leave behind.
Ormund finds himself at the gallery window more often than he would admit to in the days that follow.
It’s an idle habit, he tells himself — that this window simply happened to overlook the yard, and that the yard simply happened to hold you most afternoons, laughing over a cyvasse board with his nephew. You and Daeron had seemingly taken to each other with a strange sort of ease; two people planted in Oldtown soil by different hands and tasked to grow there the best you could on your own even still.
Ormund tells himself he’s watching the boy, just as he has always watched the boy, though not even his conscience can convince himself of such a glaring half-truth.
“She’d make a fine mother, wouldn’t she?” Gwayne’s low voice comes suddenly from just behind him.
Ormund’s head whips to the side to find his cousin crossing the dim hall towards him, silent on the approach when he joins him at the stony sill. The younger man’s arms fold over his long emerald coat as he scans the bustling yard below — an instinctive fondness softens his features at the sight of you that Ormund struggles to make sense of.
“Yes…” the older man sighs and turns away, looking down at the yard from the bridge of his nose. “If only the Gods had given her a husband capable of making her one…”
“Bold words there, cousin, from a man with no heirs and no marriage yet to speak of,” Gwayne croons with a low laugh, flashing his cousin a narrow-eyed look. “Stones, glass houses— isn’t that what your beloved scripture says?”
Ormund nods. “Aye… The scripture also says a man should attend the beam in his own eye before troubling himself with the mote in his brother’s,” he argues smoothly back with a squinted look of his own. “Strange, isn’t it? How convenient scripture can be?”
“Mm…” Gwayne hums and turns back to the window. From down below, he vaguely hears you fling a theatrical accusation of cheating at Daeron, who argues the offense through a fit of boyish laughter — the sort of laugh he rarely allows himself with Ormund around. Gwayne watches the exchange with a proud sort of smile as he wonders suddenly aloud, “Do you remember that game we used to play when we were boys? Where we’d race each other to the top of the beacon?”
“Run the Tower?” Ormund answers. “Yes, I recall quite a many number of triumphs where that’s concerned.”
“Aye. Because I let you win,” Gwayne confesses through a faint laugh. “I reckon there was no game any of us played as children that was not arranged for your victory, cousin. You were a thin-skinned twat even then.”
Ormund’s mouth curls into a slow smile, despite the fury prickling like embers in the pit of his chest. Gwayne can see the withheld rage squinting at the edges of the older man’s pale eyes, which, of course, is the exact response he’d been attempting to goad him towards.
“Well... How fortunate for me, then,” the man croons, resting his elbows on the edge of the stony sill. “That I still seem to be winning. And this time without your help at all, it would seem…”
“Yes…” Gwayne sighs heavily through his nose, gaze turning to the open window. “For once, you might be capable of doing something that I cannot. I’d have thought you’d quite like to hold something like that over my head, to be true… And honestly, I think you’d rather enjoy it, if you let yourself.”
It’s far different, Ormund finds, to hear the words fall from Gwayne’s mouth instead of yours. It fills him with a different sort of pride that he can feel swelling in his chest just now; a victory well-earned.
“So it’s true, then?” Ormund presses and turns to face his cousin fully, with amusement glowing in his chiseled features. “You want me… to fuck your wife… because you aren’t man enough to do it yourself?”
Gwayne shrugs with jutted lips to feign an air of apathy, though he cannot deny that the words pierce him somewhere deep. “In so many words, I suppose—”
“No,” Ormund snaps, pale eyes freezing over. “Say it.”
Gwayne licks his lips and tips his chin back. His adam’s apple bounces slowly in his throat through a hard swallow as he chokes on the humiliation crawling up his chest. “I want you to fuck my wife,” Gwayne says evenly, though it takes a world of strength in him not to flinch away from the words. “Because I am not man enough to do it myself.”
Ormund softens with warmth a moment later. His smug smile returns as he gives him a satisfied nod. “Well, since you asked so prettily, dear cousin,” he croons, patting Gwayne a little rougher than necessary on the shoulder as he walks by him, without another word shared between them.
Gwayne watches him go with his jaw clenched tight. His tense limbs relax through a slow breath through his nose. When he turns back to the window, he finds your eyes already lifted from the cyvasse ahead of you. A silent current seems to pass between the two of you as you speak without words — your brows raise in question, Gwayne’s chin lifts with a small nod to answer it, before he walks off from the window entirely.
You return to your game, and to the pleasant afternoon which has grown much heavier with a reckoning you know is waiting for you when the sun goes down.
You’re washing the long day from your skin when night falls over the Beacon. Swirls of steam rise from the soapy water, adding to the growing humidity in the room, and smelling of the rich, musky oils you’d had Gwayne deliver from the maester’s quarters — amber, jasmine, and vanilla straight from Dorne — a most sensual concoction, especially for men with keen noses.
“Your mind is a wonder, dear wife. Truly,” Gwayne had laughed as he watched you drop equal amounts of each liquid into the bath. “God, I would put a baby in you myself right now if I could.”
“High praise there, husband…” you crooned, tapping at the vial of rich vanilla.
“And I mean it as the highest compliment I can offer,” he grinned.
Your body still glimmers with the remnants of the perfumed oil worked into your skin when you rise from the bath. The knock that arrives at your door in that moment is nearly lost in the water trickling from your body in shimmering rivulets — three slow raps from a slow but firm hand; soft but still slightly impatient, as though the sheer courtesy to knock took more strength than required.
You step out onto the cold cobbles below and reach for the thin robe hanging just beside the tub. “Come,” you call into the quiet as you slide your arms into the sleeves with a deliberate leisure. The heavy door creaks open across the room; Ormund passes the threshold and gets a brief flash of your bare skin — the curve of your shoulder, the line of your back, the edge of your hip — right before you tug the pale silk over your shoulders.
He falters a step as he shuts the door behind him, and clears his throat into his fist when he feels half-strangled by the sight.
“I-I hope I’m not… interrupting,” he says in lieu of a greeting. It takes a great deal of strength from him, he finds, to keep your stare when you turn to look at him over your shoulder — as the ivory fabric clings to the wet spots of your freshly bathed body.
He can still smell it in the air — the rich, vanilla spice. He can nearly taste it on his tongue, something delicious enough to devour. His jaw tightens through a hard swallow as he chokes down the instinct watering over his tongue just now.
“Of course not,” you grin as you tie the thin sash of your robe. The frilly fabric rushes at your ankles when you turn to face him fully. “To what do I owe the… what was it you said? ‘The interruption of my solitude?’”
Ormund huffs a faint laugh, though it comes out a bit more artificial than he intended. “I’ve just… been thinking…” he starts slowly. “About our… previous conversation.”
“Have you?” you lilt, utterly unreadable. You reach for the towel hanging over the bath and drag the nettles across the exposed skin of your damp chest. “I thought the matter already settled, my lord. You made your feelings on it quite clear, if I recall.”
“Aye, I thought so, too—” Ormund nods, though the words catch in his throat when you bend at the waist to run the towel over your dripping legs, reaching beneath the slit of your thin robe. The plush of your breasts peek out over the low neckline, glittering with oils and kissed warm by the bath. He has to remind himself to breathe.
“And yet I find I have thought of little else since… If you truly believed what you said— if the Seven would truly call something a mercy and not a sin, if it were to save someone from their own ruin…”
You rise slowly to full height again, eyeing the man from across the room. He arrived here as though to collect some sort of debt, some sort of winning, but stands now before you asking for permission to believe what he presumes was his own doing.
“I believe…” you start slowly, bare feet padding along the cobbles as you close the distance between you like a predator to prey. “That a man like you would not have knocked on my door unless you had already searched the answer within yourself, and found something there worth trusting.”
Ormund tips his chin with a slow inhale through his nose, as though your words have smoothed out something taut within him.
“If you have to come to this conclusion on your own, entirely through your own faith, then… How could this be anything but right?” you wonder aloud with a meek shrug, curling the pale towel against your chest. “Surely, the Gods would not have sent you here if it were wrong.”
“Mm…” Ormund hums, pink mouth lifting into a soft grin as though it were meant to be a laugh. “I told myself as much the entire way here, but… I suppose I didn’t truly believe it until you said it back to me.”
You flash him a kind smile in return. “I suppose even the most pious of men need something physical to believe in… Something they can hold in their own two hands and know for certain a thing is true.”
Ormund’s body leans into your words, as if instinctively taking them as an invitation to hold you. He balls his hands into fists instead, trying to will himself into believing that this was an act of the Gods and not his own desires towards you. He steps past you, headed for the flagon of wine on the table beside the balcony doors.
“The scripture tells us that a man’s faith is only as good as what he’s willing to do with it,” he tells you, beneath the faint glugging of ale as he pours himself a goblet. “That words alone matter naught. That the gods judge us by what we build with our hands, not merely with what we believe in our hearts.”
His eyes catch the tub as he brings the goblet to his mouth, warm water soaking with oil and soap and remnants of filth from the day. He imagines tasting it instead of the wine that pools in his mouth, which he very nearly chokes on when your hand splays suddenly across the shoulder of his emerald coat.
“Then build me something,” you say, you plead. “Give me something the gods themselves have not, in all my prayers and patience. Give me a child, Ormund. It is the godliest thing a man can do.”
Ormund sets the goblet down and turns fully to face you. His mouth glimmers with the remnants of wine not yet licked away. You lift the towel to his chin and dab the nettles across the plush of his mouth in a slow, deliberate touch that Ormund leans hopelessly into. He turns his head and buries his nose into the towel, inhaling the scent of you upon it — the rich musk, the earthy soap, the raw smell of your skin from where you dragged the fabric between your legs moments ago.
His eyes flutter shut as his broad chest inflates with a slow breath. When they open again, the pale blue of them is aflame with an emotion you haven’t quite seen from him before.
“Tell me to leave,” he says, as though to give you one more way out before the point of no return. “And I assure you I will.”
You shake your head. “I will not,” you answer, breath catching at the flicker of desire that passes over Ormund’s features a second later.
“Then get on the bed,” he commands in a low voice. “And take off your clothes…”
Your eyes glaze over as your body submits instinctively to his order. You walk slowly to the bed, dropping the towel on the floor as your hands work at the tie in your robe. You slide the thin fabric from your shoulders and let it pool at your feet, leaving the expanse of your glimmering body on display for him.
Ormund tips his chin back as he watches you climb onto the lush mattress, donned with Hightower green and gold — colors which his children will wear when you bear them for him, he thinks distantly to himself, and feels pride swell in his chest accordingly.
He goes to take another sip of wine, but stops short when you mean to plant yourself on your hands and knees by the pillows. “On your back,” he calls into the quiet, then smiles at the quietly shocked look you give him over your shoulder in return. “I will look upon your face when I put a babe inside of you.”
His words wrap around your throat and strangle you as you twist yourself upon the blankets. Your naked chest heaves with wanting breaths while you watch the man approach you. He lingers at the foot of the bed, working deliberately at the buttons of his coat and then the tie of his tunic underneath it. He lays them both neatly along the edge of the bed and smiles when your thighs squeeze together in anticipation.
“Tell me, sweet thing…” Ormund says, peering at you from the bridge of his nose as he tugs at the tie of his trousers. “Have you let a man fuck you before now?”
You shake your head with your bottom lip caged between your teeth, to conceal the vividity of the smile pulling at the corners of them. “Man would be too strong a word for who I’ve let touch me, I’m afraid.”
His bare chest, toned from years of knighthood, inflates with a slow breath of pride — the affirmation that he was going to be the first man to touch you the way you needed, the first man who deserved to.
He clicks his tongue against his teeth. “Good answer,” he deadpans and shoves his pants to his ankles. His cock hangs heavy between his scruffy thighs, favoring the left one as it twitches stiff, untouched.
He’s not quite as long as Gwayne’s, of which you’ve seen on the rare occasion you’ve tried and failed to make children of your own, but he is quite a deal thicker. The thought of taking his girth alone makes your drooling cunt clench around nothing as Ormund climbs slowly abed, mattress dipping beneath his hands and knees. His body is lean and warm as it ascends on top of yours; you long to be crushed beneath the weight of him when he props himself upon his muscular forearm.
His free hand caresses you with a softness you didn’t think possible before now. His calloused palm smooths gently over your jaw until the edges of his fingers thread in your hair. He tips your chin up with the pad of his thumb.
“I do hope they’ll have your eyes. Our children,” Ormund hums on bated breath.
A delirious grin lifts the edge of your mouth as you reach for his shaven jaw. “You mean my children?” you quip, sliding your finger within the short curls gathered at the nape of his neck.
“No…” Ormund shakes his head with a breathy chuckle. “I mean mine.”
Your smile flickers faintly when his hand leaves your cheek to slide between your bodies. He gathers his hard cock in his fist and slots the weeping tip between the velvety folds of your pussy. Your breath hitches at the feeling of him; your hips twitch despite yourself. Ormund laughs through a groan in his chest.
“Whatever the court believes... Whatever anyone else calls them…” he continues lowly, wetting himself with your slick. “It’ll be my blood running through them… Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Us being the only people in the world who know the truth of our children?”
He meets your weary look with a soft, lopsided smile.
“Yes…” Ormund hums to himself, answering his own question as his head tips to the side to smear a kiss to your palm. “Gods, you will look heavenly with my children growing inside of you.”
He pierces you slowly then. You feel his bulbous tip pressing into your cunt, and the meandering veins of his cock as he slides further in. A distant stinging blooms within you when he mounts you fully — your strangled whine is swallowed by his guttural groan as he leans down over you again. Your back arches into his chest, and he feels your stiff nipples graze his skin. His broad nose smushes into the side of yours, lips brushing in a not-quite kiss.
“Forgive me,” he pants against your mouth. “I— I should’ve started with my fingers first, I know, but I— I couldn’t wait— Dreamt of you too long for that… And my fist only works so well, I’m afraid…”
“Just fuck me,” you plead into the candlelit room, when the distant ache in the pit of your stomach ebbs into a warmer, fuller feeling. Your thighs squeeze at either side of his waist, hips bucking in a quiet desperation.
Ormund pulls just far enough away to smile lazily down at you, eyes glassy and glittering.
“As you wish,” he mutters and rolls his hips back, until only the tip of his cock is caged within your clenching confines. He waits until you whimper at the cold, empty feeling before pressing back into you again — to the very hilt, with the coarse thatch of trimmed hair above his cock nestled just against your sensitive clit.
He finds a steady rhythm thereafter, the slow drag followed by the firm push. The bedroom fills with the sound of it — the crackling candlelight, the creaking bedframe, the slapping of skin, the sounds of entwining pleasure.
Your legs wrap around his lean waist, preventing him from pulling too far out, though your hips continue bucking wildly against his — as if you were both chasing and running from the unwavering pressure on your clit simultaneously.
“I know… I know, sweet girl,” Ormund coos half-muffled into your neck, then inhales a lungful of sweet musk and sex clinging to the air. “No one’s ever fucked you this good before, have they?”
You answer him with a strangled whine and nails that dig crescent shapes into the skin of his broad shoulders.
“You don’t even know what to do with yourself, do you? Look at you— twitching underneath me,” he teases with a drunken chuckle. “You just can’t wait for my cum, can you? Can’t wait for me to paint that cunt with my seed— To give you my child?”
“Yes,” you whine, nodding your wild head against the pillow beneath you. “Please cum in me— I need it so bad, Ormund, please—”
He falters instantly at your words — at the very image of your submission beneath him, which before now, only ever existed inside his head. He buckles hopelessly down over you, losing all his rhythm as your pussy clenches around his twitching cock. “Gods—” he spits as he hides his face into your neck again.
One hand curls into a fist beside your head while his other grips the plush of your thigh to keep you spread open for him. You hear a whimper sound in the pit of his throat when your weeping cunt clenches around him.
“Put a baby inside me,” you plead in a high voice, mouth brushing the shell of his ear. “Let me carry your legacy, Ormund, please— Cum inside of me.”
“Fuck—” His voice breaks halfway through as he tenses on top of you, suddenly and without warning.
You hear him hold his breath for a long moment and then release it with a grumbled moan as a warm feeling blooms in the pit of your stomach. He groans, hips jerking through every rope he spits into your pulsing cunt. You cum around him at the feeling of it alone. Your hands grasp hopelessly at his back as your body twitches underneath his larger one.
“That’s it…” you hear him praise through gritted teeth, fighting his own sensitivity while you milk his softening cock. “There you go, sweet girl… Take it… That’s it…”
Your bodies are slow to relax from the remnants of your entwining orgasms. His bare, sweat-slick one sticks with yours — melting together in the blooming heat of the room. Your stomach is full with a mixture of gratitude, and dread, and his cum seeping slowly out of you. And with his body pressed so ardently against yours, you couldn’t run from any of it if you tried.
“…Do you think it took?” Ormund wonders aloud when he finally finds the breath to speak again, lips smearing across your thrumming pulse.
“Yes…” you sigh through heavy breaths, hands drifting down the sweaty expanse of his spine. “If the Gods are willing…”
You feel him breathe out a faint chuckle in response, right before he pulls finally out of your neck. His chiseled face is flushed red with sex. His eyes are lidded and glassy; his mouth rosy and swollen as it curls into a smug grin.
“If the Gods are willing, sweet girl, they’d allow me at least a few more nights of this before they gave you my child,” he hums and ducks down as if to kiss you. Your mouth parts for his on instinct, though he only nudges the bridge of your nose with the tip of his instead. A teasing, knowing grin spreads across his mouth accordingly.
“But… when They do…” he starts slowly, warm breath fanning across your mouth with every word. “I do intend to know my children… Whatever anyone else is told… Do you understand?”
A sick feeling twists in the pit of your stomach, where his cum is still warm in your depths, and you nod.
Summary: Sent to Oldtown as Ormund’s ward, you expected nothing more than lessons, duty, and his protection. What you didn’t expect was the man beneath his pious reputation, or the way his feelings for you would blur every boundary between lord and ward.
Pairing: Guardian! Ormund x Ward! Rhaenyra’s Daughter! reader
WC: 11.3k
(this is a darker fic in some aspects, please read the warnings!)
Warnings: 18+, manipulation, non- canon and a few things are changed, heavy religious themes, dead dove do not eat: slight mentions of dub-con, possessive behavior, threats, arguments, council drama, mentions of previous deaths, mentions of physical punishment, reader rides vermithor, rough handling, stockholm syndrome, guilt, toxic guardian/ ward relationship, misogyny, mentions of violence, complex dynamics, age gap.
"You're late." Ormund spoke, his hands clasped behind his back and a displeased look on his face.
You curtsied, walking closer to him. The echo of your boots bouncing off the wall of the sept.
"I am sorry, my lord. I did not intend to—"
"It does not matter what you intended, darling. You were late and lateness is not tolerated."
Your eyes were fixed on the floor, your green gown shifting against your body.
"Yes.. yes, I apologize. Please forgive me."
He stepped forward, bringing his fingers to your face— lifiting your chin so that your eyes could meet his.
"I forgive you, It would be wrong for me not to."
You nodded, still holding your breath and waiting foe the other shoe to drop.
"Thank you." You mumbled.
He gave a half smile, moving his fingers away from your face.
"Do not do it again. It is unbecoming of you and me as your guardian. Punctuality is important to me and to the very gods that you've come to pray to this morning. Sloth behavior is a sin, a sin that I will not tolerate."
"I understand, my lord."
He nodded and usehered you to the altar.
Both of you knelt at the altar, the candles and candlelight overtaking it. You brought your palms together, glancing into the flames.
Ormund glanced at you, his eyes raking over your appearance, the thing that he had the most control over. He stared at you often, his face unreadable— but deep down you knew that it was disdain. You knew that your your silver hair, violet eyes, your formidable dragon, your vulgar tongue—all of it angered him. An anger that was boundless and grew by the day.
Just as you were about to begin you your prayer, Ormund leaned closer to you— his lips near your ear.
"You will be punished for your lateness."
You felt your stomach drop at his words, a chill running down your spine.
He wasted not a moment longer as he began his prayer. A prayer that you knew all too well and had practically memorized word for word. He asked for strength in the brewing war, for understanding, for patience while being your guardian, for forgiveness in his sins.
You however stared off into the distance again, a tear running down your cheek. You always prayed for different things, some things within your grasp and others not. That morning, you prayed for love— the one thing that you wanted so badly and could never reach.
You wanted a husband or even a betrothed like your siblings would have. You wanted to be like the other noblewomen around the realm, singing praises about their husband. You wanted it so badly and Ormund constantly denied you of it.
Ormund always finished his prayers before you did, leaving you in the sept with the two knights that were tasked with watching your every move, Ser Bronn and Ser Humfrey.
The cool air in the sept crept up your skin, the sadness flowing through your veins like an aged wine. You did nothing to deserve the fate of being forced to live in Oldtown, seperated away from your mother and siblings for most of your life.
It was truly an accident, you didn't mean to hurt Aemond on purpose. You only wanted to defend Jace, but your grandsire saw this as a necessary course of action.
It was an accident that you had been paying for ever since, an accident that would rob you of any joy that you could've had.
When you first came to Oldtown, all of it was unfamiliar to you. Your mother had never forced the faith onto you, it was at your discretion whether or not you'd follow them. She gave you a choice, the one thing that you would not have under Ormund.
After praying in the sept, you went back to your chambers— waiting to break your fast at the usual time. You sat at the at the seat near the window, looking out into the distance— thinking of home and what you had missed. Being under Ormund's thumb meant that you did not receive messages from them often, if you did, they were read by him beforehand to make sure that they were suitable for you to read.
He did not want you ingesting more of their heretic words or ideolgies, you were already too far in when you came to him and he had to fix you. He had to make you better, show you that what you knew was wrong and improper.
Living in Oldtown was like a beautiful, specially crafted cage that was wrapped in gold. The bars would have just enough of an opening that you could imagine being free, you could feel the freedom on your fingertips and the fresh air against your skin. You watched as everyone walked around your cage with a smile, their smiles often making you forget about the cage altogether. It was when the night would settle in and you'd want to spread your wings, when you'd realize that you were still in a cage. A rare bird that lived in a beautiful gold cage.
Fed, bathed, loved, but punished when you would chirp too loudly and grab the attention of the people around you. Always reminded that you were just merely a bird, his bird, his pet.
Despite your grievances, you did not hate him. You should've, you should've hated every fiber of his being— but some part of you found him to be the closest thing to your home. He protected you from yourself, from unruly men, unsuitable marriage proposals, from sin, from your incestous ways. He was your guardian and he had your best interest in mind, at least that's what you'd tell yourself.
You repeated those words over and over again, "He is protecting you."
"It's for your own good."
That was why he'd have your feet or hands whipped when you were caught misbehaving, when he'd make you sit in the tub and scrub your skin raw if he thought that you had sinned, make the maester check your sex to see if you'd betrayed him, hurl vile insults at you when you overstepped.
It was love and his protection, just as he'd said.
You were an uruly girl, made with tainted blood and in vile sin. You needed his guidance or you'd be doomed like the rest of your family.
Your food was brought to you on a tray, set on the table near the chair. You glanced over it, bowing your head before indulging.
"Mother above, I ask you for mercy in this war. Not for me, but my family. I ask that you keep them safe and whole in the pursuit for my mother's throne. I ask for mercy, because they might not and I know that they will need it. Warrior, I ask that you give my father and brothers strength in battle. I ask that you guide them to victory." You whispered to yourself.
"Your mother's throne?" A voice questioned.
Your head snapped the direction of the voice, your heart stilling in your chest.
"Forgive me.. my lord. I did not hear you come in." You stammered.
He stood across the room from you, his eyes fixed on you.
"The throne does not belong to your mother, which you know. The true king and rightful heir is your uncle, Aegon."
"Grandsire named my mother his heir, he defended it publicly and privately." You replied softly.
Ormund nodded, his head slightly tilted.
"Stand up."
You stood up, your palms sweaty and your heart racing in your chest like a rabbit.
He walked closer to you, his steps slow and calculated. He stood in front of you with his hands clasped, the pomander swinging at his hip.
"Your mother is a treasonous bitch, along with the rogue fraud that she is married to."
Your face twitched instinctively, his words wriggling under your skin like a worm in soil. He knew how much his disparaging remarks about your mother bothered you, yet he still made them. Perhaps, it was because they were true and you needed to hear them, or because he was cruel. Somedays it was hard to tell.
You kept your eyes on the wall instead of looking at him, because if they looked at him then he might see how your eyes had become glassy and that would be troubling. It would be troubling for your guardian to see you crying over the people who opposed the rightful heir, crying over the people that had you living in sin.
"You've been served a delicious meal by the servants here in the home of your guardian, yet you waste a prayer on those traitors. Why? Do you still not understand their actions and the gravity of this war?"
"I do understand, my lord." You replied.
"Look at me." He commanded.
Your eyes slowly shifted from the wall, glancing over his frame as he stood in front of you.
"Why would you pray for traitors to the realm?"
You hesitated, your mind racing for an answer.
"I prayed for them.. because in the eyes of the seven there is no person that cannot be prayed for. No one is perfect, which means that all of us sin and have sinned. In the eyes of the seven there is no such thing as treason or a rightful heir, just people who have strayed and should pray. No one is above being prayed for and this war is the will of men, not the gods."
Ormund smirked, stepping closer— bringing his hand to your face. You leaned into his touch, his hands holding your face as if it had always belonged there.
He began to grip your chin.
"Do you like disappointing me?"
Your eyes stared into his, "no, my lord."
"Do not let me hear you saying prayers for those bastards again. It is beneath me and you.. you are an extension of me."
"Yes.. my lord."
Ormund smiled, letting go of your chin and placing a kiss to your forehead.
"Good girl—"
"Now, eat your food before it gets cold. I would not want it going to waste."
Ormund walked to the door, leaving you standing there— the door shutting with a thud behind him.
A bird trapped in a beautiful cage.
Instead of eating, you sat back down in your seat. You tried so hard to fight back tears, but they came out anyway. It felt hard to breathe, your fingers gripping the fabric of your deep green gown. You wanted to tear it, feel it rip between your fingers. Higtower green, the colors of the people that betrayed your mother and stole her throne.
The gown felt tight against your skin, constricting your movements. The pins in your hair dug into your scalp, pinning up your silver locks up to make you fit the look of a proper noblewoman in Oldtown. The seven pointed star rested against your chest, the necklace rubbing against your skin. Every part of you was precisely picked and constructed by him. You were his and the worst part was that some part of you liked it.
You liked him and the control that he had over you, because control was all that you knew. It was a cage, but it was your cage and it could've been worse.
You wiped the tears that painted your cheeks and began to pick at the food on the tray, most of your appetite being lost after his visit.
While you sat in your chambers an emotional mess, Ormund was in his solar continuing a conversation with Gwayne.
"I'm glad that you have cleaned yourself up and began to settle in here." Ormund mentioned, blowing out the candle in front of him.
The smell of citrus and sandalwood drifted through the air.
Gwayne sat in the chair, his hands in his lap as he stared around the room. His eyes took notice of the tidiness in the room, how everything had a specific place, how everything was nothing less than perfect.
"Yes, it was nice to get a warm bath." Gwayne nodded in agreement.
"How is Daeron?"
Ormund leaned back in his chair, "he is fine. He's learning the fundamental importance of his new role as king."
"King?" Gwayne questioned, his brows furrowing.
"Yes, king. Aegon is dead and it seems as if Aemond is too, or he's willfully abdicated. Which means that it would be him that is next in line. He must be prepared."
"Rhaenyra sits the throne." Gwayne reminded him.
Ormund scoffed, "the bitch with dragons? that will not last long and it is being handled as we speak."
"She will not abdicate, you are setting him up for failure."
"She will, if her own people are starving and cannot trust her. There are still plenty that do not support her and that will be used to help us." Ormund protested.
"What of my sister? My nieces?"
Ormund's lip twitched at his questions. There were two things that Ormund could not stand, rotten smells and people who questioned his decisions. A lack of faith made his skin burn hot.
"You are full of questions it seems. Perhaps, it would've been wise for you to stay with Cole and finish out what you were tasked with."
Gwayne tilted his head, his face filled with confusion.
"Cole was on a suicide mission. He has no intention of coming back at all from battle, he intends to die in this war even when it is not necessary."
Ormund's brow raised, "do you suppose that you will get your nephew on the throne without bloodshed?—"
"It might be a bit too late for that sentiment."
Gwayne gritted his teeth, shaking his head in disbelief. It felt as if everyone around him had lost their senses, no one was interested in listening to his reason.
"What of the girl?"
Ormund sat up in his chair at the mention of you, his facial expression changing within an instant.
"What of her?"
"If this half-baked plan of scaring Rhaenyra from the throne does not work, what then? Her and Daemon will come for their child, Gods help us when they do." Gwayne noted.
"What makes you so sure that she will want to go with either of them? She has spent years here in Oldtown with me as her guardian, both her and Daeron growing up under my wing. They have been cared for and taught the proper things."
Gwayne hung his head in defeat, "that is her mother, Ormund! Do not be a fool and let your feelings for her cloud your judgement. She is not your wife and she's not required to stay at your side."
Ormund's brows furrowed, the lines on his forehead deepening as he leaned closer to his desk.
"What is that supposed to mean? She is my ward."
Gwayne chuckled, bringing his eyes to Ormund's.
"I have been here merely three days and I have heard the whispers. I will spare you the indignation of asking whether the two of you have been intimate, but she goes beyond being your ward—"
"I beg your fucking pardon?" Ormund interrupted.
"Whispers of you sharing a bed with her on some occasions, bathing her or with her, dressing her in some of your late wife's gowns. It is wrong."
"Those are vile insinuations." Ormund Argued.
Gwayne laughed bitterly, "insinuations are they?"
"You come here to Oldtown with your tail tucked after abandoning your men, yet you want to lecture me on my ability to be a guardian to my wards? This pursuit of the throne is for our blood and yet, you are too craven to see it through. It is a disgrace, you are a disgrace." Ormund spat, his patience thinning.
Gwayne nodded his head, listening to his words.
"As you say, cousin. I just hope that she is not truly aware of what has happened in this war thus far or you shall have an even bigger war to fight."
Ormund shrugged, "she is only aware of what I tell her and the same goes for Daeron."
"How do you suppose that he can be king, if you only tell him small tidbits of information?" Gwayne pried.
"He does not need to know everything at this moment, only what is necessary. I cannot guarantee that he will not share certain pieces of information with her as they are close. We need them on our side, that gives us two extra dragons."
"You truly believe that she'd get on dragonback and fight her own blood, kill them if need be?"
Ormund smirked, "you have far too little faith."
"Or maybe I have seen enough." Gwayne countered.
There was a silence that lingered between the two of them, not that they were at a loss for words— but there was truly nothing more to say. It was clear that Ormund had his mind made up and was not going to budge on the ideas that he's constructed in his mind.
"I must attend to something else, but I will talk to you more during supper." Gwayne spoke as he stood up from his chair.
"Very well." Ormund replied, watching Gwayne leave his solar.
Once Gwayne left the room, he could feel the anger brewing inside him. How dare he question him about you? about what he does for you? About his efforts in this war?
Ormund yelled, knocking everything off his desk and onto the floor in a bit of rage.
Once you had finished your food, you spent time with your septa as you tended to your studies.
That day, Septa Lyra had you working on needlework. Septa Lyra was nice, but you found needlework to be fatally dull. You would've rather spent your time reading or sneaking off to see your dragon, Vermithor.
Ormund had Vermithor chained as soon as you arrived, but not before he burned three dragon keepers. You pleaded for him to keep him free, because he would not like it— but you were scolded and chastised for your feelings regarding it.
Ormund hates dragons, he hates feeling inferior to them, and he hates knowing just how powerless he is because of them.
"Pay attention to what you are doing, you don't want to poke yourself." Septa Lyra spoke.
You adjusted how you held your needle and snapped back into the moment.
"Apologies." You mumbled.
She glanced at you, placing down her fabric in her lap.
"What has gotten into you today, child? You've barely spoken, not even a snide remark about your disdain for needlework."
You kept your focus on the fabric, guiding the needle through it—poking your finger to take your mind off of him.
"I was late to meet Lord Ormund in the sept for prayer this morning and then, he caught me praying for my mother and family in this war. He was not pleased."
The sound of the bells tolling clouded your mind for a small moment, reminding you that it would soon be time for you to pray again.
"Hmm.. Lord Ormund can be strict about people's commentary on this war. It has everyone worried, wondering what shall come the next day. I don't think that you should be too hard on yourself about a prayer."
You brought your eyes to hers, "he said that it was wrong of me to pray for them. I want them safe, but I don't want him harmed either. I just do not like being in the middle of this."
Septa Lyra's facial expression softened, reaching her hand for yours.
"Lord Ormund might be in charge here, but he cannot control what you pray for as that is yours and your relationship with the gods. He might find it to be in poor taste, but that is merely his own opinion."
"But, he was right. It is ungrateful of me, he has been too kind and good to me."
She sat back in her chair as she gave a half smile, one that didn't reach her eyes all the way.
A look of pity for Ormund's caged bird.
You began working the needle into the fabric again, your mind thinking of him. Thinking of things that weren't appropriate. He was your guardian, but why did he make you feel weak? Why did he make you want to be close to him, in his bed with his lips on yours?
Your skin felt warm, the memories flooding your mind.
For the rest of the time that you were in the prescence of Septa Lyra, you were quiet. You had hoped that being quiet would've changed the thoughts that consumed your mind, but it didn't. He consumed you, plagued your mind.
Once the time with Septa Lyra came to an end, you said your goodbyes and made your way to the sept for prayer. As Ormund wished, you visted the sept twice a day to pray and prove your devotion. In his mind, if he kept you busy with prayer then that meant less time for you to sin and cave into your innate herectic desires.
You walked to the sept, your stray hairs blowing in the wind with Ser Bronn and Ser Humfrey behind you. During your walk, you saw Gwayne— his eyes lingering on you for only a moment before he averted his gaze. He seemed like he was afraid to look at you, like he'd been ordered not to.
Your guards were merely one step behind you, almost on your heels— walking you to the doors of the sept as they stood outside of it. You weren't able to say anything to Gwayne, but even then you doubted that he would've held a conversation with you. You knew that Ormund would've forbid it.
At that hour, the sept was almost empty as most came to pray in the early hours of the morning or later in the afternoon before supper.
The sound of your boots clicking against the floor consumed the sound of the faint prayers that could be heard from the two nearby septa's.
You knelt at the altar, lighting a candle and pressing your palms together. With a bowed head and closed eyes, you began whispering your prayer in high valyrian— something that Ormund would never allow.
"Please, Mother above, I beg that you grant me peace. I cannot carry the burden of these feelings any longer, they fill my body and linger within me. Lord Ormund is my guardian, he is not mine to have and yet some part of me craves him. I think unsavory things, even after his punishments.."
"I am a rotten girl, a girl who does not deserve him and his leniency. Please, take away this feeling. I don't want to sin, I don't want to disappoint him. I want to be good, I want to be proud and I cannot be that with those thoughts." You begged silently, tears flowing down your cheeks.
Praying normally didn't bring you to tears, but that day it did. It brought out something in you that you had refused to admit for years.
After prayer, you went back to your chambers. You had hoped for a nap before supper as you had nothing else to fill your time.
You took your boots off and walked back over to the window to glance out, when you saw it or rather, them. Two large shadows flew over Oldtown, they looked to be Caraxes and Sunfyre. It was clearly a message being sent to Ormund, something meant to rattle him.
They hadn't forgotten about you, something that had brought you more hope than you had ever experinced. One day soon you could be leaving your cage. You could finally be free.
Even though you had thought about it plenty, you truly had no idea what it would mean to be away from him. Would you be happy? Would you miss him? Would you regret it? Would you mourn him, if he died?
You shook your head, stopping the questions as they entered your mind. You'd be lost without him, because who would teach you the proper things? Punish you when you were being a rotten girl?
The sound of panic and chaos could be heard from below with the dragons startling everyone, you even heard roaring from Vermithor and Tessarion. People rushed into their homes and knights cleared through the alleyway's.
You sat there, wondering if they'd fly over again.
The sun had dipped low in the sky as you sat in the window seat, blissfully unaware and deep into your accidental nap. It was the sound of a servant entering your chambers that startled you awake.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, my lady. I've come to prepare your chambers for the night." The woman spoke softly.
Your eyes fluttered open, a yawn escaping your lips.
"I can return in a few minutes, if necessary?"
You stood up, "no, that will not be necessary. I did not intend to fall asleep anyhow."
The woman came in and lit the fire in the fireplace.
You noticed that you still had his book on your desk, the book that you borrowed to advance your knowledge. It was supposed to have been returned, but it had slipped your mind. You grabbed the book, immediately rushing to bring it to his chambers, Ser Humfrey and Ser Bronn following in tow.
The shilouette of your dress moved along the wall as you passed the lit sconces. Servants gave half smiles and quick nods as they passed you.
It didn't take long before you reached his doors—the tall, heavy, oak doors with two knights standing outside of it.
"My lady, I do not think Lord Ormund wishes to be bothered at this moment." Jon Roxton spoke, standing on the left side of the doors.
"I came to bring something that belonged to him, that is all. It shall only take a moment." You mentioned.
All of them shared a look, both of them sliding out of your way. You rose your hand with a bit of dread, lightly knocking against the door.
"You may enter." Ormund called out.
You opened the door, shutting it behind you with a loud click.
His chambers smelled of a hint of vanilla with a deep wood smell, a smell that you knew all too well. The fireplace crackling with a small fire.
You turned to face him, holding the book in your hand— when you realized that he was in the middle of bathing.
"Oh.. I am sorry for the interruption, my lord." You stammered.
He gave a troublesome smile, the kind that made knots form in your belly.
"It is not interrupting if I told you to come in. To what do I owe the visit, sweetling? —"
"Supper will be happening here shortly."
Your eyes lingered on the tapestries in his room.
"Look at me, I will not tell you to do so again." He commanded harshly.
Your eyes darted to him, staring at him in the tub as the steam curled around him. He looked even better when he was relaxing and undone. He looked like a piece of art, the kind that takes years to paint, the paintings that you can't look at for too long without getting lost in them.
"I still had your book in my room and I had forgotten to bring it to you, my lord."
"Ah, you seem rather forgetful today. Forgetting when to arrive at the sept for prayer, forgetting who you should be praying for, and now my book."
Your palms began to sweat as you held the book, standing there in front of his judgement.
"I apologize.. forgive me. I don't know what has gotten into me. I will not make habit of such behaviors."
He motioned for you to set the book on the nearby table, which you did with a quickness. You didn't want to upset him more than you had nor did you want to remain in his chambers.
You curtsied and began to walk back towards the doors.
"I didn’t dismiss you, did I?"
Your fingers dug into your palm, your tongue poking your cheek. Just a few more steps and then you would've been out of his room, instead you found yourself scared for what could come next. Out of respect, you turned to face him.
"You did not, my lord."
He stood up in the tub, the water falling off of his body as he stepped out. Your heart stilled in your chest, your eyes immediately finding the floor as he stood bare in front of you.
"I see that on top of not remembering, we must also have issues with listening?" He questioned.
You immediately knew that he was referring to you keeping your eyes on him. You slowly brought your eyes over him and his body, every inch of it. It wasn't your first time seeing him bare, but it was wrong. He wasn't yours to admire.
He put his green robe on, tying the fabric in the front and keeping his eyes on you the entire time. Neither of you spoke as you were at a loss for words, trying to fight the image of his length in your mind.
His footsteps pattered against the rug as he walked over to his desk, opening one of his drawers.
"Come here."
You blinked hard and gulped even harder, a pit in your stomach.
"My lord?"
"Do not.. make me repeat myself, girl." He gritted.
You slowly walked over to his desk, standing in front of it— trying to see what he had in his hand.
"Hands on the desk, palms up." He instructed.
Your lips started to quiver, tears threatening to fall from your eyes.
"Please, Ormund. I am sorry."
He laughed, walking around the desk with a small, black whip in his hands. It was the same one that he had used for punishment before. The same one that he had Jon Roxton use on your feet when you were caught sneaking to the kitchens with Daeron late at night.
He hovered over you, his body just barely touching yours as he leaned in to whisper in your ear.
"Sorry is not good enough."
You closed your eyes, your cheeks already wet from tears as Ormund walked away from you.
The whip hit your left palm first, a cry escaping you.
"Make no mistake, I take no joy in punishing you and making you cry. You must learn to listen and be obedient as you've been taught—"
He struck your right palm.
"What kind of guardian would I be if I didn't punish disobedience? Would you rather live in sin and insolence?" He lectured.
The whip came down again. Your cries getting louder with each instance.
"You will learn, it doesn't matter if it takes until my last breath. You will do better, you will learn, you will be an exact reflection of me as your guardian." He reminded.
The whip came across your hands several more times, your knees wobbling with each hit as he forced you to stand still and take each one. If you cried too hard, interrupted him, or pulled your hands away— it was worse, always worse.
When he finished, he put his whip away and walked over to you with a smile. You took deep breaths as you fought through the pain, your hands still on his desk.
He wiped your tears with his thumb.
"Why must you make this so hard? Disappoint me so greatly?" He questioned.
You didn't answer, because you didn't have one and anything that you could've said would've gotten you another punishment. Your left hand had began to bleed, blood seeping into your palm.
"I shall have the Maester come attend to this wound, stay in here while I go fetch him. I want you to eat supper in here with me tonight—"
"I will inform Gwayne that I will be busy."
Of course you weren't perfect, but why did he punish you so harshly? You listened to him, followed him and that still did not spare you his ire. You submitted to him, you were his in your mind and heart, even when you didn't want to be. Why wasn't it enough?
A few moments later, the Maester came in and cleaned your wound, applying a bandage to it. He didn't ask questions as he knew what had happened and he knew better than to ask.
Ormund came back into the room, while you sat in one of the chairs. He came in with a good mood as if nothing had happened, but maybe nothing had happened in his mind. Punishment wasn't something to linger over, especially when he found it necessary.
"There has been great news these last few days about how this war is progressing."
You stared into the fire, thinking over the right words to say. You knew that his very statement was a trap, another lecture waiting for you. The best thing would be to acknowledge it and change the subject, but you couldn't.
"Was that mother on Sunfyre, flying over Oldtown with Caraxes?" You asked before you could stop yourself.
He pursed his lips and you could see the irritation all over his face within an instant.
"That bitch—"
His words were interrupted by the servants bringing supper into the room. They placed your trays on the table and left quickly, the door shutting behind them.
You glanced at the food and back at the fire in the fireplace while he prepared to dig in.
"Are you not going to eat?" He asked.
"I'm not hungry."
His fork tapped against his plate, a deep breath escaping his lungs.
"Do not be wasteful, eat."
"I am not hungry, my lord."
He did not bother to hide his irritation, " if you do not eat this food tonight, then you will not eat at all tomorrow. How does that sound?"
You caved as you didn't have much of a choice. You sat there silently, taking a few bites from the meat and vegetables on the plate.
"Back to talking about your bitch mother as you couldn't help but to bring her up, that was her on her dragon earlier. She was lucky that we did not have the scorpions ready to shoot the two of them down."
"You would dare kill a dragon?" You responded, your brows furrowed.
"Those filthy beasts are just that, something that you incestous aliens should've never trifled with." He griped, taking a sip of wine.
"Those beasts are loved by most of the small folk and made in the eyes of the gods. They would not be happy to witness such acts."
His eyes looked as if they could've popped from his skull, "made in the eyes of the gods? You know better than anyone to say such a thing, that is not true. It is odd that you could even suggest the mere notion."
Your fork scraped the plate, a blank look on your face.
"The gods would not will them to live if they were such abominations, yet they continue to live and thrive."
He dropped his fork onto his plate, his fists slamming against the table.
"You will cease this nonsense and heretic talk! I am in no mood for this, you rotten girl."
You scoffed in your mind, but you knew better than to do it outwardly.
"I am sorry, please forgive me. I have just had an overwhelming day, my lord."
Ormund nodded his head and resumed eating. His ability to regain control over his anger was something that you hadn't seen before. It was a perfected skill.
"All is well, just do not say those things again."
The rest of supper was quiet on your end, while Ormund complained about small things here and there. It wasn't anything that was of importance or that would matter to you, because the last thing he needed was for you to get to curious.
Once he finished eating, the servants came into his room— taking the leftover food and emptying the tub. The sun had gone down, the moon sitting in the sky.
You stood from your chair, "it is getting late and I should get to my chambers."
"Sleep in here tonight, it's been a while since you've last laid with me."
The last servant glanced at you, her face saying everything her mouth couldn't as she grabbed the empty pitcher and left the room.
"Okay." You agreed with a nod.
He brought over the silk nightgown that he kept of yours in his room. You took it from his hands with a small smile, watching as he walked to the window to look out while you changed.
You stripped out of your clothes and put on the nightgown, "you can turn around now."
He looked at you like it was the first time that he'd ever seen you, a look of possibly adoration. It was hard to understand, because you didn't know what it meant to be adored, not genuinely.
The servant had put out the fire in the fireplace, leaving the room to just the small slit of moonlight that came from the now closed shutters. You crawled into bed beside him, sleeping in the spot his late wife slept in, wearing a nightgown identical to the one that he had made for her years ago.
He pulled you close against him, his arms wrapping around your waist, his warm breath grazing against your ear. It felt as if you belonged in his arms, a home away from your true home. He kissed your head, a low hum in his throat.
"I've missed you sharing a bed with me, sweetling. It pains me to keep you away from it." He whispered.
He kissed your head again, taking in the scent of your hair. You could feel his cock hardening against you, a wetness forming in between your own legs.
His fingers would find your wet folds, gliding between them and rubbing your sensitive bud. His breaths ragged as he chased friction against your skin through his thin breeches. You were still unwed and his ward, it was wrong. It was a sin, something that would ruin you for any suitors.
Sometimes you'd pull away, but he pulled you closer and whispered sweet nothings in your ear.
When he fell asleep, you laid awake— staring at the ceiling. Even when you felt most at ease in his arms, that night you found yourself questioning it all. Was any of it real? Did he truly care about you or did he pretend that you were her? His do over, his chance to mold you into what was desirable. Had you lost your senses for feeling that way?
The next morning as the sun crept in, Ormund was already awake and had left his chambers. The maids came in at the time that they always did, bringing your gown for the day and preparing a bath. When they came in, they had hushed voices and low eyes, never allowing themselves to ask questions about the obvious.
You took your bath, sitting in the water for longer than you normally would. It was hard to place how you felt that morning, but you didn't feel happy.
After your bath and getting dressed, you had time before you were to meet Ormund at the sept for prayer.
The maids had left the room, leaving you to yourself. You opened the door to peak outside and you had no one standing guard. Your heart raced in your chest as your eyes scanned the hall and you walked out of his room, shutting the door behind you. You walked quickly through the hall, hoping not to be noticed by anyone.
Once you were outside, it was easier with everyone beginning to get up for the day. It created a distraction for you to effortlessly blend in. You finally reached it, the dark pit where the dragons were being held. It was dark, the sound of your breathing almost loud enough to echo, the dim firelight from the sconces guiding you.
There he was, sleeping peacefully— chained like an undeserving animal. It pained you to see him chained, he was the bronze fury, a formidable dragon, a good dragon and yet he was punished. When you walked closer to him, you stopped in your tracks as you noticed Daeron near Tessarion.
"I won't tell." He spoke in a hushed voice.
Neither of you were supposed to be in there with your dragons and you could only hope that you hadn't been spotted.
You walked to Vermithor, his eyes opening as he nudged against you. You rubbed his head, bringing yours close to his.
"I've missed you." You whispered, your eyes watering.
Being away from your dragon was a special kind of torture, feeling so connected to something and not being allowed to be close.
"Are you alright?" Daeron asked.
"I would be, If me and him could fly again."
He glanced down at your bandaged hand, "what happened?"
You looked down with confusion like you had forgotten what had happened, until you realized. Daeron saw the hesitation on your face and he immediately understood.
"It is easier, if you just listen." He murmured.
You scoffed.
"It is easier, because he treats you differently. You are not a child that was born by his enemy, he protects you."
Daeron shook his head in disagreement.
"It is not me that he protects so fiercely. In your years here, you've grown to take over the spot of his late wife and he's turned down every marriage offer for you."
You gave a blank stare, a lump in your throat.
"Can I ask you something?" You replied, your voice wavering.
"What is it?"
"Do you know if my family is okay during this war? Do you know what has taken place?"
He rubbed Tessarion's head, his eyes looking elsewhere instead of at you.
"You know that you shouldn't ask that." He gently reminded you.
"I know, but—" you started and then stopped.
Daeron walked over to you, looking to make sure the two of you were still alone.
"You should just drop it, while you're ahead. It is truly best if you do not know."
You grabbed his hand, your eyes widening into a look of desperation.
"Please, Daeron. I have lived here for years, completely in the dark. I can count on one hand the letters that I've been able to read from them. I just want to know."
Daeron was conflicted as he understood your position all too well, but he also didn't want to anger Ormund.
"Rhaenyra has taken King's Landing with Daemon, my uncle Gwayne said so once he returned."
Your brow raised, "she has taken King's Landing? Are you sure?"
He nodded.
You felt genuine hope again, she did what she had set out to do. She was the queen of the seven kingdoms.
"Is everyone okay as well?" You followed up.
He shrugged. "I do not know, he doesn't tell me everything as I've told you before. Perhaps, you can get a raven out to ask?"
You rolled your eyes, biting back a sarcastic laugh.
"That would never work, the risk is far too great."
Daeron hesitated again, going back and forth on what to tell you.
"There's a box in his solar, in the bottom drawer on the right side of his desk. It's filled with all the messages that are correspondence about the war with your mother.. you should find your answers in there."
"How.. would I do that when he's always nearby?"
"Go after dinner, I shall stall him for a short time. Read as much as you can and don't get caught. If you get caught, I will deny my hand in this."
You hugged him, something that was foreign to both of you. Despite your families being on opposing sides, the two of you did look after one another when you could. You were truly all each other had in Oldtown, both of you under his thumb.
"Thank you."
"I would want someone to do the same for me." He admitted.
He started to walk towards Tessarion, "I cannot stress this enough, no matter what you read, do not tell him. Do not react, please."
The bell rang, which meant you only had a few moments to get to the sept. Both of you shared a look before you gave Vermithor a head rub and left to get to the sept.
You rushed through the streets, hurrying to get there in time. When you entered, Ormund was finishing up a conversation with Gwayne as he awaited your arrival.
Gwayne gave a nod as he walked past you, leaving the sept.
"I see that you have arrived on time this morning." He smiled as he approached you.
He pulled you into a hug, his body flushed against yours— his chin resting on the top of your head. He sniffed you a few times, an unusual smell coming from you.
He pulled back to look at you, his brows furrowed.
"You reek of dragon back."
You feigned ignorance, "I have no idea what you mean, my lord. I haven't been able to see Vermithor for a while now."
He brought his hands to your face, causing you to flinch. He pulled your closer, pressing his lips against yours in a kiss.
Ormund did occasionally kiss you, normally in situations where he was happy. You had no idea why he would've been so happy in that moment.
He pulled back from you, his lips curling into disgust.
"Do not lie to me, my love. I would hate to punish you again."
"I'm not.. I promise." You reiterated, your stomach turning.
He brought his pommander to his nose, taking a sniff of the citrus oil inside of it.
"Very well, let's not waste more time than necessary. Let us pray."
The two of you walked over to the altar and knelt, both of you praying as you always did.
Instead of praying for love, you prayed to find the answers to your questions— even if the answers broke your heart in the process. You wanted to trust Ormund, be sure in the reasons that you cared for him so deeply— but you needed the truth.
The entire time that you were in the sept you felt unwell, your nerves had gotten the best of you. After prayer, the two of you stepped outside. While standing there, you threw up— catching Ormund off guard and getting vomit all over your gown.
"What is the matter with you?"
You shook your head, your hand pressed against the wall as you leaned over.
"I just have an upset stomach, my lord."
He had you escorted back to your chambers so that you could change and be cleaned up, but not before he almost threw up himself at the smell.
You took another bath and upon further inspection, the maids noticed that your other gowns had been taken to be cleaned. You were left with only the gowns that your mother had sent to you a year ago, beautiful gowns in your house colors.
As beautiful as the gowns were, Ormund had forbade you from wearing them. Hightower green was the color that you wore or he'd allow you to wear House Arryn's colors, since that was your grandmothers house.
You didn't want to disobey him, but you had no choice this time. Surely, he'd understand?
All throughout the day your nerves had been a jumbled mess, you could barely think straight— worried about what you'd find out. It was wrong of you to plan going through your guardian's belongings, but why couldn't he tell you what was going on? Did he intend to keep you in the shadows forever? If he cared about you to the lengths that he claimed, wouldn't the two of you share information and be one?
Luckily for you, Ormund was going to be busy for most of the day as he prepared for the small feast being held. Lord Borros had sent an envoy of Baratheon men to pledge his support for the greens during the war. You hoped that by the time the feast started at least one of your gowns would be cleaned and you could change gowns before he noticed.
You weren't going to see Septa Lyra that day as she had other duties to attend to. Instead of sitting in your chambers all day, you decided to go to the library. You didn't want to spend the day trapped in your mind with no escape until you got into his solar.
As you walked the halls, servants and maids gawked at the sight of you in your gown. A beautiful, silk gown with small dragons at the hem of it. House Targaryen colors, something they knew Ormund would never let you wear. They knew the punishment would be severe for even wearing such a thing.
It didn't stop them from whispering and commenting you on the gown.
You spent most of the day in the library, getting lost in the few books that they had on the histories of House Targaryen. It brought you comfort reading them and being left alone to your own thoughts, not having your thoughts controlled for you.
You loved reading about your family and Old Valyria, you wanted to embrace the side of you that made you proud. He could embrace embrace being a Hightower, a traitor to his queen— but you couldn't embrace being a Targaryen? It wasn't fair.
As the hours had passed on, you went to the sept and even returned back to the library. Ser Humfrey came in to ask if you were okay, if he needed to notify Ormund but you reassured him that you were fine.
The halls outside of the library clattered with noise from the bustling of servants and maids. The Hightower would be in perfect condition as guests were due to arrive.
You finished two books before you left the library. You peered down from the window and saw that guests were arriving. You knew that you needed to make an appearance shortly or you'd risk a conflict with him.
When you stepped out of the library, Ser Humfrey glanced at you again.
"Are you sure that you are alright, my lady?"
You nodded, twisting your fingers.
"I am fine, Ser Humfrey. However, I do appreciate your genuine concern."
Him and Ser Bronn shared a look, but both decided that it was best to let you be.
While walking the halls, you could hear the faint sound of music being played in the dining hall. Guests lingered in the hall, talking amongst one another. A few of them saw you, even tried to approach to ask questions but they were stopped. You gave a half smile and continued on as you'd been told to.
When you walked into the dining hall, it was decorated beautifully. The feast was not a grand event, but just one to show appreciation— but it felt more than that. The Baratheon men would have no qualms with bending the knee and being shown such hospitality. That level of hospitality would certainly be rewarded.
The table that you'd be seated at was at the front of the room. Everyone at the table was present, but you. Ormund was in the middle of a conversation, his focus elsewhere. As you walked up to the table, Gwayne's eyes followed your every move in shock, while Daeron found you to be bold.
You approached Ormund as he stood near the table, preparing to take your own seat. His words paused in the conversation, his eyes raking over you and that gown.
"Please, excuse me." Ormund smiled, waking away from the man.
He grabbed your arm, his fingers digging into you.
"How dare you?—"
"What do you have on?"
"My other gowns had been taken away for cleaning at your request, so when I threw up this morning I had nothing else to wear." You admitted.
The scowl on his face only deepened, his grip growing tighter. He leaned closer towards your face, "you mean to make a mockery of me on such an important day?"
You couldn't bare to look at him, you never could when he was angry. His anger made you feel small, made you feel worthless, it made you feel the exact opposite of what he'd whisper to you in bed.
"No, I didn't intend to do that, my lord. I could return back to my chambers, if you wish?"
"I do not fucking wish for you to go to your chambers, but this.. this will not go unanswered." He fumed.
You stared into his eyes, "what was I supposed to do? I would be punished for not attending, but now I am to be punished for what I had available."
"You could've put on one of Samantha's old gowns!—"
You pulled your arm back from his grip, your brows furrowed.
"Samantha? As in your late wife?—"
"You'd want me to wear one of her gowns? You kept them?"
He huffed, realizing that maybe he'd said to much.
"I did not mean to—"
Before Ormund could respond, Gwayne called his name and got his attention. He saw the way that he was with you and wanted to save him from everyone else seeing the same thing.
You took your seat in the chair beside his, a bitter taste in your mouth.
Samantha was his late wife, she'd been long dead by the time you were brought to Oldtown. You'd heard that she was a beauty, that she was kind, and gentle. Ormund always said that despite everything, their marriage was merely a political match.
It didn't matter much when you heard his words years ago, but now it struck a nerve— a nerve that you thought was neatly tucked away.
She was a ghost in the Hightower, someone seldom mentioned but fondly remembered. Ormund had only ever called you by her name one time, when he was yelling at you. An accident is what he claimed, but it didn't hurt you any less.
A place holder, a rotten girl, a mistake, tainted, someone that would never be Samantha.
A servant came around the table, filling your goblet with wine— which you happily accepted. Anything to make you feel even a fraction of less shame and the disappointment than you felt.
Ormund took his seat beside you as he finished his conversation with Gwayne.
"We will talk more later." He mumbled.
You raised your brows, bringing the goblet to your face once more— the sweet wine gliding down your throat.
People approached the table, speaking with Ormund on different matters that pertained to the war. You watched silently, waiting for the moment that you could leave. Underneath the table, Ormund had his hand on your thigh— giving you a subtle reminder to behave.
The plates were brought out to everyone, forks clinking and scraping their plates. The smiles on their faces were big, bellies full, everyone in support of the greens. They gave Ormund looks of pity for having you as his ward, raising Rhaenyra's rotten seed must've been the hardest thing that he'd ever done in their eyes.
You toyed with your food, only taking a few bites and instead filling your belly with more wine.
As people finished their food, they began to get up and mingle again— some even dancing. Ormund sat beside you with a pleased look on his face, proud of the support that he'd rallied.
Daeron left his seat at the further end of the table, approaching him for a conversation. You scooted your chair back, getting his attention.
"I do not feel well, I need to step out for a moment."
"My lord." Daeron spoke, standing to the side of Ormund.
Ormund glanced at him and back at you, "very well. Do not stay gone for long."
Darron mouthed words to you as you stood up.
"Go now."
You walked away from the table, your feet stumbling some as you had indulged in too much wine. When you got outside the dining hall, you realized that all the guards were in the room. The hall was practically empty as you walked down it, everyone was so busy with the feast.
When you got to Ormund's solar, you took a deep breath and entered the room— quietly shutting the door behind you.
The room was dimly lit with a small fire going in the fireplace.
"The bottom right drawer at his desk." You whispered to yourself.
You walked to his desk, kneeling behind it as you opened the drawer. There it was, a small brown box as daeron had described.
Your hands trembled as you held it, walking closer to the fire so that you could read. With a click the box opened, filled to the top with letters. You decided to start at the bottom and then work your way to the top.
At first, most of the letters were just small and meaningless things— but it didn't stay that way.
Your breath hitched in your chest, tears falling onto the papers as you read most of them. You stopped reading them, pulling your knees to your chest as you sobbed on the rug.
Luke was dead, Rhaenys was dead, Jace was dead, Rhaena was believed to be missing, and Ormund was actively having gold cloaks killed in the city to sow discord.
He always said that your mother initiated the war when she heard the news of your grandfather's passing, but that was far from the truth. Aemond used Vhagar to chase down and kill your little brother, sweet Luke.
Your family had been falling apart while you slept in the bed with a man that celebrated it. You were a fool.
In a bit of rage, you took the letters and dumped all of them into the fire— placing the box back into the drawer.
You took longer than you should have, but you walked out of his solar with wet eyes and your stomach felt like you could vomit at any moment.
How could he betray you that way? You knew that he wasn't perfect, that he opposed your mother— but never to the scale of the letters that he had written. The letters were so cruel, cold, and just evil— far too evil for a pious man.
Drinking the multiple goblets of wine had caught up to you, you stumbled through the hall— your hands holding onto the wall for stability.
Your heart was shattered into pieces, everything that you thought that you knew faded into the wind.
When you walked back into the dining hall, Daeron was standing up from your seat that he had been sitting in.
"There you are, I was about to go looking for you." He spoke as you stumbled past him.
He noticed your red eyes and he could smell the wine on you, but his thoughts were interrupted.
"My lord, the envoy from House Baratheon has arrived to treat with you." The man spoke.
Ormund stood up, an even bigger smile than he had on his face earlier.
"Let the stormlands lead the way, HighGarden will have no choice but to follow."
Gwayne stood from his chair and approached Ormund, the rests of the guests still talking amongst themselves.
"Let me do the talking."
You stood near Ormund, almost swaying in place— causing Gwayne to stare at you for a moment.
The men walked in towards the table and Ormund, the stench of them stronger than cow shit. It was the kind of smell that made your lips curl. It was truly insulting that they were sent to treat and we're beyond filthy, tracking in mud.
"Lord Ormund Hightower, beacon of the south, defender of the citadel, and voice of Oldtown." Jon Roxton spoke, grabbing the attention of a few guests.
Ormund's face had turned a hint of red, the unexpected smell beginning to overwhelm him.
"Well met, Lord Ormund. I come as an envoy of Lord Borros Baratheon. Lord paramount of the stormlands." The man greeted.
Ormund coughed clearing his throat, clearly overwhelmed— but he wasn't the only one. The smell was making it harder to keep down what had went into your stomach.
"You are quite welcome, Ser—"
"Ser Arrion Baratheon, cousin to Lord Borros."
The men stared at you like they knew you, yet you could not place any of their faces. It could've been the wine, but they seemed off.
Ormund took a step back, standing closer to you.
"I most regret presenting ourselves in this state. The road was long and filthy, but I thought it best to speak to you immediately." Arrion admitted.
Gwayne stood there, his eyes scanning the face of Arrion.
Ormund shook his head, "we are honored to receive you and what word from Lord Borros?"
"Well, House Baratheon bends the knee to his grace, Aemond Targaryen and offers it's many banners in alliance with House Hightower."
Arrion struggled to keep his eyes off of you, his hands making a small movement for his sword.
"That is good news. Your lord has made a wise choice." Ormund claps, a miserable smile on his face.
There was a beat of silence amongst the men.
"I hope you do not mind the question, but is that Rhaenyra Targaryen's daughter?" Arrion asked with his head slightly tilted.
Gwayne grabbed the blade from Ormund's belt, lunging and slitting the man's throat.
Ormund stood in front of you, "no! Stop him." He yelled.
The dining hall got quiet, people starting to panic at the havoc that seemed to have come out of nowhere.
Your hands shook as you stood behind Ormund, terrified of what could happen next— to you and him.
"These are assassin's sent for you and me, from the Queen." Gwayne yelled, chopping a man in two.
You watched as Jon Roxton disemboweled a man with his valyrian steel sword, cutting through him like warm butter.
"Ser Arrion Baratheon has hair of light chestnut.. and he is far more comely."
Ormund leaned against the table, his face redder than before and his breathing ragged. He turned his gaze to you, "what did you do?" He gritted.
"I will cleave the bitch.. from crown to cunt—"
"She will die wishing she never dared.. dared."
Ormund started throwing up on the table, causing a few people to gasp around you.
Your day had just worsened as it continued… You stumbled from the table and down the steps towards the other tables. Servants rushed in to clean up the mess and keep the scene from being too much of a spectacle, but it was far too late.
Gwayne chased after you, helping you down the stairs as you almost fell. His hand held you up, his hand pressed against your backside but lower than it should've been.
Ormund saw, a rage taking over him.
While everyone else was too busy trying to understand what happened and preparing to leave, Ormund pulled you from Gwayne's hold— grabbing a fistful of your hair.
"Ow!" You cried out, your hands reaching for his as he dragged you into the hall with no shame.
"You filthy whore." He fumed.
"Ormund, you're hurting me." You cried out.
His grip on your hair was tight, it felt as if he could pull it from your scalp.
Due to the fact that you had drank so much wine, you couldn't keep up with him— your feet tripping over eachother.
You fell onto the ground, but that still didn't stop him. He walked you like a dog down the hall, a tight grip on your hair and unwavering level of anger. The few servants that saw it, closed their eyes and shut their mouths. If he'd do that to you, then he'd do far worse to them.
He opened the door to his chambers, slamming it shut behind him.
You struggled to stand up, tears falling from your eyes.
"Let go of me." You whined.
He brought his face closer to yours, pulling your hair and neck back— making you look at him.
"You dare flirt with Gwayne in front of me, allow him to put his hands on your body?"
"I almost fell and he helped me, it was not like that. I swear." You breathed.
His face twisted into something that you'd never seen before.
"You swear? You are the daughter of a whore, nothing more than the biggest mistake of her life. You probably would've sucked his cock in his chambers tonight, had he continued being nice."
You pushed against him, his grip loosening.
"You lied! You fucking lied to me—"
"Praying to the gods and condemning my blood, yet you'd commit grievous atrocities and sins for yours?"
He pulled his shoulders back.
"What are you talking about?"
You laughed bitterly, tears rolling down your neck and chest.
"I saw all of the letters, all of them." You gasped, beginning to sob.
"They murdered Luke, Rhaenys, and Jace.. they murdered them and you praised them for their efforts."
"You went through my things? you ungrateful, sniveling bitch." He roared, his eyes dark with nothing behind them.
"I would've crossed oceans and mountains for you.. because I loved you. I believed—"
"I believed that you loved me too, but you Ormund Hightower are no better than a Dothraki savage."
He grabbed your arm, pinching it.
"I could never love someone so rotten and so utterly foul. If your mother loved you then she would've killed me to get to you, so I must not be the only one with that sentiment."
You stared at him, unable to recognize the man that you'd known for most of your life.
You spat in his face, his hands leaving you as he took a step back in disbelief. He wiped the spit from his face, his breathing deep and heavy.
Ormund reached forward, wrapping his hands around your throat.
Both of you stumbled back, your hands tapping at his as you couldn't catch your breath—your foot hitting the tub that was near the wall.
"Ormund.. I can't—" you gasped.
It felt like the room was closing in around you. Your chest felt like a fire consumed it, your eyes bulging as you tried pulling his hands off.
It felt like an eternity, but Ormund let go of you with a push—causing you to stumble back and fall.
There was a heavy thud as you hit the floor, your head hit the edge of the tub.
You laid on the rug, blood streaming down your face from the small wound. You blinked and blinked, feeling as if you'd been in the same place forever. For a moment you'd sworn that you might've died, that those might've been your last moments in the world.
After a moment, you picked yourself up. Ormund watched you and slowly regained his senses. You touched the wound, bright red blood coating your fingers and dripping down onto your face.
He approached you, grabbing your face into his hands— his touch softer than a mere moment ago. A feeling of disgust overtaking you.
"It was an accident, I shouldn't have—"
"I'm sorry. I am so sorry, please forgive me."
"I'm going to leave you alone here one day and I'll never look back." You muttered, staring into his eyes.
His facial expression softened, maybe because he believed you more than he ever had before.
He let go of your face, grabbing your hand instead.
"I love you, I love you more than I can put into words."
It was the first time that he'd truly said it and it sounded like that, like he meant it— but he wasn't ready to say it. He loved you, but only when you were good and not rotten.
He pressed a kiss to your lips, your blood smearing onto his skin. He kissed you like he'd never get the chance to again and even after everything, you didn't deny him. You should've killed him on the spot, but instead your heart fluttered like it always did. He had a grip on you, one that you would never truly outrun and that grip was mutual.
"I am going to leave you." You reiterated, your lips against his.
"I will make you mine, I will not lose you. I cannot. I would go to war for you, sin for you. You are mine as you always have been."He mumbled against your lips.
You pulled back, a singular tear sliding from your eye.
"Bend the knee to my mother then and I will forgive you for your actions tonight."
He shook his head, his lips pursed as if your statement was painful to hear.
"I would never."
You scoffed, pulling away from him.
"Then, none of this—" you spoke, pointing around the room.
"Is good enough."
He sighed as if were out of options, "do not force my hand on this. I am begging you, because you will not like the outcome."
Summary: When Princess Y/N Martell is sent to King’s Landing to negotiate on behalf of Dorne during the war in the Stepstones, she never expects to be betrayed and taken hostage. Delivered to Oldtown and placed under Lord Ormund Hightower’s custody, she quickly realizes that her captivity is not merely a political bargaining tactic. Ormund has his own plans for the proud Dornish princess—and he has no intention of letting her leave.
Warnings: kidnapping, captivity, non-consensual sexual content, non-con, sexual assault, coercion, future forced marriage, physical violence, threats, blood, injury, obsessive/possessive behavior, manipulation, degradation, misogyny, mentions of pregnancy/forced pregnancy.
requested on Kofi by the amazing mind of @patisseriie
The marble floor was cold against your knees as the guards forced you down. Your wrists ached where the rope had bitten into your skin during the journey, and the salt-stained blindfold they'd only just removed had left a mark across the bridge of your nose. You tossed your head back, sending a cascade of dark hair over your shoulder, and fixed your black Martell eyes on the man seated before you.
Ormund Hightower, he rose from his carved chair with the unhurried grace of a man who had never been refused anything, his eyes swept over you with an expression you could not immediately read.
"My lords," he said, his voice smooth as honeyed wine, "what is the meaning of this?" He stepped forward, gesturing toward your bound wrists with what appeared to be genuine distress. "You were instructed to escort the Princess Y/N with every courtesy. Instead, I find her on her knees, bound like a common criminal." He crouched before you, close enough that you could smell sandalwood and something else—ink, perhaps, or old parchment. "This is unforgivable. Release her at once."
You let out a sharp, incredulous laugh as the ropes fell away. You rubbed your wrists, refusing to break eye contact. "Every courtesy," you repeated, your Dornish accent curling around the Common Tongue like ivy around stone. "Is that what you call an ambush on the Roseroad? Being pulled from my horse at swordpoint? Three days with a sack over my head?"
Ormund straightened, his handsome face arranging itself into an expression of pained concern. "I am appalled. Truly. My men were instructed to invite you here, not—"
"Invite." You rose to your feet without permission, and several guards tensed, hands moving to sword hilts. You ignored them. "I am the daughter of Prince Qoren Martell. I was traveling under the banner of diplomacy to negotiate an end to the conflict in the Stepstones. And your invitation involved a blade to my throat and a bag of horseshit-smelling burlap over my head." You stepped closer, craning your neck upward to meet his gaze. He was so tall you barely reached his shoulder. "Tell me, Lord Hightower, do all your guests arrive in such fashion, or am I special?"
A muscle flickered in his jaw, but his smile remained fixed. "You are, as a matter of fact." He turned to the guards and waved a dismissive hand. "Leave us. All of you."
The men filed out, their boots echoing against the stone. The heavy oak doors groaned shut, leaving you alone with him in the cavernous hall. "You've kidnapped me," you said flatly. "Dorne will not forget this. My father will not forget this."
Ormund clasped his hands behind his back and circled you slowly, his footsteps unhurried against the floor. "I have not kidnapped you. You are here as a guest of House Hightower for some time. Nothing more."
"A guest." You tracked him with your eyes, refusing to turn your body and give him the satisfaction of your full attention. "Guests are free to leave, my lord. Am I free to leave?"
"No," he admitted, almost cheerfully. "But you will be comfortable. Well-fed. Treated with the honor befitting your station. That is more than can be said for our own envoy, I suspect, were he to find himself in Sunspear."
You laughed, a cold and brittle sound. "So this is what the Reach has been reduced to. The mighty Hightowers, so desperate they must kidnap a negotiator because they are losing—"
"The war is not—"
"You are losing," you pressed, turning now to face him fully, your dark eyes blazing. "The Stepstones remain contested. The Triarchy's fleets harass your shores while the dragon riders flounder against corsairs who know the coves and the currents better than any map. My father's ships sail with the Free Cities, and it burns you, doesn't it? That Dorne stands with the Triarchy while you and your overlords flail in the mud." You tilted your head, a mocking smile playing at the corners of your lips. "So desperate. So pitiful. Kidnapping a woman to gain leverage in a war you cannot win."
Something shifted in Ormund's expression. The mask of courteous concern flickered, and beneath it you glimpsed something else behind those pretty blue eyes. He stepped closer, and this time you held your ground.
"You speak of Dorne's defiance as though it were something new," he murmured, his voice dropping low. "But your people have always been unbowed. It is, I confess, a quality I have long admired." He reached up, and before you could recoil, his fingers brushed your cheek. The touch was light, almost reverent. You went rigid. "You are beautiful. Exquisite, truly. The Martell blood runs strong in you—the skin, the dark hair, those eyes like black fire. That famous Dornish beauty." His thumb traced the line of your cheekbone, slow and deliberate. "They say the sun favors your people. I see now that it's true."
Your heart hammered against your ribs, but your voice remained steady. "Remove your hand, my lord. Or I will remove it for you."
He did not remove it. Instead, his thumb continued its languid path along your skin, as though he were memorizing the feel of you. "You know, I have always been fascinated by your house. Your ancestor—the Toad of Dorne, they called her." His lips curved into a thin smile. "Meria Martell. The princess who told Rhaenys Targaryen that Dorne would never bow to the dragonlords. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken." He spoke the words slowly, savoring them like wine on his tongue. "I admired her, you know. Fiercely. She was the only ruler on this entire continent who refused to kneel before those savage foreigners, those Valyrian upstarts with their beasts and their fire. She looked a dragon in the eye and laughed."
You stared at him, momentarily thrown. This was not the direction you had expected. "Then we have common ground," you said carefully, trying to regain your footing. "You hate the Targaryens. So do we."
Ormund's smile widened, but it did not reach his eyes. "Meria Martell lacked beauty—the histories are clear on that. The Toad, they called her, for her wrinkled skin and her wide mouth and her bulging eyes. No man would write songs about her face." He leaned closer, and now you could feel his breath warm against your skin. It smelled faintly of mint. "But gods, the woman had a mind like a razor. The wit and will of a man. She faced down a dragon and lived to old age, ruling a free kingdom while the rest of Westeros bent their necks to foreign incest and foreign fire." His hand slid from your cheek to your chin, tilting your face up toward his. His grip was gentle but absolute. "I think, Princess Y/N, that you are the other side of that coin. I fear those gifts passed you by."
You wrenched your chin from his grip, fury burning away your fear. "You know nothing of me."
"I know you walked into a trap that any fool could have seen." He shrugged, unbothered by your anger, tucking his hands behind his back once more. "I know you came north with barely a guard, trusting in banners and parley and the honor of your enemies. I know you are alone, so far from your sun and your sand, in a city that answers to me." He smiled again, that horrible, pleasant smile, warm as a viper sunning itself on a rock. "What I do not know is whether you understand how thoroughly you are at my mercy. How completely you are mine."
Before you could respond, Ormund did something that made every nerve in your body scream in revulsion. He stepped closer, closing the distance between you until his chest nearly brushed yours, and then he leaned down, his face dipping toward the curve of your neck. You felt him inhale.
Deeply. Slowly. As though you were a flower in bloom, or a dish set before him at a feast, something to be savored and consumed. His nose nearly grazed your skin, and you felt the warmth of his breath against your pulse point, intimate as a lover's kiss.
"Lemons," he murmured, almost to himself, his voice a low rumble against your throat. "And something warmer. Sandalwood? No. Spices from the Summer Sea. Saffron, perhaps. Heat and sweetness together." He pulled back just enough to look at you, his blue eyes dark now, pupils blown wide. "Fascinating. You smell like the sun itself."
You stumbled backward, your composure finally cracking. Your back hit the edge of a heavy oak table, and you gripped it with white-knuckled hands, needing something solid to anchor yourself. "You are mad."
He straightened, smoothing the front of his doublet as though nothing had happened, as though he hadn't just breathed you in like a man sampling perfume. "You will be shown to your chambers, they are quite comfortable. You will find gowns in the wardrobe, as your own clothes have suffered terribly during your harrowing journey." He glanced back over his shoulder, and his eyes glittered with something you could not name—something that made your stomach twist. "You will not be harmed. You have my word as a Hightower."
"The word of a kidnapper," you spat, hating how your voice wavered.
"The word of your host," he corrected gently, settling into his chair like a king upon a throne. "Do try to remember the distinction. It will make your stay so much more pleasant."
The doors opened, and a pair of handmaidens entered, they were here to escort you to your cell, you understood. Your gilded, comfortable, inescapable cell.
You did not move. Your legs felt rooted to the stone floor, your heart still racing from the ghost of his breath on your neck. "My father will come for me," you said, your voice low and fierce. "You have made an enemy of Dorne today, Lord Hightower. We do not forget. We do not forgive."
Ormund picked up a goblet from the table beside his chair, swirling the wine within with casual elegance. "Let him come," he said, utterly unconcerned. "Oldtown has stood for thousands of years. It will stand a thousand more. Your father's spears will break against our walls like waves against the Hightower itself." He raised the goblet in a mocking toast. "But I do hope it does not come to that. I would much prefer we become... friends."
The way he said the word made your skin crawl. As the handmaidens stepped forward to guide you Ormund's voice followed you, soft and almost fond, trailing after you like a shadow you could not shake.
"Welcome to Oldtown, Princess. I do hope you'll come to appreciate its hospitality."
—
They drew you a bath, the water steaming and scented with lavender, the warmth seeped into your bones despite your best efforts to remain rigid and furious. You hated that it felt good. You hated that your body betrayed you with relief.
When you emerged, they dried you with soft linen cloths and produced a gown that made your stomach clench with fresh anger. It was a deep emerald silk that caught the firelight, cut low across the bodice in a way that would have made the septas in Oldtown blush, with sleeves that draped elegantly from the shoulder and a waist cinched tight. Beautiful, certainly. But it was not yours. They were dressing you like a Reachwoman, like a doll for their lord to admire.
The dining hall was smaller than the great hall where you had first faced Ormund—more intimate, a single table of dark, polished wood stretched before a hearth large enough to roast a boar. And at the head of the table, already seated, was Ormund Hightower.
He rose when you entered, his blue eyes sweeping over you with an appreciation that felt like a physical touch. "Ah," he said, that honeyed voice filling the space between you. "My colors suit you. I thought they might."
"I had no choice in the matter," you said flatly.
"No," he agreed, pulling out the chair to his right. "You did not. Please, sit."
You remained standing. The handmaidens had already retreated, the door closing softly behind them. You were alone with him, and the realization settled over you like a shroud. "I am not hungry."
"You must be. Three days on the road with my men—I cannot imagine they fed you well." He gestured to the spread before you: roast capon glazed with honey, crusty bread still steaming from the ovens, figs and grapes arranged on a silver platter, a wheel of sharp Reach cheese, and wine so dark it looked like blood in the candlelight. "Please. I insist."
You did not move toward the chair. "How do I know it isn't poisoned?"
Ormund laughed—a genuine, warm sound that made you want to strike him. "Poison? My dear princess, if I wanted you dead, you would never have woken from your first night on the Roseroad. Poison is a woman's weapon, and a coward's." He settled back into his own chair, lifting his goblet of wine. "I am neither."
"That remains to be seen."
He tilted his head, studying you with those unnervingly blue eyes. "You are suspicious. Good. Suspicion is a survival instinct. But I assure you, the food is perfectly safe." He gestured to the spread. "Eat. Drink. You are my guest, not my prisoner."
"Guests are free to leave."
"So you have said." His smile did not waver. "Sit, Princess. I would hate to have the guards hold you down while I spoon-feed you myself. It would be so undignified for us both."
You sat and he poured wine into your goblet himself, a gesture of hospitality that rang hollow as a funeral bell. You did not touch it. "Still not drinking?" He raised an eyebrow, taking a long sip from his own cup. "Very well. Allow me to demonstrate." He cut a piece of capon, chewed it slowly, swallowed. "No poison. The cheese is particularly good—from a dairy just outside the city. And the figs are fresh from the Arbor." He took a fig, bit into it, the juice glistening on his lips. "You see? Perfectly safe."
You watched him, waiting for him to seize up, to clutch his throat, to foam at the mouth. He only smiled at you, patient as a cat watching a mouse.
Still, you did not trust it. Not him, not this place, not anything on this table. But your stomach ached with emptiness, and the smell of roasted meat and fresh bread was maddening. After a long moment, you reached for a spoon and dipped it into the small bowl of buttery leek soup set before you. The silver was cool in your hand, the soup fragrant with herbs.
"Here," you said, extending the spoon toward him across the table. "If it's truly not poisoned, you'll share it with me."
Ormund's eyes darkened with something that made your skin prickle. He did not take the spoon from your hand. Instead, he leaned forward—slow, deliberate, never breaking eye contact—and closed his lips around the spoon while you still held it. His mouth slid over the silver, his tongue darting briefly against the curve of it, his gaze locked on yours like a physical weight. He held the contact for a heartbeat too long before pulling back, licking a stray drop from his lower lip.
"Perfect," he murmured, his voice a low rumble. "No poison. Just soup." He smiled, and there was something wolfish in it. "And now we've shared a meal, you and I. How intimate."
You dropped the spoon. It clattered against the table, splashing soup across the wood. Your skin was crawling, a cold revulsion slithering down your spine. But you were also, despite everything, desperately hungry. And he had eaten from the same dish, the same spoon. If there was poison, he would suffer it too.
Slowly, reluctantly, you began to eat. The food was excellent. You hated that too.
For a time, there was only the clink of cutlery and the crackle of the fire. Ormund ate with the easy elegance of a man accustomed to luxury, watching you all the while. You forced yourself to eat with dignity, to not wolf down the food like a starving creature despite the hunger gnawing at your belly. You were a princess of Dorne. You would not give him the satisfaction of seeing you undone.
"You wish to negotiate," he said eventually, breaking the silence. He leaned back in his chair, swirling his wine. "I can see it in your eyes. You're planning your arguments, weighing your leverage. Go on, then. Negotiate."
You set down your fork, straightening in your chair. "Release me. Return me to Dorne, and my father will withdraw his ships from the Triarchy's fleet. The Stepstones are a pointless conflict—a few barren rocks in the middle of the sea. Dorne has no stake in them beyond our alliances. Let me go, and we can end this."
Ormund considered this, tapping one finger against the rim of his goblet. "A generous offer. But I'm afraid it's not yours to make."
"It is. I am the heir to Dorne. My father—"
"Your father sent you north as a negotiator," Ormund cut in smoothly. "Which suggests he values your counsel. But let us be honest with one another, Princess. A negotiation is something men do. You were sent here because you are... a symbol. A beautiful face. A gesture of goodwill. Not because your father expected you to actually broker terms."
The condescension dripped from every word like honey from a comb. You felt heat rising in your cheeks, your hands curling into fists beneath the table. "I am perfectly capable of—"
"Of course you are," he said, in the tone one might use to soothe a fussing child. "But it is not a woman's place to wage war or make peace. Surely even in Dorne, you understand that. Your father indulges you, I'm sure—lets you sit in on his councils, perhaps even asks your opinion. But when the ravens fly and the armies march, it is men who decide the fate of kingdoms."
The condescension was so thick you could have choked on it. "Dorne is different," you said, your voice tight. "Women can inherit. My ancestor Meria—"
"Meria Martell." He said her name like a prayer. "Yes, we've discussed her. A singular woman. But even she was an exception, not the rule. And she ruled behind the safety of the Red Mountains." He leaned forward, his eyes glinting in the candlelight. "You are not Meria Martell. You are a young woman, far from home, trying to play at politics with men who have been doing it since before you were born. It is... endearing. Truly."
Endearing. The word hit you like a slap. You pushed your plate away, your appetite gone. "You think this is amusing."
"I think you are amusing." He smiled, all warmth and condescension. "A princess playing diplomat. It's charming, really."
"My family will come for me," you said, your voice low and fierce. "When they learn what you've done—when they learn I've been taken—they will come. Dorne will go to war for me."
Ormund's smile faded, just slightly. He set down his goblet and studied you with new interest. "Will they? Against the dragons?"
The word hung in the air between you, heavy as a stone. Dragons. You had seen one once, years ago, flying high over the Sea of Dorne—a speck of darkness against the blue, trailing fire. You had felt its heat even from the ground.
"The Targaryens—" you began.
"The Targaryens have dragons," Ormund said simply. "Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm. Vhagar, the largest beast alive since Balerion's death. Syrax. Meleys. And more eggs hatching every year." He ticked them off on his fingers like a merchant counting coins. "Tell me, Princess—what would your father's spears do against dragonfire? What would your sand ships and your desert scouts do against a beast that can melt stone and boil rivers?"
You opened your mouth, but no words came. Because he was right. You both knew it.
"Dorne survived the dragons before," you managed finally. "They never conquered us."
"They did not conquer you because your ancestors were clever," Ormund said, nodding slowly. "They hid. They vanished into the mountains and the sands. They fought with ambush and poison and assassination—not with armies in the field. Not with spears against fire." He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his voice dropping to something almost intimate. "The Dornish survive by hiding and waiting. They do not march to war against dragons. We both know this. Your father would never commit his armies to an open war against the Iron Throne. He would rage and bluster and demand your return, and then... he would wait. He would hope for a diplomatic solution. He would pray to his gods that his daughter is clever enough to free herself." His smile returned, sharper now. "Because sending an army would mean watching it burn."
Your hands were shaking. You clasped them in your lap, hidden beneath the table, and forced your face to remain still. He was not entirely wrong—and that was the worst part. Your father was a pragmatic man. He loved you, but he also loved Dorne, and he would not sacrifice one for the other.
"You know nothing of my father," you said, but the words sounded hollow even to your own ears.
"I know men," Ormund said simply. "And I know rulers. They make the same calculations, always. One daughter—even a beloved daughter, even an heir—against the lives of thousands. Against the survival of a kingdom." He shrugged. "It is not a difficult sum."
"You are despicable."
"I am a realist." He took another sip of wine, utterly unruffled. "It is a cruel world, Princess. I did not make it so."
You wanted to throw your goblet at his head. You wanted to flip the table and watch the fine Reach crystal shatter against the stone floor. Instead, you sat frozen, your heart pounding, your mind racing through escape plans that all ended in failure before they began.
"I would like to return to my chambers now," you said, your voice flat and cold as a blade.
"We haven't finished supper." He gestured at your half-eaten plate. "And you've barely touched the wine. It's Arbor gold—very fine. Much better than the Dornish swill you're accustomed to, I'm sure."
"I have lost my appetite."
"What a shame." He set down his goblet and leaned back in his chair, studying you with those predatory blue eyes. "You know, Princess, I must confess I am somewhat disappointed. The stories one hears about Dornish women... they paint a very particular picture."
You stiffened. "What stories?"
"The usual tales." He waved a hand lazily. His eyes slid over you, slow and deliberate, lingering on the low cut of your borrowed gown. "They say Dornish women know how to get what they want. That when they need something—freedom, favor, a man's allegiance—they do not negotiate like common merchants. They seduce." He drew out the word, savoring it. "They use their beauty, their charm, their... considerable talents. And men, being men, are helpless to resist."
Your jaw tightened. "Is that what you expect? For me to bat my lashes and spread my legs in exchange for my freedom?"
"I expect nothing." But his smile said otherwise. "I merely observe that you have not tried. You sit there, stiff as a septa, arguing politics like a man. It's... effective, in its way. But not what I anticipated. Not what I've seen before."
"Before?"
"I have met my fair share of Dornish women," he said, his voice dropping to something almost silky. His eyes met yours, dark with something you could not name. "They tried. All of them. And they all failed."
"Failed to seduce you?" The words came out sharp as broken glass. "How tragic for them."
"Isn't it?" He was still smiling, but there was a tension beneath it now, a coiled hunger that made your skin prickle with revulsion. "I have always wondered if there was a Dornish woman who could succeed where they failed. A woman of true skill. True passion." His gaze dropped to your lips, then lower. "You are the heir to Dorne. Surely you have some of that famous fire in you. Surely you know how to... persuade a man."
You pushed back from the table, your chair scraping against the stone. Your whole body was trembling now—with rage, with disgust, with the overwhelming urge to claw those pretty blue eyes out of his skull. "I would sooner bed a scorpion."
"A scorpion." He laughed, a rich, delighted sound. "How very Dornish of you. But scorpions are small, Princess. Easily crushed beneath a boot." He rose from his seat, and even from across the table, his height was intimidating. "I am not a scorpion. I am the man who holds your fate in his hands. And I am offering you an opportunity."
"You are offering me an insult."
"I am offering you a chance." He stepped around the table, and you stepped back, keeping distance between you. "You are clever enough to recognize your situation. You are alone. You are far from home. Your father cannot save you with spears, and your brothers might not want you saved at all. Your only assets in this game are your beauty and your blood." He stopped, tilting his head, that wolfish smile still playing at the corners of his mouth. "I am not an unreasonable man. I could be persuaded to... improve your conditions. To treat you less as a hostage and more as a guest. Perhaps even to speak of release, in time." His voice dropped to a murmur. "If you gave me reason to."
The silence stretched between you, taut as a bowstring. The fire crackled in the hearth, casting shadows that danced across his face, making him look like something out of a nightmare—beautiful and monstrous all at once.
"You want me to seduce you," you said, your voice barely above a whisper. "You kidnapped me. You dragged me across the Reach in chains. You dressed me like a doll and threatened me over supper. And now you want me to seduce you."
"I want you to try," he corrected, his eyes glittering. "I want to see if the stories are true. I want to see if the heir of Dorne has the fire her ancestors possessed—or if you are merely a pretty face, beautiful and empty, the other side of Meria's coin."
Revulsion coiled in your stomach like a snake. But beneath the revulsion, cold and sharp as a blade, was clarity. He had shown you his hand. He wanted you. Or rather, he wanted the game of being wanted—the chase, the conquest, the validation of having a Dornish princess debase herself for him. It was pathetic. It was disgusting.
"Then I am afraid you will be disappointed," you said, your voice steady despite the storm inside you. "I am indeed beautiful and empty. The other side of the coin. You said so yourself." You curtsied, a mocking gesture that made his smile flicker. "Now, if you will excuse me, Lord Hightower, I would like to return to my chambers. Unless you intend to force me further tonight."
Something flickered in his eyes—frustration, perhaps, or renewed interest. It was hard to tell. But he stepped back, granting you passage to the door.
"Of course," he said smoothly, recovering his composure. "You must be tired from your journey. We will continue this conversation another time." He raised his goblet in a mocking toast. "Sleep well, Princess. Dream of Dorne."
You did not look back as you walked to the door. Your legs felt like water, your heart hammering so loudly you were certain he could hear it. The guards were waiting outside—of course they were—and the silent handmaidens materialized from the shadows to escort you back to your gilded cage.
Only when the door to your chambers closed behind you, when you were finally alone, did you let yourself breathe. You sank onto the featherbed, your hands still shaking, the taste of soup and revulsion lingering on your tongue.
He was a monster. A handsome, smiling, courteous monster. And you were trapped in his tower, far from the sun and the sand, with nothing but your wits to protect you.
You closed your eyes and thought of Dorne—of the blazing sun, the cool fountains, the scent of lemons and spice. You thought of your father, your brothers, the sand ships racing across the desert. You would see them again. You would find a way out of this tower, out of this city, out of this nightmare.
—
You had been in the Hightower for a fortnight when you realized you could not remember the last time you wore a color other than green. Emerald silk. Forest velvet. Seafoam linen. Every gown the silent handmaidens laid out for you was some shade of it—sometimes deep as pine needles, sometimes pale as seafoam, but always, always green. The color of him.
You had asked, once, for something else. "Red," you had said, your voice sharp. "Gold. Orange. The colors of my house. Surely there must be something."
The handmaiden had only stared at you with those blank, empty eyes and offered you a gown of olive silk. You had worn it. What choice did you have?
It was not just the clothes. It was everything. The bath oils they used on you each morning—jasmine and something sweeter that clung to your skin for hours afterward. The perfume they dabbed behind your ears and at your wrists. The way they brushed your hair with scented oils until it gleamed like polished ebony. At first you had thought it was simply the Hightower way, some Reach obsession with fragrance and finery.
Then you noticed his nose. It happened on the third morning. You had been brought to the small solar where he insisted on breaking his fast with you. You had barely sat down when Ormund leaned toward you, his eyes fluttering half-closed, and inhaled deeply.
"They've changed the oil," he murmured, almost to himself. "Lavender. Good. The jasmine was overwhelming." His blue eyes opened, fixing on you with that unsettling intensity. "Don't you agree?"
You had frozen, a piece of bread halfway to your lips. "I hadn't noticed."
"No, I don't suppose you would." He smiled, settling back into his chair. "You Dornish are accustomed to strong scents. Spices, perfumes, the salt of the sea. But here in the Reach, subtlety is an art form. I prefer a lighter touch." He gestured to your plate. "Eat. You're growing thin."
You ate, because refusing meant an argument, and arguing with Ormund Hightower was like wrestling smoke. He never lost his temper. He never raised his voice. He simply smiled and smiled and got his way regardless.
The meals were mandatory. Every single one. If you tried to refuse, the handmaidens would not force you—but they would stand in your doorway, silent and waiting, until you relented or until Ormund himself appeared with that pleasant smile and that hard glint in his eye. "Princess," he would say, offering his arm. "You must keep your strength up. I insist."
You had tried refusing three times. On the third, he had stood in your doorway for nearly an hour, leaning against the frame with casual ease, making idle conversation while you sat on your bed and ignored him. Eventually, your stomach had growled loudly enough for him to hear, and his smile had widened. "There," he had said, as though you were a fussing child who had finally seen reason. "The body does not lie."
Now you simply went. It was easier. Less exhausting.
And he smelled you. Constantly. A pause when he leaned close to point out some feature of the garden, his breath stirring the hair at your temple. But as the days wore on, he grew bolder. He would take your hand to help you over a cobblestone and hold it a moment too long, his nostrils flaring almost imperceptibly. He would adjust the drape of your sleeve and duck his head, inhaling. He would stand behind your chair at supper, his hands resting on the carved wood, and you would feel the warmth of his breath against the crown of your hair.
You began to understand, with a dawning horror, why the servants bathed you so diligently. Why they oiled and perfumed you each morning. Why the gowns were always fresh, always scented with dried lavender from the tower's stores. It was not for your comfort. It was not for propriety.
It was for him. For his sensitive nose. For his enjoyment.
That night, you lay awake in your chamber, staring at the canopy above your bed. Sleep had become elusive since your arrival—your mind too restless, your body too alert to every creak and whisper of the ancient tower. The moonlight spilled through the tall windows, painting silver patterns on the stone floor.
You heard the door open. It was a soft sound, barely louder than a breath—the gentle click of the latch, the whisper of well-oiled hinges. Your body went rigid beneath the blankets, every instinct screaming at you to move, to shout, to do something. But terror held you still, and some deeper instinct whispered that it was safer to feign sleep. To not let him know you were aware.
Footsteps. Slow and deliberate, crossing the room with the easy confidence of someone who belonged there. Someone who had every right to be there, in the darkness, in your chamber, while you slept.
You kept your breathing steady. In and out. In and out. Your eyes were closed, your face slack, your body arranged in the loose sprawl of deep sleep. You had learned to fake sleep as a child, when you wanted to stay up past your bedtime and listen to the adults talking in the corridor. You had never thought the skill would save your life.
He stopped beside your bed. He was close, so close, leaning over you in the darkness. You felt the warmth of his body, the displacement of air as he moved, and then you felt his breath on your neck.
He inhaled. Long and slow and deep, as though he were drinking you in, savoring the scent of your skin, your hair, the perfume the servants had applied hours ago. He did it again, closer this time, and you felt the faint brush of something—his nose, perhaps, or his lips—against the curve of your throat.
You did not move. You did not breathe. You lay frozen in the darkness while the Lord of Oldtown stood over you and smelled you like a hound scenting prey.
It lasted an eternity. It lasted only moments. Time had ceased to have meaning in that dark room, with his breath on your skin and his shadow blocking the moonlight.
Then he straightened. You heard him exhale, a soft and almost wistful sound, like a man setting down a glass of fine wine he wished he could finish. "Sleep well, Princess," he whispered into the darkness.
The footsteps retreated. The door clicked shut. And you were alone again, trembling beneath your blankets, the ghost of his breath still warm on your throat.
You did not sleep that night. You lay awake until dawn, staring at the door, your heart pounding a frantic rhythm against your ribs. When the grey light of morning finally crept through the windows, you rose and dressed yourself and went to break your fast with the man who held you captive.
He was already seated when you arrived, looking fresh and handsome and utterly untroubled. "Princess," he said warmly, rising to greet you. "You look tired. Did you not sleep well?"
You met his eyes and saw no trace of guilt. "Strange dreams," you said, taking your seat. "This tower is full of shadows."
"Old places often are." He poured your tea himself, the steam curling between you. "But you are safe here, I promise you. Under my protection, no harm will come to you."
—
You had been planning it for days, a knife slipped from the supper table while Ormund was distracted by his own voice, hidden in the folds of your gown before the servants cleared the plates.
The evening had been unbearable. Ormund had been insufferable—his hand creeping onto your thigh beneath the table during the roast course, his breath hot and damp against your ear when he leaned in to murmur some pointless observation about the wine. He had pressed his nose to the curve of your neck before dessert and inhaled like a man drowning, right there in front of the servants, who stared at the floor with dead eyes. You had smiled. You had laughed at his witless jokes. You had let him smell your wrist when he demanded it, presenting it like a gift, watching his eyes flutter closed in that sickening ecstasy that made your bile rise.
By the time you reached your chambers, your heart was a war drum in your chest. You closed the door behind you and stood in the darkness for a moment, listening. The guard outside your door shifted his weight, his armor creaking softly.
You began to undress. The emerald silk of your bodice was fastened with a dozen tiny buttons, impossible to reach on your own—a design choice you now understood was entirely intentional, another thread in the web he had woven around you.
"Ser Gyles?"
A pause. "Princess?"
"I need help." You let your voice go soft, uncertain. "My bodice—the buttons—I cannot reach them. The handmaidens have retired, and I..." You let a tremor enter your voice. "I would be so grateful for your assistance."
Another pause, longer this time. You could hear the war inside his head—the impropriety, the danger, the lord's orders, and beneath it all, the lure of a princess in distress, a beautiful woman asking for his help. Men were so predictable.
"Princess, I... Lord Ormund would—"
"Lord Ormund is abed," you said, turning your back to the door as you heard it creak open. You gathered your dark hair over one shoulder, baring the elegant line of your neck, the vulnerable curve of your spine where the buttons waited. "He need never know. It's only a few buttons. Surely a knight of the Reach is not afraid of a few buttons?"
That stung his pride. Good. Pride made men stupid.
His footsteps crossed the room. His hands were shaking as they found the buttons, fumbling with the delicate silk loops. You could hear his breathing, quick and shallow, could smell the sour note of his nervous sweat beneath the armor polish. Poor, stupid boy. He probably thought he was about to get something far more interesting than button duty.
"You're very kind," you murmured. "So much kinder than the other guards. They look at me like a prisoner. But you..." You glanced over your shoulder, letting your dark eyes meet his. "You look at me like a woman."
His Adam's apple bobbed. His fingers stilled on the buttons. "Princess, I... I have admired you since you arrived. The way Lord Ormund treats you, it isn't—"
"Shh." You turned fully, and your hand slid beneath the loosened bodice. "I know."
The knife emerged silver in the candlelight. Ser Gyles had time to register the cold purpose in your eyes—the shift from simpering captive to something far older and far deadlier—before you buried the blade in his throat. Ser Gyles made a wet, choking sound—glrk, glrk—his hands flying to his neck, his eyes wide with the stunned disbelief of a man who had never truly believed he could die.
You caught him as he fell, lowering him to the ground with the gentleness you would have shown a wounded animal. His blood pooled beneath him, black in the candlelight, spreading across the stones like spilled wine.
"I'm sorry," you whispered, and you almost meant it. Almost. "You should have chosen a different lord to serve."
You ran.
The corridor stretched before you, dark and endless. Left at the tapestry of Hugor of the Hill. Down the narrow servants' stairs. Through the empty kitchens where the great hearth had burned to embers, past the hanging carcasses of tomorrow's meat, past the neat rows of copper pots. Your bare feet made no sound on the cold stone. The stolen knife was still clutched in your hand, the guard's dagger tucked into your belt..
The delivery yard opened onto the lower bailey, and beyond that, the gates. The main gates were heavily guarded, but there was a postern—a small door used by servants and merchants, set into the eastern wall. You had spotted it during your walks, noted the single guard who manned it during the night shift. One guard. One tired, bored, unsuspecting guard.
You could handle one guard. You crossed the bailey in a crouch, keeping to the shadows, your blood-soaked gown clinging to your legs. The postern gate was ahead, a dark archway lit by a single flickering torch. The guard was there—slumped against the wall, chin drooping toward his chest, his spear propped beside him. You tightened your grip on the knife.
You were almost there. Almost free. You could smell the salt air, could feel the wind on your face, could almost hear your father's voice welcoming you home—the hand closed around your arm like a vise of iron.
More hands seized you, dragging you backward, and you fought like a cornered wildcat, clawing and kicking and biting. Your nails raked across someone's face, tearing furrows in his cheek. Your elbow caught another guard in the throat, and he staggered back choking. Your teeth found the fleshy part of a hand and bit down until you tasted blood that wasn't your own.
But there were too many of them. Four guards in Hightower grey, their faces hard and merciless, and then six, and then more, pouring out of the darkness like rats from a sinking ship. Someone wrenched your arm behind your back until you felt something in your shoulder scream. Someone else tangled a fist in your hair and yanked your head back so hard your vision went white.
"Let me go!" you shrieked, still fighting, still clawing. "I am—release me at once, you filth, you dogs, you—"
A hand clamped over your mouth. You bit it. The owner cursed and struck you across the face—not hard enough to knock you out, just hard enough to stun. The world tilted and blurred.
You knew where they were taking you before the door appeared. The heart of the beast's lair. The doors slammed open with enough force to crack the wood. Ormund Hightower was standing in the center of the room, and the sight of him made something cold and primal slither down your spine.
He was still fully dressed despite the late hour but his appearance was... wrong. His curls were disheveled, as though he had been running his hands through them over and over. His eyes were wild, rimmed with red, the pupils blown so wide they nearly swallowed the iris. His cravat was undone, hanging loose around his neck, and his hands were shaking at his sides. He had been pacing—you could see it in the scattered papers on the floor, the overturned inkwell bleeding black across his desk, the chair kicked into the corner.
He looked, you realized with a chill, like a man on the edge of a very high precipice. "So," he said, and his voice was wrong too—too soft, too calm, the voice of a man holding himself together by the thinnest of threads. "The little Dornish viper finally shows her fangs."
The guards threw you forward. You stumbled, catching yourself on the edge of his desk, your bloody hand leaving a crimson print on the scattered parchment. One of the guards began to speak—"My lord, she killed Ser Gyles, she nearly made it to the postern—" but Ormund silenced him with a single raised hand.
"Leave us."
"My lord, she's dangerous, she—"
"I said leave us." His voice cracked on the last word, a fissure in the calm, and the guards fled like rabbits before a wolf. The doors slammed shut.
You were alone with him. The silence stretched between you, taut as a hanged man's rope. The candle on his desk guttered, casting wild shadows across his face. He was staring at you—not at your face, but at the blood soaking your gown, the dark stains on your hands, the wild tangle of your hair. Taking inventory. Understanding what you had done.
"You killed Ser Gyles," he said quietly. Almost conversationally.
"He was in my way."
"He was a good man. Loyal. He served my house since he was a boy." Ormund took a step toward you, and the floorboards creaked beneath his weight. "And you slit his throat like a pig at slaughter."
"He was your creature." You straightened, meeting his eyes with all the defiance you still possessed. "If you wanted him to live, you should not have put him in my path."
Something flickered in his expression—a spasm, a tic, the mask cracking and reforming in the span of a heartbeat. "You tried to leave me."
"I tried to escape. There is a difference."
"No." He shook his head slowly, his wild curls falling into his eyes. "No, there isn't. Not for you. Not for us." He took another step closer, and now you could smell him. "After everything I have given you. After everything I have done for you. This is how you repay me?"
"Done for me?" The words burst from your throat like a curse. "You've done nothing for me. You kidnapped me from the Roseroad. You dragged me to this gilded prison and parade me around like a pet—"
"I have given you everything!" His voice rose to a roar, echoing off the stone walls. The candle flame shuddered. "Fine gowns! The best chambers! Food from my own table! I have treated you like a queen, like a goddess, like—" He broke off, his chest heaving, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I have been good to you."
"You have been a monster," you spat. "A sad, pathetic monster who cannot tell the difference between hospitality and captivity. You keep me here because you are obsessed with me—obsessed with the way I smell, the way I look, the way I defy you. It eats at you, doesn't it? That I don't want you. That I will never want you."
"Stop." The word was barely a whisper.
"You are a jailer, a man so desperate for a woman's attention that he has to steal one."
"Stop."
But you were beyond stopping. The fury of weeks—of months—was pouring out of you, a river of venom that had been dammed too long. You stepped toward him, closing the distance, your bloody hands clenched into fists at your sides.
"Do you want to know why you're still unmarried, Ormund? Why every match your uncle Otto tries to arrange falls through? Why the noble ladies of the Reach find excuses not to visit Oldtown?"
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, but I do." You smiled, and it was a cruel smile, a Scorpion's smile, full of poison and barbs. "The servants talk, you know. They think I don't hear them, but I do. The maids whisper about it in the corridors. The guards joke about it in the yard. The Lord of Oldtown, they say. So handsome, so wealthy, so powerful—and still no wife. Still alone."
"Shut your mouth—"
"They say Lord Tyrell refused to let his daughter visit after what happened last time. They say the Hightower maids draw lots for who has to attend you, because none of them can stand you." You tilted your head, your eyes glittering with malice. "They say you have a reputation. And not the kind a lord wants."
He lunged. His hands seized your shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to grind muscle against bone. He shook you violently, your head snapping back and forth until your teeth clacked together and the world dissolved into a blur of candlelight and shadow.
"You ungrateful whore!" he screamed, his face inches from yours, his spittle flecking your cheeks. "I gave you everything! I would have given you more! I would have made you the Lady of Oldtown! I would have put the Hightower itself at your feet!"
"Made me your prisoner for life, you mean!" you shrieked back, clawing at his hands, your nails drawing blood from his wrists. "Locked me in your tower like a bird in a cage and called it love! Is that what you told yourself? That if you just kept me long enough, just dressed me pretty enough, just smelled me often enough, I would eventually want you?"
He threw you backward. You crashed into the desk, sending papers flying, the inkwell shattering against the floor. Pain lanced through your spine, but you pushed yourself upright, your blood-slick hands gripping the edge of the desk, your chest heaving.
"I would rather bed the lowest, filthiest beggar in Flea Bottom than spend one more night under your roof pretending to tolerate your disgusting attentions." you hissed.
His whole body was trembling, vibrating with a rage so profound it seemed to consume him from the inside out. "You think me disgusting?" His voice had dropped to a whisper, somehow more terrifying than the screaming. "You think I'm some pathetic creature to be mocked and pitied?"
"I think you're a joke," you said, your voice steady despite the terror clawing at your throat. "I think you're a sad, lonely, pathetic excuse for a man who has to kidnap women because no one would ever choose to be near you. I think your obsession with scent and perfume is revolting—do you know that? The way you sniff at me like a dog at a bitch in heat? The way you come into my room at night and stand over my bed and breathe me in while you think I'm sleeping?"
He froze.
"You are a deviant. No woman will ever want you. No woman will ever choose you. You will die alone in this tower, surrounded by your beautiful things and your sensitive nose, and no one will mourn you."
"You bitch—"
"Even now, even after all of this, a part of you still wants me. A part of you is still hoping that if you just keep me long enough, I'll eventually yield. That's why you never touched me, isn't it? Not really. Not the way you wanted to. You were waiting for me to want it. To want you. Because forcing me would mean admitting defeat. Would mean admitting that the only way you can have a woman is by force."
The slap cracked across your face like a thunderclap, snapping your head to the side and sending you sprawling to the floor. Your palms hit the stone first, then your knees, and for a moment, the world was nothing but white light and ringing silence. Your cheek burned where his palm had connected. You tasted blood—your own, this time—welling from a split in your lip.
You lay there on the cold stone floor of his study, your hair pooled around you like a dark halo, your torn gown tangled around your legs. The fire had died almost entirely now, and the room was sinking into shadow. Above you, Ormund stood frozen, his hand still raised, his chest heaving with ragged, uneven breaths.
When he spoke again, his voice was strange. Hollow. Almost distant. "Look what you made me do." You could feel the imprint of his hand still burning on your cheek. You could feel the weight of the tower pressing down on you from all sides. You could feel the gates closing, not just the iron ones at the tower's base but something deeper, something inside you, something that had been open a crack and was now slamming shut.
"You think you are a prisoner?" He took a step toward you, and the floorboards groaned beneath his weight. "You think I have treated you poorly? You, who have dined at my table and worn my silks and walked in my gardens? You, who have wanted for nothing since the moment you arrived? You think this is how prisoners are treated?"
You tried to push yourself up, but your arms were shaking too badly. Your whole body was shaking, a fine tremor that ran from your scalp to the soles of your bare feet. The adrenaline that had carried you through the escape had gone now.
"I have been patient," he continued, and his voice was rising, cracking at the edges like ice under pressure. "I have been so fucking patient with you. I have given you time, space, every opportunity to see that I am not your enemy, that I am not the monster you have painted me as in your mind. And how do you repay me?" He was standing directly over you now, so close you could see the way his hands were trembling, the way a vein pulsed in his temple. "You steal a knife from my table. You seduce one of my guards and then you run. You run from me."
"Because you kidnapped me." The words scraped their way out of your throat, hoarse and defiant despite the terror that was coiling in your belly.
"Get up."
When you did not move—could not move, your legs had turned to water, your body had betrayed you entirely—he reached down and closed his hand around your upper arm. His fingers were iron, and he hauled you to your feet with a single brutal motion that made your shoulder joint scream in protest. You stumbled, your bare feet tangling in the shredded hem of your gown, and you would have fallen again if his grip had not held you upright, your face inches from his doublet, the scent of him—sandalwood and wine and the sharp, metallic tang of fury—flooding your senses.
"You want to be a prisoner?" His free hand came up and fisted in the front of your gown, right where the torn laces left the silk gaping open, right where your chest rose and fell with panicked, shallow breaths. "You want to know how a prisoner is treated? you want to scream about chains and cages and the cruelty of your captor?" His fingers tightened, twisting the silk, and you heard something begin to tear. "Fine. You want to know what happens to women who murder my men and try to flee from me in the dead of night? I will show you. I will fucking show you."
There was a sound and then your gown was coming apart in his hands. The fabric, already torn and loosened from your earlier run, gave way like wet parchment. He pulled, and the bodice split down the front, and the sleeves slid from your shoulders, and the skirts that had billowed so dramatically as you fled through the corridors now fell away in shreds and tatters, pooling at your feet in a wreckage of silk. The cold air of the study hit your bare skin and you gasped, your arms instinctively crossing over your chest, your hands trying to cover what the ruined gown no longer could.
"Stop." Your voice came out wrong—high and thin, a pleading voice. You hated it. You hated yourself for it. But the word was out before you could catch it, and once it was out, more followed. "Ormund, stop. Please. Please, I will not run again. I swear it. I swear it on my ancestors, on my house, on the sun and the spear, I will not run again. Just please, please stop—"
"Please?" He laughed, and the sound was jagged and broken and utterly without humor. It was the laugh of a man who had been holding something back for a very long time, and who was no longer interested in restraint. "Now you say please? Now you find your manners? After you stood in my own study and laughed at my loneliness, mocked my solitude, threw every insecurity I have ever confessed to you back in my face like it was a weapon?" His hands found your waist—bare now, the skin hypersensitive to every texture, every callus, every point of contact—and he pushed, and you were stumbling backward, and your spine hit the edge of his desk with a force that drove the air from your lungs in a single, explosive gasp. "You were wrong about that, my sweet. There is one woman who will have me. There is one woman who is mine, whether she likes it or not, whether she fights or not, whether she bleeds or not. You are that woman. You have been that woman from the moment you opened your eyes in my tower, and you will be that woman until I decide otherwise."
The desk was cold against your bare back, "I'm sorry." The words tumbled out of you, desperate and broken, tripping over each other in their rush to escape. "I am sorry, I should not have said those things, they were cruel and they were unkind and I did not mean them—I did not mean any of them—I was angry, I was frightened, I had just—I had just killed a man, there was blood on my hands, I was not thinking clearly. Please, Ormund, please, if you ever cared for me at all, if any of those words you spoke to me over the past weeks were true, if any of those touches were real, please do not do this. I am begging you. I am begging you."
"Shut up."
The command was quiet now and that calmness, was somehow more terrifying than the shouting had been. He straightened up—still standing between your legs, still pinning you to the desk with the weight of his presence if not his body—and his hands went to his belt. You heard the clink of the buckle, the whisper of leather sliding through loops, the soft thud as the belt fell to the floor.
"Please." You were crying now. You had not even realized when the tears started, but they were streaming down your face, hot and shameful, tracking through the dried blood on your cheek and the salt of your sweat. You hated them. You hated the weakness they betrayed, the vulnerability they advertised. But you could not stop them. "Please, Ormund, please do not do this. I will be good. I will be so good. I will do everything you have ever wanted. Everything. Just please, please do not—"
"I said shut up."
His hands were on you again, and this time there was nothing gentle about them. He flipped you onto your stomach as if you weighed nothing, as if all those weeks of fine dining and measured portions had left you light enough to maneuver like a doll. Your cheek pressed against the cold wood of the desk, and your hands scrabbled for purchase, finding nothing but smooth, polished surface, and his hands were everywhere now, rough and proprietary, mapping the territory he had claimed by force. One hand pinned your wrists together at the small of your back, his grip hot and unyielding. The other traced a slow, deliberate line down your spine, over each vertebra, into the dip of your lower back, across the curve of your hip.
"You wanted to know if my adoration was real." His voice was in your ear now, his breath hot and damp against the sensitive skin of your neck, and you could feel the weight of him behind you, the solid mass of his body pressing you into the desk. "Let me put your mind at ease. It was never a game. It was never a farce. I have wanted you from the first moment I saw you, in my solar, still covered in the dust of the mountain road. I have wanted you every day since. I have wanted you at breakfast and at supper and on every walk through every garden. I have imagined, in great and elaborate detail, exactly what it would feel like to finally, finally—"
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of your arse, and you squeezed your eyes shut so tightly that stars burst behind your lids, you tried to go somewhere else with your mind but his fingers were digging bruises into your hip, and the desk was hard and cold beneath your stomach, and his breath was hot against the back of your neck, and you could not escape. There was only this room, this man, and the sound of your own voice saying please, please, please into the polished wood until the words lost all meaning and became nothing but a rhythm, a prayer, a desperate incantation against the darkness.
"Shh." His hand left your hip and came up to stroke your hair, the gesture so incongruously tender that it made your stomach lurch. "Shh, my sweet. My beautiful Dornish rose. There is no need for tears. This was always going to happen. From the moment you arrived, this was always where we were going. You had to know that. Deep down, in that clever mind you are so proud of, you had to know."
The hand that had been stroking your hair suddenly clamped down on the back of your neck, shoving your face hard against the polished wood of the desk. The impact jarred your teeth, and the scent of old ink and beeswax filled your nostrils, grounding you in the horrific reality of the room..
You whimpered, your fingers clawing uselessly at the wood, trying to find some purchase, some way to push yourself away, but he was a wall of muscle and malice. He reached down, grabbing your thighs and wrenching them apart with a brutal strength that made your joints pop. You were wide open, exposed and trembling, the vulnerability of your nakedness making the terror spike in your chest.
"Look at you," he hissed, his voice a low growl in your ear. "Trembling like a frightened bird. Do you feel it? The inevitability of it?"
You didn't answer. You couldn't. You tried to retreat back to the deserts of Sunspear, to the smell of salt and spice, but the sensation of his thick, turgid cock rubbing against your outer lips dragged you back. He wasn't using any oil, no gentleness, no preamble. He wanted you to feel every bit of the intrusion.
With one sudden, violent thrust, he drove himself inside you. A scream tore from your throat, muffled by the desk, as he ripped through your tightness. The pain was a white-hot blade, slicing through your center, stretching you beyond your limit. You felt yourself tear, the sharp sting of friction and force making your vision blur. He didn't pause to let you adjust; he didn't care that you were sobbing, your breath coming in ragged, broken gasps.
He began to fuck you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity. Each slam of his hips against your ass sounded like a wet slap, echoing through the room. He was driving deep, his cock hitting your cervix with a force that made your entire body shudder. You felt the coldness of the desk beneath your chest and the searing heat of him inside you, a contrast that made you feel as though you were being split in two.
"Please," you gasped, the word a broken shard of glass. "Please stop..."
"You're so tight," he groaned, his fingers digging back into your hips, bruising the skin as he anchored you for deeper thrusts. "I can feel you shaking around me."
He shifted his grip, reaching forward to grab your breasts, squeezing them hard enough to leave marks, pulling your torso back against him while he continued to hammer into your pussy. The friction was becoming an agonizing burn, the lack of lubrication making every stroke feel like sandpaper against raw nerves.
He accelerated, his breathing becoming heavy and erratic. The pace became frantic, a blur of motion and pain. He was no longer just taking you; he was trying to break you, to erase everything you were and replace it with the memory of this violation. You felt the wetness of your own tears dripping onto the wood, mixing with the sweat and the scent of sex and fear.
With a final, guttural roar, he lunged forward one last time, burying himself as deep as he could possibly go. You felt the hot, pulsing jet of his cum erupting inside you, filling your womb with a thick, searing warmth that felt like a brand. He held you there for a long moment, his weight crushing the air from your lungs, his heart hammering against your spine.
When he finally pulled out, the sound was a wet, sickening pop. You collapsed onto the desk, your limbs heavy and useless, your pussy throbbing and leaking his seed across the polished wood. You lay there in the silence, the green light of the tower still watching, while the ghost of the desert wind whispered a lie of freedom in your ear.
He stayed where he was for a long moment, his weight heavy on your back, his breath slowly steadying against your shoulder. One of his hands was still tangled in your hair, the other still gripping your hip with a possessiveness that seemed to go beyond conscious thought. You could feel his heartbeat through the velvet of his doublet—he had not even bothered to fully undress, you realized, not even that small concession—and it was fast, rapid, like a hunted thing.
Then he straightened. He adjusted his clothing with practiced, efficient movements. He smoothed down his doublet and ran a hand through his disheveled curls. And then, very gently, very carefully, he reached down and pulled you upright.
Your legs would not hold you. They buckled immediately, and you would have fallen if he had not caught you, one arm around your waist, pulling you against his chest. He held you there for a moment, one hand cradling the back of your head, pressing your face into the crook of his neck. His skin was damp with sweat.
"There now," he murmured into your hair. His voice was hoarse, almost reverent, and his hands were trembling slightly as they stroked down your back. "There now. That was not so terrible, was it? You see? You are mine. You have always been mine. And now you know it. Now there is no more doubt. No more confusion. It is real. You are real. This is real."
You said nothing. You stared over his shoulder at the wall. Your mind was very far away, floating somewhere up near the painted stars, and it did not seem inclined to return.
He pressed a kiss to your temple. His lips were warm. Gentle. The contrast made your stomach heave. "I will have the servants draw you a bath," he said, pulling back just enough to look at your face. His eyes traced over your features with that same cataloging intensity, checking for damage, assessing the state of his possession. His thumb came up and brushed away a tear from your cheek, and the gesture was so tender, so utterly at odds with what he had just done, that you felt something inside you splinter. "A hot bath. The jasmine oil, I think. The orange blossom is clearly not agreeing with your temperament. And fresh sheets on your bed. And something to eat—you have not eaten properly in days, and you will need your strength."
He said this as if nothing had happened. As if you were still a guest who had merely had a difficult evening. As if he had not just dismantled you piece by piece on his desk.
He called for the guards. Two of them this time, not one, and they appeared in the doorway with expressions carefully blank, their eyes sliding away from your ruined gown and your bare shoulders and the bruises already blooming on your arms. He gave them instructions in a low voice—the bath, the jasmine oil, the fresh sheets, the tray of food—and then he draped his own cloak over your shoulders, settling it around you with the same care he might have shown a child. The velvet was heavy and warm, and it smelled of him, and you wanted to tear it off, to burn it, to scream. But your body would not obey you. Your body was no longer yours to command.
"Take her to her chambers," he told the guards. "And if anything happens to her—if she is harmed in any way, or if she is allowed to escape—I will hold you both personally responsible. Do you understand?"
They understood. They took your arms and they led you out of the study and into the cold stone corridor.
—
They had put you to bed like a child. They had pulled the covers up to your chin and doused the candles and left you alone in the darkness with the scent of jasmine and the distant crash of waves and the memory of his hands, his weight, his breath on your neck. You had lain there for what felt like hours, staring at the ceiling, watching the shadows shift and flicker as the green flame of the Hightower cast its sickly light through the windows. Sleep would not come. You did not think it ever would again.
And then the door had opened. You knew it was him before you saw him. You knew it by the way the air changed, by the sudden sharp tang of sandalwood that cut through the jasmine like a blade. You knew it by the soft click of the latch, the whisper of bare feet on stone, the slow, measured breathing of a man who was in no hurry because he knew there was nowhere for his prey to run. Your body went rigid beneath the covers. Every muscle locked. Every nerve screamed. But you did not move. You did not turn your head. You stared at the ceiling and you waited.
The mattress dipped as he climbed onto the bed beside you. His weight settled into the feather mattress, tilting your body toward him, and then his hand was on your shoulder, turning you onto your back, and his face was above you in the darkness, pale and beautiful and utterly, terrifyingly serene.
"Ormund." His name came out of you like a breath, like a surrender. You did not have the strength to fight.
"Shh." His fingers found your cheek in the darkness, tracing the line of your jaw with that same false tenderness he had shown before. "Do not speak. There is no need for words between us now. Not anymore."
He flipped you onto your back, your body stark against the rumpled sheets. He seized both of your wrists in one hand, pinning them violently above your head, stretching your torso taut. He didn't waste time with foreplay; he simply spat into his palm, smeared the slime over his turgid cock, and slammed back into your pussy with a force that knocked the wind from your lungs. You felt your walls stretching, the raw friction of his thick shaft sliding in and out of you, the wet, slapping sound of his balls hitting your ass echoing through the room. He leaned down, his teeth grazing the shell of your ear, his breath a hot, humid fog. "You were made for this," he hissed, his hips hammering into you with a rhythmic, punishing intensity that made your head toss from side to side.
When he finally spent himself inside you, leaking hot cum deep into your womb, he didn't let you recover. He rolled you onto your side, his heavy arm wrapping around your waist like a shackle, pulling your arse flush against his chest. He entered you from behind, his cock sliding into your slick, swollen pussy with a sickening squelch. You felt the blunt head of his dick hitting your cervix over and over, a dull, aching thud that vibrated through your entire pelvis. You tried to curl away, to protect yourself, but he only gripped your hip harder, his fingers digging bruises into your skin as he drove himself home, filling you completely until you felt like you were being split open from the inside.
Then he shoved you face-down, your cheek pressed hard into the pillows, the scent of expensive linen mingling with the smell of sex and sweat. He grabbed your hair, yanking your head back to expose the nape of your neck while he entered you once more. This time, he didn't stop at your pussy. He shifted his aim, the broad head of his cock probing the tight, virgin heat of your ass. You shrieked into the pillow as he forced his way in, the sudden, searing stretch of your sphincter making your vision go white. He didn't slow down; he fucked your tight hole with a brutal, mindless greed, each thrust ripping through you, stretching your rectum to the breaking point. Your fingers clawed uselessly at the sheets, ripping the fabric as he hammered into your backside, his cock sliding deep into your bowels.
By the time the first grey light of dawn began to bleed through the curtains, your body was a ruin. The silk nightgown lay in shredded ribbons on the floor, and the sheets were stained with a mixture of sweat, blood, and thick, white seed. You lay there, trembling and hollow, the feeling of his cock still ghosting inside you, unable to tell where your own broken body ended and his violation began.
When he finished, he rolled onto his side and pulled you against him, your back to his chest, his arm draped possessively across your waist. His breath was warm and damp against the nape of your neck, and you could feel his heart beating, slowing now, settling into a rhythm that was almost peaceful.
"You know," he said, his voice conversational, as though you had just shared a pleasant meal rather than a night of forced violation, "I've been thinking."
You did not answer. You could not answer. Your voice had abandoned you somewhere around the third time.
"About us. About the future." His fingers traced idle patterns on your collarbone, feather-light, almost affectionate. "You're a princess, you know. The heir to Dorne. That's not nothing. That's a significant... asset."
You stared at the canopy.
"And I'm the Lord of Oldtown. One of the oldest, wealthiest, most powerful houses in the Reach. Possibly in all of Westeros." He smiled down at you, and in the grey dawn light, he looked almost handsome again. Almost sane. "We would make quite a match, you and I."
Your heart stopped. "What?"
"I'm going to marry you." He said it simply, as though it were already decided, as though your consent was a formality he had no intention of waiting for. "I've been thinking about it for weeks, but tonight... tonight confirmed it. You're perfect. Beautiful. Highborn. And now..." His hand slid down your body, coming to rest on your stomach. He pressed down gently, possessively. "Now you're mine. Truly mine. In every way that matters."
"You're insane." The words came out as a croak, barely audible. "I will never marry you. Never."
His smile didn't waver. "You will. You don't have a choice, Princess. You lost the right to choices when you killed Ser Gyles. When you tried to run from me." His thumb traced small circles on your stomach. "Besides, it might already be too late to refuse. After tonight... who knows? You could already be carrying my heir."
The word hit you like a physical blow. Heir. His heir. His child, growing inside you, tethering you to him forever.
"No," you breathed. "No, no, no—"
"Yes." His voice was almost dreamy now, lost in some fantasy you could not see. "Think of it. A child of Hightower and Martell. The blood of the Reach and the blood of Dorne, united in one perfect heir. Your father would have to accept the match then. He couldn't deny his grandchild. He couldn't deny the alliance it would bring."
"My father will kill you." Your voice was shaking, but it was growing stronger, fueled by a desperate, clawing rage. "When he finds out what you've done to me, he will burn Oldtown to the ground. He will—"
"Your father will do what's best for Dorne." Ormund cut you off with the casual confidence of a man who had already won. "And what's best for Dorne will be an alliance with House Hightower, secured by a marriage and a grandchild. He's a practical man, you said so yourself. Pragmatic. He'll see the sense in it."
He leaned down and pressed a kiss to your forehead, chaste and almost tender, and you wanted to bite him. You wanted to claw his eyes out. You wanted to do all the things you had failed to do with Ser Gyles's butter knife, but your body was too broken to move, and his weight was still half on top of you, pinning you to the mattress.
"I'll give you beautiful children," he murmured against your skin. "Strong sons. Clever daughters. They'll have your dark hair and my blue eyes. They'll be perfect—the best of both houses. The future of the Reach. The future of Dorne. All of it, united in one bloodline."
"Stop." Your voice cracked. "Please, just stop."
But he didn't stop. He was lost in his own world now, his hand still pressed to your stomach as though he could already feel the life he imagined growing there.
"We'll raise them here,they'll have the best tutors from the Citadel. The best swordmasters. The best of everything. And you'll be their mother—the beautiful Dornish princess who gave me the heirs I've been waiting for." His voice softened, taking on a strange, almost reverent quality. "Do you know how long I've waited for this? For someone worthy? All those Reach girls, all those simpering lords' daughters—none of them were good enough. None of them were you."
"You're a monster."
"Perhaps." He pulled back to look at you, and his blue eyes were serene, utterly at peace with themselves. "But I'm the monster who's going to give you everything. A title. A home. Children. A purpose. You'll want for nothing, Princess. Nothing at all."
"I want to go home."
"This is your home now." He settled back against the pillows, pulling you with him, arranging your broken body against his side like a child arranging a doll. "Oldtown. The Hightower. My bed. You'll learn to love it. You'll learn to love me. In time, when you stop fighting, when you accept what you are to me—you'll see that this was always where you were meant to be."
You said nothing. There was nothing left to say. He was beyond reason, beyond argument, beyond anything you could reach with words or pleas or threats. He had constructed an entire fantasy around you—a future, a family, a life you had never consented to—and nothing you said would shatter that delusion.
"We'll announce the betrothal soon," he continued, his voice drifting toward sleep. "Once you've had time to... adjust. Once you're not so angry. It wouldn't do to have you screaming and spitting at the ceremony." He chuckled softly, as though the image was amusing rather than devastating. "No, we'll wait until you're ready. Until you understand how good this will be. For both of us."
His breathing was slowing now, evening out. His arm was still wrapped around you, heavy and inescapable, and his nose was still pressed to your hair, inhaling your scent with each slow breath.
"Sleep now," he murmured. "You'll need your strength. We have a long road ahead of us, you and I. A lifetime."
He was asleep within minutes. You could tell by the way his body relaxed, the way his grip loosened just slightly, the way his breathing deepened into the steady rhythm of unconsciousness.
You lay awake in the grey dawn light, his arm around your waist, his seed drying on your thighs, his promises of marriage and children and forever ringing in your ears like a death knell.
Survive, you told yourself. Survive today. Survive tomorrow. Survive until you find your chance.
SUMMARY: Ordered to infiltrate the enemy camp and kill Oscar Tully before the break of dawn, you make one catastrophic mistake: you step into Roderick Dustin's tent instead. Everything that follows is a very convenient kind of ruin.
WARNING(S): +18MDNI, explicit sexual content (if you squint very hard there's plot), AFAB reader (no use of y/n), enemies to lovers, attempted assassination, moral ambiguity, rough sex, hate sex, consensual power play, hair pulling (f and m receiving), light choking (f and m receiving) (breath play adjacent), pinning, biting (f and m receiving), marking, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), pinv sex, spit kink, switching power dynamics (like really, they're just fighting for the upper hand all along), size difference, mutual possessiveness, enemies who are way too much into each other, post-nut emotional vulnerability, happy ending (for now)
WC: 7.5k
A.N.: I was tired of being horny over Roddy lol. Reader is described as a former bastard of House Cerwyn, a northern lesser house (before you come at me, this fact only serves the narrative, as I am aware that no northern house actually supported the Greens during the Dance of the Dragons). Another note on Roddy's age: there's no info about it at the time of the war, but he is described as advanced in age on the books, so I pictured him as having roughly 55ish; I also picture him as tall and imposing because Tommy Flanagan is 1.83mts (6'0") and that's tall for me lol.
Three days of rain had turned the road to the kind of mud that swallowed men's boots whole, and you had seen enough drowned boots this fortnight to know the truth of it. The Red Fork ran high and brown, and somewhere beyond its far bank the Rivermen were doing what they had done every night for the better part of a month: slipping away before Ser Criston's host could close the distance, leaving nothing behind but cold fire-pits and the tracks of men who knew this country better than any of you ever would.
You had cut your third bridge that week, and it was the kind of work that told you plainer than any council of war could have that this campaign was not going as it ought. A host that is winning does not spend its strength unmaking bridges. It crosses them.
You had followed Ser Criston Cole across better than two hundred miles of the Riverlands by now, into this waterlogged country of willow and reed where every field had been turned to soup and every village emptied ahead of your coming. The men around you — Reachmen mostly, with a scattering of Stormlanders and a handful of Northmen like yourself, drawn south for reasons as various and as private as your own — had begun to walk with the loose, hollow gait of men who no longer expected a day to end in anything but more marching.
There had been no great battle since Rook’s Rest. There had only been bridges, and burned granaries, and small ugly skirmishes in the dark that were forgotten by breakfast because no one wanted to remember them.
You were there because Lord Cerwyn had gotten you on a woman he never married and had never found it in him to give you his name for it, whatever fondness he'd shown you in the years he let you ride at his side and learn the sword and pretend, for a while, that bastardy was as a small thing as it could be in Dorne. It was not a small thing. It had never been a small thing, not in the North, where blood and name meant near enough the same, and a bastard girl, however well-loved, could expect nothing of her father's hall once he was cold in his tomb.
You had worn Snow before this, plain and cold as the rest of it. So, when the Hightowers' men came through the North with their promises — fight for the Greens, and the Greens will make you legitimate, will give you a name to hand down to whatever children you might have — you had not thought on it long. You had thought on it exactly as long as it took to saddle a horse.
They had kept their word. That was more than you had expected of southern lords, and it was, if you were honest with yourself, the only reason you had not yet done what half this host seemed to be quietly considering: turned around and gone home.
Word came for you a little after the bridge, while you were still scraping river mud off your boots with the edge of your knife. A boy you didn't know — one of Cole's runners, thin as a reed and twice as nervous — told you the Hand wanted you, and told you to hurry, and did not wait to see whether you would.
Ser Criston Cole's tent smelled of wet canvas and tallow and, faintly, of the wine he no longer bothered pouring for anyone but himself. He did not look up when you entered. He was bent over a map weighted down at its corners with a dagger, a cup, and two river stones, and he studied it the way a man studies something he has already failed to understand and is too proud to admit it.
"You're the Cerwyn girl," he said. It was not a question. He had known who you were since the day you'd killed a Rivermen scout with your hands rather than lose the quiet of a blade, and men like Cole remembered things of that kind.
"I am, my lord."
"Good." He straightened, and his eyes — flat, paler in the lamplight, the eyes of a man who had long since stopped bothering to disguise what he was thinking — moved over you once, assessing, the way you imagined he might weigh a blade before deciding whether it was worth sharpening or throwing away. "Then you'll know the Tullys' whelp is with the river host. Oscar. The one they've propped up now his grandsire's finally had the grace to die."
You said nothing. There was nothing yet worth saying.
"He's young," Cole went on, "and soft, and by every account he should be too frightened to hold that host together. But alas, he is not. I want him dead by tomorrow morning. Not captured. Dead." He said it the way another man might have ordered a meal brought to his tent. "You'll know how to move without being heard better than any of these Reach boys who think stealth is only a matter of keeping their mouths shut."
"The Rivermen keep close watch on their camps, my lord." It was as near to argument as you dared. "Closer than most."
"So do wolves," said Cole, "and your people hunt those too, or so I'm told." He turned back to his map, which was as much dismissal as you were going to get. "Take what you need. I don't want excuses. I want a dead Tully."
You left the tent with your jaw set tight enough to ache, and said nothing to the two guards who watched you go, because there was nothing worth saying to them either, and because arguing with Ser Criston Cole had gone out of fashion in this host sometime around the second bridge, when it became plain that the Hand of the King heard disagreement the way other men heard insects — an irritation to be swatted, never a thing to be properly reasoned with.
You found Gwayne where you generally found him these days, some careful distance from the command tents, sharpening his sword with more attention than the beast strictly required. He knew it would be long before he could swing it again. He looked up when your shadow crossed him, and whatever he saw in your face made him set the brush down.
Gwayne Hightower was not a friend, at least not in the strictest sense of the word. You hadn't shared pints of beer and afternoons of recounting your experiences. But he was a comrade in arms, and you both independently knew you shared the same opinion about Cole's strategy. That made him the closest thing to a friend you could afford.
"That bad?"
"He wants Oscar Tully dead before the sun rises again." You kept your voice low, more from habit than any real fear of being overheard — every man in this camp was too tired to eavesdrop on anything that wasn't his own supper. "Quietly."
Gwayne's mouth twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "And he's sending you into a Rivermen camp alone to manage it, I'd wager. No escort spared, no delay to the crossing to buy you better ground to work from. Just — go and do it, and don't trouble him with how."
"That's the shape of it, yes."
"It would be." He went back to the blade in swipes that had less to do with the sharpening than with needing somewhere to put his hands. "Do you know what I think, Cerwyn?"
You looked at him, waiting for his answer. Your father’s House name sat strangely on other people’s tongues, but you had tried to will yourself to ignore the feeling.
"I think Ser Criston has spent so long being clever that he's forgotten a host needs feeding more than it needs cunning. We've burned every bridge between here and the Gods Eye and gained nothing for it but a river host that hates us worse than it fears us, and men of our own who'd sooner desert than cut down one more span of timber for no battle waiting at the end of it. My cousin waits at Tumbleton with a host twice this one's size, waiting on us to arrive like civilized men instead of skulking through the reeds setting fires." He looked at you sidelong. "I mean to reach him. Without Ser Criston's leave, and without his company, if it comes to that."
It was not a small thing to say aloud, not to a woman he had known scarcely two months, not in a camp where Cole's temper had already found cause to hang men for lesser talk. You understood, then, why he had chosen you to say it to — not because he trusted you especially, but because you were a Northerner and a bastard made legitimate and had no particular love for anyone in this host beyond your own skin, and men like Gwayne Hightower had a talent for knowing precisely which coin would buy a silence.
"When?" was all you asked.
"Soon. Anyone who would follow and a night dark enough to cover the noise of leaving." He studied you a moment longer, and something in his face made you understand this was, in its way, an offer, though he was too proud a man to make it plainly. "You'd be welcome among them, if a throat-cutting in a Rivermen camp doesn't appeal to you."
You did not answer him then, only thanked him for the warning and left him to his sword, but the thought followed you back through the mud to your own tent and sat with you long after the camp had gone quiet around you.
You turned it over the way a woman turns over a coin, looking for the false ring in it, and found none. There was, you thought, a certain mercy in the way a battlefield forgave the dead their absences. A woman could go into a Rivermen camp in the black of night and simply not come back, and no one — least of all Ser Criston Cole, who had never once asked whether you wished to survive the errands he set you — would trouble himself wondering whether you had died on Tully steel or merely kept walking, north or east or anywhere that was not this rotting, bridge-burned war.
You thought of your father's hall, which had never been yours and never would be, whatever name you had bought with this campaign. You thought of the name itself, hard-won and already beginning to feel like a debt you were no longer certain you could keep paying in blood. And you thought, last of all, of the Rivermen camp waiting somewhere in the dark, and of a boy called Oscar Tully who had done nothing to you save be born to the wrong grandfather, and you found that for the first time since you had sworn your oath to House Hightower's cause, you were not entirely certain you meant to keep it.
You banked the thought before it could grow into a decision. There would be time enough for that later, you told yourself — after the camp, after the throat you had been ordered to open, after whatever the next crossing cost you. For now, there was only the mud, and the rain that had not stopped in three days, and a war that seemed determined to go on exhausting itself long after anyone left in it still believed in what it was fighting for.
Night had thickened the mud rather than dried it, and you moved through the Rivermen camp the way you'd been taught to move through the Wolfswood as a girl — weight forward, breath shallow, eyes given time to find what the dark was hiding before you trusted your feet to it. Dark leathers instead of mail, a plain dagger at your hip instead of the sword you'd have preferred, and no torch, because a torch was as good as announcing yourself to men who'd spent a month learning to sleep with one eye open.
You said a short prayer to the old gods, out of habit more than faith — the sort that asked for nothing so grand as victory, only that your knife stayed quiet and your feet stayed sure — and moved toward the first of the larger tents. Size told you nothing on its own. It could be any of them.
Snoring, thick and multiplied, answered you before you'd even reached the flap of the first one. A soldiers' tent, several men deep in the kind of sleep that came from a day spent digging entrenchments. You let it be and moved to the next.
That one gave you nothing at all — no snoring, no candlelight bleeding under the canvas, no sound of a man turning in his sleep. Empty, or near enough that it wasn't worth the risk of finding out otherwise. Which left the last of them: a low, steady flicker of firelight at the seam of the flap, and beneath it, silence. No breathing you could make out. A man awake and alone, you judged, or no man at all — either way, the only tent left worth your time.
You went in low and slow, hand ready to let the blade out from its sheath, and found the tent empty enough to make your shoulders drop half an inch before you caught the mistake in yourself and hated it.
A camp bed, unmade. A table crowded with a map you didn't have time to read, its corners weighted with small carved markers, chairs pulled close as though a council had only just broken up. Rugs laid over the worst of the ground, to keep the river's damp from climbing into a man's bones while he slept. No young lord. No Oscar Tully, soft and frightened as Cole had promised he'd be.
The candles, guttering low in their dishes, threw more shadow than light, and left the tent's far corners for the dark to keep. You were three steps from the flap, already rebuilding your plan in your head, when a hand closed hard around your wrist.
It happened too fast to name as anything but instinct. The world tilted, the table's edge caught you hard across the hips, and then you were bent face-down over the map itself, small carved markers skittering off into the rugs, a weight settling into your back that did not care in the slightest how you struggled against it. You threw an elbow that found nothing but air, twisted against a grip that would not give, and found only the greater, immovable truth of the body pinning you down.
"Is Cole really that desperate," said a voice above you, thick with a Northern burr you hadn't heard turned on you in years, "that he's sending women alone into the dark now?"
You knew the voice before you'd finished placing it, and the knowing went through you colder than the dagger you couldn't reach. Roderick Dustin. You had met him a handful of times in what felt now like another life — at Winterfell one long winter, at your father's hall once when you were still young enough to think yourself welcome there — and you understood, with the particular clarity of a woman flattened across a table, exactly why you couldn't throw him off you. He was built from the same stone as Barrowton itself.
"I haven't come for the pelt of an old wolf." Your voice came out steadier than you had any right to expect, though your accent — buried carefully these past months beneath a Green tongue — slipped loose with the effort of the lie. "Cole wanted trout for his supper."
That gave him pause. You felt it in the hand at your wrist before you heard it in his silence.
He turned you then, hard, off your front and onto your back against the ruined map, and before you'd finished the motion his other hand had found the crown of your head, fingers closing in your hair to tip your face up into what little the candles offered. You made a small, involuntary sound at the roughness of it, half pain and half something you refused to name, and he gave no sign of having heard it at all, too intent on what the firelight showed him.
"Robard Cerwyn's Snow whelp," he said.
"Not a Snow anymore." You managed something like a smile, difficult as it was with his fist still in your hair.
"Sold your loyalty for a surname, then."
"Easy to judge a woman for wanting a name," you spat, "when you were born into yours, Lord Dustin."
His house name came out of your mouth twisted, more challenge than courtesy, and you felt his hand leave your hair only to close instead around your throat — not cruelly, not yet you supposed, but with a deliberateness that told you exactly how little effort it would cost him to make it cruel. His eyes found yours in the low light and held them, and you watched him understand, in the space of a breath, that there was no fear in them to find.
"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you here and now."
You held his stare and played the only card you had left. "You're not going to kill me."
"Don't be so sure of that." His hand tightened, just enough to make its point, and he pressed his hips harder into the cradle of yours where he'd wedged himself between your knees.
There was no mistaking what you felt against your thigh then, hard and certain, and you understood in that instant that you had misjudged exactly nothing about tonight except which kind of danger you'd walked into.
"If you meant to kill me," you said, low, "my throat would already be open. And I think, my lord, that you're enjoying this rather more than you'd care to admit." To prove the point, you rolled your hips up against him, slow and deliberate, and felt the small hitch in his breath answer you before his voice did.
His hips answered in kind, harder than you'd braced for, and you let the grin spread despite yourself.
"Do you live up to the name then, Roderick the Ruin?" You asked and watched as something in him gave way.
He kissed you like he meant to win something by it, and you gave him back exactly as much as you took. There was nothing tentative or shy in it — his teeth closed over your lower lip hard enough to sting, and you answered in kind until he made a low sound against your mouth that wasn't quite pain, and it was that sound, more than anything else, that told you he meant to fight you for every inch of this the same way he'd fight you for a ridge line or a river crossing.
You got a hand into the collar of his shirt and pulled, hard, and felt something give — a seam, a lace, you didn't care which — and the small, vicious satisfaction of it emboldened you enough to shove against his chest, testing whether he'd yield an inch of ground. He didn't. He caught both your wrists instead and pinned them either side of your head against the table, and when you arched up to bite at his jaw for the insult of it, he let you, watching you do it with something dark and pleased in his eyes, as though your temper only confirmed what he'd already decided about you.
"Careful," he teased, "or I'll think you enjoy losing."
"I haven't lost anything yet."
You proved it a moment later, twisting free of one wrist while his attention was on the other, and used the leverage to drag him down and around until it was his shoulders that struck the table hard enough to rattle it, and you who stood over him for one triumphant, breathless second, a fist in his hair the way his had been in yours.
He let you have the moment — you understood even as you took it that he'd allowed it, the way a man allows an opponent one good strike before ending the bout — and then his hands were at your hips, hard enough that you'd wear the shape of his fingers tomorrow and welcome it, and he hauled you back against him with an ease that should have offended you and instead went through you like a struck match, and turned the two of you again.
"There," he said, low and satisfied. "Better."
Between one ungentle handful and the next, your leathers came away from you in pieces rather than by any lacing you'd have bothered to loosen. He tore what he couldn't be troubled to unfasten, seams splitting under his hands with a sound that should have alarmed you and went instead straight to the pit of your stomach, because there was something obscene and thrilling in being wanted by a man strong enough that he didn't need patience nor care for undressing you. You answered in kind, working the fastenings of his own clothes with considerably less care than they deserved, more interested in the sound of tearing wool than in the state you left him in after.
He filled his hands with you like a man taking inventory of ground he meant to hold — the curve of your waist, the muscle roped along your thigh from years on the saddle, an old thin scar above your hip that he traced once, slow, with an attention that had nothing gentle in its intent and everything deliberate in its execution.
When his mouth followed his hands lower you let your head fall back against the table and let yourself, for one unguarded moment, simply feel it — his beard rough against the inside of your thigh, his hands hard enough on your hips to promise bruises you'd count later, the maddening patience of a man who had decided to take his time ruining you and meant to enjoy every part of the doing.
His fingers found your cunt at last, slow where his hands had been anything but, and he took his time there too, testing your wetness with a deliberateness that felt like its own kind of cruelty — circling your clit until your thighs shook and then withdrawing just short of what you needed, watching your face the whole while with flat, assessing patience.
"Ask for it," he said.
"Go to hell."
He laughed — a short, rough sound, more surprised out of him than given — and gave you what you hadn't asked for anyway: two fingers driving deep enough to make you swear, curling until you were the one fisting a hand in his hair. You worked your hips against his hand, chasing your own satisfaction with as much determination as he'd shown chasing his, and won a taut, strangled noise out of him in turn when your palm found him through what remained of his clothes and closed around the hard length of his cock, stroking once.
You might have kept testing him like that, if the thought hadn't struck you first, sudden and vicious in its clarity. Your hand was already fisted in his hair — it had been for a while now — and instead of dragging his mouth back to yours again, you tightened your grip and pushed, guiding him down, past your collarbone, past your stomach, until he was on his knees at the table's edge with his free hand sliding beneath you to haul you forward, right up against his mouth, and he watched you the whole way down, something unreadable and hungry burning behind what little self-control he had left.
"Let's see what else that mouth is good for."
He didn't need telling twice.
When he finally put his mouth to your cunt there was nothing careful left in him at all. He ate you like a man half-starved, messy and greedy, no finesse spared for patience. His tongue worked broad and flat against your clit one moment and narrow and relentless the next, as though he couldn't decide which he wanted more and meant to have both before he was done with you. It was sloppy, wet enough that you felt it slick against your inner thighs, his beard scraping raw against skin gone oversensitive, and the sounds of it — his as much as yours — were shameless in the quiet of the tent. You found you didn't care in the least who might hear.
You kept your grip tight in his hair, steering him, holding him exactly where you wanted the drag of his tongue, and he let you direct him with a low, growled sound of approval that you felt more than heard, as though being told what to do by your fist in his hair was no hardship to him at all, only another kind of feast.
When you ground down against his mouth, chasing your own pleasure shamelessly now, he only groaned and gripped your thighs harder, holding you open, holding you still, as if the only thing he wanted less than for this to end was for you to stop using him exactly as you pleased.
It was that — his own eagerness, unhidden and entirely unlike the flat, controlled man who'd had you pinned across a war map just a while ago — that undid you as much as his tongue did.
Your thighs closed hard around his head, the fist in his hair gone white-knuckled, and the sound that tore out of you this time you didn't try to swallow, didn't try to spare him, and he only groaned again at the proof of it and did not let up until you'd shaken through the whole of it against his mouth.
He only pulled back once you'd gone still beneath him, chest heaving, and even then he took his time about it, pressing one last, unhurried kiss to the inside of your thigh before he finally lifted his head. His beard was completely wet, his eyes darker than you'd yet seen them, and whatever restraint he'd been holding onto through all of it seemed, finally, to have reached its end.
"Enough," he said, rougher than he likely intended, an order dressed up as a request.
You almost told him no, simply for the pleasure of making him ask twice. Almost. But he was already rising to his full height between your thighs, already gathering you back against him with the unhurried certainty of a man who'd decided the fight was over even if you hadn't, and when he finally pushed into you — slow, giving you every inch of his cock before he gave you the next — you found you'd lost your taste for arguing.
"There," you managed, echoing his own word back at him, and felt him go still for exactly as long as it took him to understand you were still teasing him. He drove into you hard enough to answer his own jest before you could add anything.
After that neither of you had breath left for winning.
He was thick through the middle the way a man built for winters and not for tourneys was thick — heavy in the chest, broad through the belly as much as the shoulders, no lean tapered thing but something wider and far more solid, every stone of him put there by long years of campaigns rather than vanity.
You found, hands roaming greedy over the scarred bulk of him as he moved in you, that you had never in your life wanted anything the way you wanted this — the weight of him pressing you into the table, the give of solid flesh under your palms where a slighter man would have offered you only bone and angle. He was built like the North itself, broad and heavy and made to endure, and you had no wish at all to be anywhere else.
He kept the pace slow at first, cruelly so, drawing out until you dug your heels into the backs of his thighs to keep him from retreating too far, and only quickened when you cursed him for it, low and vicious, in the Old Tongue you hadn't spoken since you were a girl.
His mouth found your breast without asking leave, tongue and teeth working your nipple until you arched hard against him, and when he bit down — not gently, and asking no pardon for it either — you answered in kind, sinking your teeth into the meat of his shoulder hard enough to leave a mark that would still be there come the new moon.
He groaned at that, low and rough and entirely uncivilized, his hips stuttering before slamming harder into you for the pain of it, as though you'd only fed something in him that wanted — needed — feeding.
"Do that again," he said against your skin, and you did, and felt him go nearly feral for it — one broad hand closing hard over your other breast, kneading, rough enough to ache, his thumb dragging over the nipple until you were the one cursing again, while his other arm banded beneath you, angling your hips to take him deeper still.
You raked your nails down the old ridged scars on his back and felt him groan against your throat, felt his rhythm falter and then redouble, rougher now, less patient, as though marking him had cost him the last of the composure he'd been so determined to keep.
There was nothing careful left in either of you after that — he drove his cock into you with the full, heavy weight of him behind it, thick enough that you felt every inch of the stretch and wanted more of it anyway, and he sank to the hilt with every thrust, until the root of him ground against your clit with each snap of his hips and you were meeting him in earnest, working yourself against that friction as shamelessly as you worked against him.
You met every thrust with one of your own, unwilling simply to be moved when you could move with him instead, and the table complained beneath you and neither of you cared enough.
"Say my name again," he said against your ear, rough and low, "and mean it this time."
"Make me," you tested the waters. It was reckless, and you knew it even as you said it, the words leaving you on a laugh that had no business sounding as steady as it did with him buried inside you to the hilt.
His hand left your body and found your throat instead — not gripping at the front of it the way a man might who meant you real harm, but circling to press firm at either side, enough to make the point of it plain, enough to remind you exactly whose hands you were in, without any true intent behind it beyond that. You understood the difference instantly, and something reckless and hungry in you loved him for drawing it so precisely.
You held his eyes and let your mouth fall open in a slow, wide grin, tongue curling out over your lower lip in open, filthy invitation. You didn't have to say what you wanted. He read it off you the way he'd have read a battle line and understood at once.
He spat into your open mouth, and you moaned around the obscenity of it, shameless, while he drove into you again and again, harder for the sound you'd given him, as though it had only unlocked some deeper, hungrier gear in him. You swallowed it while keeping the eye contact and he looked, in that moment, entirely undone from the flat, disciplined man he’d been half an hour ago. You found you had never wanted anyone the way you wanted him precisely like this — wrecked, feral, delighted by exactly how nasty you were willing to be for him.
"Roddy," you finally gave him the satisfaction through gritted teeth, the name breaking out of you on a pleasure so total it startled you even as you chased it, "fucking ruin me."
His rhythm stuttered at that — the diminutive undoing something in him the full name hadn't quite managed — but he didn't slow, driving deep and relentless even as his control visibly slipped its leash. You brought your own hand up to circle his throat in turn, mirroring the grip he had on yours, and felt the low, rough growl that tore out of him at the sensation, more pleased than protesting.
"Send me back to Cole," you said against his jaw, low and vicious and grinning, "with your seed running down my thighs."
His hand tightened at your throat for that — not cruelly, but enough that the edges of everything went soft and bright and dizzying all at once, the whole world narrowing down to nothing but the drag of him in and out of you and the pressure at your neck and the low sound he made at your words, half growl and half something that might, in a gentler man, have been a groan of surrender.
He drove into you once more, hard and deep and perfectly aimed, and that was all it took — your clit caught against the root of him with the force of it, and you broke apart around him entirely, shaking, your hand falling from his throat to claw instead at the scarred plane of his back, your teeth finding his shoulder again and biting down hard enough to answer everything he'd given you.
He hissed at the sting of it, pain and pleasure tangled together past telling apart and followed you over with a groan he buried against the crook of your neck, hips stuttering once, twice, before going still, his breath ragged and uneven against your skin as he emptied himself inside you.
Neither of you moved to disentangle for a long while after. He stayed inside you as your breath came back, in no apparent hurry to be anywhere else, and you found you didn't mind it — didn't mind the tangle of the two of you sprawled half across the now crumpled map and half against each other, sweat cooling on skin you couldn't quite tell from his anymore, his breath still uneven against your collarbone, yours no steadier against his.
The candles had burned low while neither of you was watching, the tent gone dim and close around you, and the cold that had followed you in from the dark outside seemed, for once, to have nowhere left to reach you through the heat you'd made between you.
A low, breathless laugh escaped you, an aftershock more than any real mirth, some last shiver of pleasure still working its way loose from your spine, and you felt him huff something like an answering laugh against your skin in turn.
Your hands found his back without any particular decision behind it, tracing idle, aimless patterns over the ridged old scars there, and after a moment his hands did the same at your hips — the same hands that had gripped hard enough to bruise not a quarter hour before now moving with a careful, kneading gentleness you hadn't felt from him yet that night, as though some of the fight had finally gone out of both of you and left only this.
You let the silence hold a while before you broke it.
"Make straight for Stony Sept and cut the bridge there," you said, into the quiet and the dark. "It will delay them, and you'll have Cole in the palm of your hand."
Roderick straightened without pulling away, his hands stilling at your hips, and you felt the change in him before you saw it — the soldier surfacing again beneath the man.
"You would betray your faction?"
You huffed, a short, humourless sound. "I have never had a faction. Not really. I wanted to stop being the bastard of Robard Cerwyn, and Aegon answered first." You held his gaze steady while you said it, let him look for the lie in it if he wanted to. "And fuck Criston Cole. He's a dead man walking, whatever happens at Stony Sept or anywhere else."
He looked at you a long moment, searching your eyes the way you imagined he'd once searched a battlefield for the weakness that would win it, and found nothing there to contradict you. Something in his face eased. He laughed — properly, this time, the sound rough with disuse, the corners of his eyes creasing in a way that made him look, briefly, younger. It was, you thought, the first time you'd seen him look like anything other than a man carved from the same grey stone as his own hills, and you found you wanted very much to see it again.
"We'll meet the rest of the Hightowers at Tumbleton," he said, when the laugh had faded. "Stay out of the war until then. When it's done, come to Barrowton with me." A pause, and something in his voice went quieter, more deliberate, than anything he'd said to you all night. "Come back home to the North."
This time it was you who searched his face for the lie, some easy way to dismiss it as a thing said in the heat of the moment and forgotten by morning. You found none. Your brow furrowed against the plain, unhidden truth of him, against a kindness you hadn't asked for and weren't sure you knew how to hold.
"I came here hoping to kill a River child," you said, "and I'll leave instead with the trophy of an old, greying wolf?"
"A wolf's pelt keeps you warmer in winter," he said, and tightened his grip on your hips, pulling you flush against him, the slow drag of his cock still buried inside you drawing another moan out of you before you could dress it up as anything else. You canted your hips against him in answer, slower now than anything you'd managed earlier in the night and felt the low growl it won out of him settle somewhere deep in your chest.
Your hand found the back of his head, fingers threading into his hair — gently, this time, nothing like the fist you'd made of it before — and held his eyes as you drew him to you and kissed him again, slow and open-mouthed, gentler than anything either of you had allowed the other yet.
Fuck Ser Criston Cole, you thought, and fuck the Greens along with him.
You could feel the decision settle into you like a blade finding its sheath, certain and complete, as you began to move again — unhurried this time, no longer two enemies fighting for the last word, only two people who had, somewhere in the last hour, stopped pretending they were anything else.
He moved in you slowly, in a way that had nothing to do with teasing and everything to do with a patience you hadn't expected from him — long, deep strokes that let you feel every inch of him, his forehead dropping to rest against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the small space between your mouths. There was no clothing left to tear, nothing left to fight for; only the drag of him inside you, and the quiet, astonished way he watched your face while he did it, as though he were memorising something he didn't yet trust himself to keep.
You wrapped your legs around him, drawing him deeper, and felt him groan low against your throat at the invitation of it, his hips rolling into yours with unhurried, devastating precision, less a battle now than something closer to a conversation neither of you had words for. His hand found your jaw, tilting your face up to his, and he kissed you through it — slow, thorough kisses that tasted of salt and something that had stopped, somewhere in the last minutes, being only hunger.
You found, somewhere in the slow warmth of your bodies, that you had no wish left to hide how thoroughly this had undone you — not behind banter, not behind a blade's-edge grin, not behind anything at all. It should have frightened you more than it did, being known this plainly by a man you didn’t, a few hours ago, even mean to run into. Instead, it felt like setting down something you hadn't realised you'd been carrying at all.
"Look at me," he murmured, when your eyes fluttered shut against the building pleasure, and you did, held his gaze through every roll of his hips, through the slow, building ache of it, through the way his composure — hard-won and iron-bound as it was — completely frayed the longer he looked at you looking back.
"Roddy," you breathed, no taunt left in it now, no weapon, just his name, offered plainly, and felt him shudder at the sound of it as though you'd handed him something he hadn't known he wanted.
He slid a hand between your bodies, pressing slow, deliberate circles against your clit in time with the drag of his cock, unwilling, it seemed, to let you finish without him; unwilling to let this end as anything less than together.
You built slowly beneath his hands, beneath his mouth, beneath the low words he murmured against your skin that you would remember later and never quite manage to repeat to anyone, and when you finally broke it was without violence, without the desperate edge of before — only a long, shuddering release that pulled him over with you, his own climax breaking on a groan he didn't bother to muffle this time, his forehead pressed to yours, his hips stilling deep inside you as the last of it worked through him.
Dawn was still some hours off when you finally dressed for the second time that night, and neither of you hurried about it. He watched you lace your leathers back together — clumsily, in places, where his hands had torn what you now had no way to properly mend — with an expression you didn't have a name for yet, something between amusement and a reluctance to let the night end that he was too proud to say aloud.
"Oscar Tully," you said, buckling your dagger back into place, "will sleep safely tonight. If you need, tell your men in the morning that a woman was seen near the horse lines and nothing more. I'll tell Cole the camp was too well-watched to risk it and let him believe what he likes about my nerve."
"And Stony Sept?"
"Send your riders tonight, before the break of dawn. They have barely any horses left, it will take longer for them to arrive." You allowed yourself a small, crooked smile. "I find I've grown fond of at least one wolf. I'd rather not see him eaten by Reachmen before I've had my fill of him."
He caught your wrist before you reached the flap of the tent — not hard, not the bruising grip of an hour before, but enough to still you — and drew you back for one last kiss, unhurried, thorough, a promise dressed up as an ordinary thing.
"Barrowton," he said again, against your mouth, as though repeating it might make it more binding. "When this is all done."
"When this is done," you agreed, and found, to your own quiet astonishment, that you meant it. You pressed your lips to his again and turned to leave.
You left him standing amid the wreckage of his tent and stepped back out into a night that had not stopped being cold, or muddy, or heavy with a war that would still have to be survived before either of you saw Barrowton or the North again.
There would be a reckoning to come, you knew — for the lie you'd have to tell Cole with a straight face, for the riders Roderick would send before sunrise, for whatever it cost either of you if the wrong man ever pieced together why a Green scout had come back from a Rivermen camp with an empty blade and a steadier heart than she'd left with. But that reckoning belonged to the days ahead, and you found you had no wish to borrow trouble from tomorrow when tonight had already given you more than the whole grinding length of this war had managed to.
You walked back toward the Green camp with something in your chest that hadn't been there when you'd left it. Something stubborn and warm and entirely unlike the girl who'd gone bastard-born and nameless into a war she'd never wanted, fighting for a surname instead of a cause. You had gone looking for Oscar Tully's throat, in the end, and had found instead the one thing this war will not take from you: your resolution.
Walking back through the mud with the first grey hint of dawn still hours off, you did not think you would give it up easily now that you had it.
A.N.: that was steamy hah *lights cigarette* now we can be all horny for Roddy together (can you tell that i was ovulating lol). Roddy deserves so many more fics tbh, spread lord Dustin love with a few reposts pretty please <3
Summary: A noble lady from a disgraced house that supported Blackfyres is married off to Lord Bloodraven as a reward for his loyalty and prowess in battle. But he prefers to occupy his time with duties as the Hand of the King. Comfortable but lonely, she befriends one of his ravens. Part 1 here, part 2 here.Warnings: arranged marriage, yearning, angst, fluff, childbirth, blood, Westeros politics.
The ravens were behaving oddly. You noticed them before Brynden did, which was unusual, given that Brynden noticed everything. But you were the one who spent your mornings in the gardens now, walking the gravel paths with a hand resting on the swell of your belly, and you were the one who saw them gathering in the trees. At first it was only a few, Pebble and his usual companions from the Tower rookery. Then it was a dozen. Then two dozen. Then so many that the branches bent under their weight, and the garden rang with their hoarse, chattering cries.
"They are watching me," you told Brynden one evening, settling into the chair beside his desk. "The ravens in the garden. Every time I walk there, they turn their heads and watch. It is a little unsettling."
Brynden looked up from his parchment. His single eye swept over you, then drifted toward the window, where the evening sky was thick with wheeling black shapes.
"They are my ravens," he said, as though that explained everything.
"Yes, I know they are your ravens. But they are not behaving like your ravens. They are behaving like…" You searched for the word. "Like courtiers waiting for an audience."
He set down his quill. "Come here."
You rose and crossed to him, and he took your hand and drew you down onto his lap. It was a familiar position now, one you had grown to love: his arms around you, his chest solid against your back, his chin resting on your shoulder. His hand came to rest on your belly, a gesture that had become natural to him.
"They are curious," he said. "They can sense the child. My child. It calls to them."
"Your child is the size of a pie. How can a pie call to ravens?"
He was quiet for a moment. "I do not fully understand it myself," he admitted. "But the old gods are in my blood. The blood of the First Men, the blood of the greenseers. It passes from parent to child. And while the child grows within you, some of that blood…touches you. Just a little. Enough for the ravens to notice."
You turned your head to look at him. "You mean I am becoming like you?"
"No." His hand tightened on your belly. "You are carrying something like me. There is a difference. But the ravens do not make fine distinctions. They know what they feel, and they are drawn to it."
You considered this. The thought of sharing even a fraction of your husband's strange gifts was not entirely unwelcome. You had watched him work his magic, if magic it was, and the fear you had once felt had long since given way to something closer to wonder. If your child was to share his nature, you would love that child no less for it.
"Ravens better not start leaving droppings on my new gown," you said.
He laughed, that rusty, still-rare sound that never failed to warm you. "I shall have words with them."
The dreams began a fortnight later.
At first, they were ordinary. The strange, disjointed dreams of pregnancy that the septas and the older ladies of the court had warned you about. You dreamed of falling, of drowning, of losing the baby in a dozen different ways. You woke gasping and tearful, and Brynden was always there, hand on your brow, his voice low and steady in the darkness.
"It is only a dream," he would say. "The baby is safe. You are safe. I am here."
You would burrow against him and let his heartbeat lull you back to sleep, and by morning the nightmare would be nothing but a fading wisp.
But then the dreams began to change.
You dreamed you were flying. Not as yourself, but as something with wings that caught the wind and eyes that saw the world in different colors. You soared over the Red Keep, over the city, over the bay, and you saw ships with crimson sails and men in golden cloaks and a woman weeping on a balcony. The dream was so vivid that when you woke, you could still feel the wind in your feathers, the ache in your wings, the strange, sharp hunger in your belly.
"The ships," you murmured, still half-asleep. "The ships from Lys. They are bringing silks. And the woman...she has a bruise on her wrist. Her husband gave it to her. She is going to poison him."
Beside you, Brynden froze.
"What did you say?" His voice was carefully neutral, the voice he used when interrogating a suspected traitor.
You blinked, the dream already fading. "I…I don't know. Ships? There was a woman…" You yawned, the exhaustion of pregnancy pulling you back down. "I think I was dreaming about flying. It was rather nice, actually."
You fell asleep again before you could see the expression on his face.
The next morning, you found him standing at the window, his back to you, three ravens perched on the sill before him. He was speaking to them in low tones, and they were answering in soft croaks. When he heard you stir, he dismissed them with a flick of his wrist and came to sit on the edge of the bed.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"Well enough." You stretched, your hand drifting to your belly. The baby was kicking: tiny flutters, like the wings of a moth. "The babe is active this morning. Here, feel."
You took his hand and pressed it to the spot. He waited, patient as ever, until a small thump greeted his palm. His expression softened.
"Strong," he said.
"Stubborn, more like. Just like his father."
"Or her father."
You smiled. "Or her father."
He was quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing circles on your belly. Then he said, without looking up: "The ships from Lys arrived this morning. They are carrying silks, as you predicted. And the woman on the balcony, Lady Staunton. She has a bruise on her wrist. Her husband gave it to her. The servants found poison in her chambers last night. She was planning to kill him."
You stared at him. "What?"
"You told me. Last night, in your sleep. You spoke of ships with crimson sails and a woman weeping on a balcony." His eye lifted to yours. "I saw those things through a raven's eyes three days ago. I did not tell you. There was no way for you to know."
The room felt very cold suddenly. You pulled the blankets up around your shoulders. "That is not possible."
"I would have said the same, once." He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. "You are seeing through my ravens. Or rather, the child is. The connection I spoke of, it is stronger than I realized. The old blood is waking in you, channeled through our son or daughter. You are dreaming my dreams."
"Am I becoming a sorcerer?" Your voice came out smaller than you intended.
"No. You are carrying one." His hand cupped your cheek. "I am sorry. I did not expect this. I did not know it would affect you so directly."
You sat with the knowledge for a moment, turning it over in your mind.
"Is it dangerous?" you asked. "For the babe?"
"I do not believe so. The magic is in the blood. It is not a sickness. It is simply…more active than I anticipated."
"Then I do not mind." You leaned into his touch. "It is only dreams. And they are not nightmares, not really. Flying was beautiful."
Brynden's expression was unreadable. "You are not frightened?"
"A few strange dreams will not send me running."
His eye closed for a moment, and when it opened again, there was a brightness in it that might have been relief. "You are remarkable."
"I am pregnant and tired and my feet hurt. But I am also, apparently, a little bit magic. I shall add it to my list of accomplishments."
"I will watch over you," he kissed you. "More closely than before. If the dreams trouble you, if anything feels wrong, you must tell me immediately."
"I will."
"And the ravens, if they become too much, I will keep them away."
"Let them come." You settled back against the pillows. "They are only curious. I do not mind the company when you are away."
The ravens always followed you now. They lined the branches like black leaves, watching you with their bright, knowing eyes, and you spoke to them as you once had spoken only to Pebble.
"You are all Pebbles now," you told them. "I cannot possibly name you all. You shall have to share."
One of the ravens croaked. It sounded almost amused.
Pebble had taken to perching on the arm of your chair, keeping watch over you with a vigilance that belied his lazy nature. You were fairly certain Brynden had given him orders. When you asked, Brynden only said, "He is your raven. He does as he pleases."
You laughed, then winced as the baby kicked hard against your ribs. "Your child is trying to break my bones."
"Our child." He knelt before your chair and pressed both hands to your belly. The baby kicked again, and his lips curved into that small smile he reserved for moments like this. "Restless. Eager to be born."
"Like his father. Always wanting to know things before anyone else."
"I have already seen her."
You blinked. "What?"
"I have seen her," he repeated. "A glimpse, in the godswood, when you were sitting under the oak tree. The future is…unclear. But I saw a child with silver hair and your smile. A girl."
Your heart squeezed. "A girl?"
"I could be wrong. The visions are not always reliable." But his voice was thick. "But I think we shall have a daughter, my love."
You covered his hands with yours. "Alysanne?" You had discussed names. Alysanne was a name that had been given to a Targaryen, Blackwood and Reach ladies alike.
"Yes." He looked up at you, and his eye was wet. "Alysanne."
The pains began in the ninth month, three weeks before the maester had predicted.
You had been in the godswood, as had become your custom, sitting beneath the old oak with your hands folded over the great swell of your belly. The ravens were there, of course. Pebble was on your knee, dozing, his round breast rising and falling.
The first pain came like a fist closing around your spine.
You gasped. Pebble startled, flapping his wings in alarm, and the ravens in the branches above set up a sudden, raucous cawing that echoed through the godswood like a storm of angry voices. The pain faded, and you pressed a hand to your belly, your heart hammering.
"It is too early," you whispered. "It is too early."
The second pain came ten minutes later, as you were struggling to your feet. It was sharper this time, a tearing sensation that made you cry out and clutch the trunk of the oak for support. The ravens erupted into the sky, a black cloud of wings and screaming. Pebble was shrieking. Somewhere in the distance you heard footsteps running.
"My lady!" It was one of the gardeners, a boy of perhaps four and ten, his face white with terror. "My lady, are you...should I fetch the maester?"
"The babe," you gasped. "The babe is coming. It is too early..."
The third pain took your legs out from under you.
Brynden was in a meeting of the small council when the ravens came.
He told you later how it happened. The window of the council chamber had suddenly filled with black wings, the birds had battered themselves against the glass with a frenzy that made Lord Tyrell knock over his chair and the Grand Maester drop his papers. He had felt them through the bond that connected him to every raven in his network, a surge of animal panic.
He did not wait for the king's dismissal. He ran.
By the time he reached the godswood, you were on the ground, surrounded by a ring of servants and guards, your face twisted with pain. The gardener's boy had found a septa, the septa had sent for the maester, someone had brought blankets, someone else was crying, and the ravens were still circling overhead in a great black wheel, their cries drowning out every other sound.
"Move, you blithering..." Brynden started, panicked, but the crowd parted before him like water before he could finish. He knelt at your side, his hands found yours. His face was tight with a fear you had never seen in him before.
"I am here," he said. "I am here. You are going to be fine."
"It is too early," you sobbed. "Brynden, it is too early, the babe..."
"The child is strong." His voice was steady, but his hands were trembling. "You are strong. I will not let anything happen to you. To either of you." He looked up at the servants, his single eye blazing. "Where is the maester?"
"Coming, my lord," someone stammered. "He is coming."
"Then someone run faster."
A guardsman sprinted toward the maester's tower. Brynden turned back to you, his hand came up to cup your cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears that were streaming down your face.
"I cannot do this," you whispered. "It is too early. What if something is wrong? What if..."
"Do not." His voice was fierce. "Do not go there. Stay here. With me. Look at me. We are going to get through this. You are going to bring our child into the world, and I am going to be here, and the maester is going to do his job, and everything is going to be fine. Do you understand me?"
You nodded, though the next contraction was already building, a wave of pressure and pain that made your vision swim.
The maester arrived, red-faced and breathless, his chain clanking. "We must get her inside," he said. "The birthing chamber..."
"Then carry her," Brynden snapped. "Carefully."
It was the Grand Maester himself who organized the litter, who directed the servants, who spoke to you in calm, measured tones about breathing and pushing and time. But it was Brynden who lifted you onto the litter himself. He refused to leave the birthing chamber, even when the septas clucked their tongues and the maester suggested, gently, that the Hand of the King might be more comfortable waiting outside.
"No," he said, and there was no arguing with that voice. "I am staying."
The labor was long and hard. You lost track of time. There was only the pain, coming in waves.
Brynden's did not leave your side. He did not flinch at the blood or the screams or the chaos of the birthing chamber. He held your hand and murmured to you in a voice so low that only you could hear, a stream of words that wove together love and reassurance and the occasional threat of violence against anyone who did not do their job properly.
"If the maester drops his instrument one more time," he said at one point, his voice perfectly conversational, "I will have him reassigned to the Night's Watch."
A startled laugh burst out of you, cut short by another contraction. "You cannot send the Grand Maester to the Wall."
"I am the Hand of the King. I can do whatever I want."
Hours passed. The sun sank below the windows and rose again, and still the baby did not come. The maester's face grew grave, and the septas exchanged worried glances, and you were so tired, so terribly tired, your body wrung out like a rag.
"I cannot," you gasped, after what felt like an eternity. "I cannot do this anymore. Please. Please."
Brynden leaned close, his forehead pressing against yours. "Yes, you can," he said. "You are the bravest person I have ever known. You walked into this court alone, into a marriage with a man you had every reason to fear, and you made a life here. You made a home here. You made me love you." His voice cracked. "You can do this. One more time. For me. For our daughter. One more push. I am here. I am not leaving."
You pushed.
"A girl," the maester announced after a few more excruciating minutes. "A healthy girl."
You collapsed against the pillows, body shaking, vision blurred with tears and exhaustion. You heard a thin cry.
The septas bustled around you, cleaning and swaddling, their voices a distant murmur. Brynden was there, he was holding something small and white-wrapped, and his face...You had never seen his face like that.
He looked young. Younger than you had ever seen him, the lines of worry and weariness smoothed away, his eye bright with a joy so pure it made your heart clench. His hands, those long, pale, clever hands, cradled the tiny bundle with a reverence that belonged in a sept.
"She has your eyes," his voice was hoarse, broken, wonderful. "She has your eyes and my hair. She is absolutely perfect."
"Let me see her," you whispered. "Please. Let me hold her."
He brought her to you, settling the bundle into your waiting arms with infinite care. And there she was, your daughter, Alysanne, small and squalling, with a tuft of silver-white hair on her tiny head.
"Hello," you breathed. "Hello, my love. My little one. My Alysanne."
Alysanne was a hungry, loud baby, who seemed to have inherited her father's distaste for sleep. She nursed eagerly and often, and when she was not nursing, she was wailing, and when she was not wailing, she was watching the world with those uncanny eyes that seemed to see more than any infant's eyes should see.
But she was healthy. The maester pronounced her strong and well-formed, with no signs of the frailty that sometimes plagued early babes. "She is small," he admitted, "but she has a fighter's spirit. She will grow quickly."
You were too tired to do much more than nod and smile and fall asleep at odd hours, the babe cradled against your chest. The septas and the wet nurses hovered, offering to take Alysanne so you could rest, but you could not bear to let her go. You had waited so long for her. You had dreamed of her and carried her and labored to bring her into the world. You were not about to hand her off to strangers now.
Brynden, for his part, had become utterly insufferable.
It started the day after the birth, when you tried to sit up in bed and he appeared at your elbow as if conjured by magic, which, you supposed, he might well have been.
"What are you doing?" he demanded.
"I am sitting up."
"You should not be sitting up. The maester said you need to rest."
"The maester said I need to recover. Recovery involves moving occasionally."
He hovered, his hands outstretched as though he expected you to collapse at any moment. "Let me help you."
"Brynden, I am sitting up in bed. It is not a complex maneuver."
"Nevertheless."
You sighed and let him arrange the pillows behind your back, his long fingers tucking and adjusting with the meticulous care he usually reserved for intelligence reports. When he was satisfied, he stepped back and surveyed his work with a critical eye.
"There," he said. "Is that comfortable? Do you need more pillows? A blanket? Some water? Are you hungry? The kitchens have prepared a broth..."
"Brynden."
"..and there is bread, fresh bread, and cheese, the maester said you should eat to regain your strength..."
"Brynden."
He stopped, his mouth still half-open.
"I am fine," you said, as gently as you could. "I am tired, and I am sore, but I am fine. You do not need to fuss."
"I am not fussing." He paused. "I am attending to my wife's needs."
"You sent a servant to fetch the maester because I sneezed."
"Sneezing can indicate a number of underlying conditions. It is important to be vigilant."
"You threatened to have the cook executed because the broth was too salty."
"It was inedible. I merely suggested that he might benefit from a change of career. Possibly in a location with a colder climate and fewer cooking implements."
You stared at him. He stared back, his single eye wide and earnest. He had not slept, you could see the shadows beneath his eye, the slight tremor in his hands. He had been awake for three days straight, by your count, attending to you and the baby and the affairs of the realm with the manic energy of a man who had decided that sleep was for people with fewer responsibilities.
"Come here," you said.
He came, and you caught his hand and pulled him down to sit on the edge of the bed.
"You are exhausted," you said.
"I am perfectly fine."
"You are not. You have been running yourself ragged taking care of me and the babe and the entire Seven Kingdoms, and you have not slept since before I went into labor."
"The realm does not pause for..."
"The realm can wait." You squeezed his hand. "Your wife and your daughter need you alive and healthy. You cannot pour from an empty cup."
He was silent for a moment. Then, slowly, he sagged, the tension draining from his shoulders. "I was afraid," he admitted. "When the ravens came, when I found you in the godswood...I was afraid I was going to lose you. Both of you. And I could not..." He stopped, his jaw tightening. "I could not bear it."
"You did not lose us." You lifted his hand to your lips and kissed his knuckles. "We are here. We are safe. And we need you to rest."
"Perhaps," he said, "I could lie down. Just for a little while."
"Just for a little while," you agreed.
He removed his boots and his doublet and climbed into the bed beside you, moving with the careful deliberation of a man who was trying very hard not to jostle anything. When he was settled, he reached out and pulled you gently against his side, your head coming to rest on his shoulder.
"This is nice," he murmured.
"It is."
"I should do this more often."
"You should."
His arm tightened around you, his breathing began to slow. "I love you," he murmured, the words slurring slightly. "I love Alysanne. I love…" He yawned. "I even love that wretched raven of yours."
"Pebble is your raven."
"He was my raven. Now he is a nursemaid. He watches the cradle. Did you notice?"
You had. Pebble had barely left the cradle since Alysanne had been placed in it. He perched on the rail, his head cocked, his black eyes fixed on the baby.
"She has already charmed him," you said.
"She charms everyone." His voice was fading, sleep pulling him under. "Like her mother."
You smiled and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
He did not answer. He was already gone, his face slack with exhaustion, his arm still wrapped protectively around you.
The wet nurses had taken Alysanne for the night.
It was a practice that had become routine in the weeks since her birth, though you still felt a pang of guilt every time they carried her away. The maester had recommended it: your body was still recovering from the early labor, and the interrupted sleep was wearing on you more than you wanted to admit. Alysanne was a hungry baby, demanding and vocal, she woke every two hours with the relentless regularity of a water clock. The wet nurses could feed her through the night while you rested.
"You need your strength," Brynden had insisted. "The wet nurses are here for a reason. Use them."
So you had relented, and now, two months into your daughter's life, the night feedings had become a ritual. The maids would come at the hour of the bat, lifting Alysanne from her cradle, and Brynden would pull you back against his chest and murmur sleepily into your hair until you relaxed.
It worked, mostly. You slept more deeply than you had since before the birth. But your body had not yet adjusted to the new rhythm, and your breasts still filled with milk at the hours when Alysanne would normally feed, heavy and aching and sometimes leaking despite the cloths you tucked into your nightgown.
Tonight was one of those nights.
You were dreaming. You stirred in your sleep, turning onto your side, and the movement pressed your heavy breast against the mattress. A warm wetness spread through the linen of your nightgown.
Beside you, Brynden stirred.
He was a light sleeper at the best of times, a lifetime of vigilance had made sure of that, and the early days of fatherhood had sharpened his senses. The slightest sound from the cradle could pull him from sleep, his hand reaching for the dagger he kept on the nightstand.
But this was not a sound. This was a sensation. Wetness, seeping through the sheets, warm against him where your body pressed against his.
His eye snapped open.
In the darkness of the bedchamber, his mind, still fogged with sleep, still caught in the grip of whatever dreams a greenseer dreamed, registered only one thing. Something wet. His first memory was of the battle of the Redgrass field, his mind flashing back to grass painted red with sticky blood. Then he sensed something leaking from his wife's body. His wife, who had labored early and nearly died, who had bled and screamed and clutched his hand with a grip like iron. His wife, who was lying still and silent beside him, and there was wetness spreading between them, and...
Blood. His mind supplied the word with cold, absolute certainty. It's blood. She's bleeding. She's...
He sat up so fast the blankets tangled around his legs. His hands found your shoulders, he turned you onto your back, his heart hammering against his ribs, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps.
"Brynden..." Your voice was thick with sleep, confused, your hands coming up to push weakly at his. "What...what is it..."
"Where are you hurt?" His voice was urgent, his hands already moving over your body. He pushed aside the blankets, ran his palms down your arms, your torso, your legs, searching for the wound, the source of the wetness. "Tell me where you are hurt."
"I am not hurt..."
"There is wetness." He was babbling now, his usual composure shattered. "I felt it. You're bleeding. I can feel it."
"Brynden." You caught his wrists, stilling his frantic examination. "Brynden, stop. Look at me."
He looked at you. In the dim light of the dying fire, his face was a mask of barely controlled terror. His red eye was wild, the pupil blown wide.
"I am not hurt," you assured. "It is not blood."
"Then what..."
You released one of his wrists and guided his hand to your chest, pressing his palm against the damp fabric of your nightgown. "Milk," you said. "It is only milk. Alysanne did not feed tonight, and I am…full. It happens sometimes. It is perfectly normal."
He stared at you. Then at his hand, which was cupping the curve of your breast, the wetness seeping through his fingers. Then back at you.
"Milk," he repeated.
"Milk," you confirmed.
The tension drained out of him so suddenly that he slumped, his forehead dropping to your shoulder, his breath leaving him in a shuddering exhale. "I thought you were bleeding. I thought...Gods, I thought I had lost you. I felt the wetness and I thought..."
"I know." You lifted your hand and stroked his hair, the silver strands slipping through your fingers like silk. "I know what you thought. But I am fine. I am not going anywhere."
He was silent, his face pressed against your shoulder, his hand still resting on your breast. When he spoke again, his voice was muffled and miserable.
"I am a fool."
"You are a husband."
"A fool of a husband."
"A husband who loves his wife." You pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "There is no shame in that."
"I woke you."
"You did. Rather rudely, I might add. You grabbed me like a sack of grain."
"I am sorry."
"You will make it up to me." You shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position, and winced as the movement sent another small gush of milk soaking into your nightgown. "Oh, for the love of..I am going to have to get up and change. The sheets will need changing too. I should probably pump, or the maids will have a mess to deal with in the morning..."
"Wait."
You paused, halfway to sitting up. Brynden was looking at you with an expression you could not quite read, curiosity, you thought, but hesitant.
"You do not need to get up," he said.
"Brynden, I am leaking all over the bed."
"The wet nurses will not come until morning. And you are tired." His hand, still resting on your breast, moved in a slow, almost unconscious circle. "I have heard that milk…that it is sweet."
You felt heat rise to your cheeks. "You have heard?"
"I hear many things." His voice was regaining some of its usual dry composure. "I am the Master of Whisperers. It is my business to know things."
"And the Master of Whisperers has made a study of breast milk?"
"The Master of Whisperers is curious." He paused, the hesitation was back. "And you are in discomfort. I do not want you to get up. I thought perhaps I could…help."
The silence stretched between you. Brynden was asking, with the awkward hesitancy of a boy asking for his first kiss, if he could taste your milk.
"All right," you said softly.
He blinked. "All right?"
"All right. If you want to."
"I do not want to make you uncomfortable..."
"Brynden." You cupped his cheek, the marked one, the one he had spent so many years believing made him monstrous. "You are my husband. You have seen me through childbirth, nightmares and ravens roosting in my hair. I think we are past the point of being uncomfortable with each other."
The last of the tension left his shoulders. He lowered his head to your chest.
His lips were cool against your skin, a familiar sensation after years of marriage. He hesitated for just a moment, as though giving you one last chance to change your mind, then his mouth closed around you.
The sensation was strange at first, not unpleasant, but different from the eager, demanding pull of Alysanne's tiny mouth. Brynden was tentative, as though he were afraid of hurting you. His eye closed.
Then the milk let down, and he made a small sound in the back of his throat, surprise, maybe, or satisfaction.
"It is sweet and warm," he murmured, the words vibrating against your skin.
"I told you."
He lowered his head again, this time with more confidence. His mouth worked gently, drawing the milk from you in slow, rhythmic pulls, you felt the ache in your breast begin to ease.
When he finally pulled back, his lips were wet and his expression was drowsy and peaceful.
"Better?" he asked.
"Better," you confirmed. The pressure was gone, and the wetness had stopped. "Thank you."
"Mm." He settled against you, his head coming to rest on your chest, his arm draped across your waist. He dozed off quicker than Alyssane.
Pebble was upset.
Alysanne was four months old now, a plump and solemn baby who had recently discovered the joy of grabbing things. Specifically, she had discovered the joy of grabbing Pebble's tail feathers and yanking them with the surprising strength of an infant who had inherited her father's stubbornness. Pebble, for his part, bore this treatment with the long-suffering patience of a creature who had been spoiled rotten for years and knew, on some fundamental level, that he deserved this.
But even the most patient of ravens had limits.
You were in the nursery, rocking Alysanne in your arms while she gummed at a silver rattle, a gift from her father, who had commissioned it from a smith and had it engraved with tiny ravens in flight. Pebble was perched on the windowsill, his feathers ruffled, his black eyes fixed on the baby with an expression that could only be described as wounded dignity.
"She pulled out three feathers," you told him. "Three. That is hardly any feathers at all. You have hundreds."
Pebble made a sound that was distinctly indignant.
"You are being dramatic."
Another indignant caw, this one accompanied by a pointed turn of his head.
"Pebble. Look at me."
He refused. He stared resolutely out the window, his round body silhouetted against the pale morning sky. You sighed and shifted Alysanne to your other hip. The baby had abandoned her rattle and was now reaching toward the raven with both hands, making the grabby motion that Pebble had learned to dread.
"Fine," you said. "Go. Do whatever it is ravens do. But be back before sundown, do you hear me? I do not want to have to send Brynden after you."
Pebble turned his head just enough to give you a look that said, clear as words: you would not dare.
"I would dare. I have dared before. Ask your master."
The raven let out a croak, spread his wings, and launched himself from the windowsill. You watched him go, a black shape against the blue sky, wheeling once over the Tower before disappearing into the maze of rooftops and chimneys.
"Your brother is very dramatic," you told Alysanne. "I hope you do not learn that from him."
Alysanne responded by grabbing a fistful of your hair and yanking.
"Ow. You have inherited enough from your father already, thank you."
Pebble did not return by sundown.
You noticed his absence at dusk, when you went to close the nursery windows against the evening chill. The perch by the window was empty. The little dish of shredded meat that you always left for him was untouched. The sky outside was a deepening purple, the first stars pricking through the velvet darkness, and there was no sign of a fat black raven winging his way home.
A small knot of anxiety tightened in your chest.
"He is probably hunting," you said aloud, to no one in particular. Alysanne was already asleep in her cradle. "Or he found a particularly interesting bit of rubbish to investigate. You know how he is about rubbish."
You went to bed, telling yourself that Pebble would be back by morning. He always came back. He had been your companion for years now, your confidant and your comfort, the first friend you had made in this cold stone Tower. He would not abandon you. He would not.
You did not sleep well.
Morning came. Pebble did not.
You stood at the window in your nightgown, your hands pressed against the cold glass, scanning the sky for any sign of a returning raven. The sun rose over Blackwater Bay, painting the water in shades of gold and rose, and the other ravens began to stir on their perches in the Tower rookery. But none of them were Pebble. None of them were your raven.
The knot in your chest became panic.
He was domesticated. That was the problem. Years of sleeping on silk sheets and eating from your fingers had softened him. He was plump and slow and accustomed to having his meals delivered to him on a silver platter. What if a hawk had caught him? What if he had flown into a window and broken his wing? What if he had gotten lost, confused by the winding streets of King's Landing, unable to find his way back to the Tower?
What if he was hurt? What if he was dying? What if he was already dead, and you would never see him again, and the last thing you had said to him was that he was being dramatic?
By the time the maids arrived to take Alysanne for her morning feeding, you were in a state of barely contained distress. Every few minutes, you went to the window and looked out, hoping to see a familiar black shape flying toward you.
Nothing.
At midday, you went to find your husband.
Brynden was in his solar, bent over a stack of parchments with a quill in his hand. The ravens on their perches stirred as you entered, cocking their heads at you with their bright, knowing eyes. Brynden looked up, and the moment he saw your face, he set down his quill.
"What is wrong?"
"Pebble is missing."
He blinked. "Missing?"
"He flew away yesterday morning, and he has not come back. He always comes back. He has never been gone this long." The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other. "I am worried about him. He cannot survive in the wild. What if a hawk got him? What if he is hurt? What if..."
Brynden rose from his chair and crossed to you, his hands closing around your upper arms. "Breathe," he said. "You are spiraling."
"I am not spiraling. I am concerned."
The corner of his mouth twitched, but his eye was serious. "Pebble is a raven. He was bred for long-distance flight. He is capable of surviving outside for more than a day."
"But he is not a normal raven. He is domesticated. You said so yourself. You said I made him into a lap-raven."
"I may have been…exaggerating."
"You said he was spherical."
"That was also an exaggeration." He paused. "A slight exaggeration. He is merely…robust."
You pulled away from him and began to pace, your skirts swirling around your ankles. "Can you find him? You can see through the eyes of your ravens. Can you look through their eyes and find Pebble? Can you tell him to come home?"
Brynden watched you pace, his expression unreadable. "I could," he said slowly. "But it would require me to divert my attention from several rather pressing matters of state. Lord Greyjoy is making noises about reaving again, and there is a trade dispute in the Vale that requires my..."
"Please." You stopped pacing and turned to face him, and you felt the sting of tears in your eyes. "Please, Brynden. I know it is foolish. I know he is just a raven. But he is my raven. I love him. I cannot bear the thought of something happening to him. Please."
"Come here," he said.
You went to him, he pulled you into his arms. "I will find him. I will look through the eyes of the flock and locate your errant raven. But you must promise me something in return."
"What?"
"You must stop tormenting yourself with worst-case scenarios. Pebble is a grown raven. He has survived this long despite your best efforts to turn him into a feathered housecat. He will be fine."
"You do not know that."
"I know that he is too stubborn to die. He learned it from you."
You let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. "That was almost sweet."
"I am capable of sweetness. Occasionally." He pressed a kiss to the top of your head. "Now sit. I will do my work, you will wait here. I will tell you the moment I find him."
You sat in the chair by the fire, the same chair you had sat in during the early days of your marriage, when you had been too shy to speak and he had been too preoccupied to notice you. It felt like a lifetime ago. Now, you watched your husband close his eye and reach out with his mind, his consciousness spreading through the network of ravens.
The minutes stretched. The fire crackled. You twisted your hands in your lap and tried not to think about hawks, about broken wings, about small black bodies lying still in dark alleys.
Then Brynden opened his eye.
"He is in Flea Bottom," he said.
"Flea Bottom? What in seven hells is he doing in Flea Bottom?"
"It appears he has made friends with a baker. A baker who gives him day-old pastries." Brynden's mouth pressed into a thin line. "He is sitting on the baker's windowsill, eating pumpkin filling, and he appears to be...singing."
"Singing? Ravens do not sing."
"They can mimick sounds. The baker has taught him a tune. It is obscene."
A laugh bubbled up in your throat, startling and slightly hysterical. The tears that had been threatening spilled over, but they were tears of relief now, not fear. "He is not dead."
"He is emphatically not dead. He is, in fact, having the time of his life."
"Can you make him come home?"
Brynden was quiet for a moment, his eye distant. "I have sent a command. He is...ignoring it." A pause. "He has just finished the pumpkin pastry and is now begging for another. The baker is obliging him."
"He is ignoring a direct command from the Hand of the King?"
"It appears that your influence has made him immune to authority." Brynden's voice was dry, but his expression was fond. "He has become a creature of pure appetite. He goes where the food is and he does not care about the consequences. He will come back when the pastries run out or when he remembers that he has a warm perch and a woman who loves him. Whichever comes first."
"You are certain?"
"I am certain. In the meantime, you are going to eat. You missed breakfast, and I suspect you missed supper last night as well."
"How did you..."
"I have my ways." He helped you to your feet and guided you toward the door. "The kitchens have prepared a lamb stew. You will eat it, then you will rest, and by the time you wake, your raven will be back on his perch, fatter than ever and smelling of Flea Bottom."
You let him lead you, too drained to argue. "You are very good at this."
"At what?"
"Taking care of me."
He paused at the door, his hand on the frame. "It is my privilege," he said quietly. "And my penance."
"Penance?"
"For the time I did not." He did not look at you as he said it.
You reached up and touched his cheek, turning his face toward you. "You have more than made up for it."
"I am still making up for it." He leaned down and pressed his lips to your forehead. "Now come. Lamb stew. Rest. Then tonight, when your raven has returned and you have stopped fretting, I intend to have you to myself for a few hours."
"Have me to yourself?"
"The wet nurses have Alysanne for the night. The small council is not meeting until tomorrow. There are no pressing crises requiring my attention." His eye met yours, there was a glint in it that made your stomach flutter. "I intend to take full advantage of the situation."
You felt heat rise to your cheeks. "I see. Then I shall eat quickly."
He smiled. "See that you do."
Pebble returned at dusk, just as Brynden had predicted.
You were sitting in the solar, finishing the last of the lamb stew, when you heard the familiar scratch of claws on the windowsill. You looked up to see a black shape squeezing through the narrow opening, a rather tighter fit than it used to be, you noted with a mixture of exasperation and affection. Pebble tumbled onto the perch with a graceless flop, his feathers ruffled, his beak smeared with pumpkin paste.
"There you are," you rose from your chair. "You wretched, ungrateful, insolent bird."
Pebble cocked his head at you and let out a croak that sounded distinctly unrepentant.
"Do you have any idea how worried I was? I thought a hawk had eaten you. I thought you had broken your wing. I made Brynden search for you with his magic."
Pebble preened his breast feathers, utterly unimpressed by your scolding.
"You smell like a bakery. You have jam on your face. You are..." You broke off, your voice catching. "You are home."
You crossed to the perch and scooped him up, holding him against your chest. He was warm and slightly sticky.
"Do not do that again," you whispered into his feathers. "Do not disappear like that. I cannot lose you too."
You had not meant to say that last part. It had slipped out, unbidden, a truth you had not quite acknowledged to yourself. You had lost so much already: your home, your family's honor, the life you had expected to lead. Pebble had been your constant through all of it, your small, feathered anchor in a world that had been cold, strange and unwelcoming. The thought of losing him, even now, even with Brynden and Alysanne to love, was more than you could bear.
Pebble, for once, did not squirm or complain. He let you hold him, his black eyes half-closed, and when you finally set him back on his perch, he reached out with his beak and gently preened a strand of your hair.
You laughed, a watery sound. "I forgive you. But you are not getting any more cakes for a week."
Pebble's eyes snapped open. He let out an indignant caw.
"A week," you repeated. "Maybe two. We shall see how repentant you are."
From the doorway, a voice spoke. "I would not count on repentance. He looks entirely unashamed."
You turned to see Brynden leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his expression wry. He had changed out of his formal doublet and was wearing a simpler black tunic, his silver hair loose around his shoulders.
"He came home."
"I see that." He pushed off the doorframe and crossed to you, his eye flicking to Pebble with an expression of mild exasperation. "You," he told the raven, "have caused my wife considerable distress. I hope the pastries were worth it."
Pebble made a sound that strongly implied they had been.
"I am going to put him on a diet," you said. "A proper diet. No more scraps from the kitchen. No more pastries from bakers in Flea Bottom."
"An excellent idea. I will believe it when I see it." Brynden's hand found the small of your back, his touch warm through the fabric of your gown. "But that is a project for tomorrow. Tonight, as I recall, you have other obligations."
"Obligations?"
"To your husband." He leaned down, his breath against your ear. "Who has been very patient. And Pebble..." He shot a pointed look at the raven. "...is going to stay on his perch and not cause any more trouble."
Pebble tucked his head under his wing with an air of supreme indifference.
Part 4: coming soon...
a/n: I decided to unite two parts so sorry if it's a bit choppy. There will be smut in the next chapter. Please don't let this flop guys, I have an entire series planned out. Comments, reblogs and likes are appreciated! <3
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You needed a job that would give you a little more independence. Alfie needed a new baker. As the attraction grows harder to ignore, you’re both left wondering whether some lines are worth crossing.
warning/tags: smut and fluff, minors DNI, Alfie is down bad, mentions of miscarriage, slowburn, Alfie is yearning and Ollie is done with him, pet names (angel, good girl, love) unprotected piv, mutual masturbation, oral (f!receiving), infidelity, creampie
Alfie’s bakery itself was not much to look at from the street, it was nothing but a modest front of brick and glass with the name painted in gold that had started to flake, but everyone knew it was only ever half the story. The real money never came from loaves. The real money came from the rum barrels tucked away, from the horses, and the shipments whose contents were merely whispers. The bakery was a convenience, a respectable face. Somewhere men could come and go without drawing the wrong kind of eyes.
Alfie sat behind his wooden desk, his bulk filled the chair like a man who had never learned the art of taking up less space than he was owed. His coat was open, his waistcoat strained across his middle, and the gold chain of his watch winked every time he moved his arm.
He was tapping one finger on an irregular rhythm against the wood. Ollie hovered near the door that led out of his office, nervous in the way he shouldn’t be after working for Alfie for so long. “Come on, Alfie,” Ollie said, pitching his voice low so the hopefuls waiting beyond the door wouldn’t hear the impatience in it. “Everyone’s waiting. Some of them have been standing out there since before sunrise. They’re starting to look like they might riot”
Alfie did not look up, instad he placed the glass of whisky he’d been holding on the desk. When he spoke, each syllable sounded chewed and considered. “Ollie, my boy… I don’t see why I need to bother with this. You see, I could put a donkey out there to bake the bread and I still wouldn’t give a shit. The lads would still buy it because they’re hungry and they’re not particular and this is Camden, not the fucking Ritz.”
Ollie shifted his weight from one polished shoe to the other. “So should I… just point? Pick someone? There’s a big bloke with big arms who looks like he could knead dough for twelve hours straight without blinking.”
Alfie’s head came up at last. “Just choose the one who looks the more competent,” he said, waving one large hand in a vague circle. “Competent. You know the word? Means they won’t burn the place down or poison the customers or, god forbid, start getting ideas about unions. If they look like they’ve ever thought a complicated thought in their life, send them packing.”
Ollie hesitated, and the silence stretched. “But we told everyone to bring something freshly baked,” he said carefully. “That was the whole point, Alfie. So you could taste it. So it—”
“Holy fuck, Ollie.” Alfie’s voice rose without quite becoming a shout, it never needed to, the way he said it was enough. He leaned forward, placing both hands flat on the desk. “You know what? Tell them to come in. One by one. Go.”
Ollie went. He opened the office door and the murmur of voices from the shop floor swelled for a moment, the men shifting impatently, people who needed work and they’d been forced to waste an entire morning in this shithole. It all cut off as Ollie cleared his throat and called the first name.
The man who entered Alfie’s office was broad across the shoulders and thick through the middle. He carried a cloth-wrapped bundle in both hands, stopped a respectful distance from the desk and waited.
Alfie regarded him in silence for a long moment. Then he made a small gesture with two fingers. “Well? Don’t just stand there. Show us what you’ve brought, my son.”
The man unwrapped the cloth with careful fingers. Inside lay a round loaf, still faintly warm. The smell that rose from it was good enough, of yeast and a hot oven. He set it on the table and Alfie tore a piece free with his fingers. He brought it to his nose first, sniffed once, then again with suspicion. Then he put it in his mouth. He chewed it slowly, his face remaining carefully blank for three full seconds. Then he twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. He chewed once more, swallowed with effort, and set the remainder of the bread down.
“What,” he said, very quietly, “in the name of every living, suffering creature, is this supposed to be?” The man opened his mouth, but Alfie raised one finger, and the man closed it again. “I have eaten things in the trenches that had more dignity than this. I have eaten things that tried to eat me back and still managed to leave a better impression. This—” he poked the loaf with one finger “—this is an insult to the very concept of bread. Worst thing I have ever put in my mouth, and I have put some deeply questionable things in my mouth in my time, let me tell you. Fuck off. Take your sad little brick and fuck off.”
The man’s face went from red to a blotchy purple. He snatched up the remaining bread, muttered something that might have been an apology or a curse, and retreated so quickly he nearly collided with the doorframe. Ollie ushered him out with the face of someone who had seen this particular performance from Alfie before, many times, and still found it freshly exhausting.
The door closed. The room settled back into its warm, yeasty quiet. Alfie wiped his fingers on a handkerchief that had seen better decades and muttered something under his breath about the decline of standards in the baking trades.
Ollie opened the door again.
“Next,” he called. You stepped through, and the change in the air was immediate, though neither Alfie nor Ollie could have said exactly why. The heat of the room seemed to pause as you carried your own cloth-wrapped offering, the warmth of it still seeping through the fabric into your hands.
Alfie looked up and whatever cutting remark or theatrical sigh he had been preparing died somewhere between his chest and his throat. His blue eyes, usually so quick to narrow in suspicion or amusement, widened by a fraction. He sat very still, watching something unexpected that had just walked into his kingdom.
You looked, to him, like something that did not belong in the back room of a Camden bakery that doubled as a front for darker enterprises. The light from the high window caught you just so, turning the edges of you luminous, almost lke a halo. An angel, he thought, with sudden clarity. He forgot, for several long heartbeats, that he was meant to be hiring a baker, he simply looked at you.
You could feel the heat of the place settling onto your skin, but you kept your shoulders straight, and your chin lifted just enough. “Good morning, Mr Solomons,” you said. “I’m here for the baker position.”
Alfie’s mouth twitched in something both softer and more dangerous than a smile. He sat back slowly in the chair, and regarded you as if you had just walked out of a different century entirely.
“And what’s your name, love?” he asked. You told him and the sound of it hung there in the room for a moment. Alfie roamed his eyes over your face as if he were committing the shape of it to memory. “Beautiful name,” he said. “Beautiful.” The second time his voice came out quieter, like he was saying it almost to himself. He cleared his throat. “Well then, let’s see what you’ve brought me. Don’t just stand there looking like a painting, show us the goods.”
You stepped closer to the table and set the cloth-wrapped parcel down with care. You unwrapped it slowly, revealing the poppy seed cake beneath. The scent rose immediately, the sweetness of a cake baked that morning and no earlier. Alfie leaned forward, reaching out for it with one hand and tearing a piece free with surprising gentleness. He brought it first to his nose, sniffed once and then put it in his mouth.
The change in his face was almost immediate, the scowl that lived around his mouth eased, and his eyes half-closed for a moment. He chewed slowly, and when he swallowed, he looked at the remaining cake as if it was offensive to taste so good.
“Fuck me,” he muttered. Then, louder, “This… this tastes like the one my mother used to bake, the exact same. She used to make it on Fridays… haven’t tasted anything close in years.” He looked up at you. “Proper little miracle, this is.”
You felt heat rise in your cheeks. You’d been complimented for your baking a million times, but somehow this felt more personal than any other nice word you’d received. “I’m glad,” you said simply.
Alfie tore another piece, smaller this time, and ate it with the same thoughtfulness. He wiped his fingers on the handkerchief and sat back. “So, why d’you want the job, love? Pretty thing like you. Could be doing a hundred other things that don’t involve getting flour up to the elbows”
You met his gaze and went with the most honest answer. “I’m seeking a little more independence.”
The word seemed to amuse him, he let out a sound, close to a laugh, that rumbled out of his chest. “Independence?” He spread his hands, the heavy rings catching the light. “Well I’m all about women’s independence, ain’t that right, Ollie?” He glanced toward the door where his assistant still hovered. “Tell her, Ollie. Tell her how progressive I am. How I believe a woman should be free to earn her own coin and stand on her own two feet and not have to ask some useless bastard for permission every time she wants a new hat. Go on.”
Ollie cleared his throat, internally rolling his eyes with disdain. “Yes, Alfie. Very progressive. You’ve said so. Many times.”
“See?” Alfie turned back to you. “Independence. Beautiful word. Almost as beautiful as your name. Almost.” He tilted his head, studying you. “You married, love?”
You moved your right hand without conscious thought, brushed the simple band on your ring finger. You let your fingertips rest there a moment longer than necessary, making sure he saw it. “I am,” you said. “Is that a problem?”
Alfie’s gaze lingered on your hand. Specifically on the ring, not too big, not too shiny or flashy. And he saw the way you curled your fingers protectively around it. “No,” he said slowly. “Not a problem. Happily married, are we?”
The lie came easier after being said so many times before. “Yes.”
Alfie made a small sound in the back of his throat. He looked down at the cake again, tore another piece, and spoke around it, low enough that you couldn’t hear. “We’ll see about that.”
He chewed, swallowed, and set the rest of the piece down with care. “I’m not gonna lie to you, love,” he said, louder now, businesslike again. “Your cake is excellent. Proper excellent. But look at you.” He gestured with one hand, encompassing all of you from the crown of your head to the hem of your skirt. “Look at those arms. You think you can knead bread for hours on end? Proper kneading. You think you can haul sacks of flour up from the cellar when the delivery comes? This is a working bakery.”
You straightened your shoulders, lifting your chin with the stubborn defiance that had carried you this far into the room. Ever the little fighter, determined not to let this opportunity slip away, you met Alfie’s gaze. “I’m stronger than I look.”
Alfie studied you for a long moment. “I don’t want to discriminate on account of your sex, believe me,” he said at last. “I am a modern man. Progressive, like Ollie said. But we’ve always had male bakers here. Big lads who can lift and carry and sweat without anyone batting an eye. A woman like you…” He swept his gaze over you again, slower this time, lingering in ways that had nothing to do with assessing upper body strength. “A woman like you could be out front, smiling at the customers. But sadly all those positions are taken, and I don’t see how putting you in the back is anything but a waste of something that looks like it belongs in a different sort of room entirely.”
You stepped closer to the table, close enough to smell the rum scent lingering in his clothes. “Please, Mr Solomons. I’ll work harder than any of those men out there will. I can assure you of that. Harder, and better. I won’t complain, I won’t show up late, Iwon’t drink on the job or pick fights. Give me the chance and I’ll prove it. Every single day.”
Alfie watched you, drumming his fingers once against the wood, then twice before he stilled. “You know what,” he said slowly, lifting the corner of his mouth. “I like your attitude. There’s fire in you. Didn’t expect that, not with the face of an angel."
Ollie raked his eyes over you with suspicion. His voice, when it came, was deliberately unfriendly. “Do you have any references from previous employers?”
You met his gaze without flinching. “No. I haven’t worked before. But I’m very responsible, I learn quickly, and I brought the cake so you could judge the work for yourself.”
Ollie turned his head just enough to catch Alfie’s eye. The look he gave him was a silent don’t even think about it. The kind of look that said this was a bad idea, that a woman with no references and a pretty face was more trouble than she was worth.
Alfie ignored the look completely. “Ah, references,” he said, the word rolling out like it was something ridiculous. “Who needs references, Ollie? What am I supposed to do with a letter from some old bastard who thinks she knows how to bake? I don’t need a prick telling me she’s good. I can taste it in the cake. References.” He snorted. “References are for men who can’t trust their own tongue. I trust mine. And my tongue is telling me this woman knows what she’s doing. She’s hired.”
Ollie opened his mouth. “Alfie…”
But Alfie was already looking at you again. “Welcome to the bakery, love. Try not to let Ollie’s worrying rub off on you. He means well… mostly.”
Behind you, Ollie made a strangled sound. “Alfie… there’s like fifteen other people out there. Don’t you want to talk to them first? The one with the big arms is still waiting. And there’s a fellow who used to work at that place up in—”
Alfie did not even turn his head, his eyes remained on you. “Shut up, Ollie.” The command was soft but absolute. “The lady here is hired. End of discussion. Tell the rest of them to fuck off and find honest work elsewhere. Or dishonest work. I don’t care. Just get them out of my bakery before I decide to start charging them rent for standing around.”
Ollie opened his mouth, but he thought anything he could say was simply pointless when his boss’s head was set around something, so he closed it, nodded once, and slipped out the door.
You stood very still in the suddenly quieter room, feeling your heart beating steady and hard against your ribs. “Thank you so much, Mr Solomons,” you said with a wide smile adorning your face.
Alfie waved the gratitude away with one hand, though the look in his eyes said he was filing the sound of your voice saying his name somewhere private. “We expect you here in the morning. Every day. Four a.m. sharp until two in the afternoon. Sixty shillings a week. How does that sound?”
Sixty… The number was generous, more than generous. You knew it, and he knew you knew it. “Excellent,” you said.
The door opened again, and Ollie, who had clearly been listening to the conversation, hovered on the threshold, looking like he'd aged five years in the last two minutes.
“Alfie,” he said carefully, “we paid forty the last one. And he worked three hours more every day. Forty shillings and he was grateful for it.”
Alfie finally turned his head. The look he gave his assistant could have made some people piss themselves. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up, Ollie? Or do I need to write it down? Big letters, so even a man like you could understand. The lady is hired. Sixty shillings. Four until two. And if I hear one more word about the previous arrangement or the previous baker or any other previous fucking thing, I will personally see to it that your next position involves a great deal more lifting and a great deal less talking. Clear?”
Ollie swallowed. “Clear, Alfie.”
“Good.” Alfie turned back to you, and the irritation melted out of his face as if it had never been there, replaced by something softer. He gestured at the remaining cake with one thick finger. “Take the rest home with you, love. No, no, leave it. I’ll finish it myself and think of my mother and the way things used to taste before the world got bloody and full of people who can’t bake for shit. Either way.” He sat back. “Six a.m. tomorrow. Don’t be late. I hate lateness.”
You thanked him again, the words soft but sincere. “Thank you, Mr Solomons. Truly. You won’t be disappointed, I promise you that.” With one last small nod, you turned toward the door, and stepped out, your heart still racing from the weight of the moment.
Minutes after you left, Alfie tore another piece of cake free, and ate it slowly, with his eyes half-lidded, tasting memories and not just the sugar and butter. Ollie closed the door with more force than necessary and turned. For a moment he simply stood there, then he folded his arms.
“Progressive, huh?” he said. The words were laced either an edge of accusation. “You’re a progressive man?”
Alfie did not look up. Instead he chewed, swallowed, and reached for another piece of cake.
“I can be,” he said around the mouthful. “I contain multitudes, Ollie. Depths. A man can evolve, a man can look at the world as it is and decide, on a Tuesday afternoon, that perhaps the old ways are not the only ways. Women earning their own keep, women standing on their own two feet. Yes, I can be progressive. Watch me.”
Ollie took a step closer, making the floorboards complain under even his light weight. “Sixty shillings. You’ve lost your mind.”
The piece of cake in Alfie’s hand was forgotten, crumbs clinging to his waistcoat. “Don’t talk to me like that, you little shit. That woman was something special. I could see it in her eyes. I think it’s gonna be good to keep her around. Useful…. decorative, possibly both. And if I want to pay her sixty shillings a week, then that is my business. My bakery, my coin, and my progressive fucking principles.”
Ollie let out a short, incredulous breath. He glanced at the closed door as if the fifteen rejected men might still be pressed against it listening. “You wanna know what I saw?”
Alfie waved his hand in a lazy and dismissive arc. “Nah. Not really. I find that most of the time when people offer to share what they saw it turns out to be something tedious and moralising and ultimately none of their concern. Spare me the sermon, Ollie.”
Ollie did not spare him. “That you want to sleep with the woman,” he said, each word precise. “That’s why you gave her that ridiculous payment. That’s why you didn’t even look at the others. That’s why you’re sitting there eating her cake like it’s a religious experience and talking about her eyes like she’s the first pretty face that ever walked into this place. You want her. Plain and simple. And you’re dressing it up as noble intentions and women’s independence so you don’t have to admit that you just got his head turned by a married girl.”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on. Alfie set the remaining piece of cake down with exaggerated care. He brushed the crumbs from his fingers one by one, and then he leaned forward. When he spoke, the voice that came out was wounded and theatrically offended.
“What?” He let the single word hang there. “You’re saying,” he continued, “that my noble intentions of employing a young woman in seek of her financial independence are merely the result of me wanting to get between her legs? That the sixty shillings, a fair wage, a progressive, right? Progressive wage, a wage that says ‘here is a woman who will not be underpaid simply because the world has decided her labour is worth less’ is somehow a bribe? A down payment on future fornication? That I, I, looked at that angel-faced creature and thought only of tumbling her into the nearest flat surface like some common beast in heat?”
“That’s exactly what I saw,” Ollie said.
Alfie’s eyes were wide with manufactured horror. “You got a sick mind, Ollie. Proper diseased. You disgust me. Truly. I am sitting here trying to do a good deed in a wicked world, and you reduce it to base carnality. I am wounded, I am wounded in my progressive soul. My mother, God rest her, would be spinning in her grave if she could hear the filth you just poured into this sacred place. I hope you can imagine the depths of my distress.”
Ollie opened his mouth, but Alfie raised one finger. “No. Do not speak. Do not compound the obscenity by trying to justify it. I have hired a baker, a baker whose cake has temporarily restored my faith in the concept of home and family. That is all, if she happens to have a face that could make the sanest man go absolutely mad, that is incidental, purely incidental. And if I choose to pay her what she is worth instead of what the market has decided a woman is worth, that is called being a man of fucking principle. Principle. Look it up, it’s in the dictionary.”
He picked up the last piece of cake, bit into it and chewed with defiant pleasure, the poppy seeds cracked between his teeth. “Now, go and make sure those rejects have properly dispersed. I don’t want them lingering here. And Ollie?”
Ollie, who had gone a mottled shade of angry red. “Yes, Alfie?”
“If you ever again suggest that my interest in that woman’s employment is anything other than pure and high-minded and deeply, almost spiritually progressive…” Alfie smiled then. “I will introduce you to a concept called unemployment. Clear?”
“Clear, Alfie.”
“Good boy.” Alfie waved him off with the hand that still held the final crumb of cake. “Fuck off and be useful. And by the way, her cake is indeed a religious experience, you should buy a slice tomorrow afternoon.”
Ollie fled, leaving Alfie sitting alone in the room. His eyes had gone distant, fixed on the place where you had stood only minutes before. He murmured to the empty room. “Happily married. We’ll fucking see.”
***
You woke before the sun had risen, dressing quickly and buttoning up your dress with steady fingers even though your pulse was not so steady. You pinned your hair back, simple and practical, nothing that would get in the way. The streets of Camden were quiet at that hour, you walked with your coat pulled tight and a cloth bag with your clean apron.
The bakery blinds were already open when you reached it, a yellow light spilling from the high windows onto the pavement. You pushed inside, and Ollie was waiting for you with an expression of lingering disapproval.
“You’re early,” he said. “Good. Alfie hates lateness. Come on then. I’ll show you the lay of it before the real work starts.”
He took you through everything with efficiency, as if he had done this too many times and still found it tedious. The big brick ovens along the back wall, the flour sacks stacked in the cellar, the schedule chalked on a board. “Don’t skimp, he’ll know. The knives are sharp. If you cut yourself, try not to bleed into the dough, it puts the customers off. Apron on, hair up, sleeves rolled. Questions?”
Before you could open your mouth, Ollie was already turning around, leaving you to it with a muttered “Don’t burn the place down” and disappearing toward the front to deal with the early delivery men.
You tied your apron, rolled your sleeves, washed your hands in the stone sink, and then you began. The rye bread came first. You mixed by what felt right more than the measurements that were written on the board. Your hands knew the work, push, fold, turn, push again, until the dough stopped fighting and began to mold under your palms.
The first hours passed in a blur, feeling physical satisfaction of work that asked something real of your body. By the time the clock on the wall showed half past five, the bread loaves were rising in the ovens and the honey cakes were cooling on the racks. You had moved on to the next batch, your arms ached in the good way, and flour dusted your forearms and the front of your apron, with a streak of it that had somehow found your cheek.
You had just finished with the onion rolls for the afternoon orders, when the fine hairs on the back of your neck lifted. Someone was behind you, close enough to hear their breathing. You spun, feeling your heart slamming hard against your ribs, a sound catching in your throat before you could stop it.
Alfie stood there in the middle of the kitchen, filling the space between the benches. “Calm down, love,” he said. “It’s just little old me.”
You pressed a floury hand to your chest, trying to slow the frantic beat. “Sorry, Mr Solomons. You scared me.”
He tilted his head, fighting back a smile. “Am I seriously that ugly? Proper frighten the pretty ladies, do I? Make small children cry at the mere sight of my face?”
A startled laugh escaped you before you could catch it. “No. No, of course not. I just wasn’t expecting you here. It took me by surprise.”
“And why is that?” He stepped closer, not enough to crowd, but enough that the heat of him mixed with the heat of the ovens. “I wanted to see how my newest employee is adapting on her first day. Call it quality control.”
You wiped your hands on your apron, leaving white streaks on it. “Everything’s going well so far. The batches of bread are ready. The honey cakes are cooling. And now I’m on the onion rolls for the afternoon orders. The dough’s almost ready for its second prove.”
Alfie breathed in deep, expanding his chest and half-closing his eyes for a moment. “Wonderful. Fucking amazing. This place smells great. You’ve got the gift, love. I knew it the second I tasted that cake yesterday. My mother would have approved, and she didn’t approve of much. Especially not me.”
You felt the flush rise again, part of it was pride, but the other something you couldn’t quite name. “You won’tregret hiring me. I promised I’d work harder than any of those men. I meant it.”
He waved one hand. “We’ll go on, love. I’ll let you work. Don’t let the presence of management put you off your stroke.” He said it, and then he did not leave.
You turned back to the onion rolls dough because the alternative was to keep staring at him like a fool. You floured the bench, turned the dough out, and began to knead again. The muscles in your arms and shoulders felt the work even while every nerve ending remained painfully aware of the man standing three feet behind you. You could feel his eyes, the weight of them, how they tracked the movement of your hands, the line of your back, the stray curl that had escaped your pins and now clung to the damp skin of your neck.
Minutes stretched, finally you spoke without turning, keeping your voice carefully light. “Am I doing anything wrong? Or is this an evaluation of some sort?”
Alfie’s reply came thoughtful, the words rolled around his mouth. “Just observing how you handle things, love. The way you touch the dough. I am expanding my mind.”
You kept kneading, though your hands had gone a fraction less sure. “I just know you’re a busy man. I imagined you had more important things to do than watch someone make onion rolls at six in the morning.”
“Nonsense.” The word was firm. He moved then, you heard the creak of the floorboards, and came to lean against the edge of the bench beside you, close enough that his coat brushed your skirt. “Nothing more important than this. The bakery is the face we show the world. So yes, watching you work is important. Critical, even.”
There was a pause, you felt him studying your profile. “So,” he said, quieter. “You know about me, huh?”
You glanced sideways. “A little. I mean… everyone does.”
“And aren’t you afraid?”
The question hung between you, but you kept working, pushing the dough into itself, feeling it grow silkier. “No,” you said with honesty. “I’ve heard the good things too.”
Alfie raised his eyebrows in what was a sceptical lift. “Yeah? What good? Don’t spare my blushes, love. I can take it, I’ve got a weak sense of shame.”
You hesitated only a moment. “I had a cousin who came back blind from the war. Last year he got a dog, a guide dog, trained, from that Blind Jew charity. Everyone knows it was thanks to one of your donations. He walks free now because of it.”
For a long moment the only sounds were the roar of the ovens and the rhythmic slap of the dough against wood. Alfie looked away, drumming his fingers once on the edge of the bench. “Oh. That?” He made a dismissive gesture, but it lacked conviction. “That’s nothing. Loose change. Don’t go making me into a saint, love. Saints don’t last long around here. That’s not goodness. That’s just… a clear conscience for five minutes.”
He fell silent. You kept kneading because your hands needed something to do. The dough was ready now, you shaped the rolls and set them in the oiled bowl, covered it with a clean cloth. Only then did you look at him fully, Alfie was watching you with an expression you had not seen on him before. Something that looked almost like hunger, though whether for the honey cakes cooling on the rack or for the woman who was standing in front of him was impossible for you to say.
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Turn up with a cake that tastes like my childhood. Refuse to be afraid and quote my better deeds back at me.” He dropped his eyes briefly to your left hand, then lifted again. “Happily married. Still sticking to that story, are we?”
You did not answer, and so Alfie pushed off the bench with a grunt. “Right. I’ve taken enough of your time, love. Carry on, make me proud, make the neighbourhood weep with joy at the quality of their morning loaf. And if anyone gives you trouble, the lads, the customers, Ollie with his little disapproving face, you come find me. I’ll sort it. Personally.”
Then he was gone, his heavy footsteps fading toward the back, where the real business was done, leaving you alone in the heat with flour on your cheek, dough under your nails, and the distinct certainty that nothing about this job was going to stay simple for very long.
***
A week later, Alfie was already half out of that chair of his office. The gold chain of his watch winkled as he checked the time, like he had somewhere far more important to be than his business meetings.
Ollie stood between him and the door like a particularly anxious gatepost. “You can’t go now,” he said. “Thomas Shelby just arrived for the meeting, remember? You were gonna discuss the price of the—”
“Shhh. Shhh. Shhh.” Alfie lifted his hand with the fingers spread in a theatrical gesture. “Save your words, Ollie. Husband them. I don’t care. Tell Thomas Shelby to wait. Tell him Alfie is engaged in matters of critical importance. Tell him whatever pretty little lie floats through that head of yours. Just make him wait.”
Ollie’s face did something complicated, a grimace of disbelief. “Alfie, he came all the way from Birmingham. I can’t just tell the man to wait.”
Alfie paused in the middle of buttoning his coat. He turned fully, and the smile that spread across his face was slow and deeply unimpressed. “Oh, come on. He’s not gonna slice your throat with his razor blade, not over a few minutes. Thomas Shelby is a busy man, same as me. He understands the concept of priorities. Entertain him, sing him a little song, do him some magic tricks. Pull a fucking rabbit out of your arse if you have to. Offer him a honey cake, the new girl’s honey cakes.”
Ollie took a step closer, lowering his voice even though the door was shut and the walls were solid. “You can’t go see her every day, Alfie. We need you here. We need you handling what needs to be handled. The little problems that turn into big problems if they’re left unresolved. Not distracted. Not… whatever this is.”
Alfie went very still. His hat dangled from one hand, for a long moment the only sound was the distant sound of the men working outside.
Then Alfie laughed. A laugh edged with genuine delight at the absurdity of being lectured by his own assistant. “Well,” he said, spreading his hands. “I suppose I should just hand you the whole fucking business, shouldn’t I? Keys, ledgers, the combination to the safe. Seeing as you know it all, Ollie. Seeing as you’ve got the entire operation running so smoothly in that clever little head of yours that you can spare the time to tell me where I can and cannot point my own two feet.”
Ollie flushed, but he did not back down entirely. “What’s so special about her anyway? I get it, she’s pretty. But there’s a thousand other pretty women out there, and you’ve never been like this before, not over any of them. Disappearing every chance you get, watching her kneading dough like it's a spectacle. What’s different?”
Alfie set the hat down on the desk with deliberate care. He planted both thick hands on the wood and leaned forward. His voice had softened into something quieter, almost as a confession. “Ollie, my boy. You wouldn’t recognise special if it walked up and hit you square in the face. That woman…” He paused, searching for the words. “She’s got something, let me tell you that. Not just the face, though the face is a fucking miracle, I’ll grant you. It’s the eyes, the way she looks at you and doesn’t flinch, the way she talks about independence, the way she baked a cake that tasted like my mother’s cake and then stood there and told me she wasn’t afraid of me. Do you know how rare that is? In this life? A woman who looks at me and decides the rumours are less interesting than the man standing in front of her?”
He pushed off the desk and began to pace the short length of the office. “She draws me in like a magnet. I go there for five minutes to check the ovens and an hour disappears. She’s not any woman I’ve seen, and I find I cannot stop tuning myself to it. Is that clear enough for you, Ollie? Or shall I draw a diagram? ‘Alfie’s inexplicable gravitational pull toward the new baker’ would that help?”
Ollie dragged a hand down his face. “Alfie, we need you on planet Earth. Not on the moon.”
Alfie stopped pacing and turned, looking at Ollie with a smile that split his face, a ittle unhinged around the edges. “Oh but I am on the moon, Ollie.” He spread his arms as if encompassing the absurdity of it. “She’s got me swept away. I’m walking around up here in the thin air of whatever delision this is, and I find I don’t particularly want to come down.”
He snatched the hat back up, settled it on his head with a tug and moved toward the door, deciding the conversation was over. “Keep Thomas Shelby waiting,” he said over his shoulder. “Give him a drink. Give him a cake. Tell him Alfie will be along when Alfie is good and ready and not a moment before.”
He pulled the door open, Ollie made one last desperate sound. “Alfie—”
“Entertain him,” Alfie repeated, already halfway down the hall. “Magic tricks, Ollie. I have faith in you. Somewhere under all that anxiety is a man who can keep Tommy Shelby occupied for twenty minutes without losing a finger. Prove me right, or don’t. Either way I’ll be back when I’m back.”
A few minutes later, Alfie came through the kitchen door, he didn’t announce himself with any of the theatrical booming that usually preceded him, he simply crossed the floor, snagging a sturdy wooden chair from against the wall, and setting it down beside your bench. Then he sat, making the chair protest under his weight.
“How are you doing on this beautiful morning, love?” he asked, spreading his knees and tipping his head back slightly, breathing in the air.
You kept kneading, though every nerve had gone aware of the man now sitting close to you. “I’m doing good,” you said. “What about you?”
Alfie reached out without asking and snagged one of the still-warm beigels from the rack, turning it over in his fingers with the appreciation of a man examining a rare jewel. “Business is a shitshow,” he confided cheerfully. “Tommy Shelby’s in my office and Ollie’s having a nervous breakdown because I left him to play host. Everyone wants a piece of me. But—” he tore a piece of the beigel free and pointed it at you like a teacher making a point “—now I’m doing better. Dramatically better. The second I came through that door and the smell hit me, the entire shitshow receded. Funny how that works.”
You smiled and nodded at the beigel in his hand. “You want to try it properly? They’re best when they’re still warm. I made the dough last night so it could have a long prove.”
“I’d love to,” he said, and bit in. The sound he made was obscene in its sincerity, an appreciative groan that seemed to come from somewhere in his chest. He chewed slowly. “Fuck me,” he murmured once he could speak again. “It’s amazing. I’ve never, and I mean never, met someone who cooked exactly like the food I tasted as a child.” He took another bite, larger this time, and spoke around it. “Where did you learn to cook like this, love? Because this isn’t ordinary talent.”
You pushed the dough away for a moment, wiping your hands on your apron. “From my nana. We used to spend the afternoons together baking when I was small. She’d pull out this little book, battered thing, every recipe had a little note in her handwriting. A touch that was just hers. A pinch more salt here, a longer prove there. I know all of them by heart now”
Alfie went still. “God bless your nana,” he said quietly, what remained in his voice was completely sincere. “God bless her hands and her little book and the afternoons she gave you. May her memory be a blessing. Because whatever she put into you… it’s still here. I can taste it. I can fucking feel it.”
A startled laugh escaped you, bright and sudden. It rang off the high ceiling, Alfie watched the sound leave your mouth, and something softened in his expression. “You’ve got the laugh of an angel,” he said. “Celestial. Makes a man want to say stupid things just to hear it again.”
Heat flooded your face so fast it was almost dizzying. You turned back to the dough with more force than necessary, kneading it hard. Your ears were burning, you could feel him watching your nervous smile and the way your hands had gone suddenly less certain.
He let the silence stretch just long enough to be merciful. “You’d mentioned your cousin served. The one who came back blind. Did you have many family sent over to France, love?”
You kept your eyes on the dough. “Most of them,” you said. “All my cousins. And my brother.” A breath. “He didn’t make it. They never found enough of him to bring home properly.” You swallowed and kept working. “My husband luckily stayed in London. He managed a military warehouse here. That kept him out of the trenches.”
Alfie made a low sound of understanding and set the half-eaten beigel down on the edge of the bench with surprising care.
“Right,” he said. “Guess some lads were luckier. Didn’t have to be sent over to drown in the mud and the gas. Lucky.” He studied you sideways. “Anyway, what does your husband do now?”
“He works in a factory. He’s a machine operator.” You didn’t particularly enjoy talking about your husband with Alfie. You hated the way his questions about him, about your marriage, made something twist uncomfortably in your chest. Lying to Alfie felt heavier, somehow more difficult, than lying to anyone else.
Alfie’s eyebrows rose, he leaned in a fraction, making the chair creak under the shift of his weight. “And he doesn’t make enough money that he has to send his wife out to work?” The question was mild, almost idle. But his eyes were anything but. “Pretty young thing like you, hands made for miracles, spending her days covered in flour. Seems curious.”
You laughed againm, shorter this time, edged with the defensive spark he seemed to enjoy pulling out of you. “I told you. I just like being financially independent. Earning my own money, feeling like I’m being productive. I don’t like staying in the house doing nothing. This—” you gestured at the dough, the ovens, the cooling beigels, the entire room “—this makes sense to me. And the money is mine, fairly earned.”
Alfie watched you for a long moment. “And you don’t have children, do you?”
The question was careful. As if he already knew the answer and still needed to hear you say it. You met his eyes. “I don’t,” you said.
“No children,” he repeated softly, almost to himself. “Independent, productive, laugh like an angel, and a husband who works long factory shifts. Interesting… the things a man learns when he bothers to sit down and eat a beigel with his newest baker on a beautiful morning.”
…
The days began to blur in the best and worst of ways. Mornings belonged to the bakery, before the first light touched the windows, you were already floured to the elbows. And every day, without fail, Alfie appeared sometime before mid-morning, shrugged out of his coat, and dragged the same scarred chair to the exact same spot beside your bench, staying for two hours, sometimes three, as if the rest of his business could wait indefinitely on the pleasure of watching you work.
He talked. God, how he talked. His voice rolled out in long rivers while you pushed and folded and turned the dough. He told you about the horses, about the meetings with the Italians, about his mother. He asked questions too, about your grandmother’s little book, about the brother you lost, and the shape of the life you claimed to have waiting at home. And every time you answered, every time you laughed or fell quiet or wiped flour from your cheek with the back of a wrist, something in the air between you got warmer.
Sometimes he fell silent for long stretches, tracking the roll of your shoulders with his eyes, the flex of your forearms, the way the dough yielded under your palms. Once, when a strand of hair escaped your pins and fell across your eyes, he reached out without thinking and tucked it behind your ear. His fingertips were warm, and they lingered half a second too long against the shell of your ear.
The bakery became the only place that felt real, because home was something else entirely. You returned each afternoon to the small flat, and the moment the door closed behind you, the warmth of the ovens and Alfie’s voice drained out of you. Your husband would already be there more often than not, home early from the factory.
“You’re late again,” he would say, not looking up from the newspaper. “Third time this week. I had to get my own lunch. Again. What am I, a fucking orphan? I’ve got a wife, haven’t I? Or did I imagine the whole wedding?”
The fights were never dramatic, because that would have required passion, and passion had left this marriage years ago, carried out with the tiny body you had lost and never properly buried. The fights were mean. Him listing every way your absence inconvenienced him, you answering too calmly at first, then with rising heat when he started in on how no decent woman left her husband to fend for himself so she could play at being a baker for some gangster.
“They’re talking,” he said one night. “Down the pub. About you and him, about how Solomons’ new pet never goes home on time. About how he’s always down there watching her like a dog with a bone. You want to be one of his whores, is that it? That why you’re never here? That why the flat’s empty and my belly’s empty and I’ve got to listen to every bastard with a mouth making jokes about my wife’s extra duties?”
You stopped answering after a while, there was no point. The truth, that you were saving every shilling of the sixty he paid you, that the tin under the loose floorboard was growing heavier every week, that you were counting the days until you had enough for a room of your own and a clean break and a life that did not smell of his resentment, would only make it worse. So you let him talk himself hoarse, you washed the few dishes, and you lay on your side of the cold bed waiting for sleep that never came easy.
He had stopped touching you after the miscarriage. That was the cleanest way to say it. One day there had been a child,, hoped-for and already named, and then there had been blood and pain, and after that your husband’s hands never found you in the dark again. He looked at you like you had failed at the one thing you were put on earth to do, like your body had betrayed him personally. The whores started sometime after that, you heard the whispers the way every wife in the neighbourhood heard them, the sideways glances at the market, a soft laughter that stopped when you passed, the occasional “friend” who felt obligated to tell you what everyone already knew. He did not even bother being careful anymore, some nights he came home smelling of cheap perfume and simply fell into bed with his back to you, as if daring you to care. You had cared, once. Now you only cared about the tin.
Every Friday Alfie pressed the week’s wages into your palm, sixty shillings, always with an extra little something pressed on top. You thanked him, and every night you knelt on the floorboards, lifted the loose one, and added to the growing hoard. You calculated rent on a clean room somewhere far from this flat, you needed to leave so you could be happy again.
Happiness had become a place that existed only between the hours of four and two, in a warm room that smelled of bread, with a dangerous man who looked at you like you were something worth keeping.
At the bakery, Alfie grew bolder in small ways, placing a hand at the small of your back as he moved past you in the narrow space between benches. A quiet you look tired, love when the shadows under your eyes grew too dark to hide. A long look when you laughed at one of his more ridiculous stories. But at home the fights sharpened, your husband started waiting up and smelling your clothes for rum and the smell of man’s cologne. He started throwing the word whore around when the whisky loosened his tongue. “You’re never here,” he snarled one night, blocking the bedroom door with his body. “I come home to a dark kitchen and an empty bed and the knowledge my wife is off playing house with a gangster. You think I don’t know what men like him do with girls who need money? You think I don’t hear what they say?”
One rainy morning, in the office, Alfie was once again sitting behind his desk with a faraway look in his eyes. He looked like a man wrestling with something far more complicated than the usual calculations of business negotiations. Ollie hovered near the door, holding papers in hand, his expression already pinched with the particular exhaustion that came from trying to keep Alfie on task.
“Alfie,” he ventured carefully. “The Italians. The proposal. We were supposed to be thinking about—”
“Shh. Shhh.” Alfie lifted one large hand without looking up. The gesture was absent, almost gentle. “Ollie, my boy. What do you think about silk stockings?”
The silence that followed was so complete you could have heard the bat of a fly’s wings. Ollie blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Silk stockings,” Alfie repeated, slower this time. “For a woman’s legs. You know the ones. The kind that make a man forget his own name. What do you think?”
Ollie’s face went through several stages of disbelief. “They’re… pretty?”
Alfie finally looked up. “No, you idiot. I meant if it’d make a good gift. For my angel. Something delicate, something that says I see you. Silk stockings, proper ones, not the cheap rubbish.”
Ollie rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they did not fall out of his head. He dropped the papers onto the desk with a slap. “Alfie. You were supposed to be thinking about the business proposal the Italians made us, not stockings”.
“I’ve been thinking about her legs,” Alfie confessed, almost dreamily. “ And I keep picturing them in silk, in dark silk. I think they’d look prettier. I think the entire world would look prettier if those particular legs were sheathed in something worthy of them.”
Ollie made a strangled sound. “How have you been thinking about her legs? You’ve never seen that woman’s legs, not once. She’s buttoned up to the chin half the time. You’ve seen her hands and her face and the occasional flash of wrist when she rolls her sleeves. That is the full inventory, not even her ankles.”
Alfie waved the objection away. “Ah, Ollie boy. I don’t need to see them to know they’re beautiful. I can imagine them. I’ve got a very vivid imagination when properly motivated, and that woman motivates me. She walks past and my brain helpfully supplies the rest. It’s become a proper problem, I close my eyes and there they are. I open them and I’m still thinking about them. It’s affecting my concentration, my sleep, my ability to give a single shit about Italian proposals.”
“You’re not her husband. You can’t just buy her stockings. She’d think it's scandalous.”
Alfie leaned back in the chair. “Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “You’re right. She’d think it's scandalous. Can’t have that. Can’t have my angel thinking old Alfie just wants to get between her legs.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket, pulled out a thick roll of notes, and tossed it across the desk to Ollie. “Right, change of plan. Go out and get me a perfume bottle. An expensive one, something that smells like vanilla. None of that chemical rubbish, and don’t come back until you have it.”
Ollie stared at the money as if it might bite him. “Alfie. You’re not expecting me to go out and buy perfume. That’s not my job. I’m your assistant, not your bloody personal shopper. I handle the books, and the meetings—”
Alfie’s voice dropped into that particular register that brooked no argument. “Your job, Ollie, is to do whatever the fuck I tell you to do. Today that happens to be buying perfume. Expensive perfume, for a woman who deserves something that smells like heaven. Now go. Go, boy. Before I start thinking about what else might look good wrapped around her ankles.”
Ollie opened his mouth, and closed it. He snatched the money, knowing he had long ago accepted that working for Alfie required a flexible definition of dignity. “Vanilla,” he muttered. “Right. I’ll be back in an hour.”
Alfie waved him off without looking, already rising from the chair. He reached behind the desk and picked up the bouquet he had bought earlier that morning. He walked to the front of the building where the bakery was.
You looked up as he entered the kitchen. The small smile that always appeared when he walked in, the one you tried and failed to hide. Alfie crossed the floor without hesitation, holding the flowers out in front of him like an offering. He stopped beside you and presented the bouquet with a small courtly bow.
“Beautiful flowers,” he said, “for a beautiful woman. Seemed only right, the world’s been grey enough lately, figured you deserved a bit of colour to brighten up.”
You stared at the flowers. They were stunning, but your hands, still dusted white, hovered uncertainly above them. “Thanks, Alfie. These are beautiful. But I… I can’t have them.”
He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes like he was preparing arguments. “Of course you can. They’re flowers, love. Not a proposal of marriage. Just flowers for the woman who makes this place smell like my childhood and my future all at once. Take them, they’re yours.”
You reached out despite yourself, brushing the red petals with your fingers. “I can’t show up home with these,” you said quietly. “A married woman can’t come home with flowers another man gifted her. It’s already bad enough as it is.”
The last part slipped out before you could catch it, an admission you had kept locked behind your teeth for weeks. You felt the heat rise in your cheeks, and quickly your hands returned to the dough.
Alfie didn’t move, he simply stood there. “What do you mean ‘bad enough,’ huh?” he asked. “Is your husband the jealous type? The kind who sits at home imagining all sorts of things that aren’t happening just because his wife has the audacity to earn her own coin?”
You kept your eyes on the dough, pushing it harder than necessary, as if you were trying to escape the conversation. “It’s nothing… It’s just… he thinks I spend too much time here. And he’s heard what some people say. Gossips, maybe from the ladies at the front… that you spend too much time with me back here. In the back… alone.”
Alfie let out a short laugh, he set the bouquet down on the edge of the bench and leaned in closer. “So he’s an insecure little cunt with an inferiority complex who thinks his wife would cheat on him just because there’s a man close to her,” he said flatly. “A man who can’t keep his own house in order so he points the finger at the bakery instead. Pathetic, truly. Some men are born with small minds and even smaller pricks and they spend their whole lives trying to make the world feel as cramped as they do.”
“Alfie. That’s not nice to say.” His sincerity caught you off guard, it left you feeling even more embarrassed. He was hitting dangerously close to home, unearthing truths you had buried beneath layers of practiced smiles and half-spoken excuses.
He waved a handd. “Nice has very little to do with the truth, love. I’ve met a thousand men like him. They talk loud and wonder why their wives start looking for doors. Tell me the truth.” His voice dropped, softer now but no less serious. “Does he ever hurt you more than with words? Does he dare put a hand on you? Because if he does, if that sorry bastard has ever laid so much as a finger on you in anger, you tell me right now. I’ll rearrange his face personally, until not even his mother could recognize him.”
You shook your head quickly, too quickly, making the loose curl of hair bounce against your temple. “No. No, it’s not like that. We just fight a lot. He yells and says things… ugly things. About me being here, about you, about how a proper wife should be home making his lunch instead of… whatever he imagines I’m doing back here with you.”
Alfie felt his jaw tighten, he reached out without thinking and brushed a streak of flour from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “He yells at you? What does he tell you? Don’t spare me the details, love. I’ve heard worse, I’ve said worse. But never to a woman like you.”
You hesitated, but eventually the words came out in pieces, quiet and ashamed. “He tells me that people whisper about us being here for hours… that I’m making him look like a fool. A fool who has a whore for a wife.”
Alfie listened without interrupting. His expression darkened with every word you said. When you fell silent, he let the quiet stretch for a long moment. “A man yelling at his wife such things,” he said at last, almost wistfully. “I’ve always thought it should be the other way around. A man making his wife scream, and not in anger exactly.”
Your face burned scarlet, making you turn back to the dough with fierce concentration, kneading as if your life depended on it. “We’re just going through… a rough patch,” you managed. “That’s all. Marriages have them. It’ll pass.”
Alfie made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. “Rough patch my arse. That man doesn’t love you if he treats you like that. If he can look at this face, sculpted by god himself on one of his better days, and this smile that lights up the whole fucking room, and still chooses to yell?” He shook his head. “No, that’s not love. You deserve better, love. You deserve someone who sees you and thinks the sun rose just to have something to compete with.”
You swallowed hard. “It’s not appropriate that I talk of these matters anyway,” you said. “They’re private. Between a husband and wife. I shouldn’t be… burdening you with them.”
Alfie stepped closer. The space between you shrank until you could feel the warmth radiating from his body, until the scent of him wrapped around you. “Love, you see I’ve grown quite fond of you. More than fond, proper attached. And I can see the little sadness you try so hard to hide in your eyes, the way it flickers when you think no one’s looking. And it makes me think that you deserve a man who can make you scream with joy. Who’d never let you shed a single tear unless it was from laughing too hard or feeling so much pleasure so hard you forget your own name. A man who would burn the world down before he let it dim that light in you.”
The bakery kitchen felt suddenly too small. Your heart was hammering against your ribs, loud enough that you were sure he could hear it over the ovens. You wiped your hands on your apron, and forced your voice steady. “Thanks. But like I said… my husband and I are going through a rough patch. Things will get better.”
Alfie studied you for a long moment, the way your fingers twisted in the edge of your apron like they needed something to hold onto. He didn’t look convinced. The moment stretched until a knock sounded on the door that led from the kitchen to the back.
“Alfie,” Ollie’s voice came through the wood, full of exasperation and something close to panic. “Sabini is here for the meeting. He’s waiting, and he’s not the patient sort. You know how he gets.”
Alfie did not turn immediately, he simply let out a theatrical sigh. “Entertain him, Ollie,” he called back. “Magic tricks, remember?”
You could hear Ollie’s muffled groan through the door. “Would you stop playing house and come handle business like you did before all of this nonsense? The whole bloody business is waiting back there while you sit down here watching her knead dough.”
Alfie snapped his head toward the door. His expression darkened in an instant. “Ollie,” he said, dropping his voice to a low and dangerous register, “I’m gonna start shooting at the door, so you’d better not be standing there in the next ten seconds. Count with me, my boy. Ten… nine…”
Footsteps retreated rapidly down the corridor, and the knock did not come again. You let out a soft laugh despite yourself, it broke some of the tension, though not all of it. “I think Ollie’s not particularly fond of me. Every time he sees us back here he looks like he’s swallowed a lemon.”
Alfie turned back to you, the storm in his face clearing as quickly. “He just thinks I’ll give his job to you,” he said, twitching the corner of his mouth into a crooked smile. “Poor Ollie. Loyal as a dog and twice as anxious. He sees you here and he imagines you’re gonna take his place. Can’t blame the lad, really. You do have that effect.”
You shook your head, a small smile tugging at your lips despite the blood still warming your cheeks from the earlier conversation. “Tell Ollie he has nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t take his job. I’m happy here. With the dough, with the ovens. With…” You hesitated, then finished softly, “With the way things are in this room.”
Alfie reached out and brushed another stray streak of flour from your cheek, his thumb lingered there this time, tracing the line of your jaw with a gentleness that felt at odds with the man who had just threatened to shoot through a door. “I should give you a rise,” he said thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about it.”
You blinked, feeling surprised. “Why? I’ve only been working here a month.”
“A month is enough,” he replied. “More than enough. The sales in the bakery have doubled. People are talking, the best bread in Camden, they say. It’s all thanks to you, love. You walked in here and you changed the whole bloody atmosphere.”
You smiled then, a real one, shy but genuine. Alfie went very still, dropping his gaze to your mouth, then lifted again, looking hungrier.
“God,” he murmured, almost to himself. “That smile again. That fucking smile that makes a man think things he should have no right to be thinking about. Things that end with my hands in places they’ve got no business going.”
He stepped closer, and suddenly the space between you vanished. His body pressed forward until you could feel the heat of him through your clothes. Alfie lifted his hand, cupping the side of your face with surprising tenderness, brushing your lower lip with his thumb.
“I’ve been driving myself insane ever since you walked into my life,” he said with devastating honesty. “Tell me you feel the pull between us too. Tell me I’m not the only one losing my mind. Tell me—”
Before you could answer, before you could even draw breath, Alfie grabbed you. He slid his large hand to the back of your neck, pulling you in with undeniable strength. He wrapped his other arm around your waist, pressing your body tight against his solid bulk. The kiss was hungry, full of desperation. He devoured your mouth like a man who had been starving for weeks, sweeping his tongue in with heat, his lips claiming yours with a groan that vibrated through his chest and into yours.
The taste of him, of rum and desire, flooded your senses. His body was unyielding, holding you flush against him, splaying one hand across your lower back as if afraid you might vanish. For one dizzying moment you melted into it. Into the warmth, the strength, the way his mouth moved like he had been dreaming of this exact kiss since the day you first brought him that poppy-seed cake.
Then reality crashed back. You pulled away, gasping, pressing your hands against his chest. Your lips felt swollen, and your heart hammered wildly. “I can’t do this, Alfie,” you whispered, though your voice was shaky. “I’m married. I’m still married… and this is wrong.”
Alfie did not release you immediately, he rested his forehead against yours, still holding you close with his arm around your waist. “Your mouth,” he murmured, tracing your lower lip again with his thumb, “is better than I even thought about. Softer, sweeter, like it was made for this. A glorious experience, love. A fucking revelation. I could spend the rest of my days kissing you and still die wondering how I ever lived without it.”
The words sent another rush of heat through you. But you stepped back, putting the bench between you once more, though it felt like far too little distance. “Please stop saying these things,” you said, barely above a whisper. You touched your lips instinctively, as if you could wipe away the evidence of what had just happened. “I can’t… we can’t.”
Before either of you could say more, the knock came again, sharper this time, more insistent. Ollie’s voice filtered through the door. “Alfie. Sabini’s getting impatient. And he’s brought men. You need to come up. Now.”
Alfie let out a frustrated growl. He straightened, adjusting his waistcoat with hands that still trembled slightly from the force of the kiss. “I won’t stop thinking about this,” he said quietly. “Not for a second. Not while I’m back there dealing with Sabini and his bullshit. Not tonight when I’m alone in bed. Not ever, love. You’ve ruined me for anything less.”
He turned toward the door, pausing once to glance back at you, at your swollen lips and the way your hands had returned to your apron like an anchor. Then he was gone, leaving the kitchen suddenly too quiet, but far too full of the ghost of his mouth on yours and the flowers still sitting on the bench.
The walk home from the bakery felt longer than usual that evening. Your feet moved on autopilot along the familiar route, but your mind was miles away, or rather, still back in the bakery kitchen, pressed against Alfie’s solid chest with his mouth claiming yours like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.
The kiss replayed in relentless detail. The way his large hand had cupped the back of your neck, the heat of his body pulling you flush against him. The taste of him, the groan that had vibrated from his chest into yours. For those few stolen seconds you had felt wanted. Not only wanted, but desired and seen. Not as a convenience or a disappointment or a body that had failed at its one expected duty, but as something precious, something worth devouring.
You had been lying to yourself for weeks, you realised now, as your key turned in the lock of the small flat. Hiding how good it felt to have a man look at you the way Alfie did, like you were the centre of the room, the reason he lingered for hours watching your hands move through dough. It had been so long since anyone had made you feel wanted and cherished in even the smallest ways. Your husband’s touch had vanished years ago, as if your body had become a reminder of failure rather than a source of comfort or pleasure. But Alfie made you feel like a woman again, like someone worth the risk of a hard kiss in the back of a bakery while the world waited.
God, you felt the pull between you too whenever he stepped close. The way your skin remembered his fingertips on your cheek, the way your laugh came easier around him. But you were still married. The ring on your finger was a fact. You needed to focus on saving, on getting your own place and redoing your life from the ground up. Love, or whatever intoxicating thing this was with Alfie, could wait until you were free. Until you stood on your own two feet without needing to explain yourself to anyone.
The flat was quiet when you stepped inside, you set your bag down and rolled up your sleeves, moving through the familiar evening tasks. You tidied the small kitchen, filled the basin with cold water and began washing the clothes that had piled up.
That was when you saw them. Lipstick stains on the collar of one of his shirts. A cheap red that did not belong to you. Another smear lower down, near the buttons, as if someone had pressed his lips there, lingering for a moment. You stared at them for a long moment, the cold water dripping from your hands onto the floor. You were used to this, the whispers, the late nights, the way he came home reeking of other women and still had the nerve to accuse you of the same.
You wrung the shirt out with more force than necessary, watching the water run pinkish-red down the drain. Why, you wondered, were you still loyal to him when he had never once been loyal to you? Why did you cling to the vows when he treated them like suggestions? And still you stayed, still you washed his shirts with another woman’s lipstick on them.
You finished the laundry in silence, hung the clothes to dry and prepared a simple supper you knew he would barely touch. Night fell fully, after changing into your nightdress, you slipped into bed, the sheets felt cool and lonely on your side. Sleep came in fits, haunted by the ghost of Alfie’s mouth on yours and the memory of how safe and alive you had felt in his arms.
Hours passed before the door finally opened. Your husband stumbled in later than usual, the familiar scent of cheap perfume clinging to him. He did not look at you, he never did anymore on nights like this. He simply shed his coat, kicked off his boots, and fell into bed on his side with his back to you, the smell of another woman filling the small space between you.
You lay there in the dark, staring at the crack in the ceiling. The question turned over and over in your mind. Why were you refusing Alfie’s advances when your husband had never refused any whore?
The kiss burned in your memory again, the way Alfie had held you like you were something precious, the way he had looked at you afterward, like the entire world could burn and he would still choose your mouth. He saw you, wanted you, made you feel desired in a way your husband had not in years. And yet here you were, loyal to a marriage that had become nothing but a cage of resentment.
***
Alfie sat alone in his office long before the first grey light touched the rooftops. Sleep had become impossible, the bedroom had felt like a trap where every shadow still carried the ghost of your mouth against his.
The office door opened, and Ollie stepped in, holding papers under one arm, already mid-sentence.
“Alfie—”
Alfie had his fingers steepled under his chin, with an almost beatific smile spreading across his face. The smile was wide enough to show even his teeth at the back. “Shut up, Ollie.” The words came out soft, almost dreamy, without the usual bite. Alfie did not open his eyes. “I’m thinking.”
Ollie stopped and stared at the expression on his boss’s face. Working for Alfie, Ollie had grown accustomed to most of his eccentricities, but this was a face he’d never seen before. “Thinking about what? Why are you smiling like that? Is it because of what Sabini said yesterday about the docks, or—”
Alfie opened his eyes, they were slightly unfocused, as if he were still somewhere else entirely. He raised one hand in a grand gesture that took in the entire room. “What? Sabini? No. God, no. I’m smiling because of something much deeper, my dear Ollie. I’m smiling because today the birds are singing a better melody, because the sun rays are warmer in this miserable city. Because the air is fresher and the flowers are brighter. I’m smiling, Ollie, because yesterday I tasted the sweetest lips I have ever had the privilege of putting my mouth on.”
He stood, in two heavy steps he was around the desk and had one arm draped around Ollie’s thin shoulders, pulling the younger man into a half-embrace. “I had an epiphany yesterday,” Alfie continued. “Proper revelation. She’s the woman of my life. She’s the one. The absolute, undeniable, end-of-the-fucking-story one. I looked at her and I thought, Alfie Solomons, you bastard, you’ve been wandering around this earth collecting debts and breaking bones and all this time the actual point of the whole exercise was this woman.”
Ollie stood rigid under the arm, holding the papers crushed against his chest. “What? Wait… what lips? Did you… did you kiss her?”
Alfie released him only far enough to place both hands on Ollie’s shoulders and look him dead in the eyes. The smile had not faded, if anything it had grown wider. “It wasn’t a kiss, Ollie. Let’s not diminish the thing with ordinary language. It was a revelation, a fucking sacrament. It was the moment the universe stopped pretending it was indifferent and decided to hand me something worth keeping.”
Ollie blinked rapidly. “I don’t understand. You kissed her or not?”
“Yes,” Alfie said, simply. “I kissed her.”
“Okay, fantastic. Congratulations. But we still need to sort the—”
Alfie waved the interruption away, already pacing again. “And I fear it’s not enough. One kiss only made me thirstier. That woman has me bewitched, Ollie. A touch of her lips and I can’t stop until I’ve had the whole thing. Do you think she wants me too? The same way I do? With the same stupid, helpless, all-consuming hunger?”
Ollie looked like he'd been asked to solve an equation in a language he did not speak. “How am I supposed to know?”
“Well, go ask her,” Alfie said, then immediately held up both hands. “Wait, no. Don’t go. I need to give her time to think. She pushed me yesterday when we kissed. Of course she didn’t mean it like that. It wasn’t a ‘get away from me you ugly bastard’ push. It was a nice one, a little reluctant. She feels it, I know she does.”
Ollie pinched the bridge of his nose. “Maybe she pushed you because she’s a married woman. Out of all the women in London, you chose a married one.”
Alfie stopped pacing. He turned, and for a moment the theatrical light in his eyes dimmed into something colder. “What if we kill her husband?”
Ollie considered it with weary professionalism, like he'd heard worse suggestions. “Well… I guess we’ve killed men for less.”
Alfie nodded slowly, as if filing the option away for later. Then the softer expression returned. He stepped closer again. “Ollie, be honest with me. Am I worthy of her? Look at me and tell me the truth. This face, this body, tese hands that have done things I don’t always like remembering. Am I the sort of man a woman like that could look at and think, yes, him, I’ll take him if it means being looked at the way he looks at me?”
Ollie hesitated, he glanced at the door as if calculating the distance to escape, then sighed. “…Sure. Why wouldn’t she like you too?”
Alfie’s face lit up again. “I knew it. Yes. I knew it by the way she kissed me. She feels like I do.” He clapped his hands together once. “I’m gonna write her a letter. Telling her how I feel. And then you’ll go down there and give it to her, personally. Watch her face when she reads it and report back.”
Ollie rolled his eyes so hard it was a wonder they stayed in his head. He turned toward the door, already defeated, already calculating how many more hours of this madness he would have to endure before the day improved.
“Tell me when you’re done,” he muttered with his hand on the doorknob. “And try not to propose marriage in the first paragraph.”
Alfie sat at his desk for nearly an hour. The ink blotched on places where emotion had made him press too hard. When he finished, he read it twice, folded it with care, and sealed it simply with a drop of wax from the candle on his desk. He called for Ollie without raising his voice much above a murmur. The younger man appeared in the doorway looking like he had already aged another year.
“Take this down to her,” Alfie said, holding out the folded letter between two fingers. “Personally. Give it to her when she’s alone and watch her face while she reads it. Then come back and tell me everything. I want to know if she smiled, if she touched her lips, or if she cried”
Ollie took the letter like it might explode. “You’re really doing this.”
“I’m really doing this,” Alfie confirmed, the smile from earlier still lingering at the corners of his mouth. “Now go.”
Ollie walked though the hallway with the air of a man marching to his own execution. The bakery was in full swing when he pushed open the door to the back kitchen area. You were at the central bench with your sleeves rolled high and your hair pinned back with a few rebellious hairs escaping to cling to your damp temples.
Ollie stopped a few feet away, holding the letter between thumb and forefinger. “Alfie got this for you,” he said with disapproval. There was no warmth in it, just the weary resentment of someone who had watched his carefully ordered world tilt toward chaos because of you
You looked up, wiping your hands on your apron. “What is it?”
“A letter,” Ollie said as he extended it toward you. “Obviously. From him.”
You took the letter. The paper was thick, good quality, still faintly warm from Alfie’s hands. Your name was written across the front in his bold script. Your fingers trembled slightly as you broke the seal.
Ollie lingered for a moment, watching you, then muttered something under his breath about “playing house” and retreated to the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed. He did not leave entirely, he was waiting to see your reaction, only to report back with the precision Alfie would demand.
My dearest angel,
Or should I call you love? Because that is what you have become to me in these short weeks… love. Not the cheap or easy kind, but the one that’s real. The kind that makes a man sit in his office with his eyes closed and smile like a fool because the world suddenly feels worth inhabiting again.
I kissed you yesterday. I have not stopped thinking about it since. Your mouth, God help me, was softer than I had any right to imagine. It tasted like the best parts of my childhood and all the things I never knew I was missing until you walked into my bakery. When I pulled you close I felt the whole of Camden disappear, none of it mattered. Only you. Only the way you fit against me for that brief and perfect moment before your conscience reminded you of the ring on your finger.
I have kissed women before. I will not insult either of us by pretending otherwise. But I have never kissed a woman and felt the entire architecture of my life rearrange itself around the simple fact of her existence. That is what you did to me in the space of one kiss. One glorious, incomplete, far-too-short kiss.
I know you are married. I know it and I hate it. I have thought: this woman deserves a man who sees her as the miracle she is. A man who would burn the world down before he let anyone dim that light in her eyes.
You feel it too. I know you do. Tell me I am not imagining it. Tell me that when I kissed you, you kissed me back for more than just a moment. Tell me that the push was not because you wanted me gone, but because you were afraid of how much you wanted me to stay.
I am not a good man. I have done things that would make angels weep. But for you I could try to be better, or at least better at the things that matter. Take your time. Think. I will not rush you, but know this: every morning when I come down to that little kingdom you have made of my bakery, I will be hoping. Hoping that one day you will look at me and decide that the ring on your finger is not worth more than the way I look at you.
Until then, I remain yours in every way that matters,
Alfie
You read it twice. Then a third time, more slowly, tracing the ink with your fingers as if you could feel the heat of his hand through the paper. Your heart was beating too hard, you could feel it in your throat, in the tips of your fingers, in the space just beneath your ribs
You felt wanted. Properly, fiercely, unapologetically wanted. Not as a convenience, not as a body that had failed to produce a child, not as a wife who was expected to make dinner and warm a bed while her husband chased other women. Alfie looked at you and saw something rare, something worth the risk.
Ollie cleared his throat from the doorway, his arms still crossed. “Well? Are you going to stand there staring at it until the bread burns, or should I tell him you’ve gone speechless like every other woman who reads one of his letters?”
You folded the letter carefully, pressing it against your chest for a moment as if you could press the words into your skin. When you finally looked up, your voice came out softer than you intended, almost shy.
“Tell him this is really… thoughtful,” you said, still prssing the letter gently against your chest, as if you could press the sincerity of his words into your skin. “And I will think about it. Tell him that. I need time. But… it’s thoughtful. I liked it.”
Ollie nodded once, though his expression suggested he would rather be doing almost anything else. “Right. Thoughtful. I’ll pass it along.” He turned on his heel without another word, the door swinging shut behind him with a click.
Upstairs, Alfie was not waiting patiently. He paced the length of his office like a caged animal. The letter had been a risk, an honest outpouring that left him more exposed than he had been in years, and the waiting was torture. When the door finally opened and Ollie stepped through, Alfie was already at the threshold, grabbing the younger man by the shoulders with both hands before he could even cross the room properly.
“Well?” Alfie demanded, searching Ollie’s face with ferocious intensity. “What did she say? Did she like it? Did she cry? Did she smile? Did she press it to her chest like it was something precious? Tell me everything, Ollie. Every single detail. Leave nothing out.”
Ollie pried himself free with a long-suffering sigh, smoothing his jacket where Alfie’s grip had wrinkled it. “I do not appreciate being an errand boy between the two of you,” he said with irritation. “I handle the books, the meetings. I do not handle love letters. This is beneath me. This is—”
“Shut up, Ollie,” Alfie interrupted as he began pacing again. The energy rolling off him was almost tangible. “Tell me what she said. Exactly. Word for word if you can manage it. I need to know. I need to know if I’ve scared her off.”
Ollie exhaled through his nose with resignation. He leaned against the edge of the desk, crossing his arms once more. “She said it was really… thoughtful. And that she will think about it. She needs time, that’s it. She looked a bit overwhelmed. And yes, she pessed the letter to her chest and read it more than once. But she didn’t cry, not that I saw. So I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you.”
Alfie stopped pacing, he turned slowly, the wide smile from earlier creeping back across his face. “Thoughtful,” he repeated, tasting the word. “She said it was thoughtful. Not terrifying, not inappropriate. Not ‘how dare you, you mad cunt.’ Thoughtful, that’s something, Ollie. That’s more than something, that’s a crack in the wall She’s thinking about it. She pressed it to her chest, my words against her heart. She’s going to think about it.”
He dropped heavily into his chair, and steepled his fingers under his chin. “One kiss and she’s thinking. God, Ollie. That woman. She’s got me by the throat and she doesn’t even know it. I’ll give her time. A day, maybe two. Then I’ll find another way to remind her that there’s a man who looks at her like she hung the moon and who would rather die than make her shed a tear of sadness.”
Ollie pushed off the desk, heading for the door. “Just… try not to burn the place down while you’re mooning over her. Or get us all killed, some of us still have work to do.”
Alfie waved him off without looking, already reaching for another sheet of paper, already composing the next message in his head.
Two days later, the frantic rhythm of preparation before Shabbat had you working longer than usual. The trays slid in and out of the heat as the front of the shop bustled with last minute customers seeking the last fresh loaves before the sun dipped.
By the time the light outside began to soften, your shoulders ached, your feet burned, and your mind was a tangled mess of the memory of the kiss you'd shared with Alfie days ago. The words written in his love letter still echoed in your mind, but Alfie had not come down since you both kissed, not once. The absence had felt louder than his presence ever did, it left space that made you wonder whether he regretted the press of his mouth on yours, or whether he was simply trying to forget the way you had pulled away.
You untied your apron, folded it neatly, and reached for your coat, ready to step back into the grey streets. But the door to the back room opened.
Alfie’s eyes found you immediately. “How are you doing, love?” he asked as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a click. “After... everything that happened between us.”
You busied your hands with the last of the trays, avoiding his gaze. “I’m fine,” you said quietly. “About to go home.”
Alfie crossed the room slowly and stopped close, leaning one hip against the bench where you had stood kneading only minutes before. The flowers from three days ago were still there, slightly wilted now but stubbornly bright. He picked one up, turning the stem between his fingers as if it held answers.
“The kiss,” he said, slow enough to taste every syllable. “I don’t regret it for one second. Not one. Your lips, love… they’ve been the only thing I’ve been thinking about. They consumed me. The softness, the way they gave under mine like they’d been waiting. Like they knew exactly where they belonged. I’ve sat in my office all day and all I could see was your mouth, all I could taste was you. Tell me you’ve thought about it too, don’t lie to me, and for fuck’s sake don’t lie to yourself. I felt the hunger in your mouth. You were starving for it, same as me.”
Your heart slammed against your ribs, you turned away, folding the apron again though it was already neat. “Alfie, we need to pretend that didn’t happen. We have to. I’m married. This… this can’t go anywhere. It’s wrong.”
He let out a rough sound, like a growl of laughter. “Pretend? Oh, love, that’s a good one. Tell me you’ve thought about it too. I saw it in your eyes when you pulled away, I felt it in the way your hands pressed against my chest but didn’t pushh, not really, not like you meant it. Your husband, does he let you starve like that? Does he have this pretty thing all for himself, this woman who bakes like an angel and laughs like heaven, and still lets you go hungry?”
The words hit too close, you remembered the lipstick stains, the empty bed, the nights he chose other beds. Your voice came out smaller than you wanted. “Alfie… this… we shouldn’t.”
He moved then, faster than you thought a man his size could. Wrapping one arm around your waist, he pulled you close against the solid heat of his body. He slid his other hand into your hair, tilting your head as his mouth found the side of your neck. The kiss there was hot, open-mouthed, grazing your skin with his teeth just enough to make you gasp. He held you pressed tight, devouring the curve of your throat.
“Tell me the truth,” he murmured against your skin. “Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. I can see the sadness in a woman’s eyes, love, I can feel the hunger in her mouth. A woman who’s not happy at home, who’s not satisfied. Who lies awake wondering why the man who vowed to cherish her treats her like an afterthought. He makes you deeply unhappy, I see it. Every day I see it, and it makes me want to burn the whole fucking world down until someone treats you the way you deserve.”
The memory of the shirts flooded back, the cheap red lipstick, the cloying perfume on his clothes the other night. The words slipped out before you could stop them. “It’s not just the fights,” you whispered. “He… he stopped loving me after I lost our baby. Stopped looking at me, stopped touching me. Like it was my fault, like my body had failed him and that was the end of it.”
Alfie stilled against your neck, then he pulled back just enough to look at you, his large hand cupped your face with surprising tenderness. The dark with lust eyes were soft now, almost pained. “I’m so sorry, love,” he said, gentler than you had ever heard him. “You didn’t deserve that, not one bit of it. No woman deserves a man so weak he lets her suffer alone in her grief and then blames her for her own sorrow. A real man would’ve held you through it. Would’ve crried the weight with you instead of turning away like a coward. You lost a child, and you carried that pain. He left you to carry it alone, that’s not a husband.”
The tears pricked at your eyes, you tried to blink them back, but one escaped anyway, tracing down your cheek. Alfie brushed it away with his thumb. “I know he sees other women,” you continued, barely above a whisper. “That’s why I took the job, that’s why I’m saving every shilling. To leave, to have something of my own. To stand on my own feet without him.”
Alfie tightened around you in an act of protectiveness. “Why be loyal to someone who doesn’t respect you?” he asked. “Why tie yourself to someone who treats his vows like they’re optional, who comes home reeking of other women and still has the nerve to call you unfaithful for standing in here? Loyalty is a two-way street, love. And he’s been walking the wrong way for years. You deserve better, you deserve someone who sees the miracle in you every single day. Who would rather burn than let you carry that sadness alone.”
He kissed you then. Not the hard, devouring kiss from days ago, but something slower. His mouth claimed yours with hunger, tracing the seam of your lips with his tongue until you opened your mouth for him. He kept one hand at the small of your back, pressing you tight against the warmth of his body, while the other cradled your face like you were something fragile and infinitely precious. For long, dizzying moments there was only Alfie, only the heat of him, only the way he kissed you like he had been waiting lifetimes for exactly this.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, breathing raggedly. “Tell me you feel it too,” he whispered. “Tell me I’m not the only one going mad in here.”
“You’re not.”
Alfie’s hands moved then, sliding one palm down your back, tracing the curve of your spine through the fabric of your dress, pressing you tighter against him. The other hand roamed lower, cupping the swell of your hip, digging his fingers in with just enough pressure to make you gasp. His mouth found yours again, not so gentle this time, but hungry, as if he could drink down every hidden longing you had buried for years. He kissed you like he owned you, like every inch of your body had been waiting for his claim. His hands explored without shame, brushing the undersides of your breasts through the layers of cloth, then down again to grip your thighs, pulling you closer until there was no space left between you.
“Fuck, love,” he growled against your mouth. “If I told you all the things I’ve thought about you… all the filthy, depraved little fantasies that have kept me awake at night since the day you walked in here… you’d probably slap me across the face and call me a degenerate. A proper degenerate. But God help me, I can’t stop. Can’t stop imagining these hands of yours wrapped around me. Can’t stop seeing you bent over this bench, moaning my name while I show you what a real man can do.”
He grabbed you then, effortlessly lifting you with a grunt of effort and setting you on the edge of the wide wooden bench. You parted your legs instinctively as he stepped between them, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him closer. Your legs followed, locking around his hips, digging your heels into the back of his thighs as if your body had decided for you. He was hard already, you could feel the line of his erection pressing against you through his trousers, insistent and hot. Alfie groaned at the contact, rolling his hips forward, grinding against your core in a slow motion that made you whimper into his mouth.
“Look at you,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to look down at the way your body had opened for him. He ran his hands up your thighs, pushing your skirt higher and stroking the sensitive skin just above your stockings. “Your body’s been starving for this, love. Starving for a man who sees it, who wants it. Who’s been mad thinking about how soft you’d feel under him and how wet you’d get just from a kiss like that.”
“I want you,” you whispered, the words tumbled out before you could stop them. Your voice was shaky with all the need you felt from years of denial. “So much, Alfie. God, I want you.”
A triumphant sound rumbled in his chest. “I know, angel. I know you do.” He tightened his hands on your hips, holding you in place as he rocked against you again, the friction sending sparks up your spine. “And I’m gonna show you how a real man treats a woman, how I’d treat you every single day if you were mine. Slow when you need slow, hard when you need hard. I’d worship this body until you forgot every cold night that bastard ever gave you”
His fingers found the buttons of your dress, the simple row running down the front. With a growl of impatience he ripped them open, the delicate fabric giving way with a series of sharp pops that echoed in the kitchen. The cool air kissed your skin as he pushed the dress off your shoulders, tugging it down your arms until it pooled around your waist. You sat there in your brassiere and knickers, the garters and stockings still clipped neatly in place, the lace and silk suddenly feeling far too exposed under his gaze. Alfie stepped back just enough to look at you fully, his eyes raking over every inch.
“Fuck me,” he breathed the words. His hands returned, running all over your body with hunger, sliding his palms up your sides, hooking his thumbs under the edges of your brassiere to trace the swell of your breasts, then down over the curve of your waist and hips. He cupped your breasts through the thin fabric, squeezing them gently, circling your nipples until they hardened under his touch. “You’re even more delightful than any image my imagination ever created. Such a beautiful creature, so fucking appealing. Soft where you should be soft, strong where you’ve had to be strong. Look at you, like you were made to drive a man mad. You’ve got my cock so fucking hard it hurts, love. Proper aching for you. Been aching since the first day.”
He leaned in again, his mouth finding your neck, then lower, kissing along your collarbone, nipping at the tops of your breasts as his hands continued their exploration. Alfie slipped one hand between your legs, cupping you through the thin knickers, feeling the heat and dampness there with a groan of pure satisfaction. His fingers stroked you slowly, pressing the fabric against your most sensitive spot until your hips jerked against his hand.
As if he couldn’t wait another second, Alfie hooked his fingers into the fabric of your brassiere. With a growl, he pulled it down, freeing your breasts to the air. “Fuck, look at these,” he murmured, cupping them immediately, lifting and squeezing them with just the right pressure, circling the sensitive peaks with his thumbs. “Perfect. Fucking perfect. Been dreaming about these tits since the first time I saw you. So soft, made for my mouth.”
He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard enough to make you arch against him with a sharp cry. His tongue swirled, licked, teased in wet circles that sent sparks down to your core. He massaged the other breast with his hand, rolling the nipple between fingers, pinching just enough to border on pain before soothing it with his palm. All the while his other hand stayed between your legs, cupping your cunt and pressing the heel of his palm against your clit in grinding circles that matched the rhythm of his mouth.
You rocked against his hand desperately, grinding down on the pressure, chasing the friction as your hips rolled in needy little movements. Alfie groaned around your nipple before he switched sides, sucking the other breast deep into his mouth while he kept working you, cupping and stroking, feeling the growing wetness soak through the fabric.
“Tell me,” he rasped against your skin. “Tell me how much you want me, love. Say it. I want to hear it from that pretty mouth while you’re grinding on my hand.”
The words spilled out of you, breathless between soft moans. “I want you so much, Alfie… everything aches for you. My whole body… it’s been so long… I need you. Please.”
A satisfied sound rumbled in his chest. He released your nipple with a wet pop, looking up at you with glittering eyes. “That’s my good girl. I know, angel. I know you do. And I’m gonna soothe that ache, every bit of it. When I’m done with you, the only thing that’s gonna hurt is gonna be your throat from screaming my name.”
Hie moved his hands lower, tracing the tops of your stockings, hooking his fingers under the clips of your garters one by one, undoing them with care. The silk whispered against your skin as he rolled the stockings down, peeling them off like he was unwrapping something precious. His palms followed, stroking every inch of newly bared skin, your calves, knees, and the soft insides of your thighs, as if he could not get enough of touching you.
“You’re a vision,” he murmured with awe. “Such a beautiful creature. So soft and ready for me. Look at you, all laid out for me like a feast I’ve been waiting my whole fucking life to taste.”
He hooked his fingers into the waistband of your knickers and slid them down your legs, baring your cunt completely. The air hit your slick and dripping folds, making you shiver. Alfie stared, transfixed, as he traced the seam of your pussy with one finger, gathering the wetness that had already coated your thighs.
“Fuck me, you’re soaked,” he groaned. “So wet and slick and dripping for me already. This pretty little cunt is weeping for attention, love. Been neglected for far too long.” He looked up at you, his eyes were a dark shade of blue now, full of lust. “You want me to eat this cunt, don’t you? Want my mouth on you?”
You nodded frantically, twitching your hips toward his hand. “Yes… please…”
He smiled. “Ask me nice, angel. Use your words. Tell me exactly what you want.”
A whine escaped your throat, the need was louder than the embarrassment. “C-could you… could you eat my cunt, Alfie? Please?”
“With pleasure,” he dropped to his knees on the wooden floor in front of the bench, a man of his size and power willingly kneeling for you. He gripped your thighs and spread them wide, opening you completely to his gaze.
His breath ghosted over your exposed pussy, making you tremble. “Keep them open like this,” he ordered in a commanding tone. “Wide for me. Scream if you need to, pull my hair, wrap your legs around my neck and ride my face. But don’t you dare close these thighs. I want all of you, every drop. Understood?”
You nodded breathlessly, bracing your arms behind you on the bench as you watched him. He started slow, pressing soft kisses to the inside of your knees, then higher along your thighs, his beard scraping deliciously against the sensitive skin. He kissed your mound, lips brushing the soft curls there, then lower, feather-light kisses along your outer lips, teasing and tasting the slick that had gathered there.
Then, he finally dragged his tongue slowly up your slit in a long and broad stroke from your entrance to your clit that made your back arch and a broken moan tear from your throat.
“Fuck, you taste like heaven,” he groaned against your core. “Sweet and wet. Been starving for this too, haven’t you, love? This pretty cunt hasn’t been properly worshipped in years. But I’m here now. Gonna take my time, gonna lick every inch until you’re shaking.”
He sealed his mouth over your clit, sucking gently at first, then harder, flicking his tongue in circles. Alfie ate your cunt like a madman, ravenous, unrelenting, completely lost in the taste of you. He sealed his mouth over your dripping folds with wet sounds that filled the quiet kitchen, thrusting his tongue deep inside you before dragging it back up to circle your swollen clit with firm strokes. He sucked the sensitive bundle of nerves into his mouth, flicking it rapidly with the tip of his tongue, then lapping slowly as if he could not get enough of your taste.
He used his large hands to grip your thighs with bruising strength, digging his fingers into the soft flesh to keep them spread wide open for him. No matter how much you trembled or tried to close them instinctively from the overwhelming sensation, he held you firmly in place, refusing to let you hide even an inch of yourself from his mouth. “That’s it,” he growled against your pussy, the words sounding muffled. “Keep these pretty thighs open for me, love. I’m not done feasting, not by a long fucking shot.”
You were moaning openly now, shameless sounds spilling from your lips as your hands fisted in his hair. “Alfie— oh God, don’t stop… please don’t stop…” The words came out broken and desperate, it was years of denial pouring out of you in a flood.
As you bucked his hips against his face, chasing the pressure of his tongue, you looked down, and the sight nearly undid you completely, Alfie on his knees between your spread legs, his eyes half-lidded with lust, his beard glistening with your wetness, and his mouth buried in your cunt like it was the only thing keeping him alive. He looked up at that exact moment, locking his gaze with yours while his tongue continued its devastating work, sucking hard on your clit. The eye contact was intimate, you saw the raw hunger there, the possession, and it made your walls clench around nothing.
The intensity pushed you over the edge of control, and you started grinding slowly on his face, rolling your hips in needy circles, using his mouth, his tongue, his beard for friction. The coarse hair tickled and scraped deliciously against your sensitive folds and inner thighs. With a broken cry, you let yourself fall back onto the wooden bench, spreading your arms out above your head, arching as you gave yourself over completely.
Alfie groaned in approval, sliding his hands under you, grabbing your ass with both palms to squeeze the soft flesh, kneading it as he lifted your hips higher, bringing your dripping pussy even closer to his face. He held you there like an offering, devouring you with ferocity.
You were whimpering louder now, the sounds turning into high cries that echoed off the walls. “Alfie— fuck— I’m so close… don’t stop, please don’t stop…” Your thighs shook violently around his head as the orgasm built, ready to explode. Every nerve in your body felt alight, years of neglect and loneliness unraveling under the assault of his mouth.
He growled and moaned into your cunt, the vibrations pushing you right to the edge. “Cum for me, angel,” he rasped against your folds. “Cum on my tongue like the starving girl you are. Give it to me, let me taste how much you’ve needed this.”
The orgasm hit you like a freight train. It was intense, shattering, the first one you had experienced in years. Your whole body seized, your back bowing off the bench as the pleasure crashed through you in waves. Your cunt clenched around nothing, gushing wetly against his mouth as he continued licking and sucking you through every pulse and aftershock, drinking down every drop like a man dying of thirst.
Alfie held you through it all, his grip on your ass firm, never letting your hips drop, never stopping the soothing laps of his tongue as the pleasure finally began to ebb. He kissed your swollen folds gently, murmuring praises against your skin between soft licks. “That’s my good girl… fucking beautiful when you cum for me. Look at you shaking and dripping and mine. First of many, love. I’m nowhere near done with you yet.”
You lay there on the bench, with your chest heaving and your body limping and trembling, as Alfie continued to kneel between your spread thighs, pressing worshipful kisses to your inner thighs and mound.
Alfie finally rose, towering over you. He wiped his glistening beard with the back of his hand, looking down at your spent form spread out on the bench.
“Eating this cunt is a biblical experience, love. Proper fucking revelation. I thought nothing in this godforsaken world tasted better than those cakes you bake. But this?” He dragged two thick fingers through your slick folds, gathering your wetness and his saliva, then brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean with an obscene groan. “This cunt is better. Sweeter, wetter, more addictive. I could die wondering how I ever lived without the taste of you on my tongue.”
You were still catching your breath, but something wild and long-denied had broken loose inside you. You sat up, grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands, and pulled him down into a fierce kiss. Your fingers worked frantically at the buttons, popping them open one by one until the fabric parted to reveal the broad, hairy expanse of his chest. You slid the shirt off his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor, and ran your hands all over him, tracing the muscle of his shoulders, the softness of his belly, the hair that covered his chest and trailed down toward his waistband.
Alfie chuckled against your mouth, the sound amused and utterly pleased. “Look at you,” he murmured, nipping at your lower lip. “Someone’s in a rush, huh? Greedy little thing. One taste and you’re ready to devour the rest of me. I like that, fucking like that.”
You kissed him harder, tangling your tongues together in a kiss that grew messy and desperate. While your mouths moved together, you dropped your fingers lower, fumbling with his belt. The leather gave way, and you popped the button of his trousers, tugging the zipper down and shoving both trousers and underwear down his thighs in one eager motion.
Alfie’s cock sprang free, thick, and already leaking at the flushed tip. It was substantial, veined and hard, with a thatch of dark hair at the base that made your mouth water. You stared for a moment, as it bobbed heavily between you.
Alfie watched you looking, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You like what you see, love?” he asked. “Go on, don’t be shy. Give it a stroke, feel what you do to me.”
Your wrapped a hand around his shaft without hesitation. He was hot and smoothl, pulsing in your grip. You stroked him slowly at first, up and down, swirling your thumb over the leaking head on every pass to spread the wetness. Alfie groaned, tipping his head back for a moment, half-closing his eyes in pleasure as he let you work him. He rocked his hips gently into your fist, fucking your hand with lazy thrusts while he simply enjoyed the feeling.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Good girl. Look at that pretty hand wrapped around my cock.”
While you continued stroking him, finding a steady rhythm that made his breath hitch, Alfie moved his hand back between your legs. His fingertips gathered the slick mixture of your juices and his saliva that still coated your pussy, and then he slid two fingers deep inside you. He curled them, stroking that spot inside while he circled your clit in lazy spirals with the pad of his thumb. He opened you slowly, scissoring his fingers to stretch you.
Your hand continued to pump his cock while his fingers fucked you open. You moaned into his mouth as you kissed again, sliding your tongues together. Your strokes on his cock grew faster and tighter, making Alfie groan into the kiss and jerk his hips.
“Fuck, you feel good,” he rasped against your lips, breaking the kiss to look down at where your hand worked him and where his fingers disappeared inside your cunt. “So tight and wet. This pretty little hole is sucking my fingers in like she knows exactly who it belongs to now. Gonna make you feel so full when I finally give you this cock, gonna ruin you for anyone else.”
Then, with a growl, he pulled his fingers out of you, making you whimper at the sudden emptiness. At the same time, he closed his other hand firmly around your wrist, stopping the movement of your hand on his throbbing length. You looked up at him with your lips parted in a moan, and your eyes dark with need. Alfie held your gaze, his own eyes overwhelmed with lust.
“Do you want my cock inside you, love? Because all of this, my mouth, my fingers, that’s been foreplay. Beautiful, filthy foreplay. But if I put my cock inside this pretty little cunt… things won’t go back the way they were. You’ll be all mine. Once I’m buried deep, there’s no pretending. No going back to that cold bed and that useless husband. You’ll be mine. Say it, tell me you understand what you’re asking for.”
The words hung in the warm kitchen air. Your heart hammered wildly at the thought of belonging to Alfie. Years of loneliness and a body that had been ignored rose up in a desperate wave. You nodded frantically. “I want you,” you whispered, then louder, more desperate. “So much, Alfie. Please… Please fuck me. I need you inside me.”
A satisfied smile spread across his face. “Look at you,” he murmured, brushing your swollen lower lip. “You’re so beautiful when you beg. You’ve got the face of an angel and the voice of one too, it’s fucking celestial. Begging for my cock like the dirty girl you are.”
He stepped closer, until his thick cock was nudging against your slick entrance. “Wrap your legs around my waist, love. Hold me tight, I want to feel you clinging to me when I finally sink into this heaven between your thighs.”
You obeyed instantly, locking your legs around his hips, digging your heels into the back of his thighs and wrapping your arms around his shoulders. The position left you completely open to him, your cunt pressed right against the head of his cock. Alfie gripped the base of his shaft with one hand, the other arm banded tight around your lower back, holding you steady.
“Look at me,” he commanded. “Right here. I want to see that first second when I get inside you. Want to watch your face when this cock stretches you open and fills that hungry little hole for the first time.”
You locked eyes with his, and then Alfie pushed forward. The thick head of his cock breached your entrance, stretching you slowly and inexorably. You gasped sharply at the burn and the fullness, your walls fluttering around the invasion as he sank deeper inch by inch. He was thick, so thick, and long, filling you in a way you had never been filled before.
Crescent marks painted his shoulders when you dug your nails into it. You let your body adjust, clenching and relaxing around him. Alfie groaned deeply but his eyes never left your face, watching every flicker of pleasure as he pushed forward, until he was buried to the hilt, with his heavy balls pressed against you.
“Fuck… so tight,” he growled, holding perfectly still for a moment, letting you feel every inch of him inside you. “This cunt is gripping me like it never wants to let go, like it knows exactly who it belongs to now.”
Then he began to move, holding you tight against him with an arm around your waist and the other braced on the bench as he thrust deep, pulling almost all the way out before driving back in with a powerful snap of his hips. Each thrust was deliberately hitting your g-spot, making stars explode behind your eyelids.
“Alfie! Oh God, yes, deeper—” you gasped, digging your nails harder into his arms, leaving red trails down his skin. You tightened your legs around his waist, pulling him impossibly deeper with every thrust.
He kissed you hard, using his tongue to fuck your mouth in the same rhythm as his cock pounded into your cunt. The bench creaked beneath you as he fucked you with increasing force, snapping forward, making the length of him drag against every nerve inside you. His balls were sapping against your ass with every deep thrust, and the hair at the base of his cock rubbing deliciously against your clit.
“That’s it, angel,” he moaned between kisses. “Moan for me, let me hear how good it feels to finally have a real man inside you. This tight cunt was made for this cock… made for me. Gonna fuck you until you forget every lonely night, until the only name you remember is mine.”
Alfie watched your face the entire time, drinking in every expression, the way your lips parted on a cry, the way your eyes fluttered half-closed in ecstasy. “Beautiful,” he growled, slamming deep and grinding his hips in a circle. “Fucking beautiful when you’re taking my cock like this. Look at you, all spread open and dripping for me. My angel.”
The pleasure built again, faster this time, coiling in your belly as Alfie’s rhythm grew punishing. You couldn’t help the way your walls fluttered and clenched around him with every stroke, the grip of your cunt pulsing and rippling along his length as the pleasure increased. The sensation of being so full, so stretched, so completely claimed by him was overwhelming
Alfie cursed, his hips stuttering for a moment as your cunt clenched particularly hard around him. “Fuck—! stop doing that with your cunt, love,” his voice came out rough with the effort of holding back. “Squeezing me like that… you’re gonna make me cum too soon. This tight, greedy little hole is trying to pull the life out of me. Slow down, angel, or I won’t last.”
“I can’t help it,” you whimpered high and broken, rolling your hips up to meet his thrusts desperately. “It feels too good… I think I’m gonna cum again, Alfie— oh God, I’m so close…”
A satisfied chuckle rumbled out of him, turning into another deep groan as your walls fluttered around his cock once more. “You’re gonna make me cum, angel,” he growled. “Gonna pull it right out of me with this perfect cunt. But not yet… not until I feel you fall apart around me again.”
His hand found your clit with unerring accuracy, and he rubbed circles over the bundle of nerves, never slowing the pounding rhythm of his cock driving into you. The dual stimulation was devastating, the pressure on your clit was pushing you straight toward the edge again.
Alfie leaned in and kissed you hard, swallowing every cry and whimper as he drove you higher. “Cum for me again, love,” he rubbed faster. “Let me feel this pretty cunt pulse and flutter around me. Squeeze my cock while you fall apart. That’s it, good girl, cum on my cock like you were born for it.”
The orgasm crashed over, even more intense than the first. Your whole body seized as the pleasure ripped through you in shattering pulses. Your cunt clenched hard around his thick cock, fluttering and pulsing rhythmically, milking him with squeezes as you came with a loud scream of his name. Slick gushed around his cock, coating his balls and dripping down onto the bench beneath you.
“Fuck yes! That’s my angel.” Alfie’s voice was strained as he felt you cum apart around him. He kept thrusting through it, fucking you through every pulse. “So beautiful when you cum for me. Squeezing me so tight… gonna make me fill this pussy. I’m gonna finish inside you, love. Gonna pump every drop deep into this greedy cunt. Mark you from the inside so you remember who you belong to now. Gonna fill you up until you’re dripping with me for days.”
His thrusts grew more erratic as he chased his own release. His cock swelled even thicker inside you, until with a final and powerful snap of his hips, Alfie came. He flood you with thick ropes of cum as he emptied himself completely. He kept thrusting through it, making sure every drop stayed buried inside you, filling you until you felt impossibly full.
He collapsed forward, stroking with his hand up and down your back, tracing patterns along your spine, then sliding around to caress your sides, your ribs, the curve of your waist. His other arm held you securely against his chest, keeping you pressed close as if he feared you might slip away.
“Does your throat hurt, love?” he asked quietly, a gravelled murmur against your skin.
You let out a breathless laugh, the sound hoarse from all your moaning. “A little,” you admitted, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of him. “But it’s a good hurt.”
He chuckled, the sound vibrating through you where you were still joined. “That’s a good sign, angel. A cunt filled and dripping with my cum, and a throat sore from screaming my name. That’s how a woman should be, love. Thoroughly loved, thoroughly pleasured, thoroughly claimed. That’s how it would be every single day if you were mine, I’d wake you up with my mouth between your thighs. I’d make you cum until you couldn’t remember your own name. You’d go to sleep every night with my cock still inside you and my cum leaking down your thighs. Loved, cherished, worshipped like you deserve.”
You tightened your arms around his shoulders. Meanwhile, Alfi’es hands continued their slow exploration, sliding down to cup your ass gently, then back up to trace your sides and the curve of your breasts where they pressed against his chest. “Your cunt was a holy experience,” he murmured after a long, contented silence. “I saw God for a moment there, love. Nothing in this world, nothing has ever felt like being buried inside you. I’m not sure I can live without it now, I’m not sure I can live without you. Ever since you walked into this place with that cake and that smile that lit up the whole room… you’ve ruined me, angel. Ruined me for anything less, I look at you and the rest of the world feels grey and small and pointless.”
When you lifted your head, you saw his eyes, your own still hazy with pleasure. “Maybe you won’t have to,” you whispered.
“You’re not going back to that cunt of a husband you’ve got,” he said. “Not after this, not after the way you came for me, not after I felt this perfect cunt. You’re done with that life, love. I won’t allow it.”
A tired, but genuine smile painted your face, and you rested your forehead against his. “With this Friday’s payment… I saved enough to rent my own place. I’ve been putting every shilling I could away.”
Alfie’s expression softened further, something almost tender breaking through. He kissed you slowly. “Smart girl, saving and planning. I’m gonna make sure you’re okay. More than okay. You’ll have that place, you’ll have safety. And you’ll have me, whenever you want me, however you want me.”
You stayed wrapped around him, with your legs locked at his waist and your arms around his neck, your face tucked into the warm curve of his shoulder. Then came the sound of footsteps in the hallway.
“Alfie?” Ollie’s voice echoed down the corridor, with that typical frustration and an edge of exhaustion. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Please don’t tell me you’re still in there watching her knea—”
The door to the back room swung open and Ollie stopped cold in the doorway, his words dying in his throat. His eyes widened, taking in the scene before him: you on the bench, with your dress bunched around your waist, brassiere pulled down and breasts exposed and marked with the evidence of Alfie’s mouth. Alfie still buried between your spread thighs, his trousers around his ankles and his shirt open, the two of you flushed and unmistakably tangled.
Alfie reacted instantly, wrapping one arm around your back and pulling you against his chest to shield your bare breasts from view, while his other hand tugged the front of your dress up as best he could. “Jesus fuck, Ollie!” he barked with exasperation. “Didn’t your mother teach you how to knock? Get the fuck away from here. Now. Before I decide your eyes need a permanent reminder of what happens when you walk in on things that aren’t your business.”
Ollie’s face went a mortified red, he spun on his heel so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet, muttering something that sounded like a urse. The door slammed shut behind him with a bang, and you heard his footsteps retreating rapidly down the hallway.
The silence that followed was broken only by your sudden, breathless laugh. Alfie’s chest rumbled with a chuckle that turned into full laughter. “Poor Ollie,” you gasped between giggles.
“Serve him right,” Alfie said, still laughing. “Walking in like he owns the place. Should’ve knocked.”
You stayed like that for a few more minutes, wrapped around each other. But eventually, with a reluctant sigh, Alfie pulled back just enough to look at you, as he slowly eased his softening cock out of you. You whimpered at the loss, feeling the warm trickle of his cum leaking down your thighs.
“Come here, love,” he murmured, helping you down from the bench on shaky legs. “Let me take care of you.”
He dressed you with surprising gentleness. First he slid your knickers back up your legs, settling them into place and smoothing the fabric over your still sensitive cunt. Then he adjusted your garters and rolled your stockings back up your thighs, clipping them neatly. He helped you back into your brassiere, cupping your breasts as he did so, brushing your nipples one last time before covering them. Finally, he buttoned what remained of your dress, straightening the fabric and brushing flour from your shoulders and hair with tender strokes.
“There,” he said quietly, stepping back to look at you. “Presentable again. Though I much prefer you the other way.”
You smiled, still a little dazed, and leaned into him. Alfie wrapped his arms around you once more, holding you close. “This Sunday,” he said after a long silence, “you’re gonna bring in the money you’ve got saved and a bag with your belongings. I’m gonna help you find your next place to live. Something far away from that useless bastard. You won’t have to do it alone, love. Not anymore.”
You nodded against his chest. “This Sunday,” you agreed softly.
For the first time in years you are not bracing yourself for the walk home, thinking of a cold bed, and an even colder husband. You think of the mornings still to come, waking up without dread and walking the streets knowing the ring on your finger is gone, and the weight it carried is gone with it.
A/N: Omg guys, I think it’s finally up for good!! After getting flagged like 10 times, I think I finally figured out what the issue was. I swear I’ve been so stressed over this whole thing. So if you enjoyed it, I’d absolutely love it if you could help me out with a reblog. It would mean a lot to me and help the fic reach more people after everything it’s been through.
This fic actually started out as something much angstier. My original idea was that Alfie and reader met because she worked as a seamstress and he’d bring her clothes to be repaired. Reader’s marriage was also supposed to be a lot darker. I even had about a page of it written in google docs.
But then, while looking for pictures on pinterest, I came across a photo of a bakery and suddenly thought, wait… wouldn’t it be adorable if reader worked as a baker and Alfie was completely gone for her?😭 So I scrapped everything I’d written and started over from scratch. This time, I decided not to make it quite so dark and instead added a bit more humor and lightheartedness to it.
And somehow, this is where all of that ended up. It had been such a long time since I’d written for Alfie that I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. I hope you enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed writing it🩷
