EN GARDE | twelve
akotsk targaryen x hightower!bastard!reader
got sick so sorry and got busy in school plsss forgive me☹️✌🏼
masterlist • eleven
•••
Away from the stifling perfume and the flashbulbs, Valarr found sanctuary in a dark corner of the East Balcony. He moved with a grace that was almost too perfect, leaning against the stone railing as he lit a cigarette.
The orange ember flickered in the dark, a small, rebellious fire in a world of controlled light.
He took a slow drag, closing his eyes, only to be interrupted by the clicking of expensive heels on stone.
"I didn't take the Golden Son for a smoker," a voice purred.
Valarr opened his eyes to see Alicia stepping out of the shadows. He didn't startle, he offered a charming, tired smile.
"Every saint has a secret, Alicia. I’d appreciate it if this one stayed between us."
Alicia didn't look scandalized. Instead, she leaned against the railing beside him, her eyes glittering with amusement.
"Don't worry. I’ve always found perfection a bit boring anyway."
She gestured to the pack, and after Valarr lit one for her, she took a delicate puff.
She leaned in, her tone shifting into something more calculated, the smooth, practiced pitch of a merchant.
"You know, Valarr, while the family is so focused on the... necessity of Daeron’s match, people tend to forget that there are other Hightowers. My own daughters, for instance. They have the pedigree, the education, and none of the... complications."
Valarr let out a soft, polite laugh, the sound of a man who had been sold things his entire life. He knew this dance. He was the heir, the prize, and every mother was a salesperson.
"They are lovely girls, I’m sure," Valarr said, his tone perfectly polished, the quintessential Prince Charming mask firmly in place.
"They are more than lovely," she pressed, her voice honeyed.
"“The Hightowers are famous for their grace. But as for the future... well, let’s see where the wind takes us, Alicia. I’m sure your daughters will have no shortage of suitors."
Valarr blew a cloud of smoke into the night air, his expression a mask of diplomatic neutrality.
It was the perfect brush-off, polite, sugarcoated, and utterly non-committal. But something about his easy dismissal, his refusal to even look at her daughters as viable options, finally pricked Alicia’s pride.
Her mask of the gracious hostess slipped, replaced by a sudden, sharp bitterness.
"And yet, despite all... your father still chose the bastard," Alicia whispered, her voice trembling with a resentment she had carried for years.
The silence that followed was heavy. Valarr didn't move, his cigarette frozen halfway to his lips.
Alicia looked as though she wanted to take the words back, but they were already out, hanging in the air like a stain on the elegant evening.
She had spent a lifetime trying to bury Y/N’s existence, yet in her desperation to sell her own blood, she had only highlighted who truly held the Targaryens' interest.
"A curious choice of words for your own kin," Valarr said quietly, his voice losing its warmth.
“Kin?” Alicia chuckled.
“You can’t blame me, Valarr, for seeing it as an insult to the legitimate children."
Valarr took a long, slow puff of his cigarette, watching the embers glow bright red before they faded. He didn't look offended, but the nonchalance in his posture carried a weight of quiet authority.
"Perhaps," Valarr murmured, exhaling a cloud of gray smoke that drifted between them.
"But I’ve spent enough time at the university to see things a bit differently. Give the girl some credit, Alicia. She’s earned the right to be called a Hightower by effort alone, if not by blood."
Alicia stiffened, her eyes narrowing.
"You’re defending her?"
"I’m observing her," Valarr countered smoothly.
He thought of the fencing salle back on campus, the sound of steel clashing, and the way Y/N’s jaw would set in a grim line of determination.
He’d seen her after defeats, her face pale but her spirit unbroken, and he’d seen her crush presentations in the lecture halls while others crumbled under the pressure.
"I see her at the university. She fights twice as hard as anyone else to stand on level ground. There’s a certain... nobility in that, don't you think?"
Alicia’s brow arched in realization.
"You’ve watched her matches."
Valarr let out a small, huffed laugh, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He thought of the intensity Y/N brought to the sport, the sheer, desperate need to be better than everyone else.
"A few. She’s tenacious,” Valarr admitted.
He paused, his smile turning a bit more knowing.
"Though I try to stay away when she’s up against Aerion. Those two have a talent for turning sport into war."
He flicked ash over the railing, voice settling into something final.
“If she’s good enough for my father to sign a contract over, she’s certainly good enough to be called a Hightower."
He dropped the cigarette and crushed it under the heel of his Italian leather shoe, straightening his tuxedo jacket.
"Don’t trouble yourself over whether she’s the perfect choice. Perfection is rather boring, anyway, Mrs. Hightower.”
He didn't wait for her response. With a polite nod that signaled the end of the conversation, Valarr turned and headed back toward the warmth and light of the ballroom, leaving Alicia alone in the dark with her bitterness and her half-finished cigarette.
•••
The music continued its rhythmic, suffocating sweep. Y/N allowed Daeron to lead her, her body moving in perfect synchronization with his, but her eyes were treacherous.
Despite her resolve, she found her gaze drifting toward the glass doors of the terrace.
Through the clear pane, she saw Aerion, a dark silhouette against the city lights, his cold, violet-blue gaze cutting through the glass like a blade.
It felt as though a wall of jealousy and unspoken feelings stood between them, but the moment their eyes met, Y/N yanked hers away, forcing them back to the silk of Daeron’s lapel.
She thought she was being subtle. She was wrong.
"Careful," Daeron whispered, his voice vibrating against her ear as he pulled her slightly closer for a turn.
Y/N’s heart skipped a beat, her mask faltering for a fraction of a second.
"Excuse me?"
"The way you look at him," Daeron murmured, his tone lacking the usual drunken slur, replaced by a sharp, observant clarity.
Y/N’s face immediately hardened into a look of practiced denial, her lips parting to deliver a sharp rebuttal about duty and imagination. But before she could speak, Daeron let out a soft, dry chuckle.
"I’m not offended," he said, his eyes scanning the crowd over her shoulder.
"In fact, I’d actually love for the two of you to ruin this arrangement. It would save me the trouble of having to disappoint a wife for the next forty years."
Y/N felt a spike of genuine offense. She pulled back just enough to look him in the eye, her expression shifting into that chillingly polite, chuckling smile she had been raised to use as a shield.
“People should really stop speaking to me as though they know me.” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness.
Daeron didn’t flinch.
Didn’t even look wounded.
If anything, his expression darkened with something closer to pity.
“Am I wrong?” he asked softly.
Y/N said nothing.
Daeron exhaled slowly, gaze flicking toward the crowd where Baelor stood speaking with Ormund beneath chandeliers and camera flashes.
“Do you know why my father agreed to this?” he asked.
"Partnership," she replied instantly, the word Ormund had fed her since she was a child.
"A strategic alliance to stabilize the market and the families."
Daeron’s smile vanished. He shook his head again, his grip on her hand tightening just a fraction.
"No," he said, his voice dropping to a haunting whisper.
"Hope."
The word settled between them like something dying.
“He thinks you’ll fix me,” Daeron whispered.
His fingers tightened around hers.
“That if he ties me to someone disciplined enough, graceful enough, good enough…” He let out a hollow breath.
“Eventually some of it will rub off.”
Daeron smiled then, but there was nothing warm in it.
“They’re trading your life for the possibility that I become easier to look at.”
A beat.
"Which is far more pathetic than a simple business deal, don't you think?"
Y/N didn't flinch. She didn't offer him the pity he seemed to be fishing for, nor did she look shocked.
Instead, she gave a slow, deliberate nod of acceptance. She was used to being the bargaining chip.
"I think it makes perfect sense," she said, her voice cool and clinical.
Daeron’s lead faltered for a fraction of a second. He was stunned by her bluntness, a flash of genuine sadness flickering in his eyes before he buried it under a layer of practiced indifference.
He had expected her to defend her honor, or perhaps play the role of the blushing, hopeful girl.
"I know what I am, Daeron," she continued, her gaze steady as she taunted him back, her voice laced with a quiet, sharp-edged bite.
"I am the solution to a problem. I’ve been raised to be negotiable. But do you? What even happened to you to make you like this? To be so... content with being the disappointment?"
It was a taunt, but Daeron didn't get angry. He was too self-aware for the luxury of rage. He looked at her with a tired, glazed expression.
"A very long list of things," he murmured as he spun her beneath the crystal chandeliers.
"Most of them are wearing my last name."
The music swelled, and as the dance brought them back into a close, intimate frame, their faces were inches apart.
To the cameras, it looked like a romantic whisper, to them, it was a confession in a cage.
"Usual Targaryen stuff," Daeron said, his breath smelling faintly of the expensive scotch he’d been nursing all night.
"Raised to believe I could become anything. To believe the world would bend because my blood is silver and gold."
He paused, a hollow, mocking smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"So imagine everyone’s disappointment," he whispered, "when I became myself instead."
He pulled her closer as the waltz reached its crescendo, his grip firm but lifeless. In that moment, Y/N saw the ghost of the man Maekar wanted him to be, and the wreckage of the man he actually was.
They were two sides of the same counterfeit coin. A girl who knew she was a commodity, and a boy who knew he was a failure.
The music died away, replaced by the polite thunder of applause. Y/N and Daeron held their pose for a heartbeat longer than necessary, a final, lingering image of devotion, before they broke apart to join the guests in clapping for the orchestra.
Beaming with the practiced joy of a couple who had just shared a soul-stirring moment rather than a cynical autopsy of their own lives.
Daeron’s hand returned to the small of her back, guiding her toward the head table with a courtly grace. As they settled into their velvet-backed chairs, the master of ceremonies stepped to the microphone.
A hush fell over the room when the name Valarr was mentioned.
The ballroom erupted. Valarr was the darling of the family, the one everyone actually wanted to see.
The pride of the Targaryens was moving toward the grand piano that sat like a black swan in the center of the stage.
The applause this time was different, it wasn't just polite. It was reverent.
"Oh, he hates this," Daeron whispered, a trace of genuine amusement cutting through his gin-soaked cynicism.
Y/N looked at Daeron, then back to Valarr. On stage, Valarr offered the room an effortless smile.
He gave a short, charming introduction, his voice smooth as honey as he announced he would be playing Chopin’s Nocturne in F Minor.
As the first, hauntingly melancholic notes drifted through the hall, the room fell into a trance-like silence.
He turned to the keys, and the first notes of Op. 55, No. 1 drifted into the air.
They were somber, haunting, and meticulously placed.
Y/N watched him, mesmerized. She didn't believe Daeron for a second. Valarr didn't look like a man doing a chore, his eyes were half-closed, his body swaying slightly with the melancholic pull of the minor key.
He wasn't just playing the notes, he was feeling the weight of them. Every strike of the key was a controlled release of something he couldn't say out loud.
Daeron, however, wasn't watching the pianist. He was looking across the table at his uncle. Baelor sat perfectly still, his glass of wine forgotten in his hand.
For a father who should have been bursting with pride at his son’s talent, he looked profoundly sad, as if the music were a bridge to a place he could no longer follow Valarr.
"Look at Baelor," Daeron murmured to Y/N, his voice heavy.
"He hears it too. The sound of a son who’s too perfect to be happy."
Y/N didn't respond. She couldn't take her eyes off Valarr’s hands.
The haunting, downward spiral of the Nocturne seemed to wrap around the room, pulling the festive energy into a somber, reflective hush.
Daeron watched his uncle Baelor for a long moment, seeing the cracks in the man’s stoic facade, before his gaze drifted further down the line of the family table.
Aerion had finally come back inside. He wasn't leaning against a pillar or taunting a server.
He was waiting, perspiring with an uncharacteristic stillness, his eyes fixed on the amber liquid in his glass as if the ice were spelling out a message he didn't want to read.
Daeron’s expression shifted, the cynical humor leaving his face.
Daeron knew his brother better than most. When Aerion was quiet, it meant the fire was burning inward.
There was something profoundly wrong with that silence tonight.
Daeron’s hand tightened around his own glass. He looked from Aerion’s brooding face to Y/N’s profile, then back to his uncle’s mourning expression.
The weight of the family, the last name he had joked about earlier, suddenly felt like a physical pressure on his lungs.
Without a word, Daeron signaled a waiter. He didn't wait for the man to pour, he took the small crystal decanter of whiskey directly from the tray. He poured himself a generous measure, the liquid amber shimmering in the candlelight, and knocked it back in one jagged swallow.
The burn in his throat was the only thing that felt real. He looked at Y/N, who was still lost in Valarr’s music, and felt a sudden, desperate urge to apologize to her again, not for the marriage, but for the family she was about to inherit.
"We're a charming bunch, aren't we?" he muttered under his breath, though it was lost to the piano’s final, lingering minor chord.
Daeron wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes darting back to Aerion one last time. Great, he thought bitterly. Now I’m the worried one.
•••
The night dragged on with the relentless weight of tradition.
The Oldtowers, the elder members of the family who lived for heritage and stagnant air, took to the stage for a series of speeches that felt longer than the history of the city itself.
Then came Gwayne, delivering a violin piece so technically perfect and soul-crushingly dull that it made the wine in the glasses seem more lively.
Daeron had reached his limit. He leaned toward Y/N, his eyes glazed.
"If I hear one more string snap, I’m going to throw myself off the balcony," he whispered.
"I’m excusing myself before I cause an international incident."
Y/N gave a small, tired nod.
He stood and began his retreat, weaving through the crowd with the practiced invisibility of a man who didn't want to be found.
I fucking need a joint right now, he thought, his lungs practically aching for something that wasn't overpriced perfume and stale air.
He bypassed the main exits, knowing Baelor’s security would be hovering there like hawks.
Instead, he wove through the back corridors, passing the frantic kitchen staff and the smell of roasting lamb, heading for the service exit.
He reached for the heavy metal door near the maintenance closet, but before he could push it open, the door to the janitor’s room swung wide.
Out stepped Valarr.
He was a mess. His tie was loosened, his hair, usually lacquered into place, was ruffled, and there was a very clear, very red smudge of lipstick trailing off the corner of his mouth.
Behind him, a young server scrambled to adjust her uniform, her face flaming scarlet as she ducked her head and sprinted back toward the kitchens.
Daeron stopped dead, staring at his cousin.
"Really, Val? In the broom closet? That’s a bit low-rent for you."
Valarr didn't look ashamed. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the lipstick away with a nonchalant shrug.
"Oh, come on. Like you didn't leave the floor also."
"I left to smoke," Daeron countered, leaning against the wall.
"I just had a different kind of fun," Valarr shrugged, a tired, cynical glint in his eyes.
"I had enough the moment Ormund mentioned my father for the tenth time in his speech. I needed a distraction that didn't involve a legacy."
Daeron chuckled, a dry, raspy sound. He pushed the exit door open, the cool night air of the alleyway rushing in to meet them. He glanced back at Valarr, tilting his head toward the darkness.
"Come on. If we’re going to be degenerates, let's at least do it where there isn't a mop bucket."
Valarr followed him out into the quiet alley, the heavy door thudding shut behind them.
The two of them stood there in their thousand-dollar tuxedos, surrounded by trash bins and the hum of industrial air conditioners, leaving the perfect world on the other side.
Daeron leaned his head back against the brick wall and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke toward the moon.
"You think Aerion smokes?" Daeron asked, his voice muffled by the first hit of relief.
Daeron passed the smoke toward Valarr. Valarr waved it away with a faint smile.
Valarr instead leaned against the opposite wall, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he watched the streetlights flicker.
He let out a dry, breathy chuckle.
"He probably does and doesn’t at the same time. He’d do it just to spite our fathers, then quit to prove he has more willpower than the rest of us combined."
Daeron laughed, a real, jagged sound.
"True."
He took another drag, his eyes narrowing as he remembered a specific summer years ago.
"You still pissed he almost snitched on you?"
Valarr’s jaw tightened, though the smirk remained on his lips.
He was thinking back to being fourteen, tucked away in the stables with a joint he’d swiped from a groom, only to look up and see Aerion’s pale, judgmental face staring at him from the shadows.
"Yep," Valarr said, the bitterness of the memory still fresh.
"I had to do his damn assignments every single night for that entire school year just to keep his mouth shut."
"Every night?" Daeron echoed, grinning.
"No wonder he passed honors chemistry. I always wondered how he managed that between all the detentions."
"He’s been a blackmailer since he was in short pants. It's his only consistent hobby."
"Well, at least he’s consistent. Tonight, he’s just being a ghost. Quiet. It’s making me twitchy."
Daeron watches the embers glowing bright in the dark alley.
"That's when he's actually planning something."
•••
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