my feelings were hurt (over literally nothing) so i'm posting this one early. this one is based on a comment + response from this post. I did write a little drabble, but it deserved more (bc cregan is baby daddy #3 and im actually in love w brunette tom taylor). I'm giving all the credit and honoring this one to @ginarely-blog. thanks so much for supporting me!
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Summary: You’re brave in every sense, steady through storm and steel, but when he sees you, truly sees you, that courage slips. Beneath his gaze, something softer stirs, and for once, you don’t know where to put your hands.
WC: 4.3k
Warnings: 18+, angst, smuff, sex (p in v), fingering, creampie, no use of y/n or description of reader
Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader
The wind off the battlements has teeth, but you welcome the bite of it. The feast has long since faded into warmth and laughter behind you, tucked into the belly of Winterfell where wine and firelight keep company with those who know how to chase the cold away. You’ve always preferred the open air. Even when it hurts. Even when it cuts.
You lean forward on the stone ledge, hands bare, watching your breath curl into the night like smoke. The snow is light tonight, falling soft and steady, and you close your eyes for a moment just to feel it gather against your lashes. You don’t turn when you hear the footsteps behind you. You already know who it is.
Cregan doesn’t speak right away. He never does. It’s one of the things you’ve come to expect from him, that watchful quiet, like he’s measuring every word before it’s born. There’s no sound but the wind and the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots until he comes to stand beside you, not close enough to touch, not even brushing your sleeve. Just near enough to be known.
“Escaping?” he asks finally.
Your lips twitch. “The wine. The songs. The lord who tried to guess how many men I’ve killed.”
“And?”
“I didn’t correct him.”
He makes a soft sound. It might be a laugh. It might be something else. You don’t look over to check. There’s a steadiness to him that unsettles you, and tonight, with the snow catching in his hair and the sharp cut of his jaw barely visible in the moonlight, you feel it more than usual.
He’s watching you. You know that too. You feel it in the same way you feel the cold, slow and certain, creeping under your skin even when you try not to flinch.
“You don’t like the noise,” he says.
“I don’t like pretending.”
“You didn’t pretend in there.”
“No,” you murmur. “But they did.”
He doesn’t answer, and you let the silence stretch between you. It isn’t uncomfortable. You’ve never minded silence with him. There’s something about the way he holds it, makes room for it, that doesn’t feel like distance.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he says quietly.
You let that sit for a beat. “You’ve met strong women before.”
“Yes.”
“Sharp ones.”
“Yes.”
You glance at him then, catching the edge of his profile. “So?”
His eyes flick to yours. Calm. Steady. “None who looked at me like they expected me to flinch.”
Your smile is faint, but it reaches your eyes. “Maybe I wanted to see if you would.”
He doesn’t smile back. Not exactly. But something in his expression softens. “You’re used to men who want to prove something.”
“I’m used to men who can’t hold their own without asking what it makes them.”
“And me?”
“You haven’t asked once.”
He nods, just once, like that’s enough. And maybe it is. For a long moment, neither of you speak. The wind rises again, tugging at your hair, slipping beneath your cloak like it wants to remind you of the cost of being still too long.
You tilt your head. “Why haven’t you?”
His brow furrows. “Haven’t I what?”
“Made a move. Asked. Taken.”
He doesn’t look away, and neither do you. There’s something unspoken between you that’s no longer content to stay unnamed. His gaze drops to your mouth, just briefly, before he lifts it again.
“Because it’s not what you deserve.”
Your breath catches, just slightly. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
You swallow hard. “And if I wanted more than silence? If I wanted something real?”
His eyes search yours. You feel like he’s looking into the part of you that doesn’t speak often. The part you guard even when you don’t mean to.
“Then I’d give it to you,” he says, “like Northerners do.”
The words land deeper than you expect. Not loud, not sharp, but solid. Meant. You don’t need to ask what he means by them. You hear it in the way he says them. With purpose. With weight. Not for a moment. Not for sport.
You don’t say anything after that. You just nod. He watches you a moment longer, then steps back. Leaves without a sound.
You stay there long after the snow has soaked into your cloak and your fingers have gone stiff at the knuckles. You stare out into the dark where nothing moves, where the storm hasn’t touched yet, and you let the words settle into your chest like something you weren’t ready for but needed all the same.
Like Northerners.
You say it once, under your breath. It doesn’t sound the same in your voice. Softer. Warmer. Almost like a promise.
You don’t lock the door that night.
You don’t leave it wide open either—just enough that the latch doesn’t catch, that if someone tried, they wouldn’t have to knock. You sit by the fire longer than usual, legs tucked beneath you, the crackle of the wood the only sound in the room. It’s nothing. It means nothing. That’s what you tell yourself. But you leave the candle burning lower than normal. You don’t dress for bed right away. You don’t sleep.
When morning comes, there’s no knock. No shift in the hall. No sign that the door ever mattered.
But everything else feels different.
You see him in the yard just after breakfast, sleeves rolled to the elbow, arms dusted with frost from handling a saddle still damp with melt. He doesn’t look at you right away, but when he does, it’s slow. Measured. Your breath hitches, only slightly. Enough to feel it. Not enough to show.
He holds your gaze a little longer than usual. Doesn’t speak.
You say something dry about the weather just to fill the air. He only nods. That’s when you feel it—he’s letting you reach. Letting you fill the space, see if you’ll close it. You hate how much you want to. You hate how much he knows it.
At midday, he passes you a wrapped bundle of cloth from a steward’s tray. Warm bread. You recognize the smell before you look down. His fingers brush yours when you take it, and your pulse kicks against your wrist like a warning.
“You’re not eating enough,” he says simply. Not unkind.
You lift a brow. “Is that your observation or the kitchens’?”
“Mine.”
You tear off a corner of the bread. He watches you chew. Doesn’t flinch. You’re the one who breaks eye contact.
The horse ride comes later. You haven’t ridden far, just a short loop along the outer edge of the walls, and when you return, the wind’s picked up and the path down into the yard is slick. He reaches up without asking. One hand to the reins, the other to your waist. He doesn’t pull, not really. Just steadies you. Guides you down as if he’s done it a hundred times, as if your weight is familiar, expected.
When your boots hit the ground, you don’t step back right away. His hand lingers. Your breath fogs in the space between you.
You try to laugh. “Should I thank you for that?”
He doesn’t smile. Just tilts his head slightly. “Do you want to?”
“No.”
“Then don’t.”
You walk past him without looking back. You feel his eyes on you the whole way across the yard.
You spend the afternoon trying to ignore it. The way your skin still remembers the shape of his hand. The way your name sounded in his voice this morning—like it didn’t need to be said any louder than that. You try to keep your mind on the letters you’re meant to send, the reports you’re meant to check, the frost creeping up the panes of your window. None of it works.
He hasn’t come to you. Not really. But he’s left you nowhere to hide.
By nightfall, the sky has darkened to a heavy gray, and the fire in your chambers crackles louder than usual. You change out of your riding clothes slowly, brushing snow from the hem of your cloak, setting your belt aside like it might delay the moment you can’t stop circling.
You hear footsteps once. Think you do. But nothing follows. No knock.
It’s nearly midnight when you step out into the hall.
You find him near the great hearth on the first floor, past the main stair, half in shadow. Alone. His cloak hangs loose around his shoulders, hair damp with melt, jaw set like he’s been standing there longer than he meant to.
You stop. Not close. Just near enough.
He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t speak.
“I don’t usually leave it unlocked.”
It slips out quieter than you intended, but you don’t take it back.
He looks at you then. Long enough that it starts to ache. Long enough that you think he might say something.
He just nods. Once.
You breathe in. “Then you know where to find me.”
You don’t wait for anything else. You turn and walk the same path back through the stone corridor, heart in your throat, steps careful. You don’t look over your shoulder. You don’t let yourself hope.
But you don’t lock the door.
You don't light every candle. Just a few. Enough to cast the room in a warm sort of haze. The storm outside presses against the walls like something alive, wind moaning low against the stones. The fire in the hearth crackles steadily, and you sit in front of it with your legs tucked beneath you, pretending not to be waiting.
You’ve done this before. Waited. Wanted. None of it ever felt like this.
The door stays closed.
You drag your fingers along the seam of your sleeve. Try to focus on the heat of the fire, the rhythm of the snow hitting the windowpanes, the ache in your spine from a day spent holding yourself too tightly. You don’t look at the door. You tell yourself you won’t look. Not until—
A knock.
Just once. Firm. Quiet.
Your breath slips out all at once.
You rise before you can talk yourself out of it.
When you open the door, he’s already looking at you. Not guarded. Not uncertain. Just there. Like the storm didn’t touch him. Like he knew you’d open it. His eyes search yours once. No question in them. No hurry either.
He doesn’t ask to come in. He waits.
You step back.
He crosses the threshold slowly, eyes still on you, and closes the door behind him with the same care he does everything. When he turns back to face you, the silence between you carries something heavier than it did before.
He doesn’t reach for you. Doesn’t speak.
You look at him for a long time. His hair’s still damp. Snow melts in tiny beads along the edge of his collar. You want to say something but nothing comes. There’s nothing to say. You already said it.
He watches you like you’ve never been looked at. Not as a challenge. Not as a reward. Like he’s seeing you for exactly who you are, and has no intention of looking away.
You don’t mean to look away, but you do. His hands are on your hips, firm and steady, the kind of touch that makes you feel like nothing outside this room matters. And when his mouth brushes over your shoulder, slow and reverent, you feel your breath catch in your throat. You’ve never been shy, not with him, not with anyone—but something about this quiet, deliberate closeness leaves you undone.
He doesn’t say anything at first. Just watches you. You can feel it even when your eyes drop to the space between you, to the way his thumbs stroke idle circles against your skin. It’s too much. Not in the way you want to pull away, but in the way you want to lean in without thinking, without guarding a thing.
“You stand your ground like nothing could shake you,” he says after a moment, voice soft. “But here with me, you look like you’re afraid to breathe.”
You let out a quiet sound, half a laugh, half something unsure. “Maybe I am.”
He tilts your chin up with one hand, his touch gentle, patient. “Don’t be.”
You meet his eyes again, and it’s hard to look away. Not because of how intense they are, but because there’s something softer behind them. Something open.
“I like seeing you like this,” he says. “When it’s just us. When you let go.”
Your throat feels too tight to speak.
He kisses you once, carefully. It’s not hesitant. It’s steady, like he already knows what you taste like, like he’s been waiting for this and refuses to rush it. You lean into it before you mean to, hands fisting gently in the fabric of his shirt. The heat between you builds slowly. No rush. No grab. Just the sure slide of his fingers beneath the edge of your tunic, the press of his palm over your ribs.
When he pulls back enough to look at you, your face is already warm. You glance away again, but his hand lifts, fingertips brushing the edge of your jaw like he’s coaxing your gaze back to his.
“You’ve never backed down from anything,” he murmurs. “Why now?”
“Maybe I’ve never had reason to be nervous before.”
His expression softens. That faint curve of his mouth that never quite becomes a smile, but almost does.
“You don’t have to be.”
His voice is low, steady, full of something that steadies you too.
You nod once. It’s all you can manage.
He moves slowly, peeling your tunic over your head with a reverence you weren’t prepared for. His hands don’t rush. He doesn’t reach for more than you’re ready to give. And when you step out of your boots, your pants, everything else—when you’re bare in front of him for the first time—he just looks at you like he’s memorizing every part.
You move to cover your chest out of instinct. He stops you gently.
“Don’t,” he says. “Let me see you.”
You do.
He steps closer again, hands warm against your waist, and presses a kiss just below your collarbone. You shiver. Not from cold.
“You feel it too,” he says softly.
You don’t answer. You don’t have to.
He kisses you again, and this time you meet him fully. You kiss him like you want him to feel it in every inch of him, and he answers like he already does.
His hands explore every part of you with an attentiveness that makes you ache. You've known men before—quick, fumbling, eager to claim—but he touches you like he's learning you, like each sigh and shiver is something to remember. When his fingers trace the scar along your ribs, he doesn't ask where it came from. He just lowers his mouth to it, warm and careful, and you feel something unravel in your chest.
You reach for his clothes, impatient now where he is measured. He lets you undress him, watching your face as each new expanse of skin is revealed. The firelight catches on old wounds—a jagged line across his shoulder, the mark of an arrowhead near his collarbone. You touch each one without speaking, and he watches you do it, unashamed of what his body tells you about the life he's lived.
When he's finally as bare as you are, standing tall and unguarded in the dim light, you can't help but stare. There's a lean strength to him that speaks of purpose rather than show. Nothing excessive. Nothing wasted. Just like his words.
He steps closer, and the heat of his body meets yours like a promise. You tilt your head back to look at him, and for once, you don't try to hide what's in your eyes.
"You're beautiful," he says simply.
You've heard those words before, from men who wanted something from you. But never like this—like he's stating a truth he's known for longer than tonight.
"So are you," you whisper back, and his eyes darken.
He leads you to the bed without hurry, his hand warm against the small of your back. When you lie down, he follows, his weight settling over you like something you've been waiting for without knowing it. His forearms bracket your head, careful not to crush you, and when he kisses you again, it's deeper than before. More certain.
You arch into him without meaning to, your body seeking his like it already knows the shape of him. His hand slides down your side, over the curve of your hip, the outside of your thigh, and back up again. Mapping you. Learning you. You feel like you're burning up from the inside out, and when his mouth trails down your neck, you can't help the soft sound that escapes you.
He lifts his head to look at you, eyes dark with want but still so clear. So focused.
"It's all right," he murmurs against your skin. "You don't have to hold back. Not with me."
You swallow hard, pulse fluttering against his palm as he cups your face. "I'm not used to this."
"To what?" His thumb traces your lower lip, gentle but insistent.
"To feeling... seen."
Something shifts in his expression then, a softening around his eyes that makes your chest ache. He doesn't smile, not fully, but there's a warmth in his gaze that feels more intimate than any touch.
"I've seen you since the first day," he says quietly. "Even when you didn't want me to."
You close your eyes at that, overwhelmed by the truth of it. You close them against the sudden, undeniable rush of feeling that his words have unlocked. Against the relief of it. The honesty. But you don’t close yourself to him, and when his lips find yours again, you kiss him with a kind of fierce need that surprises you. It’s different than before—driven, desperate, almost insistent—and you can feel him answering with the same intensity. It’s as though his confession has stripped away the last of your defenses, leaving you open and wanting and his in a way you couldn’t have anticipated.
This time when he touches you, there’s a deliberate purpose to his movements. Like he's memorized every arch and sigh and knows what you need before you do. His hand slides between your bodies, confident and sure, and finds the heat between your thighs with unerring confidence. You gasp against his mouth, fingers digging into his shoulders as he strokes you with steady, knowing touches. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t fumble. He’s so present, so unbelievably in tune with you that it’s almost too much.
“Tell me what you like,” he murmurs, his voice rough with restraint. “Show me how to please you.” There’s urgency there, but it’s not hurried. Not impatient. Just intense. It’s more than you’ve ever had. More than you knew to want. You’ve never had a man ask before. Never had a man who seemed to care about the answer. Your breath catches as his fingers circle and press, finding rhythms that make you tremble. That make you forget to breathe and forget everything but his touch.
“Just like that,” you whisper, and he watches your face as he follows your guidance, learning the patterns that make your breath hitch, that make your hips rise to meet his hand. Your heart is in your throat, hammering against his chest as he bends his head to kiss a line of fire across your jaw, your neck, the fragile hollow at your throat. You feel like you’re unraveling beneath him, like he’s pulling you apart and putting you back together with only his hands and his mouth and the feel of his skin against yours.
When he slides a finger inside you, then another, your back arches off the bed. You’re not used to this. To feeling like you’ll come apart at the seams. But here with him, you do. You feel exposed in ways that have nothing to do with being naked. It’s in the way he sees through you, the way he reads every flutter of your lashes, every catch in your throat. Every stutter of your pulse as he moves with deliberate care, curling his fingers just so, watching every reaction like it’s something precious. Something to remember.
“You’re close,” he says, his voice low, and it’s not a question. He knows. He can feel it in the way your body tightens around his fingers, in the quickening of your breath.
You nod, unable to find words, and he lowers his head to press his mouth against your throat, teeth grazing lightly over your pulse. The dual sensation—his fingers working steadily inside you, his mouth hot against your skin—pushes you over the edge. You come with a broken sound, something between a gasp and his name, your body arching into his touch.
He works you through it, gentle but relentless, until you're trembling. Only then does he withdraw his hand, pressing a kiss to your temple as you catch your breath. You feel vulnerable in ways you never have before—not unprotected, but exposed. Seen in ways that matter.
"Come here," you whisper, tugging him closer. You need to feel his weight, need the solid press of him against you.
He shifts above you, settling between your thighs, his control still evident in the taut line of his shoulders, the careful way he braces himself. You reach between you to guide him, and the first press of him inside you draws a sound from both of you. It's not rushed. Not hurried. Just the slow, inexorable joining of your bodies, and he watches your face the entire time, gauging every reaction, every flutter of your eyelids.
When he's fully seated within you, he pauses. Holds perfectly still. His forehead drops to yours, and for a moment, you just breathe together.
"This," he whispers, voice roughened with restraint, "is what I wanted."
You can't speak. Can't find words for the fullness you feel—not just physical, but something deeper. Something that's taken root in your chest and threatens to bloom into something dangerous. Something real.
He moves then, a slow withdraw and careful return that makes your breath catch. His rhythm is deliberate, unhurried, like he's savoring every sensation. Every inch of you. His eyes never leave yours, and in them you see everything he doesn't say. The want. The need. The certainty.
You lift your hips to meet him, and the angle changes, deepens. The sound he makes—low and strained—sends heat flooding through you. His control is slipping, just slightly, and you feel a fierce satisfaction at being the one to break it.
"Don't hold back," you murmur, hands sliding up his back to feel the shift of muscle beneath his skin. "I want all of you."
His eyes darken at that, something primal flashing in their depths. His next thrust is harder, deeper, and you can't hold back the moan that escapes you. He watches you with an intensity that should frighten you but instead makes you feel powerful. Wanted. Real.
"You have it," he says, voice rough with need. "You've had it longer than you know."
The admission cuts through you, sharp and sweet. You pull him down to kiss him, desperate suddenly to taste him, to feel the ragged edge of his breathing against your lips. His control begins to fray as your bodies move together, his pace quickening, his restraint giving way to something rawer. You wrap your legs around his waist, urging him deeper, and he groans against your neck.
"Stay with me," he whispers, and you're not sure if he means right now or something more lasting. Either way, you have no intention of being anywhere else.
You feel yourself building toward another peak, an intensity gathering strength inside you, coiling tighter and tighter with each movement. This time it's more than pleasure. More than heat. It's something deeper, wider, terrifying in its scope. You can feel it consuming you, the promise of it making you shudder, and you know he’s right there with you, chasing it. His movements grow more frantic, more desperate, the steady rhythm beginning to falter as his own release draws near. You feel the tension in his body, the way his muscles strain against the effort of holding back, barely restrained against the onslaught of sensation and need. It's almost painful to watch him unravel, but there's beauty in it, too. Beauty in knowing you could do this to him, be the one to break him open.
"Let go," you breathe against his ear. "I've got you."
Something breaks in him then—that final thread of control snapping loose—and he loses himself to the moment. His thrusts become harder, deeper, more erratic as he gives in to the need that stretches between you. You cling to him, fingers digging into his shoulders, your bodies moving in a wild, almost frantic tandem. When he reaches between you with shaking hands and touches you where you’re joined, the pleasure is instantaneous and all-consuming. You shatter around him, the force of it making you cry out his name, your body clenching and tightening until you think you might break.
He follows you a moment later, a hoarse sound tearing from his throat as he spills into you. It's not quite a word, but you know what it means. You know it's the only thing he couldn’t give voice to before. He collapses against your chest, his weight heavy and real and so damn solid that you think it might tether you to the earth forever. You want that. You want the impossible promise of it. You want what he's given you.
You lie there just breathing together, your hands in his hair, his skin damp against yours. The air is still, quiet, and you wouldn’t change a thing.
my second ever rhaenyra x reader! how fun. based on this ask.
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Summary: In the quiet between battles, you learn what it means to be hers.
WC: 6.0
Warnings: 18+, fingering, oral (f!recieving), confession, slapping, wartime, left for dead, anger, (lesbian????)
Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen x Fem!Reader
They call you commander, but never lady. Lowborn, they say when their tongues are loose with wine. A woman of no great house, no storied name, no gods to shield you. No silks in your past, no septas to teach you to smile without showing your teeth. You were raised on cold steel and harder ground, your body shaped by battlefields and blistered palms, your voice too steady, too sharp, too unfeminine for their marble halls. The Queen, they think, should surround herself with courtiers, not killers. Women who bat their lashes and know how to curtsey, not ones who carry swords heavier than their pride. Yet it is you she calls for when the fires burn too close.
You ride at her side, close enough to feel the heat of her through leather and mail. Close enough that your knee brushes her stirrup when she leans to speak. You do not flinch when she looks at you, and she never lowers her voice. She gives you her commands in front of lords twice your age and watches their faces tighten as you obey without bowing. You speak too freely. You cut your eyes across the room like a blade. You kneel to no one. And she lets you.
They hate you for it. The men especially. You’ve seen it in their narrowed eyes, in the clipped tones they use when addressing you. The ladies are no kinder. They whisper in corners, behind silk sleeves and carved goblets. You have no husband. You’ve never been seen in a dress. You spend too many nights in the war tents, return too often to the Queen’s side bruised and bloodied, eyes burning from smoke and too little sleep. She looks at you too long. She touches you when there is no need. She listens. And that, more than anything, makes them uneasy.
They do not know what it means when her hand rests lightly on your arm. They do not see the way her mouth parts, just slightly, when you take a step too close. They do not know the weight of her gaze when you enter a room. They think she favors you for your loyalty, for your use on the battlefield, for the scars on your arms that speak to a life spent winning in places their sons would not last a night.
But they do not see how her hands tremble when the doors are locked and the fires burn low. They do not see how she turns to you in silence, how her eyes search your face as if trying to memorize the shape of it before it disappears again. They do not know how she presses her mouth to your collarbone like prayer, how she hides her face against your throat like confession. Her lips part against your skin and her crown is never present, not when it’s just the two of you. Not when she slides her rings from her fingers and sets them carefully on the bedside table before reaching for you like she’s done it a thousand times in a hundred dreams.
You remember the first time. You had returned from the Riverlands covered in ash and soaked through with rain. Your tunic clung to your shoulders, stiff with dried blood not your own. She had been waiting in the solar, pacing beside the window. When she saw you, she did not smile. She asked if you were hurt and you told her no. You always say no, even when it isn’t true. She didn’t ask again. Just walked across the room with slow, deliberate steps and reached for your belt like she’d done it before.
Her hands didn’t shake. Not then. Her breath was shallow but steady. She touched your cheek and pulled you down to her like a secret finally spoken aloud. You didn’t know what she wanted. You only knew how much you wanted to give it.
Your fingers tangled in her hair, dark strands spilling across your knuckles. She gasped like it meant something, and it did. It always did.
She kissed you like someone who had never been allowed to want. Like someone who had waited too long to remember how to need. Her mouth moved against yours with a hunger you couldn’t answer gently, so you didn’t try. You kissed her hard enough to bruise, because you didn’t know how to be careful, not with her, not then. She didn’t ask for careful. She pulled you closer, her nails scraping the back of your neck, and when she broke the kiss, it wasn’t because she wanted to.
She looked at you with wide, wet eyes and whispered, “They would tear you apart if they knew.”
You didn’t speak. You pressed your mouth to hers again and dragged her back against you like it was the only answer she needed.
She let you.
She always lets you.
She lets you kiss her like sin. She lets you touch her like you’re not afraid. She lets you pull her into the dark and leave her trembling. And every time she reaches for you, you let her come undone. Not as a queen, not as a wife, not as a mother or daughter or heir. Just as a woman. Just as yours.
Now the war grows heavier. The silences grow longer. You spend more nights apart than together. The hall grows colder with every step she takes toward the throne. Her shoulders are straighter. Her gaze is sharper. But still, her eyes find yours when the council breaks. Her fingers still brush yours when no one is watching. Her voice still softens when she says your name, like a secret she hasn’t yet decided to keep or reveal.
You see her less. You speak less. But you know. Every look is a promise not yet broken. Every touch is a memory waiting to be made again.
And when she says your name, it still sounds like a prayer whispered in the dark.
But prayers do not hold off armies. And her voice, when it comes for you next, is not meant for shadows.
The order comes on a morning choked in fog. You’re still shaking the cold from your armor when the page finds you. The summons is brief. The Queen requests your presence in the council chamber. Not her solar. Not her bed. Not where you can pretend, for a moment, that you are hers and she is yours. No. This is war business. You know it before you even cross the threshold.
When you enter, Daemon is already there. Leaning back in his chair like the weight of the realm means nothing to him. His fingers drum lazily along the hilt of his sword. A map is spread across the table, weighted at the corners by goblets and stone markers. Rhaenyra stands at the head, her crown newly set, her hands clasped tightly at her back. She does not smile when you arrive. She barely looks at you.
“Harrenhal,” she says. Her voice is clear, flat, carefully measured. “We need more strength along the Riverlands. My uncle will lead the effort. You’ll go with him.”
You nod. You say yes, your voice steady. You do not ask why it must be you. You do not remind her of the last time she kissed you, the last time she clutched your shirt in her fists and whispered your name like a wound. You do not ask for anything. You bow, low and long, and when you rise again, she has already turned away.
You do not argue. You never do.
There is nothing left to say, and even if there were, not in that room. Not with her eyes fixed on maps and her mouth set like stone.
You leave the next morning, long before the city stirs. There is no farewell. No touch. No glance. You mount your horse in silence and ride out with a company of hardened men who care nothing for your bruised pride or the way your stomach knots tighter with each mile. You do not look back. You do not give yourself permission.
The days stretch out like punishment. The mud in the Riverlands clings to your boots, seeps into your bones. You fight. You bleed. You command. You win, most of the time. When you don’t, you bury the dead and keep moving. Daemon is reckless and brilliant and terrible to serve under. He pushes the line further than he should. He calls you soft once and you nearly drive your blade through his chest. He laughs. After that, he trusts you more.
At night, you dream of her. Sometimes it is her hair against your shoulder, the way her fingers splay across your ribs. Sometimes it is her voice in your ear, breathless and low, whispering things no queen should say. Sometimes it is the absence of her. An empty bed. A locked door. Her name, spoken and unanswered.
You wake to silence and the snap of banners. The war grinds on.
There are letters. Stiff, formal things passed through too many hands. The kind of words that mean nothing unless you know how to read between the lines. She writes of movements and weather and supplies. You write of victories and losses and the state of the roads. Every sentence is a disguise. Every sentence is aching.
Sometimes you trace her handwriting like it might give you warmth. Sometimes you burn the parchment before anyone else can see it.
One letter never comes. You wait five days. Then ten. You tell yourself it was lost, that ravens die and couriers are intercepted. That it means nothing. But it does. Of course it does.
The silence after that is colder than steel.
Back at court, the rumors multiply. They say the Queen has grown distant. That she holds private councils behind closed doors. That she meets alone with Reachmen, with generals, with noble sons eager to curry favor. They say she wears the crown more often now, even in her own chambers. That her smile does not reach her eyes. That she no longer lingers near the windows, no longer stands on the ramparts as she once did, watching the road.
They say she dines alone. They say she does not speak of you.
You do not believe them. Not fully. But belief and doubt sit heavy on the same part of your chest, pressing down until you cannot tell where one ends and the other begins. You picture her walking the halls without you beside her. You picture her turning to someone else. Letting someone else touch the place you once did. You do not let the thought stay long. It cuts too deep.
Daemon watches you sometimes with that look of his, like he knows something you don’t. He asks no questions. He doesn’t need to. He fights beside you. He bleeds beside you. And once, when you are washing blood from your hands in a river that runs dark with ash, he says, “You shouldn’t love her.”
You don’t answer. You finish cleaning your hands and ride away.
You stop writing after that.
The war grows louder. You take three keeps in six weeks. You lead a siege so brutal the enemy surrenders before the sun rises. You sleep little. Eat less. You drive your soldiers harder than ever, because it is easier than thinking. Easier than wondering if she still says your name at all.
When word finally comes from King’s Landing, it is not a letter. It is a passing rider who mentions, in the middle of a list of political marriages and alliance talks, that the Queen has accepted a private audience with a noble from Oldtown. “Suitor,” the man calls him. “Seems promising. Her council approves.”
You turn your face away and keep riding.
Later that night, you sharpen your blade until your fingers blister.
You do not dream of her that night. You do not dream at all.
And in the morning, you wake with her name still in your mouth, but you do not say it. You cannot. The wind would take it, and she is too far away to hear.
The siege breaks at dawn, but you don’t see the sun rise.
You’re pulled from the rubble half-crushed and bleeding, your shoulder torn open, your ribs cracked, your sword snapped in half beside your limp hand. You do not wake for two days. When you do, it is to pain so thick it swallows the edges of your vision and the smell of burning tents carried on the wind. The maester tells you not to move. You move anyway.
By the time you can stand, the war has moved on. Daemon has left. The rest of your company rides north. You send no raven. No message. You say nothing at all.
You ride for King’s Landing with a blade you took off a dead man and the clothes on your back. The wound in your side breaks open again somewhere in the Kingswood. You stitch it shut with your own hand.
When you reach the Red Keep, you are unannounced. Unclean. Dried blood streaks your boots, and one arm hangs useless at your side. The guards barely recognize you. The captain calls you a ghost.
You do not stop to correct him.
The Queen’s steward stares at you like he’s seen a corpse standing. He says nothing at first, only bows and hurries from the hall. Moments later, you are summoned to her solar.
She is alone when you enter.
No council. No guards. No attendants.
Just her.
She stands with her back to you, still in her riding leathers though her crown is gone. Her hair is braided tightly down her back. The windows are open. The fire is out. The room smells faintly of ash and damp parchment. She does not turn.
You close the door behind you. The latch clicks into place.
She doesn’t speak.
Neither do you.
For a long moment, there is only silence.
Then she turns.
And then it breaks.
She crosses the room with steps so sharp they echo. Her palm cracks against your cheek hard enough to stagger you. Pain blooms bright across your jaw. Her breath hitches.
“You were dead.”
You stare at her. Her pupils are blown wide, her mouth trembling. You taste blood and salt.
“You replaced me.”
She doesn’t flinch. Her eyes are glassy and bright and burning.
Then her hands are in your hair. Your mouth is on hers. You grip her waist like you’re still trying to keep yourself from falling.
Teeth. Tongue. Hands.
Everything unravels at once. And just like that, the months of silence are over.
She tastes like wine and desperation. Like months of swallowed words and sleepless nights. You kiss her back with equal violence, your good hand fisting in the leather of her doublet, pulling her against you until there's no space left between your bodies. She makes a sound against your mouth—half sob, half growl—and pushes you backward until your spine hits the stone wall.
"Don't," she breathes against your lips, though she doesn't pull away. "Don't you dare—"
You silence her with another kiss, deeper this time, and she melts into it despite herself. Her fingers find the buckles of your armor, working them loose with trembling hands. The leather falls away piece by piece, clattering to the floor. When her palm presses flat against your ribs, you hiss at the contact. The wound there is still tender, still healing.
She pulls back, eyes wide as she takes in the extent of your injuries. Her fingers hover over the fresh scar along your ribs, the mottled bruising that spreads across your shoulder like spilled ink.
"Gods," she whispers. "What did they do to you?"
You catch her wrist before she can touch the wound. "Nothing I haven't survived before."
"You fool." Her voice cracks. "You reckless, stubborn fool. Do you know what they told me? Do you know what I was made to believe?"
You don't answer. Can't. The way she's looking at you—like you're something precious she thought she'd lost forever—makes your chest tight in ways that have nothing to do with broken ribs. Her thumb traces the line of your jaw where her palm struck moments before. "Three weeks," she says, and the words are barely audible. "Three weeks they told me you were dead. That they pulled your body from the rubble. That there was nothing left to bury."
Your throat closes. "Rhaenyra—"
"No." She steps closer, her body pressing against yours, pinning you to the wall. "You don't get to speak. Not yet." Her hands frame your face, fingers threading through your hair. "Do you know what that did to me? Do you know how I—" She stops, jaw clenching as she fights for control.
"Tell me."
"I couldn't eat. Couldn't sleep. I sat in council meetings and heard nothing. I signed decrees without reading them. My own lords thought I'd lost my mind." Her eyes search your face desperately.
"Because I had." Her voice drops to barely a whisper. "I had lost my mind. Lost everything that mattered." Her thumb brushes across your bottom lip, and you can see tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. "They brought me your sword. What was left of it. The blade snapped clean through, the hilt bent and blackened. And I held it and I wanted to scream until my throat bled."
You lean into her touch, your eyes closing briefly. When you open them again, she's watching you with an intensity that makes your pulse race despite your injuries.
"I sent ravens. Dozens of them. Demanded they search again, dig deeper. I threatened to have the entire company flogged if they didn't bring me your body." Her laugh is bitter, broken. "Your body. As if that would have been enough. As if seeing you dead would have hurt less than not seeing you at all."
Your good hand comes up to cover hers where it rests against your cheek. "I'm here now."
"Are you?" Her voice is sharp, cutting. "Or will you disappear again the moment I give you another command? The moment duty calls and you ride off to die for my crown instead of living for me?"
The accusation hits like a physical blow. You start to pull away but she doesn't let you, her grip tightening in your hair.
"That's what this is, isn't it? Your grand martyrdom. Die gloriously for the Queen and let the songs remember how loyal you were. How noble." Her eyes flash with anger now, bright and fierce. "Well I don't want your loyalty. I don't want your noble death."
"Then what do you want?"
The question hangs between you like a blade. She stares at you for a long moment, her breathing uneven, her fingers still tangled in your hair. When she speaks, her voice is raw.
"I want—" Her voice breaks. You don’t let her finish.
Your mouth crashes into hers before the last word can leave her tongue, before the grief in her voice can splinter further. You kiss her like you’re still trying to come back to life, like the only thing that kept your heart beating through every godless mile and battlefield was the hope of this—her, shaking and furious in your arms. Her hands clutch at your shoulders, your throat, your hair, as if anchoring herself to the present, and you pull her in like she’s the only thing you’ve ever believed in. There is nothing gentle in it. No restraint. Just months of hunger and rage and aching, all of it spilling out between your teeth as her body presses flush against yours and the whole world finally gives way.
Her mouth opens beneath yours, desperate and demanding. There's a wildness to her now that you've never seen before—not in your bed, not on the battlefield. Something untethered. When you tug her lower lip between your teeth, she makes a sound that's half growl, half surrender.
Her hands find the hem of your shirt, yanking it upward despite your injury. You wince but don't stop her, letting her pull it over your head with unsteady fingers. The cool air hits your skin, raising goosebumps across your scarred flesh. She takes a step back, eyes raking over you—the fresh wounds, the old scars, the map of violence written across your body in her name.
"Every mark," she whispers, tracing a silvery line along your collarbone. "Every scar. All for me."
You catch her wrist, bringing her palm to your lips. "Not for your crown. For you."
Something breaks in her expression. She surges forward again, her mouth finding yours with renewed hunger. Her fingers work at the laces of your breeches while you fumble with the clasps of her doublet. The leather falls away, revealing the thin linen shift beneath. You slide your hands beneath the fabric, finding the warm skin of her waist, the curve of her ribs, the soft swell of her breast. She gasps against your mouth when your thumb brushes her nipple, arching into your touch like she's been starving for it.
"Too long," she breathes, her voice cracking. "Too many nights alone."
You back her toward the bed, your injured arm forgotten in the heat of her skin against yours. When her legs hit the edge of the mattress, she doesn't fall back as you expect. Instead, she spins you around, pushing you down onto the furs with surprising strength. You land with a soft grunt of pain, but the discomfort fades when she climbs over you, straddling your hips, her shift riding up her thighs.
Her hair falls around her face like a curtain as she leans down to kiss you. The silver light from the window catches in the dark strands, making her look ethereal, otherworldly. But there's nothing ethereal about the way her hips roll against yours, nothing otherworldly about the heat between her thighs as she settles over you.
"I won't be gentle," she warns, her voice rough with need.
"I don't want gentle."
She pulls her shift over her head in one fluid motion, baring herself completely. In the pale light, every curve of her body is thrown into sharp relief—the slope of her shoulders, the valley between her breasts, the smooth plane of her stomach. She's beautiful and terrible and yours, and the sight of her makes your chest constrict with something too large for words.
Her hands splay across your chest, fingers tracing the lines of muscle and scar tissue. When she leans down to press her lips to the hollow of your throat, you can feel her smile against your skin. It's not a gentle smile. Not the kind reserved for courts and councils. This is something sharper, hungrier. Her teeth graze your pulse point, and your hands find her hips, pulling her closer against you.
"Say my name," she commands, her voice low against your ear. "Not my title. My name."
"Rhaenyra," you breathe, and it sounds like worship even to your own ears.
She rewards you with another roll of her hips, more deliberate this time. Her wetness soaks through the thin fabric still separating you, and you groan at the sensation. She laughs—a small, broken sound—and reaches between your bodies to untie the last of your laces.
Rhaenyra's fingers deftly tug down your breeches in one smooth motion, leaving you exposed to the cool air. Her touch is light and teasing as she traces the warmth of your arousal, her fingers slick with evidence of your desire. With a mischievous glint in her eyes, she slides two fingers along your core, feeling the heat and tension beneath her touch. Slowly, she raises her hand, bringing her glistening fingers to her lips, savoring the taste with a satisfied smile.
"Look at me," she commands, her voice carrying all the authority of her birthright. Your eyes snap to hers, breath catching at the raw hunger you find there. She slides her fingers between her own thighs, coating them with her arousal before bringing them to your lips. "Taste what you do to me."
You part your lips obediently, drawing her fingers into your mouth. The taste of her explodes across your tongue—salt and heat and something uniquely hers that makes your head spin. She watches your every movement with predatory focus, her free hand coming to rest at the base of your throat.
Rhaenyra slowly withdraws her fingers from your mouth, the warmth lingering on your lips. She then guides them downward, pressing them back into the heat and urgency of your desire, igniting a spark that sends a shiver through your entire body.
Her fingers find their rhythm against you, slow at first and then faster, more insistent. You arch into her touch, your own hands gripping her thighs hard enough to leave marks. The pressure builds low in your belly, coiling tighter with each deliberate stroke. She watches your face with fierce concentration, learning anew what makes you gasp, what makes your eyes flutter closed, what draws those broken sounds from deep in your throat.
"Look at me," she demands again when your head falls back against the furs. "I want to see you."
You force your eyes open, meeting her gaze as she works you higher. Her hair falls around her shoulders like a curtain, her skin flushed with desire. She's never looked more like a queen than she does now, naked and commanding above you, and never less like one at the same time. This woman with her hand between your legs, her breath coming in short pants as she watches you fall apart beneath her touch—this is just Rhaenyra. Just yours.
"Please," you whisper, the word torn from somewhere deep in your chest.
Her smile is sharp as a blade. "Please what?"
You can't form the words, can only arch against her hand and hope she understands. She does. She always does. Her fingers press deeper, finding that spot that makes stars burst behind your eyelids, and you cry out despite yourself.
"There," she breathes, triumph coloring her voice. "There she is."
The tension snaps all at once, pleasure crashing over you in waves that leave you gasping and shaking. She doesn't stop, working you through it until you're oversensitive and pleading. Only then does she withdraw her hand, bringing her fingers to her own lips to taste what she's drawn from you.
Before you can catch your breath, she's kissing you again, the taste of you mingling on your tongues. Her body slides against yours, slick with sweat and need, her hips rocking in a rhythm that speaks of her own desperation. You wrap your good arm around her waist and flip her onto her back, ignoring the sharp pain that lances through your injured shoulder.
She gasps at the sudden change, her eyes widening as you hover above her. For a moment, the queen returns—that flicker of indignation, of someone unused to being commanded. But it fades as quickly as it appeared when you lower your mouth to her breast, drawing the hardened peak between your lips. Her back arches off the bed, a breathless moan escaping her throat.
You trail kisses down her body, mapping the terrain you've missed for too many nights. The dip of her navel, the jut of her hipbones, the soft flesh of her inner thighs—each place sacred in its familiarity. She trembles beneath you, her hands fisting in your hair as you settle between her legs.
"Don't make me wait," she commands, but her voice breaks on the last word, betraying her desperation.
You look up at her from between her thighs, a smile tugging at the corner of your mouth. "Is that an order, Your Grace?"
Her eyes flash dangerously. "Don't you dare—"
You have your answer ready before she can finish. Your mouth finds her, tongue sliding through her folds in one long stroke, silencing her with sensation. She tastes like salt and sweetness and home, and you groan against her flesh as she trembles at the touch of your lips. You set a relentless pace, the rhythm she's always loved, working her with tongue and teeth. Her hips buck beneath you, a desperate motion, and you press your forearm over her to hold her down. She gasps at the restraint, her body responding with even more urgency. Her fingers grip your hair so tightly you feel them pulling at your scalp, and you're not sure if she's trying to push you away or pull you closer.
You give her no time to decide, doubling your efforts with a savagery to match her own. Her thighs quiver uncontrollably on either side of your head, and you can feel the tension coiling in her muscles as she writhes under your mouth. All of it, every last piece of her, comes apart for you. She is the woman you followed into battle, the queen you pledged yourself to, and yet she is none of those things right now. Not in this moment. Now she's only yours and you are only hers, a truth more binding than any oaths or crowns. Her skin is feverish under your hands, and her breath comes in ragged, uneven gulps, each one more frantic than the last.
She tries to writhe away, overwhelmed with sensation, but you hold her tightly, denying her escape. You can feel her body beginning to shatter, the wild chaos of her heartbeat, the way she shakes like she's coming undone. Her moans turn to cries, and she jerks against you in a way that feels almost violent.
"Gods," she gasps, her voice high and breathless. "Don't stop, don't—"
You have no intention of stopping, not when she's like this for you—shaking and shuddering, falling apart in a way that feels like forgiveness for those long months apart. Not when she's so wet and wanting against your lips, not when each desperate cry she makes sounds like absolution on your tongue. Her thighs clamp around your shoulders, and you know she's close. You want to keep her that way forever, trapped in the chaos of her own desire, but then her voice breaks through the thunder in your ears.
"Don't stop," she gasps again, and some lost part of you surfaces at the plea.
You slide two fingers inside her, curling them just so, and she bucks so hard her back leaves the bed entirely, her body trembling in the grip of too much sensation. She bites down on her lip, trying to keep herself together, but the moans still escape her in wild, frantic bursts. Her breath comes in uneven pants, and she clutches at your head with both hands, pulling at your hair as if your touch is the only thing keeping her from flying apart.
"There," she pants, her grip in your hair almost painful now. "Right there, please—"
You can feel her climbing higher, her walls fluttering around your fingers as you stroke that spot that makes her see stars. Her breathing becomes ragged, desperate, and you know she's moments away from falling over the edge. You press your tongue flat against her, giving her the pressure she needs, and she shatters with a cry that echoes off the stone walls.
Her body convulses beneath you, thighs trembling violently as waves of pleasure crash through her. You work her through it, gentler now, until she's gasping and pushing weakly at your shoulders. Only then do you pull back, pressing soft kisses to her inner thighs as she comes down from the heights.
When you look up at her, she's staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Sweat glistens on her skin, and her hair is a wild tangle across the pillows. She looks utterly undone, and the sight makes something fierce and possessive surge in your chest.
You crawl up her body, mindful of your injuries now, and settle beside her on the furs. Her hand finds yours without looking, fingers intertwining with a familiarity that makes your heart ache. For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The only sound is your mingled breathing slowly returning to normal and the distant call of night birds through the open window.
Her voice is hoarse when it finally comes, but the words never reach you. Just a murmur swallowed by the quiet. She shifts onto her side, her fingers trailing the length of your arm, then curling lightly over your ribs as if to count what’s left of you.
You swallow, unsure if it’s pain or fear pressing in on your throat. Your voice is nearly gone from the shouting, from the storm you both unleashed, but you manage the question anyway. Soft. Barely a breath.
“Did you ever mean to name me something more?”
The silence that follows is not cruel. It is not cold. It is something worse.
Her hand drifts to your hip, slow and reverent. She finds the bruise blooming there, the mark she left in the heat of it, and her thumb brushes over it with a gentleness that borders on apology. She doesn’t look at you. She doesn’t have to.
“They would never accept you,” she whispers.
You close your eyes.
“But I would have.”
The ache that follows is sharp and sudden, a pull behind your ribs, like something trying to surface from too deep a place. You don’t respond. You don’t trust yourself to. You shift instead, your head finding rest on her bare chest, her skin warm beneath your cheek. One of her hands comes to your chest without being asked. Her thumb moves in slow circles over your sternum, a rhythm meant to lull, to hold, to keep.
You lie like that for a long time. Tangled in silence. Nothing resolved. Nothing promised.
Just breath, and skin, and the sense that if you let go now, you’ll lose something you won’t ever get back.
You fall asleep to the sound of her heartbeat beneath your ear and the weight of her hand over your chest, like a promise that won’t survive the dawn.
By the time light begins to touch the edge of the sky, that promise is already fading.
You dress before the sun rises. The chamber is quiet, the air gone still and cool. The fire has burned low, casting faint orange across the floor, and the shape of her beneath the furs is soft, breathing slow and even. One arm reaches into the space where you lay, her fingers curled loosely against the sheets. You watch her for a long moment and say nothing.
Your injuries ache. Your side pulls with each breath. The bruises are darker today, the cuts angry and raw beneath clean wrappings. The maesters said you should rest, said you shouldn’t move far, shouldn’t climb stairs or wear steel or carry weight. But still you rise. You dress in silence. The leathers feel foreign on your skin now, stiff in the wrong places, unfamiliar after so many weeks torn from them. Your cloak smells like blood and ash. Her scent lingers underneath.
You don’t wake her. You don’t trust yourself to speak. The halls beyond her chamber are quiet. Still sleeping. Not yours.
You do not walk far. Just as far as the garden stairs, just as far as the shadowed courtyard where the wind carries in through the gates, just far enough to feel the cold against your cheeks and the sky begin to shift above the city. A maid passes behind you with a covered tray. She sees your face and lowers her gaze.
No one speaks to you. No one dares. You stand in the half-light, spine straight, hands clenched at your sides. You’re not leaving. Not today. Your body won’t let you. But the moment still feels like parting. The ache of distance carved in silence instead of space.
You stare toward the eastern wall, where the road out begins.
Let the gods call it treason—you’d do it again.
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Pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x Targaryen Cousin!Reader (ft. Aegon)
Description: You're a Targaryen princess with a dragon, a seat on the small council, and a hole in your wall that looks directly into the Crown Prince's chambers. You should seal it. You should forget what you've seen. You should definitely stop watching your cousin fuck his way through King's Landing's noblewomen.
But you don't. And when Jacaerys starts looking at you like he knows, like he's been waiting for you to break—well. That's when things get complicated.
Genre: voyeurism, jace likes to fook, he definitely knows you're watching, fucking your cousin (it's targaryens what did you expect), why does everyone want to marry him, angst with your hand between your thighs, oblivious pining except he's not oblivious at all, im not sorry, SLOW BURN, VERY VERY SLOW, he hasnt even kissed you and its been 30k words, that type of slow, why do u want to fuck. every cousin........... porn with heavy plot
WC: 48k (100k projected) also on ao3 (where it will be updated!)
It wasn't supposed to happen like this.
You hadn't meant to discover the hole in the wall—a gap where the stone had crumbled between your chambers and his. It was small, barely the width of your index and middle fingers, hidden behind the carved wooden screen that stood in the corner of your room. You'd only found it when you'd moved the screen aside to retrieve a dropped pearl earring, and there it was, a sliver of forbidden sight directly into the heir's private quarters.
You stared at it for a moment longer, crouched onto the floor with the pearl still in your palm.
Rotted mortar, you thought. Old stone. The Red Keep is falling apart in places no one bothers to look.
The right thing would have been to call for the servants, have it sealed with fresh mortar. To forget you'd ever seen it, like a proper lady would.
That first night, however, curiosity won. Just a glance, you kept telling yourself. Just to see if it truly looked into Jacaerys's room or if your eyes had deceived you in the dim candlelight.
They hadn't, and your breath caught in your throat as soon as your eye found the gap. His bed was perfectly visible—the heavy posts of dark wood, the deep crimson coverlet embroidered with the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen. And there, tangled in those sheets, was your cousin.
Worst of all, he wasn't alone.
Turn away. The thought flickered through your mind even as you stayed perfectly still, silver hair spilling over your shoulder and onto the floor in waves as you leaned closer. Your heart hammered against your ribs. You knew what the right choice was. You simply weren't making it.
The woman beneath him was dark-haired, flushed, with her mouth open as Jacaerys pounded into her from behind, and you realized with a strange twist in your stomach that this was far from his first time. The rumors that swirled through the Red Keep were true, then. The Crown Prince, for all his duties and noble bearing in the daylight hours, was as much a creature of appetite as any Targaryen before him.
You, on the other hand, had never even been kissed. Never been touched. Good noble ladies waited for their wedding night, and common fucking was for the common whores—thank you for that wisdom, cousin Aemond.
His hand fisted in her dark hair, pulling her head back as he drove into her cunt with a rhythm that was almost borderline brutal. The sound of skin meeting skin echoed off the stone walls, punctuated by her breathy moans and his low groans of pleasure. You could see the sheen of sweat on his shoulders, the flex of muscle beneath his skin as he gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises.
"Fuck," he growled, and the vulgarity of it—hearing such words from the lips of the Crown Prince—sent a forbidden thrill down your spine. "You take me so well."
The woman whimpered something you couldn't quite hear, and Jacaerys laughed—dark and satisfied. He leaned forward, pressing her face into the pillows as he changed his angle, and her muffled cry of pleasure made heat pool low in your belly.
Your hand had somehow found its way to your throat, fingers pressed against your racing pulse. This was wrong, so utterly wrong. You sat here, watching your cousin rut like a beast in heat, and worse—far worse—your body was responding to it. Your thighs pressed together on their own accord, seeking friction you had no right to want.
Leave. Now.
You started to pull back from the gap, but then Jacaerys pulled out suddenly, flipping the girl onto her back with easy strength, and you caught a glimpse of him fully—his flushed cock, hard and completely shameless. He spread her thighs wide and thrusted back into her cunt in with one smooth stroke, and a gasp tore from your throat before you could stop it.
Your hand flew to your mouth, palm clamping hard over your lips. The pearl earring—forgotten, still clutched in your other hand—slipped from your fingers and hit the stone floor with a soft clink that sounded deafening in the quiet of your chamber.
You froze, heart hammering, terrified the sound had somehow carried through the wall.
But Jacaerys didn't pause, didn't look toward the gap. He was too focused on the woman beneath him, and you—gods help you—you couldn't look away.
"Look at me," he commanded, and something in his voice—the authority, the certainty, the want—made your breath catch. The woman's eyes snapped to his face. "Good girl," he murmured, and thrust deeper.
The words sent heat flooding through you, pooling low into your belly. You felt it between your thighs—a pulse, an ache, something you had no name for. Your hand was still clamped over your mouth, but you couldn't move, couldn't think, could barely breathe—
The sharp knock at your chamber door made you jerk back from the wall as though it burned you.
"My lady?" came Lysa's voice, muffled through the heavy oak. "We've come to prepare you for supper."
You stumbled back from the screen. Your hand pressed against your cheek—Seven Hells, you were boiling. "A moment," you called out, breathless, hating how your voice wavered in the otherwise silent room.
You smoothed your skirts with trembling hands and tried to compose yourself before crossing to open the door. Your three ladies-in-waiting filed in—Lysa, Maryse, and young Elaena, their arms full of silks and jewelry boxes. They were good girls, all of them. You'd chosen them yourself—daughters of minor houses who actually seemed to like you rather than seeing you as a political opportunity. The last thing you needed were the usual vultures, daughters of great lords who'd spend more time reporting back to their mothers than actually being useful.
"You look flushed, my lady," Maryse observed you with immediate concern, setting down the silks onto the dressing table. "Are you well?"
"Quite well," you lied, settling into the chair before your mirror. Your reflection was damning, your silver hair mussed, falling loose from where you'd been pressed against the wall. Your cheeks were flushed, pupils blown wide and dark, emphasizing the violet haze. You looked exactly like what you were, a woman who'd been watching something she had no business seeing. "The fire was burning too hot. I've only just opened the window."
Lysa moved to begin unpinning your hair, her fingers gentle, yet ever so clever, as they worked. "I see my lady. The cook's boy told me the funniest story today," she began, and you felt yourself relax into the familiar rhythm of their chatter.
This was safe. This was normal. Unlike whatever madness had possessed you just moments ago.
Elaena brought forward the gown, it was a beautiful collection of pale red silk that caught the candlelight like dawn breaking over the Narrow Sea. The bodice was fitted, the neckline modest but elegant, with delicate embroidery along the sleeves that fell into drapes. It was a gown befitting a princess of dragon blood, though you sometimes forgot that's what you were.
As your ladies worked, Lysa plaiting your hair into an intricate crown of braids, Maryse threading deep crimson rubies on fine silver chains to weave through the silver, Elaena carefully lacing you into your gown—your mind wandered despite your best efforts.
You could still see it. The flex of Jacaerys's shoulders, the way his head had fallen back in pleasure. The sound of his voice, rough with need and desire.
Seven hells.
"Tilt your head, my lady," Lysa murmured, and you obeyed, watching in the mirror as she secured the final braid with a dragon brooch of white gold and rubies, its eyes tiny chips of garnet that seemed to glow due to the candlelight.
Your hair fell in a waterfall of silver down your back, nearly to your calves, the braids creating an ornate crown that framed your face. The rubies caught the light like drops of blood, and for a moment you understood why men wrote songs about Targaryen women. More specifically, why their chantee’s were filled with tales of you.
"Beautiful," Maryse breathed, stepping back to admire their work.
You were beautiful. You knew this, had always known it—it was simply a fact, like knowing the sky was blue or fire was hot. But beauty felt like a strange, useless disease when your mind was still full of images it shouldn't hold.
When your thoughts were consumed by your cousin, the heir to the Iron Throne, and the way he'd looked lost in pleasure with a woman who wasn't you.
The private dining hall was already warm and loud when you arrived, filled with the low hum of conversation and the clatter of serving plates. This was your favorite meal of the week. no courtiers to impress, no performers to sit through, no need to smile politely while some lord droned on about his son and why he’s worthy of your hand. Just family. The table could have seated fifty people easily, but tonight it was just the twelve of you, which somehow made the hall feel bigger and emptier at the same time.
Rhaenyra sat at the head in a gown of black and red, her crown set aside for the evening, silver hair braided simply. Daemon lounged beside her, looking more like a dangerous cat than a prince consort. Down the table, Alicent sat with her children scattered among Rhaenyra's, Aegon laughing at something Jace had said, Helaena showing Baela her embroidery. A year ago, they'd been on the brink of war. Now they broke bread together like it had never happened.
"There she is," Aegon called out as you entered, already half in his cups despite the early hour. "Our lovely cousin, late as always."
"I'm not late," you replied, taking your usual seat between Helaena and Baela. "You're simply too eager for the wine, Aegon."
Aegon clutched his chest in mock offense while Helaena reached for your hand beneath the table, giving it a gentle squeeze. She said nothing—she rarely did in company—but her smile was soft and genuine. You squeezed back, wishing she'd been born your sister instead of your cousin. She understood silence, understood that sometimes you just needed to exist quietly in a world that never managed to simply shut the fuck up.
"You look beautiful tonight," Helaena murmured, so quietly only you could hear. Her green eyes—so unlike the rest of the Targaryens—studied your face with an intensity that only she had. "Red suits you. Like fire. Like blood."
Before you could respond, the servants began bringing out the first course, and your attention was pulled elsewhere. You reached for your wine, grateful for something to do with your hands, and that's when you saw Jacaerys sat across the table and down two seats, between Luke and Joffrey. He was dressed formally in a black doublet with red embroidery, his dark hair still damp as though he'd bathed recently. He looked every inch the Crown Prince—composed, attentive, laughing at something Luke said.
He looked nothing like the man you'd seen less than an hour ago, flushed and shameless, fucking a woman whose name he probably didn't know. Or didn't care to remember.
Your cheeks heated at the memory, and you quickly looked down at your plate.
Gods, were you that much of a prude?
"How was your afternoon, my dear?" Rhaenyra suddenly asked you, her voice carrying easily down the table. She'd always been kind to you, treating you more as a daughter than a niece. Your father's sister, mourning the brother she'd lost, had perhaps seen something of him in you.
"Quiet, Your Grace," you managed, hoping your voice sounded normal. "I spent most of it reading in my chambers."
"Always with your books," Daemon observed with amusement. "You're worse than the damn Maesters."
The conversation flowed easily after that—talk of the day's small council meeting, Aegon's latest exploit (falling asleep during a petitioner's complaint), Helaena's new collection of butterflies. You participated when required, but part of your attention kept sliding back to Jacaerys despite your best efforts.
He caught you looking, which was more embarrassing than usual. His eyes narrowed, and for one horrible second you were certain he knew. Knew what you'd seen. Knew you'd watched. Your stomach dropped and you bit your lip hard enough to taste copper and looked away. When you risked another glance, he was already talking to Luke again, the moment forgotten.
It wasn't until the second course that Rhaenyra cleared her throat in that way that meant an announcement was coming. The table quieted immediately, all eyes turning to their queen.
"I've been thinking," she began, glancing at Jacaerys with obvious affection, "that our heir is now two and twenty. More than old enough to take a wife."
Across the table, Jacaerys kept his expression perfectly neutral and composed. But you saw his jaw tighten, saw the way his hand clenched briefly around his fork before he forced himself to relax.
"It's time we began seeking suitable matches," Rhaenyra continued. "I've already received inquiries from several great houses—the Arryns, the Starks, even a letter from the Triarchy expressing interest in an alliance."
"The Triarchy?" Daemon barked a laugh. "What would they offer, a wife who smells of spices, counts coins and wouldn't know what to do with a cock if you handed it to her with instructions?"
"They offered three ships of gold and exclusive trading rights," Rhaenyra replied dryly. "Which is more than most houses can promise."
"I won't marry for ships," Jacaerys said quietly, and something in his tone made you look at him once more. His expression was still composed, but there was a hardness around his eyes.
"You'll marry where it serves the realm," Rhaenyra said, though not unkindly. "As I did. As all rulers must."
"You married for love the second time," Jace pointed out.
"The second time, yes." Rhaenyra smiled at Daemon. "But first I did my duty. And you will do yours."
The tension at the table was palpable. Alicent looked uncomfortable, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Aegon was watching the exchange with barely concealed glee—always happy when someone else was being pressed into marriage talk instead of him.
"We'll host a series of feasts," Rhaenyra continued, her tone allowing no argument. "Let the eligible ladies of the realm come to court. Let Jacaerys meet them, dance with them. Surely among them there will be someone suitable."
"How many feasts?" Luke asked, grimacing. "I hate feasts."
"As many as it takes," Rhaenyra replied. "We'll begin preparations the following morrow."
Your stomach dropped. Feast after feast, watching Jacaerys dance with simpering ladies who would fall over themselves for the chance to be queen. Watching him smile that charming smile, knowing what you now knew—that he was skilled at pleasing women, that he knew exactly how to make them fall at his feet.
"How exciting," Baela said beside you, though her tone suggested she found it anything but. "More opportunities to wear uncomfortable gowns and make pleasant conversation with people who hate us."
"They don't all hate us," you murmured, though your heart wasn't in the defense.
Across the table, Jacaerys stared at his wine cup like it might provide him with answers. You almost felt bad for him. If anyone at this table had no chance of marrying for love, it was him. Not that he seemed particularly interested in finding one person to settle down with, but still, your point stood.
"Well then," Aegon raised his cup. "To Jace's upcoming nuptials. May his future wife have the patience of a saint and the deafness of a stone."
Despite the tension, several people laughed, and Rhaenyra shook her head with exasperated fondness. "Perhaps we should have music," she suggested, gesturing to the musicians who always waited in the shadows during these intimate suppers. "Clear some space. Let us remember we're still young enough to enjoy ourselves."
"An excellent idea," Daemon agreed, already rising. He offered his hand to Rhaenyra with a theatrical bow that made her laugh.
The servants quickly moved the table back, creating a space for dancing as the musicians struck up a lively tune. It was informal, nothing like the rigid court dances you'd endure at the upcoming feasts—this was just family, moving together without judgment or ceremony.
Luke grabbed Rhaena's hand first, spinning her into the space with more enthusiasm than grace. She laughed, steadying him when he nearly tripped over his own feet. Joffrey tried to convince Helaena to dance, but she demurred with a gentle shake of her head, content to watch from her seat.
"Dance with me," Baela demanded, pulling you up before you could protest. "Before one of the boys asks and proceeds to step on our feet."
You let yourself be drawn into the movement, falling into the familiar pattern. Baela was a good dancer—all the Targaryen children were taught from youth that grace in the ballroom was as important as grace on dragonback. You switched partners as the song changed, first with Aegon, who was surprisingly light on his feet despite the wine, then with Luke, who apologized three times for nearly stepping on your hem, which you found adorable.
"You're doing fine," you assured him with a smile, and he grinned back, boyish and sweet.
When that dance ended, you found yourself passed to Jacaerys.
Your breath caught as his hand found yours, the other settling at your waist. His palm was large and warm against your back, steadying you. You could smell him now, clean linen and spice. Could see his eyes up close, brown with flecks of amber in the firelight. Could see, really see, how stupidly beautiful he was.
"Having fun?" he asked as he led you through the steps, his tone pleasantly neutral and polite. The exact same way he'd speak to any cousin at a family gathering.
"Yes," you managed, hoping your voice sounded normal. "It's nice, having everyone together like this."
"Mm," he agreed, spinning you smoothly. "Rarer than it should be. Though I suppose it'll be even rarer once I'm shackled to some lord's daughter who'll expect me to sit through needlepoint demonstrations."
He was trying to make it sound like a joke, but it came out flat. Like he'd already accepted this was happening and hated every second of it.
"Maybe you'll find someone you actually like," you offered, though the words tasted bitter on your tongue.
A laugh, short and bitter. "Maybe. Though I doubt the great houses are sending their daughters for love matches. They want a crown, not a husband."
"Then perhaps you should look for someone who wants neither," you said before you could stop yourself.
Jacaerys raised an eyebrow, something that might have been interest flickering across his face. "And where would I find such a creature? They seem to be in short supply."
Before you could respond—before you could make an even greater fool of yourself—the song ended. Jace released you with a small bow, perfectly proper, and turned to offer his hand to Rhaena for the next dance.
You stepped back, your heart still racing for reasons that had nothing to do with the exertion of dancing. He'd been so normal. So completely indifferent. There was no awareness in his eyes, no sign that he saw you as anything other than his cousin, someone to dance with at family gatherings and exchange pleasantries with at supper. Which was as it should be. You should be relieved and instead, you felt something uncomfortably close to disappointment.
"You look troubled," Helaena's soft voice came from beside you. She'd moved so quietly you hadn't noticed her approach. "Like a bird that's flown into a window."
You turned to her, finding those strange green eyes studying you. "I'm fine," you said automatically.
"The spider watches from the corner," Helaena murmured, her gaze distant in that way it sometimes got after one of her vision spells. "But the spider doesn't know it's caught in a web of its own making."
"Helaena—"
But she'd already drifted away, drawn by something only she could see, leaving you standing at the edge of the dancing with her cryptic words echoing in your mind.
The spider watches from the corner. Seven hells, your poor, dear, earnest cousin knows you’re a pervert.
You watched Jacaerys spin Rhaena through the steps, laughing at something she said. Watched him dance with Baela next, then with his mother, the perfect dutiful son. He never once looked your way again and you told yourself that was exactly what you wanted.
The dancing continued for another hour before Rhaenyra finally called an end to the evening. "Early council meeting tomorrow," she announced with apologetic warmth. "And I need at least some sleep if I'm to endure Tyland Lannister's complaints about the damned grain tariffs."
The group began to disperse—Aegon stumbling slightly as Aemond steadied him with the patience only a brother could have, Luke and Joffrey arguing about something as they headed toward their chambers. You walked back to your chambers with Helaena and Baela, their soft conversation a comfortable buffer against your own churning thoughts. When you finally reached your door, you bid them goodnight and slipped inside, leaning back against the heavy oak with a shaky exhale.
Your ladies had been by earlier, the room was tidy, the fire banked low, your nightgown laid out across the bed. Everything was peaceful and ordinary. Your gaze immediately drifted, unbidden, to the corner where the carved screen stood.
You shouldn't. You absolutely shouldn't. But your feet carried you forward anyway, your hands moving the screen aside with trembling, eager, perverted fingers.
Empty. Fuck.
His room was dark save for a single candle burning on the bedside table. The crimson coverlet was smooth and undisturbed. The heavy curtains drawn back from the windows to let in the moonlight. No Jacaerys. No woman writhing beneath him. Nothing but silence and shadows.
You sat back on your heels, a strange mix of relief and something else—something you refused to name as disappointment—settling in your chest.
Where was he?
It was late, well past the hour when most of the castle had retired. Perhaps he'd gone to the Street of Silk, unwilling to bring his entertainment into the Red Keep on a night when the family had gathered. Perhaps he was in someone else's bed entirely, some lady's maid or kitchen girl who'd caught his eye.
Perhaps he was being discreet, something he clearly hadn't bothered earlier today. The thought dissipated as quickly as it came, no, maybe he was being discreet. Thoughtful, even. Of course, he'd been perfectly discreet earlier too, it was your fault for being a creep.
You pressed your palm against the cold stone, staring at that empty bed as though it might offer answers. The image from earlier was still burned into your mind—the flex of his shoulders, the sound of his voice rough with pleasure, the casual way he'd commanded that woman's body like he owned it.
Your cousin. The heir to the Iron Throne. The boy you'd grown up with, who used to let you win at cyvasse when you were children, who'd shown you how to skip stones across the fountain and laughed when you both got yelled at for it.
When the fuck had he turned into that? When had he learned to move like that, to take someone apart with his hands like it was easy?
And why, by all the Seven, couldn't you stop fucking thinking about it?
You pushed away from the wall, suddenly furious with yourself. This was madness. Dangerous, stupid madness that could only end in humiliation or worse. You needed to forget what you'd seen. Needed to seal that hole in the wall and pretend it had never existed.
Starting tomorrow. You'd call the servants first thing in the morning and have it filled with mortar. Tonight, tonight, though, you would sleep, and you would not dream of your cousin's hands, or his voice, or the way he'd looked so beautiful while lost in pleasure.
You climbed into bed still wearing your red silk gown, too tired to call your ladies back to unlace you. The rubies in your hair pressed uncomfortably against the pillow until you pulled them free with impatient fingers, letting your silver hair spill loose around you.
Sleep was slow to come. When it finally did, you dreamed of dragons and fire, of flying on Cannibal's back while something nameless chased you through the clouds. And in the dream, when you finally turned to face it, it had Jacaerys's eyes.
You did not look through the hole the following morning.
The temptation was there—gods, it was there, a constant itch beneath your skin as your ladies dressed you. But you kept your eyes firmly away from that corner, focusing instead on the monotonous task of standing still while they laced you into your gown.
It was white today, or perhaps the palest blue, the color seemed to shift in the light like a sort of moonstone. The bodice was scaled like dragon armor, each piece of fabric layered and stitched to create the illusion of protection. Gold chains draped across your shoulders and down your bare arms, cold against your skin. More chains hung from your waist, swaying gently when you moved. The sleeves were sheer and flowing, doing little to ward off the morning chill.
"You look like a goddess," Elaena breathed as she stepped back to admire their work.
"I look like I'm about to freeze to death, thank you very much," you replied, though without any real complaint.
Your hair was left mostly loose today, falling in silver waves down your back, with only two small braids pulled back from your face and secured with a dragon clasp of white gold. It was simple and appropriate for a small council meeting where you needed to be taken seriously.
The walk to the council chamber was embedded into your brain, your slippered feet silent on the cold stone floors. Guards nodded as you passed, servants stepped aside with murmured greetings. You were known throughout the Red Keep as kind, perhaps too kind for a Targaryen. You stopped to ask the head cook about her daughter's fever, remembered the name of the stable boy's new puppy hound, listened when the washerwomen complained about the state of the linens.
Your father had been like that, or so Rhaenyra told you. Loved by the smallfolk, remembered fondly even years after his death. You hoped it was true. You hoped you carried something of him beyond just his silver hair and violet eyes.
The council chamber was already half-full when you arrived. Lord Corlys sat at Rhaenyra's right hand, his age showing more each moon but his mind still sharp as any of the younger council members. Daemon lounged in his seat with typical irreverence, picking at his nails with a dagger. Grand Maester Gerardys shuffled through papers, and several other lords whose names you'd long since memorized filled out the remaining seats.
Rhaenys was there too, your mentor in all things draconic and strategic. She caught your eye as you entered and gave you a subtle nod of approval. She'd been instrumental in convincing Rhaenyra to let you train, to let you learn the ways of war despite your aunt's maternal protests.
"Good morrow, niece," Rhaenyra greeted you warmly as you took your seat. "I trust you slept well?"
"Well enough, Your Grace," you replied, ignoring the knowing look Daemon shot you. He always seemed to know when someone was lying, the bastard.
You'd earned your place at this table through years of study—history, law, trade routes, military strategy. While other noble daughters learned needlework and song, you'd buried yourself in the library, devouring every tome you could find. Knowledge was power, and you'd wanted to be useful. Wanted to matter beyond being another pretty Targaryen to marry off for alliances.
And then there was Cannibal. Your sweet baby boy, Cannibal.
You'd claimed him at two and ten, a feat that had shocked the entire realm. The wild dragon, the one who'd killed and eaten other dragons, who'd never been ridden—you'd walked up to him on Dragonstone's smoking beaches and simply asked. And he'd lowered his massive black head and let you climb onto his back.
The bond between you was unlike anything the Dragonkeepers had seen. You could feel him, always, a presence at the back of your mind, dark and fierce and free. Sometimes you knew his thoughts, or at least his intentions. When he wanted to hunt. When he wanted to fly far from the castle and its confining walls. When he missed you, though he'd never admit it, that damned proud creature.
He was out there now, somewhere over the Bay of Blackwater or perhaps the Kingswood. You could feel him, distantly, content in his solitude.
Vhagar was different—ancient, massive, slow with age but no less deadly. Aemond insisted he had full control of her, but you'd seen the truth when you flew near them. Vhagar tolerated Aemond. She hadn't fully accepted him, not the way Cannibal had accepted you. It would take years, perhaps decades, before that bond truly solidified.
If Aemond lived that long. Vhagar was known for her temper.
And Cannibal—Cannibal was larger still. Nearly the size of Balerion the Black Dread himself, or so the Dragonkeepers whispered when they thought you couldn't hear. Black as a night sky with none of the stars, with eyes like green flame and teeth as long as swords. He'd never accept the Dragonpit even if he could fit, which he couldn't. He roosted where he pleased, in sea caves along the coast, in the ruins of old Valyrian outposts, anywhere that gave him space and freedom and solitude.
"Shall we begin?" Rhaenyra's voice pulled you from your thoughts. She waited until everyone had settled, then gestured for Grand Maester Gerardys to start with the day's business.
The first hour was tedious, grain shipments from the Reach, trade disputes with the Free Cities, a complaint from House Royce about border incursions from mountain clans. You paid attention, offered your thoughts when asked, but your mind kept drifting.
Don't think about it. Don't think about him.
"There is one more matter," Rhaenyra said as the meeting drew toward its close. She looked around the table, her gaze lingering on you for a moment before moving on. "I've decided that Jacaerys should begin attending these meetings regularly. Starting the following morrow, he'll be joining us."
A few eyebrows raised, but no one protested. It made sense, he was two and twenty, the acknowledged heir, soon to be married. He needed to understand the workings of the realm he would one day rule.
"Will he be given a formal position?" Lord Corlys asked, ever practical, ever scheming.
"Not immediately," Rhaenyra replied. "Let him observe first. Learn our ways, then we'll see where his talents might be best utilized."
Daemon snorted. "His talents are best utilized in the training yard and the—"
"Daemon," Rhaenyra cut him off with a warning look, though her lips twitched with suppressed amusement.
You felt your cheeks heat and kept your eyes fixed firmly on the table. In a week’s time Jacaerys would be here, sitting in one of these chairs, probably directly across from you. You'd have to see him regularly, maintain professional courtesy, pretend you hadn't watched him fuck a woman senseless.
Gods have mercy.
"Any objections?" Rhaenyra asked, looking around the table.
Silence. What could anyone say? He was the heir and none of you were about to tell the Queen that her son wasn't allowed in the Small Council. That seemed like a great way to lose your head.
"Good. Then we're finished for today." She stood, and everyone else rose with her. "Same time in three days. Try not to let the realm burn down before then."
The council members began to file out, but Rhaenys caught your arm as you moved to leave.
"Walk with me," she said, and it wasn't really a request.
You followed her out into the corridor, down a side passage that led into the city and the Dragonpit. She said nothing for a long moment, just walked with that regal bearing she'd never quite lost, even after being passed over for the throne.
"You seem distracted," she finally said.
"I'm fine."
"You're lying." She stopped, turning to face you with those sharp eyes that missed nothing. "What's wrong?"
For a wild moment, you considered telling her. I accidentally discovered a hole in my wall that looks into Jacaerys's chambers, and now I can't stop thinking about what I saw, and I think I'm losing my mind.
Instead, you said, "I'm just tired. The dancing went rather late last night."
Rhaenys studied you for a long moment, clearly unconvinced, but eventually she nodded. "Very well. But if something is bothering you—truly bothering you—you know you can come to me."
"I know," you said softly. "Thank you."
She squeezed your shoulder once, then continued down the corridor, leaving you alone with your thoughts and the distant sound of dragons roaring in their pit.
You stood there for a moment, staring at nothing, and wondered how in seven hells you were going to survive sitting across from Jacaerys in council meetings. Wondered if he'd look at you the same way he'd looked at you while dancing—politely indifferent, completely unaware of the effect he had.
Wondered if that was better or worse than the alternative.
You found yourself wandering toward the kitchens, drawn by the familiar sounds of clattering pots and raised voices. The rest of the castle felt too quiet after council meetings, too full of people watching their words. The kitchens were honest, they were steaming hot, loud and smelling like fresh bread and meat.
"My lady!" Jessamyn looked up from the massive hearth, her round face flushed from the heat. She'd been head cook for as long as you could remember, ruling her domain with an iron ladle and a sharp tongue. "What brings you down here? Shouldn't you be off doing princess things?"
"Princess things are dreadfully boring," you replied, stealing a piece of candied lemon from a nearby tray. "I'd much rather be here."
"Oi, those are for tonight's supper!" But Jessamyn was smiling, swatting at you halfheartedly with her wooden spoon.
The kitchen staff had long since grown accustomed to your presence. You'd been sneaking down here since you were a child, preferring the warmth and chatter to the formality of the upper floors. Here, no one cared that you were a Targaryen. Here, you were just the girl who always burned her tongue on the stew and asked too many questions about how to make proper gravy.
"How's Mara's fever?" you asked, hopping up onto a cleared section of the work table.
"Broke this morning, thank the gods." Jessamyn's expression softened. "That tea you brought from the Maester helped, I think."
"Good. I'm glad." You watched as two scullery maids argued over the proper way to pluck a chicken, their debate growing increasingly heated. "Should you be concerned about that?"
"They'll sort it out," Jessamyn said dismissively. "Or they'll stab each other with the bloody kitchen knives, and I'll have two fewer girls making my life a misery. Either way."
"You staying for midday meal?" one of the kitchen boys asked hopefully. "We're making that venison stew you like."
"Can't today. I'm going to the Dragonpit."
"Your beast finally coming back?" Jessamyn asked, pulling a tray of bread from the oven. "Haven't seen him in what, near a fortnight?"
"Twelve days," you confirmed. Cannibal preferred his freedom, and you'd never been one to cage him. He came when he wanted, and you would not have it any other way. "He's out past Blackwater Bay somewhere. I can feel him."
"Feel him," one of the maids muttered. "Still sounds like madness to me, my lady."
"It is madness," you agreed cheerfully. "But it's a very useful madness."
You stayed a while longer, listening to the kitchen gossip, who was bedding whom, which lordling had insulted which servant, the general consensus that the upcoming feasts were going to be a right fucking nightmare to prepare for. Apparently, Rhaenyra had requested swan for one of them, and Jessamyn was already composing angry speeches about the impracticality of cooking swan.
"Tough as old leather and mean as sin," she complained, gesturing violently with her ladle. "But does Her Grace care? No. She wants swan because it's elegant. I'll give her elegant—I'll serve it so tough she'll break a tooth on it."
"I'll speak to her," you offered. "Suggest something else."
"You're a good girl," Jessamyn said, patting your cheek with a flour-dusted hand. "Too good for this lot of pompous cunts, if you ask me."
Eventually, you took your leave, stealing one more piece of candied lemon on your way out just to hear Jessamyn's exasperated shout behind you.
The walk to the Dragonpit took you through the city streets, and you pulled your cloak up to hide your distinctive hair. The smallfolk knew you by sight anyway—you came this way often enough—but it was easier not to draw any attention. A few people nodded as you passed, and you nodded back, trying not to think about how different you were from most nobles who never set foot outside the Red Keep's walls without a full escort of gold cloaks.
The Dragonpit loomed ahead, ancient and crumbling in places despite the best efforts to maintain it. The Dragonkeepers bowed as you approached, their respect tinged with something like awe. They still spoke in hushed tones about the day you'd claimed Cannibal, about the wild dragon who'd finally accepted a rider.
You came here even though your dragon never would. Cannibal was too large. He'd never fit through the Dragonpit's entrance even if he wanted to, which he decidedly did not. But you came anyway, to see the other dragons, to speak with the Dragonkeepers who understood what it meant to be bonded to such creatures.
"My lady," the eldest keeper greeted you. "Still no sign of your beast?"
"He's hunting in the Kingswood," you replied, moving past them into the cavernous space.
Some of the other dragons were here, Vermax in his usual corner, Arrax further back, Syrax sunning herself near the entrance where the light streamed in. They all shifted as you entered, great scaled heads turning, sensing you the way dragons always sensed Targaryen blood.
But none of them called to you the way Cannibal did. None of them were yours.
You could feel him now, distant but present in your mind. He was flying over the Kingswood, hunting deer or perhaps wild boar. Satisfied. He sent you an impression—not words, but feeling—of wind and height and the joy of the chase.
Umbās lenton, ñuha riña, you thought at him in High Valyrian, not knowing if he could truly hear your thoughts the way you felt his intentions. Māzigon lo jorrāelagon.
Stay free, my boy. Come if needed.
You stood there in the Dragonpit for a while, watching the other dragons, feeling the heat of their breath and the weight of their ancient eyes. Vhagar wasn't here either—she was too massive, kept in the fields outside the city where she had room to spread her wings without crushing half the buildings in King's Landing. But even Vhagar was smaller than Cannibal.
"He burns green, doesn't he?" one of the younger keepers asked, approaching cautiously. "Your Cannibal. Green flame."
"Yes," you confirmed. "Like poison made fire."
The keeper shuddered slightly. "I've never seen anything like it. Most dragons burn orange or red, sometimes gold. But green and his size. Seven hells, my lady, he's near as big as Balerion was."
"Bigger, perhaps," you said softly. "He's still growing."
The thought should have terrified you. Instead, it filled you with something like pride.
Supper that evening was a grander affair than the intimate family meal from the night before. The great hall was filled with lords and ladies of the court, the high table crowded with Targaryens and their most favored bannermen. Musicians played from the gallery, servants moved between the tables with platters of roasted boar and honeyed duck, and the wine flowed freely.
You sat between Baela and one of the Velaryon cousins whose name you could never quite remember, making polite conversation and trying not to let your gaze wander too obviously across the hall.
Jacaerys, much to your surprise, wasn't there.
His seat at the high table sat empty, and when you'd asked Rhaenyra about it as casually as you could manage, she'd simply said he was indisposed. Daemon had smirked into his wine cup at that, and you'd felt your cheeks burn.
Indisposed. Right, your arse.
The meal dragged on, course after course, toast after toast, Lord Whoever droning on about trade agreements until you wanted to scream. You smiled and nodded and said the right things, all while your mind churned with thoughts you had no business thinking.
Where was he? Out in the city again, finding another willing woman to warm his bed? Or perhaps he'd brought someone here, to his chambers, and simply hadn't wanted to risk being seen at supper with the smell of sex still clinging to him.
Gods, you needed to stop. This needed to stop, permanently, and immediately.
By the time Rhaenyra finally dismissed the court for the evening, you were wound tight as a crossbow string. You said your goodnights to Baela and Helaena, declined Aegon's slurred offer to continue drinking in his chambers, and practically fled back to your own rooms.
Your ladies had already been by, the fire was lit, your sleeping shift laid out. You should call them back to help you out of your gown. Should prepare for bed like a sensible person and get some actual sleep before tomorrow's duties.
Instead, you found yourself moving toward the corner where the carved screen stood.
Don't, you told yourself firmly. Don't be a fool.
But your hands were already pushing the screen aside, your knees hitting the cold stone floor as you pressed your eye to the gap.
Empty. Again. Damn, damn, damn.
The room was dark save for moonlight streaming through the windows. The bed undisturbed, the coverlet smooth. No candles lit, no sign of life. You sat back, frustration coiling in your chest. Where in the seven hells was he?
You should go to bed. Should stop this madness before it consumed you entirely. But instead, you paced. Back and forth across your chamber like a caged animal, your silk skirts swishing against the floor. Every few minutes you'd stop, kneel down, check the hole again.
Still empty.
This was pathetic. You were pathetic. Waiting like some lovesick girl for a glimpse of a man who didn't even know you existed beyond being his cousin at family suppers.
He danced with you, a small voice whispered in your mind. He smiled at you.
He smiled at everyone. That was what princes did. And once again, you checked.
Empty.
"Fuck," you muttered under your breath, pressing your forehead against the cool stone. This was going to drive you mad. You needed to seal this hole, needed to forget you'd ever found it, needed to—
The door to his chamber opened and you froze, eye pressed to the gap, heart suddenly hammering.
Jacaerys entered first, and he wasn't alone. Your throat tightened, and for a split second, you told yourself to look away, to be decent for once. Instead, you pressed harder against the gap, like that might somehow get you closer.
The woman who followed him through the door was decidedly not a servant or a whore from the Street of Silk. Her gown was fine silk, deep green with gold embroidery at the sleeves. This was expensive, well-made, the kind only highborn ladies wore. Her dark hair was pinned up elaborately, though a few strands had come loose, and when she laughed at something Jace said, the sound was refined.
You recognized her after a moment—Lady Cassandra Baratheon, one of Lord Borros's daughters. She'd been at court for the past month, ostensibly to foster closer ties between Storm's End and the crown.
Apparently, she'd been fostering ties of a different sort.
"Wine?" Jace asked, moving to the table where a pitcher sat waiting.
"Please," Cassandra replied, and there was an ease between them that spoke of familiarity. This wasn't their first time together. Not even close.
Something hot and ugly twisted in your chest. Jealousy, perhaps, though you had no right to it.
Jace poured two cups, handed her one, and they stood there for a moment just talking. You couldn't hear the words through the stone, but you could see the way Cassandra touched his arm, fingers trailing down from shoulder to elbow with the intimacy of someone who'd done it before. The way Jace leaned in closer, his head tilted as he listened to whatever she was saying, a small smile playing at his lips.
And then he kissed her, and you inhaled sharply, pulse suddenly pounding everywhere, your throat, your wrists, between your legs.
It started slow—almost tender, really. His hand came up to cup her face, thumb stroking along the line of her jaw as their mouths moved together in a way that suggested they'd learned each other's rhythms. Cassandra made a soft sound, stepping into him, and her fingers tangled in his dark hair, tugging slightly.
Pervert, pervert, pervert.
Your eye stayed pressed to the gap in the stone. Your hand, seemingly of its own accord, had drifted to press against your stomach, just above where heat was beginning to pool low and insistent.
Jace backed her toward the bed, still kissing her, his hands starting to work at the laces of her gown. She helped him, both of them fumbling slightly in their eagerness despite clearly having done this dance before. You watched as layer after layer of silk fell away and onto the floor, first was the overdress, then the underdress, then the stays—until she stood in just her shift, the thin fabric clinging to curves that made your throat go dry.
"Gods, you're beautiful," Jace murmured and you could read the words on his lips even if you couldn't quite hear them through the stone.
Cassandra smiled, reaching for the fastenings of his doublet. "You say that to all of them, my grace."
Your jaw clenched. So you were right. There were others. Many others, probably.
"I mean it with you," Jace said, and you wanted to scream at Cassandra not to believe him, that those were just pretty words he knew how to wield.
But Cassandra seemed to believe him, or at least didn't care if it was true. She pushed his doublet off his shoulders, her hands running over his chest, fingernails scraping lightly over skin, and Jace groaned—a sound you felt echo between your own thighs. He pulled her shift over her head in one smooth motion, and then she was naked before him.
She was beautiful, that you could admit that even through the haze of jealousy burning in your chest. Full breasts, a narrow waist flaring into hips that Jace's hands immediately claimed, skin like cream in the candlelight. Dark hair spilled down her back as Jace turned her around, pressing kisses down her spine, and you watched his mouth trace the path of her vertebrae one by one.
"Jace," she breathed, arching back against him, pressing her bare arse against where you could see he was already hard beneath his breeches.
Your own breathing had gone shallow. Your hand pressed harder against your stomach, wanting to move lower but not quite daring. Not yet.
Jace took his time with her. His hands mapped every curve, every dip and swell of her body. He cupped her breasts, thumbs circling her nipples until they peaked and she gasped. Kissed the side of her neck, teeth scraping against the tendon there in a way that made her shiver. Slid one hand down her stomach, between her thighs, and even from here you could see how she bucked against his touch.
"Please," Cassandra whimpered, and the desperate edge to her voice made your breath catch.
"Patience," Jace murmured against her skin, but there was dark amusement in his tone. He was enjoying this—enjoying making her wait, making her beg.
When he finally guided her onto the bed, she went willingly, eagerly, spreading herself out on the crimson coverlet like an offering. Her thighs fell open without prompting, shameless in her want, and you could see the glistening evidence of her arousal even from your hidden vantage point.
Jace shed the rest of his clothes—unlacing his breeches with quick movements—and your mouth went dry at the sight of him. You'd seen him before, that first night, but somehow this felt different. More intimate. You could see every line of muscle in his stomach, the dark hair trailing down from his navel, the thick length of his cock jutting proudly from his hips as he climbed onto the bed.
Your hand finally, finally, slipped beneath the waistband of your smallclothes.
Jace settled between Cassandra's thighs, bracing himself above her on his forearms, and for a moment they just looked at each other. Then he pushed his cock deep inside her—slow, so agonizingly slow—and Cassandra's head fell back with a moan that you felt echo through your own body.
“Your grace—-hhhhh,” she moaned.
Your fingers found the wet heat between your legs, already slick and aching. You bit your lip hard to keep from making a sound.
"Fuck," Jace groaned, his hips rolling in a steady, measured rhythm. "You feel perfect. So tight and wet for me."
"Harder," Cassandra gasped, her nails raking down his back hard enough to leave red marks. "Please, your grace, I need—"
He gave her exactly what she wanted.
The gentleness evaporated like morning mist, replaced by something raw and almost brutal. Jace pulled nearly all the way out before slamming his cock back into her, and Cassandra cried out—pleasure and pain mixing in her voice in a way that made your fingers circle faster over your clit. His hand fisted in her hair, yanking her head back to expose the long line of her throat, and his teeth found the skin there, biting down just hard enough to make her gasp.
"Is this what you wanted?" Jace growled, his voice low and dangerous in a way you'd never heard before. Not gentle, princely Jace. This was something darker. "This what you've been thinking about all through supper? Sitting there with your father, making polite conversation, while all you could think about was having my cock inside you?"
"Yes," Cassandra sobbed, her body arching to meet each brutal thrust. The obscenity of the words, the rawness of it, sent liquid heat flooding through you. "Gods, yes, don't stop—please don't stop—"
Your fingers worked faster, your other hand coming up to muffle any sounds threatening to escape your throat. You could feel your own wetness coating your fingers, could feel the tension building low in your belly as you watched Jace fuck Cassandra with single-minded intensity.
"Greedy little thing," Jace muttered, but there was dark satisfaction in his tone. His free hand moved between their bodies, and you knew exactly what he was doing when Cassandra suddenly cried out sharply, her whole body going rigid. He was circling her clit with his thumb while he pounded into her, giving her pleasure from two directions at once, and the thought of it—the thought of him doing that to you—made your legs tremble.
"Jace, I'm going to—oh gods, I'm going to come—"
"That's it," he encouraged, his voice rough and strained. "Come on my cock. Let me feel you, sweetling."
She shattered. Her whole body convulsed, back arching off the bed, mouth open in a silent scream before the sound finally tore from her throat—his name, over and over, like a prayer. You could see the way her cunt clenched around him, could see the exact moment the pleasure crested and broke over her.
Your own fingers moved desperately, chasing the same release, imagining it was Jace's hand between your thighs, Jace's cock filling you, Jace's voice in your ear telling you how good you felt. But Jace didn't stop. He kept fucking Cassandra through her peak, relentless, using her body to chase his own pleasure as she whimpered and clutched at the sheets beneath her. Her sensitivity must have been overwhelming, but he showed no mercy, just kept driving into her with brutalness.
He was so undeniably good at this, at fucking whores, noble ladies, at driving his cock into their cunts and making them squeal beneath him from the pleasure.
"Too much," she gasped, but her hips were still rising to meet his, her body betraying her words. "Y-your grace, it's—fuck—it's too much—"
"You can take it," he said, and there was something almost cruel in his certainty. "You always take it so well for me."
His rhythm grew erratic, desperate. You could see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw clenched, the muscles in his arse flexing with each thrust. He was close—so close—
Your own pleasure was building, that familiar tightening, that pressure mounting—
Jace pulled out suddenly, wrapping his hand around himself and stroking once, twice, before he came with a groan that sounded almost pained. His seed spilled across Cassandra's stomach in thick ropes, marking her, claiming her, and the sight of it—the raw, animalistic possession of it—sent you tumbling over the edge.
You bit down on your palm hard enough to taste blood, muffling the sound threatening to tear from your throat as pleasure crashed through you in waves. Your fingers didn't stop, working you through it, drawing it out until you were shaking and oversensitive and barely able to see through the haze.
When you finally came back to yourself, gasping and trembling, Jace was cleaning Cassandra with gentle touches that seemed almost absurd after the brutality of moments before. She was boneless against the pillows, looking thoroughly debauched, her hair a tangled mess and her skin flushed pink.
"Stay," Jace said quietly, pulling her against his chest.
"I shouldn't," Cassandra murmured, but she was already nestling into him, her head tucked beneath his chin. "If someone finds out—"
"Let them find out. I don't care."
You wanted to laugh at the lie of it. Of course he cared. He just didn't care enough not to fuck her. Within minutes, Cassandra's breathing had evened out into sleep, her body going lax in his arms. Jace stared at the ceiling for a long while, his expression unreadable in the dim light. One hand stroked absently through her hair, gentle in a way that made your chest ache.
Then he turned his head slightly—and for one heart-stopping moment, his gaze seemed to land exactly where you knelt. Directly at the wall. Directly at your hiding place.
But that was impossible. He couldn't see you through solid stone. Couldn't know you were there, hand still between your thighs, lips swollen from biting back your moans, watching him like some desperate, pathetic creature.
You jerked back from the hole anyway, your heart hammering wildly against your ribs. Your whole body was trembling—from the release, from the fear of discovery, from shame so acute it felt like it might choke you. You'd just brought yourself to peak while watching your cousin fuck another woman. While imagining it was you in that bed, you he was whispering filth to, you he was making come apart on his cock.
This was sick. Wrong. You were sick and wrong and yet, deep down, you knew, with terrible certainty, that you'd be back tomorrow night. And the night after that. Until this madness either consumed you or destroyed you entirely.
You barely slept that night.
Every time you closed your eyes, you saw him, his shoulders, his body, his thick cock, the way his hand had fisted in Cassandra's hair, the rough timber of his voice as he'd commanded her to come. And beneath it all, the shameful memory of your own hand between your thighs, chasing pleasure you had no right to feel.
When dawn finally broke, you were grateful for it.
Your ladies dressed you in silence, perhaps sensing your foul mood. The gown today was the palest blush pink. The bodice was fitted with embroidered silver thread in delicate patterns that caught the morning sun. The neckline dipped low, modest enough for court but still flattering, drawing the eye. Long flowing sleeves of sheer silk hung from your shoulders, gossamer-thin, moving like water with each gesture. The skirts were layers upon layers of the same pale silk, creating an almost dreamlike effect as you walked, the fabric seeming to float around you.
The walk to the council chamber felt longer than usual. You nodded to the guards, smiled at passing servants, and tried not to think about the fact that Jacaerys would be here today. His first small council meeting. Sitting across from you for hours while you pretended you hadn't watched him fuck Lady Baratheon into the mattress last night.
Gods give you strength.
The council chamber was already filling when you arrived. "Good morrow, niece," Rhaenyra greeted you warmly as you took your seat.
"Your Grace." You settled into your chair, arranging your skirts, trying not to look at the empty seat that would soon be occupied.
Others filtered in quick waves, Lord Bartimos Celtigar, Master of Coin; Ser Steffon Darklyn, Commander of the City Watch; a handful of other lords whose presence was required. The table filled, voices murmuring in low conversation.
Then the door opened again, and Jacaerys entered.
He looked... gods, he looked perfect. Rested and put-together in a way that seemed deeply unfair given what you knew he'd been doing until late into the night. His doublet was his usual black with red embroidery, his dark hair neatly combed, and when he smiled at his mother, it was warm and genuine and completely utterly unbothered.
"Apologies for my lateness," he said, taking the empty seat directly across from you.
Of course. Of course he'd be directly in your line of sight.
His eyes met yours for a brief moment—polite, pleasant, utterly indifferent—before moving on. No recognition. No awareness that anything was amiss. He had no idea what you'd witnessed. No idea that you'd spent the night with your hand between your thighs, imagining it was you in Cassandra Baratheon's place.
"Let us begin," Rhaenyra said once everyone had settled. She gestured to Grand Maester Gerardys. "The reports from the North, if you would."
Gerardys cleared his throat and began reading, something about increased wildling activity beyond the Wall, requests from the Night's Watch for additional men and supplies. You forced yourself to pay attention, to nod at the appropriate moments, to look anywhere except at Jacaerys.
It was going to be a very long meeting. The discussion moved from the North to the Stepstones, where Daemon's efforts to hold the islands remained precarious at best. Then to trade disputes with Pentos, grain shortages in the Reach, and a particularly tedious debate about tax collection methods that made you want to throw yourself from the nearest window.
Jacaerys contributed thoughtfully when asked, his observations intelligent and well-reasoned. He'd been well-trained for this, you realized. Rhaenyra had made sure her heir would be ready to rule, ready to navigate the complexities of statecraft. Of the Realm.
Ready to be the perfect prince while fucking half the women in King's Landing in his spare time.
"There is another matter," Rhaenys said, her voice cutting through your spiraling thoughts. She was looking at you, and there was something in her expression that made your stomach clench. "The matter of our dragons and their war-readiness."
The table went quiet.
"The realm is at peace," Lord Corlys pointed out carefully.
"For now," Rhaenys replied. "But peace is a fragile thing, as we all learned during the—" she paused, choosing her words carefully, "—recent troubles. We cannot afford to be complacent."
"What are you suggesting?" Rhaenyra asked, though her tone suggested she already knew.
"That we ensure our dragons are battle-ready. That we train them for war, even if we pray that war never comes." Rhaenys turned her sharp gaze fully on you. "Cannibal, in particular, has never been tested in true combat. He's large, powerful, but wild and untested."
Your jaw tightened. "Cannibal doesn't need testing. He's—"
"A wild dragon who's only known freedom," Rhaenys interrupted, not unkindly. "I'm not questioning your bond with him, child. I'm suggesting that bond needs to be forged stronger and that will only come through discipline."
"You want me to train him for war," you said flatly.
"I want you to prepare him for the possibility of war." Rhaenys leaned forward slightly. "With drills and formation flying with the other dragons. Learning to respond to commands in the chaos of battle. These things take time and practice."
You wanted to argue. Wanted to say that Cannibal would never tolerate such constraints, that he'd sooner eat the other dragons than fly in formation with them. That forcing him into drills and formations would break something fundamental in the bond between you, the trust that came from respecting his need for freedom.
"I don't think it's a good idea," you said carefully. "Cannibal isn't like the other dragons. He's larger, older in his ways. Trying to force him into formations could be potentially dangerous."
"Dangerous for whom?" Daemon asked, sounding genuinely curious rather than mocking. "For you, or for the other dragons?"
"Both," you admitted. "Cannibal doesn't play well with others. He never has. That's why he lived alone on Dragonstone for so long, why he—" you stopped yourself before saying ate the other dragons, because that seemed impolitic in the moment. "Why he prefers solitude."
"All the more reason to socialize him now," Rhaenys countered. "Before we're in the middle of a battle and he decides another dragon looks appetizing."
A few uncomfortable chuckles around the table. It wasn't really a joke, not one you found particularly funny.
"What about Vhagar?" you asked, grasping for any argument. "She's larger, older. Is Aemond expected to fly formation drills with her?"
"Vhagar is already battle-tested," Rhaenys replied. "She fought in Aegon's Conquest, in the wars since. She knows what's expected. Cannibal has only ever known hunting sheep and being left alone."
It stung because it was true. For all his size and power, Cannibal had never been to war. Had never been asked to do anything more demanding than fly when you called and let you sit astride him while he soared through the clouds.
"What does Her Grace think?" you asked, turning to Rhaenyra. Let the Queen make this decision, let it not be your choice to potentially damage the one pure thing in your life.
Rhaenyra studied you for a long moment, her expression deep in thought. "I think Rhaenys makes valid points. But I also trust your judgment when it comes to your dragon. If you truly believe this would be harmful rather than helpful, I'll take that into consideration."
It was a careful, political answer. She was giving you an out, but also making it clear that refusing would require solid justification, not just childish objection.
"I'll think about it," you said finally. "Perhaps we could start small. Test his tolerance before committing to full formation drills."
"A reasonable compromise," Rhaenys agreed, though she didn't look entirely satisfied. "We'll begin in a week's time. Simple exercises first."
The knot in your stomach tightened, but you nodded anyway.
"What about Vermax?" Daemon asked, his gaze sliding to Jacaerys with lazy interest. "The heir's dragon should certainly be included in this training."
"Vermax and I train regularly," Jace said, and there was the slightest edge of defensiveness in his tone.
"In the training yard, yes," Rhaenys replied. "But have you ever taken him into simulated combat? Flown him through fire and smoke? Tested his response time when startled?"
Jace's jaw tightened. "No."
"Then you'll join us as well," Rhaenys said, brooking no argument. "All dragonriders of fighting age. Baela, Rhaena, Aegon if we can pry him away from his cups long enough."
"Then it's settled," Rhaenyra said, her tone making it clear the discussion was closed. "Rhaenys will oversee the training regimen. All dragonriders are expected to participate." Her eyes found yours. "Including you, niece. I know Cannibal prefers his solitude, but this is necessary."
You bit back a dozen more arguments and simply nodded. "As you command, Your Grace."
The meeting dragged on for another hour, more reports, more discussions, more decisions that needed to be made. Through it all, you were acutely aware of Jacaerys sitting across from you. The way he listened intently when others spoke. The way his fingers drummed absently against the table when he was thinking. The way he looked so effortlessly princely while you sat there trying not to remember the sound of his voice, rough with pleasure, commanding Cassandra to come for him.
Finally, finally, Rhaenyra called an end to it. "Same time in three days. Try not to let anything catch fire before then."
You stood quickly, eager to escape before—
"Walk with me?" Rhaenys said, appearing at your elbow.
Of course because the gods clearly thought you hadn't suffered enough today. You fell into step beside her, following her out of the council chamber and down a side corridor. She said nothing for a long moment, just walked with that regal bearing she'd never lost, even after being passed over for the throne.
"You seem troubled," she finally said.
"I don't think Cannibal will take well to this training. I'm worried it will damage our bond."
Rhaenys studied you for a long moment, clearly unconvinced that was the whole truth. "He'll adjust. The bond between you is strong enough to weather some discomfort."
"It's not just discomfort. He's not like the other dragons. He's—"
"Wild. Yes, I know. But wildness can be channeled, shaped, without breaking it entirely." She squeezed your shoulder gently. "Trust me, and more importantly, trust him. Trust that your bond is stronger than a few training exercises. He did choose you, at the end of the day."
You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak.
"Now," Rhaenys said, her tone shifting to something lighter, "I believe Helaena was looking for you earlier. Something about her insects?"
Right. Helaena. Safe, sweet Helaena who wouldn't ask probing questions about why you looked like you hadn't slept properly in days.
"Thank you," you said quietly. "For everything, Aunt."
Rhaenys smiled, though there was something sad in it. "Go. Spend time with your cousin. The gods know there are precious few people in this world who'll love us without wanting something in return."
You found Helaena in her chambers, which were somehow both cluttered and organized in a way only she could manage. Jars and terrariums covered every surface, each containing some specimen or another, there were butterflies, beetles, spiders, things you couldn't even name. It was entirely Helaena.
"You came," Helaena said, looking up from where she was carefully transferring a large iridescent beetle from one container to another. Her silver-gold hair was loose around her shoulders, and she wore a simple gown of pale green that brought out the unusual color of her eyes. "I wasn't sure you would."
"Of course I came." You settled onto the cushioned bench beside her workspace, careful not to disturb anything. The layers of your pink gown pooled around you like flower petals. "What have you found, dear cousin?"
Helaena's face lit up in that rare, genuine smile she reserved for the things she truly loved. "A stag beetle. Look at his mandibles, aren't they magnificent?"
You looked. The beetle was indeed impressive, its horn-like mandibles nearly as long as its body, gleaming black with hints of deep purple when the light hit them right. "Beautiful," you agreed, and meant it.
For the next hour, Helaena showed you her collection, explaining in her soft, sometimes disjointed way about each specimen's habits and characteristics. You listened, grateful for the distraction, for the simplicity of her enthusiasm. Here, there were no council meetings or dragon training or inappropriate thoughts about cousins.
"Lord Cregan Stark sent me a letter," Helaena said suddenly, interrupting her own explanation about moth wing patterns.
You blinked. "Did he?"
"Yes. He's coming to court for the feasts. The ones for Jace." She was studying a moth wing with intense focus, not meeting your eyes. "He asked if he might call on me. To discuss insects."
Something in her tone made you pause. "Ah, I see, insects."
"He's interested in the wildlife of the North. The creatures that survive the cold. The ice spiders." Helaena finally looked up, and there was something almost vulnerable in her green eyes. "Do you think that's really why he wants to call on me?"
Oh. Oh.
Cregan Stark was young, newly Lord of Winterfell after his father's passing two years past. By all accounts he was honorable, strong, kind, everything a northern lord should be. And if he was expressing interest in Helaena...
"I think," you said carefully, "that Lord Cregan would be very fortunate if you agreed to speak with him. About insects or anything else, dear cousin."
Helaena's cheeks flushed pink. "He's very kind in his letters. Patient and he doesn't mind when I ramble about things most people find boring. He even sent me a preserved ice spider specimen from beyond the Wall. Said he thought I might like to study it."
Your heart softened. A man who would hunt down rare specimens for Helaena's collection was a man worth considering. "That's incredibly thoughtful, Hel."
"Mother says I should consider marriage eventually. That I can't hide in my chambers with my insects forever." Helaena's voice was quiet, tinged with something like resignation. "But most lords look at me like I'm mad. Like I'm something to be pitied or fixed."
"Then they're fools," you said firmly. "You're brilliant, Helaena. Anyone with half a brain can see that."
"Lord Cregan doesn't look at me like that. At least, not in his letters." She turned back to her moths, a small smile playing at her lips. "He asks questions. Real questions about my observations and theories. He doesn't just humor me."
"Will you see him when he arrives?"
"I... I believe I might." She looked back down at her specimens, fingers gentle as she adjusted a butterfly's position in its case. "It's strange. I never thought—I mean, I never imagined someone might actually want to court me. Not really."
"You're a princess of the blood," you pointed out. "Half the lords in Westeros would trip over themselves for the chance."
"They'd trip over themselves for the crown and the alliance," Helaena corrected softly. "Not for me. But Lord Cregan, he talks to me like I'm a person. Not a prize to be won or a madwoman to be managed."
You reached over and squeezed her hand. "Then I hope he lives up to his letters. And if he doesn't, I'll feed him to Cannibal."
Helaena laughed, a rare, bright sound that made you smile despite everything. "The wolf meets the spider in the dark. The spider weaves while the wolf watches. But which one catches which?"
Another one of her strange pronouncements. You'd long since given up trying to decipher them.
"What about you?" Helaena asked, suddenly aware of her surroundings again. "Will you dance with any lords at the feasts?"
Your stomach dropped. You'd almost managed to forget about the upcoming feasts, the parade of eligible ladies who would be throwing themselves at Jacaerys while you watched from the sidelines.
"I doubt it," you said lightly. "You know I prefer the edges of the room to the center of attention."
"The spider watches from the corner," Helaena murmured again, and something in her tone made you look up sharply. "But the spider doesn't know it's caught in a web of its own making."
Helaena suddenly moved on, returning her attention to her beetles, humming softly to herself. Leaving you to wonder if she'd just made an innocent observation or if she somehow knew exactly what you'd been doing in the dark corners of your chambers.
You stayed with Helaena until the sun began to set, letting her soft voice and gentle presence soothe the jagged edges of your thoughts. Here, at least, things made sense. Here, you could almost forget the madness consuming you.
Almost.
When you finally took your leave, pressing a kiss to the top of her silver head, she caught your hand.
"Be careful," she said quietly. "Webs are sticky things. Hard to escape once you're caught."
You had no answer for that. The walk back to your chambers was quiet, most of the castle beginning to prepare for the evening meal. When you reached your door, you found your ladies already waiting.
"We've prepared a bath, my lady," Lysa said with a smile. "Thought you might want to wash before supper."
Gods, yes. Perhaps hot water and lavender oil could wash away the tension coiled tight in your shoulders, the restless energy that had plagued you all day.
"Thank you," you said, letting them usher you inside.
The tub had been set up near the fire, steam rising from the water in lazy curls. Your ladies helped you out of the elaborate pink gown, unlacing the bodice and lifting the layers of silk away until you stood in just your shift. Then that too was removed, and you stepped into the blessed heat of the bath with a sigh.
"We'll be just outside if you need anything, my lady," Maryse said. "Call when you're ready to dress for supper."
You nodded, already sinking deeper into the water, letting it cover you up to your shoulders. The heat seeped into your muscles, and for the first time all day, you felt some of the tension begin to ease.
You closed your eyes, breathing in the scent of lavender, trying to empty your mind of everything, council meetings, dragon training, Helaena's cryptic warnings, and most especially the memory of brown eyes and dark hair and hands that knew exactly how to make a woman fall apart.
Stop, you told yourself firmly. Just stop.
For a few blessed minutes, you succeeded. The water, the warmth, the quiet—it was almost peaceful.
Then something moved at the edge of your vision. You opened your eyes and looked toward the rim of the tub. A spider. But not just any spider, this thing was massive, easily the size of your palm, with thick hairy legs and a body that seemed to pulse as it crept along the wooden edge of the tub. Moving toward you.
The scream tore from your throat before you could stop it, pure, primal terror that echoed off the stone walls.
You shot to your feet, water sloshing over the sides of the tub, your whole body shaking as you tried to scramble away from the creature. But the tub was slippery, your feet finding no purchase, and you nearly fell before catching yourself on the edge.
"My lady!" You heard Lysa's voice, muffled through the door, and then—
The door burst open, but it wasn't your ladies who came through first.
It was Jacaerys. He must have been passing in the corridor, must have heard your scream and thought, what? That you were being murdered? Attacked? He rushed in with his hand on his sword hilt, eyes wild, clearly ready to face down whatever threat had made you scream like that.
And then he froze. Because you were standing there, in the middle of the tub, completely and utterly naked. Water streaming down your body, your silver hair plastered to your back and shoulders, every inch of you exposed in the firelight.
For one endless, horrifying moment, neither of you moved.
His eyes went wide, his mouth falling open slightly as his gaze traveled down and then snapped back up to your face. You could see the exact moment his brain caught up with what he was seeing, the way his cheeks flushed, the way his throat worked as he swallowed.
"I—" he started, his voice rough. "I heard you scream, I thought—"
"SPIDER!" you shrieked, pointing at the creature that was still making its way around the rim of the tub, seemingly unconcerned with the chaos it had caused. "There's a massive fucking spider, Jace!"
Jace's gaze followed your pointing finger, and you watched him take in the admittedly impressive specimen currently terrorizing you.
"That's, yes, that's a spider," he said, somewhat stupidly.
"I KNOW IT'S A SPIDER!" you yelled, still frozen in place, acutely aware that you were naked and he was staring and your ladies were probably right behind him in the corridor and this was literally the worst thing that had ever happened to you.
Your ladies burst in then, Lysa and Maryse and Elaena, their faces panicked, clearly thinking you were dying. They took in the scene, you, naked in the tub. Jacaerys, standing there looking like he'd been struck by lightning. The spider, innocently crawling.
"My lady!" Lysa gasped, immediately grabbing a linen cloth and rushing forward to wrap it around you.
But the damage was done. Jacaerys had seen everything. Every curve, every inch of skin, every part of you that should have remained hidden beneath layers of silk and propriety.
Damn the Gods. Damn you, this is your punishment for being a pervert.
"I'll just—" Jace stammered, backing toward the door, his face now bright red. "I'll—the spider—sorry—I thought—"
He practically fled, the door slamming shut behind him. You stood there, wrapped in the linen cloth, shaking for entirely different reasons now.
"Oh gods," you breathed. "Oh gods, he saw me. He saw—"
"It's all right, my lady," Maryse said soothingly, though she looked rather scandalized herself. "It was an accident. He heard you scream and thought you were in danger."
"I AM in danger!" you gestured wildly at the spider, which had now made it halfway around the tub. "That thing is massive!"
"It's just a spider, my lady," Elaena said gently, moving toward it with a cloth. Within moments she'd captured it and was carrying it toward the window. "See? Harmless."
Harmless. Right. Unlike the memory now burned into both your and Jacaerys's minds of you standing bare-arsed naked in a bathtub while he stared at you like a man who'd forgotten how to breathe.
"We need to get you dressed," Lysa said firmly, already moving to pull out clothes. "Supper will be starting soon."
"I can't go to supper," you said, your voice rising. "I can't face him after—after he just saw me naked."
"You have to go to supper, my lady," Maryse said, not unkindly. "If you don't, everyone will wonder why. And rumors will start."
Worse rumors than "the princess screamed bloody murder over a spider and her cousin saw her naked"? You doubted it. But she was right. You had to go. Had to face him. Had to somehow sit through an entire meal pretending that nothing had happened while knowing that Jacaerys now knew exactly what you looked like without clothes. While knowing that you'd seen the look in his eyes—surprise, yes, but also something else. Something heated that had flashed across his face before embarrassment took over.
"Fuck," you muttered under your breath.
"Language, my lady," Lysa chided gently, but she was already helping you out of the tub.
This was going to be the longest supper of your entire life.
The great hall was already filled with lords and ladies when you arrived, late enough that most people were already seated. The musicians were playing something lively from the gallery, servants moved between tables with wine and platters of food, and the general hum of conversation and laughter filled the space.
You wanted to sink through the floor and disappear.
Somehow you made it to your seat at the high table without tripping over your own feet, a minor miracle considering how unsteady you felt. You'd been dressed in a gown of deep purple silk, your ladies working quickly to make you presentable. Your hair was still slightly damp at the ends, but they'd managed to braid it back in a way that hid the worst of it.
Baela was already seated beside you, laughing at something Rhaena had said. On your other side, Helaena was staring at her plate with that distant expression she sometimes got. And across the table Jacaerys sat beside Lady Cassandra Baratheon.
He was leaning toward her, saying something that made her laugh, that refined, ladylike laugh you'd heard through the stone wall. His hand rested on the table close to hers, not quite touching but near enough to be intimate. He looked perfectly composed, perfectly at ease, like he hadn't just seen his cousin naked less than an hour ago.
You grabbed your wine cup and drank deeply.
"You have no idea," you muttered into your cup.
The meal began, course after course of roasted meats and honeyed vegetables and fresh bread. You pushed food around your plate, barely tasting anything, hyperaware of every movement Jace made across the table. The way he smiled at Cassandra. The way she touched his arm when she spoke. The easy familiarity between them that spoke of more than one night together.
"All right, what's wrong?" Baela asked finally, setting down her fork and turning to face you properly. "You've been sulking since you sat down. Did something happen at council?"
"No," you said quickly. Too quickly.
Baela's eyes narrowed. "Then what?"
You glanced around, making sure no one else was listening. Then you leaned closer and whispered, "Jace saw me naked."
For a moment, Baela just stared at you. Then she burst out laughing—loud enough that several people turned to look.
"Shut up, this is not funny!" you hissed, your face burning with shame.
"It's a little funny," Baela managed between gasps. "How in the seven hells did that happen?"
You covered your face with your hands, mortified beyond measure. "There was a spider. A huge one. He was in my bath and then I screamed and he must have been in the corridor and he came running in thinking I was being murdered or something and I was just—standing there—completely bare-arsed—hh"
Baela was practically crying with laughter now, her hand pressed to her stomach. "A spider," she wheezed. "You're telling me the mighty dragonrider who claimed Cannibal, who sits on the small council, screamed loud enough to bring the heir running because of a spider?"
"It was a very large spider," you said defensively, though your own lips were twitching despite your mortification.
“And, so, he saw everything?" Her voice went low and suggestive, bringing a finger to her mouth and biting the tip of it as her lips curved into a smirk.
"Everything," you confirmed miserably. "Full frontal view. Nothing left to imagination."
"Oh gods," Baela wiped at her eyes. "And what did he do?"
"Stood there like a fish for about three seconds, went bright red, stammered something about the spider, and then fled like the castle was on fire."
"That's amazing," Baela said, still grinning. "That's the best thing I've heard all week."
"I'm glad my humiliation amuses you," you said sourly, but you couldn't quite hold onto your irritation. It was sort of funny, in a horrifying, want-to-die sort of way.
"Look at the bright side," Baela said, taking a sip of her wine. "Now you know he's definitely seen you naked. That's more than most ladies can say about the heir before marriage."
You kicked her under the table.
"Ow! I'm just saying—"
"Well don't," you muttered, risking a glance across the table.
Jace was still deep in conversation with Cassandra, his attention completely focused on her. He hadn't looked your way once since you'd sat down. Was probably trying very hard not to look at you, considering what he'd seen.
Your stomach twisted, he'd seen you naked—completely, utterly exposed—and less than an hour later he was here, flirting with the woman he'd been fucking just the night before. Like it meant nothing. Like you meant nothing. Which of course you didn't. You were his cousin, a political piece on the board, same as everyone else.
The fact that you'd watched him through a hole in the wall, that you'd brought yourself to come while imagining his hands on you instead of Cassandra—that was your problem. Your shame to carry, your degenerate shame.
"You're doing it again," Baela said quietly.
"Doing what?"
"Looking like you want to kill someone, dear cousin." She followed your gaze across the table. "Ah. Lady Cassandra."
"You know she's not the only one, right?"
You blinked. "What?"
"Jace." Baela kept her voice low, casual, as she cut into her meat. "He's got quite the appetite, from what I hear. Half the ladies at court have warmed his bed at some point or another."
Your stomach twisted even though you already knew this. Had seen it.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Baela shrugged, a wicked grin playing at her lips. "Just saying, if you ever wanted to... you know. Sample the goods before he's shackled to some boring highborn wife, now's your chance. He's not particularly discriminating."
You nearly choked on your wine. "Baela!"
"What? I'm just saying.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I'm told he's very talented, Lady Cassandra certainly seems satisfied."
"I am not having this conversation with you," you hissed, your face burning.
"Your loss." Baela sat back with a laugh. "Though honestly, I don't blame you for looking. He's annoyingly pretty for someone with such common blood. Those brown eyes, that hair, he’s very brooding hero of a song, isn't he?"
"You're drunk, Baela."
"I'm tipsy," she corrected, "and you're deflecting."
"I'm not interested in Jace," you said firmly. "Not like that anyways."
It wasn't entirely a lie. You weren't interested in romancing with Jace. You didn't want his love or his devotion or whatever pretty words he whispered to the hoards of women in his bed. You just wanted, gods, you didn't even know what you wanted. To stop thinking about him, probably, most likely. And certainly to stop seeing his fucking gorgeous face every time you closed your eyes.
"Whatever you say," Baela said breezily, clearly not believing you but willing to drop it. "I'm just saying, the man's going to be married off soon. If you wanted a taste, the window's closing."
You rolled your eyes so hard it hurt. "You're impossible."
The conversation moved on, Rhaena leaned over to tell you both about some drama involving a lady-in-waiting and a stableboy, and you forced yourself to laugh, despite your gaze kept drifting across the table.
You didn't look through the hole that night.
It took every ounce of willpower you possessed, but you left that carved screen exactly where it was and climbed into bed fully clothed, too exhausted to even call your ladies back to help you undress properly. Sleep came fitfully, plagued by dreams of brown eyes and smirks and the memory of standing naked in a bathtub while your cousin stared.
When you woke, sunlight was streaming through your windows and someone was pounding on your door.
"My lady!" Lysa's voice, urgent and harried. "You need to wake! The lords are arriving and you're expected in the courtyard within the hour!"
Right. The festivities. The celebration of Jacaerys coming of age, of finding him a suitable bride. A full day of feasting and tournaments and watching eligible ladies parade themselves in front of the heir to the throne. Wonderful, just wonderful. Despite yourself, you managed to drag yourself out of bed and let your ladies descend upon you like a flock of determined birds. They stripped away yesterday's rumpled gown, scrubbed you with rose-scented soap, and set about the elaborate process of making you presentable as they did every morning.
The gown they'd chosen was magnificent, it was a midnight blue silk that seemed to shimmer between black and deepest sapphire depending on how the light hit it. But you shook your head.
"No. The white one with the gold and red."
Your ladies exchanged glances but didn't argue. They brought out the dress you'd requested, white as fresh snow, with gold embroidery that traced patterns of dragons and flames across the bodice and down the flowing sleeves. Red accents caught the light like drops of blood, rubies sewn into the neckline and waist. The skirts were layers upon layers of silk and gossamer that moved like water, the train long enough to pool behind you like a bride.
It was a statement, really, like Alicent’s green gowns. A reminder of who you were, a Targaryen, a dragon rider, not someone to be overlooked even as every other woman at court tried to catch the heir's eye. Your hair was left mostly down, falling in silver waves to your calves, with elaborate braids woven through and secured with gold and ruby pins shaped like dragon claws. By the time they finished, you looked like something out of a song.
You barely heard the compliments ringing from your ladies tongues. You were already moving toward the door, trying to steel yourself for whatever fresh hell today would bring.
The courtyard was flooded when you arrived. Banners from a dozen different houses snapped in the morning breeze, there was Stark, Tully, Arryn, Lannister, more. Lords and their retinues filing in through the gates, their daughters dressed in their finest, all of them here for the same purpose.
To win the favor of the Crown Prince.
You spotted Cregan Stark immediately—he was hard to miss, tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair and grey eyes that seemed to take in everything. He was a gorgeous man, and currently he was speaking with Rhaenyra, his manner respectful but not obsequious. A good sign, if Helaena was genuinely considering him. But it wasn't Cregan who made you pause. It was the way every male head in the courtyard seemed to turn as you descended the steps.
Lords, knights, visiting dignitaries, they all looked. Some with open admiration, others with more subtle interest, but they looked. You were used to attention, had grown up beautiful and aware of it, but this felt different. Or perhaps you were just more aware of it now, after everything.
"Seven hells," you heard someone mutter—one of the Tully boys, you thought. "Is that—"
You kept your chin high and your expression serene as you made your way through the crowd. Lords bowed as you passed, their sons stared, and you pretended not to notice any of it. Rhaenyra stood on the dais with Daemon beside her, already holding court. Jacaerys was there too, looking infuriatingly well-rested in black and red, his attention on whatever Lord Corlys was saying to him.
"Cousin," Aegon appeared at your elbow. "You're causing quite the stir. I think Lord Tyrell's son just walked into a pillar because he was too busy staring at you."
"Good," you said flatly.
Aegon laughed. "That's the spirit. Make them all suffer, my dear cousin. "
"Come," Aegon said, tugging at your elbow. "We're expected to stand there and look pretty while Father's old bannermen parade their daughters like prize mares. Should be entertaining enough."
You let him guide you to where the rest of the family was gathering. Rhaenyra sat in the place of honor with Daemon beside her, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. Helaena was tucked between Baela and Rhaena, already looking overwhelmed by the crowd. And Jacaerys stood at the center of it all, the sun around which this entire day revolved.
"How many do you think there are?" Aegon asked, settling in beside you with his cup. "I'm counting at least fifteen eligible ladies, and those are just the ones I can see from here."
"Shouldn't you be paying attention?" you asked. "You're supposed to be looking for a wife too."
"Gods, don't remind me." He took a long drink. "Mother's been at me for months about it. Apparently being six and twenty and unmarried is some sort of tragedy."
"Is it not?"
"It's called having standards," Aegon replied airily. "Low ones, admittedly, but standards nonetheless."
Rhaenyra stood, and the courtyard quieted. "Lords and ladies," she began, her voice carrying across the space. "We are honored by your presence here today as we celebrate my son and heir, Prince Jacaerys, and his coming of age. Many of you have traveled far to be here, and we welcome you all to King's Landing."
Polite applause. Jace smiled that princely smile, gracious and warm.
"Today marks the beginning of festivities that will last the fortnight," Rhaenyra continued. "Tournaments, feasts, and celebrations in honor of the Crown Prince. And perhaps, by the end, we will have even more to celebrate."
Meaning a betrothal.
"But first," Rhaenyra gestured to where several young ladies stood with their fathers, all of them dressed in their finest, "we have been honored by requests from several noble houses to present their daughters to the Prince. We welcome them now."
"Here we go," Aegon muttered. "The parade of the desperate."
"Aegon," you hissed.
"What? I'm not wrong."
The first girl stepped forward, a Lannister, judging by her crimson gown and golden hair. She was beautiful in that polished, perfect way. You’re certain her Father, and all the other lords of Casterly Rock told her she was destined for greatness. She curtsied deeply before Jace, her father presenting her with all the pomp and circumstance House Lannister could muster.
"Lady Cerelle Lannister," the herald announced. "Daughter of Lord Jason Lannister of Casterly Rock."
Jace took her hand and kissed it, saying something that made her blush and smile. You watched him be charming, watched him perform the role of interested suitor with practiced ease.
"She's pretty," Aegon observed. "Bit too much like looking in a mirror for my taste, all that gold hair and self-rightesnous."
"She seems nice enough."
"Nice and boring are often companions," Aegon replied. "Trust me, I know from experience."
The next girl was from House Tyrell, tall and willowy with dark curls and a nervous smile. Then a Tully girl with auburn hair and freckles. Then another, and another. Each one more beautiful than the last, each one curtsying and smiling and trying desperately to be memorable.
"This is torture," Aegon said after the sixth introduction. "How is Jace keeping that smile on his face? I'd have run screaming by now."
"It's called duty, you idiot."
"It's called martyrdom." He drained his cup and gestured for a servant to refill it. "You know what the problem is? They're all the same. Pretty, accomplished, perfectly trained to be queens. Where's the personality? The fire?"
"You want fire, marry a dragon rider," you said absently, watching as yet another lady—this one from the Stormlands—was presented to Jace.
"Excellent idea. Marry me."
You turned to look at him, startled. "What?"
"Marry me," Aegon repeated, gesturing expansively with his cup. "You're a dragon rider, you're beautiful, you already know all my worst qualities so there'd be no nasty surprises. We could get drunk together and ignore all our duties. It'd be perfect."
"You're not serious."
"I'm never serious. But the offer stands." He took another drink. "If all else fails, if the realm goes to shit and we're all desperate—you and me. We could do much worse."
You studied him for a moment. Aegon was handsome, you could admit that. Pretty in the way Targaryens often were, with his silver hair and sharp features. The drinking was a problem, and the complete lack of ambition, but he was kind in his way. Honest, at least, which was more than most lords could claim.
"If all goes to hell," you said slowly, "and we're both desperate and alone. I suppose I could do worse than you."
"High praise," Aegon said with a grin. "I'm touched. Truly."
"Don't let it go to your head."
"Too late. I'm already planning our wedding. We'll serve nothing but wine, scandalize the Faith, and let our dragons eat anyone who complains."
Despite everything, you laughed. It felt good, like releasing some of the pressure that had been building in your chest since yesterday. Then, another lady was presented, a Manderly girl from White Harbor, plump and pink-cheeked and clearly terrified. Jace was gentle with her, you noticed. He was patient and kind.
"He's good at this," you said quietly.
"He's had practice," Aegon replied, and there was something almost bitter in his tone. "Perfect Jace. Perfect heir. Does everything right, fucks everything that moves, and somehow still manages to look like a hero from a song."
"Jealous?"
"Absoloutely." Aegon studied his cousin across the courtyard. "I love Jace, don't get me wrong. But he's playing a game he doesn't even realize he's in. All these ladies throwing themselves at him, and he thinks it's because he's charming. Because they like him."
"That's not why?"
"They like his crown," Aegon said flatly. "They like the idea of being queen. Jace himself? He's just the pretty vessel holding the thing they actually want."
You said nothing, watching as Jace smiled at the Manderly girl, made her laugh despite her nervousness. Was Aegon right? Did all these women only want the crown? Did you? No. You wanted—gods, you didn't even know what you wanted. But it wasn't his crown. It was him. The way he moved, the way he sounded, the way he looked when he was lost in pleasure. That had nothing to do with thrones or politics.
Which somehow made it worse.
"Lady Floris Baratheon," the herald announced, and your attention snapped back to the courtyard.
Another Baratheon girl, younger than Cassandra but with the same dark hair and sharp features. She curtsied beautifully, and Jace took her hand with the same courteous attention he'd given all the others.
"How many fucking Baratheon daughters are there?" Aegon muttered. "Lord Borros must spend half his time just keeping track of them all."
"Four, I think."
"Four. And they're all here trying to land the heir. Ambitious bastard, isn't he?"
You watched Floris smile up at Jace, watched him be charming and attentive. Was Cassandra here somewhere, watching this? Did she care that the man who'd been in her bed two nights ago was now entertaining her younger sister?
Did Jace care?
"This is going to be a very long fortnight," you said.
"Agreed." Aegon raised his cup in a mock toast. "To surviving it with our dignity intact."
"I'll drink to that."
He grinned and passed you his cup. You took it and drank deeply, letting the wine burn down your throat. It was going to be a very, very long fortnight indeed.
Several torturous hours later, you and Aegon were both well into your cups and had devolved into something resembling badly behaved children.
"I'm sorry," Aegon wheezed, barely containing his laughter, "but did that last one actually curtsy to his horse first before approaching Jace?"
"She did," you confirmed, your own shoulders shaking with suppressed giggles. "She absolutely did. I saw it, cousin."
"Maybe she thought the horse was the heir. Can't blame her—Vermax has better hair than Jace does."
You snorted wine through your nose, which only made Aegon laugh harder.
"You two are being disgraceful," Baela hissed from your other side, though her lips were twitching. "Show some decorum."
"Decorum is for people who aren't dying of boredom," Aegon replied, reaching for another cup from a passing servant. "We're performing a public service, really. Someone has to make this bearable."
"By getting drunk before noon?"
"Exactly. See? She understands."
You were about to respond when movement at the courtyard entrance caught your eye. Another arrival, late enough that most of the formal presentations had concluded. But this wasn't some minor lord with a daughter to parade. This was someone who commanded attention simply by existing.
He was tall—taller even than Cregan Stark—with broad shoulders and the kind of build that came from actually using a sword rather than just wearing one for decoration. Dark hair, though not as dark as Jace's, fell to his shoulders in waves that somehow looked artfully disheveled rather than unkempt. And his face—
"Oh no," Aegon said, following your gaze. "Oh, that's not fair."
"Who is that?" you asked, unable to look away.
"Trouble," Aegon replied. "That's Lord Dalton Greyjoy. The Red Kraken himself."
The Red Kraken. You'd heard stories, of course. The young Lord of the Iron Islands, who'd claimed his seat at six and ten after his father's death and had spent the years since becoming a legend. A reaver, a warrior, and by all accounts, devastatingly effective at both. He was dressed simply compared to the other lords—dark leather and salt-stained cloth rather than silk and velvet—but he wore it like armor. Like he had nothing to prove. Salt-and-pepper scruff covered his jaw, and when he smiled at something Daemon said, you caught a glimpse of white teeth.
"He's supposed to be in the Iron Islands," Aegon muttered. "What's he doing here?"
"The same thing everyone else is doing here," Baela said dryly. "Paying homage to the Crown Prince."
But Dalton Greyjoy wasn't looking at Jacaerys.
He was looking at you. His eyes—grey-green like storm-tossed seas—found yours across the crowded courtyard, and he didn't look away. Didn't pretend he hadn't been staring. Just held your gaze with the kind of bold confidence that should have been offensive but somehow wasn't.
Then he smiled. Slow and deliberate and knowing, like you'd shared some private joke.
"Oh, dear cousin, he's definitely trouble," Aegon said. "Look at him. Looking at you like—well, like Jace looks at literally every woman who crosses his path."
"Shut up," you muttered, but you didn't look away from Dalton.
"The Red Kraken," Baela mused. "Now that's interesting. He doesn't usually come to court. Prefers his islands and his ships from what I hear."
"And his salt wives," Aegon added. "Rumor has it he's got three. Or is it four now? I lose count."
"Salt wives aren't real wives," you said absently, still holding Dalton's gaze.
"Try telling him that."
Dalton was moving through the crowd now, making his way toward the dais where Rhaenyra sat. Lords parted for him—whether out of respect or wariness, you couldn't tell. Maybe both. There was something dangerous about him, something wild that expensive clothes and courtly manners couldn't quite hide. He knelt before Rhaenyra with surprising grace for someone so large. You couldn't hear what he said, but whatever it was made Daemon laugh, actually laugh, which was rare enough to be noteworthy.
Then Dalton stood, turned, and those storm-grey eyes found yours again. And the huge bastard, well, he started walking toward you.
"Oh shit," Aegon said gleefully. "Oh this is going to be good."
"If you say one embarrassing thing—" you started.
"Would I do that?"
"Yes. Regularly, you arse."
Dalton Greyjoy stopped in front of you, and up close he was even more imposing. Taller, broader, with the kind of presence that made the air feel heavier.
"My lady," he said, and his voice was rough, like he'd spent too many years shouting orders over storm winds. "Lord Dalton Greyjoy, at your service."
He didn't kneel. Didn't bow. Just stood there looking at you like you were the only person in the entire courtyard.
"Lord Greyjoy," you managed, trying to remember how to be polite while several cups of wine deep. "Welcome to King's Landing."
"Is it?" He glanced around at the crowd, at the elaborate decorations, at the general excess of it all. "Seems like a lot of trouble for a party."
"It's a celebration, my lord," you corrected.
"Of the Crown Prince coming of age. Yes, I heard." His lips quirked. "Eight and ten years to grow up. We do it much faster in the Iron Islands."
"Everything's faster in the Iron Islands," Aegon interjected cheerfully. "Living, dying, marrying your cousin, certainly fucking your cousin."
"Aegon," you hissed.
But Dalton just laughed. "Your cousin speaks truth, if not tact. We're a practical people."
"Practical," Aegon repeated. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"Among other things." Dalton's attention returned to you, and the intensity of it made your breath catch. "I've heard stories about you, Princess. The girl who claimed Cannibal."
"They're just stories."
"Are they?" He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice. "I heard you walked up to him and asked him nicely. That he bowed his head and let you climb on his back like a trained horse."
"More or less," you admitted.
"Terrifying or impressive. I haven't decided which, my lady."
"Can't it be both?"
That smile again, sharp and interested, like a predator seeking its prey. "I suppose it can. I like that."
There was something in the way he looked at you—direct and unashamed—that felt different from the courtiers with their careful glances and veiled intentions. Dalton Greyjoy looked at you like he knew exactly what he wanted and saw no reason to pretend otherwise.
"Are you here for the tournaments, my lord?" you asked, trying to steer the conversation to safer ground.
"Among other things." He straightened, hands clasped behind his back in a posture that should have looked casual but somehow seemed coiled, ready. "I'm here to see what all the fuss is about. The perfect prince, the eligible ladies, the great game of marriage and alliance." His eyes glinted. "And to see if the Dragon Princess lives up to her reputation."
"And does she?"
"I'll let you know," he said, and it sounded like a promise. "May I have the honor of your company at the feast tonight, my lady?"
Before you could answer, Aegon cut in. "She'd be delighted. Wouldn't you, cousin?"
You shot him a look that promised murder, but Dalton was already bowing, actually bowing this time, though it looked faintly mocking. "Until tonight, then."
He walked away, and you could feel his absence like a physical weight. You were certainly going to kill Aegon, kill him and feed him to Cannibal.
"Well," Aegon said into the silence. "That was something."
"I hate you."
"No you don't. I just got you a dinner companion who isn't boring. You should be thanking me."
You should probably be worried, you thought. Dalton Greyjoy had a reputation that made even Daemon look respectable by comparison. But, nonetheless, instead you felt intrigued.
Which was probably dangerous. Definitely dangerous. But after days of watching Jace parade around with other women, of feeling invisible and foolish and consumed by wanting something you couldn't have. Maybe dangerous was exactly what you needed.
The remainder of the day had been a blur of increasingly bold lords and their sons trying to catch your attention. You'd smiled politely through it all, deflected propositions both subtle and explicit, and tried not to drink so much that you'd embarrass yourself at tonight's feast.
You'd failed at that last part.
The great hall had been transformed for the evening, there were now thousands of candles which casted everything in warm golden light, musicians played from the gallery, and long tables groaned under the weight of roasted meats and exotic fruits and wine from across the known world. The air smelled of smoke and spices and the musk of too many sweaty bodies pressed close together. You'd kept the white gown from earlier, the gold and red embroidery catching the candlelight as you moved. Your ladies had refreshed your hair, re-pinning the braids and adding fresh ruby clips, but otherwise you looked much the same as you had that morning.
Which apparently was more than enough, judging by the way heads turned as you entered. Dalton Greyjoy was already there, lounging at one of the lower tables with a cup in his hand and that same confidence he'd worn earlier. He saw you immediately—like he'd been watching the door—and stood.
"Princess," he said as you approached. "Come, sit. I've claimed the best seat in the hall."
"Have you?"
"Good view of the wine." He gestured to the seat beside him. "And now a better one."
You sat, aware of how he took up space without apology, all broad shoulders and long limbs sprawled in a way that suggested he'd never learned courtly posture and didn't particularly care to either. A servant poured wine, and Dalton took his cup, drinking deeply before setting it down with more force than necessary. "Seven hells, that's good. Better than the piss we brew on Pyke."
"I'm sure."
"You've never been to the Iron Islands." It wasn't a question.
"No."
"Good. It's a miserable place. Cold, wet, smells like dead fish and shit." He grinned. "But it's mine."
There was something about the way he said it, simple pride, no need to justify or explain. Just fact that sprung a buzz in your chest.
"You're far from home," you observed.
"Aye. Your aunt summoned, so I came." He reached for a piece of bread, tearing it apart with his hands. "Hadn't planned on it, but then I heard about the festivities. The Crown Prince coming of age, all the pretty ladies competing for him." His eyes slid to you as he brought the bread to his mouth, tongue darting out to catch a crumb at the corner of his lips. He raised an eyebrow. "Thought it might be entertaining."
"And is it?"
"Getting better." He popped the bread in his mouth, still watching you while he chewed. "Tell me something. That dragon of yours—Cannibal. Is it true he ate three dragons on Dragonstone before you claimed him?"
You reached for your wine. "Two that I know of for certain. Possibly three."
"Fuck me." But he sounded impressed rather than horrified. "And you just walked up to him?"
"More or less." You took a sip, watching him over the rim of your cup.
"You're either the bravest woman in the Seven Kingdoms or the maddest." He leaned back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest as he studied you."Probably both."
"Most people say it was foolish."
"Most people are cowards." He picked up his wine again, draining half the cup in one go. "I respect it. Taking what you want, consequences be damned. That's how you survive in this world."
The food kept coming—course after course. Servants appeared with platters of roasted duck, honeyed figs, spiced lamb. Dalton ate like a man who wasn't sure when his next meal would be, unbothered by the elaborate presentation. You picked at your own plate, more interested in the conversation than the food.
"You fight in the tournaments tomorrow?" you asked.
"Planning on it. Need to work off some of this." He gestured at the feast. "Can't spend all day drinking and eating without swinging a sword eventually. I'll go soft."
You doubted that. There was nothing soft about Dalton Greyjoy. You let your eyes drag over him, shoulders, arms, the way he took up space.
"Who do you think will win?" you asked. "The tourney, I mean."
"Not me," he said with a shrug. "I'm a better sailor than jouster. Give me a deck that's moving under my feet and I'm deadly. Put me on a horse in full plate and I'm just another idiot hoping not to fall off." He paused. "Your cousin, probably. The pretty one. Jacaerys."
Your jaw tightened slightly. "Jace is skilled."
"Aye, I've heard. Trained by the best, naturally." There was something in his tone—not quite mocking, but close. "Born with every advantage. Dragon, crown, looks that make ladies go weak. Must be nice."
"It has its challenges."
"I'm sure." He didn't sound particularly sympathetic. "Still. I'd take his challenges over mine any day."
A commotion near the high table drew your attention. Jace was standing, Lady Cassandra Baratheon beside him, her hand on his arm as they moved toward the dancing. You watched them go, watched her lean in to say something that made him smile, and your stomach dropped. Your hands curled into fists in your lap.
"There's a look I know," Dalton said quietly.
You turned back to find him studying you, those storm-grey eyes too sharp. He was leaning back in his chair now, one arm draped over the back of it, completely relaxed.
"What look?"
"The one that says you want to set something on fire but you're too well-bred to do it." He tilted his head, watching you like a hawk. "What's he done to earn that?"
"Nothing. I don't—"
"Right." He drained his cup in one swallow and stood, extending his hand across the table. "Come on then."
"Where?"
"To dance. You're sitting here stewing and it's making me uncomfortable." He wiggled his fingers impatiently.
"I'm not—"
"You are." He stepped closer, hand still out. "And if I have to watch you watch him dance with that Baratheon girl for one more second, I'm going to start breaking things." His fingers curled slightly, beckoning. "Dance with me, Princess. Give the court something else to gossip about."
You shouldn't. You really, truly shouldn't.
You took his hand.
He pulled you up—quick enough that you stumbled slightly—and steadied you with a hand at your elbow before leading you onto the floor. Other couples were already moving, swirling past in a blur of silk and jewels. His hand settled at your waist, lower than was strictly proper, fingers spread wide against your back and he pulled you into the rhythm without missing a beat.
He moved with surprising grace for someone who'd just claimed to be better on a ship than a dance floor.
"You lied," you said, looking up at him. "You're good at this."
"I said I'm better on a ship. Didn't say I was shit at dancing." He spun you, sudden enough that you stumbled into his chest. His hand tightened on your waist, steadying you. "My mother made sure all her sons could dance. Said it was the one civilized thing we'd learn."
"Was she right?"
"Aye. Rest of it's all fighting and fucking and sailing." He said it casually, leading you back into the steps. "Not much call for poetry and courtly manners on Pyke."
You shouldn't have laughed, but you did, it was sharp and genuine, the sound surprising you. Something about his bluntness cut through all the careful political bullshit you'd been drowning in for days.
"That scandalize you?" he asked, grinning down at you. His teeth were very white against his tanned skin.
"No."
"Good. I'd hate to waste time pretending to be something I'm not." His thumb pressed against your waist, and you felt it through the silk. "Life's too fucking short for that."
The music swelled around you, violins rising. He pulled you closer, definitely too close now, close enough that you could feel the heat of him through your dress, definitely crossing into improper territory. But you didn't pull away. Just let him guide you through the steps, let yourself focus on the pressure of his hand, the solid weight of his shoulder under your palm. Anything other than Jace and Cassandra somewhere else on this floor.
"Better?" Dalton asked, voice low enough that only you could hear it over the music.
"What?"
"You stopped looking like you wanted to commit murder.” His eyes crinkled at the corners. “I'm taking that as progress."
"I never—"
"You did." He spun you again, pulled you back in. The smile on his face had an edge to it now. "Whatever he did, whoever he is, he's not worth it, Princess."
You wanted to argue. Wanted to defend something you couldn't even name, couldn't admit to yourself. But Dalton's hand was warm and steady against your waist, his grey eyes fixed on yours like you were the only person in the room, and for just a moment, just this one dance, you let yourself pretend. That you weren't obsessed with your cousin. That you hadn't spent the last three nights watching him fuck other women through a crack in the wall. That you were just a woman dancing with a man who looked at her like she mattered.
The song ended far too soon.
Dalton stepped back, but his hand stayed at your waist, lingering, his fingers flexing once against your ribs before he let go. "Thank you for the dance, Princess."
"Thank you for asking." Your skin felt cold where his hand had been.
"I'll be fighting tomorrow. In the melee, not the joust, I told you, I'm shit on horseback." That grin again, cocky and so sure of himself. "Come watch me get my ass kicked by men in fancy armor."
"I might."
"You will." He said it like it was already decided, so much so, that you almost believed him. Then he bowed, properly this time, deep and formal, and walked away, disappearing back into the crowd.
You stood there for a moment, heart still racing from the dance, or maybe from the way Dalton had looked at you, all that damned confidence and heat and completely unbothered by the surrounding propriety. Your skin still tingled where his hand had been, that deliberate pressure at your waist.
He was handsome. You could admit that, at least to yourself. Rough around the edges in a way that was completely unlike the polished princes and lords you'd grown up around. Dangerous-looking. The kind of man your mother would warn you about. The kind you apparently couldn't stop thinking about for entirely different reasons than you should.
You pressed your fingers to your waist briefly, then dropped your hand. This was stupid. You were being stupid about two different men now, which seemed like an achievement in poor judgment.
When you finally turned to head back to your seat, you found Aegon waiting, leaning against a pillar with that knowing smirk plastered across his face.
"Well," he drawled, pushing off the pillar to stand beside you. "That was something."
"It was a dance."
"That wasn't just a dance." Aegon took a long drink from his cup, eyes gleaming with amusement. "That was him fucking you with your clothes on."
Heat flooded your face. "You're drunk."
"I'm always drunk. Doesn't make me wrong." He gestured with his cup, sloshing wine dangerously close to the rim, toward where Dalton had disappeared into the crowd. "Be careful with that one. He's not like these simpering southern lords. He takes what he wants."
"I'm not."
"I know. I'm just saying." Aegon leaned in closer, lowering his voice even though no one was near enough to hear. "The Red Kraken's got a reputation, and certainly not the fun kind like mine."
You looked back toward where Jace was still dancing with Cassandra, her head thrown back laughing at something he'd said.
"Maybe I need a reputation," you muttered.
Aegon raised his cup. "Now that's the spirit."
"Come on," Aegon said, tugging at your sleeve like a child. "Let's get out of here before someone tries to make us be social again."
"Where are we going?"
"Does it matter?" He was already pulling you toward the edge of the hall.
It didn't, not really. The hall was too hot, too crowded, the air thick with wine and perfume and the cloying smell of too many bodies pressed together. Too many people pretending to be things they weren't. You let Aegon pull you through a side door, the sudden quiet of the corridor making your ears ring.
Down one hallway, then another. Your footsteps echoed off stone. Up a winding staircase, too narrow and steep, the kind that hadn't been used in years. You recognized it dimly as leading to one of the old watchtowers, the ones that overlooked the bay.
"Aegon, we're going to break our necks," you said as he stumbled on a step, catching himself against the wall.
"Good." He kept climbing. "Better than dying of boredom down there."
The tower room at the top was small and forgotten. Dust motes floated in the moonlight streaming through narrow windows. There were a few old weapons which hung on the walls, all rusted, decorative, and completely useless. The windows looked out over King's Landing, the city spread below like a carpet of flickering lights.
The sounds of the feast were distant here, muffled by layers of stone and height. You could barely hear the music anymore. Just the wind, and the sound of your own breathing still coming fast from the climb.
Aegon collapsed onto a bench beneath one of the windows, wine cup still in hand, sprawling back against the stone. You leaned against the opposite wall, pressing your shoulders into the cool stone. The breeze coming through the window felt good against your flushed skin, cutting through the wine-warm haze in your head.
"This is better," Aegon declared, gesturing broadly with his cup. "Much better. No one up here but us and the ghosts."
"Are there ghosts?"
"Probably." He took another drink, throat working. "Old tower like this? Someone definitely died here. Hopefully doing something more interesting than attending a feast."
You laughed, the sound strange and too loud in the small space, bouncing off stone. Your head was spinning pleasantly, everything soft and blurred at the edges. The wine had settled warm in your stomach, making your limbs feel loose and heavy. You slid down the wall until you were sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, your dress pooling around you. The stone was cold against your back even through the silk.
"You danced well with the Kraken," Aegon said after a moment. His eyes were on you now, sharper than they should be considering how much he'd drunk. "He looked like he wanted to eat you."
"He looked like he wanted to dance."
"Same thing, with that one." Aegon tilted his head, studying you. His usual smirk had faded into something more serious. Almost sober. "Do you like him?"
"I barely know him." You picked at a loose thread on your dress.
"That's not what I asked."
You considered it, head tilted back against the stone. Did you like Dalton Greyjoy? He was attractive, certainly. Bold. Honest in a way that cut through all the bullshit.
"I don't know," you said finally. "Maybe. Does it matter?"
"Suppose not." Aegon was quiet for a moment, swirling the wine in his cup, watching the liquid catch the moonlight in wave-like ripples. Then, without looking at you: "Can I kiss you?"
You blinked, certain you'd misheard. "What?"
"Can I kiss you?" He did look at you now, and there was something almost vulnerable in his expression beneath the wine-flush. "I want to kiss someone. And you're here. And you're pretty. And you won't make it mean something it doesn't."
You should say no. Should laugh it off, make a joke, change the subject. This was Aegon—your cousin, your friend, the perpetually drunk prince who took nothing seriously.
But your head was spinning and your chest still ached from watching Jace with Cassandra, and Dalton's words kept echoing in your mind—life's too fucking short.
"Fuck it," you said, the words coming out steadier than you felt.
"Is that a yes?"
"It's a fuck it." You pushed yourself up slightly, meeting his eyes.
Aegon set his cup down on the bench and stood. He wasn't quite steady on his feet, swaying slightly as he crossed the small space to where you sat against the wall.
You had to tilt your head back to look up at him as he stopped in front of you, close enough that you could smell the wine on his breath, the faint scent of whatever oil he used in his hair. Up close like this, you could see everything. The wine-flush high on his cheekbones, the slightly glazed look in his purple eyes—Targaryen eyes, the same shade as your own. The way his chest rose and fell, breathing faster than the short walk across the room warranted.
He was handsome. The thought came to you clearly, like you were seeing him for the first time. When he wasn't making an ass of himself, when he wasn't performing for the court or drowning in his cups, when you actually looked at him, Aegon was undeniably, unfairly handsome.
"You're sure?" he asked, and his voice had gone quieter. Careful. Like he was giving you one last chance to back out, to laugh this off and pretend it never happened.
Your heart was pounding. "Stop asking and just—"
He dropped to his knees in front of you.
The movement brought him to your level, purple eyes locked on yours. His hand came up, hesitant at first, then surer, cupping your jaw. His thumb brushed across your cheekbone, and you realized you were holding your breath.
Then he kissed you.
It was nothing like you'd imagined kissing would be. Not that you'd spent much time imagining it, or maybe you had, late at night, alone in your bed, but those fantasies had been vague and shapeless. This was real. This was Aegon's mouth on yours, warm and wine-sweet and surprisingly gentle. His other hand found your waist, steadying himself, or maybe steadying you.
For a moment, you froze. Didn't know what to do with your hands, with your mouth, with any of it. Then something in you gave way. Your hands came up to grip his shoulders, solid, real, there and you kissed him back.
Aegon kissed like he did everything else, without any restraint, without second thoughts, just pure unfiltered fucking want. His mouth was hot against yours, tasting like wine and something hungrier, and his hands cupped your face like you were something precious he was afraid of breaking. He pressed closer, and you made a sound, and his tongue swept into your mouth.
Oh.
Your hands gripped shoulders because you needed something to hold onto, needed to ground yourself before you floated away entirely. He was solid under your grip, all lean muscle and warmth, so much warmer than you'd expected. When he tilted his head to deepen the kiss, to take more, something low in your belly clenched hard enough to hurt.
This was wrong. This was Aegon. Your cousin. Your friend who you'd watched get drunk at a hundred feasts, who you'd laughed with and plotted with and shared secrets with. Who you'd never, not once, not ever, thought of like this.
But his mouth was moving against yours with a desperate kind of hunger, and his hands had slid from your face down to your waist, fingers digging in as he pulled you closer, pulled you against him. And your body was a traitor. Heat was pooling between your thighs, your breath coming in short gasps, your fingers twisting in the fabric of his doublet like you needed him closer, needed more.
One of his hands moved lower, gripping your hip, and you gasped into his mouth. He swallowed the sound, kissed you harder, like he wanted to crawl inside you.
When he finally pulled back, breaking the kiss to breathe, forehead pressed against yours, you were both panting. His eyes were dark, pupils blown wide, and his lips were red and swollen.
"Well," Aegon said, his voice rougher than usual. "That was—"
You blinked at him, trying to catch your breath. His breath warm against your lips. His hand came up to cup your cheek, thumb tracing along your jaw in a way that made your knees weak.
"I'd like to do that again," he murmured, and there was something in his voice, something hungry and real beneath the usual bravado.
Your heart was pounding. His thumb was still moving against your skin, slow and deliberate, and you could feel the heat of him everywhere he touched. He was everywhere at once, and for the first time in your life you weren't looking at your cousin Aegon, you were staring at someone with pure, unfiltered want.
"Yes," you breathed.
He kissed you again—harder this time, more certain. His hand tightened on your waist, yanking you fully against him, and you could feel everything. The hard planes of his chest, the lean muscle of his thighs, and—gods—the unmistakable ridge of his cock pressed against your hip through layers of silk and leather.
You gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, tongue sliding hot and slick against yours. His hips rolled forward, slow, deliberate and the pressure of him grinding against you sent heat shooting straight between your legs.
Your knees actually went weak. If he wasn't holding you up, you'd have collapsed.
Your hands found his hair—silver silk between your fingers—and you pulled. Hard. He groaned, deep and guttural, and ground against you harder in response. You could feel yourself getting wet, the slick heat gathering between your thighs, soaking through your smallclothes. The knowledge that he was hard, that you'd made him hard, made you clench around nothing.
"Fuck," Aegon panted against your mouth before his lips dragged to your jaw, your throat. His hand slid down from your waist to your ass, gripping hard, pulling you tighter against him. "Fuck, you taste so good. Smell good. Feel so fucking good."
He thrust his hips forward again, the thick length of him dragging against your belly, and you both made sounds that were almost pained.
You should stop this. Should push him away before this went too far. This was Aegon, your cousin, your friend who you'd grown up with—
His teeth scraped the sensitive spot below your ear and you whimpered. Actually whimpered like something desperate and needy, your hips rolling forward to meet his next thrust without your permission.
"That's it," he breathed against your skin, doing it again, sucking a mark into your throat that you'd have to hide tomorrow. His hand on your ass squeezed, angling you so when he ground forward again, the pressure hit directly against your aching cunt. "Gods, feel what you do to me? Feel how hard I am for you?"
"Aegon," you started, voice breaking, but you couldn't finish because he was kissing you again, deeper, filthier, his tongue fucking into your mouth while one hand fisted in your hair, pulling your head back to expose your throat and the other kept your hips pinned against his.
He found a rhythm now, rolling his hips against yours in steady, deliberate thrusts that had you panting into his mouth. Each movement dragged the hard length of his cock against you, the friction even through all the layers making you want to scream, want to hike up your skirts and feel him properly, skin to skin, want things you'd never let yourself want before.
You rolled your hips back, meeting him, matching his rhythm, and he groaned like you'd hurt him.
"Fuck, yes," he panted. "Just like that. Gods, you're so, I can feel how wet you are even through—"
He thrust harder, and you felt it, the heat of him, the thick ridge of his cock grinding directly against your clit through the soaked silk between your legs. The sensation made white spots burst behind your eyelids.
This wasn't gentle. Wasn't sweet or romantic or any of the things you'd imagined in your naive fantasies. This was pure animal want, raw and desperate and hungry. Fueled by too much wine and too many things neither of you wanted to think about. His body moving against yours like he wanted to crawl inside you, like he couldn't get close enough even though you were pressed together so tightly you could barely breathe.
Your hand slid down from his hair to his chest, feeling his heart hammering beneath your palm, then lower, reaching between your bodies toward the hard heat of him—
He caught your wrist. Held it. Both of you froze, breathing hard, hips still pressed flush together.
When you finally broke apart, gasping, flushed, his hair completely destroyed from your hands and your lips kiss-swollen and red, Aegon let out a shaky laugh against your neck.
"Gods," he breathed, forehead pressed to your shoulder. You could still feel him hard against your hip, could feel the answering wetness between your own legs. "We're idiots."
"Probably," you managed, your voice coming out hoarse. Wrecked.
"Definitely." But he wasn't pulling away. His hands were still on you, his body still pressed close, and you could feel him, still hard, maybe harder, against your hip. The evidence of what you'd just done. What you'd almost done. "This is a terrible idea."
"The worst."
"We should stop."
"We should." But your fingers were still twisted in his doublet.
His hand flexed on your hip, thumb pressing into the bone. "One more?"
You pulled him down by his hair and kissed him again. This time there was no hesitation. There was no pretense of this being innocent or simple. Just heat and hunger and his hands sliding down to grip your ass through your skirts, hauling you against him so hard you felt the breath leave your lungs.
You could feel the thick, insistent pressure of his cock grinding against your belly. He rolled his hips, slow and filthy, and you whimpered into his mouth. You wanted release.
"Fuck," he groaned against your lips. "You're going to kill me."
Your back hit the wall—you didn't even remember moving—and suddenly he had leverage. His thigh pushed between yours, spreading your legs, and when he ground forward this time the friction was devastating. The hard muscle of his thigh pressed directly against your cunt through the layers of silk, and you were so wet you knew he could feel it, knew the fabric had to be soaked through.
"Oh gods," you gasped, head falling back against the stone.
Aegon's mouth was on your neck immediately, sucking hard enough to mark, teeth scraping. His hands gripped your ass, pulling you down harder onto his thigh, helping you grind against him.
"That's it," he panted against your throat, moving his leg in rhythm with your desperate rolling hips. "Fuck, you're so wet. I can feel you through everything. Can feel how much you want this."
You should care about the bruises he was leaving. Should worry about questions and propriety and what this meant. You didn't care at all. You just needed more, more, and more.
"Aegon," you gasped, and his name coming out of your mouth broken and desperate seemed to undo something in him.
He kissed you again, dirty and deep and filthy, all tongue and teeth, while his hips pressed forward, grinding his cock against your hip in time with how you were riding his thigh. One hand fisted in your hair, pulling your head back so he could kiss you deeper, the other still gripping your arse and guiding your movements.
"Could fuck you right here," he groaned into your mouth, hips thrusting harder. "Pull up these skirts, sink into you against this wall. You'd let me, wouldn't you? You're so fucking wet you'd take me easy."
The image, Aegon inside you, filling you, fucking you against cold, dirty stone, made you moan and grind down harder. You were drowning in sensation, the taste of wine on his tongue, the heat of his body burning through the fabric, the devastating pressure between your legs, the thick hardness of him grinding against your hip.
"Yes," you heard yourself gasp. "Yes, Seven Hells."
Reality as sudden as a wave crashing against rock, rippled back through you.
What the fuck were you two doing? What were you saying?
You must have tensed because Aegon pulled back, really pulled back this time, stepping away and putting actual space between your bodies. The loss of contact left you cold and aching. You were both wrecked. His lips were swollen and red, his hair completely destroyed, his pupils blown so wide his eyes looked black. There was a wet spot on his thigh from you. You could see the obvious bulge straining against his breeches.
You probably looked worse. Your lips tender and kiss-bitten, your smallclothes absolutely ruined.
"Yes. Back. To the feast." He ran both hands through his hair, dragging it back from his face, somehow making it look even more fucked. "Where we've been having perfectly appropriate cousin conversations."
"Very appropriate."
"The most appropriate." But he was looking at you like he wanted to shove you back against that wall and finish what you'd started. His eyes dragged down your body, lingering on your swollen lips, the marks on your neck, the wrinkled silk of your dress, before snapping back up. "Fuck, your hair's a complete disaster."
"So is yours."
"I'm always a mess. You're supposed to be the put-together one." He reached out, fingers trembling slightly as he tried to tuck a few loose strands back into place. The touch was gentle now, almost tender, so different from five minutes ago when he'd been fisting his hand in it and pulling. "There. Almost presentable."
You caught his wrist, held it. His pulse was still racing under your fingers. "Aegon, please."
"Don't." He pulled away, stepped back entirely, hands dropping to his sides and curling into fists like he didn't trust himself not to reach for you again. "Don't make it something. It was just—we're drunk. That's all."
"Right. Drunk."
"Very drunk." He looked around, spotted his abandoned wine cup on the bench, picked it up and stared at it like he'd forgotten what it was for. Then set it back down. "We should go. Before I do something even stupider."
"Like what?"
His eyes met yours, and they were still dark. Still wanting. His gaze dropped to your mouth. "Don't ask questions you don't want answered, cousin."
Your breath caught. Heat pooled low in your belly again, that ache between your legs flaring back to life.
He saw it on your face—saw the want there—and made a pained sound. "Gods, don't look at me like that. We need to leave. Now."
"Okay," you managed.
"Okay." But he didn't move. Just stood there, chest rising and falling too fast, hands still clenched at his sides.
Finally, with visible effort, he offered you his arm, the gesture exaggerated and courtly in a way that didn't quite hide how badly his hand was shaking. "Come on. Let's go back before someone sends a search party and finds us looking like we've been—" He stopped and swallowed hard. "Just. Let's go."
You took his arm, fingers wrapping around his forearm, and you could feel the tension in him. The muscles were tight, coiled, like he was holding himself back. Together you made your way back down the winding stairs. The descent was precarious, both of you still drunk, still unsteady, but now for different reasons. Your legs felt weak. You could feel the slickness between your thighs with every step, a constant reminder of how close you'd come to, god, fucking your cousin. The cousin that was right there, is still right there.
You stumbled on a step and Aegon caught you, arm wrapping around your waist to steady you. The touch lasted a second too long. His fingers pressed into your hip, right where he'd gripped you before and you both froze.
"Careful," he said roughly, then let go like you'd burned him.
"Are we going to be weird about this?" you asked as you reached the bottom, voices from the feast growing louder.
"Are you?"
"No."
"Then neither am I." He squeezed your hand where it rested on his arm, the pressure firm and grounding. "It was just kissing. Doesn't have to mean anything."
"Doesn't have to mean anything," you repeated.
Liar, something whispered in the back of your mind. You could still feel him hard against you. Could still hear him saying he wanted to fuck you against the wall. Could still taste wine on your tongue. But when you made it back through the side door, slipping into the edges of the feast and immediately caught sight of Jace across the hall, still with Cassandra, his head bent close to hers as she whispered something in his ear, and you felt that familiar twist of want and jealousy knife through your chest.
And beneath it, something new. Something confusing.
The memory of Aegon's mouth on yours. His hands on your body, gripping and pulling and claiming. The way he'd made you forget everything else, forget Jace, forget propriety, forget your own name, for those few desperate moments.
And worse of all, the way you'd liked it.
You slipped away from Aegon as soon as you entered the hall, murmuring something about needing the privy. In truth, you needed a moment. Needed to look at yourself, assess the damage. Your chambers weren't far. You practically ran there, heart still pounding, skin still flushed.
Your ladies were waiting, they'd been dismissed earlier but Lysa had stayed, dozing in a chair by the fire. She jolted awake when you burst in.
"My lady! Are you—" Her eyes went wide, taking in your disheveled hair, your swollen lips, the very obvious marks blooming purple on your throat. "Oh."
"I need—" You gestured helplessly at your neck. "Can you please?"
"Of course." But she was grinning as she hurried to mix a paste, calling for Maryse and Elaena.
They appeared quickly, and the moment they saw you, the reaction was immediate.
"Ohhhhh," Maryse breathed, eyes sparkling with delight.
"My lady!" Elaena giggled, pressing her hands to her mouth.
"Don't," you warned, but you could feel yourself flushing deeper.
"Was he handsome?" Lysa asked, dabbing the paste carefully on your neck to lighten the marks. It wouldn't hide them completely, but it would help.
"I'm not discussing this."
"Ohhhhh, he was," Maryse decided, starting to fix your hair with deft fingers. "Look how red she is."
"Was it romantic?" Elaena asked dreamily, adjusting your dress, smoothing the wrinkles.
"It was—" You stopped. What could you even say? "It was nothing. Too much wine."
All three of them made knowing sounds, soft "mmhmms" and "of courses" that said they didn't believe you for a second.
The rest of the night blurred together in a haze of wine and music and laughter. You danced with Aemond, too stiff and proper, unlike his brother, but surprisingly skilled. He didn't speak much, just guided you through the steps like an ever-so-graceful swan, his one good eye tracking everything in the hall like he was cataloging threats.
"You're drunk," he observed.
"Very."
"Good. You're less insufferable when you're drunk.”
"You're a delight as always, cousin."
His lips twitched, the closest thing to a smile you'd ever seen from him. "Enjoy your evening, Princess."
Then Daemon cut in, stealing you mid-step with the kind of casual arrogance only he could manage.
"Having fun?" he asked, spinning you perhaps a bit too fast.
"Trying to."
"That Greyjoy boy's been watching you all night." Daemon's grin was sharp. "Wondering if he's going to do something stupid."
"Aren't we all doing something stupid tonight?"
"Fair point." He laughed, and for a moment you could see why Rhaenyra loved him despite everything. "Don't get yourself killed, niece. Your aunt would be very put out."
"I'll do my best."
Even Rhaenyra danced with you—a slower song, her hands gentle as she guided you through it.
"You look happy," she said softly. "That's good. I worry about you sometimes."
"I'm fine, Your Grace."
"Rhaenyra," she corrected. "When it's just us, I'm Rhaenyra. Your aunt who loves you."
The wine made your eyes sting. "I love you too."
She pressed a kiss to your forehead. "Go enjoy yourself. You're young. These nights don't come often enough."
So you did. You drank more wine, letting the warmth of it blur the edges of everything. Danced with lords whose names you didn't remember and didn't care to learn. Laughed at Aegon's increasingly ridiculous jokes, though you were careful not to stand too close to him, careful not to let your eyes linger.
Every time you saw him across the hall, you remembered. His mouth on yours. His hands gripping your ass. The way he'd ground against you like he couldn't help himself. The things he'd said, could fuck you right here, that still made heat pool between your legs when you thought about them.
And every time you saw Jace, still orbiting Cassandra Baratheon like she was the sun and he was caught in her gravity, you felt that sick twist of jealousy. But now it was complicated by guilt. By confusion. You'd dry-humped Aegon in a tower. You'd been ready to let him fuck you against a wall. And part of you had liked it. Had liked the way he looked at you like you were something he desperately wanted. Had liked feeling wanted, period.
But you still couldn't stop watching Jace. Couldn't stop wondering what his hands would feel like instead of Aegon's. Couldn't stop thinking about the hole in your wall and the things you'd seen through it.
You were a mess. A complete disaster of a person. So you drank more. Let yourself forget, just for a few hours, about holes in walls and wanting things you couldn't have and the fact that you'd apparently developed an extremely inconvenient attraction to not one but two of your cousins.
By the time you decided to retire, the hall was spinning pleasantly and your feet ached from dancing. You waved off your ladies, they were enjoying themselves too, giggling with guards and flirting with servants and made your way through the corridors alone.
The castle was a maze at the best of times. Drunk, it was nearly impossible.
You climbed stairs, turned down hallways, all of it familiar but also somehow wrong. Your chambers should be here? No, maybe down this corridor. Or was it the other way?
Finally, you found a door that looked right. The wood was the same, the handle in the same place. Close enough. You pushed it open, stumbled inside, and didn't bother with candles. The room was dark and quiet. Just kicked off your slippers, fumbled with the laces of your gown until they loosened enough to breathe, and collapsed onto the bed.
The sheets smelled clean. Felt soft. Maybe a bit different than usual but your wine-soaked brain didn't care enough to question it. Good enough, you didn’t give a god’s damn.
You were asleep before your head fully hit the pillow.
Jacaerys was tired, wine-warm, and ready for bed when he finally escaped the feast.
Cassandra had wanted him to stay longer, had made that very clear with the way her hand kept finding his arm, the lingering touches, the invitations in her eyes that he'd politely ignored. He'd begged off with excuses about an early morning. The tournaments started tomorrow, and he needed at least a few hours of sleep before climbing into armor and trying not to get killed in front of the entire court.
He climbed the stairs to his chambers, his thoughts already on collapsing into bed. Maybe he'd been too indulgent tonight. Too much wine, too much dancing, too much of Cassandra's cloying perfume that now clung to his clothes and made his head ache.
He pushed open his door, stepped inside, and froze.
Someone was in his bed.
His hand went to the dagger at his belt, pure instinct, trained response, his body tensing as his eyes fought to adjust to the darkness. The figure was small, curled on their side facing away from him. Too small to be a real threat. Too still.
Then he saw the hair. Silver. Spilling across his pillows, catching what little light came through the window. Long and unbound, the way he'd never seen it during the day when it was always properly pinned and braided.
His heart stopped. Started again, too fast.
It was you.
"What the—" The words died in his throat. He stood there, hand still on his dagger, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
You were in his bed. His bed. Fast asleep from the look of it, your breathing deep and even, completely unaware of his presence. Jace's eyes adjusted further, and he could make out more details now. Your slippers discarded on the floor near the foot of the bed. Your gown was unlaced and loose around your body.
Very loose. His breath caught as his gaze traced the line of your form. You'd clearly tried to unlace the gown yourself, drunk fingers fumbling with the ties, getting it open enough to breathe easier before collapsing into bed. But you'd only managed to loosen it, not remove it, and now the fabric had shifted in your sleep.
The neckline had slipped down your shoulder. Lower. Low enough that he could see—
Jace's mouth went dry. Your breast. Half of it bare, skin luminous in the moonlight, the curve of it visible where the silk had fallen away. If you shifted even slightly, if the fabric slipped just a bit more… stop, stop right fucking now.
He looked away quickly, heat flooding his face, his chest, lower. His heart was hammering now.
Don't look. Don't be that person. She's asleep. She's drunk. She doesn't even know where she is.
But his eyes were drawn back like a lodestone to true north.
Your leg had escaped the tangle of silk too. One bare leg stretched out across his sheets, the gown rucked up to mid-thigh, higher on the side where you'd rolled slightly forward in sleep. Smooth skin, the elegant line of your calf, the curve of your knee. If he looked, and gods help him, he was looking, he could see almost to your hip where the fabric had bunched.
He could see the shadow between your thighs. Jace's cock stirred in his breeches, and he felt shame burn through him immediately after.
Stop. Stop looking at her like this.
But he couldn't move. Couldn't look away. You were sprawled across his bed like some kind of vision, your lips were parted slightly, your breathing deep and peaceful. You looked nothing like the proper, put-together princess he saw every day. Nothing like his cousin who barely spoke to him, who avoided his eyes at dinner, who seemed to go out of her way not to be alone with him.
You looked undone and vulnerable. Beautiful in a way that made his chest ache and his blood run hot.
He took a step closer without meaning to. Then another. Until he was standing beside the bed, looking down at you.
This close, he could see more. The gentle rise and fall of your chest, your bare chest, your nipple was just barely hidden by a fold of silk, the fabric draped across it so precariously that each breath threatened to expose you completely.
Jace's hands clenched into fists at his sides. His breathing had gone shallow.
What was wrong with him? This was you. His cousin. A princess. A woman who clearly had no idea where she was or what she looked like right now. And he was standing here staring at you like some kind of pervert, getting hard while you slept completely unaware.
He needed to—he should—
Wake you. Get you back to your chambers. Cover you with a blanket at the very least. Do something other than stand here like an idiot with his cock half-hard and his mind conjuring images of what it would be like to slip into that bed beside you, to pull you against him, to—
No.
He forced himself to step back. To look away. To think like a rational person instead of a man who'd drunk too much wine and found a beautiful woman in his bed. You shifted in your sleep, making a small sound and rolled slightly onto your back.
The movement made everything worse. The gown slipped further. Your breast was fully exposed now, pale and perfect in the moonlight. He could see your nipple, could see the way it had hardened slightly in the cool air of the room. The silk had ridden up higher on your leg too, and now he could see the dark shadow at the apex of your thighs. Gods.
Were you even wearing anything under that gown?
Jace turned away sharply, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes like he could scrub the image from his mind. His cock was fully hard now, straining against his breeches, and he felt like the worst kind of person. You were drunk. Asleep. Completely vulnerable. And here he was getting hard looking at you, thinking thoughts he had absolutely no right to think.
He needed to cover you. That was the first thing. Before he did anything else—before he even tried to figure out what to do about this situation—he needed to make you decent.
Jace grabbed the blanket from the foot of the bed, hands shaking slightly, and carefully, so carefully, draped it over you. He tried not to look. Tried not to let his eyes linger on all that bare skin before the fabric covered it.
He failed. The image was burned into his mind now. Your breast. Your leg. The shadow between your thighs. The way you looked spread out in his bed like some kind of offering.
Stop it. She's your cousin. She's drunk. This is wrong.
But his body didn't care about wrong. His body only knew that you were here, barely clothed, looking like every fantasy he'd never let himself have. And you had been a fantasy. He could admit that now, alone in the dark with you unconscious and unaware. He'd noticed you. Had tried not to, had told himself it was inappropriate, but he'd noticed. The way you moved. The rare times you smiled. The intelligence in your eyes during council meetings when you thought no one was watching you listen.
He'd just never let himself think about it. About you. Not like that. Now he couldn't think about anything else.
Jace ran both hands through his hair, gripping it hard enough to hurt, trying to ground himself. Trying to think. Okay, good. You were covered now. That was good. Next step was to figure out what the fuck to do.
He should wake you. Should get you back to your own chambers before anyone found out you'd spent the night here. Before servants came in the morning and saw you in his bed. The scandal alone would destroy you. Would destroy any chance you had at a good marriage, would ruin your reputation entirely.
He couldn't let that happen. But waking you meant... what exactly? Touching you? Shaking your shoulder? Explaining that you'd drunkenly stumbled into the wrong room and passed out half-naked in your cousin's bed?
Gods, you'd be mortified.
Maybe it was better to just let you sleep. You were clearly exhausted, clearly drunk enough that you'd mistaken his chambers for yours. In the morning, when you woke, he could pretend he'd just arrived. Could act surprised to find you there. Give you a chance to slip out quietly, save you the embarrassment of a confrontation.
Yes. That was better. Kinder. It had nothing to do with wanting to keep you here a little longer. Nothing to do with the selfish, possessive part of him that liked seeing you in his bed, wrapped in his blankets, surrounded by his scent.
Liar, something whispered in the back of his mind.
Jace ignored it. He'd sleep somewhere else. The chairs by the fire, maybe. Or, there, is eyes landed on the small couch in the corner near the window. It looked deeply uncomfortable, probably meant for sitting and reading rather than sleeping, but it would have to do. He couldn't exactly climb into bed next to you. That would be, well, he didn't let himself finish that thought.
Decision made, he moved quietly toward the corner, trying not to make any noise that might wake you. He'd need to grab a blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed, maybe a pillow.
Something caught his eye. A small gap in the wall near the floor in the corner. He'd never noticed it before, why would he? It was just a shadow among shadows, easy to miss. But now, looking directly at it, he could see it clearly.
A hole. Small, where the mortar had crumbled away between the stones. Jace frowned, crouching down to examine it. Old damage. The kind of thing that happened in castles this ancient, centuries of settling stone.
He should probably mention it to someone. Get it sealed up. Curious, he leaned closer, peering through the narrow gap to see where it led.
His breath caught. It was a room. Your room.
He could see the edge of a bed with a distinctive purple coverlet—the same one he'd seen when he'd accidentally walked in on you in your bath. A dressing table with jewelry scattered across its surface, glinting in the moonlight. Books stacked on a side table. A carved wooden screen positioned in the corner, partially obscuring his view but not completely.
The hole looked directly into your private chambers.
Jace sat back slowly, his heart starting to pound for entirely different reasons now.
This gap in the wall—it went straight through to your room. A perfect line of sight from his corner to yours. Which meant theoretically, someone could look through it. Could see into your private space. Watch you dress, sleep, bathe, lord knows what else.
His jaw clenched hard, a surge of protective anger rising in his chest. Had some servant discovered this? Some guard with ill intentions? The thought of someone watching you while you were vulnerable, unaware, made his blood run hot.
But then again you'd never mentioned it. Never complained about feeling watched or unsafe. Never called for anyone to repair the wall. Which meant either you didn't know about it.
Or you did know, and you'd chosen not to say anything.
Jace turned slowly to look at you, sleeping peacefully in his bed, utterly unaware of his racing thoughts.
The hole was low in his corner. Easy to miss unless you were looking for it, unless you happened to be right here in this spot. But on your side you'd have that screen. Would have moved it at some point, maybe looking for something, and found the gap.
Would have realized where it led. His heart was pounding now, thoughts spiraling.
No. That was insane. You wouldn't. You barely looked at him most days, avoided him at meals, seemed to go out of your way not to be alone with him. But you'd also been acting strange lately. He'd noticed it, couldn't help but notice. The way you flushed when he was near. How you avoided his eyes, like looking at him directly was too much.
And this morning. Gods, this morning when he'd walked in on you in your bath. You'd screamed, yes, but there had been something else in your expression. Something beyond just shock. You'd looked almost guilty, almost. At the time he'd thought he was imagining it. Had assumed you were just mortified at being seen naked. But what if it was more than that?
What if you'd been watching him through this hole, and suddenly he'd burst into your room, and you'd realized how close he was to discovering your secret?
Jace's breath came faster. He thought back over the past few days. The way you'd been flushed at dinner after he'd brought that woman back to his chambers. The way you couldn't meet his eyes the next morning. How you'd seemed distracted, distant, like your mind was somewhere else entirely.
Had you been watching him fuck her? The thought should have made him angry. Should have felt like a violation, an invasion of his privacy.
Instead, heat shot straight to his groin.
His cock, which had softened slightly while he'd been trying to figure out the logistics of where to sleep, was suddenly achingly hard again. He pressed the heel of his hand against his cock through his breeches, trying to will it down, but it was useless. The image was in his head now and wouldn't leave.
You. On the other side of that wall. Eye pressed to the gap. Watching him with some nameless woman, watching him fuck her, watching every thrust and hearing every sound.
Getting wet while you watched.
Fuck. Because you would have, wouldn't you? If you'd been watching—and gods, everything pointed to you watching—you wouldn't have kept coming back to that hole unless it was doing something for you. Unless seeing him like that, uninhibited and raw, was turning you on.
His proper, untouchable cousin. Getting yourself off while spying on him through a crack in the wall. Jace's hand tightened involuntarily on his cock and he had to bite back a groan.
He looked at you again, sleeping peacefully in his bed, completely unaware that he'd figured it out. That he knew. How many times? How many times had you watched him?
That first woman, the dark-haired serving girl. Had you seen that? Seen him bend her over the bed, seen the way he'd made her moan? And the one after. The minor lady whose name he'd already forgotten. Had you watched him spread her legs and bury his face between her thighs?
Gods, had you touched yourself while you watched? Slipped your hand beneath your nightgown, fingers finding your clit while you watched him make other women come? His cock throbbed and he had to close his eyes, had to breathe through the wave of lust that crashed over him.
This was wrong. He shouldn't be thinking about you like this. Shouldn't be getting hard imagining you watching him, wanting him, touching yourself to the sight of him with other women.
But he couldn't stop. Because if you had been watching—and everything in him said you had been—what did that mean?
It meant you wanted him. Maybe didn't want to want him, maybe fought against it, but you did. Why else would you keep going back to that hole? Why else would you watch him fuck other women if not because you wished it was you?
The thought made him harder, made pre-cum leak from the tip of his cock, dampening his smallclothes. He tried to remember the past few nights, tried to think through the wine-haze of who he'd brought back and when.
He'd also been with Cassandra. Right here in this room, in this bed where you were sleeping now.
Had you watched that? His breath came out shaky. He'd been showing off tonight, he could admit that now. Cassandra had been impressed by his title, his dragon, the crown he'd someday wear. She'd made that clear. And maybe he'd wanted to impress her in other ways too. Had made it last longer than usual, had made sure she came twice before he'd let himself finish.
Had you been on the other side of that wall, watching him with her? Watching him kiss her, touch her, spread her legs in this very bed? Watching while your heart twisted with jealousy?
The idea shouldn't thrill him as much as it did.
Jace pressed his palm hard against his cock, trying to calm down, trying to think past the lust fogging his brain. His hand came away damp, he was leaking badly now, his cock throbbing with need.
Stop. Get yourself under control.
He forced himself to breathe. Slow, deep breaths. Forced himself to look away from you sleeping in his bed, tangled in his sheets, still half-exposed despite the blanket he'd draped over you.
This was insane. He was standing here hard as iron, thinking about his cousin watching him fuck other women, getting off on the idea of you wanting him. He needed to calm down. Needed to think rationally about what this meant and what, if anything, he was going to do about it.
Jace forced himself to turn away from you entirely. Grabbed the blanket he'd originally intended to use and moved to the couch in the corner, as far from the bed as he could get in the confines of his own chambers. He stretched out on the too-small surface, the blanket pulled up to his chin, and willed his body to calm down. Willed his cock to soften. Tried to think about anything other than you watching him through that hole.
It didn't work.
Every time he closed his eyes, his mind conjured images. You with your eye pressed to the gap. Your hand sliding beneath your nightgown. Your lips parting as you watched him fuck someone else, wishing it was you. His cock throbbed, still achingly hard, and he shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
This was impossible. He couldn't sleep like this. Couldn't lie here all night with his cock straining against his breeches and you barely ten feet away, half-naked in his bed. He sat up, running both hands through his hair in frustration.
He needed to leave. Needed to get out of this room before he did something monumentally stupid. Like climb into that bed with you. Like wake you up and ask if you'd been watching. Like find out what sounds you'd make if he gave you something real to watch.
Fuck.
Jace stood, moving as quietly as possible, and grabbed his cloak from where it hung by the door. The Street of Silk would still be busy at this hour. He could find someone, anyone, to take the edge off. To fuck this desperate need out of his system so he could think clearly.
He paused at the door, looking back at you one more time. You'd shifted again in your sleep, the blanket slipping down to your waist. Your silver hair spilled across his pillows like you belonged there.
Tomorrow. He'd deal with all of this tomorrow. Would help you back to your chambers, act like the perfect gentleman. Would decide what, if anything, to do about that hole in the wall.
But tonight, he needed to leave before he lost what little control he had left. Jace slipped out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind him, and headed for the castle gates.
To read the remainder of part one (I ran out of space on here), please go to AO3 end of this part is Chapter 5: Consequences. Thank you for reading!
hey did you know??? that if you stop stretching and maintaining mobility in your body then it goes away?? things get tight and you can't move the way that you used to??? and when you decide to try getting a stretch routine going that the first week fucking sucks because you keep going 'damn i used to be able to do this no problem' and then you have to switch gears and be kind to yourself and just focus on getting better from here instead of berating yourself for dropping the good habits in the first place??? and your body never stops aging so you gotta keep taking care of it and sometimes you gotta take care of it extra in certain areas because of things that happened when you were younger and it's boring and sometimes hurts but it's so necessary???
i am yelling this at myself right now i am going through An Experience (trying to get into a routine of body maintenance again for my physical and mental health)
To celebrate House of the Dragon season three, I'm doing a seven week countdown to the first episode, by posting requests every Saturday and every other Wednesday. Each week is focusing on a different character!
This masterlist will be updated as the weeks go on.
WEEK ONE ⊹ Aegon Targaryen
Deception is a Golden cage {niece reader, lovers to enemies}
WEEK TWO ⊹ Aemond Targaryen
The Cost of Loyalty {broken betrothal, lovers to enemies}
Evil Never has Doubts {emotional torment, lovers to enemies}
WEEK THREE ⊹ Jacaerys Velaryon
Midnight without a Moon {arranged betrothal, romance}
WEEK FOUR ⊹ Gwayne Hightower
Honor is the Bane of Love {forbidden love, angst}
An Exchange of Influence {arranged marriage, smut}
I bring a real 'actually people who are pregnant do deserve some special consideration because they are effectively at least temporarily disabled if not permanently after some complications' vibe to the party that a lot of people don't seem to like
This is a juvenile Chacophrys pierottii, arguably the most comically proportioned frog ever. Here is an adult. If I had not taken this photo myself I would think it’s some kind of ridiculous meme render.
These are also the frogs that bury themselves in a backwards spiral that is seriously relatable.
i get why people don't believe in marriage as a social construct but legally it is the best and easiest way to say "this is who i trust to take care of me when i can't take care of myself" and i'm so glad gay people fought for that right bc when shit gets scary at least i know im in good hands
ohhhh shit. target is recalling their up & up baby wipes (fragrance free & fresh cucumber scented) because they're contaminated with Burkholderia cepacia complex and Burkholderia gladioli, multiple people are reporting discoloration & infections. i just got a call about it cuz i had purchased those but i've already gone through them 😅 so no refund for me. but im fine. if you have these they're saying you need to immediately stop using them and bring them back to target for a full refund. this bacteria can cause life threatening infections in children/infants and people with compromises immune systems (ESPECIALLY cystic fibrosis!!) and i know lots of other chronically ill people follow me!!!!
Daeron and his lady love shared a free-use arrangement—complete and mutual, with no limits or hesitation between them.
He adored taking her while she slept. Sometimes he would wake her with slow, deep thrusts, savoring the way her eyes fluttered open in hazy pleasure. Other times he preferred to keep her drifting in that soft, sleepy state, gently maneuvering her pliant body exactly how he wanted spreading her thighs, lifting her hips, and sliding into her warm, welcoming cunt with a low groan. There was something intoxicating about how soft and yielding she was in those moments, half-lost in dreams while he claimed her.
Just as eagerly, he would interrupt anything if the mood struck. In the middle of lunch with her fellow ladies, he’d simply pull her away from the table, drag her into the nearest alcove or chamber, drop to his knees, and bury his face between her thighs. He devoured her sweet cunt like a starving man until she was trembling and biting back desperate moans, then sent her back to her seat flushed and slick.
She had the same freedom with him
When she found him passed out on their bed after a long day or night of drinking, she would crawl over him, straddle his hips, and sink down onto his cock with a soft, satisfied sigh. She loved riding him while he was still deep in sleep, using his thick length for her own pleasure until the slick sounds and her needy little gasps finally woke him.
Daeron never complained. In fact, he encouraged it. He often went to bed wearing nothing at all, half-hard and waiting. The moment consciousness returned and he felt her tight heat squeezing around him, a wicked grin would spread across his face. His large hands would instantly grip her hips, holding her in place as he thrust up hard, meeting her rhythm with deep, powerful strokes until they were both lost in raw, frantic pleasure.
Getting plowed is for the country folk. Here in the city we call it being taken to pound town. And if it's a place with decent public transit, getting railed.
Was driving with my grandmother and in broken English she says “no eyes… no nose… no face. Don’t trust.” To which I looked around wildly in search of this omen of ill portend.
Summary: Maekar is trying to provide a good life for his new wife by removing himself from her company and offering alternatives. He fails. Warnings: a bit of angst because of pining, a bit of smut.
The morning light cut through the high, narrow windows of Summerhall with a pale, wintry insistence, and Maekar Targaryen, prince of the Seven Kingdoms, found himself staring at the ceiling of a room that was not his own. It was decorated with painted vines, a delicate feminine touch he had never bothered to notice before. The bed linens smelled of lavender and something else, sweet and warm. The weight on his arm was the source of the latter.
You were curled against him like a dormouse seeking warmth, both your hands wrapped around the corded muscle of his forearm as if he were a lifeline in a storm. Your cheek was pressed to his shoulder, lips slightly parted in the ease of deep, trusting sleep. A strand of your hair had escaped your night braid and lay across his tunic.
Maekar did not move.
He was a prince, a warrior, a man who had crushed rebellions beneath his mace and watched men die without flinching. But this, the soft, contented curve of your mouth, the way your breath puffed in tiny, even waves against his sleeve, paralyzed him. He cast his mind back, desperately trying to remember when exactly his careful, honorable plan had crumbled to dust. It was the previous night. It had been a fool's errand, a mission of pure and unparalleled idiocy disguised as magnanimity.
For months, he had constructed a cage for you, gilded and sprawling, and called it a marriage. After the death of his first wife, the mother of his children, the very concept of a new bride had felt like a betrayal, a picking at a wound that had barely scarred over after years. His brother, King Aerys, had insisted. The match was politically sound. You were from a fine lineage, a daughter of a loyal house, and your dowry was a collection of trade agreements and land rights that made the court accountants rub their hands with joy.
And you. You were a pretty thing: young, sweet, blinking up at him at the Sept with your big eyes, he had noted absently, and a slight pout on your mouth. He recognized that pout now, not as petulance, but as a sign of deep concentration, an unconscious expression you wore when you were trying very, very hard to be brave.
At the wedding feast, you had tried to engage him in conversation, your voice a soft, hopeful melody against the droning noise of the hall. He had grunted in response, complaining about the seasoning on the boar. You had blinked, then smiled, a small, tentative thing, and said, "Perhaps the kitchens will do better with the lemon cakes, my prince. Would you like me to ask them to bring some?" Deflecting his rudeness with a kindness so artless and sweet it had made his teeth ache.
He had taken you to Summerhall, the seat of his power and the monument to his own complicated legacy. He gave you servants who curtsied low, spacious rooms filled with sunlight and tapestries you seemed to admire, and a generous allowance that could have purchased a small fleet of ships. He had daughters, Daella and Rhae, who were delighted with you, finding in you a new playmate, a doll who could speak and laugh and teach them new embroidery stitches. His sons were a different matter. Aerion was a burning star of chaos somewhere in Essos, Aemon was at the Citadel, chaining himself to books, and Daeron…Daeron was usually never counted. The thought of his eldest, a dissipated dreamer, brought a familiar, leaden weariness to his gut. But the girls were happy, and you were occupied.
He thought he had it all handled.
Everything was provided, he had reasoned, watching you from across the courtyard one afternoon as you and Rhae chased a butterfly. You were a young maiden. His idea of a comfortable existence was good service, a sturdy roof, a well-stocked armory, and a couple of friends with whom to share a flask of strongwine. He had assumed, in his colossal, self-absorbed ignorance, that your needs were the same.
Until he started to see it. The quiet sigh you suppressed when he answered your sweet inquiry about his wellbeing with a noncommittal grunt at the dinner table. The way your eyes, those big, expressive eyes, would track a young knight in the yard as he laughed with his comrades, not with lust, but with a kind of wistful, academic curiosity. You were studying a creature you had never encountered. Daella, his sweet daughter, was already starting to enter that phase of mooning over singers and sighing at sunsets, a phase he dreaded with every fiber of his being. And you, his wife, a lively girl not much older than his own children, were saddled with a grumpy man whose range of communication with her was limited to tactical assessments of mutton and grunts about the weather. You were drowning in comfort and starved of life.
He could commission solutions. Jewelry? A cascade of sapphires appeared on your vanity. New dresses? Bolts of lace and silks in hues of deep green and amethyst filled your wardrobes. Rare books? He had a first-edition history of the Rhoynar, bound in pale leather, delivered to your solar. You had been effusive in your thanks, your pout melting into a radiant smile, but the smile never quite reached your eyes. The problem, he realized with a cold, hard jolt, was not resources.
The problem was romance. He couldn't morph himself into a handsome young knight with a carefree disposition and light humor, the kind of man who would compose a song for you, who would bring you a wildflower he’d picked on a reckless morning ride, who would whisper sweet, foolish nothings in your ear. He was Maekar Targaryen, a blunt instrument, a man of duty and gristle and a simmering, constant irritation at the world.
His poor wife. You were left to smile and giggle quietly at his dry, caustic remarks about a visiting lord’s speech. And you seemed genuinely amused by them, your laughter a soft, surprised ripple of sound that made him pause, mid-chew, in confusion. You were so deprived of pleasant company that you took what you could get from him, poor sweet thing. The realization had made him want to kick himself.
So, he had formed a plan, a scheme that, at the time, had seemed the pinnacle of rational, self-sacrificing genius. He went through his guards the next day under the guise of a brutal, unforgiving drill. He had them running siege patterns, sparring until their padded armor was dark with sweat, watching them like a hawk. He found the one he was looking for: Ser Elyas, a bastard from the Reach. He was honorable, sharp as a blade, and handsome in that sun-kissed, broad-shouldered way that maidens were supposed to swoon over. His laugh was easy, his temperament unruffled.
"Ser Elyas," Maekar had rumbled, his voice a low thunder. "You are being reassigned. You are now the personal guard to my wife, the princess. You will see to her safety at all times. You will accompany her on walks, attend her in the gardens, and ensure no harm befalls her."
He had made it clear to you on your wedding night that he had no intention of bedding you. It was a statement of fact, delivered not out of cruelty but out of a misguided sense of honesty. He had seen the flash of hurt in your eyes, quickly masked by a composed, brittle acceptance. So, naturally, he reasoned, after some time spent in the company of the charming Ser Elyas, you would come to love him. It was a natural, tragic story. A handsome knight and a neglected princess. He had practically gift-wrapped a discreet, passionate affair for you. It was the least he could give it to you, a substitute for the husband you had probably imagined, a way to satisfy that aching, youthful urge for romance that he, a man carved from stone, could never fulfill.
Yet, from what he observed over the following weeks, the plan had failed with spectacular precision. He would watch from a high balcony as Ser Elyas, in his gleaming plate, offered you his hand to help you over a damp patch of grass. You took it with polite, distant courtesy. You would exchange a few words, an occasional jest that made the knight chuckle, but your expression remained serene, unmoved. Maekar, a veteran of countless campaigns, knew the look of a soldier performing a duty. And your nights, as the quiet reports from your maids confirmed, were spent solely in your rooms. No secret knocks, no furtive shadows slipping from your door at dawn.
He was at his wits’ end. What did you want then? He had given you everything your station and age could desire. What would wipe off that pretty, unconscious pout off your face? Perhaps, he had finally conceded, if he talked to you. A novel concept for a marriage, he knew. He would go to you, and perhaps, in a moment of unguarded frustration, you would let your grievances slip.
The previous night, he had gone to your chamber. Your maid, a timid wisp of a girl, nearly dropped her mending box when she saw him at the threshold. "Leave us," he had commanded, and she fled. You had been seated by the fire, a book open on your lap, and you looked like a startled doe at his unexpected presence, your body going rigid, your eyes wide.
"My prince," you had said, your voice a breathless question.
He had felt like an intruder in his own wife's space. "I…I came to see how you were faring," he had managed, the words feeling foreign and clumsy on his tongue.
You recovered quickly, your innate grace taking over. You poured his wine yourself, and offered him a plate of fruit and honey cake. "I am well, my prince. Truly. The book you sent is fascinating. The accounts of the Rhoynish are almost unbelievable." You were making conversation. You were making it easy for him. And so you spoke for a while. It was surprisingly pleasant.
He found himself relaxing into a chair, debating the tactical blunders of the Valyrian conquest of the Rhoyne, and you had listened with rapt attention, asking pointed, intelligent questions that surprised him. You had a mind, he realized with a start. A sharp, curious mind hidden beneath the pout and the big eyes.
But he didn’t catch any clues. No lamenting a lack of knights, no forlorn sighs about the gardens, no veiled complaints about his absence. Just you, being…pleasant. So, eventually, he rose to leave. "It is late. You should rest."
The change was instantaneous. The spark of animation in your eyes died, replaced by a stricken, hollow look, as if you were wondering what you had done wrong. Your fingers tightened imperceptibly on the spine of your book. "Of course, my prince. Thank you for your company."
He hesitated. He was a man of military precision, and the sudden, palpable drop in your mood was a tactical variable he hadn't accounted for. He was already in your bed chambers. What kind of husband left his wife's bed chamber right before going to bed himself? A churlish one. A neglectful one. The servants would talk, of that he was certain. The walls of Summerhall had ears and mouths. But he did not care what servants would see or say. Their gossip was the chaff of court life. The thought that stopped him cold, that made his feet feel nailed to the floor, was simpler. He owed you basic courtesy, did he not? He had denied you everything else. He could not deny you the simple, public dignity of a husband who shared your bed for a night.
Before he could overthink himself out of it, he gestured to the bed. "Move over, then."
Your eyes, if possible, grew even wider. "My prince?"
"I will not sleep in my boots," he said gruffly, sitting on the edge of a chaise and beginning to unlace them. "I will stay. Just to sleep." He made a promise to himself then, a sacred oath. He would lie down with you, and he would speak to you until you fell asleep, so you would not be insulted by a silent, rigid vigil. Then, he would leave. He had been insulting you for months by refusing to do his duties as a husband, and this small act of presence would at least be a temporary salve on a wound he had no intention of healing.
He lay down atop the covers, fully clothed in his tunic and breeches, a stiff, awkward pillar of a man. You slipped under the furs with a rustle of linen, lying rigidly on your back. The silence was deafening. Maekar cast about for something, anything, to say. "Tell me more about the Rhoynar," he commanded, his voice a little too loud in the quiet room.
And so you did, your voice soft and hesitant at first, then gaining strength. You spoke of the legends, the songs of the Mother Rhoyne, the giant turtles that were said to be gods. He listened, inserting a dry comment now and again that made you giggle, that beautiful, rippling sound he was growing dangerously accustomed to. He stayed, and continued speaking to you about the defensive layout of river cities, the logistical challenges of moving a legion through marshland, until your words began to slur, your breathing deepened, and your face went slack with peace. He had done it. He thought he would leave when he was sure you were deep in sleep. He would just wait one more minute. Just to be certain. The fire had burned down to embers. The room was warm. The scent of lavender was soporific. And that was the last thing he remembered.
Now, it was morning. The maid’s insistent knocking on the door was a relentless, chipper assault on his senses. He was still fully clothed, his tunic creased. And you were curled up next to him, clutching his arm as if it were the most natural, obvious thing in the world. The knocking roused you. You stirred, a small hum of contentment escaping your lips before your eyes fluttered open. Your gaze, hazy with sleep, traveled up his arm, over his chest, and settled on his face. The reaction was not one of surprise, or at least not the kind he expected. It was pleasure. A deep, luminous, bone-deep pleasure that transformed your features. You were smiling. A shy, pleased smile, as if you had just woken from a beautiful dream and found it still real.
"Good morning, my prince," you murmured, your voice thick and honeyed with sleep. There was a newfound confidence in it, a possessiveness that hadn't been there before. "Are you to have a busy day? I thought I might join you, if it were permitted. Perhaps I could assist you with your letters?"
Maekar found himself staring. The words were simple, but the meaning behind them was not. His plan, the handsome guard, the neglected lady, the grand affair, it all crashed down around his ears in a shower of broken, idiotic pottery. He realized his mistake with the force of a warhammer to the chest. You thought your husband was finally coming around. The gift, the miraculous, improbable gift you had wanted all along, was not a surrogate. It was him.
You wanted this. Him. His presence. His attention. His dry, sarcastic remarks. His tactical critiques of ancient river warfare. His grumpy, unyielding, solid self.
All this time, you had wanted him.
He felt a strange, tight sensation in his chest, a feeling he hadn't allowed himself to entertain for many, many years. It was a seed of warmth, cracking through the cold, hard stone he had meticulously built around his heart. He cleared his throat, his voice emerging as a low, rusty rumble.
"You can join me," he said, the words a surrender. "If you wish."
The pout was completely gone now. The smile that remained in its place was brilliant, a sun emerging from behind a lifetime of clouds. It was a smile just for him. And for the first time since he had been forced to take a new wife, Maekar Targaryen didn't feel saddled. He felt, with a terrifying, exhilarating certainty, that he was about to be completely, irrevocably unhorsed.
The days that followed that first, accidental night established a new rhythm in Summerhall, one Maekar found himself falling into with a disquieting ease he refused to examine too closely.
You had asked to assist him, and Maekar, a man who had never refused a direct request from a lady in his life out of sheer, blunt propriety, could find no reasonable grounds to deny you. You appeared in his solar the next morning, freshly dressed in a gown of pale yellow that made you look like a spring daffodil, and settled yourself in the chair across from his great oaken desk. He expected you to be a distraction. Instead, you proved infuriatingly useful. Your handwriting was elegant where his was a cramped, soldierly scrawl.
You sorted his correspondence into neat piles: urgent, routine, and the one you tactfully labeled "probably insincere flattery from lords who want something." He had let out a surprised bark of laughter at that, and you had beamed at him as if he'd just crowned you Queen of Love and Beauty.
This became your habit. Mornings in his solar, you with your neat piles and your quiet, intelligent questions about the running of the lands. Afternoons, you would walk with him along the battlements, your hand resting lightly on his arm as he pointed out the defensive improvements he was making to the eastern wall. You listened with genuine interest, asking about murder holes and arrow slits with a curiosity that was wholly unfeigned. Evenings, you dined together, and your sweet inquiries about his wellbeing were no longer met with grunts. He found himself actually answering you, describing the frustrations of a dispute between two minor landed knights or the irritating news from court. You would nod, your brow furrowed in thought, and offer observations that were often startlingly perceptive.
And every night, the same delicate, unspoken negotiation occurred.
The first time it happened outside of your own chambers, you had been in his rooms. It was late, the fire burning low, and you had been reading aloud to him from a treatise on dragonlore while he sharpened his dagger. Your voice had grown hoarse, and he noticed the way you rubbed at your eyes with the back of your hand. He could not, in good conscience, send you shuffling down cold corridors to your own chambers. The very idea was absurd. What kind of husband kicked his own wife out into the night like a stray cat?
"The hour is late," he had said, sheathing his dagger with a decisive click. "You will stay here."
You had looked at him with that expression again, the one that was half hope and half caution, as if you were afraid of misinterpreting his words. "Here, my prince?"
"In my bed," he clarified, the words coming out more gruffly than he intended. "I will take the chaise."
But you had looked so stricken at that suggestion, your face falling in that way he was growing to dread, that he had found himself amending the plan. "Or I will join you. The bed is large enough. It is not seemly for a prince to sleep on a chaise in his own chambers."
It was a flimsy justification, and he knew it. But the way your expression brightened, the shy, pleased smile that curved your lips, was worth the internal grumbling. He lay beside you that night, a careful distance between your bodies, and spoke to you about the properties of Valyrian steel until your breathing evened out into the soft rhythm of sleep. He awoke to find you pressed against his side, your head on his shoulder, one of your hands resting over his heart as if counting the beats.
This, too, became your habit. You clinging to him in sleep like a limpet to a rock, and Maekar waking each morning to the scent of your hair and the warm, trusting weight of your body against his. He told himself it was for your dignity. He told himself it was a small kindness, a basic courtesy. He told himself many things, and believed none of them.
Then there was the incident with the lamprey pie.
A lord from the coastal holdings had sent a gift of lampreys, and the kitchens had prepared them in a rich, heavily spiced pie. You had eaten only a small portion, politely complimenting the flavor, but within hours you were taken ill. Maekar was in the yard overseeing a drill when your maid came running, her face pale as milk.
"My prince, it is the princess. She is unwell. The maester says it is the lamprey, that it has irritated her stomach something fierce."
He did not remember crossing the castle. He only remembered the cold spike of fear that had lanced through him, the way his heart had hammered against his ribs with a violence that had nothing to do with exertion. He found you in your chambers, curled on your side in the great bed, your face waxen and beaded with sweat. The maester was there, a fussy old man who was doing far too much hand-wringing for Maekar's liking.
"She will recover, my prince. It is a mere gastric disturbance. But she must eat to keep her strength up, and she refuses. The princess will not touch the porridge."
Maekar looked at the tray on the bedside table. A bowl of plain, unappetizing porridge sat there, cooling and congealing. You were facing away from it, your eyes closed, your pout firmly in place.
"Leave us," Maekar commanded. The maester and the maids scurried out like mice before a dragon.
He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his weight. Your eyes fluttered open, and you looked at him with such a mix of misery and embarrassment that it made something twist painfully in his chest.
"I am sorry," you whispered, your voice thin and reedy. "I am being foolish. It will pass."
"You will eat," he said, reaching for the bowl.
"My prince, I cannot. The very thought..."
"You will eat," he repeated, and this time his voice was gentler, an unfamiliar softness creeping in despite his best efforts. He scooped a small portion of the porridge onto the spoon. "Open your mouth."
You stared at him, those big eyes glassy with discomfort, and for a moment he thought you would refuse him. But then you parted your lips, a tiny, obedient gesture, and he carefully slid the spoon into your mouth. You swallowed with visible effort, your face scrunching up, and he immediately had another spoonful ready.
"Good," he said, the praise awkward on his tongue. "Again."
He fed you the entire bowl that way, spoonful by painstaking spoonful, his large, calloused hands surprisingly steady. He did not rush you. He waited between each bite, murmuring gruff words of encouragement that felt foreign and strange, like a language he had never been taught. When the bowl was empty, he set it aside and reached for a cloth, dabbing gently at the corner of your mouth.
Your eyes were wet, but you were smiling. That smile. The one that made him feel like a hero from a song, when all he had done was feed you porridge.
"Thank you, Maekar," you breathed, using his name without his title for the first time. It hit him somewhere deep, a blow he had no armor for.
"Rest now," he ordered, his voice rougher than he intended. "I will stay."
He stayed. He lay beside you, fully clothed, and let you curl into his side. He stayed until your breathing steadied and the color slowly returned to your cheeks. He stayed even after that, watching the firelight play across the ceiling, feeling the steady rise and fall of your chest against his, and wondered what in the seven hells he was doing.
But still, still, he put off the matter of bedding you.
It was not that he did not want to. The realization had crept up on him with the slow, inevitable force of a rising tide. He wanted to. Gods help him, he wanted to. The sight of you in your thin nightdress, the way your hair spilled across the pillows, the warmth of your body pressed against his each morning, it was testing the limits of his resolve, which had never been particularly strong where matters of the heart were concerned. He had simply never had his heart involved before.
But to bed you would be to open a door he was not certain he could close again. He had built his life around duty, around the cold, hard certainties of obligation and honor. He had loved once, and loss had carved a hollow in him that he had believed was permanent. You were filling that hollow, day by day, smile by smile, and the sensation was as terrifying as it was intoxicating.
He was a coward. Maekar Targaryen, who had faced down rebel lords and laughed at the prospect of single combat, was a coward when it came to his own wife.
Then came the night of the kiss.
It was an evening like any other. You had spent the day in his solar, helping him draft responses to a particularly tedious batch of petitions. Dinner had been a quiet affair, just the two of you, and you had made him laugh, actually laugh, a deep, surprised rumble of sound, with a wicked impression of a pompous lord who had visited the previous week. You had retired to his chambers, as had become your custom, and he had told you about the Dragonknight's campaigns in Dorne until your eyes grew heavy.
"Goodnight, Maekar," you said, your voice soft and drowsy.
And then you kissed him.
It was not a forceful kiss, not a demand or an invitation. It was a brief, gentle press of your lips against his, as natural and unthinking as a breath. A goodbye. An act of simple, uncomplicated affection. You pulled back, your eyes already closing, and nestled into your pillow with a contented sigh, as if you had done nothing of any particular note.
Maekar lay frozen, staring at the canopy above him, his heart thundering in his ears.
You had kissed him.
This was his fault. The thought careened through his skull like a loose cannon on a ship's deck. This was entirely, unequivocally his fault. He had done this. He had planted this notion in your head, watered it with his attentions, and now it had bloomed into something he could no longer ignore.
A fortnight ago, you had been helping him remove his heavy outer tunic after a long day of inspections, your small fingers working deftly at the clasps. It had been such a wifely gesture, so intimate and so natural, that before he had known what he was doing, he had leaned down and pressed his lips to your brow. A brief, chaste kiss. A thank you. He had not even realized he had done it until he saw the way you had frozen, your eyes wide. He had cleared his throat and muttered something about the fire needing more wood, and the moment had passed.
But you had taken that kiss, that single, thoughtless gesture, and drawn a conclusion from it. You had decided, in your sweet, hopeful way, that your husband wanted you to initiate affection as well. That he was too reserved, too gruff, too locked within his own silences to ask for what he wanted. And so, with that gentle, trusting kiss, you had reached across the chasm he had placed between you and offered him a bridge.
Did he want you to? The question burned in his mind, insistent and demanding. Did he want you to kiss him goodnight, as if it were the most normal thing in the world? As if you were truly husband and wife in every sense?
He certainly was not complaining. The ghost of your lips still tingled on his, and his body was reacting in ways that were entirely inappropriate for a man who was supposed to be letting his wife sleep. He was not complaining at all. That was the problem.
He should be complaining. He should be panicking. Because this, this sweetness, this trust, this quiet, domestic intimacy, led inexorably to one conclusion. You would expect children now. The thought hit him like a splash of ice water. Of course you would expect children. A princess, a wife, a woman who had been raised to understand that the bearing of heirs was a fundamental part of her duty. And you would want them, he realized with a jolt. You would want his children. Not out of duty, but out of genuine desire. You would want a babe with his silver-gold hair and your eyes, a child you could hold and nurture and love.
Gods be good.
He turned his head on the pillow to look at you. You were already asleep, your face peaceful, your lips still curved in that small, contented smile. You had no idea of the earthquake you had just set off in his chest. You had kissed him and promptly fallen asleep, trusting him completely, utterly unaware of the crisis you had left in your wake.
Maekar stared at you for a long time, watching the steady rise and fall of your breath, the way your lashes cast delicate shadows on your cheeks. His mind was a whirlwind of duty and desire, fear and longing, the cold echoes of past grief and the warm, insistent pulse of something new.
He could not keep putting this off. He could not keep lying beside you, night after night, pretending that this was a mere courtesy. He could not keep telling himself that he was doing this for your dignity, when in truth, your dignity was the last thing on his mind when he felt the press of your body against his in the dark.
But not tonight. Tonight, you were asleep, and he was a coward still. Tonight, he would lie here and listen to you breathe and feel the warmth of your kiss still burning on his lips.
Tomorrow, perhaps, he would be braver.
Or perhaps, he thought grimly, you would kiss him again, and the choice would be taken out of his hands entirely. The thought was not as unwelcome as it should have been.
The kisses continued.
Every night, without fail, you would bid him goodnight with that same gentle, fleeting press of your lips against his. It was never demanding, never lingering. It was a question posed in the softest possible terms, a door left slightly ajar, an invitation he could accept or decline as he saw fit. And every night, for the first several nights, Maekar accepted it the same way: by remaining perfectly, rigidly still, a statue of a man enduring a pleasant but bewildering assault.
He felt you withdraw each time, felt the tiny, almost imperceptible slump of your shoulders as you settled back onto your pillow. You never said anything. You never complained. But he knew. He was a dull rock, an unresponsive lump of granite, and he was hurting you with his passivity. The knowledge gnawed at him, a persistent, guilty ache that followed him through his days and haunted his waking hours.
The fifth night, something in him snapped. Simply, as you leaned in to press your customary kiss to his lips, he found himself moving. His hand came up, rough and calloused, to cup the back of your head. And he kissed you back.
It was not a passionate kiss. It was not the kiss of a man swept away by desire. It was a careful response, a returning of pressure, a silent acknowledgment. He felt your startled inhale against his mouth, the way your body went taut with surprise. When he pulled back, your eyes were wide, your lips parted, and there was a look on your face that made his chest constrict.
Expectation. Hope. A question that had been waiting, patient and trembling, for an answer.
Maekar looked at you, at your big eyes shining in the firelight, at your kiss-swollen mouth, at the delicate line of your collarbone visible above the lace of your nightdress. He thought of all the nights he had lain beside you, rigid with restraint. He thought of the way you smiled at him, the way you laughed at his dry remarks, the way you clung to his arm in sleep as if he were the only safe harbor in a storm.
He resigned himself. The decision came not with a sense of defeat, but with a strange, liberating clarity. He did not want to become the object of your resentment. He could not bear the thought of those eyes looking at him with bitterness, with the slow, corrosive realization that your husband was a man who denied you not only his affection but the most basic experiences of womanhood. You were young and full of life, and he had been keeping you in a gilded cage, feeding you porridge and kissing your forehead as if you were a child rather than a wife.
"You deserve pleasure," he said, his voice low and rough, the words feeling as if they were being dragged from some deep, hidden place within him. "I have been remiss in my duties."
Your breath caught. "Maekar..."
He moved before he could lose his nerve. His hands found your waist, and he lifted you as if you weighed nothing, settling you onto his lap with a decisive, careful motion. You were warm through the thin fabric of your nightdress, your body soft and pliant against the hard planes of his chest. He could feel the rapid flutter of your heart.
"I will not take what I have no right to claim," he said, the words a rough murmur against your temple. "But I can give you this. Let me give you this."
His fingers found the hem of your nightdress, and he pushed it up slowly, giving you time to object. You did not object. You only watched him with those enormous eyes, your hands resting on his shoulders as if you did not quite know what to do with them. He touched you gently, so gently, his battle-roughened hands moving with a delicacy that surprised even himself. He explored the soft skin of your thighs, the curve of your hip, the dip of your waist. He learned the shape of you by touch alone, his gaze fixed on your face, cataloguing every flicker of expression.
When his fingers found the center of your heat, you gasped, your head falling back, your fingers digging into his shoulders. He moved with slow, patient circles, learning what made you sigh, what made you shudder, what made your hips buck involuntarily against his hand. He was methodical in his attentions, as he was in all things, and he brought you to the peak with the same focused determination he might apply to a siege.
You shattered against him with a cry that was half surprise and half relief, your body arching, your hands fisting in the fabric of his tunic. He held you through it, his free arm wrapped securely around your waist, anchoring you against the storm of sensation. When the tremors subsided, you slumped against his chest, breathing hard, your face buried in the crook of his neck.
He gave you a moment. Then, with the same gentle efficiency, he rearranged your nightdress, lifted you from his lap, and placed you back onto the bed. He drew the furs up to your chin and pressed a kiss to your forehead.
"Sleep now," he commanded, his voice a low rumble.
You blinked up at him, your expression dazed and soft and so full of something that looked terrifyingly like adoration. "But you..."
"This was for you," he said, cutting you off with a firmness that brooked no argument. "Rest."
You slept. He did not. He lay beside you in the darkness, his body aching with unfulfilled need, and told himself that this was enough. He had done his duty. He had given you pleasure without complicating matters with his own involvement. It was a tidy solution, a clean, surgical strike. You were satisfied. There was no need to get himself fully involved.
This, too, became a habit.
Every few nights, when the expectant look in your eyes grew too pronounced to ignore, he would pull you onto his lap and touch you until you came apart in his arms. He learned the rhythms of your body. He knew the spot just below your ear that made you whimper when he pressed his lips to it. He knew the pace that made you clutch at him desperately, the slower, teasing touches that made you gasp his name like a prayer. He gave you pleasure as a general might distribute supplies to a besieged city: regularly, efficiently, and with a steadfast refusal to partake himself.
He thought you accepted this. He thought you understood the unspoken terms of this arrangement. He was a fool.
It was a quiet evening, the fire burning low in the hearth, the castle settling into the deep hush of night. He had just returned from a grueling inspection of the eastern watchtowers, his muscles aching, his mood as dark as the storm clouds gathering over the mountains. You were waiting for him in his chambers, a book open on your lap, a cup of warmed wine already poured and waiting on his desk.
You were always waiting for him now. The thought should not have warmed him as it did.
The night's ritual had been completed. You were nestled against him, your body still humming with the aftermath of pleasure, your breathing slowly returning to normal. He was preparing to settle you back onto your pillow, to pull up the furs and press his customary kiss to your forehead, when you spoke.
"Maekar." Your voice was soft, hesitant, but there was a thread of steel beneath it that he had learned to recognize. "May I ask you something?"
"You may," he said, his guard instinctively rising.
You were silent for a moment, your fingers tracing idle patterns on the fabric of his tunic. Then, you lifted your head to look at him, and the expression in your eyes made his heart stutter.
"Why do you not want anything for yourself?"
The question hung in the air between them, simple and devastating. He opened his mouth to deflect, to offer some gruff platitude about duty and obligation, but you did not give him the chance.
"Every night," you continued, your voice still soft but gaining strength, "you give me such pleasure. You are so gentle, so careful, so attentive. But you never…" You hesitated, a flush creeping up your cheeks, but you pressed on with the same determined courage you had shown since the day you arrived at Summerhall. "You never let me touch you. You never seek your own release. It is as if you believe you do not deserve it, or as if you think I am not capable of giving it."
"You are capable," he said, the words escaping before he could cage them.
"Then why?" Your pout was there, that unconscious, pretty pout that he had come to know so well. But it was accompanied by a look so loving, so open and earnest and full of desperate hope, that it struck him like a blow. "I could learn. I could learn how to please you, if you are willing to teach me. I am not afraid. I want to be a true wife to you, in every sense."
He felt something cracking inside him, the carefully constructed walls he had built around his heart beginning to crumble. "It is not a matter of teaching," he said, his voice strained. "There are…consequences. You are young. You should not be burdened with..."
"Children," you finished for him, and he was stunned into silence. "You are worried about children."
It was not the only thing, but it was the easiest to admit. He nodded stiffly.
You took a deep breath, and he watched as you gathered your courage, your hands clasping together in your lap. "If you do not wish for children," you said, your voice steady despite the tremor he could see in your fingers, "I can drink moon tea. We can postpone the idea. I have spoken to the maester, and he has assured me it is safe when used sparingly."
Maekar stared at you. You had spoken to the maester. You, his sweet wife, had gone to the old man and asked about moon tea. The image was so absurd, so unexpectedly bold, that he almost laughed.
But you were not finished. "I would like to have a child someday," you continued, and now your voice grew softer, more wistful. "One child of my own. No matter a boy or a girl. And I would raise it with the best of my ability, with all the love I have to give. But…" You reached out, your small hand coming to rest on his cheek, your thumb brushing the line of his jaw. "I would like to have a life first. A marriage. A husband who does not treat me like a delicate piece of glass that might shatter at his touch."
Your eyes were wet, but you were smiling. That smile. The one that had undone him from the very beginning.
"I want you, Maekar," you whispered. "I want my husband."
The walls crumbled. The last defenses fell. Maekar Targaryen, prince of Summerhall, breaker of rebellions and terror of his enemies, looked at his young wife and realized he was only a man. A man who had been fighting a losing battle against his own heart for longer than he cared to admit. A man who loved his wife.
He loved you. The truth of it was a physical thing, a weight in his chest, a fire in his blood. He loved your laugh, your pout, your clever mind and your gentle hands and your infuriating, wonderful habit of clinging to him in sleep. He loved your courage, standing before him now and baring your soul with nothing but hope to shield you. He loved you.
"Gods be good," he breathed, and then he was moving.
His hands found your waist, and this time there was nothing careful or clinical about the touch. He pulled you against him, crushing you to his chest, and his mouth descended on yours in a kiss that was nothing like the chaste, hesitant presses of lips you had shared before. This was a surrender. A desperate, hungry admission of everything he had been too stubborn to say.
You gasped against his mouth, and then your arms were around his neck, your fingers tangling in his hair, and you were kissing him back with an enthusiasm that made his head spin. When he finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard, your faces inches apart.
"You foolish, stubborn man," you whispered, but your voice was thick with tears and joy. "I have been waiting for you to understand."
"I understand now," he said, his voice a low, wrecked rasp. "Forgive me. For all of it. For the neglect, for the distance, for the guard I foisted upon you like a fool..."
"You gave me Ser Elyas?" Your eyes widened, and then a surprised laugh bubbled up from your throat. "Oh, Maekar. I thought he was just a very attentive guard. I wondered why he kept trying to recite poetry at me."
Maekar groaned, dropping his forehead to yours. "I am an idiot."
"You are my idiot," you corrected, and the possessive warmth in your voice was his final undoing. "My husband. And I believe you owe me a proper wedding night."
He looked at you, at the mischievous glint in your eyes, at the loving curve of your smile, and he felt something he had not felt in many, many years. Hope. Joy. A future unfolding before him that was not merely duty and endurance, but something bright and warm and achingly beautiful.
"I owe you much more than that," he murmured, and he lowered his mouth to yours once more.
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