ᴍᴏᴏɴ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ

18+ blog 23. psych student. bpd baddie. daeron addict requests: open

[saeransangel]

ŋą۷ıɠąɬıơŋ

—ᴀꜱ ᴀʙᴏᴠᴇ, ꜱᴏ ʙᴇʟᴏᴡ

uıɥʇıʍ os ' uıɥʇıʍ sɐ—

⊹ ࣪ ˖ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴍᴇ!

23| ɪɴꜰᴊ | ᴠɪʀɢᴏ ꜱᴜɴ | ᴀʀɪᴇꜱ ᴍᴏᴏɴ | ꜱᴀɢɪᴛᴛᴀʀɪᴜꜱ ʀɪꜱɪɴɢ | ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ ᴀᴅᴅɪᴄᴛ

ʀᴇQᴜᴇꜱᴛꜱ ᴏᴘᴇɴ ꜰᴏʀ ᴀᴋᴏᴛꜱᴋ, ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴᴏɴꜱ, ᴏɴᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ, ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ

(ꜰʟᴜꜰꜰ, ꜱᴍᴜᴛ, ᴀɴɢꜱᴛ)

༉‧₊˚. ᴄᴜʀʀᴇɴᴛ ʜʏᴘᴇʀꜰɪxᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱ: ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ, ᴀᴋᴏᴛꜱᴋ, ʜᴏᴛᴅ, ɢᴏᴛ

༉‧₊˚. ᴄᴏɴꜰᴇꜱꜱ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴛʜɪɴɢ, ᴍʏ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

༉‧₊˚. ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

messages are always open to talk or if you just wanna make a friend:)

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ꜱᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ — ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʏʀᴇɴ

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ summary: Lonely, heartsick, and desperate to be chosen, Prince Daeron Targaryen makes a drunken wish at an old fountain, never believing the stories about it could be true. By morning, the woman he has loved in silence looks at him with all the devotion he has ever craved. But as her love turns possessive and unstable, Daeron begins to realize the woman reaching for him is not truly the woman he loved at all.

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ wc: 8.9k

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ note: my take on the movie Obsession with Daeron! obviously, not my idea, all credit for that goes towards curry barker!

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ warnings: graphic depiction of injury, heavy themes, angst, hurt/no comfort

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ tag list: @deaddovelovely <3 @shadowypizzasuit @ynnlvrs @rxiwrites @c0c0nutbiscuit

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ songs: Love is a Stranger by Eurythmics & Play Dead (Tim Simenon 7" remix)

Daeron Targaryen had heard the story first as a boy. A fountain in the eastern courtyard of Summerhall, pale as old bone and cracked along the edges, older than the castle itself if the servants were to be believed. Rainwater gathered in it even during dry weeks. No one filled it. No one cleaned it. No one liked to pass it after sunset.

“It grants a wish,” one serving girl had whispered to him when he was young enough to be frightened and proud enough to pretend he was not. Daeron had laughed. “One wish,” she had said, very seriously. “Only one.”

He had laughed harder then. It was a children’s tale. A servant’s story. Some foolish thing meant to frighten little boys away from courtyards where they might crack their skulls on wet stone.

Years later, drunk and heartsick and far less wise than he thought himself, Daeron remembered it. He had not gone there with a purpose. Or that was what he told himself afterward. 

He had left the feast because he could no longer bear to watch you smile at another man. The man was nothing. Some handsome little lord with clean hands and better prospects, exactly the sort of man your house would welcome. Exactly the sort of man no one would whisper about if he danced with you twice.

Daeron had watched you laugh at something the man said. Then he watched your eyes flick, briefly, toward him. There had been warmth there.

There was always warmth with you. That was the cruelty of it. You cared for him. You defended him when others made jokes. You took cups from his hand when he had drunk too much and told him, softly, that he did not need to finish everything placed before him. You spoke to him as if he were not already ruined.

But caring was not loving. And loving was not choosing. You would never choose him, not truly. Not when he was what he was. Daeron the Drunken. The name followed him like a stain. A woman like you might pity him. Might even want him in some quiet, shameful corner of herself. But you would not destroy your name for him. You would not become a warning to other women of your house. You would not love him more than your own good sense.

That was the thought that led him into the eastern courtyard. 

The fountain waited beneath the moon. Daeron stopped when he saw it, then gave a bitter little laugh. He crossed to it and braced both hands against the cold stone edges. The water inside was dark, reflecting the night. He could see the stars and the light of the full moon reflecting off the stilled liquid. The longer he looked, the more he began to notice his own reflection staring back at him. Daeron, drunk and wanting and pathetic enough to ask stones for mercy.

He thought of you then, though he had been trying not to all night, which is how he ended up here. 

That was the trouble with you. You were never where he left you. He could walk away from the feast, from the music, from the sight of your hand resting politely in another man’s, but you followed him anyway. Not in body, but in memory. In the soft turn of your mouth when you were trying not to laugh at him. In the quiet firmness of your voice when you told him he had had enough wine. In the way you looked at him sometimes, almost tenderly, before good sense returned and shuttered the expression away.

Almost.

That was the word that had undone him. You almost loved him. Or he had convinced himself you did. You almost reached for him. Almost stayed too close. Almost said the thing neither of you was foolish enough to say aloud.

And Daeron was so tired of almost. He wanted to be chosen without hesitation, looked at without caution. Wanted, for once, to be more than the ruined prince people pitied, laughed at, or endured. He wanted you to forget every sensible reason you had for keeping him at a distance. Your house. Your name. His reputation. His drinking. His father’s disappointed eyes. All of it. He wanted your carefulness gone. Not because he did not know it was part of you, but because he hated that it stood between you.

Standing there over the fountain, drunk enough to be cruel and lonely enough to mistake cruelty for longing, Daeron let himself imagine what it would feel like if you stopped resisting. If all that warmth you kept hidden finally turned toward him without fear or shame. If you loved him the way he wanted to be loved. Completely. More than anything. The way he loved you.

He stared into the fountain as if looking for a warning, hoping that an answer would present itself clearly through the dark water. The fountain did not answer.

He leaned over it. His reflection trembled on the surface. Silver hair loose around his face. Violet eyes bright with wine. A prince, if one was feeling generous. A waste, if one were being honest.

“I wish she loved me,” he said.  The words came out too soft, too true. His mouth twisted. “I wish her heart would know no devotion greater than me.”

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the water turned black. It was not a shadow or moonlight moving behind clouds; it was blackness so complete that his reflection vanished from the surface. The fountain looked suddenly bottomless, like a hole cut into the world.

 Daeron felt like he couldn’t quite catch his breath. He stumbled back. “Seven hells.”

The courtyard was silent. Nothing rose from the water, no hand or voice presented itself to him as he had foolishly expected. It was simply nothing. 

After a while, shame came creeping back. He was drunk. That was all. Drunk and jealous and frightening himself with old stories. He went to bed telling himself that. 

By morning, he almost believed it. Then you came to him.

You were waiting in the main garden, alone beneath an arch of white roses, your hands clasped before you, your eyes searching the path he always took from his chambers.

Daeron slowed. “My lady?”

You turned. The instant you saw him, your face opened. That was the only word for it. Opened. All your timidness had vanished. All your restraint, the composed little walls you had built around yourself as a woman of noble blood and better judgment. It was just gone. 

You looked at him like he was the only thing in the world that had ever mattered. “Daeron,” you breathed. His name sounded like a prayer leaving your lips. 

He knew something was wrong. Not clearly or enough to give it shape. But some deep, ugly part of him knew you would not look at him like that overnight. Not in a garden where anyone might see.

You came to him quickly, taking his hands in yours. Your fingers trembled as though you had been waiting all your life to touch him. “I was looking for you,” you said.

“For me?” He couldn’t hide his confusion. Was he dreaming? Did the Gods finally bless him with something peaceful for once?

Your face fell, wounded by the question. “Of course for you.” There it was again. Too much, too sweet. Daeron thought of the fountain for a brief moment. Perhaps he wasn’t dreaming after all. Perhaps the wish had truly come to fruition. His mind began to race with all of the possibilities that could have made the wish real. Then he chose not to.

For three days, he was happy. You adored him openly now. You sat beside him whenever you could. You watched his mouth when he spoke, laughed too quickly at his jokes, and quieted too sharply when others spoke over him.

At first, Daeron told himself it was not his wish. He told himself that you had always loved him. Perhaps he had been too drunk, too ashamed, too used to rejection to notice. Perhaps all the fountain had done was give him courage to see what was already there.

It was a weak lie. He clung to it anyway.

The first time you kissed him, it was in the passage behind the library. You had followed him there after supper. Normally, you never would have done such a thing. You were too careful for that. Too aware of who might see. Now you came to him as if caution had become meaningless.

“My lady,” Daeron said with warning, though his voice had already softened.

You smiled. “I noticed that you left. I wanted to make sure you were alright, my prince.”

“I wanted quiet.” He let out a small laugh. For one foolish, shining moment, Daeron felt chosen. You had sought him out as if being apart from him was the most unbearable thing. The thought filled him with such aching joy that he could hardly breathe. He had spent so long wanting you quietly that he did not know what to do now that you seemed to want him back.

“Mm, I think you wanted me to follow.” You mused, a soft smile lit up your features. It was beautiful because it was yours. The curve of your mouth, the gentle lift of your eyes, the warmth blooming across features he had studied too often to mistake for anyone else’s. Daeron could think of nothing but the sweetness of it, that you were looking at him like this, that all the careful distance between the two of you had finally fallen away.

He was so overcome by these feelings that he did not think to question why the smile sat strangely on your face, almost perfect but not quite. As though someone had remembered your beauty exactly and forgotten the way your soul moved beneath it.

When you stepped closer, Daeron felt the world narrow to the space between your mouth and his. He had imagined this too many times to count, always with shame, always with the bitter certainty that it would never happen. But now you were looking at him as if you wanted it too, as if you had always wanted to, and the sweetness of that lie was so perfect that he leaned toward it before he could think better of himself.

Your mouth was warm beneath his, eager and certain, and Daeron felt the last fragile thread of sense in him snap. You kissed him as if there had never been any doubt between you, as if all your careful glances and measured smiles had only been a long prelude to this. Your hands rose into his hair, fingers curling there with sudden need, and the sound he made against your mouth was almost pathetic.

He found your waist and drew you closer, helpless against the taste. You came willingly, too willingly, pressing into him as though distance had become unbearable. For one bright, impossible moment, he forgot the fountain. He forgot the black water. He forgot every reason this should have frightened him.

All he knew was that you were kissing him back.

Then you stopped. Not slowly or with any warning. One moment, your mouth was moving against his, your fingers tangled in his hair, your body leaning into his as though you had wanted him all your life. The next, your hands ripped away from him.

You shoved him hard enough that his shoulder struck the wall. You staggered back, one hand clasped over your mouth, eyes darting over him, then around the passage with a dawning horror so raw it emptied your face of everything else.

Daeron stared. 

You looked at him, really looked at him, and whatever you saw made you scream. The sound ripped from you before you seemed to know you were making it. Daeron froze, unable to understand how a kiss could have drawn that kind of terror from you. You looked at him with wide, wet eyes, and for one awful moment he felt less like a man who had been wanted and more like something you had found waiting in the dark.

You stumbled backward, knees striking the stone, one hand scraping against the wall as you tried to catch yourself. For a heartbeat, you crouched there on the floor, shaking, staring up at him.

You shook your head once. “What is going on?” you whispered. Your voice was thin and labored.

“My lady?” 

Your body snapped still. Daeron had no time even to breathe before you rose. You came upright all at once, pulled to your feet in a sharp, boneless motion that made his stomach turn, as though invisible strings had caught your spine and yanked you back into place.

For one brief moment, your eyes were empty. Then you blinked. Tears still streaked your cheeks, but the terror was gone so completely it might never have existed. A smile spread across your lips as if it had always been there.

“Oh,” you breathed, smoothing your skirts with trembling hands. “Daeron.” You gave a small, embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

Daeron could not move. You stepped toward him, sweet and tearful and almost shy. “Did I frighten you?”

Yes. That should have been his answer. Yes, and then he should have found help. Instead, he took a cautious step. You reached for him with such relief that something sick and grateful opened in his chest. He let you kiss him again.

After the kiss, something in you became harder to follow.

At first, Daeron told himself it was only passion. You were overwhelmed, perhaps. Frightened by your own boldness. Made strange by feelings you had spent too long denying. It was easier to believe that than to think too closely about the way your tenderness could sharpen without warning, how one moment you would be touching his sleeve with almost worshipful softness, and the next your eyes would fill with tears because he had looked away too long.

You became all extremes. Sweet enough to make him ache, then wounded so suddenly he felt accused before he understood the crime. You would smile at him as if he had hung the moon, then go cold and trembling because he had answered a servant before answering you. The smallest distance between you seemed to open some terrible pit inside you, and Daeron, the fool that he was, kept stepping close to soothe it.

The changes came quietly at first. Small things. Things Daeron could explain away because he wanted to explain them away.

At breakfast one morning, he reached for his wine before the meal had properly begun. You saw the movement at once. Before his fingers touched the cup, your hand covered his. Gently, almost lovingly.

“You do not need that,” you said.

Daeron looked at you, startled. Once, you might have said something similar. You might have taken a cup from him with quiet concern, then looked away before anyone could read too much into it. There would have been restraint in it. Kindness, yes, but distance too. Now your fingers threaded through his. 

“You have me,” you added softly.

The words should have warmed him. They did. That was the problem. Daeron smiled before he could stop himself, and when you saw it, your whole face brightened as if his pleasure had fed something starving in you.

“There,” you whispered. “Better.”

It was strange. 

It was sweet.

He chose sweet.

Later, in the yard, one of the squires made a careless joke about Daeron’s cups always being fuller than his courage. It was nothing he had not heard before. Daeron had even begun to laugh, because sometimes laughing first was easier than letting others know they had struck flesh.

You did not laugh. The air around you seemed to cool. “What did you say?” you asked.

The squire went red. “My lady, I meant no offense.”

“Yes,” you said. “You did.”

Daeron touched your sleeve. “Leave it.”

But you did not look at him. Your eyes stayed on the boy, steady and bright and terribly calm. “You should apologize.”

The squire swallowed. “My lady, please forgive me.”

“Not to me,” you said.

Daeron’s smile faded. The boy looked confused. “My lady?”

“To him,” you said. “For making him hear it.” It was too sharp. Too possessive. Unlike the way you had once defended him once with wit and grace. You were never cruel. But when you turned back to Daeron, your face softened. “There,” you said, almost proudly. “No one should speak to you that way.”

Daeron told himself he was moved, and he was. But beneath it, something cold had begun to stir.

Soon, you had begun to follow him. Not always obviously. Not enough that others could accuse you of impropriety. But Daeron would leave a room, and moments later you would appear in the corridor. He would go to the stables, and there you would be near the archway, pretending to admire a horse you had never shown interest in before. He would excuse himself from supper early, and before he reached the end of the hall, he would hear your footsteps behind him.

At first, it made him feel wanted. Then it made him feel watched.

One evening, he paused halfway down a passage and turned.

You stopped too. A smile appeared on your face immediately, too quick and too bright.

“Were you looking for me?” he asked.

“Yes.” The answer came without shame.

Daeron’s breath caught.

You stepped closer. “Should I not?”

“I only wondered.” He muttered.

“Do not wonder.” You reached for his hand. “I will always look for you.”

He should have laughed or teased you. Instead, he stood there while you lifted his hand to your cheek and held it there, eyes closing as if his touch alone had steadied the whole world.

Daeron’s chest ached. The sight of you, with the impossible softness of your cheek against his hand, with the terrible sweetness of being needed so openly. He loved you. Gods help him, he loved you so much that at one point it felt like pain. And yet now, beneath the warmth spreading through him, something rotten had begun to fester. 

This was you, surely it was you. Your face, your voice, your hand wrapped around his. But the wanting in your eyes was too bare, too bottomless, too unlike the careful woman he had adored from afar. Guilt pricked at him, faint but sharp, and Daeron tried to smother it beneath the wonder of your devotion. He had wanted this. He had wished for this. And now that you were holding his hand as if it were the only thing keeping you tethered to the earth, he could not bring himself to pull away.

The next change was not as easy to dress as romance.

A serving girl came to his chambers with fresh linens. She was young, nervous, and pretty in a forgettable way. Daeron barely noticed her beyond a vague nod of thanks.

You noticed everything. The moment she left, your hand slipped from his. “Do you like her?”

Daeron glanced up. “Who?”

Your face tightened. “The girl,” you said, the words coming slowly, as if you were trying to keep them gentle and failing at it.

Daeron’s brow furrowed. “The maid?”

“She smiled at you,” you said, your eyes searching his face for guilt before he had even answered.

Daeron glanced toward the door where the girl had gone, then back at you. “She was being polite.”

“She smiled at you,” you repeated, softer this time, but your mouth trembled around it.

Something in Daeron’s chest sank. He stood slowly, already wary of the way your voice had thinned. “My lady.”

“Do you like her?” you asked, lifting your chin as though bracing yourself for the answer.

“No,” Daeron said at once.

“Do not lie,” you whispered, tears gathering too quickly in your eyes.

“I am not lying,” he said, though his own voice sounded less certain than he wanted it to.

“You looked at her,” you said, one hand curling against your stomach.

“She entered the room,” Daeron answered carefully.

“You looked at her,” you said again, sharper now, and your voice had changed. Not much. But he knew you. He knew what you used to sound like. The softness had thinned. Something sharper was pressed beneath it, something that made the hair at the back of his neck rise.

Daeron stepped toward you carefully, palms open as though approaching something wounded. “You are upset over nothing.”

Your eyes filled instantly. “Nothing?” you echoed, as if he had struck you.

He regretted the word at once. “I did not mean-”

“I am nothing now?” you asked, your voice cracking apart in the middle.

“No,” he said quickly, taking another step toward you.

“Is that what I am to you?” you asked, looking at him with such sudden devastation that his stomach twisted.

“No,” Daeron said again, firmer this time, though he could already feel the conversation slipping out of his hands.

You began to shake your head, slowly at first, your breathing turning shallow.

“No, no, no,” you whispered, as if denying something only you could hear. The repetition came faster, each word more frantic than the last.

Daeron’s stomach turned. “Stop,” he said quietly, but the word had no strength behind it.

You did not seem to hear him. Your hands clenched in your skirts, twisting the fabric until your knuckles paled. “I saw the way she looked at you,” you said, your eyes shining with feverish certainty. “I saw it. I saw it, Daeron.”

“She did nothing,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “She brought linens.” 

“She wanted you!” you cried, the words cracking through the room too loudly, too sharply.

Daeron flinched before he could stop himself. You saw it. Your face changed at once, hurt flashing across it so suddenly that it almost looked as if he had struck you. Upon the realization, your voice broke into something horrible, shoulders shaking as you cried out. The sobbing worsened until it no longer sounded like ordinary crying.

It came out of you in great, broken gasps, too loud for the small chamber, too raw for the softness of your face. Daeron stood frozen as you pressed both hands to your chest, fingers clawing at the fabric as though the feeling inside you had become something physical, something trying to split you open from the ribs.

“I feel like you don’t love me as much as I love you,” you cried.

His throat tightened. “My lady, I can assure you that-”

“No,” you sobbed, shaking your head so hard loose strands of hair stuck to your wet cheeks. “No, you don’t. You say it, but it doesn’t feel mutual.”

The word came out shattered. Mutual. As if love were a balance. As if you had placed your whole bleeding heart on one side of the scale and found his heart missing. 

Daeron took a step toward you, then stopped when your eyes snapped to his. Your face was still yours, the same mouth he had kissed, the same eyes that had once looked at him with careful, quiet kindness, but sorrow had warped something in it. Not enough to make you monstrous. Worse. Enough to make you almost right. Your expression seemed pulled too tight around the edges, your eyes too bright, your mouth trembling too widely around each sob, as though some unseen hand had tried to arrange your features into heartbreak and had gotten the shape of it slightly wrong.

“It does not feel the same,” you said, voice rising again. “I love you more than anything. I just want you to love me too. Why can’t you?” You broke off with a sound that made him flinch. Like an animal struck, something too old and too wounded to be human.

Daeron’s hands lifted helplessly, hovering between you. Part of him wanted to catch you, to draw you against him and quiet the terrible sound of your crying. Another part of him wanted to back away until stone met his spine. He was frightened of you. He was frightened for you. He was frightened, most of all, by the sick ache in his chest that still warmed at the thought of being loved this violently.

“I do love you,” he said, and hated how quickly the words came.

Your sobbing hitched. For one trembling second, you only stared at him. Then you whispered, “Say it again.”

Daeron crossed the space between you before he could think better of it, gathering you into his arms with a kind of frantic tenderness. You came apart against him at once, sobbing into his chest, your hands fisting weakly in the front of his tunic as if you did not know whether to cling to him or push him away. He held you tighter.

“I love you,” he said quickly, too quickly, the words spilling out of him like a prayer said over a wound. “I do. I love you. I love you.”

He kissed the crown of your head, then your temple, then pressed his mouth into your hair and kept it there as though he could force peace into you through touch alone. One hand moved over your back in desperate, uneven strokes. The other held the back of your head, keeping you tucked beneath his chin while you trembled.

“Please,” he whispered, though he did not know what he was asking for. “Please, do not cry like that. I am here, my love. I am right here.”

Slowly, your sobs began to quiet. Your body still shook against his, but the terrible, broken sounds faded into smaller gasps. Daeron felt the change and hated the relief that went through him. He hated how quickly his own panic eased when yours did. He hated that some part of him was grateful he had found the words to soothe you, as if this were only a lover’s quarrel and not something darker wearing the shape of one.

“I love you,” he said again, softer now. This time, the words hurt. Because they were true. That was the awful part. He did love you. He had loved you before the wish, before the fountain, before your eyes had begun to look at him with that terrible bottomless devotion. He had loved you when your affection came carefully, when every small kindness from you felt like something he had no right to keep.

He loved the real you. The woman who would have stepped back. The woman who would have chosen her words. The woman who would have cared for him without surrendering herself.

And still, he held this version of you. Still, he kissed your hair and whispered comfort because your tears frightened him and your need fed something starved in him. Still, he let you cling to him like he was the only solid thing in the world, though some quiet, sick part of him knew he was the reason the world had become so unstable beneath your feet.

Your fingers loosened in his tunic.

“There,” he murmured, pressing another kiss to your head. “There. I have you.” 

The moment he said it, guilt twisted sharply through him.

I have you.

It sounded too close to the truth. Not I love you. Not I will help you. Just, I have you.

He shut his eyes, his jaw tightening against the thought. You were calming in his arms, breathing him in, trusting him, needing him. And Daeron, the coward that he was, held you closer instead of letting the guilt make him brave. Because if he was gentle enough, if he kissed you softly enough, if he said he loved you enough times, perhaps he could pretend he was not holding the ruin of the woman he had loved and calling it devotion.

After that, Daeron learned to soothe you. 

Not help you. Not save you. Soothe you.

There was a difference, and he knew it, though he hated himself too much to name it plainly. He learned which words made your breathing slow, which touches softened your hands from fists into trembling fingers, which promises could pull you back from the edge before the screaming began. He told himself he was protecting you from your own distress. From the court. From shame.

But each time he calmed you, he only taught himself how to keep you.

So when the feast came, Daeron already knew the warning signs. The too-tight grip. The sudden silence. The way your gaze sharpened whenever another woman looked at him too long.

The hall was crowded and bright with music. You sat beside him because you had insisted, your hand resting possessively on his thigh beneath the table.

Across the hall, a young woman of House Baratheon approached with a careful smile.

She was pretty in a bright, harmless way, all dark curls and nervous eyes, and Daeron had barely noticed her before she dipped into a curtsy before him.

“My prince,” she said, “would you honor me with a dance?”

Before Daeron could answer, your hand tightened around his beneath the table. Not enough for anyone else to see, but enough for him to feel the bite of your fingers.

He glanced at you. You were smiling. That was what unsettled him first. Just a small, pleasant smile that did not quite reach your eyes.

“He does not need another partner,” you said.

The Baratheon girl blinked, startled. “My lady, I meant no harm.”

“No,” you said sweetly. “I imagine you did not think far enough ahead for harm.”

A few heads turned. Daeron’s face warmed.

He leaned closer, voice low. “Please, do not do this.”

Your smile faltered, but only slightly. “She asked you to dance.”

“You are embarrassing me.” Daeron murmured.

You turned back to the Baratheon girl as though his words had meant nothing, leaned close to Daeron, and pressed a kiss to his cheek in front of half the hall.

“There,” you said softly, your lips still near his skin, “now she knows.”

Daeron sat frozen as you doted on him. That struck something in you. 

Then suddenly, the smile fell from your face. Not faded. Fell. One instant you were standing before him, flushed and pleased with yourself, your mouth still close enough that he could feel the ghost of your kiss on his cheek. The next, your whole body recoiled as if waking beneath a blade. Your eyes went wide, so wide he could see the whites all around them, and the sound that tore out of you was not embarrassment or regret, but terror. You stumbled backward from him, knocking into the chair hard enough to send it skidding, then went down onto the stone with a cry. 

The hall erupted around you, but you did not seem to hear it. You scrambled away on your hands, skirts tangling under your knees, palms slipping against spilled wine, your gaze fixed only on Daeron as though he were the monster in the room.

“That’s not me!” You screamed. The words cracked through the hall.

Daeron could not move.

You were crying now, shaking so violently that your whole body seemed at war with itself. You looked around at the staring faces, at the Baratheon girl, at your own hands, then back at him with a horror so complete it stripped every trace of the other version from your face. And in that instant, Daeron knew. Whatever had kissed him, clung to him, loved him with that bottomless, suffocating devotion, it was not the woman on the floor. It was not the woman he had loved. This was her, the real her, trapped inside her own mind as this thing his wish had conjured lived in her body. And the real you was trying to tell them. Trying to tell him. Crying out in the middle of a hall full of people who could not possibly know what you meant.

“That’s not me, please!” You screamed again. Then your body jerked. Your sob cut off mid-breath. The terror vanished as suddenly as a candle snuffed between two fingers, and when you blinked up at him through tears, the softness had returned. A smile broke across your tear-streaked face.

“Oh,” you breathed. Then you laughed. A small, breathless, embarrassed little laugh that made the silence around you feel colder. “Oh my gods,” you said, pressing your fingers to your lips as if you had merely stumbled over a dance step. “I am so sorry.”

No one spoke. You looked around at the faces staring back at you, tears still shining on your cheeks, and laughed again. “I do not know what came over me,” you said, voice trembling with a sweetness that did not belong after what had just happened. “How dreadful of me. I must have frightened everyone.”

The Baratheon girl looked close to tears. 

Your smile turned toward her. “I am sorry,” you said softly. The apology should have eased the room. It did not. 

Daeron stood frozen, nausea crawling up his throat.

You turned to him then.

He caught your wrist. Not gently.

Your smile faltered. “Daeron?”

He leaned close enough that only you could hear him.

“We’re leaving. Come with me, now.” He said firmly, voice hushed.

For one second, hurt flashed across your face. Then confusion. Then shame. All of it too fast, too neatly arranged.

“I said I was sorry,” you whispered.

He tightened his grip and began pulling you from the hall. You stumbled after him willingly, almost eagerly, one hand gathering your skirts.

Behind you, the hall remained silent. Daeron could feel every stare against his back.

The moment they were alone in a side chamber, he pulled away from you.

“You cannot act like that,” Daeron said, his voice low and strained as soon as the chamber door shut behind them.

You stared at him, still breathing too quickly from the hall. Your lips parted. “What?” you asked, the word small and wounded.

“At feasts,” he said, gesturing sharply toward the closed door. “In halls. In front of people. You cannot act like that.”

Tears filled your eyes at once. “I embarrassed you,” you whispered.

“You frightened them,” Daeron said.

“I did not mean to,” you said quickly, shaking your head.

“She would not act like that,” he said. The words came out before he could stop them.

You went very still. Daeron’s heart pounded.

“She?” you whispered, your eyes searching his face.

He swallowed. “The real you,” he said.

Your expression twisted with confusion. “I am her,” you said.

“No,” Daeron answered, too quickly.

“I am,” you insisted, taking one step toward him.

“No,” he said again, his voice sharpened, panic turning cruel. “No, she would not say those things. She would not behave like that. She acts…she would not insult a woman for asking me to dance.”

He turned to walk towards a far corner of the chamber, hoping the physical distance would bring him some relief. 

Your face crumpled. “Do you still love me?” you whispered.

Daeron looked towards you once more, his face softening before he could think better of it. “This is all I have ever wanted.” His answer was truthful. He foolishly hoped that his honesty would change things somehow.

“Me too.” Your voice was dripping with a sickly sweetness that made him physically cringe.

“No it’s not,” he said, shaking his head. His voice was hollow with something that was not quite anger and not quite grief. 

“Yes it is, Daeron,” you said quickly, your voice rising with desperation. “Its always been you.”

He closed his eyes. “I want this to work, I do,” he said, tears brimming in his violet eyes. “I love you.”

“So what’s the problem, I don’t understand?” You cried, more urgently now.

“Why can’t you just be her?” Daeron asked. The question left him like a wound.

For a moment, your cries stopped. Then they began again, harder. “I am her,” you said, nodding frantically through your tears. “I can be. I can be her, Daeron, please, I can.”

“No,” he said, his voice breaking with frustration and fear. “She would not beg like this.”

“I can be her,” you sobbed.

“She would not cry like this,” Daeron said.

“I can be,” you pleaded, your knees beginning to buckle underneath you. The sobs clawing their way from your throat were agonizing. “I’ll be anything you want me to be.”

Seeing you on your knees broke something in Daeron. Not because you looked weak, because you looked like something he had made. Your hands clutched at his legs, your face wet with tears, your voice cracking around promises no one should ever have to make. Daeron felt the horror of it settle into his bones. 

This was not the woman he had loved from across halls and candlelit tables. This was not the careful, proud, gentle creature who had once looked at him with warmth and chosen restraint anyway. This was the thing his wanting had carved out of you, sobbing at his feet and begging to be shaped. 

Tears blurred his vision before he could stop them. He loved you. Gods, he loved you so much it made him sick. But looking down at you then, Daeron understood that his love had not saved you from ruin. It had become the hand that dragged you there.

“Please, don’t say that, okay?” He pleaded, crouching down to place soothing hands over your shoulders. “You don’t have to be anything. You just need to be you.”

“Anything you want me to be,” you sobbed again, your voice thinning into something desperate and pathetic.

“She wouldn’t say that, okay? I just want you to act like her. ” Daeron murmured cautiously.

Your whole face erupted in agony. “I CAN BE HER!” you screamed.

The sound split the room. Daeron stumbled back.

The voice was not your own. It was too vast. Too broken. Too full of something that had never learned how to fit inside a human throat.

Daeron’s back hit the wall. For one terrible moment, he could only hear you breathing. Then moonlight caught your face, tears shone on your cheeks.

Your expression had gone slack with horror at his fear.

“You’re scaring me,” he whispered.

At once, the rage vanished. “Oh,” you breathed, your voice softening into immediate grief. “Oh, my love.” You came toward him slowly, hands raised as though soothing a frightened animal. “I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“Stay there,” Daeron said, his voice shaking.

You stopped immediately. The obedience was worse than defiance. “I’m sorry,” you whispered again, tears slipping down your cheeks. “I did not mean to scare you. I only wanted you to understand. I can be good. I can be sweet. I can be whatever you need.”

Daeron was shaking. You noticed. Your face crumpled with grief. “Please do not cry because of me,” you begged.

He said nothing. You took one careful step. Then another. When he did not tell you to stop, you touched his face. So lovingly, as if you had not just screamed the room into darkness. “I love you,” you whispered, your thumb brushing tenderly over his cheek. “I love you so much.”

Daeron closed his eyes. He let you comfort him.

That night, you slept in his bed. Daeron lay awake beside you, staring into the dark. Your body was curled against his, one arm across his chest, possessive even in sleep. He did not dare move.

Near dawn, he must have slept, but when he woke, you were gone.

He learned of the death before breakfast. The young Baratheon woman from the feast had been found near the gardens. Her dress was missing. Her skull had been ruined with a stone. Chunks of rock were found embedded into the skin of her face.

The words came to Daeron from a guard with a pale face and shaking hands, and for a moment, he could not understand them.

Then he remembered your smile at the feast. He turned and vomited into the grass.

He avoided you all day. As best he could, and it was not easy.

You came looking for him after breakfast, soft-eyed and anxious, asking a maid whether Prince Daeron had eaten. Then again in the afternoon, when he heard your voice outside the solar and slipped out through the servant’s passage before you could see him. Then near dusk, when he glimpsed you at the far end of a corridor and ducked into an empty room like a boy hiding from punishment.

He told himself he needed time to think. That was not true.

He needed time to be afraid without you seeing it. He needed time to hate himself without your hands reaching for his face, without your tearful mouth asking if he still loved you, without that terrible, bottomless devotion looking at him as though he were the only thing in the world worth suffering for.

All day, his mind circled the same impossible thought. There had to be some way to fix it without losing you.

Some gentler undoing. Some careful correction. A second wish, perhaps, that would soften the edges of what he had done without taking it all away. He imagined, shamefully, a version of this where you still loved him, but quietly. Normally. Where you smiled at him across tables with warmth instead of hunger. Where you reached for his hand without trembling. Where you could want him and still be yourself.

The thought made him sick. Because even now, even after everything, some part of him was still trying to keep the stolen thing.

He wanted the real you back. The woman who had once cared for him with clear eyes and careful hands. The woman who could tell him no. The woman who could leave a room without looking back to see whether he would follow. He had loved you then, loved you better then, though he had not understood it at the time. What he had now was everything he had begged the dark for, and it had become unbearable in his hands.

By evening, Daeron found himself alone in a narrow alcove, one hand pressed over his mouth to keep from making a sound. Tears burned behind his eyes, then spilled despite him. He hated the thing inside of you for needing him so terribly. He hated himself more for still wanting to be needed. He thought of the way you had looked at him when you came back to yourself, the terror in your face, the certainty that he had done this to you.

And he knew, with a grief so heavy it felt almost physical, that if he found a way to end it, you would hate him. The real you would hate him.

Perhaps you should. Perhaps that was the only honest thing left between you.

Still, the thought nearly bent him in half. To save you, he would have to lose even the possibility of you. No more careful smiles. No more almosts. No future day where you might have chosen him freely, had he been patient, had he been brave, had he loved you enough to let you decide.

His hand found the wall. His knees weakened as he sank down against the cold stone like a man wounded, one hand pressed hard over his mouth. The first sob broke through anyway despite his efforts to smother it.

It was ugly. Quiet at first, then not. His shoulders shook with it, his breath catching so violently that it hurt. Daeron bent forward, fingers digging into his own hair, and tried to force the sound back into himself, but there was no wine to soften it now, no laughter to hide behind, no careless grin to turn grief into something more acceptable.

Daeron wiped at his face with a shaking hand. He had wanted you to love him more than anything. Now he understood the cost. You had loved him more than yourself, and that was not love at all.

By nightfall, he returned to the eastern courtyard. The fountain waited beneath the moon. Daeron approached it like a condemned man.

The water inside was still. Clear. Ordinary.

He gripped the cracked rim with both hands. “I wish,” he whispered, “that she had never loved me.”

Nothing happened. His throat tightened as the possibility of undoing his wrongs began to seem impossible. “Please. I take it back. I cannot do this anymore.”

A sound came from the archway behind him. Daeron turned.

You stood in the moonlight.

For one second, he did not understand what he was seeing. Then he did.

You were wearing the Baratheon girl’s dress. It did not fit you properly. The fabric hung wrong at the shoulders, stained dark near the hem. It was not yours. It should never have touched you. And yet you stood there in it, shivering beneath the moonlight, trying to smile at him with tears streaking your cheeks.

In your right hand, you held a stone. The same stone you had killed her with, he knew without needing to ask. Blood had dried dark across it.

Daeron could not move.

You tried to smile.  “Do you like me better now?” you asked, your voice small and hopeful in a way that made the blood drain from his face. The desperate look in your tearful eyes wrecked him. 

Daeron’s gaze moved over you helplessly. His body went cold from crown to heel. “No,” he whispered, the word scraping out of him.

Your smile trembled. For one awful second, you looked only confused, as if you truly could not understand why this had not pleased him.

“I thought…” you began, then stopped. You looked down at yourself, at the dress, at the blood on the skirt. Your fingers tightened around the stone. Then you looked back at him, tears spilling faster now. “I thought perhaps this was what you wanted,” you said, your voice cracking with wounded earnestness.

Daeron shook his head, horrified. No, he wanted to say. No, no, no, never this. But the denial caught in his throat, because some part of him knew the truth was uglier than that. He had not wanted the dress. He had not wanted the blood. He had not wanted the ruined face of a harmless girl lying somewhere in the dark.

But he had wanted the devotion that had done it. He had wanted to be chosen so completely that nothing else mattered. And now you stood before him, wearing the proof of what that meant.

“I need you to listen to me,” he said, lifting one shaking hand toward you. “Please. Just listen.”

Your face collapsed. Not into anger. Into pure, wrecked devastation.

“Why can’t you love me?” you asked, the words falling out of you like something broken loose.

His breath caught. “I do,” he said quickly. “I do love-” Daeron felt his eyes burn. 

Your sobbing worsened, raw and terrible, your whole body shaking around the sound. Your face looked almost like yours and not yours at all, grief pulling your features into something too wide, too wounded, too desperate to be you. 

Daeron stepped toward you, both hands raised, tears blurring his vision. “Stop,” he begged. “Please, stop.”

You shook your head violently, clutching the stone to your chest as if it were something precious.

“I just want to be loved,” you sobbed, and the words came out small beneath the horror of everything else. 

“I do,” Daeron said, crying openly now. “I love you. I have always loved you.” But even as he said it, guilt tore through him. Because he meant the real you. The version of you he had ruined with his impatience. As he looked into your eyes, pleading with you to understand, he knew that you didn’t. Your head shook feverishly, as though you did not believe him. 

“WHY DON’T YOU LOVE ME?” you screamed, desperation seething through you as you stepped toward him. Your fingers gripping the bloodied stone with such ferocity your knuckles were white. Without hesitation, you slammed the stone into your own face.

Crunch.

The impact was sickening. Bone gave way beneath the force. A spray of hot blood exploded across your cheek and temple, splattering the pale fabric of the dress in vivid crimson arcs. The stone’s edge tore through skin like wet parchment, splitting your forehead open in a ragged, gaping wound that exposed the gleaming white of shattered occipital bone beneath. Blood poured in thick, pulsing streaks down your neck, soaking the bodice, dripping from your chin in heavy ropes.

Daeron screamed, a sound of pure horror. “Gods, please, stop!”

You let out a furious, broken sob and hurled the stone away from you, not in surrender, but in frustration, as if even that had failed to make him understand. It skidded across the courtyard, leaving dark marks against the pale stone, and then you came toward him, swaying on your feet, blood slipping down your face while you wailed like something wounded beyond reason. Tears mixed with the blood streaming down your ruined face, turning it into a grotesque mask of red and salt.

“I just want to be loved,” you wept, voice thick and bubbling through the blood filling your mouth. “I need you to love me, Daeron.”

You took one unsteady step toward him, then another. Blood continued to pour from your wound, dripping gore onto the courtyard stones with soft, obscene plaps. 

Daeron backed away, bile rising in his throat. He hated himself for this. This was not love. This was something devouring. You were bleeding out for him, destroying yourself for him, and still he recoiled.

Your body suddenly seized. Every muscle locked rigid. Your face changed.. There was no pride or madness. Only the realization of what was happening to you. Your eyes flickered around the courtyard, wide and bloodshot, with desperate clarity, as if begging someone to save you from the thing wearing your skin.

“STOP!” The scream tore from your throat like it was being clawed out.

Daeron froze. He didn’t know if you were shouting at him or the parasite that had taken host in your body.

You screamed again, raw and guttural. “STOP IT!”

Your face collapsed into fresh grief, the terror swallowed once more by the monstrous love. Blood still streamed from the wound, now a pulsing crater of torn flesh and exposed bone. You wailed, a sound of utter desolation, and lurched toward him again, arms outstretched.

Daeron stumbled backward until his spine slammed into the stone basin. There was nowhere left to run..

“I love you,” you sobbed again, voice cracking as fresh blood bubbled from the ruin of your mouth. “Please, Daeron…”

Daeron turned to the fountain. The water had gone dark. He bent over it, gripping the rim so hard the stone cut his palms.

His breath came out in a broken sob .“I wish she had never loved me,” he begged. “I wish I had never asked. I wish I had never done this.”

Behind him, you cried his name again.

The black water rippled. For one heartbeat, relief tore through him so violently his knees nearly gave. The fountain and whatever magic it possessed had heard him. The old story was true. There was still a way to undo this, to unmake the horror standing behind him, to give you back to yourself before his wanting finished devouring whatever remained of you.

Then the voice came. Not from the fountain. From inside his skull. Ancient, cold, and unmoved.

You only get one wish.

Daeron went still. The courtyard seemed to vanish around him. “No,” he whispered.

The water rippled again.

You already used it.

Something in Daeron broke. “No!” His scream tore through the courtyard, raw enough to hurt his throat. He bent over the fountain, sobbing now, gripping the stone until it cut into his palms.

“No, no, no, please,” he choked out. “Please, I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”

But he had. Not at first, perhaps. Not fully. But enough. He had seen the terror in your eyes. He had heard you scream that it was not you. He had known something had crawled into the shape of your love, and still he had held it. Still he had kissed it. Still he had let it call him beloved because he was too weak to surrender the devotion he had stolen.

“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, though he did not know whether he was speaking to the fountain, to the Gods, or to the real you buried somewhere beneath the thing he had made. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The fountain gave no answer.

Behind him, your sobs softened into something almost tender. Then your arms slipped around his waist.

Daeron froze.

You pressed yourself against his back, trembling and warm and wet with blood. Your cheek came to rest against his shoulder, and he felt the slow spill of it there, blood from your split mouth, your torn face, soaking into his tunic and running down over his chest like some awful parody of a lover’s embrace.

“Oh Daeron,” you whispered, voice thick and ruined. “I love you.”

Daeron could not move. Your arms tightened around him.

“You see?” you breathed against him, almost relieved. “My heart knows no greater devotion.”

His tears fell silently into the black water. You nuzzled closer, smearing blood against his shoulder as you held him like he was the only safe thing left in the world.

[saeransangel]

BITCHHHHHH I am going to explode your cannibal series is EVERYTHING oh my god it’s so well written and genuinely you’ve painted such a beautiful picture of vampirism and the horror and pain that comes with losing everyone who has ever known you as well as the anticipatory grief for those you are still knowing and have yet to meet

Also your characterization of Daeron is so good too you write him with such reverence and care it’s so wonderful to read

anyway MWAH it’s so good thank you for your work xoxo

anon omg! :) this is so kind of you, thank you!!

I really liked how we got to explore her side of things this time around. She hasn’t been close to anyone in centuries, so when she finally becomes close to Daeron, she learns everything about him. His body language, his tells, his looks, etc.

I also think there’s something kind of romantic, in an odd way, about her arguing with Daeron that he’s throwing his life away on purpose with the drinking, when her life was taken from her and twisted into something cruel without her consent. It gives him a new perspective!

I loved writing them falling in love with each other overall. Her addiction to his blood because his dragon blood is the only kind she’s had that makes her feel life flowing through her again. Her genuine and unwavering care for him because of this. Literally her life line. And he just adores being adored by her. Loves to feel chosen for once. Ugh I just love him.

Thank you again for reading! Each part was so long so truly i appreciate the support 🤍💋

[saeransangel]

Cannibal ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆ Masterlist

Making this series a masterlist so everything is in one spot!

Thank you for the support on this series! I know the last part took me a while to write, but I really enjoyed developing their relationship a bit more than I had in the previous parts.

Part One Part Two Part Three

Also, for vibes, here's a playlist I made (still a wip, i will probably add more songs!):

Part One:

Living Dead Girl

Heavy Metal Lover

4 Morant

Part Two:

Angel

Shame

In My Room

Lilith

Part Three:

Master of None

Back To Me

On This Love

Cherry Waves

Be Like a Woman (this song may seem out of place, but, for them, I just adore the lyrics "Stay out at night, see who you wanna see. Do what you want, but be like a woman to me.")

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ᴄᴀɴɴɪʙᴀʟ (p.3) — ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʏʀᴇɴ

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ summary: After forcing her way into Daeron’s world, the creature from the woods becomes impossible to ignore and even harder to resist. What begins as hunger deepens into something far more dangerous, as Daeron finds himself drawn further into her orbit and she begins to want more from him than blood. 

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ warnings: MDNI 18+, p in v sex, oral sex (f!receiving), possessive dynamic, biting, description of pain, blood play

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ note: this took forever and i did not proof read it yet so!!

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ wc: 17k (sorry/you’re welcome?) 

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ tag list: @deaddovelovely <3 @thebl00dwyrm @g-l-o-b-e-w-h-o-r-e @ratshufflewoggle @redshinyshoes @julczimozart @rporter19

Series Masterlist

Daeron forgot, for one suspended moment, that they were not alone.

The great hall seemed to blur around her. The murmuring courtiers, the scrape of boots against stone, the soft rustle of silk and jewels,  all of it faded beneath the sight of her standing there in the open daylight as though she had not been in his bed only hours before. As though his blood had not warmed her mouth. As though she had not left him aching and furious and half-mad with longing while dawn crept across his chamber floor.

She walked forward with impossible ease, every movement measured, and devastatingly human. No one else saw the monster beneath the silk. No one else knew how wrong she was, how cold her hands could be, how her eyes had glowed golden when hunger overtook her. They saw only a beautiful woman from Lys. Daeron saw teeth at his throat.

He swallowed hard.

A nobleman beside him said something under his breath, perhaps about her beauty, or about her dress, perhaps about the strangeness of her arrival. Daeron did not hear a word of it. Her gaze remained fixed on him for just long enough to be improper, though not enough for the court to understand. Enough for him. Her smile deepened, cruel in its amusement.

Daeron’s pulse jumped so violently he was certain she heard it across the hall. Then, as though she had not just shattered him with a look, she turned her attention to the court.

The performance began at once.

She lowered herself into a graceful curtsy before the gathered royal household, dark red silk pooling around her like spilled wine. When she rose, her expression had softened into something polite and composed, her smile no longer meant for Daeron alone.

“My lords,” she said, voice smooth and warm with the faint sound of Lys in it. “Your welcome honors me.”

Daeron stared. Even her accent was slightly different. Still hers, but softened. Carefully shaped. No longer the low, intimate voice that had whispered against his skin in the dark. This was a voice made for halls and witnesses, for old men with power and young men with poor instincts.

Prince Maekar watched her from near the dais, expression stern and unreadable. Unlike the others, he did not look enchanted. He looked attentive. Suspicious, perhaps, though not enough to be discourteous.

“You have traveled far, my lady,” Maekar said.

“I have,” she replied. “Though King’s Landing has already proven most… memorable.” Her eyes flicked to Daeron for the barest instant. His stomach tightened. She was enjoying this. The court did not notice. Or if they did, they mistook it for polite curiosity.

Daeron looked down quickly, jaw tense. A servant tugged discreetly at his sleeve, murmuring that he was expected nearer to the front. Daeron moved because his body remembered how, though his mind had not quite caught up. As he approached, she turned slightly. There was nothing overt in the gesture. Nothing anyone could accuse. But she arranged herself so that he had to pass close enough to smell her perfume.

Crushed flowers. Rain. Something faintly metallic beneath.

Her hand dipped slightly at her side, hidden in the fall of her skirts. As he passed, her fingers brushed his. A touch so brief it might have been accidental. It was not. Daeron nearly stopped walking. She did not look at him.

He took his place among the royal family with his pulse still hammering. Across the hall, she continued answering questions with effortless grace. She spoke of Lysene trade, of old family alliances, of ships and letters and kin who had once dealt with Westerosi houses generations ago. Every answer sounded prepared because it was. Every detail was placed like a stone in a path she had already walked a hundred times in her mind.

Daeron understood then, with a strange and dizzying certainty, that last night had not been impulsive. Her coming to him wounded had been desperate, yes. But this had been planned. The papers. The name. The servants. The jewels. The story. She had not stumbled into court on a whim because she wanted to see him again, she had arranged a life around him before he even knew she meant to stay.

That realization should have terrified him. It did. But beneath the fear, warmth spread through him so sharply it nearly hurt. She had come back. Not for a night, with the intention of becoming impossible to send away.

Daeron looked at her again. This time, she was already looking back. For a heartbeat, her courtly mask slipped only for him. The smile she gave him then was softer than the one before. Still wicked at the edges, still pleased with herself, but threaded through with something else.

Daeron’s throat tightened. He had spent nearly a year waiting for her in the dark, hating himself for every moment he hoped she would return. Now she stood beneath the eyes of the entire court, dressed in silk and lies, daring him to pretend he had not already belonged to her the moment she entered the room.

Aerion leaned toward him slightly. “Do you know her?”

Daeron’s body went still. Across the hall, her eyes glittered faintly. He could feel her listening. He forced himself to breathe, lifted his cup with a hand that almost did not shake, and said, “No.”

Her smile sharpened. Aerion hummed, unconvinced.

“She seems to know you.”

Daeron drank. The wine did nothing. “She seems to know many things.”

Across the hall, her laughter rose softly at something some lord had said. Polite, lovely, and false. Daeron looked down into his cup to hide the helpless curve of his mouth. For the first time since Ashford, the waiting was over, and somehow, impossibly, the danger had only just begun.

The first time Daeron managed to speak to her, they were not alone.

That made it more unbearable somehow. If they had been alone, he might have demanded answers. Might have caught her wrist and pulled her into some shadowed alcove and asked what madness had possessed her to walk into the Red Keep as though courtly lies were no more difficult to arrange than slipping through his balcony doors.

But they were not alone.

The great hall remained crowded with courtiers eager to circle the mysterious noblewoman from Lys. Men leaned too close to hear her speak. Women studied the fall of her silks and the jewels at her throat. Servants glanced at her when they thought no one noticed. Even the older lords, men who considered themselves too wise to be enchanted by beauty alone, watched her with careful interest.

She accepted all of it with graceful indifference, as though she had expected nothing less.

Daeron stood near the edge of the gathering, trying very hard not to stare and failing miserably. 

She noticed. Her eyes flicked to him once over the rim of her cup, dark and amused. Then, without seeming to dismiss anyone outright, she turned slightly from the cluster of admirers surrounding her and stepped toward a long table where wine had been set out in silver pitchers. It was not a private place. Not even close. Courtiers stood only a few feet away, laughing and speaking, their backs turned just enough to offer the illusion of solitude.

Still, Daeron understood. He crossed the hall slowly, pulse already misbehaving beneath his skin. When he reached the table, she did not look at him at first. She poured herself wine she had no intention of truly tasting and held the cup delicately between her fingers.

“My prince,” she said. She sounded almost timid and dreadfully polite.  As though she had not been gasping his name into his mouth before dawn. Daeron nearly laughed from the absurdity of it.

 “My lady,” he returned, voice tight.

Her mouth curved faintly. “Careful,” she murmured, still looking out toward the hall. “You sound displeased to see me.”

“I am displeased.” He whispered harshly. 

“Are you?” Her tone was soft and filled with mockery. She could barely hide her amusement. 

His jaw clenched. She finally looked at him then, only from the corner of her eye. It was enough that heat moved through him at once, traitorous and sharp. His body remembered her before his pride could stop it. Her mouth at his throat, her hands on his face, the impossible warmth blooming under his palms when his blood moved through her.

He looked away first. “You said I might see you tomorrow.”

“And here I am.” She mused. 

“That is not an explanation.” He was growing increasingly more frustrated. The lack of sleep combined with the irrationality of her arrival was dizzying.

“No,” she agreed softly. “It is an arrival.”

Daeron’s fingers curled against the edge of the table.

Around them, the hall continued in cheerful ignorance. Somewhere nearby, a lord was telling a story too loudly. A woman laughed. A servant passed close enough that Daeron had to hold his tongue until she moved on.

Only then did he lean slightly toward her. “What have you done?”

Her eyes gleamed faintly. “Introduced myself.”

“Do not toy with me.” He sneered through clenched teeth. 

“I thought you liked it when I toyed with you.”

His breath caught before he could stop it. Her smile deepened, pleased with herself.

Daeron glared.

She took the smallest sip of wine, then lowered the cup. “I told you I would come back.”

“You did not tell me you intended to embed yourself in the court.”

“No. I thought the surprise might please you.”

“Please me?” he whispered sharply. “You walked into the Red Keep in front of half the realm with forged papers and a false name.”

“Not forged.”

He paused.

She glanced at him. “Not entirely.”

Daeron stared. Something like laughter rose in his chest, horrified and breathless. “Gods, that does not comfort me.”

“It was not meant to.”

His gaze searched her face, trying to find some sign that this was impulse, recklessness, madness born from the night before. Something temporary. Something she might abandon when hunger faded or danger sharpened. But there was only calm.

“You planned this,” he said quietly.

Her expression softened by the smallest measure. “Yes.”

The answer hit him harder than it should have. He looked away.

Across the hall, courtiers continued watching her. Watching them, perhaps. Daeron could feel the weight of it now, though no one seemed openly suspicious. Not yet.

“You planned this before last night.”

“Yes.”

His throat tightened. “How long?”

A pause. Then, “Long enough.”

Daeron’s pulse stumbled. She turned more fully toward the table, pretending to consider the fruit arranged in a silver bowl. To anyone watching, they were merely exchanging polite conversation. Nothing in her posture suggested intimacy. Only her voice betrayed her. “I did not cross half the realm bleeding only to vanish from you again.”

His fingers tightened on the table. The words slipped beneath his ribs and found something embarrassingly soft there. He should have been alarmed, and he was alarmed. A monstrous woman had fed from him once beneath moonlit trees, returned nearly a year later to his chambers, crawled into his bed, and then built herself a place inside his life before anyone could ask too many questions.

It was obsessive, unreasonable, terrifying. And gods help him, some wounded part of Daeron warmed beneath it like a starving thing brought near a fire.

No one had ever wanted him with strategy before. No one had ever looked at the wreck of him and decided, there. I will make a place beside that.

He swallowed hard. “You cannot simply decide I am yours and arrange the world around it.”

Her lashes lowered slightly. “Can I not?”

His heart lurched. “You are impossible.”

“Yes.”

“You are going to get yourself killed.”

At that, her mouth twitched. “You know all too well that would be difficult.”

“Exposed, then,” he hissed softly. “Caught. Questioned. Watched.”

“I am already watched.” Her eyes were darker than before, amusement threaded with something warmer. More dangerous. She stepped closer, but only slightly. Close enough that her sleeve brushed his. Not enough for scandal. Enough for him to feel it like a touch. “I enjoy seeing you try to decide whether you are afraid or pleased.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened. “I am not pleased.”

“No?”

“No.”

Her gaze dropped briefly to his mouth. Daeron went still. “Then why can I hear how fast your heart is beating?”

He looked away sharply, heat climbing his neck. “You cannot say things like that here.”

“Then stop making it so easy to hear.”

“You are wicked.”

“I know.” A silence opened between them, impossibly intimate despite the crowded hall. Daeron stared down at the wine pitcher. His reflection warped faintly in the silver, pale and tired and overwhelmed.

“You realize what this looks like,” he said quietly.

“To them?”

“To everyone.”

She considered that. Then, lightly, “A foreign lady exchanging words with a prince.”

“A foreign lady who keeps looking at me as though she knows what I sound like when I-” He stopped himself.

Her smile turned lethal. “When you what?”

Daeron’s face burned. “Do not.”

She leaned slightly closer, voice velvet-soft. “When you beg?”

His hand tightened so hard around the edge of the table that his knuckles paled. A passing lord glanced toward them. Instantly, her expression shifted into polite serenity.

“King’s Landing is warmer than I expected,” she said smoothly, loud enough to be overheard.

Daeron stared at her. A beat later, he remembered himself. “The city is often unpleasant that way,” he managed.

The lord moved on. Her smile returned the moment his back turned.

Daeron exhaled through his nose. “I hate you.”

“No, you do not.”

“No,” he admitted under his breath. “I do not.”

Something flickered across her face then. Not triumph, something softer, quickly hidden.

Daeron saw it anyway. That, more than anything, unsettled him. Because whatever madness had brought her here, whatever hunger or possession or ancient craving had turned her steps toward court, she was not merely toying with him. Not entirely. She wanted him, not only in darkness, or beneath her mouth. Not only bleeding and desperate. In daylight. Among his family and his court and every expectation he had spent years failing to satisfy.

The realization made his chest ache. “You should have told me,” he said, softer now.

“I know.”

The answer surprised him.

She looked down into her cup. “I wanted to.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because you would have told me not to come.”

“I might have.”

“And I would have come anyway.”

Despite himself, Daeron almost smiled.

“You are admitting you would have ignored me.”

“Yes.”

“How charming.” His smile faded into something quieter.

A group of ladies approached then, all smiles and curiosity, eager to ask about Lysene fashions and whether the city was truly as beautiful as singers claimed. The moment was ending. Daeron felt it slip away and hated how badly he wanted to catch hold of it. Before she turned from him, her hand lowered beside her skirts. Her smallest finger brushed his. A secret touch, barely anything, though it still made Daeron’s breath catch.

She did not look at him as she said, softly, “Breathe, my prince.” Then she was smiling at the women, answering their questions, becoming once more the dazzling lady from Lys.

Daeron remained by the wine table, staring after her like a fool.

Aerion appeared at his side a moment later. “You are flushed.”

Daeron picked up a cup at random and drank from it. “I am not.”

Aerion glanced toward her, then back at him. “Mm.”

“Do not start.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

Aerion grinned faintly. Across the hall, she laughed at something one of the ladies had said. Daeron looked down into his cup, pulse still unsteady, and felt the first frightening shape of it settle over him. 

She was going to ruin him in full view of the entire court if he was not careful. And yet, for the first time in months, he did not avoid the court entirely. He found reasons to linger now. Reasons to attend dinners he would normally slip away from. Reasons to stand in galleries during dull conversations between men he did not care for. Reasons to remain at feasts even when the noise pressed too hard against his skull and the candlelight blurred around the edges.

He sought her out before he even meant to. At first he only looked for her across rooms, reassuring himself that she was still there. That she had not vanished again into dawn mist and memory. Then he began placing himself nearer to her. Not beside her, not at first, but close enough to hear the low murmur of her voice. Close enough to catch the faint scent of crushed flowers and something colder beneath it.

By the end of the first week, everyone had noticed. Not enough to accuse, but enough to whisper.

Prince Daeron seemed unusually attentive to the Lysene lady.

The Lysene lady seemed unusually amused by Prince Daeron.

Daeron pretended not to hear any of it. She did not pretend at all.

During one feast, when the hall grew too loud and the laughter around him sharpened into something unbearable, Daeron went still in his seat. His cup remained untouched between his fingers. The conversations on either side of him blurred together until every voice became one heavy, pressing sound.

He could feel his heartbeat beginning to climb, feel the old urge rising with it.

Drink.

Drink enough and everything would soften.

He reached for the cup. Before his fingers closed around it, something cool touched his knee beneath the table.

Daeron froze. Her hand rested there lightly, hidden beneath the fall of the tablecloth. Not possessive or demanding. Just present. She did not look at him. She continued listening to some lord describe trade disputes in the Stepstones, her expression composed, almost bored.

But her thumb moved once over his knee. Slow and grounding.

Daeron’s grip loosened on the cup. A moment later, his hand slid beneath the table and found hers. Her fingers opened for him immediately and he held on tighter than he meant to. For a long while, neither of them looked at each other. They simply sat there in the noise and heat of the feast, hands clasped beneath the table like a secret. Daeron’s pulse began to settle. Only then did she glance at him from the corner of her eye. Her expression did not soften much. But her fingers squeezed his once. A tiny thing that nearly undid him.

After that, it became easier. Not the court. But surviving it.

At tournaments, when cheers grew too loud, he found himself standing nearer to her. When lords pressed him with questions, he let his shoulder brush hers in passing. When his hands trembled after too much wine or too little sleep, she would slip her fingers through his sleeve and touch the inside of his wrist, right over his pulse.

As if reminding him: Here. Stay here.

And Daeron, shamefully, gratefully, did.

She learned him quickly. She learned that he smiled with only one side of his mouth when he was trying to appear careless. Learned that he drank more when his father was in the room. Learned that he looked toward exits before he looked toward faces. Learned that he laughed before he lied.

She learned that when someone called him charming, he looked amused. When someone called him disappointing, he looked unsurprised. And when someone called him Daeron the Drunken, he went very still.

The first time she heard it, Daeron felt her change beside him. Not outwardly. She did not bare her teeth. Did not hiss. Did not turn monstrous in any obvious way. But the air around her seemed to cool.

A courtier, foolish with wine and eager for approval, had said it lightly while telling some story about Ashford. The nickname passed through the small gathering with a few polite chuckles.

Daeron smiled as though it meant nothing. He had heard worse, been called worse. But beside him, she went silent. The courtier continued speaking until her gaze moved to him.

That was all. One look. Soft. Still. Almost curious.

The man faltered mid-sentence. Daeron watched him lose color.

“What was that you called him?” she asked.

Her voice was gentle. Too gentle.

The courtier blinked. “My lady?”

“The name,” she said. “Repeat it.”

Daeron’s stomach tightened.

“You need not-”

Her fingers touched his wrist lightly, silencing him without force.

The courtier gave a weak laugh. “Only a jest, my lady. Everyone calls him-”

“I asked you to repeat it.”

The man did not. No one laughed now.

After a long, uncomfortable pause, she smiled. It was beautiful, yet awful. “How strange,” she murmured. “That men with so little wit often mistake cruelty for humor.”

The courtier flushed violently. Daeron stared down at the floor, heat rising in his face for an entirely different reason now.

No one had defended him like that before. Not publicly. Not as though the insult had offended her.

Later that night, when they passed each other in a corridor dim with torchlight, Daeron caught her wrist. “You should not have done that.”

She looked down at his hand, then back at his face. “No?”

“It will only make them talk.”

“They already talk.”

“You do not understand.”

“I understand perfectly.”

“No, you don’t.” His voice sharpened, but there was no real anger in it. Only embarrassment. “It is only a name.”

Her expression changed then. The amusement faded. “No,” she said softly. “It is not.”

Daeron swallowed hard.

She stepped closer. Not enough to touch him further. Just enough that the torchlight caught the pale, unreadable beauty of her face. “A name is what people use when they decide what part of you is easiest to keep,” she said. “They found the piece of you that hurts, and they sharpened it into something they could laugh at.”

His chest tightened. He looked away first. “You make everything sound more dramatic than it is.”

“Perhaps.” Her voice softened. “Or perhaps you are simply used to being wounded politely.”

That struck too close. Daeron released her wrist. For a moment, he thought she might let him go. Instead, her fingers found his. She linked them lightly, hidden in the shadow between their bodies.

“Come,” she said.

“Where?”

“Away from them.”

He should have refused. He followed her anyway.

They slipped through the shadowed corridors like conspirators, her hand still linked with his. Torchlight flickered across stone walls, but she moved through it as if the fire itself bent away from her skin. Daeron’s heart hammered, not from fear, but from the sharp, sweet anticipation that had been building for weeks. Every stolen touch in the hall, every brush of fingers, had been a promise. Tonight, she was collecting.

She led him to a small solar attached to her guest apartments, rarely used and far from the main wings. The door closed behind them with a soft click. Moonlight spilled through the narrow windows, silvering her pale hair and the elegant line of her neck. She turned to him, and for once there was no courtly mask. Only hunger.

“Come here, my prince."

He obeyed without thinking, drawn into her arms. She was cool against him at first, but he felt the faint tremor in her body, the same need that lived under his own skin. Their mouths met slowly, almost reverently. Her lips were soft, yielding for a breath before they turned demanding. He tasted wine and something metallic on her tongue, and it made him groan into her mouth.

Her hands slid beneath his doublet, pushing fabric aside until she could press her palms flat to his chest. “Warm,” she whispered against his lips. “You are always so warm.”

Daeron’s fingers found the laces of her gown, loosening them with shaking hands. Silk whispered to the floor, pooling like spilled moonlight. Beneath it she wore only a thin shift that clung to the subtle curves of her breasts and hips. He dragged it down, baring her to the cool night air. Her skin was flawless, luminous, and so cold it made him hiss when he pulled her flush against him.

She smiled at the sound, a small, wicked curve of her mouth, then pushed him back toward the wide bed. He sat, and she climbed into his lap, straddling him. The heat of his arousal pressed hard against her through the last layers of clothing. She rocked once, deliberately, and he bucked up with a choked sound.

“Easy,” she murmured, though her own breath had quickened. “I want to taste you first.”

Daeron tilted his head without hesitation, offering the strong column of his throat. The vulnerability of it sent a dark thrill through him. She kissed the pulse point first, lips feather-light, then licked a slow stripe over the vein. He shuddered.

“Please,” he rasped.

She struck. Her canines sank in, two clean, sharp points, and the initial sting flared into liquid heat. Pleasure, not pain. Daeron gasped, hands tightening on her waist as she drank. Slow, measured pulls. Not enough to weaken him. Just enough to make his cock throb painfully and his vision blur with ecstasy. Every swallow drew a low moan from his chest. He could feel her changing above him: her skin warming gradually, heat blooming through her cold flesh until she felt almost human in his arms. Alive. His.

She made a soft, greedy sound against his throat and ground down harder, rubbing her slick heat along his length. When she finally withdrew her fangs, she licked the small wounds closed with long, soothing strokes of her tongue. Two perfect pinpricks marked him, already fading to dark bruises.

Daeron was panting. “More.”

She kissed him deeply, letting him taste the faint copper of his own blood on her tongue. Then she rose just enough to strip away the last of his clothes. Naked, he was flushed and aching, cock heavy against his stomach. She looked at him like he was sacred. Her hand wrapped around him, stroking once, twice, spreading the bead of wetness at the tip. “Beautiful,” she whispered. “Mine.”

She sank down onto him in one smooth motion.

The stretch, the tight, wet heat of her, it tore a broken moan from his throat. She was warmer now, heated by his blood, and the contrast against the lingering coolness of her inner thighs made him dizzy. She rode him slowly at first, savoring every inch, her hands braced on his chest. Her breasts swayed with each roll of her hips. Daeron cupped them, thumbs brushing over hardened nipples, and she arched into his touch with a sigh that sounded almost mortal.

Their rhythm built. She leaned down again, teeth grazing his collarbone, his shoulder, the inside of his bicep. Each small bite was followed by her tongue, by her body clenching around him. He thrust up to meet her, hands gripping her ass, guiding her harder.

“Drink,” he begged hoarsely. “Take what you need.”

She did, biting the meat of his shoulder as she rode him faster. The pull of her mouth matched the slick drag of her cunt around his cock. Pleasure coiled tight and vicious in his lower stomach. Daeron’s hand slipped between the two of them, finding the swollen bud at the top of her sex and circling it with desperate fingers.

She came first, body locking around him, a soft cry muffled against his skin, inner walls fluttering and squeezing. The warmth of her release, the way her whole body flushed with his blood and her own pleasure, shattered him. He followed with a guttural groan, spilling deep inside her in thick pulses while she kept drinking, soft and reverent.

For long moments afterward they stayed joined, breathing together. She licked the fresh bite closed, then kissed his mouth lazily, sharing the taste. Her body was warm now, almost feverish against his. Daeron wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as if she might vanish with the dawn.

She nuzzled his throat, right over the fading marks. “My sweet prince,” she whispered, voice husky with satisfaction. “You give me life.”

Daeron smiled, exhausted and sated and utterly hers. “Then take it again,” he murmured. “Whenever you want.”

Outside, the court slept on, whispering about the Lysene lady and the prince who could not stay away. Inside, moonlight and blood bound them tighter than any vow.

It happened two evenings later. A family dinner, though Daeron had never understood why anyone called them that. There was very little that was familial about sitting stiff-backed beside brothers who either pitied or provoked him while his father measured every word against some invisible expectation Daeron always failed to meet.

Prince Maekar sat at the head of the table, severe and broad-shouldered, his expression set in its usual hard lines. Aerion lounged near him, bright-eyed and restless, all sharp smiles and cruel amusement. Aegon, younger and quieter, watched more than he spoke. Rhae and Daella whispered softly to one another when they thought no one noticed. And she sat among them like a dark jewel misplaced in a crown of steel.

She had been invited because Maekar could not quite refuse her. That much Daeron understood immediately. His father did not trust her. Not entirely. Maekar was too disciplined to be charmed as easily as everyone else. His gaze lingered on her too long, studying the precision of her manners, the smoothness of her answers, the way she never seemed surprised by anything.

But suspicion was not proof. And she wore innocence beautifully when she wished to.

“So,” Aerion said at last, cutting through a lull in conversation. “The Lysene lady has chosen our brother as her favorite curiosity.”

Daeron’s grip tightened around his cup.

Across from him, she lifted her eyes to Aerion. “Have I?”

Aerion smiled. It was not a kind smile. “You do look at him often.”

“I look at many things.” She retorted effortlessly. 

“Do you?” Aerion leaned back. “And what, pray, do you see when you look at Daeron?”

Aegon shifted uncomfortably. Daeron reached for his wine.

Her gaze flicked briefly to the movement. Then back to Aerion. “I see a prince,” she said.

Aerion laughed. One or two others smiled awkwardly. Maekar’s mouth tightened.

“A prince,” Aerion repeated. “How generous of you.”

Daeron drank. The wine did very little.

Aerion’s eyes gleamed. “Most people see a cup with legs.”

“Aerion,” Maekar said sharply.

But it was too late. The words had landed. Daeron felt them settle into his skin like cold rain. He smiled faintly, because that was what he did. He smiled before anyone could see where it hurt.

“Not entirely inaccurate,” he muttered.

Maekar’s gaze snapped to him. “That is hardly something to joke about.”

Daeron’s smile thinned. “No, Father.”

“You make it easy for him,” Maekar said, voice low but cutting. “Too easy. If you carried yourself with half the discipline expected of your station, there would be less cause for mockery.”

The table went quiet. There it was. The familiar shape of it. Aerion struck. Maekar corrected. Daeron absorbed.Everyone moved on.

But tonight, she was watching. Daeron could feel it. He did not look at her. He could not.

Aerion seemed pleased with himself, until her voice entered the silence.

“How curious.” Every eye turned to her. She did not raise her voice. She did not need to. “In Lys,” she continued, idly tracing one finger along the rim of her cup, “a man who wounds his own kin in public is not considered strong. Only insecure.”

Aerion’s expression sharpened. Daeron went still.

“My lady,” Maekar said carefully.

She looked at him. The room seemed to hold its breath. “Forgive me, Prince Maekar,” she said, with perfect courtesy. “I am still learning the customs of Westerosi families. Perhaps here it is considered admirable for one son to bare his teeth at another.”

Daeron stared at her. Aerion’s smile vanished entirely. For one bright second, Daeron thought his brother might say something vicious. Aerion looked ready to. His mouth opened. Then he met her eyes and something changed. It was subtle, so subtle that anyone else might have missed it.

But Daeron saw.

Aerion stopped. Not because he had no retort. Because some instinct beneath all his arrogance told him not to step closer.

She smiled at him then. A blade hidden in silk.

Aerion’s jaw flexed. He looked away first.

That had never happened before. Daeron could barely breathe.

Maekar studied her more intently now. Suspicion had deepened into something sharper. But she merely lifted her cup and took a polite sip, as though she had not just silenced the most volatile man at the table with a few carefully chosen words.

Daeron spent the rest of dinner saying very little. Not because he was humiliated. Because something in his chest had gone dangerously soft.

Afterward, he found her in the gallery overlooking the courtyard. Night had settled deep over the Red Keep, and below them, torchlight flickered along the stone paths.

“You should be more careful with Aerion,” he said.

She did not turn around. “Should I?”

“Yes.”

“Because he is dangerous?”

Daeron stepped beside her. “Because he is cruel.”

At that, she looked at him. There was something in her expression that almost resembled pity, though not for herself.

“For a man who is so often wounded by cruelty,” she said softly, “you are very quick to warn others away from the people holding the knife.”

Daeron frowned. “He is my brother.”

“I know.”

“You do not know him.”

“I know enough.”

He let out a breath. “You cannot simply provoke him because he insulted me.”

“I did not provoke him.”

Daeron gave her a look. Her mouth curved faintly. “I corrected him.”

Despite himself, Daeron almost smiled. Then his expression shifted. “He will not forget it.”

“Neither will you.” That silenced him. She turned fully toward him then, leaning one shoulder against the stone archway. “You looked surprised,” she said.

“When?”

“When I defended you.”

Daeron looked out over the courtyard. “I am not used to it.”

Her expression softened slightly. “I noticed.”

The words were simple. They hurt anyway. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Daeron said quietly, “My father is not cruel.”

“I did not say he was.”

“He loves me.”

“I know.”

“He is only…” Daeron struggled for the word. “Disappointed.”

She watched him carefully.

“He expected a firstborn son,” Daeron continued, voice duller now. “Someone better suited to it. Stronger. More disciplined. Less…” He gave a small humorless smile. “Less me.”

Her face changed. Something cold moved behind her eyes. “Do not say that as though being you is some failure of design.”

Daeron looked at her then. The force of it startled him.

She moved closer, slower this time. “You are not less because they do not know where to place their pride.”

His throat tightened. “You hardly know me.”

“I know enough.”

The echo of his own words should have amused him. It did not.

Her hand lifted and touched his chest lightly, just over his heart. “This,” she said, “is not weakness.”

Beneath her palm, his heart betrayed him as always. Her gaze lowered briefly, feeling the rhythm of it. Then she whispered, almost to herself, “You are always so loud when you are hurting.”

He had no answer for that. So he did what he always did when he could not speak. He reached for her, only enough to catch her fingers in his.

She let him.

And together they stood in the dark, overlooking the courtyard, while the castle moved on around them as though nothing important had happened.

That night, he did not want her to leave. He did not say it, yet he did not have to.

She came to his chambers after the corridors emptied, stepping through the large oak doors as easily as a shadow. Daeron had left them unlocked. He pretended this was not an invitation.

“You are becoming careless,” she murmured as she entered.

Daeron sat near the hearth, boots discarded, tunic unlaced at the throat. There was wine on the table beside him, though less than usual. “Because I left a door open?”

“Because you left it open for me.”

He looked at her over the rim of his cup. “And if I did?”

Her expression softened in that barely-there way that always made him feel as though he had won something impossible. “Then I would say you are learning poor habits from dangerous company.”

Daeron set the cup aside. “I had poor habits before you.”

“So I am discovering.” She crossed the room and sat beside him near the fire, not quite touching. The flames painted warmth over her pale face, though Daeron knew now that warmth did not truly live there unless he gave it to her.

For a while, they spoke of nothing important. Or at least, nothing that seemed important. She told him Lys was not pronounced the way half the court insisted on saying it. He repeated it incorrectly on purpose just to watch her mouth twitch. She told him the Red Keep smelled of iron, dragon ash, old fear, and too many people pretending not to want things. Daeron laughed at that, really laughed, and the sound seemed to catch her attention more than anything else he had done.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

“No, tell me. What is it?” He asked, still laughing. 

“I enjoy hearing you laugh.”

His smile faded slightly. He looked away, suddenly embarrassed.

She noticed, of course. But for once, she did not press. Instead, she told him about Essos. Not the version sung by sailors or exaggerated by merchants, but little things. White stone streets under merciless sun. Perfumed fountains. Silk curtains moving in the ocean wind. Markets full of voices layered in half a dozen tongues. The taste of spiced fruit she could still remember but no longer enjoy.

Daeron listened. Truly listened. He liked the way her voice changed when she spoke of memory. Softer. Far away. As though she were reaching into another lifetime and returning with pieces of herself cupped carefully in both hands.

“Did you have family there?” he asked quietly.

She went still. Only for a second. “Yes.” The word was small.

Daeron watched her profile in the firelight. “Siblings?”

A silence. Then, “Two sisters.” His chest tightened.

“What were their names?”

Her eyes remained fixed on the flames. For a moment, he thought she would refuse to answer.

Then she softly spoke of them. “Serenei and Larra.” She said it as though names could bruise if handled too roughly.

Daeron did not repeat them. Somehow he knew he should not. “Were you close?” he asked.

A faint smile touched her lips. “Once. My youngest sister, Larra, used to follow me everywhere. She thought I was terribly wise.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

Daeron smiled faintly.

“She was seven,” the woman continued. “Seven-year-old girls are easy to impress.” There was warmth in the memory. Then grief beneath it.

Daeron heard both. “What happened to them?”

Her smile faded. “The same thing that happens to all mortal things eventually.”

Daeron looked down. “I am sorry.”

“You did not do it.” She murmured. 

“No. But I am still sorry.”

She glanced at him then. Something unreadable passed across her face.

The fire cracked softly. After a while, Daeron asked the question he had been circling all night.

“Were you born this way?”

Her expression changed immediately. “No.”

Daeron’s throat tightened. “Did you choose it?”

Her gaze returned to the fire. For a long moment she said nothing. Then, very softly, “No.”

The answer settled heavily between them. Daeron wished he had not asked. Or perhaps he only wished he did not want to know more.

She seemed to feel that hunger in him. Her mouth curved faintly, but there was no amusement in it. “You want the story.”

“I want to know you.” The words came out before he could soften them.

She looked at him then, really looked. Daeron felt exposed beneath it, but he did not take the words back.

At last, she said, “There are parts of that night I do not remember clearly. Pain does that. It takes the shape of the room away first. Then the faces.”

Daeron’s chest tightened painfully.

“But I remember begging,” she continued, voice quiet and strangely calm. “That stayed.”

He said nothing. Her fingers curled once against the fabric of her skirt. “I remember thinking I would die. Then being horrified when I did not.”

The fire seemed suddenly too loud. Daeron reached for her hand slowly, giving her time to pull away. She did not. Her cold fingers slid into his.

“I am sorry,” he whispered again.

This time, her thumb moved faintly over his knuckles. “I know.”

He wanted to ask more. Wanted to ask who had done it, whether they still existed, whether she had killed them, whether killing them had helped. But his body had begun to betray him. The last few days pressed down all at once,  the court, his father, Aerion, her arrival, the constant effort of wanting her and fearing for her and trying not to look like a fool whenever she entered a room.

His eyes grew heavy. He forced them open once.

She noticed. “You should sleep.”

“I’m not tired.” He muttered, sleep heavy in his voice.

“That was almost convincing.” She laughed.

Daeron huffed. “I do not want to sleep.” The admission came too honestly.

Her gaze sharpened slightly. “Why?”

He looked away. “No reason.”

A lie. A poor one. She did not call him on it.

Instead, she shifted closer until her shoulder brushed his. After a moment, her hand lifted to his hair, fingers threading gently through the pale strands near his temple.

Daeron stiffened at first. Then, helplessly, he leaned into the touch.

“There,” she murmured. “You are exhausted.”

“I was listening.” He insisted.

“I know.” She whispered sweetly.

“I still am.” He truly was trying to remain awake, wanting to be present in every moment he could with her. But sleep had begun to settle into his bones. 

“I know.” Her hands still worked soothingly through his hair, easing him into rest.

His eyes slipped shut. The last thing he remembered was the firelight flickering behind his eyelids and her fingers moving slowly through his hair, softer than anything that had teeth had any right to be.

Then sleep took him. For a while, he was quiet.

She stayed beside him, unmoving, watching the fire burn lower. Her kind did not sleep. Not as humans did. She could rest, could go still for hours, could drift into something like memory, but sleep belonged to the living. 

Daeron slept with his head tilted toward her shoulder. She watched the small movements of his face. The faint twitch of his brow. The looseness of his mouth. The way exhaustion softened him into someone younger than he pretended to be.

Then his heartbeat changed. She noticed at once. It quickened sharply beneath the quiet of the room. At first, she thought he was waking. But his eyes remained closed. His breathing hitched. A tremor passed through him. 

Her hand stilled in his hair. “Daeron?”

He did not answer. His fingers curled against his own thigh, gripping fabric tightly. His breathing grew shallow, uneven, almost panicked.

Something was wrong. His skin was warm, but not burning. His pulse was fast, too fast, but not failing. His lips moved in a whisper.

She leaned closer in an attempt to hear him, but the words were broken.

Her chest tightened. “Daeron.”

His body jerked faintly, as if flinching from something she could not see.

Then more words came. Fragments she could not make out.  A name she did not recognize. His face twisted with fear. And suddenly she understood. This was not sickness or an attack. It was a dream- a nightmare. 

Whatever hunted him was inside his own mind. For the first time in centuries, she felt useless. She could tear out throats. Snap bones. Drag men twice her size into shadow without effort. She could silence threats before they fully formed. But she could not reach whatever had him now.

“Daeron,” she said again, sharper this time.

He gasped in his sleep. His pulse thundered so violently she could feel it in the air. That frightened her.

She caught his face between her hands. “Wake up,” she ordered, but her voice shook. “Daeron, wake up.”

His eyes flew open. For one terrible second, he did not see her. He saw something else. He surged upright with a strangled sound, shoving at her hands, twisting away so violently he nearly knocked the table beside them over.

“Do not-”

“Daeron!” He fought her grip, not with strength but with panic, his breath coming too fast, eyes wild and unfocused. She caught his wrists before he could hurt himself. “Look at me.”

“No-”

“Look at me.”

He froze at the sound of her voice. Slowly, horribly, recognition returned. His chest heaved as his eyes found hers.

The shame came immediately afterward. She watched it happen. Watched fear collapse inward and become humiliation. 

He tried to pull away again, weaker this time. “I’m fine.”

“You are not.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You are shaking.”

“Let go of me.”

“No.”

His eyes flashed. For half a second, she thought he might truly rage at her. Instead his face crumpled. Only slightly, but enough. He looked so ashamed that something inside her twisted violently.

“Gods,” she whispered before she could stop herself. “You frightened me.”

The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

Daeron flinched. Not from her hands. From himself. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately, voice raw. “I did not mean-”

“No.” Her grip softened at once. “No, that is not what I meant.”

He looked away, breathing hard. “I knew this would happen eventually.”

“What?”

“You seeing it.” His voice broke slightly, and he swallowed hard against it. “I knew you would see it eventually.”

The room went unbearably quiet. She released one of his wrists and touched his cheek instead.

He tried to turn away. She followed. “Do not hide from me.”

His laugh came out broken. “You say that as though this is something worth seeing.”

“It is part of you.”

“It is pathetic.”

Her expression hardened. “Do not speak of yourself that way.”

He looked at her then, eyes bright with unshed tears, furious and mortified. “You don’t know what it’s like.”

“No,” she said softly. “I do not.”

That answer seemed to take some of the fight from him. She moved closer carefully, giving him time to refuse. He did not, so she pulled him against her. At first he was rigid in her arms, humiliated by the need, by the shaking, by the fact that he could not seem to force his body back under control. But she held him anyway. One hand cradled the back of his head, fingers threading through his hair. The other pressed between his shoulders, firm and steady.

“You are awake,” she murmured. “You are here.”

His breath hitched.

“You are in your chambers. The fire is low. The door is locked. I am here.”

A small, wounded sound escaped him. She pressed her lips to his temple. “There is nothing in this room that will hurt you.”

He laughed weakly against her shoulder. “You are in this room.”

For a moment, she went still. Then, softly, “I would never hurt you like that.”

The words hung between them. Like that.

The genuine look of adoration in her eyes made her words convincing. Daeron nearly laughed, or maybe cried, he couldn’t tell. Because he knew what she meant. As much as her teeth may wound him, she would never inflict the type of pain on him that his own mind did. 

Daeron’s hands slowly found her waist. He held on tightly.

She kissed his hair. Then his brow. Then the corner of his eye where tears had gathered despite his efforts to keep them back.

He inhaled shakily. “I hate them,” he whispered.

She continued stroking his hair. “The dreams?”

He nodded faintly. “They feel real.”

“What do you see?”

His fingers tightened in the fabric of her dress. “Fire, usually. Death. Sometimes things I do not understand until later.” His voice went smaller. “Sometimes they happen.”

Her hand stilled. Daeron felt it and let out a brittle laugh. “There. That is the look everyone gets eventually.”

“What look?” She asked. 

“The one that says I am mad.” He sighed.

She drew back just enough to take his face in her hands again. There was no fear in her expression now. Only focus. “I have seen men drink blood from golden cups and call it worship,” she said quietly. “I have watched sorcerers split shadows from their own bodies. I have lived longer than kingdoms that once thought themselves eternal.” Her thumb brushed beneath his eye. “You will have to do far more than dream of fire to convince me you are mad.”

A tear slipped free before he could stop it. His face twisted, humiliated. She kissed it away.

Daeron shut his eyes. “I drink because it helps,” he admitted. The words barely made a sound.

She waited.

“It makes them blur. Sometimes it makes sleep come without seeing anything. Sometimes it only makes me too senseless to care.” His voice cracked. “I know what they call me. I know what I am.”

“No.”

His eyes opened. “You know what they call you,” she said. “Who you are is not the same thing.”

He looked at her helplessly, like he wanted so badly to believe her and did not know how. She pulled him back against her. This time he went willingly, no resistance or pride left in him. He buried his face against her shoulder like a man too tired to stand guard over his own heart any longer.

She held him until the shaking eased, and held him after that too.

And as his breathing finally slowed against her, she stared over his shoulder toward the dying fire, face unreadable.

After that night, something between them changed. Not in a way the court could name. But Daeron felt it. He felt it in the way she watched him now. Not as prey. Not even as a curiosity. She watched him like someone trying to learn the shape of a wound without touching it too quickly.

At feasts, her gaze moved to his hand before it reached the cup. In the training yard, she noticed when Aerion’s voice made his shoulders stiffen. At dinners, she noticed how Daeron’s expression changed whenever his father spoke his name in that particular tone, not cruel, not unkind, but heavy with expectation. As though Daeron were a sword badly forged. Still useful, perhaps. Still valuable. But not what had been promised.

She noticed all of it. And Daeron noticed her noticing. That was almost unbearable. He could endure mockery. He could endure disappointment. He had made a life out of enduring things by pretending not to feel them. But her concern was harder to survive.

One afternoon, after a long meal in the solar where Maekar had spent nearly an hour discussing duty, discipline, and the dangers of wasted potential without once directly saying Daeron’s name, Daeron found himself alone with her in a shaded corridor.

Or rather, he had thought he was alone. She appeared beside him like she always did, silent as a held breath.

“You drink more when he is near,” she said.

Daeron closed his eyes briefly. “Do you make a habit of counting my cups now?”

“Yes.”

He turned to look at her. She did not soften the answer.

Daeron laughed under his breath, but it came out thin. “How romantic.”

“I am not trying to be romantic.”

“No,” he muttered. “Clearly not.”

Her gaze lowered to his hand. His fingers were still curled around the stem of the cup he had carried from the solar without realizing. “You reach for it before you even consciously decide to,” she said quietly.

His grip tightened. “You sound very sure of yourself.”

“I am.”

“You are wrong.”

“I am not.” The sharpness of it made him look at her fully. She stood in the narrow bar of afternoon light falling through the arched window, dark silks brushing the stone floor, expression unreadable. Beautiful. Calm. Too observant for his comfort.

Daeron hated, suddenly, that she could see him in daylight. In the dark, her attention had felt like hunger. Here, it felt like understanding. “You do not know everything about me,” he said.

“No,” she agreed softly. “But I know what it looks like when someone is trying to disappear inside themselves.”

The words struck too close. Daeron’s mouth tightened. “You think too much of yourself.”

“Perhaps.”

“You arrive at court with false papers and a pretty accent and suddenly you believe you can explain my own life to me?”

Her face did not change, but something in her eyes did. A flicker. Pain, perhaps.

Daeron regretted it instantly. But pride held him still.

She stepped closer, not enough to crowd him, only enough that her voice could lower. “I do not want to explain you,” she said. “I want you to stop vanishing while standing directly in front of me.”

The anger in him faltered. His throat worked. For a moment, he had no answer.

Her gaze dropped again to the cup in his hand. “I watched you that night,” she continued. “After the dream. You woke terrified. Then ashamed. Then you looked at the wine as though it had a kindness I did not.”

Daeron looked away. “It helps.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know that you believe it helps.”

Silence stretched between them.

Outside, somewhere in the courtyard below, men were laughing. A horse whinnied. Steel rang faintly against steel. Daeron stared at the cup until the red surface of the wine blurred slightly.

“You said you would not hurt me that night,” he said quietly.

Her expression softened.

“I meant it.”

“Then stop looking at me like I am already dying.” The words left him before he meant them to.

For once, she looked startled. Only slightly, but enough.

Daeron stepped back. “I am not one of your wounded things to tend to.”

“No,” she said. “You are not.”

“Then stop.” He meant to leave. Truly, he did. But before he could move past her, her fingers caught his sleeve lightly. Not restraining. Asking.

Daeron froze. She did not look angry now. Only terribly still. “I am trying to learn how to care for something without consuming it,” she said.

His chest tightened so abruptly it hurt.

“I am not very good at it yet.”

Daeron looked down at her hand on his sleeve. Then, slowly, he covered it with his own. A creature of death learning tenderness one touch at a time. Daeron hated that her words worked on him. He hated more that he needed them to.

The feast that evening was meant to honor some visiting lord Daeron could not remember and did not care to. The hall glowed with candlelight. Musicians played too loudly near the far end of the room. Platters of roasted meats, sugared fruits, honeyed roots, and spiced wine passed endlessly from hand to hand. Men laughed too hard. Women smiled too brightly. Courtiers leaned over one another like vines searching for sunlight.

She sat near Daeron, not beside him but close enough that the awareness of her never left his skin. That was how it always was now. Even when they did not touch, he felt her. He felt her when someone asked him a question and he could not quite answer quickly enough. Felt her when laughter rose near him and his heart gave an anxious little kick. Felt her gaze on him when Maekar’s voice carried from farther down the table.

Daeron tried to behave. He truly did. He drank slowly at first. One cup. Then another. Then half of a third after Aerion began speaking.

Aerion was in high spirits, which usually meant someone else would end the night bleeding.

“You are quiet tonight, brother,” Aerion called, loud enough for half the table to hear.

Daeron did not look up. “I had hoped you might mistake it for wisdom.”

A few people laughed. Aerion smiled. “Wisdom? From you? No, I would not insult wisdom so deeply.”

Daeron’s fingers tightened around his cup. Beside him, though not directly beside him, she went still.

Aerion’s gaze slid to her. “Do forgive him, my lady. Daeron often grows dull after the first few cups. After the fifth, he becomes almost charming again.”

Daeron smiled faintly. There it was. The performance he always put on.

“Well,” Daeron said lightly, lifting his cup, “then we are all in luck. I am nearly there.”

Laughter rippled. Maekar’s face hardened. “Enough,” his father said.

Daeron lowered his cup. Aerion looked pleased. Maekar’s eyes moved to Daeron, stern and disappointed in that familiar, devastating way.

“You make yourself too easy a target.”

Daeron swallowed. The hall had become too loud. Too hot. Too full of eyes. “I was making a jest,” he said.

“There are better things to be known for.” Maekar spit.  The words were not shouted. They did not need to be.

Daeron felt them like a hand closing around his throat. He looked down.

Across the table, she watched Maekar. Her expression remained composed, but Daeron could feel the anger in her as surely as he could feel heat from the candles.

“Prince Aerion,” she said softly, “are you always so… insufferable?”

The table quieted. Maekar looked at her. Aerion’s smile flickered. Daeron’s stomach dropped.

“My lady,” Maekar said, measured, “you are new to this family’s dynamics.”

“Yes,” she replied. “But cruelty sounds much the same in every language.”

For a moment, no one moved. Then Aerion laughed. A strange laugh, short and sharp. “You are bold for a guest.”

“And you are loud for a man with so little worth hearing.” The silence that followed was absolute.

Daeron stared at her. Aerion’s eyes narrowed. Color rose in his face. For a moment, Daeron saw the familiar cruelty gather in him, saw the shape of whatever vicious thing he meant to say.

But then Aerion looked at her, really looked. And stopped.

Daeron saw it happen. The brief hesitation. The tiny crack in Aerion’s arrogance.

Fear.

Not enough for anyone else to notice. But she noticed. Her smile barely changed.

Daeron should have felt grateful. Part of him did. Another part felt stripped bare. Defended. Pitied. He reached for his cup again.

Her eyes flicked toward him. He drank. Then again, and again.  By the time the feast dissolved into music and dancing, the wine had stopped softening the room and begun warping it. Candlelight smeared gold across faces. Laughter came too late. Voices echoed strangely, as though Daeron were hearing everything from beneath water.

He stood too abruptly. The chair scraped.

She turned instantly. “Daeron?”

“I need air.” He said, words slurring.

“I’ll come with you.” She insisted. 

“No.” The word was sharper than intended.

Her expression stilled. Daeron regretted it, but the room was tilting and everyone was watching and his father’s disappointment sat heavy in his chest and Aerion’s laugh was still crawling under his skin. “I said no.”

Then he left. At first, she gave him space, which was a mistake. She realized it after only a few minutes. The hall remained crowded. Too many bodies. Too many pulses. Too many scents layered together beneath wine and smoke and perfume. She followed the path he had taken, slipping from the hall into the corridor beyond.

No Daeron.

She moved faster. Past torchlit passages. Past servants carrying empty cups. Past guards who stepped aside without knowing why they did. She found the courtyard empty. The gallery empty. His chambers empty, the balcony doors closed, and the bed untouched.

For the first time since arriving at court, something like panic moved through her.

Not because he could hide from her forever. He could not. But because he was drunk and wounded in ways that did not bleed. Because dawn was still hours away, and he was somewhere in the dark trying to disappear.

She checked the gardens. The outer walkways. The sept. The shadowed corners where drunk men went to be sick or alone. She followed traces of him,  wine, heat, misery, the faint familiar pull of his blood beneath everything. But the Red Keep was old and full of stone, and for once, he had chosen a place even she did not know.

By the time she found him, the moon had shifted low over the black water. He was in a narrow passage beyond the old dragon skulls, half-hidden behind a crumbling archway that led toward a disused stair.

He was sitting on the floor, back against the stone. A near-empty wineskin in his hand.

His head lifted when she approached. He smiled at her. It was awful. “There you are,” he slurred softly. “I wondered how long it would take.”

Her relief collapsed almost instantly into anger. “You were hiding from me.”

“Mm.” He looked down at the wineskin. “Not well enough, apparently.”

“Daeron.” There was something in her voice that might have stopped him sober.

Though, he was not sober. His smile twisted. “Oh, don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” She asked, her voice desperate to understand him. 

“Like I have disappointed you too.” That landed between them sharply.

She went still. Daeron laughed once, ugly and broken. “There it is. That face. I know that face.”

“You are drunk.” She said, rolling her eyes. 

“Yes. I worked very hard at it.”

She stepped closer. He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet before she could reach him. The movement was clumsy. Too fast. He nearly stumbled.

She caught his arm but he jerked away. “Don’t.”

“Do not pull away from me when you can barely stand.” She insisted. 

“Why? Afraid I’ll break?” He countered. The words came out more strained than he intended. 

“Yes.” The honesty of it silenced him for half a heartbeat.

Then his face hardened. “You should not have defended me.”

Her brow furrowed. “That is why you vanished?”

“No.” His laugh was harsh. “Maybe. I don’t know.” His voice cracked slightly on the last words. He hated that.

She heard it anyway. “You were humiliated.”

His eyes flashed with fury. “Thank you. I had nearly missed that.”

“I am not mocking you.” Her tone was stern and honest. It was clear she just wanted to get through to him. She wanted him to understand her intentions, but it was becoming clear that Daeron had no capacity to listen. 

“No, you’re worse. You’re concerned.” His angered voice echoed through the corridor. 

She flinched slightly. Daeron saw it and despised himself for noticing. Still, he could not stop. The wine had dragged everything rotting inside him to the surface, and now that it was there, he wanted to make it hurt someone other than himself. “You stand there with your perfect face and your clever little observations, and you think you understand what I am.”

“I am trying to.” She pleaded. 

“I did not ask you to.” He yelled. Silence fell between them again, his chest heaved slightly. 

“No,” she said finally , voice low. “You only keep reaching for me and then punishing me when I hold on.”

His mouth closed. For a moment, he looked almost sober. “That is not fair.”

The passage went quiet. He leaned back against the wall, eyes bright and unfocused. She could smell the wine on him. Too much of it. Could hear the sluggish weight in his pulse, the uneven drag of his breathing. Could see how badly he wanted to disappear.

It frightened her more than anything. “You are killing yourself,” she said.

Daeron’s gaze snapped back to hers. The words were too blunt, too raw. “You do not get to say that.”

“I do when I can see it clearly,” she argued. 

“No.” He stepped toward her, swaying faintly. “You do not know what you see.”

“I have watched men die in every way imaginable.” Her voice was pleading again. She hated it. 

“Then congratulations. You should be used to it.”

Her expression changed. Daeron knew immediately he had cut too deep. But he was drunk and ashamed and cornered by her worry, so he kept going. “You speak of life as though it is some precious gift because you do not have to live one anymore.”

The silence after that was terrible. Her face went utterly still.

Not cold or angry. Something far worse, something close to betrayal.

Daeron’s stomach twisted as he remembered the night by the fire. He remembered how she spoke so softly of the sisters she had outlived, and how she mourned that she had no choice in becoming immortal. Her life was taken from her and replaced with a curse of bloodlust and loneliness. 

But pride, poisonous and pathetic, kept him standing. “You do not know what it is like,” he said, voice rougher now. “To be trapped inside a mind that shows you things you cannot stop. To wake every day knowing you will disappoint everyone before nightfall. To be looked at by your own father like you are some failed first draft of a son.” His breathing had gone uneven. The words spilled now, bitter and helpless. “You do not know what it is like to live like this.”

Her eyes flashed. “No,” she said. Her voice trembled with fury. “You are right. I do not.” She stepped closer then, and for the first time that night, he almost stepped back. “I do not know what it is like to be alive and hate the shape of it so much that I pour poison down my throat just to endure another hour.”

Daeron flinched.

She continued, voice breaking at the edges now. “But you do not know what it is like to lose the chance entirely.”

He went still. All the anger drained from his face. She was breathing hard now, though she did not need to breathe at all. “That is what you do not understand. I did not choose this. I did not ask to become hunger wrapped in a woman’s skin. I did not ask to watch the sun become something that could never warm my skin. I did not ask to bury every soul that ever knew my name.”

Daeron stared at her.

She looked almost horrified by her own honesty. “I would take your dreams,” she whispered. “All of them. Every fire, every death, every terrible thing your mind has ever shown you. I would take your father’s disappointment. Your brother’s cruelty. Your fragile, aching, mortal body.” Her voice dropped. “I would take all of it if it meant I could be alive again.”

Daeron could not speak. The passage felt suddenly too narrow and airless.

Her eyes glistened strangely in the torchlight, though no tears fell. “And you stand there,” she said softly, “wearing life like a burden I would have done anything to keep.”

The words struck him harder than any slap could have. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Daeron looked away. The anger was gone, only shame remained.

“I did not mean-”

“I know.” Her answer was immediate. She stepped back then, the distance felt enormous.

“You should go to your chambers,” she said.

Her voice had gone quiet again. Too quiet.

“Let me take you to yours.” He tried to say, stepping forward to reach for her hands. 

“No.” She sighed, shaking her head, trying to blink away to tears forming at her waterline. 

He looked at her then as she gave him a faint, broken smile. “Not tonight.”

And then she left him there.

Daeron watched her go, drunk and devastated and too ashamed to follow.

He did not sleep. Not properly. A guard eventually found him sitting exactly where she had left him and, with great caution, escorted him back toward his chambers. Daeron remembered very little of it. Only the cold stone beneath his hand. The taste of wine gone sour in his mouth. The awful clarity of her words circling in his skull.

I would take all of it if it meant I could be alive again.

By the time he reached his rooms, he was sick. Then empty. Then exhausted beyond reason.

Still, he did not sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face. Not hungry or amused. Hurt.

He had wanted to hurt her because she had seen too much of him. And he had succeeded. That should have felt like winning. But instead it felt like the worst disappointment he had faced yet.

Morning came gray and cruel through the windows.

Daeron sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, still wearing the clothes from the night before. His mouth tasted of wine and regret. His stomach churned. His skull throbbed violently. But none of it hurt as badly as remembering the way she had stepped back from him.

Not tonight.

Those two words lodged beneath his ribs. He had made her leave. He had wanted space, had he not? Had wanted not to be watched, not to be known, not to be held accountable for the slow ruin he made of himself. Now he had it. But the room felt unbearable without her.

She came after sunset. Daeron knew she would. Or at least he hoped she would. There was a difference, though it had become difficult to tell where hope ended and need began.

The oak doors opened without a sound. He looked up from where he sat near the hearth. She stood there in the blue-black wash of evening, dressed in pale Lysene silk, hair unbound over her shoulders. She looked composed again. Courtly. Untouchable.

But Daeron knew her better now. He could see the hurt she had hidden beneath the stillness.

He stood too quickly. They spoke at the same time. “I am sorry.”

Both stopped. For half a heartbeat, neither moved. Then, despite everything, the corner of her mouth twitched.

Daeron let out a weak breath that almost became a laugh. His expression crumpled slightly. “I was cruel.”

“Yes,” she said.

He flinched.

Her voice softened. “So was I.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You were right.”

She sighed in agreement and then spoke again. “I was angry.”

“You had reason to be.”

“So did you.”

The tenderness of that nearly ruined him.

Daeron looked away, throat tight. “I wanted you to stop looking at me like you cared whether I lived.” The confession came out quiet and too raw.

She did not move for a moment. Then she crossed the room slowly, taking his hands in hers. 

He swallowed hard. “I do not know what to do with it.”

“With what?” She looked confused at his words. 

He looked at her then. “You. Your kindness. Your care for me. ”

Her expression softened. Not with pity, never pity. That would have been easier to resent.

She smiled up at him as though it was the most natural thing in the world to her.  “You do not need to do anything but accept it.”

Daeron’s breath shook. “I hurt you.”

“Yes.” She murmured, eyes boring into his. 

His eyes stung. He closed them before she could see. Of course, she saw anyway.

“I am sorry,” he whispered again.

Her thumb moved lightly against his cheek. “So am I.” Then, softer,  “I should not have spoken as though your pain is simple.”

Daeron opened his eyes. “It is not simple to me.”

“I know that now, and I am sorry.” She leaned forward to press a light kiss to his wet cheeks, smiling softly as she pulled away. 

Something passed between them then. Not forgiveness exactly, more of a decision not to turn away.

Daeron’s hand found hers against his face and held it there. “Tell me,” he said.

Her brows drew faintly. “Tell you what?”

“What happened to you? All those years ago.”

She went still. Daeron’s fingers tightened lightly around hers. “You do not have to.”

“No,” she said after a moment. “I think I do.”

They sat near the hearth, close enough that their knees nearly touched. For a long while, she stared into the fire. Then she began.

She spoke like someone opening a locked room and allowing him to glimpse only what she could bear. She had been born in Lys centuries ago, when the house she now claimed as her own had still been full of living names. There were gardens. A terrace overlooking the sea. Two sisters, Serenei and Larra. A mother who wore pearls in her hair. A father who spoke too often of marriage alliances. A younger version of herself who had believed the world was large, bright, and waiting.

Then there had been a man. Or something wearing the shape of one. She did not describe him much. Only his hands, and the way he smelled of death and old blood. She had believed herself clever enough to avoid him.

“I remember the room,” she said quietly. “Not clearly. Only pieces. Red curtains. A lamp knocked over. My own voice.”

Daeron watched her face. She did not cry. That made it almost frightening.

“I begged,” she said.

His chest tightened.

“I begged to die at the end. Then I woke hungry.”

Daeron reached for her hand. This time, she gripped him back hard.

“I thought immortality would feel powerful once,” she said. “After. When the fear passed. But it did not feel like power. It felt like being shut outside the world and forced to watch it continue without me.”

The fire crackled softly.

“I watched my sisters grow older than me,” she continued. “I watched them marry. Have children. Lose children. I watched them become women I no longer knew how to stand beside. Then I watched them die.”

Daeron could barely breathe.

Her gaze remained on the flames. “Everyone dies,” she said. “Eventually. Mortals say it as comfort. It is not.”

His thumb moved over her knuckles. “I am sorry.”

She looked at him then. “Thank you.”

This time, there was no distance in the words. Only acceptance.

Daeron stared at her, at this terrible, impossible creature who had killed and fed and lied her way into his life, who had also once been a girl with sisters and sunlight and a stolen future. “I understand now,” he said.

Her expression barely changed. But her fingers tightened around his. “What?”

“Why you were angry.”

She looked down. “I was not only angry.” Then she said, quietly, , “I do not like watching you treat yourself as though you are already lost.”

Daeron’s throat tightened. She continued, voice lower. “I have lost enough things I wished to keep, and I find I am not willing to lose you to your own hand.”

Daeron shut his eyes. The words entered him like a blade, tender and terrifying.

He leaned forward slowly until his forehead rested against hers.

For a long moment, they sat that way, sharing breath they did not both need.

“I do not know how to stop,” he whispered. “I need you to know that.”

“I do.” She murmured. 

“I may disappoint you.” He said as if trying to discourage her from caring about him. 

“You will.” She hummed in response. His eyes opened then. She smiled faintly. “So will I.”

Despite himself, Daeron let out a broken little laugh.

Her hand touched the back of his neck. “But you will not be alone in it,” she said.

And though she did not say the words, Daeron felt them anyway. I am choosing you.

The question came much later into the night. 

The fire had burned low again. Daeron had bathed and changed, though exhaustion still shadowed his eyes. She sat beside him on the bed, back against the carved headboard, one hand resting absently over his wrist as though his pulse comforted her.

He looked down at their joined hands. “You said everyone dies.”

She turned her head slightly. “Yes.”

His voice went quiet. “You say that like you have already thought about me.”

She did not answer immediately, which was answer enough.

Daeron’s stomach twisted. “How?”

Her brows drew together faintly. “How what?”

“How have you thought about it?” He asked honestly.

She looked at him for a long time. Then her thumb brushed once over his pulse. “I expect you to die many years from now,” she said.

Daeron went still, trying not to feel unsettled by his own curiosity. 

“Old,” she continued. “Warm. Difficult, probably. Still arguing with me about things that should not matter.”

His mouth twitched faintly, though his chest hurt.

“I expect to hate it,” she said. The faint smile vanished. “I expect it will undo something in me that cannot be mended. But I have made what peace I can with the cruelty of mortality… or immortality. I’m not sure which is crueler.”

Daeron could not look away from her. 

Her hand tightened around his wrist. “What I will not make peace with,” she said, voice low now, “is watching you hurry toward it.”

The room seemed to narrow around him. He looked down. “I was not trying to die.”

“No?” The question was quiet, not accusatory. That made it harder to answer.

Daeron swallowed. “I don’t think so.”

She closed her eyes briefly.  The pain that crossed her face was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

But he saw it. For the first time, Daeron understood something that unsettled him deeply. His life did not belong only to him anymore. Not because she owned it or  because she had fed from him or kissed him or crawled into his bed like some beautiful omen.

But because someone would grieve him. For longer than he could comprehend. The thought was almost horrible.

“You should not care this much,” he whispered.

Her eyes opened. “There are many things I should not do with you.”

His breath caught faintly. She leaned closer, expression softening just enough to hurt. “But I do them anyway.”

Daeron stared at her. There it was again. The thing neither of them had named. He wanted to name it. Gods, he wanted to. But fear rose in him immediately. If named, it could be lost. If spoken, it could be taken back.

So instead he lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. Daeron held her hand there against his lips longer than necessary. “I will try,” he whispered.

Her expression changed.

It was not enough. They both knew it. Trying did not undo addiction. Trying did not silence dreams. But it was not nothing. For Daeron, it was nearly everything.

She shifted closer and touched her mouth lightly to his brow. “Then I will stay near enough to remind you.”

In the weeks following,  Daeron did not understand what had changed. Only that she was colder again. Not all at once. There was no sudden collapse, no black wound opening beneath her collarbone, no midnight arrival through his balcony doors with blood staining her hands.

It happened slowly.

Her fingers, once warmed by him for hours after feeding, began to return to that old deathly chill. The color his blood had brought to her cheeks faded back into porcelain stillness. Her lips, which had once softened beneath his kisses with something almost alive, grew cooler against his mouth.

Daeron noticed because he noticed everything about her now. It had become a habit, a  private obsession. The way she tilted her head when listening. The way her eyes narrowed slightly when someone lied. The way her voice went silk-soft when she was displeased. The way she could sit perfectly still for an hour at court and somehow make everyone else feel observed.

And the way her hand felt in his. That was what unsettled him most.

During supper one evening, beneath the shelter of the tablecloth, Daeron reached for her as he often did now. He had not even realized he was doing it until his fingers brushed hers.

Ice.

He went still. She turned her head slightly, though she did not look at him fully. She was listening to some lord speak at length about a border dispute, her face arranged into polite interest.

Daeron’s thumb moved once over the back of her hand. Her fingers curled around his. Too cold.

His chest tightened. Later, as the court gathered in one of the smaller halls for music and wine, he drew her aside beneath the pretense of admiring a tapestry.

“You are hungry.”

Her gaze slid to his. No surprise. “No,” she said lightly. “I am admiring the dreadful stitchwork.”

“Do not do that.” He pressed.

“Do what?” She signed, avoiding eye contact. 

“Pretend I do not know you.” Something in her expression softened faintly. A dangerous thing, that. How easily softness from her could quiet his anger. Daeron stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You are cold again.”

She looked down at his hand where it hovered near hers, close but not touching. “I am always cold.”

“Not like this.”

Her mouth curved. “Careful, prince. You are beginning to sound attentive.”

“I am attentive.” He insisted, slowly grabbing her small hands. 

“Yes,” she murmured. “You are.”

The words were gentle enough to make his pulse stumble, but they did not distract him. “Feed from me tonight.”

Her expression changed instantly. “No.” The answer came too quickly.

Daeron’s jaw tightened. “You did not even consider it.”

“I do not need to.” Her voice was firm in its answer, not wanting to entertain his proposal. 

“You need blood.” He pressed further, unwilling to let it go.  “I have blood.”

A flicker of amusement crossed her face, but it did not reach her eyes. “That is a dangerous argument to make to someone like me.”

“I am not afraid.” There was truth in that. He was no longer afraid of her teeth or her roughness.

Her gaze sharpened. “Yes, you are. I can feel it.”

He swallowed. Perhaps he was, but for an entirely different reason.  “I am afraid of you weakening yourself while pretending you are fine.”

Something quiet passed across her face at that. For a moment, she looked almost touched. Then she looked away. “I cannot always feed from you.”

The words landed badly. Daeron felt them strike somewhere low in his chest and twist. “Why not?”

Her eyes snapped back to his. A warning was there. Pain too.

Her voice lowered. “I have taken from you when I needed strength. When you offered. When I knew I could stop.”

“You did stop, so what is the problem?”

“You.” she nearly hissed. 

He frowned. Her hand lifted, almost touching his face before she seemed to remember where they were and let it fall. “You are the problem,” she said more softly. “You would let me take too much.”

Daeron’s breath caught. “That is not true.”

“It is.”

“You cannot know that.”

“I know exactly what you sound like when you want to be ruined.”

His face flushed hot. He glanced away, furious with himself for reacting.

Her expression softened again. “With others,” she said quietly, “feeding is simple.”

His eyes returned to hers. “With me?”

Her gaze held his. “With you, nothing is simple.”

The answer should have comforted him. It did not. Because it still meant she would feed elsewhere.  And Daeron hated the thought so violently he did not know what to do with it.

She chose him three nights later.

A minor lord from the Reach. Handsome enough in an ordinary way. Golden-haired, broad-shouldered, and far too pleased with himself. He had spent most of the evening speaking over women, laughing at his own jests, and touching serving girls too familiarly when they passed with wine.

Daeron disliked him before she ever looked his way. That should have made it easier. It did not.

The moment Daeron saw her attention settle on the man, something in him went cold. She was standing near one of the pillars, dressed in pale violet silk that made her look almost ethereal beneath the torchlight. Several courtiers surrounded her, all eager for a word, a smile, the smallest evidence of preference.

She gave them what they wanted. A glance here. A faint laugh there. A careful touch to a sleeve when someone said something amusing. Daeron stood across the hall with a cup in hand, watching. He knew her well enough now to recognize the performance.

That was what made it worse. She was very good at it.

The lord leaned closer to her, smiling as though he had discovered something private and rare. She tilted her head, listening. Her lashes lowered slightly. Her mouth curved in a way Daeron had once thought belonged only to him.

His fingers tightened around the cup. He reminded himself that this was survival, that she did not want the man. He reminded himself that she had told him plainly.

Still, when her gaze drifted to the lord’s throat, Daeron nearly crossed the room.

Because he knew that look.

Her hand touched the man’s sleeve. A small gesture. Nothing and everything all at once

Daeron drank. Her eyes flicked to him instantly from across the hall. He lowered the cup slowly.

For one heartbeat, they only stared at each other. There was an apology in her eyes. And a warning.

Do not follow.

Daeron understood it perfectly. Then she smiled at the lord and let him lead her toward the gardens. He lasted perhaps a minute, then he followed.

The gardens were dim and wet with evening mist. Moonlight silvered the hedges. The fountains whispered softly in the dark. Somewhere beyond the walls, the city breathed and murmured, but here everything felt strangely still. At first, they did not go far. Only beyond the main corridor, then through an archway into the gardens. The night air was cool besides the warm summer breeze that whispered softly  through the greenery around them. Torches burned low along the stone paths, their light flickering over hedges and marble fountains.

Daeron moved quietly. Too quietly for a prince deep in jealousy. He found them beyond a line of cypress trees near a marble bench half-hidden in ivy. She stood close to the lord. Her fingers rested lightly against his chest, and the man was speaking in a low voice, clearly pleased by her attention. He looked enchanted. Foolish. Already half-lost.

Daeron’s stomach twisted. She smiled. It was beautiful, but empty. That was the first thing he noticed. It looked like the smiles she gave in court. Perfectly shaped, perfectly timed, utterly hollow. The man did not notice. Of course he didn’t, he wasn’t meant to.

Her hand slid up to his jaw. Daeron felt sick. Not because he thought she wanted him, because suddenly he understood how easy it was for her to become whatever someone desired.

Had she done that to him? In Ashford? In his chambers?

How much of her softness was real, and how much was simply the method of a creature that knew how to make prey lean closer?

The lord laughed softly. She leaned in. Daeron took one step forward before stopping himself. He kept to the shadows, heart hammering. She knew he was there, he was certain of it. Still, she did not turn back.

The lord was laughing softly now, clearly drunk on the idea of his own success. He walked beside her with one hand hovering too close to her waist, speaking in a lowered voice Daeron could not quite hear. She answered him gently, beautifully even. But even from a distance Daeron could hear the falseness in her tone..

They moved farther from the castle. Past the gardens. Past the outer walkway. Toward the darker grounds where the torchlight thinned and the sounds of court faded behind stone and wind.

Daeron’s unease deepened with every step. He should have turned back. Instead he followed her beyond the last reach of easy light, down a narrow path half-swallowed by cypress and overgrown ivy, until the Red Keep stood behind them like a sleeping beast.

The lord finally seemed to notice the distance. “My lady,” he said, laughing uncertainly, “surely you do not mean to lead me all the way into the dark?”

She stopped walking, mist curling around her skirts. “No,” she said softly. “Only far enough.”

Something in her voice changed. Daeron felt it before the lord did.

The man’s smile faltered. “Far enough for what?”

She turned to face him. Moonlight touched her face, and for one terrible moment she looked exactly as she had in the woods beyond Ashford. Entirely real, yet entirely not human.

The lord took one step back, but it was too late. She moved faster than Daeron’s eyes could follow. One moment she stood before the man, elegant and still. The next, she had him pinned against the trunk of a dark tree with one hand locked around his throat.

The lord made a strangled sound. Daeron froze. All jealousy vanished. Only horror remained. This was not the careful feeding at his wrist. Not the trembling restraint of her mouth against his throat. The lord clawed uselessly at her wrist, eyes wide with animalistic terror. She did not soothe him. Did not praise him. Did not kiss his skin first or breathe him in like something beloved. She simply bared her teeth. Then she fed.

The sound that left the lord was awful. Daeron flinched, one hand flying to his own throat.

She drank viciously, brutally, with the full force of what she had spent days, no, weeks, holding back. Her body pressed the man harder into the tree as if the struggle meant nothing to her. His heels scraped against the dirt. His hands weakened, voice breaking into wet, panicked gasps that vanished beneath the sound of her feeding.

Daeron could not move, could not breathe. The mist, the trees, the moonlight, all of it seemed to tilt around him. He understood then, all at once. This was why it could not be him. Because when she fed from him, she fought herself. She softened every bite. She measured every swallow. She pulled back before the hunger could deepen too far. She kissed the wounds she made and listened to his heart as if it were a fragile thing she had sworn to protect. Even at her cruelest in Ashford, she never tore into him so viciously. 

This was what feeding was when her strange version of tenderness did not interfere.  This was survival stripped bare.

The lord went slack against the tree. She did not stop immediately, that was the part that chilled Daeron most. This hunger was not romance. It was not worship. It was not the beautiful, terrible intimacy Daeron had mistaken it for. It was appetite, and it certainly meant death.

At last, she released him. The body dropped heavily to the ground, the sound of it seemed impossibly loud. She stood over him, breathing hard though she did not need air, one hand braced against the tree. Blood darkened her mouth. Her eyes glowed faintly in the moonlight, brighter now, stronger, monstrous in a way court silks could never fully conceal.

For several moments, she did not look at Daeron. Then she said quietly, “I told you not to follow.”

His stomach twisted. She had known, of course she had known. Daeron stepped from the shadows on unsteady legs. His voice barely worked. “Is he dead?”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The gesture was strangely inelegant. Almost tired. “Yes.”

The bluntness of it struck him hard. He looked down at the body, then back at her. There was no shame in her face. No apology for what she was. But when her eyes settled on Daeron, something changed. Concern.

“You needed that much,” Daeron said. It was not a question. Her silence answered anyway. His throat tightened as he looked once more at the body crumpled in the grass. The man’s head lolled unnaturally to the side, pale throat ruined beneath the moonlight. “That is what true feeding is to you.”

Her gaze stayed fixed on him. “Yes.” The word was quiet. Final.

Daeron swallowed hard. For a moment, he said nothing. He only stood there with horror still working through him, with the image of her mouth at the man’s throat burned into his mind. There had been no tenderness in it. No reverence. No restraint beyond what was needed to keep the court from discovering her. This was hunger without affection.

His voice came rough when he finally spoke. “I understand now.”

Something in her expression shifted. She seemed almost relieved.

Then Daeron continued. “And I still want it to be me.”

The relief vanished. She went utterly still. “No.” The word came instantly, sharp as a blade.

Daeron stepped closer. “Yes.”

“Are you mad?,” she hissed, agitation flashing across her face. “Do not say that to me.”

“Why?” He pleaded. Gods, he hated how desperate he sounded.

Her voice roughened, almost desperate now. “Because you saw a glimpse. A single glimpse. You saw me feed without restraint and still you stand there speaking like a foolish boy offering his hand to a flame because he thinks the burn means devotion.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened. “It does.”

Her eyes flashed with disdain. “No. It means you are reckless.”

“It means I am yours.” The words struck her harder than he expected. She stared at him, something close to horror unfolding slowly across her face. Daeron’s breathing had gone uneven now, but he did not look away. He was shaking with fear, jealousy, longing, shame,  all of it tangled so tightly inside him that he could not tell where one feeling ended and the next began. 

“I saw him,” he said, voice cracking slightly. “I saw what you did to him. I saw the way you took from him.” Her lips parted, but he kept going. “And all I could think was that I hated him for having even that much of you.”

The confession seemed to wound her. “Daeron,”

“I know how monstrous that sounds.” He sighed, tears welling in his violet eyes.

“It is not monstrous.” Her voice was low now. Troubled. “It is dangerous.”

“I do not care.” Something close to a sob escaped his lips. His voice cracking on the last word. 

“I do.” The force of it silenced him. She crossed the distance between them suddenly, hands catching his face. Her fingers were still cold, still faintly stained with blood. She held him hard enough that he had no choice but to look at her. “I care,” she said again, each word trembling with barely restrained anger. “I care if you bleed. I care if you weaken. I care if your pulse stumbles beneath my mouth. I care if your eyes go unfocused and your hands cannot hold me anymore.”

His throat worked painfully.  “I want all of you.”

Her expression crumpled faintly before she could hide it.

He lifted his hands to her wrists, holding her there, keeping her hands against his face like he needed the pressure of her touch to keep himself standing. “I want the gentleness,” he whispered. “I want your hands in my hair. I want you beside me when I wake. I want your mouth on my throat and your voice in my ear. I want the softness, yes, but I want the rest too. The hunger. The terror. All of it.”

 His breath shook. For a moment, she only looked at him. The body in the grass may as well have been miles away.  “Sweet prince,” she whispered, and this time the name sounded pained. “You do not know what it means to have all of me.”

“But I want to.” He murmured, tears light falling down his soft cheeks. 

“No.” Her thumb brushed over his cheek, almost helplessly. “All of me would ruin you.”

“Then ruin me carefully.” He was begging now, pathetically. He almost recoiled at his own selfishness.

A sound left her. Not quite a laugh, closer to a sob. “You are impossible.”

Daeron swallowed hard, eyes shining. For once, he had no argument ready.

She leaned closer, forehead nearly touching his. “You think I deny you because I do not want you enough,” she murmured. “But I deny you because I want you too much.” 

His breath caught. 

“I would never forgive myself if I made a corpse of you.”

Daeron shut his eyes. Her hands slid from his face to his neck, careful around the old scars there. Her thumbs rested over his pulse as though she needed to feel it to calm herself. “I need you alive,” she whispered. The words were not soft in the way praise was soft. They were raw, possessive. Nearly frightening. “I need you warm. Breathing. Angry with me. Jealous of dead men. Looking at me like I am both the worst and best thing that has ever touched you.”

A broken little laugh escaped him. Her mouth brushed his cheek. “I need your foolish, fragile heart to keep beating.”

His hands tightened at her waist. “I just want to be enough.” The confession tore out of him before he could stop it.

Her entire expression changed. “Oh, Daeron.”

He looked away, ashamed. She forced his face back to hers, gentler this time but no less firm.

“You are not enough,” she said. He went still. Then she continued, voice fierce and trembling. “You are more.”

His breath broke. The word moved through him like warmth. She leaned in and kissed him. Gently. As though reminding him there were parts of her no one else would ever receive.

When she kissed him, Daeron tasted the lord’s blood on her tongue. His stomach turned violently. It was wrong, bitter and foreign in her mouth, a taste that did not belong there. Jealousy rose in him so sharply it nearly felt like nausea, because some ruined part of him wanted to replace it, wanted his blood on her lips, his pulse under her tongue, his warmth filling her instead.

When she pulled back, her forehead rested against his. Her expression was open now in a way that frightened him more than her hunger ever had. “If you were merely prey to me, I would not be standing in this garden trying to make you understand me.” Her thumb brushed over his wrist. “I would not sit beside you when your dreams come. I would not learn the sound of your breathing when you are trying not to cry.” 

Daeron’s chest tightened with desperate need. Her words softened something in him before he could stop it, reaching past the jealousy and striking the lonely, hidden part of him that had never expected to be known so carefully. Still, his gaze flicked bitterly toward the body in the grass, jaw tightening as his hand closed around her wrist. The image of her with the lord still lingered like a wound, but beneath the jealousy was something deeper, a fierce ache to prove what they were to each other. That no one else could touch this. That he belonged to her completely, and she to him.

He sank slowly to his knees before her on the soft moss, as if in prayer.

His hands slid carefully over her hips, gathering her skirts and lifting them to her waist. His touch was reverent even in its trembling, before his mouth found the inside of her knee. One kiss. Then another. Slow, lingering, almost worshipful as he worked his way higher, pressing devotion into every inch of skin she allowed him to touch.

She looked down at him, breath catching despite herself.

Daeron’s eyes lifted to hers from beneath pale lashes, dark with want and something far more ruinous. “You said I should live,” he whispered against her thigh, lips brushing the words into her skin. “Then let me live for this. For you.”

 Moonlight bathed her thighs and the glistening folds of her cunt. He leaned in and pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss to the inside of her thigh, then higher, breathing her in.

“You are mine,” he whispered against her skin, voice rough with emotion. “Only mine.”

She threaded her fingers gently through his hair. “And you are mine, Daeron.”

He shuddered at the words. Then he leaned forward and licked a long, slow stripe up her slit, savoring her taste with a low groan. His tongue moved with devoted hunger, circling her clit tenderly before dragging back down to dip inside her. He worshipped her with his mouth, every stroke meant to erase anyone who had come before.

She sighed softly, hips tilting toward him. “Gods… your mouth feels perfect.”

Daeron looked up at her, eyes dark and fervent as he sealed his lips around her swollen bud and sucked gently. “No one else will ever have you like this,” he murmured against her, the vibration making her tremble. “I won’t allow it. This is only for me.”

He slid two fingers into her slowly, curling them with care while his tongue continued its reverent assault. Her body was warming beneath his touch, his warmth and devotion chasing away her eternal cold. He could feel her pulse fluttering against his fingers.

“Say you’re mine,” he breathed, pressing a soft kiss just above her clit before returning to it with slow, devoted licks. “Tell me.”

“I’m yours,” she whispered, voice husky. Her fingers tightened in his hair, not pulling, simply holding him there. “Only yours, my prince. All yours.”

The words sent heat flooding through him. He moaned against her cunt and redoubled his efforts, licking, sucking, stroking her with deep admiration while his free hand gripped her hip, anchoring her to him. Every movement was a promise. Every soft sound she made above him fed the desperate need in his chest.

When her thighs began to shake, he gazed up at her again, lips shiny with her arousal. “Come for me,” he pleaded softly. “Let me feel you. Let me taste what belongs to me. Get the taste of him out of my mouth, I want to taste you. Please.”

She shattered with a quiet, breathless cry, her cunt clenching rhythmically around his fingers as pleasure washed through her. Daeron stayed with her through every wave, licking her gently, drinking her release like sacred wine. Her body grew warmer against his mouth, flushed with his heat and her own ecstasy.

Only when her trembling eased did he rise, pulling her into his arms. He kissed her deeply, letting her taste herself on his tongue. The taste of the discarded Lord no longer lingered on her tongue.  His forehead rested against hers, breath mingling in the cool night air. “I am yours completely,” he whispered. “Every beat of my heart. Every breath. And you… you are mine.”

She brushed her lips over his, sharp teeth grazing lightly. “Then let me taste you while I’m still warm from your devotion.”

Daeron tilted his head without hesitation, offering his throat to her with a soft, needy sound. The gardens remained silent around them, holding their secret close. She stared at him for one lingering moment, eyes dark and hungry, but softer than they had been before. Then her fingers slid carefully into his hair, cradling the back of his head as she leaned in.

Her lips touched his throat first. A kiss. Then another. Gentle enough to make his breath shake. When her teeth pierced him, it was careful. Sharp, but controlled. Daeron gasped, fingers tightening at her waist, and she made a quiet, aching sound against his skin as his blood filled her mouth.

She drank slowly. Nothing like the lord in the trees. Nothing like hunger without feeling. This was different, as it always was with him. Her tongue swept over the wound between careful pulls, lapping at him as though even the smallest taste was something precious. Daeron’s eyes fluttered shut, his body sinking into hers, need and affection blurring together until there was nothing left but her mouth and his heartbeat beneath it.

A soft sound broke from her. Almost helpless. “Oh,” she sobbed against the wound, lips wet with his blood. “I love you, Daeron.”

He went utterly still. For one suspended heartbeat, the entire world seemed to fall away.

Then Daeron’s hand tightened in her hair, not harshly, but suddenly, desperately, and he pulled her back from his throat just enough to look at her.

She let him. His blood still stained her lips. Her eyes were wide and dark and luminous in the moonlight, stripped of every mask she wore at court. There was hunger there, yes, always hunger, but beneath it was something far more terrifying in its honesty. A tenderness so open it looked almost painful.

She had meant it. Gods. She meant every word.

Daeron broke beneath her. He kissed her hungrily, almost clumsily, as though he needed to answer before the moment could vanish. She made a soft sound against his mouth, fingers clutching at him as he kissed the blood from her lips, tasting himself and her and the impossible truth between them. It was his. Hers. Theirs. An impossible mingling of hunger and devotion neither of them knew how to survive cleanly. 

When he finally pulled back, his forehead pressed hard against hers. “I love you too,” he breathed, voice wrecked. “For longer than I've cared to admit, I have loved you.”

Her eyes fluttered shut. Then she kissed him again, slower this time, trembling in his arms as though the words had undone her just as completely. She drew him down with her into the shadowed grass, and Daeron went willingly, gathering her against him as though the force of his arms could keep the world from taking her back. Somewhere beyond the gardens, the court still waited with its whispers, its duties, its hungry eyes, but none of it could reach them yet. She rested her cheek over his heart, listening to the beat she had chosen to never silence, while his mouth pressed softly into her hair. They were ruined, both of them, bound by blood and lust and an affection too consuming to ever be gentle for long. But when her fingers curled over his chest, and his arms tightened around her in answer, Daeron understood that ruin had never felt so much like being saved. 

[saeransangel]

just saw the new movie obsession last night… incoming daeron fic LOL

[valarrsgirl]

trying to act normal about him and failing terribly

[saeransangel]

genuinely he’s gorgeous 💋

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ꜱᴛɪʟʟ ᴛʜᴇ ᴏɴᴇ — ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʏʀᴇɴ

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ summary: daeron and his wife love each other :)

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ warnings: implied alcohol use, fluff

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ note: i was listening to "you're still the one" by shania twain, and i was inspired! self-indulgent because he deserves to feel happy and loved by his wife, thx!

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ wc: 1.5k

You're still the one I run to The one that I belong to You're still the one I want for life

You had never understood why people pitied you for loving him. As if marrying Daeron Targaryen had been some dreadful fate forced upon you instead of the easiest, happiest choice you had ever made.

They whispered before the wedding, of course.

That he drank too much. That he was unreliable. Too strange. Too melancholy. Too rugged around the edges to make a good husband. Some said you would grow embarrassed by him with time. Others said your affection would sour once the novelty faded and real marriage settled in.

You almost laughed now, thinking about it.

Because years later, you still felt your heart leap stupidly whenever he walked into a room. You still searched for silver hair in crowds before you realized you were doing it. Still sat awake waiting for the sound of his boots in the corridor whenever he traveled. Still felt warm all over when he lazily pulled you into his arms and climbed into bed with you after a long day.

Daeron had never once tried to pretend indifference where you were concerned. He kissed you in hallways, stole food from your plate just to make you glare at him, rested his head in your lap after long days as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Sometimes you would catch him staring at you from across rooms with this soft, absent expression, like he still could not quite believe you were real.

It made people uncomfortable sometimes, how obvious the two of you were about it. You did not care. Neither did he.

Once, during a feast, some young lord had tried to make a cutting remark about Daeron’s drinking while attempting to charm you.

You had stared at him for a long moment before softly answering, “I cannot imagine wanting any man more than I want my husband.”

The poor man looked like a devastated, stuttering mess.

Daeron laughed so hard wine nearly came out of his nose.

And truly, you did love him more every year. Not less, as everyone had said you would.

The realization hit you all over again the day he returned from a tourney.

You had been trapped in conversation with a long-winded Reach lord near the castle steps, nodding politely while he droned on about horses or taxes or something equally unbearable. Honestly, you had stopped listening several minutes ago.

Then the movement behind him caught your eye.

Silver hair. A familiar figure swinging tiredly off a horse.

Your entire face lit up before you could stop it.

The lord was still speaking when you suddenly grabbed his forearm lightly and blurted, “My husband is home.”

And then you left him standing there mid-sentence, not caring if it was rude.

Your skirts gathered in your hands as you hurriedly ran down the steps toward Daeron, practically glowing with excitement. The second he spotted you weaving through the courtyard toward him, exhaustion visibly melted from his face.

“You run at me like this, and I’ll start thinking you missed your husband.” He said, already smiling.

You laughed breathlessly and threw yourself straight into his arms. Daeron barely had time to brace before you collided with him, arms wrapping tightly around his shoulders. He made a soft sound, half laugh, half relieved exhale, and caught you easily despite how tired he clearly was from travel.

“Gods,” he murmured into your hair. And then he just… relaxed. Completely. The tension left his body all at once beneath your touch, like returning home had not truly meant anything until you were in his arms again. One hand spread warmly across your back while the other cradled the back of your head, holding you impossibly close.

You pulled back just enough to grin at him. “You were gone too long.”

“It was five days.” He laughed.

“Yes,” you said seriously, “a horrible amount of time.”

He laughed softly again, that low, tired laugh you adored, and rested his forehead against yours for a moment.

Around you, servants continued unloading horses. Knights crossed the yard. Somewhere nearby, someone was shouting instructions. Neither of you paid attention to any of it.

“You missed me terribly,” Daeron teased.

You narrowed your eyes. “Obviously.”

His smile softened into something unbearably fond.

“I missed you, too.” Not embarrassed, not hesitant. Just true.

Then, because he had been riding for days and because you knew him so well, you reached up and cupped his face gently between your hands. His eyes shut instantly as he leaned into the touch with a quiet sigh, all sharp edges disappearing for a moment beneath your affection.

There he was. Your husband. Your favorite person in the entire world.

And judging by the way he looked at you, as though coming home had always meant coming back to you, you were still his, too.

You're still the one that I love The only one I dream of You're still the one I kiss goodnight

Daeron had spent most of his life convinced peace was something made for other people. For better men. Men without rot in their blood and storms in their heads. Men who did not wake with shame sitting heavy in their chest before the day had even begun. Men who did not reach for wine simply to quiet the noise inside themselves.

Then he married you.

And somehow, impossibly, the world softened.

Not entirely. He did not think anything could ever fully silence the shadows living inside him. But you made them quieter. Easier to bear. Like placing warm hands around the throat of a nightmare and forcing it back into the dark.

You tethered him to himself, to life, to the earth beneath his feet.

Daeron did not think much of Heaven or Hell anymore. Men in castles spoke often of both, warning of damnation and salvation from the Seven with equal certainty, but neither held much meaning to him now.

Because every good thing he had ever known existed in the shape of you. In your laugh drifting through shared chambers at dusk. In your fingers carding gently through his hair when headaches split behind his eyes. In the sleepy warmth of your body tucked against his side every night without fail.

What salvation could possibly compare to that?

Especially because you loved him so completely, it frightened him sometimes. You loved him openly, like there had never been anything difficult about it at all.

Even on nights he drank too much. Even when he stumbled into your chambers exhausted and sharp-tongued from lack of sleep, expecting disappointment and finding only you guiding him gently to bed with soft hands against his face.

“You need rest,” you would murmur while unfastening his cloak.

And every single time, some aching part of him would crack open quietly inside his ribs. Because you never made him feel monstrous for being unwell. You just loved him through it.

Daeron thought perhaps that was why he adored your tenderness so desperately. The way you cared for him never felt pitying. It was never obligation. You touched him like he was precious to you. Like looking after him was as natural as breathing.

Sometimes he would wake half-drunk in the middle of the night to find you still awake beside him, fingertips tracing absentminded patterns across his wrist while you read by candlelight.

“You should sleep,” he would mumble groggily.

“So should you,” you’d whisper back. Then you would smile at him.

Gods. That smile. It undid him every time.

And the truth, the terrible, humiliating truth, was that Daeron belonged to you so thoroughly he no longer knew where he ended, and you began.

He felt it most at night. Because no matter how difficult the day had been, no matter how restless his mind became, he always reached for you before sleep.

Always.

His arm seeking your waist in darkness. Your body instinctively curling toward his warmth before either of you were fully awake. Sometimes you sighed softly when he kissed your shoulder or temple, sleepy and content beneath his mouth.

It became a ritual, necessary as breathing.

And when dreams came, on the rare occasions they were kind instead of cruel, you were there too. Always you.

Sometimes he dreamed of gardens with your laughter carried on warm wind. Sometimes it was of quiet mornings tangled together beneath blankets while rain tapped softly against windows. Sometimes, nothing more complicated than your hand in his while sunlight spilled gold across stone floors.

The details changed. You never did. Even in sleep, his mind reached for you instinctively.

Because you were sanity to him. The one thing in his life that had never once felt uncertain.

He had once drunkenly confessed this to you late one evening while you sat together beside a fire. Your head rested against his shoulder while his fingers lazily played with yours.

“If I ever have a pleasant dream,” he had murmured sleepily, “you’re always in it.”

You tilted your head to look at him. “Always?”

He hummed softly. “Without fail.”

Your expression melted into something unbearably fond.

And Daeron, already half exhausted, already warm from wine and your nearness, had looked at you then with the sort of love that made his chest ache beneath it.

Entirely hers. That was what he was.

Not a prince. Not Daeron the Drunken. Not some disappointment whispered about in corridors.

Just yours.

And he thought, quite honestly, that it was the greatest thing he had ever been.

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ᴄᴀɴɴɪʙᴀʟ (ᴘ.2) — ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʏʀᴇɴ

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ summary: After months of nightmares, obsession, and restless longing, Prince Daeron Targaryen finally wakes to find the vampire from the woods standing in his chambers again—wounded, half-dead, and looking at him like he is the only thing keeping her alive. She was supposed to ruin him once and disappear forever. Instead, she comes crawling back into his bed starved for the warmth only his blood can give her, and Daeron learns very quickly that being loved by a monster feels disturbingly similar to being worshipped.

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ warnings: MDNI 18+, p in v, possessive dynamic, biting, description of pain, blood play, crying during intimacy

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ note: this took forever and idk if i like it

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ wc: 8.9k

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ tag list: @deaddovelovely thanks for letting me ramble abt this!

Part 1

The fire in Prince Daeron’s bedchamber had long since burned low, reduced to glowing embers that breathed dim orange light across the stone walls. Shadows stretched tall through the room, shifting faintly each time the wind rattled against the balcony doors.

Daeron slept poorly. He always did now, even more so than before. Nearly a year had passed since the woods beyond Ashford, since pale hands had pinned him against a tree and sharp teeth had sunk into his throat beneath the moonlight.

Nearly a year since she had ruined him.

The scar at his neck had begun to fade to a faint crescent hidden beneath the collar of his tunics, but sometimes, late at night, it still burned. Especially when he drank.

He drank more now. Some nights, it was because he wanted to forget her. Other nights, it was because he desperately wanted to remember.

Wine loosened the tight knots inside him. It dragged him back into that terrible haze where fear and desire blurred together until he could no longer tell them apart. Sometimes he would sit alone in his chambers with flushed cheeks and aching thoughts, chasing the memory of cold hands against his skin and that soft, wicked voice whispering against his throat.

“Gods... you are beautiful.”

Her words haunted him more than the bite itself. He despised that some part of him had carried her voice like a treasured thing.

He had become restless in the months after. Reckless. The servants whispered that the prince drank harder now. That he wandered alone at strange hours. That he sought out dangerous places with the sort of careless self-destruction that was entirely improper for a young prince. 

A shameful part of him had hoped she might find him again. Daeron despised himself for that most of all. Because he certainly was afraid of her. He had seen her eyes glow gold in the darkness, had felt unnatural strength hold him still while she fed from him like a starving beast. Sometimes he woke gasping from dreams of sharp teeth and blood-slick lips, heart hammering so violently he thought it might split his ribs apart.

He slept with a dagger beneath his pillow now. As though a blade could save him from something ancient, as though steel could stop her if she truly wished to kill him.

Still, every night before sleep claimed him, some humiliating part of his mind listened for the sound of the balcony door opening. Waiting.

Tonight was no different.

Daeron lay tangled in dark sheets, half-asleep and feverishly dreaming of moonlight and cold fingers brushing through his hair, when a sudden gust of wind stirred the dying fire.

His eyes snapped open.

Silence. 

Click.

The balcony latch.

Every muscle in his body went rigid. For one horrible heartbeat, he could not breathe.

The wind slowly pushed the doors inward, allowing pale moonlight to spill across the floor in silver ribbons. The curtains shifted softly.

Daeron’s pulse thundered in his ears.

His hand slid beneath the pillow instantly, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger he had slept beside for months. Cold metal bit into his palm as he sat upright in bed.

Nothing. Only darkness beyond the balcony, the sound of the wind.

Then he saw movement. Not entering, but already there.

A silhouette stood watching him just beyond the curtains, half-obscured by moonlight and shadow alike.

Daeron’s stomach twisted violently.

Her.

Even after months, he knew her instantly. The sight of her struck something deep inside him like lightning. Fear crashed through him first, sharp and instinctive enough to make his hands tremble around the dagger.

But beneath it came something worse.

Relief.

His breathing turned uneven. She stepped into the room slowly. She looked exactly the same. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in soft waves, pale skin glowing silver beneath the moonlight. Beautiful. Monstrous. Deathless.

But something was different. Her movements were slower now. Less fluid. One hand remained pressed tightly against her side as though holding herself together.

Daeron noticed the blood a moment later. It was an unnatural black color, dripping slowly between pale fingers onto the stone floor.

His grip tightened instinctively around the dagger.

She looked at him silently for a long moment, glowing eyes roaming over his face with something that almost resembled hunger softened by exhaustion. Her gaze drifted slowly over him like she was reacquainting herself with something long missed.

Daeron’s pulse reacted to her before his mind did.

She said nothing at first. Only watched him, though, the look in her eyes made heat crawl shamefully beneath his skin.

“You came back,” he said quietly. His voice sounded breathless, almost accusing. He tried to sound bitter to cover up the fact that he was relieved.

A faint smile touched her lips. “I promised I would.” That soft voice shattered whatever fragile composure he had left.

Daeron moved before he could think better of it. He surged from the bed, crossing the room in seconds. The dagger flashed silver in the firelight as he slammed her hard against the stone wall beside the balcony.

“You should not be here,” he hissed. But the words lacked conviction.

Because even now, holding a weapon to her throat, feeling the terrible unnatural stillness of her body beneath his arm, his pulse was betraying him.

She made no move to resist. Instead, she gasped. A sharp, broken sound escaped her lips as her shoulders hit the wall, and suddenly warm wetness spread across Daeron’s hand where it gripped her arm. His eyes dropped instantly.

A deep gash carved across the skin near her collarbone, disappearing beneath the torn edge of her dress. The wound looked wrong somehow, dark around the edges, as though the flesh itself had begun rotting from within. Black fluid slid sluggishly down pale skin in thick rivulets.

Daeron froze.

She made no move to throw him off. Her expression remained solemn. No amused smile graced her face; no terrifying strength forced him backward. Instead, she stayed pinned beneath him, breathing shallowly now, lashes fluttering faintly with pain.

For the first time since meeting her, she looked vulnerable, and somehow that frightened him more. “What happened to you?” he whispered before he could stop himself.

Her heavy-lidded eyes lifted slowly to his. “A witch,” she said softly. “A cruel one.” The corner of her mouth twitched faintly. “You would have liked her.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened. Even wounded, she still made an attempt to be charming. But he could feel the weakness in her now. He felt the slight tremor beneath his arm, the strange metallic scent of her blood thick in the air.

“I could kill you right now,” he said quietly, more to himself than her.

A soft laugh left her, though it faltered halfway through. “That dagger would not kill me, sweet one,” she murmured, voice husky and low even now. “You could drive it through my heart ten times over, and I would still be standing. But if it comforts you, go ahead. Try.”

Daeron’s jaw clenched, blade wavering in his grasp. He realized how ridiculous the threat was to an undead creature who had already died once before. He didn’t pull away, but the pressure eased slightly.

“Why are you here?” he demanded, voice rough. “In my chambers. In the middle of the night.”

Her breathing shuddered faintly beneath his arm. Up close, he could feel how cold she truly was now. It was not the composed, deathly chill he remembered from the woods, but something weaker. Drained. The hand pressed against her wound trembled slightly, black blood slipping between her fingers in slow, thick trails. Still, her eyes never left his face. 

“I sought you out,” she sounded wounded as she spoke.

The words should not have affected him the way they did. Daeron’s grip tightened once more against her collarbone, though not enough to worsen the injury. His pulse hammered beneath his skin as he stared at her blood smeared across his hand.

“Why?” he demanded.

Uncertainty flickered across her expression. She swallowed carefully, the movement dragged her throat against the dagger’s edge, and the blade nicked her skin just enough for another thin line of black blood to bead beneath it. A sharp breath caught in her chest. Her lashes fluttered briefly as though remaining upright required effort.

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “Because I am badly injured.” The confession sounded almost foreign coming from her. She shifted slightly against the wall, and another strained sound escaped her before she could swallow it down. Her forehead nearly brushed his shoulder for half a heartbeat, as though her body instinctively leaned toward his warmth despite herself.

Daeron’s gaze kept catching on the fluid slipping between her fingers, staining her pale skin like spilled ink. His grip had loosened without him realizing it. His forearm no longer crushed her against the wall so much as held her there. 

She noticed. A faint smile ghosted across her lips, exhausted but knowing. “You are being very gentle with me for someone who was prepared to kill me a moment ago.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened instantly. “I have not decided against it.”

“No,” she murmured softly. “You decided the moment you saw I was hurt.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “That is not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Her voice had gone quieter now, roughened slightly by pain. She shifted against the wall and inhaled sharply through her teeth as the movement pulled at the wound near her collarbone.

As if second nature to him, Daeron’s hand caught her waist before she could slump forward. The realization hit him a second too late.

Her eyes flicked downward toward where he held her. Then slowly back to his face. Something warm and unreadable softened her expression. “There,” she whispered. “That.”

Daeron immediately released her, as if he had been burned. “You are impossible.”

“And you are frightened again, ” she mused.

“I should be.” He spits out, eyes burning with disdain.

“You should,” she agreed softly.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The wind stirred through the open balcony doors, carrying the smell of rain and smoke into the chamber. Her blood continued dripping quietly onto the stone floor between them.

Daeron stared at it. Then at her. “You came here because you knew I would help you.” The words sounded almost accusing. But beneath them lingered something else. Confusion. Because he still did not understand why she had chosen him. Out of everyone. Why him?

Something in her face shifted then. The amusement faded. Slowly, she lifted one pale hand from her wound and touched the underside of the dagger near her throat, carefully nudging it away from her skin, just enough to breathe easier.

“You still do not understand what you are to me,” she said quietly.

Daeron frowned. “I am a man you nearly killed.”

A soft, tired laugh escaped her. “You say that as though it were ordinary.”

“Was it not?”  His mind began to still as confusion settled into his thoughts. 

“No.” The single word fell heavily between them. Her eyes roamed slowly over his face, almost searching. “I do not play with mortals, Daeron.” The way she said his name sent something uneasy through his chest. He didn’t remember giving her his name.  

“I feed,” she continued softly. “And when I am finished, they die. Quickly, usually. I have never enjoyed prolonging it.” There was no cruelty in her voice then. No attempt to frighten him. She spoke with the detached calm of someone discussing a deeply familiar habit.

Daeron said nothing. Because there was something deeply unsettling about hearing a creature like her speak so casually about death.

“You should have died in those woods,” she whispered. 

His pulse jumped at her words. 

“But you looked at me…” Her gaze drifted briefly, as though remembering it. “You were terrified of me. I could hear it in your heartbeat. And still you leaned into my touch.”

Heat crawled shamefully up his neck.

“I thought perhaps it was the wine at first,” she murmured. “Or simple curiosity. So I tasted you. I meant to finish you quickly after.” Her lips curved faintly. “Then you made those sounds for me.”

Daeron’s face burned hotter. “You are cruel.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Usually.”

The word usually lingered heavily between them. She stepped closer then, despite the dagger, despite the blood still soaking through her dress. Close enough that he could feel the cold radiating from her skin again. “But afterward…” she continued quietly, “I could not stop thinking about you.”

Daeron’s throat tightened. Her eyes searched his face carefully now, vulnerable in a way he had never imagined possible from her.

“I have lived a very long time. Humans blur together after enough centuries. They fear me. They beg. They die.” Her voice lowered. “None of them stay with me afterward.”

The room suddenly felt too small. Too warm despite the chill she carried with her. 

“But I did,” he whispered.

A faint smile touched her lips then. Sad almost. “Yes.”

Silence stretched.

Daeron became painfully aware of how close she stood to him now. Of her blood staining his hands. Of the way she swayed ever so slightly from exhaustion, yet still looked at him like something precious. Something she wanted.

“When I left you alive that night,” she admitted softly, “I told myself it was because your blood was rare. Because dragonlords have always tasted differently.” Her thumb brushed lightly against his wrist, where he still held the dagger. “But that was not the truth.”

Daeron’s breathing had gone uneven again. “What was the truth?” he asked quietly.

Her gaze dropped briefly to his throat. Then back to his eyes. “You were beautiful,” she whispered. “And I could not bear to destroy you.”

Daeron realized then just how much blood she had lost. Black stains soaked through the fabric near her collarbone and down the side of her dress. The smell of it lingered thick and strange in the air. Yet even wounded, she was still devastating to look at. Her lips parted with shallow breaths, and her hair clung damply against her skin. Her eyes watched him not with the confidence of a predator now, but with something far more dangerous.

Need.

Daeron could not stop staring at her. He noticed the slight tremor in her breathing that she kept trying and failing to conceal. He noticed the way she leaned ever so faintly against the stone wall. It unsettled him deeply. She was supposed to feel untouchable. Ancient and predatory. Instead, she looked exhausted. Beautiful and wounded and looking at him with something dangerously close to vulnerability.

The silence stretched too long. Then her gaze dropped briefly toward his hands. Toward the pulse fluttering visibly in his wrist, where he still gripped the dagger.

When she spoke again, her voice had gone quieter. “I need strength.”

Daeron’s expression hardened instantly. “No.”

Something flickered across her face at the swiftness of the answer. Not surprise exactly, more like disappointment. “You did not even let me finish.”

“I know what you’re asking.” He huffed. 

Her eyes lifted slowly back to his. “And?”

Daeron let out a sharp breath, stepping away from her at last. The sudden absence of his warmth seemed to affect her immediately; her shoulders sagged faintly against the wall.

 “You nearly killed me.” The words came out rougher than intended. The memory flashed violently behind his eyes. Her teeth in his throat, blood running hot down his skin, her voice praising him while pain and pleasure tangled together until he could no longer think straight. “You left me bleeding in the woods,” he continued quietly. “Do you know I thought I was going to die?”

Something unreadable passed over her expression then. “I know.”

Daeron laughed once, weakly. “And now you arrive in my chambers asking me to help you?”

Her gaze lowered briefly. For the first time since he had met her, she seemed uncertain. It looked unnatural on her. “I would not ask if I had another choice.”

“You always have a choice,” he said firmly.

“Not tonight.” The answer came softer now. Frayed around the edges. She shifted slightly against the wall and immediately sucked in a sharp breath as pain rippled through her body. Black fluid slid further down her skin.

Daeron’s jaw tightened despite himself. He hated that he still cared. “You should leave,” he muttered.

A faint, tired smile touched her lips. “If I leave this room in my current state, I will not make it far.”

The honesty of it struck him harder than he expected.

She looked down at her hands then, dark blood staining her fingers, before speaking again in a voice so quiet he almost missed it. “Are you truly going to make me beg?”

The words should have sounded manipulative. Instead, they sounded humiliating for her to say.

Daeron stared. Because this creature, this terrible, beautiful thing that had haunted his dreams for nearly a year, looked genuinely pained by the request. Not physically, but emotionally. As though asking for help was far more unbearable than the wound itself.

“You fed from me once already,” he said weakly.

Her eyes lifted carefully back to his. “Yes.”

“And look what it did to me.” He spits.

Something softened in her face then. Almost sorrowful. “I know.”

Silence swallowed the room again. The fire crackled faintly behind them. Daeron looked at the blood staining the floor, then at her trembling hand still pressed to her wound.

Then at her mouth. He remembered that mouth far too well.

“You swear you will stop when I tell you to?” The question came quieter than intended.

She straightened slightly at that. “I swear it.”

“And no throat.”

A faint flicker of amusement touched her exhausted expression. “No throat.”

Daeron hesitated anyway. Every instinct inside him screamed that this was foolish. That letting her feed from him again was madness. But another part of him remembered the way she had spoken his name moments earlier. The way she had crossed half the realm, wounded and dying, only to come to him.

 He stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, warring with himself. Shame, fear, and a deep, aching longing twisted inside him. Reluctantly, he lowered the dagger in surrender setting it down where he always kept it now, guiding her to sit on the edge of his large bed and sat beside her. 

Her eyes followed the motion carefully.

With shaking fingers, he pushed up the sleeve of his nightshirt and offered her his wrist.

The sight of it instantly changed something in her expression. It wasn’t the hungry gaze he was anticipating, not entirely. It presented as something softer and unreadable.

She cradled his arm with both hands as though afraid sudden movement might make him reconsider. Her cold fingers wrapped gently around his wrist. “Are you certain?” She asked quietly.

Daeron’s pulse stumbled beneath her touch. “No,” he admitted.

A faint breath of something almost like laughter escaped her. Then she lifted his wrist slowly toward her mouth. The sight alone made heat coil painfully low in his stomach.

Her lashes lowered as her lips brushed the inside of his wrist first, softly, almost tenderly. Not feeding yet. Just feeling his pulse flutter against her mouth.

Daeron’s breath caught.

“You still react to me this way,” she murmured faintly, more to herself than him.

Before he could answer, her teeth sank carefully into his wrist. The pain was sharp but smaller this time. His hands instinctively flew into her hair. It was precautionary, as if he would have been able to rip her away if he wanted to. 

Her eyes closed immediately at the taste of him, and a quiet sound escaped her. She sounded relieved, almost desperate. She drank slowly. Reverently. Like she was trying very hard not to frighten him again. The pulls were slow and measured. Each swallow drew a soft, grateful sound from her throat. He watched her face the entire time. How her lashes fluttered, how the terrible tension in her body gradually eased, how color slowly returned to her lips and cheeks. 

Daeron’s fingers tightened weakly in her hair. His eyes found the wound along her collarbone. It appeared that with each pull from his veins, the wound grew smaller. The sight of it was dangerously hypnotizing. After a moment longer of staring, he shook his gaze free of her diminishing wound.

“Stop.” The word came out rough and breathless. Not because it hurt, but because he could already feel himself losing control of the situation entirely.

The reaction was immediate, almost frighteningly obedient. Her teeth slipped carefully from his wrist, but she did not pull away fully at first. Her lips lingered softly against the wound, cool and strangely gentle, as though soothing the ache she had caused.

Daeron’s pulse fluttered beneath her mouth. Then slowly, reluctantly, she withdrew, and suddenly they were sitting far too close. Her hand still cradled his wrist between both of hers. His breath brushed faintly against her lips every time he exhaled. He could see the dark shine of blood staining her mouth. The sight of it made heat curl low in his stomach.

He should have stepped away immediately. Instead, he stared.

Her gaze lifted slowly, catching him looking at her mouth. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

Finally, Daeron swallowed hard and forced himself to look her in the eye. “Was that enough?” His voice sounded quieter now. Unsteady.

She held his gaze for a moment too long before answering. “It will have to be.” The words were soft, but there was something restrained beneath them. Something carefully controlled.

Daeron’s pulse quickened despite himself. “You still sound… hurt.”

A faint smile touched her lips then, tired and dangerous all at once. “Because I am.”

The room felt unbearably warm suddenly. Daeron tried to ignore the way her thumb kept brushing absently over the inside of his wrist near the bite.

“You said you would stop,” he began. 

“I did stop.” Her answer came with a quiet certainty, as if she did not know what he was getting at. 

“You hesitated.”

Something flickered across her expression at that. For the first time since entering the room, she almost looked embarrassed. “You taste…” She exhaled faintly. “Different from other people.”

He should have looked away. But his eyes stayed fixed on her mouth. “I know,” he said quietly.

Something in her expression shifted. Her thumb stilled against his wrist. “You know?”

Daeron swallowed hard again. “I remember the taste.” The words left him before he could stop them. Heat flooded his face almost immediately afterward, but her reaction was worse.

“You remember that?” she mused.

Daeron’s breathing turned uneven. Gods, the way she said it. Like the answer mattered to her. “How could I not?” he murmured. “I think about it more than I should.”

Silence settled heavily between them. Her gaze drifted slowly down to his throat, lingering there with quiet focus. “I remember your heartbeat,” she admitted softly. “The way it fluttered every time I touched you.”

Heat climbed mercilessly up Daeron’s neck. “You make it sound as though you enjoyed frightening me.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “I enjoyed that you were frightened,” she whispered, “and still leaned into me anyway.”

His chest tightened painfully at the memory. Moonlight. Her mouth against his throat. His own body betraying him. “You nearly killed me,” he said weakly, though there was no real venom left in the words.

“And you still let me feed from you tonight.” The quiet truth of it struck hard enough to steal his breath for a moment.

Daeron looked away first this time, jaw tightening. “That was different.”

“Was it?” She teased, a smirk creeping over her expression. 

“Yes.” He tried to sound firm in his answer, though his voice shook slightly. 

“How?” The question was almost rhetorical. She already knew the answer. Tonight was no different than the night in Ashford. He cannot resist her. 

He opened his mouth to argue back. Nothing came out.

Because he did not know how to explain it. How to explain that he had spent nearly a year trying not to think about her and failing miserably. How fear and desire had twisted themselves together inside him so thoroughly that he no longer knew where one ended and the other began.

Her gaze followed the conflict across his face with terrifying ease. “You are thinking about it now,” she murmured softly.

Daeron’s eyes snapped back to hers. “You should stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you already know what I want.”

Something almost tender flickered across her expression then. “I think you hate how easy it is for me to read you.”

He exhaled shakily. “You make me feel…” He stopped himself.

Her voice softened again. “What?”

Daeron stared at her for a long moment before answering. “Vulnerable.” The word should have sounded accusing, but it came out rather breathless.

Something low and unreadable shifted in her eyes at that. “And yet,” she whispered, leaning closer, “you keep offering yourself to me.”

Daeron’s heart beat hard enough that she absolutely felt it beneath her fingers. “I do not mean to.”

“No,” she murmured gently. “I do not think you do.”

The room had gone unbearably quiet around them. Daeron could still feel the faint sting in his wrist where she had bitten him. Still feel the ghost of her mouth there. He could still see blood glistening faintly against her lips.

His blood.

Her gaze flicked downward briefly, following his attention. Then back up.

Neither of them spoke.

“You should fear me more than this,” she whispered softly.

Daeron swallowed hard. “I do.”

Her expression softened faintly at the answer. “But not enough.”

The words settled warm and dangerous between them, despite her cold aura. Daeron’s eyes dropped helplessly to her mouth again, still slick with traces of his blood. He remembered exactly how those lips had felt against his throat.

“You are very difficult to send away,” he admitted quietly.

A faint breath of laughter escaped her. “And you are very difficult to leave.”

Something shifted between them then. The air itself seemed to tighten.

Daeron became painfully aware of every inch between their bodies. The coolness radiating from her skin. The way her fingers still loosely held his wrist. The fact that she kept glancing at his mouth in between words. Waiting.

“This was a terrible idea,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she agreed immediately.

Neither of them moved back. Her fingers loosened around his wrist slowly, drifting instead across the center of his palm in a touch so light it sent a shiver through him. Then her gaze dropped to his mouth once more. Neither of them pretended not to notice.

His heart hammered violently. This was a mistake. A terrible one. He knew that. Still, his eyes drifted shut as her lips brushed his. It was barely there, a ghost of a kiss. Cold and soft and cautious in a way he never would have expected from her. 

Daeron inhaled sharply against her mouth. She made a quiet sound at the back of her throat, almost startled by the contact herself. For one trembling heartbeat, neither of them moved further.

Then Daeron pulled away. Not far. Just enough to breathe.

Gods, what was he doing?

She looked at him like she already knew the answer.

His gaze dropped helplessly to her lips again. Still slick with his blood. Something inside him snapped.

Daeron kissed her properly this time, like he had spent a year trying not to think about this exact moment.

She answered instantly with a soft sound against his mouth, cold hands sliding upward to cradle his face as though she had wanted this for far longer than she intended to admit.

The kiss deepened hard and fast after that. Timidity vanished beneath desperation. Her mouth opened against his, and Daeron felt the soft drag of her tongue against his own, tasting salt and blood and wine still lingering faintly on his breath. The sensation sent a violent shiver through him.

He should not want this, should not want her. But every kiss only seemed to worsen the ache inside him.

Daeron pressed her back against the mattress almost possessively. She was pinned against him once more, only this time there was no dagger between them. Just his hands gripping her waist carefully, as though he had not forgotten she was wounded even now.

“You are very still all of a sudden,” Daeron murmured, breath uneven against her lips.

She looked up at him from where he held her against the mattress, hair spilled across his sheets, pale skin silvered by moonlight. The wound near her collarbone, though nearly closed, still bled sluggishly, black staining her skin and the blankets beneath her.

But even weakened, she did not look harmless. She looked restrained. Like a blade sheathed only temporarily.

A faint laugh escaped her. “Would you prefer I fought you for control?”

The question sent something hot and complicated through his chest. Part of him wanted to see her strength again just so he could push back against it this time. He wanted to know what it felt like to have her struggle beneath him instead of the other way around.

“Part of me would,” he admitted quietly.

Her eyes darkened at the honesty of it. “Mm,” she murmured. “I suspected as much.”

Daeron swallowed hard as her fingers slid slowly up his forearm. Even weakened, her touch carried that same terrible confidence beneath it. She traced the tension in his muscles like she could feel every conflicted thought running beneath his skin.

Daeron caught her wrist suddenly, not harshly, but enough to stop her. “You do not get to look at me like this after what you did to me.”

The amusement faded slightly from her expression, but not enough. “And what did I do to you that was so terrible?”

The mockery of a question hit harder than he expected. Because there were too many answers.

You terrified me. You haunted me. You made me want things I should not want.

Daeron’s throat tightened painfully. “I could not stop thinking about you,” he admitted at last, voice rough with shame. “Do you understand how sick that felt?” He looked away for half a heartbeat, ashamed by how quickly the memory flooded back into him. Her mouth on his throat. The dizzy weakness in his knees. The humiliating sounds she had pulled from him while he clung to her like he wanted more.

Something sad flickered across her face then. “You think too cruelly of yourself,” she murmured.

Daeron laughed weakly under his breath, his grip on her wrist loosening. Despite everything, the corner of his mouth twitched faintly. “You are not supposed to look at me like this.”

“How am I looking at you?”

His breath shuddered. “Like you want me.”

Something ancient and primal flickered in her eyes then. “I do want you.”

The simplicity of the answer stole the air from his lungs. Daeron stared down at her for a long moment, chest heaving softly.

Then, quieter, “You just want to eat me.”

Something shifted in her expression immediately. Not amusement. Almost offense. Slowly, one of her hands lifted to his face, cold fingertips brushing through the hair near his temple before settling against his cheek.

“No,” she whispered. The word was soft enough to ache. “I want you.”

Daeron’s breath caught sharply. She said it like it meant something. Like wanting him and feeding from him were not the same thing at all.

Her thumb brushed lightly across his lower lip as she watched him beneath lowered lashes. “You still do not understand,” she murmured. “If you were only a meal to me, you would have died in those woods.”

The words sent a violent shiver through him. His grip tightened unconsciously at her waist. “And what am I, then?” he asked quietly.

Her eyes searched his face with unnerving intensity. “Something I should have left alone.”

The confession hit him harder than he expected. Daeron leaned down before he could think better of it, catching her mouth in another kiss. This one slower at first, almost careful. As if neither of them fully understood what they were becoming to each other yet.

Her lips parted softly beneath his, cool breath mixing with his own as her fingers slid into his hair. She kissed him differently now than she had before, not starving or ravenous. But with true, desperate wanting.

Daeron kissed her deeper with a rough sound against her mouth, and she answered instantly, tilting her head back against the pillows as his hand slid up her side carefully, mindful of the wound still staining her skin black. She shivered beneath the touch.

“You react to me like this,” he whispered against her lips, mirroring her words from earlier. 

A faint breath escaped her. “You have no idea.”

Daeron kissed her again before she could say anything else, and when she made that soft, wrecked sound into his mouth, he realized with terrifying clarity that this was no longer about surviving each other, it was about wanting each other badly enough to ruin themselves for it.

Clothes were torn away with shaking hands until they were both bare. Daeron pushed her back onto the bed and climbed over her, heart hammering with a storm of conflicting emotions.

He was scared. Part of him still resented her for that night in the woods, for how easily she had taken control, for how she had made him moan and beg while she drained him. Yet the moment his cock brushed against her slick folds, raw craving surged through him.

He fumbled at first, hands clumsy with nerves as he gripped her hips. When he finally pushed inside her, the tight, icy heat of her cunt made him groan loudly. He tried to set a pace immediately. Hard and fast, almost punishing. His hips snapped forward erratically, the wet sounds of their joining loud in the quiet chamber. He was trembling, overcompensating, trying to prove something to both of them. She felt so good it hurt. A delicious mix of perfect and overwhelming.

She gasped sharply beneath him, back arching, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Daeron-”

He couldn’t stop. Each thrust was edged with everything he felt: the anger, the fear, the unbearable relief that she was here and wrapped around him again. “I should despise you,” he rasped against her neck, voice hoarse as he drove into her again. “You nearly killed me that night-”

A broken moan slipped from her lips. Her legs wrapped tighter around him, pulling him deeper. “I know,” she breathed, trembling. “I know… but I could never have killed you. You feel like life.” Her voice cracked with quiet wonder. She, who had ended so many lives without hesitation, now found herself cradling the back of his head with careful, almost fearful fingers. Touching him like he might shatter. Or like she might. “You burn inside me,” she whispered, awed and shaky. “So warm… so alive. I had forgotten anything could feel like this.”

Daeron shuddered hard, his rhythm faltering into slower, heavier strokes. He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing raggedly. “I keep waiting for the hatred to come,” he confessed in a fractured whisper. “But the moment I saw you tonight,  all I could think about was touching you again.”

Her cool hands framed his face, thumbs brushing his flushed cheeks with surprising tenderness. She looked up at him with glassy, glowing eyes, visibly unsettled by her own gentleness. “You are so beautiful when you let yourself want me,” she murmured breathlessly, voice soft and reverent. “Even after what I did to you.”

He groaned and kissed her, desperate and messy, hips rolling deep and steady now. Every thrust pulled soft, yearning sounds from her throat. Their bodies moved together in the dim firelight, no longer frantic but heavy with emotion. Every slow, deliberate thrust drew another trembling breath from her, another whispered confession against his skin.

The taste of her still lingered on his tongue, cold, metallic, intoxicating, and it only made the wanting worse. She made a soft sound against his mouth when he pressed deeper into that perfect spot, fingers tangling tightly in his hair. Even weakened, she kissed like something starving.

Daeron pulled back just far enough to breathe, chest heaving slightly as he looked down at her flushed mouth and darkened eyes.

“Feed again,” he whispered.

Her expression changed instantly. Not in hunger, in alarm.

“Daeron-” she tried to protest.

“Please.” The word cracked apart in his throat. He sounded desperate. Maybe he was desperate.

Her hands tightened against his shoulders. “You do not know what you are asking me for.”

“I do.” He said as he pulled out of her. She sighed, displeased as his warmth left her icy core. 

“No,” she said softly, almost painfully. “You think you do because you remember the pleasure of it. You are forgetting the rest.”

“I remember all of it.” The honesty of it made her go still. He shifted his weight to lean toward the edge of the bed. His hand reached for something she could not yet see. 

Daeron swallowed hard, revealing the dagger he had once abandoned near the furs. 

Her eyes widened immediately. “Do not!”

But he already had it in hand. The Valyrian steel glinted silver-blue in the firelight as he dragged the edge carefully across the old bite scar at the side of his throat.

Pain flared sharply. Then warmth. A thin line of blood welled instantly against his skin.

Her breath caught. The look on her face nearly undid him.

Hunger hit her so suddenly he physically saw it move through her body. Her fingers dug hard into the sheets beneath her, jaw tightening as her eyes fixed helplessly on the blood gathering at his throat.

Daeron’s pulse thundered. “You said I tasted different,” he whispered shakily. “Then take it.”

She looked wrecked by the offer but said nothing. She could smell him now, he knew she could. Her gaze never left his throat. He could physically see the restraint trembling through her.

“Please,” Daeron whispered again, quieter this time. “I need-”

He stopped himself. He did not even know how to finish that sentence.

Need you? Need this? Need to feel wanted badly enough that she loses control again?

The shame of it burned through him. But she already understood.

For a moment she did not move. Still resisting. Daeron could see it in the tension running through her body, in the way her breathing had gone thin and uneven from the scent of blood. Her eyes remained fixed helplessly on the cut at his throat.

“You do not understand what you do to me,” she whispered.

Then she surged forward.

Her mouth crashed against his throat with a desperate, almost violent sound. Her teeth sank deep into the fresh cut as her hands gripped him hard enough to bruise. There was no seduction in it now, only raw, ravenous hunger.

Daeron gasped sharply, his whole body jerking at the sudden pain. She drank from him with ferocious need, pulling hard and fast, low starved sounds vibrating against his skin. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she pressed her naked body flush against his, trembling with the effort of not taking everything at once.

“You taste divine,” she groaned brokenly against his throat, voice thick with blood and desperation.  She drank greedily, her cool breasts pressed tight to his chest as she fed. The wet sounds of her swallowing filled the room alongside his ragged gasps.

But then his body tensed sharply. A low, pained sound tore from his throat.

She froze instantly. The change was immediate. She ripped her mouth away with a distressed noise, dark blood on her lips, eyes wide with sudden clarity.

“Did I hurt you, my prince?” she whispered, voice cracking. Daeron’s breathing was uneven, his neck throbbing. Before he could answer, her hands gentled. One slid carefully back into his hair, the other cradling the back of his neck with heartbreaking tenderness. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “Come here.”

She guided him down onto the bed. Daeron let her, legs weak, as she climbed over him. She straddled his hips, her slick folds sliding along his painfully hard cock. With a trembling hand she reached between them, lined him up, and sank down slowly.

Daeron moaned loudly as her tight, cool heat enveloped him inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her. She settled fully onto his cock with a soft, aching sound. For a moment she simply sat there, breathing shakily, adjusting to the feeling of him deep inside her. Then she leaned forward, breasts brushing his chest, and returned her mouth to his wounded throat.

This time her bite was much gentler,  careful and almost worshiping. Her lips soothed the mark first, soft kisses and licks made his head spin before her teeth slid back in. At the same moment, she began to move on him.

She rode him with aching patience, rising and sinking on his cock in long, sensual strokes while she fed. Each measured pull from his neck was matched by the tight, slick glide of her cunt around him.

Daeron couldn’t help it. His hips bucked up into her instinctively, thrusting deep to meet every downward roll.

A soft, relieved moan vibrated against his throat as she drank. “Yes… like that,” she whispered, voice trembling with restraint and pleasure. She kept riding him slowly, grinding down onto his cock with every motion, taking him as deep as possible. Even now she fought to stay gentle, kissing the bite between swallows, licking the blood from his skin like an apology. Her hips moved in sensual waves, clenching around him every time he thrust up into her welcoming heat.

Daeron groaned, one hand tangling in her hair, the other gripping her hip as he kept thrusting up into her tight, cunt. It was then that he noticed how her skin felt differently against his. Daeron noticed it slowly.

At first, he thought it was only his imagination, his mind still clouded from blood loss and exhaustion and the dizzying sensation of her mouth against his throat. But then her fingers curled against his bare chest again, and he realized they were no longer freezing. Still cool. But not the deep, unnatural cold that had haunted him since the woods.

His breath caught faintly as he looked up at her. The change was subtle, but unmistakable. Color had returned faintly beneath her pale skin, softening the corpse-like sharpness she usually carried. Even the rigid tension in her body had eased. Her lips, moments ago cold enough to make him shiver, now felt almost warm against his throat.

“You’re warm…?” he whispered before he could stop himself. He was nearly in disbelief. 

Her lashes lifted slowly. “You burn so beautifully inside me,” her face was inches from his again, lips slick and warm with his blood. “So warm, filling me with life again.”

Daeron’s hand slid instinctively to her cheek then, and this time when he touched her, she leaned into it immediately, as though she could not help herself.

Warmth. Drawn from him.

She kissed him once more, like something inside her had finally given way.

Daeron inhaled sharply as her mouth crashed against his, still tasting fresh of his blood. The metallic warmth lingered on her tongue when it slid against his, mingling with wine and salt and something uniquely her. Knowing that she had just fed from him only made the kiss feel unbearably intimate.

His hands tightened at her waist as she ground down harder onto him, warmth slowly blooming beneath her skin with every lingering touch. She no longer felt like ice beneath his hands. The faint heat returning to her body only made everything more real, more dangerous, more addictive.

A quiet sound escaped her when he deepened the kiss, almost surprised by the intensity of it. Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him close as though she could not bear even an inch of distance between them now.

After another long moment of their lips crashing together, she guided his head to the side, exposing his neck. She kissed the corner of his mouth to his jaw, trailing down until she kissed his open wound. Her fangs sank in with exquisite gentleness, still a sharp, bright sting of pain, but nothing like the savage tearing in the woods. She drank in slow, reverent pulls, tongue lapping softly at the wound between each swallow.

“Thank you,” she whispered against his skin after the first deep pull. “You taste like fire and life itself. Thank you, my prince, you’re so strong for me.”

Daeron sobbed openly, the mix of pain and praise shattering him. Every gentle suck sent liquid heat straight to his cock. He rocked up into her, completely undone.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she praised between swallows, voice velvet and tender. 

The words broke him open. Hot tears slid down his face as ecstasy and emotion overwhelmed him. The tender drag of her mouth drinking from him, the velvet strokes of her tongue, her soft praises breathed against his skin, and the deep, slick grind of her cunt as she rode him pushed him further and further toward ruin.

“I… I missed you too,” he admitted brokenly. “Nothing else feels like you.”

“You’re perfect,” she mused softly, fingers threading through his silver hair. “So warm inside me. My beautiful man.”

When climax finally took him, it was devastating. She buried himself to the hilt, as his body shuddering violently, spilling deep inside her in thick, pulsing waves. A raw, choked sob tore from his throat. She followed right after, walls fluttering and clenching around him as she chases his lips with her own. They stayed locked together as the waves subsided. 

She rolled them gently so he lay on his back and she curled against his side, one leg draped over his. She carefully licked the fresh bite closed.  Her fingers traced slow patterns over his neck and jaw, avoiding the fresh marks. Daeron snaked his arms around her possessively, but still he was trembling.

 “You were lovely,” she murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. “I could stay here for an eternity.”

The room had gone quiet save for the crackling fire and the soft sound of their breathing.

She was actually warm now. Daeron still could not stop thinking about it. Every so often her lips would brush softly against his throat, against the bite she had left there, almost affectionate. Each touch sent a faint shiver through him.

He hated how sensitive she made him. And he hated how much he loved it.

“You are thinking too loudly again,” she murmured softly.

Daeron huffed a weak laugh. “You can hear thoughts now?”

“No.” A faint smile touched her lips against his skin. “Only yours.”

He looked down at her then. At the soft looseness in her expression. The strange peace that had settled over her features after feeding from him. After kissing him like she could not bear to stop.

Her fingers drifted higher, brushing lightly through the damp strands of hair near his temple. “You did well for me tonight,” she whispered.

The praise hit him embarrassingly hard. Daeron’s breath caught faintly before he could hide it.

Her eyes lifted immediately. A faint, almost knowing smile curved her mouth as her hand slid more fully into his hair, nails scratching gently against his scalp.

“Sweet thing,” she murmured softly. “No one tells you when you are wanted, do they?”

Heat flooded him instantly. He looked away. That alone was answer enough.

Something strangely possessive flickered across her expression then. She shifted upward just enough to press a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth before speaking again. “You are beautiful when you unravel for me.”

Daeron shut his eyes briefly. No one had ever spoken to him this way before. Not like he was something precious to hold rather than merely tolerate. His hand tightened instinctively at her waist as she continued stroking through his hair.

“You make such lovely sounds when I touch you,” she whispered. “You tremble so prettily for me.”

“Stop,” he muttered weakly.

She smiled against his throat. “You do not truly want me to.”

No. He didn’t.

Silence settled comfortably around them after that. Daeron lay with her curled against his chest while exhaustion slowly dragged at his body. For the first time in nearly a year, the constant tension inside him had gone quiet.

No nightmares. No fear. Just her.

But eventually, the sky beyond the curtains began to pale. Daeron felt her body tense instantly.

No.

Before he could speak, she was already pulling herself reluctantly from his arms. The sudden absence of her made something sharp twist painfully in his chest. 

“You’re leaving.” The words came harsher than intended.

She paused beside the bed, gathering pieces of dark fabric back over her skin. “I have to.”

“No, you don’t.”

A faint sigh escaped her. “Daeron-”

“You cannot do this to me.” The anger in his voice startled even himself. She looked back immediately. His chest heaved as he sat upright in the tangled sheets, exhaustion and frustration and want all mixing together into something raw. “It is not fair,” he said roughly. “You come here, you crawl beneath my skin, you make me-” He broke off sharply, jaw tightening. “And then you just disappear again.”

Something softened in her expression then. That only made him angrier. “You do not get to be this close to me and then leave.”

In an instant she crossed the room again, fast enough to make him inhale sharply. Her hands caught his face suddenly, fingers curling hard against his jaw as she forced him to look at her.

“Listen to me.” The possessiveness in her voice sent heat straight through him. “I am coming back.”

Daeron stared at her.

“Sooner than you think.” Something dark and pleased flickered briefly across her face. “I simply have matters to attend to first.”

He frowned faintly. “What does that mean?”

“You will see.”

“That is not an answer.”

A small smile curved her lips. “It is the only one you are getting.”

Frustration flashed hot through him again. She leaned down and kissed him once more, slow and possessive. When she pulled back, her forehead rested briefly against his. “You may even see me tomorrow,” she teased softly.

Daeron blinked in confusion. “What?” But she was already moving away. “Wait-”

The balcony doors opened with a rush of cold dawn air.

She looked back only once. The fading moonlight caught the faint grin pulling at her lips.

Then she was gone. And Daeron was alone.

The silence afterward felt unbearable. He sat motionless in the ruined bed for a long while, staring at the open balcony doors as pale morning light slowly filled the chamber. Anger still twisted inside him. So did longing.

He already missed her.

Eventually exhaustion dragged him under despite himself.

“My Prince!”

Daeron jerked awake suddenly.

Servants flooded his chambers in a frenzy of noise and movement, throwing open curtains as sunlight poured mercilessly into the room.

“You have overslept!”

“What?” His head pounded. He blinked blearily at the cluster of servants rushing around him before realizing the state of the bed.

Blood. Smeared across pale sheets and tangled blankets.

The servants noticed too. Several looked deeply confused, one even looked scandalized. But no one dared comment.

“There is no time,” one servant insisted desperately while shoving clothes into his arms. “The entire court is already gathered.”

Daeron frowned as they hurried him toward the wash basin. “For what?”

“A woman from Lys has arrived at court,” another servant explained excitedly. “A noblewoman.”

Daeron barely listened. His body still ached pleasantly from the night before. His throat still carried the sting of her bite.

A woman from Lys. Why should that concern him?

Still half exhausted, he allowed himself to be dragged hurriedly through the halls of the Red Keep until finally he entered the great hall.

Courtiers crowded every side of the room. At the far end, massive doors began to open. It appeared he was right on time.

Daeron barely looked up at first, too lost in thought from the previous night. But, when he did look, his entire body went still.

Draped in rich silks dark as wine, adorned in jewels that caught the candlelight like spilled blood, was her.

Alive. Beautiful. Smiling.

Shock hit him so hard he nearly stumbled where he stood. Relief followed immediately after, sharp enough to hurt. He would not have to spend another day without her after all.

As though sensing his thoughts, her eyes found him across the crowded hall instantly. A wicked grin spread slowly across her face. Her expression practically purred:

I told you it would not be long.

part 3 anyone?

[saeransangel]

you guys wanted a part 2, come on now!

[dowangerqueen]

Bf's brother daeron who is completely drunk when he first meets you, it's at a family reunion and he's had far too many.

Bf's brother daeron who has to bite his tongue when he sees you sitting on aerion's lap. It's just not fair, what has aerion done to deserve someone so sweet and beautiful and naive as you?

Bf's brother daeron who spends every hour of every waking day staring at your Instagram, tiktok, Facebook, everything. He needs to know you if he's gonna be your brother in law!

Bf's brother daeron who is constantly touching you, whether it's a slight graze on your arm or a hug when you come over for dinner.

Bf's brother daeron who stares at you while you're around, he knows it pisses aerion off and that's what makes it better.

Bf's brother daeron who threatens aerion into giving him your number, he claims it's for emergencies but aerion has never been stupid.

Bf's brother daeron who strokes himself to videos of you that aerion had posted, it's gross and he knows it..but he can't help himself :(

Bf's brother daeron who thinks ur the most beautiful person in the world and literally stops watching porn becuz he can't touch himself without thinking of u

Bf's brother daeron who gets drunk another night and finally makes his move, it's amazing and he wants needs more. He craves it.

Bf's brother daeron who throws a FIT when aerion says he can't be around you anymore. To the point where he begs his dad to make some moves with your family.

Bf's brother daeron who kisses away every pretty tear on ur face when u hear that your father has created a business deal with the Targaryens which involves u and him getting married!

[saeransangel]

wishing this was my real life rn wtf

[saeransangel]

heaven help me

vid not mine, its. @/chromeirl on x

[beentainted]

why did this clip make me feel things 😵‍💫 i'm ovulating.

[saeransangel]

oh lord

[saeransangel]

daeron at valarrs birthday party.

send tweet.

[feral4youu]

I’d give my all

Summary: Years ago, Maekar chose another woman and you both went your separate ways, your brief love story ending before it ever really had the chance to begin. You hadn’t seen him in years and hadn’t thought much about him since, but when he sees you again, he starts to wonder if he made the right choice after all.

Pairing: Regretful! Maekar x Unavailable! Stark! reader

WC: 6.5k

Warnings: 18+, non-canon, dragons are still alive (maekar rides vermithor and baelor rides meleys), reader has a direwolf and so do her siblings, council drama, smut, betrayal, maekar is questionable, dyanna is still alive and so is jena, arguments, mentions of violence, talks of depression, hurt, angsty, unresolved feelings, manipulation, fade to black at the end, mentions of white walkers, mentions of a blackfyre rebellion, slightly proofread.

Part3/?| part one part two part four

You should’ve said leave, that would’ve been the right thing to do— the sensible thing to do. You didn’t want him to leave or to stop, because even all these years later— you still wanted him. It was like he had his roots in you and the thought or want for him would never fade, not truly.

He kissed you during your hesitation and you welcomed it, kissing him back.

A groan escaped his mouth, feeling your lips on his again for the first time in years. He brought his hands to your face, kissing you fiercely.

“Maekar.” You whined.

His hands wrapped around your waist as he pulled you closer to him. The heat from both of your bodies intensifying.

“I’ll stop, if you want me to.” Maekar.

You shook your head, “don’t stop.”

He pushed his tongue past your teeth, his mouth claiming yours. The kiss was deep, hungry, and full of need.

He turned you around, his hands tugging against your laces. He gently pulls the fabric of your dress, revealing your skin.

His lips press wet, open mouthed kisses against your back— a gasp leaving your mouth.

“Have you been with anyone else?” He questioned with some arrogance in his tone.

You shook your head.

 “Only.. I’ve only been with you.”

It was true, you hadn’t taken any lovers or even kissed another man since Maekar. It was an embarrassing truth to admit, something that further showed him that you never moved on. You were always stuck on the day that he told you he would wed Dyanna.

His hand came around the front of you, wrapping around your neck as his lips brushed your ear.

“Good girl.” 

Your heart fluttered at his words, a heat pooling between your legs. 

He led you to the bed and pushed you back down on it as he took off his boots and his doublet.

“I have missed you and dreamt of you in more ways than I can imagine. I’d do anything to be with you.”

You pulled your dress off, tossing it on the floor and only being in your shift.

Maekar sinks to his knees at the edge of the bed, pulling your hips closer to him.

He kisses your thighs like he’s asking for forgiveness, like a place of worship.

“I’m sorry.. so very sorry. I ruined everything for us and I’ll never get over it, over you.”

He weathered hands, raised your shift— your slick coating your upper thighs. His eyes flicked to yours, a groan escaping his lips as he inched closer to your cunt.

Your hands gripped the sheets and your eyes rolled back into your head as you felt the warmth of Maekar’s tongue gliding through your folds. 

“Fuck.” You whined.

His tongue flicked up and down your sensitive clit with precision, your thighs trembling around him.

It was so so wrong, he was not yours to fuck— but it felt so right.

“You taste marvelous.” He murmured.

He sucked on your clit, pressing one of his fingers into you — taking your breath.

“You are doing so good for me, my love.”

His finger curled into you, bringing you closer and closer to orgasm.

“God’s.”

“You’re so close for me, don’t hold back my love.” He coached.

Your fingers gripped the sheets as you reached your peak, your thighs trembling uncontrollably. 

Maekar stood up from between your thighs, his silver beard glistening with your slick. He kissed your lips again, allowing you to taste yourself on his lips.

“I want you.” You spoke.

Maekar pulled the rest of his clothes off, leaving you in awe at the size of his reddened and hardened cock as if it were the first time that you had seen it— but also at the scars that now covered his body.

You pulled your shift off, leaving yourself bare to him. 

In a moment where you should have felt unbearable guilt or shame, you felt weakness— you felt neither.

He came between your legs, his arms on both sides of you— propping him up.

“You are.. so beautiful.” He muttered.

He dipped his head down, kissing along your chest— his mouth eventually finding its way to your hardened nipple. You ran your fingers through his hair as you squirmed underneath him.

When his eyes met yours again, you felt back in that moment with him years ago. The moment where you two had sex for the first time, where you realized you were in love with him.

He kissed you slow and deep, lining himself up with your entrance.

“Let me know if it hurts too much.” He added.

You nodded.

He pushed his cock into you, taking your breath as he sank in deeper inch by inch.

“You are so fucking tight.” He groaned.

He took his time with you as he fucked you, he was gentle and attentive— savoring the moment while giving you intense pleasure.

Your cunt squeezed him like it never wanted to let go as he thrusted in and out of you.

“I love you.. I love you so much.” Maekar admitted.

You kissed him, moaning into his mouth. “I love you too.”

The sounds of your pleasure filled the room without shame or embarrassment, a sound that any of the servants could have heard.

Maekar pulled out of you and had you adjust, so the two of you could change positions. You turn onto your stomach, laying flat against the silk sheets as Maekar comes behind you— his hand slapping your ass.

He slid back into with such precision, his cock filling you and a groan leaving his mouth.

His name spilled from your lips as he fucked you, the sheets doing little to muffle the moans that escaped your throat.

“You’re doing so good for me, taking me so well.” He coached.

His cock snapped into you, the tip dragging along your g-spot. 

“Fuck, Maekar—“

“I’m so close.” You whined.

He grunted, the sound of your whines and moans are music to his ears.

“That’s it, my love. Take what you need from me.”

He was so deep inside you, completely claiming your body and mind as his again.

Your cunt gripped him like never before as you cried out, reaching your peak. His cock twitched inside of you as his own orgasm came upon him quickly, his seed filling you and leaving you warm.

After a moment of both of you catching your breath, Maekar slowly pulled out and crashed onto the bed beside you.

The two of you laid together on the bed, entangled in the sheets and lost in each other— a moment that could never truly last. It did not take long for you to fall asleep afterwards, but Maekar stayed awake— his eyes watching you. His heart ached in his chest as he knew that the moment would end.

Hours had passed by, the low sunlight peaking through the window.

Maekar gently climbed out of the bed in hopes of not waking you and put his clothes on, he stood by the door for a lingering moment— taking in the view of you.

As Maekar stepped out of your chambers and gently shut the door, he ran into Baelor.

Baelor stared blankly at the sight of him, taking note of the hour and Maekar’s disheveled appearance.

Baelor walked with Maekar back to his chambers, holding his tongue until the door was shut.

“Have you no shame, brother?” Baelor spoke.

Maekar pushed open the shutters to the window, allowing the light in.

“I do not understand what you mean.” Maekar replied with a grumble.

Baelor's blood boiled beneath his skin, it was rare that he was ever truly mad— but Maekar’s actions were driving him there.

“We are guests in their home! The royal family!—“

“This is not your second chance for you to fix your failures.” Baelor reminded him.

“I do not need your judgment.” Maekar mentioned as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“My judgment, my judg—“

“Your wife and children are present and yet you still act so selfishly. How do you think Dyanna would feel?” Baelor questioned.

Maekar scoffed.

“I do not care, truly.”

Baelor’s eyes widened, his lips pursed— anger brewing in his veins.

“You do not care?—“

“What has gotten into you, brother? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Maekar pulled his boots off. “I’ve gained them.”

Baelor twisted his rings, his mind racing as he couldn’t understand his brother’s behavior or recklessness. It was as if he didn’t recognize him.

“She can never be yours and you know that. You know what you are doing is wrong, to her and to your family. All you can do is give her late night rendezvous, when she deserves so much more.”

Maekar sat there and listened to Baelor, his words stinging with a truth that he did not want to hear.

“Must you lecture me on my family? and everything that I do?” Maekar questioned.

Baelor walked towards the center of the room.

“When you mean to embarrass said family, then yes. I would’ve never let you come, if I had known that you would show as much restraint as Rhae when wanting candy.”

Maekar’s eyes flicked to Baelor, “careful.”

“Or what, brother? I only speak the truth, you just do not wish to hear it.”  Baelor pointed out.

Baelor walked towards the door, his patience thinning by the moment.

“I demand that you stay away from her.. or so help me—“

“We have a council meeting in a bit and I expect that you will be there. I hope that your tryst was not heard by others.” Baelor added.

Maekar sat in the room in silence, his mind filled with thoughts— most of them about you, very few about his own wife.

He wanted nothing more than to take you and his children to a place far from here, a place where he wasn’t confined to duty. The duty that got him here in the first place, the duty that made him lose you. If only he’d never listened to his father about marrying Dyanna, let his suggestion die in the wind. If only he’d been strong enough to disobey, then his life would’ve been different— brighter with you in it.

You were the bane of his existence, the biggest what if?

He had not known true happiness since the end of your relationship, not in the way that he wanted. He did not regret his children, he never could — they were the best part of him. His mind often wondered if Aerion would be softer if you were his mother, would Daeron be so closed off about his dreams if he could talk to you? if Aemon would prefer being a Maester over being with his family? Would his family actually feel whole if you were his wife?

When you awoke, the faint sunlight stretched across your face. There was a deep ache between your legs, your upper thighs sticky and dried from Maekar’s seed. You remembered what happened, how you allowed him to crawl into your bed.

How could you be so stupid? So blind? You knew better.

You laid there in the bed longer than you should have, deep down inside— hoping that your mind had played a trick on you. The servants came into your room and prepared a bath for you, you also asked them to bring your breakfast to your chambers— you wanted to break your fast alone.

You sat in the warm water in the tub, the steam curling around you as you scrubbed your skin— on the verge of scrubbing it raw.

You wanted to be clean, be rid of the sin that you had participated in— the sin that you allowed yourself to cave to. 

The smell of the fruit and biscuits lingered in the air on the tray beside the tub.

All you could do was sob, sob as you sat in the tub and realized what had become of you and your life. You were a disgrace to your family, your house, and your mother would’ve been so disappointed. She raised you to be better than that, better than a whore who’d bed a married man.

You didn’t know how you were supposed to continue being around him or his family, considering the royal family was still supposed to be in your family’s home for a few more moons. There was only so much avoiding that you could do without seeming suspicious, but you would not let him into your bed again.

Not after that.

You were dreading the council meeting that would take place, dreading seeing his face. A face that you once took pleasure in seeing.

By the time that you had decided to get out of the tub, the water had run cold. Your mind was so deep in thought that the time had passed you by.

You took your time getting dressed, your fingers running through your hair as you braided it— staring into a mirror at a person that you didn’t recognize.

Greywind sat by your door, his head titled watching your every move. 

After a bit longer, you walked out of your chambers with Greywind right beside you— late to the council meeting.

When you entered the room, everyone was already present. Greywind went and laid in his spot underneath the window.

“I’m glad you’re here, daughter. I didn’t think that you’d grace us with your presence at first.” Your father spoke.

You nodded, your hands sweaty as you walked to your seat.

“My apologies for my lateness, father. The time had slipped my mind.”

You took the empty seat by Baelor instead of your usual one, the one that was beside Maekar. Everyone, including Dyanna, took note of that. You were always intentional with the things that you did, so predictable in some ways— almost like reading a book. If you weren’t willing to sit near Maekar anymore, then that meant that something had happened. It felt like a dagger to her stomach, one that was occasionally being twisted to remind her that it was there.

“Shall we begin?” Baelor spoke.

Your father leaned back in his chair, a smile gracing his lips.

“We shall.”

The meeting dragged on, discussing certain matters— but your mind was elsewhere. It was like you weren’t even in the room anymore, you were farther away. Maekar stared at you from across the table, watching as you barely participated— as you stared off into the distance.

Greywind came up to your chair, bringing you back to the conversation and the room.

You rubbed his head.

“What is it boy? The meeting is almost over.” You softly whispered.

Baelor glanced at him.

“The wolves are a beautiful thing, I almost wished we had them.” He mentioned with a soft smile.

Grey wind walked over to Baelor, sniffing him and distracting him from the conversation.

“What do you say, daughter?” Your father questioned.

You looked up with confusion as you hadn’t paid much attention.

“About what?”

Your father drank a sip of wine from his goblet.

“How would you suggest the issues with the nightswatch are handled?”

You adjusted in your seat, Greywind walking back over towards the window— but being called by Maekar in high valyrian. Maekar offered him some food that he absolutely shouldn’t have been eating.

“I think that—“

“I think that when the royal family returns from squashing the Blackfyre rebellion, we should host the Lord Commander and a few of his men to find out what has been happening.” You noted.

Dyanna scoffed, setting down her goblet.

“Host thieves, rapists, liars— for what exactly?”

You gritted your teeth, your gaze averted to Maekar.

“Not all men in the nights watch are dishonorable, just as not all noblemen are honorable.”

Lady Tyrell glanced at your father.

“How will we ensure our safety while they are here?”

Baelor sat in his seat, twisting his rings— his mind deep in thought.

“The men that he would decide to bring would not dare try anything, especially in the presence of the royal family. They are part of the nights watch, not idiots.”

Dyanna nudged Maekar with a frown on her face as he played with Greywind.

“When will your family be departing, my grace?” Lord Arryn asked.

“Tonight, as the king has requested. Once that matter has been handled with care, we will be back to properly handle this.” Baelor added.

“Let’s hope there’s still a north left for you to return to.” You responded.

Your snarky response was noticed by everyone in the room, but ultimately dismissed by Baelor as he knew that you didn’t mean it. He knew what had managed to distract you and get it’s way under your skin.

“I hope that squashing the rebellion is easy.” Lord Tyrell spoke with a smile.

“War is never easy. People get hurt, they die, they leave behind people they care about.. they don’t get second chances.” Maekar muttered, his violet eyes staring into yours.

Your fingers dug into the wooden armrests in your chair, trying to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed.

“We know that you will come back to us, husband— you and Baelor. The hammer and the anvil will keep the realm safe from the bastards that threaten it.” Dyanna smiled, rubbing Maekar’s arm.

“Yes, let’s pray to the Gods that they are returned whole.” Lady Tyrell implored.

Maekar scoffed, rolling his eyes at the notion.

“Well, I think everything that needed to be discussed has been. Let’s end the meeting here.” Baelor concluded, placing his green ball back into its holder.

Everyone began to stand up, preparing to walk out— having small conversations amongst themselves. You and Greywind walked out into the hall, leaving no time for anyone to involve you in a conversation. Maekar was hoping he’d get to speak with you, considering they’d depart tonight— he needed to. He didn’t want to leave it on this note between the two of you, he couldn’t. 

The hours had passed by, the servants working to make sure the royal family was ready for departure. You walked out towards the Godswood, humming a song that your mother used to sing to you. Greywind ran around you, chasing the squirrel that ran up the tree. 

The snow and ice crunched underneath your boots, small flakes of snow falling into your hair.

Greywind turned his head towards the sound of footsteps, footsteps that you recognized all too well.

“Maeakar, what do you want?” You spoke, your back turned.

“Why are you avoiding me, avoiding me like what happened didn’t happen?” He questioned.

You chuckled at his question, the ridiculousness of the situation as a whole.

“I’m avoiding you because it happened.”

He walked closer to you, closing the large distance between the two of you.

“I don’t want you to avoid me.. to regret it.” He admitted.

You sighed, your patience already thin.

“You are married.. you are not mine, not in any capacity. What happened was wrong.. disgusting.” 

“It was love.” He mumbled.

Your head turned as if it were on a swivel. 

“It was lust! Maekar call it what it is—“

“Lust from a man who can’t let go of what was! A man who wants to escape his duties to believe in a minuscule relationship from years ago!” You snapped.

He frowned, his hand reaching out for you.

“Is that what you think what we had was? Minuscule?”

You folded your arms in front of you, tears pooling in your eyes even when you didn’t want them to.

“When you get married and go on to have a family, it is.” You mumbled.

His expression softened, the guilt filling his stomach.

“I never wanted to marry her.. you knew that.” 

You wiped your tears, a laugh escaping your throat.

“When did you decide that? Hmm? After you had bedded her like me?—“

He shook his head, his mind becoming overwhelmed by your words.

“Stop that.” 

“You were going to marry her regardless of what I wanted.” You spat.

“That’s not fucking true!—“

“I’ve allowed you to believe that I was a weak man, a liar who ruined you. I had every intention of marrying you, you were my heart.. my father forced my hand with Dyanna.” He finally confessed, his words feeling like a weight off of his chest.

Your eyes flickered over to him, your chest heavy with grief.

“What?” You mumbled.

“Dyanna spread rumors that forced my hand, my fathers—“

“She’s not some innocent victim. She got close to me to ruin what we had.. what we could have had.” He admitted.

Your mouth was agape in shock as tears streamed your face. Everything that you had once believed or understood was a lie, a horrible lie.

“You allowed her to do that?” You questioned.

“What other options did I have? Huh?—“

“You know that she could’ve ruined you far worse than what she had, if I had gone against her.” He pointed out, his face red like a poinsettia.

“You were weak!—“ you yelled, shocking him.

“The two of you deserve each other. The weak man and the miserable princess, a love match made by the Gods.” You mocked.

“I love you, more than I could ever put into words. I do not know if I’ll see you again and I don’t want this to end on a sour note.” He mentioned, his eyes glassy— his words filled with defeat.

Your anger cooled, your heart stilling in your chest.

“Maekar.”

“Let’s not fight, not when so much about this rebellion is unknown.” He pleaded.

He closed the gap in between the two of you, in two strides his fingers held your face as he pressed a kiss to your lips.

“I do not want our last moment to be like this.. “ 

You kissed him back, not because it was right— but you felt it. You felt the spark that had once disappeared between the two of you, you didn’t feel guilty.

“Please do not die on me.” You mumbled.

He let out a low chuckle, his lips not wanting to leave yours. 

“I will try my hardest not to—“

“I will come back to you and we will get our chance. We will.” He promised.

The moment between you and him didn’t last much longer as he was needed by Baelor, but even then— you had never been this confused in your life. 

There was so much that you needed to think about.

You stood with your father and family as you wished the royal family safe travels, hoping that everything would go well. Egg rubbed Greywind, a giggle leaving his mouth as Greywind sneezed.

“Father will miss you.” Egg mentioned absentmindedly.

Your eyes darted down to him— his silver locks hanging in front of his eyes.

“Is that so?” You responded.

Egg nodded and gave you a hug. “I guess I will see you again soon.”

You rubbed his back.

“You will, sweet boy.”

You stood there and watched as the family departed, Vermithor and Meleys taking off in the sky— their roars heard down below. Greywind began to howl at the sound of their roars.

So much had happened in so little time, that you didn’t know what to think of anything— much less yourself and the thoughts that you had. Before they visited you were firm in your thoughts and your heart, what you wanted and now that was gone. In a matter of days he had shattered the bridge that you had spent years building. 

You didn’t know what to do with yourself, you were truly lost for the first time in your life. It was just by the grace of the Gods that your tryst with the prince was not knowledge amongst anyone but the two of you, that you could hold on to. It was the only thing that you had control over in this situation.

6 moons later..

A raven came for you, a raven from Maekar. You went to your chambers and read the letter, your fingers trembled as you feared that it would be bad news.

My sweet wolf,

This war has been dreadful. I have not known peace since I left winterfell, since I left you. Maybe peace is not what I deserve after how I handled everything. I did want to leave you, it pained me to— but this rebellion forced my hand. While out here, I dream of you. I dream of the days we had together years ago. How you smiled when I’d correct you in High Valyrian, how you always said that if you could ride any dragon it would be Meleys, how you sometimes snored in your sleep. 

The dreams of you and thoughts of my children are the only two things that are keeping me sane, keeping me from getting on Vermithor and coming to you. I know that you probably do not wish to hear from me right now or ever again depending on how you view the truth that I confessed.

It was not my right to withhold the truth from you, I should have told you. I should have let you have the proper feelings and facts about what happened. I was weak and I allowed you to believe what I thought was necessary, what I thought was easiest and for that I’m truly sorry. 

The truth was not inherently better than what you had believed, but it was the truth.

I miss you terribly. Things with this war are growing increasingly unsteady as Meleys was wounded in battle recently, she is fine and will recover— but this is no easy feat.

I hope to come back home safely and see you again some day soon. I send my love and my warm regards to you, my sweet wolf.

Yours truly, Maekar.

A year and a half later..

The raven from Maekar did not provide you peace or comfort, not really. You were happy that him and Baelor were okay, that they were not injured— but that was as far as your feelings went.

At least you had convinced yourself so. You had convinced yourself that you didn’t feel the heat that your body radiated at his words, that your mind didn’t also dream of him, that your body didn’t crave him.

You kept yourself busy, trying not to think of Maekar often. Your home needed you, your father and your family needed you. Maekar had his own family to worry about and you were not them.

In the time since the royal family had left the north, the nightswatch had continued to dwindle — the support that was sent never made it. No one could determine if it was white walkers, raiders, or just rogue wildlings.

The Blackfyre rebellion and all its glory was crushed, leaving nothing but a few whispers of it in the air. That war had put some strain on the realm, not a big enough one that your family felt the pressure— but smaller houses weren’t as lucky.

Your life had changed in many ways since Maekar left, ways that you’d still struggled to understand and accept some days. Winterfell was once again being prepped for the arrival of the royal family within a few hours. House Baratheon had joined in on the conversations, alongside House Tyrell and House Arryn.

Greywind walked in the courtyard with your brother's direwolf, Summer. Both of them watched as people walked around and made space for incoming visitors.

The Maids came into your chambers and cleaned them, while you tidied up the council room.  You dusted the windowsill and wiped off the table. You felt anxious this time around, your hands shook and your palms were sweaty. 

You could not focus.

The smell of meat being cooked swirled in the air as you got closer to the dining room. The chairs, plates, and tables being organized.

In an effort to calm your nerves, you made yourself scarce and went to your chambers. You had the servants prepare you a warm bath, something to ease your mind and prepare for the night. 

This stay with the royal family would be more difficult for you than the last one. You could only hope and pray that they would not be present for long.

The hours passed by and you could hear the sounds of the dragons landing, this time there were more than three. Baelor brought Meleys, Maekar brought Vermithor, Valarr brought Silverwing, and Aerion brought Caraxes. 

Their stay was already costly and they’d only arrived a minute prior. Outsourcing that much meat was a task that your father had bestowed upon you, the task made you lose sleep and patience.

Your father stood outside in the courtyard, greeting the King and Queen— along with the princes.

“I’m glad to have the opportunity for the royal family to visit us again.” Your father smiled.

King Daeron shook his hand. 

“Coming to Winterfell is something that I’ve looked forward to since we left!” 

Your father and the king shared a laugh. 

Maekar stood next to Dyanna, his eyes wandering to see where you were, how it was unusual to not have you present.

“Thank you for opening up your home to us again, along with the other noble families.” Baelor spoke.

Your father waved him off. 

“The pleasure is all mine! I will have the staff show everyone to their chambers, you’ll have the same room as last time.” 

Aerion scoffed.

“I know where to go, make sure they feed Caraxes.”

Dyanna glanced at him as if her eyes could pierce through him.

“You will be respectful in their home, Aerion!”

Aerion rolled his eyes.

“Apologies.”

“Is Lady Stark going to join us for the feast tonight?” King Daeron questioned.

Your father nodded, an awkward smile on his face.

“Yes—“

“Yes, she is. I’m unsure of where she is at this moment, but I will send the servants to find her. I’m sorry for her lack of appearance.”

Queen Myriah smiled, rubbing your fathers arm.

“She is fine, there is no harm done with her not being present.”

The royal family followed your father and the servants as they led them away from the courtyard. 

Maekar walked away from the rest of the family, hoping to find you— somewhere nearby. He saw Greywind laying near the rest of the Kennels with Summer, both of them taking a nap.

Maekar walked the halls and there was still no sign of you, so he decided to go to your chambers. The end of the hall near your chambers was quiet, besides the few faint sounds echoing in the air. 

Maekar could see you through the cracked door. You sat in the chair at your desk, your damp hair framing your face— your boot propped up against the desk. 

Moans left your mouth, cries of pleasure that shocked Maeakar. He could not see anyone else present but you, he figured that you did not shut your door well for your alone time.

You gripped the desk, your head thrown back in bliss as Maekar walked into the room— startling you.

“Gods, Maekar!” You jumped, adjusting your dress.

His smirk left his face when he saw it. 

Lyonel Baratheon crawling from underneath your dress and standing up.

“What the fuck.” Maekar mumbled.

Lyonel helped you up from the chair, a smirk on his face. “I did not think that we were expecting company, darling.” 

You pushed your hair out of your face.

“Leave us, Lyonel.”

He nodded, his tongue swiping the bottom of his lip. 

“I will see you at supper.”

Lyonel watched as the tension in the room rose, as the two of you stood on opposite sides of each other. Lovers who once would’ve ran away together, staring at each other with hurt in their veins and confusion in their minds.

Lyonel shut the door, hesitating to walk away and not listen in on what would be said.

“Maekar, I was not expecting you to just barge into my chambers.” You spoke softly, fidgeting with your sleeves.

“You and Lyonel?” He scoffed, his shoulders pulled back.

“What I do is none of your concern. He loves me.” You replied.

His brow raised.

“I love you.”

His words stayed in the air like a whisper moving in the wind.

“Do you love him?” He gritted.

“Does it matter, Maekar? Does it truly?—“

“This was never going to be a good ending for us.. that fairytale does not exist in this world for us.” You reminded him, tears painting your cheeks.

“My love.” He muttered.

You shook your head, wiping your tears.

“You should’ve never come back here. You and your family should have stayed at Summerhall, left me to pick up my life here.”

“I see you’ve picked it up quite fine.. fucking Lyonel.” He snarked.

“Pardon?—“

“Do you not fuck Dyanna? I am not your wife!” You yelled, slamming your hand against the desk.

“You have no idea what it's like, living this life of torment! Being married to someone that you cannot truly love, someone you cannot get close to.” Maekar mumbled.

You walked closer to him, your shoulder rubbing against his.

“I am glad that you were spared in the rebellion, that you could come home to your children— but I will not do this with you. I am tired and I will not allow you to tear me apart.” You cried, walking out of your chambers.

This fight between the two of you had happened one too many times, old wounds reopened just as they had begun to heal. This was not what you needed, not now— not ever. His words lived in you, made a home in you, and you had never been the same since.

Maekar couldn’t help but feel at a loss as he made his way to the dining hall. He hoped that his letter would have provided you hope, would have provided him a chance to prove his words— but that was not the case.

You were moving on from him, moving on to a man that the realm would deem more suitable. A man that had no family, no baggage, and no wife— nothing that would stop him from marrying you.

If you married Lyonel, Maekar might just die at that moment— it is not something that his heart could handle. 

You are the love of his life and he wants to rectify his mistake. Maybe he could not end his marriage to Dyanna, but he could admit the truth to her— utter the words that he hadn’t allowed himself to say. His confession would taint you and that wasn’t an option either, he would not allow your dignity to be stripped from you.

His mind raced with ideas, yet none of them also carried a simple solution or a solution at all. He might very well be doomed to the shadows to watch another man love you out loud, while he can only dream of you or reminisce of your memories.

You wiped your tears and took a few deep breaths before entering the lively dining hall. The royal family stood in the middle of the room, greeting other nobles and talking amongst each other.

Lyonel approached you, stopping you in your tracks.

“Are you alright?”

You nodded, a sigh leaving your lips.

“I am fine. It was nothing.”

He chuckled, his fingers reaching for yours. “That did not seem like nothing, he was upset.”

You shook your head, trying to rid your mind of the thoughts.

“He will be fine, his feelings do not matter as mine don’t.”

He brought his hand to your face, rubbing your cheek.

“What has gotten into you?—“

“Do not let him being here throw you off.. or come between us.”

“I’m not. It has just been a long day.” You replied.

The candlelight in the dining hall was bright—illuminating the wolf sewn into your dress, the grey curls that framed Lyonel’s face.

You left Lyonel’s side, walking towards the royal family and your father.

“I’m sorry for my absence earlier, father.” You spoke, walking beside him.

He smiled. “I was worried that you had taken ill.”

Queen Myriah smiled, bringing you into a warm hug. 

“It has been so long! You look so marvelous.”

You smiled.

“Aye, it has. You look stunning as well!” 

King Daeron brought you into a quick hug. 

“I’m glad to see you doing well, daughter. There is much to catch up on, much for me to speak with you about.”

Dyanna’s lips twitched at the way that her in-laws greeted you, welcoming you into their family. They treated you like you were meant to be part of it, like she wasn’t standing there.

“It is lovely to see you again, Lady Stark.” Dyanna smiled, her fingers intertwined in front of her.

Baelor smiled, standing beside Jena.

“It is lovely to see you as well. I’m also glad that things with the rebellion went well, that both of you came back home whole.” 

Baelor’s eyes scanned yours, he could sense the sadness in you— that you and Maekar had already spoken.

“It was by the grace of the God’s.” Baelor replied.

As you stood there, Maekar stared at you— his eyes lingering on your face as if he wanted to speak to you.

“I have found several suitors that would be a fine match for you, Lady Stark. If you’d be willing to consider them.” Dyanna spoke.

Her words caught you off guard, but your attention was drawn elsewhere before getting to respond.

“Rhaenyra!—“

“Rhaenyra!” The maid shouted chasing behind the child.

The small girl clung to your gown, her silver locks and violet eyes unmistakable.

“Mama.. mama.” She spoke.

It was as if the room had gone completely silent. Baelor’s eyes wide with shock, Queen Myriah gasped with her hand over her chest, Maekar’s blood had run cold.

Lyonel walked beside you picking up Rhaenyra, adjusting her small dress. 

“Where is it that you think you’re going?” He chuckled.

You closed your eyes, almost fearful of opening them again.

The maid ran over to you.

“I’m so sorry, Lady Stark. She’s been energetic this afternoon.”

He stared at you in confusion, his eyes darting between you and the small girl— his words failing him in a moment where he needed them most.

You grabbed Rhaenyra from Lyonel’s arms and quickly began to walk out of the dining room as everyone stood there in shock.

Maekar stood there, the king urging him to the hall for a word.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

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[saeransangel]

holy jackpot i've been looking for this series

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ᴄᴀɴɴɪʙᴀʟ (ᴘ.2) — ᴅᴀᴇʀᴏɴ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʏʀᴇɴ

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ summary: After months of nightmares, obsession, and restless longing, Prince Daeron Targaryen finally wakes to find the vampire from the woods standing in his chambers again—wounded, half-dead, and looking at him like he is the only thing keeping her alive. She was supposed to ruin him once and disappear forever. Instead, she comes crawling back into his bed starved for the warmth only his blood can give her, and Daeron learns very quickly that being loved by a monster feels disturbingly similar to being worshipped.

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ warnings: MDNI 18+, p in v, possessive dynamic, biting, description of pain, blood play, crying during intimacy

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ note: this took forever and idk if i like it

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ wc: 8.9k

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ tag list: @deaddovelovely thanks for letting me ramble abt this!

Part 1

The fire in Prince Daeron’s bedchamber had long since burned low, reduced to glowing embers that breathed dim orange light across the stone walls. Shadows stretched tall through the room, shifting faintly each time the wind rattled against the balcony doors.

Daeron slept poorly. He always did now, even more so than before. Nearly a year had passed since the woods beyond Ashford, since pale hands had pinned him against a tree and sharp teeth had sunk into his throat beneath the moonlight.

Nearly a year since she had ruined him.

The scar at his neck had begun to fade to a faint crescent hidden beneath the collar of his tunics, but sometimes, late at night, it still burned. Especially when he drank.

He drank more now. Some nights, it was because he wanted to forget her. Other nights, it was because he desperately wanted to remember.

Wine loosened the tight knots inside him. It dragged him back into that terrible haze where fear and desire blurred together until he could no longer tell them apart. Sometimes he would sit alone in his chambers with flushed cheeks and aching thoughts, chasing the memory of cold hands against his skin and that soft, wicked voice whispering against his throat.

“Gods... you are beautiful.”

Her words haunted him more than the bite itself. He despised that some part of him had carried her voice like a treasured thing.

He had become restless in the months after. Reckless. The servants whispered that the prince drank harder now. That he wandered alone at strange hours. That he sought out dangerous places with the sort of careless self-destruction that was entirely improper for a young prince. 

A shameful part of him had hoped she might find him again. Daeron despised himself for that most of all. Because he certainly was afraid of her. He had seen her eyes glow gold in the darkness, had felt unnatural strength hold him still while she fed from him like a starving beast. Sometimes he woke gasping from dreams of sharp teeth and blood-slick lips, heart hammering so violently he thought it might split his ribs apart.

He slept with a dagger beneath his pillow now. As though a blade could save him from something ancient, as though steel could stop her if she truly wished to kill him.

Still, every night before sleep claimed him, some humiliating part of his mind listened for the sound of the balcony door opening. Waiting.

Tonight was no different.

Daeron lay tangled in dark sheets, half-asleep and feverishly dreaming of moonlight and cold fingers brushing through his hair, when a sudden gust of wind stirred the dying fire.

His eyes snapped open.

Silence. 

Click.

The balcony latch.

Every muscle in his body went rigid. For one horrible heartbeat, he could not breathe.

The wind slowly pushed the doors inward, allowing pale moonlight to spill across the floor in silver ribbons. The curtains shifted softly.

Daeron’s pulse thundered in his ears.

His hand slid beneath the pillow instantly, fingers wrapping around the hilt of the Valyrian steel dagger he had slept beside for months. Cold metal bit into his palm as he sat upright in bed.

Nothing. Only darkness beyond the balcony, the sound of the wind.

Then he saw movement. Not entering, but already there.

A silhouette stood watching him just beyond the curtains, half-obscured by moonlight and shadow alike.

Daeron’s stomach twisted violently.

Her.

Even after months, he knew her instantly. The sight of her struck something deep inside him like lightning. Fear crashed through him first, sharp and instinctive enough to make his hands tremble around the dagger.

But beneath it came something worse.

Relief.

His breathing turned uneven. She stepped into the room slowly. She looked exactly the same. Her hair spilled over her shoulders in soft waves, pale skin glowing silver beneath the moonlight. Beautiful. Monstrous. Deathless.

But something was different. Her movements were slower now. Less fluid. One hand remained pressed tightly against her side as though holding herself together.

Daeron noticed the blood a moment later. It was an unnatural black color, dripping slowly between pale fingers onto the stone floor.

His grip tightened instinctively around the dagger.

She looked at him silently for a long moment, glowing eyes roaming over his face with something that almost resembled hunger softened by exhaustion. Her gaze drifted slowly over him like she was reacquainting herself with something long missed.

Daeron’s pulse reacted to her before his mind did.

She said nothing at first. Only watched him, though, the look in her eyes made heat crawl shamefully beneath his skin.

“You came back,” he said quietly. His voice sounded breathless, almost accusing. He tried to sound bitter to cover up the fact that he was relieved.

A faint smile touched her lips. “I promised I would.” That soft voice shattered whatever fragile composure he had left.

Daeron moved before he could think better of it. He surged from the bed, crossing the room in seconds. The dagger flashed silver in the firelight as he slammed her hard against the stone wall beside the balcony.

“You should not be here,” he hissed. But the words lacked conviction.

Because even now, holding a weapon to her throat, feeling the terrible unnatural stillness of her body beneath his arm, his pulse was betraying him.

She made no move to resist. Instead, she gasped. A sharp, broken sound escaped her lips as her shoulders hit the wall, and suddenly warm wetness spread across Daeron’s hand where it gripped her arm. His eyes dropped instantly.

A deep gash carved across the skin near her collarbone, disappearing beneath the torn edge of her dress. The wound looked wrong somehow, dark around the edges, as though the flesh itself had begun rotting from within. Black fluid slid sluggishly down pale skin in thick rivulets.

Daeron froze.

She made no move to throw him off. Her expression remained solemn. No amused smile graced her face; no terrifying strength forced him backward. Instead, she stayed pinned beneath him, breathing shallowly now, lashes fluttering faintly with pain.

For the first time since meeting her, she looked vulnerable, and somehow that frightened him more. “What happened to you?” he whispered before he could stop himself.

Her heavy-lidded eyes lifted slowly to his. “A witch,” she said softly. “A cruel one.” The corner of her mouth twitched faintly. “You would have liked her.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened. Even wounded, she still made an attempt to be charming. But he could feel the weakness in her now. He felt the slight tremor beneath his arm, the strange metallic scent of her blood thick in the air.

“I could kill you right now,” he said quietly, more to himself than her.

A soft laugh left her, though it faltered halfway through. “That dagger would not kill me, sweet one,” she murmured, voice husky and low even now. “You could drive it through my heart ten times over, and I would still be standing. But if it comforts you, go ahead. Try.”

Daeron’s jaw clenched, blade wavering in his grasp. He realized how ridiculous the threat was to an undead creature who had already died once before. He didn’t pull away, but the pressure eased slightly.

“Why are you here?” he demanded, voice rough. “In my chambers. In the middle of the night.”

Her breathing shuddered faintly beneath his arm. Up close, he could feel how cold she truly was now. It was not the composed, deathly chill he remembered from the woods, but something weaker. Drained. The hand pressed against her wound trembled slightly, black blood slipping between her fingers in slow, thick trails. Still, her eyes never left his face. 

“I sought you out,” she sounded wounded as she spoke.

The words should not have affected him the way they did. Daeron’s grip tightened once more against her collarbone, though not enough to worsen the injury. His pulse hammered beneath his skin as he stared at her blood smeared across his hand.

“Why?” he demanded.

Uncertainty flickered across her expression. She swallowed carefully, the movement dragged her throat against the dagger’s edge, and the blade nicked her skin just enough for another thin line of black blood to bead beneath it. A sharp breath caught in her chest. Her lashes fluttered briefly as though remaining upright required effort.

When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “Because I am badly injured.” The confession sounded almost foreign coming from her. She shifted slightly against the wall, and another strained sound escaped her before she could swallow it down. Her forehead nearly brushed his shoulder for half a heartbeat, as though her body instinctively leaned toward his warmth despite herself.

Daeron’s gaze kept catching on the fluid slipping between her fingers, staining her pale skin like spilled ink. His grip had loosened without him realizing it. His forearm no longer crushed her against the wall so much as held her there. 

She noticed. A faint smile ghosted across her lips, exhausted but knowing. “You are being very gentle with me for someone who was prepared to kill me a moment ago.”

Daeron’s jaw tightened instantly. “I have not decided against it.”

“No,” she murmured softly. “You decided the moment you saw I was hurt.”

His eyes snapped to hers. “That is not true.”

“Isn’t it?” Her voice had gone quieter now, roughened slightly by pain. She shifted against the wall and inhaled sharply through her teeth as the movement pulled at the wound near her collarbone.

As if second nature to him, Daeron’s hand caught her waist before she could slump forward. The realization hit him a second too late.

Her eyes flicked downward toward where he held her. Then slowly back to his face. Something warm and unreadable softened her expression. “There,” she whispered. “That.”

Daeron immediately released her, as if he had been burned. “You are impossible.”

“And you are frightened again, ” she mused.

“I should be.” He spits out, eyes burning with disdain.

“You should,” she agreed softly.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The wind stirred through the open balcony doors, carrying the smell of rain and smoke into the chamber. Her blood continued dripping quietly onto the stone floor between them.

Daeron stared at it. Then at her. “You came here because you knew I would help you.” The words sounded almost accusing. But beneath them lingered something else. Confusion. Because he still did not understand why she had chosen him. Out of everyone. Why him?

Something in her face shifted then. The amusement faded. Slowly, she lifted one pale hand from her wound and touched the underside of the dagger near her throat, carefully nudging it away from her skin, just enough to breathe easier.

“You still do not understand what you are to me,” she said quietly.

Daeron frowned. “I am a man you nearly killed.”

A soft, tired laugh escaped her. “You say that as though it were ordinary.”

“Was it not?”  His mind began to still as confusion settled into his thoughts. 

“No.” The single word fell heavily between them. Her eyes roamed slowly over his face, almost searching. “I do not play with mortals, Daeron.” The way she said his name sent something uneasy through his chest. He didn’t remember giving her his name.  

“I feed,” she continued softly. “And when I am finished, they die. Quickly, usually. I have never enjoyed prolonging it.” There was no cruelty in her voice then. No attempt to frighten him. She spoke with the detached calm of someone discussing a deeply familiar habit.

Daeron said nothing. Because there was something deeply unsettling about hearing a creature like her speak so casually about death.

“You should have died in those woods,” she whispered. 

His pulse jumped at her words. 

“But you looked at me…” Her gaze drifted briefly, as though remembering it. “You were terrified of me. I could hear it in your heartbeat. And still you leaned into my touch.”

Heat crawled shamefully up his neck.

“I thought perhaps it was the wine at first,” she murmured. “Or simple curiosity. So I tasted you. I meant to finish you quickly after.” Her lips curved faintly. “Then you made those sounds for me.”

Daeron’s face burned hotter. “You are cruel.”

“Yes,” she said softly. “Usually.”

The word usually lingered heavily between them. She stepped closer then, despite the dagger, despite the blood still soaking through her dress. Close enough that he could feel the cold radiating from her skin again. “But afterward…” she continued quietly, “I could not stop thinking about you.”

Daeron’s throat tightened. Her eyes searched his face carefully now, vulnerable in a way he had never imagined possible from her.

“I have lived a very long time. Humans blur together after enough centuries. They fear me. They beg. They die.” Her voice lowered. “None of them stay with me afterward.”

The room suddenly felt too small. Too warm despite the chill she carried with her. 

“But I did,” he whispered.

A faint smile touched her lips then. Sad almost. “Yes.”

Silence stretched.

Daeron became painfully aware of how close she stood to him now. Of her blood staining his hands. Of the way she swayed ever so slightly from exhaustion, yet still looked at him like something precious. Something she wanted.

“When I left you alive that night,” she admitted softly, “I told myself it was because your blood was rare. Because dragonlords have always tasted differently.” Her thumb brushed lightly against his wrist, where he still held the dagger. “But that was not the truth.”

Daeron’s breathing had gone uneven again. “What was the truth?” he asked quietly.

Her gaze dropped briefly to his throat. Then back to his eyes. “You were beautiful,” she whispered. “And I could not bear to destroy you.”

Daeron realized then just how much blood she had lost. Black stains soaked through the fabric near her collarbone and down the side of her dress. The smell of it lingered thick and strange in the air. Yet even wounded, she was still devastating to look at. Her lips parted with shallow breaths, and her hair clung damply against her skin. Her eyes watched him not with the confidence of a predator now, but with something far more dangerous.

Need.

Daeron could not stop staring at her. He noticed the slight tremor in her breathing that she kept trying and failing to conceal. He noticed the way she leaned ever so faintly against the stone wall. It unsettled him deeply. She was supposed to feel untouchable. Ancient and predatory. Instead, she looked exhausted. Beautiful and wounded and looking at him with something dangerously close to vulnerability.

The silence stretched too long. Then her gaze dropped briefly toward his hands. Toward the pulse fluttering visibly in his wrist, where he still gripped the dagger.

When she spoke again, her voice had gone quieter. “I need strength.”

Daeron’s expression hardened instantly. “No.”

Something flickered across her face at the swiftness of the answer. Not surprise exactly, more like disappointment. “You did not even let me finish.”

“I know what you’re asking.” He huffed. 

Her eyes lifted slowly back to his. “And?”

Daeron let out a sharp breath, stepping away from her at last. The sudden absence of his warmth seemed to affect her immediately; her shoulders sagged faintly against the wall.

 “You nearly killed me.” The words came out rougher than intended. The memory flashed violently behind his eyes. Her teeth in his throat, blood running hot down his skin, her voice praising him while pain and pleasure tangled together until he could no longer think straight. “You left me bleeding in the woods,” he continued quietly. “Do you know I thought I was going to die?”

Something unreadable passed over her expression then. “I know.”

Daeron laughed once, weakly. “And now you arrive in my chambers asking me to help you?”

Her gaze lowered briefly. For the first time since he had met her, she seemed uncertain. It looked unnatural on her. “I would not ask if I had another choice.”

“You always have a choice,” he said firmly.

“Not tonight.” The answer came softer now. Frayed around the edges. She shifted slightly against the wall and immediately sucked in a sharp breath as pain rippled through her body. Black fluid slid further down her skin.

Daeron’s jaw tightened despite himself. He hated that he still cared. “You should leave,” he muttered.

A faint, tired smile touched her lips. “If I leave this room in my current state, I will not make it far.”

The honesty of it struck him harder than he expected.

She looked down at her hands then, dark blood staining her fingers, before speaking again in a voice so quiet he almost missed it. “Are you truly going to make me beg?”

The words should have sounded manipulative. Instead, they sounded humiliating for her to say.

Daeron stared. Because this creature, this terrible, beautiful thing that had haunted his dreams for nearly a year, looked genuinely pained by the request. Not physically, but emotionally. As though asking for help was far more unbearable than the wound itself.

“You fed from me once already,” he said weakly.

Her eyes lifted carefully back to his. “Yes.”

“And look what it did to me.” He spits.

Something softened in her face then. Almost sorrowful. “I know.”

Silence swallowed the room again. The fire crackled faintly behind them. Daeron looked at the blood staining the floor, then at her trembling hand still pressed to her wound.

Then at her mouth. He remembered that mouth far too well.

“You swear you will stop when I tell you to?” The question came quieter than intended.

She straightened slightly at that. “I swear it.”

“And no throat.”

A faint flicker of amusement touched her exhausted expression. “No throat.”

Daeron hesitated anyway. Every instinct inside him screamed that this was foolish. That letting her feed from him again was madness. But another part of him remembered the way she had spoken his name moments earlier. The way she had crossed half the realm, wounded and dying, only to come to him.

 He stared at her for a long, agonizing moment, warring with himself. Shame, fear, and a deep, aching longing twisted inside him. Reluctantly, he lowered the dagger in surrender setting it down where he always kept it now, guiding her to sit on the edge of his large bed and sat beside her. 

Her eyes followed the motion carefully.

With shaking fingers, he pushed up the sleeve of his nightshirt and offered her his wrist.

The sight of it instantly changed something in her expression. It wasn’t the hungry gaze he was anticipating, not entirely. It presented as something softer and unreadable.

She cradled his arm with both hands as though afraid sudden movement might make him reconsider. Her cold fingers wrapped gently around his wrist. “Are you certain?” She asked quietly.

Daeron’s pulse stumbled beneath her touch. “No,” he admitted.

A faint breath of something almost like laughter escaped her. Then she lifted his wrist slowly toward her mouth. The sight alone made heat coil painfully low in his stomach.

Her lashes lowered as her lips brushed the inside of his wrist first, softly, almost tenderly. Not feeding yet. Just feeling his pulse flutter against her mouth.

Daeron’s breath caught.

“You still react to me this way,” she murmured faintly, more to herself than him.

Before he could answer, her teeth sank carefully into his wrist. The pain was sharp but smaller this time. His hands instinctively flew into her hair. It was precautionary, as if he would have been able to rip her away if he wanted to. 

Her eyes closed immediately at the taste of him, and a quiet sound escaped her. She sounded relieved, almost desperate. She drank slowly. Reverently. Like she was trying very hard not to frighten him again. The pulls were slow and measured. Each swallow drew a soft, grateful sound from her throat. He watched her face the entire time. How her lashes fluttered, how the terrible tension in her body gradually eased, how color slowly returned to her lips and cheeks. 

Daeron’s fingers tightened weakly in her hair. His eyes found the wound along her collarbone. It appeared that with each pull from his veins, the wound grew smaller. The sight of it was dangerously hypnotizing. After a moment longer of staring, he shook his gaze free of her diminishing wound.

“Stop.” The word came out rough and breathless. Not because it hurt, but because he could already feel himself losing control of the situation entirely.

The reaction was immediate, almost frighteningly obedient. Her teeth slipped carefully from his wrist, but she did not pull away fully at first. Her lips lingered softly against the wound, cool and strangely gentle, as though soothing the ache she had caused.

Daeron’s pulse fluttered beneath her mouth. Then slowly, reluctantly, she withdrew, and suddenly they were sitting far too close. Her hand still cradled his wrist between both of hers. His breath brushed faintly against her lips every time he exhaled. He could see the dark shine of blood staining her mouth. The sight of it made heat curl low in his stomach.

He should have stepped away immediately. Instead, he stared.

Her gaze lifted slowly, catching him looking at her mouth. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.

Finally, Daeron swallowed hard and forced himself to look her in the eye. “Was that enough?” His voice sounded quieter now. Unsteady.

She held his gaze for a moment too long before answering. “It will have to be.” The words were soft, but there was something restrained beneath them. Something carefully controlled.

Daeron’s pulse quickened despite himself. “You still sound… hurt.”

A faint smile touched her lips then, tired and dangerous all at once. “Because I am.”

The room felt unbearably warm suddenly. Daeron tried to ignore the way her thumb kept brushing absently over the inside of his wrist near the bite.

“You said you would stop,” he began. 

“I did stop.” Her answer came with a quiet certainty, as if she did not know what he was getting at. 

“You hesitated.”

Something flickered across her expression at that. For the first time since entering the room, she almost looked embarrassed. “You taste…” She exhaled faintly. “Different from other people.”

He should have looked away. But his eyes stayed fixed on her mouth. “I know,” he said quietly.

Something in her expression shifted. Her thumb stilled against his wrist. “You know?”

Daeron swallowed hard again. “I remember the taste.” The words left him before he could stop them. Heat flooded his face almost immediately afterward, but her reaction was worse.

“You remember that?” she mused.

Daeron’s breathing turned uneven. Gods, the way she said it. Like the answer mattered to her. “How could I not?” he murmured. “I think about it more than I should.”

Silence settled heavily between them. Her gaze drifted slowly down to his throat, lingering there with quiet focus. “I remember your heartbeat,” she admitted softly. “The way it fluttered every time I touched you.”

Heat climbed mercilessly up Daeron’s neck. “You make it sound as though you enjoyed frightening me.”

A faint smile touched her lips. “I enjoyed that you were frightened,” she whispered, “and still leaned into me anyway.”

His chest tightened painfully at the memory. Moonlight. Her mouth against his throat. His own body betraying him. “You nearly killed me,” he said weakly, though there was no real venom left in the words.

“And you still let me feed from you tonight.” The quiet truth of it struck hard enough to steal his breath for a moment.

Daeron looked away first this time, jaw tightening. “That was different.”

“Was it?” She teased, a smirk creeping over her expression. 

“Yes.” He tried to sound firm in his answer, though his voice shook slightly. 

“How?” The question was almost rhetorical. She already knew the answer. Tonight was no different than the night in Ashford. He cannot resist her. 

He opened his mouth to argue back. Nothing came out.

Because he did not know how to explain it. How to explain that he had spent nearly a year trying not to think about her and failing miserably. How fear and desire had twisted themselves together inside him so thoroughly that he no longer knew where one ended and the other began.

Her gaze followed the conflict across his face with terrifying ease. “You are thinking about it now,” she murmured softly.

Daeron’s eyes snapped back to hers. “You should stop doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you already know what I want.”

Something almost tender flickered across her expression then. “I think you hate how easy it is for me to read you.”

He exhaled shakily. “You make me feel…” He stopped himself.

Her voice softened again. “What?”

Daeron stared at her for a long moment before answering. “Vulnerable.” The word should have sounded accusing, but it came out rather breathless.

Something low and unreadable shifted in her eyes at that. “And yet,” she whispered, leaning closer, “you keep offering yourself to me.”

Daeron’s heart beat hard enough that she absolutely felt it beneath her fingers. “I do not mean to.”

“No,” she murmured gently. “I do not think you do.”

The room had gone unbearably quiet around them. Daeron could still feel the faint sting in his wrist where she had bitten him. Still feel the ghost of her mouth there. He could still see blood glistening faintly against her lips.

His blood.

Her gaze flicked downward briefly, following his attention. Then back up.

Neither of them spoke.

“You should fear me more than this,” she whispered softly.

Daeron swallowed hard. “I do.”

Her expression softened faintly at the answer. “But not enough.”

The words settled warm and dangerous between them, despite her cold aura. Daeron’s eyes dropped helplessly to her mouth again, still slick with traces of his blood. He remembered exactly how those lips had felt against his throat.

“You are very difficult to send away,” he admitted quietly.

A faint breath of laughter escaped her. “And you are very difficult to leave.”

Something shifted between them then. The air itself seemed to tighten.

Daeron became painfully aware of every inch between their bodies. The coolness radiating from her skin. The way her fingers still loosely held his wrist. The fact that she kept glancing at his mouth in between words. Waiting.

“This was a terrible idea,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she agreed immediately.

Neither of them moved back. Her fingers loosened around his wrist slowly, drifting instead across the center of his palm in a touch so light it sent a shiver through him. Then her gaze dropped to his mouth once more. Neither of them pretended not to notice.

His heart hammered violently. This was a mistake. A terrible one. He knew that. Still, his eyes drifted shut as her lips brushed his. It was barely there, a ghost of a kiss. Cold and soft and cautious in a way he never would have expected from her. 

Daeron inhaled sharply against her mouth. She made a quiet sound at the back of her throat, almost startled by the contact herself. For one trembling heartbeat, neither of them moved further.

Then Daeron pulled away. Not far. Just enough to breathe.

Gods, what was he doing?

She looked at him like she already knew the answer.

His gaze dropped helplessly to her lips again. Still slick with his blood. Something inside him snapped.

Daeron kissed her properly this time, like he had spent a year trying not to think about this exact moment.

She answered instantly with a soft sound against his mouth, cold hands sliding upward to cradle his face as though she had wanted this for far longer than she intended to admit.

The kiss deepened hard and fast after that. Timidity vanished beneath desperation. Her mouth opened against his, and Daeron felt the soft drag of her tongue against his own, tasting salt and blood and wine still lingering faintly on his breath. The sensation sent a violent shiver through him.

He should not want this, should not want her. But every kiss only seemed to worsen the ache inside him.

Daeron pressed her back against the mattress almost possessively. She was pinned against him once more, only this time there was no dagger between them. Just his hands gripping her waist carefully, as though he had not forgotten she was wounded even now.

“You are very still all of a sudden,” Daeron murmured, breath uneven against her lips.

She looked up at him from where he held her against the mattress, hair spilled across his sheets, pale skin silvered by moonlight. The wound near her collarbone, though nearly closed, still bled sluggishly, black staining her skin and the blankets beneath her.

But even weakened, she did not look harmless. She looked restrained. Like a blade sheathed only temporarily.

A faint laugh escaped her. “Would you prefer I fought you for control?”

The question sent something hot and complicated through his chest. Part of him wanted to see her strength again just so he could push back against it this time. He wanted to know what it felt like to have her struggle beneath him instead of the other way around.

“Part of me would,” he admitted quietly.

Her eyes darkened at the honesty of it. “Mm,” she murmured. “I suspected as much.”

Daeron swallowed hard as her fingers slid slowly up his forearm. Even weakened, her touch carried that same terrible confidence beneath it. She traced the tension in his muscles like she could feel every conflicted thought running beneath his skin.

Daeron caught her wrist suddenly, not harshly, but enough to stop her. “You do not get to look at me like this after what you did to me.”

The amusement faded slightly from her expression, but not enough. “And what did I do to you that was so terrible?”

The mockery of a question hit harder than he expected. Because there were too many answers.

You terrified me. You haunted me. You made me want things I should not want.

Daeron’s throat tightened painfully. “I could not stop thinking about you,” he admitted at last, voice rough with shame. “Do you understand how sick that felt?” He looked away for half a heartbeat, ashamed by how quickly the memory flooded back into him. Her mouth on his throat. The dizzy weakness in his knees. The humiliating sounds she had pulled from him while he clung to her like he wanted more.

Something sad flickered across her face then. “You think too cruelly of yourself,” she murmured.

Daeron laughed weakly under his breath, his grip on her wrist loosening. Despite everything, the corner of his mouth twitched faintly. “You are not supposed to look at me like this.”

“How am I looking at you?”

His breath shuddered. “Like you want me.”

Something ancient and primal flickered in her eyes then. “I do want you.”

The simplicity of the answer stole the air from his lungs. Daeron stared down at her for a long moment, chest heaving softly.

Then, quieter, “You just want to eat me.”

Something shifted in her expression immediately. Not amusement. Almost offense. Slowly, one of her hands lifted to his face, cold fingertips brushing through the hair near his temple before settling against his cheek.

“No,” she whispered. The word was soft enough to ache. “I want you.”

Daeron’s breath caught sharply. She said it like it meant something. Like wanting him and feeding from him were not the same thing at all.

Her thumb brushed lightly across his lower lip as she watched him beneath lowered lashes. “You still do not understand,” she murmured. “If you were only a meal to me, you would have died in those woods.”

The words sent a violent shiver through him. His grip tightened unconsciously at her waist. “And what am I, then?” he asked quietly.

Her eyes searched his face with unnerving intensity. “Something I should have left alone.”

The confession hit him harder than he expected. Daeron leaned down before he could think better of it, catching her mouth in another kiss. This one slower at first, almost careful. As if neither of them fully understood what they were becoming to each other yet.

Her lips parted softly beneath his, cool breath mixing with his own as her fingers slid into his hair. She kissed him differently now than she had before, not starving or ravenous. But with true, desperate wanting.

Daeron kissed her deeper with a rough sound against her mouth, and she answered instantly, tilting her head back against the pillows as his hand slid up her side carefully, mindful of the wound still staining her skin black. She shivered beneath the touch.

“You react to me like this,” he whispered against her lips, mirroring her words from earlier. 

A faint breath escaped her. “You have no idea.”

Daeron kissed her again before she could say anything else, and when she made that soft, wrecked sound into his mouth, he realized with terrifying clarity that this was no longer about surviving each other, it was about wanting each other badly enough to ruin themselves for it.

Clothes were torn away with shaking hands until they were both bare. Daeron pushed her back onto the bed and climbed over her, heart hammering with a storm of conflicting emotions.

He was scared. Part of him still resented her for that night in the woods, for how easily she had taken control, for how she had made him moan and beg while she drained him. Yet the moment his cock brushed against her slick folds, raw craving surged through him.

He fumbled at first, hands clumsy with nerves as he gripped her hips. When he finally pushed inside her, the tight, icy heat of her cunt made him groan loudly. He tried to set a pace immediately. Hard and fast, almost punishing. His hips snapped forward erratically, the wet sounds of their joining loud in the quiet chamber. He was trembling, overcompensating, trying to prove something to both of them. She felt so good it hurt. A delicious mix of perfect and overwhelming.

She gasped sharply beneath him, back arching, fingers digging into his shoulders. “Daeron-”

He couldn’t stop. Each thrust was edged with everything he felt: the anger, the fear, the unbearable relief that she was here and wrapped around him again. “I should despise you,” he rasped against her neck, voice hoarse as he drove into her again. “You nearly killed me that night-”

A broken moan slipped from her lips. Her legs wrapped tighter around him, pulling him deeper. “I know,” she breathed, trembling. “I know… but I could never have killed you. You feel like life.” Her voice cracked with quiet wonder. She, who had ended so many lives without hesitation, now found herself cradling the back of his head with careful, almost fearful fingers. Touching him like he might shatter. Or like she might. “You burn inside me,” she whispered, awed and shaky. “So warm… so alive. I had forgotten anything could feel like this.”

Daeron shuddered hard, his rhythm faltering into slower, heavier strokes. He pressed his forehead to hers, breathing raggedly. “I keep waiting for the hatred to come,” he confessed in a fractured whisper. “But the moment I saw you tonight,  all I could think about was touching you again.”

Her cool hands framed his face, thumbs brushing his flushed cheeks with surprising tenderness. She looked up at him with glassy, glowing eyes, visibly unsettled by her own gentleness. “You are so beautiful when you let yourself want me,” she murmured breathlessly, voice soft and reverent. “Even after what I did to you.”

He groaned and kissed her, desperate and messy, hips rolling deep and steady now. Every thrust pulled soft, yearning sounds from her throat. Their bodies moved together in the dim firelight, no longer frantic but heavy with emotion. Every slow, deliberate thrust drew another trembling breath from her, another whispered confession against his skin.

The taste of her still lingered on his tongue, cold, metallic, intoxicating, and it only made the wanting worse. She made a soft sound against his mouth when he pressed deeper into that perfect spot, fingers tangling tightly in his hair. Even weakened, she kissed like something starving.

Daeron pulled back just far enough to breathe, chest heaving slightly as he looked down at her flushed mouth and darkened eyes.

“Feed again,” he whispered.

Her expression changed instantly. Not in hunger, in alarm.

“Daeron-” she tried to protest.

“Please.” The word cracked apart in his throat. He sounded desperate. Maybe he was desperate.

Her hands tightened against his shoulders. “You do not know what you are asking me for.”

“I do.” He said as he pulled out of her. She sighed, displeased as his warmth left her icy core. 

“No,” she said softly, almost painfully. “You think you do because you remember the pleasure of it. You are forgetting the rest.”

“I remember all of it.” The honesty of it made her go still. He shifted his weight to lean toward the edge of the bed. His hand reached for something she could not yet see. 

Daeron swallowed hard, revealing the dagger he had once abandoned near the furs. 

Her eyes widened immediately. “Do not!”

But he already had it in hand. The Valyrian steel glinted silver-blue in the firelight as he dragged the edge carefully across the old bite scar at the side of his throat.

Pain flared sharply. Then warmth. A thin line of blood welled instantly against his skin.

Her breath caught. The look on her face nearly undid him.

Hunger hit her so suddenly he physically saw it move through her body. Her fingers dug hard into the sheets beneath her, jaw tightening as her eyes fixed helplessly on the blood gathering at his throat.

Daeron’s pulse thundered. “You said I tasted different,” he whispered shakily. “Then take it.”

She looked wrecked by the offer but said nothing. She could smell him now, he knew she could. Her gaze never left his throat. He could physically see the restraint trembling through her.

“Please,” Daeron whispered again, quieter this time. “I need-”

He stopped himself. He did not even know how to finish that sentence.

Need you? Need this? Need to feel wanted badly enough that she loses control again?

The shame of it burned through him. But she already understood.

For a moment she did not move. Still resisting. Daeron could see it in the tension running through her body, in the way her breathing had gone thin and uneven from the scent of blood. Her eyes remained fixed helplessly on the cut at his throat.

“You do not understand what you do to me,” she whispered.

Then she surged forward.

Her mouth crashed against his throat with a desperate, almost violent sound. Her teeth sank deep into the fresh cut as her hands gripped him hard enough to bruise. There was no seduction in it now, only raw, ravenous hunger.

Daeron gasped sharply, his whole body jerking at the sudden pain. She drank from him with ferocious need, pulling hard and fast, low starved sounds vibrating against his skin. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she pressed her naked body flush against his, trembling with the effort of not taking everything at once.

“You taste divine,” she groaned brokenly against his throat, voice thick with blood and desperation.  She drank greedily, her cool breasts pressed tight to his chest as she fed. The wet sounds of her swallowing filled the room alongside his ragged gasps.

But then his body tensed sharply. A low, pained sound tore from his throat.

She froze instantly. The change was immediate. She ripped her mouth away with a distressed noise, dark blood on her lips, eyes wide with sudden clarity.

“Did I hurt you, my prince?” she whispered, voice cracking. Daeron’s breathing was uneven, his neck throbbing. Before he could answer, her hands gentled. One slid carefully back into his hair, the other cradling the back of his neck with heartbreaking tenderness. “I’m sorry,” she breathed. “Come here.”

She guided him down onto the bed. Daeron let her, legs weak, as she climbed over him. She straddled his hips, her slick folds sliding along his painfully hard cock. With a trembling hand she reached between them, lined him up, and sank down slowly.

Daeron moaned loudly as her tight, cool heat enveloped him inch by inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her. She settled fully onto his cock with a soft, aching sound. For a moment she simply sat there, breathing shakily, adjusting to the feeling of him deep inside her. Then she leaned forward, breasts brushing his chest, and returned her mouth to his wounded throat.

This time her bite was much gentler,  careful and almost worshiping. Her lips soothed the mark first, soft kisses and licks made his head spin before her teeth slid back in. At the same moment, she began to move on him.

She rode him with aching patience, rising and sinking on his cock in long, sensual strokes while she fed. Each measured pull from his neck was matched by the tight, slick glide of her cunt around him.

Daeron couldn’t help it. His hips bucked up into her instinctively, thrusting deep to meet every downward roll.

A soft, relieved moan vibrated against his throat as she drank. “Yes… like that,” she whispered, voice trembling with restraint and pleasure. She kept riding him slowly, grinding down onto his cock with every motion, taking him as deep as possible. Even now she fought to stay gentle, kissing the bite between swallows, licking the blood from his skin like an apology. Her hips moved in sensual waves, clenching around him every time he thrust up into her welcoming heat.

Daeron groaned, one hand tangling in her hair, the other gripping her hip as he kept thrusting up into her tight, cunt. It was then that he noticed how her skin felt differently against his. Daeron noticed it slowly.

At first, he thought it was only his imagination, his mind still clouded from blood loss and exhaustion and the dizzying sensation of her mouth against his throat. But then her fingers curled against his bare chest again, and he realized they were no longer freezing. Still cool. But not the deep, unnatural cold that had haunted him since the woods.

His breath caught faintly as he looked up at her. The change was subtle, but unmistakable. Color had returned faintly beneath her pale skin, softening the corpse-like sharpness she usually carried. Even the rigid tension in her body had eased. Her lips, moments ago cold enough to make him shiver, now felt almost warm against his throat.

“You’re warm…?” he whispered before he could stop himself. He was nearly in disbelief. 

Her lashes lifted slowly. “You burn so beautifully inside me,” her face was inches from his again, lips slick and warm with his blood. “So warm, filling me with life again.”

Daeron’s hand slid instinctively to her cheek then, and this time when he touched her, she leaned into it immediately, as though she could not help herself.

Warmth. Drawn from him.

She kissed him once more, like something inside her had finally given way.

Daeron inhaled sharply as her mouth crashed against his, still tasting fresh of his blood. The metallic warmth lingered on her tongue when it slid against his, mingling with wine and salt and something uniquely her. Knowing that she had just fed from him only made the kiss feel unbearably intimate.

His hands tightened at her waist as she ground down harder onto him, warmth slowly blooming beneath her skin with every lingering touch. She no longer felt like ice beneath his hands. The faint heat returning to her body only made everything more real, more dangerous, more addictive.

A quiet sound escaped her when he deepened the kiss, almost surprised by the intensity of it. Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him close as though she could not bear even an inch of distance between them now.

After another long moment of their lips crashing together, she guided his head to the side, exposing his neck. She kissed the corner of his mouth to his jaw, trailing down until she kissed his open wound. Her fangs sank in with exquisite gentleness, still a sharp, bright sting of pain, but nothing like the savage tearing in the woods. She drank in slow, reverent pulls, tongue lapping softly at the wound between each swallow.

“Thank you,” she whispered against his skin after the first deep pull. “You taste like fire and life itself. Thank you, my prince, you’re so strong for me.”

Daeron sobbed openly, the mix of pain and praise shattering him. Every gentle suck sent liquid heat straight to his cock. He rocked up into her, completely undone.

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” she praised between swallows, voice velvet and tender. 

The words broke him open. Hot tears slid down his face as ecstasy and emotion overwhelmed him. The tender drag of her mouth drinking from him, the velvet strokes of her tongue, her soft praises breathed against his skin, and the deep, slick grind of her cunt as she rode him pushed him further and further toward ruin.

“I… I missed you too,” he admitted brokenly. “Nothing else feels like you.”

“You’re perfect,” she mused softly, fingers threading through his silver hair. “So warm inside me. My beautiful man.”

When climax finally took him, it was devastating. She buried himself to the hilt, as his body shuddering violently, spilling deep inside her in thick, pulsing waves. A raw, choked sob tore from his throat. She followed right after, walls fluttering and clenching around him as she chases his lips with her own. They stayed locked together as the waves subsided. 

She rolled them gently so he lay on his back and she curled against his side, one leg draped over his. She carefully licked the fresh bite closed.  Her fingers traced slow patterns over his neck and jaw, avoiding the fresh marks. Daeron snaked his arms around her possessively, but still he was trembling.

 “You were lovely,” she murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his temple. “I could stay here for an eternity.”

The room had gone quiet save for the crackling fire and the soft sound of their breathing.

She was actually warm now. Daeron still could not stop thinking about it. Every so often her lips would brush softly against his throat, against the bite she had left there, almost affectionate. Each touch sent a faint shiver through him.

He hated how sensitive she made him. And he hated how much he loved it.

“You are thinking too loudly again,” she murmured softly.

Daeron huffed a weak laugh. “You can hear thoughts now?”

“No.” A faint smile touched her lips against his skin. “Only yours.”

He looked down at her then. At the soft looseness in her expression. The strange peace that had settled over her features after feeding from him. After kissing him like she could not bear to stop.

Her fingers drifted higher, brushing lightly through the damp strands of hair near his temple. “You did well for me tonight,” she whispered.

The praise hit him embarrassingly hard. Daeron’s breath caught faintly before he could hide it.

Her eyes lifted immediately. A faint, almost knowing smile curved her mouth as her hand slid more fully into his hair, nails scratching gently against his scalp.

“Sweet thing,” she murmured softly. “No one tells you when you are wanted, do they?”

Heat flooded him instantly. He looked away. That alone was answer enough.

Something strangely possessive flickered across her expression then. She shifted upward just enough to press a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth before speaking again. “You are beautiful when you unravel for me.”

Daeron shut his eyes briefly. No one had ever spoken to him this way before. Not like he was something precious to hold rather than merely tolerate. His hand tightened instinctively at her waist as she continued stroking through his hair.

“You make such lovely sounds when I touch you,” she whispered. “You tremble so prettily for me.”

“Stop,” he muttered weakly.

She smiled against his throat. “You do not truly want me to.”

No. He didn’t.

Silence settled comfortably around them after that. Daeron lay with her curled against his chest while exhaustion slowly dragged at his body. For the first time in nearly a year, the constant tension inside him had gone quiet.

No nightmares. No fear. Just her.

But eventually, the sky beyond the curtains began to pale. Daeron felt her body tense instantly.

No.

Before he could speak, she was already pulling herself reluctantly from his arms. The sudden absence of her made something sharp twist painfully in his chest. 

“You’re leaving.” The words came harsher than intended.

She paused beside the bed, gathering pieces of dark fabric back over her skin. “I have to.”

“No, you don’t.”

A faint sigh escaped her. “Daeron-”

“You cannot do this to me.” The anger in his voice startled even himself. She looked back immediately. His chest heaved as he sat upright in the tangled sheets, exhaustion and frustration and want all mixing together into something raw. “It is not fair,” he said roughly. “You come here, you crawl beneath my skin, you make me-” He broke off sharply, jaw tightening. “And then you just disappear again.”

Something softened in her expression then. That only made him angrier. “You do not get to be this close to me and then leave.”

In an instant she crossed the room again, fast enough to make him inhale sharply. Her hands caught his face suddenly, fingers curling hard against his jaw as she forced him to look at her.

“Listen to me.” The possessiveness in her voice sent heat straight through him. “I am coming back.”

Daeron stared at her.

“Sooner than you think.” Something dark and pleased flickered briefly across her face. “I simply have matters to attend to first.”

He frowned faintly. “What does that mean?”

“You will see.”

“That is not an answer.”

A small smile curved her lips. “It is the only one you are getting.”

Frustration flashed hot through him again. She leaned down and kissed him once more, slow and possessive. When she pulled back, her forehead rested briefly against his. “You may even see me tomorrow,” she teased softly.

Daeron blinked in confusion. “What?” But she was already moving away. “Wait-”

The balcony doors opened with a rush of cold dawn air.

She looked back only once. The fading moonlight caught the faint grin pulling at her lips.

Then she was gone. And Daeron was alone.

The silence afterward felt unbearable. He sat motionless in the ruined bed for a long while, staring at the open balcony doors as pale morning light slowly filled the chamber. Anger still twisted inside him. So did longing.

He already missed her.

Eventually exhaustion dragged him under despite himself.

“My Prince!”

Daeron jerked awake suddenly.

Servants flooded his chambers in a frenzy of noise and movement, throwing open curtains as sunlight poured mercilessly into the room.

“You have overslept!”

“What?” His head pounded. He blinked blearily at the cluster of servants rushing around him before realizing the state of the bed.

Blood. Smeared across pale sheets and tangled blankets.

The servants noticed too. Several looked deeply confused, one even looked scandalized. But no one dared comment.

“There is no time,” one servant insisted desperately while shoving clothes into his arms. “The entire court is already gathered.”

Daeron frowned as they hurried him toward the wash basin. “For what?”

“A woman from Lys has arrived at court,” another servant explained excitedly. “A noblewoman.”

Daeron barely listened. His body still ached pleasantly from the night before. His throat still carried the sting of her bite.

A woman from Lys. Why should that concern him?

Still half exhausted, he allowed himself to be dragged hurriedly through the halls of the Red Keep until finally he entered the great hall.

Courtiers crowded every side of the room. At the far end, massive doors began to open. It appeared he was right on time.

Daeron barely looked up at first, too lost in thought from the previous night. But, when he did look, his entire body went still.

Draped in rich silks dark as wine, adorned in jewels that caught the candlelight like spilled blood, was her.

Alive. Beautiful. Smiling.

Shock hit him so hard he nearly stumbled where he stood. Relief followed immediately after, sharp enough to hurt. He would not have to spend another day without her after all.

As though sensing his thoughts, her eyes found him across the crowded hall instantly. A wicked grin spread slowly across her face. Her expression practically purred:

I told you it would not be long.

part 3 anyone?

[saeransangel]

help there was a maekar fic and I’m pretty sure it was called “give my all” or “I give my all”. I think they hadnt seen each other in a few years. Someone please send or tag the author I’m tweaking I lost it and I wanted to read it!!

[saeransangel]

⋆｡𖦹°⭒˚｡⋆ᴛᴀʀɢ. ᴍᴇɴ ᴀꜱ ᴍᴀɴ'ꜱ ʙᴇꜱᴛ ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅ ꜱᴏɴɢꜱ — ꜱᴄ

I was inspired a few weeks ago when I saw someone else on here do an Olivia Rodrigo version of this concept. I don't remember the @ for that person, so let me know if that was you so I can tag you! This was very self-indulgent... Daeron is my favorite. But somehow I ended up with more for Aerion, hmmm

I was thinking about adding Maekar and Baelor to this, but I honestly couldn't see them truly fitting this vibe, idk.

If you want a separate one-shot for any of these, send it in my ask box!

Note: Can be read as a canon or modern version of characters. Lyrics up to interpretation :)

ᴍᴀɴᴄʜɪʟᴅ —

Aerion: obviously... “Why you always come a running to me? Fuck my life. Won’t you let an innocent woman be?”

ᴛᴇᴀʀꜱ —

Valarr- “Considering I have feelings, I’m like, why are my clothes still on? Offering to do anything, I’m like oh my god.”

ꜱᴜɢᴀʀ ᴛᴀʟᴋɪɴɢ —

 Daeron- “Your sugar talking isn't working tonight. Put your loving where your mouth is. Yeah, your paragraphs mean shit to me; it’s verbatim what you said last week. It’s your seventh last chance, honey. Get your sorry ass to mine.”

ᴡᴇ ᴀʟᴍᴏꜱᴛ ʙʀᴏᴋᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ ʟᴀꜱᴛ ɴɪɢʜᴛ —

 Daeron- the entire song tbh but especially, “Been here a thousand times, selective memory, though. I hear it in his eyes. He sees it in my tone. It is what it is, and it’s predictable.”

ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ'ꜱ ꜱᴏɴ —

Aerion- “That boy is corrupt. Could you raise him to love me, maybe? He sure fucked me up, and yes, I’m talking about your baby. That boy is corrupt. Get PTSD on the daily.”

ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ɢᴇᴛᴛɪɴɢ ʟᴀɪᴅ —

Aerion- “Baby, I'm not angry, I love you just the same. I just hope you get agoraphobia someday. And all your days are sunny from your window pane. Wish you a lifetime full of happiness and a forever of never getting laid.”

ᴡʜᴇɴ ᴅɪᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴇᴛ ʜᴏᴛ? —

Valarr- “Can you lift my car with your hand? You were an ugly kid, but you're a sexy man! Sorry, I did not see the vision, thank the lord the fine you has risen.”

ɢᴏ ɢᴏ ᴊᴜɪᴄᴇ —

Daeron- "I might have double vision, but that isn't relevant right now. I miss you, and I think about you every minute. If you're still disinterested in me, well fuck."

ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴏʀʀʏ, ɪ'ʟʟ ᴍᴀᴋᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴏʀʀʏ —

 Aerion- “You’re internalizing my jokes. And your mother even agrees. That emotional lottery is all you'll ever get with me.”

ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ ᴛᴏᴜʀ —

Valarr- “Thank you for dinner, baby. I had a really great time. I really loved the conversation, and that your car self-drives.”

ɢᴏᴏᴅʙʏᴇ —

Aerion- “The feeling’s so specific. Wanna punch you every other minute.”

ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ꜰᴜɴɴʏ ᴡᴀʏ —

Daeron- “It’s funny you're out drinking, it’s funny I'm at home. It’s funny, everybody knows something I don’t.”

[saeransangel]

HOW DID I FORGET MY MAN ON WILLPOWER?

Valarr- “My man’s in touch with his emotions, my man won’t touch me with a twenty foot pole. My man’s forgotten his devotion, where he’s gone god only knows!”